An end of doctrinal controversies which have lately troubled the churches

An ANSWER TO Mr. Polehill's Exceptions about Futurition.

SIR,

Jam much chidden already for writing many Books, and Answering so many that object, and am told, That if the Case well Stated will not satisfy men, no Answer will do it, because it is for want of their Receptive Capacity, which long and right Studies must help them to, and not a mere Answer to their Objections. I very highly value the worthy Gentleman whose Papers you sent me, hearing of few, if any, among us more commended for Knowledge and Piety. The question is but whether it be he or I that by half confused conceptions of the matters in question speaketh in the Dark, or which of us hath the more ripe digested and ordered thoughts hereof. And must others be troubled with such Cases? It is those that he pleadeth for that have made the edge of the Razor so thin that they or I do Cut our Fingers with it, and have spun such subtle Notions, which if their wits when they have done be not subtle enough to manage, they will oft slip through or be as Spiders Webs. As to the first Controversy of Futurity or Possibility, this Gentleman's method will do me no good, being no whit fitted to that which I expect. I should expect from him that he had ⟨p. 47⟩taken notice of my Distinctions and Explications •f Futurity, and that he had directly pleaded only for that sort or sense which I deny, and had Answered the Reasons which both in the First and Second Part I bring against it. But it is not so: And to Dispute at such rates is but to try who shall live longest to have the last word, (it being easy at this rate to talk against one another as long as we live) which I cannot expect, and therefore shall give any man herein the best. All that he hath said against me is materially Answered in the Book already, and if he perceive it not, how can I help that? More Books are not like to do it, nor have I leisure for such tasks: Yet briefly I return,