A Plea to an Appeal

Master Babylonius you are well met.

And you Master Asotus.

Sir I thank you for your last good company at the Ordinary; and especially for your both merry and learned discourse; wherein, among other passages, you wittilie disciphered the nature of a Puritan, that common opposite to us both. I was much delighted to hear you, and have often thought of you since, and shall love you the better for it: for of all men I cannot away with these Puritans, a precise sect, cross and contrary to all other men. A man may not swear an oath (forsooth) nor play the good fellow a little, in drinking a cup or two more then needs, for good fellowship-sake, nor love a wench, and the like, but we must pass their most sharp censure. Nay, having deeply weighed the matter, I am persuaded, that were it not for these Puritans, we and you should agree together, as loving brethren, and Countrymen.

Are you advised of that, friend Asotus? you have hit the very nail on the head; and herein you discover your wisdom, and judgment. For it were no hard matter (I wis) to reconcile you and me, and such as we are, as well in Religion and opinion, as we are already in affection, were it not for these makebate Puritans. And you have well said, in saying, we and you: for, howsoever, the Puritans, both in England and beyond the seas (I mean, the Calvinists and Hugenots) are called Protestants; yet between them and us Roman Catholics, there is a great Gulf set, so that there is no hope of reconciliation between us. And indeed; for those civil and good fellow Protestants (whom I know you mean) that hold of the Church of England, and of the Doctrine of the Church for the prop and pillar of their Faith; there is great hope, that they will, ere long, be reconciled to the holy mother Church of Rome: for, he that believeth as the Church believeth, is not far from the kingdom of God. But these Puritans, they will not acknowledge any rule of faith from the Church, but are all for Scriptures, Scriptures: so that so long as they are of that mind, there is no hope of reconciliation between us and them; unless they will yield to this Manime, That the Church is the Judge and interpreter of the Scriptures; which they most obstinately deny.

But, by your leave, Master Babylonius; I never understood, but that the Doctrine of the Church of England, was all one with the Doctrine of the Scriptures; as I ever have ben taught.

I will not take upon me now to dispute that point: but have you not seen an excellent Book, set out of late, by one of your most learned Ministers, which he calls, his Appeale to Caesar.

I have heard of it; the Author is highly commended by some for a great Scholar: but a great many on the other side, and especially those we call Puritans, do very much condemn the book; saying, it is written in the gall of bitterness, and with the spirit of sedition, enough to set all in a combustion, if his books should pass for currant.

In the gall of bitterness: That was the doom of Saint Peter upon Simon Magus: but by such like puritanicall censures, you may the better judge of the worthiness of the book, which is both learnedly and wittily pend.

You say well, I think never a whit the worse of the book, for the Puritans taxing of it; nor the Author the less learned, when you Master Babylonius stick not so to commend him.

I must needs ingenuously confess, that I like the book the better, because it plagues the Puritans, and plots a reconciliation between us and you.

We agree in that; But, since you so much commend the book, and so much rumor runs of it, I will go cast away one couple of shillings upon it.

Friend Asotus, though I would not prevent you of buying so worthy a book, yet for this time, I will lend it you; here it is, read it, then as you like, buy it.

Sir I accept it thankfully. Let me a little peruse it.

Freely.

Appello Caesarem &c. But I find here Doctor Whites approbation prefixed to it, which I must tell you, Master Babylonius, doth make me much marvel, that you so much commend the book; for you know what a public adversary he hath ben to Roman Catholics; so that I should imagine, this book, which Doctor White so much approveth, is more an adversary to Roman Catholics, then to our home-bred Puritans.

Yea, but you must know Master Asotus, it is one thing what a man saith in public, for popular applause, and salary; and another, what he thinketh in his own private opinion and conscience. As the Mathematician cited by Saint Aug: said to his wife, disciplining her for abusing his art for wantonness, she imputing her lightness to the aspect of Venus, and that he should beat Venus, not her for it. It is one thing what I do as a governor of my wife, another, what I vent to the buyer for the maintenance of my life. Doctor White is a good wiseman, & knoweth how to attemper himself to the times: It is less envy to pass his judgment, under another's name, which he thought not so fit in his own.

But in Law, if there be any default, the Accessary is no less guilty then the Principal, the Receauer then the Thief.

True; but here the case is different. For say, the book contains matter vnapprouoble to many, yet Doctor White if he se occasion, may easily wind himself out of the snare; as I hear he doth already, saying, That the Copy printed varieth from that which he approved. Blame him not, till the book (as happily, and hopefully it will) get better footing in the worlds affection, and good will. In the meanetime, it is good policy a little to pull in the horns: For it is objected by the Puritan faction, that Master Montague's former book, called his Gag, which his Appeale defendeth, doth in many particulars contain express contrarieties to the Doctrine of the Church of England: and consequently his Appeale, with the factors and abettors, as Accessaries at least, come within the compass of a Premunire. But you know these pestilent Puritans will say, and make the worst of things; and they are a strong faction. And perhaps the buzz may somewhat possess the good old man with a panicke fear, least not only he loose what he hath, but which is much more, what his many merits may hope for, saving that Saints merits are not so high flown in the Church of England, but they are easily ouersoared by Simon Magus, flying to the top of every pinnacle of the highest Temple, upon Angels wings. But for the book, I do not hold it so greatly blame worthy, as finding it a fair and towardly beginning, to produce in time most hopeful consequents; (as they say, Rome. was not built in one day) but let me a little excuse the good old man And the rather, because the Puritans stick not to cast him in the teeth with White died black: which color (say they) coming from the fat of a Roman Catholic Dyer, would not have holden soe sure, if it had not found the ground of a self-woading, to make it the more permanent. Yet the Appealer (I can tell you) hath fair Cards on his sides, and almost all the Helps; for the five-fingers being the Club-trump turned up. The first Card dealt him; is the best help but one. Yea all the Cards in his hand are black, and he hath a fair pull to rub, for his ase colors for it, puting his Appello in good hope. But the mischief is, after much hard drawing, his Ase proves a Spade. Well: yet he hath a strong hand of the best Coates; and what he cannot do by strong hand with Clubbs, he hopes to play his part with the undermining Spade, whereof he is well stored. Only he misseth the Ase of Hearts, which some make an emblem of truth, being always a Help whatsoever is trump; nor hath he any of that color. But he well hopes that Help sleepeth; as also the rubb-ase • which if his adverse part have not, he doubts not, but the game will go cock-sure on his side, with his number of Coates. Pardon me this comparison. I was late the last night at. Maw, with two or three fair Ladies.

And I could have wished to have been so happy as to have borne you company; But is it lawful for those of your Order to play at Cards?

Lawfull? Doth not the Apostle say, All things are lawful?

But he adds withal, All things are not expedient, all things edify not.

But the same Apostle saith elsewhere, I became all things to all men, that I might win the more.

Yea, to save some; but what was that with Card-play?

Come, now you play the Puritan. But, is it not more to gain, then to save?

But, there is a gaining to a man's loss; For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and loose his own soul?

On my soul, I think you will turn Puritan.

Ha, ha, ha.

But we gain the world to the Church; wherein the world is saved, as the Beasts were in Noah: Ark, which were therefore saved to be food for Noah, who was then the Priest.

You reason very learnedly ad oppositum.

But in a word friend Asotus, we of our holy Order and Society, howsoever in our Cells and Cloisters, we live strictly, observing the ancient Cannons of Priests: yet conversing, here amidst many Wolves; I mean the vengeable Puritans, which are still pressing the Laws against us, we are fain to be wise as serpents, and to put on all habits and fashions; yea, even those of Russians and Roring-boys, that so we may not appear to be those Sheep whom the Wolves seek to devour.

Now you say something; I commend your wit; but I know not how this stands with honesty. Should ye not also be innocent as doves?

Tush man, we must do as we may; and in case of necessity, dispence with honesty for spiritual advantage.

Well, these be Paradoxes. But to return to your former matter concerning this book, me thinks you tell strange things of it.

Strange things? I tell you, you shall find it a most rare book, written with a brave authority, and with a most lofty spirit: me thinks he writes as if he were the very Or • elo of the Church of England, as the Popes Holiness is the Oracle of the World. O that he were but one of our holy Society! which if he were, our discipline within a short time would so season him, as he would prove a most accomplished active instrument for the Catholic cause. He is full of metal, and he wants but the stamp of our minte to make it current. O the grateful tartness, and smartnesse of his style! And such is the dexterity of his wit, that in his Limbecke he can easily draw and distill all learning into the quintessence of his own singular, and rare opinions. Let him but conceive a rare notion, and by and by the Church of England either saith it; or not expressly denying it, or being altogether silent, he can easily conclude, silence to be consent. Yea, he is strong as Sampson; for when he is disposed, neither the Philistines cords of the Council of Dore, which he tramples as dirt; nor yet of his Delilah, his Church of England, can hold him, further then himself pleaseth. Oh, I am even ravished with the love of the man: he hath dared and damped all the Puritans in England. Do but go on, and read the Contents, which will give you some scanting of the substance of the book.

I do. I find here many things, the contrary whereof I have heard our Minister publicly teach, and that with no less vehemency, then plain evidence of argument from Scriptures and Fathers; at least to the convincing of my simple judgment.

I would your Minister were here present, whosoever he be; you should see what he could say to many points maintained in this book; they being also the very Doctrine of our holy mother Church of Rome at this day, and those also fundamental; as of Freewill, Predestination, Justification, Falling from grace, Certainty of salvation, Antichrist, and the like.

And you wish in a very good time; for if I be not deceived, yonder he is walking; shall we go near him, and accost him?

With a good will. But by the way, I pray you inform me a little of the qualities and conditions of the man, that so I may the better attemper my speech, and carriage towards him; is he not a Puritan?

Surely, in one sense he is no Puritan, for he is conformable; none of the refractaries, but doth both practice himself, and preach upon occasion, in the defense of Ecclesiastical ceremonies, and that very earnestly; insomuch as I have seen him sometimes, put back from the Communion those, which would not receive it kn • eling; yet not leaving them, till he brought them on their knees. Now formerly, Non conformitants only, were accounted Puritans. But if we understand Puritan in a second degree, to wit, for a Minister to be a diligent Preacher, and resident upon his charge; one that cannot away with non-residency, that will not take two Benefices, and makes conscience how he comes by one; that is of an honest conversation, and is a very sincere rebuker of sin; an vrger of the more strict keeping of the Lord's day as he usually calleth it; and rather content to suffer wrong in his tithes, then contentions for his right: and above all, a vehement inueigher against the Mass, and all the Idolatries and Superstitions of the Church of Rome, as he terms them; and one, who I warrant you would never give his consent, that Jesuits and Mass-Priests should be any way tolerated to live up and down in our Land (insomuch as I have heard, he being desired to be in a place, where it was appointed, and so expected, that Father Fisher should dispute, & when all came to all hearing Fisher refused to dispute, without special license from the Arch-bishop of Cant • rbury: he replied and said, Master Fisher, I marvel by what license you go up and down seducing our simple people; and yet you want a licenc • to dispute with our learned Divines. It is pity, such as you are thus suffered to undermine souls and states, and so to prove the bane of our Kingdom and Church, since for your sakes (if we had no other sins) and for your abominable idols (the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, where it ought not) we are exposed and endangered to all those plagues and punishments, which we have partly felt, and have much more cause to fear and expect, which 〈◊〉 most 〈◊〉 flames must 〈◊〉 break forth from the kindled 〈◊〉 of God's spouselike jealousy to our consumption, if ye may be but suffered thus to set your Dagon, check by i • wle in c • rrinall-ship with God's Ark in this his pure Church.) Now (Master Babylonius) how far is he a Puritan in these respects, I leave to judge.

How? Can there be a more pestilent Puritan in all the Packe, then such a one? But now you have informed me thus much of the man, I will tell you after what manner I think it fit to deal with him. By no means must he perceive what professiō I am off. For then ten to one he will fall foul upon me, and so we short of our purpose, which is, to try what he can say against this book: Therefore we will only by way of question, as for your resolution sake, see how he can answer some of the most material things therein. And for the manner of dealing with him, let me alone; only give you the occasion, and first on-set.

With a good will. I applaud your prudence herein. God give you good morrow Master Orthodoxus.

And you neighbor Asotus,

Sir, you are very well met; for this gentleman and I have accidentally light upon a book, wherein I find sundry things maintained, contrary to that I have heard of you; and we shall be much beholden to you to resolve us in some points, which do a little stumble us.

Neighbor Asotus, I am glad to hear you make such a motion to me, it being no usual thing with you, nor many others, (and more is the pity) once to move a question of conscience or faith to your Minister, unless it be more for cavil and contention, then for Christian resolution: Therefore seeing you seem to do it out of a good desire to be informed in the truth; and propose such questions, as concern those Doctrines which I have publicly taught, I hold it my duty to satisfy you the best I can. As for this Gentleman, (a • it seems your friend) if he be of the same mind herein, with you, though he be a stranger to me, yet I shall not be curious, but deal ingenuously with you both; and I pray God give a good issue to our meeting, in directing us in the way of his truth.

Sir, we both thank you for your courtesy.

Sir, it is my duty. But, neighbor, what book is that you speak of?

Sir, the Title of it is in Latin, which I understand not so well, Appello Casarem.

O, I know the book.

I pray you Sir, what think you of it?

Nay pardon me for that; I do not take upon me to be a censurer of books, much less of an Appeale to Caesar: if the Author have any just cause for which to Appeal • to Caesar, and which is just, and fit for Caesar to judge, no doubt but he shall find a just Caesar to do him right. But the points you seem to propose to me, are matters of Faith, wherein the Author seemeth too suspicious of his own cause, that (like to fraudulent Merchants, who have run themselves into many men's debt, and danger) he appeals to Caesar to have a protection for his person. But blessed be God, we have a Caesar, The Defender of the Faith; not a protector of oppugners and underminers of the Faith. And for matters of Faith, our Caesar knows they ought to be pleaded only at God's bar, and tried at the Common Law of the holy Land, the Scriptures. Nor will he give way for any Prohibition out of any Court of Chancery, or conscience, which may inhibit the proceeding of God's cause, in God's Court, by any prerogative whatsoever. Therefore in such causes, (causes of Faith I say) to appeal to Caesar; gives (to speak plainly) a strong suspicion of the weakness at least of the cause. For so did Heretics in times past; to maintain their heresies, they had no other way, but to patronize themselves under Caesar's wings. Thus did the Arians so mightily prevail against the Orthodox professors, by the only help and authority of Caesar. Not that I impute heresy to the Author of this book, only for his appeal to Caesar. Let the book, like Baal, plead for it self.

Sir, you make me begin to suspect something; Did Heretics so as you say? I pray you for my better satisfaction, give me some example of it.

I will briefly. Constantine the great, he that restored the Church to a general peace and calm; sitting at the first Council of Nice, not as Judge, but rather as a Minister, (as himself piously confessed) did for his part ratify the Councils Decrees against Arius; yet afterwards, growing old, he was won by a woman, his sister Constantia, and she seduced by a sycophantizing Arian Priest, to recall Arius from banishment, that he might again declare his Faith: whereof, coming before the Emperor, he made such a cunning confession (as formerly he had done to the whole Council of Nice, which he had well nigh imposed upon by his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in steed of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) as that the good Emperor (suspecting no deceit) took it to be in all points the very same with the Councils own confession; yet so, as he referred Arius to the determination of a Council. But the Emperor not long after dying, Arius with his faction creep into the favor and protection of Constantine's successors, especially of his son Constantins, who was by the same Arian Priest, who had formerly inueagled Constantia about Arius, persuaded to favor and protect the Arians; and the rather was the Emperor persuaded by this old Priest, because Constantine had committed to him his last Will and Testament, to deliver it to his son Constantius, which he did. Thus Arius by his Appeale to Caesar, and by the cunning insinua • ion, of his crafty confederate, an old Court Priest, got footing again; and had in all likelihood mightily prevailed, but that God in justice, to that impious impostor, and in mercy to his Church and children, calling the cause into his superior Court, cut Arius short, by a sudden and strange infamous judgment, even in hot blood, as he was going with all his pomp and train into the Cathedral in Constantinople, in despite of the good Bishop Alexander, who all the night before, and that morning continued his earnest supplications to God, prostrate in the Temple, to • uert and prevent Arius from setting his wicked foot, and proud Standard of triumph against Christ, in that sacred place. His devout and zealous prayers were heard; and Arius his infamous death struck all his train with a shameful amazement, and confusion. I would this example might teach the Appealler to tremble before that God, from whose Tribunal is no appeal, but by speedy flying with repentance to his throne of grace and mercy in Jesus Christ. But for the Appeale, here let me tell you thus much by the way, which I dare be bold to avouch, that as he thinks he hath done politically, so I know he hath done very poorly to appeal to Caesar: being such a Caesar as when his many weighty affairs shall lend him leisure to view the Appeale, the Appealer will quickly find his own error, and have cause to repent his appealing to a Prince of such dexterity and judgment, as in human, so also in divine matters.

Sir, I thank you I am satisfied in this matter. Now let me entreat you to perform your promise, in resolving some doubts, ministered by this book.

If you instance any particular, I am ready to do my best endeavor.

Sir, because this Gentleman my friend, hath some more learning then myself, and is somewhat acquainted with the book, I shall entreat him to propound and object, and yourself to resolve the Objections.

Friend Asotus, I pray you do not impute that to me which I was never guilty of, as matter of learning; yet, if as a friend you impose this task upon me, to ease you, I will the more willingly undertake it: provided that where you see me fail, you will supply • and Master Orthodoxus pardon. I shall only act your part in propounding those particular point • , which you say are contrary to those, which Master Orthodoxus hath taught you; as being also the most material things in the book.

Sir, I thank you, I desire no more.

Then to begin in order as they lie: the first thing is about the loss of Faith and Justification, in the third Chapter, and so consequently of falling away from grace totally, in the fourth Chapter: and if totally, possibly also, finally, without recovery. Now although the Author do not avouch absolutely his own oppinion, yet he proves the affirmative from antiquity of Fathers, and from the authority of the Church of England, unto whose Articles and Homilies, all the Ministers thereof have subscribed. Now we desire your resolution herein.

True it is, that the Author is very cau • elous, in averring anything in his own opinion, especially in points of such consequence; therein I commend his wit, as the Lord did the wisdom of the unjust Steward; but his private conception he fathereth upon the Fathers, and his mother Church: yet it is to be concluded, that what he goes about to prove by the Fathers, and by the authority of the Church of England (though most falsely, by him forced and forged glosses) himself is of the same judgment with them: and by the way, for the Articles and Homilies of the Church of England, we subscribed unto them indeed, but not to the private sense which any particular man may make of them. Now for loss of faith (he must mean justifying and saving faith, and not that faith of the Roman Church) he alledgeth the 16. Article, in these words, After we have received the holy Gh • st, we may depart from grace given, & fall into sin; and by the grace of God we way rise again, and amende our lives. Now in all due remembrance to my blessed mother, the Church of England, is it not as lawful for me her Son, to take her in a good sense, as for another in a bad? And if it be lawful for me to interpret her words according to the letter, it is one thing, reced • re a gratia, another excidere, one thing, to depart aside, as out of the way erroneously; another, 〈◊〉 fall quite away, and to abandon the way; at least for the time to fall quite away from grace: nor doth the Article speak of a total falling away: but of such slips, as are recovered by repentance, against the Doctrine of N •• atus, as is there expressed. It being one thing to fall into sin of infirmity, another, to fall away from grace totally. But, if by departing, be meant, a total falling away; then how doth this accord with the Scripture, that saith, If such as were once enlightened &c, do fall away, it is impossible they should be renewed again to repentance. Again, for the words of the Homilie alleged by the Appealer, they contain a wholesome admonition to piety, and perseverance therein: but they mention no total falling away from true and saving grace in any one particular true believer. Therefore, by departing, is meant some other thing, then any total falling away from grace; so that howsoever we embrace, and adore the general Doctrine of the Church of England our dear Mother, yet whatsoever she saith, we must not presently take it at the first rebound, according to our private fancy, which what it affects and inclines to, it can easily, (as the corrupt stomach) assimilate even wholesome meats, and cause them to corrupt; or, as the Natural thinks the bells ring that which he imagines; so apt is man's fancy to take words, rather by the sound, then by the sense, to feed his pre-conceived opinion: yet, as neither the Church of England, her self, avoucheth, or concludeth anything for Doctrine and matter of Faith, but so far as is consonant to the word of God; so that her Doctrines are to be called, the Doctrines of God, rather than of the Church: so neither are we to measure her Doctrines, but by the only line and rule of the Scriptures. But, by the Scriptures, there is either no total falling away from grace; or if there be (as from the common grace) it must necessarily be final too; for it is impossible, (saith the holy Ghost) 〈◊〉 such as fall away, should be renewed again to r • pentance. Therefore the Church of England's words, speaking of d • p •• ting from grace, and yet of returning again, cannot be understood of a total falling away of particular persons from 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 grace: so that it appea • es, the Appeall • r hath wrested the words of the Article to his own fancy, he should first conclude out of the Scriptures, that there is a falling away from grace totally. But, if the Scriptures teach the contrary, let no man fasten such a reproach upon the Church of England, casting dirt in his Mothers face, as teaching otherwise, then her heavenly Husband hath taught in his Word.

But where do the Scriptures teach, that a man cannot fall away from grace, and sa • ing 〈◊〉 , after he once hath it?

In many places, and that so pregnantly, and definitively, as the very Adversaries of this truth confess, it may be waued and taken indifferently either way, whither for a penny, as we say, their Opiniō, or God's Truth.

But if Scripture say, and gainsay, how shall we believe them? or how shall we reconcile them?

Very easily; for as there is but one truth, so if we first pitch upon that truth, where we find it clearly and positively laid down in the Scripture, then whatsoever places of scripture seem to contradict, yet the sense thereof must of necessity be reduced to that positive truth. For the purpose, 1 John 3. 9. Whosoever is borne of God, doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because h • is borne of God. Here is set down a positi • e truth; Whosoever is borne of God, doth not commit sin; and the reasons are annexed; first, for the seed of God remai • eth in him; and secondly, because he is borne of God, he cannot sin. But this seems a hard and a dark saying, do not God's 〈…〉 sin? yo • sur • lie, for, In many things we 〈◊〉 all, saith Saint 〈◊〉 , but the same Apostle clears the sense, in his 5. Chapter of the Epistle. Verse 16, 17. There is a sin unto death, and, there is a 〈◊〉 not unto death: now God's children commit sin, which is not unto death, whereof ver. 16. If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. But of the sin that is unto death, of that the Apostle speaks, ver. 18. We know, that whosoever is borne of God sinneth not, that is, not unto death. Now God's child sinneth not unto death, that is, falleth not from faith (as Saint Augustine • understands this sin unto death) neither totally, nor much less finally; for the seed of God remaineth in him. The seed of God is the holy Spirit of God; by which, as a holy and living seed, we are begotten and borne of God. This seed • is that annointing, whereof the Apostle speaks, 1 John 2. 27. The annointing which ye have received of • im, abideth in you, and therefore ye shall abide in him. Therefore none shall be able to seduce you, v. 26. Now, if th • the annointing abide in us, if the seed of God remains in us, how then can we fall totally, much less finally from grace, for the Spirit of grace remaineth in us. So long as this seed of God remains in us, (and being once received, it abideth with us) God's regenerate cannot so degenerate, as by falling from grace, to cease to be his sons. He that is of the blood royal, yea, who is descended immediately from the Kings own loins, cannot cease to be the Kings son; for the seed and blood of the King is in him. And yet, though a Kings son may degenerate from his Fathers virtues, notwithstanding his Fathers blood be in him, yet the b • gotten of God, as they have his seed always remaining 〈◊〉 them, so it is an active, quickening, and pregnant seed, springing up to life eter • all, wherein God's child groweth in grace, till he be a perfect man in Christ Iasus.

Again, this seed of God is immortal, as the Father is immortal. Now as a mortal father begets a mortal son: So the immortal God can beget no son, but is immortal as his Father is. It is impossible for the immortal God to die, no not for a moment. Of this nature also is the borne of God; he cannot fall away totally, that is die in his spiritual life, no not for a moment, for he is, borne of that Father, the seed of that God remaineth, abideth in him, and never departeth from him, which is immortal, and cannot die. This truth, that the borne of God are preserved from ever falling from grace, is confirmed by many other clear places of Scripture, if time would permit to recite them.

Now, this being so clear a proof, if any places of Scripture seem to be opposite, they are so only in sound, not in sense. For proof, the Scriptures are full of admonitions, (the only proofs that they bring for their opinions against the positive truth) to take heed of falling away from the grace of God, as Heb. 12. 13. So 1 Cor. 10. 12. He that think he standeth, let him take heed lest he fall; & the like: also of exhortation, if any man be fallen, as Ezech 18. and elsewhere; all which places must not so be taken as if God's children did at any time fall away totally from, grace: but they are as so many Preseruatiues and Antidotes, as so many directions to keep God's child in his way; they are a part of those means which God hath ordained to preserve us in the way from falling. Hereupon I remember, Saint Augustine saith excellently, (allege • ng these words, Reu. 3. 11. Tene quod habes, &c. Hold that thou hast, least another take thy Crown) now that these things are so spoaken, even to the saints that shall persevere, as if it were uncertain that they shall persevere, they ought not to hear this otherwise, to whom it belongeth, not to be high minded, but fear. Hence also it was said to the Apostles, If ye shall abide in me; himself speaking it, who knew full well that they would abide in him: And by the Prophet, If ye be willing, and will hearken unto me: when himself knew in whom he would work, even to will. And many such things are spoken for the utility and profit of this secret, least any should be puffed up, but that all, even th • se that run well, should fear. So he. Nothing can be added to it.

Again, when we read of any Apostates, and such as make shipwreck of faith, as 2 Tim. 2. Hymenaeus and Alexander, and the like: then have recourse to that saying of Saint John 1. 2. 19. where speaking of Antichristian reuolters; saith, They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had ben of us, they would no doubt have continued with us; but they went out, that it might be made manifest, that they were not all of us. For there is a common temporary faith, a commō grace, a common illumination, whereof the Apostle speaks, Heb. 6. from which men may fall away totally and finally, as Judas, and Julian, and others: but the saving grace, the justifying faith, which is proper to God's elect, is of the foundation of God, which standeth sure, upon which, they that are built, shall never fall away, as Aquinas in Rom. 8. ver. 30. whom he hath justified, them he hath glorified.

To this purpose, I remember a saying or two of Saint Augustine: Fides Christi, &c. The faith of Christ, the faith of Christian grace, namely, that faith which worketh by love, being put in the foundation permits none to perish. And in another place, Nic nos moueat, &c. Nor let it move us, saith he, that God doth not give this perseverance to some of his sons: For there are some, who because of a temporary grace received, are called of us the sons of God, and yet with God they are not so; of whom John speaketh; They went out from us, but they were not of us, they were not of the number of sons, no, not when they were in the faith of sons. For the son of promise perisheth not, but the son of perdition. Those were of the multitude of the called, not of the small number of the elect. And again, in the 9. Chapter, reciting Christ's words. Si man eritis in verbo meo &c. If ye abide in me, then are ye my Disciples indeed, he saith, Therefore because they had not perseverance, as also being not Christ's Disciples indeed, so neither were they the sons of God indeed; even then when they seemed to be, and were called so. Therefore we call those both the elect Disciples of Christ, and the so ••• s of God; because they are so to be called, whom being regenerate (to wit sacramentally, and in our account) we see to line godly: but then they are indeed, that which they are called, if they abide in that, for which they are so called. But if they have not preseuerance, they are not truly called, that, which they are called, and are not. Thus we see Saint Augustine following the rule of God's word, hath truly laid down the state of the perseverance of God's saints in faith and grace; distinguishing all along between saving grace, and common temporary grace; between justifying faith, and common historical faith; between the outward ordinary calling of Christians, and the inward effectual calling; between the external regeneration, and the internal; between the sons of God in men's account, or in appearance, and those in God's account, and in truth.

And in this sense, not otherwise, is that to be understood, which the Appealer urgeth, of all that are baptized, of whom we profess, we believe that they are regenerate, and in the state of grace; who, coming afterwards to live lewdly, and so to die, the Author by their example would prove, both a total and final falling away from grace. True it is, that Baptism is called regeneration, but Sacramentally; and so all children baptized are said to be regenerate, and so generally we believe they are saved, while we judge them to be in the state of grace, in regard of the common sacred Ordinance of God, which is always effectual, if it be accompanied with the effectual and inward working of the Spirit of God, and received by a saving faith, wrought by the same Spirit. I say, all children duly baptized, we believe to be made the members of Christ, and heirs of the kingdom of heaven, and to be saved, dying before the committing of any such sins, as might give us occasion to judge and believe the contrary. This is the pious faith of the Church, and of Christians. Yet though in our accompt, many are called, by receiving the outward Ordinances of God, and the external ordinary means of salvation: notwithstanding in God's account, few are chosen. And the chosen are only those that are truly saved in God's account. The Lord knoweth who are his. As above, Saint Augustine speaking of the impious, after baptism, saith, Fuerunt isti, &c. Such were of the multitude of those that be called, not of the small number of the Elect.

But Saint Aug: (as our Author alledgeth him, both in this book, and in his Gagge) delivereth it, as an Article of the Creed, (Credendum est, quosdam de fil • is perditionis, non accepto dono persuerandi vsque in finem, in fide quae per dilectionem operatur, incipere vinere, & aliquandiu just, & fideliter vinere, et postea cadere) &c. That some may fall away quite from that faith, which worketh by love. And you see the words there Iuste & fideliter, and, postea CADERE are set down in Capitall letters, as being most remarkable.

It is a fair flourish indeed; I remember the place quoted in his former book: nor doth he in this, vary from that. But I must tell you, the Author (besides his misquoting of the * book) hath not dealt altogether so squarely with Saint Augustine herein; as having broken off the chief corner of this stone, which else would stand firm and uniform, with the entire fabric of Saint Augustine's building. For Saint Augustine speaking there of perseverance, & to admonish the truly faithful to be the more careful in the constant pursuit of it, he setteth down the sentence, thus; PROPTER HVIVS VTILITATEM SECRETI. (Which words the Appealler leaves out) credendum est, &c. Which words are the main qualification and seasoning of the whole sentence; that is, in regard of the benefit of this secret, Credendum est, &c. Which we may translate, we are to suppose, as well as we must believe. But if we must believe it, it is, propter huius vtilitatem secreti; a phrase which S. Augustine often useth upon this purpose. And wherefor would Saint Augustine have us to think or believe so? but to contain us the better within the bounds of fear and humility, in regard of our human frailty, as he specifieth both a little before, and after this sentence. And elsewhere he saith expressly to the purpose, God judged it better to mingle some • , that should not persevere, among the certain number of his Saints, that they, for whom security in the temptation of this life is not expedient, might not be secure.

But Saint Augustine saith, that a man may fall from that faith which worketh by love, and so die in that fall.

Besides the former qualification, PROPTER HVIVS HVIVS VTILIT ATEM SECRETI; and besides our former allegations out of Saint Augustine he doth in another place speak conclusiuely, with an asseveration, saying, The faith of those which worketh by love, doth in very deed, either not fail at all, or if their be any, whose faith doth fail, it is repaired, before this life be ended, and the iniquity which came between, being blotted out, perseverance is reckoned even unto the end. Now, if this be true, that faith worketh by love, either faileth not at all; or if it doc any whit fail, it is repaired in time: then his former speech of the falling away from faith, working by love, is to be understood not really of true faith working by love, but as it is in apparance to our sense, as he saith formerly of the sons of God. Yea, Saint Augustine is so copious in this point of perseverance of God's Saints, that I marvel any man that hath read Saint Augustine of these points, would ever meddle with him in this matter, to wrest one bare mangled testimony, against so many pregnant proofs of this truth.

And to conclude this clause with Saint Augustine, who saith nothing but upon the express ground of Scripture; Christ saying, (saith he) Rogaui pro te, &c. I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not, let us understand, as spoken to him which is built upon a Rock; and so the man of God, not only because he hath obtained mercy, to be faithful, but also because faith it self doth not fail; He that glorieth, let hi • glory in the Lord. And again, God doth work in his Saints a will to persevere, that because they shall not persevere, unless they both can, and will; therefore both the power and will of persevering, is by the bounty of God's grace given unto them: therefore the weakness of man's will is helped, that by God's grace it might be firmly and inseparably upholden; and therefore, though weak, yet it should not fail, nor be overcome by any adversity. And he that holds the contrary, he calls him, Inimicum gratiae Dei, an enemy to the grace of God.

But justifying faith may be diminished, and consequently wholly abolished.

It doth not necessarily follow; Faith indeed may be said to be diminished, in regard of the, act, operation, external fruits, sense and apprehension of it; but not in regard of the habit and substance of it. To illustrate this a little. The seed cast into the ground, lies there hid, appears not for a good space: is it therefore dead? wait a little, and so it begins to sprout and spring forth, and by degrees cometh to a mature harvest. The sap in the winter lies hid in the root, and the withered vine seems dead with cold: yet the cold blown over, and summer approaching, so the goodly leaves it puts forth, and goodlier clusters, unto a full vintage. The Sun eclipsed by the Moons interposition, or by some black cloud, from our aspect, yet we know it keepeth his course, looseth none of the native light the while, only our sense misseth it, till anon it break forth with a fresh luster and glory. The soul, while the body suffereth a kind of d • liquium, or fowning, though now it exercise not the organical operations 〈◊〉 the body, yet we know the soul is in • ue and whole still, without any substantial diminution: so that the body being revived with some aqua caelestis, the soul actuates every organ and member of it afr • sh, as before. The ship (as that wherein Christ slep • ) may be even covered over with waves, and given for lost, as in the Disciples sense and apprehension: but Christ being awakened, and commanding a calm, the ship comes safe to the Port. The fire raked up close under the ashes, though you neither see nor feel it, yet so it is preserved till the morning, to feed upon new fuel. A man in a deep or dead sleep may seem dead, but awakening, he feels himself the more refreshed after his sounder sleep. So is faith. It is a seed, (though but as a grain of mustard seed) well may it lie hid for a time, yet the while, it is but fastening the root the more firmly to bring forth the better and more abundant fruit. It is the sap, which in time of wintery persecutions and afflictions, coucheth close to the heart root, but the summer of God's comforts returning, it displayeth it self in leaves and fruits, showing plainly it was not dead, though to our sense it seemed so. It is the Sun enlightening the soul, which though eclipsed from our sense, by some interposition of transitory temptation, yet retains his full light, holding on his insensible course, and when this nubecula pertransibit, when this cloud is over, it sends forth new rays of grace. It is the soul of the soul, which even in the midst of extreme fainting of the soul, yet remains entire, without diminution, & by the aqua caelestis of God's never failing mercy, actuates every faculty of the soul afresh, to the achieving of greater works. It is the ship of good hope, which when covered with waves, sets prayers to awaken Christ asleep in it, who by and by stilleth the storm, or sends his Angel, as to Paul, to assure him, that none in this little bark of ours shall perish, but safely arrive upon the honey haven of Melita, even that true honey-flowing land of Canaan. It is a fire, which while raked up under the dead ashes of deep contrition, though it seem dead, yielding neither light nor warmth, to our weak senses, yet it is but fostered for a new fire, that though heaviness for sin may endure for a night, yet joy of faith cometh in the morning, feeding it self with the fuel of new works of obedience, flaming forth in a holy conversation. The faithful man, as David, as Peter, may be overtaken with a dead sleep of faith: but awakened by grace, his soul is enlightened, that he sleeps not in death, but as the Sun arising, rejoiceth as a giant to run his course with greater alacrity and vigor. Thus we see the fruit of saving faith may be for a time suppressed, yet the root not supplanted: the act of it may be suspended, yet the habit not lost: it may be eclipsed to our sense, yet his light not lessened, or his course stayed: it may be in a dead sleep, yet live: faint, yet not fail: sick, yet not to death: weather beaton, yet not wracked: languish, yet not perish.

But the famous Scholar Doctor Ouerall (alleged by the Author) late Dean of Paul's and Bishop of Norwich held, that a man might fall from grace into the very state of damnation, and so remain under God's wrath, till he did recover Yea, that he avouched this to his late Majesty, and what concertations he had with other Doctors in the University about it.

