S. You are as •ad as Parker, or the Debate-maker, that th•s l•y s••ndal on the Reformers themselves. If these were their faults, you •••• cover them, and not open them. This had been enough for • Romish R•bshakeh.

P. You know not what it is that you say. This is to a•ho•• •••• tance, and to prefer the honour of man before the honour of God: yea, to let the shame be cast on Gods Word and Religion, lest the error of •••• be shamed. But all men are liars (that is, fallible) and God is •••• ▪ He that confesseth and forsaketh his sin shall have mercy, but he that hideth it, shall not prosper. Are there not with you, even with you also (saith the Prophet) sins against the Lord our God? Why hath God recorded in Scripture the faults of so many of his servants, and foamed them to such open Confessions? Did Paul wrong Peter and ••••, Gal. •? or the Ministry when he said, All seek their own thing•, and no•e the things of Jesus Christ? or did the Evangelists wrong all •he Disciples, by saying, that They all forsook him and fled? or James all C•• stians, saying In many things we offend •ll? I think the Prou• Impenitence of many Professors, that will not confess sin, nor endure to be •• led to it, lest Religion be dishonoured, is that great dishonour to Religion which God hath been long punishing us for. When such evils have •••• held and done as our age hath known, either it must be said that they are not evil, or that they are▪ If we deny it, and say they are God •••• and m•ns duty, we feign God, and Scripture, and Religion to be for all that evil, (which is to blaspheme). If we say It is evil, we must sa•• that ⟨p. 289⟩we are the guilty causes of it. God will teach Ministers and Professors instead of Pharisaical self-justification, to take open shame to themselves that he and Religion may be vindicated, before he will deliver us from shame and sorrow: And he that will save his honour against this shame shall lose it, and he that will thus lose it and cast it away shall most effectually recover it.

P. You know not what it is that you say. This is to a•ho•• •••• tance, and to preferr the honour of man before the honour of God: yea, to let the shame be cast on Gods Word and Religion, lest the erro• of •••• be shamed. But all men are lyars (that is, fallible) and God is •••• ▪ He that confesseth and forsaketh his sin shall have mercy, but he that hideth it, shall not prosper. Are there not with you, even with you also (saith the Prophet) sins against the Lord our God? Why hath God recorded in Scripture the faults of so many of his servants, and fome• them to such open Confessions? Did Paul wrong Peter and ••••, Gal. •? or the Ministry when he said, All seek their own thing•, and no•e the things of Jesus Christ? or did the Evangelists wrong all •he Disciples, by saying, that They all forsook him and fled? or James all C•• stians, saying In many things we offend •ll? I think the Prou• Impe•itence of many Professors, that will not confess sin, nor endure to be •• led to it, lest Religion be dishonoured, is that great dishonour to Religion which God hath been long punishing us for. When such evils have •••• held and done as our age hath known, either it must be said that they are not evil, or that they are▪ If we deny it, and say they are God •••• and m•ns duty, we feign God, and Scripture, and Religion to be for all that evil, (which is to blaspheme). If we say It is evil, we must sa•• that ⟨p. 289⟩we are the guilty causes of it. God will teach Ministers and Professors instead of Pharisaical self-justification, to take open shame to themselves that he and Religion may be vindicated, before he will deliver us from shame and sorrow: And he that will save his honour against this shame shall lose it, and he that will thus lose it and cast it away shall most effectually recover it.

