〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  
THE Blind Guide, or the Doting Doctor.  
Composed by way of Reply to a late tediously trifling Pamphlet, Entitled, The Youngling Elder, etc. written by John Goodwin, and containing little or nothing in it, but what plainly speaketh the Author thereof to lie under the double unhappiness of Seducers, To be Deceiving And Deceived.  
This reply indifferently serving for the future direction of the Seducer himself, and also of those his misled followers, who with him are turned enemies to the Word and grace of God.  
The authority of which Word, and the efficacy of which grace are in this following Treatise, succinctly, yet satisfactorily vindicated from the deplorably weak, and erroneous Cavils of the said John Goodwin in his late Pamphlet.  
By William Jenkyn, Minister of the Word of God at Christ-Church in LONDON.  2 Tim. 3.13. 
Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.  Prov. 14.16. 
The fool rageth and is confident.  Judas 13. 
Raging waves of the sea foaming out their own shame.  Nissen. de Trinitat. p. 8. 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Cal. Ep. 354. 
Contra Mennonem. Hoc sane video, nihil hoc asino posse fingi superbius.  
Printed at London by M. B. for Christopher Meridith, and are to be sold at his Shop at the sign of the Crane in Paul's Churchyard.   

To the Christian READER.  
READER:  
WEre not my desire to serve thy Soul, greater than my hope to recover my Adversary, and were I not more apprehensive of the greatness of thy danger, than the goodness of his disposition, I should not spend my precious hours in a second engagement against his Errors; my contention is greater that thou shouldest not fall to be like him, than that he should rise to be unlike himself. He who wrote his last Pamphlet only to represent me unworthy to contend with him, will hardly write his next to confess that truth by me hath conquered him. It's not consistent with his honour, who in his last boasted, that he had laid the attempts of all his adversaries in the dust, 
Ep. to the Reader, To. Eld. p. 3.  and that Presbytery lay bleeding at the feet of his Writings, in his next to lay himself in the dust, and to acknowledge that his Heresies lie bleeding at the foot of a Youngling; so that should he be convinced of the duty, (as possibly he may) he would be afraid of the shame of a recantation. It's more his sin than my unhappiness (though both) that by confuting his errors I occasion him still to vent them; but never did I meet with wretched opinions so wrathfully asserted, and so weakly maintained. His Writings have more of Tongue than matter, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nissen de Tri.  and yet more of Teeth than either; with the weapon of the Tooth (like the Heretics of old) he conquers, even after he is overcome with Arguments.  
Certainly while Master Goodwin wrote his late Book he was under a quotidian fit of Frenzy, and all that time was an interregnum of his reason, his Pen being only dipped in passion. His Pamphlet consists of such unmanlike scold, that he hath rendered himself the shame of his, Party, and the scorn of his Opposites; the only product of his reproaches, being a confirmation of the report of his being badly nurtured formerly, and worse natured still; Unhappy man! who stumbleth in the dark, and stormeth against the light, and who always endureth that lest which he wanteth most. The weakness of Flatterers hath so abused him into love of himself, and the strength of interest into the love of Error, that he cannot abide either plain-dealing, or sound doctrine. The palpable weakness of his late performance in his Youngl. Eld. 
Ep. to Reader, P. ult.  extorted from him this acknowledgement, that he wrote not his Book to refute me, and had not his Lordship silenced his Conscience, it would have added, but to revile me; 
Yo. Eld. p. 1.  I confess he words it more gently, telling me, that the task to which he was confined in his Writing, was to show me more of myself (nothing of himself) and in pursuance of this merciful design, he puts his whole Book under a quaternion of topics, 1. My defect of Conscience. 2. Of Clerkship. 3. Of apprehension. 4. Of ingenuity (forgetting in the mean time one little defect which runs through the veins of all his four parts, viz. while he so rudely handles my name, scarce to touch the matter of my Book) unto which four defects he reduceth whatsoever malice or falsehood can invent. against me; though the prosecution of them all be a continued transgression of the Laws of Art and honesty, nay, not only of method, but even at once of common modesty; so that I know not in this world, the thins that are so contemptible, as Master goodwin's scurrilities; 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Basil. De ira.  for my part, I much more regard that excellent advice of Basil, Neither be proud of thy praises, nor impatient at thy reproaches, when neither are due unto thee.  
I confess, I delight not to see him in those distempers, for which I pity him; I never intended to drive him into a Frenzy, and yet neither am I willing that he should drive me into a Palsy; idle silence is a sin as well as idle speaking: his Contumelies can be no plea for my Cowardice; where sin is impudent, reproof must not be bashful. If errors seek no corners, should truth do so? How happy were we if we could leave all our stings in the sides of Error and profaneness! if in their blood all our hatreds might be drowned! I have ever thought, that peace with that with which we should contend, is the grand cause of contention with them with whom we should be at peace. It's just that they who will not knwon Error so as to hate it, should not know Truth so as to find it, How incongruous is it to shun that man, upon whom (as thou thinkest) thou espyest a Wart, and to take him into thy bosom upon whom thou knowest there is a Plague-sore? Errors in Discipline do but scratch the face of Religion; these in Doctrine stab it to the heart. 
To. Eld. p. 20. p. 47. p. 66  When the whole written Word is at once struck off from being the ground of faith, and whatever is in and about the Scriptures denied to be the foundation of Religion, unless the Counsels contained in them. When it shall be asserted, that natural men want no power of making themselves able to believe, and that notwithstanding all the power of converting grace, there's a liberty in the will to defeat and frustrate conversion; In a word, when Sectaries strike at the faith, both which and with which we believe, 
Judas ver. 3.  it's our duty (if ever) to contend for this faith once delivered to the Saints; In my present endeavours about which work, if thou embracest what thou findest of God, I shall not only be willing that thou shouldst reject, and desirous that thou wouldst remit whatever thou findest of man, but shall also ever remain thankful to God, and Reader,  
From my Study at Christ-Church, London, Nou. 23. 1648. A friend to thy-Soule. William Jenkyn.   

THE Blinde-Guide GUIDED.  

Chap. 1.  
Directed more particularly to the reverend and learned subscribers of the late testimony to the truth within the Province of London. Showing the senseless raylings, the gross untruths, the shameless boastings; expressed by Master Goodwin in his Pasquil called, The youngling Elder, With a recital of sundry weak and erroneous passages contained therein.  
THe reproached in Mr. goodwin's Pamphlets, have more need to be humble under their glory, than to be patiented under their disgrace; no scribble are so scurrilous, and no scurrilities are so honourable, as are those which drop from his pen. 'Tis rare to meet with that Christian, who doth not more than conjecture that there is much worth in every thing against which he expresseth much wrath. His Antagonists never could do him good with their will●, but he hath ever done them good against his will. By writing against his errors they could never make him better, but be hath ever by railing against the truth and them, made both to be better beloved. I suppose Master Goodwin rather noteth than liketh that abundant estimation which your testimony findeth with the faithful. The stones that this Shime● hath cast against it, God hath turned into pearses, and made of them a Crown of honour for it. Your testimony opposed error, and God hath made it to vanquish infamy. He who directed you to make it useful, hath himself made it accepted.  
God hath caused your testimony like the sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and rather than it should not refresh them that did desire it, to diffuse its beams on them that did not deserve it. It hath shined upon the unsavoury dunghill as well as the pleasant garden, the close and noisome alley as well as the sweet and open Country. No wonder then if its success have been as various as its objects. When its welcome warmth visited the Countries, 
Warwickshire, Essex, Norfolk, Devonshire, Yorkshire, Northamptonshire, Lancashire, Wiltshire, Somersetshire.  how sweetly fragrant was the savour which instantly they breathed forth? Who hath not gratefully resented the pleasant odours of zeal and learning scattered through the Kingdom by the Ministers of sundry Counties, in the many attestations to, and approbations of your testimony? Some of us have seen the letters of the learned Spanhemius highly approving of it, as an eminent expression of your faithfulness to Christ and his truth. 
A Declaration and exhortation, pag. 34. The many testimonies which the truth and cause of Christ, the Covenant, and Presbyterial Government, have lately received from that cloud of witnesses of the Ministry in leverall Counties of England, after the example of the worthy Ministry of the City of London, against the errors of Independency, Anabaptism, etc. are unto us matter of great praise and hearty thanksgiving.  And who observeth not the frequent and respectful mention that the famous and faithful General Assembly of the Church of Scotland maketh of your testimony, in their Declarations of most public concernment. These indeed were the breathe of the more sweet and open places, when warmed with the zeal of your witnessing to the truth. But who can expect the like from the unsavoury dunghill, or the noisome alley, though jointly enjoying the same bounty from the beams of your testimony with the other?  
Those stinking exhalations, those muddy streams, I mean the suming and foolish pamphlets arising against your testimony, out of that alley of errors, where Master Goodwin lodgeth, (whose composition is mud and blood) are a supersufficient testimony of the contrary. In his other impure pamphlets he outgoeth all his complices in wickedness. But in his two last, wherein God did leave him to oppose Christ in your testimony, he hath even outgone himself. I know not one in the world left him to contend with for mastery in the black arts of lying and reviling, unless it be his stygian teather. In which respect as his terms of youngling and novice are notes of no disgrace to me, so neither is his hoary and heretical head found in those ways of unrighteousness an ensign of over-abundant honour to him. 'Tis true, his expertness in lying speaks him Captain of the Cretian Band, and his skilfulness in reviling a Doctor fit for the ducking-stoole, though not for the chair, hut these preferments rather deserve pity than provoke envy. As ambitious to give the world a view of his maturity in the forecited sins, he addresseth himself against the reverend subscribers of the late testimony in multitudes of passages, after such an odiously false and reproachful manner, as thousands of moralised heathens in the world would blush if but desired to do the like. A handful, in stead of a vast heap which might be given, are these which follow. To this effect he breathes out reproaches.  
Master Jenkin his reverend and beloved brethren, 
Epistle to the Reader, p. 4, 5.  are these fals-fingered men, these opprobria & propudia generis humani, The shames and blots of mankind, the vilest of men: Their cage is defiled, clean birds forsake them, and it stands all of this nation in hand whom either the interest of honour or conscience toucheth, speedily to quit communion with them.  
In his former pamphlet Zion College was visited, in this latter, 'tis excommunicated, in neither 'tis prejudiced. In casting upon you the names of blots and spots of mankind, he is but your scullion to make your integrity shine the brighter by all these reproachful smutching; and as he willingly detracts from your reputation, so he unwillingly adds to your reward. What he relates of the foul and forsaken cage, clearly shows that he accounts meetings for prayer, preaching, purity of reformation, alms to the poor, relief to the aged, and for increase of brotherly love, to be the foul defilements of a place, of which the Ministers having been guilty in their meetings at Zion College, he knoweth that in stead of shunning communion with you, the faithful with a holy scorn neglect his excommunioating of you. The truth is, most of those whom he accounts to be of his own party, forsake and abominate him if they have any thing of God in them; only they being (I fear) under the tentation of carnal policy, have not (as yet) fully declared against him, for which the Lord pardon them. Master Bridg, lately of Holland, whose judgement in this particular I shall not mention without respect, said but a little while since among sundry Ministers of my intimate acquaintance, That some brethren of them were resolved to repair to Master Goodwin by way of advising him to desist from maintaining his erroneous opinions touching the Scriptures; and if he refused so to do, they resolved (he said) to quit communion with him; with these or with words to this very purpose did he express himself. And I have heard sundry of the Independent judgement speak of this and his other opinions, propagated in the alley against grace, with the height of abhorrence, and with much professed detestation And the truth is, Master Goodwin in his pretended joining with the conscientious Independent, is looked upon by the piously prudent but as a scabthat cleaveth to the body. He speaks of clean birds that forsake you. A double mistake; I know but of one that hath forsaken you, and I wish he were not, Master Goodwin, in stead of a clean bird an unclean hest.  
He thus goeth on raving, 
pag. 5.  There's an old saw which cuts well:  
Non audet stygius Pluto tentare quod audet  
Effranis flamen—  
Which he thus englisheth:  
The Prince himself of the black stygian lake  
Dares not attempt what Priests will undertake.  
In cutting with this saw he turned the teeth of it the wrong way, I mean from himself toward you, otherwise it wouldhave cut better and quicker thus:  
The sins which stygian Pluto dreads  
The Priest of Errour-alley spreads.  
But let him turn the teeth of the saw his own way, 'tis no disgrace for you to be taxed with deeds which Satan dares not attempt; and such are those which I mentioned even now to be the deeds of Zion College; nor is it any honour for him to be in harmony with hell, and to conspire in the same performances with Satan.  
He saith, his saw cuts well, but whom may he thank? he knows who it was that did both file the teeth of it, and helped him to handle it; viz. the prince of styx, in Satan's saw pit schooled he was.  
In another place, drunk with rage, he thus goeth on, 
Youngl. Elder, pag. 16.  Impiety and opposition to the truth hang upon Zion College, and if Zion College were removed, impiety and opposition to the truth would soon fall to the ground.]  
What? Si. Col. a prop of all impieties! could more be said for the removal of any stews or sty of fin? 'Tis true, there's much impiety & opposition to the truth in the Kingdom but, Mr Goodwin, suppose impiety and opposition to the truth be Independent, how can they then hang on Zion College? And were that poor College so loaded with impiety, etc. a removal of it might be spared, for it would of itself certainly and suddenly fall to the ground. For his intimation of a removal of Zion College, 'tis but a cast of his Episcopal office. Not long since he visited Zion College, even now he excommunicated it, and now he sues out his Writ de excommunicato capiendo, absolving those from fin that shall remove it; nay he makes it a most meritorious employment, even the taking away of all impiety and opposition to the truth. Mean while let him take heed lest he be translated from his Bishopric, and removed to his own place, 
Ar. 1.25.  before Zion College be removed out of its place: And truly could all his impious errors that so much oppose the truth be removed with him, his miserably misled flock wouldhave a happy change, if his endeavours that they may have his spirit among them when he is gone have not been too effectual, and his head be not their directory then, as it is their rubric now.  
He now foams for madness. For all the success, 
Youngl. Elder, pag. 25.  either in converting of souls, unless it be from God unto Satan; and so for building up of souls, unless it hath been in wrath against the Parliament, Army, and faithful servants of God, which the Ministers have had for these three or four year's last passed, I am full of rational confidence, that it may be cast up with a cipher, and measured with a reed that never grew.  
In one thing you may observe Master goodwin's modesty, he only saith, That for these three or four years you have converted none; but I have spoken with some very gracious Christians, who have been exact observers of Master goodwin's Ministry, and they told me, That they never heard or perceived that ever God blessed it with the turning of any one sinner toward God. How many he hath turned from God, it's not so easy to determine as 'tis to sear.  
But the total insuccessefulnesse of your Ministry in the conversion of none, is such a putrid calumny, that even the sectaries read it with blushing, and when they are told of it, they turn their heads another way, and pretend 'tis for conveniency of spitting; It may be your grief you are successful in converting no more; your comfort you are successful in converting some; your confidence that he is a soul perverter, or at least that the way to convert men, is not to teach that men can convert themselves. His trouble it is, that any are converted by you from his errors. But if he thinks that there is no conversion of souls in our Churches, what will he and his Colleagues do for new recruits? their trade of Sheep-stealing will quite decay, for I have heard that sundry of themselves do not so much as pretend to preach for conversion of souls.  
As for myself, I see no other import or tendency (as he cants it) in this his foolish pamphlet, but only by reviling to vilify me (though I can, blessed be God, say with Joseph, God hath meant it unto good for me, yea, unto a good contrary to the evil of reproaching,) and therefore more than one hundred times doth he in this his railing pasquil express himself against me in such terms as these: Youngling, novice, boy, child, youth, young springlius, young glorioso, young ignaro, young Phaeton, vain young man, unworthy young man, young Jenkins, young simplicius, childling, young Pragmatico, shameless young man, young Dictator, young Metropolitan, young Thraso, green-head, young piece of presumption, Prelatical piece of Presbytery, unhallowed piece of Presbytery, swelling piece of vanity, sand of shame and folly, illiterate soul, poor man, silly brain, mancipium of illiterateness, friend William, Batte mi fili, (as if with his religion and reason, he had also abjured good manners.) And he plainly tells his Reader, that his aim in writing his book was thus: To make me know myself; though a gracious heart would have put him upon writing to have made the people know the truth.  
Touching his reproaches for my want of years, I could say: That I was ordained Presbyter about ten years before Mr. Goodwin commenced Independent; That I learned those rudiments of Logic above 20. years ago in the University of Cambridge, which Master Goodwin is now defective in, either by never learning them, or forgetting them, as is clear by sundry passages in his Book which I have mentioned in this. That if I be so young, I am in part excused for my illiterateness, my times (it seems) having been short as well as my attainments. That I grant, Mr. goodwin's book speaks him old, particularly, that passage of his, p. 2. To. Eld. where he speaks his own seniority thus: The worse spirits of malignity, hypocrisy, searedness of conscience, dissimulation of the truth. etc. do not often find men out till they be stricken in years. As for the residue of his Pamphlet it speaks him old even to dotage, which is to be a child twice and always. That were I so young as he pretends, yet he cannot prove the falseness of my assertions by the fewness of my years, though this be the strongest argument in all his book against what I writ, his only endeavour being to make my book a sufferer by my years, because he cannot make my years to suffer by my book. That were there so great a disparity of years between us, yet truth is signior to us both, and he and his errors are more younglings to truth than I am to him, though I grant his Errors to●●ing grace, as old as Pelagius.  
Touching that other imputation of illiterateness; I say I am so far from disliking this his charge, that I should have been very well satisfied if sundry who exceed Master Goodwin in standing, and very much in understanding, had passed the same censure upon me that he hath done, and never another. That as he hath not so much learning as to allow him to boast, so I have not so little as to suffer me to be unthankful. That he hath dishonoured himself in the undertaking, nay in the overcoming (were he victor) much more inbeing overcome by one so illiterate; having mustered such a vast body, such a huge book to pursue a flea, wherein every line is at least either a pike or a musket; should he vanquish it would be no honour to him, should he be vanquished the disgrace would be indelible. That sundry, not contemptible, have had but low estimations of Mr. goodwin's literature. Famous Doctor Stoughton observing how Master Goodwin was wont to torture Scripture for the defending of his errors which in those days he vented in his Sermons, used this comparison in the hearing of an eminent Minister now in London, As an hungry dog that teareth and gnaweth upon a dry bone, and can suck nothing out of it for the relief of his appetite, by long gnawing upon it, wets it all over with the unclean moisture of his own mouth, and at length for hunger sucks in that moisture again as if he had been beholding to the bone for it; so, said he, did Mr. Goodwin tear the holy Scriptures to draw out a sense that might countenance his unlearned and corrupt opinions, which he not able to obtain, (the Scriptures being dry to such intents) the spurious expositions that flowed out of his own month upon the Scriptures in his tedious tozing of them, he confidently sucks in again, as if they had been the contributions of the Scriptures themselves. Mr. C. a Minister of good worth, now in London, and Minister of Ma. near the be. whether upon observing the darkness of Mr. goodwin's way in expounding, or rather his darkening in stead of expounding Scripture, or otherwise, sometimes said, Mr. Goodwin was like a horse that went into a very clear stream, but coming forth again, he left it by pawing with his feet, very thick and muddy. And indeed he is no better at the pen than in the pulpit; for in making all his pamphlets, he seems to dip his pe●, or rather his pia mater, in puddle-dock. A reverend Commissioner, and a learned Minister of the Church of Scotland, having one of those wretched pamphlets called Zion College visited sent him, in his letter shortly after returned, he used only this short but sharp expression concerning it, Goodwin is a beast, The passage I read.  
Touching that imputation of Prelatical piece of Presbytery, I say, my principles, preaching, and other practices, are and ever shall be, by God's grace, opposite to Prelacy, because my conscience tells me that Prelacy so much opposeth the Word; under Prelacy I was an early sufferer. At Cambr. long since I was forced to forsake my otherwise dear College, because I durst not full mit to popish and prelatical innovations, and to betake myself to another College in the same University, where I enjoyed liberty for study sundry years with out those Prelatical impositions; and sundry are able to testify how fierce the rage of the Prelatical faction was against me a long time in the university, and afterwards; though I say not that Master Goodwin was connived at, and secretly encouraged to vent his opinions in Colemanstreet, when the faithful Minister's of the City were silenced and persecuted.  
You have had a taste of his reproaches; behold him now making lies his refuge. He relates two stories concerning you, which together with his descants upon them, are the subject matter of most part of his Epistle; but there is scarce a word in either of them, in the writing whereof, his fingers were not woefully troubled with the Cretian cramp.  
In his first story he tells the Reader, 
Pag. 2, 3. of his Epist.  That although n a Provincial meeting, it was resolved upon the question, That no answer should be given to his book called Zion College visited, and (he hopeth out of sense of his innocency) that the graver judicatory had determined his immunity as Pilate did Christ's, yet Master Jenkins like the Jews, who would needs have Christ crucified, hath made log furrows upon his back, etc.  
A story that hath not fewer than fore of five of the foresaid Cretian commodities in it. For first, The Provincial meeting never propounded, much less made any resolution upon, any question concerning the answering or not answering his book. 2. Never was it resolved in any of your meetings, that his book should not be answered; indeed it was generally conceived that so empty a pamphlet deserved not to be answered by any. So that 3. the forbearance to put any upon the employment of answering his book, was not out of sense of his innocency, but out of apprehension of his impotenoy; you looking upon him as seven fold more the son of shame an't folly after the publishing of his Zion College visited than he shown himself before. 4. Never did Mr. Jenkin make furrows upon his back, he only showed the deep furrows that Mr. Goodwin had made upon the back of truth with the plough of his pen, Satan guiding and driving it most commonly for him. And I know nothing that was laid upon his back but a rod, (according to salomon's advice) and that too of his own making. Sorry I am, that instead of making him to mend, it hath occasioned him to be mad.  
In his second story he tells his Reader, that the Archytects of the design (he means of testifying against his errors) obtained the subscriptions of Master John Downame to a paper, wherein was not the least mention of any of his Errors, and after, Mr. Downames band was obtained, they foisted into the Catalogue of Errors what sayings they pleased.  
Captain Cretensis is upon his march, but I shall stop him. The relation consisteth of two as odious untruths as ever dropped from a Cretians quill. For.  
First, I affirm, that the Errors of Master Goodwin were mentioned and set down in the Catalogue in that fullness and order wherein they are now expressed, nay distinctly read in the bearing of Master John Downame, before be subscribed his band to the paper for the witnessing against them.  
2. No sayings of Mr. Goodwin, or of any other of the Sectaries mentioned in the Catalogue, were put into the Catalogue of Errors after Master Downames hand was obtained.  
The former Master Downame hath acknowledged to two or three Reverend Ministers that went to him on purpose for enquiry, at the same time expressing to them his abhorring of Mr. goodwin's opinions mentioned in the Catalogue; which I rather relate, because he terms Mr. Downame learned, and one of the best spirited men. I like the expressions, with this note, that such men most detest Mr goodwin's Errors.  
Two detestable lied are contained in that relation of his, pag. 78. To. Eld. where he saith, That not long since some of his followers came to me to propound their scrup●es about the doctrine that I had taught, concerning the nature of a true Church, and that contrary to my 〈…〉 promise, I denied conference with them, and that I refused to dispute with them unless by writing. The truth is this, many Sectaries (observing how sundry Christians (I desire to mention it with humble thankfulness) were strengthened against the Schism of Independency, by the Sermons which I preached near three years since, concerning a true visible Church) were filled and cut to the heart with madness. At which time some of Mr. goodwin's followers, upon a Lord's day toward evening came to my house, sundry of my Christian friends in my own parish coming with them, to observe (as I conceive) their deportment. Where one or two of Mr. goodwin's followers that had a mind to speak more than the rest, discovered that shameful ignorance in cavilling, that divers of those that flood by, and some of their own party, as afterward they confessed, blushed to hear them; myself also wondering at their empty impudence; they being so fare from bringing any objection against what I had delivered, that they were not able without my prompting them to tell me what particular passage in my Sermon it was against which they took exception. Only they knew, that what I had delivered made against them, and they were resolved that they would not like it. But so far was I from refusing conference with them, that I entertained near two hours' discourse with them at that time, though I had preached twice that Sabbath, my body being thereby very faint and weary; expressing also the greatest forwardness and willingness to inform and satisfy them whensoever they pleased, and desiring them to that end to come to my house, for indeed I much pitied them. To be short, it what at length propounded by one of my friends, that myself and two Ministers might dispute with three of theirs who were of a contrary judgement concerning the points in controversy, for the satisfaction of the unsettled Gentlemen. This motion I embraced most willingly, and desired them to certify so much to their Ministers, which they promised to do; and upon advice taken with some reverend brethren concerning the fittest and profitablest manner of managing the said disputation, I made this offer under my hand in writing, and sent it by some of the unsettled Gentlemen, viz. That I would send their Ministers the heads of all my Sermons, with all those positions contained in them, that opposed the way of separation; and if they would engage to answer them in print, I promised also to publish a reply in print to that their answer, that so all the world might see on which fide the truth lay. But this offer, savouring too much of plain dealing, and love of the light, their Minihers accepted not, pretending their mighty employments. The Ministers refusing the discussion of the controversy by way of writing, though solicited thereto by my Letter, what followed: why now my Gentlemen (to make up in sobriety what they wanted in settledness) having it seems leisure enough, earnestly desire that I would engage with them in writing. This I refused, holding myself close to my former offers, that if any of them were unsatisfied, I would endeavour most willingly in a private way of conference to inform them, conceiving that this might content them who aimed at information and not at ostentation. In this relation therefore of Mr. goodwin's, I charge him with these two broad faced falsities: 1. His saying, That I refused conference with his followers, whereas I earnestly invited them to come to me for that end. 2. His saying, That I was advised by my brethren to dispute with his followers only by writing, whereas I never was advised or offered at all to dispute with them by writing; my offer to dispute by writing or printing, being only made to their Ministers, or those so called.  
In a cool requital for these three rotten and false stories, in two of which he basely slanders so many of his betters, I shall only succinctly show how much more he hath abused himself in his Youngl. Elder, than he hath all or any of you, by his foul and false representations.  
For the wronging of his own reputation, (if at least it could be made worse than it was before) by his late pamphlet called, The Youngling Elder, to say nothing here, how cheap and worthless he hath made his scribble by the scores of pages spent in such raylings, as the common observations and light of every reader doth confute (scum and scurrility making up his whole book.) I shall only observe how shameless and ridiculous he is in magnifying and extolling himself, pretending himself to be the most dreadful adversary that ever put on gown or ●antlet, bragging, and swaggering, and boasting, and ranting, and ruffling, in the beginning of his book, as if he would bury ten such younglings as myself in one furrow of his brow; and as if he would affright the whole world into a forbearance of quetching against him, by the terror of my example; when as, alas, in the sequel of his book he is so wretchedly weak, and ridiculously empty, that instead of making me to bleed with his force, he only makes me to blush at his folly.  
Speaking concerning my hazardous adventures in dealing with him, 
pag. 3.  he thus insults: Little doth this poor man know what be hath done. Presbytery lies bleeding at the soot of my writings, and is as good as broken in pieces by them; it is shaken, shattered, and dismantled by them. When I writ I feel the strength of God near me. 
pag. 17.  I have had to do with the keenest sons of high Presbytery, 
pag. 5, Ep.  whose little finger had more weight than Master Jenkins loins, and yet I have laid all their attempts and writing in the dust, as well they did deserve, and therefore this young man was of no deep reach, because he feared not the same issue. Exempla gratia, 
p. 26. Y. El.  You laid Master Walker and Master Robroughs writings in the dust; with the former of which you encountered as an ass with a lion; and with the latter of which you never durst enter the Lists, though provoked by an elaborate Treatise in confutation of your errors about justification. So you laid Master Edward's his Antapologia in the dust; a book that so fully and clearly detected your frauds, that instead of answering the matter of it by Scripture or reason, you were feign to betake yourself to your Grammar, and only here and there snarl at the seeming impropernesse of a word. He threatens, That before he and his friend William part, he will make him as heretical as himself, etc. And rather than he will not prove himself a boaster, he makes himself a ballad-maker; he saith. or rather saweth thus, in the height of menacing:  
The time will come that youthful Turnus shall  
Wish dearly Pallas ne●'r had been encountered.  
But why rather makes he not use of the skill of a far better Poet, who brings in Master goodwin's younger brother, expressing himself thus to David:  
— Art thou weary of thy life so s●one,  
O foolish bay, fantastical baboon.  
— I will not file  
My feared hands with blood so faintly vile,  
Go seek thy match, thou shalt not die by me,  
Thine honour shall not my dishonour be,  
No (silly lad) no, wert thou of the Gods,  
I would not fight at so unknightly odds.  
This, among the rest of the characters of those ungodly men, spoken of by Paul and Peter, 
2 Tim. 2.3, 4. 2 Pet. 2.18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  agrees with him, to be fierce and high minded, to speak great swelling words of vanity. He expressing himself more like a Russian than a Minister; he shining not like a sweetly influential star, but flashing like an angry bloody Comet, he speaking after the rate of the eldest son of Godmagog; more like a Polyphemus than like a Paul; more like a swashbuckler than a Bishop; a Lamech than a Moses; and expressing more the presumption of Behemoth, 
Job 40.23.  who trusteth that be can draw up Jordan into his mouth, than the lamblike spirit of a Saint. In a word, he hath so much of the Goodwin, that be hath nothing at all of the John in him, for  
— From his eyes  
All drunk with rage and blood, the lightning flies  
Out of his beaver like a boar be foams,  
A bellish fury in his bosom roams.  
But alas this Ivye-bush of boasting doth but show the badness of his wine to all prudent passengers; his book is a mere thundering trifle, a mountain of chaff, a terriculament, only for the ignorant of the alley; like the log in the fable, it makes a great noise in its falling, but than it lies still for every frog to skip upon it.  
The truth is, he might well have spared the pains of setting his name unto it, for so poor a weakling, and so mishapen a monster it is, that as none will challenge it for theirs, so none will doubt it for his; although in two regards it be very unlike the father, it having a rich and a full bead, (a stuffed title) and a thin empty body; the residue of the book.  
He doth not so much as pretend to answer the greatest part by far of what I bring in opposition to his errors. There's not so much as any mention in his Youngling Elder of the most material passages contained in mine; but he prudently passeth them by in learned silence, and only here and there toucheth superficially upon a few by-passages, (not but that he was able I trow, with the least puff to send them all on an errand to the worms, had not his own goodness and noble nature more prevailed with him than any merit in such a naughty youth as I) so that as to the business of answering me, his book is a mere by-work, and indeed among all judicious men a mere byword; which he prudently foreseeing, confesseth by way of anticipation, that his book is not a formal confutation of mine, but that his end in fetting of it forth, 
Epistle to the Reader,  was to make me know myself; but of his childish and impotent omissions I shall (God willing) give a more particular account in the following Chapter. But if at any time he doth vonchsafe a mentioning of any of my passages against him; instead of an answer he either brings scoffs and reproaches, or else he labours to do the work of an opponent, bringing in stead of a solution of my arguments, a bumble of musty reasons, taken out of his other books to fill up paper in this; or else his poor sew answers are so miserably unsatisfactory, impertinent, and heretical, that this his last work appears plainly to be the issue of his very dotage to all impartial observers.  
I shall only in this fi●st Chapter barely recite some of his answers to some places of Scripture and passages contained in my book; reserving the refutation of them to the third and fourth Chapters, though indeed the recitation of such cheap and poor stuff, be a sufficient refutation of them among intelligent Readers.  
The places of Scripture which I bring against his Errors, he either wholly passeth by, as if they had never been alleged by me, (and thus he dealeth with all those many places which I allege against his Errors about the Scripture) or else if he pretends to answer them, he puts such false and unsound glosses upon them, that he speaks himself most erroneous, even when he goeth about to clear himself from error; like the swearer, that being reproved for his oaths, swore with a greater oath that he did not swear.  
To that place Acts 26.18. where Paul declares, That he was sent to the Gentiles to open their eyes, etc. I having said, That conversion is the restoring of sight, not of light only, 
T. El. p. 54.  he asserts most profanely and erronously, that men's eyes are only opened in conversion as the light of the morning or the sun may be said to open a man's eyes which were shut by the darkness of the night; so that natural men have good eyes, only they are in the dark, there's nothing perished in the faculty of seeing.  
To that place, 
Yo. Eld. p 55.  Epist. 2. dead in trespasses and sins. he answers, by saying the meaning only is, That they of whom the Apostle speaks, were guilty of death, and liable to condemnation.  
The meaning of that place, 
Yo. Eld. p. 87.  1 Cor. 2.14. The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, neither can be know them, etc. he gives us thus, by the natural man, he saith, is not meant the man that is simply or merely natural or unregener are, but such a kind of men as are babes in Christ; and whereas it's said, be cannot know the things of the spirit of God; 
Yo. Eld. p. 89.  this profound expositor of Scripture gives us this to be the meaning: The natural man whilst he continues thus, bath not a power actually and for the present, to know simply the things of the spirit, but he hath such principles which by a due and regular improvement may advance and rise into such a capacity or power as is contended for.  
That place of 1 Cor. 4.7. 
Yo. Eld. p. 59  Who maketh thee to differ; he tells us, is not to be understood of any difference between man and man which is made by any saving work, but of such a difference only which stands in more or fewer, or in greater or lesser gifts; which difference in the primitive times was frequent.  
He having said, That no writings, originals, or translations, are the Word of God, the matter and substance of things (as that Christ is God, is Man; that be died, that be rose from the dead, etc.) contained in the books of the Old and New Testament, being by him acknowledged only for the word of God. I demand of him thus. Bu. p. 22. how can any believe that the matter and substance of the Scripture, as that Christ is God and Man, &c is the Word of God, when as be must be uncertain whether the written word wherein that matter is contained is the Word of God or no; This heretical and ridiculous soul fetcheth off himself thus, by ask me again, Cannot a man believe these matters contained in the Scripture, The Sun is the greater light, and the Moon the lesser light, unless he be certain that the written word is the Word of God?  
To my charge, of his joining hands with the Arminians in heir errors, concerning power to good supernatural, he answers ●ot a syllable by way of denying the charge, but tells me, That in holding Jesus Christ to be they holy one of God, 
Yo. Eld. p. 43. Y. El. p. 44.  I join hands with the Devil. Yea, he saith the Arminians attribute all the praise of conversion to God.  
Nay, he slights and neglects as much the accusation of agreement with Pelagius in his Errors, impudently affirming, 
Youngl. Elder, pag. 52.  that between Augustine and Pelagius there was little or no difference.  
To my allegations out of the Fathers and Bucer, for vindicating either of the Scriptures or the grace of God, he answereth not a word. And instead of doing so, when I bring multitudes of evident places out of them, to show how those places which he wresteth aught to be understood, he very modestly rather than they shall not be though to speak for him in some few places, tells us that they contradict themselves in all the rest.  
To cite (saith he) other words of a contrary import to those quoted by me out of the same Author, is no manifestation of the impertinency of my quotations; 
Yo. Eld. p. 5.  but it is indeed a discovering of the nakedness of an Auth●r, to present him contradictious to himself, and to expose the unstableness of his judgement to the eyes of men; So that ●ucer, Ball, Augustine, Hierome, are self-contradictors, unstable, naked, unable, rather than this petty-toes of a Pope can err an hair's breadth.  
He scoffs at the absolute decree, and saith, 
Yo. Eld. p 10.  That I and my mates tremble not to inform the creature against the Creator, as if from eternity be had shut up his grace, etc. with the iron bars of an irreversible indispensable decree.  
He tells us pag. 62. that there's nothin but moral persuasion to act the will into a saving consent, 
Yo. Eld. p. 62. pag. 63.  for thus he wanders. It passeth my understanding to conceive how the will should be wrought or acted into a consent in any kind otherwise than by argument, motive and persuasion, unless it be by force, violence, and compulsion. The essential constitution and fallick of the will exempt it from being drawnely an other means.  
And page 65. he thus debaseth the working of God's grace, There is no man converted actually, but might possibly have acted or demeaned himself so as never to have been thus converted.  
And pag. 52. The adjutory of grace doth not imply a necessity of effecting that which is effected by it.  
He clearly takes part with that infamous Pelagius against those holy men, 
Vid. p. 5. Y. El.  in charging them with Manicheism, I having told him, That the charge of Manicheism was an old calumny cast upon the Fathers by Pelagius, he tells me again, We are not to inquire by whom or upon whom it was cast, but by whom it bathe been taken off from any of your judgement; 
Youngl. Elder, pag. 45.  till this feat be done, he concludes the charge must be continued.  
But of his omissions, and slender and erroneous performances, you may please more fully to take this following account in these three following Chapters.   

