To the Reverend Mr RICHARD BAXTER. Reverend Sir,

Sect. 1. AFter so many of my indeavours to disappoint the open enemies of Truth and Reason, thereby to rescue poor Christians from the worst kind of thraldom, in which too many have been held by the Mythologie of the Turks, whose desperate Doctrine of God's Decrees doth seem to me more terrible then all their Armies, by how much the bondage of a man's Spirit is more to be fear'd then that of his Flesh, (for the effecting of which Rescue, I verily thought you had laboured with me, till what you rais'd with one hand you also ruin'd w • h the other; which made me think many times of Penelope's Web,) I pleas'd my self with an opinion that my Disputes were all ended; and that a liberty would be allowed me to pass the remnant of my dayes in my proper Element: I take the words of old Hesiod as if they were spoke unto my self, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . For although perhaps I may not say I have as great an averseness to all Contention, as that of the Fish unto the Fire; yet am I not able to indure it, but when I steadfastly believe it to be a Duty. And being perswaded that it is mine, I dare not shrink from a discharge, how much soever it may cost me in self-denials. That alone is the time of my being imployed in my proper Element, when I am studying the Doctrine and Life of Christ, as both are ordinable to practice; when I am preaching the glad tidings of the Gospel of Peace, as one to whom is committed the Word of Reconciliation;2 Cor. 5.19. when I am teaching the Ignorant, admonis • ing the Guilty, procuring settlement to the Doubtful, and binding up the broken-hearted; when I am anxiously pressing for Love, and Loyaltie, and Evangelical obedience to every one of Christs Precepts, that the profession of Christianity may not be brought into In nobis Christus patitur opprobriū, in nobis patitur Lex Christiana maledictum, aestimari it aque de cultoribus suis potest • ille qui colitur. Salvian de Gubern. lib. 4. † Rom. 2▪ 24. disgrace, nor the name of Christ be blasphemed among the Gentiles, through them who call it their duty to live in a course of disobed • ence, and even boast that they have learn'd it in Chris • s own school.

Sect. 2. But the opinion which I was of, that it would once more be given me to live in peace, (I speak of peace from without, for mine enemies cannot rob me of peace within,) and to imploy my whole time in those more acceptable indeavours, to which the bent of my soul doth most puissantly incline me, although it was innocent and pleasing, (whilest it was able to stay with me,) yet it appeared upon a sudden to have been a very fugitive and false opinion. For no sooner had I begun to bea • my sword into a Plow-share, and to trie if men might be brought into an unity of Love (of which the first-fruits are since made publick) when an unity of Iudgment appeared to be so unattainable; but straight I found my self alarm'd, and bid to stand upon my guard, as being openly defied to a fresh encounter. So little hope is there of peace to one who finally resolves not to have friendship with the world, (I mean that Iam. 4.4. friendship which is enmity with God) that I am not afforded some little truce. I have not onely been assaulted by a su • cession of Aggressors, for some years past, but commonly divers of them at once have fallen hastily upon me in the very same quarters; hoping the number of their men might distract my thoughts, when the weight of their Arguments could not be able to o • press them.

Sect. 3. Of all those persons who have at any time discharged their Pens upon me, from Doctor Reynolds to Mr. Hickman, (that is, from the worthiest to the unworthiest of my Assailants,) none hath ever more exercised either my joy, or sorrow, or admiration, then your very much applauded and reverend self. First, it was matter to me of joy, that I should now have to do with a susficient adversary; whom (after the reverend Doctor Reynolds) I had esteemed one of the ablest of all that are enemies to the Church. Next, it was matter to me of sorrow, that so famous a Writer as you have been, should call me forth into the field in so poor a Quarrel, and that you made not choice of a fitter subject, which might have made you lesse liable then now you are. But I was taken with admiration, when I found you calling me Arminian, and inveighing against me even as such, when you your self (with as much reason) had been written against as an Arminian, and that by the men of your own dear party: methinks by your own unjust sufferings you might have learnt compassion on them that suffer as unjustly as you can possibly have done. I wish you had taken more Optimum emenda • di genus est, si scripta in aliquod tempus reponantur, ut ad ea tanquam nova & aliena redeamus, ne nobis tanquam recentes foetus blandiantur. Quintil. time to weigh the matter you were to write of, then you would seem to have taken to write your book. I wish it for mine own sake as well as yours. Because the greater your failings are, the less you are capable of excuses, for which I should be willing to yield some place. And the easier it is to subdue your forces, I have the less incouragement to strive with you at all; and so the less to rejoice in in my i • ployment. But being one of Christs soldiers, and warring under his Barner, I cannot make mine own enemy, or must I chuse mine own ground or way of Castrametation. I am to f • ght against Error and Sin in general; and because I cannot • o all at once, I am bound to fall on wheresoever I am appointed by my commander in chief, or where mine Adversaries challenge hath made it needful.

O • David and Peter in the Title page. Sect. 4. Should I begin with your Title-page, and say as much against that, as that hath given me occasion, my Introduction would be in danger to be as long as your Preface. Which though but almost half your Book, yet it seems to me much more then the whole; at least in my sense, if not in 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Hesiod. l. • . 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Hesiod's. And the Portal being the chiefest part of the House, puts me in mind of what was said by Diodorus of Sicily, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . Diodor. Sicul. l. 20. p. 746. That there are some Historians who have made their whole story a meer Appendix unto their speeches. I will not therefore incur the danger of a voluminous Introduction, by insisting on the unfitness of every part of your Title-page, but onely remove one special stumbling-block, which you were pleased to put in your Readers way.

In the Title of your book, you pretend a vindication of David and Peter, &c. as if you would intimate to your Readers that I had wrong'd them. I might have said with more reason in the Title of mine, that I vindicate the truth of the Holy 2 S • m. 11.2, 4, 8, 13, 15, 25, 27. Scriptures, in maintaining that David committed Adultery and Murder, besides his making Uriah drunk, and his foul dissimulation with God and Man. Of which although he repented, 2 Sam. 12.4.9. and writ against, and put his repentance upon Psal. 51. record too; yet before he repented he was impenitent, and that for more then nine Moneths. These (you know) were the things which I denied to consist with the power of Godliness, or with a state of salvation, during the state of impenitence in which he lived. And I had good reason for it, because you h • d said in plain English, that a man must be wickeder then David was at his worst, before he could be said to be notoriously ungodly, or in a state of damnation. And considering the ground (or quick-sand rather) upon which you build such killing Doctrine; I thought my self bound to leave an Antidote to defend my poor Countrey-men from being poysoned. For they who can but presume that they are absolutely elected, and cannot possibly fall away, or be in a state of damnation, may be apt to sin greedily, (which is somwhat more then without regret,) at least as far as David is affirmed by some Preachers to have sin'd in safety; and for this they may appeal to several books of Mr. Baxter. I did n • t give this Caveat in any ill will to you, Si • , much less to David; but in great good will to my weaker brethren, who the more they 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . 1 Cor. 10.12. seem to themselves to stand, the more I would have them to take heed lest they fall.

Sect. 5. Hereupon I ask you, Did you promise in your Title-page to vindicate David as an Adul • erer, or as a Murderer, or as one who repented of all his wickedn • ss? If the former, you are professedly a Pleader for gross impiety; if the latter, you have not spoken to the purpose, nor resisted any thing at all, but what was the fruit of your private fancy.

Sect. 6. The same I may say of S. Peter also. Of Peter, Puritans, and Sequestrations in the Title-page. For I spake against nothing in all his life, except his cowardize, and his perjurie, and his flat denial of the Lord Iesus, for which he hated himself, and did not write a vindication. I onely spake of such Puritans as I described to be hypocrites; having onely a form of godliness, but denying the power of it; the impurest creatures in the sight of God, and good men, as for other reasons, so for this also, that they are the Pro. 30.12. Isa. 65.5. purest in their own. I spake of such Sequestrations as were confessed to be unlawful by eminent Ministers of your own party, and that in print, nay detested by your self, if I may credit your own words, p. 111. Of all which when you profess to take upon you a vindication, I know not how you will free your self from siding with sin on the one side, or from strange impertinence on the other. I will have so fair an opinion of you, as to think you incurr'd this inconveni • nce by writing hand over head, as egged on by the heat of your present interest and passion, which gave you not time to consider that you were writing against your interest, and against your intentions of writing for it. If this were the worst, (as it is really the best that I am able to make of so bad a matter) I shall be very glad of it, and hope, that as you have offended through too much haste, so you will make amends for it at greater leisure. I say, I hope it so much the rather, because if you find you are mistaken, you have offered me your promise of recantation.

Sect. 7. You see how willing I am to put the best construction upon your words that your words will bear: which course I wish you would have taken with me and Grotius, in stead of the worst that you could fancy either of his words or mine. I shall hope to overcome you in nothing more then in the measure of my civility and candid usage. And therefore I pray do me the justice, whenever you find your self afflicted with any portion of my Discourse, to consider from whence the affliction riseth. It shall not arise from any such bitterness of words or ce • sures, as you and others have poured out against me, (you indeed much less then others) but from the nature of your own matter, from the condition of your own failings, and from the evidence of the conviction which my conscience forbids me to let you want.

Sect. 8. I shall begin with your Preface, and, in that, with your thoughts of Grotius; which lying scattered up and down in many parts of your Book, I shall endeavour to gather up (as far as my leisure will permit, and occasion serve) to be considered by themselves in the following Chapter. I shall direct my speech unto your Reverend self, not upon any other motive then a civil compliance with your example. The former half of your book (which you call a Preface) being onely divided into Sections, and the later h • lf being printed with a notification of the pages; I think it will be my easiest way, so to distinguish in my citations, as to note the Sections onely of the former, and onely the pages of the later. It is in order to my ease, that I resolve on this course; and in order to yours, that I take this care to advertise you.

CHAP. I.Concerning Grotius, his Religion and Design.

Sect. 1. IN the entrance of your Preface, [you professe to render m • that accompt of your thoughts of Grotius, and his English followers, which I was pleased to demand and make your duty. And that you had much rather have been excused from stirring in this unpleasing business any more. Sect. 1.] I had wonder • d that in your Title-page you should say you did what you did at Mr. Pierce his invitation. I wonder more that in your preface you would say you did it at my demand. Truly if I did either, it is more then I know. And I may say, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; where, and when, and by whom did I demand any such thing? Two lines in a letter will suffice you to answer this easie Question.

Sect. 2. It is well you call them your thoughts of Grotius, which may be strangely mistake • , and yet your thoughts still. It had been more for your interest, if you had not pretended in your Title to an undoubted Discovery of the Grotian Religion, meaning his being turn'd Papist; as you have often explain'd your self. For now we have it under your hand, that you h • ve but discovered your thoughts of Grotius. This indeed is a modest and proper speech, because your thoughts are such private and hidden things, that God alone can discern them whilst you are silent: we silly mortalls cannot come at them, but by that discovery which you are plea • 'd to make of th • m. But Grotius, whilst he was living, was at once a publick and a most Exemplary person: much more are his writings, since his Translation, To make a Discovery of the Sun, who is best discerned by his own Light, were to suppo • e the world is Blind, and he alone quick-sighted who undertakes to • hew him to all the rest. But to discover what a man thinkes of the Sun or Moon, as to the nature of his substance, his sphaere, and motion, hath nothing in it either of singular, or absurd. It is for want of a better thing, that I content my self with this Resemblance, in comparing Grotius unto the Sun. His works give Light unto the world. They all lye open as well to me as to your self. You are led by some Reasons, to think that Grotius was a Papist; and I have met with many more, which make me know him to have been none.

Of his Engi • sh • ollowers. Sect. 3. But what do you mean by his English Followers? Hath any English-man of late (either dead or alive) written any Design of pacification between the Protestant and Popish parties? All that can be said is this, that the unwavering men of the Church of England do love the writings of Grotius much more then those of the Presbyterians, and more then the Presbyterians love them. Now if to read his Books and to admire them doth make us fit to be reckon'd amongst his Followers, your self must passe for one of the chiefe; because you tell me (p. 4.) You must i • gratitude professe, that you have learnt more from Grotiu • , then from almost any Writer in those subjects that ever you read.] Hardly any can speak higher, unless I except Dr. Owen, who saith that Grotius was almost-wise above the pitch of humane Nature, (if that is the meaning of his Latin, ultra humanitatem pene sapuisse) and that in In omni literatura. all manner of learning; insomuch that he thinks there is nothing comparable to him, (if that is his meaning by Quicquam ei sim • le esse vix credo.) Yet this Gentleman and you have been so far from avowing the being Followers of Grotius, that ye are the onely men amongst us who have shewed your selves his publick Enemies. Although ye vehemently d • ffered between your selves, yet ye agreed in this, that ye were both against Grotius. Nay, in this your Agreement ye differ'd too with a witnesse. For he would have Grotius a Socinian, and you a Papist. Now a Papist and a Socinian are not onely so different, but so utterly irreconcileable, that nothing but Grotius his moderation can afford any excuse to one or other of his Accusers. You have justified Grotius from the Heresie of Socinianism, which you confesse he hath too often been charged with, p. 89. And so you have sided with the Prelatists against the man before mentioned. He again hath freed Grotius from the suspicion of being a Papist, (if no Socinian can be a Papist, as you know none can) and so hath sided with the Prelatists against your self. I mean by Prelatists the unchangeable Divines of the Church of England. Such as those two Reverend and Righteous men, Dr. Hammond and Mr. Thorn • ike, whom I onely single out for this one reason, because they have vindicated Grotius from each extreme of the Calumny, which (betwixt you two) hath been cast upon him. And to prepare you for the evidence with which I shall afterwards entertain you, as well as to give you some ground to suspect your own judgment, by letting you see how it differ's from such as theirs, I think it as usefull as it is pertinent to give you some of their words.

There is no colour for this suggestion (of Grotius his closeing with the Roman interest) as far as Grotius his writings give us to judge, Dr. Hammonds words in his second Def • nce of Grotius, p. 5. (and farther then those I have no perspective to examin his Heart.) For the Fomenters of the Divisions in Christendom being the onely persons whom he professed to oppose, (the irreconciliabiles, & qui aeterna cupiunt esse dissidia) 'tis consequent, that the pacificatory interest was the onely one by him espoused and pursued most affectionately. And I could never yet discern by any pregnant indication, that this is the Roman interest.

We have seen two men of repute now amongst us censure Grotius his Labours upon the Scriptures. Mr. Thorndikes words in his Epilogue to the Tragedy of the Church of England. Epist. to the Reader, p. 5. The one hath made him a Socinian, the other a Papist. Both could have given us no better Argument that he was Neither, then this, that he cannot be Both. — I do but instance in an eminent person, who must needs be a Papist, though never reconciled to the Church of Rome; who must needs be a Socinian, though appealing to the originall consent of the whole Church. Upon what Termes should there be any such thing as Papists or Socinians? I remember an Admonition of his bitter Adversary Dr. Rivet, that the See of Rome will never thank him for what he writ. And from hence I inferred, as charity obliged me to infer, that the common good of Christianity, and of God's Church, obliged him to that, for which he was to expect thanks on no side. Thi • for certain, Grotius never lived by maintaining Division in the Church: whether any body doth so or not, I say not; their Master will judge them for it if they do.

Now Sir, let me tell you, that unlesse you think you have read more, or can better judge in your Reading of Grotius his writings, then the so venerable persons who speak before us, you ought at least to suspend your censure; untill you shall find, by all that follows, upon whose Misadventure you ought to place it. If you shall possibly, say that these are two of the English Followers of whom you speak, you cannot do Grotius a greater pleasure; they having both given blows to the Church of Rome, more then all the whole party with whom you joyne.

To calumniate Grotius confe • sed odious. You say, you do confesse it an odious thing to calumniate so Learned a man as Grotius, and all others of his mind and way; and that you must needs rep • nt and recant, if you be guil • y of so great a Crime. Sect. 1.]

Sect. 4. I would very fain know, which are the men of his way, as that is distinguished from his mind, and seems to signifie his practice. And what way it is which here you allude to obscurely, but do not name. I for my part can think of none, but his not communicating in France with either Papists or Protestants. And amongst us here in England, I know nothing like it, except the way of the Presbyterians, many of whom for diverse yeares have been so averse unto Communions, that in their Churches, the world knows, they have not had any at all: yet even this way of his is sufficient to evidence his being no Papist. As I shall shew most clearly in due time and place.

Repentance promised ex hypothesi. Sect. 5. Because you promise Repentance and Recantation, if you be found to be guilty of so great a Crime, as you call it, to calumniate such a man as Grotius; I will first set down how far forth you have accused him; next I will manifest his innocence of that whereof he stands charged; and then I will leave you to consider whether you ought not to make him some Reparations.

You do not content your self to say,Gro • ius accused of turning Papist. he was a Favourer of the Papists, and one who thought not so hardly of them as other Protestants have done; or that he was strongly inclin'd that way, and put the best interpretation upon their Doctrins that they were capable of bearing, that the Peace of Christendom might not seem so impossible as some would make it; or that he stood in a preparedness of mind to reconcile himself unto the Papists, upon condition the Papists also would reconcile themselves unto the moderate Protestants, and the moderate Protestants unto them; (for this had been to say no more then I can say of Thuanus, that he favoured the Protestants on all occasions, although he remained a Papist still:) But you have said in grosse Termes, That he took it for his glory to be a Roman Catholick, Sect. 2. That h • turned Papist, p. 11. That he dropt by thi • meanes into a deplorable Schism, Ibid. So as if I shall demonstrate that there was never any such thing, and that Grotius did not turn Papist, no, no more then Mr. Baxter himself, (who yet h • th been branded for a Papist as well as Grotius; and by an eminent Presbyterian also, that is, by one of your own party;) I shall at once open a way to shew the Nullity of your reasons, and the Necessity of your Repentance, of which you have made me to live in hope. My Reasons o • Argume • ts are these that follow.

Arg. 1. In his Epistle to Laurentius, Proved to be none by 19. Arguments. G • ot. Animadv. in Animadv. Riveti. p. 83. who had written against him as a Papist whilest yet he liv'd, (as you have done after his Death) intitling his Book, Grotius Papizans, he doth ex • resly disown the charge, — facile videbis no • Grotium Papizare, sed Laurentiadem nimis Calvinizare. Now when I find him expresly disowning Popery, (even after his Notes upon Cassander,) who certainly knew his own mind best; and when I find you declaring, that every man shall by you be taken for that which he professeth to be, (p. 23.) and again, that you would take men to be of the Religion which they professe, p. 98. and that you will believe the profession of G • otius (p. 89.) I know not how you can chuse but see your error. But come we from writing to word of mouth.

Arg. 2. There lives a Person of great Honour and of great Romark for his Wisdom, as well as for hi • great Learning and Moderation; and the eminent imployments he hath been in, who hath affirmed in my hearing, (and not in my hearing onely,) That being conversant with Grotius during his Embassy in France, he took his time to ask Grotius, why h • did not communicate with either party. G • otius made him this Answer, That with the Papi • ts he could not, because he was not of their mind; with the Calvinists he could not, (not onely because of his Embassy from Swedeland, where they were not Followers of Calvin, b • t als • ) because he was deterr • d by their pernicious: Doctrins of God's Decrees. To this he added, That he would gladly communicate with the Church of England, if his condition of Embassador would well permit, expressing an ample This part will be attested by a Reverend person of our Chur • h, Mr. Matthias Turner, who was personally conversant with G • otius some yeares in France, and whose excellent skill In Greek and Hebrew did make him the fitter for such converse: so will it also by a great Personage distinct from him in my Text. Approbation of our Doctrine and Discipline, as also heartily wishing to live and dye in that Communion. I do not name that Noble person who is the Author of this Relation, because I have not yet ask'd his leave. If you can must to my integrity, I need not say more; if not, I can prove it by so unquestionable a witness, as I am very confident you cannot but trust. However, you find it to be agreeable to what himself whilst he was living made known in print; and you shall find it agreeable to that which followes. For,

Arg. 3. Many are able to attest, that 'twas the last advice which he though • it his duty to give his wife, that she would declare him to dye in that Communion in which he desired than she her self would still live. This she manifested accordingly, by coming on purpose to our Church at Sir Richard Brown's House, (the King of England's Resident them in France,) where from the hands of Mr. Cro • de • she received the Of this Sir Thomas D • r • l professeth hims • lf an Eye-witness, and that her two daughters •••• ived with her. Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. And this i • mediately after her Husband's Death, as soon as Reasons of state did cease to hinder.

Arg. 4. This is agreeable with the reports which I and others have met with in the publick place of his conversation for divers years towards his last. I took my pension in Paris neer Cleromont College, in which P • ta •• ius h • d then a being: and all I could learn from • y inquiry was truly this, that all took Grotius for a person of imparallel'd abilities in every kind, but yet extremely to be lamented, as one who could not be brought into the bosom of the Church, that is to say, they could not perswade him to be a Papist. And I was lately assured by Mr Castiglio, (a learned person, and a religious, and so a very true speaker,) that in a conference which he had with some Augustine Friers with whom he travelled, he found that Gro • ius was an heretick in their • steem, as much as any other Protestants who were not followers of Calvin. And I am very much mistaken if that which Mr Knott hath cited from Grotius (p. 167.) against Mr Chillingworth, is not purposely ci • ed as from one of our own sid • . I have also been told (by a worthy person) of • a message sent from Groti • s to Doctor Cous • n • [that he should die in the Faith of the Church of England.] But because I want the same evidence of this, which I am sure I have of other things, I do not urge it as any new Argument.

Arg. 5. But it is (to me • ) another Argument, and of very great moment, that so judicious an Author as Docto • Hammond, Dr. Ham. Cont. of Def. of H. Grot. p. 25. in his Continuation of the Defence of Grotiu • , did think he had g • ound sufficient to say what follows, viz. That Grotiu • had alwayes a sig • al val • e and kindness for this ou • Englis • Church and Natio • : expressing his opinion, that of all Churches in the world, it was the most careful observer and transcriber of Primitive antiquity; and more then intimating his desire, to end his d •• y • s in the bos • m • and com • uni •• of our M • r • e • . Now because it is added by so credible a speaker as Doctor Hammond, that Ibid. of this he wants not store of witnesses who from time to time had heard it from his own mo •• h, whil'st he was Ambassadour in France, and even in his return to Sweden immediately before his death; and because my witnesses (befo • e mentioned) are distinct from his, who yet agree in the thing attested; I have added his intelligence as a very good Argument to back mine own, which having said, I proceed to argue as I began, from several testimonies of Grotius concerning himself.

G • ot A • nal. l. 1. p. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. Arg. 6. As in his Annals (de rebus Belgicis) he strictly censures the corruptions which by little and little the Popes had obtruded upon the Church, and discovers the Need of Reformation into which Christendom had been brought by the power and prevalence of those corruptions; so likewise in his Histories, (which I have reason to believe were some of the last things he perfected) he clearly sides with our Engl • sh Protestants against the pretentions of Religion which came from Rome. P • aemium addidit sceleri scelerum immunitatem, etiam apud Deum: atque alia id genus ludibria, quae rudibus seculis haud invalida nunc tantùm in spec • em dantur, in speciem accipiuntur, &c. Hist. lib. 1. p. 117. Sixtus Q • intus (the then-Po • e) together with his Anathema's and Indulgences and other tricks of Religion, are exposed both to the Censur • and the Derision of all his Readers. He shews himself pleas'd in his observation, th • t as the Romanists had impos'd upon the rudeness and simplicity of former Ages, so they had happily been detected by the sagacity of the later. And what is this but to applaud (though not the seditious lovers of change, such as the Annal. l. 1. p. 9. Taylor was at Munster, and the Pictur • -drawer at Leyde • , yet) the Regular attempters of Reformation?

Arg. 7. In his Poem praefixed before his Notes upon Cassander, he did not onely commend Cassander, and call his writings veracia scripta, for acknowledging the corruptions of the Church of Rome, and favouring the Articles of the Augustan Confession, (which by the way gives answer to one of your princi • al objections p. 31. occas • on'd by your mistake of veracia scripta) but he magnified very much the pacifick methods of Melanchthon, Quem proedulce juvat stillante Melanch • hone Nectar; Qui Wiceli chartas Modrevii que . leg's; Quique putas Regem mul • ùm sapuiff • B • itan • um, C • sua mādavit s • n'a Cas • ubonidae; Accipe.. sed nos •• o labor hic si displicet • evo, A gra • â pretium posteritate feret. Wi • elius, Mo • revius, the Bishop of Spalato, in his departure from Rome, K. Iames, and Casaubon, (of who • e pacifick design King Iames was Author) who being confessed to have been Protestants, and to have meditated the peace of the Christian world without any prejudice to the Reformed parts of it, had not certainly been applauded, without exception to their design or to the mea • s they contrived for its attainment, by so intelligent a person as Grotius was, if he had really been a Papist, as you suggest: much less had he reckoned their several purposes and endeavours as so many Standards or Measures by which he hoped Posterity would judge of His. It is true, he set down the Canons of the Council of Trent, as one of the great things to be considered towards an union; but so did he also the whole Protestant Confession agreed upon at Augusta, betwixt which and the other a reconcilement was to be made. If the former spake him a Papist, the later spake him a Protestant. And if at once he was both, he was indeed a great Hocus. But he • leads for himself, his having set out the Creed as well of the Protestants as of the Papists (Discuss. p. 7.) as it were on purpose to shew the difference betwixt a making of peace, and a turning Papist.

Arg. 8. In his Animad versions upon Rivet's, he puts a very vast difference between the Synods at Dort and at Augusta; and between the Pag. 4 • Protestants who follow either: the want of which observation in all his Concili • tory writings, I suppose a main cause of your numerous mistakes. And the supply of that want will serve to shew you the levity of the greatest part of your objections. Indeed the rigid Presbyterians, whose Life and Doctrine proclaim'd them Boutefeus and Rebels, he commonly marks as an implacable and an unreconcileable sort of men, as it were made for the subversion of Church and State; and professed enemies to Peace Quod ta • • perr • se non dicam mihi. sed paci profitetur inf • stum (D. Rivetu • ) in eo vicit expectationem meam. Animadv. in A • imadv. p. 3. it self, as well as to those that dare attempt it. But for Melanchthon and Casaubon, and other such Protestants as did desire to reconcile, not to rule over their brethren, he every where commends them, and joyns himself to them, and professeth he can never Sunt mihi communia cum viris nunquam satis laudatis, ibid. p. 5. enough commend them. Nor could he be any whit more a Papist for speaking fairly of the Canons of Trent; then Bisho • Caraffa could be a Protestant for speaking Ibid. p. 4, 5. as fairly of the Augustan Confession. You should therefore have distinguish'd betwixt Protestants and Protestants, (as the rest of the World hath ever done) when you said that Grotius did write against them. For there are Protestants that disgrace, and there are that adorn the Reformation. There are that would have peace, and there are that will have none. Grotius speaks no more kindly of any Papists, then you your self do of some (p. 10.) He speaks no more sharply of the worst Protestants in the world, then you do of the best (p. 113. &c.) So that pelting at him, you have hit your self. To the sons of sedition and disobedience, who look upon themselves as twice-resin'd Christians, our Reverend Doctor Sanderson hath been as severe as any Grotius. But will you say in general terms, that Doctor Sanderson reprocheth Refo • mation it self, and that (without a distinction) he writes against Protestants? yet thus p. 73, 74, 76. you use Grotius in divers places; nay in one you use him wo • se. For you say, he reprocheth the Reformation, as an impious, tumultuary, r • bellious thing (p. 76, 77.) when the Latine which you cite, had you translated it into English, would have made the common people your great admirers. They would have seen (what now I tell them) that Grotius spake not a word of the regular Protestants here in England, nor of such in Germany and France as were of the spirit of Melanchthon; but he spake of those Seditiones, vim contra Princ • pes, Imperiorum mutationes • x usu suo, mor • m frangendiaeces sacras, & bella excitandi & sovendi, sub sancto Evangelii nomine; invenerunt quidam & dogmata in id comparata, ut ho • ines de misericordia Dei nimium sibi pollicente • , in peccatis indo • miscer • nt▪ Discuss. p. 16. Incendiaries, who measured the truth of Religion by their distance onely from Rome, and did as well introduce, as cast out Errors; and that not peaceably, but by sedition and sacrilege, and force of arms, by inventing also such Doctrines as might make men presume upon the mercy of God, and so lie snorting in those sins which opened them a way to Wealth and Greatness, by the violation of Gods Law, in pretence of propagating his Gospel. Will you, Sir, take part with such Protestants as these, or write against Grotius as a Papist for writing against such as uphold the Papists by their profaneness? I will not guess at your thoughts when you were writing your 53d Section; nor spread a Net of Dilemma's whereby to catch your true meaning;Insanlentibus Brunistis, & si qui eorum sint similes, &c. ibid. because I would not be more pungent then the subject matter doth enforce. Grotius spake of the Brownists, and of those that like them, as well as of those that are like unto th • m. Quibus quis placere, ab eorum veneno intactus, postulet?

Arg. 9. In the same book of Animad versions I find him joyning with the Protestants in what they say touching the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist; speaking of the most moderate, whom he ever concludes the most worthy Protestants. And with them he demonstrates how the most moderate Papists may be agreed; by a commodious explication of words and meanings on either fide. Nor doth he say in that place that the Protestants Article should be conformed to the Papists, but that This should be made to comply with That. Si quiescant Scholasticae Disputationes, quid est cur non verba Concilii Tridentini explicari commode possint, &c. aut etiam recipi illa formula quam ex Actis Possiacenis desumpsi, & quam omnes qui ibi •• m erant Protestantes (excepto un • P. Mart.) approbarunt? Animadv. p. 29, 30. Nay he addes expresly, that the whole Protestant Form should be received and accepted, as he had taken it out of the Acts agreed upon at Poissy; where, excepting Peter Martyr, not one dissented.

Arg. 10. After this, when he speaks to the twenty-first Article, he reckons himself with the Protestants, by way of discrimination from all the Papists, comprehending even the French as well as the Spanish and Italian.

[If we should count them all Idolaters who live in Communion with the Romanists, it would extremely hinder our wish'd-for union.Videbam mul • um obstare concordiae, si omnes eos qui in communione sunt Romana pro Idololatris haber • mus, gnarus Idololatriam esse eminentissimum seculi crimen, ib. p. 43, 44.] This he renders for the reason, why he who laboured a Reconcilement (which would have carried with it a Reformation) was not in reason to accuse the whole Universe of Papists (without exception) of the greatest crime in the world; making them odious to others, as well as implacable in themselves, and most of all with the Reconciler: It being his office, not to widen breaches, but to contract them; nor to imbitter, but emolliate the minds of men, especially of the great and prevailing party. The words of Grotius have this rational importance, [I saw it would hinder out Reconcilement, if we (who are Protestants) should repute for Idolaters even all that are of the Roman Church or Communion, though too many of them indeed are such.] This appears by the word omnes, co • pared with habe • emus, and with the person's Religion to whom he speaks.

Arg. 11. In his Votum pro pace, he professeth that even the moderate and most peaceable Romanists were of a different communion from that whereof he professeth himself to be.Verti me ad eos legendos qui etsi fuere in Communione diversa, animum tamen magis ad sananda, quàm ad fovenda divortia appulere. Vo. pro pace, p. 9. p. 7, 8, 9. He deploreth the superstition, with other corruptions and abuses, which he saw had invaded the Church of Rome. He saith Cassander's Consultation was commended to him by p. 10▪ G • saubon a famous Protestant. And that his labour thereupon was approved in France ibid. by both the opposite parties. He shews what Prompta sunt in Galliis Hispaniis que Remedia quibus impediantur Papae, • e aut Regum aut Episcoporum jura invadant. p. 12. Remedies there are to cure the Popes of their Disease, to put Hooks in their Nostrills, and in despight of their ambition to preserve the just Rights of Kings and Bishops. Nay he acknowledgeth the ibid. Right of the Kings of Britain about all Ecclesiastical both Things and Persons: which for a Papist to have done, would have implied a contradiction. But any thing will be Popery with them that out-act their Master Calvin; who Et illam mutationem, quae Buceri Consilio in Anglia erat instituta, Papismi accusavit. pag. 115. accused that change in the Church of England, which was made by the advice of so known a Protestant as Bucer, of no lesser a crime then downright Papisme: which unreasonable censure of our Church, whether hi • passion or his judgement extorted from him, and whether it was not a contradiction to what he spake of her at other times, I leave you to guesse by his large Epistle to the Protector, and that (you know) was in the dayes of King Edward the sixth. But if to accuse were sufficient, it i • sufficient that Mr. Calvin was accused of Iudaisme by one; by another, of Turcisme; by a third, Redolens plane Calvini spiritum contumeliosum illú ac turbulentū. Animadv. p. 81. Quum sciam quàm inique & virulente tractaverat viros multo se meliores, &c. ibid. pag. 9. of Fratricide; by almost all the Latherans, of the Arian heresie; and even by Grotius himself, (who hardly ever spake in passion, or without a just ground) of a co • tumelious and turbulent spirit, and of virulently handling such men as were much his betters.

A • g. 12. In his Epistles to the French-men of either party, he doth so frequently and so clearly discover himself to be a Protestant, that out of them it were easie to write a volume in his defence. To give you an instance in as few as I may, and not in as many as I am able. Epist. 154: Iohanne Cordefio, p. 378. Epist. 166. Eidem, p. 408. He writes against the seven Sacraments (I mean against the number of them, and against four of that number) so tenaciously retained by all Rome. He speaks s • arply of the Epist. 154. p. 377. Iesuits, (from his meer humanity to one of the best of which order, you hastily conclude him to be a Papist, p. 86.) and would have the • r evil Arts set out to the life; as an anonymous Iansenian hath lately done. If his esteem of Petavius, a lover of unity and moderation, could make you think him a Papist; you must also suppose him to be a Protestant, for disesteeming many more of the very same Order; especially when he reckons that he and they are of two Religions: as indeed he doth in one Epistle;Dubium est, apud meos, an apud Iesuitas magis vapulem, &c. Epist. 14. pag. 36, 37. Hotm. Villerio. where he also calls the Pope the Patriarch of the West, and shews what it is which he would have towards a peace, even the spirit of Melanch • hon on the one side, and of Cassander on the other, and a mutual forbearance with one another [ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ] in things which are not simply necessary. Will not every good Protestant desire the same? yet he went farther, and accounted them of Apud meos quidem, quod illud apud ipfos 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 defendo, posse in unaquaque Ecclesia ferri eos qui dissideant in rebus non plane necessariis, • bid▪ his party who would not hear of any such thing. Such was his moderation towards that sort of men who had none at all.

Arg. 13. I find that Grotius his desire of helping forward the peace of Christendom was the same in the former as in the later part of his life; and so was his love to the Church of England: In ist's Remediis quae 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 medici vocant, parum est auxilii. Neque potest partium unitas, nisi à corpo • is unitate, sperari. Non possum non laudare praeclarum A • gliae Canonem An. Dom. 1571. &c. De Imperio sum. po. circa sacra, cap. 6▪ witness his sixth Chapter De Imperio summarum potestatum circa sacra, wherein he doth not onely insist upon the same means of union, for which he pleads in his later writings, but exceedingly commends our English Canon agreed upon in the ye • r 1571. exactly tending to the very same end. Inprimis verò videbunt Concionatores, nequid unquam d • ceant pro Concione quod à populo religiosè teneri & credi velint, nisi quod consentaneum sit Doctrinae Veteris ac Novi Testamenti, quod que ex illâ ipsâ Doctrinâ Catholi •• Patres & Veteres Episcopi collegerint. Because the Scripture is made a Lesbian Rule by a great variety of Professors who are irreconcileable amongst themselves, therefore no Exposition ought to be taken for authentick, so soon as that which hath been made by the Catholick Fathers and Ancient Bishops of the Church. In a word, it doth appear, as well by Casau • . Epist. 220. Hu. Gro. 1612▪ & Epist. 221. &c. Casaubon's and Bishop Overall's Epistles to Grotius, as from his to them, and to Thua • us, and divers others, that his desires of union were no other then what were common to him with the soberest Protestants in the World; in particular with Melanchthon, whom he proposeth as his exemplar in all his writings of that affair. Nay in two Epistles to Duraeus (which a learned Mr. Clement Barksdale in his M • morials of Grotius. admirer of his Works hath very usefully made English) he is as palpably a Protestant as Cardinal Bellarmin was a Papist; for he clearly justifies our breach with Rome, and heartily wisheth our agreement amongst our selves, however hindered by those who defile themselves with a proud conceit of being holier and purer then their Fathers and Brethren of the Church. He unites his Consultations with both our English Embassadors how our union may be accomplished: to which he exhorts so much the rather, because he observes that our Division doth strengthen Popery, and make Proselytes for Rome. Such were Grotius his Counsels no longer since then in the year of our Lord 1637. And though you confidently say, that He mentions the Protestants with distaste, as pretended Reformers (p. 33.) yet I know the contrary to be a very great truth. Traxit in auxilium sui Reform • torum Principes; & Pontificlorum fervidiores meam praesentiam aliis de causis suspectant. Epist. 172. p. 422. A.D. 1635. Fo • how severely soever he useth to speak of the rebellious and sacrilegious, who by their Heathenish practises and o • inions had put a publick disgrace on the Reformation, (in pretending themselve • the Authors of it,) yet of regular Protestants he never speaks without love and reverence, and simply calls them the Reformed, in opposition to Pontificians who stand in need of Reformation. That unavowable sort of Protestants whom he reproves with sharpness, the meek and moderate Look forward on ch. 5. sect. 9. Dr. Sanderson rebuketh as sharply as he hath done, yet he is not the likelier to be a Papist.

Arg. 14. From many places of his Discussio (printed in the year 1645.) as well as from its whole design, his aversion to Papism doth very sufficiently appear. And as that is the book from whence you draw your objections, so from that very book you could not have fail'd of satisfaction, had you impartially either read or considered all. Discuss. p. 10. His desire that the rules of Vincentius Lirinensis might be observed, was common to him with King Iames, Isaac Casaubon, yea with Gregory Calixt • s, and Doctor Reynolds against Hart. Nec aliud desiderat Confessio Augustan • . Di • unt enim qui eam amplexi sunt Principes & Civitates, de nullo Articulo Fidei dissentire se &c. sed paucos abusus à se omitti, qui novi sunt, & contra voluntatem Canonum, vitio Temporum recepti. ib. p. 14. He would not onely have the Canons of the Council of Trent to be commodiously expounded in order to peace, but also in order to reformation; he would have all taken away which evil customes and manners have introduced. In a word, he would have that, then which the Augustan Confession desires no more. And many moderate Papists desired no less. He allowes the Pope no Ibid. p. 1 • . other Primacy then is allowed by the Canons of oecumenical Councils, and may consist with the rights of the several Patriarchs of the East; disapproving his usurpations no lesse then Casaubon himself. Ibid. p. 15. He loves to style that Vsurper by the modest name of the Bishop of Rome; and fastens the Primacy (which he allowes) n • t so much on the Pope, as the Church of God, for Zanchy himself doth so expresse her.

Arg. 15. To prove he speaks as a Peace-maker (which he was) not as a Papist, (which he was not) he cites the Declarations of some chief Ibid. p. 69. Protestants in the behalf of such a Primacy as he and they have thought due to the Roman Prelate. Not onely King Iames, who granted as much (in a manner) as Cardinal Perron exacted of him, in order to the Unity and Peace of Christendom, nor onely Bucer a moderate Protestant, but even Blondel, the Patron of Presbyterians, and even Calvin himself are brought in speaking to his advantage: (to whom I might adde Franciscus Iunius, and our learned Mountague in his Appeal to Caesar.) The words of Blondel are very remarkable, Non negari à Protestantibus dignitatem Sedis Apostolicae Romanae, neque Primatum ejus super Ecclesias vicinaes, im • o aliquatenus super omnes, sed referri hoc ab iis ad jus Ecclesiasticum. Nor can I remember I ever read, that Grotius pretended to any more. For obedience due from all seculars unto the Bishops of the Chur • h, he cites the Ibid. p. 70. Augustan Confession. For the want of reformation in the Presbyterian Churches, he cites the Ibid. p. 73. Confession of Mr. Rivet. For the admitting of such words as Transelementation and Transubstantiation, with their convenient explications, in order to Peace and Reconcilement, Ibid. p. 77. he cites Modrevi • s and our King Iames. For the Protestants return to the Church of Rome, upon condition that that Church will also return unto the Primitive, he cites the Prayers and Protestation of learned Zanchy, Ab Ecclesiâ Rom • nå non ali • discessimus animo, quàm ut, si correcta ad priorem Ecclesiae formam redeat, nos quoque ad illam revertamu • , & communionem cum illâ in suis porrò coetibus habeamus. Apud Grot. p. 14. apud ipsum Zanch. in Confess. Art. 19. p. 157. who notwithstanding his being a Presbyterian, concluded his moderation like an Episcopal Divine; Ego Hieronymus Zanchiu • septuagenarius, cum tota familia mea, testatum hoc volo toti Ecclesiae Christi in omnem aeternitatem ▪ The same Zanchy did acknowledge (in the seventieth year of his age,) that the Church of Rome was a true Church of Christ, (however defiled with innovations) because she retained the fundamentals of Christianity. See Zanchy's Preface to his Edit. Neostadii Palat. A.D. 1585. Confession, and compare it with what he saith in the Confession it self, Art. 8. de Eccles. Milit. p. 149. and again with his p. 157. where he doth not scruple to use these words. [Non ab Ecclesiâ Rom. simpliciter & in omnibus defecimus, sed in illis duntaxat rebus in quibus ipsa defecit ab Apostolicâ, atque ad • ò a seipsâ veteri & purâ Ecclesiâ; neque alio discessimus animo &c. ut supra. Zanch. ib. p. 157. We have not simply, and in all things made a defection from the Church of Rome, but in those things alone wherein she hath departed from the Church Apostolical, and so by consequence from her ancient and purer self. Nor have we left her (even so) but with an intention to return, as soon as she shall return her self to that pitch of integrity from which she fell.] All which being considered, either let Grotius have been a Protestant, as well as Zanchy and Blondel; or let them both have been Papists, as well as Grotius. No other Primacy to the Popedom did he allow but what Farente Melanchthone, Primatum (secundum Canonas) necessarium esse ad retinendam unitatem, Discuss. p. 255.256. Melanchthon thought necessary to conserve the unity of the Church. Nor would he have all to joyn with Rome as Rome now stands, (which yet you confidently suggest, p. 35.) but upon friendly condescensions on either side; implying Vide (inter alia compluscula) Grot. Animadv. in Animadv. A. Riveti p. 35. Vot. pro pa. 7, 8, 9. Discuss. p. 160.161.18.20. etiam p. 71, 72. Reformation in some particulars, and mutual forbearance in many others. You confesse that Bishop Bramhall allowes the Pope to have his old Patriarchal power, and his Primacy of order, and somewhat else, p. 22. whom yet you take not to be a Papist, p. 23. Nor can I see that Grotius allowes him more. And as Principium unitatis, or Concordiae coagulum, you will certainly allow it as well as Grotius.

Arg. 16. If you compare one passage of his Discussio (p. 256.) with his Epistle to Cordesius (p. 352.) you will find him so steadfastly and pertinaciously a Protestant, that the largest offers of a King could not make him any thing else. You say, the French moderation is acceptable to all good men, you think that many such Papists are blessed souls now with Christ; and you pronounce that Nation an honorable part of the Church of Christ, p. 10. yet all the advantages in the world could never work upon Grotius to have communion even with them, no not at that point of time when the Calvinists had deprived him of his liberty, of his livelihood, Gratias ago summas Regi, quod in me etiam absentem beneficia sua depluere voluerit; & amicis, quod meis commodis tam perseveranter invigilent. Caeterum ego, ex quo Gallias reliqui, nullam cur tali beneficio utar probabilem causam video; ideoque comiter excusari volo. Epist. 143. ad Cordes. p. 352. and (in preparednesse of minde) of his very life. In the depth of his poverty, immediately after his bonds, and banishment, and confiscation of goods, he refused the great offers which daily courted him in France. I pray observe in what words he confuted that calumny which Rivet was bold to cast upon him. Si Grotius, tanto viro invitante, voluisset id promittere, quod eum promisisse fingit D. Rivetus, poterat ille, per malos Calvinistas exutus patriâ, exutus bonis, ampla illa honorum & commodorum promissa adipisci, quae à Rege Galliae nunquam aut habuit, aut speravit, neque illi opus fuisset exire Galliâ, & rebus alterius regni operam suam addicere. Et nunc quoque, cum omnia adferat ad pacem Ecclesia restituendam quae potest, nihil illi dat Gallia, & si dare velit, nihil i • le accipiat, Discuss. p. 256. Here you see the great reason why he went out of France, when courted in it; and why he chofe to serve a poorer, because a Protestant State. As he never had been brought to accept of any thing from France, so you see he resolved he never would.

Arg. 17. That Grotius did never once communicate with any part of the Church of Rome, Discuss. p. 59, 60, 61. is a manifest sign he was never of them: and he gives such reasons for his own abstinence from all communion in France (with either Papists or Presbyterians) as could not possibly be pr • tended by any Romanist whatsoever; and so they prove him (by consequence) to have been none, for whose excuse or defence they were pretended.

Arg. 18. Whilest you say he turn'd Papist, you cleerly grant him to have been Protestant: it lies upon you then to prove that he renounced the one, in exchange for the other; and you must shew both when and where he did it. For whosoever turns Papist, is ever bound by them to whom he turns, to make an abrenunciation of all other Churches; upon which he is solemnly reconciled, and received into the bosom of that at Rome: of which you have the Queen Christina and the late Minister of Montanba • exhibited as examples in the Weekly Newes-book. Had Grotius been such a Convert, (in their language) or such an Apostate, (in ours) the Church of Rome had been proude • of it then of a thousand such Queens as now I mentioned, and their Gazetts had told us of it with great ambition. But in the whole that you have said (in a matter of Fact too) you have not pretended any such thing, how unadvisedly soever you have impli'd it.

Arg. 19. Notwithstanding all that I have urged to prove that Grotius was no Papist, I shall adde one Argument from the signal manner of his Death, which will also be much confirmed from the place and manner of his burial: they are both attested by Doctor Quistorp a Lutheran Divine, and so no Papist, at the earnest entreaty of an eminent person, as known a Protestant as Quistorp; and they are published by both, to embalm the memory of that Phoenix of learned men, as learned Quistorp doth fitly call him. Had Grotius been a Papist u • on his death-bed, he would not have admitted, much less have sent for, a Protestant Minister to assist him in his last and greatest triall. Nor would the chief Pastor of Rostock, the publick Professor of Divinity, have given his Narrative to the World with so much Eulogie as he hath done, much lesse would he have buried him in the most honorable place of the chiefest Temple; nor would the Protestant Governours have consented with so much readiness as they did, had there been any the least suspicion of Grotius his dying a Roman Catholick. Now though the testimony of Quistorp was printed first at Amsterdam, and again by Merick Casaubon in his De usu verborum, (1647.) translated in part by the very reverend In his Answer to the Animadv. on his Dissert. p. 132. Doctor Hammond, and wholly by Behind his Translation of Grot. de Iure Billi & Pacis. Master Barksdale; yet because the manner of that religious man's end hath been most slanderously reported, and because the true Narrative is not ordinarily known, as well as earnestly desired to be made as ordinary as may be (there being thousands who have not seen it in the books before mentioned) I think fit to subjoyn it in Doctor Quistorp's own words.

Hugonis Grotii P. M. ultima: Quibus Joanni Quistorpio S. S. Theologia D. Professori, Facultatis ejusdem Seniori, & Primarii Templi Rostochiensium Pastori, suum ob peccata dolorem, & spem salutis confessus est.

COntendis à me, N. N. ut perscribam, quem, mundo huic valedicturus, Literatorum Phoenix Hugo Grotius se gesserit. En pauci • id habe. Conscenderat ille Stockholmiae navim qua Lubecam ferretur: vehementibus per triduum in mari jactatus procellis naufragium patit •• , & aeg • r ad Cassubiae litora appellit. Inde perquam incommodo curru, pluvia tempestate, per sexaginta & plura milliaria, tandem Rostochium nostrum devehitur. Divertit ad Balemanniam. D. Stocmannum Medicum advocari curat, qui aetate, naufragio, incommodis itineris fractas vires adverte • s, vitae terminum imminere praesagit. Secundo ab ingressu in hanc urbem die (qui stil. vet. erat 18. Augusti) me horá non •• vespertinâ ad se vocat. Accessi: propemodum in Agone virum constitutum offendi: compellavi, & me nihil maluisse affirmavi, quam ut mihi cum ipso incolumi sermones sociare licuisset. Regerit ille, Ita Deo visum fuit. Pergo; ut ad beatam emigrationem se componat, peccatorem agnoscat, super commissa doleat, moneo: quum que inter loquendum Publicani peccatorem se fatentis, & ut Deus sui misereretur precantis, meminissem; respondet, Ego ille sum Publicanus. Progredior; ad Christum, extra quem nulla est salus, ipsum remitto. Subjicit ille, In solo Christo omnis spes mea est reposita.

Ego clara voce precationem illam Germanicam Germanicè recitabam, Herr Jesu, wahrer Mensch und Gott, &c. Ille complicatis manibu • submissa voce me insequebatur. Quum fi • ivissem, quaesivi an me intellexisset. Respondit, Probe intellexi.

Pergo illa recitare ex verbo Dei quae jamjam morituris in memoriam revocari solent: Quaero, an me intelligat. Resp. Vocem tuam audio, sed quae singula dicas difficulter intelligo.

Quum haec dixisset, plane conticuit, & brevi post spiritum exhalavit, in puncto duodecimae nocturnae. Habes Catastrophen vitae ab Grotio summo viro actae. Cadaver▪ Medicis post commissum est. Intestina lebeti ah • neo imposita, at in Templi apud nos Primarii Mariae Virgini sacri locum h • noratissimum reponerentur, à Templi Praefectis facile impetravi. Molliter cineres cubent. Vale. Dabam Rostochii propedie Michaelis, Anno 1645.

Tuus, J. Quistorpius.

My Argument from hence is short and easie. For if Grotius were really a Roman Catholick, he was reconciled to that Church, either 1▪ before, or 2▪ at his death, (for after his death, you have onely reconciled him in your opinion, without his knowledge or consent,) or 3. at least he thought himself obliged to call (at his death) for such a reconciliation; and so, voto saltem, at least in wish or desire, (that is, as much as in him lay) to seek the peace of that Church from which he had lived so long divided. Not the first, for then he never would have received the Lutheran Minister as he did; much lesse (as he did) have purposely sent for him. Not the second, nor the third; for then Doctor Quistorp's Testimonial had told us which, and had put the whole matter without dispute. I shall once more mind you of Doctor Owen's pretensi • ns, that Grotius was a Socinian; because I since find him disowning the jealousie of Grotius his being a Papist, at least the management of any such thing. If these preten • ions have truth in them, Grotius his ghost is delivered from Popery. If they have no truth at all, you must answer to Doctor Owen your having condemned him of calumny, which to do, you confesse, is an odious thing, a great Crime, such as needeth Repentance and Recantation. (Sect. 1.)

Of Grotius his pretended dissimulation. Sect. 6. Notwithstanding all this evidence, whereof the far greater part might have been seen by your self before I shew'd it, you have not scrupled in your Preface to proceed as followeth, viz. [That you joyn with m • in charity to Grotius; in that you vindicate him from dissimulation, as I from Popery, Sect. 2.]

Is this then your charity, to call him Papist who was so certainly none? to offer proofs for it by such▪ concluding Arguments, as those must needs be which are brought against this evidence in point of Fact? and then to say, that you vin • icate him from dissimulation? I pray Sir tell me, do you take those men for your own Assertors and Hyperaspistae, who in their books against you have cited passages out of your writings whereby to conclude you an Arminian, yea a Socinian, perhaps a Iesuite sometimes, I am sure a Papist, and of the worst sort of Papists (which are the Jesuits) when you professe you are neither? Can those your Adversaries and Brethren be said to have vindicated your person from dissimulation, who are as known a Pr • sbyterian as any of them? I am bold to give you that name, because I think you more that then you are any thing else; and because you are vulgarly so accounted, though what you are wholly I cannot learn. Do you not teach an evil lesson against your self? and will your writing a Confession of your particular Faith be able to secure you from Calumniators, whilest this method takes place, that he who calls an honest man what he professeth he is not, doth but vindicate and clear him from dissimulation? I pray bear with me on this occasion, whilest I recount how others have dealt with you, and then how you have dealt with others.

You tell us Disput. 5. of Sacram. p. 484. that Doctor Owen took pains about your person, to prove from your writings you are hypocritically proud, and that he seemed to accuse you of heresie ▪ Ibid. p. 486. That in his anatomizing of your pride, he played his af • er-game more plausibly then they who before had published abundance of calumnies of you to the world; telling them not onely that you were a Papist, but what books they were that made you a Papist, and what Emissaries you have in all parts of the land. Ibid. p. 487. That you and the Worcester-shire Profession of Faith give too much coun • enance to the Socinian abominations. Again Ibid. p. 487. you say, that the hardest measure you had from Doctor Owen, was in his Socinian▪ Parallel in (no lesse then) eleven particulars. Ibid. p. 516. That Master Crandon bestows a whole Epistle to tell the Reader how he detests your BLASPHEMY. Postcript to an Admonition to Mr. Eyre of Sarum. And that the main substance of his Book against your Aphorismes is this, That you are a Papist, and the worser sort of them too.

Now if such men as these, whom you acknowledge to be your Brethren, both learned and judicious, are not hastily to be credited in what they write against you, notwithstanding their number as well as quality; how much less may you look for credit in what you write against Grotius? For first the Advocates for Grotius will except against you as his enemy (vel si • de po • te dejiciendum) and so not fit to be a Witnesse, much lesse a Iudge. Next you are but a single person. Thirdly, you fasten the name of Papist so very wrongfully upon some, as if you were willing not to be credited when you cast it upon others. For you tell Master Tombes, Dispute with Mr. Tombs, of Infants Church-Membership and Baptism, Edit. 3. • . 397. Doctor Taylor no Papist. that if he hath read all the books of Doctor Taylor, he will no more reckon him among the Protestants, having so much of the body of Popery in them. But, Sir, if you have read his Book of Transubstantiation, (which must needs be one of the all you mention) you will find new matter of Retractation. Adde to that his two Letters which do wholly concern the whole Body of Popery; and which as soon as you have read, you will not think his Discourses of Original Sin can (by their single force) become sufficient to metamorphise him into a shape, which he doth not onely disclaim himself, but enable others to disclaim also; and doth antidote some against the contagion of that Disease with which you peremptorily speak him to be infected. One thing comes into my minde (upon this occasion) of which I would be glad to have some account. You say in See your Chr. Concord. p. 49. and compare it with p. 46. of the same book, and with p. 100. of your Grotian Relig. one Book, wherein you speak of Popish Bishops who lurk under the name of Episcopal, That all their Writings or Discourses do carry on the Roman Interest: That in those of them who write of Doctrinals or Devotion, one may find the plain footsteps of common Popery. (You say) You are loth to name men, but you could shew a great deal of Popery in divers such books which you see much in Gentlemens hands, as written by an Episcopal Doctor. In contradiction to one important part of which words, [your being loth to name men] you do name Doctor Taylor in your book above cited. Bishop Wren and Bishop Pierce you also name in that Book in which you professe you are loth to name them, as I shall shew by and by. In the mean time I must challenge you (but in the spirit of love and meeknesse) to make good your words above written, or to retract them. That if Popish Divines do lie lurking under the name of Episcopal, they may be punish'd for their Hypocrisie: Or if it is onely your fiction, that you may make reparation for so much wrong. For again, Christ. Conco • d. p 45, • 6, &c. your charge of Cassandrian Popery is indefinitely laid against Episcopal Divines, who lie mask'd here in England to do the Pope the greater service. And although you now plead, that you did not intend to raise a jealousie on all the Episcopal Divines (p. 103.) yet I believe you intended to raise a jealousie on the most, because you feared not to name Bish. Wren and Bish. Pierce, as a couple of your fancied Cassandrian Papists, who yet are known to be as perfect persevering Protestants, as you to be a Presbyterian (if yet I may say you are truly such.) And though you judge it unmeet to name even those who (you say) have given you just cause of suspicion, because it may tend to breach of peace, and to the harder censuring and usage of the persons, which (you say) is none of your desire, (p. 100.) yet you have nam'd too many (it seems,) against your own judgment, who gave you no cause at all, and have left your Readers to judge by them of the rest. Nay without exception or dis • rimination, you name the Bishops and the Kings Chaplains, and other Doctors. Admit some Papists did lurk amongst them, I hope you will argue nothing from thence, but that themselves were no Papists. For now you openly confesse, that the Papists are crept in among all sects, the Quakers, Seekers, Anabaptists, Millenaries, Levellers, Independents, yea and the Presbyterians also, (p. 99, 100.) Nay you farther make a Confession, (for which I commend your ingenuity) that the Pope and the Italians might very probably have a considerable hand in raising our warres (p. 106.) Nor do you wonder if it be true that the Papists did not onely kindle our warrs here, and blow the coals on both sides, but also that it was by the Roman influence that the late King was put to death, Claud Salm▪ Defens. Regis; c. 10▪ &c. 11. (p. 108.) When I compare your words with the words of Salmasius, I guesse that the Papists and Presbyterians were both assistants to one another in contriving the mischieves of which you spake.

Sect. 7. You say on in your Preface,Grotius at last is but a Papist with an • f, &c. that had Grotius been living, you think you should have had more thanks from him then I, and that if you understand him, he took it for his glory to be a Member of that Body of which the Pope is the Head, even to be a Roman Cath • lick, Sect. 2.]

Thus it pleaseth you to speak, though without any tolerable shew of truth; nor is there any proof offered, but that so you think, and if you understand him. Its very strange that the one point on which your machine is wholly founded, (of the Grotian Religion, and the new way in which the Prelatists are involved) to wit Grotius his being a Roman Catholick, should be thus feebly introduced with an [I think, and if I understand him.] An humble begging of the Question were a gentile quality to this. There is hardly any the least of your baffled Adversaries ▪ but will be able to say as much in his own defence against your Aphorismes; your Adversaries think, (or else they speak against their conscience) and if they understand you, 'tis thus and thus, you are a Socinian, and a Papist, and the worser sort of them too, as some of your Brethren did think, and if they did rightly understand you. How often therefore are you pleading that they do misunderstand you? And against all their misunderstandings, you write a thick b •• k in qua • to for the confession of your Faith. (If the diseases had not been numerous, I suppose you had been sh • rter in your prescribing the means of cure.) Grotius his Ghost may well make much shorter work, even by telling you in a word, that you knew not his mind, nor understood his designes in writing Notes upon Cassander, which were onely P • cifick, not Apostatick; and so your whole Fabrick is very speedily at an end. And the one remaining Engine whereby to keep up Presbyt • rianism, to wit, the jealo • sies and feares of the deep Grotian design, (so deep indeed, as not to have the least bottom) in the very same instant doth vanish also.

