AN APPEAL TO THE Impartial& Judicious READER.  
TOUCHING The Points in debate between the AUTHOR and Mr. Joseph Hacon; and their Debates in those Points.  
OR, A detection of the weakness, wriness, and many miscarriages of the said Mr. Hacon, in his late Vindication of his REVIEW, To which is added in the close, A brief Declaration of the Grace of God to mankind, and a serious invitation to all men to embrace it.  
By John horn, Minister of South-Lin in Norfolk.  
Shall vain words have an end? Or what emboldeneth thee that thou anansweredst? Job 16.2.  
Suffer me that I may speak also,& after I have spoken, mock on. ch. 21.3  
Taste and see that the Lord is gracious. Blessed is the man that putteth his trust in him, Psal. 34.8.  Expedita virtus veritatis paucis amat. multa mendacio erunt necessar●● Tertul. Advers. Marcionem. Lib. 2. Cap. 23. Nihil tam Dignum Deo quam salus hoins. Id. Cap. 20. Qui legeris biberis, nec amarum potio. Id. Advers. Gnost. 

{αβγδ}  
{αβγδ}. Menand.   
LONDON, Printed for the Author, 1662.   

Omnipotenti Domino Jesu Christo, filio Dei Unigenito& Aeterno. Seque suaque omnia D. D. C. Q. H. H. Servorum svorum Minimus. J. H.  
DEarest Lord; I am thine, and thou art mine; make me more thine, be thou more mine. Oh what have I in thee! I have more in thee than I can fathom; for thou art infinite in all perfections; perfect wisdom, perfect righteousness, perfect holiness, perfect freedom, perfect strength, perfect power, perfect riches, perfect all things; eternally perfect, everlasting satisfactions; who can set forth all thy praises? thou art an incomprehensible portion; he that hath thee, can want no good thing, because thou art all good things to him, his light, his life, his righteousness; his strength and his salvation: All things are thine in heaven and earth, and all thine are theirs who are thine; for their welfare and happiness; they're in thy hand, and at thy dispose, who art a God of love, of wisdom, of infinite judgement and understanding. Oh happy portion! But what hast thou in me Lord, a poor creature, an empty nothing, weakness, infirmity and sin. Yet such as I am, I am thine, and it's my happiness that I am thine, or rather and much more, that thou art mine. I am thine, save me; thou art mine, satisfy me; and that I may be satisfied in and by thee, sanctify me to thee: Help me to leave myself to, and with thee; go out of myself and all creatures, to and after thee, and follow thee whithersoever thou leadest me. Thou thyself wastled for me to the shearers, and to the shambles, and by those things to eternal glory; if it be thy will to led me that way thither, give me thy strength and power to follow thee, and it will be well with me. Thine is the Kingdom, Power and Glory; thou canst with-hold such trials from me, and thou canst carry me through such trials, to the enjoyment of thy glory. Help me to devote myself to thee, yield up myself to be disposed by thee, not choosing my own lot or portion, but letting thee choose and carve in all things for me. I have no such acquaintance with any of the great ones of this world, that I should writ myself theirs, and dedicate my labours to them. I bless thee that I am a stranger to them. I have enongh to content my soul in thee; they cannot add to thee, nor desire I any thing from them to be added to me. My way lies very fair and clear besides them to thee. And they less hinder me therein, than if I was engaged to them, and courted by them. Thou wert a stranger to them in this world; I find not thee in Herod's Hall, or Bilate's, or the High-priests palaces, but when they condemned and abused thee. Alas! these yet too commonly are they that being at ease in themselves, contemn and hate thee, and priding themselves in their worldly enjoyments, feel no need of thee, yea persecute thee in thy poor members, whom while they decree unrighteous Decrees against, and vilify and slay, they think they serve thee very acceptably. But oh that they knew thee, felt thy sweetness, enjoyed thy presence! then would they worship thee in spirit and truth, and not in outward empty formality onely. Lord open their eyes that they may see and know thee, thy truth and people, and not adore others instead of thee, hating the good, and loving the evil as they do too generally. The poor of this world hast thou chosen rich in faith, heirs of thy glory. Thy Spouse is not that painted Strumpet that rides in pomp, and is adored and defiled by the Kings of the Earth. She is another kind of thing that the world doth not see, because it sees not thee, nor knows thee. But thine do know thee, and are known of thee. Companion am I( Oh yet, make me more so!) to those that fear thee, and those that know and keep thy Testimonies: They were thy Companions while thou wert on the Earth, thy Mother, Brethren, Sisters, though mean in the eyes of men, 
Mal. 3 1.  and despised by the great Princes and rabbis of those dayes, yea though they pretended a desire after thee, and love to thee; but when thou wast amongst them, they did not know thee, nor love either thee, or those that loved thee. Let not me think any of them too mean to be my companions, that thou disdainest not to be thine. They are the truly noble persons that are so near a kin by spiritual and divine birth to thee; they are from above, as thou wert from above; they are the heirs of thy Kingdom, and shall inherit it with thee everlastingly. Oh thou infinite fullness, infinite sweetness, eternal excellency, flow thou in upon me by thy Light, Truth and holy Spirit; let them led me to thee; let them fill me with thee: Accept I beseech thee my Dedication of myself and service to thee, and let it not be reputed a presumption in me. Thou givest me access to thee, leave to be humbly bold with thee; thou art meek and lowly, though thou beest most high and mighty; thou lovest and ownest, and disdainest not thy poorest creatures that crawl towards thee. None for Greatness, none for Goodness to be compared to thee; Thy arms are open to embrace, thy heart is open to love and delight in thy poor servants that are faithful to thee, and upright with thee. Lord make me so evermore towards thee, keep me in thy arms, lay me in thy bosom, let me be always nigh thee, with thee; and be thou always nigh, with and in me, manifesting thyself, thy love, thy fullness, thy glory to me, and strengthen me to glory in thee, and serve and glorify thee perpetually. I am ashamed of myself, and my poor doings, they smell too much of flesh and self, too little of thee; and therefore there is the less in them to be liked by me. Accept and prosper thine own in them; pardon or burn up what in my writings is not thine, nor approved by thee: And oh discover thy Truth more clearly to me, and if thou pleasest by me, who desires to devote myself and service to thee. Everlasting King of Glory, everlasting praises to thee, my Portion everlastingly. Amen.   

An Appeal to the judicious and impartial READER.  
Sect. 1. IF what hath been already written by me and Mr. Hacon, were wholly in the same hands of judicious and industrious Readers, who could and would compare us, I might spare the labour of this Rejoinder, and leave my cause, as it is, to their judgement, without either mine own or their further trouble. 
Epist. lib 5. cap. 20.  For they may find true of his late Vindication, what Pliny writes of a certain Bythinian Orator, viz. Respondit mihi plurimis verbis, paucissimis rebus. That he hath answered me with many words to very few things, and in those too, to little purpose. But because it is, or may be otherwise, therefore for the help of the weaker, and ease of those that are less at leisure to compare us, I shall show them the truth of that foregoing sentence in him, and then commit it to their censure. I need not answer every particular, because he hath catched but at here and there a passage in mine, leaving the main of the Answers untouched, and because the charge of the Press forbids me to be voluminous: Yet I hope I shall leave nothing unanswered that may seem of weight.  
Sect. 2. I shal not garnish my Discourse with Rhetorical flourishes, nor interlace it with pretty impertinent stories, instead of demonstrations to set it it off, but trust to the power and cogency of the naked truth, Quae nihil erubescit nisi solummodo abscondi, 
Tertul. Advers. Valen in. cap. 2  which blushes not except to be hide with vails. Good Wine needs no such Bushes, nor a dish of solid meat such curious sauces, or artificial kick-shaws, for sound stomachs, as unwholesome food, or what wants substance doth to please the fancy of the Guest, because it hath not what may fill his belly, or nourish his body. 
Lib 12. Cap 1.  The fair Aspasia in Aelian, needed not these meretricious Arts and Methods to draw Cyrus his affection, that his other women were taught and practised, because her natural beauty and virtuous modesty were more powerful to that purpose. Nor needed the Apostle the excellency of speech and wisdom, to help to commend the testimony of God, because the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit sufficed without them. If what I propose, be truth, let it evidence itself; if false, it is pitty the Reader should be cheated into the belief of it by any false colours.  
Sect. 3. In his Epistle, partly by intimation, and partly expressly, he charges me with delivering things manifestly untrue, corrupt and irrational; and that when they are found to be such, I cast about for mists and muffles to involve myself in; and that any Answer, though never so slighty, and evasion, though never so frivolous, and argument, though never so slender, serves my turn, so I can set it on with houting and clamour: And that instead of answering his objections, and making good my own doctrine, I omit the chief strength of his proofs, reasons or authority, and catching hold of some word, clause or expression that might without prejudice have been spared, upon that I spend my time, and sometimes my anger. But the luck on't is, that when the Readers expect to find those his heavy Charges made good in some few instances, he vanishes into the smoke of an impertinent tale or sto y, to tickle his fancy with.  
Now what Mr. Hacon hath not done, nor could in mine, I shall( God assisting) demonstrate to be true in his own Writings, and so that he hath drawn an exact picture of himself, upon which he falsely hath writ my Name; and then show his aberrations, impertinencies and falshoods in the rest,( if I may call them without offence as they are, which are so many, that I could wish for his own credit, as well as for my ease, that he had writ Finis where h● began his title, or rather where he began before; and observed that counsel Prov. 17.14. to have left off strife before he had meddled with it: it was he that did with the Eagles properly {αβγδ}, begin injuriously; 
Aelian. Lib. 1. Cap. 14.  my part with the Swans was,& is but {αβγδ}, to defend myself; indeed had he brought any proofs or evidences or of his peremptory condemnations intimated and expressed in his former beginning, he might have had some good colour, as he hath done in this, to tax me we with walking after the same method in part: But seeing his condemnatory sentence went so before, that its proofs and evidences never followed after, he must excuse me if I acquit myself of the guilt of that also; which I shall do also in this, by showing how truly his foresaid charges of me reflect upon himself; which I now shall do in what follows.  

CHAP. I. How Mr. Hacon shifts from evident convictions of falsehood, exemplified Chap. 7, 10, 25. and with what slender Answers, and frivolous evasions.  
Sect. 1. IN his 7th. Exception toucing the Law, I convicted him of divers notorious falshoods; see now how instead of confessing his faults therein, he casts about for mists and muffles to involve himself in. 1. To that that I denied the Law to be a rule of Life, he says, I am not the first that hath spoken contradictions, nor the last that confutes an Adversary out of his own words. Ans. So then my words had some contradiction in them, or else this is a mist, mufflle, or frivolous evasion. If I contradicted myself, I did both affirm it and deny it in the same respect; for that's to contradict. Now I challenge him to prove that I denied it. He says," I assigned five uses of it, and to be a Rule of Life was none of them. Ans. 1. Be it that I had omitted it; yet to omit a thing, and to deny it, are not the same; not to say a thing, and to say that thing is not, are very different. 2. How did I omit that, and yet affirm it? for if I affirmed it not, then I could not contradict myself if I had denied it. Sure I said it intimately by his own confession, though not in terminis; and to say a thing intimately, and to deny it, are very different. He says," I said it not directly, and every one could not gather it from my words. Ans. Then I said it indirectly it seems, and so as some might, and he himself did gather it from what J said; that was not to deny it yet, no more than Moses not saying in terminis, the dead shall be raised, was a denial of the resurrection, which he intimately and indirecty said in what Christ argued it out of, though few could gather it thence, as Christ d●d.  
Sect. 2. I shewed him how he falsified in charging me from my open door to have faulted Ministers for teaching duties to them that wanted Principles to perform them rightly, and so, that the Law must not be a Rule to persons unconverted neither, and so to none. Now instead of confessing his wrong, he onely repeats and commits it over again, yea a second and third time, p. 76. without either answer or further proof, viz. That I faulted Ministers for being Teachers of the Law to them that are not well principled for duties See his falsehood again! I said not so, nor to that purpose; but I faulted those that talked of duties to those not principled, without declaring to them that which should rightly principle them. Now is it the same thing to fault a man simply for preaching duty, and to fault him for not doing it as he ought? is the reiterating a slander, a vindicating a mans self not to have slandered? Or is it not a mist, muffle, frivolous evasion, or worse?  
Sest. 3. He abused me in saying I gave a Supersedeas to the ten Commandments; J shew'd it him, and that J gave no more Supersedeas to them in what J said, than he that should say in writing after Tu●●ies or Quintilians style, a man observes all the Rules at grammar and rhetoric, gives a Supersedeas to all those Rules. He repeats my saying, that in acting faith and love, J do observe all the Commandments, and then glosses again upon it thus; That it s as much as if I had said I need not observe them otherwise then by acting faith and ove; which yet is injurious; for J said not onely J act them in acting faith and love, but J observe them too, that is, have an eye to them, for that is observation, and J expressly shewed how in my former Answer, Chap. 8. p 42. Position 4. his talking then of o●e that hath attained Tullies or Quintilians style, that he may lay aside and neglect all grammar Rules, and of observing the ten Commandments, as Cicero observed the rules of rhetoric, who was a rule to rhetoric, are aberrations, muffles, &c. For I neither talked of any man's having so attained to faith and love, as one may attain Tully's or Quintillian's style, that is, to any such perfection in this life( though I believe if any did so 
Ubi quis à spiritu suo impulsus sponte facit& libentianimo ibi non est opus externo admonitore& stimulo, {αβγδ}. Zanch in Eph. 2. . God would never fault him for not making more use of the Law, as to himself at least, then perfectly to act them) nor said I any thing of Tully's observing the Rules of rhetoric, though I believe there were both grammar and rhetoric Rules before Cicero, and that he observed them too, though through their imperfection he outstrip them, so as we cannot do the Law.  
Sect. 4. For his nests of falshoods about my holding the Moral Law now to us a cruel School-Master; he hath these muffiles instead of confessing his evil in them. 1. That it s an ordinary mistake of others that recede from the Antinomians more than I, and so he had no reason to leave me out. Ans Judge Reader, had he reason to say more of me, than he could justify! Was that a good reason to speak falsely of me? And is this a good come off to add more abuses to his former, by implying that I border too nearly upon the Antinomians, without any proof of it? Indeed he tells me of my Antinomian spots breaking out, p. 156. because to the Quakers urging Psal. 119.1. to prove that some are personally perfect without sin here. I said, Christ is the Way, and I grant some undefiled and complete in him. Now where is the Antinomianism in that saying? Is it in saying Christ is the way? Then Christ was one, they be his words, John 14.6. or in saying there be some complete in Christ? then Paul was one, for he says so in Col. 2.10. Or in my interpreting the sayings of the Old-Testament, or rather of the Prophets, by Christ's and his Apostles? Who are better interpreters of them? Or who doth not use to interpret their sayings by them? Is not perfect in Christ Jesus, Col. 1.28. a good interpretation of perfect in the way, Psal. 119.1.? Or can there be a better? Is there any perfect in the Law of Works? judge Reader. 2. That I hold not long in that mind, he finds me another, p. 83. because I said the Apostles did not bring men into servitude as Moses did formerly, but to son-ship. Now what says that to the falshoods above-disclaimed? not one word; but he says, I make an opposition between servitude and son-ship, whereas it should be between manhood and minority of age, if I had continued in that mind. Ans. I do continue in that mind, and yet justify my opposition; 
Cum essemus parvuli sub elements hu●us mundi serviebamus i.e. dominabatur nobis premebat nos tanquam servos. Luth. in Gal. 4.1, 2  for the Apostle makes it so, though he spake of the Law being their School-Master in the former ages, and rather of the Ceremonial, than the Moral; see Gal. 4.1, 2, 5, 6 7. For what though the believers in the times before, were sons, yet they differed nothing from servants, and Christ( I trow) redeemed them from servitude, and from their Tutors and Governors, that they might receive the adoption of sons: So that instead of recanting his abuses, he makes them worse. Moses Law made sons as servants, the Apostles makes servants to be sons.  
Sect. 5 Again in Chap. 10. he suspected a dark insinuation of a dangerous conception of God's having done for us all that he could. I shewed the groundlessness of that suspicion: Now how comes he off here? Sure with horrible muffles and mistakes of what I said in that Chapter. For he says I say therein, That it will pose all men to say what he could have done more; as if I cared not what I say, so I revile and contradict; that I speak as if God could do no more than he hath done for man's salvation; that I give an imperfect enumeration of the means and helps that God hath afforded to salvation; that he hath given his Son to death, raised him, and glorified him; and there stay, and tell them that there is no more that could be done; that I omit the internal means, and mention only the external and most remote means, Christ's death and rising again. Now Reader see whence and how false all this is. What I said, was this, That all my instrustructions to seek the Lord, imply, that I think God can do no more than he hath done, though what he could have done more for our Redemption, and for providing salvation for us, then to have given his onely Son to death for us, and raise and glorify him as he hath done, I suppose must pose all men to say. See Reader, I said not, God can do no more than he hath done for man's salvation, or that the death, resurrection and glorifying of Christ, are all the means of salvation that God affords; but I spake onely of man's Redemption, and the providing salvation for him, not of his bringing men to enjoy that salvation; for which I acknowledged all along in my Catechism, other means, both outward and inward. Know then Reader, and know it for thine own good, that we say with the Scriptures, that God hath by the death of his Son ransomed and redeemed all men from under the sentence that lay upon them, into the gracious Lordship and dispose of Christ, 
Rom. 14.9.  so as they may be saved by him, and hath prepared salvation for us all in him, in glorifying him through his sufferings for us, even all things pertaining to our salvation, as forgiveness of our sins, and his holy Spirit, by which he is fitted and ready to enlighten, regenerate, sanctify and save us; but to the obtaining of that salvation, he requires that we look to him, and be saved; seek him while he may be found, and call upon him while nigh at hand; and whoso do so in truth, in this day of Grace, shall surely find him to work all the work of God in them. Therefore in the belief thereof do thou seek him, and content not thyself with any gifts from him, without him, but seek to have himself all to thee, and to do all in thee, in thy attending to, and believing on him. True, there is a Redemption by his Grace and Spirit passing upon the spirits and bodies of them that believe, included in what thou art to seek for; but it's clear by the contexture of what I spake, that I meant not of that Redemption in my speech above-mentioned, but of what conduced to the preparation of salvation for us. See this distinction of the preparation and participation of salvation, clearly implied in Prov. 9.2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Matth. 22.4. and the preparation perfect before the invitation, much more before the participation. What he says then, p. 104. and from 115. to 122. and are mere extravagancies, though I might note his boldness with God, p. 120, 121. in telling what could have been done in his vineyard, more than he did; and his error in saying, that all he did was but external means and helps exhibited to a visible, National constituted Church, as Doctrine, Sacraments, Prophets, Pastors, &c. but no Spirit thought of that had power and virtue to effect any thing required, contrary to Neh. 9.20, 30. Isa. 63.10, 11. Zech. 7.12. and putting this answer into their mouth, Lord, thou gavest us no internal means, without which all the external were to no purpose.  
Sest. 6. Again in Chap. 25. though he more fairly passes by many a discovered falsehood and abuse that I noted in that Chapter, not mentioning, much less confessing them; yet in what he takes notice of, he shamefully shuffles and evades, adding more absurd abuses to his former, representing it as my usual Doctrine that we should not gather God's love to us by Faith, obedience, new frames, &c. a phrase or manner of speaking ambiguous and deceitful, and such as I never made use of, though it is true in itself with respect to the first perception of his love, which is the spring of faith, obedience, and new frames; but his speech carries it to his love indifinitely in any acts of it; and to my explication of my mind, in which he gives this unreasonable answer, That he will believe it to have some truth, or at least some reason in it, when he shall believe that there ever was any Christian that did search into his own heart, and seek there for good desires and affections, to the intent he might thence conclude and know assuredly, that Jesus Christ dyed for all men in the world. Or when I can show him whoever taught any Christian so to do, as if I had to any such purpose explicated myself. Oh wilful mist and muffle! my saying was, That men may not so well know the remedy to be for themselves( not for all men in the world) by looking into their own hearts, as by the Word of God, which says it is for all. This he see and red, and knew to be my meaning, and yet grossly turns it into quiter another equivocal thing, which he again intimately charges on me, p. 216. and in spite of my declaration of myself, otherwise says, that this was the reigning Disease, the Doctrine against which I framed my Antidotes, viz. that a Christian from the fruits of his sanctification in his thoughts, words and works, and especially from the frame and disposition of his heart, may gather the love of God, and the benefits of Christ's death for his glorification; and that J cannot endure any such difference as that there be a seal of Gods Spirit set upon those that are his in this life; and that I think him a Pharisee that is not as other men are, but gives thanks that he is better than others, better than this Malefactor, and traitor, or Publican: This is that poison that needs the Antidote. Ans. Reader, Judge if Forgery and Slander be any good answers; or what should I say to such a man, except as 2 Thess. 3.1, 2. From such unreasonable men good Lord deliver us? And for thy own use understand, that I say and hold, 1. That the first perception of the love of God to us, as that he sent his Son for us, and Christ dyed for us, is not by or from works of righteousness that we have done, or do, though many we may do appearingly before it, as the Apostle did, who yet says not that by them he perceived the love of God, or was saved, Tit. 3.4, 5. 2. That the perception of the love of God to us( as before) goes before any right work of righteousness, or sanctification in us, and is the true spring of them, Tit. 2.11, 12.& 3.4, 5. But then( 3dly) after the love of God in the gift of Christ is discovered and perceived, we are to take heed that we so receive it, as to be filled with righteous frames and affections, and works by it, otherwise we receive it in vain. And 4thly, we may, and are to examine ourselves, whether we so receive the Grace and Love perceived; and that is properly to be known by what it effects in us. And so( 5thly,) we may gather or assure our hearts of God's further love to us, that he owns and will bless us, partly from the perception of the efficacies of Gods love in us. But( 6thly,) many are gulled with conceits of their being sanctified by false marks; and generally men are so, when they know not that love of God in Christ which is the ground of right lieving, but from some effects of faith which they guess to be in them; seeking to perceive first the love of God to them by what is in them, and not by what is in Christ, as preached in the Gospel to them; and that if Mr. Hacon take this his so dealing with me for any such mark or evidence of his title to Heaven, he hath need to take heed he deceive not himself therein. And now thou mayst see by this how impertinently he quotes 2 Cor. 13.5. against a passage of mine in a Sermon that he quotes; the Apostle not speaking of mens examining themselves whither God had so loved them, as to sand Christ for them( which was the thing J spake of, though he conceal it) but whether they were in the faith, and Christ in them, or not after they had believed the love of God in Christ as preached in the Gospel to them; and so not to see whether God had loved them, but whether they loved God rather. And though the signs that men now seek for to know by that God sent Christ for them, and that he died for them, be not of the same kind with those the Jews fought; yet they not resting in God's Testimony, but seeking some other sign for the heart to rest in, is like Adultery from God's Word. My quoting ver. 11. of Luke 18. cannot prove that I meant men may not use upon no case the Pharisees words there, or that I meant not that I faulted men for doing as he did, when I actually mentioned the words of ver. 9. his trusting in himself, and despising others; that I used the phrase Analogy of the Faith, in the vulgar sense, although I noted, that I conceive the Apostle uses it in another sense, Rom. 12.3 was no great fault, if any; and that there is need to warn of envy, as well as of pride, I believe. The Lord purge both of them out of both our hearts; for methinks too much of both appears in his Writings. And let that suffice to that branch of the Charge.   

