is acquainted withal. The remainder of his discourse in this place is composed of immorality and profaneness. To the first I must refer his charge, that our only acquaintance with God and knowledge of him, is hid in Christ, which his word could not discover;' as he again expresseth it, p. 98, 99. But that the reverend doctor confessed the plain truth, that their religion is wholly owing to an acquaintance with the person of Christ, and could never have been clearly and savingly learned from his gospel, had they not first grown acquainted with his person;' which is plainly false. I own no knowledge of God, nor of Christ, but what is revealed in the word, as was before declared. And unto the other head belongs the most of what ensues; for what is the intendment of those reproaches which are cast on my supposed assertions? Christ is the only way wherein or whereby we must walk with God. Yes, so he says, 'I am the way,' there is no coming to God but by me; he having consecrated for us in himself 'a new and living way' of drawing nigh to God. We receive all our strength from him, yes, for he says, 'without me ye can do nothing.' He makes us bold and confident also, having removed the guilt of sin; so the apostle tells us, Heb. x. 19-22. What then? What follows upon these plain, positive, divine assertions of the Scripture? Why then we may look justice in the face, and whet our knife at the counter-door.' Goodly son of the church of England. Not that I impute these profane scoffings unto the church itself, which I shall never do until it be discovered that the rulers of it do give approbation to such abominations; but I would mind the man of his relation to that church which, to my knowledge, teacheth better learning and manners.

From p. 57. to the end of his second section, p. 75. he giveth us a scheme of religion, which in his scoffing language, he says, ' men learn from an acquaintance with the person of Christ,' and affirms, that there needs no more to expose it to scorn with considering men than his proposal of it;' which therein he owns to be his design. I know not any peculiar concernment of mine therein, until he comes towards the close of it, which I shall particularly consider. But the substance of the religion which he thus avowedly attempts to expose to scorn, is the doctrine of God's eternal election;

of his infinite wisdom in sending his Son to declare his righteousness for the forgiveness of sins, or in satisfying his justice, that sin might be pardoned to the praise of the glory of his grace; of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ unto them that do believe; of a sense of sin, humiliation for it, looking unto Christ for life and salvation as the Israelites looked up to the brazen-serpent in the wilderness; of going to Christ by faith for healing our natures and cleansing our sins, with some other doctrines of the same importance. These are the principles, which according to his ability he sarcastically traduceth and endeavoureth to reflect scorn upon, by the false representation of some of them, and debasing others, with an intermixture of vile and profane expressions. It is not impossible but that some or other may judge it their duty to rebuke this horrible (and yet were it not for the ignorance and profaneness of some men's minds, every way contemptible) petulancy. For my part I have other things to do, and shall only add, that I know no other Christian state in the world wherein such discourses would be allowed to pass under the signature of public authority; only I wish the author more modesty and sobriety than to attempt, or suppose he shall succeed, in exposing to scorn the avowed doctrine in general of the church wherein he lives, and which hath in the parts of it been asserted and defended by the greatest and most learned prelates thereof, in the foregoing ages, such as Jewel, Whitgift, Abbot, Morton, Usher, Hall, Davenant, Prideaux, &c. with the most learned persons of its communion, as Reynolds, Whittaker, Hooker, Sutcliff, &c. and others innumerable; testified unto in the name of this church by the di vines, sent by public authority to the synod of Dort, taught by the principal practical divines of this nation, and maintained by the most learned of the dignified clergy at this day. He is no doubt at liberty to dissent from the doctrine of the church and of all the learned men thereof; but for a young man to suppose, that with a few loose idle words, he shall expose to scorn that doctrine which the persons mentioned and others innumerable, have not only explained, confirmed, and defended, with pains indefatigable, all kind of learning and skill, ecclesiastical, philosophical, and theological, in books and volumes which the Christian world,

