A86004:67
Nihil respondes
Nihil respondes: or, A discovery of the extreme unsatisfactoriness of Master Colemans piece, published last week under the title of A brotherly examination re-examined. Wherein, his self-contradictions: his yielding of some things, and not answering to other things objected against him: his abusing of Scripture: his errors in divinity: his abusing of the Parliament, and endangering their authority: his abusing of the Assembly: his calumnies, and namely against the Church of Scotland, and against my self: the repugnancy of his doctrine to the solemn League and Covenant, are plainly demonstrated. / By George Gillespie minister at Edinburgh. Published by authority.Nihil respondes: or, A discovery of the extream unsatisfactorinesse of Master Colemans peece, published last weeke under the title of A brotherly examination re-examined. Wherein, his self-contradictions: his yeelding of some things, and not answering to other things objected against him: his abusing of Scripture: his errors in divinity: his abusing of the Parliament, and indangering their authority: his abusing of the Assembly: his calumnies, and namely against the Church of Scotland, and against my selfe: the repugnancy of his doctrin to the solemne League and Covenant, are plainly demonstrated. / By George Gillespie minister at Edenburgh. Published by authority.
London: printed for Robert Bostock, 1645
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Page 5. He slandereth those that did in their Sermons give a public testimony against his Doctrine, the occasion (as he gives out) not being offered, but taken. But had they not a public calling and employment to Preach as well as himself? And if a Fast was not occasion offered to them, how was a Fast an occasion offered to him to fall upon the same controversy first, and when none had done the like before him?
Page 5. He slandereth those that did in their Sermons give a publike testimony against his Doctrine, the occasion (as he gives out) not being offered, but taken. But had they not a publike calling and employment to Preach as well as himselfe? And if a Fast was not occasion offered to them, how was a Fast an occasion offered to him to fall upon the same controversie first, and when none had done the like before him?
A fourth Calumny is this. He had first blamed two Parties that they came biassed to the Assembly; I answered, How then shall he make himself blameless who came biassed a third way, which was the Erastian way; and that for our part we came no more biassed to this Assembly then the foreign Divines came to the Synod of Dort, Alexander to the Council of Nice, and Cyril to that of Ephesus, and Paul to the Synod at Jerusalem; but now page 6. 7, instead of doing us right he doth us greater injury, for now he makes us biassed not only by our own judgements, but by something adventitious from without, which he denieth himself to be, (but how truly I take not on me to judge: beholders do often perceive the biassing better then the Bowlers) yea he saith, that I have acknowledged the bias, and justify it. Where Sir, where? I deny it; Its no bias for a man to be settled, resolved, and engaged in his judgement for the truth, especially when willing to receive more light, and to learn what needeth to be further reformed. Hath he forgotten his own definition of the bias which he had but just now given? But he will needs make it more then probable by the instances which I ⟨p. 22⟩brought, that the Commissioners from Scotland came not to this Assembly, as Divines by dispute and disquisition to find out truth, but as Judges to censure all different opinions as errors; for so came foreign Divines to Dort, Alexander to the Council of Nice, Cyril to Ephesus. Is it not enough to slander us, though he do not for our sakes slander those worthy Divines that came to the Synod of Dort, Alexander also and Cyril, prime Witnesses for the truth in their days? could no less content him then to approve the Objections of the Arminians against the Synod of Dort, which I had mentioned page 33? but he gets not away so; the strongest instance which I had given he hath not once touched: it was concerning Paul and Barnabas who were engaged (not in the behalf of one Nation, but of all the Churches of the Gentiles) against the imposition of the Mosaical Rites, and had so declared themselves at Antioch before they came to Jerusalem. Finally, whereas he doubts, though not of our willingness to learn more, yet of our permission to receive more: