THE COPY OF A LETTER SENT By Mr. D. T. to Mr. John Vicars (Mr. prynn's second) in Answer to his Letter sent by him to Mr. John Goodwin.  
A righteous man hateth lying, Prov. 13.5.  
Righteousness keepeth him that is upright in the way, Prov. 13.6.  
Only by pride cometh contention, but with the well advised is wisdom, Prov. 13.10.  
Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest another, for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself, for thou that judgest dost the same things, Rom. 2.1.  
Sir,  
Whether it was my good or hard hap to meet with your Letter directed and sent to Mr. John Goodwin, I cannot easily determine: For though all manner of knowledge, either of persons or things, be in some kind or other beneficial; it being an undoubted Maxim, that Verum & Bonum convertuntur: yet some knowledge may be so circumstantiated, that it may prove more burdensome and offensive to the party knowing, then commodious. I confess from the reading of your L●nes I have gained thus much, to say I know you: but this gain hath occasioned such a considerable loss i●●he things of my joy, that I do even wish for my former ignorance, and could be well contented, to have met with no other description of your frame and temper, than what the promise of your countenance, and the report of your friends have made of you: Indeed it cannot but deduct somewhat from the comfort of a reasonable man, to see one, whom (one would think) grey hairs should have taught the language of soberness, shooting with his tongue at rovers, and speaking sharp and devouring words against persons and things, which he knows not. Sorry I am, that Mr. Vicars should break the fair face of his reputation upon this stone, against which this besotted world is dashing itself in pieces from day to day. I have some hope that though your zeal to Mr. prynn's glory, did cast you into such an ecstasy of passion, that you scarce knew what you writ; yet by this time you have pretty well recovered yourself again: and lest the sense of your miscarriage should too much oppress you, I give you to know that you are fall'n into soft and tender hands, and have discovered your nakedness to such only, who rather pity, then deride it. For my part, I love not to disport myself at the weakness of any man, or to turn his folly into laughter; for what were this, but to reflect dishonour upon the same nature, wherein he partakes with myself. Rather, I could mourn over the vanities of your pen, and weep to see you so fare intoxicated, as to call the most injurious dealing one shall lightly meet with, by the name of candour and ingenuity. The truth is, you have so foully bewrayed your paper with bold and untrue assertions, imputations, exprobrations, and such like excrements, that I thought even for modesty sake to have drawn over them the veil of silence, and to have contested with that spirit that breathes in them no further, then by speaking to it in a secret wish, the Lord rebuke thee. But I considered with myself, that perhaps you might communicate in the nature of such persons who (as Solomon saith, Prov. 26.5.) are apt (being unanswered) to be wise in their own conceits: and if I shall hereby demolish or at least weaken this conceit of yours, I presume I shall do you herein a very charitable and Christian piece of service. Think not I am become your enemy, because I tell you the truth: you have injured me not otherwise then by trespassing upon your own credit, and by making thereby a sad breach in that holy profession, wherein you stand engaged with myself. Whatever your intentions were, I conceive you have done me no more wrong in clapping the title of an Independent Proselyte upon my back, than Pilate did to Christ in affixing this Superscription over his head, This is the King of the Jews. I think this name to be full as honourable, as that of a poor and unworthy Presbyterian, wherewith you have pleased to baptise yourself: and conceive that herein only you have followed your own, or rather the Apostles counsel, in honour to prefer others before yourself. But had you been minded to suppress your name, your very Dialect had been enough to betray you: Me thinks you write just like such a one as you say you are. Did I not hope for better things from the hands of more worthy Presbyterians, your unworthy dealing had set me often degrees further from your way, than I now stand: But I will not take the advantage of your, or any man's misdemeanour, though more gross and absurd than yours, to render Presbytery odious to the world: To  any opinion or practice with the garments of men's personal distempers, thereby to fall upon them and beat them with the more applause, is a method which I as much abhor, as the Gentleman you admire, delights in: and if this property in him were one of those beauty-spots, which ravished you into a passionate adoration of him, you need not fear, that ever I should become your corrival: And yet I love and honour Mr. Pry●● for what ever you can find lovely and 〈…〉 neath the line of a man, is to make him and myself obnoxious to the wrath of God, and the scorn of man. I acknowledge that for a time he ran well, but who hindered him? questionless He who is ever and anon hindering the Saints in the race of holiness. The Prince of darkness owed him a fall for his sharp contesting with his prime agents, and now he hath paid his debt; but if Mr. Prynn will be ruled by the advice of his best friends, he may rise again to his greater glory, and notwithstanding his fall, triumph over the envy and malice of the devil. Concerning Mr. John Goodwin, (over whom you shake the rod of your reproof, as if he were one of your Scholars) I could speak as high and excellent Encomiums, as you have spoken of your precious Gentleman; I could compare him even with Mr. Prynn himself: but such a comparison as this, would be to me most odious. I could tell you what he hath done, what he hath writ, how deeply he hath suffered from unreasonable men; yea, I could give you such a lively and bright description of him, as would dazzle your eyes to look upon, and make you blush for shame to have grappled with such a person as he is, upon such rude and unmannerly terms as you have done. For you, who are but a Teacher of boys, so haughtily to correct a great Master in Israel, is such an absurdity, as cannot but rend a more patiented soul than mine, into disdain and grief. 