as yet knoweth, peruseth and prizeth, but also lived long in fervent prayers to God for the revelation of his mind and truth unto them, and in the holy practice of odedience suited unto the doctrines they professed, is somewhat remote from that Christian humility which he ought not only to exercise in himself, but to give an example of unto others. But if this be the fruit of despising the knowledge of the person of Christ, of the necessity of his satisfaction, of the imputation of his righteousness, of union unto his person as our head, of a sense of the displeasure of God due to sin, of the spirit of bondage and adoption, of the corruption of nature, and our disability to do any thing that is spiritually good without the effectual aids of grace; if these, I say, and the like issues of appearing pride and elation of mind, be the fruit and consequent of rejecting these principles of the doctrine of the gospel, it manifests that there is, and will be, a proportion between the errors of men's minds, and the depravation of their affections. It were a most easy task to go over all the particulars mentioned by him, and to manifest how foully he hath prevaricated in their representation, how he hath cast contempt on some duties of religion indispensibly necessary unto salvation, and brought in the very words of the Scripture, and that in the true proper sense and intendment of them, according to the judgment of all Christians, ancient and modern, as that of looking to Christ, as the Israelites looked to the brazen serpent in the wilderness, to bear a share and part in his scorn and contempt; as also to defend and vindicate not his odious disingenuous expressions, but what he invidiously designeth to expose, beyond his ability to gainsay, or with any pretence of sober learning to reply unto. But I give it up into the hands of those who are more concerned in the chastisement of such imaginations; only I cannot but tell this author what I have learned by long observation, namely, that those who in opposing others make it their design to, [give,] and place their confidence in, false representations and invidious expressions of their judgments and opinions, waving a true stating of the things in difference, and weighing of the arguments wherewith they are confirmed, whatever pretence they may make of confidence and contempt of them with whom they have to do; yet this way of writing proceeds from a secret

sense of their disability to maintain their own opinions, or to reply to the reasonings of their adversaries in a fair and lawful disputation; or from such depraved affections as are sufficient to deter any sober person from the least communication in those principles which are so pleaded for. And the same I must say of that kind of writing which in some late authors fills up almost every page in their books, which beyond a design to load the persons of men with reproaches and calumnies, consist only in the collecting of passages here and there, up and down, out of the writings of others, which as cut off from the body of their discourses and design of the places which they belong unto, may with a little artifice either of addition or detraction, with some false glosses, whereof we shall have an immediate instance, be represented weak or untrue, or improper, or some way or other obnoxious to censure. When diligence, modesty, love of truth, sobriety, true use of learning, shall again visit the world in a more plentiful manner, though differences should continue amongst us; yet men will be enabled to manage them honestly, without contracting so much guilt on themselves, or giving such fearful offence and scandal unto others. But I return.

That wherein I am particularly concerned is the close wherewith he winds up this candid, ingenious discourse, p. 74. He quotes my words, 'That the soul consents to take Christ on his own terms to save him in his own way; and saith, Lord I would have had thee and salvation in my way, that it might have been partly of mine endeavours, and as it were by the works of the law (that is, by obeying the laws of the gospel), but I am now willing to receive thee, and to be saved in thy way, merely by grace (that is, without doing any thing, without obeying thee). The most contented spouse, certainly that ever was in the world, to submit to such hard conditions as to be saved for nothing. a pretty compliment doth the soul make to Christ after all this, when she adds; And though I would have walked according to my own mind, yet now I wholly give up myself to be ruled by the Spirit.'

But what

If the reader will be at the pains to look on the discourse whence these passages are taken, I shall desire no more of his favour but that he profess himself to be a Christian, and

then let him freely pronounce whether he find any thing in it obnoxious to censure. Or I desire that any man who hath not forfeited all reason and ingenuity unto faction and party, if he differ from me, truly to state wherein, and oppose what I have said, with an answer unto the testimonies wherewith it is confirmed, referred unto in the margin of my discourse. But the way of this author's proceeding, if there be no plea to be made for it from his ignorance and unacquaintedness not only with the person of Christ, but with most of the other things he undertakes to write about, is altogether inexcusable. The way whereby I have expressed the consent of the soul in the receiving of Jesus Christ to be justified, sanctified, saved by him, I still avow, as suited unto the mind of the Holy Ghost, and the experience of them that really believe. And whereas I added, that before believing the soul did seek for salvation by the works of the law, as it is natural unto all, and as the Holy Ghost affirms of some whose words alone I used, and expressly quoted that place from whence I took them, namely, Rom. ix. 31, 32. this man adds as an exposition of that expression, that is, by obeying of the laws of the gospel.' But he knew that these were the words of the apostle, or he did not; if he did not, nor would take notice of them so to be, although directed to the place from whence they are taken, it is evident how meet he is to debate matters of this nature and concernment, and how far he is yet from being in danger to pore out his eyes in reading the Scripture, as he pretends. If he did know them to be his words, why doth he put such a sense upon them as in his own apprehension is derogatory to gospel-obedience? Whatever he thought of beforehand, it is likely he will now say, that it is my sense, and not the apostle's which he intends. But how will he prove that I intended any other sense than that of the apostle? How should this appear? Let him, if he can, produce any word in my whole discourse intimating any other sense. Nay, it is evident that I had no other intention but only to refer unto that place of the apostle and the proper sense of it, which is to express the mind and actings of those, who being ignorant of the righteousness of God, go about to establish their own righteousness, as he farther explains himself, Rom. x. 3,4. That I could not intend obedience unto the laws of