If we take up all the Appealer faith upon trust, without further examination, we shall reckon before our host, for he plays the shuffler egregiously. Nor will he (I perceive) to save his own stake, stick to pawn the best credit of the most famous of our Church, for the security of his most shameless slanders of the truth. And if we had not all the better evidence to convince him, he would carry it away hand smooth with down right daring. Pardon my zeal hearein. I cannot but be moved, when not only Godscause, and glory (then which nothing ought to be more precious unto us,) but also the credit of our learned and reverend Fathers is so traduced. But the sum of the Conference before the Kings Majesty at Hampton Court, now newly published in print, will tell us the plain truth of the matter. And that we may not with the Appealer falsify the truth, in dealing by halfs: I will give you the entire words of that worthy Dean and reverend Bishop, as they are set down in the 42 page of that book: Namely, that whosoever

Do we not see plainly here how he distinguisheth between a common justification in regard of the external and ordinary means of the Word and Sacraments, and the true and real justification, according to God's purpose? yet in the first, he maketh no mention of a total falling away. Or if the Appealer will contend, that so much is implied, we will not contend for that, for such as are not truly and really justified, according to God's purpose, but only according to the external vocation, no marvel if they, both totally, and finally fall away. But for those, that are justified according to God's purpose, to wit, the elect and praedestenate unto life, he saith expressly, that though they may and do fall into grievous sins: yet they never fall, either totally, or (much less) finally from the grace of God; but are in time renewed, by God's Sririt, unto a lively faith, and repentance. A golden speech, which all the Apealers chimicall counterfeit Philosophers stone, cannot so easily transmute into his base copper alcumy coin, how bravely and boldly soever he braze it on; according to his rule, Calu • niare audacter, aliquid bar • bit.

To conolude this point of perseverance in true grace, it stands firmly built upon sure grounds, and evident reasons, set down in the Scriptures, such as no wit of man, or devil, can overthrow. For the purpose; one reason of the elects, perseverance in grace unto glory, is taken from the nature of that holy fear, which God puts in the hearts of all his faithful ones: as Ier. 32. 39, 40. where the Lord saith, I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me forever, &c. And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them to do them good, but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me. So here is a double reason of the Saints perseverance; first on God's part, He will not turn away from them to do them good, and that by an eternal covenant. And secondly, they shall not depart from him. Upon which words, Saint Augustine saith, (Quod quid est aliud, quam talis actantus erit timor meus, quem dabo in cor corū, vt mihi perseueranter adhareant) which what is it else, but that my fear, which I will put in their hearts, shall be such and so great, that they shall perseueringly cleave unto me.

A second reason is alleged, John. 13. 1. drawn from the immutability and eternity of Christ's love to his elect, saying, Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them, unto the end. * And as the Apostle saith, The gifts and calling of God are without repentance.

A third reason of the Saints perseverance, is taken from the power of Christ, and of the Father, John. 10. 28. where Christ saith, I give unto them, (to his sh •• pe) eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me, is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Fathers • and, I and my Father are one. And Saint Peter said, we are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation 1. Pet. 1. 5. And the Prophet David showeth by this reason, that the righteous shall never fall totally away, because God's band ever supporteth them, as Psal. 37. 24. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the Lord upholdeth him with his band. Which place Aquinas applies to the same purpose, in Rom. 8.

A fourth reason, from the will of God, John. 6. 39. This is the Fathers will, which hath sent me, that all which he hath given me, I should loose nothing, but should arise is up at the last day. And, this is the will of him that sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, should 〈◊〉 everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day.

A fifth reason, drawn from the efficacy of Christ's prayer, John. 17. 20. and so to the end of the Chapter.

A sixth reason, from the impossibility of seducing the Saints from Christ, by Antichrist and false Prophets. Mat. 24. 24.

A seventh reason, from the perpetual mansion, and inhabitation of God's Spirit in all the faithful, 1. John. 3. 9. Whosoever is borne of God, sinneth not, (that is, not unto death; as chap. 5. • 6.) For his seed remaineth in him, and be cannot sin, because he is borne of God.

An eight reason, from the infallibility of God's knowledge of all his, called, God's foundation, 2. Tim. 2. 19. The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his, whereupon Saint Augustine concl death thus, If the elect may perish and fall away, then God may be deceived. But God cannot be deceived; therefore his elect cannot perish, nor fall away. And if at any time the elect do exorbitate, or decline out of the way: upon reproof, they are reformed, and return into the way, from which they had digressed; As Aquinas cites the gloss on Rom. 8. verse 28. Vsque adeo &c. To such as love God, he doth so cause all things to cooperate for good, as if any of them stray or straggle, even this also he causeth to turn to their further good; yea, even their sins cooperate to their greater good, in causing them to walk more humbly and carefully.

A ninth reason, is from the inseparable union between Christ, and every true believer. Christ himself expresseth this sweetly, applying it as a special tie, and token of the saints continue • ance in him. John. 17. 20. I pray not for these alo •• , but for them also, which shall believe in me, thorough their word, that they may all be one, as thou Father art in me and I in thee; that they also may be one in us. And that glory, which thou hast given me, I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one. I in thee, and thou in met, that they may be made perfect in one. So that as not a bone of his natural body was broken: so neither a bone of his mystical body. For he keepeth all his bones, not one of them is broken Psal. 34 20. Not a hair of their head shall perish, that are his members.

I will add but one reason • more, of many, used in Scripture, to confirm the Doctrine of the Saints perseverance, and it is taken from God's eternal election and effectual vocation of his elect unto eternal life: As Rom. 8. 30. Whom he did praedestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified: This is such a golden chain, as all the Devils of hell can never break. Christ useth the same reason, John. 15. 16. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you that you should go, and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: which place Saint Augustine sweetly applieth to God's eternal election, whence springeth th • perseverance of his elect, whose fruit remaineth forever. As also the same Augustine applieth that other place to the Romans, to the Saints perseverance, and only to the elect Saints, quorū it a certus est numerus, &c. whereof the number is so certain, that none of them can perish, no more than any of the reprobate can be saved. And so he concludes the Saints perseverance, from the foundation of God's eternal election, and predestination. Quis &c. What one could be ordained to eternal life, but with the gift of persence rāce? This is the Doctrine also of the Church of England, Arti • . 17. So then, if God can break his everlasting covenant, with his people, if his saving fear be such, as to whom it is given, it will not suffer them to depart from God; if God's love in Christ to his own be immutable and endless; if Christ's power and his Fathers be so great, that none can pluck his elect out of his hands; if it be the Fathers will, that none of his elect shall perish, but have eternal life; if Christ's prayer for his elect cannot be in vain; if it be impossible for all Antichrists power and policy, and lying wonders, to seduce God's elect; if the perpetual residence of God's holy Spirit in his regenerate, preserve them from sinning unto death; if God's infallible knowledge of his own cannot be deceived, but remaineth as a sure and sealed foundation; if all things cooperate for their good, and nothing can separate them from the love of Christ; if God's eternal election and predestination of his, to grace, and so to glory, cannot be frustrate: then who dare be so bold, as to affirm, that the Saints may fall away, either totally, or finally from grace, & so fall short of glory.

But my author instanceth two examples of total falling away from grace, the one of King David, the other of the prime Apostle Saint Peter, now if these did fall totally from grace, at least for a time, then is it possible for any in the state of grace to fall totally from that state • , and so come short of final perse •• rance. And to prove their total fall, he argueth thus, 〈◊〉 • ter fell; now if he fell, he must needs full totally or finally: for Cedo tertium. And (saith he) if David's and Peters repentance had been prevented by death, they should have perished eternally. And you know, that a supposition must necessarily imply a possibility of the thing supposed; else it were absurd; so that it was possible, they might have been prevented by death, before they had repented, and so have perished eternally. As the Author saith elsewhere, * cap. 4. that it is possible for the fallen away to arise again: possible, but not certain and necessary.

By mentioning this last speech of the Appealer, you give me occasion to call to mind, a flat contradiction of his in that place, to what he had said before, cap. 2. his words (as I remember) be these; Doth Arminius •• intaine, touching final perseverance, that sometime the called and elect of God, the chosen ••• s, and justified by faith, such as Peter was, though they do full totally for a time, shall yet recover necessarily again, and not fall away finally, or forever? If this be Armenianisme, and so his conclusion, then therein he (to wit, the Appealer) holdeth with Arminius. Yet in his foresaid forth Chapter he contradicts himself, and saith, that the recovery of such is possible, not certain, and necessary. Is he such an enemy to perseverance, as himself will not persevere longer in his own opinion? Or rather will he be an Arminian by holding with Arminius a totality of the elect falling from grace for a time, with a necessuit of their recovery, than an orthodox Christian, while he alloweth only a possibility, but no certainty and necessity of recovery? Oportet Appellatorem esse memorem. But for the Appealers two instances of David and Peter, I deny that they fell totally. Fall they did both, and that fearfully; yet not totally? Neither of them. Is there no other kind of fall? not a third? yes, there is a fall, whereby a man gets some hurt in a limb, as Mephebosheth did: and there is a fall, whereby a man, breaks his neck, as it befell old. Eli: and there is a fall, wherein a man is struck stone dead for the time, as befell 〈◊〉 . Now, if by Eli's break-neck fall, may be exemplified, the final falling away; and by Eutychus his fall, the total falling for the time: why not as well by Mephebosheths fall, may we conceive of such a fall of God's Saints, as whereby they may bruise, or break some limb, and not necessarily with Eutychus, so to fall from the third lost, as falling totally to be struck stoned ad: or with Eli to break their necks, by falling away finally and irrecoverably; as Lucifer, that fell from the third heaven. Now we say, that the fall of David and Peter, was like that of Mephibosheth, whereby they did break or bruise a limb, the fear whereof they might carry to then grave, though by God's • yle, and wine of grace and mercy, they were • f • ▪ soonees received, and recovered. Again, a member, bruised, or broken, or put out of • oynt, ceaseth not instantly to be a member of the body; nor is it by and by cut off from the body, unless it be incurable, and endanger the whole, Immedicabile vuln •• ens • reeidendum est, ne part sincera trabatur, as that incurable sin against the holy Ghost, and that, committed with a high hand, with a full consent, and malicious contempt of the blood of the covenant &c. as that Heb. 6. which sin is impossible to be renewed by repentance; such a grangreend member is cut off. Now David and Peter were the members of Christ, they were wounded by a grievous stroke of sin, yet such as was curable, and so during the malady, they were not cut off from Christ's body, but still continued members, though sick for the time, not totally fallen, or cut off. The Prophet David himself, inspired by God's Spirit, sets down a notable and manifest difference between fall and fall; he saith of the righteous, of the •• stified by faith, of the elect, Though he fall, he shall not be utterly be cast down; for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand. Though he fall: therefore the righteous may fall: yet though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; therefore he shall not fall totally, or finally: not totally; for that is to be utterly cast down; for the time at least. Not finally; for that is, to be utterly cast down, to wit, forever. But, if by being utterly cast down, the Appealer would have, not the total fall meant, but the final; let him remember, that as he saith in one place, he is of the mind with Ar • imius, that the elect may fall totally from grace for the time: so he saith in another, that their recovery is possible, not certain and necessary. Contrary to David here, who saith, He shall not be utterly cast down, not finally fall away (if the Author will restrain it to that) but he shall certainly recover. And he adds a strong reason, For the Lord upholdeth him with his hand. If the Lord uphold him with his hand, then how can he either fall finally, or yet totally, which in either were to be utterly cast down? The manner of speech seems to be taken from a father, holding his son in his hand, and to 〈◊〉 his child see his own weakness, to make him use the more wariness, for the time to come, suffers him to fall; yet so handles the matter, as with his hand he preserves him • rom being utterly cast down. And as Lyranus saith on this place. Huius autem manus suppositio est diuinae gratiae conseruatio; th • putting under of God's hand, is the preservation of divine grace.

Object. But some will object, that according to the same gloss of Lyranus in that place, this fall is meant of a venial sin, not of a mortal, such as David's, and Peters sin was. To which I answer, first, that the word for fall in the original, signifieth such a fall, as when a man falleth prostrate, or flat upon the ground; not to slip, as men account of a venial sin, but to fall down all along. And for venial sin, we know there is no sin committed by any servant of God, but through Christ upon repentance it is venial, yea David's sin, and Peters sin; for they were both pardoned. And venial, is that which may be pardoned. And there is no sin, be it never so small in man's conceit, but it is mortal, deserving death eternal: As Adam sin, in eating the forbidden Apple, which to a carnal man's conceit, might seem to be but a venial sin, as the Pope accounted it, in comparison in stealing of the his Peacock.

But first for David's sin: it was grievous indeed▪ yet sin is to be weighed, not so much by the Act of the sin, as by the affection of sinning. David and Ahab, both committed the like sin of murder: the fact was the same, but not their affections. Ahab sold himself to work wickedness, David not so; Ahab's humiliation procured the delay of his punishment only, not the removal of his sin. Deus d • stulit paenam, non abstulit culpam. But David upon his peccani, heard, The Lord hath put away thy sin. Saint Chrysostom compareth David's case in lusting after Bat • sheba, to a sea-storm, fore afflicting the Martiners for the time; so that, he suffered a vehement perturbation of his passions, during the temptation, not knowing well what he did; & though his brittle Bark of carnal lust, and human frailty went to wrack, yet the gulf of a total falling away, did not swallow him up in the deep, but vpō the plank of repent • nce, he did swim safe to shore. And Saint Augustine saith of David's sin: In ista vi • o ( 〈◊〉 David • ) immoderata &c. In this man (i • David) there was not an abode, but only a passage of this inordinate lust: And therefore the Prophet, reproving it, called it a guest; for he said not, that he set before his King, but before his guest, his poor neighbors sheep to feast withal: so that thereby Augustine gives us to understand, that David's inordinate lust, was not as a King to reign, and to keep his Court of residence in his heart, but only as a guest, coming accidentally, and lodging with him for a night, and so away. The like he saith of Peters denial. Quis ita euanescat, &c. Who can be so vain, as to think the Apostle Peter had that in his heart, which he • had in his mouth, when he denied Christ? surely in that denial, he retained the truth inwardly, and outwardly uttered a lie. For with his heart he believed to righteousness, but with his month he confessed not to salvation. If therefore in Peters denial, his faith was not lost, then certainly he fell not totally away. And that Peters faith was not then lost, we have Christ's testimony in his prayer for Peter, But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not. This prayer of Christ was before Peters denial of him; yea, Christ's prayer did in particular, point at Peters denial, which was that very night, to preserve his faith from failing therein, though his tongue did foully faulter. And who shall deny Christ's prayer to be effectual? For the Father heareth him always, John. 11. 42. and if it were effectual, Peters faith failed not, no, not in that his fearful denial; and consequently, his sin was not a total falling away from grace, no, not for an instant: for his faith failed not, nor finally, nor totally, nor at all. St. Augustine saith, Fides eius qui aedificatur super Petram, &c. His faith that is built upon the rock, for which also Christ prayed, that it should not fail, doth not fail. So that the faith of the elect faileth not, no not in the degrees, as we have shown.

But admit 〈◊〉 faith did not fail, yet others faith may, for which Christ did not so particularly pray, as for Peters saith.

That which Christ prayed for Peter, he did also in him pray for all the faith full; Peter standing oftentimes for a type of the Church. For Christ saith, (Lake 22. 31.) calling Simon by name, Simon, Simon behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may s • fe you as wheat: so that he speaks to Simon in the plural number, as including all his Disciples, all his faithful; Satan hath desired to have you, that he may 〈◊〉 YOU. And in the next verse, he adds, But I have prayed for THEE, &c. Where Christ doth more particularly apply his speech to Peter, to arm him the better against his approaching denial; so that in Peter, he prays for all his faithful: as Saint Augustine applies it; Dicent • argo Christo, Roga • i pro te, &c. Christ saying, I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: let us understand it to be said to him, that is built upon the Rock. And again, more plainly in the plural number, Pro his interpellante Christo, &c. For these (to wit, the called, according to his purpose) Christ praying that their faith fail not, without doubt it shall not fail, unto the end. And as Saint Augustine in sundry places noteth, Saint Peter beateth the person and figure of the Catholic Church; though he say not, that Peter is the head of the Church: so that oftentimes that which Christ speaks to Peter by name, is extended to all the faithful.

To conclude: these fell not totally, nor yet any of God's elect, since the covenant between them and God stands firm, and is never totally broken; the covenant I mean, made by and with David in his Circumcision, & by and with Peter in his Baptism. Which covenant, on our part, is to believe in God, and to serve him, and to love him, with all our heart, and with all our soul, &c. Now for David's and Peters faith, that failed not, as we have proved. For their love, that was in the exercise of it defective for the time, while the act of it was suspended, so that they had made a partial breach of their Covenant. But total it was not: for the total breach pertains to that sin, which is impossible to be expiated by repentance; described, Heb. 6. as the sin of Judas, of Julian, and the like. But David and Peters sin, was not committed out of a hatred of God; much less, a total hatred of the whole soul, mind and heart; that is for Judases and Julian's, and all Apostaticall Reprobates. But the sins of God's elect, howsoever for the act, they may be equal to the sins of the most reprobate: yet in the affection they are not, and so they make not a total breach of their Covenant with God. Again the Covenant on God's part, is a Covenant of mercy, as Ro • 11. 27. as also, Ier. 31. 33, 34. This is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins; so that God's Covenant with us, is a Covenant of mercy: and mercy implieth misery, yea sin it self; that if through human frailty we fall into sin, as David and Peter did, there is mercy with God, that he may be feared; who if he should be extreme to mark what is done amiss, who could abide it? yea, to take the extremity, were to break his covenant with us, which is a covenant of mercy. But he is not as a strict, and cruel Land-lord, who will take the forfeiture of our lease, upon every the least breach. Neither is he as a Judge, strictly to take away our inheritance from us, only for some flaw in the conveyance. No, our inheritance is conveyed over unto us, not according to form of law, or regal right: but according to the covenant of the Gospel, which is not forfaited for every flaw, or defect on our part. Indeed in point of God's strict law, every the least flaw forfeits all: but not so according to the tenure of the Gospel. For, saith God, I have found David my servant, &c. It is spoken literally of David, typically, and mystically of Christ: for he is God's first borne, higher than the Kings of the earth. Now of him, & of his seed, to wit, all his elect, and regenerate, he saith (ver. 28.) My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, & my covenant shall stand fast with him, his seed also will I make to endure forever, &c. But if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; thou will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquities with stripes. Nevertheless, my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him; nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips; once have I sworn by my holiness, that I will not fail David • : his seed shall endure forever. And St. John. saith, If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous, & he is the propitiation for our sins.