S. I think you would fain persuade us, that Protestants are as bad as Papists, and persuade us into the Roman Tents.

S. I think you would fain perswade us, that Protestants are as bad as Papists, and perswade us into the Roman Tents.

S. You would make me believe any thing, if you make me think that I have more of Popery than you.

P. 1. Do not you agree with them in confining the Catholic Church to one Sect or Party? only They to their Sect, and You to yours. 2. Do you not agree with them in your vehement condemnation of dissenters? only they excommunicate and burn them, and you deny them your communion and reproach them: But their charity extendeth much further than yours, and you condemn more dissenters than they do. 3. Do you not agree with them in being superstitious, by a great deal of self-made Duty and Sin? only theirs and yours are not in the same things: They say, Touch not, taste not, handle not some things, and you other things, while you say that God hath forbidden forms of prayer, and many lawful circumstances of Worship, and other such like. And I now entreat you and all the servants of Christ soberly to consider, whether a wild injudicious calling sound Doctrine and Practices Antichristian, and using that name as a bugbear for want of solid argument, and an injudicious running from Papists into the contrary errors and extremes, hath not brought on many the guilt and misery which in all the following particulars I shall open to you. 1. Such men have corrupted the Gospel of Christ, by bringing in many doctrinal errors, and opening a door to the heretical to bring in more. Almost all the Libertine Antinomian errors, have come in by an injudicious opposition to Popery, as if they were the Vindication of Election, Free Grace, Christs Righteousness, Justification by faith, Perseverance, against mans Works and Merits: And it is not to be denied, that the said Libertine Doctrines do more contradict the Doctrine of the Gospel, even Christianity it self, than the Doctrine of the Papists about the same subjects do. I know this to be true, who ever is offended at it: Aquinas, Scotus, Gabriel, Bellarmine, Pererids, Tolet, yea, Vasquez, Suarez and Molina are not near so erroneous about Justification, Grace, Faith and good works, as Richardson, Randal, Simpson, Town, Crispe, Saltmarsh, and many such others are. Yet how many Religious people have I known, that have gloried in these errors as the sweet discoveries of free grace! 2. Such erroneous extremes in opposition to Popery have greatly dishonoured the Reformers, and Reformation. When it cannot be denied but such and such errors are found among them, it maketh all the Reformation suspected:

P. 1. Do not you agree with them in consining the Catholick Church to one Sect or Party? only They to their Sect, and You to yours. 2. Do you not agree with them in your vehement condemnation of dissenters? only they excommunicate and burn them, and you deny them your communion and reproach them: But their charity extendeth much further than yours, and you condemn more dissenters than they do. 3. Do you not agree with them in being superstitious, by a great deal of self-made Duty and Sin? only theirs and yours are not in the same things: They say, Touch not, taste not, handle not some things, and you other things, while you say that God hath forbidden forms of prayer, and many lawful circumstances of Worship, and other such like. And I now intreat you and all the servants of Christ soberly to consider, whether a wild injudicious calling sound Doctrine and Practices Antichristian, and using that name as a bugbear for want of solid argument, and an injudicious running from Papists into the contrary errors and extreams, hath not brought on many the guilt and misery which in all the following particulars I shall open to you. 1. Such men have corrupted the Gospel of Christ, by bringing in many doctrinal errors, and opening a door to the heretical to bring in more. Almost all the Libertine Antinomian errors, have come in by an injudicious opposition to Popery, as if they were the Vindication of Election, Free Grace, Christs Righteousness, Justification by faith, Perseverance, against mans Works and Merits: And it is not to be denyed, that the said Libertine Doctrines do more contradict the Doctrine of the Gospel, even Christianity it self, than the Doctrine of the Papists about the same subjects do. I know this to be true, who ever is offended at it: Aquinas, Scotus, Gabriel, Bellarmine, Pererids, Tolet, yea, Vasquez, Suarez and Molina are not near so erroneous about Justification, Grace, Faith and good works, as Richardson, Randal, Sympson, Towne, Crispe, Saltmarsh, and many such others are. Yet how many Religious people have I known, that have gloried in these errors as the sweet discoveries of free grace! 2. Such erroneous extreams in opposition to Popery have greatly dishonoured the Reformers, and Reformation. When it cannot be denyed but such and such errors are found among them, it maketh all the Reformation suspected:

as Illyricus his Doctrine of the substantiality of sin, and the non-necessity of Good works to salvation, and as Andr. Osianders Doctrine of Justification by Gods essential righteousness did; and as many harsh passages in Piscator and Maccovins do, to name no more besides those before named. What a stir have our later Divines still with the Papists in defending some few harsh sayings of Luther, Calvin and Beza about the Cause of sin, and some such subjects? But downright errors cannot be defended. ⟨p. 290⟩3. Your injudicious opposition greatly hardeneth the Papists, and hindereth their conviction: When they find some errors in your writings, (as that all are bound to believe that they are elected and Justified; that this is the sense of the Article, I believe the forgiveness of sin; that this is sides divina, that we are Reputed of God to have fulfilled all the Law of Innocency habitually and actually in and by Christ, &c.) and then when they read that such men lay the great stress of the Reformation upon these, as the very cause of our rejecting Rome, and the artiouli stantisaut cadentis Ecclesiae, what can more harden them to a confidence that we are heretics and that they are in the right? As I have known the persons that had been in danger of turning Papists, if the error of Transubstantiation and some few more, had not been so palpable, as to resolve them, These men cannot be in the right; even so many Papists were like to have turned Protestants, had they not met with some notorious errors in such injudicious adversaries. 4. Yea we too very well know that your extremities have occasioned divers Protestants to turn Papists: Yea some Learned men, and such as have zealously run through many Sects in opposition to Popery themselves; (And some of my acquaintance that went as far in the profession of Godliness as most that I have known.) They have been so confounded to find partly palpable errors taken for sound doctrine, and sound doctrine railed at as Popery, and partly to see the shameful diversity and contentions of all the Sects among themselves, that it hath drawn them to think that there is no prosperity of the Church and Godliness to be expected but where there is unity, and Concord; and no Unity and Concord to be hoped for among Protestants; And therefore they must return for it to Rome:

as Illyricus his Doctrine of the substantiality of sin, and the non-necessity of Good works to salvation, and as Andr. Osianders Doctrine of Justification by Gods essential righteousness did; and as many harsh passages in Piscator and Maccovins do, to name no more besides those before named. What a stir have our later Divines still with the Papists in defending some few harsh sayings of Luther, Calvin and Beza about the Cause of sin, and some such subjects? But downright errors cannot be defended.

And Grotius professeth that it was this that moved him, to go so far towards them as he did. And I must needs say, that I believe from my very heart, that the shameful divisions, contentions, backbitings, revilings, censurings, persecutions, errors and scandals of Protestants among themselves, is a far stronger temptation to turn men to Popery, than any thing that is to be found among the Papists to turn men to it: and that many are thus driven to it, that would not have been drawn. 5. And by calling good and lawful if not necessary things, Antichristian and Popish, you have made Religious people ridiculous and a scorn to many that have more wit than Conscience; as if we were all such humorous Novices, as would run mad by being frightened with the name of Antichrist: And as they deride you for it as Fanatical, so they the less fear Popery it self. 6. And by these extremities you corrupt the peoples minds with a wrathful and contentious kind of Religion; which •s easily taken up in comparison of a holy and heavenly mind. When you should kindle in them a zeal for Love, and Good Works, the mark of Gods peculiar people, you are killing Love and kindling wrath: Gunpowder may be set on fire without so much blowing of the coal: Long experience assureth us that a siding angry contentious zeal is easily kindled, but a lively faith, a confirmed hope of Glory, a Love to God and man, needs more ado.

And Grotius professeth that it was this that moved him, to go so far towards them as he did. And I must needs say, that I believe from my very heart, that the shameful divisions, contentions, backbitings, revilings, censurings, persecutions, errours and scandals of Protestants among themselves, is a far stronger temptation to turn men to Popery, than any thing that is to be found among the Papists to turn men to it: and that many are thus driven to it, that would not have been drawn. 5. And by calling good and lawful if not necessary things, Antichristian and Popish, you have made Religious people ridiculous and a scorn to many that have more wit than Conscience; as if we were all such humorous Novices, as would run mad by being frightned with the name of Antichrist: And as they deride you for it as Fanatical, so they the less fear Popery it self. 6. And by these extremities you corrupt the peoples minds with a wrathful and contentious kind of Religion; which •s easily taken up in comparison of a holy and heavenly mind. When you should kindle in them a zeal for Love, and Good Works, the mark of Gods peculiar people, you are killing Love and kindling wrath: Gunpowder may be set on fire without so much blowing of the coal: Long experience assureth us that a siding angry contentious zeal is easily kindled, but a lively faith, a confirmed hope of Glory, a Love to God and man, needs more ado.

S. Stay a little in the midst of your reproofs; Would you persuade us to a Union with Antichrist, and to live in Love and Concord with the members of the Devil? Are not the Papists such? Have you no way to reconcile us to Rome, but by pleading for Love and peace? Must we not contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the Saints, and not be Lukewarm to the doctrines of Jezebel that seduceth the people of God to Idolatry?

S. Stay a little in the midst of your reproofs; Would you perswade us to a Union with Antichrist, and to live in Love and Concord with the members of the Devil? Are not the Papists such? Have you no way to reconcile us to Rome, but by pleading for Love and peace? Must we not contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the Saints, and not be Lukewarm to the doctrines of Jezabel that seduceth the people of God to Idolatry?