CHAP. II. Mr. Hacon's Tergiversations and frivolous evasions, leaving the force of the Arguments or Answers untouched, and insisting only upon some by-words or clauses exemplified in Chap. 4.17, 18, 19.  
Sect. 1. FOr the other branches of his Charge I instance 1. Chap. 4. to what I said about the three of knowledge of good and evil; where instead of answering me, or confessing his error and rashness in what he falsely then charged upon me he tells what moved him so to charge me with unsoundness, as denying the Divine prescience, as because a pestilent Sectary( if he may be credited) produced Gen. 2.19. to such purpose; and because Socinus disproves Divine prescience from Gen. 22.13. And so instead of proving his Charge, he repeats it, in saying that my explication( that said nothing sounding that way, and which I shewed to have been other able Divines not suspected thereof) was like to promote that pernicious error; and burdens me with other mens errors that J never had to do with; yea, and yet to act his part worse, he suggests me guilty of symbolizing with the Socinians, 1. in neglecting the authority, custom and manner of the Church, upon pretence of walking onely by the Scripture-Rule, ( i.e.) because J bid the people prefer the Apostles expressions before mens glosses. Ans. 1. J said not the Churches, but mens. 2. The Apostles were prime parts of the Church. apostles, i.e. primitivae Ecclesiae, 
Serm. 8. in Cant. Ego solis Canonicis scriptures debeo sine ulla recusatione consensum. De Nat.& Grat. cap. 61. Auferantur de medio Charta nostra. Procedat in medium Codex Dei in Psal. 57. Nolo humanis documentis said Divinis Oraculis Ecclaesiam Sanctum demonstrari. De unit. Eccles. Contr. Pelian. Nolo nobis credatur, Scriptura recitetur. Ambr. De incar. Dom. Cap. 3.& Cap. 8.  says Bernard. 31 St. Austine, Ambrose, and others have said the like. J owe my consent( says Austin) without exception, onely to the holy caconical Scriptures. Again, Take away our Writings, let God's Book be produced Again. I would not have the Church shewed by mens documents, but by God's Oracles: And St. Ambrose; J would not that we be restend in, let the Scriptures be recited. 2. Because J said, J contented myself with the Scripturephrase, and used not that of the Church. Ans. is that a sufficient proof that J neglect its Authority given it of Christ? Doth the Church tie me to use her phrases rather than the Scriptures? J trow not. And may J not speak uno ore with the Church( as he implies J do not) by speaking in Scripture-phrases? Surely J may, or else the Church speaks not uno ore, or is not unanimous with the Apostles, because she uses that phrase, the Rule of Life, which they use not. So that in accusing me, he intimately condemns the Church, and shows his want of judgement.  
2. In my opinion about Christs death being a preparation to his sacrifice.  
Ans. That's not my opinion, it's to his Priestly oblation; the Socinians deny it's a satisfactory Sacrifice to Divine Justice, so do not J.  
3. in saying Professors are to break bread, and ut fideles panem frangant is their phrase.  
Ans. Then mine differs from theirs; for all Professors are not fidel●s; and ad frrangendum panem, is Lukes in Acts 20.7. mine is nearer the Churches.  
4. That I hold with them, that faith is wrought by no immediate power, but onely by the word preached.  
Ans. The latter part of that is a slander; for J said expressly, that God works it by the co-operation of the Holy Ghost, which is not only by the Word preached, as if it was without the Holy Ghost.  
5. In that I would have the Names written in the Book of Life to be Qualities; and Socinus says, it's enough that some certain Qualities in the Metaphor of the Book of Life, answers to those Names.  
Ans. J plainly shewed Chap. 16. that persons are name from the qualities, not that the qualities are the Names. Prudent, or a prudent man is the Name, Prov. 16.21. and proud and haughty scorner is his Name, says Prov 21.24. that deals in proud wrath. Prudence and Pride are the qualities, not the names. Might not J as well charge Mr. Hacon with simbolizing with the Papists, in preferring the Churches Authority before the Scriptures; and with the Dominicans, in denying the insufficiency of general Grace; but J forbear such retalliations. J will not say as in Homer: 
{αβγδ}.  
Such Language as he gives, I'll give again.   
Sect. 2. But all this while he offers at nothing of my Chapter, onely at length catches at a piece of a sentence, from which he talks at rovers, and shows that some( as the Socinians, who are nothing of my acquaintance) hold some irreligious principles; and then adds, that unless we say that God doth not foreknow what man will do upon such and such circumstances, we cannot but of necessity confess that he hath for some certain men prepared such grace whereby they shall certainly and infallibly be saved; and that if Faith be the gift of God, and he gives it to whom he will give it, this is that Predestination with which I endeavour what I can to fright the world.  
Ans. His consequence is very loose; for although God doth certainly foreknow what man will do upon such and such circumstances, yet nevertheless he doth also foreknow, that the same Grace that he prepared for, and affords to some in whom it takes not place, will certainly and infallibly take place in others. And so è contra, as he did certainly fore-know that the same Grace prepared for, and afforded to the Jews, though they rejected it, would certainly have taken place with a people of a strange Language, had it been afforded to them, Ezek 3 6. and gave Paul to know, that what the Jews rejected, would be by the Gentiles embraced, Acts 28.28. yet I deny not, but God hath prepared that Grace for all men in Christ, by which some shall certainly and infallibly be saved. 2. I endeavour not to fright the World with any Predestination, except of God's fore-appointing obstinate, impenitent sinners to damnation. I would they were more frighted by that from their sins. And therefore it's false, that the asserting faith to be God's gift, and his giving it to whom he will, is that Predestination that I endeavour to fright the World with, or any Predestination at all. His charge then, that what he called an irreligious Principle, I must fall to, and defend by rational consequence, unless I will give over my horrible and irreligious manner of reviling Gods Decrees As it offers nothing to disprove my Answer or Marginal Note he excepted against, which should have been his task; so it is a falsehood, and carries in the tail of it an horrible and odious slander. I challenged him to show me where in any place I have ever spoken irreverently of God's Decrees, much more that I have reviled any of them; which if he cannot do, let the Reader judge what spirit he is of, and what manner of adversary he is unto me.  
Sect. 3. In the close of my Chapter I said, I feared that he thinks God decreed and necessitated Adam's sin, and that I might find passages enough to that purpose in other mens sayings, would I follow his course, in fastening them upon him, to render his opinions odious, which I said Mr. P. had done sufficiently. To this, he first endeavours to clear himself, though not handsomely; For his second proposition, viz. That in those things that are decreed to come to pass, God's Decree infereth no nccessity upon inferior causes or agents, because he decrees all things to come to pass according to their kind; natural agents to act naturally, voluntary agents, voluntarily; and so for necessary, contingent, &c. For this passage I conceive is peccant both in its assertion& reason. 1. The assertion: 
Voluntas Dei in quibusdam necessitatem imponit: non tantum secundum id quod fit, said etiam secundum modum fiendi vel essendi, &c. Th. Aquin. l. Qu. 19. 8.  For in many things decreed to come to pass, a necessity is surely thereby inferred upon inferior causes, whether natural or voluntary; as God hath decreed, That so long as the Earth remaineth, Seed-time and Harvest, could and heat. &c. shall not cease. Doth this infer no necessity upon the Sun shining, and rain falling, &c. Could we have those things without these? See also Psal 148.6. Prov. 8.29. Jer. 5.22. for his Decree for bounding the Seas and Waters; yea did not Gods Decree of preserving Daniel in the lions Den, infer a necessity that they should forbear to devour him, &c.  
2. The reason for it is not always true, that what comes to pass is according to the kind of inferior agents or causes: Was it according to their kind for the day and spittle, and waters of Siloam to open the blind mans eyes? Or did the fire act according to its kind, when it singed not the Garments of the three Worthies, 
Quibusdam effectibus aptavit causas necessarias qua deficere non possunt, ex quibus effectus ex necessitate proveniunt. Aquin. ss. 161.  &c. or Saul, when he fell down and prophesied amongst the Prophets, 2. How should Gods Decrees in necessary agents, put no necessity upon their necessary actions, because they work according to their kind? Sure either Mr. Hacon should have said that in things decreed to be permitted to come to pass, Gods Decrees infer no necessity, or else he knew not well what he wrote.  
Sect. 4. The rest of his Chapter he spends upon Mr. Pierces rendering odious the Opinions of Contra-Remonstrants, in which I conceive he abuses him, as in charging upon him that to be said of sinful actions in general, which he spake of some, as of Davids lying with Bathsheba while Uriah's Wife; the acts of hating God, &c. pleads much for not rendering odious such Opinions as he hath mentioned and declared against( which are chiefly the entitling God to the sinful acts of men, as the cause and worker of them) and would have his Reader to believe, that it is an odious practise to writ against them, pag. 35. and that it's probable they be true, 1. Because those men that now writ against them, were once of that mind; which is as if one should say, it's probable mens sins that they repent of, were virtues, because they sometimes loved them before they repented. 2. Because a very great proportion of the Christian Churches heretofore, and now, hath in the main and leading parts of this controversy, gone that way, &c. Which might as truly be said for Purgatory, praying to the Saints, and in a word, for almost all Popery. But I shall not trouble myself in following him in all those extravagancies from his business from p. 34. to 45. but leave him to Dr. P. if he please to take notice of him; the rather, because I have not those Books by me, by which I might judge of what he says against him about Grotius and Dr. Rivett. It's enough that I have defended myself, and shewed him guilty of what I charged him with, viz. his own charge of me, That he hath let pass the force of the Authorities, Arguments and Reasons brought to vindicate my Doctrine; and onely cacht at, and talked at rovers about some expressions onely, that might have been as well spared in my Answer, and it have been nevertheless valid.  
Sect. 5. How he gives the go-by to Chap. 17, and 18. and letting them all go, except one piece of an expression in Chap 17. The Reader cannot but see, there were two questions and answers about Jacob& Esau, which he took in at that exception In the first I denied their election& rejection to be personal, in the sense I had before spoken of, that is, so as without respect to Christ. In the other I shewed their choice and rejection spoken of in Rom. 9. to be National; which proves that it could not be the election to, or rejection from eternal life; much less that election and rejection in their personal respects, as in themselves considered; and though I could not properly say, Esau was rejected in Christ; yet I might properly enough say, That he w●● not rejected from eternal life, as personally look't upon, and without respect had to his demeanour toward Christ, which any indifferent Reader might see to be my intention. I am glad he can pick nothing else out of bo●h those Chapters to oppose me in, but my use of the Word Personally, which I used in the sense afore-mentioned, for the reason given.  
Sect. 6 To the 19th. Chapter he gives almost as bad go bye● onely( 1.) he expostulates with me for not seeing, That by[ any Honor] though for duration, but temporary and transitory; he meant onely of Divine Honor, as if those epithets did not belong to Earthly Honor, as well as to any Divine. And then 2dly, naming a piece of another sentence, he leaves out the main stress of it about the preposition [ in] as a final particle, denoting a final state and condition permanent; the contrary to which I shewed in the Apostles fimilie, and in Isa. 14.2. in servos& in ancillas; onely he tells me, in servos denotes a state and condition which is more than aid and choice means towards a state; and that bondage( my own instance) is a state permanent and final. Ans. To be a generation of Priests to God, which was included in their being preferred to choice means, was a state too, and yet they were but conditionally preferred to it, and upon breach therein have lost it, Exod. 19.4, 5. 2. For bondage, he confesses in the next breath, that a slave may be made free; and where then is the bondage? But as for the Preposition ( in) securing the Vessel made in honorem, from being broken, he slinks away as ashamed to name it, and instead thereof repeats his own assertion onely, viz. That the Apostle shows Gods absolute power to dispose of men finally, by the likeness of a Potter; and that the similitude is taken out of the Prophet Isa. 45 9. 
Zanch refers it to both. De Natur. Dei lib. 5. cap. 3. de Reprob. Thes. Arg. 3. p. 549. and so doth Aquin. in Comment. in Rom. 9.21.  and not from Jer. 18. Ans. Well, be it referred to Isa. 45.9. yet then he should not( as he doth) cut off, or leave out the last clause of it. Shall the Work say he hath no hands; as if he should say, Because he hath made me to such a state, he cannot make me otherwise as he pleases; either help me out of my misery, or in case of Rebellion, bring me into it. And so it speaks the same language with Jeremy; they spake with one mouth, though not the same syllables: And though ●ts true, that there is a difference between power and liberty to make several Vessels of the same lump, to several lasting uses,( though his preposition [ in] that he gathered it from, is so lost, that he mentions not his note upon that) and another to make or mar the same Vessel before it be fully made or finished; yet let it be remembered, that he that hath power to make divers Vessels to divers uses of the same lump, hath hands too 
Apparet long majorem esse pot st● em Deo in nos quam figulo in suum lutum, quia sumus magis Dei quam lutum fit figuli. Zanch. ubi Sup●a p. 550. , to make or break, or alter any of them from what they are made, as he pleases, and that observation will not hurt us; and that so much is signified in that of Isaiah, is clear; for why else pronounces he a wo to them that strive with their Maker? if so be they were made irrecoverably to destruction, wo to them whether they strive with their Maker or no; for he hath no hands to alter them, no power to save them, they might well strive if possible) to save themselves; or if made to a happy state, no s●riving can alter that neither; and whether he spake of Cyrus( as he says) or of Israel, their states were alterable, Jer. 18.10, 11.  
Sect. 7. He needed not to warn me so much of the Vorstian Divinity blinding my eyes, not to see the difference between the revealed and secret Will; he should rather have held him to my Answers, and have prayed for Grace to humble him to aclowledge how pitifully be turns his back in Chap. 29. of what he said about that distinction in his lame simile there used by him for illustration; and God grant he may as well take as give that counsel in p. 175. of taking heed of being like Balaam, who though he knew Gods mind or purpose, yet because he liked it not, would needs go and inquire again, if possibly he might be brought to speak according to his own desire; as there be shrewd symptoms he did here, in putting such a gloss upon 2 Tim. 2.21. If any man cleanse himself, he shall be a Vessel to honor; which he would have to mean, He that through Grace cleanseth himself, 
Aliter Aquin. in locum. Si sordidetur ab illis erit in contumeliam, si emundat se homo in honorem.  shall know that he was elected a vessel to honor; as if it were all one to know what is before, and to be in the future. Let the judicious unbiased Reader judge thereof. Sure if that had been the Apostles meaning, it had been far properer to have said, He is so, than he shall be a Vessel to honor.   

CHAP. III. The same Charge further exemplified in Chap. 20, 24, 26.  
Sect. 1. THe like Tergiversation, or more palpable, he shows in Chap. 20 to the Paralogisms I there charged him with. He begins wrong in saying, it's my opinion that the Heathens were in some sort Christians, &c. and therefore is not like to go on prosperously. Of his notorious Paralogisms, he makes no vindication further than to this poor piece of a sentence in Sect. 2. Gods works may manifest what men take no notice of,( which yet I find not there) the Sun may shine when no body sees it, and a man may speak where no body hears. Against which he but says, 1. That which God indeed is said to manifest, is made known to most men in the world, as the Heavens declare the glory of God, so there is no Nation where this sound is not heard. Reader, judge of the truth of this, or of his equivocation; for either by making known, he means the same with manifesting and then its a Tautology. Or else also implies that they do know and discern what is manifest; and in that sense( yea in both) it's false. For God did indeed manifest himself in the flesh of Christ, 
1 Tim. 3.16.  if that in either sense was made known to most men in the World, then Mr. Hacon grants more than I asserted. God indeed manifested his Judgements to Israel, when as yet he did not make them known to most men in the World, 
Quantacunque claritate& se& immortal regnum suum Dominus in operum svorum speculo representet: Qui tamen est noster stupor ad tam perspicuas testificationes semper hebescimus Calv. Inst. Lib. 1. Cap. 5. ss. 11.  much less did most men know them, Psal. 147.19, 20. that in Psal. 19.2. There is no Speech or Language where their voice is not heard; says not that their voice, much less all that glory declared by them, was perceived and known by most in the world, for then they should have known the true God and his praises, for all his works praise him. Psal. 145.10. that may be heard in every speech and language which yet is not heard by the most men in any of them, or that be heard, which yet is not known and perceived, for some hear and understand not. 2. He adds to this a falsehood, viz. That it's my Doctrine that Gods works do bring a man to faith in Christ, Quest. 154. Ans. It mentions how God's Works conduce to faith, but says not they bring men to faith in Christ. He says, they cannot evidence to us but what we hear and see; but that is barely his assertion; for though it's said Rom 1.19. God hath manifested or shewed what is to be known of himself, to, or in men; yet it follows but, that they are seen {αβγδ}, being minded; which implies, that if he to whom they are shewed, do not mind them, they see them not; and sure God shewed his power and goodness to Israel in the Wilderness, yet many of them had not eyes to see what was shewed. How he gelds and alters my 154. Answer, the Reader may see by comparing it with what he mentions for it. Concerning which, seeing he commended the far greater part of my instructions and promises to pick out the dead flies, and noted the answers on both sides of that, and let that stand in the midst of them untouched, how could any think but that was one of them that had the honor of his commendation? Yea it might seem to be singularly well thought of, when it stood alone in the midst of them that on either hand escaped not his censure.  
Sect. 2. The other three Paralogisms he offers not a word in vindication of, onely catches at an expression or two inserted by the by, as an overplus, that so he might make it evident, that his above-mentioned charge of me in his Epistle, hits himself home. For whereas I said by the by, that the humblest souls are best at seeing; and many poor illiterate men see more into Christ and Heaven, than many proud Ministers, scholars and University-men, that swell with conceits, &c. and related a passage of my Tutor to that purpose; he diverts to a reviling me, as commending them for humble Christians that will readily believe what I say, though weak and unsound; and that I think they all swell with pride who question what I deliver; quarrels with me about a passage in my Dispute with G.W. that he thinks I misrelate my Tutors saying; speak against scholars and learned men( when it's onely those of them that are proud, that I spake of) and as if I went about to hinder men from abiding in their Callings, fling against Philosophy, Universities, Arts aend Sciences, &c. Which are prevarications from his business, and like the Lapwing, cries when its furthest from its nest, which I shall not step out of my way, or spend time to say much to. He might rather have taxed St. Bernard with the same things, for saying to Eugenius, 
De consid. lib. 4. c 2 Honori totum datur, sanctitati nihil.  that the whole zeal of the Church-men was hot upon the maintenance of their dignity onely; they were all for their honor, little or nothing for holiness; and for saying again, That a man may be ignorant of many things, without any prejudice to his salvation; yea, and that many are saved without those Arts called Liberal, &c. Nay, that Peter and Andrew, 
Serm 36. in Cantica.  and the Sons of Zebedee, and the rest of the Disciples, were not taken out of the School of Rhetoricians and Philosophers, and yet Christ wrought salvation by them in the midst of the earth; upon which he adds, Videar forsan nimius in suggillatione scientia& quasi reprehendere doctos& prohibere studia literarum, absit, non ignoro quantum Ecclesiae profuerint& prosint literati sui— said& scio ubi legerim scientia inflat; that he m●ght seem to some to speak too much against science and learned men, and forbid learning,( just as I seemed to do in Mr. Hacons eyes) but far be it from me, says he, I know how profitable to the Church her learned men have been, and be; but I know also where I have red, knowledge puffs up. Cannot we warn of, and fault this, but we must needs be charged to cry down, and fling against the other. But what will Mr. 
Itae proditae sunt, ut citius intelligantur ab idioata pio modestoque quam, ab arrogant Philosopho,&. Ego puellas quasdam audire mallem de Christo loquentes quam quosdam summos ●ulgi opinione Rabbinos. Habet humana sapientiae supercilium suum Epist. ad pium Lect. Periphr. in Evangel. Praefixa.  Hacon say to Erasmus for saying that the Scriptures are so delivered, that they are sooner understood of a pious, modest, simplo Lay-man, than of an arrogant Philosopher? and that he had rather hear some Girls talk of Christ, than some that are commonly by the vulgar taken for great rabbis. And that, the Wisdom of man hath its pride and loftiness, &c. Doth not he speak the same Languuge that I did? Will Mr. Hacon revile these learned men therefore? But indeed he hath made good of himself his false charge against me, viz. upon those by-expressions in which no stress of my arguments or answers lay, he hath spent his time and his anger also.  
Sect. 3. I said, The Sun shining upon Adam fallen, as it did before, spake God good to sinners, as it did not before: That it speaks God's goodness to sinners now, our Saviour testifies, Matth. 5 45. That it spake that dialect before man fell, it cannot be proved: His telling me then, that I may prove that when I turn homeward, the wind blows not as it did, is a jeer impertinent: For I said not, the Sun doth not shine as it did, but that its shining as it did, signifies something of God to man, that before his fall it did not; but no such thing can be signified by the Winds blowing as it did when I turn my back on it, different from what it signified before; nor is my turning home any way like Adam's turning from God. How he mistakes the Impostors argument. 2 Pet. 3.4 or rather, how he says falsely of the Apostle, in saying, he denies not what they said of the worlds having lasted so many ages, p. 188. the Reader may see by the Apostles express words to the contrary, ver. 6 that the world that then was perished; which cannot stand with a not-denial of their assertion that from the beginning of the Creation all things have continued in the same state. But I have noted enough from this Chapter to make good what I proposed. View we another, Viz.  
Sect. 4. Chap. 24. where he would( it seems) fasten upon nothing but one word, viz. that I took Adversary in him for an Enemy, and warned them of commending themselves, which he did as much as I charged him with it; for as he spake indefinitely of my adversaries, so did I too of self-commenders; and that an Adversary is often the same with an Enemy in Scripture-phrase; the Reader may see in 1 Sam. 29.4. Esth. 7.6. Psal. 74.10. Isa. 59.18. 1 Pet. 5.8. How long shall the Adversary reproach, says Psal. 74.10 And that some of my Adversaries that he spake of, are reproachful Adversaries, the Reader of his Book may witness; but this was also nothing to the chief things answered by me to his exception; but things so far impertinent, that had I forborn them, yet his Exception was substantially answered.  
Sect. 5. How sorrily he turns the back upon Chap. 26 and catches at but two or three lines, the Reader may see too. He puts a new Question, p. 225. Who determines the Will to follow the good Counsel given?  
Ans. It is God that persuades the soul to such determination of its will to good, 
{αβγδ} aptly and firmly to frame to make firm and sure. LXX. nunc {αβγδ} dirigere, nunc {αβγδ} firmare, caepius autem {αβγδ}, parare vertunt: aliquando ordinare, d●sponere &c. significat. Leigh. Crit. Sacr.  and the man in that persuasion, and by the Grace therewith afforded, determines or wills to follow it. Whence its diversely in Scripture attributed, sometimes to God, because it's by his Grace; sometimes to man, because its his action through that Grace. Thence men are said to prepare( or fix or firm {αβγδ}) their hearts to seek the Lord, 2 Chron. 30.19. 1 Sam. 7 3. Job 11.13. and yet the preparations of the heart are of, or from the Lord, and he is said to prepare or fix them, 2 Chron. 29. ●8. Psal. 10.17. Again, men are exhorted to cleave to God with purpose of heart, {αβγδ}, by a setting to of their heart, as it were, Acts 11.23. which it were a vain thing to exhort them to, if they could not by the Grace of God do, and as vain if they could not at any time but do, or to fault men for not doing it, as in 2 Chron. 12.14. How often are men bid to apply their ears and hearts to Wisdom, and incline them to understanding, &c. as Prov. 2.2. Isa. 55 2, 3. Prov. 23.12. and said to do it, as Psal. 119 112. I have inclined my heart to keep thy Statutes, &c. and to set their hearts,( or give them) to seek the Lord? 2 Chron. 11.16. Which implies it's man's action, though by God's Grace. Wherefore also God is to be sought to do it in us, as Psal. 119.35. Incline my heart unto thy Testimonies. Or as Ps. 90.11. so to teach us, that we may incline, apply, or bring our hearts to wisdom; though God work in the believer the to will, and the to do, yet the Apostle implies it is so as notwithstanding, yea therefore there is need and room to exhort to work them out with fear and trembling.  
Sect. 6. He offers— Who makes farthel? I answer, God makes the hearer farthel by his teaching; and being farthel by his persuasion, he causes them to come; Every one that hears and learns of the Father, comes to Christ. As for his charging me with alleging Camereon by way of scorn, it is an injury. Camerons saying, Thac God so works charity in this life, ut fieri non posset ut non amenus; that we cannot but love; & the enlightened are so converted, ut fieri non posset ut non convertatur; clash not with my sayings or belief as to the hearer and learner of the Father. He might have found the same in substance in what I said p. 59.& in my Catechism, Quest. and Ans. 147. and in my Answer in this very Chap. 26. p. 130, 131.  
Sect. 7. The expression he picks out is onely this, I thought the new Spirit and heart had followed faith. To that he says, Regeneration is an entire work, though in appearance, and to our apprehensions some things go before, and some things follow after. But what means he by Entire, that it's not effected gradatim, or by degrees, but in uno puncto temporis? How agrees that with following Christ in the regeneration? Matth. 19.28. following him, notes a going after him by steps, which requires also some time and continuance; there is a daily putting on the new man, or frame, Eph. 4.22. therefore its not fully put on at once. And whereas he adds, That as faith is a principle of spiritual life, so it is withall a part of spiritual life: That crosses not my saying, so long as it's true too,( as he concludes) that it goes before the new frame, and not the new frame before it; though I conceive rather, that as the soul is the Principle of Life natural both in the heart, and by the heart in the whole body; so the Spirit breathing in the Word, or the Word itself through the Spirit put into, and minded by the soul, is the Principle both of Faith, and of the new frame or spirit, begot through faith; see Rom. 10.17. So he lets go all the substance of the last Chapter, and falls upon a by-expression about Beast-worshipping: Whence he falls into a vagary about heretics and Anabaptists, and miscarriages of persons pretending to Reformation; which seeing they be eccentric to my Catechism, or any thing I answered in defence of it, I shall not wander after him about it, but let it alone; it makes good my charge, that what he put upon me falsely was in truth his own practise and doing. Turpe est Doctori cum culpa redarguat ipsum.   