But say, their fall was not total, yet fearful it was; and such, as without repentance would have tumbled them down to hell. Where is then perseverance? where predestination, and election, unto grace and glory?

True it is, that without faith and repentance, there is no salvation; and a man dying impenitent, is damned. But, we must know, that as faith and repentance are conditions, which God hath ordained, and so requires on our part, though himself give them, and work them in us; so they are a part of those means, which God hath appointed to attain the end of our salvation. And the means are such, so fixed and established of God, as they shall always attend upon his purpose and pleasure, in our election to grace and glory. So that as God hath in his eternal decree preordained us unto glory, he hath also preordained the means in time, as the way unto that glory; so that none of his Elect shall fall through infirmity into any sin, as David and Peter did; but God's grace, which never faileth his, shall raise them up again, by the renovation of their faith and repentance, before that any sudden death shall be able to prevent them, or so, to take thē out of Christ's, and his Fathers hands. Neither doth the stability of God's election depend upon the condition of our faith and repentance: but contrariwise, the condition of our faith and repentance depēdeath upon the immutability of God's Predestination, producing all the means and conditions requisite to the end; as the root of the tree doth the branches and fruits. And this is the express Doctrine of the Church of England, most sweetly set down in the 17. Article, of Predestination, and Election.

But this Doctrine, howsoever it may seem to be true, yet it tendeth to presumption, and carnal security, to commit and continue in sin. Also David's and Peters sin, if it were not a total falling, it gives too much encouragement to others, to commit the like, or at least, less sins, boldly.

No, this doctrine appertains properly to the faithful penitent, that if through frailty they have sinned, they may not be without hope of mercy, upon their repentance. So that this doctrine is an Antidote against desperation, when God's child through human frailty is overcome with a temptation; it is a cordial of comfort, quickening his hope unto a godly sorrow. But if it be, or seem to be a Doctrine of presumption, it is so to none of God's Saints, who pray with David, as to be cleansed from their secrets faults, so to be kept back from presumptuous sins. And where St. John saith, If any man sin, we have an Advocate, &c. There he sets a barracado against presumption in the frontire of it: My little children, these things write I unto you, that you sin not. And God hath his rod likewise, to scare his children from sinning, by presuming on his mercy; for he saith, If they sin, I will visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Yea God's holy fear is in their hearts, that they shall not by presumption depart from God, as Jeremiah speaks.

As for David's sand Peters sin, while we defend it, not to be a total alling away; we do not any way extenuate. it; for they were notwithstanding great and fearful sins, neither of them exemplary to be imitated, but rather to be avoided. Their examples are left us in Scripture, that we might imitate, not their sin, but their repentance; since they found mercy; not their fall, but their speedy rising again. As the Apostle saith of such Scriptures, they are written for our learning, that we through patience, and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. Rom. 15. Yea, their examples tend rather to humiliation, then presemption: for if such pillars shake, the laths may well tremble. Lapsus maiorum sit tremor minorum, saith Augustine. Let the fall of the greater and stronger, be the fear of the lesser and weaker. And to conclude with Saint Augustine this point concerning

But the Doctrine of perseverance tendeth to possess men with carnal security.

It may seem so to those, that know not the true nature of saving grace, which is such, as in whomsoever it is, it preserveth that man from all carnal security; saving grace and carnal security being opposite one to the other: as in the forenamed place of Jeremiah, chap. 32. 40. God's fear causeth perseverance. And Saint John. saith expressly, He that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself, even as he is pure. So far is a lively hope of eternal life, from possessing him that hath it in him, with carnal security, the more licentiously to wallow in the puddle of sin. It is an evil sign to that man, to whom the truth of Christ becomes a stumbling stone, and a rock of offense. Let such beware, lest so stumbling, they be broken, and so, least at last this stone falling upon them, grind them to powder.

But Sir, you conclude the point of perseverance with a dangerous and difficult Doctrine of predestination; a Doctrine, which it were to be wished, might never be mentioned by Divines, and Preachers. Yet the mentioning of it by you in this place ministers unto me a fit occasion to desire your resolution, concerning this point, it being also the next thing in order, treated of by our Author.

Sir, you speak contradictories; first you wish all were mute in the mention of this Doctrine, and yet in the second place, you desire me to speak my mind of it. But I pray you tell me, why you wish the mention hereof to be altogether silence.

Because of the general offense taken at it, for it is a stumbling stone, whereon many do fall.

So is Christ a stumbling stone, and a rock of offense, to many; would ye therefore have the mention of Christ suppressed? But what if many men are offended with this Doctrine? an offense may be unjustly taken, where it is not justly given.

But it is called by a late great Bishop of this Land (quoted by the Author, cap. 4.) a desperate Doctrine; as himself also styleth it in his 7 chapter; and none (saith he) did contradict the Bishops words at that Conference.

I have by this time learned to lessen my wondering, to see (which Saint Jude tells us) a raging wave of the sea, foaming out his own shame; he having not once, but so often, leapt over all the limits of modesty. The Romans had a custom, if the dogs that kept their Capitall, did bark in the day time', or causelessly at friends, and those that came to worship their God's, crura suffringere, to break their legs. The Orator applies it to accusers. Yea, I have known a poor dog beaten by his Master, for giving warning of thieves approach. So easy it is to find a staff to beat a dog. And yet shall Censure pardon the Crow, and punish the Dove? shall a man thus impune, lawlesly reproach God's truth, his Church, his children, yea the prime Fathers of our Church, (no small scandal to our Religion) and yet be suffered to triumph and glory in his own shame? How? The Lord Bishop of London, Doctor Bancroft, in public audience, with much vehemency, without any check, dislike, distaste, dissent, to style predestination a desperate Doctrine? Is it possible, a Bishop of the Church of England should say so? to call predestination a desperate Doctrine? And if he did so, is it credible, that such a speech, so vehemently avoucht in a public assembly, should pass without hissing? And in what assembly? surely, where were present the most wise, learned, judicious, pious King in Europe, or in the whole World, the most renowned King JAMES: with many reverend and learned Divines. And none of these to check such a speech? surely their honor and credit lies at the stake upon it. But how doth it appear, that the Bishop uttered such a speech? How? Pythagoras himself hath said it, M. Montague, the Appealer saith it. But by his leave, by our former experience of his allegations, we will ask and inquire in the original record, whither it be so, or on. In the sum of the Conference, pag. 29. line 8. we find these very words indeed, a desperate Doctrine. But what did he call a desperate Doctrine? The doctrine of predestination? Nothing less. The Appealers wits are too nimble, out-running his his reason by many degrees. We must put a clog upon his heels, setting down the whole passage of that upon

Thus the words run. Now I must confess I am to try the matter at the Appealers own chief weapon, even the Syntax of Grammar, wherein he is no small Critick. He saith, that the Relatiue which, hath for the Antecedent, Predestination. I a poor Punie say, Which, hath for his Antecedent, Presuming too much of persisting of grace, laying all their Religion upon Predestination, If I shall be saved, I shall be saved: Which, he termed a desperate doctrine. For it is plain, the Bishop called not Predestination, a desperate doctrine; but the sinister conclusions, that carnal and impious men abusively draw from thence; being of the number of those unlearned (in the true mystery of Christ) and unstable, which (as Saint Peter speaks) wrest this and other Doctrines of the Scriptures, and particularly of St. Paul's Epistles, to their own destruction. Such wreched perverting of the Doctrine of Predestination, the Bishop calleth a desperate doctrine; and not, Predestination it self. For Predestination, and the holy use of it, (such as the Scripture hath revealed and described unto us) he calleth good divinity, and true doctrine, laying down very godly and anc •• tly, the right order and rule of every faithful man's particular use, and application of Predestination to himself; namely, that we labor to know we are rooted in that deep mystery of God's Election in Christ, by the fruits of a lively faith in all obedience. Thus and no otherwise do the Scriptures teach. Thus and no otherwise do all orthodox Divines, even Calvin himself, apply this Doctrine. Such the learned Calvin calleth plain hogs, that say, if they be of the number of the Elect, their sins shall not hinder them from attaining to life. Facessant ergo &c. Away therefore with such sacrilegies, which wick • dly pervert the whole order of Election. And he calls also such conclusions, blasphemies. So that the Bishop of London, Doctor Bancroft, and Master John Calvin, say in effect one and the same thing, the one calling the corrupt conclusions, which carnal men draw from Predestination, a desperate Doctrine: the other, the blasphemies, and sacrilege of hogs and swine, which is the very Doctrine of the Church of England, as it is excellently set down in the Article of Predestination and Election. 17. Thus we see the Appealer hath brought his hogs to a fair market, while through poor Calvin's sides he smites the Bishop of London, Doctor Bancroft; yea, and the whole Church of England: and through all, by his vndisciplined solecism, he wounds Predestination it self, while he will needs have it absolutely called A DESPERATE DOCTRINE.

Nor is it a new thing, that carnal men stumble and cavil at the Doctrine of Predestination. The Pelagians in Saint Augustine's time did the like. Nor can I shape you a fitter answer, then he did to them, and so to all adversaries of this Doctrine of the grace of God, Nu • propter malos &c, Is the truth of this Doctrine (to wit, of predestination) to be forsaken, or shall it be thought worthy to be cancelled out of the Gospel, because of those that are wicked & cold? Let the truth be spoken, especially, where any question doth require it to be spoken, that they may receive it, who are capable of it; least haply, while it is concealed, in regard of those that are not able to receive it, they who are capable of the truth, whereby falshhood may be detected, be not only defrauded of the truth, but may be overtaken with falsehood. And a little after, Nonne potius est dicendum verum, &c. Is not the truth rather to be spoken, that he which can receive, may receive it: than to be suppressed, that not only neither can receive it; but also he that is more intelligent, may be made worse? The enemy of grace is importunate, and urgeth by all means, that it might be believed, that it is given unto us according to our merits, and so grace should now be no more grace; and yet we will not speak that, which by the testimony of the Scriptures, we may speak; for we fear, forsooth, lest if we speak, he that cannot receive the truth, be offended: and we fear not, lest while we are silent, he which is able to receive the truth, may be deceived by error. For either is predestination so to be preached, as the holy Scripture doth evidently declare it, that in those that be praedestinate, the gifts & calling of God may be without repentance or: else we must confess, that the grace of God is givē according to our merits, which is the opinion & wisdom of the Pelagians; And again, cap. 2 1. ibid. he saith, Nimiae cōtentionis est, &c. Itis too much peruersues to contradict praedestinatiō, or yet to doubt of it.

But you know that the late wise and judicious King JAMES, of famous memory, did inhibit and restrain the preaching of the Doctrine of Predestination, and Election.

But in what respect? His Majesty did not restrain Preachers from the liberty of preaching the Doctrine of Predestination, it being a special part of the Gospel; but rather to give caution, and direction, at least to younger Ministers and Divines, lest through want of mature judgment, in the manner of opening that mystery, and applying of it, they might haply, put a stumbling block before the in • udicious, and ignorant hearer, or those of weak consciences, As Saint Aug. denies not, but wisdom and discretion is to be used in the preaching of it. For (saith he) it is not so to be preached to the ignorant multitude, as that the preaching of it may seem worthy of reproof. Nam dolosi vel imperiti medici est, &c. It is the property of a deceitful, or an unskillful Physician, so to apply, even a wholesome plaster, as that either it do no good, or else hurt. This was the mind of his Excellent Majesty of blessed Memory, in that his injunction, to advise all Ministers, to play the faithful, and skillful Physicians, in in the applycation of so wholesome, profitable, and comfortable a plaster and Doctrine, as the Church of England calls it, Art. 17: though the Appealer doth flout his Informers, and those which call Predestination a comfortable doctrine. Appeale pag. 39. But otherwise, his Majesty himself of blessed Memory, hath left His royal record of this Divine Doctrine, in his learned and Divine Paraphrase of the Revelation, the 20 chap. in the latter end, in these words, The Book of life was opened to the Elect, that all those those whose names were written into it, to wit, Praedestinated and Elected for salvation before all beginnings, might then be selected for eternal glory.

Neither doth the Author here simply oppose, or question the Doctrine of Predestination and Election, but as it is delivered by the new Divines, as he calls them, to wit, Calvin and his fellows, whom he chargeth with a twofold error as touching Predestination: The first is, that they teach, (especially Calvin) that God's eternal election, and predestination was irrespectiue, and absolute, without any respect or reference to Adams fall: The second error of Calvin, is, in delivering the doctrine of predestination in such a rigid manner, as he doth.

For Master Calvin, there needeth none other Apology, then his own Works or Writings, which shall ever praise him in the gate. For his works, and in sum, his Institutions, if a man snatch at them (as the Egyptian dog, doth at Nile, for fear of the Crocodile) not observing his grounds taken from Scripture, nor well waighing his reasons: no marvel if such snatchers, prepossessed with a prejudicate opinion, can as easily opē their mouths against such famous Authors, as the Dog can bark at the Moon-shine. But perhaps he had no more quarrel to holy Calvin, then that fellow had to just Aristides, who not knowing Aristides by face, but only by fame, that he was a just man, came to him unwittingly to crave him to write down his name for him, that he might with the rest of the envious Citizens consent to his banishment by their law of Ostracismon, because he so much excelled others in honesty. It may be he never read Calvin's works, much less his Institutions, to catechise him in the grounds of religion. Or perhaps, he hates Calvin, as Ahab did the Prophet Micaiah, because his Doctrine is altogether against his Interim-religion, with all his confederate Intermiists. Orwhatsoeuer is the cause. Thus did Heretics, by catching at the outward rind and bark of someone part of Scripture, maintain their Heresies. But I marvel what the Appealer could read or hear of Master Calvin, that he should write so contemptuously of him; saving that he was a holy man, faithful and painful in his calling, exercised with continual preaching, writing, watchful providence in governing; a man of great learning, dexterity of wit, sincerity of judgment, of great piety, equity, and sobriety of life, a true pattern and precedent of virtue. Therefore as Christ said, Many good works have I done among you, for which of these do ye stone me? so, for which of Calvin's virtues doth this Author tongue-smite him? The most noble and judicious King JAMES of happy Memory, thought not so slightly of that learned Divine, while he prefered his Commentaries upon the Scriptures before all others. It were to be wished, that the Author, going about to oppose such a worthy and famous man, had imitated the heathen Academic Carneades, who, intending to write against the positions of Zeno the Stoic, did first purge his stomach, and pectoral parts with white hellebore, lest some malignant humor possessing the stomach, might distemper and embitter his style, which is no less a disparagement to a professed Christian Divine, than was wont to be of old, to the Heathen Philosophers.

But, not the person of so worthy a man, but his opinion is inveighed against. Well, what opinion? about Predestination, and Reprobation. But, I pray you, what is Calvin's error about Predestination?

In that he holds it to be an act of an irrespectiue decree of God, ordaining some to salvation, others to torments, without any prerespect of good in the one, or of evil in the other, or without any reference to Adams fall.

Why, may not God do so, if it please him? Is not his will absolute and free? And hath not the Potter power to make of the same lump, one vessel to honor, and another to dishonor? Is it not said of Iacoh and Esau, twins, newly conceived in the womb, that before they did good, or evil, that the purpose of God, according to Election, might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth, The elder shall serve the younger? And whatsoever God willeth, it must needs be just. I would gladly see this place well solued. But to let that pass: what place doth your Author allege out of Calvin, for this his opinion?

Out of his Institutions, book 3. chap. 21 sect. 5. you may read his words here at large set down by the Author.

This place, in my simple judgment, doth not conclude necessarily, and such opinion, as he is charged withal. For, it proveth not, that God in his eternal decree, had no respect to the corrupt mass in Adams fall; Every man is created to that end, to which God hath ordained him. True. For God doth nothing, but for a special end. But is this creation meant of Adams first creation? That is not necessary. For although all men might be said to be created in Adams loins, yet it is only potentially, and seminally. So that, if Calvin may as well be understood to speak of the particular creation of every man in his generation, as of his general creation in Adams loins before his fall, charity should induce a Christian, to interpret in the better part, where there is not evidence to the contrary. But what if Calvin do in express words otherwhere acquit himself of what the Appealer thus calumniously chargeth him with all in this point? As indeed he doth in sundry places, where he saith. That God's Election and Predestination, was not without special respect, and reference to Adams fall, and to the corrupt mass: as is evident in the 22. chap. of the alleged book, and seventh section, saying, Quaeritur an natura (elects): imo qui alieni erant, trahendo suos facit. It is demanded, whether they are by nature elect: yea, they which were strangers and aliens, by drawing them, he maketh his own. So that God chose them, finding them strangers. And a little after in the same section, Si quis roget, vnde elegerit, alibi, respondet Christus, Ex mundo, quem à precibus suis excludit, vbi Discipulos Patri commendat. If any ask, whence he chose them, Christ answereth elsewhere, Out of the world, which he excludeth from his prayers, when he commends his Disciples to his Father. If then they be chosen out of the world, and the world be meant of all the wicked, as here; then what else can Calvin mean hereby, but that God's eternal election had a special reference to that world of wickedness packed up in Adams sinful loins after his fall, out of which he made his Election? And yet more expressly and punctually, being urged by the Adversaries of God's Election, in his 22. chapter of the same book, and 11 section, Fatemur communem noxam, sed dicimus qui busdam succurrere Dei misericordiam: We acknowledge a common lapse in all, but we say that the mercy of God succoreth some. And he concludes with the judgment and words of Saint August, highly praising his saying, Duid in primo homine &c. Seeing in the first man, the whole mass of mankind fell into condemnation, those which one of it are made vessels unto honor, they are the vessels, not of their own righteousness, but of God's mercy: but that others are made to dishonor, is not to be imputed to iniquity, but to judgment. That God recompenseth due punishment to them whom he reprobateth, and on those whom he calleth, bestoweth undeserved grace: he is freed from all accusation; by the example of a Creditor in whose power i • is to remit one, and to exact his debt of the other. The Lord then can give grace to whom he will, because he is merciful; and not give to all, because he is a just judge. By giving to some that which they deserve not, he showeth his free grace; by not giving to all, he declareth what all do deserve. For when Paul writeth, that God hath shut all under sin, that he might have mercy upon all; we areto add withal, that he is debtor to none, because none hath given to him first, that he should exact a recompense. And Calvin upon John, chap. 15. 16. hath these express words to confirm the former. Si • lecti fuerunt ex mundo, &c. If the Elect were chosen out of the world, it followeth that they were a part of the world, & separated frō the rest that perish, by the only mercy of God: Moreover by the name of world, Christ in this place, noteth all those, which arenot regenerate by the holy Ghost.

