An end of doctrinal controversies which have lately troubled the churches

§. 7. It hath oft grieved me to read in Dr. Heylin's Life of Archbishop Laud how great a hand the Controversies then called Arminian, or of the Five Articles, had in the Divisions of the Church of England, between those that he maketh Archbishop Abbot in England and Archbishop Usher in Ireland to Head on one part; and the few that at first (and many after) that followed Archbishop Laud in England, and Archbishop Bramhall in Ireland on the other part. And to find what a stress the many Parliaments that feared Popery did lay on the thing that they called Arminianism: And being carried down by the stream of many good mens Opinions and Fears, I was my self some years confident that Arminianism was a character of an Enemy to the Soundness and Safety of the Church. But when I had set my self throughly and impartially to study it, I found that which so amazed me, that I durst scarce believe what I could not deny; even that from the beginning of the Quarrel between Augustine and Pelagius, all the Voluminous ⟨p. 18⟩Contentions of the Thomists or Dominicans, and the Jesuits, and Franciscans, and between the Lutherans, and Zwinglians (herein) and the Synodists and Arminians, have been mostly about either unsearchable things, which neither side understood, or about ambiguous words, which one Party taketh in one sense, and the other in another; or about the mere methodizing and ordering of the notions which both sides are agreed in; and that indeed the most reach not the very point of the difficulty and controversy, but talk before they understand as their Leaders have taught them: And that when the matter is distinctly opened, it is found that multitudes that write, rail and plot against one another, are really of one Opinion De rebus, and did not know it: And that the few remaining Controversies that are real, and not only verbal, are but of such small or dubious things, as should break no Love nor Communion among Christians, but all should with forbearance love each other in that liberty of judging which they cannot remedy.

§. 7. It hath oft grieved me to read in Dr. Heylin's Life of Archbishop Laud how great a hand the Controversies then called Arminian, or of the Five Articles, had in the Divisions of the Church of England, between those that he maketh Archbishop Abbot in England and Archbishop Usher in Ireland to Head on one part; and the few that at first (and many after) that followed Archbishop Laud in England, and Archbishop Bramhall in Ireland on the other part. And to find what a stress the many Parliaments that feared Popery did lay on the thing that they called Arminianism: And being carried down by the stream of many good mens Opinions and Fears, I was my self some years confident that Arminianism was a character of an Enemy to the Soundness and Safety of the Church. But when I had set my self throughly and impartially to study it, I found that which so amazed me, that I durst scarce believe what I could not deny; even that from the beginning of the Quarrel between Augustine and Pelugius, all the Voluminous