CHAP. IV. Mr. Hacon's vindication of his Exceptions to my Epistle, viewed.  

1. About the Catechisms and Confessions of particular Churches.  
HAving seen him so near the end, let us view him again from the beginning, though enough hath been said, sufficiently to discover his unhappiness; yet forasmuch as we have but broken rallied Regiments to charge, though desperately furious, because provoked by our former discomfit of them,( blessed be God) let us not fear the victory is ours. Let us see( through God's assistance) what we can discover in him worth observation, as briefly as may be.  
Sect. 1. About the Confessions and Catechisms of particular Churches, I granted them to be the Churches boundaries, so far as they agree with the Word of God, and it may not be injurious to the Churches, or its Membens growth. To this he says, By growth and measure, I mean not more clear illumination, but am for Doctrinal Revelation; as if some parts of our Confession had no certainty; and some others that being not commonly known, are not yet received into it, needful to be believed, as Chiliasme. Ans. Reader, I spake not of Doctrinal Revelation; for the revelation of all doctrine to be known while here, is given in the holy Scriptures, 
Nec ulli ex singulis nec universae Ecclesiae licet novum aliquod Dogma excudere. Calv Inst. lib. 4. cap. 8. ss. 9.  and thence to be fetched. It's not the Churches part to reveal Doctrine, but to receive and confess it. But I spake of growth in apprehension and understanding of what God hath in the Scriptures revealed; and as they grow in that, they may grow more perfect in Confession; that that's perfect, is not yet come in that respect; and as that that's more perfect, comes,( a more perfect understanding) so that that's imperfecter in expression, may fall off, and give place to what is clearer, as it hath already in the Reformed Churches. 
Calv Inst. lib. 4. cap. 1. ss. 12.  Either let him say, the Church is perfect in knowledge; or let him say, that she may grow more perfect in understanding and confession. 2. His suggestions about our Confessions here and after, p. 4. where he says, that I think Confessions that are to be subscribed to, be prejudicial to Christian growth and liberty; follow not from my sayings; for my words were not applied to any particular Confessions and Catechisms, but in the general Theory; his assertion was indefinite, and my answer was so too, such as might take in the Roman, graecian, or Muscovian Churches. I hope he will not say all their Confessions and Catechisms are fit to be subscribed, or are fit boundaries for the Churches, not agreeing in all things with the Word of God, and being injurious to the Churches growth. So that speaking of catechisms and confessions so generally, it was needful to put in those limitations, nor I hope are they suh as our Church will judge unwarrantable, especially if we consider the Confessions and Catechisms then in being*, from those that were then taken, 
The Synods.  and took themselves for the Church; which they that are now the Heads of it will not admit( I suppose) of: Nor yet follows it, that people are upon uncertainties stil no otherwise then they were before the Reformation; 
Videatur Calvin. Lib. 4. Instit. Cap 1. ss. 12.  my speech being neither limited to the reformed Churches, nor any Church being so unreformed, but that there are therein some certain and indubitable truths, and fundamental doctrines held, that are not to be questioned, and much more in the Reformed Churches. Nor questioned I any thing of our Churches Articles and Catechism, that are now in force, but rather shewed my like of them; yea he says himself, I seem to appeal to the Churches Catechism.  
Sect. 2. He brings two Arguments from the Churches Catechism against my Doctrine, viz. 1. God the Holy Ghost sanctifieth all the elect people of God; whence he gathers, elected first, and then sanctified. But first, the Catechism says not so; nor doth its saying enforce it, more than that the world was before God made it; first a World, and then made; because it says, God made all the World: Or than that saying, Husbands love your Wives, implies they are first their Wives before they love them. Yet 2. I grant they were first elected in Christ before sanctified; for they are yet but sanctifying. Election is an act at once, and spoken of Believers in the praeter tense; but sanctification is a continued Work: In the day that I choose Israel, and lifted up my hand, Ezek. 20.5. But sanctification is all our life long, and in respect of the whole Church, all the World long. See what the Church means by Elect, in Collect on All-Saints day, viz. Such as be knit together in one communion and fellowship in the Mystical body of Christ; which compared with the Creed, and by the title of the day, appears to be All Saints.  
He says that I say, God electeth those that are sanctified, chooseth the godly man, wresting the Psalm, and those that believe, and are called; and I cannot find where the uncalled are said to be elected.  
Ans. There are divers falshoods in these expressions. 1. Where said I, God chooseth the sanctified? Or 2. That he chooseth the godly, and him that believeth. In p. 79. my saying was, God hath chosen the godly man to himself; not chooseth in the present tense. And yet 3dly, Psal. 65.4. says in the present tense, Blessed is the man whom thou choosest. So that it's no error to say in such a sense, God chooseth the godly man, and causes him to approach to him; That God chooseth the wicked man, the drunkard or whore-master, I never red 4. Wherein do I wrest the Psalm, seeing himself confesseth, the vulgar English reads it so as I did? and indeed, to separate to God, and to choose, are of a like sense. 5. As I said, I find not any yet uncalled, called Elect; so neither hath he shewed me where in the Scriptures any such are so called.  
Sect. 3. His second Argument is, that children are taught to say, they be not able to serve God without his special Grace; whence he infers, That he that hath learned that Lesson, will never answer to the Name Universalist. Ans. Mind me again Reader, and see the weakness of this argument and inference: The child is immediately thereupon taught that he must at all times call upon God for that Grace by diligent prayer; which implies, that that special Grace is something that follows faith, because to be obtained by calling upon God, which requires faith before it, Rom. 10.14. And do not I use to say, that God is the Saviour of all men, but especially of them that believe, and call upon him? Mr. Hacon hath red my Essays, and therefore could not be ignorant of what I say largely to that purpose, Chap. 2.3, 4, 5. yea, the title of the Book itself is Essays about general and special Grace; so that he is yet pitiful in his arguings. The special grace the Church means, is doubtless the same prayed for in the Collect before the commandments, viz. the cleansing of our hearts by the inspiration of the holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love God, and worthily magnify his holy Name, &c.& that it is notwithstanding the mention of that special Grace, an Universalist, in regard of general Grace, the Collect for the third Sunday after Easter, shows, it runs thus: Almighty God, that showest to all men that be in error, the light of thy truth, to the intent that they may return into the way of righteousness, &c. See also the Collects for the Sunday next before Easter, and for Good Friday. How weak and inconcludent then are his Arguments.   

2. About National establishment of Religion.  
Sect. 4. He says, I play on both hands, say no such matter, and yet justify it; and make sport with the word All; when I did not mention the word All, but in reciting his saying that I answered; nor played I on both hands, deny and justify it; but denied his charge, and  told him, that I pray God to establish in the Nation his true Religion, which I shewed might be without Sanguinary Persecution: But the establishment of falsehood for truth, and Idolatry and Superstition for true Religion, I said I deprecated. And is that( as he falsely charges me) a liberty for every one to believe& profess what he will without restraint? Or is the Nations giving every one a liberty to profess as above, the endeavouring to persecute Gods true Religion in power and purity? Or can that confist with my commending Authority for enacting a Law against blasphemy against God, and wishing they would do the like against blasphemy against Christ too, which himself acknowledges and knows I did? He says, Spiritual weapons are found too light to keep out error, and as if their edge was too blunt: Why, what should we have else? He says, the stoping the mouths of heretics, Tit. 1.11. was not only by Argument, but by Suspension and Censure. Suppose it be so,( though he proves it not) yet are not they spiritual weapons too? But he says, in a Christian state that must be backed with a temporal arm, or else all will be contemptible. It seems then the Apostles words are now out of date, 2 Cor. 10.3. The Weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God, &c. May not spiritual censures cast such scoffers out of the Church, and keep it pure now, as it did in the Apostles and following ages? And the beauty of holiness in the Church, 'allure and keep in all that are fit to be members of it, or have any good mind to Heaven and happiness, letting the rest be as Heathens and Publicans; and for any gross crimes, Blasphemy, Idolatry, disturbances, let the Sword take place; but for different opinions, doth he not know whose counsel it is, 
Videatur tart. Adv. Gnosticos prope initium.  Let both grow together till the Harvest? Matth. 13.30. He abuses Tertullian by representing him as speaking of compelling by a secular Arm, when he speaks of compelling by Argument.  
Sect. 5. He quarrels with my desiring, that sober, peaceable and pious persons may not be compelled by bodily punishments to believe what they cannot see, or profess what they do not believe; and says, ' That's quiter contrary to our Saviour's counsel, Mat. 7.15. Take no heed of false Teachers.  
Ans. Are sober, peaceable and pious persons, false Teachers? or are false Teachers such? They be ravenous Wolves, and are they peaceable and sober creatures? He says, Those qualities are the sheeps clothing( in outward show, and further we cannot judge) that Sectaries shrowd themselves under to deceive. But( 2dly.) be it so( though I spake of those that are really so) yet may we not take heed of them, unless we compel them outwardly to profess and practise further than God hath revealed to them? Is not that rather to compel them to put on the sheeps clothing, that they may not be discerned to be Wolves? Did not the Disciples in the Apostles times take heed of such, when yet they had no Secular arm to compel them? Might not the Churches censures removing them, give better warning of them, than a compelled unity with another Faith underneath? What good did such a compulsion to Vigilius? God grant Mr. Hacon have a better judgement of seducers than Tertullus had when he called Paul one. I fear he thought himself as wise and as right a Worshipper of God as Mr. Hacon doth.  
Sect. 6. I hoped he had repented him of his fault in charging me as he did; but he is angry that I  told the world so: Well, I am not ambitious to be his Confessor; but I thought I had extenuated his fault: But seeing he takes it not so, but repents of his making such an acknowledgement, I am sorry I mistook him so much, and shall leave him to God; if he forgive him, I shall not impute it to him. As for his quarrel with my Title-page, where I said my Instructions were suited so the capacity of children in respect of the brevity of the Answers, though yet useful for men in regard of the matters treated of; and his catching at a by-word or two, viz. Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism, leaving out my answer to the main of his charge, I shall wave them. For as I have declared myself, and do declare myself contrary to what the Pelagians held,( for I hold that Grace is not given according to mens will, work and preparations, but according to God's good pleasure in Christ) so it concerns not me what Arminius thought or said of Semi-pelagianism, seeing I call not him, or any other mere man, master of my Faith.   

3. About walking by vote, and having our fear of God by mens precepts.  
Sect. 7. My Religion, he says, may be first Pure, because according to God's Word; and then Peaceable, because it accordeth with the Churches Confession, Answ. So I hope it is, nor hath he discovered the contrary in it; yea I would have it pure and peaceable, whether it accords with this or that Confession, or no; for Confessions in different times may vary. In case I find some point difficult, that I cannot resolve myself in, 
Plurima nobis implicita nunc sunt in quibus ipsis nihil magis expediat quam judicium suspendere, animum autem offirmare ad tenendam cum Ecclesia unitatem: Verum hoc praetextis ignorantiam humilitate temperatam fidei nomire insignire absurdissimum est. Fides enim in Dei& Christi cognitione non in Ecclesiae reverentia jacet Calv. Inst. lib 3 cap. 2 sect. 3.  I reverence the Churches Confession and practise, so as I will not speak against it, even where I am not so satisfied as to speak or join without scruple with it. I confess in matters of practise, I know no authority the Church hath from God in unnecessary matters to command me to practise doubtingly: For the Apostles that had Christ's Commission more immediately for what they did, did not so; and therefore I think in such a case I ought to suspend my practise, till I be satisfied that I sin not in it against God to practise so; and if any will put me to sufferings for so doing, patiently bear it: For if I join in practise doubtingly, I am not thereby made of one mind, nor perfectly joined in judgement; nor do I give offence to the Church of God, by being afraid to offend God. As for Abraham's Servants, and Joshuah's household instanced by him, I think they did not serve the Lord simply because they commanded them, but because through their good instructions they believed it to be the true way that was commanded by them; otherwise they did not serve him so well as they should have done, if they had no better bottom for it then barely their command, as fallible men. But indeed they were Prophets, and being evidenced to be such, their commands also were evidenced to be the undoubted commands of God by them. Yea and while any were persons of no judment themselves, to discern whether what was commanded them was right or wrong, doubtless they did well, and ought to be ordered by them; because as they knew no better reason to obey them for, so they knew none why they should not obey them, or why their consciences might rationally scruple that they should offend God in obeying them. 
Quidvis nullo cum delectu dum sub Ecclesiae obtruditur titulo ab imperitis instar oraculi arripiturinterdum etiam prodigiesissimi errores. Idem, ibidem.  But he knows I distinguished between mens commanding men to observe Gods ways and commands, and commanding them to observe their own invented or obtruded doctrines or practices for God's: so that all this was nihil ad rem. To his shameful snatching a Line or two of my Answer [ about a single Pastors framing a Catechism] from all the rest of it before and after, and then talking his pleasure in a vagary about Superstition, and charging me with taking up a Scripture saying, before I have learned what it means; I refer thee to my former Answer, and shal bear his reproaches.  
Sect. 8. He never heard the Word of God called a Creed. Answ. He hath heard it called the Credendum or thing to be believed, and what else means Creed. And therefore to say that I removed the Land-marks that our Fore-fathers set, in my calling the Word of God the Creed we all have, either implies that the three Creeds are not the Word of God reductive, and so that we ought to add to the Word of God in the object of our divine Faith; or it's a falsehood. Beside, he knows I taught the children in my Catechism the Apostles Creed.  
Sect. 9. He asks, If my conscience can suffer me to make the world believe, that when a Church shall comp●se a Confession of Faith, taking care that the people be taught it, and exacting Conformity thereto, and imposing penalties upon such as shall depart therefrom, that this is onely the implicit Faith of the Romanists; or to tell a good Christian that hath been instructed in the Doctrine of the Church of England, who knows and believes it to be truth, that it's a point of Popery to believe as the Church believes. Answ. My conscience never yet lead me to say so, nor had Mr. Hac. a good conscience to suggest to his Reader that I said any such thing: That which I said was this; That it behoves every man to have the Word of God at least as to the Essentials( the Fundamentals) of it as his own Creed, and not to have his Faith( like that of the Romanists) depend on other men, believe onely implicitly: which is quiter contrary to his case of mens knowing and believing the Doctrine of the Church to be Truth; for such an one hath more then an implicit Faith. Nor said I any thing of the Church of England, much less against it in my Epistle, or any other Writing, as he would tempt his Reader to believe. It was another sort of men that I had to do with in those times, viz. Men of the Presbyterians Principles and Faith. So that there was neither fallacy, nor m●schief, nor bad consequence in my saying. But either Mr. Hac. is defective in his Rationals, or hath a mischievous mind toward me.   

4. About Rom. 9. and its Difficulty.  
Sect. 10. His saying, I answer the Objection brought out of Romans 9. &c. by saying those Chapters are hard to be understood, is but the repeating over-again a falsehood confuted in my former Book: That what is urged from thence against the Universalists, is easy and evident; and that I make use of the difficulty to put off and elude that that is plain. As it is a slander against me, so it agrees not with his own taxing me before: with giving to children such hard meat. When we speak of them, they are high mysteries and hard meat; but when they abuse them against the plain sayings of the Gospel, then they are plain and evident. So that here we have mutantem Protea vultum, a blowing hot and could out of the same mouth as he pleases. But is it evident that the Apostle says there, that God loved Jacob personally considered, so as peremptorily to appoint him to eternal life, and as personally and peremptorily hated Esau, so as to appoint him to Damnation before they were born, as they thence gather and object; or that God created Pharaoh to destroy him for ever? Surely those things be not so evidently there as he would insinuate.  
Sect. 11. We say( says he of us) that God decreed not to choose particular persons, but to choose all such as believe the promises of the Gospel, and to refuse all such as seek justification by Works: whenas certainly had there ever been any such Decree made, Paul had never been chosen, who was a Law-worker. Answ. I use not to speak in that loose manner of particular persons; but that God chooseth them not in their personal considerations, or as without respect to Christ, or the like, as in my Essays: God's free choice in Christ is of those who are not of Works, but of Faith; and that in the works of the Law God hath not chosen men, or purposed to choose and own them. And yet 2ly. I deny his consequence, that then Paul had never been chosen; for Paul sought to be justified by the Faith of Christ, he tells us so himself, Gal. 2.16. We that are Jews by nature, knowing that a man is not justified by the Works of the Law, but by the Faith of Jesus we have believed, that we might be justified by the Faith of Christ, and not by the Works of the Law. Had he been disobedient to the heavenly Vision, he had not been justified; and that he was ever Called, Elected, or Chosen till he became obedient to that, I find not; or that he was Elected to holiness and blamelesness before God in love otherwise then as so considered. But if because he did sometimes seek Justification by Works before he believed, therefore God doth choose such, and not refuse them from his owning justifying Grace( for as for his calling Grace he excepts or refuses none, 
See my Caveat Chap. last.  though he dispenses that diversely, according to his good pleasure, and the counsel of his Will) then we may say he choose Drunkards, and Whoremasters also to be holy and blameless before him in love, for such he calls and brings into Christ. But I no where find the Scripture speak in that language: nay, whereas David in Psal. 4.2, 3. uses that as an argument to draw off men from loving vanity, That God hath chosen, or separated for himself, the godly man, this would put this answer into their mouths; Tush, he hath chosen also Law-workers, and workers of iniquity, and therefore we may still love vanity.  
He adds,  
Sect. 12. That whereas the Apostle teacheth Election and Salvation to be not of man that worketh, willeth, or runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy: I have so wrested it, that now it is not of man that willeth or worketh, but of man that believeth and continueth in Faith and Repentance to his lives end And if Election be of such as such, then is Election of workers in respect of their works; viz. bel●eving, rep●nting and persevering; which are works all of them belonging to Gods Law.  
Ans. The former of these sentences is a slander that he cannot make good out of any of my writings, unless he speak very aequivocally; for 2. There is an Amphibology in the word [ of] by which the unwary Reader may be deceived; for it is either the Genitive case of the agent, author or cause ●f a thing; as when we say Election and Salvation is of God that shows mercy: and so it is neither of the beliver, or worker; for ne ther the believer nor worker is the cause why God elects him. Or it is the Genitive case of the subject; and so we say Election and Salvation is not of God that shows mercy; that is, it is not he that is elected and saved: nor of the worker as opposed to the believer; but of the believer, and believing willer and worker. Even as a mans living upon alms is of the Giver as the cause of it, and not of the Receiver as proceeding from him, or deserved by him; though it be of such as the subject so living; that is, they onely live so that receive alms; they that refuse them cannot live of them. The second is a false consequence, with a falsehood in the end of it: 1. For though Election be of such as believe and persevere in Faith( though that's no phrase of mine; for men are elect before their Election be made firm, and whether they do make it sure or firm, or not, 2 Pet. 1.10.) yet it is not of workers in respect of their works, in the Scripture-language: for that opposes Faith and Works, and Grace and Works, and the Believer and Worker: and therefore the believer is not a worker in that sense, that it denies election end salvation to works or workers in: see for this Rom. 4.5. To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifies the ungodly, his Faith is imputed for Righteousness: Where the believer is not a worker, but a not-worker. So Rom. 11.7. If of grace, then not of works; and if of works, then not of grace: But Faith cannot be included in those works, because faith and grace stand together, Rom. 4.16. It is of Faith, that it might be by Grace.  
Even as for a man to live of Charity, and of receiving Alms will stand well, yea do necessary infer one the other. So as to live of a man's earnings, and of Charity or Alms will not. Then 2ly. his error is, That Believing, Repenting and Persevering are works all of them belonging to God's Law: Unless by Law he means God's Doctrine, or Law of Faith, and then he equivocates, and cheats his Reader; for the Law as a Law of Works( as it's used by the Apostle in these cases) admits of no repentance, but pronounces a curse upon every one that continues not to do it in all things; and so neither of Faith i● Christ. Its Christ that came to call sinners to repentance; 
Matth 9.13. luke 24.47.  and it's the Gospel that is the preaching of repentance toward God, and Faith in the Lord Jesus; and of Repentance and forgiveness of sins in his Name. Therefore what Mark calls a p●eaching that men should Repent, St. Luke calls a preaching the Gospel, Mark 6.12. luke. 9.6. So that I have not overthrown my own doctrine, nor devised any Doctrine to overthrow the Doctrine of St. Paul, as he intimates falsely. But Mr. Hac. hath satisfied my doctrine, and St. Pauls also. As for my Book looking boldly, so long as it may do so notwithstanding all his assays to discredit it, it is no discommendation to it. Nor said I, any mans human frailties may look boldly; but that the man that hath human frailties may. And there's an end to that Chapter.    