CHAP. II.  
Showing Master Goodwin his omissions in his Youngling Elder, and total passing by of most of the material passages contained in my book called, The busy Bishop, against his pamphlet called, Zion Coll. visited, by way of parallel.  

Asserted in Zion College visited.  
IT was never well with Christian Religion, since the Ministers of the Gospel (so called by themselves, and so reputed by the generality of men for want of knowing better) cunningly vested that privilege of theChurch of being the ground and pillar of truth in themselves. There came lately out of the press a few papers, styling themselves, A testimony to the truth, etc. and pretending to a subscription by the Minist. of Christ, etc. Zion Coll. visited, pag. 1.  
It is a precious truth of Jesus Christ, That no act of man what soever is any foundation of Christian Religion, the Apostle affirming that other foundation can no man lay but Jesus Christ, 1 Cor. 3.11. and yet the denial of the act of man to be a foundation of Christian Religion (as viz. The believing that the Scriptures are the Word of God) is by the said Book called, A Testimony to the truth, ranked among infamous and pernicious errors. Zion College ●sited, pag. 3.  
You cite some of my words barely, suppressing craftily my sense. You cite these words: Questionless no writing whatsoever, whether translations or originals, are the Word ●f God, Divine Author, pag. 18. without citing those other words of mine, Divine Author, pag. 13. wherein I assert them to be of Divine Authority, Si. Coll. visited, p. 11, 12.  
Let the thirteenth and fifteenth pages of Divine Author be looked upon, pag. 12. Zion Coll. visited.  
I beseech you brethren, where lies the error of these words? 〈◊〉 God should not endue men with such principles, abilities, etc. by the diligent improvement whereof they might come to be convinced of a readiness, and willingness in him to receive them into grace and favour upon their repentance, and turning to him (upon which conviction that repentance and turning to God always follows) they which are condemned would have their mouths opened against God, and surmshed with and excuse, etc.  
The sum of his passage cited for an error in our testimony is this: If God should deprive men of all power to believe, & yet persuade to believe, etc. God would be like a King that causeth a man's legs to be cut off, and yet urgeth him to run a Race with those that have limbs. Diu. Au. p. 168.  
Natural men may do such things as whereunto God hath by way of promise annexed grace and acceptation.  
All the world, even those that have not the letter of the Gospel, have yet sufficient means granted them of believing these two, viz. That God is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him; which is all the faith that the Apostle makes necessary to bring a man into grace or favour with god. They who have only the heavens, the sun, m one, and stars to preach the Gospel to them, have also reason sufficient, to judge the same judgement with them who have the letter of the Gospel, for they have the Gospel, the substance and effect of it, the willingness of God to be reconciled to the world, preached unto them by the Apostles aforesaid, the sun, moon, and stars. Diu. Auth. p. 183. p. 186  
Nor were it a matter of much more difficulty to bring antiquity itself, and particularly those very Authors who were the greatest opposers of Pelagius, as Hierom, August. Prosper, etc. with mouths wide open, in approbation of the same things for which I am arraigned at the tribunal of Zion Col. Zion Col. Vis. p. 24.  
These men have exchanged the Fathers adjutorium, into their own compulsorium. Zion Col. Vis. p. 28.  
The question between Pelagius and the Fathers, was not whether man had freedom of will in respect of good or evil, but whether men notwithhstanding their freedom of will, did not still stand in need of the adjutory of grace, both for the performance of, and perseverance in what was good.   

Answered in busy Bishop.  
1. 'tIs you sorrow to see that they are so much as reputed Ministers; your sin to say they are only reputed Ministers for want of men's knowing better. Tell me of one man, either Minister or private Christian, differing from the Subscribers only in the point of Independency, who dares say thus with you. If you do account yourself a Minister, which way had you your ordination? Whether by that way that the Ministers of London had theirs, who you say are no Ministers, etc.  
2. You say, The Ministers have vested themselves with the privilege of the Church, of being the ground and pillar of truth.— The Church (as a pillar) holds forth the truth, either in a common way to all Christians mutual exhortations, profession, practice, etc. or in a ministerial way, preaching, administration of Sacraments, etc. If you say the Ministers have vested themselves with the privilege of being the pillars of truth the first way, 'tis ridiculously false, profession of the truth being common to every one in the Church: If you mean (as you must needs) that the Ministers have vested themselves with the privilege of pillars in the second respect, 'tis odiously false, for the Lord Jesus himself and not themselves vested them with the privilege of holding forth truth by way of Office, Eph. 4.11. Christ gave some Pastors and Teachers, 1 Cor. 12.38. God hath set some in his Church, etc. Busy Bishop, pag. 3, 4.  
Though no act unto which man is enabled by God (such as believing) be a foundation in that sense in which Christ is, upon whom we build the hope of out salvation, to be obtained by his mediation, yet believing of the Scripture, as it is an assenting to a main and prime credendum, viz That the Scriptures are by divine inspiration, is a necessary foundation for other subsequent graces that are required in the Christian Religion, and without which foundation all godliness and Religion would in a short time fall to the ground; no theological grace can be without faith; and no faith, if the authority of the Scriptures fall.  
If believing be no foundation, why doth the Apostle give to faith the name of foundation, Heb. 6.1. Not laying again the foundation of repentance and of faith, etc. Bu. Bish. p. 9  
These words, therefore questionless not writings, etc. are the conclusion and the result of your premises in several long wound pages. If your conclusion be crazy and heretical, your premises must needs be so too; and therefore the setting them down could not have helped you; and if the conclusion be not heretical, why do you not defend it against the accusation of the Subscribers, which you dare not do; but only send the Subscribers to your premises in the thirteenth page, leaving the poor 18. (the conclusion) to mercy.  
Suppose you had in the thirteenth page written the truth, therefore ought you not to be blamed for writing errors in the 18. pag. 21. Bu. Bush.  
At your command I shall consult the pages, wherein you would be thought to say, The Scriptures are the word of God. In these pages, and pa. 17, you say, That you grant the matter and substance of the Scriptures, the gracious counsels of the Scriptures, to be the Word of God. As that Christ is God and man, that he died, that he risen again, etc. These you say are only the word of God, and not the writings or written word; when you say the matters, etc. are the Word of God, you suppose they should be believed for such. But upon what ground ought I to believe them? I hope you will not say, because a province of London Ministers saith they are to be believed, nor barely because the spirit tells me they are to be believed for the Word of God, for the spirit sends me to the written Word, bids me by that to try the spirits, and tells me I must beleeve nothing to be from God, but what I find written. I therefore desire to go to the written Word, as revealed by God, for the building my confidence upon the matters of the Scriptures (as pardon through Christ, etc.) but then J. Goodwin tells me, this written Word is not God's Word. So it must be the word of vain man, and so I have no more to show for this precious truth, Christ died for lost man, than man's word. In your alleged pages you make no distinction between res credenda and ratio cudendi, the matter to be believed, and the ground of believing that matter. The matters to be believed are the precious truths you speak of. The ground of believing them is the revelation of God in his written Word. The Revelation of God hath always been the foundation of faith; and now this Revelation is by writing, the ground of faith is, it is written. What course took Christ and his Apostles to prove the matters and doctrinal assertions which they taught but by the written Word, and when they would render them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, fit for belief, they ever more tell how it is written. Consult with the places in the Margin and you will find that the matter, substance, precious counsel, etc. contained in the Scripture, are proved to be things to be believed because they are written; yield yourself to that evident Scripture, Joh. 20.21. These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, etc. The rativ or ground of believing this precious truth, That Christ is the Son of God, is its revelation by writing. So Act. 14.24. Rom. 15.4. Job. 5.47. If therefore you deny (as you do in terminis) the written Word to be the word of God, what formal object hath faith? i.e. to whom or what will you send me for the building my confidence upon the matters and counsels of the Scripture, etc. Touching this I added in Busy Bishop the testimonies of Tertullian, Ireneus, Aug. Chrisost. etc. Bu. Bish. p. 24.  
Is not every man, as a man, a debtor to God, and a creature tied to obedience? and doth his making himself insufficient to discharge the debt discharge him from payment? it would follow, that if such impotency excused from duty, and from the obligation of the the command, that those men were most excusable that were most sinful, and had by long accustoming themselves to sin, made themselves most unable to leave and forsake sin; nay, if by reason hereof God did not command obedience from them, it would follow, that such did not sin at all; (for where there is no precept, there is no transgression) and so according to you, by a man's progress in sin he should make himself cease to be sinful. Bus. Bish. p. 29.  
In your next, prove 1. That they who perish have power to believe. The Scripture denyeth it, when it saith, The world cannot receive the Spirit, etc. Joh. 14.17.  
2. Prove if a man hath not power, that this impotency is merely poenall, as inflicted by God, so involuntarily endured by man (for that is the nature of a punishment properly so called) the Scripture saith, Man hath found out many inventions, Eccl. 7. etc. Gen. 6.12. All flesh hath corrupted its way, etc. Bus. Bish. p. 31.  
I suppose by your natural man, who you say doth things to which God hath annexed acceptation, you mean the same man the Apostle speaks of, Rom. 8.8. The man in the flesh. now, that man cannot please God, though your natural man doth things acceptable to God. Invert not gods and Nature's order. First, let the tree be good, and then the fruit. Bus. Bish. p. 34.  
What stuff is here! have all the world sufficient means of believing these two, 1. That God is. 2. That he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him? Paraeus informs you, that those two heads of saith, that God is, and that God is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him, are not to be understood Philosophically, but Theologically; that the eternal God is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and that be is a rewarder of them that seek him Evangelically by faith in Christ, with the benefits of the Gospel, pardon, adoption, sanctification, glory. And can heathens by the sim, moon, and s●arres do this? Can they by the light of nature believe a trinity of persons in unity of essence. None (saith Gerrard) can be led to the knowledge of God by the creatures, but only so fare forth as God is their cause. Now, God is their cause by a divine power common to the three persons, therefore by the creatures we can only attain to knowledge of these things which are common to the three Persons, and not to the knowledge of the distinction of Persons, Ger. de Trin. and can the heathens by the works of creation have the discovery of a Mediator, and have Christ made known to them, and believe in him? I am sure you nsver learned this of the Apostles, who saith; that faith cometh by hearing, Rom. 10. or are you of Smalcius the Socinian his judgement, who saith, that faith in Christ is not always required to justification, but faith simply; and he proves it out of this very Sctipture that you have alleged, Heb. 11.6. for the faith of heathens, etc. Bus. Bish. p. 36.  
The Fathers assert the being and nature of freewill only, and not its power to supernatural good in all the passages which you allege out of them. Though Austin and Jerom against the Manichees maintained the nature of freewill, yet 'tis as true that against the Pelagians they denied the abilities of freewill to good supernatural. Of this latter you wisely take no notice at all, as making directly against you, though there are hundreds of instances to that purpose to be found in them. And thus the learned, and orthodox Divines of the reformed Churches abroad, understand Austin and Hierom, when alleged by Papists and Arminians, as writing for freewill. Rivetus and Walleus, two famously learned writers among the Protestants shall suffice for instances. Baily the Jesuit, objected out of Austin to prove freewill, that very place against the Protestants, which you allege against the Ministers. The words of Austin which both Bailie and yourself allege are these. Si non estliberum arbitrium quomodo Deus judicat mundum? If there be no freewill how doth God judge the world? This place Rivet understands only of the natural being of freewill, For saith he, if man were turned into a stone, or a block, or a bruit creature, be should be exempted from God's Judgement, but since when he acts out of deliberation be chooseth and willeth what pleaseth him, he deservedly gives account of his actions, Riu. to. 2. p. 183. The place you allege out of Jerom is this. Frustra Blasphemas & ingeris, etc. Thou blasphemest in vain, buzzing in the ears of the ignorant that we condemn freewill; And Waleus, T. 2. p. 95. answers Corvinus in these words of Hierom. Frustra, etc. but then he gives the reason why, and how both be and Hierom did allow of freewill, not in regard of its abilities to good supernatural, But because (saith Waleus) He denyeth man to be created according to the Image of God, who denies him to be adorned with the natural faculty of freewill. Bus. Bish. p. 46.  
In Bus. Bish. I set down the agreement between the Fathers and the Subscribers, concerning the doctrine of the adjutory of grace at large, and concluded thus. I should gladly be informed by you in your next what the Ministers adjutorium differs from that held forth by the Fathers, and what they hold tending more toward a compulsory than these Fathers here, and in hundreds of other places have written, but he answers nothing.  
Your mistake here is pitiful, for the great question between Hierom, Augustine, and Pelagius, was not whither the will did stand in need of the adjutory of grace for the performance of good, but what kind of adjutory it was, of which the will did stand in need, and wherein grace was an adjutory; and I allege sundry places to prove that Pelagius himself granted the necessity of the adjutory, but that Austin was not satisfied with that his grant, saying, that Pelagius is to be asked what grace he meaneth.   

Replied in Yo. El.  
Nothing.  
Nothing.  
Nothing.  
Nothing.  
Nothing.  
Nothing.  
Nothing.  
Nothing.  
Nothing.  
Nothing.  
Nothing.  
Nothing.   
These are some of the heads of those many passages which Mr. G. toucheth not, whether because they were too considerable, or too contemptible themselves best knows.  
Sundry other material omissions I could mention; and how unscholler-like a deportment is it for him to boast, that Buce and the Fathers are of his opinion, and yet when the contrary is proved, by showing that the scope and strain of their writings oppose his dotage, and how they explain themselves, to have nothing to say, but that these Authors contradict themselves, and never to answer those multitudes of places which out of the said Authors are brought against him?   

