A Treatise of Justifying Righteousness, Letter · Section 3 – Section 8
§. III. Pag. 9. You are offended for being put in the Cub, with divers mean and contemptible Malefactors.]
Answ. O for Justice! 1. Was not Bellarmin, or some of the Papists and the Socinians, as great Malefactors, with whom (as you phrase it) you put me in the Cub? 2. Are they Malefactors so far as they agree with you in Doctrine, and are you Innocent? What is the Difference between your Treatise, in the part that toucheth me, and that of Mr. Eyres, Mr. Crandon, and some others such? Dr. Owen, and Dr. Kendale, indeed differed from you; the latter seeking (by Bishop Ʋsher) an amicable Closure, and the former (if I understand his Book on the Hebrews) less differing from me in Doctrine, than once he either did, or seemed to do. (And if any of us all grow no Wiser in thirty years Study, we may be ashamed). But to give you your due Honour, I will name you with your Equals, as far as I can judg, viz. Maccovius, Cluto, Coccejus, and Cloppenburgius, (I mean but in the Point in Question; it's no Dishonour to you to give some of them Precedencie in other things). It may be also Spanhemius, was near you. But (if I may presume to liken my Betters) no Men seem to me to have been so like you, as Guilielmus Rivet, (not Andrew), Mr. George Walker, and Mr. Roborough. (I hope this Company is no Dishonour to you). And very unlike you are Le Blank, Camero, Davenant, Dr. Hammond, Mr. Gataker, Mr. Anthony Wotton, and in Complexion Scotus and Ockam, and such as they: If yet I have not Chosen you pleasing Company, I pray you choo se fo your self.
But you say on, [Had you not (in your Memory many Scores of greatest Eminence and Repute in the Christian World, of the same Judgment with me—Know you not, I speak the same thing with all the Reformed Churches, &c.—For shame let it be the Church of England, with all the rest of the Reformed, &c.]
Answ. 1. I know not what you hold, even when I read what you write: (I must hope as well as I can, that you know your self): How then should I know who are of the same Judgment with you?
2. Yet I am very confident, that all they whom you mention, are of the same in some thing or other; and in particular, that we are Justified by Faith, and not by the Works of the Law, or any Works in the sence denied by St. Paul, &c.
3. Do not I, with as great Confidence as you, lay Claim to the same Company and Concord? And if one of us be mistaken, must your bare Word determine which it is? Which of us hath brought the fuller Proofs? I subscribe to the Doctrine of the Church of England, as well as you; and my Condition these thirteen or fourteen years, giveth as much Evidence, that I am loth to subscribe to what I believe not, as yours doth of you. And you that know which of my Books is the most Elaborate, sure know, that in that Book which I Wrote to explain those Aphorisms (called my Confession) I cite the Words of above an Hundred Protestant Witnesses, that give as much to Works as I do: And that of this Hundred, one is the Augustine Confession, one the Westminster Synod, one the Synod of Dort, one the Church of England, each one of which being Collectives, contain many. (And here I tell you of more). And have you brought more Witnesses? Or any to the contrary? Did you Confute, or once take Notice of any of these?
4. Do you not here before you are aware, let your Reader know that it was, and still is, in the Dark, that you Alarm the World about our dangerous Differences, and run to your Arms undrest, before your Eyes are open? Qui conveniunt in aliquo tertio, &c. They that agree with the Church of England, in the Doctrine of Justification by Faith, do so far agree between themselves: But Dr. Tullie, and R. B. do agree with the Church of England, in the Doctrine of Justification by Faith. Ergo.—The Article referreth to the Homilies, where it is more fully Explained.
5. May not I then retort your Argument, and bid you [For shame let it be no longer Bellarnine, and R. B. but the Church of England, and all the Reformed, and R. B.]? Disprove the Witnesses twenty years ago, produced by me in this very Cause; or else speak out, and say, [The Church of England, and the rest of the Reformed, hold Justification by Works, just as Bellarmine and the Papists do] which is it which you would fasten on me, who agree with them (as if you had never there read my Answer to Mr. Crandon, objecting the same thing).
§. IV. Your Censure, pag. 10, 11. of my Windings, Clouds of Novel Distinctions, Preambles, Limitations, &c. is just such as your Treatise did bid me expect: Till you become guilty of the same Crime, and fall out with Confusion, and take not equivocal ambiguous Words unexplained, instead of Univocals, in the stating of your Questions, I shall never the more believe that Hannibal is at the Gates, or the City on Fire, for your Allarms.
§. V. Pag. 11. Where you tell me, that [You have no Profit by my Preface: I shall not deny it, nor wonder at it; you are the fittest Judge: Where you say, that [I have no Credit,] You do but tell the World at what Rates you write. Honor est in honorante. And have all my Readers already told you their Judgment? Alas! How few? In all London, not a Man hath yet given me Notice of his Dislike, or Dissent. And sure your own Pen is a good Confuter of you. It is some Credit, that such a Man as you, is forced to profess a full Consent to the Doctrine, though with passionate Indignation.
You tell me of [Nothing to the Question]. But will you not be angry if I should but tell you, how little you did to state any Question, and in Reason must be supposed, when you assaulted my Doctrine, to take it as I stated it; which I have fully shewed you?
You tell me, that You Charged me only with new Original Sin, underived from Adam, unknown, unheard of before, in the Christian World.
Answ. De re, is not our Guilt of nearer Parent's Sins such which you and all that you know (now at last) confess? De nomine, 1. Tell the World if you can, when I called it [New Original Sin, or underived from Adam, or unknown, or unheard of]. There are more ways than one of Derivation from Adam. It is not derived from him by such Imputation as his first Sin; but it is derived from him as a partial Causa Causae, by many Gradations. All Sin is some-way from him. Either you mean that I said, that it was not Derived from Adam, or you gather it by some Consequence from what I said. If the First, shew the Words, and the Shame shall be mine. If not, you know the old Law, that to false Accusers, it must be done as they would have done to the Accused. But if it be your Consequence, prove it, and tell the World, what are the Premises that infer it.