CHAP. V. Creators, Sinful Lusts, Prepared Sacrifice. To Chap. 2, 3,& 5.  
Sect. 1. Mr Hac. Ainsworth was a professed Separatist from the Church of England; therefore the word[ Creators] found in him, is not found in our Church, though found in our Language. And it was somewhat boldly done of him to turn it so, who yet in his Title professed to Explain the Hebrew words. Ans. 1. Though Ainsworth was a Separatist in respect of Discipline, his Book was not; but that is found in the Church of England in good esteem with many Learned men. Even as Tertullian fell fowlier from the Church to Montanism, and accounted the Orthodox carnal: yet his Works( except where he Montanizes) are esteemed and received in the Church. Cyprian used to call him his Master; Da mihi magistrum. 
Cost. in Comment. ad Vincent.  & tanti fecit tamque clarum habuit, ut ne diem quidem sine lectione ejus traduceret. And Vincentius said of him, that he was apud Laetinos omnium facile princep●, the chief latin Author. 2ly. But why is it boldness in Mr. Ainsworth to turn it Creators, seeing that it is the proper signification of the Hebrew word; nor could he explain it, unless he had  told us that it so signifies. That of Th. Br. of N. is not like this; for {αβγδ} is not without Gods, but persons without God, or Atheists; it being an Adjective, not implying a plurality of Gods, but a plurality of the Substantive it relates to, viz. the persons that were without God.  
Sect. 2. He asks, Would I have the English Bible begin; The Gods created, &c. Bara Elohim is in the sacred Text, and good Divinity; but creavit Dii is scandalous; no true latin, nor good Divivinity. Ans. The case is not al●ke, to transl●te the Bible so, and to begin my Catechism so: For in my Catechism, as it was my design onely so to introduce the mention of the Trinity, so I presently prevented the scandal that the plurality of the word might occasion, by asserting plainly the Unity of God, and discovering my design; which liberty is not compatible to a Translator: Nor can the children that learn the Catechism be much wonted by it to red or hear that word in the plural, because I used it onely in one Answer, and in one Question, and expressly laid a bar against the danger of their thinking there are more Gods then one, by telling him there are no more; which they are in no more danger to forget, then to forget the word Creators. Besides, if Elohim may be applied to a single person possibly, yet Borei never is but plural, and cannot but take in all the persons in the Trinity: as also the Hebrew Gnoshai, Job 35.10. Psal. 149.2. my Makers. Nor is Dii creavit worse Divinity in latin, though worse latin, then asher halecu liphdoth lo lagnam is in Hebrew, which is verbatim in English, The Gods they went to redeem to himself for a people, 2 Sam. 7.23. As for Athanasius, as I find not that saying in his Creed that Mr. Hac. mentions, or have used the contrary to it; so I hope with his good leave I may say, That the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are those three that are called plurally {αβγδ} my Makers, Job 35.10. and {αβγδ} Sions makers, Psal. 149.2. and {αβγδ} Creators in Eccles. 12.1. for how to render the plural plurally but by so saying, I know not: Yet I will say, that as I did not think of any that would quarrel with me for rendering that word as I did, when I writ my Catechism upon no other design then I did; so if ever I do re-print it I will alter that word, because I will take away occasion from peevish spirits to quarrel with it, though they need not.  
Sect. 3. About Sinful Lusts he says, The words of the English Catechism refers to Baptism, and there the three enemies are twice name. Ans. 1. Not twice by those names, the Flesh, world and devil 2. Nor in the form of the promise made in Baptism, to which that Answer plainly relates; but there it is the carnal lusts of the flesh, not all lusts, as flesh may signify, not those of natural infirmity.  
Sect 4. About the prepared Sacrifice, he says, The offering of the Sacrifice was that which I have omitted, the killing it in relation to God. 
p. 46. p. 49. p. 51.  What I call the oblation was consequent to the oblation, or at most the completing of it. That the offering was principally and fully made by the Priest in the mactation or slaying of it. So that the act of offering was past before the fire came to be kindled. That the Sacrifices were offered or slain, not upon the Altar, but at the foot of it; or as Rev. 6.9. under the Altar. Ans. 1. He brings no Scripture to prove that the mactation or killing was the act of offering, or that it was not offered upon, but at the foot of the Altar. Nay I shal confute him by this Argument; if the offering was made properly upon the Altar, and not at the scot of it; and the sacrifice was not killed upon the Altar, then was not the killing of it the oblation or offering of it. Now that the Sacrifice was offered upon the Altar, see Gen. 8.20. Noah offered Sacrifices {αβγδ} on the Altar. Deut. 27.6. speaking of the Altar, he saith, Thou shalt offer offerings upon it, {αβγδ} Josh. 22.23. Veim hagnaloth gnalaugnolah, if to offer thereon burnt-offering, or peace offering thereon. See also Josh. 8.31. 2 Chron. 29.21. Isa 56.7. ●●●re also the Greek words are {αβγδ}; and in J● 23. {αβγδ}. To this we add an observ●●●●● from Dr. 
Centur. Chonogr. Cap. 27.  Lightfoot out of Maimonides; Traditio ab omnibus recepta est, locum ubi David condidit altar in areâ Auranae fuisse locum ubi suum condidit Noachus; ubi suum condidit Abrahamus, supper quod ligavit Isaacum: ibidem fuisse altar supper quod obtulerunt Cainus& Abelus; where the Sacrifices are said to have been offered upon the Altars: whereas he says, Locus mactationis erat ad septentrionem ubi erant sex annuli ad quos mactabunt victimas; The killing-place was at the North-side of the Altar. As in Levit. 1.11. By the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation. Exod. 29.11. Levit. 3.2.& 4 4. before the Tabernacle, Levit. 4.8. Therefore the killing it was not the oblation, but the oblation was after it. 2. Yea the word in the Hebrew that signifies to offer is {αβγδ} that is, to ascend, or go up on high, of lifting up, 
In altum tendere: exaltatus, elevatus, clatus, impositus fuit.  being exalted, or laid upon a thing; and {αβγδ} an offering, is an ascension, because by burning all in the fire, it went up in smoke and vapour; and the Holy Ghost in Greek translates it {αβγδ}, a whole burnt-offering, 
Quod totum igne absumptum sursum ascenderet& evanesceret, vel quod elevebatur superaltare. Leigh Crit. Sacr.  because it was wholly consumed by the fire, and went up and vanished: or, because it was lifted up upon the Altar. False it is then that he says, p. 49. l. 25. that the other Languages gives not the least colour for what I said.  
3. That the Priests act of Offering was after the killing of the Sacrifice is clear, Levit. 16.24. it was killed before he went into the Holy of Holies, but he comes forth to make his oblation Yea 4ly. Mr. Hac. says, That the burning it may be the completing of it, and why then not denominated from its completive act? But then he contradicts himself in saying, It was fully offered in the mactation or killing; and that the offering was past before the fire came to be kindled. What, full and past before it was completed. Yea, and if 5ly( as he says, and it's one of the nearest notions in his Book) The Sacrifices were signs of agreement and frienddship between God and man, a●● a kind of feasting with man, and the Altar is called God's Table, Ez●● 41.22. Mal. 1. and the offerings the bread of God, and God tak●●ortion by the fire burning it( and I would say carrying 〈…〉 heaven-ward; as the fire came from heaven, Levit. 8.24.) and gave the rest to the Priests: Yet what could be more properly the offering it, then the causing it to ascend, and so laying it upon the Altar, if not also the burning it there, that in its ascending heaven-ward God might( in a shadow or figure) take his portion.  
Sect. 5. He says, p. 51. Though Christ was in divers respects Sacrifice, and Priest, and Altar; yet the across might be so in another respect because Christ died there, Answ. 1. Then it seems Christ was offered on two Altars, and the other Sacrifices on none: Where found he that notion? 2. The other Sacrifices he says died at the foot of the Altar; did Christ die at the foot of the across? Or 3. How answers that my argument from our Saviours words, Matth. 23.19. That then the across sanctified Christ, and so was greater then Christ? That I confounded Chr●st's Ascension and Offering, by saying he did the one in the other, is as if he should say, I confounded my act of Writing with my confuting an Error, because I here do one in another. Much less confounded I his Humiliation with his Exaltation, or declare myself for the Socinians; for they deny his satisfaction. For though I say his sacrifice purged the heavenly things by his entering in thither; yet I deny not that the purgation was made by that that was done on earth, as what was there done was presented to his Father in heaven in the virtues of it: even as the blood of the sacrifice that made the atonement in and for the holy of holies was the same that was  shed without the holy of holies, Levit. 16.7. but it did not make the atonement simply, as it was  shed without, but as it was presented within the veil. And Christ is entred into the heavens by his own Blood, in a sense answering the High-priest's entering into the holy place by( that is with) the blood of others, Heb. 9.12. Nor yet said I that the Apostle opposed this to that, but that the entrance of Christ into heaven answers to the High-priest's entering into the holy place; and his entering with his own blood, to the High-priest's entering with the blood of Goats and Calves; and yet in a sense the places and ways of entering are both opposed to each other, and in both those things the Apostle shows that Christs sacrifice far exceed● the High-Priests. But how can that be given as a reason, why the heavenly things are purged with better sacrifice( as it is) that Christ is not entred into the holy places made with hands, but into the heaven itself; if his purgation of them was not made in his there entering? Can that be a reason or evidence of a thing that hath no relation to that thing? See then Reader, that every where the strength of my Antagonist lays not in the goodness of his premises, nor validity of his consequences, but in the daringness of his conclusion, which hath no connection therewith, but what his boldness gives it, viz. in saying, That I deceive myself or Reader with the ambiguity of the word Offer.  
Sect. 6. He says again p. 52. It is Christs passion, not his ascention, in which God was well pleased as with the smoke of the burnt offerings. Ans. It is Christs passion, as in the virtues thereof he is entred the heavens themselves, there to appear in the presence of God for us, without which the heavenly things were not purged, and by conesquence God not well pleased; for without that we could not have had his holy Spirit, the pledge of his well-pleasedness with us. Nor doth Eph 5 2 say, That his dying simply was his offering up himself to God a sweet smelling savour, which Heb 9.14 tells us was done in the eternal Spirit, but that he died in the eternal Spirit I find not, but in the infirmity of the flesh, though in the power of it he offered himself to die as the sacrificer offered his gift or sacrifice. That our Redemption then was by the blood of Christ is true; out not without its virtues being presented in the heavens themselves. Nor doth that place in Heb. 13 11, 12. invincibly prove, That the crucifying of Christ tipified by the burning of the beast without the Camp, did perfect and complete the Sacrifice( or rather the Oblation) of him; unless it can be proved that that burning of the beast was the priestly oblation and offering of it; which sure it was not: for it was neither by the Priest, nor upon the Altar, which was in the court of the Tabernacle, and not without the camp: so that that's nothing to the offering that was made before by the Priests in ver. 24. It proves we have an Altar they might not eat of; for their sacrifices that made the atonement there was wholly burnt, and they might eat nothing of it; but Christ though answering to that atoning Sacrifice, may be fed upon by us, which was the Apostles main scope. How false it is, that to Suffer, Offer, and die are the very same, is sufficiently shewed. Therefore I go on to   

CHAP. VI. About the Head of the Church, and power of the Magistrate in Religious matters. To Chap. 6,& 7.  
Sect. 1. MY first Section, as most of my Book, he answers with silence, and directing the Reader to what he had writ in his Review, and I might as well so answer all his Book. My first Section of Chap. 7. had a mistake of visible for invisible Church; red but invisible there, and it sets it right. He hath such a m●stake of power of his will for counsel, p. 107. l. 18. Jam sumus ergo pares. But in what he notes upon Chap. 6 he begins wrong at the first dash; viz. as if I had said, That Kings incensurableness smells of flattery. I said not so; but his excursions, or readiness to deviate from the Catechism under his review, to speak of those things of which it gave no just colourable occasion, was the thing I said smelled of flattery; for why should we needlessly, and upon no occasion run into discourses of the prerogatives and dignities of great persons, and beyond what they challenge( as about the Title of Head of the Church, which was in that his discourse) except we have a mind to be taken notice of by them, and to insinuate ourselves into their favour, 
Plus nocet lingua adulatoris quam gledius persecutoris, inquit Hieronymus. Pessima vulpes occultus detractor: said non minus nequam adulator blandus, Bern. Serm. 64. sup Cantic. {αβγδ}, Isocr.  which I think borders upon flattery. What he says about flattery I shall not trouble myself with. When I said flatterers are more dangerous enemies then open Rebels, I spake not much amiss I think; because as there is malum inse,& malum alicui; so flattery whatever it is in itself, yet may be worse to the flattered then open hostility, in this, that it lays a snare for the feet, Prov. 29.5, 6. entices to sin by being lifted up, and mis-led: whereas the other onely endangers directly to trouble, and sin is a greater evil then trouble, both in itself, and as it is the cause of trouble; as might be seen in Rhehoboams Counsellors and Zedekiahs, that set them on upon sinful courses, to provoke God against them, and pull sad judgments, even rebellions too upon them.  
Sect. 2. His taking notice, that the censurableness of Kings was wont to be accounted amongst dangerous positions, and saying, that I affer three instances towards it, smells of no good: But blessed be God, as it was no part of my Answer and instruction about the duty of Subjects to censure their Magistrates, so I am far from such censurings either of Kings, or of inferior persons, as he would falsely suggest that I offer something toward: that is, Any thing to dishonour or put by persons from the honor and places that God hath given them, and requires us to give them. Neither John Baptist reproving Herod, nor Ambrose his refusing to give the Supper to Theodosius, or admit him to it when his hands were newly embrued in innocent blood; had any thing of such d●sloyalty in them, nor aimed at their prejudice or disgrace, but at their salvation. Whether that of the Apostle in 1 Cor. 5.11, 12. If any man that is called a Brother do so or so, with such an one no not to eat, may admit of an exception as to such high persons; or whether any Kings Chaplains use in such cases to red them the same admonition prescribed in the third Exhortation in the Order for the Communion, as well as to their subjects, was never any question that troubled my head; for I thank God I am out of danger of being in such places as should put me upon any scruples of that nature; and therefore let them look to them that are concerned in them: it is my duty to be subject to them, and pray for them, that they may do nothing worthy of censure or reprehension: and I hope God will help me to do my duty.  
Sect. 3. His quarrel with me for saying, Contra-remonstrant, or Presbyterian principles; as if it either supposed no Remonstrants to be Presbyterians; or that they had no other enemies, is frivolous. The reason of my joining them so together was, because the late Synod, a Member whereof the Gentleman was, whose Allegory I retorted, was known to be both; and what principles could I suppose they would establish, but their own? And as for his charge, That it's against my principles that blasphemy be suppressed, without offering the least proof for it; yea against his knowledge, that I commended the suppression thereof; and his telling me that in one place I call the establishing of Contra-remonstrantism a bloody sanction,( which is false) and in another, would have the Magistrate make provision against them, by enacting a Law like that which was made against direct blasphemy, is more vile. If Mr. Hac. can make this charge, I will forfeit to him one of my ears; and if he cannot, judge then what he is.  
Sect. 4. About what I said of the power of the Magistrate, he hath also divers miscarriages, besides his insulting scornful language, which hurts not me, therefore I forgive him: As if I cramped the power of the Magistrate about Religion, and made my picture of it almost all shadow, dark and negative; and have found out a new kind of No-Church-Government, &c. That I was not almost all negative let my Answer witness. I gave it 1. Negatively, what power he hath not. And 2. Affirmatively, in which I was for the largest, in explicating this affirmative position, that he is, Custos utriusque tabulae, Keeper of both Tables, which I did with reference to either Table; and though the commandments being mostly negatively, my explications had divers negative expressions in them, yet all tended to clear the extent of the Affirmative position; That Gods word allows many things that are not commanded or appointed in his word, was said also in effect by me. That I was faulty for not naming heresy, when I said, that he hath power to see that God's worship be preached and practised purely and sincerely, without Idolatry, Superstition, or human inventions, appears not; because pure and sincere preaching excludes it intimately: For can any man preach heresy, 
Humanae temeritatis non divinae authoritatis negotium est haeresis, sertul. advers. Marcio lib. 4 c. 4.  and yet preach Gods Worship purely; yea, what be all Heresies, but human inventions? he accepts against my excluding human inventions, as carrying in it a denial of the Churches Authority to frame, and the Magistrates Authority to confirm Canons and Constitutions Ecclesiastical. Ans. 1. That it doth not because they may make& confirm them about the Worshippers& circumstances of Worship, which yet entrench not upon the Worship itself; nor are any parts of, or mixtures with it; as that Ministers shal not be Gamesters, Tipplers, Contentious persons, wear their hair like Ruffians, that none shal be compelled to such observances as are offensive, nor deride or reproach one another for dissent in circumstances; that they shal be Resident, keep hospitality, catechize, &c. and six hundred it may be more, that entrench not upon adding to the matter of Worship: Nor can what I said be guilty of Superstition; for it neither places holiness in doing, nor in abstaining from things indifferent, as things in themselves pleasing or displeasing unto God, but onely says what the Magistrate may do if he please. For 2. The power of Magistrates is beyond their duty; they may do more then they are bound to do. God allows some things that he commands not; as the Apostles and Ministers to mary, and forbear working: What he commands the Magistrate expressly or implicitly is his duty, but his power goes further; he may do also what he may lawfully let alone: and it was his power he( not I) enquired into, not his Duty. I said not therefore it is his duty to take away all such things, but he hath power to do it; they being not expressly or impliedly God's orders, he may( if he please) see God's worship kept clear of them; for he sins not if he keep out nothing from it that God would have in it, or about it. This Answer was not Negative, what he might not do, as he said above almost all was; but affirmative, what he may do, and he that denies him this, crumps his power, not I.  
Sect. 5. That my principles whiles I speak against tolerating Idolatry and superstition, are for all sorts of Idolatry, he cannot make good; for I said not( as he misrelates) that men must cleave onely to what they understand, and walk in what they are satisfied in; but my saying was, That men should cleave onely to what they understand to be delivered by God in his word: and can any be an Idolatar that cleaveth to nothing else? It is possible that a man may conceive or imagine that God hath delivered something in his Word that he hath not( and while he therefore cleaves to that he is excusable) but that any man can understand so, I think not; for what he conceivs amiss he understands not; Intellectus enim nomen sumitur ab intimà penetrationi veritatis, as Aquinas says; and that it was an understanding in that sense that I spoken. of; viz. a satisfactory perception of the mind of God, my next words imply; namely, that to that understanding the ministry of man and his gifts conduce to bring men; Surely not to the misunderstanding it.  
Sect. 6. He may not suffer false Oaths, or sinful. He says, The Magistrate may give an Oath; if it be a false Oath, it is his fault that takes it, not his that gives it. I said nothing of giving an Oath: there is difference between giving an Oath, and suffering false Oaths to be unpunished: yet I suppose he may not compel his Subjects to take an Oath that he knows to be false; if he do, that's his fault. By false Oaths I mean all Oaths contrary to the third Commandment, which I had respect to, as any indifferent Reader may see, and not to any particular Oath in this or any other Nation. What he would insinuate as spoken against Episcopal Government in England, as if it were mere Arbitrary; and as if I thought they punnisht men for mere Non-conformity to their wills; and so either unadvisedly, or against the King's authority in matters Ecclesiastical, is odiously suggested: For I spake not any thing of any Land, Nation, or Government de facto, but of all de jure; and what I spake was with reference to the second Table, of which the Magistrate also is asserted the keeper; that he is not to suffer oppression of his subjects by their fellow-subjects; and I instanced Bishops to bring it up to the question, that was about Religious matters, and as persons in whom his power might best be discovered. So that I neither spake unadvisedly, nor against any Kings Authority in matters Ecclesiastical, but rather for it; for how can the asserting the King's power to put a restraint upon Bishops in case of their exorbitancy be interpnted to derogate from his authority in Ecclesiastical matters? Would Mr. Hac. crump his power, or deny his duty, as Custos utriusque tabulae?  
Sect, 7. Impositions of Forms that offend and trouble tender consciences I said he may take away; not, he must: my speech was affi●mative again, not of his duty, but aut hority His saying then that if forms be lawful, imposition cannot make them unlawful, is not to the purpose; though I think the imposing a thing lawful in itself may circumstantially be sometimes in the impose● sinful, as it may deprive a man of that Christian Liberty Christ hath given for glorifying him, and puts a man upon a necessity either of using it to his brothers prejudice, or else of being deprived of opportunity and liberty for Gods service; so to circumcise a mans self, is of itself lawful, being as the Apostle says nothing, neither good nor evil; but to impose it may be scandalous: and to pray in a cave, or Den, or B●rn is in itself lawful; for we may pray any where: yet should the Ma●istrate impose it upon us to pray onely there, be would do us I coneive therein an injury, which in him would be a sin, though in us none to suffer such a restraint.  
Sect 8. He says the Apostles imposed in things in different. Ans. The Apostles prohibited the use of liberty in things ind●fferent, where they see forbearance necessary: they imposed not the eating things offered to Idols, because it might be in itself lawful; but prohibited it because to others offensive: and the magistrate I said may see the like practise observed if he please. I think ●o impose, is properly to put something upon men, not to prohibit something to men: nor did they prohibit the exercise of Gods gifts, but the use of liberties, where there could be no scruple of conscience to forbear; but the use of them might be offensive: nor said I they decreed against the practise of all indifferents, as his words imply, but only against the practise of those that were offensive. And whereas he adds, That it's a very vain imagination of mine, that the Apostles had such regard to such as could not practise without offe●se those things that were imposed; and that they therefore would impose only things necessary. I spake not of things imposed, but of things offensive that they would not therefore impose, though lawful in themselves. That the Apostles had great respect to tender consciences Rom. 14. and 1 Cor. 8. shows, yea and their very decrees in Act. 15. they would not put a yoke upon the bretheren, no other things but necessary ones. Well, but how necessary( says he?) but for the peace of the Church for that time( fornication excepted) which is to be abstained from at all times) well, and what hindered the peace of the Church? was it not that all could not practise them without offence to themselves or others? Says not he the same in effect, in adding, That it was thought requisite to compose and settle some differences, and prevent some offences by enjoining forbearance for a while. See Reader if he grant not himself what he was pleased to call in me a very vain imagination: they had no such regard to them that could not practise without offence, and yet they did it to prevent offences. That those I call dis-satisfyed Consciences, and persons of different apprehension, may be such as the Apostle calls ignorant, yea wilfully ignorant and contentious; and the custom, much more the Law of the Church, is enough to silence such, is but uncharitably spoken; for possibly they may be otherwis●: there were such in the Apostles-days, and it's strange there should be none such now; charity thinks the best. The Apostle says indeed, mark them that cause divisions and offences, but stops not there as Mr. Hac doth, but adds, contrary to the doctrine, that ye( those believing Romans) have received, Rom. 14. and this doctrine of not judging and despising one another, and exercising Lordship over one another in doubtful matters, was one of those doctrines, Mark and avoid those that cause offences and divisions there-against: what made him leave out those words?  
Sect. 9, Against the magistrates sending forth his Princes to teach like Jehosaphat, and teaching the truth himself if fitted thereto, as David and Solomon did; he would know if I included calling in that fitness.  
Ans. yes doubtless, a calling from God; but as for a calling by man, it is to follow fitness; for they are to call those that are fit {αβγδ} apt to teach; their calling makes not fit, if God have not given them some fitness before; which how should it be known, if it may not bee shewed before that call of Ordination? when I say they may do it if fit, I mean, they may both be called, or allowed by the Church to do it, if fitted by Christ( and sure the Church are not to hinder his glory or service by those he fits for it, but to further it what they can) and they may do it before, to show their fitness. And why may not some magistrates, if gifted and able, be called by the Church to preach, as well as some ministers, if fit for worldiy business, be called by the world to be magistrates. St. Ambrose that was Liev●enant of milan, and Consul of the City, was made their Bishop: and Origen was permitted by ●ome Bishops, 
Socrat. lib. 4. cap. 30. Euseb. l. 6. cap. 20. & in their presence to expound the Scriptures before he was ordained. he says, Jehosophat sent out Princes ad docendum, that the people might be taught; listen ye Gramma●●ans, is ad Docendum that the people might be taught? sure i●'s either to teach, or to be taught themselves. It's in the Hebrew {αβγδ} to teach, not in H●phil {αβγδ} ad faciendum Docere, to cause to teach: nor is it he sent the Levites ad docendum,& with them the Princes, with a directive, coercive, coactive power as he after says, offering violence to the Text; ●ut he sent the princes to teach, ad docendum actively;& with them the Levits to assist them rather: it was the Levites part to teach, but s● also might the Princes that could do it. All the Pharisees that were Teachers were not Priests and Levites Matth. 23.1. Nicodemus was a master in Israel and yet one of the Council. Joh. 3.1.10. and 7.32.50. a Ruler of the Jews. 
The Rulers of the Synagogues sent to,& permitted Paul to preach at Antioch in Pisidia Acts. 13.15.16.& yet he was not of the Tribe of Levi, Phil. 3. 5. {αβγδ} a Teacher {αβγδ}.  David and Solomon were Prophets, he says;& oh that all the Lords people and the Princes were so too; they may all prophesy one by one if God have given them the gift. 1 Cor. 14.31. notwithstanding that Rule then in force, to Let al things be done decently and in order; and so it may be again that notwithstanding, could they all do so now Remember that too, and crump not the Magistrates power.   