Popery dis • claimed as well by Grotius and Mr. P. as by Mr. Baxter. Sect. 8. You proceed to tell me, that if any shall gather from your words, my being such my s • lf as you say you manifest Grotius to have been, you protest against such accusations, as no part of your intention. But you say, I have given too much occasion of them by my vindication, and that 'tis in my power to remove that occ • sion, by disowning what in Grotius I dislike. Sect. 3.]

A fair expedient to conclude this controversie, to allow Grotius the same quarter which is given to me as his Advocate. If I shall disown what you dislike, this shall vindicate me from being a Bapist. The like privilege you imply is due to Grotius. First for my self, I declare that I am none. And if Grotius was a Papist, then he and I are of two Religions. But secondly for Grotius, he hath also disowned his being a Papist, as well as you and my self. And that may suffice for his vindication. If you will disown what is disliked by your adverse brethren, you will remove that occasion which they took to call you Papist and S • cinian. But you will say, it is enough that you disclaim being either. Grotius was for an Union (so is the Spirit of Peace and Unity) presupposing a Reformation secundum Canones in respect of the Papal power, and presupposing a Reformation of the form of Doctrine according to antiquity and universal Tradition, as the best Expositors of Scripture, where Scripture is not agreed to expound it self. This is according to the Rule of Vincentius Lirinensis, of all the Fathers of the Church, and of the late Acute King in his Dispute against Henderson, who is acknowledged by you to have been no Papist (p. 105, 106.) though calumniated as such, you know by whom. And however you are said to have fought against him, yet I observe that in this, and some other things, you are for th • King against the Parliament. But to pursue the thrid of my Discourse; Grotius l • ft other things to be reformed and adjusted by Soveraign Princes, with the assistance of their Prelates in their several Kingdomes. Now he that likes this Doctrine and Design, and onely thinks it a happinesse too great for this Age, wherein there are on both sides so many irreconciliabiles, (to wit, Iesuits on that side, and Presbyterians on this) and therefore appeals to posterity, (as Grotius did) i • very far from being a Papist in the common acception of the word, (as you do easily pretend Sect. 3.) much lesse is he such in the thing it self. But it is easily foreseen by your close of that Section, how you are resolved to understand it.

Mistakes in reading Grotius, arising from a nescience or hatred of his design. Sect. 9. Now for your manifold mistakes of Grotius his words in his Discussio, arising chiefly from the byasse which had been put upon your judgment, (I know not whether by your nescience, or over-great hatred of his design,) and which you urge as so many arguments to prove that Grotius turn'd Papist; I take such arguments to be answered by the bare removal of such mistakes. Your mistakes are removed by being proved to be mistakes: and they are proved to have been such, by the fifth Section of this Chapter, containing eighteen arguments for a matter of Fact, whereof there are some so irrefragable, that perhaps I may be blamed for adding others: and unlesse you say you are not, I shall comfortably hope that you are convinced. Indeed the writings of Grotius would have convinced you of themselves, if you had read them all, and at leisure, and with those necessary cautions, or remembrancos, which the Reverend Answ. to] Animadv. on the Dissert. touching Ignatius his Epistles, p. 135, 136, 137. Doctor Hammond had timely given. Or had you but weighed what I had told you touching the nature of an 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or rather of the way conducing to it, in my 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Ch. 3. p. 92, 93, 94. of which I see you determined to take no notice (p. 3.) I told you early (would you have mark'd it) that Grotius as a Peace-maker betwixt the Papists and the Protestants, had labour'd to shew his moderation as well to them as to these; and to excuse many things at least à tanto, to which he had not afforded his approbation. For he who attempted a Reconcilement of two great Enemies, was not in prudence to declare a personal enmity to either, but to mitigate the exceptions and animosities of both; and to insist on those things, whether faulty or indifferent, which he desired might meet with (in either party) an interchangeable pardon, and an interchangeable compliance. Melanchthon (I told you) had done the same, and was accused (as well as Grotius) as a slie friend to Popery. The same was done by Thuanus amongst the Papists, who was Io. Baptista Gallus obstinatâ vesaniâ pernegat, Thuanum Catholicae fidei • enacissimum & Ecclesiae Romanae &c. vide Epist. Anonym. p. 103. Tom. 5. ad calcem lib. 6. Aug. Thuani de vita sua. accused for his labour of having turned Protestant. Indeed his favour to the Protestants was so much greater then that of Grotius and Melanchthon unto the Papists, that his friends of that Church, as their friends of this, were fain to write his vindication. He might indeed have been a Protestant by the Confession of his Faith in his last Will and Testament, the like to which (I suppose) hath hardly been made by any Papist. And whilest you intimate your opinion that Thuanus was a Papist of a deeper die then either Cassander of Grotius was, (p. 9.) you infer that Grotius was none at all; or else the Writings of Thuanus are strangers to you.

Sect. 10. I find that rigid Presbyterians would be at peace with the Papists, How much may be offered to purchase peace. as the See The Royal L • brary, Sect. 4. Num. 15. p. 339. to p. 359. See also the second part of that Collectio • , p. 465. to p. 480. especially p. 517. to p. 526. Houses of the long Parliament would have made peace with their King; to wit, if he would comply with them in all things, and they with him in nothing at all: where as if we make a 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 by mutual Offices of Friendship, and not a Conquest by acts of Force, there must be Abatements and Allowances on either side. They are not worthy to be imploy'd in making Amity or Union, who understand not how much 'tis worth. There are a great many truths of so small importance, that one would part with them all for a dram of charity: and I should think th • t to purchase the peace of Christendom, no Protestant Merchants can bid too high, so long as they part not with old Fundamentals, nor do accept new Articles of Faith, nor acknowledge subjection to a power, which whensoever it pleaseth may do both the one and the other. Now by your way of arguing that Grotius turn'd Papist, because in order to reconcilement he offered allowances to the Papists, which he would not yield upon other terms, (as many peaceable Christians will rather part with some petie rights, then perpetuate contention by sutes at Law,) Thuanus also turn'd Prot • stant, and so did Cassander, and Hofmiesterus, and hundreds more whom I could name, who did offer at least as much, on the same condition of reconcilement, they for that side, as he for this. This must therefore be considered by all that read his pacificatory writings: and it ought to be esteemed the • oblest submission in the World, to part with the utmost of ones own right, Plusquam humanae virtutis est, tantae spei m • derari, & velut manibus conclusam fortunam dimittere. that may in conscience be parted with, for the redemption of such a peace as cannot otherwise be purchased. The victorious Emperour Charles the fifth thought good to quit some of his Empire (not driven by necessity, but drawn by love) for the setling of Religion and Peace in Germany; so did Philip his Son, the potent King of Spain, and Arch-Duke Albert his son in Law, make an humble offer of reconcilement to the Hollanders, which for fourty years together they had denied them. By De Ney the Franciscan, by Lewis Verreich the Arch-Dukes Secretary, and even by Spinola himself, with divers others whom Grotius Epist. ad Clariss. Virum N. P. de pace Germanica. Sane in privatis quoque negotiis, transactiones, dato allquo, & aliquo retento, (ut nostri loquuntur jurisconsulti) perficiu • tur: quanto magis, ubi de salute publica & pacis incomparabili bono agitur, omnes de jure suo cedere debent? names (as it were justifying himself by way of anticipation,) they even supplicated for peace to their natural subjects. The same Philip the second did even buy reconcilement with Henry the fourth, King of France, when that lofty King would not bid any thing towards it. Yet Lewis his Son, (the Duke of Mant • a's Renitency notwithstanding) gave a portion of Monferrat to the Duke of Savoy, as a price laid down in exchange for Amity and Peace. Nay the Emperour Ferdinand the second was content to yield a good part of Hungary, and so to purchase one peace, though it was but to exclude or break another. After all these examples (which do put me in mind of the Christian-like Doctrine in 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , &c. Hierocl. p. 61. Hierocles, however he was a Heathen, and writ a Book against Christ) let me adde one more, which is neerer home, and more to my purpose then all the rest, and which I shall earnestly recommend to your most serious consideration.

When his Majesty, at the Treaty in the Isle of Wight, did offer for three years the confirmation of the Directory, and the Form of Church-Government presented to him, and the leasing out of the Bishops lands as far as 99. years, will you say he was turn'd a Presbyterian? I know you will not; because they were offers upon condition of publick

Nec deerunt rationes, quibus pulsis suâ ditione Principibus satisfieri possit, qui magni beneficii loco habebunt, in partem saltem missarum ditionum restitui. Praeterea compensationibus & mutuâ permutatione res expediri poterit. Idem in E • ist. ead.

Potior esse debet s • ae saluti • , quàm alieni damni, p • iorq • e conservandi quàm prof • r • ndi Reg • i ratio. Ibid.

peace, not absolute concessions at all adventure. And conditio non impleta non obligat fidem, is a very good rule in the Civil Law. Nor did he offer what he thought best, precisely consider'd in it self, but what he thought to be the fittest in that juncture of time, when he found himself plac'd 'twixt two evils, whereof in great wisdom) he chose the least. For although he offer'd towards the setling of a peace, no less then 100000 pounds, to be raised out of the B • shops lands, yet first it was onely towards the settlement of a peace, (and a little of that is worth money;) next it was with a Proviso, That the inheritance and propriety should still continue to the Church; thirdly, the peace being denied him, he also denied to confirm his offer into a Grant. Nor would he ratifie the Directory, no not so much as for a day; wch (for the buying of peace) had else obtain'd for three years. But for the Solemn League and Covenant, as he neither would sign it, or consent to it himself, so would he not have it to be imposed upon the consciences of others; no, not in order to any ends, whether personal safety, or publick peace.

This is just the Case of Grotius, excepting that it differs to his advantage; for he offer'd not so much, and he ask'd for more. Nay farther yet, if Grotius turn'd Papist by seeking to reconcile the Council of Trent with the Protestant Articles of the Augustan Confession, then did Franciscus à Sanctâ Clarâ (by your Logick) turn Protestant, because you Christ. Concord. p. 46. confesse he did endeavour to reconcile the Articles of the Church of England with the Council of Trent. The absurdity of the consequence is in both cases alike. Again, you confe • se Ibid. p. 45. a little before, that Grotius his design had many favorites, both of the better sort of Pa • ists, and of the colder sort of Protestants: from whence I gather this comfort, that however I am a favourer of Grotius his design, I am yet allow'd to be a Protestant, though one of them whom you call the colder party; that is to say, (as I interpret) I am none of those hot-headed furious men, who not understanding what spirit they are of (on supposition that they are Christians) are for fire from heaven (if not from hell too) upon all that are not of their perswasion. But as your better sort of Papists are sure the colder, so your colder sort of Protestants are sure the better, (it being clear, that by the colder you mean the more moderate:) and it is much for their honour, that they are lovers of Reconcilement the most of any.

Grotius his Doctrine and Design more Catholical then Mr. Baxter 's. Sect. 11. You object against Grotius, That he was not truly Catholick in his designs and Doctrines (p. 11.)

Yet he excluded not any, but onely said who they were that would not indure to be included. He knew that some peace was better then no peace at all. And shall not parties of moderation seek an agreement with one another, because they cannot agree with the two Extremes? Can you name any one person whom he forbad to accept of the terms propos'd? Or is an offer the lesse Catholick, for being made upon conditions to every Creature? You cannot say this, who are for Catholick Redemption: or when you write your self Catholick, and set forth terms of Christian Concord, can you imagine that your design is half so Catholick as his? I cannot imagin that you can. You indeed will be at unity with all the World, if all the World will agree with your Worcestershire combination. But so the World will be at Vnity, if all will embrace the design of Grotius; nay all the World had been at Unity if all had agreed with Iohn of Leyden. Sed nihil hoc ad Iphicli boves. And what you say against Grotius, is gratis dictum.

And the terms to which he calls us, less impossible. Sect. 12. But you stick not to affirm, that Grotius calls us all to impossible terms of unity, as the onely terms, (p. 12.) every whit as impossible as a medicine from the Moon, or the Antipodes, or the brains of a Phoenix to cure a Patient, p. 13.]

1. You seem to forget what you had said at another time, to wit, that Grotius was a man not of great reading onely, and much learning, but that he had also a Christ. C • nc. p. 45. mighty judgment to improve it. Nay that you take him for so learned and so judicious a man, as you do not judge your self worthy in any such respect to be named with him, p. 4. Now whether it suits with a man of judgment to prescribe a medicine from the Moon, or what is equally impossible, and to spend so many years in it, as Grotius professeth to have done, I shall onely leave to your future consideration.

2. You are unmindful of the parties to whom the terms of peace were more immediately propounded; even the moderate Papists, who were of the temper of Thuanus, and the moderate Protestants, who were of the temper of good Melanchthon: not the rigidest of the Papists, who were wholly devoted unto the Papacy; nor the rigidest of the Protestants who perfectly doat on the Presbyterie: and yet the onely way imaginable whereby to draw them to moderation, were for those that are moderate to allu • e them to it by their example. For whom was it possible to agree, if not for the soberest of either party? nay for whom was it probable, if not for them who desir'd it with so much fervour?

3. You little think how many, or how important persons there have been, who having the same aimes with Grotius, and having used the same indeavours, have expected to reap some better fruit, then meerly their labour for their pains, even Emperours, Kings, Cardinals, Bishops, and divers others as wise personages as the Christian world hath lately had, and as well of the Protestant as Roman party. The words of Zanchy are worth observing, What can be more to be desired by every man that fears God, De Ecclesia Romana jam tum locutus, Quid (inqui • Z • nchius) p • o cuique optatius, quàm ut ubi per baptismu • renati sumus, ibi etiam in finem usque vivamus? &c. In Confess. Art. 19. p. 157. then that we live and die in that Church (meaning the Roman, of which alone he there speaks) wherein by Baptism we were born again? yet he was then no Papist, but onely a moderate Presbyterian.

4. You professe not to distaste the pacificatory desires or designs of Grotius, (p. 6.) how much soever you accuse them, (p. 15, 16, 17, 18.) And you say, You are a person of so little worth or interest, that you cannot in reason expect that your endeavours in such a work should have any considerable success. But yet that you will speak and write for peace, though you saw not a man in the World that would regard it, or return you any better thanks then a Reproch, p. 6. Allow to Grotius the same zeal, who was a man of great worth, and great interest in the world, knew (better then you) what peace was best, and which were the best ways to gain it, & was regarded for what he did by the best men in the World, however reproched by the most envious. You have a confident Preface to D • sp. of Sacram. p. 15. saying of your own project, to make up the breaches which have been betwixt the Lutherans and Calvinists, the Iesuites and the Dominicans, &c. [That if your Principles propounded shall have an impartial Reception according to their evidence, you will give us security to make good your confidence, that they shall quiet the Christian World hereabouts.] When you have thus set forth your self, you should permit me with patience to speak as highly for Grotius too.

5. But I desire you in special to make reflexion upon a Passage you have printed in your debate with Master Tombes: where having said, in the Defence and Commendation of Erastus, Plain Script. proof of Infants Church-Memb. and Baptism, p. 227, 228. That he was a very learned judicious man in Divinity, Philosophy and Physick, and having justified his medling without the sphaere of his own calling in the business of Divinity, and having also said of him, that some of his book is erroneous, his arguments very weak for mixt communion, and that he seemeth oft to contradict what he there pleadeth for; you proceed in these words, which seem to me very remarkable:

Ibid. For my part, (were my judgment of any moment to others) after my serious study in this point, both in Scripture and Antiquity, (specially the Writers of the three first Centuries) I am confidently perswaded that the true way of Christs Discipline is parcell'd out between the Episcopal, Erastian, Presbyterian and Independents, and that every party hath a 〈◊〉 of the Truth in peculiar— And I verily think that if every one of the four parties do entirely establish their own way, they will not establish the Scripture-way. ]

These are all your own words: and to these you adde more, [That let it be taken how it will, you will acquaint the world with your thoughts of this also, if God will so long draw out your life.] But if you put forth such a work, you will quickly find your self more. No Ishmael had ever more hands against him, for your hand will be against all. And may not your medicine from the Moon with the bruins of a Phoenix, be applied by me against your attempt, as well as you have appli'd it to that of Grotius? Such a design as this is, would make the unity and peace of the Church seem impossible, and our Divisions desperate. Turpe est Doctori, quem culpa redarguit ipsum. It should seem by this, that in your judgment the true discipline of Christ hath been revealed onely to you, or at least, that you onely have found it out by your industry. Nor are you onely a Presbyt • rian, but an Episcopal Divine, an Erastian als • , and Independent; or if you are not all, you are neither. Nor indeed can you be either in point of Di • ci • line, unless you are professedly against the Scripture. When you say you would cleave to any party that you could perceive were in the right, (p. 24.) you do but say in effect, that you cleave to none, you having declared your belief, that none of those entire wayes is the Scripture-way. But why was a National League and Covenant both sworn and fought for? and persecutions made use of, for non-conformity to the Covenant? Why were men so expensive of Blood and Conscience for the pulling down of Episcopacy so well establish'd, and for the setting up of a Scotish Presbytery in the room, if the former was partly, and the l • ter but partly the way of Christ's discipline? May not the Independents and the Erastians do as much against Presbyterie, as Presbyterians have done against the Prel • cy of the Church, and cite your judgment, as one defensative of their own? Of all the Ministers in the land, the Presbyterians who were Preachers within the Province of London A. D. 1647. and See the book int • tuled, A t • stimo •• to the t • u • h of I •• us Christ; and compare it with the Covenan • , as well as with the •• d • rs for To. • ra • on • protested so much against all toleration, which did not well comport with their solemn League and Cove • ant, will least of all thank you for your discovery. 'Tis true, you have also your Pacisick De • ign: but so little hath it of Catholicism, and so impossible it is to prove effectual, that (after your having accused Grotius) it onely serves to make you fall under your own condemnation. When you say that Christ's and the Scripture way is parcell'd out between four parties, and that every party hath a piece of the truth in peculiar, (that is to say, not common to it with any one of the other three) and so that the whole of the Truth must be compounded of four Ingredients; some of your readers will reflect on the onceit of Tamerlane, that Religion ought to be like a Posie, which smells best, when made up of the most variety. And I have read that Mahomet (of the Tribe of Ishmael) thought fit to make up his new Religion, Celrenus p. 347. Baronius ad A. D. 629, 630. by borrowing (and blending with his Inventions) one parcel from the Pagans, another from the Iews, a third from the Arians, a fourth from the Nestorians, a fifth from the Manichees, that so he might (with the greater ease) reconcile them all unto himself. And (with pardon to the comparison, which is not intended to run on four feet) if in the Medlie which you propose, the component parts will so temper and correct each other, that the whole will be grateful to every party, you will not onely grow famous as the first Discoverer of the thing, but (nature being thus changed and tamed) our Lambs will dwell safely within the neighbourhood of the Wolf, and the Leopard inoffensively lie down with the Kid. You who have given in your 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 after serious study of the point, both in Antiquity and the Scriptures, may speak unexpectedly in your account. But you have left me to wonder, (and I suppose some thousands more) which ingredient of the four shall be praedominant in the mixture, or which shall be the Basis of all the structure, so as to give satisfaction to every party; or whether in the mixture all parts can be equal, and a Structure erected without a Basis. If four distinct parties have the Truth of Christ's Discipline divided betwixt them, unlesse it be equally divided, they will not all own an equal right to the inheritance on every side. Else when the Presbyterian Ministers were so hard put to it by his See Reliquiae sacrae Carolinae, in the Papers which pass • d &c. at Newport, p. 275, & 367, 368, 369. Majesty at the Isle of Wight, to give in their Answer to these Queres, 1. Whether there be a certain Form of Government left by Christ or his Apostles to be observed by all Christian Churches; 2. Whether it bind perpetually, or be upon occasion alterable in whole, or in part; 3. Whether that certain form of Government be the Episcopal, Presbyterian, or some other differing from them both, (and we know how shamefully they did again and again decline answering the Queres, though they confessed them to be of great importance) your quadri-partite way might have serv'd their turn, had it not been for their usual boast, that since the times of Christianity their own is the onely Divine Model in the World. To the glory of which priviledge the Episcopal party laying claim, with fairer reasons for their pretension, how will you do for the share of the other two, (the Independent and the Erastian) and reconcile Extremes of so great a distance? If I say not (in civility) that the terms imply a contradiction; yet I know there are of your Presbyterians who will say that the mention of such terms doth carry in the Forehead its own confusion.