'tis a wonder to me, that, whereas at the beginning of your Letter, you confess yourself to be but a poor and unwrothy Presbyterian, you should so far forget yourself, before you come half way, as to take upon you, like the Dr. of the Chair; and to censure the best of men and ways with as much confidence, as if your pen had dropped the Votes of a General Assembly with its ink. Had a poor and unworthy Independent done the like, you would have cast his boldness into a Basilisk, and used it to batter down the way of his profession, and to lay the glory of it even with the ground. But I well perceive, though you have 'scaped the snare of gifts and parts (in which you fear Mr. Goodwin is taken) yet you are fall'n into the pit, not of divine, but natural simplicity; and have verified the old Proverb, A rash man's boult is soon shot. As for that Book of Mr. goodwin's, called Innocency and Truth triumphing together, though you are pleased to triumph over both, and to cast it out as an Arch rebel to reason and morality, yet (I must tell you) it hath found joyful and bountiful entertainment in the judgements of sober and intelligent men: But certainly, it was the unhappiness of this Treatise to fall into your hands, when you stood upon the Mount of Mr. prynn's honour, and when the vision of his transfiguration wrought so strongly in you, that you did not wots, what you spoke, no, nor what you did neither, for you laid about you with such regardless fury that you broke the head of your friend Priscian, [The words in the written Copy of your Letter, are these, and thus spelled quinn alterum paratus est dicere, ipsum vicio careat oporte, as may appear from the original in Mr. goodwin's custody. But it seems the Corrector being the better Grammarian transformed them into good Latin in the Printed Copy.] of whose safety men of your profession, should bet most tender. I thought to have argued the case with you, whether your exceptions against this Treatise and its Author, will hold in the Court of Reason and equity: but perhaps you are not so well skilled in the rules of this Court; and I am loath to take the advantage of you. I shall only propound a few Querees, peradventure the struggle of your thoughts to give them satisfaction, may dissolve the enchantment that is now upon you. What persons did ever most Learnedly declare Mr. Goodwin to be justly censured for Socinianism? When, or in what public place did they make this Declaration? How call you that Brother of his, who will justify against him the charge of holding a most damnable opinion about justifying faith? I suppose you must strain, not so much your memory as your invention, in shaping your answer: You had done well to remember, that though Fools (as Solomon speaks) believe every thing; yet wise men will question such assertions as these: Alas (Sir) the best course you can run to game credit with the prudent, is to cut your allegations and your proofs, just of one and the same length: To  large and broad say with curtailed Arguments, reflects as much shame upon such say, and him that speaks them, as Hanun did upon the servants of David, in cutting off their Garments to their buttocks. You cannot but know, how that many grave, sober, godly, and learned men have fall'n into that way you call Independency. Now, your only method, to have brought over these to your party, and to have filled their mouths with the cry of a confederacy against this way, had been this; not barely to have affirmed it to be a novel and disturbant way (as you have done) but to have poised the lightness of your affirmation, with the weight and substance of a demonstration. I assure you (Sir) (what ever you may think) I approve of this way no further than I see the footsteps of those sweet sisters, Truth and Peace Printed in it: I have narrowly viewed it, and I can find no drops of blood, no strew of the liberties, estates, names, comforts of the Saints scattered in it, and yet some Travellers affirm, they have seen such things as these in that way, which the ignorance of thousands lusts after. But to conclude. I beseech you (Sir) be more watchful over the extravagancies of your tongue and pen for the future: since you are (in part) acquainted with their infirmities, let it be your wisdom to seek their cure. I reverence you for your age, piety, and some services you have done to the Public; and I should rejoice to see such an ancient slander in the garden of God ●s you are, carrying your hoary head with honour to the grave: which that you may do, as I have (you see) in part endeavoured, so I shall further prosecute with my prayers to him, who is able to keep you to the end: in whom (though I am unknown to you) yet with all sincerity I profess myself,  
February 3. 1644. Sir, 〈…〉