A Defense of the Principles of Love, Part 2 · Exception 31
EXCEPT. XXXI. Answered. I have little here to do but number your visible Untruths21 Untruth. in matter of fact: One is (21th. Untruth,) [He flyes upon all sides that are for order in any kind,] When I speak not a word against Order, nor against any side; but the instances of some mens extreams, which all that are for Order hold not.
Your 22d. Untruth, is [Without expressing 22 Untruth.himself whether he is for Papal, Presbyterian, or Independent Government in the Church,] And [if this were not crime enough to seem unsetled in so necessary a point.] What signification have I given of unsetledness? When I have long ago publickly told the World my judgement about all this to the full, in my five Disputations of Church Government; and in a Book called Christian Concord, and another called Universal Concord, another of Confirmation, besides many more. But might not a man be setled that were (as I am in the main) of the same judgement as is expressed in the Waldenses, or Bohemian Government, described by Laseitius and Commenius; which taketh in the best of Episcopacy, Presbytery and Independency, and leaveth out the worst, and the unnecessary parts? Are all the Hungarian, and Transilvanian, and old Polonian Protestants, that come neer this order, withour Order, or unsetled?
3. It is your 23d. Untruth that I write very 23 Untruth.dubiously about Iustification, whether we are to take it to be by Faith or by works.] When as all that I was here to say of it, is spoken very plainly; & I have written many books to make my mind as plain as it is possible for me to speak: (As in my Confession, my Disputations of Iustification, my Apologies, my Answer to Dr. Barlow, and in my Life of Faith, which was printed before this, where I have detected a multitude of errors about Justification; and many more.) And if you expect every time I name Justification I should write the summ of all those books over again, I shall fail your expectation, though I incur your censure, who, no doubt' had I done it, would (justly) have censured such repetition for tedious vanity.
You adde [We fear he is not sound in that point.] (Answ. Your fear is your best confutation, and the best assistance that you afford, to make me as wise and judicious as your self.)
[The Lord, (say you,) We hope in mercy to his Church, and particularly to those who have been deceived into a good opinion of him, will bring this man upon his knees, that he may make a publick acknowledgement of his folly.]
Answ. If that be your work, it is theOf Justification. same with his, that it is said you sometime wrote against: so many Volumes have been written already by Papists, Prelatists, Anabaptists, Quakers, Seekers, and many other Sects, for this very end, to cure mens good opinion of me (as if a man that could but think ill of me, were in a fairer hope of his Salvation) that if all these have not yet accomplish'd it, nor all the famous Sermons that have been preach'd against me; I doubt, brother, that your endeavours come too late. You may perswade some few factio…s credulous souls into hatred, but still those that love God, will love one another. And I confess of all that ever I saw, I least sear your book, as to the bringing men out of a good opinion of me, unless your name and back-bitings can do it.
When you say that I say that [The presumptuous do boast of being Righteous by Christs imputed Righteousness,] in conscience and honesty you should not have left out [without any fulfilling of the Conditions of the Covenant of Grace on their part;] Is this just dealing? Are there no such presumptuous boasters? Or will you justifie them all, that you may but vent your wrath on me. My judgement in the foresaid point of Imputation of Christs Righteousness, I have opened at large in the foresaid writings, The Life of Faith, Confession, Disp. of Iustif, &c.