Chapter 1

CHAP. I.

THE Bloody Tenet (I mean the book styled by that name, tending to discuss an holy & wholesome truth of God, slanderously styled the Bloody Tenet) was put forth against the Royal Law of the love of the Gospel. Mr. Williams sent me about a dozen years ago (as I remember) a letter, penned (as he wrote) by a Prisoner in Newgate, touching persecution for Conscience sake: and entreated ⟨p. 2⟩my judgement of it for the satisfaction of his friend. I wa not willing to deny him any office of Christian love, and gave him my poor judgement in a private letter. This private letter of mine he hath published in Print after so many years, and there with a Resuration of it. If my letter was Orthodoxall and tending to satisfaction, and edification, why did he refute it? If corrupt, and erroneous (especially if bloody) why did he publish it?

THE Bloody Tenet (I meane the booke stiled by that name, tending to discusse an holy & wholesome truth of God, slanderously stiled the Bloudy Tenet) was put forth against the Royall Law of the love of the Gospel. Mr. Williams sent me about a dozen yeares agoe (as I remember) a letter, penned (as he wrote) by a Prisoner in Newgate, touching persecution for Conscience sake: and intreated ⟨p. 2⟩my judgement of it for the satisfaction of his friend. I wa not willing to deny him any office of Christian love, and gave him my poore judgement in a private letter. This private letter of mine he hath published in Print after so many yeares, and there with a Resuration of it. If my letter was Orthodoxall and tending to satisfaction, and edification, why did he refute it? If corrupt, and erronious (especially if bloudy) why did he publish it?

The letter, and so the error contained in it, (if it was an error) it was private, and so private, that I know no man that hath a copy of it, no not my self who penned it (for ought I could find) but himself only, if I did offend him by the writing of such an error to him (though by himself entreated to express my judgement) let him remember, he pleadeth for liberty of conscience: I wrote my conscience and the truth of God according to my conscience, in the sight of God. Why should he punish me with open penance, and expose me (as much as in him lieth, before the world) to open shame, as a man of blood, for the liberty of my conscience? How will it stand with his own principles, to plead for liberty of conscience and yet to punish it? Besides let him remember, if I did offend him with such an error, it was but a private offence, and the rule of the Gospel required, he should first have convinced and admonished me privately of it, and so have proceeded upon my contumacy, at length to have told the Church, before he had published it to the world. But such as seek for new Apostles, must seek also for new Gospel, before this manner of dealing can be justified, by the Gospel of Christ. That book of his therefore being thus begun against the rule of the Gospel, no marvel if it swerve from the truth of the Gospel all a long. He that setteth forth out of his way in the first entrance of his journey, no marvel if he wander all the day after.