§. VI. Pag. 12. You friendly help me to profit by my self, however you profess that you profit not by me! What I have said to you against [Hasty Judging], I have first said to my self, and the more you warn me of it, the more friendly you are: If it be not against such as you but my self, it is against my self that I have a Treatise on that Subject; but I begin to think my self in this more Seeing than you; for I see it both in my self and you, and you seem to see it in me, and not in your self. But with all Men, I find, that to see the Spots in our own Face immediately is hard, and to love the Glass which sheweth them, is not easie; especially to some Men that neither are low, nor can endure to be so, till there is no Remedy.
But, Sir, how easie a Way of Disputing have you happily light on, Who instead of Examining the hundred Witnesses which I brought, and my else-where oft proving the Doctrine opposed by me to be Novel, and Singular, do in few words talk of your holding the Doctrine delivered to the Saints, and of the many Worthies that concur with you, and of my pelting at their Heads, and draging them by the Hoary-heads, as a Spectacle and Byword to all, (by proving their consent by express Citations) what Armies, and of what Strength appear against me, whose Names I desie and wound, through yours?
Answ. And is not he a weak Man that cannot talk thus upon almost any Subject? But who be these Men, and what be their Names? Or rather, first, rub your Eyes, and tell us what is the Controversie? Tully sometimes talkt at this rate in his Orations, but verily much better in his Philosophy.
And you see no cause to repent, but you bless God that you can again and again call to all Youth, that as they love the Knowledg of Truth, they take me not for an Oracle in my bold dividing Singularities].
Answ. That the Name of Truth is thus abused, is no News; I would the Name of God were not: And I am sorry, that you see no Cause to repent. I am obliged to love you the better, for being against dividing Singularities in the general Notion; I hope if you knew it, you would not be for them, as in singular Existents. But sure, none at Oxford are in danger of taking me for an Oracle? This is another needless Work. So Spanhemius took that for a Singularity, which Dallaeus in a large Catalogue, hath proved the Common Judgment of the Church, till Contention of late caused some Dissenters.
Will you cease these empty general Ostentations, and choose out any one Point of real Difference between you and me about Justification, and come to a fair Trial, on whose side the Churches of Christ have been for 1500 years after Christ; yea, bring me but any two or one considerable Person, that was for a thousand years for your Cause against mine, and I will say, that you have done more to confute me by far, than yet you have done; and if two only be against me, I will pardon you for calling me Singular.
§. VII. Pag. 13, 14, 15. You again do keep up the Dividing Fear, are offended that I perswade you, that by Melancholy Phantasms you set not the Churches together by the Ears, and make People believe that they differ, where they do not: And you ask, Who began the Fray?
Answ. 1. Do you mean that I began with you? You do not sure: But is it that I began with the Churches, and you were necessitated to defend them? Yes, if Gallus, Ambsdorsius, Schlusselburgius, and Dr. Crispe, and his Followers, be the Church? But, Sir, I provoke you to try it by the just Testimony of Antiquity, who began to differ from the Churches. In this Treatise I have given you some Account, and Vossius hath given you more. which you can never answer: But if my Doctrine put you upon this Necessity, what hindred you from perceiving it these twenty years and more, till now? O Sir, had you no other work to do, but to Vindicate the Church and Truth? I doubt you had.
§. VIII. But pag. 15. You are again incredulous, that [All the Difference betwixt you and me, or others of the same Judgment in the Point of Justification, is meerly Verbal; and that in the Main we are agreed]. And again you complain of your weak Legs.
Answ. 1. I do agree with very many against their wills in Judgment (because the Judgment may be constrained), but with none in Affection, as on their part. Did I ever say, that I differed not from you? I tell you, I know not what your Judgment is, nor know I who is of your Mind? But I have not barely said, but oft proved, that (though not the Antinomians) the Protestants are mostly here agreed in the Main. If you could not have time to read my larger Proof, that short Epistle to Mr. Allen's Book of the Covenant, in which I proved it, might have stopt your Mouth from calling for more Proof, till you had better confuted what was given.
But you say, [Are perfect Contradictions no more than a difference in Words? Faith alone, and not Faith alone? Faith with and without Works? Excuse our Dulness here].
Answ. 1. Truly, Sir, it is a tedious thing, when a Man hath over and over Answered such Objections; yea, when the full Answers have been twenty years in Print, to be put still to say over all again, to every Man that will come in and say, that his Legs are too weak to go see what was answered before: How many score times then, or hundreds, may I be called to repeat.
2. If I must pardon your Dulness, you must pardon my Christianity (or chuse) who believe that there is no such [perfect Contradictions] between Christ's, [By thy Words thou shalt be Justified] and Paul's, [Justified by Faith, without the Works of the Law] or [not of Works]; and James's [We are justified by Works, and not by Faith only]. Must we needs proclaim War here, or cry out, Heresie, or Popery? Are not all these Reconcileable? Yea, and Pauls too, Rom. 2. The Doers of the Law shall be justified.
3. But did I ever deny that it is [by Faith alone and without Works]? Where, and when? But may it not be, by Faith alone in one sense, and not by Faith alone in another sense?
4. But even where you are speaking of it, you cannot be drawn to distinguish of Verbal and Real Differences. Is it here the Words, or Sense, which you accuse? The Words you dare not deny to be Gods own in Scripture, spoken by Christ, Paul, and James. My Sense I have opened to you at large, and you take no Notice of it; but as i… you abhorred Explication and Distinction, speak still against the Scripture Words.