Sect. 13. Your following reasons of dislike (from p. 15. to p. 19.) are at least as feeble as your two first, Grotius doth not cut off the holiest parts of the Church. they having nothing to support them but your particular wants of apprehension, if not the strength of your prejudice against Grotius his Doctrine and Design. For first when you say, that in the name of a peace-maker he divideth and cutteth off the holiest parts of the Church on earth, (p. 15, 16.) it is gratis dictum, without so much as a shew of proof; and a pitiful begging of the Question, which no man living will grant you, who is not partially addicted to all you say. You fitly confesse (in a Parenthesis) you do but speak your own judgment. And what is your judgment compar'd with that of immortal Grotius, who knowingly judged those men to be the greatest subverters of Church and State, (and that incessantly by their Principles, as well as frequently by their Practice, even as often as they have power to reduce their Principles into Practice,) whom you affirm without scruple, as without colour of excuse, to be the holiest part of the Church on earth? What you say, and but say, of my reproching Puritans throughout my book, (very politickly forbearing to cite so much as one page or passage) doth not belong to this place, and shall be duly spoken of in a peculiar Chapter. And when you tell me that Grotius doth make the name of the Reformed or Protestants a note of reproch, to those that will not be reconciled to the Pope, you do not onely beg the Question, and speak without an offer of reason for it, but as contrary to truth, as if you had affected its opposition. For I have made it appear, that he did honour the name of Protestant, and reckoned himself with the Reformed. But he noted with a black coal, those rebellious Schismaticks in the Protestant Churches, (if yet I may so speak without implying a contradiction, for they cease to be of our Church, by their separating themselves from our Communion) who usurp'd the title of the Reformed, and help'd to justifie the Papists in all their clamours, by still pretending to be R • formers of our most excellent Reformation. I can prove (by your own Logick) that you your self are a reviler of the Protestant name, by throwing such Cart-loads of dirt upon the Regular Sons of the Church of England, who will ever be esteemed (do what you can) the most judiciously-reformed of all the Protestants in the World. Again you dishonour the Pro • estant name, by calling the irre • oncilia • iles, the holiest men; and by pleading so much for Puritanes (as the godliest part of the Protestants) who call a Rebellion, a Reformation, and stick the term of Christian purity on the most palpable hypocrisie to be imagined. For these alone are the Puritanes whom both Grotius, and Bis • op Andrews, Bishop Hall, and Doctor Sanderson, and indeed the most renowned of all the Protestants in the World have taught us to know, and to avoid, under that very name. And therefore let me intreat you to be so just for the future, (even to those whom you are pleased to single out for your Adversaries) as to suffer their own words to be the interpreters of their own meaning.

Sect. 14. The next reason of your dislike (p. 16.) is but an uncharitable Assertion (without so much as pretending to any proof) that Grotius his way was uncharitable, His way is not uncharitable. and a trap to ingage the souls of millions in the same. But they that read and understand him do know the contrary, that Peace, and Loyalty, and Obedience, and mutual Love, were all the traps wherein Grotius would very fain have engaged the souls of men. You think not so ill of his design, as your Fathers and Superiours do think of yours: yet i • it lay in your power, you would engage the souls of millions in it. And if you may be so zealous in your contrivance, much more may Grotius be allow'd to have been in his; you having confessed you are not worthy to be so much as nam'd with him, and that a small measure of humility may make you serious in your profession, p. 4. And if you fall so very short both of his learning and of his judgment, take my word you fall shorter of his integrity of life, if you will but allow me to take your own. And I shall cite your own words in their proper place.

Sect. 15. As your fourth reason (so called) was the same in substance with your third, It do • h not tend to pers • cution. so now your fifth (if not your sixth) is the same in substance with the two former. As affirming a tendency in the design of Grotius to engage the Princes of Christ • ndom in a persecution of their subjects that cannot co • ply with these unwarrantable terms, p. 17. In this you say no more of Grotius, then any man living may say of you, or indeed of any man living. But as you nakedly say it, with a great deal of confidence in stead of reason, so is it known to all the World, to whom the meekness of Grotius is not utterly unknown, that he was as far from such • project as he was from being a Pr • sbyterian. If to hinder subjects from treading all under their feet, (as well their Soveraigns, as fellow subjects,) must passe with you for a persecution, then was Grotius as guilty as you expresse him; for he indeed exhorted Prin • es to beware of those Ministers who taught the people to be rebellious, and to call it by the fine title of setting Christ upon his Throne. He would not have Sacrilege, and Murder, and all manner of Rapine, to be freely exercised and used as the proper means of Reformation. He could not indure that the filthiest fruits of the flesh should be ascribed to the suggestions of Gods good Spirit. And if men are grown to such a pitch of impiety, as not to be satisfied with less then with a liberty of Conscience to cut mens throats, they ought not to call it a persecution, to be happily bound to some good behaviour. What you adde of the attempts of pride, when men have such high thoughts of their own imaginations and devices, that they think the Churches wounds can be healed by no other plaister, but by this of their compounding, (p. 17, 18.) is so unduly appli'd to Grotius, that it hath many reflexions upon your self; for you know you have been a great promissor in your dayes. You mislike the Plaister proposed by Grotius, and that of some late Episcopal Divines, which yet you prefer before that of Grotius (p. 21.) you mislike the • l • ister of Bis • op Bramhal, (p. 22, 25.) and indeed what is there, which (in other men) you do not publickly dislike? But you like your own Plaister, as abundantly sufficient to heal the wounds of the Church; at least, as better then other mens. It appears by what I have cited from you in the twelfth Section of this Chapter, and by what you said in your Preface to your book of Sacraments, Iam. 3.5. and by what you now say in your Grotian Religion, (p. 29.) that though the Tongue is a little member, yet it boasteth great things.

It doth not engage in a way of sin. Sect. 16. You say the sixth reason of your dislike of Grotius his Pacification, and all such as his, is because it engageth the Church of Christ in a way of sin, both in false Doctrine, Discipline, and Worship, p. 18.] still a confident affirmer of what your interest or your passion suggesteth to you, without the appearance of any ground excepting your absolute Decree to reprobate Grotius and his Design. But 'tis enough that I deny, what you think it enough but to affirm; and do know that Grotius his Pacification was as much superiour unto your own, (in all imaginable respects) as you and your Writings are confessedly inferiour to him and his. A little while since you were professing, that you distaste not Grotius his Pacificatory designs, and that if you could find such a heart within you, you would cast it in the dust, and condemn it to shame, and sorrow, and recantation; (p. 18.) yet now you say in plain terms, that you dislike his pacification (p. 18.) nay you vehemently dislike it, as appears by the enormities with which you charge it. It was the Motto of King Iames, who had it out of Christ's School, Beati pacifici, Blessed are the Peace-makers. And therefore Grotius, as a pacifick, was much esteemed by that King. Nor can he be one of Christ's family who doth not love Pacification. But if by that word you mean his Pacificatory de • ign, how came you to dislike (at your eighteenth page) what (but twelve pages before) you highly liked? If you say you distinguish his particular way from his design, it seems your qua • rel is onely this, that having chosen a good end, he did not jump with your humour in chusing the means of its attainment. But methinks for this you should never have us'd him as you have done, because he knew not you were an Oracle, and so he could not consult you concerning the course he was to take. You do avow your approbation of Pacificatory attempts between us and the Papists, p. 30. where then lay the fault, when Grotius attempted such a pacification with the greatest Industry and Wisdom that God had given him? Had you been as Grotius in point of powe • and prudence, (to say no more) you would have taken his course; and so if Grotius had been as you, he would no doubt have taken yours. But Grotius being as he was, one of the wisest and most learned of all mankind, and you continuing as you are, neither the wisest, nor the most learned, what matter of wonder can it be, if he was otherwise advis'd then you would have him? If you do really take Grotius to have been so learned and so judicious as you expresse, (p. 4.) and do as really judge your self unworthy to be named with him, as in the page I now cited you have acknowledged; methinks it is pity that your whole Book should be little else then a preferring your opinion before his judgment, your jealousies and fears before his knowledge, and your fortuitous conjectures before his exact deliberations. Whereas you add, that you abhor their disposition who can despise or violate the Churches. Peace for every pety conceit of their own, which they have called by the name of • ruth or Duty, (p. 19.) you oblige your self and your party to do some very severe penance for having violated the Peace of the Church of England, which for so many happy years had been establish'd. The Presbyterian way of Discipline was a pety conceit of their own, as you at least must acknowledge, who have written against it, as hath been Look back on Sect. 12. shewed. The Common-Prayer book (you Look on what shall be said ch. 6. sect. 9. num. 2. confess) was more perfect then the Directory, which was therefore another of the pety conceits, for which the peace of the Church was despised and violated. Nay you complain to Of Inf. ch. memb. and Bapt. p. 122, 123. Mr. Tombs, that plain duties were wiped out, and excellent things taken from us, which we were in actual possession of. Your National-Covenant it self you must acknowledge was a pety conceit of your own, for which you have cause to repent, if we may credit your Ibid. p. 123. own words. Why then did you violate the Churches peace? or if you abhor your self for it, why do you not make us some satisfaction? You are often an admirer of Bishop Davenant, who had told you all in good time, Sent. Daven. ad Duraeum, p. 39. & A • hort. ad Pac. Eccl. cap. 11. p. 148, 149. that rather then have troubled the peace and quiet of the Church under which you lived in sub • ection, and of which you did profess you all were members, you should quietly have depar • ed into some other Church, to which you could have been pleased to yield obedience, or have remained in ours without disturbance. Nay this (said the Bishop) you should h • ve done, tho • gh you had thought your opinions had been of such moment, as that salvation it self depended on them. How much mo • e should you have done it, when the things you stood u • on so stifly were pety conceits of your own, and co • fessed such at long running, however magnified at your first setting out? I ever ap • lauded those dissenting and dissatisfied brethren, who peaceably went into New-England and other parts of America, until I was taught that they intended a very unpeaceable return. Be not angry at your M • n • r but meekly receive the admonition, not at all for my sake, but Bishop Davenant's. And if according to your own Doctrine, Truth ought to be suspended for love of peace, then be not offended with this consequence, that you must judge the way of Grotius or Bishop Bramhall very much worthier to be followed then your own or Mr. Chillingworths (p. 29.) in case they are likelier to take effect. This I say you must do, unless you can give some better reason then I am able to expect for your refusal.

Sect. 17. Now that you see what you have gotten by the six Reasons of your Dislike, Mens thoughts of Grotius must be esteemed by their words. (for such it was in your power to call them, though not in power to make them such,) be pleas'd to reflect on your profession (p. 9.) that [your thoughts of Grotius are not either bitter, censorious, or uncharitable.] In which profession if there is Truth, why would you write what you never thought? Did you think it was enough to think well of the man, whilest you spake as ill of him as it was possible for you to speak? If your expressions are so bitter when you are full of sweet thoughts, I wonder what words you could have us'd in case your thoughts had been bitter too. Or what advantage could you aim at, in pouring out so many bitter censorious words, and in professing at the same time a contrariety of your thoughts?

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉

But perh • ps you may deny that there is bitterness in your words, and therefore that shall be tried before I leave you. If you forget what is past, it will be good for your memory to look before you.

Sect. 18. For now I hasten to conclude my Vindication of Grotius. The conclusion. And I hasten so much the rather, because I hear it will be done in an elaborate manner, and ex professo, by a great admirer of his perfections, and because I hope I have said enough to make you sensible of your mistake. For methinks you should not take leasure in trying to make men believe that the learnedst of mortalls at last turnd Papist; or (in case that that is too bold a word) one so richly accomplished with all variety of secular and sacred knowledge, joyned to wonderful endowments of Grace and Nature, but for nothing more remarkable, then acuteness of research, and depth of judgement. Now that a person of such importance should in the full maturity of all these excellencies forsake the Protestant Religion in exchange for the Papist • , would be a greater advantage to our adversaries then I am willing to afford them, and I heartily wish you had not done it. For the Roman Catholicks are too apt to take such honours unto themselves when they can find the least ground or occasion for them. Had Grotius really been a Papist, how many Protestants had we lost by the powerful attractive of his example? Nay if Mr. Crandon and others durst call you Papist, and one of the worst sort of Papists, even before you contended for Grotius his turning from us to Rome, how much more will they call you such, if you shall possibly persist (as you have begun) to do the Papists so great a service? I do assure you for my sel • , that if it lay in my power to prove an Apostasie of Grotius from us to Rome, although the Pope should reward it with a Cardinal's Cap, I would not yield the Church of Rome so great advantage: so great is my love to the Church of England. I know it is not your meaning to serve and gratifie the Romanists, because you speak as ill of Grotius as if he were not worth having. You say he was Christ. Conc. p. 45. exasperated by his imprisonment, &c. That he was too much Grot. Relig. Praef. Sect. 5. guilty of uncharitable censures; That he was a Ibid. Sect. 2. Dissembler, if not a Papist; p. 11. That he dropt into a deplorable Schism; p. 15, 16. That his way is uncharitable and censorious, woundeth under pretense of healing, in the name of a Peace-maker he divideth and cuts off the holiest parts of the Church on earth; p. 16. That his Design is a Trap to tempt and engage the souls of millions into the same uncharitable, censorious, and reprochful way; p. 17. That it tendeth to engage the Princes of Christendom in a persecution of their subjects that cannot comply with uncharitable terms; p. 17, 1 • . That this is the unhappy issue of the attempts of pride, when they have such high thoughts of their own devices, and depart from the word of God and the simplicity of the Faith; p. 18. That his Design engageth the Church of Christ in a way of sin, both in false Doctrine, Discipline, and Worship. p. 73. (You imply that he calumniated the Patriarch Cyril.) You say of him expresly, p. 78. That the injustice and partiality shews the meaning of the man; p. 83. That his Design was Schismati • al, Partial, and Cruel; p. 90. That you dare boldly say, he was an unjust man, &c. putting a more odious vizor on the face of the Calvinists Doctrines of Faith, Iustification, &c. then beseemeth any judicious man that understood the state of the Controversies, or the strength of an Argument, and had any Christian charity left. p. 91. You reproch him further, with falshood and abomination of inhumane ca • umnies; wi • h too high an esteem of his espoused conceits, and too odious thoughts of the contrary way; p. 92. with noise and bitter accusation poured out against the Reformed Churches; with censures running upon meer mistake, and odiously aggravating the opinions that deserve it not, and that were far neerer his own then he imagined; p. 92, 93▪ with bitter censures, reproches, clamours, and a factions uncharitable way of pacification. Again you say p. 93. he is guilty of his own mistakes, upon which he changed his Church and Religion.

Thus you speak of that holy and learned man, in such a strange and amazing strain, that Mr. Hickman himself could hardly have used a greater virulence. And yet you pretend great honour to him, yea a debt of p. 4. Gratitude which you owe him for the great benefit of his works. p. 5. Yea, that if you might be partial for any man, it were very likely to be for Grotius. Leaving your readers to imagine how vile a creature that man must be, of whom his very partial and obliged and thankful Client (or Disciple) was forced to publish such ugly things. And as if this were not sufficient, you say you ever stopt your ears against the accusation of the blemishes commonly reported of his life, in some points, and suspended your censures of him. (p. 5.) By which unchristian Paralipsis you leave your Readers to imagine that he was a very scandalous ungodly liver, which is accounted by some the very worst way of slandering, where notoreity of Fact doth not excuse it. I therefore shall antidote your Readers (if they are mine) with this short Declaration, That by all I have been able to learn of Grotius, (either from other mens writings, or from his own, or from those excellent persons who had many years enjoyed a friendship with him,) I cannot but value his godly life by many degrees above his learning.

You have done your self a shrewder turn then I could possibly have wish'd you, by writing so bitterly of so good, &c so great a Christian. And though I hope you will ac • nowledge that I oppose you (in his defence) without distemper; yet do I heartily wish you had not writ against him, that so I might not have been obliged thus to write against you. That Grotius may be defended, you will not deny, having defended him Append. to Aphor. p. 138. to p. 145. your self against the attempts of a modern Doctor. And as you have defended him in one case, I have but defended him in another.

CHAP. II.

An acknowledgm • nt of charity, Sect. 1. YOu very readily acknowledge [ my brotherly and moderate dealing with your self, and you say, you must acknowledge my gentleness and charity, Sect. 4.] I am glad my charity, gentleness, and moderation were so conspicuous in my Writings that you could not but see them; and so undeniable, that you could not but acknowledge them to all the World, even at that very time too, when you made it apparent how willing you were to find faults. For you accuse me (in the same breath) of wanting charity to others, and of making my learning subservient to partial interest or passion. But you name not where, or when, or wherein, or towards whom, I had shew'd such passion or partiality; which had you been able to have done, I am forbid to believe you would have spar'd me. If I was partial to you, Sir, by being more brotherly, more moderate, more charitable and gentle, then you seem to your self to have deserved, you ought in all reason to have 2 Cor. 12.13. forgiven me this wrong. Had others deserved no worse of me then your self had then done, my gentle dealing with others had been as signal. And had you been eithe • as slanderous or as blasphemous as others were, the ex • re • sions of my dislike had been as freely distributed unto your self as to any others with whom I dealt. I must not be unwilling to • lear mine own innocence (as to the calumnies c • st u • on me) much less to clear God from the evil repor • s brought up against him, for fear the friend • of the malefactors should accuse me (as you have done) of partial interest and passion.

Sect. 2. Nor did you onely say this, W • th an uncharitable requ • tal. but • roceeded to the worst that could be said, even to censure me as a person in a state of damnation, and somewhat worse then so too; (th • t is to say) in a wo • se • state of damnation then David was in before Nathan sp • ke to him; Sect. 20.] Before Nathan spake to him, he was in a state of impenitency; and why should you rather chuse to die in such a state, a murder • r, adulterer, and an hypocri • e, and impenitently such, (at that time) then in the state that I am in, whom you confess to have committed no such sin, (sect. 20.) if you did not think me to be a Reprobate? for if I am one of the elect as well as David, I shall also repent as undoubtedly as David, let my sins be what they can be. Do you think my greatest sin is this, that I am not guilty of such sins as David's? or that Adultery and Murder are qualifications for a Saint? I pray examine your own heart, and be jealous over your self; and say, if my charity towards you (which you acknowledge under your hand) did deserve a requital so void of c • arity. I assure you, that by this and some other passages in your book, you have been heavily censur'd, even by many of your way; and utterly lost their good opinion • who once admir'd you. If you continue to write much, and so to write as you have done, no man living will have need to write against you. As for your bitterness to me (in this and some other places) I am no more concerned in it, Acts 7. • 0. then I ought to be for your sake, and do most earnestly pray, That it may never be laid unto your charge. It is not the least of my comforts, (for they are many) that, when I pray for the repentance of you and others, (by whom I have been most f • ulely • udged,) I do not • ray without Faith, or without sincerity: & though I desire you Luk. 6.37. Mat. 7.1. 1 Cor. 4.5. not to judg, that you may not be judged; yet judge the worst of me you can, I will • udge of you the best I may.

You say [I seem, as Grotius, to be too much affected to my opinions, commonly called Arminian, and too much imbitte • ed against other mens, Sect. 5.]