P. 1. Were you persuadable I would persuade you, not ignorantly to contradict the truth of God, and call it Popery; nor to set up certain false or incongruous notions, and pretend them great and necessary verities; nor to make a stir for some odd unsound opinions, received upon trust from those that you thought best of, and to buzz abroad suspicious of Popery, against those that have more understanding and conscience than to imitate you; nor to fly in the faces of Gods faithfullest servants (much less to use your tongues to backbite them) as if they were Antichristian, because they are not as shamefully ignorant and deceived as you are: And I would persuade you to study and digest well what you take the boldness to speak against; and not to talk confidently and furiously against that which you never understood: for it is the fool that rageth and is confident, Prov. 14. 16. I should think I had not a greater work than to build twenty such Cities as London or to conquer all the Turks dominions, if I could but persuade all that seem Religious to bridle their Tongues, lest their Religion be in vain, and instead of rash and busy talking of things that they understand not, and of rash judging and reviling men wiser than themselves, but to SUSPEND their JUDGEMENTS, and stay till they have taken time to hear, read or consider what is necessary to the true understanding of the case, and not to shame themselves, and abuse their brethren, and God himself, and wrong and corrupt the hearers minds, by railing at that to day, which if they study hard and grow wiser, they will afterwards believe themselves. 2. And I would not have you think it good or lawful to belly a Papist, and say that he holdeth what he doth not; nor to pretend that they differ in the sense and matter, when the difference is but in the words: and then to think that all your injustice and false-dealing is excusable, if you do but say that some Godly Divines, or Religious people, said so before you, and you can prove out of their writings that you are not the first that did the wrong: Nor would I have you charge the unmeet or unsound expressions, of every ignorant, railing Papist, on all that are called Papists, no nor on all their Church: And therefore I would have you well read and understand their writings before you venture too far in your accusations.

P. 1. Were you perswadable I would perswade you, not ignorantly to contradict the truth of God, and call it Popery; nor to set up certain false or incongruous notions, and pretend them great and necessary verities; nor to make a stir for some odd unsound opinions, received upon trust from those that you thought best of, and to buzz abroad suspicious of Popery, against those that have more understanding and conscience than to imitate you; nor to fly in the faces of Gods faithfullest servants (much less to use your tongues to backbite them) as if they were Antichristian, because they are not as shamefully ignorant and deceived as you are: And I would perswade you to study and digest well what you take the boldness to speak against; and not to talk confidently and furiously against that which you never understood: for it is the fool that rageth and is confident,

You would not be otherwise dealt with your self; nor have the Protestant Religion (or the Non-conformists) charged with every unseasoned or unwarrantable sentence, of the many weak Writers that have self-esteem enough to obtrude their sentiments upon the world. The Papists have too many errors, and too great: you need not feign them to be more or greater than they are. 3. And I would persuade you not to take all that live under the Roman power and are called Papists to be of the same mind or rank, nor to damn any more than you are sure Christ will damn: but to consider what the Judicious Dr. Field undertaketh (and B. Morton in his Apology hath performed) even to prove that there are no considerable doctrines which constitute the Protestant Religion as different from Popery, which were not before Luther's Reformation defended by the greatest Doctors in the Church of Rome, though the defenders of them were discountenanced and born down by the Papal faction by power and violence. 4. And I would persuade you to believe that the name of Antichrist will not warrant you to lay by that Love and meekness and Justice which is due to mankind, yea and which heathens used to each other, and which you would have all men use to you: The servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle to all men, apt to teach, patient (or forbearing,) in meekness instructing opposers, 2 Tim. 2. 24, 25. and if it be possible, as much as in you lieth, you must live peaceably with all men, Rom. 12. 18. and therefore ⟨p. 292⟩follow peace with all, Heb. 10. 14. At least make Conscience of rash calumniating and slandering the worst. 5. And as to the texts that you refer to, I wish you better to study them, and you will find that they were not spoken of the Papists then, but of the Heretics or Sectaries of that age: It was the Nicolaitans and such others that are likened to Jezebel, as the text showeth you: And it was such as they, called Carpocratians, and Gnostics that denied or subverted the faith which Christians were earnestly to contend for: And we would have you zealously defend Christianity, without Lukewarmness: but not to abuse the world so much, as to •eign all your dreams or opinions to be Christianity or the faith.

And so I still say that though Popery must be faithfully rejected, yet your over-doing and mistaking way of opposition to it, endangereth the peoples souls, by tempting them into factious wrath and unrighteous calumny, and destroying that Love and common justice which is due to Papists themselves, and much more to those Protestants whom you ignorantly calumniate. 7. Yea I add, that hereby you make false glasses for the people to see their own faces in, and cheat poor souls, with a carnal sort of Religion and zeal, as if it were that which is true and saving. Men are loth to know that they are indeed unholy: and therefore will be pretending to some kind of Religion to cherish their presumption, for want of •ounder comfort: And O how many thousands are there that think that they are Godly persons, because they can rise up in the dark with confident reproach against this or that opinion or practice as coming too near to Popery! O that they hated all that cometh too near to a fleshly, worldly mind and life! or to selfishness and pride and overvaluing an ignorant understanding! It's pitiful to hear how many learned Preachers in Germany among the Lutherans, live in drunkenness, and worldliness, and how little of the spirit of holiness appeareth in their Sermons or lives, and how they make up all by a fervent preaching against the Papists and the Calvinists. Were it as easy to get faith, hope and Love, as to talk against other mens opinions, or to call that Popery which is contrary to your raw conceits, how happy were it for such men! But you little think that they that have a Religious zeal for forms and ceremonies, and they that are as zealous against them, may be of the same spirit and temper of Religions, being both but Formalists, though ones formality work for, and the others against such kind of things. And you are not aware that If you are wiser than those that you talk against, you must show it by your works and meekness of wisdom, and that the envious wisdom and zeal which is not from above, but is earthly, sensual and diabolical, may work as well by crying down other mens opinions as Popish and Antichristian as in other ways. 8. And under pretence of zeal against Popery, you turn the peoples minds from the great matters of their salvation, which need their daily and most diligent study, and their most intense affections and regard:

And so I still say that though Popery must be faithfully rejected, yet your over-doing and mistaking way of opposition to it, endangereth the peoples souls, by tempting them into factious wrath and unrighteous calumny, and destroying that Love and common justice which is due to Papists themselves, and much more to those Protestants whom you ignorantly calumniate. 7. Yea I add, that hereby you make false glasses for the people to see their own faces in, and cheat poor souls, with a carnal sort of Religion and zeal, as if it were that which is true and saving. Men are loth to know that they are indeed unholy: and therefore will be pretending to some kind of Religion to cherish their presumption, for want of ounder comfort: And O how many thousands are there that think that they are Godly persons, because they can rise up in the dark with confident reproach against this or that opinion or practice as coming too near to Popery! O that they hated all that cometh too near to a fleshly, worldly mind and life! or to selfishness and pride and overvaluing an ignorant understanding! It's pittiful to hear how many learned Preachers in Germany among the Lutherans, live in drunkenness, and worldliness, and how little of the spirit of holiness appeareth in their Sermons or lives, and how they make up all by a ervent preaching against the Papists and the Calvinists. Were it as easie to get faith, hope and Love, as to talk against other mens opinions, or to call that Popery which is contrary to your raw conceits, how happy were it for such men! But you little think that they that have a Religious zeal for forms and ceremonies, and they that are as zealous against them, may be of the same spirit and temper of Religions, being both but Formalists, though ones formality work for, and the others against such kind of things. And you are not aware that If you are wiser than those that you talk against, you must shew it by your works and meekness of wisdom, and that the envious wisdom and zeal which is not from above, but is earthly, sensual and diabolical, may work as well by crying down other mens opinions as Popish and Antichristian as in other wayes. 8. And under pretence of zeal against Popery, you turn the peoples minds from the great matters of their salvation, which need their daily and most diligent study, and their most intense affections and regard:

And so you starve our and destroy true piety, by calling off the peoples minds to Controversy: And when they should be edifying one another in the comfortable hopes of another world, they are backbiting one another with accusations of Popery. 9. Yea Preaching it self is thus corrupted: And that which is appointed of God to be the means of mens edification in Love and holiness, (Eph. 4. 14, 15, 16.) is turned to be the bellows of keeping hot the furnace of wrath and injury. ⟨p. 293⟩10. Yea Prayer which should be most holy is thus also corrupted and profaned by too many; while they boldly bespeak the holy and dreadful God against one another, and against those things, which their ignorance misrepresenteth to themselves. And so Gods ordinances are made a snare to souls, which are appointed for their salvation: and the man that can kindle in his hearers a transporting passion against this or that opinion or form as Popish, is cried up for an excellent preacher, and seemeth to edify the people while he destroyeth them. 11. And by this means you seem to justify the Papists lies and calumnies against the Protestants, by doing as they do: They belie Luther, Zuinglius, Calvin, Beza, &c. with just such intentions and such a kind of zeal, as some over doing Sectaries belie them. And is it bad in them and good in you? 12. You teach the people a dangerous and perverse way of reasoning à minùs notis, which will let in almost any errors: From a dark text in the Revelations, or Daniel, or from the supposition that the Pope is the Antichrist, and all Papists have received the mark of the beast, you gather conclusions against the notorious duties of Love and peace, which the light of nature doth commend to all: Not that I am persuading you that the Pope is not Antichrist; but that all things be received but according to their proper degree of evidence.

And so you starve our and destroy true piety, by calling off the peoples minds to Controversie: And when they should be edifying one another in the comfortable hopes of another world, they are backbiting one another with accusations of Popery. 9. Yea Preaching it self is thus corrupted: And that which is appointed of God to be the means of mens edification in Love and holiness, (Eph. 4. 14, 15, 16.) is turned to be the bellows of keeping hot the furnace of wrath and injury.

S. Now you open your self indeed: All that revolt to Popery begin there, with questioning whether the Pope be the Antichrist, and telling men of the darkness of the Book of Revelations.

P. I tell you I will abate no certainty that you have, but increase my own and yours if I could: but I would not have any falsely to pretend that they are certainer of any thing than they are: And no certainty can go beyond the ascertaining evidence: And if all Scriptures be equally plain, St. Peter was deceived, that tells us of many things hard to be understood, which the unlearned wrest as other Scriptures to their own destruction. And if the Revelations be not one of the hardest, I crave your answer to these questions: 1. Why are five Expositors usually of four opinions in the expounding of it? when it is those that have spent much of their lives in studying it (as Napier, Brightman, &c.) who are the Expositors? 2. Why will none of you that find it so easy at last write one certain Commentary which may assure which of all the former (if any one of them) was in the right? 3. Why did Calvin take it to be too hard for him, and durst not venture to expound it? 4. And if you take it to be so necessary as you pretend, tell me whether it was so necessary, and so taken by all those Churches, that for a long time received it not as Canonical Scripture? Surely they were saved without believing it. Though no doubt but the book of Revelation is a great mercy to the Church, and all men should understand as much of it as they can. But all that I blame you for here, is the perverting of the order of proof, in arguing à minùs notis. 13. And these over-doers that run things into the contrary extremes, do most injuriously weaken the Protestant cause, by disabling themselves and all men of their principles to defend it, and arming the Papists against it by their errors. When it cometh to an open dispute by Word or Writing, one of these mens errors is like a wound that lets out blood and spirits, and puts words of triumph into the adversaries mouth: A cunning Papist will presently drive the ignorant disputant to resolve his cause into his mistake, and then will open the falsehood of that, and thence infer the falsehood of all the rest: And what an injury is that to the souls of the auditors, who may be betrayed by it, and to the cause it self?

P. I tell you I will abate no certainty that you have, but increase my own and yours if I could: but I would not have any falsly to pretend that they are certainer of any thing than they are: And no certainty can go beyond the ascertaining evidence: And if all Scriptures be equally plain, St. Peter was deceived, that tells us of many things hard to be understood, which the unlearned wrest as other Scriptures to their own destruction. And if the Revelations be not one of the hardest, I crave your answer to these questions: 1. Why are five Expositors usually of four opinions in the expounding of it? when it is those that have spent much of their lives in studying it (as Napier, Brightman, &c.) who are the Expositors? 2. Why will none of you that find it so easie at last write one certain Commentary which may assure which of all the former (if any one of them) was in the right? 3. Why did Calvin take it to be too hard for him, and durst not venture to expound it? 4. And if you take it to be so necessary as you pretend, tell me whether it was so necessary, and so taken by all those Churches, that for a long time received it not as Canonical Scripture? Surely they were saved without believing it. Though no doubt but the book of Revelation is a great mercy to the Church, and all men should understand as much of it as they can. But all that I blame you for here, is the perverting of the order of proof, in arguing à minùs notis. 13. And these over-doers that run things into the contrary extreams, do most injuriously weaken the Protestant cause, by disabling themselves and all men of their principles to defend it, and arming the Papists against it by their errors. When it cometh to an open dispute by Word or Writing, one of these mens errors is like a wound that lets out blood and spirits, and puts words of triumph into the adversaries mouth: A cunning Papist will presently drive the ignorant disputant to resolve his cause into his mistake, and then will open the falshood of that, and thence inferr the falshood of all the rest: And what an injury is that to the souls of the auditors, who may be betrayed by it, and to the cause it self?

