A Treatise of Justifying Righteousness, Letter
An Answer to Dr. Tullies Angry Letter.
Reverend Sir,
IF I had not before perceived and lamented the great Sin of Contenders, the dangerous snare for ignorant Christians, and the great Calamity of the Church, by making Verbal Differences seem Material, and variety of some Arbitrary Logical Notions, to seem tantum non, a variety of Religions; and by frightning Men out of their Charity, Peace, and Communion, by Bugbear-Names, of this or that Heresie or dangerous Opinion, which is indeed but a Spectrum or Fantasm of a dreaming or melancholy Brain, your Justificatio Paulina, and your Letter to me, might be sufficient means of my full Conviction. And if once reading of your Writings do not yet more increase my love of the Christian simplicity, and plain old Divinity, and the amicable Communion of practical Christians upon those terms, and not medling with Controversies in a militant way, till by long impartial studies they are well understood, I must confess my non-proficience is very unexcusable.
With your self I have no great business: I am not so vain as to think my self able to understand you, or to be understood by you: and I must not be so bold as to tell you why, much less will I be so injurious to the Reader, as by a particular examining all your words, to extort a confession that their sense is less or worse than I could wish: For cui bono? What would this do but more offend you? And idle words are as great a fault in writing as in talk: If I have been guilty of too many, I must not so much add to my fault, as a too particular examination of such Books would be. But for the sake of your Academical Youth, whom you thought meet to allarm by your Caution, I have answered so much of your Treatise as I thought necessary to help even Novices to answer the rest themselves. For their sakes (though I delight not to offend you) I must say, That if they would not be deceived by such Books as yours, it is not an Answer to them that must be their preservative, but an orderly studying of the Doctrines handled; Let them but learn truly the several senses of the word [Justification], and the several sorts, and what they are, and still constrain ambiguous words to confess their sense, and they will need no other Answer to such Writings.
And as to your Letter (passing by the spume and passion) I think these few Animadversions may suffice.