Sect. 3. Indeed I was told you meant me, when you flung a side-cast at the Northamptonshire Arminian in your voluminous book of Disputations. The title of Arminian uns • asonably applied. And though I would not sustain a double person, by taking an offence where none was given; yet now I conjecture you did really strike at me by that expression, although you fortun'd to hit your self. That I am affected to my opinions, as Grotius was, who was so eminent an example both of Iudgment ▪ and Piety, and Impartiality, is by much a greater advantage to me, then I could ever have pretended to have deserv'd. And therefore for this, I thank your bounty. How you your self have been • ffected to the very same Doctrines which are as commonly called Arminian also, not a few of your party have made us know by their censures; for which you gave them as just occasion, as either Grotius or I have ever given. Will you own the opinions of Cameron, Amyrald, and learned Daille? If you say no, it will be at your See your Appendix to the best of your • ooks, viz. Of Iustification, p. 164. pe • ill. I suppose (by what you have printed) you must needs say yes. And then in the judgment of Spanhemius, with other persons of great name, (who are as fit to judge of Amyralds Doctrines, and so of yours, as you can be to judge of mine,) you deserve the name of Arminian, Puccian, Pelagian, Semipelagian, and not onely so, but Socinian also: so easie it is to give men names. You had never (I am perswaded) writ against any man as an Arminian, if you had not forgotten that words have 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ▪ H • m. wings. And so perhaps you will say, when you shall read my fifth Section.

Sect. 4. Nor are you any whit hap • ier in the second part of your accusation. For first, if Grotius and my self have been imbitter'd against the Doctrines of other men, Neither Grotius, nor any else can • e • oo severe against blasphemy. who have made God to be the Author and Fautor of Sin; and have been so far imbitter'd as to accuse them of blasphemy; you will wrong your self extremely, by saying we are too much imbitter'd, for Doctrines lesse impious are called in Scripture, 1 T.m. 4.1. the Doctrines of Devils. No • have the Fathers of the Church, whether Ancient or Modern, been less imbitter'd against the same. (As I have plentifully See Divine Purity defended, ch. 4. s • ct▪ 5, 6, 7. snew'd in another place.) Next I conceive that you your self have been much more imbitter'd upon much less ground. For not to speak of your bitterness to the most worthy Grotius and my unworthy self, and to the excellent Tilenus, it seems the men of your way have not escap'd you. Do not you ask God pardon for bitter speeches in your Treatise of Iudgment? I am sure you deplore them in your Sect▪ 68 p. 143, 144. Apology against Mr. Blake, Kendal, Moulin, Eyre, and Crandon, by thi • good token, that you are most bitter to Doctor Kendall, whil'st you confess your bitterness to be your crime. Insomuch that Master Hickman hath shewed his bitterness to me by your example to Doctor Kendall. What you have said to the m • n who renounc'd his Orders and the Lo • d's Prayer I neither know nor will make a search, but I may guess there was bitterness by his to you. How you have used M • ster Pemble and Doctor Twiss, I hope I need not put you in mind. I remember your bitterness to such as were S • ints Rest, p •• t. 3. sect. 6. p. 57. spruce in their apparel, and delighted in May-games, Morice-dances, Shewes, or Stage-Playes, whom you ea • ily adjudge to the pains of Hell. I am no friend to those follies▪ and thieves of time: but had I been of your Counsel, I would h • ve advis'd you to speak from Scripture, and to have shew'd your severity to Rebellion rather, or Sacriledge, to Schism and blood-shed, and other fruits of the flesh; of which a See 2 Tim. 3. and compare v. 2, 3, 4. with v. 5. formal godliness is not the l • ast, and of which I shall speak as occasion serves. For many strain at those Gnats, who yet can swallow these Camels. Wh • t bitterness you h • ve used to the wearing of Surplices and Not on • ly Processi • ns and Perambulations, b • t the observ • tions of Holydayes, repeating the L • tany, th • lik • form • in the G • mm • n-Prayer, • he bowing at the name of Ies •• , receiving the Sacram • nt upo • th • kn • e, are reckon • d up in the sam • p • ge. oth • r things which are indifferent, (consider'd simply in themselves) but made your duties as well as ours, when commanded by that authority which God hath commanded us to obey, you may see in your Saints Rest, part 3. p. 91. And how severely such bitterness against the Rites established in the Church hath been censur'd by S. Paul, yea by God the Holy Ghost, you have been told by that learned and peaceable Divine Doctor Sanderson, in his fifth Sermon ad Populum p. 291, 292, 293. I pray Sir bear with me, whilest I speak the words of truth and soberness: Remember what it is of which you have accused both me and Grotius. And that in order to your amendment, (which is an act of the greatest friendship) as well as in order to our Defence (which implies the onset to have been made from your pen) I have but warn'd you for the future, to Mat. 7.3. cast the beam out of your own eye, before you say to your brother, ver. 4, 5. Let me pull the mote out of thine eye.

You confess [ you are grown to a very great confidence, that most of our contentions about those points are more about words then matter, Sect. 5.]

What differences are verbal, and what are real. Sect. 5.] So you told that learned person whom you describe by his six Metaphysical Exercitations (in your book of Saving Faith, p. 5.) and by his living in the publick Library at Oxford (p. 6.) that he was indeed your assenting Adversary, and maintained your Assertion by a pretended Confutation; which was strange he should do and be learned still. So you told another who writ against you, as you against him, that you did but angrily agree. (Disp. p. 483.) Indeed it were happy if all the World had got that knack of differing into agreement, and of falling out into perfect friendship. Rebus congruentes Nominibus diffe • ebant. Una & consentiens duo • us vocabulis Philosophiae forma constituta est. Cicero in Quaest. Acad. l. 1. What Cicero saith of the Academicks and Peripateticks, that agreeing in Things they onely differed in appellations, I wish I could say of all our contentions here in England, in the Points you speak of. You have confidently said it, and so it lies upon you to make it good: 'tis not incumbent upon me who never said it. And first of all you must shew that there are few material differences 'twixt you and me. To which it is consequent, that you have embraced the greatest part of the very opinions which I assert with so much eagerness; not that I have receded from my Assertions, for my adherence unto which you are pleased to call me an eager man. Again it follows from hence that there are few contentions 'twixt me and Mr. Barlee, unless it be about words; or that your self and Mr. Barlee are really differing in opinions. What a fallacy is there in your phrase, [Our Contentions] if you mean your self and me? for you know the eagerness, interest, and passion, which you make the subjects of your rebuke (though of no larger a size then you deal to others) were not dealt against you, as you dilucidly confess (Sect. 4.) but against some of the Consistory, from whom you differ in point of Doctrine, and with whom you agree in point of Discipline. So that the Case in effect lies clearly thus: I have written severely against some rigid Presbyterians, who have written against universal Redemption, and for God's tempting, stirring up, exciting men to sin; and you (a singular Presbyterian) are severe to these Doctrines, as well as I; but think the onely found way whereby to answer an Arminian, is by asserting the Doctrine of universal redemption, and the natural consequences thereof, (that is) by yielding unto me (bearing the name of an Arminian from you, as you from others) one of the chief of my concernments. For this alone being granted, (as by you it is) I shall not contend for any thing else which shall not be consequent and agreeable to this one principle. Yet see and wonder at your own excess of partiality, which hath made you so far consider your fellow-Presbyterians, as to rebuke your fellow-Arminians for their passion and bitterness against those Doctrines, against which you have written with equal keeneness, and so contracted upon your self the odious title of Arminian, which yet to you should be the less odious, because Arminius and his followers were but the better sort of Presbyterians. I cannot but wish you will declare what you are for, and stick to what you shall declare: for he is called a Ecclus. 2.12. sinner, that goeth two wayes at once, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 was the great fault of the Gnosticks. And 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , in Homer, did not better fit Mars then it will fit any man else, who is against what he is for, as well as for what he is against.

A material difference indeed. Sect. 6. Whereas you add so distinctly, [That I and my Antagonist do make our selves and others believe that we differ much You say as much even of Grotius himself, p. 91.92. more about them then we do, Sect. 5.] You do not lessen but raise my wonder: for can there be any two points more different then those in which Mr. Barlee and I have differ'd? our difference stands in those things, which have set the Calvinists and the Lutherans so irreconcileably at odds. Observe the words of that holy and learned man Doctor Iackson, Doctor Iackson in his Marathan Atha, cb. 40, p. 37 11. who having spoken of several sorts of Idolaters, (saith he) Besides all these, I am to give you notice of some in reformed Churches who commit the same error which they so much condemn in the Romanist. The Romanist transforms or changes the nature of the incorruptible God, and of Christ himself into the similitude of earthly Kings and Monarchs, yet not of cruel and prodigious Tyrants. But these Writers whom I mean (as the Romanists object, and the Lutherans prove) transform the Majesty and Glory of God into the • imilitude of cruel Tyrants, yea of such base and sordid Pedants, as the meanest among you would disdain should have any authority over your children; (that is) such as delight more in punishing and correcting them, then to direct or amend them in learning or manners. ] Now if so learned a part of the Reformed Churches as the Lutherans by all must be acknowledged, have broken off all League and Amity with the Calvinists, even because they h • ve conceived that they did not agree with them in the worship of the same God, or transformed Gods nature into the similitude of his enemy, into hatred and cruelty it self , (as the same Ibid. p. 37 12. Doctor hath it) sure the difference must needs be more then verbal, where one party saith (as I have done) that God's decree of Reprobation is with respect had to sin, which God foresaw from all eternity; and another party saith (as my Antagonists have done) that God's Decree of Reprobation is without respect had to sin. I need not name more Instances of the material differences which pass between us. Or if the difference were more in words then matter, then how much hath that party to answer for, by opposing my notes with so much violence?

You farther adde, (and desire my pardon for the addition) That I do not well understand the true state of the Controversie, or else I would not take the breach to be wider then it is, Sect. 5.]

Sect. 7. Who best understands it, you, or I, neither you nor I must be the Iudge: I pray let our Readers enjoy that Office. You scrupled not to tell that learned person, whom you so far honour as to profess you should have thought it an honour to you to have been one of his Pupills, (of saving Faith, p. 5.) I say you scruple not to tell him, that you would have him understand you, before he confutes you. (p. 83.) Nor do I expect you should use me better. Nay you charge even Grotius with the same mistakes and misunderstandings. p. 90, 91, 92. But what Controversie do you mean? if that which I have managed with several persons who had opposed me, my very Opponents will say, I understood it. Nor do I think that you have read the whole state of the Controversie 'twixt me and them. If you s • eak of the Controversie 'twixt me and you in these points, you know that there never was any such. I have shew'd sometimes how you and I are at agreement in many points which they call Arminian. And you confess that most of them are but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . So that if this is the thing which you call a Controversie, I cannot chuse but understand the state of it, whilest I am able to believe that your words have truth in them; and so by a consequence unavoidable that either you are an Arminian, or I am none. You see 'twas fitly done of you, to ask my pardon, Of heads of Controversie reconcileable. and I think it as fit for me to grant it.

Sect. 8. One of the first heads of Controversie, about which you suppose all quarrels will be laid aside (Sect. 5.) is no less then the whole Supralapsarian Doctrine of Pre-destination & Reprobation (and so the Twissian by consequence which so vehemently condemns the Synod at Dort) besides the Doctrine of Christ's dying onely for the elect, together with Physical Predetermination, (which contains the irresistibility of Grace) A second is, all matters unrevealed. Part of the third, about Methods (as whether Prescience be before Decrees, &c.) All which it seems are so far yielded by your self, that you suppose I will consent they never be drawn into dispute, which you have not any the least reason to suppose, unless you readily grant what I assert in these points. For if we differ, how can we possibly agree, as to the things about which we differ? and if we agree in these points, let us go lovingly together against the rigid Presbyterians who will not partake of our agreement. Accordingly you profess (Sect. 8.) to wish no more in this Controversie, then may consist with rational prayers, and thanksgivings for Grace, in which you have my full grant. Nay in a very plain manner, you grant what we call sufficient Grace, in the very sense in which we mean it, to the very worst of them that perish, (Sect. 8.) And then (excepting your Doctrine, that whosoever is once justified can never totally fall away, which I wonder how you can retain) what difference remains 'twixt you and me? nay even here too you yield me one great advantage. For besides that you often seem to waver in your notion of perseverance, and pretend to no more then a probability; your Confession stands upon Account of the controv. of Persev. &c. in setting down the fourth opinion, p. 4.5. Record, That S. Austin was of my mind, and that the Lord Primate said as much in the hearing of Master Kendall. Nor am I out of all hope but that in tract of time you will come over to S. Austin, and so to me in this point also.

Grotius made not uncharitable inferen • es. Sect. 9. What you say is not owned by the Synod of Dort, (Sect. 5.) I forbear to exagitate, as well and easily I might, both because Tilenus is only concerned in that subject; and because I should be glad to find it so as you say, and not to dispute against that which I would fain have true. All your Sections which next ensue, from Sect. 6. to Sect. 18. are the sole portion of Tilenus, whom though you call my friend, and seem to suspect him to be my self, yet you know you do not know, that he is so much as known to me. The odious inferences you charge on Grotius, and his uncharitable censures thereupon, of which you affirm him to be too much guilty, having been onely rais'd in your fancy, do onely redound to your dishonour. Grotius did not make loads of inferences, but observe and transcribe them from the printed writings of the Calvinians, by whom the inferences were made. And so the want of charity must lie at your door, you having unjustly censured Grotius, who with very great justice had censured them. I am exactly of your opinion that we differ little, if at all in the point of Free-will (Sect. 5.) For if I discern any difference, I do conceive it to be in this, that some of your expressions concerning the freedom of the will, have look'd more like Pelagian then mine have done. But of this I accuse you not, for nothing can be Pelagian, that looks but like it.

CHAP. III.

Sect. 1. NO sooner are you return'd from Tilenus unto my self, A strange difference between the Godly, and the notoriously ungodly. then you implicitly tax me of injustice in three respects, Sect. 18.]

How swift you are to speak hardly, and to be guilty whilest you reprove, even of that which you reprove, I think I may make your self the judge, if you will but read when you are cool, what you seem to have written, when too much heated. For how could I fail in point of justice, by not noting some difference between the men that are godly, and not notoriously ungodly, when you know your own words did contain this difference, as I had faithfully and friendly set them down out of your book? since your Book lies printed, I (and thousands besides) can declare what you have written, as well as you, which makes me wonder (not a little) at the very strange nature of your put-off. For under the first of the two heads, to wit the godly, See your words by me cited in The Self-Revenger Exemp. ch. 4. Sect. 3. p. 115. and compare them with your pages which there are marked. you reckon up such as have been oftentimes drunk, such as rashly rail, and lie, despise reproof, and defend their sin, guilty of Schism, and disobedience to their Guides, and doing much to the hurt of the Church; yea they that commit greater sins then these, the denial of Christ, Perjury, Adultery, Murder, Incest, Idolatry, as Peter, Lot, David, Remember what you call the opinion of most of your Divines, p. 326. and how you excuse Solomon for his Idolatry, p. 317. in contradiction to the Text and to your self, p. 328. Solomon, are affirm'd by you to be in the number of the godly. For (besides that you give them the stile of godly more then once) you further add, that to be notoriously ungodly, or unsanctified, (which is the second head) a man must be worse then all these. Do but mark your own words: A man must be guilty of more sin then Peter was in denying and for swearing Christ that is notoriously ungodly. Observe I pray Sir, you say not [of as much] but, of more sin then Peter was guilty of, &c. Nor onely of as much, but of more sin then Lot, whose sins you reckon up thus. [He was drunk two nights together, and committed Incest twice with his own daughters, and that after the miraculous destruction of Sodom, of his own wife, and his own miraculous deliverance.] Nor do you say he must be as great, but a greater sinner then Solomon was with his seven hundred wives, and his three hundred Concubines, and gross Idolu • ries, when his heart was turn'd away from the Lord God of Israel, which appeared unto him twice, and commanded him not to go after other gods, but he kept not that which the Lord commanded.] Now compare what you say of your godly men, with what you say of the notoriously ungodly, and how wicked you say a man must be to be such, not onely as great, but a greater sinner then all these, (remembring also what filthy Uses some men may make of such Doctrine) and judge what wrong you have done your self, by doing so great a wrong to me, who had done you none.

Sect. 2. I must expostulate again about your second Accusation of my injustice (Sect. 18.) for first did you not say, The excessive d • nger of making the greatest sinners to dream themselves into a Saintship. (in the place by me cited) that a man who is notoriously ungodly, i. e. unsanctified, must be a greater sinner then Solomon was? &c. Secondly, Where did you adde, that 'tis the common opinion, as that doth signifie not your own? you are not singular in all you think, the opinion may be common and the more likely to be yours, nor do I doubt but that it is: if I thought it were not, you should hear more from me then now you shall. Thirdly, What if you desired all men to take heed? &c. that is no more then to dig a pit and then to bid men beware that they fall not in. But how can you or I be sure that they who believ • what you have taught (to wit, that such sins cannot unsanctifie, or put them into a state of damnation, or make them cease to be Godly,) will abstain from such sins when strongly tempted? O Sir, take heed that you scandalize not your weak, or your wilful brethren: that you strengthen not the hands of evil-doers: rather then so, it were better that you were cast into the Sea. (Mat. 18.6.) Fourthly, This Caution was peculiar to Solomon, not to any of those sinners you nam'd besides. Fifthly, Your supposing the sin of David with an Et caetera, (which must regularly include the sins of Lot and Solomon, the Railing Professor, the Rebel, and the Schismatick, and all the rest which you reckon up in your ample Catalogue) to have been extremely different from the like in a graceless man, will prove a sad principle of all security in sinning to one who doubts not but that himself is a gracious man. For he (poor wretch) will be sure to hope that his Drunkenness is like Noah's, his Incest like Lot's, his Adultery and his Murder, of all the world, like David's, and not at all like the sins of the graceless man. Suppose a man shall be convinced of having been many times drunk, besides a Railer, a Liar, a Rebel, and a Schismatick, may he not plead for all that, he is a sanctisied man, and in the number of the godly, and cannot possibly miscarry when once he hath been sanctified, as he takes it for granted that he hath been? Nay may he not fiercely stand to it, and cite the words of Mr. Baxter in his justification; and what are the words of Mr. Baxter but these that follow? [Disput. 3. p. 329. &c. He that hath oftentimes been drunk may yet have true Grace, and be in the number of the godly. How many Professors will rail and lie in their passion? how few will take well a reproof, but rather defend their sin? How many in THESE TIMES that we doubt not to be Godly, have been guilty of disobedience to their Guides, and of Schism, and doing much to the hurt of the Church? ] If the horrid nature of these sins be pressed home to such a Wretch, he may presently flie out into a greater indignation, and urge (in the words of Mr. Baxter again) Grotian Relig. Praef. Sect. 18. towards the end▪ That his Drunkenness, Perjury, Railing, Lying, Rebellion, Schism, and persecution of the Church, are Grotian Relig. Praef. Sect. 18. towards the end▪ exceedingly different from the like facts in a gracelesse man, in regard of manner, ends, concomitants, &c.