For instance, If one of our overdoers hold that we are reputed to have kept all the Law of Innocency and ⟨p. 294⟩merited salvation our selves by Christ, or that no act of faith is Justifying but the accepting of his righteousness, or that faith Justifieth only as the efficient instrumental cause, or that we have no righteousness which hath any thing to do in our Justification, but only Christs imputed Merits, or that mans faith, Love or obedience are not rewardable, &c. how easily will a Papist open the falsehood of such an opinion to the hearers, and then tell them that they may see by this who is in the right. And, alas, what work would one Learned Papist make in London by public disputing, if we had no wiser men to deal with him than these over-doers? They may call Truth and Sobriety Antichristian, and talk nonsense as against Popery successfully to their own party; but I hope never to see the cause managed by their public disputes, lest half the Congregation turn Papists on it at once. If Chillingworth had not been abler to confute a Papist than those that used to calumniate him as Popish or Socinian, he had done less service of that kind than he did. 14. And it is an odious injury that these Over-doers do to the ancient and the universal Church, while in many cases, they (ignorantly or wilfully) reproach and condemn them, as if they were all the favourers of Popery, and call their ancient doctrine and practice Antichristian. Some of them ignorantly falsify the Fathers doctrine, and upon trust from their Leaders aver• that they held that which they plainly contradict: and that which they held indeed, they cry out against as Popery. Such an instance we have newly in a Soldier, Major Danvers, an Anabaptist, which I have detected. And will Christ take it well to have almost all his Church condemned as Antichristian? 15. And hereby what an honour is done to Popery, and what a dishonour to the Reformed Churches, when it shall be concluded that all the Churches heretofore, even next after the age of the Apostles, and almost all the present Churches, were and are against the doctrine of the Protestants, and on the Papists side? And yet how many do us this injury, and the Roman Church this honour?

For instance, If one of our overdoers hold that we are reputed to have kept all the Law of Innocency and ⟨p. 294⟩merited salvation our selves by Christ, or that no act of faith is Justifying but the accepting of his righteousness, or that faith Justifieth only as the efficient instrumental cause, or that we have no righteousness which hath any thing to do in our Justification, but only Christs imputed Merits, or that mans faith, Love or obedience are not rewardable, &c. how easily will a Papist open the falshood of such an opinion to the hearers, and then tell them that they may see by this who is in the right. And, alas, what work would one Learned Papist make in London by publick disputing, if we had no wiser men to deal with him than these over-doers? They may call Truth and Sobriety Antichristian, and talk nonsence as against Popery successfully to their own party; but I hope never to see the cause managed by their publick disputes, lest half the Congregation turn Papists on it at once. If Chillingworth had not been abler to confute a Papist than those that used to calumniate him as Popish or Socinian, he had done less service of that kind than he did. 14. And it is an odious injury that these Over-doers do to the ancient and the universal Church, while in many cases, they (ignorantly or wilfully) reproach and condemn them, as if they were all the favourers of Popery, and call their ancient doctrine and practice Antichristian. Some of them ignorantly falsifie the Fathers doctrine, and upon trust from their Leaders aver that they held that which they plainly contradict: and that which they held indeed, they cry out against as Popery. Such an instance we have newly in a Souldier, Major Danvers, an Anabaptist, which I have detected. And will Christ take it well to have almost all his Church condemned as Antichristian? 15. And hereby what an honour is done to Popery, and what a dishonour to the Reformed Churches, when it shall be concluded that all the Churches heretofore, even next after the age of the Apostles, and almost all the present Churches, were and are against the doctrine of the Protestants, and on the Papists side? And yet how many do us this injury, and the Roman Church this honour?