This is so evident to clear Calvin from all calumniation concerning this point, that it retorts a just censure upon those, that taking a man's saying by snatches, and not reading and waighing the whole thoroughly, do bewraye rather want of judgment and charity in themselves, while they would clap their own bitter censures, and sinister interpretations upon others; then either of unsettled judgment, or vnfound learning in those, whom they so rashly and impiously traduce. But for the Appealer, I can blame him no more for dealing thus with Calvin, and with those whom he calls Calvinists, then he hath done the Reverend Fathers of our Church forementioned, as also with Saint Augustine, in the forecited sentence, which according to the Appealers lopping of it, begins with Credendum est, &c. opposing one dismembered sentence of Saint Augustine, against the whole current of his writings in that point: as he hath one misdeemed sentence of Reverend Master Calvin, against his sound judgment, in sundry other places of his divine volumes, expressly set down. His doctrine being none other, but the very same with that of the Church of England, Art. 17: so that all the Appealers calumniations cast upon Master Calvin, do strongly reuerberate and rebut upon our deate mother Church of England: he not sparing to smite her through the very loins of her dearest children, whose names shall ever be renowned, both for learning and piety, while the world standeth.

Now what other irrespectiunesse of God's irrespectiue decree, the Appealer would so irrespectiuely fasten upon the learned and reverend Calvin, I cannot conceive, unless he mean an irrespectiuenesse in God's praedestinating, without any respect or preuision of their works, as a grand error, which he chargeth Calvin with; neither would I willingly, or wittingly, conceive or conjecture of the Appealers extended sense otherwise than by himself is not only intended, but clearly enough expressed; as may be seen in his 7. chapter 1. part, in sundry places. But for Master Calvin, we have sufficiently cleared him from the Appealers calumny, notwithstanding he spend a great part of his said 7. chap. in heaping up testimonies of Fathers; and all upon a false surmised ground, and so all to no purpose, except to vent, (I would, to cure) the overflowing of that humor of the Gall, which hath caused his Appeale, to be all overspread with the yellow, yea, with the black Iawndise. For Master Calvin holds with Saint Augustine, God's election to be out of the corrupt mass: and reprobation of the rest, already condemned by that sentence of death; In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the death.

But for the Appealers own opinion, concerning God's decree of election and predestination, it may not be passed by in silence. First he saith, There must needs first be a disproportion, before there can be conceived Election, or Derelection. What he meaneth by disproportion, he tells a little after; namely, between those, who now condemned in Adams laynes, God did forsee would accept of deliverance offered them, in, and by Christ; and the rest, whom he foresaw, would reject this deliverance. His very words are, God out of his mercy, &c. stretched out to them (that is, to all, now condemned in Adams loins) deliverance in a Mediator, the Man Jesus Christ; and drew them out, that took hold of mercy, leaving them there that would none of him. So that by the Appealers saying here, no pradestination, without a disproportion, conceived to go before: and this disproportion, between the parties to be elect and reprobate, is discovered by God's preuision of both their works; he foreseeing that the one would receive and accept grace offered, and the other refuse it: upon which preuision, the Appealer would build God's decree of pr • destination, and election; an opinion, no less graceless, then groundless, and if I should call it, in plain terms, most impious and blasphemous against God's pure glory, and preciourgrace, although I should do the Appealer no wrong in it, yet I should raise a Wasps nest about mine ears. But we must not fear to speak the truth, and to oppose such blasphemy, because of men's mischievous, and no less boundless, then groundless malice; especially in such a case, wherein God's glory is so deeply engaged.

This opinion of the Appealer is very plausible to flesh and blood; for man's pride would still be arrogating something to it self, and be a fingering of one of God's special peculiars, his glory. This was that poison, which the Serpent infused, and breathed into our first Parents, Eritis sicut Dii &c. Ye shall be as God's, self-wise, and self-sufficient; And this poison we have all sucked in with our Nurses milk: we will be at least fellow-sharers with God in the work of our salvation. O, this pleaseth us well. Saint Augustine himself confesseth, that he was once of this opinion, that God elected men out of his preuision and foresight of their faith, &c. But this he imputeth to his ignorance in his younger years, and therefore in his riper judgment, and further insight into the mystery of God, he retracteth his opinion, in his first book of Retractations cap. 23. yet our age wanteth not gray heads, and white heirs, who with their gr •• n • wits, will rather approve of the opinion of young, then the judgment of old Saint Augustine, and to retract his Retraction.

Now for this opinion, of God's Election, ruled by his prescience, or premission of works, if we seek some eminent authority, and venerable antiquity for it, S. Augustine can best resolve us. For the Antiquity of it, we have Saint Augustine's time: for authority, the Pelagian heresy. Praesciebat ergo, &c. He foreknew then (saith the Pelagian) who would be holy and immaculate, by their freewill, and therefore in that his prescience, whereby he fore-knew they would be such, he Elected them before the foundation of the world. Which opinion of Pelagius, now revived by our Appealer and his, S. Augustine answereth most divinely from the Scriptures, Intueamur ergo, &c. Let us therefore peruse the words of the Apostle, and let us see whether God did therefore choose us before the foundation of the world, because we would become holy and immaculate, or that we might be so? Blessed be God, saith he, and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us in all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ according as he hath chosen us in him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy, and without blame before him in love. Non ergo quia futuri eramus sed vt essemus, He chose us, not therefore, because we would be such, but that we might be such: Nempe certum est, &c. For it is certain, for it is manifest, that therefore we would become such, because he chose us, predestinating us, that we should become such by his grace. And mark (saith he) what the Apostle addeth. Secundum pl • citum, &c. According to the good pleasure of his will, lest in so great a

And much more doth this holy man sweetly apply to the same purpose, out of that heavenly Chapter, the first to the Ephesians, whereof he saith, Nimis longum est de singulis disputare, It were too long to traverse every circumstance. And he concludes, Cer • it is autem proculdubio, &c. You see then doubtless, you see with what

And to clear this point yet more, he induceth an objection of some, who, though adversaries in part to the Pelagians, yet they would impute Predestination to God's prescience in regard of faith. The Pelagians (say they) are of opinion, that receiving once the commandment of God, we become holy and immaculate of our selves, by our free will, which God foreseeing, did therefore, before the foundation of the World, elect and praedestinate us in Christ, whereas the Apostle saith, Not because he foreknew we would be such, but that we might be such by the election of his grace, whereby he hath made us accepted in his beloved Son. When therefore he predestinated us, he knew his own work, who maketh us holy and immaculate. So that the Pelagians error is rightly confuted by this testimony. But we say: (say these half- Pelagians, to mince the matter) that our God foreknew not, save only our faith, whereby we begin to believe, and therefore elected us to be holy, &c. To whom Saint Augustine answereth. Sed audians & ipsi &c. But let these also hear in this testimony, where he saith, In whom, (that is, in Christ) we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him, who worketh all things, after the counsel of his own will; that we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ Whence the holy man concludes, that seeing the Father worketh all things, therefore also faith, the first seed whereof the Apostle ascribes to the praise of God's glory. And again, Not of works, but of him that calleth; when he might have said, (saith Augustine) But of him that believeth. Non enim &c. For not because we believed, but that we might believe, he chose us, lest we should be said to have chosen him first; and so that should be false, (which God forbid) you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. And that faith is the gift of God, the Apostle saith, Ephess. 2. 8. and Phil. 1. 29. also Heb. 12. 2. Jesus Christ, the Author and finisher of our faith; besides sundry other places cited by Saint Augustine, so that this good man leaves no corner vnhunted for this Pelagian Heresy to lurk in; proving and concluding evidently, and invincibly from Scripture, that God's election and predestination is, most free, not depending upon any his foresight of faith or grace to be in us, but merely according to his own purpose and grace, whereupon our whole sanctification and salvation dependeth. According to that of the Apostle, As many as were ordained to eternal life, believed: belief, being a confequent fruit of predestination to eternal life. And that of Christ, ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep; that is of the number of God's elect. Audiant hac, &c. saith Saint Aug. Let them hear those things, and other more, omitted by us, whereby is shown, that God doth prepare and convert men's wills to the kingdom of heaven, and to eternal life. As the same Father saith elsewhere, I •• i cum Christo reg • abunt, &c. They shall raighe with Christ, whom God by his free goodness hath praedestinate to the kingdom: for because by praedestinating such, he hath prepared them that they should be meet for the kingdom: he hath prepared them also to be called, according to his purpose, that they may obey: he hath prepared them to be justified, that receiving grace, they may rightly believe, and live well: he hath prepared them also to be glorified, that being made co-heirs with Christ, they may possess the kingdom of heaven without end. And so he concludes his former book, M • lta diximus, &c. we have said many things, and yet we speak to such good wits, to whom as if dull of understanding, even that which is too much, is not enough.

But doth not the Apostle say plainly, that those whom God forekn • w, he predestinated? Therefore did not God praedestinate men, according as he foresaw they would receive (or reject) grace offered?

Indeed this, and such like places of Scripture, do the Arminians, our new Pelagians, pitifully pervert. But neither this place, nor the analogy it hath with other Scriptures will admit of any such sense. It is plain, that this foreknowledge in God of those, whom he would praedestinate to life, is no other, but his very act of electing of them; as the same Apostle expresseth it fully, Eph. 1. 4. 15. According as he hath chosen us in Him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy, and without blame before him in love; having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, &c. For God's foreknowledge, of those whom he would save, is his eternal act of love in electing them, or his gracious pleasure and purpose, or decree • n saving them. We know that Scitum, which comes of Scio, to know, is used for a Decree, as Plebiscitum, the people's decree, so God's foreknowledge here, is his foredecree. So also whom God is said to know in Christ, is always taken for his approving or liking, or accepting them in Christ. This is his knowledge of approbation, whereby he knows only his elect. So Psa. 1. 6. The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish. The Lord knoweth, that is, approveth and alloweth the way of the righteous. But doth not the Lord know the way of the wicked also • yes, by his knowledge of apprehension, but not, of approbation. For he saith (in Math. 27. 23.) to the wicked, I never know you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity. God's knowing of his therefore, is his loving of them. Christ saith to Nath •• iel, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the f • gge 〈◊〉 , I saw that. Under the fig tree, what is that? that is, saith August. in Adams • oines, clothed with his fig-leaves, in the state of sin: then and there Christ saw Nathaniel, that is, his true Israelites, his chosen; he saw him, that is, he took pity on him, saith he. As the Lord saith in Ezekiel, 16. 6. I saw thee, when thou wast polluted in thy blood, and said unto thee live. Which place even the Appealer himself understands of God's Election out of the corrupt mass.

Again, the Apostle in Rom. 8. 28. and 29. ver. by you cited, saith expressly, that God's foreknowledge is his purpose: for having said, v. 28, We know that all things work together for good, to them that love God, being the called according to his purpose, he addeth, For whom he foreknew; those he also predestinated, &c.

Note again, he saith not, those, whose wills he foreknew, but, whom he foreknew: he speaks of their persons, not of their qualities.

And the Apostles next words do overthrow this Pelagian opinion, that God foreknowing man's freewill, did accordingly praedestinate. For saith the Apostle, whom he did foreknow, he did also praedestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son. So that, to be made conformable to the image of Christ, is not of man's will foreseen, but of God's Predestination, foreknowing or foreelecting in his Son, those whom he pleased. Therefore as Nescire Dei, reprobare est (as Gregory saith) as God's not knowing is to reprobate; alleging Luk 13. 27. Depart from me, I know you not: so on the contrary, God's knowing, or foreknowledge of his, is to elect them. This is the foundation of God which stands sure, and hath this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. I could be more copious to illustrate this, but this may suffice to satisfy those that be not quarrellous.

But Sir, howsoever you may conclude, that God's Election is absolute, without any respective foreknowledge, of any good or grace in us, in accepting grace offered: yet the same cannot so well be said of reprebation, that God should reprobate any, but with a respect and foreknowledge of their disobedience and infidelity. For else, God should be unjust, to cast away and condemn any without just cause in themselves.

Sir there is the same reason of reprobation, that is of Election, for both were out of the corrupt mafle wherein all men were equally condemned: whereof some God called, and chose out to life, the rest he left as he found them, guilty of eternal death, and upon whom the sentence of death had now passed & seized, Gen. 2. 17 So that for God to leave some, whom he would, wallowing in their blood, it is an act of his justice: as to free others, an act of his mercy. Which Saint Augustine very pregnantly exemplifieth by a Creditor, in whose power it is to acquit some of his Debtors, and to exact of the rest to the uttermost, as we noted afore. This is setforth also in the types of the elect and reprobate, Jacob and Esau, who being yet in the womb, before they had done good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth, It was said to her, the elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated: Yet both Jacob and Esau were equally culpable in the womb, of original sin, and so were children of death, as all were, in the womb of our first Parents: but the election comes, and that makes a separation, and puts a difference, mercifully loving one, and justly hating another, and that before they had actually done good or evil, that the purpose of God might stand according to election, not of works, but of him that calleth. So that the disproportion, alleged by the Appealer, was not between the elect and reprobate, before the act of election, but the election caused the disproportion, not through any foreknowledge, or foresight of any good or evil actually to be done of either (as the Appealer would infer) but God's mere mercy on the one side, and his justice on the other, caused the disproportion. And even that place quoted by the Appealer out of Ezekiel, makes altogether against himself, though otherwise rightly alleged; for if we were in our blood, if cast out, if loathed, if dead; and yet, if in this contemptible condition, God said unto us, live, yea, when we were in our blood (it is twice repeated, ver. 6.) he faide unto us, live; where is then that prescience of any good in us, moving God to pull us out of this miserable estate? I am sure, no mention of it is in Ezekiel, no not in the whole Book of God; but the contrary, as we have proved; no nor yet doth his pretended Goddess, indeed his nothing in the world, the Church of England, anywhere teach the same; so nakedly, yet shamlesly peremptory is this assertion of the Appealer, having none to father his opinion upon, but Pelagius, and his Disciples. So weak and windy are his aspersions, which he casteth upon Calvin, or upon those whom he calls Puritans, for maintaining nothing, but what the Scriptures plainly teach, against his groundless and graceless opinion: so that he fighteth against God and his truth, against God's glory, and his grace, against his Church, yea the Church of England also.

But Sir, if the act of Election and Reprobation be without any respective foreknowledge in God of any actual good or evil in man, then what place is left for freewill? or how can God be just in punnishing the rebellious, seeing he hath rejected them, and denied them grace?

Of freewill I suppose occasion will be given anon to speak of it by it self. For the rebellious reprobate, as he is justly rejected for his sin in Adam, so he is never but justly condemned and punished for all his actual sins, springing from that cursed root. Nor doth his rejection necessitate him to rebel the more against Cod; his rebellion is from his own perverse will. Nor is God bound to give him grace. But against all contentious quarrellers at the Doctrine of God, we cannot shape, nor are we bound to give a better answer, (melius enim non invenimus saith St. August. many times against such cauellers) for we find not a better, then that of the Apostle upon the very same occasion, Thou wile say then, why doth he yet complain? for who hath resisted his will? Nay but o man! who art thou that repliest against God? shall the thing formed, say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the Potter power over the clay, of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honor, and another to dishonor? &c. The comparison is very pregnant: God is the Potter, we the lump, of filthy, and foul clay, cast out as the clay in the streets; yet if the Potter will, may he not take some of the clay, and make of it, vessels of honor, and make of the rest, (foul and filthy as he finds it) to dishonor? seeing it was in his power to put the whole lump, and that justly, to baser uses. But as the Apostle saith, God makes some, vessels of his mercy, to make known the riches of his glory; leaving the rest to be vessels of wrath, sitted for destruction, to make known his justice and power. In a word, if God's election be an act of mere mercy, then it excludes all respect to any good, that he could foresee to be in us: for (as the Apostle saith) There is at this present a remuant, according to the election of grace: And if by grace, then it is no more of works; otherwise, grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace; otherwise work is no more work. What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for, but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded.

I will conclude with Saint Aug. Non solùm &c. Therefore by the preaching of Pradestination, the Elect is not only not hindered from this work, to wit, of sanctification, but also is furthered thereunto, that when he glorieth he may glory in the Lord. The Pelagians could say, Si ••• &c. If ye will not have the obedience, to which you incite and inflame us, to freeze in our hearts; do not preach unto us that grace of God, which we confess God is the giver of, and which you exhort us unto. But Saint Aug. meets with them: Ego autem nolo &c. I will not exaggerate the matter with my words, but I rather leave it to them to consider, that they may see what that is, which they have persuaded themselves, that by the preaching of predestination, the hearers are possessed rather with desperation, then with exhortation; for this is all one, as to say, that then a man despaireth of his salvation, when he hath learned to put his hope not in himself, but in God. Whereas the Prophet proclameth, Cursed is everyone, that putteth his hope in man. Mirror (saith he) homines infirmitatis suae se malle committere, quàm firmitati promissionis Dei: I wonder, that men had rather commit themselves to their own infirmity, then to the stability of God's promise.

Therefore we must not measure the wisdom of God in his word, by the last or model of our own brain. Indeed man's reason, when it stands alone, seemeth very self-wise. But if it be compared, and set by God's wisdom, then the folly of it is by and by discovered. The Pontificians have a plausible reason for their justification by works: because (say they) it is a means to stir up men to good works. The Vniuersalists have their plausible reason also for their universality of grace, as indifferenly offered to all men alike, if they will but receive it: because (say they) all men may hereby be won to embrace the grace offered, and so be saved. But we know, that neither the external ordinary means are equally offered to all. For many thousands have not the means at all, much less, in an equal measure. Again, the ordinary means do of themselves work no more, but ordinary grace, as illumination, and temporary faith, &c. But the effectual saving grace, though it be not wrought simply by the ordinary means, but by the especial efworke of God's Spirit in and by the means, yet we know that the ordinary means are to be diligently and reverently attended of all men, wheresoever God affordeth them. Howsoever, in all this generality, God's purpose and grace remains firm to all the seed only; this is God's wisdom. Therefore if God's word satisfy not our carnal reason, but cross it rather, shall we presume by straining and wresting, to fit it to our own fancy, and not rather submit all our human wisdom unto it? Even Heathen Cato, following Pompeis part against Caesar, because he took it to be the juster, and seeing Pompeis side declining, and Pompey himself at last beaten out of the field: he looked up to heaven, and cried, In rebus diuinis magnam esse Caliginem, that in divine things there was a great deal of darkness, which man's wit could not discover. As St. Augustine in his answer to the Pelagians cavil, in quarrelling the Scriptures about the imputation of sin, saith, Quid si ego essem hebetior, nec statim possem has rations diluere: an propterea minus deberem diuinae Scripturae credere? Imo mullo magis conuenit, vt ego ruditatem meam agnoscam, quàm vt falsitatem sacris literis impingam. What if my dullness were such, as I could not by and by disprove these reasons: must I therefore not believe the divine Scripture? Nay so much the rather ought I to acknowledge mine own ignorance, then to impute falsehood to God's holy word. A rare humility and candid ingenuity of this holy man, captiuating all his carnal reason to God's profound wisdom in the holy Scriptures.