The danger exemplified in a Presbyterian woman: Sir, I cannot but tell you on this occasion, that I have laboured for four (if not five) howers together, (and there is witnesse of what I say) to make a woman in this County (not many miles from this place) asham'd and sorry for her adultery, which she took an occasion to profess unto me she had committed, (naming the person with whom, and many circumstances with which) and that in the presence of others also, who together with my self were much amaz'd at her confidence, we having never seen her face before. She did not believe that the sin had done her any hurt, or any whit lessen'd her in the favour of God. She acknowledged that Adultery was a damnable sin in the Graceless, but not in her who had Grace. And (as she was indeed the most fluent Disputant from Scripture that I have ever met with of either sex, she seeming to have had the whole Bible in her memory, so many chapters and verses came so readily into her mouth,) She urged David and Solomon, (as you have done) with as many more as would make you wonder, in her excuse. She told me how she had been grounded in the opinion she was of by the Ministers of the Lecture which she frequented, naming one in particular of great authority and eminence in that side of the County (whom I shall not name, unless need require, as being more careful of his credit, then his followers have been;) She alledged the great difference between the sins of the regenerate and unregenerate. She said she had learn'd from the Pulpit (of that noted man before hinted) that the sins of the regenerate were ever committed with a reluctancy, and trouble of mind; which reluctancy she had in her commission of adultery; upon which she concluded 'twas but an infirmity of the flesh, not an obliquity of her will, that her temptations were unresistible; and the spirit was willing to be obedient, though the flesh was weak. She made the same perverse use of the seventh chapter to the Romanes, by 2 Pet. 3.16. wresting it just to serve her turn, as the Preachers whom she admired were wont to do. But (by the blessing of God on my endeavours) I convinced her of the danger as well as madness of her opinions, and of the deadly influence they had had upon her practice, and how the Scripture was grossely wrested from its true intent and importance to serve for such vilo offices of which she had had some sad experience. I made it manifest that she had fin'd against conscience, and that her sin was Est actuale mortale, in labente post reconciliationem, actio interior, vel exterior, pugnans cum lege Dei, facta contra conscientiam. Melanchth. de Pecsat. Actual▪ p. 83. aggravated by that, which she had alledged as an excuse and a lessening of it, to wit, the reluctancy of her mind, which shew'd her sin to have been wilful. Now whether this Presbyterian woman (for such she was in all points when first she came into my house) were sent on purpose to baffle me with her command of words, and prodigious memory of the Scriptures, or whether she came of her own accord to hear what I could say in opposition to her Teachers, I cannot tell. But I have witness of her conviction before she went out of my doors (which was about four or five hours from after the time when she came in)and s • nce that time I never saw her but once, when meeting me and another walking togeher in my Churchyard (about four or five miles from her own abode) she heartily thanks me for my instructions. Sir, I have told you this great truth with a most charitable intention to you, and others, upon a most pregnant occasion which you have offer'd me from the Press: and had it not been for this occasion, this Narrative might have died in perfect silence. Had I not known that there were Gnosticks in the Apostles times, and what the Ranters in these times are wont to hold, and upon what Principles they ground their Doctrines, and how avowedly they have practised according to what they have believed; nay had I not read some books which I shall cite in due place, and compared my other readings with what I have read out of your own; I should hardly have had the courage to tell a story so strange as might seem to some people to be hardly true. But besides that I have witnesses from within, and without me, I have a witness above me too, for 2 Cor. 11.31. The God and Father of our Lord Iesus Christ, which is blessed for evermore, knoweth that I lie not. Hugon. Grot. Anim. in Animadv. Andr. Riveti, p. 80, 81. Miror vero conscientiam aliorum lacessere eos qui omnem vim conscientiae adimun • suo dogmate, cum doceant justificatis five electi • suis non imputari, non auferre st • tum Gratiae, Adulteteria & Homicidia, ideo quod ea faciant animo reluctante, id est. contra conscientiam. I will shut up this Section (but not this subject) with an useful passage out of Grotius in his Animadversions upon Rivet. I wonder (saith he) that they should vex the con • ciences of others, who do enervate by their opinion all force of conscience, when they teach that Murders and Adulteries are not imputed to the justified, or to them whom they call Elect, nor take away from them the state of Grace, and that for this reason, because they do such villa • ies with a reluctant mind, that is to say, against their conscience.

The sins of David with their circumstances. Sect. 3. But let us consider the sins of David in regard of manner, ends, and concomitants, and see how they difference his sins from the like in a graceless man, as you affirm Sect. 18.] First David deliberately defiled Bathsheba, 2 Sam. 11.2, 3, 4. Next, to palliate his adultery, he cogg'd with her husband. (v. 8.) Thirdly, finding that would not take, he dissembled with him yet farther, and made him drunk, (v. 13.) Fourthly, Seeing that that plot had failed, he contrived the murder of the Husband, that so he might carry away the wife (v. 15.) Fifthly, when Uriah's death was certified to David, he plaid the hypocrite with the Messenger, and bid him tell Ioab, That the sword devoureth one as well as another, (v. 25.) Sixthly, Uriah being thus basely murdered, David married his Widow, which was to kill him over and over, even after he was dead, (v. 27.) Seventhly, his murder was the more horrible, because he gratified the Ammonites, and caused the murder of a great multitude of his loyal subjects, meerly that Uriah might be murder'd with them, (v. 15, 16, 17.) Eighthly, All this while he plaid the Hypocrite with God, both in his publick and private acts of Religion, lifting up unclean hands, and impure eyes, unhallowed lipps, and a stony heart, by which, how his sacrifice was polluted, I pray (Sir) see, and consider in the first Chapter of Isaiah, v. 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. Add to all this, that David was 1 a King, and should have given a better example; 2 a Prophet, who should have taught whom he perverted; 3 a person of high endowments of Grace and Nature, the abuse of which was the greater sin; 4 One who had women enough at home, both Wives and Concubines, which made his seeking abroad the more unexcusable; 5 One to whom Vriah was an 2 Sam. 11.11. affectionate friend, as well as a faithful and valiant subject; fighting against the Kings enemies, whilest the King was acting enmity to him and his. Besides so many distinct sins, and so many aggravations, which could not but make them Rom. 7.13. exceeding sinful: he lived indulgently in them from month to month; was lull'd in carnal security; and as if his conscience had been 1 Tim. 4.2. seared as it were with a hot iron, he never so much as said, Iorem. 8.6. what have I done? he was not startled with Nathans Apologue, (2 Sam. 12.1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.) untill he was fain to indigitate the moral of it, applying it home unto himself, with a Tu es homo, Thou art the man. (v. 7.) Now if with all that I have spoken of David's guilt, you will compare the whole speech which God sent Nathan to rouze him with, and consider the greatnesse of his ingratitude (from ver. 7. to v. 10.) which is the Homicidae, Tyranni, Fures, Adulteri, Raptores, Sacrilegi, Proditores erunt. Sed infra ista omnia ingratus est. Senec. l. 1. de Beneficiis cap. 10. mihi p. 386. greatest aggravation that sins are capable of; and how great an occasion he had given to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, (v. 14.) whereby he became a very scandalous and hurtful sinner. I doubt it will set you very hard, to shew me the difference (of which you speak) between this, and the sin of a gra •• less man, in regard of the manner, ends, concomitants, or what other circumstances soever, the complication of impieties was cloathed with.

Peter's sins very different from those of David. Sect. 4. The sin of Peter I shall not prosecute, as having been (in all points) extremely different from that of David, and much more capable of excuse. For 'twas by sudden surreption that Peter sin'd; his temptation was not onely great, but came upon him by a surprisal: And sudden fear, more then any thing Wisd. 17.12. betrayeth the succours which reason offereth. Besides, he speedily repented with Mat. 26.75. bitter tears, and brought forth such early (that I may not onely say, such ample) fruits as were indeed most Luke 3.8. worthy of repentance. Yet I pray Sir, reflect on your own acknowledgment, you say that Peter as well as David was put by his sin into a present incapacity for heaven (Sect. 18.) which what is it but to say, he was in a state of damnation? for being incapable of heaven, he must needs (at that time) have been capable of hell; unless you will feign him in good earnest, (as the Papists in jest have drawn the picture of Erasmus) to have been in a capacity neither for heaven nor for hell, which being not to be imagin'd, you have granted the thing that I contend for, and blown to the ground with one breath, what you bestowed so much cost and care in building. And why do you adde, [that repentance actual, deep and serious too, was necessary to the recovery & forgiveness of Peter and David] but because you inwardly confessed that without their repentance they had been damned, and that before they repented they were in a state of damnation; for if they were not, in what respect was it needful they should repent? If they could have been saved without being forgiven, then their forgiveness was not necessary to their salvation. Or if they could have been forgiven without having repented, then their repentance was not necessary to their forgiveness: but if both were necessary to both, (as you evidently acknowledge) then whilest they were destitute of both, they were in a state of damnation. And thus you see every way you establish my Doctrine, whilest you resist it. Yet after all I must tell you, that your acknowledging the necessity of repentance to the recovery of the regenerate after their degeneration, will make a very poor amends for the Pit I spake of (in my second section) whilest Perseverance is so See the sixteenth Sect. of your Pr • face. taught, as you have taught it.

Sect. 5. Having done with your eighteenth, I now proceed to your nineteenth Section: Of Solomon's state and its uncertainty. where, of Solomon's case you profess you are uncertain, though you know where you said, that a man must be a greater sinner then Solomon, to be notoriously ungodly: but now it seems you are doubtful whether he repented before his death; or if you think that he did, and that he wa • one of the elect, then it seems you are doubtful whether some, even of them, may not become so unsanctified, as to be in a state of damnation, till they repent: which uncertainty you mean, I am not certain, and so I pass him over, as you have done. David and Peter are again ill coupled, the one sinning by surreption, and straight recovering; the other deliberately sinning, contriving mischief to Uriah, and plotting how to get Bathsh • ba, and continuing in his wickedness no little time, and therefore he is most fit for our consideration. For since you affirmed even of Peter that his sin had put him at that present into an incapacity for heaven, how much rather must you acknowledge the same of David? To your particulars of him, I shall speak in order.

Sect. 6. To your Preparatory praefixed before your Reasons in the entrance of your Sect. 19. I briefly say (in preparation to my answers) that 'tis not said on either side, The Reprobates are granted by Mr. Baxter to have Gr • ce sufficient. that David was utterly graceless; nor need it be said by either side; it being frequently your Doctrine, [That even the Reprobates have grace and grace sufficient, Look back on the eighth Section of your Preface. and that this is given to the worst that perish, and that in the notion of the Iesuits; and that this is granted by the Dominicans and the Synod of Dort.] Nor do I say, that he needed any other new birth then Repentance is. Repentance was necessary, which was truly equivalent to new bi • th. (and so much you confessed Sect. 18.) It was in order to his repentance that Nathan was sent; and before he had not that special grace; in which respect (if you please] he was unsanctified and graceless. But Grace he might have, as that signifies no more then the gift of God, by which he was sufficiently enabled to repent: such Grace he had, and made use of it when Nathan came, nor do I doubt of his having it long before, whilest yet (we know) he made no use of it at all. Again I will prove from your own Concessions, that he might have some degree of other virtues, and those the effects of the Grace I spake of, and yet be fallen from a regenerate state: my reason is, because this requires an universality of obedience, and is not reconcileable with living in any such mortal or deadly sin, as Adultery and Murder are known to be. Sir, I heartily wish, that whil'st you are writing new books, you will carefully remember what you have written in your old ones. Before I go any farther, I will premise a few things which you have taught in your Treatise of Saving Faith, which you pronounce to be specifically, not onely gradually different from all common Faith, and this in the Ti • le-page of your book.

Mr. Baxter's Description of Common Grace and its effects. Now you say (p. 43. of that Tract) That men are sometimes enabled by common Grace to be abased in the feeling of their sin and misery, to be humbled by attrition, to cry out of their sin and folly, and day and night to beg for Grace and Mercy; they like the word and wayes of God, think his servants the best and happiest men, wish that they were such themselves, avoid as much of gross and wilful sinning, and continue as much in hearing, reading the word, enquiring, consideration, as common Grace may bring them to do. They have as much belief of the Gospel, as much desire after Christ, and holiness, and heaven, and as much to God, and the Redeemer, and the Saints, as common Grace can lead them to. They have either a knowledge of their being yet short of true Christianity, or at least are much afraid of it, (which no doubt but common Grace may bring them to) Ibid. p. 44. and therefor • are under a prudent impatiency till saving Grace come in, and the Spirit have sealed them up to the day of Redemp • ion, and are crying out, what shall we do to be saved?] In a word it seems you take common and special Grace to be so like unto each other, that you profess Ibid. p. 49. to fear very much, lest many learned, civil, orthodox men do take common Grace to be special, and so delude their own soules in the trial of themselves. You farther adde, Ibid. p. 49. That there are many common gifts in man which are no more loseable then saving Grace. You adde in the same Treatise (by way of Postscript to the Reader,) Ibid. p. 91. That an unsanctified man may love the true God, and believe in Iesus Christ the Redeemer. And again, Ibid. p. 94. that by common Grace men may have true Faith and Love. And again, Ibid. p. 96. That we know not in our change just when common Grace left, and special grace began. (where I am glad to find you condemning the practice of the triers.) Again you lay down this Proposition, Ibid. p. 92. [That one and the same man may have two contrary ultimate ends of his particular actions, Look forwards on the twelfth Section of this Chapt. even the pleasing of God, and the pleasing of his flesh.] In your first reason you say, [That the very same heart may be partly sanctified, and partly unsanctified.] You say in your second, [That a godly man when he is drawn to eat or drink too much, doth it not onely as a mistaken means to Gods glory, but ultimately to please his flesh.] Peter and David are your examples, and of them you thus speak. [Peter did not only mischoose a means to Gods glory when he denied his Master. Either David in adultery did desire flesh pleasing for it self, or for some other end; if for it self, then it was his ultimate end in that Act: if for somewhat else as his end, for what? no one will say his end was Gods glory. And there is nothing else to be it.] Having premised these things for several uses which I foresee, I now return to the particulars of your nineteenth Section which lies before me.

Of men twice sanctified. Sect. 7. [You do not find in Scripture, that they or any others were twice regenerate or sanctified, Sect. 19.] But taking Repentance for a Regeneration, you find in Scripture what you say you find not; to wit, that some have twice repented, that is, they have risen by Gods grace to undertake his service, and have fallen after that, and by the Grace of God they have risen again, so saith the Article of our Church. [After we have received the Holy Ghost, we may depart from Grace given, and fall into sin, and by the Grace of God we may rise again and amend our lives.] Artic. 16. Nor will any deny this, except the Montanists and the Novatians, and the Family of Love, the Catharists, and the Iovinians, and such as are of their kindred. (I wish that no such heresie were still alive.) But I think I may say of the Novatians, that though they would not yield place of absolution in the Church, for such as had fallen, after Baptism, into any deadly or wilful sin; yet for Repentance with God, they willingly yielded them a place. And I am sure the Church Catholick hath alwayes held both.

Concerning the importance of Heb 6. & 10. Sect. 8. You tell me what two passages (Heb. 6. & 10.) do seem to import, Sect. 19.] Wherein you did well to say they seem'd so, for you do more then seem not at all to understand those famous passages of Scripture. It is not absolute impossibility, but an extreme great d • fficulty, which there is meant: nor is it any lesse fall, then into wilful Apostacy from the profession of Christianity, which is there spoken of. To shew you the greatness of your mistake, I cannot take a more short, or effectual course, then by referring you to the Notes of the learned and Reverend Doctor Hammond on either place, more particularly, on Heb. 6.4. & Heb. 10.26. And since those places do not serve for your turn, you need not be told how exceedingly much they make against it.

You say that David by Gods own Testimony was one of those hearers (in our Saviours parable) who like the good ground that gives deep rooting to the seed, do not fall away in trial, Sect. 19.]

Sect. 9. Whatever David was before his Adultery and his Murder, Gods testimony of David twofold, each to be compared with the Rule, Ezek. 18.24, &c. or whatever he was from after the time of his repentance, he was not good by God's testimony, in the whole matter of Uriah, or in any part of it. For that is 1 King. 15.5. excepted by God in Scripture, and you cannot but know that this is the David of whom we speak; so that before you were aware (if not on purpose) you have made a Transition ab Hypothesi, ad Thesin. It is true that God hath given a good testimony of David in the place I cited, and with the exception of which I spake. But this was also God's testimony concerning David, [2 Sam. 12.9. That he had despised the commandement of the Lord, to do evil in his sight. That he had killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; (and not onely so, but) that he had killed him also with the sword of the (prophane) children of Ammon; (nor onely so, but) that he had taken his wife from him to be his own wife.] With this particular testimony you may do well to compare God's general rule. Ezek. 18.24. & 26. That when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness and committeth i • iquity, — all his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned. In so much, that David must be confessed, notwithstanding the Parable of the good ground, to have fallen away in time of triall. My way of arguing is, ab actu ad potentiam, which you know is uncontroulable. David fell, therefore he might fall. And against matter of Fact, your way of disputing is most unhappy.

But no Scripture tells us (say you) that David was void of charity, though as to the degree, and act, and sense, it was decayed, and so far David beggs for a recovery. Sect. 19.]

Sect. 10. If no Scripture had so told us, How far charity was decayed in David; and how hard it is to murder wilfully in love. your negative Argument would be of no force. But Scripture tells enough, as I lately shew'd you, when God excepted his dealings with Uriah, that exception was as much Scripture, as any other passage which you can name. The Scripture tells how he continued in his wickedness without repentance, untill the message of Nathan, which was neer a whole year, if not a great deal beyond it, for his child by Bathsheba was See 2 Sam. 12.14, 15. born I know not how long before he repented of his uncleanness, which shews a greater decay, then you acknowledge. And accordingly he prayed, Create in me a clean heart, Psal. 5. • .10. O God, renew a right spirit within me. I pray Sir mark it, the clean heart was now to be created, and the right spirit to be renewed; which had certainly been needless, had its cleanness and rectitude continued to him. Besides, Of saving Faith, p. 92. you tell us of David, That he desired flesh pleasing for it self, and not at all for Gods glory, nor is it imaginable he should commit Adultery to please God: and so out of your mouth I do infer his having been unsa • ctified, because you say that the same man, by designing to please God, and to please his flesh too, as two ultimate ends of his particular actions, may be partly unsanctified, as well as partly sanctified. Then is not he wholly unsanctified, who intends not the pleasing of God at all? or is he not wholly unsanctified who designes to please God by heaping Murder upon Adultery, and adding Drunkenness to Thirst? The murderous Jews were not, sure, the less unsanctified for killing the Apostles to do Iohn 16.2. God service; nor was Saul the less unsanctified before the time of his conversion, for that he thought it his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . duty to do many things contrary to the name of Iesus. Whatever David's ends were, his sins were such (by your confession) as did put him into no less then an incapacity for heaven. But where was his charity you speak of, when he contrived and effected Uriah's death? To say he murdered a man in love will be of very ill consequence: and he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen,1 Ioh. 4.20. how can he love God whom he hath not seen? even Injustice and Charity do seem to me irreconcileable. And though there are who have pretended to hate and persecute their neighbours in the fear of God, yet am I assured by an Apostle, That whosoever shall keep the whole Law, Iam. 2.10. and yet offend in one point, (that great point especially of doing his duty towards his neighbour) he is guilty of all. And whereas you said at the beginning of your Section, you believe not that David had wholly excussed the spirit of God: Melanchth. de bonis operibus. p. 179.180. I oppose the belief of the great Melanchthon; Excussit David fidem & Spiritum Sanctum, cùm raperet alterius conjugem, & quidem multipliciter Spiritum Sanctum perturbavit. Primum in corde suo, unde pulsus est in Adulterio; deinde in multis sanctis, quorum aliis scandalum attulit dolorem, aliis fuit occasio exi • ii, &c. I need not use this Authority, (having abundantly done my work without it) but think it more then sufficient thus to counterpoise your own.

You urge yet farther [David prayes Psal. 50. That God would not for that sin take his Holy Spirit from him, which implies yet that he had it. Sect. 19.]

Sect. 11. But (1.) he made that Prayer after the time of his repentance, Of David's Prayer Psal. 51. whereas the excussion of God's Spirit was in the commission of his sins. (2.) Nor doth it signifie any more, then that God had been highly provoked by him so to do. And (3.) if God had not utterly withdrawn his grace, but left him what was sufficient to enable him to repent a great deal sooner then he had done, that was the height of God's goodness which inferrs the Rom. 2.4, 5. heightning of his sins, in that he had so long abu • 'd it. For I must put you in remembrance, that it is not meerly the having of Grace, (to-wit, the habit) without the actual imployment of it, that will ever stand us in any stead; but on the contrary, Mat. 25.25, 26, 30. a Talent wrapt in a Napkin will evince us to be sloathful and unprofitable servants, whom our Judge will cast into out • r darkness.

