Discourse of Mental Errors, Appendix 1 · Postscript
A Postscript to Mr. Cary.
SIR,
I Resolved not to disturb my mind with your passionate provoking Language, at least whil'st I was busily employed in searching for Reason and Argument (two scarce Commodities) amongst heaps of vain and fulsome words. Nor will I now imitate your folly and rudeness, lest I become an Offender, whilst I am to act the part of a Reprover. When I read your Title, A Iust and Sober Reply, and presently fell in among rude insults, silly evasions, and such inartificial discourses as follow in your Book; I began to challenge you in my thoughts, for matching such bad stuff with so fair and lovely a Title: But a second thought quickly corrected the former; for I considered no Man living could justly forbid the Marriage betwixt your Book and its Title, since there is not the least kindred or relation between them.
Had your Answers been just, you would have observed the Rules of a Respondent, which you have not done: And if they had been sober, you had never been so free in your reproaches, and sparing in your Arguments as you have been. Is this the Man, of whom it is said in the Epistle to his Solemn Call, That his Lines are free from reflection and reproach towards those of the perswasion he contends with? Is this my old friendly Neighbour? It calls to my mind the Italian Proverb, God keep us from our Friends, and we will do what we can to keep our selves from our Enemies. And though you act the part of an Enemy, you shall be my Friend whether you will or no. If you will not be my Friend out of Love, I will make you so by a good improvement of your Hatred.
I have been musing with my self, what might be the true cause of all your rage against my Book; One while I thought it proceeded from want of discretion, that you were not able to distinguish betwixt an Adversary in a Controversie, and an Adversary to the Person; but thought every blow that was given to your Error, must needs be a mortal wound to your Reputation. But, Sir, how close and smart soever my Discourses against your Errors be, I'm sure they are more full of civility and respect to you, than such a Reply as you have made deserves: And if in exposing your Errors, your Reputation be expos'd, you must blame them for occasioning it, and not me.
Some times I thought it an effect of your Policy, that when followed close, and hard put to it, you endeavoured an escape this way. Camero speaking of this kind of subtilty in his Adversaries, saith, Faciunt quod quarundam ferarum ingenium est, ut foetore & graveolenti…, defectae jam viribus, ac fractae venatorem abigunt. Some cunning Animals, as Foxes, &c. when pursued at the heels, drive away both Dogs and Huntsmen with their intolerable stench. And Hierom long ago told Helvidius, his Adversary, Arbitror te veritate convictum, ad maledicta converti; being vanquished by Truth, he betook himself to ill Language. After the same manner you act here, being no longer able to defend your self by solid and sober ratiocination, you trust to your faculty in crimination. Bad Causes only drive Men into such refuges.
In a word, I am satisfied nothing but your extravagant zeal for your Idolized Opinion, could have thrown you into such disingenuous Methods and Artifices as these. The Ephesians were quiet enough till their Diana began to totter. Your passionate Outcries signify to me, something is touched to the quick, which you are more fondly in love with than you ought. When one told Luther what hideous Out-cries his Enemies made against him, and how they reviled him in their Books: I know by their roaring (said he) that I have hit them right.
You tell me in your Reply, p. 24. That you perceive I have a mighty itch to find out your Absurdities. I wish, Sir, you were no more troubled with the itch after them, than I am after the discovery of them. Had I affected such Employments, I could easily have gathered three to one out of your Book, more than I did: And have represented those I gather'd, much more odiously (and yet justly) than I did. But Friendship constrain'd me to handle them (because yours) as gently as I could.
I might have justly charg'd you from what you say, p. 174, 175. of your Solemn Call: where you place all the Believers on Earth, without exception of any, under the Covenant of Works, as a ministration of Death and Condemnation; and the severest Penalties of a dreadful Curse: I might thereupon have justly charg'd you for presenting to the World such a monstrous Sight as was never seen before since the Creation, viz. A whole Church of condemned and cursed Believers. This I might as well have charged upon your Position, and done it no wrong.