CHAP. VII. Professors Breaking Bread. The two-fold Resurrection. To Chap. 9.& 10.  
Sect. 1. LAy-men may Administer the Eucharist, he says is, 1. My opinion, which he undertakes to prove: and 2. A false one. If he cannot prove the first, I am not concerned to take notice of the second. And I am sure he cannot prove it from any thing that I ever writ, or preached about it. The Question and Answer he suspected it from, was not about who may administer the Lord's Supper, but what it is; viz. An Ordinance of Christ, in which he— appointed the professors of his name to take bread and eat it &c. That this is true the Scripture shows in the Institution of it: but as for the administering part of that work( which concerned them all as to participation) I said nehilum quidem: neither came it into my heart, so far as I can remember, when I wrote it. Well, but what says my Answer to his Exeptions? Why, I said, That Christ in his Institution of it, appointed, or designed onely Ministers to do it, I find not. How doth that prove I hold Lay-men may do it? What I say of the Institution is true; nor doth he assay to disprove it: and I describing what the Ordinance is, whence should I better do it then from that; or why should I be faulted, for not putting into my description of it what that mentions not? He tells us of the custom and constant practise of the Church, and that that is a sacred Law. But what' that to Christs institution, from whence I defined it? what he says then of the Commission to preach, Math. 28. limiting preaching to certain persons( as if none but the Apostles might preach and baptize, contrary to Acts. 8.4, 12.) and of Rom. 10. How shall they preach, except they be sent? and of Heb. 5. that speaks not of preaching, but of the High Priesthood, are nothing to his purpose; or what ever else he can say, except he had first proved that I ever asserted what he charges me with, and therefore I pass it.  
Sect. 2. About the two-fold Resurrection, he begins with a false witness of me; and therefore to use his own words, If beginnings be ominous, we may presage what follows. He says, that for distempered palates I have made provision, a thousand years reign upon earth in all worldly felicity, before the day of judgement, which is very false; for I neither have provided nor asserted a thousand years in all worldly felicity, nor before the day of judgement. I onely spake of a double period of the Resurrection; and in my Answers, a reign of Christ, not in all worldly, but in all heavenly felicity: against which let us see how he argues to prove it, contrary to many principles of Divinity plainly delivered in holy writ as he pretendeth.  
Mr. Hac. 1. The Scripture saith, that the heavens must contain Jesus Christ till the times of the restitution of all things: and in our Creed, we believe that he shall come from thence to judge the quick and the dead. Ans. So I say, and believe too; at his coming then there will be a Restitution( not a Desolation onely) of all things; doth he believe that? Whereas he says, by my opinion Christ shall continue on earth so many years, and then judge the world: I answer, He must come from heaven first, where he is, and then judge the world both quick and dead, both at his coming, and in his Kingdom, 2 Tim. 4.1. we speak not of a thousand years before the Judgement, the Judgement shall be at his coming, in destroying the wicked oppressors of his people then, and giving reward to his afflicted and suffering Saints, and at the end thereof, in judging all that shall be then raised, 2 Pet. 3.7. 2 Thess. 1.7, 8.& 2.8. Rev. 19.20, 21.& 20.12, 13.  
Mr. Hac. 2. The day of judgement is secret, and hide from the world, unknown, and comes like a snare: But by this all men shall know when it shall be, namely, at the term of a th●usand years.  
Ans. Nay, this opinion says it's secret too, because it begins at Christ's descent from heaven, of which no man knows; nor is it said, just at the end of the 1000 years shall the other dead be raised, but not till they be ended; at the end of which is Gogs and Magogs gathering together, before the other be. Let him red Mr. meed about the Day of Judgement, De mill annis tubae septimae,& placita Hebraeorum de magno Die Judicij, and inform himself better of this opinion.  
Mr. Hac. 3. It makes two Resurrections of the body, one a great distance of time after the other, and they believe but one resurrection of the just and unjust.  
Ans. That is they do not believe it, Ergo it's not true. Any Lay-man that hath parts, can argue at a better rate then that. Nor says the A●hanasian Creed, that at Christ's coming all men shall rise together, and at once; but as in the Scriptures many things are said to be done at the day of Christ, some of which relate to his former coming, and some to his latter, and yet are spoken of together, 

Lact. lib. 7. cap. 26. Haec est doctrina sanctorum Prophetarum quam Christiani sequimur.  
Totum hoc Novi Testamenti tempus ad diem usque judicij per horam novissimam designatur. Calv. Inst. lib. 4 cap. 8. ss. 7. Psal. 110.3. See Ainsw. in locum.   as to be done at the same day; so might the phrase of, at Christ's coming, be understood by Athanasius, if he did believe it; if not, yet Lactantius that lived before him, tells us, it was the Doctrine of the Prophets, which they Christians in his time followed: And Justin Martyr before him, that all the fully Orthodox Christians in his age, believed it: and these lived nearer to the Apostles then Athanasius: For that in John 5.28. the hour comes, &c. he knows that the Scripture often by hour, signifies not any short, sudden time, but any time, of any continuance, as ver. 25. The hour is coming, and now is, that the dead( namely in sins) shall hear the voice of the Son of God; speaking of spiritual vivification, that hour was then, and lasts for many hundreds of years. The like may be said to Dan. 12. And whereas the time of the resurrection of the just, is called the last day, its according to the Scripture-Language still, that speaks of all the time of the Gospel, as of one day of Christ's Power, and so all the time of his Judgement is the last day; in the morning of which, the Just shall rise and have the dominion, as Psal. 49.14. which also shall be the last day to them, for they shall have no night to it, Rev. 22.5. the awaking trump to which, is the last trump too, because no more shall sound after that: We find none mentioned in Rev. 20.12, 13.  
Mr. Hac. 4. Our Saviour says, He will come again, and take them to himself, he says, not to abide with them upon earth, but to place them in the Mansions of his Father's House.  
Ans. 1. Christ did come in the spirit to take up their hearts to be with him, as ver. 18. I will not leave you fatherless children, I will come to you; that he did to them soon after his ascention, they sate with him in Heavenly places, Eph. 2.7. Look we after a share therein.  
2. He further came by death to take their spirits to him into those Mansions; so St. Paul dissolved, was with Christ, Phil. 1.21. and Christ shall bring them thence with him, 1 Thes. 4.14. Zech. 14 5. And  
3. At that his coming he shall raise the dead in him first, and they with the living Saints, suddenly changed, shall meet him in the air, 
Verum in his verbis absterget Deus omnem lachrimam ab oculis eorum, &c. Tantâ luke dicta sunt de seculo futuro est immortalitate atque Aeternitate sanctorum ut nulla debeamus in literis sacris quaerere vel legere manifesta si haec putaremus obscura Aug. de Civit. Dei. lib. 20 cap. 17.  and be ever with him in Heaven or Earth, even as the Angels in Heaven, and shall reign upon, and over the earth, Rev. 5.10.& 20 6. 1 Cor. 6.2. And surely their glory shall be great in that earth, if Rev. 21. speak of their glory, as all the Ancients have understood it: For it's said, the tabernacle of God shall be with men, not theirs with God, ver. 3, 4 And the Kings of the Earth shall bring their glory to it, ver. 24. which surely they shall not bring to Heaven: Yea, that he saw the new Jerusalem, not ascending up to God into Heaven, but coming down from God out of heaven, ver. 2. all which and divers other passages, clearly imply, that the glory there spoken of, and the glorious subjects of it, shall be upon the earth: Yea, says not the Apostle Peter plainly, that this heaven and earth that now are, are kept in store, reserved unto fire— But we look for new Heavens, and new Earth, in which dwelleth righteousness: 2 Pet. 3.14. upon which St. Austin says thus: Mutatione itaque rerum non omnimodo in interitum transibit hic Mundus— Figura praeterit non natura. De Civit. Dei, lib 20. cap. 14. that is, that the World shall be changed, not utterly amnihilated: the form of it, but not the nature of it shall pass away. But shall there be a new earth, think we, for Beasts and Birds onely to dwell in? No, but for righteousness, righteous persons to dwell in, and the righteous promises of God to be performed in. But according to their opinion no body shall dwell there, all the righteous being above the stars, and all the wicked in hell.  
Mr. Hac. 5. This Opinion makes the Kingdom of God to be of this World.  
Ans. Nay, it's in the World to come, and from and of God to give it being, in which we do not think or dream, that the bodies of the raised shall need the refreshments of this World, but they shall be glorious; the children of the resurrection equal with the Angels.  
Mr. Hac. 6. The Church of God is either militant or triumphant; but by this Opinion it shall for so many years be neither, but between both, &c.  
Ans. This also is a mistake; the Church then shall be triumphant, judging the world, not warring with it; though as Christ had a middle state between his sufferings and his going into Heaven, why may not his Church have so too? as Tertul. says, lib. 3. Contr. martion.  
Mr. Hac. 7. According to this Opinion the joy of the Saint, in God's presence shall not be evermore, or perpetually continued, &c.  
Ans. This is a mistake too; for God himself shall be with them, even their God, while his tabernacle is with men and the new Jerusalem not in, but come down from Heaven, Rev. 21.2, 3, 4 and they shall have no night, no interruption, chap. 22.5, 6. Gog and Magog conspiring, shall not hinder them, but they shall be blessed and holy continually, Rev. 20.6. God and Christ with them, shall be Heaven to them; the glory they have now with God in their spirits, is not diminished then, but increased by the addition of their bodies glorious, Christ being ever with them: The glory that Peter, James and John see upon Christ, was a glimpse of that Kingdom, Matth. 16.28. with 17.1, &c. Mens prejudice and want of understanding and right apprehensions, makes them talk at rovers. Is it not mens low thoughts of Christ, that makes them think any thing better in heaven than he is. I have not gone contrary then to things plain and fundamental, as he imagines; but his retaining old conceptions and prejudices, hinders him from seeing as plain a truth as most in the Scripture, as to the being of the thing though as to the manner of it, many things in it are hard to be understood: It doth not yet appear what we shall be, 1 John 3.2.  
Sect. 3. Having failed in disproving it by Scriptures or Reasons, he will not be able to bear up against the Scriptures for it: From 1 Cor. 15.23. I shewed that they that are Christ's, shall rise at his coming, and afterward {αβγδ} comes the end. It's not said, all men at his coming. To that he says, it's said elsewhere, quoting John 5.28. but names not the words, because they are not so as he says, but the hour comes when all that are in their Graves shall hear his voice, and come forth: We shewed how the Scripture takes the word Hour, in answer to his third argument: Yea, there also the resurrection to life is first name. He quotes also Mark 25.31 but mis-reads it; for it's not, When the Son of Man cometh, he shall separate one from another,( though something of that too, shall be when he cometh) but when the Son of Man cometh,( or is come, {αβγδ}) in his glory, and all his holy Angels with him, then he shall sit upon the Throne of his glory, and all Nations shall be gathered before him, and he shall separate them, &c. What is there that argues, all shall be raised at one period at his coming? There's a sitting on the throne of his glory first, before all Nations be gathered, &c. He quotes also 2 Thes. 1. but nothing to the purpose, because nothing in it says that all shall be raised together at Christ's coming: But that when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, he shall give rest to the troubled Saints, and destroy the wicked that oppress, and have oppressed them; but whether all in his very appearing, or how long after, he says not. He quotes also 2 Tim. 4.1. that speaks of Christs judging the quick and dead at his coming, and in his Kingdom, the latter of which he suppresses, probably because he thought it made against him, as implying a twofold period of his judging, and so of the resurrection to it.  
Sect. 4. He says, Every one( in 1 Cor. 15.23. every one in his own order) extends no further than to Christ and his body mystical.  
Ans. But what then means, After that comes the end, when he shall have delivered up the Kingdom, and his reigning till he put down all Authority and Power, and the last Enemy Death; says not, that the end is not, till he hath delivered up the Kingdom, and that, that Kingdom is to the destruction of death? But if Death was totally destroyed at his coming, when then is the Kingdom in, which he shall reign after his coming, and his Saints with him, as 2 Tim. 4.1. and Matth. 25.31. so then there is a raising those that are his, at his coming; and at the end, or a little before, the destroying of Death from off all others too: Which things I urged before, but he passed them without answer, onely tells me, I lose myself in confusions, out of which he endeavours to bring me by telling me of a twofold Kingdom; one natural, absolute and essential, as God, of which is no end; and the other Ministerial and Oe●onomical, belonging to him as Mediator: this hath he received of the Father, and shall at last deliver it up.  
Ans. Very right; but this he shall not deliver up at his coming, but afterward, when he hath destroyed Death, for this is the Kingdom he is gone to receive, and to return, Luk. 19.12. But he no where says he shall lay it down at his returning, but sit upon the Throne of his glory, Mat. 25.31. and therein judge and reign, and his Saints with him, Rev. 20.6. He says, those texts in Rom. 8.17. 2 Tim. 4.1.& 2.11, 12. speak of the Essential Kingdom: But who will believe him? If we suffer with him, we shall reign with him: Is not that reigning, the reward of his sufferings and ours? his reigning of his, and ours of ours? And is that his Essen●ial Kingdom which he should have had, though he had never suffered? With him implies fellowship and conformity, as in the suffering, so in the glory: But sure no man shall have fellowship with him, or be conformed to him In his Essential Kingdom as God, unless we shall be all God with him too, which I suppose Mr. Hacon will not grant.  
Sect. 5. Luke 14.14 At the resurrection of the Just, he says, is not a distinct period, but a state.  
Ans. If a state, then the reward itself: but it is not, He shall be rewarded with the resurrection of the just, but at it.  
Many things, he says, may differ much, which may come to pass together.  
Ans. Be it so but it is not said neither, he shall be rewarded as the resurrection with the just, but at the resurrection of the just. What's that, but the time when he shall be rewarded?  
Sect. 6. He says Rev. 20.4, 6. imply two resurrections, but not both of the body, but one of the soul, from the death of sin and error.  
Ans 1. That in the 4th. and 6th. is a resurrection of those that were beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and had not worshipped the Beast, &c. Not a resurrection to the testimony of Jesus, and from Beast-worship; sure they were raised from sin and error, before they so loved Jesus and his testimony, as to be beheaded for them.  
2. I oppose Mr. Hacon to himself; for he says a little after, that those in ver. 4. lived the life of glory, and then it was not a rising from sin and error, for that's to the life of Grace, but from sufferings and death, unto glory. He says ver. 4. speaks neither of bodies, nor resurrection, but of souls.  
Ans. 1. Souls include bodies, as Acts 7.14. seventy souls, are seventy persons, and the Hebrew {αβγδ} a soul, rendered in the Greek by {αβγδ} is put for the body, Levit. 29.28. Numb. 5 2.  
2dly, The 6th. verse calls that in the 4th. a resurrection.  
And 3dly, It's opposed to, and distinguished from the rising again of the rest of the dead, who were raised onely in body afterwards: But the rest of the dead lived not again, he says, means, Satan detained many still in Paganism and Antichristianism, who would not rise out of sin and death.  
Ans. And shall they be raised out from thence at the end of the thousand years? He says, No, not at all. Reader, judge; doth the saying they lived not again till the thousand years were finished, imply that they lived not at all? Truly then it might have been said rather, they lived not again when the thousand years were ended: Nay, doth he not afterwards in ver. 12. mention the general resurrection of them also? This is the first resurrection,( he says) is all one, as this is the resurrection from the death of sin: From which they were raised before their being beheaded for the testimony of Christ, and this is after it. That it's not the same kind of life that is affirmed of those in the fourth verse, and denied of those in the fifth; and that those in the fifth, revixerint,( he should have said, non revixerint) lived not again the life of Grace: are barely his sayings, without proof or reason: Their not living again, argues a fore-living: But I pray, did they ever before live the life of Grace, and were lost from it, that shall never live it? See whither mens confidence in mistakes carries them! Dato uno absurdo sequuntur mill.  
Sect. 7. That after the thousands years, there follows not the resurrection of the ungodly, but Satan loosed, and Gog and Magog going forth to battle against the Saints, and they to be devoured with fire from Heaven, is not truly spoken: For both one and the other follow, as appears ver. 7.10.12. Beza's Translation couples them well together, who reads it, Tum vidi thronum magnum, is burr a sudden business, so on over, and then comes the great and general resurrection and Judgement, ver. 10, 11, 12 But whence should these wicked men come,( says he) there being none alive on the Earth but the just, for the rest of the dead lived not again all that time. Ans understand that the Saints shall judge the World, 1 Cor. 6.2. They shall reign, and that shall be over some body; there shall be a world then for them to reign over, and to judge; there shall be Nations of the saved or preserved from the Judgements and burnings attending the coming and beginning of that Kingdom, Rev. 21.23, 24. that sha●l walk in the light of the new jerusalem, and yet not be of the new jerusalem, or glorious Congregation: Of those doubtless shall be that great seduction and destruction; these shall live upon earth in those times before the general Judgement, though none of the wicked, dead before, shall then be raised; yea, and of those raised at last too, shall be some good too, as is evident; for they were the suffering Saints, and confessing Witnesses to Christ in hi● suffering Kingdom, that shall rise first, and reign with him, Rom. 8.17. 2 Tim. 2.11.12. Those in that Kingdom under the Judgement and Government of the Saints, being not the children of the Resurrection, shall die as well as live there, as Isa. 65.20. and shall be raised again at the great and last Resurrection: So that still this opinion bears up against all his objections and difficulties, although there be many things hard to be understood about it, because we see them at a distance.  
Sect 8. I alleged of the Ancients for this, justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Lactantius: Justin( he says had it of the Jews, but without proof: justin reasoning against some jews, said it was the opininion of all the perfectly Orthodox Christians. He puts a non-sense upon Mr. meed, as if he would make some blasphemous Atheists to be Orthodox Christians, whereas there is no show of any such intimation in him. Tertullian( he says received it from Montanus, quoting lib. 3. cap. 24. against martion. That he had it not from Montanus, the former testimony shows, where the Orthodox Christians that lived before Montanus, are said to hold it; yea, he abuses his Readers, for there is no footsteps of Tertullians Montanizing in any thing thereabout; nor doth he oppose himself as a Montanist against the Orthodox, when he speaks of it, but with the orthodox again martion, nam et confitemur in terra nobis regnum repromissu, said ante coelum& alio statu. nor are there 24 chapters in that book nor any thing near that place I quoted in Chap. 17. that savours of Montanus, but a confutation of the Jews rather that denied Christ to be come, 
Haec est Doctrina sanctorum, Prophetarum quam Christiani sequimur. Lib. 7. cap. 26.  he says Lactantius his chief proofs are from the Sybills and Virgills Ecclogues, but falsely; for though he also make use of them, yet he chiefly leans upon the Prophets and Apostles, and therefore concludes that discourse with this saying, This is the Doctrine of the holy Prophets which we Christians follow.  
Sect. 9. He closes with this Syllogism: That Opinion that was generally condemned by the Church of Christ, and was afterward upheld by none for the space of above a thousand years, is no catholic Doctrine, or sound belief; but such is this opinion. I deny both his Propositions, till I can see him prove them: What the Church condemned, was not this opinion rightly stated as the primitive Christians delivered it, but as Mr. meed says, either assumentis quibusdam deformatam, 
Comment in Apoc. p. 276.  or inique& perperam( ut quidem arbitror) intellectam rejecerunt, as it was adulterated with Cerinthus his leaven, and dreams of earthly and fleshly pleasures, or as wrongly understood: And this St. Austin plainly implies, when he says, De Civit. Dei, lib. 20. cap. 7. This opinion were tolerable, if they held that the Saints in that Sabbath should have some spiritual delights by the presence of Christ with them,( as we do altogether believe) for we were sometimes of that mind: But when they say, that those that shall be raised, shall give themselves to most immoderate carnal Feasts, in which they shall have so much meat and drink, as not onely exceeds all modesty, but the very measure of incredulity itself, those things may by no means be believed but by fleshly minded people. Thus Augustine. No marvel then if the Church condemned such an opinion; and such it was, and not as rightly stated that they condemned.   