But Sir, give me leave a little to apologise in the Appealers behalf. You say, his opinion is impious, as impugning the glory and mercy of God. But doth he not say in express words, that God did out of his mercy, in his love, motu mero (they be his own words) and not otherwise, stretch out to mankind, lying in their blood, in Adams corrupt loins, deliverance in a Mediator, the Man Jesus Christ, and drew them out that took hold of mercy, &c? so that you see, the Author doth ascribe our deliverance to the mercy and mere motion of God's love to mankind. Therefore this his opinion is not so impious as you would make it, as if guilty of high sacrilege against God's glory, and grace.

Indeed Sir, you say something for him, as he doth for himself; but that is said, is so far from acquitting, as it doth deeply accuse the Author of high treason against the Majesty of God, and the throne of his grace. True it is indeed, that it was God's incomprehensible love to mankind, to ordain for him such a Redeemer, as was his own and only Son, to assume our base nature, and therein to live and die contemtibly. An exceeding great favor of God towards man, to shape, make, and fit his Son Jesus Christ, as a most glorious robe, to cover our nakedness; as some of this Pelagian race, teachers of universal grace, make the comparison. All this is well thus far. But is this all? If God's mercy and grace stinte here, and go no further, farewell deliverance, we may wallow in our blood still, we may wear our filthy nakedness, as our best garment still. In vain God's mercy, in vain Christ's death, while it is left to us to receive, and accept this grace. In vain doth a man tell a blind man of a glorious sun in the firmament, which he wanteth eyes to see: or a maimed man, without hands, of a goodly garment made up for him, upon condition, that none but himself, must put it on? such is our condition by nature, we perceive not, we receive not the things of the Spirit of God, concerning Christ. Tell us of the glorious sun of righteousness risen who hath healing under his wings: we are blind, we apprehend it not, we are not affected with it, as not sensible of our spiritual diseases. Tell us of the Robe of Christ's righteousness, dipped and died in his blood: we want the hand of faith to put it on; yea, we cannot duly prize it, we disesteem it, we count it no better, then that poor coare of his, which the Soldiers cast lots for; yea, we hide our faces from him, he was despised, and we esteemed him not, saith Isaiah. Yea, we are by nature like those L • odiceans, we say, we are rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing: and know not, that we are wretched, & miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. Reu 3. 17. But, as God is the good Physician, who of his mere grace and favor, prepares and provides a remedy for our deadsicke souls: so he alone out of his free mercy must apply this remedy, else we can reap no more benefit by it, then a sick Patient of a sovereign Cordial, while it is close kept in the Apothecaries box, whereof he seeth the inscription and title only. We have a pregnant example hereof, in that man, that fell among thieves, who stripped, wounded, and left him half dead, unable to help himself; whom the Priest and Levite pass by on each side, without remorse; but a Samaritan seeing him, comes to him, takes compassion on him, binds up his wounds, powers in oil and wine, lifts him up on his Beast, and provides all things necessary for him. The case is ours, Totum geuus humanum est homo ill, qui iacet in via seminivus, &c. saith August. All mankind is that man, which lieth in the way, half dead; and though Christ the good Samaritan, come and take compassion of us, and bring oil and wine to heal our wounds; yet unless his compassion extend it self to apply them, we should still be wallowing in our blood, and so perish. Yet as Saint Augustine saith, Sunt homines iugrati gratiae, multum tribuentes inopi, sauciaeque naturae: Men are ungrateful to grace, attributing much to poor and wounded nature. Verum est, magnas arbitrij liberi vires, homo cùm conderetur accepit, sed peccando amisit. True it is; Man when he was created, received a greater power of freewill, but by sinning lost it. And this doth St. Augustine apply to the man fallen among thieves, helped and healed by the merciful Samaritan.

Well, how then come we to be made partakers of Christ? Namely by the free gift of Christ. It is of God's free favor and mercy, that Christ is given, not only for us, but to us: that Christ is not only appointed of the Father to be a glorious garment to cover our shame, but also the hand of faith is given us by the same grace of God, whereby we put him on, as the Father in the Gospel commanded the best robe to be fecht, and to be put upon his convert prodigal son; by the same grace our eyes are opened, to behold the glorious son of righteousness, risen in our horison, bringing life and health unto us. And as Christ came unto us, so we must come unto him: But how? by the same grace and mercy that he came unto us, we come unto him. So Christ saith, No man can come unto me, except the Father which hath sent me, draw him: and ver. 45. And they shall all be taught of God. Every man therefore that hath board, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me. And ver. 65. No man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father, upon which words St. Augustine saith, Trahi a Patre ad Christum, &c. For a man to be drawn by the Father to Christ, and to hear and learn of the Father, that he may come to Christ, is no other, then to receive a gift of the Father, whereby he believeth in Christ. And again, Quando Pater intus anditur, &c. When the Father is inwardly heard, and teacheth men to come to his Son, he takes away their stony heart, and gives them a heart of flesh. For so he maketh the sons of promise, and vessels of mercy, which he hath prepared unto glory. Why then doth he not teach all, that they may come to Christ? but that because all whom he teacheth, in mercy he teacheth; and whom he teacheth not, in judgment he teacheth not: because he showeth mercy on whom he will; and whom he will, he hardeneth; but, he showeth mercy, bestowing that which is good: he hardeneth, recompensing that which is due. whereupon he concludes, H • nc est quod verbum crucis pereuntibus stulitia est: his autem qui salui flunt, virtus Dei est. Hence it is, that the preaching of the Cross, is to them that perish, folishnesse: but to them which are saved, it is the power of God. This truth is so clear, it needs no further testimony. So that to ascribe part of our salvation to God, and part to man, is artificially to rob God of his glory, and man of salvation: seeing not only for the Father to appoint his Sons, to be the Mediator and Redeemer of mankind, but also effectually to give him to all his elect, giving them grace and faith whereby to receive him, are two noble inseparable branches growing from one and the same root of God's free mercy. Neither can the one stand without the other; for take away this latter act of God's mercy, enabling us to receive Christ, and the former, of appointing Christ to be the deliverer, would be altogether frustrate, as depending upon man's will to receive, or reject him, as the Vniuersalists falsely affirm. Therefore give God his whole glory, or else ye rob and strip him of all. So that I may say of the Appealers dealing herein, as our learned Master Hooker in his tract of Justification, saith of the Romish Church in the matter of our Redemption by Christ. They grant (saith he) that Christ alone hath performed the work of Redemption sufficiently for the salvation of the whole world; but in the application of this inestimable treasure, that it may be effectual to their salvation: how demurely soever they confess, that they seek remission of sins, no otherwise then by the blood of Christ, using humbly the means appointed by him, to apply the benefit of holy blood; they teach indeed so many things pernicious in Christian faith, in setting down the means, whereof they speak, that the very foundation of faith, which they hold, is thereby plainly overthrown, and the force of the blood of Jesus Christ extinguished. So he. The very like may be applied to the Appealer. For he, with his Arminians, howsoever they acknowledge the mere mercy of God, in providing such an all-sufficient Savior to redeem mankind; yet they mar all in their applying this plaster of mercy, while they would do it with the hand of freewill, the foresight whereof was (forsooth) the first mover of God's mere mercy. Sure if so, they must needs abate no small part from mere mercy. For how is it mere mercy, if any good in us foreseen, first caused it, that it should offer a Savior to us?

Now see, you seem to touch upon the point of Freewill, which my Author treateth of in the next Chapters, the 8, 9, and 10. following in order that, which hath hitherto been discussed. And to my simple understanding, that which he writes of it is very Catholic, and such as wherein he ascribeth, the receiving of grace offered, not simply to Freewill, but primarily to God's grace, preparing and stirring up the will unto it. But I desire to hear your opinion of this point also, as he hath handled it.

With a good will. But for as much as by the Authors own words, it is accounted, a Question of perplexed obscurity, I purpose not to tread the whole maze, wherein the versatilous wit of man hath made infinite windings, I will be very brief, omitting his various and copious allegations of Authors opinions. So that passing by the eighth Chapter, as empty: the ninth also, as full of quotations; I will touch only one or two passages in his tenth Chapter: In the second page whereof, whereas he saith, that in Adam, and through his fall, we have not lost nature but grace; this seems to imply, that Adam in his innocence, had grace. For else, no man can be said to loose, what he never had. But what grace? The grace that comes by Jesus Christ, which is the only grace the Scripture speaketh of? Surely, that, he had not; for before his fall, he needed not Christ; as Augustine saith; yet he addeth, Adam, non habuit gratiam? imo habuit magnam, sed disparem. Had not Adam grace? yes, great grace, but far unlike that which cometh by Jesus Christ. He might be said rather to have natural graces; that is, all ornaments, and endowments of an absolute and complete natural man, as he was; then simply that which the Scriptures calleth grace; for grace came by Jesus Christ. But this by the way.

The two principal things I note, is first his allegation of the Council of Trent, touching freewill: the second, his approbation of it, seconded with his own d • fini • iue sentence, tanquam in Cathedra. So that howsoever he seem to hold with the Church of England, and of Protestants in the point of freewill, yet the whole concatenation of his other Doctrines with this, (as of falling from grace total or final, predestination upon a Preuision of man's willingness to receive grace universally offered, and the like) doth necessarily conclude, that he holds, the very freewill of the Pelagians, & not only that of the Pontificians. For all these Heresies are so combined together, as so many members compact in one in •• re body, or as so many wheels in a rack, each receiving motion from other. But for brevity, because he makes no difference between the Decree of the Council of Trent, and his own, yea, and the Tenent of the Protestants Church: therefore it shall suffice to touch upon the Council of Trent only; and so, if that prove sound, well and good. For then the Protestant Church, holding therein with the Council of Trent, will prove to be beholden to the Appealer: else, but a little, for shuffling us in the same pack of Trents freewill.

I take his words, pag. 98. quoted out of his former book of the Gagge, for which he is taxed: Our conclusion (saith he to the Popish Gagger) and yours, is all one: we cannot, we do not deny freedom of will in man: whose doth so, is no Catholic. I add, no, nor Protestant. These be his words. Now all the controversy about freewill, is it not in regard of the grace of Christ, with relation unto it? Else, what needs all the stir about it? For that is the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; therein lies the state of the Question. For all confelle, as well Protestants, as Papists, that the natural man hath some reliqu • e • left of Adams natural freewill, we yield it, not to be altogether extinct, no more then his other faculties of the soul. But the Protestant Church, the Church of England, denieth, that by nature we have any freewill dispositiue to grace. But this is the mark, which the Council of Trent, the standard rule of the Romish Church, shoot at, namely to advance man's natural freewill unto grace: only confessing, it is so weakened & maimed by the fall of Adam, that it needeth some divine help to enable it the better to receive grace. As St. Augustine noteth of some more refined Pelagians, who though they will not confess, that those are Praedestinate, which by God's grace are made obedient, and permanent, yet they confess a kind of preventing grace. But how? Ideo vtique &c. No otherwise, but least grace should be thought to be given gratis, as the truth speaketh, but rather according to the merits of man's precedent will, as the Pelagian error gainsayeth, against. This being also the Doctrine of the Council of Trent, howsoever the Appealer jump with them, and join the right hand of fellowship: yet (for ought I know) he must go alone with them, for any consent or countenance the Church of England will give him in this his confederation. For all orthodox, & true Protestants deny & disclaim any freewill at all in a natural, or unregenerate man, unto grace; I mean, the saving grace of Christ. Natural men have it not, no nor Adam in his purest naturals, ever had such a freewill. For the will must follow the understanding, seeing it cannot affect good, unless first the understanding apprehend it. For Ignoti nulla cupido. That which a man knows not, he desires not. That the eye seeth not, the heart sueth not after. To this purpose, Aquinas saith well, that, Those things, which pertain to faith, do exceed human reason. And, Man, by assenting to those things, which are of faith, is eleuated above his nature. And again, Hoc est ex institutitione diuinae prouidentiae &c. This is by the appointment of divine providence, that nothing should work beyond its proper virtue. But eternal life (saith he) is a certain good, exceeding the proportion of created nature, because it also transcendeth the knowledge and desires of it. And he concludeth, that not even Adam could attain to eternal life, without a supernatural grace. What needs then all that ado about the quantity and measure of natural freewill remaining • n man, when it wants the qual •• y and property, to qualify it any way towards grace? There is in us, as natural men, a natural freewill still; it is no more lost, then other natural faculties, the poor relics of Adams perfections: but this will is but natural, it reacheth no higher, then to natural objects. So that while the Church of Rome, or the Council of Trent, so much adoring her God's Freewill, yet withal is forced to acknowledege a debility and lamnesse in it: they would fain persuade the world, that there is yet in our nature some antique venerable relics of freewill, disposing unto grace. Hence it is that they have a whole chapter of Preparation unto grace, wherein they touch upon freewill, as being the ground (sandy though it be) of their preparatory works unto faith and justification, as also of all their meritorious works. And therefore are they so eager to maintain and treasure up, at least some Relics of Adams freewill; least all should be attributed to Grace, and nothing to Nature, and then farewell all Merit, either of congruity, by preparation to grace, or of condignity to glory. So that, for this very reason, they anathe • ze all those, that say, Freewill is altogether lost. Wherein, if they will not confess, that they which say so, mean, that a man unregenerate hath no freewill unto grace, then they cunningly equiuocate. But the case is plain, all that their Doctrine driveth at, is to advance man's natural freewill unto grace, as much as is possible. Therefore they say, that these remains of freewill in man, though much lessened, and sore bruised with Adams fall, yet need but a kind of stirring up, and awakening as it were, oriogging on the elbow, or helping up being down. So that it shares stakes with their first grace, as they term it, though in hypocrisy they would seem to give most to God. Therefore if this be that, which the Appealer sticks not to approve in the Council of Trent, I will be bold to say as Saint Jerome did to the Pelagians * It is the Churches victory, that you utter your minds plainly; Sententias vestras prodidisse, superasse est: to discover your opinions, is to discomfit them. And for him to say, that God provided a Mediator for all such, whom he foresaw would receive him, to wit, by the freedom of their will, were a mere absurdity, if man have not an absolute freedom to grace. And by the Appealers approbation of the Council of Trent in the point of freewill, he must confess, that man in his Naturalls hath at least some freewill to grace. Which will agree well with that he said before, touching God's foresight of those would lay hold on grace; otherwise it implies a flat contradiction. For if there be no freewill in a natural man towards grace: then what willingness did God foresee in men to receive his Son, unless that, which himself did purpose wholly to work in them? Although not God's own work, which he purposed to work in man, by giving him faith & grace, was that, which foreseen, moved him to elect and praedestinate to salvation; for then the means should in God's first intention to save mankind, have taken place of the end it self, which in the priority of order, is the first in intention, though last in execution; yea, have taken place also of God's eternal free love, the prime motion, and sole absolute cause, that moved him to make his election of those whom he would, not who would him.

But the Council of Trent, and who so take part with it, deals coldly, and comes far short in giving God's grace, the due praise in the work of man's salvation. So that while they advance man's will, too high, and too much depress God's grace, they so part the stakes, that they give the right hand rather to freewill, then to grace. For what saith the Council? Si quis dixerit &c. If any man shall say, that man's freewill, moved and stirred up of God, doth cooperate nothing, by assenting to God stirring up, and calling, whereby it may dispose and prepare it self to obtain the grace of justification &c. Let him be accursed. In this very Cannon is inuolued a great part of the mystery of iniquity. For note here Rome's Legierdemam in iuggling with God's grace. She ascribes to God two things: 1. a work of moving and stirring up the will. 2. Touching the object, or end of this work, that the will may, by the cooperation of a free & self assenting, dispose & prepare it self to obtain the grace of justification. Examine we the words a little. Note what a slight and slender work they here attribute to God; it is with them, but a moving and stirring up, just like the confederate Arminians lenis suasio, some gentle motion; as if the will were but a little dull and lazy, and must be spurred, or sleepy and drowsy, and must be awakened, as Elias bad Baals Prophets to cry allowed, to awake their sleepy God. Yet this moving and shirring up, their School-men, and in particular, Andrew Vega, and Dominick Soto, two grand sticklers in that Council, & who being the two standard bearers of two strong different factions in that Council, the one of the Dominicians, the other of the Franciscans, bore a great swinge, and sway in it, and have written large Commentaries upon that sixth, the main and masterpiece- Session of that Council; as also Catharinus, of that Council too; and so Bellarmine & others of that crew: they express this Motion (I say) & stirring up of the will, to be understood, as an act of the first grace; a grace which the subtle Schoolmen have devised, distinct from their second grace. Which Schoolediuinity and subtle Sophistry, is the yery ground work of all the main Decrees of the Council, especially of those, contained and most cunningly contrived in that sixth session, concerning Justification. Well. But what may this first grace be? Truly no other, by their own Doctrine, but such, as a man may have, and yet never attain to justification, and so to salvation, yet such a grace they say it is, as by moving and stirring up, the will cooperates to give assent, and to dispose and prepare it self to receive justification, to wit, an infusion of inherent grace, which they call the Second grace; and so the will, by giving free assent by disposing and preparing it self, doth merit of Congruity the second grace; although the Council confesseth, that the first grace is given freely without any precedent merit in man. By which one devise of a poor (I wot not what) first grace, whereby a man is not at all (by their own confession) justified, and so will scarce prove worth God have mercy: they would elude and evacuate the Scriptures, which so much advance and magnify the work of God's free and effectual grace, in our first conversion and justification; as Rom. 3. 24. Being justified freely by his grace, through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus. For they turn the cat in the pan; and because they cannot deny the express Scripture, so pregnant and plentiful in setting out the free and vndeserved grace of God in man's salvation, but are forced at least in words to confess it: therefore they have no other shift, but to restrain this free gift of God's effectual saving grace, to that only which they call their first grace, though no iustifiying grace at all. Whereas the Apostle expressly in the forementioned place, speaketh of the free gift of saving grace, whereby we are indeed actually justified. But the Trent Council saith nowhere, that that grace, whereby a man is justified, which they call their second grace, is freely given. No, they have a freewill, whose cooperating assent with their first grace, produceth a merit of Congruity, to procure, that their justification may not be freely given, but merited of Congruity. For whereas they say (chap. 8.) that a man is said therefore to be justified freely, because none of those things, which go before justification, whither faith or works, do merit the grace it self of Justification; for if it be of grace, it is no more works; otherwise (as the Apostle saith) grace, is now no more grace; as the Council hypocritically allegeth: yet we must understand, that the Council meaneth no other here, but to exclude merit of condignity from going before her justification, but not the merit of congruity. And thus by her cunning equivocation, she both keepeth good quarter with her Schoolmen, and satisfieth the contrary opinions of Vega and Soto, about the merit of Congruity in justification, as ye may see in the History of the Trent Council. yea, and thus also the Church of Rome quits scores with the Scriptures, which exclude all merit of man from justification; and all by her futile distinction of a first and second grace, and subtle equivocation of Merit, of congruity and condignity. This is Rome's sophistry, and the very Mystery of iniquity.

