A LETTER OF address TO THE PROTECTOR Occasioned by Mr. Needhams reply to Mr. GOODWINS Book against the TRIERS. By a Person of quality. Haec Satis ad Iuvenem quem nobis fama superbum Tradit, & inflatum plenuma Nerone propinquo. Juv. satire. My Lord, I Have stood by you as an Idle spectator upon this deck of State ever since your Lordship laid hold on the Helm of English affairs, and have seen you for your own safety and interest unhappily constrained to cast over board the most considerable rights and privileges of the people, the valuable commodities you found the ship of State after a dangerous voyage well fraught with: had you been necessitated by any other storm and tempest then that raised by your own fears and jealousies to manage this unruly vessel, you had been surely pitied rather then blamed and envied: I must confess I expected ere this you would have judged by the lowering of the morning what weather it was like to make, either with you or with your posterity, and that you would have taken part with the rest of your fortunes in the general satisfaction and content of the nation. But since you are resolved to ride it out, magure all the high winds that blow from the tops of the mountains, the waves and billows of the people that continually go over you; and therefore have begun to cut down the high masts, to tear away the cordage and tackling, and to spare nothing that seems matter of hindrance and impediment; give me leave to offer some few things not eccentric to religion, and relative to the occasion, that may be means to blow away that storm that threatens you in the disaffection of good people with a sudden and unavoidable shipwreck. The occasion that extorted this address was a scurrilous answer published by your Intelligencer, as a reply to Mr. Goodwins piece against the Triers, and Dedicated with great solemnity to your most Serene Highness, not so much for Mr. Goodwins vindication, as my own security and all other your Lordships good subjects still remaining unto you undefamed, that when any of us shall dare to peep out in Print to look after the truth, or to see what is become of our Liberties National, or particular, and how they are disposed of by your most Serene Highness, and the advice of your Council, for your use, we may not be flapt in the face with the Fox-tale of your Intelligencer, and be forced for very shane to pull in our heads. They are the fittest to attempt the violation of other mens credit and repute, that have none of their own to lose. In this your Honourable Committee were nothing great minded, but base and cowardly, having received a challenge from Mr. Goodwin, to meet him in the field of truth and righteousness, there at the sharp of Reason and Gods word to dispute the legality both of their delegated power and administration, to play him an Italian trick. entertain Needham that State Porter, that venalis anima, that mercenary soul that for an handful of earth shall be hired to assassinate the greatest famed and reputation; A person whom neither the Authority of the late King, the honour of the( then) Sacred house of Parliament could make steady and sober; onely your most Serene Highness with the best advice of your council has had the happiness to keep him in his wits: true, upon the late alteration of Government, he seems to have fallen into his former distemper again. But you'l easily pardon him, my Lord, and so I hope will Mr. G. 'twas at a change, and all the City knows it was a very lunatic time at Westminster. My Lord, let him forbear hereafter to prefix your Great name to his trivial papers( he may come in time to play with your bandstrings, 'twill weaken your credit with Mazarin, Sweden, &c.( besides the prejudice it does you at home) should they once come to know it. As for Mr. Goodwin, whose person he hath rather encountered then his Arguments, 'twill little concern him, having gained a deserved,( though envied) credit and repute sufficient to bear him up in the esteem and valuation of knowing men till time shall be no more, above a thousand such idle and illogical rhapsodies scribbled up with impertinency, lies and falsehood, considerable in nothing, as it is most excellently in his Epistle, but that it concerns you. Believe it my Lord, he hath dealt with Mr. Goodwin in the quotation of his writings and arguments as he used to do with letters out of Ireland, takes that which makes for his purpose, and leaves the rest out, though nere so much material and dependant upon it; and thus the Knight of the Sun routs the Gentleman horse and foot, as he was wont to do the enemy in a Diurnal; though the arguments be still whole and entire,( onely a little disordered by his leading of them up) and never brought in, in their full strength to the engagement. He does ill to upbraid Mr. Goodwin with his duels and those many personal engagements he hath made good, to the great vindication of truth, advantage of State, conviction and consternation of his adversaries: if Mr. G. have at any time( which is more then I know) taken the foil at the hands of any simplo person in the contest of truth and error, it is to let a person of the greatest intellectual abilities in the Nation know, I speak it without vanity, favour or affection, that he is not infallible and invincible; onely Ile make it my request to your Lordship, since your Intelligencer hath given you in a Catalogue of Mr. G. duels, you'l please likewise to enjoin him to give an account of the fields that he likewise hath pointed; for certainly the man hath been by the relation of all men that best know him one of the greatest duelists in the nation; save onely that it hath been against the weaker sex: And if the Lady of Burford and the Justices of peace for that County of Oxen did not mistake one another, Mr. Needham hath been in far hotter skirmishes then ever Mr. G. was in, and came off with far greater loss of reputation. In his Epistle to the Reader he labours extravagantly to represent Mr. Goodwin as guilty of contradiction and self-opposition, by comparing the testimony he gives of the Commissioners in his preamble with some passages scattered up and down in his discourse. He believed them to be men of conscience and worth, fearing God and lovers of truth] and yet p. 9. he intimates a bloody dominion exercised by them over men holding the truth, calls them Heterodox p. 12. insinuating as if they held errors against their inward conviction to the contrary, tells them p. 3. of famishing men with their wives and children onely because they will not profess a belief contrary to their conscience: p. 7. such as by their power and subtlety bring about their own ends, and receive the tribute of thanks if not base metal from those who are preferred. My Lord, the testimony given to the Commissioners in the Epistle is no contradiction to the characters set upon their heads in the discourse, considering the Committee as a body congregate consist of many members, Mr. Goodwin I presume,( for my acquaintance is not much with him) is a person of greater candour and modesty then once to touch those great names that either absent themselves conscientiously, or sit in that black chamber rather by the dread of your reverend Commission then of their proper motion and inclination: by men of conscience and worth, he certainly means some heads of the famous Universities, the City Aldermen, the renwoned Baxter, and many others, oppressed by the potency of a person or two, and rendered not onely useless but noxious in that place: All the dismal and bloody characters dispersed in the good management of the arguments are deservedly put upon the head of your Arch-Bishop, the great Metropolitan of England, the great counsellor of State, one that can persuade you to kill and make alive, to call Parliaments and dissolve them, whose little finger is much heavier upon the nation, then Canterburies loins,( with some few others I spare to mention) quem Deus amoveat, ex maxima ejus misericordia. It happens to many good men in the Commission( which is properly Mr. G. sense as he explains himself in the Epistle) what always happens to jupiter when he is in conjunction with Saturn, though their influx be good single and alone, yet when conjoined with that ill Planet, they have the same dangerous and pestilential influence upon the nation. That Mr. Goodwin varied in his thoughts concerning the death of the King, concerning forms of Government in the Church, I must take it for grant upon Mr. Needhams authority: having not had opportunity to examine the quotations, wherein Mr. Goodwin is not alone, but compassed about with a world of good company, that suffered likewise a change in their judgements: I cannot think there was one in an hundred, that avowed King Charles his death, so much republic at the first as to entertain the least thought of it, Ile not except your Lordship, that have been too and fro as well as others: and may well say with the Lady Abbess, By Saint Peter and by Saint Paul, Daughter, sinners are we all. I cannot but think that Mr Needham had a further reach in recording the variety of Mr. G. opinions then barely to represent him as a person incident to change; in matters of government, Civil and ecclesiastic; which could be no matters of opprobrium at all, being that current the most valuable persons in the nation in sensu politico have run down in. But I suspect it was to let your Lordship see Mr. Goodwin was no friend to King-ship, no admirer of Presbytery, Mr. Calvins Idea of government, now grown of late the proper ba●… s of Monarchy, and therefore points you to some odious and unwelcome passages in a book entitled A defence of the honourable sentence, &c. where he calls it an inhuman tenant of exempting Kings from punishment, whereby they encourage them to turn tyrants, &c. But why should I be so daring as to take upon me to expound Mr. Goodwins sense, or trouble your Lordship further in wiping off that dirt which none but the hand of envy and calumny would throw upon him? if he judge Needham worth beating for his bald clownish Dunstable vilifications, I'm persuaded he'l do it to the purpose, your Lordship out of mere pity and compassion will be forced to cry sufficit. Really my Lord, I am hearty sorry for the man, and pity him exceedingly, that it was his hard hap to fall into Mr. Goodwins hands, considering his comparative ignorance, weakness and simplicity, and how unprovided he is poor man to make resistance against that exquisite and severe hand that is likely to be lifted up against him: could I believe the man was sorry for what he hath done, and that he would amend for the future; considering he was merely drawn in by those that apprehended the danger better then himself, I would employ that small interest I have in Mr. G. to mediate his peace: for certainly should Mr. Goodwin take all those advantages against him he hath voluntarily offered by his impertinent tricks, his vain confidence, his wearisome crambes, and most weak solutions, he would render him a person so odious and ridiculous, as twould absolutely spoil his intelligence and News-monging trade, which would prove the greatest evil that befell him since he came out of Newgate. My Lord, though I make myself merry with Mr. N. as no man in the world that sees the fine conceits of the man can do otherwise, yet I intend to be serious with your Lordship, and take upon me the confidence to give you some good counsel: for though I despair of persuading you to lay aside your most Serene Highness, and return to your former Excellency again, which its likely would be best for you and us; yet would I gladly have the nation to make the best of you they can, and improve you in the capacity you are in to their best advantage without more a do: for I am not so much a stranger to your Lordships virtue, to be ignorant, that would you but harken to good Counsel you would make the most sufficient Prince in Europe; it is but three or four things I shall for the present lay before you, not irrelative to the occasion, wherein we may touch upon something in Mr. N. reply, for to engage all that exotic discourse; as the exigency of Mr. G. arguments, still unbroken, doth not impel us, so were it a work for Zeno and Epictetus, for a Stoical apathy, no mans patience now alive would serve him to it. 1. Let me persuade you, as the best substratum of Government, to set your notions strait in the things of God. Let the dispensations of heaven for the good of men be the model and platform of your Laws and Ordinances on earth, that all the issues of your Lordships wisdom and goodness may impartially stream forth to the general refreshment and content of the people: goodness is so much the more excellent, as it is diffused and unconfined; you would think him a monster that if it were in his power would besmear the Sun with darkness, or confine the beams thereof to their own dwelling: such monsters there are both in Church and Sate, that deal thus both with the God of heaven, and the gods on earth, restraining and limiting both( so far as their notions and persuasions extend) in their egresses of goodness, to the narrow spheres of some particular beings. To deal plainly my Lord, I much question the truth of those Oracles you most consult, and the deep Theology of those sublimate heads, from whose delphic and Oraculous mouths maxims of state as well as divinity seem to be dictated; whose brains have been strangely constellated for new discoveries, leading your Highness in your notions of God, and consequently in your Government, through a wild wilderness full of briars and thorns, wounding the name and sacred truths of God, and not sparing your own flesh: my Lord, you are taught to believe Christ died not for all, how should we then expect you should do us all good in the administration of justice and judgement? is it not a faire door opened by the hand of such an unscriptural opinion unto you, to cleave unto those few for whom you probably imagine Christ suffered, with the rejection of all others, to their apparent loss and disadvantage. Sir, It is imposed upon you, That God vouchsafes not sufficient means of grace unto all your subjects, that he carries not an equal and impartial respect to men, as men, under the Gospel; my Lord, find you not yourself very prove in your public inclinations, to live up to this principle? you have but too much adhered to this envious notion, you have the Eulogy given you by your officious servant, p. 54. where he chides Mr. Goodwin because he cannot bless God and commend our governours, who have taken such an especial care by the two ordinances, the rules therein being observed, such brute beasts cannot enter. It appears we are as the beasts before you, that the day of judgement is already come, that you are set upon your throne, and have begun to separate the sheep from the goates, and to distinguish betwixt the vile and the precious, the clean and the unclean, the elect and the reprobate: you have set the Calvinists on your right hand, and invited them to rule with you and participate of your glory and greatness in your kingdom; you have set the Primitive Christians on your left, and said unto them, come not into any living, keep out of all employment and trust under me, &c. Sure I am my Lord, you persuade yourself God Almighty loved you, personally before you had any real being and existence, and that you were with some few comparatively Elected to glory and blessedness abaeterno; therefore is Mr. G. charged as heterodox p. 54. to the great truths of Gods electing love) and that the great heap of your Subjects are certainly to fall by the fatal decree in the miserable carnage of eternal ruin: and therefore not unsuitable to your faith and opinion may receive the reputed Saints into your bosom prefer them at your pleasure, and here in comport with the divine decree; leaving the great rout of people( over which you are imposed) as the sad forlorn of Hell, unavoidably appointed to ruin, justly to bear whatever partiality, injustice, cruelty can lay upon them here on earth. Here Mr. G. impleads your ordinance, and calls it to the bar of truth, justice and goodness, Arg. 11.[ such men who are like to thrust back from working in the Lords harvest the best of those whom the Lord of the harvest thrusts forward to his work, are not to be invested with any such power and Authority by which they shall be enabled to do such disservice both to God and men, but such are persons, &c. Ergo: what says profound Scaliger to this? p. 71. well said Mr. G. if these things be so they in authority have great reason to ken you thanks for the discovery, but had ill luck they had not so fore-seeing a politician: this is your man Sir who for his rare skill in logic, and profound Argumentation, may well be preferred to red lectures to the Committee: he presumes so to delight his reader with the tunableness of his expressions as that they should never expect any manner of answer or solution at all from him; mary anon he speaks to the purpose, and with one puff of his mouth blows up all Mr. Goodwins reasons into the air. P. 72.1. It is argument enough in their behalf that they were thought fit to be instructed by a Prince and his Council most renowned for piety throughout all the Reformed Church, what high opinion and esteem the transmarine Churches, have of your Lordship, I know not: it cannot be greater then I seriously wish it were; foreign credit must validate domestic actions: The Protector has invested them, therefore he may lawfully invest them: because it is de facto, therefore is it de jure: the answer is too officious, the solution most strange and novel. Certainly the man learnt this new way of reasoning in Utopia, we are altogether strangers and unseen in the greatest part of your Highnesses dominions in this unparallelled course of Argumentation. Well Mr. N. now undertakes to engage home and will not let Mr. Goodwin p. 72. l. 8. so much as seem to have any reason for his displeasure, in saying they take upon them to prescribe unto God and Jesus Christ who and what manner of persons[ they] should do well to employ in the work of the ministry, and whom to reject, and to obtrude others upon them] here Mr. N. tells us he first takes notice of the manner of Mr. G. expression:[ God and the Lord Jesus Christ,[ they] and here Mr. Goodwin poor man failes both in Grammar and Divinity within the circumference of these four letters, twere a thousand pities such deep criticisms should be butted in obscurity: certainly it was for the exonerating his pericranium, charged with these deep observations more them the Committees vindication, that these labours of Mr. Needhams came forth.[ why not God and the Lord Jesus Christ[ they] as well as that 17. joh. 22.[ that they may be one as we are one] itis probable the man never red his English rules, or not understood them; to stand quarreling with a verb plural its being joined to two nominative cases Singular and a conjunction copulative coming between them. But this may give an occasion( in the same paragraph) to fear lest he be ready( meaning Mr. G.) to take some other new vagary being already upon the way, and run over to Arius and Socinus. Either my Lord they have other thoughts of socinianism and arianism in Utopia then we have in these western parts of Europe, or else the man understands not the controversy( which is the likelier of the two) or this small word[ they] could never have troubled the man so much: he seems to be so afraid of dividing the essence, that he scarce admits the distinction of persons, He cannot be well pleased with Tremellius his version, faciamus hominem, I wonder who the Apostle John was running over to R. 20.6. 〈◇〉, Priests of God and of Christ: but it is an ignorant soul, and I hast to have done with him; all that I am able to do for him for the present is to prescribe him the thorough reading,( and understanding if it be possible) of the Athanasian Creed: and thus he hath done with the manner of Mr. Goodwins expression, and comes to insist upon the matter. p. 72.73. The Commissioners are so far from prescribing unto God whom he should employ in the work of the ministry, that they follow the prescript of Gods word in employing or rejecting men and make that their rule, the rules given them by our governours in the two Ordinances being all either set down in or derived from and grounded upon the word, &c. To deal ingenuously with you my Lord; to do the gentleman no wrong, within the compass of my reading I never met with a person more able at the affirmative part of discourse, but the worst in the world at the probative: had he proved a Divine, as he would have been weak at the doctrinal part, so without doubt he would have been very sufficient in his applications. To come to the Reply. That the qualifications of Gospel-ministers are excellently set down in the word of God, no man questions. That the three requisites to Approbation enumerated in your Lordships Ordinance, viz. The grace of God, holy and unblamable conversation, knowledge, utterance, ability, and fitness to preach the Gospel, are very necessary and advantageous in the promulgation of the Gospel, Mr. G. will not deny. That the Commissioners have not been very capable in not fully observing, either the rules of Gods word, or your Lordships Commission, nothing in return to this eleventh argument is proved by Mr. N. to the contrary. That the Triers have sinned against the revealed will of the Ordinance, is but too apparent, in refusing men solely upon the account of their judgements from time to time, neither can any thing but a secret sense absolutely contrary thereunto, known onely to your Lordship and themselves, relieve them: For express it is in the 37 Articles of the Instrument of Government,( which the subsequent Ordinance for Approbation did not I hope any way across or infringe) That such as profess faith in God by Iesus Christ, though differing in judgement from the doctrine worship or discipline publicly held forth, shall not be restrained from, but shall be protected in the profession of the faith and exercise of their religion; so as they abuse not, &c. Preaching I hope is a public profession of faith, and an exercise of Religion; the locking up of the Church-doors of any parish whereunto any person is sent by a presentation and call of the people, with the Triets key of non-approbation, is a restraint from the exercise of that part of Religion with a witness, and equivalent to the Episcopal silence. For it is not onely the maintenance the Commissioners think not meet to bestow upon them, as Mr. N. p. 74. l. ult., vainly insinuates, but it is a liberty they deny them to speak unto the people assembled, in public, unless they will teach them sub dio, exposed as much to the injury of the elements as their cruelty and partiality. But what need I harp so much upon an Instrument now out of tune? what sweeter music your Lordship will make having got a better, we shall sit down in expectation of. I should now have entred upon the second head, and have shewed your Lordship how little these Trustees for Religion have observed the Ministerial qualification in the word of God in dissallowing those as Mr. G. saith well,[ God and Christ do recommend unto them for Approbation] wherein I should a little have vindicated the doctrine of the Gospel, so much obstucted by your Commissioners, and endeavoured a reconciliation, but I find myself unhappily prevented; this improbable Doctor hath already determined the controversy, put the case out of dispute, done more in a page. then Dr. own or Kendal, nay let me add the Synod of Dort, jansenius and the Dominicans, in all their volumes, shuts Mr. Horns great door with his little finger, swallows up Redemption Redeemed at a morsel, Arminius, Corvinus, Episcopius stand by him as pigmies: To touch upon his arguments— page. 73. A pleasing doctrine it is to the carnal part of the world, who thereupon presuming it is in the power of their own wills to return and repent, and lay hold( at any time when themselves please) upon the grace of God. Certainly the man was set up as a post for Mr. Goodwin to beat, whilst others more considerable might get away: That ever any patron of Gods free and universal grace asserted or maintained a power in the creature distinct from divine concurrence to do any thing that good is, is more then I know, more I am sure then Mr. N. can prove: I think they say the will of man set at liberty by grace is free in its choice both of good and evil. Arminius himself was of this opinion, if we may believe Mr. Coniers his Translation, p. 113. touching mans will, thus you have it. In the Sate of apostasy and sin he is disabled of himself and by himself to think, will, or do any thing truly good, and stands in need of the renovating and regenerating power of God in Christ by his Spirit in his intellect, affections, and will, and all other faculties to empower him hereunto, but participating hereof as freed from sin he is able to think, will, and do good, yet still as under the supplies of the grace of God. Further p. 47. l. 5. that it must be their own fault if they miscarry in the business, meaning in the business of salvation. Sure my Lord this was the first time, that ever any person in terminis, blamed either this doctrine or any other for charging mens destructions upon themselves, and the blood of souls upon their own heads, though it be the opinion yet it is not the language of such persons: all that can be said for him is, that he is true to his principles, devoles all upon the fatal decrees; men are no way in fault. All they do is in pursuance of Gods secret and forcible will, it is ex necessitate decreti, the necessary result of Gods decree: and not ex libertate principii, the abuse of their own liberty and choice, and so in the very act of sin comply with Gods purpose of reprobation: Mr. N. is not ashamed to own the necessary results of his own opinions, and therefore may please not onely to excuse them, as here he doth, but commend them likewise, as persons diligent in the use of means, sin and wickedness, fore-appointed by God to bring them to ruin inevitable and misery unavoidable: without question the man took his instructions wrong, twas never his masters desire he should discover the nakedness of their principles so much unto the people l. 7. This doctrine is of a brave latitude indeed, it includes virtually as the root all the fruits of ungodliness and unrighteousness that break forth in the world; how does the honest gentleman make this appear? for when men grows audacious and continue in the Commission of sins, it is generally upon this account, that by some secret suggestion of satan and their own corrupt hearts they are induced to flatter themselves that they will amend and do otherwise ere long, thereby posting off repentance from time to time upon a vain supposition that redemption by the blood of Christ. This was the substance of his argument before p. 73. and if it be the same then it is of a marvelous longitude and latitude; he tells Mr. Goodwin of moods and figures, sure it must be no logical, but the most capacious Mathematical figure, that can comprehend the great bulk of it. Here I take notice of the mans ignorant-ingenuity; confessing mens posting off their repentance and procrastinating their return unto God it is by some secret suggestion of satan and the corruption of their own hearts. It is worth your observation my Lord that the doctrine itself hath not any such ill influence, no not in the judgement of envy, but the doctrine in conjunction with Sathans gloses and false suggestions with mans sinful propensions; and I wonder my Lord what doctrine it is that by Sathans temptations and mans evil inclinations may not be converted to the worst use imaginable. I dare be bold there is not any point or particle in all the Assembly-doctrine of faith that large and voluminous creed, that can be instanced in to the contrary. Further in the same page.. This is a doctrine of rare extent indeed, that fetcheth all manner of wickedness( more or less) in to the world: it helps to people bridewell, stock Newgate, and feed Tyburn, under the protection and instruction of the pens and pulpits of Mr. G. and those more competent sons of his whom he baptizeth into the wretched opinion of the universal extent of redemption( viz. of the benefits of the death of Christ,) to all the world, to wit every individual person. What the judgements of those unhappy people are in Newgate I am not so well able to say positively as Mr. N. having been lately a member of that honourable society, yet more then probable is it if your Lordship pleased for satisfaction to issue out another Commission for an inquifitio de fide, there would be an 100 to one found of Mr. N. opinion in the controversies depending. What faith it was Mr. Sindercom died in, which Mr. N.( at whose instigation I know not) unhandsomely published after his death, to cast aspersion upon the favourers of general redemption, is not to me material; and as I was not his confessor so shall I not be his compurgator: yet is it no rule for me to judge worse of the person or of the point, for either Sindercombs or any other mans living or dying in it: and though the policy was like that of hanging Mrs. Turner in her starch, yet the issue and desired event prove not the same: The credit and esteem of the doctrine is still upheld in the minds of free and impartial men, all these shameful and indirect means used to the contrary. True it is my Lord you have made them sit very uneasy under your government as well the Baptized as rebaptized Christians, and you must blame your self in part, if they be not so tame and submiss as you desire: could they number men, as well as they can do arguments with the adverse party, I know no reason, but that they should be as far in your Lordships politic books as they: and yet they are not altogether inconsiderable in number and tale for really they grow a very great herd as Mr. N. is pleased to term them; they thrive best under their Julian liberty, and may do your Lordship more harm or good then you are ware of. And lastly p. 75. He sweeps away our doctrine of general redemption with the dragons tail in the Rev. 12. [ as for the doctrine of universal Atonement, and the rest of that black guard of errors, it seems to be of the same nature with the tail of the dragon which drew down the third part of the stars of heaven: Mr. G. as the subject leads him, talks of patrons and parishes. Mr. N. talks of dragons and scorpions, falls again upon the doctrine in terms and expressions bordering upon blasphemy: That Christ gave himself a ransom for all, his tasting death for every man, is a wretched opinion and to be enrolled amongst the black guard of errors: he speaks evil of things that he knows not; the Lord lay not this Sin to his charge: after along vagary to little purpose he gravely tells Mr. Goodwin p. 76. l. 23. it would be more suitable for a dying man to exercise himself in some better devotion then to be thus scribbling instead of arguing: this he does ter quaterque over and over, and makes himself a very deaths-head to him; Mr. Goodwins death runs much in his mind, I doubt he thinks of it more then of his own: yet I wish he were one of a thousand solicitous in this subject. Its hard to say whether your Lordship or Mr. Goodwin hath more pious prayers put up for your timely dissolution, there are not two other persons in the nation I dare be bound that live a greater eye-sore and burden to Kirk and State: yet very probable is it you may both live to the greater trouble and vexation of all persons traveling in this hope and expectation. But I am afraid I shall swell this letter beyond its due proportion, to trace Mr. Needham much further would be to very little purpose, and I fear your Lordships patience will be like my time, very little; Ile onely give you my thoughts upon a passage or two occurring in the Reply to the fifth Argument( which seems the more pertinent, because the less passionate, and so I shall subscribe. P. 44. The power of choice and nomination to livings was never yet entrusted solely in the hand of parishes, but it hath remained partly in the hands of the Magistrate as the grand Patron, partly in the hands of private Patrons, who had a right to it either by inheritance or purchase, but yet still the Magistrate and the Law interposed as to the power of trying and approving men presented, this hath been the practise from all antiquity. This is indeed the sum of all his answers to Mr. Goodwin: in every page. this spirit walks, terrifying Mr. Goodwins arguments; but 'twill easily be conjured down, without spell or witch-craft, and all the world sees it was but a light apparition. Mr. N. here and elsewhere asserts these three propositions, and like Sir Orlando gives them for law under his hand. 1. The Ministers maintenance was always in the disposition of the Magistrates. 2. That the power of choice and nomination to Livings hath partly remained in the hands of the Magistrate as the grand Patron. This Mr. N. affirms with wonted confidence, which if he had thoroughly proved, Mr. G. had done ill in my opinion, to blame the Commission, quatenus a Commission for Approbation. 3. That the civil Magistrate and the Law always interposed as to the power of trying and approving men presented. To each of these a word; to favour his first proposition all that may be, let it be understood since the times of reformation, in which the civil authority and jurisdiction hath prevailed over the ecclesiastic, though that be but a short piece of Antiquity. The Supreme Magistrate was always considerable, as custos regni & Ecclesiae, a defender of the rights, privileges, and civil immunities of Church and State, that by the sword of his power he see the Law executed for the good of both: The tithes of England are by as good law annexed to the succession of persons in the ministry as the manors, lands, and revenues of Northumberland and Westmerland to their respective earldoms; That the lands and revenues of Northumberland and Westmerland are in the disposition of the Protector no man thinks; that the Ministers maintenance is legally in the disposition of the Supreme Magistrate, Mr. N. affirms, but does not prove in the least, or show, either how it came into his hands, or when it came into his hands: The Supreme magistrate was sepes circa Ecclesiam, a fence about the Church; was the great Conservator of property, not the disposer of it: The Ministers of England for ought I know to the contrary, ever since tithes had any being, were so far from depending upon the civill Magistrate, that they had recourse for Law to their own Ecclesiastic: Court: and therefore he does ill to pled the prescription of Antiquity had he begun at honest Gilbert and reckoned downward I should have had nothing to return, true; The Ministers maintenance, tithes, is not so much a personal as it is a successive property: the law validates the one as well as the other: and if those honest Gentlemen that devolved the power they had upon your Highness, had thoroughly understood the nature of property, they would not certainly have been so forward to destroy it: If Mr. N. mean, by the Ministers maintenance, that is in the disposition of the Magistrate the Augmentations lately granted, as I would gladly put the most favourable construction upon his paradoxes, then have I not counter-argued his notion; God forbid any man should discourage your Lordship, or Parliament, in Acts of Religion and charity, by denying unto you the power and right of bestowing these State-favours upon whom you please. 2 Proposition. That the power of choice and nomination to Livings hath partly remained in the hand of the Magistrate as the grand Patron. so saith the text, p. 44. I must needs crave your Lordships leave to tell Mr. N. he talks at a distance, and as a person altogether unseen in the affairs of the Nation; and why he should start such a proposition in the behalf of your Highness, unless he think you are able to vindicate the most cracked and broken title, I profess I know not. Had he entitled the civil Magistrate to the choice and nomination in part, onely since these times, I should not have replied; but since all the authority he allegeth for proof, page. 44. line 31. is this, that it hath been the practise of all antiquity, I must needs appeal to your Lordship, and all observant men, whither it be not as false as that the Sun is not up at noon: That the Late King( as now your Lordship) had the advousion of the several livings belonging to the crown, of which he was the private patron, and so had good reason to choose and nominate, no man denies; but that K. Charles, his predecessors, the Parliaments of England before 40; or any supreme Magistrates, did assume either in whole or in part a power of choice and nomination to livings, as the grand Patrons( except as in the case excepted) which Mr. N. boldly asserts nothing, but the general experience of the nation to the contrary plainly evinceth. If Mr. Needham understand these expressions[ partly in the hands of the one, and partly the other] divisim and not conjunctim; which is the sense declared above; then does he speak nothing to purpose, the product of his argumentation is just a Cipher. Third proposition That the magistrate and the law interposed as to the power of the trying and approving men presented, before they were admitted to enjoy the public maintenance, this hath been the practise of all antiquity. That trial and examination did anciently precede institution and induction, ( i.e.) admission into any living, needs no proof: That the civil magistrates had any hand in this trial or examination more or less, is not to be made appear: but twas always a branch of ecclesiastic authority and power: I wonder how the man came to invent such a thing as that the civil magistrate interposed in this trial; when it is sufficiently known the Bishop always gave institution and induction; And all redress the law gave in case of appeal unto it from the Bishop, was by the writ of impedit to give the patron satisfaction, that his clerk was uncapeable in the sense of the law: my Lord the Episcopal Hierarchy having suffered a dissolution, me thinks Mr. Goodwin offers a great deal of reason in the behalf of the Churches as well for the conveniency of their abode, as their known faithfulness in the things of God, to be employed in affairs of this nature, that as it formerly appertained unto the Church, so it might still be continued in that channel with as little alteration as may be, and that the power of instituting and inducting without president might not be given to a medley of persons Lay and clergy. For 1. Under favour, my Lord, you sin against the ministers, in setting lay men over them, overpowering persons of one faith and faction to judge the great variety of opinions amongst them, which is to set up one doctrine, by a precept of infallibility, and make all others to crouch down and do homage unto it in making them judges of other mens hearts, that know not their own, in enjoining them necessary to find out the work of grace; proper onely to God, and not within the view and ken of mortality. So that when they have nothing to object, they can easily tell a man he hath not a work of grace, he is rotten at the heart, a moral honest man which neither he nor any other man is able satisfactorily to contradict, with which cheat many a good man has been sufficiently abused: how much better were it in such cases, to subscribe the 39 Artic. then to answer the tumultuous and extempore questions of every member of the Committee. 2. Still under favour, my Lord, you stop the course of the law, and infringe the right of patrons, in denying them the benefit of a quare impedit, granted in this case of non institution and induction: so Mr. Needham tells us, p. 53. theres no use of it, its abrogate, as an old wromeaten law; the gentleman discovers a new way that must needs be much better, and thatis an appeal to your inaccessible Highness; what fruits and effects of justice and righteousness that produceth the Lord onely knows: But by Mr. Needhams favour, if I were a clergy-man, legally presented to a living, had competent skill in the learned languages, a gift of utterance, and of an unblamable conversation, I would certainly see by a writ of impedit, whether the Committees nonplacet, for the belief of universal Redemption, or their fallible apprehensions of not having a work of grace upon my heart, would hold water before a Jury of equals and the reverend Judges of the land. For if it be as Mr. nigh saith, that your Lordship has nothing to do with them, that you have absolutely given the power out of your hand, and as Mr. Needham, that the law hath nothing to do with them; the quare impedit being excluded: then do I not say with Mr. Goodwin[ that they are a ruleless lawless generation of people] but that they are as your Lordship and predecessors of England Kings, Princes accountable for their actions to none but God, 2. Thing that would certainly bless you with the affections of the people is this, that you would constantly adhere to the known laws of the land in this administration of government: The people of England love their old laws they have been long used to; and they can not so soon frame themselves to laws of a latter edition: they'l never thank your Lordship for making any alteration in the old, to advance the credit of the new; no man drinketh new wine but he saith the old is better: your people are as sick as a dog of your Committees, they had rather by far be cheated in Westminster-hall then in any private chamber whatsoever. The very name of a Judge, a Jury, a Court, strikes their souls with Reverence and esteem; the very sound of a Committee startles them, as the prodigy of partiality self-interest and injustice. I was once much taken with Mr. Peters( the best in the pack I am persuaded) speaking of those Halcyon daies that were coming upon the land, wherein we should be ruled by men and not by laws; godly conscientious men should be authorised to issue the greater part of differences twixt man and man, that which the injurious law would not do in a twelvemonth these parcels of honest Gentlemen should without law or president dispatch in an hour; the Gentleman spoken truer then he was ware of, we have indeed been governed by men rather then Law: what pleasure and content the Nation takes in it your Lordship cannot be wholly ignorant. I dare be bold the execution of the Common Law of England for 500 years did not contract the odium, the proceedings the several Committees of the Nation have done within the compass of seven: neither can it be well otherwise as the matter is handled; one Commissioner hears the beginning of a business, another the middle part, and they oftentimes that hear neither determine it; the merit of the cause is little, but the potency of friends carry it; And though conscience in this Apostate and adulterous generation be not much set by, yet something it is to have men upon their oaths and sworn to do justice. Of all other Committees that at present are in my view, those in the respective Counties for Ejection, seem to be most injurious and harsh to the Ministers of England, always a considerable order of men; if your Lordship had thoroughly digested M. Goodwins invincible reasons against the being of them, both Christian and Antipolitick, you would certainly ere this have satisfied the cry of the poor and needy, which I fear is already entred into the ears of the Lord of Sabbath, and calls down divine vengeance upon us. Give me leave I be seech you to offer 4 or 5 things. 1. My Lord, there is no Law nor President now upon record I am confident overpowering the civil Magistrate of his own proper motion and inclination, without the desire and consent of the Church to remove any Minister from his cure of souls for Scandal, ignorance, or insufficiency, except in the case of treason, murder, &c. Nay I think I may recall the consent of the Church and make your Lordships interposure in this kind altogether new and strange to the Nation, except as in the case before excepted since 1640. 2. It is strongly supposed my Lord that the ministers of England are free-holders, sure else quatenus ministers they could not have votes in public elections, right of commonage, &c. why they should be ejected out of their free-holds for ignorance, insufficiency, or scandal, more then other men I mean the laity, for my part I see not. For ignorance and insufficiency theres no manner of reason in law, as the Committee for Approbation can tell us, since they were instituted and inducted sufficient & fit to take the cure of souls; as for scandal( though it be a thing I detest in a clergy-man) if your Lordship judge that enough in law to make a man lose his property, and be devested of his free-hold, pray let it reach the Laity-Gentlemen their loving parishioners, una simul edocti, and see how the'l like it, to lose their estates for slipping on oath, or taking a cup too much, or now and then a game at gleek or maw; Really my Lord I wish I could persuade to extend the virtue of this act, to those worshipful Gentlemen that so rigorously executed your Lordships Commission before the Parliament said Amen to it; and but deservedly, for there are more then a good many of them that love to take the benefit of the creature, and use those profane games of Cards and Dice as much as any scandalous Ministers in their respective divisions. You'l say my Lord, the sins are highly aggravated in Ministers, the scandal is much greater in them then in others. Alas! poor men not so much the credit and esteem of the ministry is so much fallen in the land, that unless they should misbehave themselves in the Pulpits and places of divine exercises, no great offence is taken at them: your Lordship knows by what artifice and cunning, the Ministers of the Gospel have been depretiated and undervalued, and the whole order brought into that scorn and contempt, that there is more scandal and offence given to the Gospel, in vulgar repute, at the profane oath of a trooper then at the debauched drunkenness of a Priest. 3. It seems strange that the Ministers of England should be ejected for sins committed before the dare of your Ordinance, so that the sin antedates the law; before the law there was wont to be no transgression, but the Ministers are made transgressors of your Lordships Act, some ten, some twenty years before the Ordinance was in being, and some of those persons born that now execute it. To give an instance That frequent card-playing,( actus bis repetitus is a frequent act say the Civilians) should be sufficient to throw a man out of his living is a piece of new law, the Ministers of England before the promulgation of your Ordinance were unacquainted with it: It had been but equal your Lordship had given them notice of your intent, to proceed with them in judgement even to ejection and amotion; but to surprise and outlaw them, to punish them for sins many years committed before the date of your Ordinance, adjudging sins to that punishment, is questionless a piece of very pure, abstract Metaphysical justice. Had the boy of your Ordinance or any other law been out to have given notice of the danger, then had they sinned at their peril; but to come upon these poor men at unawares and adjudge them to lose their Livings, all the subsistence themselves their wives and children have in the world, for offences antedating the law, nay which had been no offence ( i.e.) worthy such a punishment, but by the prohibition of this subsequent law; is, as I must needs crave leave to tell you, a piece of the greatest hardship, to name it nothing else, that ever was offered( under the pretence of piety and reformation) to any order of men in Europe. 4. Its very hard, my Lord, the Commission issued out for ejection should leave no door open for repentance; herein I am sure we have not God for our rule, all whose punishments in this life, threatened or inflicted, may be removed by repentance: suppose a Minister arraigned for swearing, fornication or any other thing within the line of qualifications; suppose him likewise a person truly humbled, returned into the state of grace, and favour with God; the Commissioners are not empowered( as far as I am able to see) to reject the Articles exhibited, but to proceed to final sentence as against a person, still in his sins: After which it is almost impossible by acts of the most signal worth and piety to be restored to his own or any other place, though he were the most useful and deserving man in the world. 5. I wish your Lordship were seriously apprehensive of those dismal tragedies, the execution of this Commission hath created in many hundred parishes in England, you'l see it most against the interest of peace and settlement, which is properly yours, as Mr. Goodwin hath wisely proved. At the change of every Minister the parish takes sides, some are for him some against him: one man swears this, another that; this causeth discord and dissension among neighbours, and the kindling that fire of jealousy and discontent that will not be quenched, no not so long as your Highness shall sit upon the throne. The Pulpit my Lord is a very unfit place either to frame or broach treason, or dictate malignancy, as Mr. Goodwin intimates, if a Minister transgress there is another near at hand, the Magistrate to restrain him. Let not these old people give your Lordship so much trouble, let them go down to the grave in peace, I beseech your Lordship be not further accessary to their ruin, that they may bless you whilst they live, and their families not curse you when they die: they are already fallen at your foot-stool, and the mayor part of them reduced to the greatest extremity poverty, with contempt, is able to bring persons liberally educated unto; why should they suffer any more? cause the sword of your Commission to be put up into its sheathe, and say to the destroying angel it is enough. 3. That your Lordship would adhere to your old friends,( though in part you have abandoned their interest) to be tender of shaking them off at the request of envy or flattery: Alexander cast of his Parmenio, Philotas, Calisthenes, &c. that were true friends to his virtue and worth, and not his fortunes and greatness: yet he and his posterity lived to repent it: his old Phalanx never thought of Issus and Arbela, but they judged themselves worthy to speak to Alexander for the rights and customs of Macedon: It could not but trouble them, to see their general in the Persian garb, forgetting his own severe virtue and discipline, to prefer the manners and customs of the conquered to those of his own victorious followers; & he that pretended so much at his coming into Asia, to vindicate the provinces from the Persian Luxury and Tyranny, to fall himself into the same evils Persepolis changed Alexanders conditions, his prosperity was too strong for his virtue, and did at last overcome it: modesty was accounted rusticity, clemency baseness, temperance an abject virtue, and those that could not flatter him in his deified humour, were none of his friends. Thus my Lord, we are all faelicitati impares, unmeet for our fortunes, and cannot bear up against the high tides of felicity, that easily cause us to overflow our banks, and break those bounds either nature or grace custom or obligation hath set us: in nothing did the great Macedonian blemish so much his race of Princely virtues as the base and unworthy removal of his greatest and most deserving friends upon no other grounds then what envy and jealousy did suggest; and though for a time every one stood in awe of him: yet Antipater( as itis thought) at length taught him how much better it was, to put up an injury from a friend then remove him. I have oft thought, my Lord how you hang by geometry, arched with your own famed, and not fastened to any pin of true friendship and interest; let me speak it to your honour, you live solely upon the great credit of your own marshal and prudential reputation, which( with your body natural) decay by degrees: and therefore strictly enjoined you, as you tender the health of it, to make reparations: Every thing is best preserved by that means it was produced; so is your Lordships honour and dignity by that interest and ally that raised it. I think it not amiss my Lord to put you in mind; that having made yourself anew master of the State by means of the inward helps you had from thence, that you well consider the cause and grounds by which these helps and advantages did accrue to you, because it is next to an impossibility to expect the continuance of your Highness in the present grandeur and glory, without a real and visible favouring of Christian and civil liberty, the expectation of which hath tied in great part all these dependencies upon you. All the fault Mr. Goodwin hath committed is the expression of his great love to your interest and safety, in appearing for the common cause of liberty which men began to give up for lost; this good Calisthenes could not see the dear interest of Gods people in danger to sink, but he would desire your Lordship at the helm to reach forth your hand to save it; his former engagements had made him above parallel, so successful in the rescuing the cause of liberty, that he could not resist the importunity of friends and strangers once more to assay it: I took notice indeed of this Gentlemans piece against the Triers at its first coming out, and judged him the fittest person in the nation to do it, as well in regard of his known abilities, as his Republick-interest and good affection to the government; that if any blemishes had been found in the discourse, the eminency of his former services might easily have covered them, and that a greater latitude and freedom would have been indulged unto him then to any other person whatsoever: but Mr. N. hath unhandsomely taught me I must not make any foolish conjectures of mine a rule for your Lordship to walk by: this Gentleman after all his high contests in the defence of the Protectors person and interest must be content to be laid aside, and his name blotted with a black coal: which makes me remember the distich in your little gallery at White-hall, Princes enthroned when once their turns are ended, hue down those stairs by which themselves ascended. My Lord, you will be charged with Mr. Needhams extravagancies, now in your special service, so long as you neither rebuk nor testify your dislike of him; all the world expects you should do something in Mr. Goodwins case, not in the least to repair his famed and credit, which cannot by so mean a hand as the common Pamphleter receive any impair or diminution; but to assert your innocency, and the integrity of your own great and noble mind. Had Needham been in pay to Aristides, Scipio, or some of those great-minded Heroes, and should have sent abroad into the world with the prefix of their honourable names, such a trivial and scurrilous Pamphlet, in return to a sober and weighty discourse, they would certainly have cashiered him their service, and condemned him to the mines, though it had never so much concerned them. Had Mr. Needham been a man of conscience and worth, upon point of honour and Christianity, he would have scorned to traduce and wrong his greatest enemy, as he hath done Mr. Goodwin in the quotation of his doctrine from Redemption Redeemed: I shall point your Lordship onely to one passage, which in the order of his observation is the twentieth p. 68. 20. The doctrine of apostasy more comfortable then that of perseverance. Such doctrines as these, meaning branches of Mr. G. doctrine of apostasy, all men without exception shall be saved whether they believe or not; no man shall be punished for any sin whatsoever either in this world or that to come. Men are as much approved of God in the committing of the greatest sin as in the performance of the greatest duty. Such doctrines( saith Mr. Goodwin) as these are much more sweet and comfortable in respect, of their frame constitution and import, then that which affirms a necessity of the Saints perseverance. No man that reads these positions, unacquainted with the Gentleman upon whom they are injuriously fathered, but would certainly think Mr. Goodwin the most licentious ranter of the times; and that indeed Mr. N. had taken one of the greatest monsters in religion, the Christian world affords: and many there are without question, finding these assertions in the catalogue, in the same character, quoted chapter and section certainly judge them to be his; instigated by the general odium such slanderous, and forged calumniations have cast upon him: Let me beg so much time, my Lord, as to transcribe Mr. Goodwins sense from his book of Redemption Redeemed cap. 9. Sect. 13. Mr. G. brings in the Calvinists and Predestinarians upholding their doctrine of a peremptory perseverance, from the sweetness and comfortableness thereof: to which he answers.[ Suppose the doctrine we speak of were never so comfortable, yet this would be no argument of the truth and goodness of it unless, the comfortableness of it be found in due consistence with the wisdom and righteousness of God. It were easy to invent twenty doctrines every whit as comfortable( nay much more comfortable) as this in respect of the nature and imports of them, which yet will be found notoriously defective in point of truth, because they hold not any regular proportion with those attributes of God; as for example, such doctrines as these: all men without exception shall be saved, &c.] which doctrine without doubt were it true would be the most comfortable doctrine in the world, for what is it that sweetens the doctrine of absolute perseverance, but the impossibility of a final apostasy and reciduation? and if there be so much evil, profaneness and sensuality found within the bowels of these invented suppositions, in assuring salvation unto men upon the most irregular and unwarrantable terms, then may we justly question the predestinatian opinion of once in Christ ever in Christ, that ascertains life and salvation though not upon the same yet upon terms of the nearest affinity imaginable. By this, my Lord, sen●ies qui vir sit: you may perceive what a fellow he is, and how able he is to undertake any service of this kind that chiefly depend in the well management of it, upon the convention of calumny lies and falsehood: had he dealt with the Prophet David, as he hath done with Mr. Goodwin, he might easily have proved him an atheist from the 14. Psal. It had been taking the fool to himself and the text had been plain.[ There is no God] If Mr. G. was so extreme to mark what the poor booksellers did transgress in covering with their fingers the small word[ such] whilst the printers wroughtoff the sentence; as that they were constrained to quench their fired beacon with their own tears, notwithstanding their proctor stood by them wiping their eyes; how much more heavy will he fall upon Mr. N. that hath so shamefully prevaricated with whole sentences, if the thoughts of an impar congressus hinder him not? But I have already detained your Lordship longer then I thought to have done, had not the great importance of truth, and the honour of a person dear to the knowing and most religious part of the Nation compelled me, I should not so far have adventured to trespass upon your patience; may these papers conduce to their desired ends of peace, justice, moderation and truth; may they any way serve to set your Lordships judgement strait in and about the great counsels of God that were all calculated for the good of men, and to mediate in the behalf of the despised and injured Saints of the most High, who after the way some call heresy worship the God of their fathers, believing all things that are written concerning Iesus of Nazareth, and how that he died for the sins of the world; then shall they neither injure your Highness nor dissatisfie me. For bear I beseech you to make any improbable con●ectures concerning the Author, who for the present veils himself not out of any disrespect or fear, save that which may fall from the fierce militia of the Pulpit: And the God of peace that brought again our Lord Iesus Christ from the dead, counsel you in all things. So prayeth My Lord, Your sure vassal D. F.