CHAP. III.  
Showing the weakness and erroneousness of his pretended answers to what I bring against his Errors about the holy Scripture.  
IN your title page you say there are two great questions which in your book are satisfactorily discussed:  
The one concerning the foundation of Christian Religion.  
The other concerning the power of the natural man to good supernatural.  
The former whereof, you discuss after a fashion, from page the 26. to page the 38 of your Youngling Elder, concerning which your position was this: Questionless no writing whatsoever, whether translations or originali, is the foundation of Christian Religion.  
I have proved in Busy Bishop that this position doth raze and destroy the very foundation of Christian Religion, 
Busy Bishop; p, 23, 24. etc.  and the groundwork of faith; I still abide by what I there proved and maintained; I fear not at all to tell you, that this your assertion being embraced, faith must needs be over thrown: That the matters and precious truths laid down in the Scriptures; as that Christ is God and man, That he died for sinners, etc. can never be believed with a Divine faith, unless the ratio credendi or ground of such believing be the revelation of God in writing, or the written Word. I again inculcate, that your blasphemous position, No writing, etc. is contrary to Scripture, which tells us, the Church is built upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles, 
Chamier to 1. L. 6. c. 8.  Ephes. 2.20. that is, their writings, see Chamier who vindicateth this place against the exceptions of the Popish writers.  
Your position directly opposeth that place, Joh. 20.31. These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his Name, 
Deut. 17.18.19. Esa. 8.20. joh. 5.39. 2 Pet. 1.19. Luk. 24.25, 27, 46. Act. 13.33. Act. 17.11. Rom. 14.11. etc.  and that other, 1 Joh 5.13. These things have I written unto you, etc. that ye might believe on the Name of the Son of God; with multitudes of other places which have been, and might again be mentioned, in all which the ground and foundation of our believing the truths of salvation, and consequently of religion, is said to be the written Word.  
Nor did I ever meet with any one Orthodox Writer, but he oppugned this your abominable assertion, when he discourseth concerning the Scriptures in this point. I quoted sundry places out of the Fathers in my last, fully to that purpose, out of Tertullian, Ireneus, Augustine, Hierome. I might add, that all our modern Protestant Writers oppose you herein.  
To name all would require a volume. Zanchy. Tom. 8. in Confess. calls the Scriptures, The foundation of all Christian Religion. 
Synops. pur. theol. dis. p. 2.  The Leyden-professors assert the Scriptures to be prineipium & fundamentum omnium Christianorum dogmatum, etc. Gomarus also, Thes. de scriptura, may be seen to this purpose. 
Ames●medul. c. scrip. Tilen syntag. disp. de scrip. Rivetus Disp. 1. de scrip.  And I desire the Reader to consider, That in this whole discourse, though you exceed yourself in impudence and audacious assertions, yet you do not so much as offer a justification of this Thess, as it is set down in the testimony and in terminis taken out of your book by the London Ministers, and therefore whatever you say might be neglected as not appertaining to this controversy between you and me.  
But to consider of what you say, though your whole discourse be nothing to the purpose, in this satisfactory discussion (as you vainly and falsely term it) of the foundation of Christian Religion.  
You do these three things: 1. You bring some six weak and childish exceptions against me, for opposing your error in such a manner as I have expressed in my book. 2. You present the Reader with eight terrible things which you call demonstrations to prove that the Scriptures are not the foundation of Christian Religion. Not one of which eight feathers but is able to cut off the arm of an adversary. 3. You subjoin two or three cavils (profane trifles) by way of answer to me.  
First for your exceptions:  
1. 
To. Eld. p. 27.  You say, This unhallowed piece of Presbytery wholly concealeth and suppresseth my distinction, and what I deny only in such and such a sense, he representeth as absolutely simply, and in every sense denied by me. In a due and regular sense I affirm and avouch the Scriptures to be the foundation of Christian Religion. I appeal to these words in page 13. of my Treatise concerning the Scriptures. If by Scriptures be meant the matter or substance of things contained and held forth in the books of the old and new Testament, I believe them to be of Divine Authority, etc.  
1 Friend, Answ. 
Rev. 22.15.  remember you the Catalogue of the excluded out of the new Jerusalem? is not he that loveth and maketh a lie mentioned? wretched creature, what will be your portion if God in mercy give you not repentance? Doth not he whom you call the unhallowed piece of Presbytery set down. page 20. of Busy Bishop, this your distinction? are not these very words spoken to and of you? You grant the matter and substance of the Scripture, the gracious counsels to be the Word of God, as that Christ is God and man, That he died, That he risen again, etc. And page 22. Busy Bishop, read you not thus in express terms? You tell me p. 13. That you believe the precious Counsels, matter and substance of the Scriptures to be of Divine Authority, and in the same page you say, That the matters of the Scriptures represented in translations are the Word of God. Do not you acknowledge, page the 39 of Youngling Elder, that I did set down this your distinction, where you bring me in enquiring of you, How can any believe the matter and substance of the Scripture to be the Word of God, when he must be uncertain whether the written Word or Scriptures wherein the matter is contained, are the Word of God, or no? Is it possible to dispute against that which is altogether concealed, and acknowledge you not that I dispute against it.  
2 What great matter is it that you assert concerning the Scripture, in saying, You grant the matter and substance of the Scriptures to be the Word of God? All this you may say, and yet deny them the foundation of Christian' Religion, and the formal object of faith. The Papists (from whom you have stolen most of your following Arguments) acknowledge as much, and yet deny them the foundation of faith?  
3 You say you believe the matters of the Scriptures to be the Word of God, but you tell me not why: Nay you plainly deny that which indeed is the true ground of believing the matter of the Word of God, namely, the written Word. You are not too old to learn from a Youngling; take this therefore for a truth. Upon what ground soever you believe the substance and matters contained in the Scriptures for the Word of God, if that faith be not ultimately resolved into the written Word or the revelation of God in writing, 'tis no divine faith.  
4. In this your penurious and scanty concession that the matters contained in the Scriptures are only the Word of God; 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Tim. 3.16. 2 Pet. 1. 19● 20, 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 called afterward 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whituk. de Auth. Scrip. lib. 1. cap. 10. sect. 8. Neque tantum ratione dogmatum scriptura à Deo prodiit, etsi edita scriptura est ut certa & perpetua dogmatum ratio constaret, sed tota scripturarum structura & compositio divina est, neque non modo dogma sed ne verbum in Scriptures ullum niss d●vinum est, etc. Yo. Eld. p. 5.  you come far short of the Scripture which calls the Written Word of God the Scriptures or Word of God: It telling us, That all Scripture is of divine inspiration, and that we have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A more sure word of prophecy, not in regard of the matters of it, but in regard of its manner of manifestation by writing. And holy men spoke being moved of the holy Ghost. Did the holy men speak what they were moved to speak, and not also as they were moved. Learned Whitaker tells you, The Scriptures did not proceed from God tantum ratione dogmatum, only in regard of those divine truths contained in them, but the whole structure and composure of the Scripture is also divine, and the truths are not only divine, but there is not a word in them which is not divine.  
To that ridiculous passage of yours in this first Exception, pag. 27. Mr. Jenkins charge against me, in denying the Scriptures to be the foundation of Christian Religion, stands upon the credit or base of such an argumentation as this, etc. A wooden horse for unruly Soldiers is no living creature; thereiore an horse simply is no living creature; so, The Scriptures in regard of the writing are not the foundation of Religion, therefore in no sense are they such.  
The answer is obvious; my charging of you to deny the Scriptures to be the foundation, etc. is not grounded upon any argumentation of my framing, but upon the result of your own arguments, as yourself have set it down in the place quoted Diu. Auth. p. 18. Questionless not writings whatsoever are the foundation of Christian Religion; which base being laid, the superstructure will be this, the Scriptures taken in your sense, are not the foundation of Christian Religion, you being no way able to ground your faith upon any matters in the Scripture; and your talking of a ●●oden horse shows you have of late been either among 〈◊〉 Soldiers, or the wanton Children.  
6 Why use you these words in this your last exception, p. 27 the Holy Ghost saith, Genes. 6.6. It repent the Lord, &c, yea, and God himself said thus to Samuel; It repenteth me, etc. surely there is some mystery in it.  
Your second exception against me is, 
Yo. Eld. p. 28.  that in as much as I can produce but one place wherein you seem to deny the Scriptures to be of divine authority, or the foundation of Religion, whereas in twenty and ten places (you say) you clearly assert them for such, I ought to regulate the sense of that one place by the constant tenor of the rest of the treatise.  
1 The whole design of your wordy work, Answ. called Diu. Au. of Scrip. so fare as it handles this point was to justify those passages in your Hagiomastix, which deny the divine authority of Scripture; in it therefore certainly may be found more than one place wherein you do more than seem to deny the same.  
Diu. Auth. of the Scriptures, p. 10. you say, No translation whatsoever, nor any either written or printed Copies whatsoever are the Word of God.  
Div Auth. p. 12. They who have the greatest insight into the original Languages, yea who believe the Scripture to salvation, cannot upon any sufficient ground believe any original Copy whatsoever under heaven, whether Hebrew or Greek, to be the Word of God.  
And Yo. Eld. p. 29. When I deny the Scriptures to be the Word of God, I mean whatever is found in them, or appertaining to them, besides the matters, gracious counsels contained in them, etc. And how can it be otherwise, when the places and passages in Hagiom, which you intent to justify in Diu. Auth. and Yo. Eld. are such as these. In your Hagiom. p. 35. Sect. 27. Taking the word Scriptures for all the books of the Old and New Testament divisim and conjunctim, as they are now received and acknowledged among us (which is the only sense the ordinance can bear) they can find no manifest Word of God whereunto this (That the Scriptures are not the Word of God) is contrary.  
And Hagiom. p. 37. Sect. 28. It is no foundation of Christian Religion to believe that the English Scriptures, or that book, or that volume of books called the Bible, translated out of the original Hebrew and Greek copies into the English Tongue, are the Word of God, etc.  
2 Instance in one place in all your writings, wherein you say as unlimitedly and peremptorily, that the Scriptures are the Word of God as you do here deny them; and you may have some pretence for this charge. Nay, it is impossible for you to grant the Scriptures to be the Word of God and not to contradict yourself; you denying the written Word.  
Your third exception is this; you say, 
Third exception Yo. Eld. p. 28.  That though you do not believe that any original, exemplar, or Copy of the Scriptures now extant among us is so purely the Word of God, but that it may very possibly have a mixture of the word of man in it, yet you assert them to contain the foundation of Religion. i e. Those gracious Counsels, etc.  
1 Your granting that the holy Scriptures contain the foundation of Religion in them, Answ. is but a slender concession; I suppose you will not deny this to the books of many a godly writer.  
2 In granting me that the foundation of Religion, i. e. the Gracious Counsels of God are contained in the Scriptures, and yet in denying that the written Word is that formal object of my faith, or that foundation for which I should build my faith upon those counsels of God for salvation, you do both delude your Reader, and contradict yourself; you taking away what you grant. God's revelation of his mind in the written Word being the reason why I embrace the Counsels, or matters as the foundation upon which I build.  
3 You vainly applaud yourself, for asserting the Scriptures to contain the foundation, when as you deny the purity of the Scriptures, for let it be once granted that errors are crept into the Scriptures, 
Leo Castrius Go●●onius, etc.  and that there is no original pure (which is the blasphemous calumny cast upon the Scriptures by the Papists the authority of Scriptures falls to the ground, and we may call the whole Scriptures into question. You assert that the purest original exemplar is corrupted, and you know not what the particular places are that are corrupt; when any Sentence therefore out of Scripture is brought against your errors, why may you not shield yourself with this defence, for aught I know the place whence you take this sentence is corrupted, Ecce fundamentum religionis Goodwiniana, behold the foundation of a goodly religion. I confess one so erroneous as yourself cannot coveniently be without this comfortable refuge. If you be not too old to learn of the Fathers, 
Aug Ep. 19 Ad. Hieron. Non te arbitror sic legi tu●s libro● velle tanquam Prophetarum, vel Apostolorum: de quorum Scriptis quod omni careant errore dubitare nefar●um est. Manichaeiplurima divinum Scripturararum loca quibus eorum, nefarius error convincitur quia in alium sensum deto●quere non possunt falsa esse contendunt quod tamen quia nec, probare potuerunt, notissimâ veratate super ati, confusique discedunt. Id. Ib.  take this from Augustine in his 19 Epist written to Hierom. I suppose thou art not willing that men should read thy books as they would read the Writings of the Prophets and Apostles, it being a most heinous sin to doubt of the freeness of their writings from all error. And the same Father in the same Epistle tells Hierom, that the Manichees contended that sundry places of Scripture which overthrew their errors were false, which falseness they did not attribute to the Apostles that wrote them, but to certain corrupters I know not whom. quod quia, etc. which because they could not prove, being overcome by known trub, they departed confounded.  
For your fourth frivolous exception, 
Exception 4. Yo. Eld. p. 29  you cite a passage out of your Diu. Auth. of Scrip. p. 17. where you say, The true and proper foundation of Religion is not Ink and Paper, nor any book or books, nor any writing or writings whatsoever, etc. Hereupon you make a double enquiry. First, Why did not Mr. Jenkin insert the words (true and proper) into the charge of my deviall of the Scriptures for the foundation of Christian Religion. Secondly, why doth he not declare that I mean by the Scriptures Ink and Paper, etc.  
1 Poor shifter! Answ. I added not the words (true and proper) because the Ministers took not your charge out of the 17. pag. where you say the words (true and proper) are, but out of the 18. where I say they are not. 2 Because you being taxed with this abominable error in the Testimony of the London Ministers, yourself in your Pamphlet called (Zion Col. Vis) p 12. for vindication and explanation of yourself in this point, refer the Reader only to the 13. and 15. pages, and this 17 page, yourself never mentioned in Zion Col. Visited; to which book only mine was an answer, and not to Diu. Auth. where (say you) in p. 17. you mention true and proper; it seems the novice hath now driven you to another shift, another leaf, though a mere Figg-leafe defence; for  
3 Your denial of the Scripture to be the foundation without this mitigation or allay of (true and proper) is most suitable to your former undertake. I took you according to the constant strain of your writings, as you desired even now; see Hagiom. Sect. 27, 28. as also the many places in Diu. Aut. p. 10, 11, 12. and p. 39 in Yo. Eld. so that evident it is that these words (true and proper) were inserted here, as a blind for your blasphemy. They are not found (for aught I know) in any other place in all your Diu. Aut. you mention (I am sure) no other place; nor did you in Hagiom. printed before your Diu. Auth. once make mention of them. In what a pitiful condition then are the poor old Hag. to lie under the charge of so many tongues and hearts, so long before Diu. Auth. was printed; to be upon duty so long before relieved with (true and proper)  
4 Do you not leave these words (true and proper) out, in the conclusion of that discourse wherein they are contained, in which conclusion being the result and winding up of all that which went before, you peremptorily and unlimitedly deny any writing whatsoever to he any foundation at all of Christian Religion, without a (true and proper) to mend the matter.  
2 Your second enquiry; Why death he not declare, that I mean by the Scriptures Ink and Paper, is too ridiculous for a novice to read, though not for a dotard to write.  
1. In your next I pray tell me who beside yourself and the blasphemous Papists, did ever by the Scripture understand ink and paper? Indeed Doctor Humfred. Jesuitmise, p. 2. pag. 89. Tells us of a Nun that to the question, Quâ in re sita est religio Christiana, wherein stands Christian Religion? made answer; In laceris panniculis, in torn rags, We need no other Oedipus to open this riddle than Master Goodwin.  
2 Had you therefore only thus trifled by this denial of ink and paper to be the foundation of Christian Religion, you had neither been charged for erroneous by the London Ministers nor any one else in this point; but when to your trifling you add blasphemy, and say, That no writing whether originals or translations are the foundation of Christian Religion, and pag. 29. Yo Eld. that you deny whatever is found in the Scriptures besides the precious counsels to be the foundation, etc. You are to be dealt withal upon a new account. You than go beyond your denial of ink and paper.  
Your fifth Exception against me is, 
Exception the fifth You Eld. pag. ●9.  That I want Logic, in denying the conclusion, without answering any thing to the premises. You say, you had proved the conclusion, That the Scriptures are not the foundation of Religion, with several arguments, and that without any answer given to any one of these arguments, I denied only your conclusion, which was this, No writing whatsoever, whether Originals or translations, are the foundation of Christian Religion.  
1. Answ. For that conclusion of yours, No writing whatsoever is the foundation of Christian Religion. It was by the Subscribers of the late Testimony taken out of your discourse, without any mention of your premises; your charge therefore of the want of Logic, is drawn up against them at the feet of many of whom, you may sit to learn both Logic and Theology also.  
2. The scope of the Ministers that subscribed the Testimony was not to dispute errors, but to recite them; and recite them they could not more properly than by setting down the conclusion and result of your tedious discourse, nothing speaking a man's mind so plainly and peremptorily as that.  
3. My book was an answer to Zion Coll. visited, and not to that former piece of yours, Divine Authors wherein you said you brought the arguments to prove that the Scriptures were not the foundation of Religion. Had you recited your arguments in Zion College visited, they should have been answered, though in truth neither you nor they deserved it.  
4. You bring one pitiful thing, which I dare say you account an argument in Zion Coll. visited, pag. 2. to prove that the Scriptures are not the foundation of Christian Religion, viz. Because Christ is the only foundation. Which weak cavil I fully answered, pag. 7. and 8. Busy Bishop. I call it a cavil, because yourself seem afraid to call it an argument; for though it be clearly confuted yet you say I bring no answer to any one argument.  
In your sixth exception, 
Exception the sixth, Yo. Eld. p. 30.  you exceed yourself in ignorance and impudence, wherein you writ thus: Doth not himself (Master Jenkin) distinguish, pag. 7. and affirm that in a sense the Scriptures are not the foundation of Christian Religion, else what is the english of these his words, Christ is the only foundation in point of mediation, and the Scriptures in point of manifestation, etc. hath the man a mushroom instead of caput humanum upon his shoulders, to quarrel with me for denying in a sense the Scriptures to be the foundation of Religion, and yet to deny as much himself; Did I ever, or do I any where deny them to be such a foundation in respect of representation and discovery, etc.  
Dote you, Sir? or dream you? or are you ambitious to be Bishop of Bethlehem, at your translation from Swan-alley? First, you pretend that you approve the distinction, and that you are of my opinion, Do you (say you) any where deny the Scriptures to be a foundation in respect of representation? Then you scorn and revile it, saying, That the foundation of manifestation is an absurd and a ridiculous metaphor; again you own it, and assert the Scriptures in this sense, The foundation, etc. and lastly you scorn it again, and desire me to tell you of one Classical Author that useth it? Certainly if Master Jenkin have a mushroom upon his shoulders, you have a windmill upon your pate. This passage (I fear) will confirm Master Vicars in his opinion of the suitableness of the emblamaticall windmill, and make him applaud himself notwithstanding my endeavours to dissuade the honest man from expressing you by such a picture.  
1 In this Exception, you ask, Did I ever deny the Scriptures to be a foundation in respect of manifestation?  
Yes, and do so still, Diu. Author, page 18. Thus you writ, Answ. Certain it is there was a time when neither Originals nor translations were the foundation of Religion, but somewhat beside, therefore as certain it is, that neither are they the foundation of Religion at this day. Th●● you there, where you clearly assert, that we must no more ground our faith upon the manifestation of the Scripture now, than they that never had any such manifestation by way of writing at all. And what do you assert, page 49, 50. etc. of that Treatise, but that Religion hath another foundation in point of manifestation, than the Scriptures, viz. the sun, moon, and stars, etc.  
2. In this Exception you say, That to call the Scriptures the foundation in point of manifestation is a ridiculous and absurd metaphor: Master Jenkin thinks that he manifests the feebleness of Zion College visited, is he therefore the foundation of the book, or of the supposed feebleness of it which he discovers.  
Your jeering betrays your ignorance, Answ. or malicious forgetfulness of that known distinction of fides quae creditur, and fides quâ creditur. The matter which faith believes, and the grace itself of faith, both called faith in Scripture. Religion also comprehends the matter of Religion and the grace of Religion. The Scriptures though they are not the foundation of the matter of Religion, yet by their manifestation of the will of God, they are the foundation of the grace of Religion, as my book called the Busy Bishop if it have manifested the feebleness of Zion College visited, may be the foundation upon which some may build the knowledge of the feebleness of Zion College visited, though it be not the foundation of your book, or the weakness of it.  
3 In this exception you produce that question which I propounded to you, p. 7. Bus. Bish. Why doth Master Goodwin allege that Scripture, 
Yo. Eld. p. 31.  1 Cor. 3.11. Other foundation ●an no man lay but Jesus Christ, if he doth not ground his belief hereof upon this very Scripture?  
To this you give a double answer; 1. By way of quaere, Why did Christ cite the testimony of John to prove himself to be the Messiah, if he did not ground his belief of his being the Messiah upon John's testimony? 
Joh. 5.32.33. etc.   
1 When will you leave off to blaspheme? It's my unhappiness that instead of reclaiming you from heresy, Answ. you should take occasion from my words to vent your blasphemy. 
Toungl. Elder, pag. 6.  Do you no more need the Scriptures than Christ did? Did Christ cite the testimony of John as a ground for his own faith, or as a ground for the faith of others? Doth Master Goodwin never read the Scriptures that say, Christ is the Messiah but only for the establishing the faith of others?  
2 You answer by way of supposition; What if I should say that I do ground my belief of Christ his being the only foundation upon this place which follows?  
1 It follows that you cite not this testimony as Christ did the testimony of John, who did not cite John's testimony to ground his own belief upon it that he was the Messiah. 2. It follows that you contradict yourself, for now you say this Scripture is the foundation of your faith in Christ; and before you said, that because Christ is the only foundation, therefore the Scriptures are not.  
Before you said, that only the matter and truths contained in the Scripture were the foundation of faith, and not the written Word which contained those truths; and now you grant that the written Word of God, 1 Corinth. 3.11. is the ground of your faith.  
3 If you mean as you speak, the controversy is at an end, the written word being acknowledged a foundation of faith; and all those Sophisms instead of Arguments, which afterward you bring, concern you to answer, as well as myself.  
In this exception.  
4 You revile me for charging you with weakness and wickedness in your opposing Christ and his Word, since you say, 
Yo. Eld. p. 31, 32.  that a while since I opposed a foundation Personal to a foundation scriptural, and what is that (say you) but to oppose Christ and his Word as much as you oppose them. And for the known distinction of essendi and cognoscendi, which Master Jenkin wonders should be hid from me, he is desired in his next to produce any Classic Author that ever used it but himself. The complexion of it is, as if it were of the lineage of Mr. Jenkins learning.  
You can find no shelter from any thing that ever dropped from my Pen, for your opposing Christ and his Word; Answ, you oppose Christ and his Word, I distinguish only between Christ and his Word; now Accurate Logicians know the difference between oppositio and distinctio, though old detards have forgot it. Opposition implies a pugnarerum, distinction only a non idenditas; so Keckerm. cap. 5. Lib. 1. Syst. Lo. Suminus vo●em distinctionis cum omnibus e●uditis Philosophis, oppositioni contradivisive, prout nude opponitur identitati, excludendo diversitatem. You so oppose Christ and his Word, as that because Christ is the foundation, you deny the Scripture to be a foundation, Zion College visited, p. 2.15. this is Pugna, but I show Bu. Bish. p. 7, 8. how they both agree, though they be not one and the same foundation; that Christ is the foundation upon which I build for salvation, and the Scriptures the foundation upon which I ground the knowledge of this Saviour; your saying therefore that because I distinguish thus between a foundation Personal, and a foundation scriptural, I therefore oppose them as much as you, who make the word of Christ a foundation inconsistent with Christ's being a foundation, again betrays your forgetfulness of your Logic, for every opposition implies necessarily a distinction, but a distinction doth not imply an opposition.  
And whereas with sufficient ignorance you desire me to tell you of any Classic Author that useth the distinction of essendi and cognoscendi, I refer you for information to Keckerman, Syst. Theol. p. 133. where he saith, Duplicia reperiuntur principia essendi & cognoscendi, sic etiam in Theologiâ, See also Trelcatius jun. Instit. Theol. L. 1. Duo sunt principia rei & cognitionis, illa ex quibus alia producuntur haec ex quibus aliorum pendet cognitio. Wollebius also, Comp. Theol. p. 2. Principium Theologiae essendi quidem Deus est. Cognoscendi vero verbum Dei. See also Altenstaig Lexicon, Theolog. in Tit. Principium, where there is mention of sundry learned men that use this distinction. If the complexion of this distinction shows that it is of the lineage of my learning, certainly the ignorance of this distinction shows the complexion of Master goodwin's learning.  
To prove that the Scriptures are not the foundation of religion, you now proceed to your arguments, and in your entrance upon them you brag that you demonstrate, 
Yo. El. p. 32.  and you thunder out the shame and confusion of all those that have charged the error upon you; (though the issue will prove to your own confusion, I say not to your shame who I think are past it.)  
Your own words are these; That the Scriptures whether written or printed are not truly and properly the foundation of religion, I demonstrate in the s●ght of the Sun, to the shame and confusion of all those faces, who have charged the Tenet upon me as an error. O yes, all men, women, and children, stand forty foot off from the blind Bear, if not, being bitten thank yourselves. 
Bas. Moral. reg. 26. cap. 1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.   
1 What do you call a Theological demonstration? have you read the rule of Basil; Whatever we say or do, aught to be confirmed by the testimony of the holy Scriptures, for the establishing of the good, and the confusion of the bad? Have you done thus? certainly the Scriptures have not given to you a weapon, nor lent you a proof to destroy themselves. No Sir, your demonstrations are either childish mistakes, or Popish cavils; not demonstrations of your position, but of your folly and impiety. 
Ad bonam solutionem non pertinet quod probet conclusionem sed quod defendat eam ab objectione contrariâ.   
2 To what purpose do you bring any Arguments at all? Are you not respondent? Was it not your part to answer what was brought against your wicked Position? but you are better (you think) at your sword than your shield (though at neither good) otherwise why have you passed over what was brought against you, and instead thereof vainly endeavour to bring somewhat in opposition to your opponent?  
3 Doth it become an Accurate disputant to propose a question under so many ambiguities, and explain none; what mean you by Scripture? what by foundation? what by religion? what by true and proper? are these two words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same importance? why leave you things so confused and indigested? Is it to make your opponent ashamed with your folly, because you cannot with your arguments? That we may not therefore fight blindfold, at which you are old excellent, I shall desire the Reader to take notice, that in this whole dispute, when you deny the Scriptures to be the foundation of religion.  
By Scriptures are understood all the books of the Old and New Testament, 
Scriptures.  conjunctim & divisim, as they are now received and acknowledged among us, conjunctim, the complete foundation; divisim, the partial foundation, and yourself grant that thus your opponents take the Scriptures. You acknowledge this to be the only sense that the ordinance against Heresies can reasonably mean, Hag. Sect. 26, 27. and so you take the word Scriptures, p. 32. 
Yo. El. p. 32.  Yo. Eld. where you labour to prove them not the foundation of religion. Now whereas you assert that by the Scriptures we are not to understand any writing, or the wtitten Word that reveals the truths of God, but only the truths and matters themselves named; I affirm, that the Scriptures are to be taken concretiuè both for matter and words, both being inspired of the Holy Ghost. 
Ames. med●●de ser,  (In iis omnibus quae per supernaturalem revelationem inno●u●runt, non solum res ipsas inspiravit Deus, sed etiam singul● verba quibus scriberentur, dictavit atque suggessit. The holy Ghost suggesteth words as well as matter, saith Ames, and the form of the Scripture stands in the manifestation of the true Doctrine in words, which came from the immediate revelation of the holy Ghost, saith Gomarus. Materia Scripturae circa quam, est tota verae religi●nis doctrina ad salutem necessariae Ecclesiae; forma Scripturae esi t●tius doctrina de ver●● religione ad s●lutem necessariae ex imme●●●●● revelatione sp●●: sancti conceptis ipsius verbis significatio. Gomar. de scrip. s●●n Disp. 2. Id. Ibid. ut verbum non scriptum sermonis signo & enuntiatione sic contra verbum scriptum, literarum notis, & descriptione ●●n ●at) and both matter and words are preserved by the providence of God so pure this day, 
Foundation.  that they are still the foundation of Religion; the matter the foundation which we must believe, or the objectum materiale (this you grant) the writing by the appointment of God, the foundation why we must believe, or the objectum formale, into which our faith must be last resolved, and this you deny, and I maintain against your following cavils, 
Religion.  it being the thing in question between us.  
Whereas Religion may signify either the matter of it, viz. the things believed, or the habit of it, i. e. the believing of these things, I assert that the Scriptures are the foundation of Religion not as Religion is considered in itself, or in the matter of it, but as it is in us, 
True and proper.  and considered in the grace and habit of it.  
Whereas you join together (True and proper) words of a vast difference, 'tis affirmed that the Scriptures are the true foundation, though not the proper, as Christ when he calls himself the vine, the door, spoke truly though figuratively, and so not properly. So that the question is not whether the foundation or fundamentals, the great articles of faith be contained in the Scriptures, this Master Goodwin acknowledgeth, Divine Author, pag. 17. repeated in your last book, sect. 37.  
Nor is the question whether ink and paper be the foundation; a conceit so senseless, that it would never have come into the head of any man but Master Goodwin and such as are left of God to blaspheme; ink and paper being the external matter of any writings whatsoever, as well as the holy Scriptures.  
But the question is, whether Christian faith which believeth the truths of Christian Religion necessary to salvation, be built upon the divine authority of the written Word, in which God hath been pleased to reveal those truths. This Master Goodwin denyeth in sundry passages in his Hagiomastix and in his Divine Authority of the Scripture. This he disputes against in his Youngling Elder, and in this sense he endeavours to answer what I bring in Busy Bishop, Hagiom. sect. 28. he denies it to be any foundation of Religion to believe that the English Scriptures, or the books called the Bible, are the Word of God.  
Diu. Auth. page 10 he denies the English Scriptures and the Hebrew and greek Originals themselves to be the Word of God, etc.  
Yo. Eld. page 29. he saith, When I deny the Scripture to be the foundation of Religion, I mean by the Scriptures ink and paper; And whatever else is found in them, or appertaining to them, besides the truths, matter, and gracious counsels concerning the salvation of the world which are contained in them, etc.  
In direct opposition to which detestable passage, I assert that by Scriptures or foundation of faith, we are not only to understand the gracious counsels, or their materia circa quam, as Gomarus speaks, the doctrines of salvation, but their form also, or the signification from God of these Doctrines in the written Word, or in letters, or writing.  
And page 39 Yo. Eld. he disputes (after his manner, dotingly, a weak hand best beseeming a wicked work) against the written Word. If it he impossible (saith he) to believe that the matter of the Scriptures is the Word of God, if I be uncertain whether the written Word be the Word of God or no; how came the Patriarches who lived in the first two thousand years of the world to believe it, since it was uncertain to them, whether such a word should ever be written. Here's more opposed than ink & paper, viz. the written Word.  
I shall now examine his arguments, having briefly premised these following considerations, for the further explaining of the question.  
1. The end of man's creation was to glorify God, and to save his own soul.  
2. The right way of God's Worship and man's salvation could not be found out by the light of nature, but there was necessarily required a supernatural revelation of this way.  
3. God was therefore pleased to manifest his own will concerning it.  
4. This he hath done from the foundation of the world diversely, after divers manners.  
5. In the infancy of the Church, and while it was contained in narrow bounds, God manifested his will without the written Word by dreams, visions, audible voice, etc.  
6. When the Church was further extended, more increased, and to be set as a City upon an hill, and when impiety abounded in men's lives, God commanded this his will formerly revealed to be set down in writing.  
7. God did infallibly guide holy men whom he did choose for his amanuensis, that they did not ●rre in the matter of his will, or manner of expressing of it.  
8. He ordered that his will should be written in such Languages, as were best known and understood in the Churches, unto whom his truths were committed.  
9 He hath given a charge to his Churches to have recourse to these writings only, to be inforn●ed what were the truths and matters of his will, and to try and prove all doctrines by those writings.  
10. Therefore the only instrument upon which the Church now can ground their knowledge and belief of the truths, matters, gracious counsels of God, revealed for his own glory and their salvation, is the written Word or holy Scriptures.  
These things thus premised, I come to your arguments which you are pleased to honour with the name of Demonstrations.  
To prove that the Scriptures are not the foundation of Religion, Arg. 1 
Yo. El. pag. 32.  your first argument is this: If Religion was founded, built, etc. before the Scriptures were, then cannot the Scripture be the foundation of Religion, but Religion was built and founded besone, etc. therefore— Answ. 
Eccius Euchiri. Tit. 1. Bailius. q. 1. Bellar●de verb. dei, l. 4. c. 4.   
Should I tell you that your demonstration (if demonstration if must be called) is stolen out of Papists in their writings against Protestants, it would by you be accounted but a slight charge; brass cannot blush. For answer I deny your consequence; Though Religion was built, and stood firm before the Scriptures were, it follows not that the Scriptures now are not the foundation of Christian Religion. Though the Scriptures were not always heretofore the foundation of Religion, it follows not but that they must be now the foundation thereof. God teacheth his Church, and revealeth his will diversely; he hath varied the ways of his administrations; and his will being presupposed, the Scriptures are now necessary as a foundation, which in former times were not. The learned Rivet tells us, 
Rivet. ●. 1. c. 1. Aliud tempus alios mores postulat Deus pro multiformi su● sapiemia, administrationis suae rationem volait variare. Consequentias a lversariorum meritò ridemus; fuit aliquando Ecclesia cum non esset Scripture ergo he● tempore Ecclesia potest c●rere Scriptura. prae suppositâ Dei veluntate nobis necessariam esse Scripturam asserimus.  Meritò ridemus, We account it a ridiculous consequence, That because formerly the Church was without the Scriptures, therefore now it can want them. The same solution doth Gerra●d also make, Exeg. p. 16. Quia non nisi per Scripturas, etc. Because God in the business of our salvation would not deal with us but by the Scriptures, upon this supposition they are now necessary.  
The like saith Whitaker: 
Whitak. de perfec. Scrip. cap. 7. Partibus olim D●us se familiariter ostendit atque iis per se voluntatem suam patesecit, & tum Scripturas non fuisse necessarias fate●r: at postea mutavit hanc docendae ●● clesiae rationem & scribi suam voluntatem v●lait, rumnecessarta esse scriptura ●●●pit. Alia illorum: alia horum temporuam ratio.—  God of old time familiarly made known himself to the Fathers, and by himself manifested to them his will, and then I confess the Scriptures were not necessary, but after God did change the way or course of teaching his Church, and would have his will written, than the Scriptures began to become necessary. The material object of the faith of those that lived before the Canon was put into writing, was the same with ours; they built their faith upon Christ; they believed the same truths for salvation; but the formal object of their faith, or the ground of believing those truths, differed from ours in the manner of its dispensation. Di●ine ●e●elation was the foundation and ground of their faith and is of ours also, but divine revelation was afforded to them afone manner, and to us after another, God hath spoken in divers manners, Heb. 1.1. The authority of the revelation is always the same, the way of making that revelation, hath frequently been different, sometimes immediately by visions, a lively voice, etc. at other times by writing, as now in these latter times; upon which consideration I flatly deny, that because their Religion stood firm before the Word was written, or before God revealed his will in writing, therefore our religion is not built upon revelation of God in writing; concluding my answer with that excellent passage of Tilenus, Syntag. Disp. 2. Licet plane eadem sint quae olim voce, qu●que deinceps scripto fuerunt tradida, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tamen & fidei nostrae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 scriptis duntaxat nititur. Although the things which were formerly delivered by voice, were altogether the same with the things asterward delivered in writing, yet the certainty of our faith only depends upon writings.  
Your second Argument to prove that the Scriptures are not the foundation of Religion, Arg. 2 is because The foundation of Religion is imperishable, even as is the Church (you faith) which is built upon it; now you say, any book and all books whatsoever, and consequently the Scriptures, we perishable, therefore no books and consequently not the Scriptures are this foundation. If Master Jenkins Bible be the form 〈◊〉 of his Religion, then is his Religion no such treasure but that thi●ces may break through and steal it from him.  
〈◊〉 bearing that Plat● had given the definition of a man, that he was a living creature with tw● feet withset feathers, gets a 〈…〉 off all his feathers while he was alice, and throws him in among some of Plato's 〈◊〉, wishing them to behold their Master ●ato his man. If some such odd conceited fellow should use means to get Master Jenkins ●ible, and having defaced, rend and torn it, should cast it into the midst of his auditors, and say, Ecce fundamentum Religionis Jenkinianae, I chold the foundation of your Master Jonkin, it might prove a more offectuall conviction unto him of his folly, than seven demonsirative reasons, etc.  
You say the foundation of Religion is as the Church unperishable, This position, Answ. if you understand of a simple and absolute unperishablenesse, I deny; for though both Church and Scriptures upon which the Church is built be unperishable, exhypothest divinae providentie, in regard of God's providence, which he hath promised shall preserve the Scriptures and Church, yet of themselves they might perish.  
It was possible in itself that Christ's legs as well as the legs of the thiefs might have been broken, but God's pleasure presupposed it was altogether impossible. As for your arguing from the tearing of my Bible, to the abolishing of the Scriptures, you show yourself as good as your word, for this is one of the arguments which you bring to the shame of those that charge this error upon you; myself among sundry others being ashamed of your child shnesse herein; have you any such ground of assurance from God, that any one particular Bible shall not be burnt, as you have that his written Word shall not be utterly removed from his Church? or can the perishing of my Bible prove that God will suffer the Scriptures to be utterly taken away? Reverend Mr. Bifield upon the first of Peter, ver. 25. p. 506. will tell you though this or that particular Bible may be destroyed, yet that the Word abideth for ever in the very writings of it. If all the power on earth (saith he) should make war against the very paper of the Scriptures, they cannot destroy it, but the word of God written will be to be had still. It is easier to destroy heaven and earth than to destroy the Bible. So he; you say the Scriptures are as imperishable as the Church; but can you conclude because the Church in itself may fail, and may cease in this or that particular place, therefore that it may be overthrown in all parts and places of the world: And therefore for that contemptible because profane scoff of Platoe's man, or a living creature with two feet without feathers, had you added one accident more, that he is animal latis unguibus, it would more properly have belonged to yourself than animal rationale; your nails being much sharper than your arguments, a fit cock for such a cockpit as you game in.  
Your third argument is, Arg. 3 That if any books called the Scripture be the foundation of Religion, then may Religion be said to have been founded by men.  
It would be to no purpose haply to tell you that this is a popish cavil; Answ. however to the Reader it may not be unprofitable to know so much. See Stapleton, lib. 9 c. 4. and we see his servant also following him. In your argument I deny the consequence, for though the written word be the foundation of Religion, yet cannot Religion be said to be founded by man, without borrowing blasphemies from Master Goodwin, who hath enough to furnish all the town; the written word had not men for the Authors of it, but only for the amanuensis or penmen of it, who indeed rather were the pens 
* Greg. praf. in job, cap. 1. Si magni cujusdam vi●i susceptis Epistolis, verba legeremus, eaque quo calamo suissent Scripta quaereremus, r●dicul●m profectò esses etc. cum ergo cegnoscimus, eju●que tei spiri●um sanctam, uctorem tenemus, cum scriptorem quae rimus quid aliu● eg●mus, nist legenies literas de calamo perscruta●i,  in the band of God, when he wrote unto his Church; and we may look upon men in this consideration and capacity, and yet not upon either Scriptures or Religion as founded by men: holy men inspired by the holy Ghost wrote and spoke. 2 Pet 1.19, 21. The holy Ghost did both put them upon, and direct them in the work of writing; and therefore though the word were written by them, yet not founded by them or upon them, and by consequence not Religion.  
Your fourth argument seems too weak to be owned by Mr. Goodwin, or any other man that ever pretended to a competent share in common sense,  
'Tis this: If those tables of stone wherein the Law was written by the finger of God, were not the foundation of obedience exhibited to the Law, than neither is any Bible or book the foundation of Religion. 
Yo. El. p. 34.   
This thing which you call a demonstration toucheth not the question; Answ. for it is only framed against the paper of the Bible, and so indeed and no otherwise it holds good, for the paper of our Bibles, and the stone wherein the Law was written, are foundations both alike, of obedience and Religion. But it's ridiculous to argue from the unfitness of the stone and paper to be foundations, to the denial of the written word to be a foundation, your consequence therefore is a cripple.  
To the proof of it which you pretend to bring in these words, Doubtless there is as much reason to judge those two tables which are said to have been the work of God, and the writing therein, the writing of God graven upon the tables to have been the foundation of the Law, and of the obedience to it, as to judge any book whatsoever either written or printed, to be the foundation of that religion, the principles whereof are contained in it. I answer:  
1. You join together things that are of a different nature, the Law and the obedience to it; the question was not concerning the former, whether the writing in the tables was the foundation of the Law, but of the latter, whether it were not the foundation of obedience to it.  
2. There's not as much reason to judge the two tables which were stone a foundation of obedience, as there is to judge the revelation of the will of God by writing in our Bibles.  
3. If you intent, that the writing of God in those two Tables which were broken was as much the foundation of obedience to the Israelites, as the Revelation of the will of God by Writing is now to us, I deny that also, because God foresaw and intended that those numerical tables should be broken, and that the writing upon them should perish and not be communicated to the people to be a foundation of their obedience; howbeit if you deny the writing in the second tables, and in that book that was before the Priest, out of which the King was commanded to take a copy, that he might re●de and learn to fear God, Deut. 17.18. to have been the foundation of obedience unto the Law, I expect stronger arguments from you than any of these demonstrations you have brought in your Yo, El.  
Your fifth thing which you desire to have us look upon as a demonstration, Arg. 5 
Yo. El. p. 35  is drawn from the inconsistency of the foundation of Religion with itself, if any book or books whatsoever be the foundation of Christian Religion; in regard of the Errors which you say may possibly be found in every copy now extant in the world, by reason of the negligence, ignorance, etc. of the Scribes, etc.  
You live upon stealing: Stapleton is still your friend, Answ. you plough with his heifer, Prin. Doct. lib. 9 cap. 5. Arg. 4. he useth this very argument, and he is abundantly answered by Chamier, Panstr. lib. 12. cap. 10. Salom. Glassius, lib. 1. t. 1. tr. 1, 2. de puritate textus. Your consequence is denied, viz. If any books whatsoever, bible or other be the foundation of Religion, then is not the foundation of Religion in every thing consistent with itself. The reason of your proposition (you say, you should have said of your consequence) is a bold assertion, of which you offer not the least proof, of errors that may be found in every copy now extant, which may render the copy contradictious to itself.  
1 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. Remember you what you asserted Divine Author, p 257. God hath kept the Scriptures from being corrupted or depraved, that is, from any such alteration or change in the words, whether by transposition, pointing, or otherwise, whereby the nature or proper sense of them should be impaired or cast out, or a sense that is spurious and unsound brought in in the stead thereof. Why is your Hosanna to the Scriptures turned so soon into a crucify them?  
2 Whether grant you that even there was any copy in the world pure and without errors, and so not liable to this exception of yours; if there were not, how hath God left his Church an unerring steadfast rule of faith and life, and how is the Word called a Canon, 6 Gal. If there were whether grant you ●hat the written Word in that pure and unerring copy was the Word of God, and so the foundation of Religion; if you do grant it, you contradict yourself, who have said all this while, No writing whatsoever is the Word of God; if you grant not that purely written Word to be a foundation of Religion, (as its clear you do not) to what purpose argue you against the Word for being corrupted, when as you do not deny the written Word to be a foundation quà corrupted but quà delivered in the way of writing. 3. In your next I pray bring in your instances of those typographical Sphalmata, & errors found in every Copy that render the Scriptures thus contradictious to themselves; and 4. prove that the same power which keeps the Scriptures from perishing, doth not also keep them pure. 
Tolle puritatem verbi dei scripti & uliro collabescet dect inae ex ve●bo desumptae puritas. Glass. p. 174. Quod documentom ad convincendos errores exeri potest, si hac vex admittatur scripturas esse c●rruptas. Aug. L. Cont. F●ust. Manic. c. 2.  If God by his written Word gathers and preserves his Church to the end of the world, then certainly he defends it from being corrupted, for there must be a suitableness between the rule and the thing regulated, pure and incorrupted Doctrine requires a pure and incorrupted Scripture, according whereunto it is to be examined, and by which it is to be tried. Take away the purity of the written Word, and the purity of Doctrine taken out of the written Word (as Glassius saith) must needs fall to the ground; and what proof can be taken out of the Scriptures against errors, if this be admitted the Scriptures are corrupted, as saith Augustine. And 5. further, prove from the false printing in some Copies that therefore the Canon or written Word is depraved, show that because some words may be written wrong, therefore the written Word of God is corrupted. Ceaseth it not so fare to be God's Word, as any thing is printed against the mind of the Lord the Revealer? Is this purity of the Canon at the courtesy of a Printers boy? Man's word may be inserted, but Gods not by him depraved; something may be represented instead of the Word, but the Word is not corrupted by that misrepresentation. He that can make God's Word to become his own, that is, humane & corrupt, may with the same labour make his own word to become Gods, and of divine Authority. Nay, prove the errors of the edition (E. G. of our new Translation) from the errors of the Copies, learn of the more learned Chamier, Paust. I. 12. c. 10. Ipsaratio cogit ut codices distinguamus ab editione, haec enim prosect a abuno principio, illi quotidie sunt authoritate privatâ, vel cujus libet voluntate; ergo non bene concluditur à singulis codicibus adversus primariam editionem. We cannot conclude from some Copies against an edition.  
The true and proper foundation of Religion is not any thing that is visible, Arg. 6 
Yo. Eld. p. 35  or exposed to the outward senses, but something spiritual, and opprehensible only by the understanding, etc. but Bibles, or the Scriptures are legible, Answ. and may be seen.  
The foundation of Religion taken materially for the truths contained in Scripture, the things believed, or fundamentum fedei quod is invisible, and not exposed to outward sense, but taken formally for the fundamentum propter quod, or for which faith yields assent unto the matter believed, for as much as God worketh mediately, and now revealeth no truth to us but by external means, and Divine Authority of itself is hidden and unknown, the thing into which faith is ultimately resolved must be something externally known, which we may read or hear, 
Vid. White, way to the Church, p. 378  and you must either yield an external foundation and formal object of faith, or else lead us to secret revelations.  
The material object of faith comprehends the Articles of faith, as that God is one in essence, and three in person; that Christ died, and risen again the third day, etc. but the formal object of faith, or the reason wherefore I give assent unto these matters and Articles of faith is Authority Divine revealed in writing.  
Nor 2. is your Consequence true, viz. If any book be the foundation, then is the foundation somewhat visible, etc. because our dispute is not about Ink and Paper, Books or words materially considered, which are the object of sight, but about words and books as they are signa conceptuum, and so discernible only by the understanding, Verbis & vocibus per se & materialiter consideratis nulla in est vis, saith Keckerman.  
3. How wretchedly weak is your proof, 
Yo. Eld. p. 35.  that nothing external is the foundation of faith; because then (say you) there is nothing necessary to be believed by any man to make him religious but what he sees with his eyes, etc. And (by the way) I pray answer; Is any thing to be believed to make a man religious, but what may be seen written in the Scriptures? what a disputer rampant have we here? And you say, every man that did but look into ● Bible, and see such and such sentences written or printed there, and believed accordingly, that these words and sentences were here written and printed, must needs hereby become truly religious, etc.  
Think you (dreadful Sir) by such stuff as this to make your friend William of your judgement? though the Word written be the foundation of Religion, doth it follow that there is nothing necessary to be believed for the making of a man religious but this; to believe that such and such things are written; is it not also required that a man should believe the truths of the word, because they are written from God as well as that he sees they are written?  
The Assent to the truth of the things written is faith, and not only that the things are written; what can you say against this proposition, Whosoever believes with his heart the things that are written in these books, because the first believes that these books in which he sees them written are the oracles of God, is truly religious.  
Your seventh commodity which you cail a demonstration, Argm. 7 is the same with the second; only it contains an absurdity or two more not worth the reciting.  
Your Argument is this; 
Yo. Eld p. 38.  The true and proper foundation of religion is intrinsically, essentially, and in the nature of it unchangeable and unalterable in the least, by the wills, pleasures, or attempts of men; but there is no book or books whatsoever, Bible or other, but in the contents of them they may be altered and changed by men. Ergo:  
It seems you are much pleased with the blasphemy of the Jesuits against the Scriptures, Answ. drawn from their corruption; your second Argument was drawn from the perishablenesse of them; your fifth was, they are corruptible; your seventh, they are changeable. Your major I deny not, if it only import, that the foundation of religion admits not of the least change in the essence or nature of it by men; but if it import that it is repugnant to the nature of the foundation to be changed in the least, though this change be only accidental, I deny it.  
The proof of your major, (viz. That if the foundation of religion were intrinsically and in the nature of it changeable, then can it not be any matter of truth, because the nature of truth is like the nature of God, unchangeable) betrays your ignorance, or your dotage, or something worse, though ordinary with you; what created verity is there that is as unchangeable as God, and which God cannot change? Is it veritas metaphysica, or the truth of being? Cannot God annihilate all created beings, and if so what becomes of their verity? Is it Logical truth, or truth of Propositions? Doth it not cease upon the change of the subject? Jesus Christ is to come in the flesh was once a true proposition, and the object of the faith of those that lived before Christ his Incarnation, but is it so still? and is not veritas ethica, or the agreement of the judgement or mind with the proposition, changeable likewise upon the same ground.  
To your minor, whereas you allege the changeableness of all Bibles in the contents of them, what mean you by contents? mean you ink, papers, letters, etc. such changes either pervert the sense, and so fare as the Scriptures are thus changed they cease to be the written Word, or they pervert it not, 
Waleus. T. 1. p. 129. Scriptura substanti● non potest corrumpi.  and if any such changes be, they nothing hinder the written Word from being the foundation of faith. Sphalmata Typographica, typographical faults makeerrours in Orthography, none in Divinity.  
Your last demonstration; Arg. 3 
Yo. Eld. p. 36.  If the Scripture be the true foundation of Religion, it must be understood either of the Scriptures as in the original Languages only, or only as translated into other Languages, or as both; but the Scriptures neither in the original Languages, nor as translated, nor as both are the foundations. Ergo:  
I deny your minor, and assert the Scriptures as in the originals, Answ. and also as translated so fare as agreeing with the originals are the foundation.  
1. How prove you that the Scriptures in the originals are not the foundation of religion? thus; If the Scriptures be the foundation as they are in the original Bibles, than they (say you) that understand not these Languages, as illiterate men, cannot build upon this foundation; for your unworthy scoff of the danger of my Religion, you representing me as one that understands not the originals; you may please to know that I am not ignorant of all originals, for either concerning your scoffing, or your unmannerly jeering; Mr. T. G. said lately, that you had it from your Father (cheap enough it seems) but to the point: This cavil is borrowed of your old Masters whom in this point you follow; already answered by Anth. Wotton, Pop. Artic. Ar. 3 p. 20. and by Baronius against Turnbul. de objecto formali fid. p. 44. but I answer:  
Illiterate or unlearned men who cannot understand originals, Answ. nor yet can read translations, do build nevertheless their saith upon the Scriptures contained in them, though mediately, virtually, and not with that distinctness which one learned doth, the unlearned knowing not particularly in what words the mind of God was revealed; though you call me a Novice, yet let me teach you (if at least so plain a lesson hath not hitherto been learned by you) that unto faith there is required, Principium quod, or the foundation to be believed; Principium propter quod, or the reason why men believe the former; and media per quae, those necessary means by which they come to believe, and these are external, the ministry of the Word, and internal, the witness and effectual working of the holy Ghost, by which the heart is enabled to close with the formal object of faith, viz. the revelation of Gods will in writing. Now the Ministry of the Word and Spirit are limited to the written Word; these teach no other things than God hath revealed therein, and persuade not men, but God (as the Apostle saith, Gal. 1.10.) so that these lead the most illiterate to the Scriptures, and are so administered that they draw the heart even of such to assent to the written Word, as that into which their faith is ultimately resolved, as the Scriptures abundantly testify; and you can no more conclude from the strangeness of the original Languages to those that are illiterate, that illiterate persons do not build their faith upon the written Word contained in them, than that one who only understands the English tongue and receives a Letter from his Father in the French tongue (for the explaining whereof, the Father hath appointed an Interpreter) builds not his obedience ultimately upon the writing of his Father, though in a strange tongue.  
2. You endeavour to prove that the Scriptures are not the foundation of Religion, as in Translations and Originals, thus; If they be this foundation in both those considerations, or as well in the one or the other, than two things or more, specifically differing one from another, may notwithstanding be one and the same numeriall thing,  
You should rather have laid your consequence thus, Answ. then 〈◊〉 subject numerically the same may be the subject of accidents specifically different; but you tell me of two suppositions upon which your consequence stands.  
1. That the foundation of Religion is but one and the same numerically.  
2. That the Scriptures in several Languages differ specifically among themselves.  
About the identy of the foundation numerically, I shall not contend; but how prove you your second supposition? viz. That the Scriptures in several Languages differ specifically, you endeavour it thus:  
Two things (you say) which differ more than numerically, differ specifically; Now an Hebrew and a Spanish Bible, differ more than numerically, because they differ more than two Spanish or two Hebrew Bibles differ from one another, and yet these differ numerically the one from the other.  
1. Had the Youngling Elder disputed thus, how many exclamations, of poor man! illiterate soul! silly man! etc. would your tender heart have bestowed upon him; but I shall not retaliate, for the Reader (if intelligent) I am confident will spare me a labour. Things (you say) that differ plusquam numero, do differ specie. Should a freshman hear you reason thus. Mas & faemina differunt plusquam numero, ergo differunt specie, or a learned man and an idiot, differunt plusquam numero ergo differunt specie, they would laugh at your argument; the very boys would judge you a professor fit for an alley than an Academye. Do not you grant that these differ specie accidentali only; and will you conclude that therefore they differ specifically.  
2. You say, That though the difference between an Hebrew Bible and a Spanish is but in specie accidentali, or specifical accidental, yet such a difference as this is sufficient to prove that they differ numerically. You give in already, and show yourself but a foundered disputant, for what is this to your undertaking, which was to prove your second supposition, viz. That they do differ specifically and not numerically only, which was nothing to the second supposition, page 37.  
3. You contend that a Spanish Bible, a Latin, and an English, differ in specie accidentali, or with a difference specifical accidental in regard of the specifically different Languages wherein they were written. Ergo quid, how by all this prove you your assertion, which was; that the scriptures in their several Languages do differ specifically; nay how prove you by the specifical accidental d●fference of the Bibles, that the Scripture or the foundation is not the same numerically. The Languages I will grant differ specifically, and the copies do differ with a difference specifical accidental, but the Scripture the foundation of faith, the will of God revesled in writing, is numerically and identically the same. May not the same thing numerically be the subject of accidents specifically different? The same man may (I speak not of Master Goodwin) speak Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. These Languages differ specifically, yet the man who speaks them, is not multiplied, but is numerically the same. 
Esth. 3.12.8, 9  Ahashuerus sent out a decree to the people of an hundred twenty and seven Provinces in sevecall Languages, the Decree was one numerically, for he sent not out many but only one Decree, though the Languages differed specifically, and the Copies numerically, and specie accidentali, in regard of the specifically different Languages; and why may not the same be said of the foundation of Religion. The Bibles and Copies wherein the foundation of Religion is contained differ specifically accidentally, in regard of their specifically different Languages, but the foundation of Religion, i. e. the revelation of the will of God in writing is numerically one and the same; so that your learned argument, That the Scriptures cannot be the foundation of Religion in several Languages, because of the specifical or at least numerical difference of the Bibles, is vain and childish.  
We have seen your acumen in arguing, let us see what you can do in answering (so far as you go) of what you are pleased to pick out of Busy Bishop, against your opinion concerning the Scriptures.  
You say but very little by way of answer; but in that little you woefully trifle; you stay not to answer the Scriptures I bring against you at all, nor do seriously endeavour satisfaction in any thing, only you propound two or three slight and impertinent queries against what I writ, and so, as if you were lapping at Nilus, you hastily and superficially conclude.  
I asked you in the Busy Bishop, 
Busy Bishop; p. 22.  how any could believe the matter and substance of the Scriptures to be the Word of God, when as he must be uncertain whether the written Word wherein the matter is contained, is the Word of God or no?  
To this you answer by propounding these ignorant demands, whereof the first hath two branches. 
Yo. Eld. p. 39 etc.   
1. Is not this a question of the same profound calculation with this, how can a man believe the sun is a greater and the moon a lesser light if he be uncertain whether every jot and tittle of what is read in our Bible, Gen. 1.16. be the Word of God or no? because here it is said, And God made two great lights, the greater, etc.  
2. And afterwards. Do not the Scriptures affirm, That the heavens declare the glory of God, etc. and again, That that which may be known of God, his invisible things, his eternal power and Godhead, are clearly seen from the creation of the world; and that the Gentiles (without the written Word) show the works of the Law written in their hearts?  
In this demand which you put under two distinct heads, you express two gross mistakes, unworthy a scholar, Answ. though not unbeseeming yourself.  
1. In that you distinguish not between the matters of the Scripture to be believed, i. e. between those things or objects which are communia, such as may be know by the light of nature, and those which are propria, such as cannot be known but by the Revelation of the written Word; our question was not concerning winter and summer, the greatness of the Sun and Moon, etc. but concerning the Mysteries of faith.  
For when you explain yourself Zion Coll. visited, and Divine Auth. pag. 17. what you meant by the matter, substance, precious counsels of the Scripture, did you make any mention of the sun and moon, the winter and summer; did you not say you meant such truths as these? That Christ was God and man, That Christ died, That he arose again, etc. Now can you know these without a written Word, though you may the greatness of the sun above that of the Moon?  
Your second gross mistake in propounding this demand, is, in that you distinguish not between an intellectual habit, knowledge, and a divine grace, faith; the ground of the one being reason, the ground of the other being divine testimony. Or in that you distinguish not between fides divina, or theologica, and fides naturalis & acquisita, acquired by humane reasons, or by the authority of man; it was of the former that I disputed, and now you learnedly (ut soles) fly to the latter. When you say, That without the written Word you can believe the greatness of the Sun above that of the Moon, Can you believe this with a divine faith, without a written Word? Quaevis propositio physica, astrologica, historica fit objectum fidei, si à deo in Scriptures nobis propanatur, Davevant, p. 12. 
Scriptura, & fides nostra sunt aequalis latitudinis, fides nec plus nec minus debet amplecti quàm est in Scriptura revelatum. Geth. Exeg. p. 169.  de judice fidei, Then (saith he) is any Physical, Astrological, Historical proposition, the object of faith when it is propounded to us by God in the Scriptures; and page 149. Formalis ratio credendi, est authoritas dei revelantis. You may also say, That without a written Word you believe that the worlds were framed by God, but can you believe this with a divine faith, unless you had a written word for it? These things haply you may know, and by a natural or acquired faith, but not by a divine faith, believe, unless written, quod non lego, non credo.  
Your second profound demand is: If it be impossible for me to believe that the matter and substance of the Scripture is the Word of God, because I am uncertain whether the written Word be the word of God or no, how came the Patriarches to believe it, who lived the first two thousand years of the world, since it was uncertain to them whether the word should ever be written? The same way to bring me to believe what they believed is open to the glorious God.  
Those things that the Patriarches believed, Answ. they had from and by divine revelation, and though the written word was not needful to them for the grounding their faith upon the things believed, God then immediately manifesting himself to them without it, as even now I told you, yet the like cannot be said of us who live under a different dispensation. Vid. Riu. Cath. Orth. T. 1. Q. 1. Whitak. Chamier, etc.  
This was the substance of your first argument, Yo. Eld. p. 32. I must send you back for answer: The same way to bring you to believe, may be open by God's power, but it is not his pleasure to open it.  
3. You say, The nature, beauty, worth, weight, etc. of the matters and substance of the Scripture is sufficient to bring men to believe that they are things which came from God, though they had not the superadded advantage of any thing in the Scripture as writing.  
It was great pity that you were not consulted withal to give your judgement concerning the most advantageous way of bringing men to believe; Answ. why instead of inventing new grounds of faith, submit you not to the old? It's no matter what such a poor creature as yourself say, when you tell us what is the most sufficient way to bring men to believe, when as I see that the wise God was pleased not only to have the matters committed to writing, but also to tell us (notwithstanding the weight of the matter) that the end of that writing was that men might believe those matters, These things are written that ye might believe, Job. 21. and 1 Jo. 5.13. why rather did not the Evangelist say, These things are so weighty, so worthy, so beautiful, that therefore you have reason to believe them.  
2. The most weighty worthy matter that ever was believed, had it only been believed for its own weight and worth, and not as revealed by God, and because God manifested it, had not been believed with a divine faith. 'Tis not the worth of the thing but the Authority of the Speaker that is the ground of a man's faith: Nor do I understand how the worth and beauty of any thing can be said to bring men to believe that thing, they may indeed bring a man to desire it, and to long to enjoy it; there's required to faith not a worth and a beauty in the thing revealed, but truth In the revelatien; the object of assent is not pulchrum; but verum, not the beauty of the thing spoken, but the veracity of the speaker. Be the thing never so good, yet I believe not (saith learned Downame) unless I be persuaded it is true, p. 355. Treat. of justification.  
3. He that assents not to the Scriptures as revealed by God, cannot assent unto the beauty of the matters contained in the Scriptures. There's nothing revealed in the Scripture will seem truly beautiful and worthy to that man that believes not the authority of the Revealer. If the written word be entertained, and received as (saith the apostle) as the word of man, the most beautiful and worthy matters in the Scripture will be so far from being believed, that they will be profanely neglected. When as the excellentest matters were preached to the Jews by Christ, how were they contemned, in regard that they were not looked upon as the mind of God, but rather on the contrary.  
To conclude my Answer to this profane conceit of yours, should this beauty, worth, weight, etc. of the matters contained in the Scripture be admitted as the ground of believing them, I would know by what rule we should judge of this their beauty, worth, weight, etc. or what it is when their beauty is impugned by heretics (as you know that the gloriously beautiful truth of the satisfaction of Christ, so beautiful that its worthy of all acceptation, is by Socinus accounted the most deformed and unrighteous conceit that can be. What is it (I say) in such cases by which I should groundedly account the truth of God beautiful? you must here denying the written Word, make any man's judgement and reason to be the rule of the beauty and worth of the matters of the Scriptures, every one must esteem of truth, and believe them, as reason dictates and tells them they are beautiful, and then Mr. goodwin's Socinian design is perfectly accomplished. And there are who stick not to say, That all the clamourous outcries of your tongue and pen intent nothing but the advancing the Diana of recta ratio instead of Scripture.  
Yet again you query (though to no purpose, 
Yo. Eld. p. 40.  yet) to this effect: Doth not (say you) the Scripture affirm that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the goodness of God leadeth to repentance? Rom. 2.4. Which repentance cannot be without believing of the matters of the Scripture, as that upon repentance God will be gracious and accept men into favour, and forgive their sins; now this goodness of God, leading to this repentance, is extended to many, who are uncertain whether the written word be the Word of God or no.  
1. Answ. This is a passage of the same profane calculation with that in Divine Auth. where you said, 
pag. 182.  That the Heathens who only have the Heavens, the Sun, Moon, and Stars, to preach the Gospel unto them, have reason sufficient to judge the same judgement with them who have the Letter of the Gospel. Which in Busy Bishop was disproved; to which in this book you reply nothing, but new braze your face and say the same things again.  
2. From this place Rom. 2.4. that God's goodness leads to repentance, follows it that Heathens who only were invited by the general goodness of God in the governing of the world, believed that God would be gracious unto them, 
Spanhem de great. univers. pag. 1291.  and forgive them their sins in Christ the Mediator? follows it that all invitation to repentance is invitation to a Redeemer, and to believing, and that rain from Heaven and fruitful seasons did afford such an invitation? There's a repentance which is not saving, and true and internal, but externa & disciplinaris, which consisteth in mere abstinence from outwardly vicious acts, and in the contrary practice of actions civilly and morally honest. And 2. there's an invitation to repentance, which is simpliciter imperativa and exactiva officii, (as Spanhemius saith) which simply commands and exacts, that duty which man owes to God, which requiring of repentance leads not more to a Redeemer, than the requiring of that debt did lead the servant in the Gospel to a surety. And 3. how could the Gentiles be lead to true and saving repentance by the outward benefits they enjoyed, who thought that they received them from Jupiter and Juno and such Idols, and that all that repentance which those Idol-Deities required from them, did consist in idolatrous worships, and sacrifices and services? These of whom the Apostle speaks, could not rightly think of God, who only could pardon them, nor of the duty of repentance they owed to this God without a superior illumination, far excelling that which is by the common goodness of God in the government of the world; you woefully blunder therefore in affirming that the heathens believed the matters of the Scripture being destitute of the written Word.  
Briefly thus; you say, The goodness of God bestowed upon the Gentiles who were destitute of the written word, led them to a true and sound repentance, and to a knowledge, that upon that repentance God would be gracious unto them and forgive them their sins; I desire in your next, your so frequently promised undertaking (if at least we be not put off, as ever yet we have been, with a mouse instead of a mountain) you would tell us whether a true and sound repentance and a knowledge that God will be gracious in the forgiveness of sins, were ever (yet) wrought in any without the knowledge of Christ Jesus, and whether the general goodness of God put forth in the government of the world did ever manifest Christ Jesus to the Gentiles; sure I am the Apostle tells the Ephesians, Eph. 2.12. That they were formerly without Christ, having no hope, and without God in the world; and the times wherein the Gentiles were destitute of the Gospel are called the times of ignorance, to which he directly opposeth the time in which now God commandeth all men every where to repent, Act. 17.30. I shall only advise you to learn of reverend 
* Nemo potest vel minimum gustum rectae sanaeque doctrinae percipere, nisi qui scripturae fuerit discipulus. Palam est Deum erga eos omnes quos unquam erudire cum fructu voluit, subsidium verbi adhibuisse quòd effigiem suam in mundi formâ impressam parum esse efficacem provideret-Significat propheta, Ps. 19 quum frustra Deus omnes populos ad se invitet caeli terraeque in tuitu, legem esse peculiarem filiorum Dei scholam Cùm humana mens pro suâ inbecilitate pervenire ad Deum nullo modo queat, nisi sacro ejus verbo adjuta & sublevata omnes tunc mortales, exceptis judaeis, quia Deum sine verbo quaerebant, necesse fuit in vanitate, atque errore versari. Calv. Instit. c. 6. l. 1.  Calvin, Instit. l. 1. c. 6. No man, saith he, can have the least taste of sound Doctrine, but he that is taught by the Scripture. And again, God hath bestowed upon all those whom he ever taught with benefit, the help of his Word, in regard that the effigies of himself imprinted upon the world, he foresaw could not be effectual. And again, Quum frustra Deus, etc. Since God did ineffectually invite to himself all people by the sight of the Heav●n and Earth, the Law is the peculiar school of his sons. Once more hear that excellent man, Since the mind of man, in regard of its weakness, could no ways come unto God, unless helped and relieved by his b●ly Word, all men who sought God without his Word, were necessarily occupied in vanity and error: The Gentiles could not have believed this proposition (saith Davenant) Christ hath reconciled us to God by his death, unless it had been revealed to them by the preaching of the Apostles.  
To conclude this first question, 
Gentes huic propositio●i, Christus morte suâ nos reconciliavit Deo, non potuerunt fidem adhibere nisi ea per praedicationem Apostolorum fuisset illis revelata, p. 149 de jud. & nor. fid.  I desire the Reader to observe that this Dotard, who would be accounted the great assertor of the Divine Authority of the Scriptures, doth when he states the question borrow of the Papists their blasphemies, calls the Written Word ink and paper, as Ecchius, Pighius, and others; and when he disputes against the Scriptures, he goeth down to these Philistims to sharpen his axe, and is beholding to Papists and Jesuits for most of his arguments. This the Reader may see in this brief parallel which I have added with an intimation of some learned Protestants who have confuted them; that he may not say in his next, It is no matter whose the argument is, but who hath answered it?  