In the next place; by their wills assenting upon God's moving of it, they mean an assent of belief of the truth revealed in the Scriptures, namely a general & historical faith: as Sess. 6. chap. 6. And as * Soto plainly commenteth upon it; so And. Vega also. For by the way it is to be observed, that in that whole Session, there is not once the least mention made of credere in Deum, to believe in God, which is the Act of true justifying faith. And therefore no marvel, if the Council be not ashamed to confess, in the front and title of the 15 chap. and so in the chapter it self, that by every mortal sin, the grace of justification is lost, but not faith. So that their Roman Catholic faith is one thing, and their grace of justification another. Now sum up all this together, concerning this work of God upon man's freewill, and the total is. That God doth no more, but move and stir, and call upon the will, not by that inward and effectual calling according to his purpose, but by an outward, ordinary, common calling, which is no more, but as a kind of Monitor to the will. Nor is God here said, by this grace, to give faith, but to stir the will to an historical assent of faith; generally believing the things revealed to be true, by their wills cooperation with their first grace, which is no more any saving grace, then their faith occasioned by it, any justifying faith. Thus we see, how the Church of Rome, by her crafty mincing, and malicious mangling of the grace of God in man's free justification, how by robbing from the work of God's grace, to •• rich their Freewills co-work: she utterly frustrateth God's grace, and euacuateth his glory, making a mere mock of both.

For do but weigh these two together in the scales one against the other, God's grace, and Mans freewill, and the difference according to Rome's unjust estimate, will easily appear. Grace only stirreth and moveth, say they, but the will is active, and by its cooperation assenteth: grace, only calleth, after a common and ordinary manner, just like the universal grace; but the will disposeth and prepareth it self; grace, is freely given, only in this respect, by preventing the will in stirring and moving, but not in justifying the sinner: but the wills self-disposition and preparation to justification, is a merit of congruity, meriting the second grace, to wit, of justification, a far greater grace (I wis) then the first grace, the only grace freely given of God. So that Rome's merit of congruity, arising from her well disposed freewill, is of more value and virtue, then God's free mercy; for this, giveth only the first grace freely, a sorry and slender grace: but that, meriteth a far greater grace, even of justification it self.

Here then every man may easily judge of Rome's egregious hypocrisy, insolent sacrilege, and false-fingering, who while she would seem to give the preeminence to God's grace, only by colouring it over with the title of grace, as of first grace, and preventing grace, and the like: in the mean time she advanceth her own freewill above the skies, yea above grace, above God and all. Fulfilling that, which Bernard saith, It is high impiety, to attribute to God, that which is less, and to our selves that which is more excellent. Now if a man should never so much seem to ascribe the praise of Samson's Acts against the Philistines, to Delilah, because she awakened, and stirred him up; will any believe him? It is against all reason. The case here is alike between grace and freewill. Freewill is a sleep, bound hand & foot in the cords of sin: but grace comes, and awakenes it, bids it arise; whereupon the will begins Sampson- like to rouse it self, to shake of the bands, to prepare and dispose it self to the atchieument of some great work. Whither then deserveth greater praise, grace awakening, or, freewill so bravely acting? Though I confess my shallow wits would never have been able to have sounded the depth of this profound mystery, to have discerned a clear difference between their first grace, given of gratuity, and their freewills merit of congruity, but that they have told us plainly without equinocating, that the second grace, which they obtain by their merit of congruity, is of far greater value, then the first grace, though bestowed of free gratuity.

But I fear, I have exceeded the bounds of my promise, and purpose for brevity. But pardon me. I have ben in the perplexed Labyrinth of the Council of Trent. Now by that we have said, we may see, what reason any mā (at leastwise so mighty lie protesting and professing himself to be no Papist, as the Appealer doth) hath, so much to countenance, yea to plead for the Council of Trent in the point of freewill (so, as I dare say, no Lawyer would do, in a case so corrupt, not for the best fee; though I know not what fee or feeling Master Montague hath, for playing Rome's Proctor, except it be his blind affection, and some pale faced hope) since therein Rome hath laid the foundation of that her Babylonish fabric of the mystery of iniquity, and of all her meretricious merits. So that I cannot see, how such men can be excused from high impiety against God, and even joining hands of fellowship with that most impious and blasphemous confederacy against the glory of God, and the grace and truth of Jesus Christ.

Good words, I pray you. A man might speak as much for the Council of Trent, as you do against it; but for my part, I will not undertake that quarrel now. I desire that you will show the true difference, between the Council of Trents Doctrine of freewill, and that which you take to be the true Doctrine. For is there any other Doctrine of freewill, then that of the Church of England, and of the Protestants, which the Appealer makes all one with the Doctrine of the Council of Trent?

Sir, for my words, they are the words of truth and soberness. For our Protestant Doctrine of freewill, to be all one with the Council of Trent; God forbid it, we deny it: for Rome's Doctrine to be all one with ours, Rome forbids, denies, and accurseth. Nor do I see, how the Appealer will escape the Popes direful excommunication, for daring so to comment upon the Trent Council, expressly forbidden by the Pope, without special authority. But I know not what special authority he may have from the Pope to do this. Nor can the Council of Trent have any other patronage, then colorable pretence, and sophistical shows, which are the best arguments the Appealer is able to bring for Trents Doctrine; whereas the allegations against it fear no colors, since armed with truth it self. But to satisfy your desire, according to my weak capacity, I am not unwilling.

As I noted before; man's will in the state of nature, hath such a vast disproportion to the grace of Christ, as it hath no disposition at all unto it. This is a mystery hid from Nature, a Transcendent far above the capacity of Natures reach. To this grace, nature is not bleareeyd, but blind: not a sleep, but dead: not lame, but a senseless stock. So that, more then a slender moving or stirring up of (I wot not what) first grace, (I wot well, no grace) is requisite to set the will a foot, to the settling of it in the state of grace: of that grace (I say) of true justification, to which Rome's first grace hath no more proportion, then her freewill in her pur • st naturals.

But the grace, whereof the Scripture speaks, and the work of it in man's conversion, is no such grace, as Rome's first grace; for that is no other, but the true, and effectual, saving, justifying, and sanctifying grace of God: the first act and work whereof in the souls conversion to God, is not a faint and impotent moving and stirring, or awakening of the sleepy will, which then begins to dispose it self to grace: but it is a powerful and effectual work upon the will, and the whole soul, with every faculty thereof, and that not to the disposing unto, but to the present possessing of the state of grace, and true justification, apprehended by saving faith, the free gift of this grace. Besides this effectual grace of God for man's conversion, the Scripture knows none. Nor is the Scripture acquainted with such ieiune and faint terms, as Rome useth, in setting forth the work of grace in our conversion. The Scripture flies in a more lofty style, to give God's grace the full praise in the effectual work of our conversion. Ezech. 11. 19. I will give them one heart, and will put a new spirit within you; I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes. So Ezech. 36. 26: A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, &c. and cause you to walk in my statutes. And this is (as Augustine saith) the taking away of our stony heart, and the giving of a heart of flesh, when the Father is heard within, and teacheth us to come, and draweth us to his Son, by giving us a saving faith in Christ. By which places we see what a noble and powerful work of grace is wrought in us by God's holy Spirit in our conversion; not a bare stirring up, or moving, or helping the old, decrepit, stiff-limd will of the natural man's stony heart, but a mighty removing of it clean away, and instead thereof, putting a new heart, a heart of flesh, a flexible, and obedient heart, and a new spirit into us, by the virtue and power whereof, we are effectually enabled to walk in God's statutes, and to keep them. And this work of grace, where begins it? but at the very first act of our effectual calling and conversion, of our justification, and sanctification from our sins, and against our sins? As in the forecited place of Ezekiel, Then will I sprinkle pure water upon you, and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness; for a new heart will I give you &c, so in Jeremiah, The Lord joins his grace, and remission of sins together; saying, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people. For I will forgive their iniquity and will remember their sins no more. The Lord in the Gospel compares the state of a natural man unregenerate, to a house possessed by a strong man. This strong man is Satan, the spirit that ruleth in the children of disobedience, such as all unregenerate are, who in that state are dominered over, and captivated of the tyrant Devil at his will. Who then shall bind this strong man, and dispossess him of his house and strong hold, even the heart of a natural man unregenerate? Surely none, but a stronger then he, even Christ. And is this done so slightly, as by stirring up the will by some first grace? No more but so? The strong man will not so easily forgo his hold. He must be driven out by strong hand. When the Disciples could not by all their delegated power, Christ must be fain to put to his immediate power & authority to drive the Devil out. A sinner unregenerate is as Peter fast asleep, and fast chained in the dungeon. And to free him, did the Angel no more but with a iogge awake him? How fell his chains so easily of? How came the prison doors open? How the iron gate, leading into the city, to open of it own accord? Surely here was no small power used. Nay the unregenerate is like Lazarus, fast bound, and lying dead in the grave. And is it so easy a matter to raise him up, to give him life, and to free him from the bonds of death? But you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein once ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the Prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience; among whom also we had our conversation in time past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. &c. Eph. 2. 1 &c. Our will being then captivated, chained, imprisoned in the dungeon of death, kept and possessed by the strong man the Devil: are we so easily freed? Saint Chrysostom amplifieth this by an excellent comparison, or two: All men (saith he) before sin (as once in Adams loins before his fall) have free will, to follow the Devils will, or not; but when once by sin, we have captivated our selves to his works, we cannot now free our selves, But as a ship, the rudder being broken, is carried whither the tempest will; so man, having by sin lost the help of divine Grace, doth not that which himself willeth, but which the Devil willeth; and unless God with a strong hand of mercy loose him, he shall abide in the bonds of his sins even unto death. And in the same place, he compareth man's will before sin (namely, in the state of Adams innocence) to a free people or stare, in whose power and election it is, to choose what King they will; but having once chosen him whom they best like, it is not now in their power, upon any dislike to depose him again, although he tirannize over them never so much; none can free them from this grievous bondage, but only God. So it being once in the power of man's will, in the free state of innocence, to choose a King, God, or the Devil, having once by consent of sin made choice of the Prince of darkness, who tyrant-like ruleth in the children of disobedience: it appertains now only to the mighty power, and infinite goodness of God to set free these miserable captives out of that tyrant Pharaohs more then Egyptian bondage.

Again in the Acts of the Apostles, where it is said, that our hearts are purified by faith; which some, as Aquinas, understands of illuminating the understanding by faith; others, of the purification of the soul and heart from sin by faith; as we are said also to be sanctified by faith that is in Christ. Now this faith is the first work of God's grace, wrought in the heart, that is, in the whole soul, in our first conversion; by which faith, the understanding is enlightened, and with it, the will, and all the other faculties of the soul are sanctified. For the heart in Scriptuee is taken oftentimes, for the whole soul, with all the faculties of it. As Ephesians 1. 18. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : the vulgar Latin renders it word for word, Illuminatos oculis cordis vestri: the eyes of your heart being illuminated, that is, the eyes of your understanding. And Math. 13. 15. Least they understand with their heart. So for •• e will: Act. 7. 39. The Israelites in their hearts turned back into Egypt, that is, in their wills. So Acts 11. 23. Bernabas exhorts, that with purpose of heart, that is, of will, they would cleave unto the Lord. The heart is also taken for the memory, as Luke 1. 66: All that heard, laid up those things in their hearts. So Deut. 11. 18: Ye shall lay up these my words in your hearts. Sometime for the affections, as love, fear, and the like. So Mat. 6. 21: Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also, your love, your joy, your hope, yea and fear too. And Psa. 62. 10: If riches increase, set not your heart upon them. Thus we use to reduce all these streams of the soul to the heart, as the prime fountain: as when we say, an understanding heart, a wise heart, a willing heart, a valiant heart, an humble heart, a loving heart, and the like. Now the heart being taken for the soul, and all the faculties of it, and being the very seat and subject wherein faith resides, (for with the heart man believeth to righteousness; and Christ dwelleth in our hearts by faith,) then the heart being purified, being sanctified by faith, consequently the whole soul, with all the faculties, the understanding, will, memory, affections, are at the same instant with the heart purified, and sanctified by faith, as the first act and work of God's grace in us.

Hence it is evident, that the prime work of God's grace in the conversion of a sinner, is not a slight and slender work, as a bare stirring, moving, or helping of the will to prepare and dispose it self to receive the grace of justification: but it is a mighty and powerful work, so that thereby the stony heart, harder and heavier then the hardest rock, or highest mountain, is removed, and a new heart, a new understanding, a new will, a new memory, new affections, all new in the qualities of them, are put instead thereof. By this prime work of grace, that most excellent grace of faith is wrought in the heart, whereby the whole man is sanctified.

Sir, by the way, now you touch upon a point, which, as I have heard, is much controverted among Divines, namely about the subject, or seat of faith, in what faculty, or power of the soul it resideth; some placeing it in the understanding only, some in the will only, but few, as you do, in the whole soul, and every power of it; as the soul is said by the Philosopher, to be whole in the whole body, and whole in every part of it.

And you give a very pregnant example, to illustrate this truth, that faith doth so fill and quicken every faculty of the soul, as the soul doth the body. And the comparison holds well; for Saint Augustine calls faith the soul of the soul: because it gives life to the whole soul, as the soul to the whole body. And the Scripture saith, that we live by faith, and faith by Christ; as Gal. 2. 20.

Indeed those of the Church of Rome, are of different opinions in this point. Dominicus Soto sets it down as a definitive decree of the Trent Council, It is decreed, that the intellectual power is the subject or seat of saith. And this suits well with Rome's faith, being historical, and so, proper to the understanding faculty. Notwithstanding, when they consider of the danger of placing faith in the understanding, least it should follow, that therefore faith ought not to be an implicit, and ignorant, blind faith; but a clear and understanding faith: they fly to the will rather, placing faith in that, not for any good will, but to suppress the knowledge of faith, which Rome's Owl-eyed religion cannot brook. And therefore Bellarmine would have faith, to be defined rather from ignorance, then from knowledge: and so shuts it out of the understanding, and shuffels it into some blind corner of the will. But see the mischief of it: while they would avoid the gulf, they fall upon the rock. For if they place faith in the will, they must of necessity allow it one special property of saving faith, namely, assiance, and confidence in God's promises in Christ, a thing most hateful to the Church of Rome: therefore in conclusion, of two evils choosing the less, that they may rather exclude confidence from faith, then science (since they can no otherwise choose) they rather pitch upon the understanding, then the will▪ wherein to place their faith. So that by their good wills, they could be content, for the avoiding of the inconveniences of an illuminate and confident faith, to crowd it into some corner of the inferior part of the soul. But for sure work, they have taken a safer course, by excluding and banishing not only from the soul or any faculty of it, but out of the verge, and lists of their Roman Catholic Church, and that with a direful Anathema, the true saving and justifying faith.

But whereas you say, few Divines place faith in the whole soul, and in every power of it: they are neither few, nor those of small authority. The provincial Council of Colen, (which was a little before the Council of Trent, although charged by Andreas Vega to speak too broad, and too Protestant-like in the point of faith and justification by imputation) saith, that true justifying faith, is seated not only in the understanding, but also in the will The learned and ingenious Cardinal Contarenus, about the same time, writing of justification, saith, that the first act or motion of faith begins at the will, which obeying God and faith, causeth the understanding to assent to the things delivered of God, without doubting, and so, to trust in God's promises, and of them to conceive a firm affiance. which pertains to the will, and that this faith, as it were in a circle, begins at the will, and ends in the will. So that he confineth not faith to the understanding only, or to any one faculty of the soul, though he place it principally in the will, in regard of those native and inseporable qualities of true saving saith, namely confidence, and affiance in God's promises. So that I wonder how this Doctrine of that good Cardinal hath escaped the flames of their Purgatory Index. But his own life paid for it, when he with his fellow Cardinal Fregosus, being suspected too much to favor the Doctrine of Luther, were both quickly taken out of the way, non sine veneni suspicione, not without suspicion of poison.

But those Divines that lived in more ancient ages, contented themselves with the most simple, but most e • phaticall terms of the Scripture, not troubling their heads with quirks and questions of this nature, whether faith were in the understanding, or in the will &c, but with the Scripture they include altogether in the heart, the seat and confluence of all the powers of the soul. Bernard saith, that first, the s •• ncere root of holy faith is planted in the ground of man's heart, and when faith is fully grown up, it becomes as a great tree, having in it sundry sorts of apples, wherewith the soul being full of God, is refreshed. St. August. takes no more care, but to place faith in the soul. Under & whence comes death in the soul? because faith is not there; whence in the body? because the soul is not there; therefore the soul of the soul is faith. Again, Fides quae credit in Deum, vita anima existit, & per hanc iustus viuit: Faith which believeth in God is the life of the soul; and by it the just man liveth. And speaking of the understanding, he saith, Intellectus merces est sides &c. The understanding is the reward of faith; do not then seek to understand, that thou mayest believe: but believe, that thou mayest understand. And again, Intellectui fides viam aperit, infidelitas claudit: faith opens the way to the understanding, but infidelity shuts it. And speaking of the will, he saith, Fides excitat ad exercitium voluntatem: Faith stirreth up the will to excercise. And in a word, Fides sic est in anima, vt radix bona, quae pluuiam in fructum ducit: Faith is so in the 〈◊〉 , as a good root, which peoduceth the rain into fruit. I might add many others; but this may suffice.

