An Apology for the Discipline of the Ancient Church, Part 2 · Section 6 · Reply
The Reply.
SIr, that affection which I have alwayes borne you as a friend, and that duty which I owe you as a Chriſtian, moves me in plain words to tell you, that the indulgence you bear to the Combinational Church, hath in this Paragraph tranſported you beyond the bounds of moderation and truth. For to omit your common Sophiſme, petitio principii, which is the fouleſt in all Logick; that there was at firſt a Combinational Church, and that this did precede a National; which is as if you ſhould ſay, the parts are before the whole, when the contraty in nature hath hitherto been received for truth, that omne totum ſive univerſale ſive integrale eſt prius partibus. But to omit this, you over-load your aſſertion with many unneceſſary Epithets, and thoſe ſometimes unapt; whereas attributes are ornaments, and where they are not decently affixed, they become our ſpeech no more, than a fair gold lace doth a coarſe garment, or a rich jewel faſtned to a ſtraw hat. Thirdly, the five frivolous cuſtomes and traditions you reckon up, are no proper accidents of the National Church, but were common to the Provincial, Cathedral and Parochial, and ſo no diſtinct notes to know that the National Church was corrupted more than they; ſhould I yield them to be corruptions. Laſtly, you ſay they were brought in by a Jewiſh imitation, which if granted, it would not at all help your cauſe; as I will after make appear. Theſe are your undertakings in this Section, and I ſhall not need to analyſe it, as I have done before; becauſe you have methodiz'd it to my hand, for which I thank you. The firſt thing then I ſhall prove unto you, is that there is ſuch a thing as a National Church, and that it was before your Combinational, ſo that it cannot be true which you affirme; that the fourth degree of the Combinational Churches defection, was its notably naughty enlarging it ſelf into a National Church.