But say you, [The thing in it self seems utterly improbable, that David and Peter should have no love to God, after those particular sins, Sect. 19.]

Sect. 12. What can be your meaning of [no love to God, His being clearly unsanctified by his a • c • mulated sins. ] when you See of saving Faith. p. 47, &c. p. 49.91.94.96. confess that the unsanctified have some love to him? Will you prove a man Regenerate in the complication of his impieties, by having that left in him more then which you do allow to the unregenerate? you know what I told you out of your self in the sixth Section of this Chapter. 2. What do you mean by your other phrase, [after those particular sins?] a great while after, he repented, and was no longer that impenitent of whom we both speak. If your meaning is, that immediately after his sins committed, he had some love to God, but in the acts of commission had none at all; you confess there was a time when he was wholly unsanctified, and had less Grace then many, who yet haue not saving, but common Grace. 3. When you adde that his sins were odious, and deserved an utter desertion of God (Sect. 19.) Do you s • eak after the Tenor of the Second Covenant, and as God hath threatned every man to reward him Rom. 2.6. according to his works? Then 'tis true (what you say) that the sins unrepented of deserved utter desertion, and so damnation; which is the granting of all that I contend for. But if you mean by utter desertion, God's withdrawing that Grace which was absolutely necessary to his Repentance, then you grant more then I should ever have demanded; not knowing that God in the Gospel hath threatned such sins with such desertion, 'till death hath seized upon the sinner, or the sinner hardened his heart to such a desperate degree as Pharaoh did, Exod. 9.14, 16, 27, 34. However it be, God's not inflicting so sore a punishment is no argument at all, that the sinner was not fallen from Grace, by abusing that Grace which God had given him, and that abuse of Grace given, is the thing which God punishes because he hates; not the negation or want of Grace, which by being not given, cannot be said to be abused.

You say, This sudden prevalen • y of sensuality did not so far change the judgment of David, that hereupon he habitually esteemed the creature above God, and valued the pleasures of sin, before the pleasing, and the favour of God, Sect. 19.]

A signal quicksand to be a • oided by all that are ensnared with the novel notion of perseverance. Sect. 13. Here you speak of a sudden prevalency, whereas you cannot but know (what I largely shew'd out of the Text) that David was a contriving and deliberate sinner. And I pray Sir tell me, Did not David habitually, (to wit) at least for a year, value the pleasures of sin before the favour of God? Here is a very great Quick-sand which must be carefully avoided, or else a sinner may go-on, in Adultery, Murd • r, and other villanies, contenting himself with this Co • dial, (but I beseech you give no more such) that he doth not habitually esteem the creature above God. Sir, Your soul is very pretious and dear unto me, and by the interest which I have in the perfect happiness of my Brethren, I shall conjure you to consider, whether such Doctrine hath not been hurtful, as well to your self, as to weaker men. If actually in the time of sinning, sensuality prevailed against the act of charity, then the sin of David being deliberate, (as in Peter 'twas not,) and very long continued in, (as again in Peter it was not,) how can it modestly be denied, but that for so long a time as David lived in his impieties, and as to those species of impieties in which he lived, it habitually prevailed in him? which should you possibly deny, you know what follows. Your pleading that the judgment of David was not changed, would do you no service, if I should grant it: for there is hardly any sinner, who doth judge of the creature as more valuable then God, when asked which he doth value most; nor is a man the less but the greater sinner for deliberately acting against his judgment. And again remember how much you gave to the unsanctified man.

Yet again you say, That David's Faith was not habitually extirpated, nor was he turned unbeliever. Of Faith as a practical adherence unto God. Sect. 19.]

Sect. 14. But neither are they unbelievers, whom you allow to have Faith, and yet deny to have saving Grace, as I shew'd you from your writings in my Sect. 6. But as Faith is a Practical adherence unto God, and implies an uniform obedience to his commands, you know that David wanted Faith; he obeyed not God, by which believing is expressed in holy They have not all obeyed the Gospel. For Esay faith who hath believed our report • Rom. 10.16. Scripture. It was not that Faith which worketh by love, which is the fulfilling of the Law, which consisted with so much injury, as the robbing Uriah both of his honour and of his life. To be brief, If Faith be truly inseparable from charity, and David can no more love God and Bathsheba (another man's wife) then Luk. 16.13. God, and Mammon; then must David needs have wanted both Faith & Charity. When you say (of saving Faith p. 92.) that one and the same man may have two contrary ultimate ends of his particular actions, even the pleasing of God, and the pleasing of his flesh, (giving your instance even in David,) you seem to imply a contradiction to the words of our Lord, who saith, Ibid. no man can serve two Masters. Dagon and the Ark cannot dwell under a roof, but that the one will subvert the other. And even he is Mat. 12.30. against Christ, who is not for him. Indeed there are in the world who make a mixture of Religions, like the 2 Kings 17.32, 33. people of Sepharvaim, Chuth, and Hamath, fearing the Lord and serving their own gods. But the former was in Hypocrisie, for it is said in the following verse, ver. 34. they feared not the Lord, which 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , or literal shew of contradiction, doth evince the truth of our Saviours words, that no one servant can really and truly serve God and Mammon, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. But what kind of Principles those are, which lead the people to such mixtures, and of how dangerous importance such mixtures are, I leave to the guess of the considering Reader.

David was soberly put to it▪ Sect. 15. What you think that David would not have done had he been put to it upon sober deliberation (Sect. 19.) is as little to the purpose as all the rest, and onely needs to be referred to my former answers, or to what I collected Sect. 6. yet here I can adde, that David was soberly put to it, (as having acted deliberately, with a great deal of project and contrivance) yet did he not choose the love of God before the pleasure of sin (as Moses did, Heb. 11.25, 26.) which indeed was contrary to the love of God.

You say, It is not likely that this one act should turn his heart into as graceless a frame, as the ungodly themselves that never were sanctified, Sect. 19.]

The fallaciou • use of the word Graceless. Sect. 16. As it is not likely, so it need not be said. For if graceless here signifies or supposeth such a sinner, as from whom God's grace is so far withdrawn, that he hath not left what is sufficient for his return; all unsanctified men are not such sinners as these. Recessutum non deserit antequam deserat Et facit ple •• mque ne deserat; aut etiamsi recessit, ut redear, Prosper. Respon. ad object. Vincent. 14. You affirm that grace suffi • ient is given to the worst of them that perish, (Sect. 8.) and therefore you cannot prove that David was sanctified, (whilest impenitently guilty both of Adultery and Murder) for having just as much grace as you allow to Reprobates, whom you will not allow to have been sanctified. Whereas you speak of one Act as unlikely to turn the heart of David, you know that David committed many, and with a manifold aggravation. Nor do I doubt but he had power to have repented sooner then he did, if he had not been wanting to himself.2 Pet • . • 0, 21. Yet the Scripture having pronounced that the estate of those men who have fallen from grace is much more hardly to be recovered, and worse (by consequence then theirs, who never knew the way of righteousness; certainly more Grace was necessary for the reducing of David (as he was) then if he had never been a sanctified man. Now seeing that David was effectually reduced, and that by Grace, I am obliged to avow, that either more grace was left, or more was given. And for this last, you have my reason. But however it be, it cannot but be to my advantage, it being no extenuation, but an aggravation of his crimes, throughout the time of his impenitence.

You say, you think it was the habit of Grace, which the words of Nathan to David excited, and did bring again to act, Sect. 19.]

Sect. 17. But sure your thinking is no proof of the point. Some are thinkers to their own prejudice. I may rather conclude it was not the habit of Grace excited, if you your self do but think so, for whose interest it is to have it so without question. And if it were as you think, by so much the greater was David's guilt; that having so great a gift of God as that habit of Grace, he acted contrarily to it, in so hainous a manner, and degree. To have an habit of Grace, and not to use it, yea to abuse it by grosse impieties, will no more excuse a man's wickednesse, then the bare haveing of a Talent, and Mat. 25.25. thrusting it into a sink. What you adde of S. Peter is not home to the purpose, and that for those reasons, which I have given Look back on Sect. 4. of this Chapter. already once for all.

It is another quick-sand to be avoided, which leads men to think they are the better for their hypoc • isie. Sect. 18. Your verily thinking that David after his sin went on in his ordinary course of Religion, and obedience in all things else, (Sect. 19.) will not stand you in any stead, (besides that again you do but think it,) unless it be to make proof, that many goers to Church, and doers of some things in the service of God, may yet deliberately sin in a hideous manner, and so become liable to condemnation. Many desperate sinners are the more punctual in their outward acts of Religion, and strive to grow eminent for some good deeds, to the end that they may sin with the more security and success, but they are not the better for being Hypocrites, and therefore not the more excusable; this I take to be another great quick-sand, in which because many are swallowed up in these times, I was not at ease with my self till I had publickly given some warning of it in the first chapter of the second part of my Sinner impleaded. And which I do more wish read, then all the thing • that I have written. I pray Sir, consider on this occasion, Isa. 1.11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. As for David's daily going unto God, in publick and in private, all the space of his continuance in sin without repentance, it was not joyned with that love of God which doth exclude the love of Mammon; it having been joyned with the love of unlawful pleasures, and by consequence unavailable in the sight of God. You adde that these things are to you improbable: still implying a confession that you are not certain, or assured of what you so zealously contend for. The truth being proved, and demonstrated to lie on S. Austin's and Prosper's side, (both which Fathers, and those others that went before them, you have publickly confessed to be against you) it matters not what may seem improbable, much lesse improbable to you.

You say that David had built upon a rock, and that they who build on the rock, persevere in trial, Mat. 7.25. concluding herewith your nineteenth Section.

• hat it is, and is not to build upon a rock. Sect. 19. But his lying with Bathsheba was not building on a rock, much less his murdering of good Uriah; and that he really did both, the Scripture tells us. That phrase of building upon a rock doth not signifie (in general) whatsoever building upon God. (for some build so, and yet but slightly.) But it peculiarly signifies a building firmly, a rooting deep, as that is opposed to building on the sand, to which nothing can be fasten'd. And that David at first did not build thus firmly, doth appear by his falling (even deliberately) in time of temptation. I adde no more, because you conclude, as you began with an ingenuous confession of what you think.

You say you are willing to learn better that Doctrine that is according to Godliness, and to disclaim all that is against it. But I must not take your expressions of the worst that the mercy of God will cover in a man obedient in the main to be your descriptions of godly men, Sect. 20.]

Sect. 20. You have told us over and over what crying sins may well consist with the power of Godliness. The horror of a Doc • rine should teach its vassals to disclaim it. That David was not unsanctified or made ungodly by his Adultery and Murder, and other sins. Be pleased to reflect on what I have said in the first Section of this Chapter. And consider within your self, whether men may not be taught, by such expressions as you have used, to believe they may deliberately (as David did) commit Adultery and Murder, with divers other abominations, and yet be godly, sanctified, spiritual men. Can there be any thing in the world more trecherous to their souls then that opinion? since you are willing to learn, I hope the horror of the Doctrine will teach you speedily to disclaim it.

Again, The • quivocal refuge of being obedient in the main. I would know what you mean in this place by being obedient in the main. Is it for a man to be obedient in more particulars then those in which he is disobedient? or else in mainer or greater things? O remember the words of our Lord and Saviour: Mat. 5.19. Whosoever shall break one of these least Commandements, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of heaven. And together with these, Iam. 2.10. compare the words of S. Iames, Whosoever shall keep the whole Law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. They that teach otherwise, are blind leaders of the blind. They cheat themselves and their Disciples. What is it then to be obedient in the main? Is it for the main, that is to say, the greater part of the life? sure that is not it, for we know it is possible a lesser part may serve turn. Or if that be all, then 'tis readily granted that David having liv'd godly before the matter of Uriah, and again very godly after Nathan came to him, he found acceptance with the Almighty. But what is this to the interval betwixt these two? David the Murderer and the Adulterer, is the man we now speak of. David the just and the penitent i • of another consideration.

What was predominant in David when he deliberately sinned. Sect. 21. It is true what you adde, that no Act will prove us holy, but a praedominant Habit, Sect. 20.] The reason is, because all circumstances are required to make a thing completely good; But then withall you must grant,Bonum ex Cau • â integrâ. Malum ex quolibet defectu. that any deliberate act of sin will pronounce us unholy; Because the want of one circumstance is enough to name a thing evil. And he that offends in one point is guilty of all: but David offended in more then two. Again, the estimation, election, resolution, operation of the Soul cannot truly be said to be praedominant to good, when the deliberate acts are quite contrary, transcendently evil. And a sad continuance in a sinful course (such undeniably was David's) is also as opposite to Habits of Virtue.

None in Adultery and murder can be really good men before the time of their repentance. Sect. 22. What you adde of blind unjust judgment, (Sect. 20.) upon an Hypothesis of your own framing, concerns not me, in any measure. For did I ever speak of judging the whole lives of men, by one hour, or one day, be it good or bad? you know I did not. Yet thus we may judge, that that hour, or that day, wherein a man shall live both in Adultery and Murder, without repentance he can be no good man, nor in the Rom. 8.8, 13. favour of God, whatever he were before, or whatever he may be after. And remember that David had dwelt in sin, for a year and a day, (for ought appears in Holy Scripture) in sin deliberately committed, and not repented of at all in so long a time.

Sect. 23. Now Sir, The danger of the great error propos'd to consideration. your Arguments being answered whereby you have laboured to beget a strong conceit in your ea •• e Readers, that if a man is once sanctified, he cannot possibly be otherwise, notwithstanding all the wickedness that he can possibly commit, (an ample catalogue of which I have recited to you out of your self, in the first Section of this Chapter,) I beseech you to consider in the Spirit of meekness, whether your Doctrine is not as dangerous to the professors of Christianity, as that of Master Pemble, and Doctor Twisse, [Of Christ's immediate actual delivering us from guilt, wrath, and condemnation,] which you Appendix to Aphorismes of justif. p. 164. profess to be the very Pillar and Foundation of the whole Frame and Fabrick of Antinomianism. And as you say a little before, Ib. p. 163. that Socinianism were the soundest Doctrine, that Christ never needed to satisfie, if we were justified from eternity; (to which you adde your confession, that you remained long in the borders of Antinomianism, which you very narrowly escaped;) so I intreat you to examine whether you are not already fallen into as formidable an error, as that is which you escaped.

There is a Book intitled, What despera • e Doctrines have been applauded by some of the ablest Presbyterians, no whit better then those of Wickliff. The Marrow of Modern Divinity, which hath dangerously built upon your Foundation, and is publickly commended by some of your way; Master Caryl, Master Burroughs, Master Strong; Master Sprigg, and after all Master Samuel Prittie. Evangelista (in the Dialogue) being a Minister of the Gospel, doth instruct Neophytus, or the young Christian, in these following words:See The Marrow of Modern Divinity, p. 20 • Edit. 3. [In case you be at any time by reason of the weakness of your Faith, and strength of your temptations drawn aside, and prevailed with, to transgress any of Christ's commandements, beware you do not thereupon take occasion to call Christ's love to you into question; but believe as firmly that he loves you as dearly as he did, before you thus transgressed; For this is a certain truth, as no good in you, or done by you, did or can move Christ to love you the more, so no evil in you, or done by you, can move him to love you the less.] Upon this bit of marrow (as the Author calls it) an idle Maid was found chewing; The very sight of which would overturn a clean stomach. For what scruple could she make of transgressing any of Christ's Commandements (whether filtching for her profit, or playing the wanton for her pleasure) having been taught before hand, (and having believed what she was taught) that Christ could love her nevertheless: If this is Divinity, the Author did well to call it Modern, for nothing was like it in Antiquity except the Heresie of the Gnosticks, that I can think on. From what kind of Bone that Marrow was pick'd, and whether it had not some hand in the sins of these times, it will be revealed in that day when all hearts shall be opened. There are other things in that book, as Ibid. p. 161. [That the Law of Christ neither justifies nor condemns. Ibid. p. 119. That in the Covenant betwixt Christ and his, there is no more for man to do, but onely to know and believe that Christ hath done all for them; Saints Rest. part. 1. c. 8. Sect. 2. p. 158.] which I suppose you disrelish as much as I, because you hold, that the first sanctification is before justification. For which perhaps some Ignaro's may have thought you a Socinian, (men no better advised then Master Channel) though you are able to cite for it Master Richard Hooker, and Peter Martyr, and the Reverend Doctor Hammond. Nay since I writ my last words, I find you Append. to Aphor. of justif. p. 99. to p. 107. excepting against that Book, as being guilty of hainous Doctrine, of notorious and dangerous mistakes; of denying the plain sense of the Text (Mat. 10.28.) of intolerably abusing the Scripture, and making Paul a legal Preacher. Of shamefully abusing 1 Cor. 6.9, 10. and of many other intolerable errors. In which your just reprehensions, as I fully concur with you, (and in the most that you have written in those your Aph • rismes) so I hope, in some time, you will concur in mine also. Had you considered that those Ministers, who so zealously recommended that venemous book unto the people, were some of the noted London-preachers, whom you exceedingly commended, (to wit in your Epistle before your Treatise of Iudgment,) I do not think you would have done it without a discrimination. But now in faithfulness I must tell you, that not a few of those errors which you so worthily have condemned, do seem to flow from the Principles, which you your self have espoused, as well as they. And when the Murderer of his bedfellow was taught by some, to See Poe • it. M • rd. printed A.D. 1657 p. 10, 11. & p. 23. commend his sin for its greatness, as being a rouzing, awakening, yea a sanctified sin, a sin from which was producible the eternal salvation of his soul, the accidental cause of a good fruit, as that which startled conscience, which would not with the noise of a lesser guilt be awakened; 'tis easie to guesse at the source of so foul a stream. To conclude this subject, I can truly say with learned Grotius, Hostis non sum, nisi eorum dogmatum, quae credo noxia, aut p •• tati, aut Societati humanae; &c. Vot. pro Pace p. 115. that I am not an enemy, unless it be to those opinions, which I conceive to be enemies either to piety or peace. Such I take to be that of Marlorate, a Calvinistical Commentator, [That such sins as David's, to wit, Adulteries and Murders, are not imputed to the elect.] Such I take to be that which you have hitherto asserted, that a man once justified can never fall; That such sins as David's cannot unsanctifie the sinner; That a godly man may be a Murderer, an Adulterer, (and deliberately such) and yet a godly man still, whilest yet impenitent. A man is tempted by such a Doctrine to live as he lists, to commit as many sins as are grateful to him, and at the hour of death to send for a Minister, Quae est illa poenitentia vivere ut lubet, deinde instante morte dicere ministro, nollem factum, & credo justitiam Christi imputari, idque verumesse quia id credo. Cum hoc Viatico statimille in Coelum avolat. Id. ibid. to wish his impious deeds had been undon, to believe the righteousness of Christ is imputed to him, and that so it must be even because he believes it. With this Viaticum (saith Grotius) he flies up instantly into heaven, if he does not go securely, and confidently to Hell. (For that you know must be the meaning of his Antiphrasis.) You well objected against the Marrow of New Divinity, that no unrighteous person, 1 Cor. 6.9, 10. Fornicator, Adulterer, &c. shall inherit the Kingdom of God. David was an Adulterer, and before he repented he was impenitent. Repentance and Reformation must go This you acknowledge in Append. to Aphor. p. 103. before pardon. To be incapable of Heaven is to be somwhat more then capable of Hell. And were David alive upon the earth, he would not endure to hear his sins apologized for in such a manner, as might incourage the greatest sinners to the like Apologies for their own.