But Sir, whereas you seem to oppugn the Council of Trent: doth it not also acknowledge faith to be the root of all other graces? Do the Church of Rome right, I 〈◊〉 you.

God forbid else. The proverb is, Give the Devil his due. Indeed the Trent Council confesseth, that faith is the beginning of man's salvation, the foundation and root of all justification. But under this painted Sepulcher, she buries the bones of true saving faith, which she hath slain, there to lie rotting; as the Jews did with God's Prophets, whom their Fathers had slain; and upon the foundation they erect the Monument and Trophe of their Pageantfaith. For undertaking to gl • sse upon the Apostles words, A man is justified by faith, and gratis, freely: she saith, These

to faith, not simply for it self, but relatiuely as it hath reference to the fruits, whereof they say faith is the root, namely, their inherent righteousness. But the truth is, this restrained, yea constrained sense of theirs, is most absurd and senseless, as having neither foundation, nor root of reason to support and maintain it. All is but words. They neither mean, nor will, nor can, maintain it. For how is faith a beginning of grace, if grace be no necessary consequent of their faith? For they confess, they may have faith, and want grace; which is the Devils case. Or how is faith the root of grace and justification, since it is impossible for this root to produce any fruit at all? For how can a dead root bring forth any live-fruit? And they confess their faith to be a dead and dry root of it self, until the sap of charity be poured into it, to actuate and quicken this, otherwise dead root. So that by Babylon's Doctrine, the fruit must give life to the root, not the root to the fruit. And yet forsooth, faith must be the root of justification, the foundation of man's salvation. Surely the Proverb may here well be verified, Dignum patella operculum: like root, like justification, both dead: like foundation, like building, both sandy, yea mere aery and imaginary.

But is not faith dead, and unformed, until it be inliued, and formed by charity? Doth not St. James say, that as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works, is dead also? Therefore the good works of charity give life unto faith, as the soul to the body.

Doth charity give life to faith? How is then faith the root? your own reason may teach you the contrary, as we have showed. But to that place of Saint James: it is too commonly abused. For mark, first, he saith not, As the body without the soul is dead; but, as the body without the spirit, is dead. The spirit is the breath, by which the body is known to live. So that the body receiveth life from the soul, but showeth it by the spirit, which it breatheth. The spirit then is an effect and sign, not a cause of the life of the body. So charity, and the works thereof, are a fruit and effect breathing from saving faith, testifying that it is a living faith, not causing it so to be; for that were to turn the tree upside down, as if the root, which is faith, should receive life, sap, and groweth from the branches. And it is plain, by the whole analogy and tenure of the chapter, that the Apostle speaks of good works, as they are demonstrative signs and fruits of a living faith, not as causes of it. Again, he putteth a distinct difference between the true saving faith, which always shows it self to live, by the fruits of it; for it is that faith, ever working by love: and between a false counterfeit faith, such as is dead, and known to be so, by the not breathing out of good works.

So that the true saving justifying faith, is that, which worketh by love. So the Apostle saith. But how by love? as by the efficient moving cause of the working of it, or rather as the instrumental cause, moved by the hand of faith? Love is faiths instrument, whereby it worketh. Yea it is an inseparable quality of saving faith, whereby faith works: as the heat is the inseparable quality of the fire, whereby the fire worketh. This is the Doctrine also of the ancient Fathers. They so make faith the root, as that all other graces are radically in faith, and spring from it. They make all other holy graces to be inherent in saving faith, as the native qualities of it, essential and inseparable, not as accidents which are seperable. Saint Augustine saith, What is it to believe in him? By believing to love him, by believing to affect him, by believing to go unto him, and to be incorporated into his members. And again, Paulus fidem &c. Paul approveth and commendeth that faith, which worketh by love, which cannot be without hope; therefore neither is love without hope, nor hope without love, nor both without faith. And which we cited before, Faith is so on the soul, as a good root, which bringeth forth the fruit. S. Chrysostom saith, Faith is the foundation of the most holy religion, the bond of charity, the supply and succor of love; it confirms sanctity, it strengtheneth chastity, it governs all sexes, it promotes all degrees, it observeth all offices; faith keepeth the Commandments, practiseth the precepts, accomplisheth the promises. And much more to this purpose, according to his fluent golden elegancy. Saint Ambrose, There are in faith great perogatives; what be they? piety, justice, sobriety, charity, discipline, or good government. And to conclude with St. August. In ipsa fide sunt omnia opera, quae diligit Deus: in faith it self are all those works, which God loveth.

Nor need this point seem so strange. Moral Philosophy can teach us, that there is such an inseparable combination of all moral virtues, as he, that hath one, hath all. And shall we deny then this inseparable conjunction of Spiritual graces, whereof Faith is the Radicall and principal? Though it is a marvel, that these Philosopers, Aristotle, and Tully, have escaped the fiery purgatory-Index, since not even Rome's own Gratian, for saying no more in Divinity, then those in Morality, hath had the grace to escape their Singe or Spunge. For where he saith, Sed commodo, &c. But how can I have such a faith, (to remove mountains) and not charity? Since he that hath one virtue hath all. I could not have it but miraculously. All these words must out, as may be seen in Collat. censurae in gloss. iuris canonici vum. 84. Such a hatred they have to the living saving faith, as though a Princesse, they will not allow her any necessary attendance & cōcomitancy of other graces. Whereas Bernard saith, To believe in God, is to hope in him, and to love him. And Hieronymus Osorius, Faith containeth all religion, and piety; for all virtues are by faith consorted, and combined together, and with it are connected and intwined in a most holy knot. But Deleantur haec verba, let these words be cancelled, saith the Index expurgatorius. Also these words of his, Ergo cùm fides &c. Therefore seeing faith doth govern the whole soul, and draw it to the study and love of God's word, it followeth necessarily, that it is proved not only in believing, but also in obeying. And those words also of Osorius, must pass their purgatory, Tune igitur vere fideles sumus, cùm Dei verbo audiontes sumus. Therefore then are we truly faithful, when we are obedient to the word of God. I will conclude, with the golden saying of our Royal Paraphrase upon the Revelation: God by faith only justifieth man, which notwithstanding is done according to his works, because they, as the fruits of faith, cannot be separated from it, and be are witness of the same to men of the earth.

I might seem to have digressed all this while from the point of freewill, in speaking of faith, But partly you have moved me, and the more willingly have I followed you, it being very pertinent to set forth & discover the Council of Trents egregious hypocrisy in her Doctrine of grace and freewill. For unto what is the will stirred, moved, assisted by grace? Parturient montes; we expect some wonderful consequent. Thereby (forsooth) the will conceiveth faith by hearing the word, and prepareth and disposeth it self to justification. And what faith is this, thus conceived? Nascetur ridiculus Mus: behold a ridiculous Mouse, in steed of a young Mountain. For of their freewill is conceived by hearing, not that justifying, saving, living faith, whereof the Apostle, Faith cometh by hearing, Rom. 10. 17; that faith whereof rightcousnesse is, ver. 5. that which believeth to righteousness, ver. 10; that, which believeth, In D. Ies • m, in the Lord Jesus, ver. 11: but this conceived faith of Rome is a bare, historical, implicit, general, dead faith, like that of the Devils, no grace, but such, as every wicked man may have, as their * fideles fornicarii, &c. their faithful fornicaters, adulterers &c. And that grace of God, their first grace, whereby they say the will is first moved to conceive (a dead) faith, is with them, but an ordinary, common grace, in deed no grace: and by their own confession no saving, sanctifying, justifying grace at all. Yea and though they style it a preparatory grace, yet it never bringeth a man to true justification, since they disclame that living saving faith, the only faith, whereby, instrumentally we are justified. The summary conclusion then is: that seeing the Trent Council hath in her Doctrine of freewill so slily undermined and overturned the fundamental doctrine of salvation, consisting in the justifying, saving, living faith, powerfully wrought by the sanctifying grace of God's Spirit in the heart, even in the whole man, the soul, with all the faculties, from which faith, as from a living and fructifying root, do spring all other holy graces: therefore, for any man to go about, to excuse the Council of Trent in the point, wherein for the main, she is altogether to be condemned, yea executed with Anathema Maran-atha: I see not, how such a one can be excused, from being a reconciled confederate in all that damnable Doctrine of Trent, about freewill. Is this the way to make us believe the Apppealers profound protestations, that he is a Protestant of the Church of England, while he so religiously pleadeth for the Council of Trents mystery of iniquity? and that flatly against the Doctrine of the Church of England. Doth he thus persuade us, he is no Papist? Fy, Master Montague, for shame, learn not thus of your Council of Trent, to equiuocate with your brethren, yea with your Mother Church of England. You hold with the Step-mother of Rome in her most damnable Doctrines, whereby she utterly euacuates Christ Jesus, and the whole mystery of our salvation: and yet you are no Papist. Why? Because (forsooth) you do not hold those Doctrines to be Popery, but catholic, with those of the Church of England. If you can bring no better arguments to prove you a good Protestant: these you have brought will sufficiently conclude you to be a reconciling reconciled English Roman-catholic.

Sir, to trouble you no longer for this time, and for a conclusion of the first part of this Appeale, pass we to the last Chapter, touching the Synod of Dort. It is but short; wherein the Author saith; The Synod of Dort, is not our rule. And, Private opinions, no rule. Doth he not herein say truly?

Why then should his own private perverse opinions be reputed as the rule of the Church of England? For it is true no doubt, that no Synod, or Council, much less any private man's opinion, is the rule of our faith. Yet all Synods and Councils, so far forth as their Decrees are grounded upon the Scriptures, we are to embrace and reverence. But of all other passages in the Appealers Appeale, I muse at none more, then this his elevating and slighting the Synod of Dort. And what spirit (trow we) is that man of, or possessed with, that stands so much for the Council of Trent, and so little esteems the Council of Dort? I wot well the Synod of Dort is an adversary to his Arminian Pontifician opinions: and therefore no marvel, if he bear it no great good will. But considering next under God, the prime and principal mover of that Synod, his late Excellent Majesty of eternal memory: yea how He promoued it, what Princely and provident care, what liberal cost He was at, to adorn the Synod with some of the choicest, and solidest Divines, that He had in His Kingdom: what a zealous desire He had by that means to quench those fiery flames of dissention, blown by the factious spirits of In • endiaries, which threatened the ruin of those neighbor reformed Churches, the tales of which smoking firebrands are not altogether quenched, but begin to revive, having for want of vent till now lain smoathering even in our Church of England, the smoke whereof hath blinded a great many, and now the flames threaten to burn moe: what a religious care He took to establish true religion, and to abolish that Arminian root of bitterness, springing up, and spreading abroad, wherewith many were defiled: which one act of His Majesty, shall no less eternize His name, then the most famous and vnparalleld actions He achieved in all His Princely government: this (I say) strikes me with an exceeding wonderment, that the Appealer would ever suffer himself so far to be transported with the spirit of contradiction, as to fall foul upon such a learned Synod, a Synod of Protestants, a Synod of many reformed Churches, and (which, if naught else, might have most moved him) a Synod, assembled, managed, concluded, by the most auspicious Peace-making spirit, zeal, welwishes, and prayers, of His late Majesty: yea, and (to fill up the measure of his all-daring hardiness) to presume to thrust this book in the name of An Appeale, under the protection of our most Excellent patrizing Caesar; here I am at a stand. What? so to disrepute the Synod of Dort? O spare it! either speak not at all of it, or reverently, and honorably, at least for the thrice noble, religious, zealous lover of the truth, King JAMES, He that so honored that Synod, & embraced those orthodox conclusions of it, as that He advanced those to Ecclesiastical honors, whom He had selected and sent, to represent the Church of England. Which also, by the way, adds to my wonderment, that the Appealer should, and that under the name of the Church of England, dare to oppose the Council of Dort, if he had considered, that his late Excellent Majesty did understand no other, but that all the conclusions of that Council, did consent with the Doctrines of the Church of England; as also the representiue Church of England, as they were of the number of the primest and actiuest Agents in that Synod: so with the rest, they were the first still in order, who by their subscriptions sealed up their unanimous assent to all the Conclusions. Or can the Appealer tax the incomparable judgment of that famous King of ignorance, either in the choice of that representative Church of England, or in the state of the Doctrines of it? Far be it. His Majesty knew as well the true state of the Doctrine of the Church of England, as the most and greatest Scholars in England; that I may not disparadge his Excellency so much as to say, He knew it better, then the Appealer himself. And if I might pin my faith upon any man's sleeve, or refer the judgment of the Doctrine of the Church of England, to my one man: I would have chosen His Majesty as the •• pire, & oracle of it, before any man living. And yet He, that professed, protested, writ, wrought, studied, lived, and died in the maintenance of that one truth, wherein, by His auspicious vnanimity, the Church of England, and the Council of Dort, have confented, according to the rule of faith, God's word: shall He, He (I say) His sacred ashes be raised up again, and by an Appeale be urged to recaut His former profession, to reverse His judgment, & to cancel, or to b • r •• His books, which no antiquity, no injury of time, no elementary flames, shall ever be able to abolish? I might better appeal to those, who were so happy, as daily to hear the wisdom of that our Solomon, even at His ordinary repast. They can testify, what zealous protestations He made for the truth, and with what vehement derestation He had of the contrary. As for instance: how did He abominate those that writ de apostasia Sanctorum? Which very title of Bertius His Majesty often in His pious zeal professed His indignation against, as a blasphemous doctrine. And as in His usual and ordinary discourse at table, and at other times, He shown His Princely divine spirit, in refuting and refelling all the vanities of Popery, and Pelagian Arminianismo: so at His death He protested His own constancy, and final perseverance in that truth, which He had formerly professed.

All this (I say) duly weighed, I am still in a muse, what should embolden, infatuate rather the Appealer, to insert any such passage, as the depressing and deprizing the Synod of Dort, in his Appeale. Yet doing so, he is not more guilty of ingratitude, towards our late Caesar, as also of ignorance, that I may not say stark folly, in addressing this his Appeale to our present Caesar. Doth not the Appealer remember, that He is the Son, the only Son, of such a Father? Yea a Son of that natural and pious affection to His Father, as (all can witness with me) He might well be a Princely mirror of filial piety to many Sons, whose natural affection commonly descends, rather then ascends. Nor only the Son, the only Son, the most naturally, and graciously pious Son, but the very viue and express image of such a Father; inheriting not only His Fathers Kingdoms & Crowns, but (which is the Crown of all, and more precious then all His Kingdoms) His virtues, and graces, His wisdom, His judgment, and, above all, His religion, yea His love, care, and zeal, in maintaining the same. This religion He first sucked in with His Nurses milk, therein also bred & brought up under a religious, & sound-hearted Tutor, who (besides other learned and godly governors) ceased not, from His very infancy, to instill into Him the dew of all heavenly knowledge, and that especially, by acquainting Him with the Scriptures, which according to His daily task He missed not to read, by three or four chapters a day, being able also, even when He was very young, not above seven years old, to give a present account without book, of the principal things He had read. I speak not by guess; I was so happy, as to be often an eye and ear-witness of it. But above all those instructions He received from time to time from His Royal Father, lighting upon a subject of such peerless endowments both of Nature and Grace, have made Him a complete Prince in all excellent knowledge, and worthy to be the only Son and Heir of such a Father. So that when He was now grown to riper years, He was able even at table to discourse, and discuss points of controversy between us and the Papists, to the great joy of all His servants about Him. And yet after all this (see the luck of it) must the Appealer have the hap to foist in his fardell of fancies, yea falsities, and that by way of Appeale to His Excellent Majesty. And upon what ground? I hope, if not presuming that His Majesty now, upon His first happy entry into His Kingdoms, is so taken up with many weighty affairs, that He will not have the leisure to peruse his Appeale, which is the Appealers happiness; yea and Majesty's too, saving that His judgment is so settled upon the truth, after so long and strong a seasoning, that vneath it were for Master Montague to caul the li • uor of his musty cask to relish well in such an uncorrupt Palate.

And for this Chapter, touching the Synod of Dort, one part of his Appeale: wherefore doth he in this, and other passages about this Synod, appeal? Forsooth he appeals to His present Majesty King CHARLES, to indge and determine, whither the Council of Dort be now to be holden in that esteem, as it was by His late noble Father King JAMES; whither those conclusions of it, be not now to be rejected, which His royal Father so much avowed and approved; whither the Decrees thereof be not now to be holden as opposite Doctrines to those of the Church of England, which the most judicious King JAMES found to be so correspondent, and consonant, one to the other; or, whither the Doctrine of the Church of England be not now quite changed, from that it was, in the time of King JAMES his peaceable government; whither the learned representatine Church of England (selected by the most judicious, and learned King for that purpose) which in that Council swerved not from the Tenants and grounds of their Mother Church, be rather to be admitted as interpreters of our Church Doctrines, then singular Master Montague; whither the Decrees of that Synod, being grounded upon express texts of Scripture, and concluded by so many learned and grave Divines, be to be accounted private opinions, rather then Master Montague's own fancies, conceived of some misunderstood Doctrines of the Church of England, and so, which of these should be admitted of us rather for no rule. In a word, he appeals (I wisse) whither the judgment of King JAMES, approving the Doctrine of the Synod of Dort, as agreeable to the Doctrine of the Church of England, and both, to the holy Scriptures: or his own judgment, in his disallowing and rejecting the Synod, as not agreeable to his own fancies (for his words are, I have no part, nor portion in them; either in them, that maintain the Decrees; or, in the Decrees themselves) whither (I say) King JAMES His judgment, or his own, be rather to be entertained and approved of His sacred Majesty His Son, whom God forever preserve in all integrity of judgment, and love of the Truth.

Gentlemen, I thank you both, for your learned discourse, though much of it above my capacity. It is now dinner time. If it please you to take the pains to meet here again after dinner, about two of the clock, I shall be glad to be informed further of some points in the Second part of the Appeale.

You have made a good motion, friend Asotus. I shall be ready at the time appointed (if it please Master Orthodoxus) to receive further satisfaction with you.

And seeing you have given so good proof of your patience thus far, I am not unwilling to yield to your motion and desire, so far as God shall in able me. So fare ye well.

Babylonius. And you, good Master Orthodoxus.