The REPLY to the Bishops Disputants, which was not answered.
Whether it be our Arguing or your Answering that is lax, declamatory, pedantic (as you call it), and whether your confident insulting arise from your advantages or infirmity of Mind, and want of Matter for more pertinent Answers, are Questions that we shall leave to impartial Judges: And we shall crave pardon if we rather seem to neglect your words, than to follow you in these strange vagaries any further than mere Necessity for saving your Readers from the Error into which they are fitted to mislead them doth require.
To prove the Consequence of an Hypothetical Argument, by an Enthymeme, hath not been used to be accounted culpable. The Proof you shall not want.
That we removed your Answer by showing your Distinction frivolous, deserved not to be called, A popular Insinuation, Superfluous, &c. We had two things here to do: The first was, if we had been at hand with you, to have called on you for the necessary Explanation of your Distinction, Whether by [commanded by lawful Power] you mean [commanded under no penalty] or [commanded under a penalty, consistent with the Receiving and Forbearing mentioned in the Text] or [commanding under a penalty inconsistent with this Receiving and Forbearance]. And whether you mean by [Lawful Power] that which is indeed [Lawful Power ad hoc] or only [ad aliud]? As far as we can find in these your Papers, you still forbear to explain your Distinction. But this we must yet insist upon, and desire of you, notwithstanding all your Exclamations.
And then our next work must be to show you, that indeed your Distinction is useless as to the shaking of our Argument. The latter branch of your Distinction [if we speak of things lawful and commanded] you apply to the denial of our Antecedent, or Minor, which we prove stands good, notwithstanding this your Answer. Indeed we speak of [things lawful as such] abstracting from command: But we speak of things which materially were partly not commanded, and partly commanded: It was not commanded to eat or not eat the Meats in question, to keep the Days or not keep them: In these they went against no Law: But to be weak in the Faith, and erroneously to take things lawful to be unlawful, and things indifferent to be necessary, and to offend a Brother by the use of Liberty on the other side, were against the Commands of God.
The REPLY to the Bishops Disputants, which was not answered.
WHether it be our Arguing or your Answering that is laxe, declamatory, pedantick (as you call it), and whether your confident insulting arise from your advantages or infirmity of Mind, and want of Matter for more pertinent Answers, are Questions that we shall leave to impartial Judges: And we shall crave pardon if we rather seem to neglect your words, than to follow you in these strange vagaries any further than meer Necessity for saving your Readers from the Errour into which they are fitted to mislead them doth require.
To prove the Consequence of an Hypothetical Argument, by an Enthymeme, hath not been used to be accounted culpable. The Proof you shall not want.
That we removed your Answer by shewing your Distinction frivolous, deserved not to be called, A popular Insinuation, Superfluous, &c. We had two things here to do: The first was, if we had been at hand with you, to have called on you for the necessary Explanation of your Distinction, Whether by [commanded by lawful Power] you mean [commanded under no penalty] or [commanded under a penalty, consistent with the Receiving and Forbearing mentioned in the Text] or [commanding under a penalty inconsistent with this Receiving and Forbearance]. And whether you mean by [Lawful Power] that which is indeed [Lawful Power ad hoc] or only [ad aliud]? As far as we can find in these your Papers, you still forbear to explain your Distinction. But this we must yet insist upon, and desire of you, notwithstanding all your Exclamations.
And then our next work must be to shew you, that indeed your Distinction is useless as to the shaking of our Argument. The latter branch of your Distinction [if we speak of things lawful and commanded] you apply to the denial of our Antecedent, or Minor, which we prove stands good, notwithstanding this your Answer. Indeed we speak of [things lawful as such] abstracting from command: But we speak of things which materially were partly not commanded, and partly commanded: It was not commanded to eat or not eat the Meats in question, to keep the Days or not keep them: In these they went against no Law: But to be weak in the Faith, and erroneously to take things lawful to be unlawful, and things indifferent to be necessary, and to offend a Brother by the use of Liberty on the other side, were against the Commands of God.