CHAP. VIII. Several abusive charges about God's Attributes, 
On Chap. 11.& 12.  and General Redemption.  
Sect. 1. BEcause I noted what their principles speak of God, that seeing he can have no new immanent act of Will, and he hath not willed( say they to save the most, it follows that God cannot save the most of men. He charges me with seeming to speak ignorantly and irreverently of God's attributes: Whereas I appeal to thee Reader, whether my collection from their principles be not fair; and whether there be any irreverence at least attributable unto me in that my collection: Nay, is it fairly done of him, to make thee believe that I infer that from the former onely, which I infer not but from both those their sayings. His other charges then, that I am afraid lest God's Decrees should deprive him of his liberty, as if his hands were tied( which yet follows from their sayings compared) and that my Divinity finds more solace in Seneca's Hercules furens, than in Gods word, because I noted, that those their principles agree with those Stoical passages,( which are none of those justifiable opinions that he after pleads for, but of the worst of them are abuses; as also his taxing me with asserting it an error, that God can have no new immanent act of will, when as I onely noted it as their saying: Yea they are mere slanders of me, to say, that I impeach three of God's most sacred attributes, as 1. His Immutability. 2. His Providence. And 3dly, his Omnipotency. For first, I did not charge it as an error to say, God cannot will a-new, but onely noted how from that and their other saying, it follows that God cannot save the most, it's a secret above my power to determine: And yet how that denies God's Immutability, I see no more, then to say he can work de novo: He may will de novo, that wills new things, though not contrary to what he hath willed, but onely different. New motions of the mind imply no more mutability of the mind, than new motions of the hand imply mutability in the hand, much less if neither the one nor the other be properly motions; and therefore that God is one mind, and who can turn him? as Job says, and works all things according to the counsel of his will, as St. Paul saith, or ordains, disposes, and over-rules the actions of wicked men to his glory, is little to his purpose, either for that, or to make good his second charge, viz. that I impeach his Providence, which I compared not with the stoics fate, as he falsely says: It was their Opinions I compared with the stoics fate, that render it impossible for God to save some men that are yet under his patience; for not onely his hands are tied that cannot do what he wills, as he says, but his too, that cannot wi l what and when he p●eases, or any different thing, though never so consistent with what he hath called, at least he seems to have his heart tied up I durst not prie into the Essence of God, as they do, nor deny his wills omnipotency, and all ●●be●ty more than his hands or powers: I durst not conclude but that as he can do what he will, so he can will too, as, and when he pleases. 2. That I impeach his omnipotency, while I speak as if God could do no more then he hath done for man's salvation. I have shewed the groundlessness of his charge, in my first Chapter, that their own principles are more guilty of it, then my Answers evidenced, which instead of refuting, he hath abused and falsified. As for his commendations of the stoics opinions, let him if he please, be called the Stoick-Divine, I shall not grudge it him, nor follow him in that vagary. That no man is brought to Heaven by universal Grace, or that sufficient help afforded to all men, is his proofless assertion, except from a Dutch-man. Some Infants at least that have no more then all men have, may go to Heaven for ought he can say to the contrary. That I pled for no other Grace than given in the first Covenant, or that I think there is no other Grace to be had, then that by which Adam stood, and notwithstanding which he fell, are mere mistakes, and senseless falshoods. I pled for the gift of Christ, and of his fullness, was he given in the first Covenant? Or did Adam stand by him? Away with such fictions.  
Sect. 2. Concerning general Redemption he wrongs me, in saying that I will not hold it, because he holds it, but argue diversely against it, p. 57. and bring arguments against my own Opinion: All said without proof or colour of truth, as I appeal to my 57. page.. I  told him he innovated from the Scripture, in giving that as the reason why the Ransom profits not all to eternal life, because it's not given to all to believe. He endeavours to show the contrary from Deut. 29.4. The Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see. Beza reads it, Non dederat usque in diem hunc; the Lord had not given you them until this day. But neither did Moses accuse God to them there, nor signify that they must perish because God had not done that for them, nor argue that they should perish at all, but was making a Covenant between them and God, that they might live, and signifies to them that they had not yet had an understanding into what they had seen; sure to provoke them to humble themselves before God, and seek it of him, that he might give it them, and not think themselves to have attained it, before they had, as Christ said to Peter, What I do, thou knowest not now, John 13.7. yet that hindered not, but in following on to know, he should know it afterward.  
He quotes again Matth. 11.26. So it seemed good in thy sight: What seemed good? that some should perish because God gave them not Grace to be saved? No sure, but to choose his poor 
Sensu judaico qui turbae in eum credenti maledixerunt,& hanc iniquissimam legem condebant; sc. quod principum voluntas& Pharasaeorum debuit esse regula fidei subditorum. Heming. in John 7.49  laic and mechanic Apostles to know and publish those mysteries of the Kingdom that the proud Pharisees knew not, and not those Pharisees& wise learned persons to be the knowers and publishers of it rather to them; not but that those proud men humbling themselves to receive the Word at their mouths, might have known them too, but they would not come to Christ for them. He quotes also John 10.26. Ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep; that is to say, they were not meekened and docible, or as our Saviour himseif in another place explains it, because they could not hear,( that is, endure to hear) his voice; they could not abide the reproofs and convincements of his Doctrine, John 8.43. 
Quae est causa quod non sint de ovibus Christi● an necessitas aliqua fatalis, an concilium Dei destinantis eos morti? nullo modo, said veluntaria contumacia, &c. Hem. in Joh. 10.26.  He objects from ver. 16. Were the Gentiles yet uncalled, meekened and made docible? Ans. There were some amongst them not yet called to the distinct knowledge of Christ, that were: Witness Cornelius, Lydia, and divers other searers of God, as we red in the Acts; yea many that wou●d be glad of, and embrace the Gospel-tydings when they came, as Acts 28.28. they will hear it; and this through the previous humbling operations of God in his providences amongst them very probably, as John 6.45. He says, by sheep are meant Elect, without reference to any sheep-like disposition. Who tells him so, that can prove it? Metaphorical speeches use to bear some resemblance to the things whence the Metaphors are borrowed; as in calling the Apostles Lambs, and the world Wolves, Matth. 10.16. comparing some to Dogs and Swine, other to Doves, &c. How comes it that onely here there is no resemblance to the sheep-like Nature? He quotes Acts 18.10. I have much people in this City, not with reference to any frames or qualities he says. I answer, 1. There's no Metaphor. 2. All the Earth are God's, Exod. 19.5. and there were many people in Corinth; therefore God would have him tarry the longer there. 3. There were many already converted ver. 8. and he would have him tarry longer with them. or 4. There were many by him, and his secret workings in them prepared for the receipt of the Gospel upon hearing of it. All that the Father giveth me shal come unto me. It is in the Neuter gender, All that which the Father giveth, &c. Christ comforts himself in that he shall have that portion that God gives him, let the world use him as they please. And he that man) that comes unto me, I will in no wise cast out. With reference to which two distinct things, are the two distinct mentions of the will of God; the first in the Neuter Gender too, ver. 39 and the other in the Masculine, ver 40. the first of that given him, that Honor, Kingdom, &c. which though it might seem for a time to be decayed and fallen down, he would not lose it, but raise it up at the last day: The latter is of persons voluntarily coming through Grace: Yet I say, None but whom the Father gives to Christ, can come to, or believe in him; and therefore it behoves men to hear and learn of God, as he is showing them his truth, and speaking to them, that so he may give them to him, that being the way in which he gives them: Every one that hath heard and learned of the Father, comes to him▪ they are therein given to him: But how proves this that the Scripture ever gives this as the reason of mens perishing, that God gives them not faith? Our Saviour did not say of any of these, in any of these places, that they must perish absolutely, but spake those things to them, that they might be saved,( joh 5.34.) that they might be humbled to hear and learn of God by him; much less said he that they must perish because God was wanting to give that to them, by which they might be saved.  
Sect. 3. He changes the frame and phrases in which I laid down my Propositions about Gods giving faith, and then derides and says, God gave Judas Faith, but he would not take it. Ans. That Christ loved Judas, and he rendered him hatred for his love, see Psal. 109.4, 5. with Acts 1.16, 20. he lost his own soul: Had he heard and learned of the Father, he also had come to Christ; Nay, that he sometime believed, seems clear, both in that Christ choose him to be an Apostle( and he is so far from bidding wicked men( while such) to preach his Statutes, that he forbids them, Psal. 50.16.) and in that our Saviour calls him Devil, for that implies he was first an Heavenly Angel, was in, but abode not in the truth. Besides, he hath these falshoods  
1. That with me to give, is no more than to offer. For I gave a distinction of giving, the first and least branch of which is more then to offer, namely to afford and give in power also to accept, with encouragement and provocation to take it, or so to exercise that power, that what is offered may be received.  
2dly, That I suppose that man hath always spiritual life, and can come when he is called and take what is tendered him, and eat what is set before him.  
Ans. I suppose not that man hath any of this of himself, but that when God calls him, his words are spirit and life, and give power to the dead to hear, so as they might incline the ear and live, Isa. 55.2, 3. John 5.25. that the Bread of God being living, is not like our dead bread: Here we must have life first, and come to our Bread; but that is living Bread, and comes to us dead persons, and gives life to the World, so as a man may eat of it, and live, says John 6 50. that any do not so, it is his own fault, though that he may do otherwise, is of the Breads coming down to him, and giving life to him, that he may eat and live in a further sense of living: And though Faith be the chief part of spiritual life, as he says, or rather the mean of it) yet it is begot by the previous acts of the Spirit of Life, in the Bread of Life, and in mens listening to the Word of God, by the power brought to them, and afforded them before they act, or can act it: For faith is of hearing, and so hearing is before faith, and that hearing is of the Word of God, Rom. 10.17. and God affording that power to men, in and with his Word, before they believe, and that they might hear and believe what he offers them, is not as he says( comparing spiritual things with natural wrongly) like our dead meat offered to a dead man.  
3dly, That I ineffect say, that this man is saved, and not another, is not of God that sheweth mercy, for he shows mercy to all; but of man that willeth and accepteth his mercy.  
Ans. In which he commits the fallacy of answering divers distinct interogations with one answer. I say, that any are saved, is of God's mercy solely, yet not without faith in the adult, as was shewed Chap. 4. but that another is not saved, is not of God's mercy, but of his own sin and evil, that refuseth mercy.  
4thly, That I think that when the Apostle says to Timothy, If God peradventure will give them repentance, he must mean, if God please to propound to their minds such Reasons and Arguments as will prevail with those that are disposed at they ought to be  
Ans. No such matter( though it's false that Timothy could do so much, he might present them to the ear, not to the mind) I say, there is over and beside those outward proposals, such inward operation of the spirit, as gives capacity to awake out of sleep, and recover themselves out of the snare of the Devil, as the phrase is there in 2 Tim 2.25, 26. to which there is there a peradventure whether God will give so much or no to those that stubbornly oppose themselves, and contest against the truth, though upon such the servants of God are instructed to wait with patience and meekness, seeing God may peradventure please not to cast them off, and leave them to their own hardness, as it becomes me to exercise patience and meekness towards Mr. Hacon, opposing with too much wilfulness the truth, and dealing too palpably badly and irrationally with me; for which, though God may justly leave him to his perverseness, because he deals so unfairly and unchristianly, yet God being slow to anger, and full of mercy, perhaps he may give him an heart to relent; though his so opposing, puts i● to a peradventure. The Lord help him to take warning.  
Sect. 4. He asks, Who gives the serious listening ears?  
It's answered in what is said, God. Yet not so irresistibly, but that he to whom he gives that power, and leads to it, may resist the Spirit by which he gives it; whence so many calls to incline the ear, and so many reproofs for stoping it.  
He says, They should speak of the Spirits concomitancy with the Word, that hold any such thing needful beside the Word, for producing faith.  
Ans. And why not they that hold it needful with the Word, though not beside, so as a part from it: And I am one of those that always so held  
He says, It's not universally afforded, for some hear and understand not, their hearts being like the high-way.  
Ans. How came the Word into their hearts, if no spiritual force accompanied it; for even in those compared to the way-side, it was sown; {αβγδ} Matth. 13.19. in their heart; but for want of an active understanding, or consideration of it, that they might understand it, Satan takes it from their heart, {αβγδ} Luke 8.12. that they might not believe, and be saved. Nor doth the different carriages of men toward the Word, or attainments by it, imply a defect of the Spirits concomitancy with the Word to any of them, but a different use or abuse of it; and whatever he denies, and in what manner soever, yet it's evident that the Spirit accompanies the Word with such power, even to the way-side-hearers, that did they but( as God gives them power thereby) consider it, and seek to understand it, and not wilfully stop their ear, it would actually convert them, and cause true Faith in them to salvation. And this both Christ implies, when he says mat. 13.15. They stop the ear lest they should be converted, and I should heal them. And the Devil knows it, else he would not, nor need be so busy to get it out of their hearts, as he is, {αβγδ} lest believing, they should be saved, Luke. 8.12.  
Sect. 5. Not all that are drawn come, said I. To try the truth of that he proposes All that the Father giveth shall come. But his giving and drawing differ; nor are to draw, and to teach, and to give, of the same import. To teach and draw may be, but to give is more. God drew those in Hos. 11.3. yet they came not. He taught those in Isa. 48.17. I am the Lord ●hy God that teacheth thee to profit, and leadeth thee by the way thou shouldst go: Yet they received not his teachings, nor the profit of them, as ver. 18 testifies. For God complains of them there, that they hearkned not to his Commandments, and so failed of that peace as a River which his teaching lead to; as also jer. 2.17. that they forsook him when he lead them by the way. Now because he tells me of any Masters( though I own none the Master of my Faith, but Jesus Christ, others may be helpers of it, but not Masters) I will tell him what one, that it may be he calls Master, says of that place; it's Austin: If, 
Lib. 1. de Gratiâ Chr. contr. Pelag.& celest. Cap. 14& 31. Non est igitur consequens ut qui potest venire etiam veniat, &c.  says he, every one that hath learned of the Father, comes, as the Truth faith; then whosoever comes not, hath not learned. Therefore it follows not that whosoever can come( as none can but whom the Father draws) doth also come, unless he also will and do it; but every one who hath learned of the Father, not onely can come, but also cometh; where is both the profect of possibility, and affect of the will, and effect of the action. So then, that that gives the can come, doth not always effect the actual coming. Which whether it wholly overthrows not Mr. Hacons saying, Reader judge. And whereas he puts off that in Hos. 11.3 of drawing them, and taking off the yoke, &c. with saying it's meant of the Civil state of the Jews; 
Zanch. in Loc. Legis suae jugum lene illis reddidit quatenus& legi promissiones de remissione iransgressionum legis per Christum adjecit,& spiritum suum quo legem servare possent, omnibus obtulit, nemini denegavit, &c.  let him mind what Zanchy, another that perhaps he calls Master says upon it amongst many other things too large to mention, He rendered the yoke of his Law, says he, light unto them, inasmuch as he added unto the Law the promises of the forgiveness of their sins against the Law by Christ, and offered his Spirit to all, by whom they might have kept the Law, denied it to none, and actually endowed many with it, I did not talk of a muzzle, as he implies, but a yoke.  
Sect. 6. I shewed, that the result of his principles is to led men to reason, If I be elected, I shall and must unavoidably be brought to believe; if otherwise, I must perish. To which he says, Such a reasoning argues that man for the present given over of God.  
Ans. Let the Reader judge, whether it be not rationally deduced from their principles. And suppose a man be for the present given over of God, how can that hinder him of life, if elected? For as he says himself, he may reason, If God hath chosen me, I must out of all doubt believe and repent, and amend my ways; yea, this he must, whether he do at present take heed to do so or no, yea, though he yet go on to be wicked and scornful, and reason against God's mercy and his duty: For sure their principles hold, that no present sins can frustrate the conversion of those sinners that are elected, and therefore may stand without any such resolution to diligence to apply himself to faith and holiness,[ apply himself to faith and holiness. Reader, mind that phrase in Mr. Hacon] yea, against such a resolution as he persuade us his Doctrine leads to; yea I lately heard of one in Lin, that by hearing such Doctrine of Election, actually broken out into such like terms; That if that Doctrine was true, if he was Elected he must be saved, and thereupon gave himself up to sad profaneness.   

CHAP. IX. Whether any shall perish but the impenitent. 
On Chap 13.& 23   
Sect. 1. THe title of his 13th Chapter is wrong, and implies falsely in it as if I held, That all in Adam are pardonned: whereas I asserted no such thing: much less as he charges me Chap. 23. p. 210. That all sins proceeding from the first Adam, are forgiven of due debt to the Impenitent; for to such, even what was forgiven may be imputed, as in Matth. 18.32.34. The substance of my Doctrine that he is pleased to honor with the name of Detestable, even as of old they honoured Christ's, and his Apostles sayings, is, That God through Christ holds not men under sin, because Adam sinned, and thereby are become sinners, and defiled; but for their not repenting and turning to him as his grace prevents them, as in Ich. 3.19. This is the condemnation( not that the world is naturally in darkness, but) that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather then light. To all his abuses and wrestings of my words before discovered, he is pleased to give a dumb Answer; not so much as once acknowledging any fault, though he cannot defend them: no, ye may be sure that he that takes it ill, that I let the world know that he repented in a Letter to me of some harsh sayings, will not do public penance, though of falsehood he is never so clearly and before the world convicted; but if that be the the way for him to prosper, I am deceived.  
Sect. 2 There is little in that Chapter but what is answered in my former book: onely he asserts the same things again by his own Authority, and thinks to carry it by his bare saying it; as, That to love the darkness more then light, resist the truth, and hate to be reformed, are all of them necessary derived from original sin, and truly parts and products of our natural pravity, as any sins I can name. To which I say but, that nature of itself inclines to all that; but to do and act those things against the reliefs of grace preventing, is merely voluntary, and not the necessary fruit of that roots production: whence they are said to be of their Father the devil, which is worse then of their Father Adam, Joh. 8.44. and to sin like Adam. Hos. 6.7. and after his similitude, Rom. 5.14. that is without necessity, for so he did.  
Sect. 3. To that of Joh. 15.22, 24. If I had not come and spoken, &c. He says, It cannot be meant of Christs coming spiritually, in his light and truth; because it's said, If I had not come and spoken, and come and done &c. As if in his spiritual comings he spake and did nothing. Let him red Prov. 1.20, 21, 22, 23, 24. Rev. 3.20. and he will see the contrary:& yet I confess Christ speaks directly there of his coming& speaking to the Jews; nor did I imply otherwise before, but he was God manifested in the Flesh, and so what he did in the flesh in his ministration, and on their bodies, declared what he did, and was ready to do for men at all times spiritually; and so by way of Analogy it may be applied to his spiritual coming also: so that all he adds about capital enemies to Christ( as if he had had such if he had not come) and the other sins of the Jews before his coming] being built upon that false unproved principle, fall of themselves: and so do his notes upon the sinning after the smilitude of Adams transgression; as if that could be like it, that had neither positive Law, nor power to abstain from breaches of the natural, nor any like engagement to use that power well, as Adam had a smilitude without similitude.  
Sect. 4. How pitiful is his discourse about 2 Cor. 5.14. 1. He conceits the whereupon there spoken of, is a whereupon actually applied: and yet there's no mention of any whereupon, but of Christs dying for all, and to what end? not what is effected in men for whom he dyed. Was Christ's dying for a man the whereupon actually applied, so as he is justified, regenerated & c.? and are all that Christ dyed for so? If that be actual redeeming and regenerating of them, then sure he had no cause to fault me( though falsely) Chap. 10. for making Christ's death, resurrection and glorification all the means and ways of Salvation. I enumerated rather too many, then too few. 2. He says, The love of Christ is probably rather their love to Christ, then his to them. Answ. Was it their love that Christ dyed for them? or if their love had any constraining force upon them; was it not from his love causing it? Is it not more likely that Christs love that was stronger then theirs should have the glory of constraning them? and how could the people but imagine[ what he says he would not have them imagine that what he spake of his ministry tended to his own commendation] if it was not the love of Christ to them, but theirs to him that he commended? In his. 3. He talks of all being chosen alike without difference: which is neither my assertion, nor to the place he had in hand. 4. He asks, would the Apostles, making all their hearers believe that Christ loved them all, and dyed for them all without difference, work upon the disobedient, &c. Ans. Let him ask the Apostles what wrought upon them that were disobedient. Tit. 3.4. Was it not the love of God to mankind? he says not some peculiar love to themselves: and what should the Apostles preach to others to turn them, but what turned themselves? did Christ preach any other love to Nicodemus to regenerate him, but God so loved the world &c. Joh. 3.16. 5 He demands, Then how it comes to pass that his special love doth so little? Ans. Who says his special love doth little. Nor cry we out, that special and eternal love causes men to cast off all care of salvation: but we say, that mens preaching of election as they do, and a special love they know not to whom, and hiding and denying the general love of God which should draw them in to Christ, who is the object and ground of that special love, doth them no good, nor led them to profit, but to hurt, while it leads them to seek the foundation of their faith and hope in themselves, and not in Christ. When I said that the Pharisee thought he could not have been so good as he was, if God had not had special and eternal love toward him, I denied not arguments from special love and favour, but implied that men often think that their zeal[ even to persecution] is the product of what it is not.  
Sect. 5. He craves my attention to some instructions he give me about Christ's work in behalf of mankind, being diversely expressed— and that when it's compared to the payments of a debt or ransom— we must not imagine that it can have any respect to such satisfying Gods justice, as that there should be any ground for not punishing the same fault again; but that when it's absolute as to some effect, and conditional as to some other; then its neither against reason, nor justice, nor custom; but that the payment, pardon, or satisfaction may be twofold. Ans. Well, but then so far as a payment is absolute, he grants it's not again demandable; though so far as conditional it may be, if the condition be not performed: and so I clearly implyed to any that could understand. Oh! but it's onely absolute he says to make sins pardonable, and justice and wrath appeasable( and what then must appease it actual y, some work or act of man?) but not actually beneficial to any to life eternal, but upon repentance and belief. Ans. It's the men that opposed my Doctrine,& whose Doctrine I opposed, that make it absolute for all he died for; whence that usual inference, if he dyed for all, then All must of necessity be saved: which my distinction[ of sins he found upon us as he undertook for us,& sins against the grace there-through extended to us] shewed to be inconsequent; particularly Dr own says, All is satisfied for,& must be discharged that Christ dyed for. 2. He preaches miserabl doctrine for poor infants, who are most concerned in my distinction: for they repent not, nor believe that we can find, at least some more then others: and yet I hope they may be saved. David's that dyed before circumcision must perish, and then what became of David that must go to it; and so for all infants( at least) unbaptised, this is a sad doctrine for them. All their sin is pardonable and venial; but because they never repented of their sin, and sinfulness, they cannot be saved If he says he speaks onely of persons grown, such as have calls to repentance,& yet repent not, I said the same too, that they are not actually pardonned and Justified without faith& repentance: That my discourse was frivolous in divers of my Sections] is an easy frivolous Answer of them: with such an Answer I might have answered all his book at once. That I said nothing to the purpose to his simile of a General pardon granted from a King, but impertinently betake myself to the point of free will in the 4th. Section of my former Chapter, are falshoods; as I durst appeal to the Judgement of any indifferent Reader.  
Sect. 6. But he hath another 'bout with this point in Chap. 23. For whereas I proposed to him that of the Church of England, That the son of God did offer a full perfect and sufficient satisfaction and oblation for the sins of the whole world; which is as much as I desire or assert. He asks where the Church of England says, That all the sins proceeding from the first Adam, are of due debt forgiven to the impenitent, without further and particular application of Christ's Death. which I never yet said. understand I pray; The Church of England says, Christ offered up a full perfect and sufficient satisfaction; and I know it believes& says, That what Christ offered, God acceptted. Now is that a full and perfect satisfaction, that doth not satisfy without some other thing added? If Christ offered( and God accepted it as) a full and perfect satisfaction for the sins of the whole world, then God is fully& perfectly satisfied for them:& if so, then he cannot hold them under penalty yet for them to satisfy him, but remit the obligation thereto. Will any man say, a Creditor is fully satisfied for a debt, for which he holds the debtor yet in bands, so as that he will not discharge him, unless something more be done to him? or is the Death of Christ applied particulary to or by us for satisfaction to God( or rather for cure& healing to us) that he should not forgive what he is satisfied fully for, without that as he implies? and yet it follows not that the inpenitent are pardonned, or have the pardon of all those sins: for though the pardon of them is given into the hand of Christ that satisfied for them: and he gives, tenders, or freely extends it to men; yet if they to whom it's given will not accept it, but refuse it, and still be in their emmity; they deprive themselves of the benefit of what was given them freely, and cannot claim the benefit of it. Thus they that observe lying vanities, are said to forsake their own mercies. Ion. 2.8. They were truly theirs in respect of the gift of God, and yet not accepting them, they go without them, and without actual repenting thereof lose them for ever. It may be said of them as God said of Israell in respect of purging them, Because I purged thee and thou wast not purged, thou shalt not be purged any more &c. Ezek. 24.13. So because God pardoned them, and they were not pardoned, refused his pardon; therefore they shall not be pardonned any more. A King that forgives his subjects all former rebellions, and seals or proclaims their pardon to them, truly pardons them on his part; yet if they tread that under foot, and scorn it, they are not pardonned: but that their rejecting of it( which was not any thing included in the general pardon, because consequential to it) brings all their sins again upon them, till they submit and sue out their pardon again: and so as he said above, the pardon may be twofold. To this purpose is that Act. 13.38 39.40. Pardon is preached or declared to men in Christ's Name, and yet ver. 40 take heed least that come upon you, Behold ye despisers, and wonder, and perish! and so much also is held forth in. Rom. 3.22.23, 24. and 5.18.  
Sect. 7. To Rom. 3.22, 24. he objects, If all absolutely that have sinned be justified, why should he restrain it to them that believe. Ans. In respect of their having it come upon them, it is restrained to them? because he gives it in& with Christ, 
1. joh. 5.11. Rom. 8.32.  so as they that receive not him, deprive themselves of it; but in respect of God's giving it, it's not restrained, but is said ver. 22. to be unto all: for it's not said there, The righteousness of God is to and upon all that believe, as if both prepositions belonged to the same subject: nor is it to all that believe,& upon all that believe; but distinguishing as well the subjects as the prepositions, its sad To all, and upon all that believe The difference lies as well between All, and All that believe; as between To, and upon, which shows too, that that in Rom. 5.18. is to be extended also to All men as the expression is, it speaking not of it's coming upon, but unto All men, {αβγδ}, and not to all that belong to the second Adam onely, as he would gloss it; and why should we put an if upon what the Apostle absolutely asserts, as he doth saying, If all be justified, then this or that will follow; when the Apostle says expressly, All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace. Having  told us how to understand it before; viz. in respect of it's coming to All, though not of it's being upon them all; because many through not believing have it not, what he gives then as the scope of those verses is of his own fancy, and agrees not with the text, nor with the Doctrine of the Church of England, which asserts a full and perfect satisfaction given to God for the sins of the whole world,& yet believes him not satisfied for impenitent sinners, but that they shal perish. Nor can Rom. 5.17. that says, who shall reign in life, limit what is said after in v. 18. about who the benefit is extended to, that they might receving it reign, as Chap. 3.22. clears it. And as I shewed him in my former Answer in Cap. 13, which he took no notice of, which what a weakness, or worse thing it is, Reader judge; and what a sorry business it is to tax me with contradiction, or sophistical ambiguity, for saying, God may take his own liberty, and give more or less as he pleases,& yet deal equally& graciously with all: as if I left it doubtful what I mean by equal, whether justly, or alike, when the very words ( more or less) cannot stand with alike: and in the beginning of that position not above our lines before those words I expressly say, God may do unlike with like persons, who then could think that by equally I could mean alike?   

CHAP. X. About Election, in the Decree of it. 
To Chap. 14.   
Sect. 1. BEza says, Tum Demum dicimureligi( nostri respectu) cum Deus suum propositum in nobis exequitur: That we are said then to be elected, when God executes his purpose of Election in us. This I quoted in my other Book, and he could not but see it; yet he dares to say, that his meaning is, that he purposed to choose us when we should come to be fallen in Adam, and not when we come indeed to believe: Ex ungue Leonem: Reader, judge of his candour by that; as also by his adding, that however evident it is I had but the term from Beza, the sense from my other Masters, of whom Socinus must be the head, though I profess I am a mere stranger to his works and sayings: What he adds of Elect being an Adjective or Participle, concerns me not: but that[ the Election hath obtained] signifies the Elect, because opposed to caeteri, the rest; and that that is sufficient to make voided the Doctrine I oppose, is sooner said then proved: For if Election signify there the Elect, it rather proves, that the Elect are onely persons called, seeing it's said, they have obtained: and that's in opoposition to his Doctrine, that will have some uncalled ones Elect, who have not yet obtained, 1 Pet. 2.10. Whether {αβγδ} signify in the sanctifi●●tion, or to or into the sanctification of the Spirit, let any that can, judge: or whether my saying( or rather the Apostles in 2 Thes. 2.13.) God choose you in the sanctification of the Spirit, do more make Election and Sanctification one, then the saying, God choose us in Christ makes Election and Christ to be all one.  
Sect. 2. He challenges me to show out of the very words of the pretended Orthodox, that they lay aside Christ in the doctrine of Election. Ans. That's more then I said but therein, that is in Election, in the act of it, and that I make good from Mr. Hac. himself, they are his words, Review. p. 82. that God Almighty did chiefly, and in the first place[ so far as we may be able to make difference] choose his people to salvation: and in the next place, Jesus Christ to the Office of Mediator Now then so far as the act of Election was fixed upon his people in the first place, so far Christ was not in the eye or act of Election; and that act is an entire thing, as it respects the end distinct from that in the second place, which respects only the means, not to the act, but to bring about the end: As a man that intends a voyage, and makes choice of France; though he therein intends in the gross to go to France by ship, yet his first thoughts are only for France: what ship he will go in may be afterward thought on. So that he hath not yet proved me guilty of one slander; I should be loathe he should, how many soever he be proved guilty of himself, as they are in good earnest slanders, that I will not represent their opinion as it is, but must alter and pervert it, and make it quiter another thing before I dare meddle: it which how often it is his own practise, thou may judge Reader by what I have already discovered in him. Though the intention of the end precedes the means, yet we do not make the Elect, or their Election the end of Christs Election, but Christ the ground of their Election: for as God made the woman of the man, and for the man, that man might have the fellowship of her, and shee be a meet help for him; and though the woman was last made, yet shee was not the end of Gods making man, and therefore neither first in Gods thoughts; but the man was the end and ground of Gods making her; shee was first made in the man, and then out of him; so is the mystery of Christ and his Church or Elect, as Eph. 5.30.31. God made and purposed to make the Church out of Christ, and for Christ, and not Christ out of the Church[ though out of man, as man was out of the earth, and to till the earth] nor for the Church, as having the Church for his end, though for the Church in such a sense as the man was also made, and is fitted for the woman, but the Church for him, his service and glory. Nor yet do I make the incarnation and passion of Christ the end why the Church was, but the ground why the Church is, and why those that believe in him are accepted of God, and upon which he purposed those persons acceptation. Nor speak I of Christs having the pre-eminence in Gods purpose of sending him, otherwise then that he only was purposed out of all men to be the person and no other; and therefore neither doth it follow, that the world was to be saved that Christ might come, but as he was to come that the world might be saved, so God choose that as a reward of his coming to save the world, he should as man be glorious, and glorified with him and that all those that believe in him that came to save the world, should have part in the glory first decreed to him, as the reward of his so doing: But he altogether confounds Gods love to the world with his Electing love, though I  told him of it in my Answer, yet he takes no notice of it. Nor do I make Christ the cause of Election, if by cause he means the causa {αβγδ}, or inward moving cause, but the love of God: it is enough to my purpose that he is causa {αβγδ} the outward moving cause.  
Sect. 3 I said, otherwise Christ should not in all things have the pre-eminence; or be in all things {αβγδ} firsting it, if not the first and prime Elect.  
To this he replies, That that is to be ascribed to him, not as incarnate, but as God co●qual with the Father. Let the text confute that gloss. Col. 1.18, he is the head of his body the Church, who is the beginning, the first born of the dead, that in all things he might have the pre-eminence. Sure as the most high God he needed not to do or receive any thing that he might be preheminent; but here he is the head of the Church, and the first born from the dead was he so as God) that in all things he might be {αβγδ} the first and preheminent? Sure he is the first born from the dead, and head of his Church as incarnate.  
Sect. 4. He undertook in his review to prove, That Gods Election of his Church whent before his purpose of sending Christ, and for proof he alleged Joh. 3.16, 1 Joh. 4 9, 10. the first evidently mentions Gods loving the world, and I asked him if the world be the Church, and God Elected the world? He answers it here with saying nothing to it: and whereas he then added, that therefore whether it be Gods love and mercy to mankind in the general, or in special to the Elect: or whether Election be of particular persons, or believers in general, Gods love doth go before his purpose to sand his Son. I now further say, that those words amounts to this; That whether those texts made for him, or against him, he was resolved to prove nothing to purpose by them: for if they speak of Gods love and mercy to mankind in general, they speak not of Electing love, unless gods love to the world was his Electing the world: and if Election be of believers in general, then that's it be fights against, and the respect to Christ must be in the ground and foundation of that Election, and so he the first Elect, and reason of their Election: and to prove that Gods love doth go before his purpose to sand his Son, is to prove that which no body denies, nor was ever in question. But he says, I omitted Joh. 4. and that speaks of the Church, not the world: How proves he that, because it is? as if the Apostles and believers were not of the world as the Object of Gods sending Christ, or his dying for it or used not to couple in themselves with the world in things common to them? See the contrary: In him we live, and move, &c. and he is not far from any one of us. Acts 27.27, 28. They use to say, God commands all to believe alleging. 1. Joh. 3, 23 and yet there it is but, This is his commandement, that we believe, &c. and why may not the us be of that extent then here, seeing there is nothing said of that us but what is said of the world. ver. 14. and. 1. Joh. 22. and Joh. 3.16, 17. that Christ is the Saviour of, and propitiation for the world. As for what others say, it pertains not to me to defend them, further then I am of their mind: as I am not in thinking, that Christ might be a head and have no body: and as for honouring my own power and natural abilities, and being chosen because I thence believe, they are often shewed to be fashoods before.  
Sect. 5. Their interpreting the foundation of God to mean Election, 2. Tim. 2.19. I said was one of the Elders traditions, and a private interpretation: he says it was granted by the Hague Romanstrants too. Ans. If it was so, what's that to me, I love not truth for mens, sake nor call I them the masters of my faith, and therefore I do not jurare in verba: where I conceive any swerve from the truth, I do not judge myself bound to follow them. I grant, that a private interpretation is a mans own interpretation. And so is this theirs that so interpret, for its not found in any other Scripture that Election is so called, but Jesus Christ as laid in the Apostles doctrine is. 1. Cor. 3.11. and the Apostle says there, other foundation can no man lay, he quotes mat. 24. Rom. 9.11. and Rom. 11. but no such saying is there, as that Election is the foundation, but the first speaks of the fedulity and artifice of deceivers, that they will deceive if possible the Elect: which shows not the impossibility neither of their deceiving any of them( for without all question they may be deceived, at least for a time) no more then the like phrase in Act. 20.16. Rom. 12.18. signifies an impossibility of the things there mentioned. Rom 11 says, that the purpose of God according to Election might stand, it says not, Election is God's foundation: and in. Rom. 11. he said before, Election signifies the Elect: I hope he will nor say, the Elect are the foundation.  
Sect. 6. That the Apostles scope is this: Though some eminent professors be fallen away &c. Let not this shake your confidence that are true believers: because your safety and preservation is laid upon a firm foundation, even Gods eternal purpose, which makes the difference between you and them, is his bare fancy: for that might rather both render the Apostle fearless of their being shaken, seeing no danger of falling, and them careless of his admonitions to depart from iniquity, and cleanse themselves from defilements: nor is there any speech of Gods eternal purpose, or difference between them and others, these are all figments of his own and other mens brains: his scope is, though such persons have so swerved, yet think you never the worse of Gods doctrine concerning Christ laid by the Apostles as his foundation( as men are apt to question the truth itself when they see eminent professors of it let it go) for it's a sure foundation, and stands, and hath this seal, that God knows those that be his( or it s) he approves them, and warns them( even by the fall of such as those) to depart from iniquity, to look more narrowly to their ways, least God for the abuse of his doctrine, give them up to fall too: both his knowing those that are the foundations, and his giving up those that work iniquity to fall from it, and thereby warning others to depart from iniquity, seal or testify to the excellency and truth of it, and so there is good room for the nevertheless too, to say that nevertheless, exempts some from falling, is a mere conceit: nor doth. 2 The. 2.10 13. confirm his gloss, view my Answer. chap. 28. p. 136. to which Mr. Hac. gives the go-by, at least to any purpose. That the knowing that the Gospel is the sure foundation, and that those that believe and obey it are known of God &c. should give no satisfaction to a doubtful Soul, is a strange conception, sure it leads to cleave to it, and seek and expect owning and blessing in so doing: but carnal minds would be certified that they shall be saved whether they keep Gods way or no, or take heed so to do: but Gods word gives no such assurance.  
Sest. 7. He tells me of a passage in my Essays, that it was an infinite mercy of God to choose and save one man, the man Jesus Christ: which term he says implies a lost estate. Ans. Not always, Christ was saved in what he seated. Heb. 5 7. salvation may be as well from loss that it come not, as out of it when come upon one. Heb. 7 25. and as for mercy, It was infinite mercy to mankind to catch hold of the seed of Abraham, and take it into unity with the word, and not let all men sink and perish as did the fallen Angels whom he took not hold on: for it was for the good of all men, and that was the thing my Essays  told him, and it was infinite mercy to men to save the man Jesus Christ or updold him in his sufferings, as Isa. 42.1. and yet I say not that he came to save himself and others: for that which came was the Divine being that came forth from the Father, and that needed no saving, but in its coming into the nature of man in the seed of David, he saved it, first by his marvelous conception in which by the operation of the holy Ghost he was saved from the stream or flux of original sin, as he rightly says; for what is it to be preserved from it but to be saved from it? and then he was saved in death too from being swallowed up of it into victory, neither of which could have been the portion of that humanity or of any part of the seed of Adam, Abraham or David of itself, otherwise then by the power of God so preserving and saving it: so that what I said neither contradicts any Article of faith, nor implies sin in Christ, or any of those things he would fain scar the Reader with, but says the same in effect with what he says of them himself: Christ as man could not have had glory but by being saved through his sufferings.  
Sest. 8. He says its plainly my Doctrine that no other person is chosen but Christ. Ans. That's a plain falsehood: for I say that all the persons that be in Christ, are chosen in Christ also; but no person I say as out of Christ, or in his own personal consideration simply without respect to Christ: so that what he says to vindicate his former saying, all in general, but none in particular, is all in vain: Peter and Paul and John were chosen in particular as in Christ.  
Nor is it true that the latter part of my Answer about Election is concerning the Gospel, and not at all concerning Election. For I said not God choose such a Doctrine or proposion, but that God choose in Christ all the seed of the travail of his soul to holinesse and blessing with him, which speaks of Election( for is not choice Election? and of men chosen, for such is the seed that Christ shall see, and to such it ordains life and all means to life: but its likely he looks after an Election that the Gospel says nothing of, but such a one I had nothing to do with: the truth is, any Argument though never so slender, an Answer though never so slightly, and any evasion albeit most frivolous, serves the turn well enough with him, so he can set it on with great accusations or swelling language.   

Chap. XI. 
To Chap 15.& 16.  Of actual and personal Election.  
HIs exceptions about actual Election are next nothing. 1. He questions Why I do not interpret 2 Thes. 2.13. chosen from the beginning by Eph. 1.4. chosen in Christ from before the foundation of the world?  
Ans. 1. Because I find it not there from the beginning, much less before the beginning of the world, as in the other: 
1 John 2.24.  and the word beginning hath other significations, when without that addition. 2. Because its there {αβγδ}, in the Sanctification of the Spirit, and so its not in the other: and the Sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth was not from the beginning of the world upon any present believers. 3. because the Apostle Peter hath the like phrase. 1. Pet. 1.2. which evidently speaks of an Election in time, because its according to foreknowledge as the rule of it. Yet I implied not that the Apostle intended to free from danger of defection those that believed at the first hearing: for I shewed in chap. 28. that he also cautions them against what might endanger them. But I think he implies that those who are so early prevailed with by his call as to yield up themselves so readily to part with all things for him( as I conceive is included in this Electing grace) are in less danger then those that haesitate and stay long in the place of breaking forth of children as, Hos. 13.13. 
See. 1 Thes. 1.5.6.7.8.9  the early seekers find him readily, as Prov. 8.17. 2. He faults me for not distinguishing internal vocation from external. Ans. 1. If it was a fault, it was his to speak so rawly, and nor to say that which I called Election, is internal vocation, I answered to his terms. Yet 2. I like not that distinction, because it implies that some that are outwardly called of God, are not inwardly too, as if God sent his Gospel without any spiritual presence accompanying it, contrary to. Gen. 6.3. Pro. 93.4. mat 28.20. 3. He tells me who interprets Psal. 4.3. to mean of choosing David to be King. Ans. If that interprtation have any such argument in it to draw the sons of men from following vanity and leasings ver. 2. to tell them that God had chosen him King, as to tell them either that God hath chosen Christ, and set him apart for himself as one by whom they might find certain blessing, or that God sets apart for himself the godly man indefinitely, I am mistaken: if any think otherwise, quisque abundet sensu suo, I do not hinder him, but I cannot join with him. He says 4. It fared well with Judas and the Pharasees that they were members of the visible Church, and that they were blessed in such a manner as all the members of the visible church were blessed. Ans. If blessed, then they had faith given them sure to cause them to approach to God as there follows; for without faith no approaching to him: and yet before he would not hear of this that they should have faith given them: and then he had no reason as I  told him before to quarrel with me for putting so much in choice means of salvation, seeing they make blessed: but the best way to answer that now and reconcile it with this was by a silent nothing. Reader, see if slight answers and frivolous evasions( as he says falsely of me in his Epistle) serve not his turn.  
Sect. 2. About personal Election, omitting all the most material cogent demonstrations of the truth of what I said against his exceptions, he picks out only 2 or 3 pieces for which cause I might have put it amongst those instances given in chap. 1. I said Christ; certainly neither Adam standing, nor Adam fallen nor any mans personal consideration, yea were the choice as in any of rhose considerations, it would not be in Christ, because as such they are nor in Christ: the word( as) determining the object to that specific con●●deration, if we add another consideration in which the choice was, it destroys the other from being the formal consideration of it, as he that gives another a cup of could water as a discipe, doth not give it him simply as a thirsty man: this he changes into another frame and then asks, May not a cup of could water be given to a Christian both because he is thirsty and wants relief, and because he is Christs disciple and claims relief, at the very same time that he is considered as a Christian, he is also considered as thirsty. Ans. Right, but if at the same time he be considered as both, 
Calv. Inst. lib. 3. cap. 24. Sect. 5. quos Deus sibi, filios assumpsit non in ipsis eos dicitur elegisse: said in Christo suo, quia non nisi in eo amare illos poterat, nec regni sui haereditate honorare, nisi ejus consorts ante factos.  then is not he considered only as a thirsty man or simply upon that account without the other relieved, and so that alone is not the formal reason of his relief, which was enough to my purpose, which was not wholly to exclude a personal consideration, but to exclude that from being the formal and proper reason of the choice: the added consideration of Christ Jesus lifts them out of those other considerations as nakedly and simply considered: for the consideration of a man fallen in Adam, as relieved by Christs interposing, and much more as considered also in Christ that interposed, is another thing from the consideration of him as merely fallen, though as considered simply in the fall, God pitied man and provided or ordained him a helper, yet as so considered simply, he choose him not to be holy and blameless before God, but as in Christ and with respect to him: but he changes again chosen in Christ, into ordained to obtain life eternal by Christ our Redeemer, when as in Christ and by Christ are two distinct phrases and distinctly mentioned.  
Sect. 3. He hath another catch( and but a catch) at Sect. 4. for to his demand, Had Christ forgiveness first, and we in him and to Redemption: I shewed he had them in him first for us, and then we have them in having him: now he tells me, that to have forgiveness is all one as to be forgiven, and quarrels with me for not answering to his meaning, when as he did not tell me what it was before now. Yea, by his changing those words In him, into through him, by means of him, and with respect to him, he gave faire ground to conceive( as I did indeed conceive him to mean) that in that sense I mentioned we had not Redemption and forgiveness in him, which made me show that mistake. To his expression as now he hath it, I say, there is dissimilitude in the cases of Election and forgiveness, because Christ had no sin of his own to be forgiven him, as he had a person to be chosen. Yet as our sins were his by imputation, so he was justified and acquitted from them, and redeemed out of the troubles and punishments he sustained for them,& that so for us, as that therein we had radically and fundamentally forgiveness and Redemption: had not he been raised, we had been yet in our sins: no forgiveness of them, but by his righteousness, the free gift is to all men to justification of life. 1 Cor. 15.17. Rom. 5.18. so that in a sense suitable to his undertakings he might be said to have them forgiven him, that is, he was dead to and discharged of them. Rom. 6.7.10.  
Sect. 4. That in saying he choose us in Christ, I take the word Christ collectively, as it signifies a mystical body: is another great mistakes for who can think I mean the body is chosen in the body? no, I mean rather the body was chosen in the head, the woman exalted in the man, the fruit in the root, as Israel in their Fathers, as others express it, tanquam in radice, or tanquam in capite. And as such, he is personally considered, and not collectively.  
Sect. 5. To this he adds another bit, viz. To this, that if Election of the Church do in reason or nature precede the choice of a Mediator, then we cannot be chosen in Christ, because chosen before the consideration of him. He addresses himself to the lay-man, telling him that when a man intends to build an house, he then thinks of the end, and then of fitting Work-men, and providing Materials, and so of a voyage into France, to go on Shipboard, &c: which is spoken to in effect in the former Chapter. I add, Who will say such a voyage was chosen in the Ship, when it was resolved on before it was determined what Ship to go in? or, that a man purposed to build his house in his work-mens hiring when he first purposed to build it; and then in order to it, choose what work-men he pleased? If he can clear himself no better from his contradiction, an intelligent lay-man will call him bungler.  
Sect. 6. He hath another snatch at it, and then farewell; viz. that whereas in detecting his abuse of my Essays, as if I had said the names written in heaven are qualities, I  told him from Prov. 16.21. that prudence is the quality, and prudent the name there given to the wise in heart: He tel●s me, Prudent is a quality in the concrete, and so they are both qualities, but neither any mans name. Answ. It is the name of the wise in heart; for it's that by which Solomon says they shall be called; and that by which men use to be called, is some name in Scripture language. I hope it may be Mr. Hac. name; if he be wise in heart, God will call him by it, whatever men call him; so Gods Name is the Lord, merciful, long-suffering, &c Mr. Hac. will say they are concrete qualities, and no names; though God say they are his Name. Again, concrete qualities are more then qualities: they take in some subject of inhesion too, and include both; except an accident can be without a subject, and so they are not mere qualities; qualities inherent in us, such qualities Mr. Hac. expressly spake of before, so that his distinction comes too late here; for prudent is not an inherent quality, but denotes the subject of inhesion also; unless there is a prudent that is nothing, or no substantial being. I am sorry Mr. Hac is such a stranger to Gods open book, that 
All those entitled to blessing in Mat. 5. are expressed by adjectives, or words that may be resolved into adjectives.  He knows of none that hath adjectives and qualified persons( for so he should have spoken) writ in it as the heirs of life. God grant, neither he, nor I, may find our names written in Prov. 21.24. or in Psal. 50.16, 1, 18. but rather in Mat 5.3, to 13. and then we are well enough. He says, he discerns nothing further in that Chapter needed noting: I hope the diligent Reader finds something in it, and that his notes he hath given amount to nothing.   