Master Goodwin.  
YO. Eld. p. 32. Arg. 1. Religion was founded, built, stood firm and stable in the world before the Scriptures were, Diu. Auth. pag. 10. Moses is generally acknowledged by us to be the first penman of the Scriptures, or the Word of God, and that the world had continued more than 2000 years before he was borne; but to affirm that there was no word of God in the world, no foundation of Religion, for the space of 2000 years is to contradict what is plainly written.  
Youn. Eld. page 31. if the Scriptures be the only foundation in point of manifestation, how came all the penmen of the Scriptures, by the knowledge they had of God, and of Christ, and of Religion, did they ground their knowledge of these upon the Scriptures, whilst as yet they were not.  
Yo. Eld. p. 33. Arg. 2. All books whatsoever are perishable, may be burnt, miscarry by many casualties, Argu. 5. It is very possible, that either through negligence ignorance, of Scribes, and correctors of the press, some such error may be found in every copy now extant in the world, which will render this Copy contradictious to itself. Arg. 7. Experience teacheth us that the Books and Bibles themselves, are de facto, altered by men from time to time.  
Arg. 8. If Mr. Jenkin will say, That the Scriptures are the foundation of Religion, only as they are in the Originals, than they who understand not these languages, cannot build (at least with understanding) upon this foundation, and consequently can never be truly religious, Divine Auth. pag. 19  
I suppose it is no foundation of faith to believe that the English Scriptures are the word of God; God spoke not to his Prophess or Apostles in English, nor doth our English Translation agree in all things with the true sense and meaning of the Originals, Hagiom. pag, 37. sect. 28.   