I could tell you from what you say, p. 76. of your Reply, That God doth indeed in the Covenant of Works make over himself to Sinners, to be their God in a way of special Interest; but it being upon such hard terms, that it is utterly impossible that way to attain unto life, &c. I could justly have told you, That these Passages of yours, drop pure nonsense upon the Reader's Understanding: as if Salvation were impossible to be attain'd by the same Covenant wherein God becomes our God, and makes over himself by way of special interest, to us.
Had I had an itch to expose the Burlesque and ridiculous Stuff, which lies obvious enough in your Book; I should then have told your Reader, That according to your Doctrine, how opposite and inconsistent soever the two Covenants of Works and Grace be, yet the same Subjects, viz. Believers, may at once, not only stand under them both, but that the same common Seal, viz. Circumcision, equally ratifies and confirms them both; for you allow in your Call, p. 205. That it sealed the Covenant of Grace to believing Abraham, and yet was a Seal of the Covenant of Works, yea the very condition of that Covenant, as you frequently affirm it to be. Vide, p. 81. of your Reply, and Passim.
I could as easily and justly have told you, That the most malicious Papist could scarcely have invented a more horrid Reproach against our famous Orthodox Protestant Divines, than you (I dare not say maliciously, but) ignorantly have done, when you charge such men as Mr. Francis Roberts, Mr. Obadiah Sedgwick; and indeed all that assert the Law, complexly taken, to be an obscurer Covenant of Grace; that they comprize perfect doing with the consequent Curse for non-performance; and believing in Christ unto life and salvation in one and the same Covenant. This is an intolerable abuse of yours, p. 5. of your Reply. They generally assert the Law, in that complex sense and latitude you take it, to be a true Covenant of Grace, though more obscurely administred; and that the distinction of the Covenants into Old and New, is no parallel distinction with that of Works and Grace, or Christ's and Adam's Covenant. Your publick recantation of the Injury you have done the very Protestant Cause herein, is your unquestionable duty, yet scarce a due reparation of the Injury.
In a word, I cannot but look upon it as a discovery of your great weakness, That when you meet with such a difficulty as poses your Understanding, and you cannot possibly reconcile with your Notion; as that of Paul's circumcising Timothy, and you affirming that the very act of Circumcision did in its own nature oblige all on whom it pass'd, to the perfect observation of the Law for Righteousness. You will rather chuse to leave the blessed Apostle in a contradiction to his own Doctrine, than to your vain Notion; For what do you say, p. 95. of your Reply? That however the case stood in that respect, this is certain, &c. It also argues weakness in you to insist upon, aggravate, jeer, and reproach at that rate you do, p. 83. of your Reply. For the mistake, and misplacing of one Figure, viz. Gen. 12. for Gen. 17. as if the merit of the whole Cause depended on it.
The like I may say of your charging me with Nonsense, for putting Gen. 17. 7, 8. for Gen. 17. 9, 10. when yet you your self, p. 205. of your Call, tell us, That Circumcision was appointed as a Sign or Token of the Covenant, Gen. 17. 7, 8, 9. What pitiful Trifles are these to raise such a mighty triumph upon? When Dureus accused our famous Whitaker for one or two trivial verbal Mistakes, Whitaker return'd him the same Answer I shall give you, Benè habet, his in rebus non vertuntur fortunae Ecclesiae. 'Tis well the Case of the Church depends not upon such Trifles.
For a Conclusion; I do seriously w…rn all men to beware of receiving Doctri…es so destructive to the great Truths of the Gospel as these are. And I do solemnly profess, I have not designedly strained them, to cast reproach upon him that publish'd them; But the matters are so plain, that if Mr. Cary will maintain his Positions, not only my self, but every intelligent Reader, will be easily able to fasten all those odious Consequents upon him, after all his Apologies.
Sir, in a word, I dare not say, but you are a good Man; but since I read your two Books, you have made me Think more than once of what one said of Ionah after he had read his History, that he was a strange Man of a good Man; yet as strange a good Man as you are, I hope to meet you with a sounder Head, and better Spirit, in Heaven.