The Papists agreeing with him.  
BEllarminus de verbo Dei, l. 4. c. 4. Ab Adam usque ad Mosen, fuit Ecclesia dei aliqua in mundo, & colebant homines deum fide, etc. at nulla fuit scriptura ante Mofen. There was a Church in the world from Adam to Moses, and men worshipped God, but there was no Scripture before Moses, etc.  
Vid. etiam Bailium. Jesuitam in sua catech●si, Ecc. Enchirid T. 2. Trip. Cord. p. 156 before Moses who first wrote, the Church continued 2000 years. Fuit assensus fidei antequam esset Scriptura, Turnb. Tetrag.  
1 Turnbul Jesuita Tetrag. c. 10. Ipsi scriptores canonici prius fuerunt divinitus edocti scribenda, quàm scriberent alioque proinde signo Deum fuisse dictatorem scribendorum.  
The penmen of the Scriptures, were taught by God the things that were to be wrote before they wort them, and therefore by some other sign than the written Word, God did dictate to them what they were to write.  
Jac. Tiri. Ies. Syn. Contr. ex ser. Textum bibliorum hebraicum non paucis in locis depravatum esse, partim injuria temporum, partim inscitià vel oseitantia typogra, horum, etc. suis hinc inde locis ostendi. The Hebrew Text of the Bible's are corrupted and depraved, partly by the injury of times, partly by the ignorance and idleness of printers, etc. vid. etiam Stapleton. Relect. princ. fid. doct. contr. 5. q. 3. act. 1.2. valent. in Thom. Tom. 3. Disp. 1. q. 1.  
Turnbul. Tetrag. c 5. sect. 2. Scriptura immediate spectata, est idonea tantum regula literatis nec usui esse potest illiteratis, etc. The Scripture considered immediately, is only a fit rule to men learned, nor can it be of any use to the illiterate. So Canus in Locis, l. 2. c. 13. Discourse concerning the rule of faith, sect. 7. Scriptures cannot be a rule of faith, accommodate to the capacities of unlearned men who cannot read them.  
Discourse uhi supr. sec. 6. These Translations are not infallible as the rule must be, for neither were the Scriptures written in this Language, neither were the Translators assisted by the same spirit infallibly, as if it were imposble they should err, etc.   

Protest. Writers confuting them both.  
Chamierius Panstr. t. 1. l. 7. c. 7. Rivet. Cath. or. Trac. 1. q. 1.  
Gerrand Exeg. pag. 16. Whitak de Script.  
Baronius Apol. pr. object. formali fidei tr. 4. p. 155.  
Maresitheol. elench. T. 1. p. 24.  
Sol. Glass. T. 1. de pur. Text.  
Chamierius Paustr. T. 1. l. 12. c. 10.  
Baron. Apol. Tr. 1. c. 2. Dr. White way to the Ch. p. 17.  
Dr. Whites way to the Church, p. 13   
I shall conclude with observing, that in this Mr. Goodwin is worse than either Papists, Enthusiasts, or such other Sectaries that oppose the written Word, because though they deny it to be the formal object of faith, or that upon which we are to ground and build our faith in believing the matters of the Scriptures, yet they have held forth some other foundation in stead of the written Word, but never were we beholding to Master Goodwin for such a favour.  
This Bishop of Bangor vainly threatened when he entered upon the handling of this question about the Scriptures, 
Yo. Eld. p. 26.  that he would make his friend William as heretical as himself before they parted at this turning: My Lord, we are now parting at this turning; but all that your young friend hath received at your Lordship's hands is confirmation in the same truth which he entertained before you and he first met, and which so much opposeth your Errors; and he hopes that he shall ever forsake you and these your works.   

CHAP. FOUR  
Showing the weakness and erroneousness of Master goodwin's pretended Answers to what I bring against his Errors about the power of man to good supernatural.  
IN my former Book called Busy Bishop, I charged you with Arminianism in the handling this Doctrine of grace and free will; 
Yo. El p. 43, 44. Sect. 56.  you deny not the charge but acknowledge it true, though not penitentially, but impudently: But what say you in your own defence?  
1. You slight the charge, 
Yo. Eld. p. 43.  as fit to be regarded only by women and children, and not by m●n of worth, parts, etc.  
But is it so small a matter to be accounted, Answ. nay, to be a professed Arminian? 
C●nc. Carth●g sub Aurel. Apud Bin. To. 1. p. 864. Conc. Mileu. 868, 869. Nefarius & ab omnibus anathematizandus error. haeresis nimium periculoso, error pernitiosissimus. Aug. ad Hilar. ep. 94. pestifeta impietas execrabile dogmald. fidei venena Aug. Contr. Julian.  would it never have moved men of worth, parts, etc. Were they men of no worth or parts, etc. that censured the Tenets in Pelagius, which afterward revived in Arminius? have none but women and children held these forth as accursed, abominable, most pernicious heresies, execrable, pestilent impieties, the poison and bane of faith? The many holy and learned men who have been moved against the errors of Arminius, were so far from being children for their deep resentment of this heresy, that they show you a child for slighting the charge of it; Neither women nor children sit in Parliament, and yet the House of Commons in their Remonstrance to the King, June 11. 1628. profess themselves no less perplexed with the growth of Arminianism than of Popery; that being a cunning way to bring in Popery; and the professors of Arminianism they look upon as the common disturbers of Protestant Churches, and Incendiaries of those States wherein they have gotten head, being Protestants in show, 
Vid. Prin. neces. Introd p. 92.  but Jesuits in opinion and practice; It's clear what Master goodwin's esteem was of that Parliament, for being so moved against Arminians; and I doubt not but this present Parliament which hath been so earnest in suppressing Arminians, is yet lower in the opinion of this censor.  
2. In this section you plead that truth is not the worse because bareticks hold it, I myself (you say) hold some things that Devils, Pharisees, Arminians believe. 
Yo. Eld. p. 4●.   
It's confessed, but this comes not up to your case; Answ. If you hold any truth which the Arminians hold, I blame you not; 
L●de nup & Conc. c. 3. libe●wn in human esse arbitrium, utrique dicimus, hinc non estis Celestiani liberum autem quenquam esse ad faciendum bonum, hoc vos dicitis, hinc estis celesti●ni.  It's for the embracing the errors which they maintain that I charge you. It's a speech of Augustine to the Sectaries. That there is free will in man, we say on both sides, hence therefore it is not that you are called Celestians, but that any one hath free will to good, you say, and hence you are called Celestians; you tell me that the devil holds Jesus Christ to be the holy one of God; but this confession makes him not a devil, its common with the Church of Christ; but your tenets are properly Pelagian, Arminian, condemned by the Churches of Christ, whom you leave therefore, particularly this Church of England, of which the learned Davenant saith: No man can embrace Arminianism in the Doctrine of predestination and grace, 
Prin. Comp. Tr. p. 166.  but he must first desert the Articles agreed upon by the Church of England. And in this you close with the Jesuit, building upon that foundation which he laid, and watering that plant which he planted in England and Holland, as a sovereign drug to purge the Protestants from their heresy.  
3. You say, That this practice of mine to defame books, by saying that those who are erroneous hold them, is an old device of Papists, whereby they endeavour to render such truths of God as made not for their interests hateful, you instance in one Prateolus. 
Yo. Eld p. 44.   
A trivial passage that needs not a reply. Papists slander truths, Answ. I discovered errors; where's the harmony? They load truths with imputation of error, I compare error with error. 
Morton, Cath. Apo●par. 1. c. 24 Spr. de haeres. p. 1. l. 2, 3. Riu. Cath. Orth. Tr. 1.  When you shall have cleared yourself and opinion from the imputation of Arminianism, as Morton, Springlius, Rivet, have vindicated the Protestants against Prateolus and his compeers, you may say I used a popish stratagem, but till than you must be under the accusation of heresy, for aught I can do to relieve you.  
I having told the Reader that your charging the Subscribers of the Testimony with Manicheism is as old as Pelagius, 
Yo. Eld. p. 45. sect. 57  and by him cast upon Jerome and Austin; This, you say, is as if one charged for a seducer of the people, should plead thus for himself, The accusation of seducing the people was cast upon Christ by the Pharisees, etc. by whom have any of your judgement in the point of reprobation, been vindicated from the accusation of Manicheism.  
1. Answ. I do indeed tell the Reader, That this charge of Manicheism is as old as Pelagius, that he may observe your compliance with that Heretic, 
Non est minon qròd nevi 〈◊〉, cathel is ● quibus ex●unt, no●um nomen 〈◊〉, Aug. l. 2. op. imp. n 7.  as in your opinions, so in your opprobrious calumnies against the truth; you know who said it.  
Nec lacie lacti, nec ovum ovo similius.  
Betwixt milk and milk the likeness is not greater,  
Nor egg to egg more parallel in feature.  
2. A seducer (such are you) may not plead for himself, by saying the Pharisees did cast the accusation of seducing upon Christ, but an innocent person may bear up his spirit with the recollection to his mind, of the false accusations that have been cast upon the saints in former ages. 
Cernis cum quibu● maledicta rua 〈◊〉, cernis cum quibus mihi sit causo 〈◊〉 is, 〈◊〉 qu int●●i per●●osum sit, tam horrthile ●rimen objicere talibus, & quam mihi gloriosion sit quod libet crimen oudire & talilus. Aug. Contr. Jul. l. 1. c. 4.  So persecuted they the Prophets, saith Christ, Mat. 5: 12. And (is Austin saith) though it be a dangerous thing to reproach such, yet is it a glorious thing to suffer reproaches with such.  
3. You ask by whom any of my judgement in the point of reprobation, have been vindiceted from Manicheism.  
1. How know you my judgement in the point of reprobation. 2. What need any of my judgement in the point of reprobation, any vindication from Manicheism? doth not this further manifest, that you understand not what Manicheism is? Did the Manichees hold any reprobation at all? You lay upon me the imputation of Manicheism; I deny it. 'Tis your part to prove it, who say it; but do it throughly lest you prove yourself not only a simple accuser, but a false accufer. But 3 know that if those whose heresy is your inheritance, have case the imputation of Manicheism upon any of my judgement, they have been sufficiently cleared by Augustine of old, and by Springlius, cited Busy Bishop, page 48. among many Modern Writers who have done the like.  
In this section I find you miserably floundering in the quagmires of error, nonsense, and absurdity; 
Yo. Eld. p. 45. Sect. 58.  and you would feign persuade Master Ball to sink with you, but you cannot; your opinion is this: Men are not wholly destitute of all power to do what God requires of them as simply necessary to salvation, particularly to repent, and believe. Master Balls word are these: No man is hindered from believing through the difficulty or unreasonableness of the command, or through his own simple infirmity, as being willing to believe but not able, which inability deserves pity, but he doth not believe because he will not.  
1. I demanded, 
Yo. Eld p. 46.  what is here that gives you the least countenance in your errors? You answer by ask, Who either said or thought that here was any thing of such import? I reply, Answ. If you did not think so, you dealt very contraconscientiously to say so. Your very words, Zion Coll. visited, pag. 16. are these: The selfsame opinions are countenanced by men of your own party for which you defame others, and immediately you subjoin this allegation out of Master Ball. And Youngling Elder, pag. 46. say you not thus: I cite the words not so much by way of countenance as concurrence. Here's an open confession that you cite the words by way of countenance as well as concurrence, though not by way of countenance so much; but you would feign be looked upon as a Doctor seraphicus, irrefragabilis, resolutus, (the encomiums of three dunces met in one,) your opinions need no man's countenance, nay, you build your faith no more upon the Scripture, than Christ his upon Moses. You call me childling for but ask what is here that gives you countenance. But friend, 
Yo. Eld. p. 31. Yo. Eld p. 46.  though you be haply a Pythagorus to your deluded followers, you need some countenance to bear up your port among others. And its just with God if you who have accustomed yourself so much to falseness should not hereafter be believed by plain hearted Christians, without the Countenance of others, though possibly you speak the truth; It's the portion of the liar.  
2. You proceed, 
Yo. Eld. p. 46.  Master Ball (saith Master Jenkin) saith, That unwillingness to believe hinders a man from believing, but he doth not say, that any man of himself can be willing. But, Master Jenkin, when I tell you that Master Ball speaks of apples, why do you (by way of answer) tell me that he doth not speak of oysters; where did Master Jenkin ever meet with any such assertion of mine? who ever said that any man of himself could be willing to believe?  
I perceive your mind is on your junkets, you had rather be loading the ass than disputing. But (Master Goodwin) if you cited Master Ball by way of concurrence with you, why do you bring him in speaking of apples, when you speak of oysters? if the serious Reader compare your words and Master Balls, should he find them to agree, 'twill be with the agreement of harp and harrow.  
2. 
Yo. E● p. 51  Did never any man say, That a man of himself could be willing to believe? why than you have wronged Pelagius in the 51. page of Taungling Elder, charging him to have held, That the adjutory of grace was not simply necessary for the enabling of the will to do that which is pleasing to God, but by way of accommodation or facilitation of the work, citing sundry places out of Austin to prove that this was his opinion, as indeed at first it was. Why abuse you poor Pelagius if he never said so?  
3. Did I never meet with such an opinion of yours as this, That man of himself can be willing to believe? you either forget or understand not yourself. 
Yo. Eld. p. 45. sect. 58.  Say you not in this very section that your opinion is, That men are not wholly destitute of all power to do what God requires of them, as simply necessary to salvation, particularly to repent and believe? 
Yo. Eld p. 47  Also express you not yourself thus in this section; Natucall men want no power, no not of being willing, or making themselves willing to believe? Say you not, That men cannot be said to act or do, or to be able to act or do, but only what is possible for them to will, or to make themselves willing to do? This is your detestable Doctrine. Reader, are there not two who hold, that man of himself can be able to believe?  
In this section you endeavour with woeful weakness to draw the forecited place of Master Ball to concur with this your opinion. Thus Master Ball saith, No man is hindered from believing through the difficulty or unreasonableness of the command. Hence you infer, Certainly a man hath power to do that, from the d●ing whereof he is not hindered by any difficulty relating to the performance of it. If the command of God, wherein he commands men to believe, hath no such difficulty in it whereby they are hindered from obeying it● have not men power to obey it, and consequently to believe?  
What dotard besides J. G. would have made such an inference; Answ. Master Ball removes difficulty and unreasonableness from the Command, Master Goodwin simply all difficulty relating to the performance; Master Ball saith, No man is hindered from believing through the difficulty of the Command; Therefore saith Master Goodwin, men have power to obey it. But friend, be merciful to the sepulchre of a Saint now in heaven. How little did this blessed man think when he was on earth, that ever Popery and Arminianism should have found a prop in his writings after his disease; Popery I say, for might you not as well have argued from Master Balls words, that men want no power to keep the whole Law? for, is it from the difficulty or unreasonableness of the Law that men perform not the Law, or from the weakness and corruption of their nature? pray, pass not sentence upon Mr. Bell before you hear what he can say for himself, p. 245. Cout. of Gr. he saith, Impossible in itself, or in respect of the unreasonableness of the thing commanded is not the object of God's Commandment, but an impossible thing to us may be and is the object of God's Commandment; should I request Mr. Goodwin to construe a chapter in the Hebrew Bible, he would not be hindered from doing it by any difficulty in the thing which I request of him, but if he understands not the Hebrew Tongue, he would be hindered through his own unskilfulness; if there be no impossibility on the part of the command, yet if there be an impossibility on the part of the commanded, there will be a falling short of performance.  
4 You add besides, when Mr. Ball saith, A man doth not believe because he will not, he doth not resolve his unbelief into any deficiency of power in him to will, or to make himself willing (as Mr. Jenkin would imply) but into his will itself, into the actual and present frowardness; and indisposition of his will; therefore what? why therefore (according to the Gloss of Master Goodwin) Mr. Ball asserts, a man hath power to believe.  
Answ. If impudence in an old man be a virtue, you are virtuous; you shamefully abuse Mr. Ball, for he resolves not man's unbelief into a present and actual wilfulness, or frowardness of his will, as if the will had a strength and power to believe, but being in a fit of peevishness, would not put forth that power, or make use of that strength though it could do so if it pleased; but he resolves man's unbelief into a frowardness, not, actual and present, but habitual and rooted, awed settled, such a frowardness and oppositenesse to the things of God, as that he cannot but be froward and opposite till the Lord makes him to consent; habitual forwardness in man's will being the root of the wills impotency, and that this holy man resolves unbelief into this habitual frowardness, is clear from the scope of this place, which is to prove, that God is just in requiring faith, though he gives not sufficient grace to men to believe if they will, and from the constant consent of other passages in this and his other books. 
Tract of faith, pag. 11.  Hear what he saith concerning the production of faith; God (saith he) doth infuse or pour the habit of faith into man, whereby he giveth to will to come to Christ; this is requisite to faith, for as a dead man can do no act of life until a living soul be breathed into him, etc. no more can man dead in trespasses and sins move himself to receive the promises of grace, until the free and gracious habit of faith be infused. We cannot will to believe unless God give that will; the power to believe, and will to use that power is of God. It is God only and altogether that enableth, stirreth up, and inclineth the heart to believe. 
pag. 12.  If God have not left you to a most obstinate obduration of heart, you will in your next acknowledge how you have abused Mr. Ball, in your saying that he doth resolve man's unbelief only into present, actual frowardness, or a fit of peevishness.  
You give us a fifty ninth Section thus: just such work as he makes in interpreting Mr. Balls words, to manifest their non-concurrence with me, he makes also in a like attempt upon the passages cited by me from Mr. Bucer, 
Yo. Eld. p. 45. Sect. 59  the fathers, Austin, Hierome.  
In this Section you plainly yield me, Answ. Bucer, Austin, and Hierome, acknowledging, that I have proved their non-concurrence with you, as I have proved the non-concurrence of Mr. Ball with you; if you desire the Reader should believe that Bucer and the Fathers are still on your side, notwithstanding all that I have said to the contrary, why give you not so much as one word by way of taking off my exceptions, to your allegations out of them, which exceptions were largely set down in my Busy Bishop, p. 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46; 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53, 54, etc. but all that I say in all these pages in proving the impertinency of your quotations out of the forecited Authors, you blow away with this learned answer; just such work as he makes in manifesting the non-concurrence of Mr. Ball with me, he makes also in a like attempt upon the passages cited by me from Mr. Bucer and the Fathers; most strenuously and disputant-like illustrating, if not endeavouring to prove this your answer from the example of Josuah, (quoted in chapter and verse in your margin) who as he had done to Hebron and Libnah, and to her King, so he did to Debir and her King; and I promise you a good proof too, as proofs go now a days in the alley.  
But what is become of your friend Testard, your chief witness, whom also you alleged as concurring with you, whose Doctrine you (impudently) said, was asserted for orthodox by a province of Ministers in France, and was the received Doctrine of the reformed Churches in France. It had been ingenuity in this Reply to have asked pardon of that Province, which in your last you so unworthily slandered?  
In your sixtieth Section I read thus. 
Yon. Eld. Sect. 60.  Whereas he quotes several sentences out of Mr. Ball, Bucer, Austin, etc. of a contrary import (as he after his weak manner imagines) to that opinion which I affirm to be asserted by them in the passages cited by me, I would gladly know of him what is the distinct sound that this trumpet makes; my intent and drift in citing these Authors was not to prove, or so much as to insinuate, that they no where else in their writings delivered themselves with any sceming contrariety to the places cited by me.  
1. Whether it be more weakness in me to quote places out of them, and also to prove the repugnancy of those places to the errors which you hold forth, or in you not to answer the quotations, let my very enemies judge; if I cited those passages pertinently, why tax you me with weakness? if weakly, they had been the sooner answered.  
2. Whereas you ask why I cited them, I answer; the tondency of my counter-quotations was, to vindicate those godly, and orthodox Authors from your aspersions, to manifest how much you abused the truth and them, by holding them forth as favourers of your heresies, and how fare they were from affording you succour in your sin; and to let the Reader see what little credit is to be given to you when you cite Authors, and this was the intention both operis and operantis.  
3. Your intent (you say) in citing these Authors was not to insinuate, that they no where else delivered themselves in contrariety to the placece cited by me, etc. But it's evident that you laid these few passages taken out of Bucer and the Fathers upon the stall, in open view, to make every Reader think that the Books of those eminent writers were shops that contained such commodities within. Was it not your desire to have the Reader believe, that the constant ●enor and strain of the writings of the cited Authors maintained your errors? else what is the meaning of that passage of yours, Zion College visited p. 17. where you having abused Mr. Ball in citing a passage out of him; you tell the Reader, This passage fell not from the Author's pen at unawares, but the contents of it were his settled and well resolved judgement; to which end you produce another passage out of the same Author, which also you pretend to speak for you.  
I pass over your 61. and 62. Sections, wherein you pretend to nothing but chaff and scoffs, my drift being to follow you only where you would be thought to write about the controversy.  
To, the next therefore I having told you, 
Yo. Eld. p. 50. Sect. 6●.  Busy Bish. p. 48. that the great question between Jerome, Austin, and Pelagius, was not whether the will did stand in need of an adjutory of grace for the performance of good, but what kind of adjutory it was; whether or no an adjutory by way of working of good in the will, and that invincibly and indeclinably, etc.  
1. You tell the Reader that I said, that this was the question, but why pilfer you from my words? why clip you— why leave you out the word great? I said it was the great question, had you put in that, you had found nothing to reply in this place; the state of the question changed four times between Augustine and Pelagius, as you may see collected by Aluar. de auxil. Lib. 1. c. 2. by Jansenius in his Augustinus, To. 1. l. 5. by Latins, and Vossius in Hisioria Pelagianâ.  
1. At the first pelagius denied omne anxilium supernaturale, all supernatural assistance, and affirmed, that the natural power of man's free will was sullicient to keep all the Commandments, and to obtain salvation.  
2. He did acknowledge an adjutory of grace, but placed it in the outward Doctrine of the Law, and in the example of Christ, but denied this to be simply necessary, but only for the facilitation of the act.  
3. He confessed an adjutory by inward grace, viz. the inward illumination of the understanding, and the excitation of the stupid will, but always denied that grace, by which God works in us to will infallibly.  
4. His scholar Celestius did confess that inward grace was simply necessary, not to begin, but to perfect that which was good.  
Now my asserting that the great question between the Fathers and Pelagius was, what kind of adjutory it was of which the will did stand in need, is so fare from denying that there was any other question, that it clearly implies there were other.  
2. You endeavour in this Section to evince, that this which I have mentioned was not the state of the question, 
Yo. Eld. p. 50.  for (say you) that which caused the distance between Austin and Pelagius was, that Pelagius denied the necessity of the adjutory of grace for the performance of the Law, and this you pretend to prove from Augustine's words: dicat Pelagiut per gratiam nos posse praestare legem Dei & pax est. Let Pelagius say that by grace we may perform the Law of God, and it is Peace.  
But 1. Why have you so learnedly passed by all the places quoted out of Austin in Bu. Bish. to prove, i.e. that Pelagius did acknowledge the necessity of the help of God to the doing of good; 
Ba. Bish. p. 49 Liberum sic confuemur arbitrium ut dicamus nos semper indigere dei auxilio, Au. con. Pel. l. 1. c. 31. Ita homenis laudamus naturam ut dei semper gratiam addamus auxalium. Anathema qui docet gratiam dei per singulos actus nostros non esse necessariam. Ibid. Diligenter interrogandus est Pelagius quam dicat gratiam quâ fateatur hon●nes adj●vari, querimus quo auxilio, etc. Corur. Pel. & Cal l. 1. c. 31. fateantur imernâ in effabili potestate operari in cordibus hominum, non solum veras revelationes, sed bonas voluntates, l. 1. c. 24. de gra. Deus facit ut velimus praebendo vires efficacissivas voluntati, de●g. & l. c. 16●  as where he saith, we so praise nature, as that we always add the help of the grace of God; and where he pronounceth anathema against every one that thinketh the grace of God is not necessary every hour to every act. 2. Why have you passed by all the places brought to prove that Austin was not satisfied with this Concession of Pelagius, but saith, that Pelagius is to be asked what grace he meaneth? & Lib. 1. c. 24. de grâ. Christi. Fateantur, etc. Let them confess that there are wrought by a wonderful, internal, and ineffable power, good wills in the heart as well as true discoveries; & Aug. degr. et. l. a l. 16. Deus facit ut velimus, faciamus etc. God makes us will and do by affording most efficacious strength to the will. Haecgratia à nullo, etc. this grace is rejected by no hard heart. And de cor. et. gra. C. 12. Infirm is servavit, etc. Hereserved for those that were weak, that they should by his gift will what is good, most invincibly, etc. And whereas you say that the words of Austin are expre●y contrary to this my information, he saying, Dicat Pelagius etc. Let Pelagius say that by grace we may perfurme the law of God, and we are friends; you show yourself a va●ne man thus to boast of a sentence you misunderstand; Aug. ('tis true) desired only that Pelagius would acknowledge that a man did stand in need of the grace of God. But what grace meaneth he? a grace morally suasory, a grace only exciting, that leaves the will to its own indifferency to be saved if it will, that woos only, and doth not work, in a word, Bishop goodwin's Grace; Impudent soul once to imagine it, and thus to fly-blow the Fathers! But to evince that Austin did not only require from Pelagius the acknowledgement of the necessity of grace as an adjutory, but as this kind of adjutory which I contend for, I add to the former, these allegations out of Augustin. de Grâ, Christi c. 10. He thus tells you what grace it is that he would have Pelagius acknowledge, 
Nos istam gratiam nolumus, istam cliquando gratiam fateatur, qua futurae gloriae magnitudo n●n solum promittitur v●rum etiam creditur & speratur, nec solum revelatur sapientia, sed & amatur nec suadetur solum om●e quod bonum est, sed & persuadetur. Hanc debet Pelagius gratiam confiteri, si vali non solum vacari, verum etiam esse Christianus. Hug de sacr. l. 1. p. 6. c. 17. Aug. de bo. pers. c. 23. Deus sic in potestate s●a habet cor nostrum ut bo ●n quod non tenemus nisi proprid voluntate, non tamen teneamus nisi ●pse in nobis operetur & velle. Aug. de praed. sa. l. 1. c. 20. ●on Deus vult id fieri, quod non nisi volentibus hominibu, 〈◊〉 et fieri, inolinat corum corda ut hoc velint. Eo scil. inclina●te qui in nobis mi● abili & in effabil● modo operatur & velle.  before ever he would be friends with him, Pelagius only acknowledging the grace that enlightened the understanding, and excited the stupid will (my Lords grace) Augustin excellently saith as follows. Nos istam gratiam nolumus, istam aliquando gratiam fateatur, etc. We will not have such a grace as he brings. Let Pelagius acknowledge that grace, whereby the greatness of future glory is not only promised, but believed, and wisdom not only revealed but beloved, & we not only entreated but prevailed with to accept of good, this grace must Pelagius ackdowledge, if he will not only be called but be a Christian. It was a grace that works the goodness of the will in us, which gives to the soul a kind of spiritual and divine being, a grace that first, bonam voluntatem operatur, and then per eam operatur, first works a good will, and then by a good will. Augustin saith, God so hath our hearts in his power, that the good which we lay hold upon with our will, we lay not hold upon, unless God work the will. And elsewhere, Cum Deus vult id fieri etc. When God will have that to be done, which is not to be done but by men that are willing to doc it, he inclines their hearts that they may he willing, namely, he inclinet men, who works in us after a wonderful and ineffable manner to will— And de bon. pers. cap. 
Tantum spiritu Sancto accenditur voluntas eorum, ut ideo possint quia volunt, ideo sie velint, quia Deus operatur ut velint. Aug. de Cor. & Gr. c. 12. Parum est permanere in bono si velit, nisi etiam efficiatur ut velit. Aug de cor. & gr. c. 11. Est in nobis per hanc dei gratiam, in bono recipiendo & perseverar●er tenendo, non solum posse quod volumus, verum etiam velle quod possumus. Id. Ib.  13. nos volumus, sed Deus in nobis operatur & velle, nos operamur sed Deus in nobis operatur & operari. We will, but God worketh in us to will; we work, but its God worketh in us to work: It would requite a volume to cite all the passages that might be collected out of Austin to this purpose; namely, to show that the grace which he only admits of is efficaciously operative, and determining.  
3. 
Yo. Eld p. 50.  In this Section as if you had bid farewell to all wholesome reading and to ingenuity, you shamefully abuse the holy man Austin thus: If the question (say you) was, whether God doth not invincibly and indeclinably draw or work upon the will, than the question could not be between Augustine and Pelagius what kind of adjntory the will did stand in need of, but whether it stood in need of an adjutory or a compulsory; that you may have a pretence for this conclusion, you give your own interpretation of working invincibly and indeclinably upon the will, that is (say you) the will must of necessity follow the working of God, will it, ●ill it, 
Yo. Eld. p. 51  be it never so obstinate, or resolved to the contrary; so that God should come in with an unresistible force upon one, and ravish the will, and force it to consent contrary to the present bent and posture of it, now this (say you) is not adjuvare to help, but cogere to compel. If some stout Porter should boys Mr. Jenkin upon his shoulder against his will, this Porter were not an adjutory.  
Answ. But friend, who ever thus interpreted this invincibly efficacious working of God upon the will before your Masters the Arminians, and the Jesuits theirs; the Orthodox know the invincibility, certainty, and indeclinablenesse of the work of grace upon the will no whit promotes your heretical inference, that then the will may be wrought upon whether it will or no, and so compelled; you saw in Busy Bishop the contrary maintained, to which you here answer nothing. When God by his efficacious grace works in the will, to will, this efficacious grace, puts into the will a non-resistencie, or taketh away actual resistencie, there being an impossibility that these two should co-exist and meet together in the will, to be wrought upon with efficacious grace, and to resist this being as impossible as for the will in the same moment to resist and not resist, to will not to resist and to will to resist. 
Aug de Cor. & ora. cap. 14. Hwna ● voluntates non ● ofsunt resistere q●o micus fac●at D●us quod vult, quand q●●dem ●ttam de ipsis hominan voluntatibus quod vault, cum valt fac●t. Piuna gratia d●ta primo Ad●n est qua sit ut habtat homo justitiam si velit, sed gratia potentior est in secun lo Adam qua sit ut velit, tanteque 〈◊〉 diligat, ut carnis voluntatem contraria concupist●n●em voluntate spiritus vincat. Aug. de Cor. & 〈◊〉 12 Infi●ms 〈◊〉 ut ipso donante ●n victiss●ne quod be●m est, vellent. Id. ib. Inspirata gratiae suavitate per spirium sanct●m, f●ciente plus delectare quod precip●t, quam delectat quod impedit. 〈◊〉 c. 34. Ea quae pert●nent ad justiti●m, sic delectant animun ut quiqaid aliud dolor impedit, delectatio superat.  Hence is that conclusion of Augustine; Humane vo●untates 〈…〉, etc. men's wills cannot resist Gods d●ing what he will, since God 〈◊〉 with the very wills of men as he will, and when he will; It's a 〈…〉 imputation cast upon the grace of God, that from the infallibility of its working upon the will you should conclude a possibility of its compelling the will, or 〈…〉; will nothing prevail with you to acquit grace from compelling the will, unless putting all the operations of grace that need be put into the balance, a 〈◊〉 free will musi turn the 〈…〉 whether a man shall be comberted 〈◊〉? If these be the institutes of the alley, certainly it's as corrit●t as its close, and as narrow in grace as space. No friend, when you suppose that essi●tious grace works upon the will whether it will, or 〈◊〉, p. 50. you speak contradictions, for that which grace works is this, to will; and the will is not against the working when under the working of efficaciens grace. It's a happy expression of Augustine's, Inspiratâ gratiae suavitate, etc. The sweetness of grace inspired by the Holy Ghost, makes the soul more to be delighted with what is commanded than with what would hinder it, etc. 34. Ea quae pertinent ad justitiam, etc. Those things that belong to righteousness so delight the soul, that grief doth not so much hinder, as delight prevaileth, & de pec. mer. & rem. l. 2. c. 19 he calls it (sweetly) Victricem delectationem, a conquering and victorious delight that God puts into the soul when he converts it; the will is wrought upon so sweetly that it yields itself to God with the greatest willingness, and yet so powerfully, that it yields to him with unfayling certainty.  
4. Whereas Austin said, that there is a twofold adjutory to good, the one, without which a good work it not done, the either by and through which a thing is done; and I having said that the Pelagians in granting the former never satisfied Austin, deaying (as I fear you do) the latter; hereupon in this Section you say, that I am an unhappy man, that neither fears nor faiths but without ground; you (say you) freely acknowledge such an adjutory of grace, not only without which a good work in not done, but by which every good work is done.  
A good confession, such an one the Arminians make, Declare Sent. c. 17. such an one Pelagius, Aug. de Gra. Christi. c. 3. so that Austin himself professeth, Mihi paenè persuaserat, have illam gratiam de quâ quaestio est confiteri, Ib. c. 37. Pelagius had almost persuaded me that he granted that grace for which I contended, but as he suffered not Austin, so neither do you the Reader long to retain any hopes of you, for you instantly cast in your Coloquintida, (a mite you call it,) which you bequeath to my understanding (a bountiful man to give away all you have at once) and it is this; 
Yo. Eld. p. 52.  such an adjutory of grace (say you) by and through which a thing is done, doth not imply an absolute necessity of effecting that which is effected by it.  
But why do you involve yourself in dark terms? why make you the stream by your pawing so muddy? Come, come; off with your Wizard, speak aloud man, and tell the world; 
Col. Mag. Act. 4. Quoad modum illius co-operatianis illa non est irresistibilis. Coruin. Cout. Bogerman, p. 263. Positis ommibus operationibus quibus ad gratiam in nobis efficiendam Dens utitur, manet tomen ipsa conversio, ita in nostrâ petestate, ut poffimus non converti. Id. p. 274. Istis omnibus operationibus non obstantibus, fieri posse statuimus, ut voluntas non consentiat.  I say with my Masters, The adjutory of grace doth not infallibly produce that effect which is produced by it; putting all the operations of grace that God useth to the working of grace in us, yet conversion is so in our power as that we may not be cenverted; and no twithstanding all these operations, the will may not consent. Wherein you fight against the Scriptures, which tell us, that the boly Ghost works in them that believe according to his mighty power, and that his power towards believers is exceeding great; and that he works even this in us to will, and  
This your error attributes more to man's will than to God in conversion, man being converted not because God makes him so, but because he will be so; God only persuading, but man of himself consenting; God only giving a posse velle, a p●ss●●muerti, a power to be converted if one will, but man determining himself to will or not to will as he pleaseth; by which opinion that which is the greater, and which specifies the event, man performs of himself, to wit, actually to believe, convert, and will, and by all the power of God's grace the will is advanced but to a middle kind of state, a posture of indifferency, or an indifferent profension to either hand, and God works only by way of contingency & sub h●c conditione, on this condition, that the will by its natural power will move itself. 
Aug. de pee. mer. & rem. l. 2. c. 18 Si nob●s libera voluntas ex Deo est, quae adhuc potest esse vel bona, vel mala, bo●a verò voluntas ex nobas sit, nelius est ●d quod a nobis quàm quod ob allo, quod non nisi abjurdssimè dic● possit. Aliud est adjutorium sine quo aliquid non fit, & aliud quo aliquid fit, nam sine al●mentis non possumus vivere, nec tamen cum affuerint alimenta, eye fit ut vivat qai mori voluerit, ergo adjuto●iam alimentorum est sine quo non fit, non quo fit ut vivamus, ut vero beatitudo quam non habet homo, cum dara fuerit, continu● 〈…〉 be adjutorium est non solum sine quo non fit, verum etiam quo fit propter quod d●tu● quia & sida●a suerit b●mini beatitudo, couti●uo fit beatus, & si data non fuerit, nunquam erit; ●l●menta vero non consequenter faciunt ut homo vivat.  Thus Augustine expresseth himself against Pelagius, De pec. mer. & rem. l. 2. c. 18. Si nobis libera quaedam voluntas ex Deo est, etc. If we have a free will from God which yet either can be good or evil, and the good will be of ourselves, what we have from ourselves is better than what we have from God, which is most absurd; so that evident it is, that in saying you acknowledge with Austin such an adjutory of grace by which every good work is done, you both delude yourself and your followers; for he by this adjutory expresseth himself to mean, not such an one by which a man is left to himself, to suffer conversion to be wrought or not to be wrought, but such an adjutory by which it is infallibly wrought Vid. Aug. de cor. & gramc 12. Aliud est adjutorium sine quo aliquid n●n fit, aliud est ad u●orium, quo aliquid fit; nam sine alimentis, etc. There's an adjutory (saith he) without which a thing is not done, and an add utory by which a thing is done; we cannot live without food, and yet neither doth he live by food who will die though he hath it; so that food is an adjutory without which we cannot live, not by which it is that we d●e live; but when blessedness is bestowed upon a man, he is forthwith made blessed: this is an adjutory not only without which a thing is not done, but by which that is done for which it is given, because if blessedness be given to a man he forthwith becomes blessed; and if it be not given he shall never be blessed; but it follows not that a man shall live by having food, only without food he cannot live. If your adjutory be the same with Austin's tell me; I charged you from your accusing of the Ministers with Manicheism that you understood not what it was.  
1. In the next Section you give me an account therefore of your profound knowledge what Manicheism is, 
Yo. Eld. p. 53.  and having cited a sentence out of Augustine, Serm. deaemp. 191. They err who with Manicheus affirm that a man cannot avoid snne, etc.— from this passage you say it clearly appears, that one notorious strain of the Manichean error was this; that men by the eternal, unchangeable, irresistible decree of God, are put into, or left in such a condition, wherein it is impossible but that they should sinne.  
Answ. Who is the illiterate soul now? had you required from me an account of Manicheism out of the Fathers, and had I given you such an ignorant answer as this, I had deserved to have changed my Seraglio for the Warehouse? From whom have it you, that the Manichees held that man was put into, or left in such a condition of sin by any decree of God? Is this your knowledge of Manicheism? had you held your peace haply you would have been accounted wise in this point; but now Scholars are ashamed of you. Did the Manichees hold that a man could not avoid sin, from the unchangeableness of God's decree? Jerom would have informed you better; 
Higher add Ctes.  Manichaeorum est hominum damnare naturam, & liberum auferre arbitrium. It is Manicheism to condemn the nature of man, and to despoil it of freo will; and Augustine haer. 46 Peccatorum Originem non libero arbitrio voluntatis, sed substantiae tribuunt gentis adversae. The Manichees asserted impossibility to avoid sinfrom the very being of nature in itself, which could not but be bad; and their Principles were: 1. Peecatum esse substantiam, & 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 per se viventem & subsistentem, non autem tantum, qualitatem quandam, affectionemque vel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mentis a ratione aversae, quae substantiae superuenerit; that sin was a substance, living, and subsisting of itself, and not only a quality, or an affection of the mind averse from reason, which did supervene.  
2. They held voluntatem malè agendi nobis à naturâ infitam esse, non ex rebellione nosirâ accensitam, vel inobedientia natam, 
Dan. de haer c. 46.  That the will of doing evil was from the very nature, not fetched from rebeltion und disubedience; 
Aug. l. 4 c. 3. Contra duas ep. Pel. Asserunt malam esse naturam, quae●im mutari nullo modo potest. A me nunquam audies malam esse naturam.  for Austin chargeth them to hold, that Malum was ex 〈◊〉 nesoio quâ fomper m●la, that sin was from a kind of nature always evil; And Jerome saith they held, That nature itself was evil, and could by no means be changed; he saying in that place, That no man ever heard him say so. Evident it is that the Manichees asserted such a necessity of sin, as that it was repugnant to the very being of nature not to sin; and blush you not to cast such a fenceless imputation upon the Ministers of Christ? Did they whom you accuse of Manicheism ever say or think that sin was from any nature unchangeably evil? or that we sin by a necessity of nature? or in regard of the unchangeable decree of God, that nothing can come to pass contingently, so as that it would have been against the nature of the creature to have acted otherwise? bringeth not learned 
* Resp. Apol, p. 23.  Piscator the instance of breaking the legs of Christ? saith he not that though it were determined by the decree of God, that his legs should not be broken, 
Quae necessitas illius impediat voluntatem, quae ●anta vis odio digna imperet (acere, ut non quod vult sed quod non vult, & odit, facere compellatur? Respondebit tu quis 〈◊〉 etc.  yet by the nature and will of the Soldiers such a thing might have been? And the last mentioned Father thus meets with your argument from the unchangeableness of God's Decrees. Ask the Apostle (saith he) quae necessitas, etc. what necessity hinders the will? what force commands it to do things worthy of battered, that it should be compelled to do not what it would, but what it would not and bats to do? Will not (saith Jerome) the Apostle answer, O man who art thou that disputest against God? shall the thing form say to him that formod it, Why hast thou made me thus? Object to God a stronger calumny, for 'tis said, Esau and Jacob being yet in the womb, he hated the one and loved the other; and Austin, to whom the Pelagians objected that he brought in Manicheism by the Doctrine of the necessity of the spirit (the making of which objection is pure Goodwinism) in several places saith, 
Vid. vos. hist. Pel. l. 3. p. 2.  that the Catholici go in a middle way between Manicheism and Pelagianism. Contr. du. ep. Pel. l. 4. c. 3. A Catholic so asserts free will, that he saith the sin of Angels and men came not from I cannot tell what nature always evil, which is none, but from the will itself, and this overthrows the heresy of the Manichees, nor therefore that the captive will can attain to a saving liberty but by the grace of God, and this over throws the heresy of the Pelagians. And Contr. du. ep. Pel. l. 2. c. 5. 
Sic asserit Catholicus liberum arbitrium, ut non ex natura nescio quâ quae nulla est sed ex ipso arbitrio Coepisse dicat & angeli & hominis malum, quod eve●it baeresinmanichaeam nec ide● posse captivam voluntatem, nisi dei gratia, respirare in salubrem libertatem quod evertit haeresin Pelagianam. Peccar● Adae arbitririum liberum de hominum na●ura periisse non dictmus, sed in hornivibus subditis diabolo, ad bene, pieque vivendum non ●lere, nisi, ipsa voluntas hominis fu●rit liberata. Morton Apol. p. 1. c. 30. Alsted. Tuppl. de Not. Ecc. Manichaei, naturam hominis tollebant, i. e. libertatem naturae, nos homini nondum regenito deroganus libertatem gratiae.  Pecc●te Adae, etc. We say not (saith he) that by the sin of Adam free will is perished, but that in men that are slaves to Satan it hath no strength to holy living, unless the will of men be delivered. To conclude, The Manichees took away the very nature of man i.e. the liberty of nature, we deny to a man not regenerate only liberty in respect of grace. In your former pamphlet you said that you were about to preach against Manioheism; I suppose that the treasury of your understanding is not so full as yet, but that it will hold one mite more, take this therefore; but if you consult with Aug. de civ. d. l. 5. c. 10, 11. and Zanc. de oper. dei l. 4. c. 4. q. 4. youmay receive of their bounty, if at least they give you not more than your treasury can hold.  
2. 
Yo. Eid. p. 54.  In this your section you liberally charge 
* Triglandius and Piscator.  two famous Divines of the reformed Churches with Manicheism, but childishly prove no more the charge against them, than you proved out of your Grammar rules, by which you answered Master Edward's his Antapologia, that there was no kiss of love or anointing with oil you know where— Your only argument whereby you endeavour to prove their opinions guilty of that imputation, being this: If such tenets as these be not pure Manicheism, I know not what Manicheism is. (Who ever said that you did know?) This is somewhat like your learned confutation of the dispectation at Christ-Church concerning tithes, where you having weakly and pitifully yielded the question, you vindicated yourself shortly after, in your preface to your Hag. with this burly but beggarly dictate, I (infallible John) profess unfeignedly, the two arguments brought for the payment of tithes were no more able to carry the cause, than two lambs to draw a wagg●n; such stout confutations as these are current coin no where but in the Alloy.  
You tell the Reader that some passages in these two learned men (whose umbra meridiana you (as yet) are not in understanding of polemical Divinity) savour of Manicheisin; but you prove it not, nay you do not so much as pretend to go about to prove it; I deny it with the same facility that you asserted it. Asserenti incumbit probatio; only I desire the Reader to take notice, that Manicheism cannot be imputed to the former, to Tri glandius, for what he here saith, but it must be charged upon the Apostles, Act. 4.28. and for Piscator, he is cleared by the acknowledgement of Vorstius himself, John, goodwin's friend and Piscator's erroneous though fare more learned adversary.  
You go on; 
Sect. 65. Yo. Eld. p. 54.  you say that I understand not the will of God in the Scriptures, etc. because from Act. 26. 18. where Paul saith, that he was sent to the Gentiles to open their eyes, etc. I proved that Conversion is the restoring of sight, not of light only; the opening of the eyes, not the bringing of light to them who have eyes already; upon which passage of mine you comment thus:  
1 You say, I am ridiculous in making an opposition between opening of men's eyes, and bringing light to them who have eyes already, as if men who had eyes to be opened had not (yet) eyes already.  
Answ. Most fulsome! In Scripture Phrase to open the eyes is to give sight, and not light only. In Job. 9.10.11.21.26.30. the blind man is said to have had his eyes opened, what's that if not that he had sight bestowed upon him? not (according to Mr. Goodwin) that he had light only brought to him having good eyes already. His eyes are said to be opened, though he were borne blind.  
2 Thus you proceed; The Scripture by the opening of the eyes of men in conversion, mean only such an opening as is proper for the light to effect, for as darkness shuts men's eyes, and the light of the morning opens men's eyes. So here,  
Answ. If this be so, what is the work of grace upon the understanding? The light irradiats or clears the medium, but gives no strength to the organ; so (say you) 'tis in conversion, a natural man hath good eyes already, let the object be but clearly proposed, and he can see it; is not this pure Pelagianism, to place grace in the giving of the Word? But know according to Scripture, a natural man wants sight as well as light, Deut. 29.4 the Lord hath not given you a heart toperceive, nor eyes to see; open mine eyes (saith David) Ps. 119. and Es. 42.7. Christ is said to open the blind eyes, Pro. 20.12. The hearing ear, and seeing eye are made by God. And 1 Jo. 5.20. He hath given us an understanding to know him. And the Apostle tells us, not that we were in the dark, but that we were darkness, Eph. 5.8. you told us, Zion Col. visit, p. that you have always asserted the necessity of grace by way of adjutory; now I understand what grace you mean, none that confers any power upon the faculty by which it is enabled to act, but only restores it to a capacity of present acting. But you desire to prove your error; 1. by Scripture, Matth. 4.16. 2 Cor. 4.4, etc.  
But why ground you not an argument from any or all of these Scriptures, that by giving of spiritual Isight is only meant the giving of light, as the Sun or the Morning may be said to open men's eyes? Nay, why do you not so much as recite the words of the text, but only set down the figures of Chapters and Verses. There's not one of them that make for your purpose, and some that make directly against you, Mat. 4.16. The people that sat in darkness saw great light; Ergo quid? therefore in conversion, because God gives the light by which he doth not also give the sight with which we spiritually see. Doth his giving the one to this people prove that he did not also give the other to those among them, that were savingly enlightened; blind Bartimeus sees the light when Christ recovers him from his blindness, therefore his recovery was only effected by the coming of the light, and not by the work of Christ in bestowing a power of seeing upon his eyee; so here the people saw great light, that is (according to G. the glosmaker) they saw only by having the light of the Gospel; for that place out of the 2 Cor. 4.4 The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ should shine unto them; it makes directly against him: 1. The natural man of whom the Apostle speaks is here said to be blinded, 
Yo. Eld. p. 54.  which Mr. Goodwin denies; for he only grants that a natural man is as a man in the darkness of the night, not blind, but his eyes are good. 2. It's said, lest the light of the Gospel should shine unto them; evidently importing that their blindness hindered the light from shining unto them, & that though these natural men had the light of the Gospel shining among them, yet they were blind for all that, 
Id. Ib.  when as Mr. G. tells us, it's proper for the light to effect the opening of the eyes of men in conversion; but here was light without sight: This quotation sure (if it be not false printed) he laid before him, not to confirm, but to confute his errou●.  
But you labour by argument to maintain your error thus; 
Yo. Eld. p. 55.  If men should have the eyes of their minds opened in any other sense, then that wherein the light nay be said to open them, God must be said to work as many miracles as conversions; and how then can that great Pillar of Presbytery, that Miracles are ceased, stand.  
Answ. I desire to know why you call the cessasion of Miracles a pillar of Plesbitery; 1. If cessation of Miracles be a pillar of Presbytery, I pray take heed lest in opposition to a Pillar of Presbytery, you cry up Miracles as you cry down the Word; some of you (I hear) begin. Your engagement against querisne or seeking, mentioned in Zion College visited, I plainly see will come to nothing. 
Nos non asserimus Dei brachium sic hodie esse abbreviatum, ut miracula mulla concedat, praesersertim iis qui Evangelium sincerè conantur inter Ethnicos praedicare, sednegamus ista inter Christianos, de ar●iculis nonnullis dissentientes, ad mittenda esse ut veritatis gnorisi●●, aut criteria, Prid. 10. pag. 99 quae invisibilia & occulta sunt, miracula non sunt. Pol. synt. Lib. 6. Cap. 58.  Rather than Presbytery shall not sink, you will seek. 2. What do Presbiterians as such, build upon the cessation of Miracles. 3. It seems by your arguing, that you know not what a Miracle is; Polanus (I remember) Lib. 6. c. 58 makes this the first condition of a Miracle, that it be visible and external, and he proves it by many Scriptures: Miracula necesse est sensui exposita esse, qui● debent convincere infideles, etc. Miracles ought to be external for conviction of unbelievers, or confirmation of believers. You cannot say this of the opening of the eyes of men's minds in conversion, taken either in your sense or mine, vid. Greg. val●m. To. 1. Disp. 8. c. 3. p. 3. It's in courtesy that I return not upon you those undervalewing expressions os illiterate silly-braine, etc. I can easily grant the work you speak of, to be a greater and more admirable work than many Miracles, and yet not a Miracle properly so called.  
3. In this Section you weakly cavil against my quotation, Eph. 2. Dead in trespasses and sins; you say the Apostle only meaneth that they were guilty of death, and liable to condemnation.  
1 Before you had so peremptorily pronounced your gloes upon this place (which if you know any thing you know is cited by all writers of Controvetsies agninst Papists and Arminians, as by me) you should have furnished yourself with stronger arguments.  
1 You say this their death in sins and trespasses is explained by their being children of wrath, ver. 3.— but is this to understand the Scripture? had i● been as easy for you to have proved as to have said i, we should have had an argument instead of a dictate, but you only give the latter, etc. The scope of the Apostle is to illustrate the benefits we receive by Christ, this he doth by the calling to mind our former misery out of Christ, this misery was 1. our spiritual b●ndage to sin, and 2. for sin to wrath. The former contained in the 1. verse. Dead in trespasses and sins, every natural man being totally void of spiritual life, and so under the power of sin that he can do nothing holily. The latter contained in the 3. vers. children of wrath; in which 3. vers. the Apostle expresseth that practical unholiness (held forth in the 2. vers. as the fruit of their death in fins) by showing 1. who they were that had lived in it, Jews as well as Gentiles, also we all, etc. 2. By showing wherein it consisted, they had conversations in lusts of the flesh, fulsilling, etc. 3. by showing what they deserved, or the punishment to which they were liable when they lived so, they were children of wrath. 
Calvin in Lo. Non in elligat solum fuisse in mor●s periculo, sed realem mortem significat, ac● praesentem q●â jam erant oppressi; omnes mortui nascimur, donec efficiamur vitae Christi participes, unde illud Johannis. O●nis bom● na u● alis mortuus est in ha●nativa sua corruption, quia nulla pars anitrae petest in spirivalibus vitalem ●ct. o●em exercere. Dau. in 2 Col 13. Amma mornu●, morte gratiae quatenus peccatum sua impuritate dissoluit grat●itam animae unicnem ad Deum, in qua sita est vita spiritualis. Id. Ib. Pise. In loc homo natura manciptum est diaboli, cui servit pepetram●o peccata, ac prcinde est filius irae, h. e. reus damnationtis. Pisc. in lec. Quum dicit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 significat se conceptos & natos esse in peccato, ac proinde reos mortis, nam singulis naturaliter n●scentitus imputatur Ad● lapsus, & in singulos nascendo propagatur naturae eorruptio seu pravitas.   
Thus the most learned Calvin upon this place, interprets this of the Apostle dead in sins. Non intellegit solum fuisse, etc. The Apestle understands not only (saith Calvin) that they were in danger of death (Mr. Goodwin saith, liable to death) but he signifies a real and a present death; all are borne dead, and live dead till they are made partakers of the life of Christ; whence is that of John, The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they who hear shall live. So Pifeator also upon the place; Homo naturâ mancipium, etc. Man by nature is a slave to Satan, whom he serves in committing sin, and therefore is a child of wrath and guilty of damnation. So Davenant; anima moritur, etc. the soul dieth, in as much as sin by its impurity dissolves that union of the soul to God, wherein stands spirituali life. You see that Expositors understand by this death in sin, etc. that our native corruptednesse whereby we become guilty, and we are made liable to wrath, not the guilt, and liableness itself.  
2 You say, that quickening together with Christ opposed to this death is interpreted, Col. 2.13. to be the forgiveness of sins. You that deny the Scripture, fear not to pervert it; the Apostle makes not forgiveness of sin the formalis ratio of vivification; by quickening together with Christ, he understands a spiritual reparation, and forming of the Divine Image in us, by which the filth and pollution of sin is wiped away, and we are made his Workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to good works. 
Davenant, in 2 Col 13. Deus anim●m vivificat all●m repar●n lo, & sordes peccati detergendo ●psius enim factara sumus, creat● in Christo Jesus in operibus bonis.— Per vivificationem intelligit 〈…〉 quod ipsum, Rom 6.11. Vocat vivere Deo amhulare in nov●tate vitae. Ro. 6.4. Pise in loc.  So Davenant; wherever sin is remitted, and its guilt taken away, there is this vivification by grace. Piscator saith expressly upon the place, that by vivification the Apostle intends the renovation of nature.  
3 You say the Scripture expresseth the condition of guilt by the term of death, therefore by dead in trespasses we must understand guilty of death, etc. 2 Sam. 9.8— 16.9— 19.28 Rom. 8.10. 2 Cor. 5.14. 1 Tim. 5.6.  
That the Scripture doth often express the condition of guilt by the term of death though I deny not, yet the Scriptures which you cite, prove nothing less; those places, 2 Sam. 9.8. where Mephib. saith to David, What is thy servant that thou shouldest look upon such a dead Dog, 2 Sam. 16.9. and Abishai calls Shimei a dead Dog, etc. have no other sense than 1 Sam. 24.14. where David expostulating with Saul, asketh him, after whom is the King of Israel come out, after whom dost thou pursue, after a dead Dog, after a flea? in which words the word dead notes not guilty as you most ignorantly suppose, 
Vivens vita ndturali mortua morte spirituali, Pis. in Loc.  but vile, contemptible, base; that of 1 Tim. 5.6. where the widow is said to be dead while she liveth, is by most understood to be meant of spiritual death, and by the happy interpreter of Scripture, learned Calvin, it's understood of her unprofitableness, and her being nothing worth, q. d. those widows who love to live without all care, and pass their times idly and in pleasure are no more useful, profitable in their places then if they were dead; Mortuas vocat quae nulli sunt usui, he calls those dead which serve for no use; now your interpetation is, the widow that lives in pleasures is guilty of death, if I may have John Calvin, let who will have John Goodwin for their Expositor, That of 2 Cor. 5.14. comprehends both liableness to eternal death, and spiritual death also, as all interpreters agree.  
4 Lastly, whereas you most unworthily and wretchedly assert, that dead in sins is not represented by the Apostle as the condition of men considered as natural, but of men who have a long time continued in sin, the context witnesseth against you; for 1. First the Apostle tells them what they were by nature, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 verse 3. not only by practice; 2. He makes their walking in sin a fruit of their death in it, ver. 2. dead in sins wherein ye walked; 3. this death in sin is represented by the Apostle as common to all, Jews and Gentiles; and the Apostle certainly intends that the death is as extensive as the quickening, which latter Mr. Goodwin will not limit unto those that have a long time continued in sins, he intends that all were dead that ever were quickened, old and young. Your Expositions are husks, food fit for swine than souls; the Lord grant that your poor misled followers may no longer lay out their money for that which is not bread.  
Upon your saying, 
Sect. 66. Yo. Eld p. 56 Bu. Bush. p. 25.  that by the improvement of nature a man may attain to such a conviction, as upon which saving conversion always follows; I demanded what place is here left for grace? you reply in this Section:  
1 By ask me, If a man who is able, through laziness were unwilling to go an hundred miles in four days for the saving of his life, is there not place left for the kindness of his friends to accommodate him with an horse?  
Answ. There's no place according to this supposition left for grace, by way of absolute necessity, but only by way of accommodation, and facilitation of the work, he stands in no Absolute necessity of an horse to carry him, that is able to go his journey on his ten toes, you now loudly speak yourself a Pelagian: you told me before that the natural man needed not eyesight but light only, and now you say he needs not the help of God save by way of accommodation, he can of himself will, or make himself willing to believe, only not so easily; detestable doctrine! and yet,  
2 In this Section you tell me, 
Yo. Eld. p. 56.  there is place enough for all tha grace of God which the Apostle attributes unto him, Phil. 2.13. in working both to will and to do in mon of his good pleasure.  
Answ. I flatly deny it; the Apostle in that place ascribes the work of faith to God wholly and necessarily, you ascribe it to him but by way of partiality and convenienty. According to your late resemblance God comes in, in a superadded way, and makes us to believe who yet are able to make ourselves do s●. The Apostle saith, God works according to his own good pleasure, but you, That God works according to man's good pleasure, otherwise you suppose, That God should work in man whether he would or no, and that grace would be a compulsorium, not an ad utorium.  
3. 
Yo. Eld. p. 56.  You say, That there is far larger place left for grace by your opinion th●n by mine. If you can evince this, Eris mihi magnus Apollo, my opinion saith with the Apo●le, God hath quickened us being dead in trespasses and sins, till which quickening (the fruit of his rich love) we lie under a present, real, spiritual death, and can do no act of spiritual life as ●o believe, 
Yo. Eld p. 55.  etc. You say, That this death implies no impotency to believe, but only consisteth in guilt, so that as to the being able to believe all natural men are alive. My opinion saith, This grace of God is infallibly effectual; yours, That it may be rejected, and that there's no infallibility in its effecting any thing. 
Yo. Eld. p. 52.  You say, That God only gives light; l, that God gives light and eyes to behold it. In a Word, You hold that God gives food; I, That That he gives life, which is more than meat. And now leaves your opinion a larger place for grace than mine?  
4. You endeavour to prove, That your opinion leaves a larger place than mine for that grace which the Apostle attributes to God, 
Yo. Eld. p. 56.  Phil. 2.13. You say, It's a greater act of grace to forgive the sins of one who knows how to dowell and yet d●th evil, than to forgive the sins of him that hath no four to do well; the latter is Mr. Jenkin his sinner, the  mine.  
Ergo quid? therefore your opinion leaves a larger place for that grace which the Apostle attributes to God, in working to will and to do, Phil. 2.13.  
1. Whether now Sir? have we a wand'ring Jew, or a wand'ring John, you are quite gone from the question; we were disputing about the grace of conversion, and the Apostle was asserting this, and now you fly to the grace of remission. It's not this latter that the Apostle in this place Phil. 2.13. attributes to God; he speaks not of God pardoning the evil which we have done but of giving the will to do that good which of ourselves we cannot do. And by the way, I cannot but observe your perfect conformity with Pelagius, one spirit acts you both.  
Sic Oculos, sic ille manus, sic ora forebat, just so and so, with eyes, 
Gra●iam Dei, quae neque lex est, neque natura, in hoc tantum valere, ut peccata praeterita dimittantur, now ut futura vitentur, etc. Quis me liberab● à reatu peccatorum meorum quae commisi cum vitare potuissem. Contr. Jul. l. 1. f. 85.  hands, face, he acted. Pelagius said, that the grace of God, which was neither Law nor nature, only did serve for the remission of former sins, not for the avoiding of future sins, etc. So Julian the Pelagian expou●ds that place, who shall deliver me from this body of death? i. e. Who (saith he) shall deliver me from the guilt of my sins, which I have committed when as I could have avoided them?  
2. In proposing the object of this grace (a sinner) you deal unworthily, in concealing both what yourself hold, and what I hold; for your sirner is one that wants no ability, either in his understanding to know the things of God, or in his will to embrace them; the grace he wants is only outward light for the understanding, and moral persuasion for the will, which is left to its own choice, whether it will embrace what is offered it or no, and when it hath received all from God, there's a possibility of non-conversion; 
Yo. Eld p. 65.  whereas my sinner is one that is in spiritual things stark blind, that neither knows nor is able to receive the things of God, that in his will is wholly unable to embrace them; this inability arising from his pravity and lusts, which have put out his eyes, and made him an Enemy to God, so that he hates light and reformation, and the grace that I stand for, is such as renews the understanding, and changes the will not only by affording light and persuasion, but by an infallibly effectual power. And now let any judge whether of these is the more miserable sinner? whether of these the more glorious work of grace? you will have grace for the accommodation and facilitation of the work; I maintain it to be simply necessary. Your sinner is but in a sleep, and may possibly awake of himself, mine is dead, and cannot live but by the power of grace.  
2. You say, 
Yo. Eld. p. 57  For God to give a man strength and power to believe twice over, or after a forfeiture made by sin, of the first donation, is an act of more grace than to confer them only once, and that without any such provocation. Master Jenkins opinion leaves place only for the latter act of grace, whereas my opinion makes room for the former.  
To say nothing of your nonsense in this passage, Answ. here is abominable falsehood.  
Do I deny that God gives a man strength to believe twice over? I have ever taught that God created man in his own image, in all the faculties of his soul, which when man had defaced and lost, and thereby infinitely provoked God, that God of his infinite goodness by the power of his Word and spirit of grace, doth renew in man that image, giving him not only ability to repent and believe if he will, but working in him to will and to do according to his good pleasure, giving repentance, and being the ●●thor and finisher of our faith.  
5. I having demanded of you how this your position, upon the improvement of nature, a man may attain to such a conviction, upon which saving conversion always follows, agrees with that of the Apostle, 1 Cor. 4.7. Who maketh thee to differ from another? And I having said that Master goodwin's answer to this question of the Apostle, is myself by my improvement of nature,  
1. You say, That these words, from another, are not in the Original. There it's only found thus, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; Who makes thee differ, subtle Sir? can there be any difference if there be none to differ from?  
2. You demand how your opinion leads you to make such an answer as I put into your mouth? Relate your opinion and you shall find the answer at hand, You who say, That conversion alwapes follows a conviction abstained by the improvement of nature, D. a. p. 200. You who say, A natural man may do such things, as whereunto God hath by way of promise annexed grace and acceptation, pag. 26. And hold, That after every work of grace, the will remains in equilibrio, and may convert or refuse to be converted, pag. 52. 65. resolving actual conversion not into the efficacy of the grace of God, pag. 52. but into the compliance of man's will. And yet will not say with your friend Episcopius, Ego meipsum discrevi, I have made myself to differ, upon this your forbearance you may be looked upon as more courteous, but by no wise man as less heretical than Episcopias'; if in your next you will determine this question, whether the same grace being afforded to two sinners of the same degree, one may be converted, and not the other, you will haply be better known to yourself in this point.  
Your sixty seventh, and sixty eighth Section follows, 
Yo Eld. p. 58. Sect. 67.  wherein you proclaim your sin; in the former you say, that these words, (who made thee to differ) exclude not the creature from being the cause of its differing in a way of inferior efficiency, and causalty, for if it be (say you) the creature itself, and not God who believeth, then is it the creature itself and not God which maketh itself to differ.  
Answ. The Apostle removes all cause of glorying from man, and therefore leaves no share in the efficiency of this work to man. 2. The Apostle denies most vehemently, that man hath any thing which he hath not received; therefore a man hath not this concurrence of his will with the grace of God. It is very true that a man believes when he believes, and it is man, and not God who believeth; but the question is, who maketh him to believe? certainly that is not of himself, it is the gift of God.  
In the next Section you say, 
Yo. Eld. p. 59 Sect. 68  Evident it is that the Apostle speaks not of any difference between man and man, which is made by faith, or by any saving work in either, but of such a difference which stands in more or fewer, in greater or lesser gifts. A difference frequent in the primitive times, and God was indeed the sole cause of such differings.  
Answ. Profound! 1. God was the sole cause (you say) of sptrituall gifts, speaking with tongues, etc. but not of believing, for here you say, that man himself is a subordinate cause, its man that believes when he believes, and not God; but how prove you that God is rather the sole Author of spiritual gifts, than of saving graces; I thought that the former, gifts, had not been (as grace) above nature, but had been attaineable by study and industry; you say that its man that believes, when he believes; and is't not man that speaks with tongues, when he speaks; you say, that man believes and not God, and is't not man that speaks with tongues and not God; take him, not Bedlam, but Bedlam.  
2 Doth not the Apostle make use of general maxims, as that none but God makes to differ, and that there's nothing that a man hath but he received it, according to that of the third of John, A man can receive nothing unless it be given him from heaven; and draws not the Apostle these general maxims down to this particular case, of which he is speaking.  
3 Cannot a man make himself to differ from another in the least things, as more or fewer gifts, and can a man make himself to d●ffer in the greater.  
You conclude this Section with singing your Jo Paean; thus you chante to the Reader, 
Yo. Eld. p. 60.  you have seen the young man's ankednesse in point of arguing; he neither levies ●easons nor Scriptures with any pertinency. There's not the least hair of the head of my opinion concerning the natural man's power to good supernatural fall'n to the ground; which passage I am confident every pious and prudent Reader will interpret thus: You have seen the old man's nakedness in point of answering, he neither answers Scriptures nor reasons, with either piety or pertinency, and there's not only the hair of the head of his opinion concerning the natural man's power, etc. but even that very head it self fall'n to the ground, being struck off by the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, who I desire may have the only glory of it.  
I propounded, 
Yo. Eld. p. 60. Sect. 69.  busy Bish. p 54. four queries to you, to know what kind of adjutory it was which you acknowledged grace to be, that you might not under the pretended name of grace obtrude nature, as the Pelagiams of old, and Jesuits and Arminians of late have done, 
Yo. Eld. Sect. 69.  and now you come to taste my genius and strength (you say) in quaereing. You begin with a scoff; you say Arisiotle cannot answer so much as an ass can ask; you have prefaced a good apology for the weakness of your following answers for how then, say I, should an ass answer more than ever Aristotle could ask? you are such a friend to independency, that your first qua●nell against my quaerces is, that they have a dependence the three last upon the first.  
My first quaeree, is whether grace be an adjutory by way of insluence into the will, or by way of concourse unto the work only.  
Your answer is, you understand it not; he hath opposed me with his first question.  
I see my mishap to ask a talent of him that is not worth a mite, and your audaciousnesle to undertake to be a Rabbi, and to pretend to a tractate of the power of natural man's will to good supernatural, like those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that did not know what they said, or whereof they did affirm.  
This question is of great weight, famous in the Schools, and the first usually handled in this controversy, but I perceive that Jesuits and remonstrants are half as bad to you as modal Propositions in Logic, De quibus non gustabit Asinus; what? J. Goodwin opposed? 
Yo. Eld. p. 53.  he? even he, not understand a question so frequently agitated? penotrus in his Propugna. bum. lib. L. 8. C. 15. propounds it thus: An concursus Divinus sit influxus in secundas causas, & in illarum effectus, an solus sit influxus cum causis secundis in effectus, non autem in ipsas secundas causas? esse vero hanc controver siam gravissimam, etc. Whether the divine concourse be an influx into the second causes, and into their effects, or only with the second causes into the effects, and not into the causes themselves? So Alvar. de auxil. lib. 3. disp. 18. etc. and this question was determined in the affirmative by Augustine de grâ Chri. c. 16. viz. that the grace of God was an adjutory by way of influence into the will. Certum est nos servare mandata si volumus, sed quia preparatur voluntas a Domino, ab illo petendum est, ut tantum velimus, quantum sufficit ut volendo faciamus. Certum est nos velle cum volumus sed ille facit ut velimus bowm, de quo dictum est quod preparatur voluntas a Domino. It's certain, saith he, that when we are willing we will: but he makes us to will good of whom it's said, that the will is prepared of the Lord, But this question is determined negatively by Arminius. Cont. Perkins: Convursus & influxus Dei, nihil confert creaturae liberae quoad agendum, vel inclinetur vel juvetur, vel confortetur. The influx of God confers nothing to the free creature, to help, incline, or strengthen it. The School of the Arminians follow their Master, and join with Jesuits, making the grace of God and man's will the partial causes of man's conversion, as if two men between them both should bear a burden: thus Grevinchovius contr. Ames. p. 208. Gratia & arbitrium concurrunt ut partiales causae ad conversionem hominis, partialitate causae non effectus, eodem planè modo quo pater & fili●s unam, eandemque navem trabunt. Grace and free will coucurre as partial causes to the conversion of man, with a partiality of the cause, not of the effect, as a Father and a Son draw between them both the same ship, the father not contributing strength to the Son, etc. Such an answer as this will make short work, for it leaves no place at all to the grace of Christ, but resolves all at last into nature; acknowledging no other influence from God into the will, but that general influence God affordeth unto it, as the author and preserver thereof. And what else doth Mader Goodwin grant us, when he makes all the influx that God affords us to be only by way of general concourse as we are creatures or men whose natures are from God, or sustained by God, denying g●any special influx of God's grace into our wills in conversion. Whats●ever (saith Master Goodwin, p. 11. Yo. Eld.) is afribed unto nature, except nature be giv● away from God there's no occasion given to look upon it as derogating from the grace of God; 
Aug de verb.  just as Pelagius, 
Videte tum fratres mei quomodo generalem illam gratiam praedicant, quá creatus est homo, qua bomtnes sumas, & utique cum imoiis homines sumus, have gratiom qua Christiani sumus, ipsam volumus prae licent, ipsam volumus agnoscant. Faust. Regie●s, de l a. l. 2. c. 8. Qui naturam in bonis suis negat praedicari debere, nescit profecto spsum naturae dathorem esse, quigratiae.  whose plea is recited and refuted by Aug. S●bminem Deus creavit, & hamini Deus liberum donavit arbitrium, quiequid potest 〈…〉 arbitrio, eujus gratiae debetur nisi ejas qui eum condidit cum libero arbitrio? If Go I created man, and gave him free will, whatever man doth by his free will, to whose grace is this due but to his that made man with free will?— Observe (Brethren) how they proclaim the general grace of God whereby we are men, not whereby we are Christians, etc.  
2. You answer by taking away the subject of the questim; for I having explained to you what I meant by grace its concourse unto the work, only thus, as two men that between them both carry a barden, yield no assistanre to each other, neither of them contributing strength unto other. You learnedly answer that you must deny what the question supposeth, viz that faith hath two ends.  
If you had not confessed your ignorance in this answer, yet you had here grossly bewrayed it Who but you would have supposed that faith hath two ends? or that this had been the subject of the question? Alvar. de arx. l. 3. disp. 18. would have informed you better, where he saith, The question is, utrum necessaria sit praevia dei motio, recepta in ipsa causa, ut de facto producat suam operationem, an vero sufficiat concursus simultaneus pariter influens cum ipsis causis in earum effectus. The question is, Whether the motion of God's spirit he necessary, as received into the cause itself, that it may produce its operation, or whether there be required a concourse bestowing its influence together with the cause upon its effect. Where you may see the answer in three conclusions, the third whereof is against quos dam recentieres' theologos, some late Divines (he means Jesuits and Arminians) asserentes, quòd concursus supernaturalis non sit in causam sed cum causa in effectum; Who held that supernatural concourse was not into the cause, but with the cause in and upon the effect. And yet here was no supposition that grace had two ends.  
And did not you say, pag. 99 Yo. Eld. The purging of Jerusalem was an effect which depended partly upon God and partly upon Jerusalem, in comporting with God. And page 100 of Yo. Eld. you say in these words, For men actually to will and do things accompanying salvation, depends partly upon God in respect of the necessity of the motion, and assistance of his spirit thereunto, partly upon man in respect of a like necessity of their concurrence, and consenting unto the motion of the spirit of God. Did you suppose when you say that the purging of Jerusalem depended partly upon God, and partly upon Jerusalem, that this purging had two ends? and when you say that a man's willing depends partly upon God, in respect of motion, and partly upon man in respect of a like necessity of their concurrence, that faith hath two ends?  
Can there not be a concourse of two partial causes into an effect, but this effect must needs have two ends? Can you not distinguish with Grevinchonius between partialitas causae & effectus? May not two causes produce one and the same effect, which yet partially concur●e as causes to that effect? 
Yo. Eld. p. 61. Sect. 70.   
In your next section you come to the second quaere that I propounded to you, which was this: If you do acknowledge that grace is an adjutory unto the will by way of influence into it, whether mean you that this influence is moral, suasory, by way of entreaty, that the will would in●ve, or physica, that is properly, really, and efficaciously operative upon it.  
This you say contains in it more absurdities than the former; I wish your answer bewrayed not more ignorance and malice than your former.  
1. You say, It supposeth that there can be no moral influence, but that which is suasory, or by way of entreaty. When Master Jenkin commands his Clerk to set a Psalm, and threatens him, that be will turn him out of his place if he will not do as he is commandeth, hath such an address any other influence than what is moral, but will Master Jenkin call it suasory, by way of entreaty?  
I pity you! Answ. was there ever a more senseless exception propounded by one pretending to be an instructor? Are you yet to learn what suasio moralis is? My acute adversary conceives, that a threatening may be said to have a moral influence upon the will, but it cannot be suasory or by way of entreaty. He will not have Comminations or threaten to be morally suasory; though you have but a mite of your own, you might have been acquainted with those that have more; but I see that (spider-like) you are only beholding to your own bowels (and truly you go far enough for your cobwebs) otherwise you might have observed in every author who writes about suasio moralis, that even threaten are suafory; not to give above one or two instances in a case so trivial, see Wendelins, Christ, Theol. p. 534. the sanctif. mandata, promissiones, comminationes saepe non persuadent quod suadent. See also suffragium Britan. p. 135. where you shall have these words: Non inficiamur in opere conversionis Deum adhibere Comminationum, promissionum, aliarumque hortationum vim suasoriam. I pray ask Price, that puppet incendiary what's the English of Comminationes suadent, in the former, and of Comminationum vim suasoriam in the latter; (the Latin holding him up, haply he may be kept (though hardly) from stumbling into a lie) Learn one lesson more from a novice, Though there be difference between threaten and promises, yet they are both in their influence upon the will suasory, the latter ab utili, the former ab inutili.  
2. You say, That my quaere supposeth, an inconsistency between a moral influence upon the will, and that which is properly, really, and efficaciously operative upon it.  
Answ. Where do I say or suppose that these two cannot stand together? this indeed I say, that a moral influence is of itself insufficient, but not with an efficatious influence inconsistent, That a mere moral influence is operative only metaphoric●s, & per modum objecti, and gives no power to the faculty upon which it works, but serves only to excite and draw into act the innate power, and that the soul of man destitute of power to supernaturals, cannot be wrought upon in such an objective way of moral persuasion.  
3. You say, That if by physical influence Master Jenkin understandeth any either kind of working upon the will by God, than by the mediation of the Word, or than that which is proper to be wrought by such an instrument as this, etc. I deny any other physical influence upon the will. It passeth my understanding to conceive how the will should be wrought or acted into a consent in any kind, otherwise than by argument, motive, and persuasion, unless by force, violence, and compulsion, etc.  
Answ. Your answers here are inconsistent 1. with themselves, and 2. with truth. First you deny any work of God upon the will, save by the mediation of the Word, and yet instantly you say, 
Yo. Eld. p. 62.  You allow an outward excitation of the soul, or opening of the heart by the spirit, a gracious and immediate supporting of the will in the act of consenting, etc. I would feign know how these two can stand together.  
2. You deny, That God works any thing upon the will which is not proper for the Word to work; or that any thing can be wrought upon the will except by persuasion, or by argument, etc. If you had attended the state of the question, you would have spared much of this twattling; the question is, by what influence of grace, the natural man's will is set right in actu primo, hath a principle of new life infused into it, and not by what it is made actually to believe, in actu secundo, the former is done by the immediate and almighly power of the grace of God, 
Homines tentum sunt habitualis conversionis, or●●sio & amecedens condit o●quod praedicato evangedi● resipiscent●● & fidei, deus spir●●u regenerante virtutem fidei & resipiscentiae ●nimis electorum indat, ut habiles sin● ad par●dun Evangelium, actualis verò conversionis sum causa instrumentalis. Gom. p. 154.  the other by the same power working in the word. You must not assert that the causa objectiva or moralis doth create the faculty but suppose it. For your further information, herein I refer you to that excellent Tractate of Gornarus de gratia conversionis, particularly to pag. 154. To. 1. at whose feet you may fit to reap the blessing of his head (as you speak,) but fit not as an instructor any more, but as a novice, not as a teacher, but as teachable.  
4. You tell me (in this section) frequently that you understand not well, it passeth your understanding, etc. to conceive how the will should be acted into consent, etc. how men be begotten by the Word, etc. The misteries of faith are not to be measured by the strength of your understanding; will you believe nothing but what you can conceive? why do you not turn a professed Socinian?  
5. You tell me in this Section that God opens the heart immediately, supporteth the will in the act of consenting, suffers nothing to intervene to prevent consent. You would feign seem to say something, but hoc aliquid nihilest, what mean you by supporting of the will? Doth not God as immediately support the will when it consents to evil, as in the act of consenting to good? and though he prevents external tentations, yet leaves he not the will it self in ●quilibria, to consent or not to consent? Is it enough to deliver from external tentation, unless also from our own internal corruption? What mean you by opening the bear't? is it not so done by the Word that it passeth (as you say) your understanding, how the will should any other way be wrought into a consent; mean you not as your Pelagius, who in a fit of zeal spoke for the working of grace just as you do; 
Aug. de gra. Chr cap. 7. Adj●vat no; Deus per doctrinam & revelarionem suam, dam cordis nostri oculos aperit, du●n nobis ne praesentibus occupemur, futura demonstrat, dum diaboli pandit infidiat, etc. Nunquam isti inimici gratiae ad eandem gratiam vehememius oppugnan lem occultiores moluntur insidias, quàm ubi legem laudant.  adjuvat nos Deus per doctrinam & revelatim●m, etc. God assisteth us by doctrine and revelation, when he opens the eyes of our minds, when he shows us things to come, lest we should be entangled in things present, when he discovers the snares of Satan. Concerning which and the like passages Augustine saith, That the enemies of grace (the Pelagians) did never more subtly oppose grace, than when they most praised the Word; in which respect, In Con. mileu. Can. 4. was that anathem● denounced, 
* Conc. Mil. c. 4. Quisquis di erit gratiam dei propter hoc tantum nos adjuvare ad non peccandion, quia per ipsam revelaiu●, & aperitur intelligentia man lato●um, ut sciamut, etc. non autem per illam nobis praestari ut quod saciendum cognoverimu, agere valeamus, anathema sit.  Quisquis dixerit, etc. whosoever shall say, That the grace of God serves to help ut against sin, only because by that we know and understand the commandment, and not also because by that grace, power is bestawed upon us to do what we know, let him be accursed. 
Yo. Eld. p. 63   
Lastly you say (in this Section) That you do not well understand what I mean by my physical insivence of grace upon the will.  
Answ. Where have you lived all your time? have you grown grey in promo●ing Arminianism, and yet never heard of the physical influence? go to Ames, Triglandius, Rivet, etc. and you shall be informed what it is. I acknowledge it with these and sundry other reformed Divines, to be that gracious and real working of the Spirit of God, by which a principle of divine life is put into the soul of the natural man, that was dead in sins and trespasses, by which he is quickened and raised from the death of sin and of natural is made spiritual, and savingly to understand and will spiritual things.  
You acknowledge Sect. 69. that I propounded four queries; 
Yo. Eld. p. 63 Sect. 72.  but now in this your 72 Section, you having thus ridiculously (as is seen) gone over my two former quaerees, muddily jumble together my two last, though not without this design of a more convenient hiding your opinion from the Reader. My third quaere was this: Whether grace be an adjutory uncertain and resistible, or whether grace be an invincible infallible determinating adjutory to the will.  
1. In this Section you say, That I make the invincibility and infallibility of the working of grace, and the certain determination of the will by grace, to be one and the same; whereas invincibility and infallibility are but modifications of the act or working of grace, and determination of the will, is the act itself, or the effect of such an act.  
The quaere looked upon will show you a wrangler. Did I ever take it in any other sense than what yourself here set down? 
Bu. Bush. p. 54.  namely, That grace is in the manner of working invincible and infallible, and therefore determinating the will? and make I not both in the quaere and throughout my book, the certain determination of the will, to be the product or effect of grace, working infallibly and invincibly; show your seniority by more seriousness.  
2. You charge me with supposing what is not to be supposed; For grace (you say) may invincibly produce such an effect in the soul, which answers the nature, measure, and degree of it, and yet not necessarily produce such a certain determination of the will to a saving consent, or a through act of believing.  
It being presupposed, 1. That the question is concerning converting grace, and not common. And 2. That by (necessarily) is meant infallibly. I demand:  
1. What that effect is, which special converting grace works in the soul, which answers the nature measure, and degree of it, if it be not a certain determination of the will.  
2. How this assertion of yours will stand together with that which afterward follows, 
Yo Eld. p. 65.  p. 65. The grace of God acting in and toward the conversion of a man, subdues and takes away all actual rebelltousnesse or gainsayingnesse of the will, and all inclination toward any rebellion? Doth it accomplish all this, and not determine the will?  
3. You say (in this Section) That I was ridiculous in demanding whether the certain determination of the will by grace proceedeth from the powerful nature of grace, considering (you say) that effects do not proceed from the natures of their causes, but from the actual engagement of their causes in a way of efficiency, etc.  
Answ. But (my acute Antagonist) was not I enquiring into the efficacy of the grace of God as a cause of conversion in us? And doth not every effect proceed from the nature of the cause? no, say you, but from the actual engagement of the cause in a way of efficiency; but this actual engagement of the cause in a way of efficiency, is the nature of a cause as a cause; we are not considering of the grace of God absolutely as it is in itself, but relatively, as it is a cause of an effect in others. And I demand whether this effect do depend upon this cause infallibly, that wheresoever the cause is, by virtue of it the effect shall necessarily follow.  
4. What you say concerning the obtusenesse of the distinction between an infallibility of the working of grace, in respect of the event or what the facto doth come to pass, and in respect of the powerful vature of grace as the cause, is not for want of ignorance, both because the distinction is most frequently used among the acutest that writ concerning this controversy, and also in regard that it so directly tends to the declaring of that efficacious causality which is by the Orthodox claimed, and by Sectaries denied to the grace of God, there being a vast difference between an antecedent adjunct, the presence whereof an event doth infallibly follow, and a cause properly productive of an effect infallibly to ensue.  
5. To the main intent of my quaerees you would be thought to answer.  
1. By saying your sense clearly is, According to the ordinary course of the grace of God, working in and about the conversion of men, there is no man actually converted, but might possibly have acted and demeaned himself so, as never to have been thus converted.  
Answ. You pretend to clearness, but in your performance I find nothing less. Why use you this expression (according to the ordinary course of the grace of God) would you have me believe that God hath some other way (though extraordinary) by which he can do that which you assert simply impossible to be done, as you say it is to make a man simply impoccable by the infallibility of the work of the grace of God.  
2. You say, That possibly the grace of God may take away from the will all inclination toward any rebellion, yet it remeves not away all possibility to rebel and do wickedly.  
Answ. What you say is nothing to the question; there's no enquiry whether grace doth take away all possibility in the will to rebel, but whether it doth not so infallibly take away the act of, and inclination to rebellion, as that the work of conversion always follows this working of grace?  
3. You say, 
Yo. Eld. p. 65.  That Master Jenkin maketh a blasphemous claim to an incommunicable property of God, he asserteth himself under the same impossibility of sinning with God; probatur, he supposeth it impossible for him to sin when he is converted?  
Though I shall not hope to determine whether ignorance or malice be most predominant in this charge, yet to the matter of it I easily return this: A simple and absolute impossibility to sin, is one of the incommunicable properties of God; but what say you to an impossibility to sin ex so positione; the efficacy of grace supposed, though there be a natural defectibility in the creature, may there not be an impossibility to sin? Is it not true, that good angels and Saints in heaven cannot sin? can they actually put forth their defectibility, so as to frustrate the grace of God, and is it blasphemy to say that they cannot sinne, or in so saying do we grant they have an incommunicable property of God?  
But 2. O thou my simple and false accuser, though you be not tender of charging me with blasphemy, yet take heed yourself of Blaspheming. I claim no share in the incommunicable properties of God, when I aver it impossible for myself or any other to frustrase the council of God (for who hath resisted his will) or to hinder the work of special grace coming to convert; but sadly consider whether you blaspheme not, in asserting men to be stronger than God, that they can hinder his work, when he acteth with that power which is exceeding great, and which raised Christ from the dead?  
4. You say, An man may sinne after his conversion; therefore much more at my time befoe.  
Answ. 
Yo. Eld. p. 65.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉! If a man be left to himself he may sinne; but can he sinne being under that measure and strength of grace which is put forth in his conversion, and so as to overcome it?  
5. You say, 
Yo. Eld. p. 66.  If there be a possibility for a man to sin at any time before his conversion, then is there a possibility in him also to hinder his 〈◊〉, because it is impossible for any man to be converted in an act of sin.  
Answ. From this principle, That it is impossible for a man to be converted in an act of sin, you may rather argue for the impossibility of conversion, than for the possibility of non-conversion; must a man leave his sin first, and be converted afterward? why cannot God change the heart, and infuse a principle of spiritual life into a man (as into Saul, Act. 9) while he is actually sinning, so that this conversion or passive reception of a new life should be in an act of sin?  
6. 
Yo. Eld. p. 66.  I having said, but. Bish. pag. 52. That the efficatious determination of the will by grace, takes nothing away but the pravity and rebellion of it, and restores it to its true liberty; you tell me, If grace takes nothing away but the rebellion of the will, than it leaves a liberty of rebellion, for there's nothing more evident than that there may remain a liberty or power of rebellion in the will, when the rebellion itself is taken away.  
There is no question but there may remain a power of rebellion, where there is no actual rebellion, but that this power may be brought into act when the act itself. and inclination to it, is taken away, which you grant may be, implies a contradiction. Reconcile these two. God's grace subdues all rebellion, and all inclination to rebel, and yet rebellion may hinder the work of God's grace.  
7. 
Yo. Eld. p. 66.  You tell me, If the adjutory of grace restores the true liberty of the will to it, than its that liberty which was natural to it, wherein 'twas created, etc. and then it leaves a liberty in it to rebel and to frustrate the work of conversion and defeat it, for the liberty wherein the will was created left the will under a possibility of rebelling.  
Answ. Your arguing discovers that you understand not the nature of the wils true liberty which once it had, and to which it is by grace restored. The true liberty of the will is willingly and freely to obey, to be able to sin is no perfection, nor any part of true liberty, but a defect in the wils liberty.  
I having desired but one page half filled with quotations out of Orthodox Writers agreeing with those your opinions transcribed by the Subscribers, you hereupon promise to give me measure heaped up. Resolving to make up in measure your want in weight, and to supply with the abundancy of your quotations the defect of their aptitude to the matter for which you allege them. 
Yo. Eld p. 67. Sect. 76.   
1. You snarl at this passage in the Testimony, [thousands of souls which Christ hath ransomed with his blood, shall be endangered to be undone] here is (say you) the Doctrine of universal redemption asserted, If the ransomed by Christ may perish to eternity, than Christ ransomed not the elect only, of whose perishing there's not the least possibility.  
Answ. 
Rom. 14.15. Destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died. Job. 10.28.  Who but such a spider-like reader would have sucked poison out of so sweet a flower? may not the Subscribers say to you with Hicrome (as I told you even now) hoc non nobis sed apostolo, lay this accusation at the Apostles door? Rom. 14.15. 1 Cor. 8. 11. doth the Apostle mean that any of the Sheep of Christ could perish, or that any could take them out of the hand of Christ? or that any could perish that are upheld by the power of God through faith, or that have the intercession of Christ improved for them, etc. or that are given to Christ by the Father? 
Job. 6.39. Rom. 8.38.  Why (if either you could or would not yourself, have answered for the Apostle or the Ministers) went you not to those reverend and learned Interpreters that have expounded these Texts? surely they would have taught you to have given the Ministers better usage.  
chrysostom would have informed you, that those of whom Christ is Redeemer in respect of the sufficiency of the price, may perish, though not those to whom the price is applied.  
Paraeus would have taught you, That in respect of themselves and left to themselves, the best are in danger of perishing. Hominibus nihil infirmius, In regard of Satan's formidable power they might perish; In regard of the scandals themselves which (without the powerful sustentation of God) are insuperable They might perish, but in respect of the counsel and decrce of God, in respect they are the sheep of Christ, and are sustained with his interce●ion, they cannot perish.  
〈◊〉 would have told you, 
Reader, in You Elder p. 100 John Goodwin alloweth this interpretation Rom 14 15. In Paul's languare saith he he is said to destroy his brother, who doth that which is apt or like to destroy him, whether he be actually destroyed or no. You Eld. Sect. 77, 7●, 7●, 8●.  That these who are looked upon with the judgement of charity, as these for whom Christ died, of whom (he saith) the Apostle speaks, may perish, though not those for whom certainly Christ died.  
You now impudently improve many Sections (though with vain endeavour) to make three Reverend learned Ministers guilty of concurring with you in your err neous epinions concerning the power of natural men to good supera●turall.  
These my Reverend friends Doctor Gouge, Master Scudder, Master Calamy, (though one so weakly slanderous as yourself deserved it not) have so far condescended to you as to send me in their several vindi●ations from that unworthy and hateful asporsion of complying with you in your fore●aid opinions; I shall present them to the Reader distinctly, and word for word, as they sent them to me under their ewne hands.  
MAfter John G●dwin to demonstrate that the substance of his opinion of the power of a natural man, 
Doctor William Gouge his Vindication.  is contained in the Writings of many of the Subscribers, produceth sundry sentences of theirs: And in particular, having gathered sundry passages out of The whole Armour of God, he thus saith in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pag. 72. I appeal to any man that will take the painee to comp●re my passages with these, whether the one can be Orthodox if the other be 〈◊〉. Here therefore behold the one compared with the other, each in their own terms, and thereby judge whether the one be so like the other as is pretended.  

The whole Armour of God.  
Page 233. In something or other all those which believe not come short of that which they might have done for attaining unto this precious gift of faith: and that is it for which another day they shall be condemned, unbelief is in a man's power.  
Page 604. Let every one of what rank or condition soever he be, be encouraged to apply to himself these glad tidings of pardon; and seeing God excludeth none, let not any of us exclude ourselves.  
Page 591. In the order of Redemption God hath made man's sin pardonable; but man by his impenitency makes it not to be pardoned.  
Page 230. Did not the very lifting up of the Serpent show, that it was Gods will they should look on it, and looking be cured? So God causing Christ to be lifted up by preaching of the Gospell before thee, shewe● that HE WOULD THOU SHOULDEST BELIEVE, and believing, have everlasting life.  
Page 231. God never failed any that continued to wait on him, at length he satisfied their longing.  
Page 289. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be hard to the carnal careless man, yet (as Salmon saith of knowledge Prov. 146.) faith is easy to him that will believe, not that it is simply in man's power, but that GOD'S SPIRIT SO OPENETH HIS UNDERSTANDING, etc.  
Page 290. If we repair to the Author who giveth faith, and to the spring whence it floweth; if we rightly use the right means of attaining it, and wait at the door of wisdom till he open unto us, UNDOUBTEDLY WE SHALL FIND FAITH, and not miss of it.   

The Diu. Auth. of the Scriptures.  
Pag 26. Natural men may do such things, as whereunto God hath by way of promise annexed grace and acceptation.  
Page 169. To suppose that they to whom God maketh rich and sweet applications of himself, are wholly destitute of all power to do what he requires of them, in this case to save them from destruction, and to confer the great things promised upon them, as viz. to believe and repent, is to represent the glorious God in his greatest expressions of mercy and grace, and love unto the world, rather as laughing the world to scorn in that great misery wherein it is plunged, then as a God any ways truly desirous, or intending to relieve it.  
Page 183. They which are without (I mean without the Gospel written or preached upon such terms as it is preached among us daily) have also sufficient means (if not large and plentiful) for believing.  
Page 186. They who are destroyed and perish by the hand of God for unbelief, had means, and those sufficient whereby to have believed.  
Page 182. Concerning those have only the Heavens, the Sun, Moon, and Stars, and the goodness of God in the government of the world, to preach the Gospel unto them; these also have reason sufficient (if not in abundance) to think the same though, and judge the same judgement with the other [who have the Letter of the Gospel] in the point in hand.   
In all the passages que●ed out of the whole Armour of God, there is no sentence that implieth, that natural men may do such things as whereunto God hath by way of promise annexed grace and acceptation. Men are there incited to do what lieth in them for attaining grace; but it is not said, that any promise of grace is annexed to that which they do, while they temaine in their natural estate.  
Neither is it said in any of those passages, That none of those to whom God maketh rich and sweet applications of himself, are wholly destitute of all power to believe and repent; for those sweet applications in the outward dispensation of the Word, are made to all present, though there may be many reprobates there, who have not power to believe and repent.  
Nor yet is it there said, That they who are without the Gospel have sufficient means for believing; nor, That they who perish for unbelief, had means sufficient to have believed, if means be taken for that power and ability which is in a natural man.  
1 Object. If men's coming short of that which they might have done be the reason of their condemnation, it undeniably follows, 
Yo. Eld. p. 70.  that they have power to do that whereby their condemnation might be prevented.  
Answ. It doth not follow; because they might more improve their natural parts than they do, and yet not prevent condemnation thereby, they are supernatural gifts whereby condemnation is prevented.  
2 Object. In saying unbelief is in a man's power, 
Ibid.  doth he not imply, that a man hath power over it, and may dissolve, subdue, and destroy it, if he will?  
Answ. No, he implieth no such thing; he only intendeth that it ariseth from a man's self, and is ordered by a man's own free will, as other corrupt acts are. The evils which are in the Devil, are in his power; yet can he not dissolve, subdue, and destroy them. As for the instances of original corruption, blindness by birth, frailty of life, mortality, corruptibleness of flesh, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, for none of these are acts under the will of man, to be ordered thereby, as unbelief is.  
3 Object. Questionless a Teacher would not encourage men, 
Ibid. pag. 71.  or persuade men to encourage themselves, to do that which he judgeth impossible for them to do.  
Answ. 1. That which is here taken to be impossible, is brought upon man by his own default.  
2. It is such an impossibility as God by the work of his Spirit can, and ordinarily doth make possible. In this respect Christ saith of that which is impossible with men, that it is not so with God, Mark 10.27.  
3. The Teacher doth encourage men to go as far as they can, and to do as much as in their power lieth, to obtain such or such a blessing; which is not to persuade to that which is impossible.  
4. Object. If God excludeth none [from bleeving] then hath he not inflicted any such punishment upon men for their sin in Adam, by which they are disabled from believing.  
Answ. That which is spoken of Gods excluding none, is meant of the manner of dispensing the Gospel, and offering grace, which is wi●● such general terms, as therein no man hath cause to think himself excluded. The Author of the 〈…〉 God, thus explaineth his own mind, pag. 603. This Doctrine is to be understood of God's outward dispensation and manife●ation of his mercy by the ministry of the Word, wherein no difference is made betwixt persons, nor excertion of any. So as it calleth not into question the secret counsel and vernal decree of God.  
SIR,  
YOu, 
Master Sou●●● Vindication.  with many other Ministers of the Province of London, gave 〈◊〉 against this tenant of Master John Goodwin, viz. touching 〈…〉 asserte ●, That by improvement of nature a man may attain to such 〈◊〉, is upon which saving conversion always follows: This I judge to be an error. 
1 Cor. 2.14.  For the Apostle saith, The natural man reiciveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are 〈…〉 him: Neither can be kn●w them, because they are spiritual●y 〈◊〉. 
Rom. 8.5, 7, 8.  And he saith also, They that are after the flesh (as all natural men are) saumur or mind the things of the fas●. And again, The carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the Law of God, nor indeed can be. So that they that are in the flesh cannot please God. Wherefore man by no natural power can improve the gifts of nature so, as without special grace to will or do that which is spiritual and supernatural, as to repent, believe, etc.  
I fi●de that Master John Goodwin hath alleged some passages in my book, 
Christian's daily walk, cap 15. sect. 1. page 452, 453.  as if I did concur with him, or favour his opinion. I have hereupon considered and weighed well what I have there written, and find nothing tending to the maintenance of his error; but something expressly against free will to good. I declaring, That notwithstanding Christ may be said to give himself a ransom for all, etc. yet this doth not argue universal Redemption, nor that all men may be saved if they will. I appeal to any judicious and impartial Reader, whether in any thing I have there written, I have justified his opinion; which I am utterly against.  
Henry Scudder.  
SIR,  
Understanding of your purpose to return an answer to Master John goodwin's book, 
Master Calamy his Vindication.  and finding that therein I am brought upon the stage as one that, in a Sermon preached Jan. 12.1644. should say something to countenance that heterodox opinion of his, That a natural man hath power to believe and repent. I thought it my duty, so far at least to vindicate myself and my Ministry, as to entreat you to insert in your Answer thus much as from me, by way of reply.  
1. That I do and always did abhor that proud, Pelagian, and Arminian Tenent. And that 1. because it seems to me, as it is defended by him in his book, to set up free will, (which by the fall of Adam is no longer liberum but servum arbitrium) in the place of free grace. And to make free will to put the difference between the Elect and the Reprobate, and not free grace, which is coutrary to Rom. 9.11, 18. Eph. 1.5, 11. 1 Tit. 1.9.  
2. Because it makes a man able by nature to do something that will positively and infallibly dispose and prepare him to conversion, which is contrary to Rom. 11.35. John 15.5. John 6.44. And contrary to right reason also, as 
* N●lil se disponit ad gradum altiorem quam habet natura. Atqui gra●ia regenerans excedit totam naturem, quicquid igitur est à viribus naturae id inferioris est ordinis & improportionatum ad gratiam. Potest quidem homo minus peccando, mi●us indispositus reddi ad recipiendam gratiam, quam alius sed nihil tamen facere potest, per quod ad gratiam disponatur. Vossi historia Pelagiana. lib. 4. part. 1. & pag. 420. pag. 419. Dispositio ad gratiam est pars converfionis nostr●: Conversio autem est opus Divinwn, Psal. 85.5. Lam. 5.21.  Vossius excellently showeth.  
3. Because his opinion, as he defends it, seems to me wholly to take away the necessity of preventing grace, and to make the grace of conversion to be subsequent only to man's natural endeavours, or at least but concomitant. Which is contrary to Isa. 65.5. Rom. 9.16.  
4. Because the Scripture sets out the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and inability of anaturall man to believe, and repent in such full and express terms, as that (as I conceive) it is impossible to be my opinion without wresting the Scriptures. Witness Gen. 6.5. Gen 8.21. Jer. 17.9. Eccl. 36.26. Mat. 7.18. John 5.25. Rom 8.7. Rom. 5.6, 10. 1 Cor. 2.14. 2 Cor. 3.5. Ephes. 2.1, 2, 3, Col. 2.13. John 3.6. and divers others of the like nature. The Scripture doth not only say, That a man by nature is in the dark, (as Master G. erroneously affirms) but that he is darkness, Eph. 5.8. not only that he wants light, but that he wants eyes also, Deut. 29.4. Not only that he is de ad in sins, in regard of the guilt of sin, (as Master G. saith) but also in regard of all spiritual ability to raise himself, as appeareth by the next argument.  
5. Because conversion in Scripture is not only said to be a giving of light to one that hath eyes before (is Master G. saith) but a giving of sight also, Isa. 42.7. Lu. 4.18. It is not only a giving an immediate actual or present capacity (as Mr. G. minceth it contrary to Scripture) but it is a sutting within us a principle of spiritual life. It is not only a raising us up from the guilt of sin, but it is a bestowing upon us a new heart, and a new Spirit, it is a spiritual resurrection and regeneration, 1 Pet. 1.23. Ja. 1. 1●. John 3.3. Ezek. 36.26. And therefore as a natural man cannot contribute any thing to his natural being, no more can he contribute any thing properly to his supernatural being.  
These and divers other reasons have induced me always since I knew what belonged to Divinity, to detest and abhor this his unsound and unjustifiable opinion.  
There is a second thing that I would have you likewise to put into your Answer.  
Secondly, That I am much wronged and abused in what Master G. relates concerning the Sermon I preached Jan. 12.1644. The truth is, looking over my notes, I find that I made two Sermons upon the Doctrine mentioned in the Book. In which I laid down this position quite contrary to his assertion, That man by nature is dead in sin and trespasses, unable to do any thing that is spiritually good, as he ought to do. That man by nature is unable to believe and repent, and is like the cold earth, able of itself to bring forth briers and thorns, but not able to do any thing pleasing to God, in order to eternal life, unless he be enabled by the seed of grace sorcen in his heart by God's holy Spirit. Indeed I added,  
That a man unconverted, remaining unconverted, might do that that was right in the sight of the Lord, he might do bonum though not benè. And by the help of the Holy Ghost in the common work of it, he might do many things in order to salvation. And that the reason why he is damned, is not for want of power, but for not improving the power he hath; not for cannot, but will not.  
But then I subjoined two other positions.  
1. That no unconverted man did ever improve the power that God hath given him, but doth give advantage to God to damn him for voluntary refusing to do what he hath power to do.  
2. That though an unconverted man did improve his natural abilities to the utmost of his power, yet notwithstanding God was not bound by any promise to bestow the grace of conversion upon him. This I proved by five arguments too long here to repeat.  
And thus I have given you a short account of what concerns me in his Book. I have but a word more to say; and that is to a passage in the 131 page, in which he saith, He will not so far abuse me, as to call me either learned or pious. For my part, I thank God I am not solicitous what he or his Pulpit-Incendiary say of me. I have learned of my great Master to requite good for evil, and to heap coals of fire upon their heads, which I desire may be in remedium, not in ruinam. The great God guide us all into the ways of peace, truth and holiness. So prayeth  
Your loving Brother in the work of the Minestry. EDM. CALAMY.  
What a vast Ocean of scorns, jeers, vilifyings, childish ventosities, and profane puffs of wit do I sail through, before I can espy the least point or spot of land, any thing wherein he so much as pretends to theological argumentation? solid matter lodgeth in his great book of words, as a child of two days old in the great bed of Ware. Going over many pages filled with nothing but with scum and scurrility, he vents, among hundreds of other such unsavoury passages, this gentle expression:  
Sect. 90. 
Yo. Eld. p. 85. Sect 90.  Confident I am, that there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was a generation of Christians (scarce of men) so bloody in asserting their opinions, etc. as the greatest part of the London Subscripturients.  
I marvel not at your confidence, Solomon tells me who it is that rageth and is confident, Prov. 14.16.  
Fo● the bloody asserting, etc. never were the veins of any writings so filled with the blood which you speak of, as those of this last and worst of your pamphlets; certainly when you wrote it, you were under a quatidian fury, or sick of the miserere mei; the Reader beholds you vomiting your excrements of scurrility and wrath in every page; what is there that you mention through your book (if you would have it help you) but either you feign it your friend, or else you frown upon it, that it may not dare to be your enemy, the Scriptures, the Fathers, your mother Tongue, your opposites, against their bent and minds, are threatened unless they stoop to your sense and service; Scriptures must speak for you against themselves, and Vrijab-like must carry letters for their own destruction; Bucer, Ball, the Father, under the pain of self- contradiction, and of being accounted naked and unstable, must turn Pelagians. 
Yo. Eld. p. 5. p. 76, 79.   
If you will have it so, it must be sense for the garment to be clothed with the man, and it must be as proper to say, exchange this thing into another, as to say exchange it for another thing. Who ever will lift up a pen against you, must expect no other guerdon, but to have your pen cased in his heart, and to lie bleeding at the feet of your writings; the pulling down of Zion College shall be voted the taking away of the pillar of all impiety and opposition to the truth; all the works that ever stood it out against you must be demolished and dismantled: Your next wrath is expected against those daring (and yet more knowing than daring) men, who have prise your works that now lie upon the hands of your late bookseller's widow, but for waste paper; which by the way I note as a just retribution of providence, that those writings which value the Scriptures below the Word of God, should themselves be valued below the word of man.  
You recite an argument which you brought in Zion Coll. visited, 
Sect. 91. p. 85.  to prove that natural men have eyes to see spiritual things. Natural men (say you) have eyes to see because it is not needless for Satan to blind them.  
I denied your consequence, and gave you the ground of that my denial, viz. because the Scripture saith, 1 Cor. 2.14. The natural man cannot know the things of the Spirit of God.  
After your scoffs (which I answer with neglect) you return thus?  
1. You say, That by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the natural man is not meant the man that is simply natural or unregenerate, but such a kind of men wh●m the Apostle calls carnal, babes in Christ, meaning weak Christians. Confidently concluding from my producing of this Scripture for this purpose, I understand little of it.  
Answ. I had rather suspect any interpretation of Scripture, when you say 'tis true and sound, than when you say 'tis false and misunderstood.  
You have the stream of godly and learned Interpreters against you. Piscator takes this natural man for a man that Nihil eximium in se habet prater animam rationalem, qui non est regenitus; a man that hath nothing excellent but a rational soul, and is not borne agains, Ans. saith, this natural man is one Qui animalium more versatur, qui put at nihil esse p●st mortem, one that lives like a brute creature, and thinks there's nothing more after death to be expected. Ambrose thus: Animalis homo p●coribus similis, etc. 
Ambr. in Lee. Sensum in terram deprimit, ideaque non ●ssequitur nisi quae v●let, 〈◊〉 put●t aliquid posse fieri quam quomodo 〈◊〉, ideo quicquaid aliter audit quam norit, st●ltum juditar. Theophilact. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oecumen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  This natural man like the beasts, keeps down his sense to the earth, and therefore he only reacheth what be sees, nor thinketh he that any thing can be, but as he bears; therefore whatever he hears to be otherwise, he judgeth it foolish. Theophilact saith, This natural man is one that is given altogether to natural reasonings thinking not that he wants s●●our from alove.  
Oecumenius thus: The natural man is one that lives after the flesh, and hath not his understanding enlightened by the Spirit.  
Theadoret thus: Qui Contentus propriis Cogitationibus, spiritus doctrinam non admi●tit, One that is pleased with his own cogitations and gives no admittance to the Doctrine of the Spirit. 
Calv. in Loc. Homi●em onimalem vecat queml. bet hominem solis naturae facult tibus praelitum in puris natural●tus relictum. Ter spiritu●lem intelli●iur is eujus m●ns illuminatione spiri●us Dei regitur.   
Calvin saith, By the Natural man is meant a man endowed only with the faculties of nature, and by the spiritual, a man whose mind is governed by the illumination of the Spirit.  
I shall make bold to instruct my instructor out of Isidorus Pelusiota, Ep. l. 5. Ep. 128. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. The Scripture distinguisheth (as he shows) between the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The Carnal, the natural, and the spiritual. The Carnal that fall, by reason of their weakness, into many ways that are fleshly. Natural, that follow the reasoning of the natural mind and understanding. The spiritual that are adorned with the gift of the holy Ghost, and are illuminated above nature, as (he divinely expresse●h it) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, having gotten above natural reasonings.  
I stay in Arminius, 
Disp. 11. Thes. 8.  who saith, Mens hominis (non renati) in isto stain Caeca est, salutari Dei, ejusque voluntatis cognitione destituta, non capax illorum, quae sunt spiritus Dei, juxta Aposlolum, Animalis homo, etc. The mind of an unregenerate man (saith he) is blind and destitute of the saving knowledge of God and of his will, not able to receive the things of the Spirit of God, according to the Apostle, The natural man, etc. I add, the same kind of men are spoken of by jude,  
The Apostle, vers. 19 he joining 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, & 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Separatists sensual or natural, not having the Spirit, together. So James joins natural and devilish together, the 3. cap. 15. ver. The wisdom that is not from above is sensitall or natural 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and devilish, so that the natural man, 1 Cor. 2.14. is unregenerate.  
2. You say, That by natural man, is meant a weak believer, because by natural here, and carnal cap. 3.1.3. are meant the same men. Now by carnal there is meant the weak believer.  
Answ. It's evident that the carnal man spoken of, cap. 3.1. and the natural man spoken of in cap. 2.14. are not the same. That carnal man was a babe in Christ, and therefore he was such an one as had the Spirit of Christ dwelling in him, Rom, 8.9. This natural man was such an one as bade not received the Spirit, ver. 12.14.  
3. You endeavour to prove that by carnal man, cap. 3.1. and by natural man, c. 2.15. are meant the same,  
Because the same kind of persons whom he calls spiritual is oppused both the natural man, c. 2.15. and to the carnal, c. 3.1.  
Answ. Away with this trifling; a man may be opposed to a beast and a child, therefore a beast and a child are the same; dicite Jo. Paean, cop 2.15. the spiritual and natural man differ statu, as a man that hath the spirit from him that hath it not; but c. 3.1. the spiritual man and the carnal differ only gradu, in degree and measure of participation of the same spirit, as you yourself assert.  
4. You say, That the Apostle doth not speak simply or in general of the things of God, nor particularly of things simply necessary to be believed to salvation, but only of the deep things of God, which things, v. 6. he had called wisdom.  
Answ. The contrary is evident by the context that the Apostle speaks generally of the things of the Gospel, Christ crucified, c. 1.24. made to us of God, wisdom, etc. c. 1.30, etc. of the wisdom of God, c. 2.7. as opposed to the wisdom of this world, v. 6. the manifold wisdom of God made known by the Church, Ep. 3.10. All the Gospel is a great mystery, 1 Tim. 3.16. A mystery kept secret. Rom. 16.25. Into which the Angels desire to look, 1 P. 1.12. Though in this mystery there be greater and lesser deeps, yet all are deeps, so deep as that none of the princes of this world did know them, by the spirit we coming to know the things that are given us by God. Chrysost. 
1 Cor. 2.8. Chrys. in Loc. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Perfectos voc●t non qui asicuti sunt plenam sapi●ntra●, sed qui sano sunt & in corrupto jud cio Caiu. in Loc.  by the wisdom you speak of, which the Apostle preached to those that were perfect, understands it of the preaching of life and salvation by the death of Christ, and by the perfect ones believers, etc. And Calvin upon the place saith, That by perfect ones the Apostle understands not those that had attained to high degree of knowledge, but those that were of a sound judgement.  
5. You say, That man merely natural may be uncapable of these, and yet be apprehensive of such of the things of God, the knowledge whereof is of absolute necessity to salvation, as Generally of the duties commanded in the Moral Law, of the eternal power and Godhead manifested in the creation, etc.  
Answ. The things of the Law, or of the eternal power and Godhead, are not the things of which the Apostle is speaking, or which you and I are disputing of. The things we are now speaking of, are the things freely given us to our glory; for those other, which you say natural men are apprehensive of, duties of the Moral Law which are absolutely necessary to salvation, etc. if you say they are absolutely necessary to salvation, I yield it, as sine quibus non est salu●, but not as Cum quibus est salus; by the way, let the Reader but consider this arch-argumentator, who from this his exposition, That weak Christians are not capable of the deep things of God, undertakes to prove that the natural man may understand those things which are necessary to salvation.  
In your 94. 
Pag. 88 Se. 94.  Section you say, That power which the Apostle here denies to his natural man, of knowing the things of God, may well may of necessity must be understood only of an immediate, actual, or present capacity of power, so that his meaning may be carely this: The natural man, while he continues merely such, hath no principle or power actually and de praesenti to know savingly the things of the Spirit of God; but this proveth not but that a natural man may have such principles, even for the present, which by a regular improvement, and such, whereof by the never denied assistance of Grd at first, he is very capable, may advance and rise through the ordinary blessing of God in such cases, into such a capacity or power as is contended for; a youth of twelve years of age cannot construe a Chapter in the Hebrew Bible, he hath no immediate actual power, yet such a power he hath, by the improvement whereof he will according to the ordinary course of God's providence be able to do it, etc.  
Answ. Why do you so flag and falter in giving us the meaning of the Apostles saying, This power may well be understood, etc. the meaning may only be this, etc. Did your heart misgive you? take heed; uncertainty, I fear, is your punishment, though you pretend confidence.  
2. That the natural man hath no power to know savingly the things of the Spirit of God, I acknowledge for an undeniable truth.  
3. When you say, Nevertheless this proveth not but such a man may have such principles by a regular improvement, etc. I told you before of your foggy conceptus; you might have spoken yourself a Pelagian, as plainly as now you do, with half these words.  
1. These principles you speak of, by the improvement whereof he may rise to the power contended for, I suppose are those which you mention Divine Auth. pag. 200. reason, judgement, understanding. memory, etc. if you mean not these let me hear.  
2. By the never denied affistance of God, whereby a man is capable of improvement etc. at first. If you mean not a general concourse of God, afforded and given to every man as a man, and as created of God, according to that passage, Yo. Eld. p. 11. Where you told us, because nature is not given away from God, whatever is ascribed unto nature, is no derogating from the grace of God, clear yourself.  
3. By advancing into such a power as is contended for, you must understand a power of knowing savingly, and believing the things of the Spirit of God. The sum of all which is thus much: A natural man, by the ordinary assistance and blessing of God, afforded to every one, may so improve his natural Principles of Reason, Judgement, Memory, etc. as savingly to know and believe the things of God.  
This your similitude of a youth that may be pains acquire skill in the tongues further declareth to be your meaning, by which wretched opinion you hold out, That there's nothing in grace above nature, which nature may not reach unto; or rather, That grace itself is nothing but polished nature. But how stands this with the words of the Apostle, who saith, That the natural man cannot know the things of God, because they are spirituaily discerned, and elsewhere, That the carnal mind cannot be subject to the Law of God, as being enmity against God. Can all the pains, improvement, polishing, make nature any other than nature, and make a natural man to understand or believe any thing but after a natural manner? can it give ability to know spiritually? can all the care, and cost, and dressing, make a bad tree to be of a good kind, and while bad, to bring forth good fruit?  
I add in explication of this of the Corinthians, 1 Cor. 1.14. and for your information; that excellent passage of learned Musculus upon the place, Confert, utrinque tam hominem, etc. 
Musc. in Loc. Confert. utrinque tum hominem animalem tum spiritum dei, & doces ita esse comparatum hominem animalem, ut quae spiritus Dei sunt nequeat cognoscere, quemadmodum si dicas bestiam cognoscere non posse quae bominum sunt plus interest inter animolem hominem, & spiritum Dei, deinde & inter intellectam hominis, & ea quae sunt Dei, qu●m inter hominem & bestiam.   
The Apostle compareth the natural man (saith he) and the Spirit of God, and he teacheth, That the natural man cannot know the things of the Spirit, any more than a beast the things of a man, etc.  
In your 95. 
Yo. Eld. p. ●9. Sect. 95.  Section you produce a double construction of the Apostles words, 1 Cor. 2.14. The natural man cannot know the things of the Spirit, etc. This unabtlity (you say) may either be understand of the great●d d●ffi●ultie that lies in the way of such men; to attame the knowledge of these things, or else of their present, actual ind●sp 〈…〉 to ●nder them capable of such knowledge.  
Answ. I meet in these ●ections with a sea of words, and a 〈◊〉 of matter, you multiply expressions to no purpose.  
1. If you say. The natural man is unable in the former sense, because of the 〈◊〉 that lieth in his way, etc. you are a 〈…〉, and that by your own clear confession; which is in these very words: The 〈…〉 Austin and Pelagius, was, 〈…〉 simply and absolutely necessary, for the 〈◊〉 to do that which is good, etc. which was Austius opinion; or, Whether it was necessary 〈◊〉 by way of acconm●dation and facilitation for such a perfromance; which was the sense of 〈◊〉. 
Yo. Eld. p. 51. 52. Quicurq. 〈◊〉 vit ideo 〈◊〉 gra●am 〈◊〉, ut, quod face●, jabemur rer lihernm 〈◊〉 faci●ius pessimus 〈◊〉 per gratram, ta quam & 〈…〉 vina ma data, Anathema sit De 〈…〉 sine me difficalius potestis facere, sed art sine 〈…〉 facere. Conc. Afr. Can. Cap. 5.  And if this be your opinion with Pelagius. why bring you the Fathers particularly Austin, as joining with you in the point of the 〈◊〉 of grace, in Zion Coll. visited? when as, by your own 〈◊〉, Angin was against you and your 〈◊〉. I shall add you were condemned for holding this opinion long before you were borne.  
2. If the latter be your opinion, viz. That natural men are 〈…〉 their present and actual indisposedness and 〈…〉, etc. Besides that I save confuted it before; it is evidently coutrary to those Texes of Scripture impudently and impertinently cited by yourself for yourself. as Matt. 12.24 Hue 〈◊〉 being evil speak good things, Joh. 5.44. How can ye believe, etc. Job 6.44. No man can come to me, unless the Father 〈◊〉, etc. Jo. 12.39. Therefore they could not believe, etc. Joh. 15. Without we can d● nothing, and Joh. 14.17. The Spirit of truth which the world cannot receive, etc. Rom. 8.8. They that are in the flesh cannot pltase God, (to which you might as well have added, had it not opposed you a little too palpably) Rom. 8.7. The carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be. These Scriptures clearly teaching that though man have a soul passively capable of saving grace, faith, knowledge, repentance, etc. and his want of them be indeed accompanied with present hatred and contempt of them, yet that he is also absolutely unable to attain them, and that it is possible only to God to work them in him; nor do you in alleging these Scriptures, for me an argument out of them, to prove that this want of power is only in regard of actual indi posednesse. Sure I a●, you might have raised several arguments against that your cursed and rotten exposition; as, That its an impotency consisting in the want of a spiritual principle and faculty suitable to the duties and performances which men are said to be unable to do, with ut me ye can do nothing, 
Joh. 15.5.  1 Cor. 2 14 The natural man cannot know the things of God, for they are spiritually discerned, Mat. 7.18. a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit, Mat. 12.34. how can ye being ●bill speak good things, Rom. 8.8. They that are in the flesh cannot please God; and as the natural man's impotency proceeds from the defect of a spiritual principle, so for the removal of that impotency, God bestoweth a new principle of spiritual life, (which were needless if man's impotency proceeded only from actual indisposedness) Ezek. 36.26. A new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put into you, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And that it's not an impotency that proceeds only from actual indisposedness or unwillingness, is clear in that a natural man cannot but be indisposed, 
Joh. 6.44.  and unwilling to every spiritual act; to believe and repent, etc. No man can come to me except the Father draw him; 
Joh. 14.17.  No man can be willing or consent, unless the Father make him so; the world cannot receive the spirit. The like also is evident from, Rom. 8.7. The carnal mind is enmity against God, and cannot be subject to the Law of God, etc.  
These are the principal passages which I find in his Book, wherein he pretends either to Scripture or Argument; for indeed the business of argumentation, is but the by-worke of this his big work.) The bulk of his book, being a heap of defamations and scurrilities, fit for a sink than a study, concerning which, I say, 'twere easy to return him reviling for revileng; but this were to lay aside the Minister, the Christian, nay the man; and as ridiculous as for a man whom an ass hath kicked, 
Yo. Eld. p. 1.  to kick the ass again. I shall conclude mine (mutatis mutandis) as M. Goodwin began his: Though more truly. For a great part of Mr. Goodwin his pamphlet, the constitution and complexion of it, easeth me of the labour of making any answer or reply unto it; for consisting of such reproaches, vilifications. and disparagements (the madness whereof is sufficiently known unto and cried out against by all men) I should but actum agere, and do that which is abundantly done already to my bond, if I should go about to possess men of sobriety and judgement, with the unsavouriness thereof.   
FINIS.   

ERRATA.  
PAg. 5. Marg. read Ac. 1. 25. p. 2. l. ult, for streams read steames; p. 13. l. 35. r. poor, than himself, p 14. l. 25. instead of for, r. only ●o amaze. p 17 l. 2. r. their, l. 3 r. not. p. 26. l. 25. r. neaver, p. 31. m. r. Cc. de Scar. d 36. m. l. 15. r divinarum, p. 37 l. 15. r. wa● p. 40 l. penult, r place, what follower, p. 41. l. 32 r. sumimus, p. 43. m r. script. p. 47. l 3●. r. tradita, p. 58. l. r. revealed, p. 77. m. r. hominis, p. 77. m. r. efficaciffir● p. 80. m r. concupiscentem, p. 81. l. 11. r. illum, p. 85. m. r. qua semper mala, ib. l. arb● 'em, p. 86. l. 25. l. scriptures, p. 87. l. 14. r. makes p. 88 l. 25. r. undervalewing, ib. in m. ●. ut. p. 89. m. l. perpetrando. p. 94. l. 34. r. and. l. penult, deal you, p. 95. l. 9 r. causality, p. 93. l. 5. deal of, p. 117. l. 30. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.