CHAP. XII. 
To Chap. 20.21.22.  The language of God's works. Rahab and Cornelius. false conceptions of God.  
Sect. 1. I shall need to give but brief touches to what follows; we have seen enough of him already. I said the works of God preach mercy to sinners as well as that God is just to punish sin; and the contents of the Gospel, as well as this of the Law. He asks. 1 What's all that to pardon and whereupon. Ans. Mercy toward sinners is the Ground of their hope for pardon, which is Redemption. Psal. 130.4.6.7. Col. 1.14. 2, Where it may appear in all the Scripture that God ever intended to give notice of man's Redemption by the worker of creation and providice? Ans. in Rom. 2.4. so far as I intended and mentioned that, that is so far as Adams sinning is preached in mens dying: and if he can show me were God intended to give notice by them of his publication of the law upon mount Sion or the curse threatened to the transgressors of it, which curse he says they present to the quickest sight( review p. 102.) then I will show him the other. Rom. 2.4. He would evade by saying it was spoken to the Jews, or the Geniles that had the Gospel: whereas the Apostle speaks indefinitely to any man, Thinkest thou this O man, or despised thou the riches of his goodness, not knowing that they led the to repentance? 
Bez. in locum,& Erasm. iis in locis ad quae nulla dummanavit Evangelicae praedicationis auditio persistit, {αβγδ} revelatio, quae {αβγδ} omnibus conspiciendam exhibet. Amyr. specim. part. 3. p. 130.  And Interpreters take it as spoken to heathens too, That see the Apostle is brightening the face of Moses to the middle of the Chapter: He that will may see he brightens the face of Christ as much or more. The goodness of God, and his forbearnce, is not the law or face of Moses: and the promises of life and glory are as clearly laid down, as the threats of vengeance to their respective subjects, ver. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. and what follows is of the law natural, and those that had not, as well as those that had, the law of Moses.  
Sect. 2. He starts a new question, Whi●her every inducement to Repentance among Heathens and Infidels, includes in it a promise of mercy and pardon? He is for the negative: and why? because then the Gospel should be in the law contained, and the promise of forgiveness in a duty of obedience. Ah! well argued? Was the question whither Repentance includes the promise of pardon, or what induces to it? It is repentance that is the duty of obedience; I trow not at all that induces to it. The promise itself induces to Repentance, Act. 2.38 Is that a duty of obedience, or is it law? Besides, the law as opposed to the Gospel, induces not to Repentance, but curses those that break it but once, as we shewed before. The truth is, what induces to Repentance, 
Non potest {αβγδ} ad poenitentiam invitare quin simul spem veniae ostendat. Amyrald. specim. par. 3. p. 133.  gives hope of pardon upon Repentance, because there is mercy and goodness evidenced in it, as Rom. 2.4, 5, though we cannot say it amounts to a certain promise, that that gives no hope of pardon, as the law of works, strictly considered, gives no ground for Repentance.  
Sect. 3. He charges me with teaching two great errors. 1. That all worship done to any god, is done to the true God 2. That all kindness that God-sheweth to sinners, is the manifestation of his Gospel. Answ. Sure the man thinks his tongue is his own, he may speak what he pleases: what I said, or implyed, was this: 1. That the works of God bear witness to the true God, and to his goodness. 2. That the Heathens apprehended a god from what they preached, and that he is good, though they missed of the knowledge of who is this God. 3. there the mercy the works of God preach in God, is what is towards man through Christ, and pertains to the Gospel, as included in its contents: but I nowhere call, or think it the manifestation of the Gospel. He confesses the Ravens cry to God, 
Novum testimonium advoco, omni litteraturà notius, said te simplicem,& rudem,& impolitum advoco, qualem habent qui te solum habent: imperitiâ tuâ mihi opus est, quia aliquantulae peritiae tuae nemo credit; Deus bonus est, Deus benefacitt; ua vox est, &c. tertul. de testim. anim. proinde in excusabilis est omnis etiam infidelis si non diligit Deminum Deum suum toto cord, totâ animâ, totâ virtute, clamat nempe intus ei innata:& non ignota ratione justitia, quia ex toto se illum diligere debeat, cvi se totum debere non ignorat. Bern. ibid.  the true God; and why then may not the cry of the Heathen aim at him ignorantly, though by false principles they think of others? and so are truly chargeable with not calling upon Gods Name: because him they do reject, as name to them, and take others in his room: Tertullian tells us, that the souls of Heathens bare witness to the true God, and to many of his truths, when it spake as it were de suâ; though they denied and blasphemed him, according to what they drank in by education: They worshipped Devils, and not God in their set worships, and called not on his Name; and yet sometimes in their very Idol-temples, upon sudden commotions of mind, Deum Judicem implorabant, they would call upon God to be judge. Whence Tertullian breaks out thus. O! Testimonium veritatis, &c. Oh! witness of the truth, that being even amongst the Devils themselves, yet becomes a witness for the Christians! And Bernard ● kes good this proposition, that they that know not Christ, yet are sufficiently moved, or admonished by the natural law, and by the good things of body and soul that they partake of, that they also ought to love God even for the sake of God. Demonstrare satagimus eos quoque qui Christum nesciunt, satis per legem naturalem, ex perceptis bonis corporis animaeque moveri( or moneri) quatenus Deum propter Deum,& ipsi diligere debeant. lib. de diligendo Deo. May not many people amongst us be truly charged with not calling on Gods Name, and yet in their distresses cry out to God? and therefore no ground for the Rhetorical, Scornful Prosopopaja, that he puts into the mouths of the Lystrians, when Paul preached to turn them from their Idols.  
Sect. 4. He asks, where I find Gods kindness to sinners called Gospel? and I ask, where he finds his judgements upon them called law? yet I find his kindness in the contents of the Gospel, and that was it I said. It's no fruit of Adam's sin, nor content of the law of works, and therefore of the Gospel surely; and I think none but Mr. Hac. nor he neither, if not upon a design, would question it. Yea, Col. 1.23. verbatim, tells us, The Gospel is preached in every creature, {αβγδ}, and that agrees with Psal. 145.9, 10. That the tender mercies of God are upon all his works, namely his mercies to men,( yea, upon the Devils, though not in, or from them; in that he restrains their malice, and wickedness against us) and all his works do praise him. But to quarrel with me, and call for some distinct knowledge of Christ from the creatures, when I expressly said they do not speak of him distinctly: what is it but to be groundlessly contentious? See how a man blinded with prejudice and passion lofes his reason; for he says, Act. 14.16. He suffered all Nations to walk in their own ways: nevertheless he did them good, &c. overthrows the false doctrine throughout this Chapter,( that is to say, his own, to speak trule and properly; but see his reason. He suffered them to perish, notwithstanding his ordinary goodness; therefore his temporal blessings were not able to reelaim them, nor were intended for their conversion. How many faults in this reason? 1. That it puts that into the conclusion that denies nothing asserted, and therefore needs not be proved, viz. that Gods temporal blessings were not able( that is, by themselves) to reclaim them. 2. But for the other part, against the intent of them: Reader, thou mayst be at thy choice, whither to believe the Apostle, that says, The goodness of God leads thee, O man, to Repentance:— or Mr. Hac. that says, it was not intended for thy conversion, that is, for thy repentance. 3. By parity of reason, he suffered many of the Jews to perish, notwithstanding the Prophets, and Christ that were amongst them; therefore they were not able to reclain them, 
Psal. 81.11, 12, 13.  nor were intended for their conversion. 
See Calvin. Institut. lib. 1. cap. 10.  4. What's become of the import of the word nevertheless, that he speak of in Chap. 14. doth not that show an exemption here, as much as there? surely the one as much as the other: It signifies clearly, that though he let them take their own courses( as he did the Jews in Psal. 81.11.) yet he was not wanting to them by his goodness, to invite them to seek him, and walk in his ways.  
Sect. 5. In the rest of his discourse, I shall not interrupt his talk. To what purpose his discourse is about grace, and whither it may be universal, I know not; except to confute himself: for by his own confession, a King may in forgiving all his subjects do an universal act of grace: But then, when he talks of Semper lenitas, and passing by all offences against his Crown during his whole reign, that it would not be grace, but injustice. Dost thou know what that meaneth, or how to make sense of it? for doth any imagine, that God( though semper lenis doth during his whole reign, pass by all offences against him, and not punish any? they that do so, let them bear the charge of being confuted by this his Harangue, and believe there is no such universal grace as they pled for after that fashion.  
Sect. 6. About Rahab and Cornelius, he mistakes my Qu. and Ans. as if the import of them was, that faith is wrought by means of Gods works only; which though I think may be, and hope is through the help of Gods Spirit, from what arguments are brought in Job, altogether from the works of God, both as evidences that they had faith, and as motives to induce to it: as Job 5, 8, 9, 10, 11. And from the Apostles saying, If the Gentiles by nature[ that is, without verbal, or wrirten instruction from the published Doctrine] do the things contained in the law,[ of which I am sure faith in God is one] yet my question was not about that, but about Gods accepting faith in those that have not the distinct knowledge of Christ, and to that my instances were pertinent. He says, There were many Proselytes not circumcised, who had the knowledge of the true God, and walked in obedience to him. But consider it again, they could not be the persons there spoken of, because they did not by nature, and without the law, the things contained in the law; but what of the law they did, they did by the law. Now from that and Chap. 3.21, 22. I gather the variety of means: for the nature by which some are supposed to do the things in the law, is distinct from the law, and the Prophets; and they again distinct from the Gospel, as preached by the Apostles: Is not there then variety?  
Sect 7. In his quarrel about false conceptions of God, he tells me: 1. It was not for making cruelty a false conception of him, but for opposing it to all mercy. Answ. Such an opposition I must make to it, as is also a false conception; else, I had put a true conception for a false one: and is not cruelty such a one? let any one judge. I think all-justice, which he now suggests( before it was just severity) had been much more liable to exception: for I think he is all-just, and all-justice; nothing unjust, or of injustice in him; righteous in all his works. 2. Yet I did not oppose cruelty to all-mercy, but all-mercy to cruelty; for I had writ cruelty first, and then thought what to oppose to it, and not è contra. I  told him, I charged it on no party determinately, but spake of it in the general Theory only. He replies, that I say its a word that borders upon their principles, and that he was guilty of the charge, because he past it not untouched, and so that I know his thoughts better then my own. Answ. What I said in my Answer, was after, and distinct from what I said and thought in composing my catechism, and therefore my thoughts then do not prove that I had the same so many years before: and I might well now suspect him guilty, because grieved at it. We suspect a gull there where we cause winching when we rub: I charged it neither on Papists nor Protestants, though I think some of both are guilty of conceiving God like an old man; and therefore its false to say, That I did not charge it on them, but on the Protestants. In my answer indeed, I charged it upon both; and he says afterwards, that I charge it in my Answer on the Papists doubtless, and so more then on the Protestants: ex ore tuo: for how then am I partial to the Papists rather then the Protestants? as you imply: out of the same fountain ●itter, and sweet; say, and unsay; fie, fie. And how did I imply that Bellarmine thought that God is like an Old Man, by saying the Papists are guilty of it? May not the Papists be guilty of it, and yet not Bellarmine, knows he not that indefinite propositions are not universal necessary, except in re necessariâ? And it is no necessary thing, that every Papist be of the mind of the Papists in very thing; no more, then its true that every Scothman was guilty of selling the late King, because it is true to say the Scoth-men did it. But he says, he alleged Bellarmines words, speaking of picturing only, but not of any likeness. Answ. Then he alleged them to no purpose, and prevaricated by his own confession: for he alleged them to prove that the Papists own the thinking God like an Old Man. And how doth Bellarmines saying prove it, if it said nothing of any likeness? His words were, that Bellarmine held it lawful for his part, to picture God in forma hoins Senis. He speaks this of picturing only, but not of any likeness: Is not forma likeness? See your Dictionary, forma, a favour, shape, beauty, the figure, likeness or manner of a thing: Yet he says, He did not Mentiri de Bellarmino; because, if he thought he might be pictured like an Old Man, then he thought him like an Old Man. I denied that consequence before, and so I do yet: A man may think it lawful to picture God in some likeness in which he appeared, and yet judge that there is nothing to which he is like. But if h● said, Bellarmine owned that false conception, and yet said nothing in what he alleged for proof of any likeness, did he not De eo mentiri? And what shall I say, to see him now pled that God is like an Old Man, because of some eminent perfections in him, that are brokenly in an old man? how did it pass for a false conception before, and now its a true one? how was it the Papists before, and now it is Mr. Hacons too? may we not as well say, a man is like an ass or a woodcock, because there is something in those creatures which is eminent in a man? and yet who would not take for an incivility and injury, that any conceive and affirm him like one of them? God himself says, Isa. 48.18. To whom will ye liken God, or what likeness will ye compare with him? Mr. Hac. says, one may lawfully think him like an Old Man, in those things in which an Old Man excels another Man: what those things be I abhor to mention. See then Reader, that I was neither run on ground in what I said, nor was in any danger Mentiendi pro Bellarmino, because I said but that I think he speaks falsely of Bellarmine: and it was true I thought so, whither he speak falsely of him or no.   

CHAP. XIII. Of falling from grace; 
To Chap. 27, 28, 29, 30.  the secret and revealed will of God, and the conclusion.  
Sect. 1. IF any man upon comparing us as to Chap. 27. can find any thing in his exceptions worth taking notice of, let him enjoy his conception, though its not proof That a prisoner may come forth if he will, that being besotted with his prison-life, says he will not come forth; yet if that prisoner have the door opened for him, and is  told by the party that put him there, that he may come forth if he please; yea, that he is ready upon his acceptance of it to help him forth: we may say that prisoner may come out if he will, whither he will come out, or no. And that's the case between God and Men; God says to us, If we will we may take the water of life freely: In an accepted time will he hear, in the day of salvation he will succour, Rev. 22.17. 2 Cor. 6.1, 2.  
Sect. 2. About falling from grace: He excepts against my saying, that a feigned and unsound saith makes men hypocrites; and says, Such a faith is a better then none, because an historical faith may be a true faith in its kind, hath a true being, and is of good use and benefit. Answ. But is an historical faith, and a feigned and unsound faith all one? His expression I spake to, was an unfound and feigned faith, not an historical faith: an historical faith, if it be the faith of a ttue history, as the histury of the Scripture is, is a sound faith and not feigned, if it be indeed a belief of it: but a feigning to believe the history, when one doth not, is neither a true faith in its being, as to the act of it, nor of any good use or benefit to him that hath it, but is hypocrisy. And though he say an hyopcrite is not so bad as a vicious, and openly profane ungodly person; yet others say, that counterfeit holiness is double wickedness. 
Simulata sanctitas duplex est iniquitas. Bonitatis verba imitari, mayor est malitia. Pub.  And Saint Bernard says, Semper minus malitia palam nocuit, that open wickedness doth always less hurt: and that they are dupliciter damnanid, to be doubly condemned, both for their secret iniquity, and for their open forgery. Yea, Homer the Heathen Poet could say, such are to be hated like the gates of hell: where the Scripture also gives them a severest portion, Mat. 24.51. Quod tegitur, majus creditur esse malum. marshal.  
Sect. 3. To what I said of the Galathians falling from grace, he says, 1. Grace signifies the doctrine of grace. Answ. So I said too, and how then doth he confute me? but I trow, that revolting from the Covenant of grace implies that they embraced it: if but feignedly, then they ran not well, nor were the Sons of God. He adds, 1. That the defection of a Church from sound Doctrine to error, is no good argument to prove the revolt of a particular believer from the habit of saving faith: nor of any one individual person from sound doctrine: for an erroneous generation might rise up. Answ. But the revolting of persons that ran well, nnd were Sons of God, and had the Spirit of God, and were known of God, so as that Christ shall profit them nothing, doth. And that was their case, Gal. 3.2, 26.& 4.5, 6, 7, 9.& 5.2, 7. Doth God konw, that is, approve any that are not true believers? will he now enlarge the soul of the foundation, beyond what he says the foundation is, id est, Election, 2 Tim. 2.19? And yet, even such Paul says he was afraid of, Gal. 4.11. And who can believe, that that Church was wholly another generation, from that people whom he writes such things of, 
Dr. Lightfoot makes the Apostles travail to Galatia, Anno Christi 51. and the Epistle to be sent Anno 59. but eight years between.  that they had done and received? surely, all those Churches that he there planted, were not in so few as 10. or 12. years at most dead, and other generations sprung up. 2. He says, It doth not appear that those Galathians, who once stood in grace, did ever fall from it; they did but halt, and stumble. Ans. 1. They were so bewitched, as not to obey the truth, Chap. 3.1. They turned again to beggarly rudiments, Chap. 4.9. The Apostle was afraid of them, ver. 11. Yea, he says, so many of them, as were justified( that is, sought to be justified) by the law, were fallen from grace, Chap. 5.4. whom wilt thou believe? 2. Suppose they did not finally fall, but that they might upon this Epistle be recovered again; yet the Apostles fearing them, implies he knew possibility, and danger of it: Will any wise man fear, least some impossibility should happen to any body? But he says, Exhortations to a mixed society, or congregation, must be so delivered, as to fit one sort of believers, as well as another. Answ. ●o imply all of them, even the best, as well as the worst may fall: But how proves he that any of them were formerly bad? The apostle says not so, and who then can say so? He says, They were all the Sons of God by faith in Iesus Christ: and he wrote not after the flesh, but by the Spirit of God: and if he say, they were all the Sons of God, who shall say some of them were not so? so that in quoting that Chap. 3.26. he confutes himself; and then bids me remember, what I see he overthrows in stead of making good.  
Sect. 4. How he gives the go-by to all that was of main consideration in that Chapter, and what slight answers, and sorry evasions serve his turn for what he takes notice of, any man may see: as that if faith( that of the temporaries) had no root, it had no truth; when as I  told him, that that which was to have root, was the seed sown, viz. the Word: And so he implies, that the truth of the Word of God depends upon mens receipt of it. And so to the Parable of the Virgins, he makes the oil in the lamp, and the oil in the Vessel two kinds of oils; in the one profession, in the other inward faith: when it is neither the one, nor the other, but the Word of God. The Lamp was the profession, I trow, in both, not the oil: nor went the oil out, but the Lamp, 
De fide temporaria videatur. Bernard. Epist. 42.  or flamme, for want of oil to supply: as when the Word is not abiding in the heart, the profession will be gone in a time of temptation, which the night signifies, at least the light and ardour thereof. As for his new added instance of Judas, we said enough to him before: that any that are Elect,( that is, that are in Christ, for out of him the Elect, I know none Elect) should be worshippers of the beast, or sons of perdition, I know none that affirm it: and therefore I shall not trouble myself with any consideration thereabout.  
Sect. 5. Concerning the will of God, he hath divers miscarriages in that Chapter. 1. That when we were speaking about the will of God, I betook myself to the free-will of man, That's a slander, as I appeal to any that will red what I said. 2. That I said little to that distinction of secret and reve lead will. And yet the Reader may see, that I spake so much to it, that he durst not meddle with it, it discovered his similitude to be so pitifully nought. Now here he would teach it me better, by the example of Pharaoh, whom God commanded to let Israel go, and yet he hardened his heart, that he might not let them go: But I pray Reader, observe these two things thereto. 1. That it was 〈…〉 God's revealed and secret will, that Pharaoh should let them go; for he did make him let them go at last. 2. Which is mainly to be minded, Mr. Hac. denied that by Gods wi●ling all to be saved, is meant a will of precept, but that it signified Gods intention: and to salue what was objectible against that, he proposed a distinction of will, as signifying intention into secret and revealed, the one contrary to the other. Now here in this example, God's commanding Pharaoh to let Israel go, is his preceptive will; and so here is no revealed will of intention, and secret will of inten●ion, as he should have proved: but a slipping the collar, à genere ad genus, a telling us that God bids us do sometimes, what he intents not to cause us to do, at least voluntarily: or may for our former evils intend to leave us to ourselves, or our own hardness in: yea, or give us up to Satan, to suffer him to hinder us from doing; which also is a judicial act of his for acts of grace abused. But he should have proved that while God graciously reveals his will, mind, and intention( for so he would have will to signify there) to save all men, he hath at the same time an intent and mind, secretly not to save some of them. As that God, when he declared he would bring Israel out of Egypt into Canaan, yet did secretly intend to destroy many of them in the Wilderness: but his example se●ves him for nothing, but to confute his own sayings in his former book, and to confirm mine. His distinction that now he hath in p. 240 agrees with what I allowed Chap. 29. p. 142. of conditional, and absolute, viz. of a will of approbation, and a completing, and absolutely effecting will, which I dislike not.  
Sect. 6. He will not have Isa. 45.22. to be in both parts of it, a will of command, but be ye saved, must be a promise: and takes a deal of pains to show how diversely the Imperative Mood is used, and that it doth not always signify a command:( as if I had urged its being the Imperative Mood, whereas I find not, that I did so much as mention Imperative Mood.) Telling me very disdainfully,( which becomes not a Minister of the Gospel) It had been better becoming one of my lay men, that can red no latin, then myself;( thus Christ, and his Apostles, were as lay-men to the Jewish-Elders, and taunted by them as wanting learning, Joh. 7.15, 48, 49. Act. 4.13) they might in the latin else find, salvi eritis, or ut servemini. Ans. 1. I find it in the latin of Junius and Tremellius, Respicite ad me,& servemini; neither & salvi eritis, nor ut servemini: What will Mr. Hac. falsify the latin too, because the lay-man can red none? fie, fie, neighbour. 2. In the Hebrew it is, {αβγδ} both of them alike Imperative; and if the one for all, that be not a command, why must the other be? why not ye shall look to me, and be saved? that would better svit their principles. 3. Why may it not be a command there? as well as it is in Act. 2.40. {αβγδ}, Save yourselves, or be you saved from this untoward generation. And 4. Why must I not recede from our Interpreters that know languages in other places? and must I recede from them here, where they exactly agree with the Hebrew: and red it, Look unto me, and be ye saved; not, and ye shall be saved?  
Sect. 7. What he speaks about Rites and Ceremonies, as they are cecentrick to our argument; so I shall not trouble myself, or my Reader about them: But why the Reader should judge of all my book, by that passage, [ that I cannot but think some prejudice against my person, I know not wherefore, I being so mere a stranger to him, hath clouded his reason] I cannot conceive. He may judge, if he please, both by his former book and this, and by what I have discovered in them, whither his reason be clouded or no. Nor concerns it me, what a friend of his, and mine, I know not who, said to him: Only, I marvel he would Print such a passage as signifies, that he was troubled at what I answered? as if it was to some prejudice, and loss of his reputation, or the like: that his friend should say, who bid him begin? which, though he says it's consonant to my sense, is nothing akin to it. For mine is not, why he begun? but rather, why so uncharitably, and hotly, and drives on yet so highly? and as for his answer to that, I shall let it alone. I should have been glad, that he says, His affection towards me continueth very fair; had he not after that profession, closed up all with so uncharitable a conclusion, as to charge me with misleading men: and telling me, I may misled them still, till God be pleased to show them better. I shall not retaliate with him therein; but, though I could hearty have wished, that his book had been freer from asperities, and scornful expressions, and false charges; and fuller of candour, and reason, yet I shall forgive him. I bless God, and my Father, at for all my exercises, temptations, sicknesses, sorrows, opposition; so for Mr. Hacon, and his opposings. And Lord, let not that which thou hast made good to me, be reckoned, or imputed as a sin to him, though done against me, to deprive him of any temporal favour, or spiritual blessing: But that both he, and I, may so embrace the truth, and walk therein; that however we differ, and digladiate here with our Pens, we may meet together hereafter, in the joyful and glorious kingdom of our Lord Jesus; where shall neither be envy, nor contention.   

CHAP. XIV. A bri●f Declaration of the grace of God to Mankind, and a serious Invitation to men to consider, and embrace it.  
Sect. 1. REader, that thou mayst not spend all thy labour in viewing our contests only; I shall shut up all with a more useful subject: minding thee of Gods grace to Mankind, and entreating thee, diligently to consider, and embrace it, for thine own everlasting benefit. But who is sufficient for such an undertaking? who can set forth all his praises? they are beyond conception, much more, beyond my expression, worthy everlasting admiration. Lord, what is Man, that thou takest knowledge of him? and the Son of Man, that thou makest such account of him? Dear Lord, help me to speak something of it, as may be to thy praise; and to my own, and other mens profit, and salvation.  
Sect 2. Great was Gods goodness to man in the Creation, for therein he preferred man above all other creatures, and though he made him of the dust, yet he poured out his love and bounty on him; for he made all things for his use and service, and him in his own Image and Likeness, capable of knowing and conversing with him, and was not willing any thing should be wanting good for him: But whereas he expected from man love, thankfulness and obedience, as was but meet for so great bounty and goodness, and to that purpose gave him a commandment, and therein an advantage to testify them, and by ordering a temptation, gave him opportunity to show his obedience more eminently, and more worthy commendation; upon a small trial he fell from him, and for a trifle sold his favour, and incurred his threatened indignation, deprived himself of his image and glory, made himself a Vassal to sin and Satan, and exposed himself to remediless destruction.  
Sect. 3. But oh the wonderful love and mercy of God to man in his redemption! for when nothing was able, no not all the Angels, to relieve us, the greatness of our sin and judgement being aggravated not onely by the greatness of our God offended, but also by the greatness of his goodness, and the great disparity between it and that for which we sold it: He so loved the world of fallen mankind, that he with-held not his onely begotten Son from us, the Lord of Men and Angels, and Heir of all things, but appointed, him to be the Saviour of us, who in due time taking hold of the seed of Abraham, according to God's free choice became a man, that he might ransom man from death and aell, and bring him to happiness: to which purpose he also delivered him up for our offences; and he in obedience to him, laid down his life a ransom for us, even for all men, and by the Grace of God tasted death for every man, and rose again, 1 Tim. 2.6 Heb. 2.9. by his death satisfying Divine Justice, abolish●ng death, and breaking the head of the old Serpent, by defeating his plot, who thought for ever to have destroyed us; so that an issue from death, a discharge from the sin for which we stood condemned, was given us in him in his resurrection from death, of which it was not possible he should be ●olden. Love of Christ that passeth knowledge! thus to value, thus to do for, thus to die for so poor an earth-worm, so vile a Caitif as fallen man!  
Sect. 4. Yet this i● not all, this did not yet satisfy the heart of God, so great and immense his love to us. Heaven must be opened for us, and to us too: We must have a way thither, and a friend there too, that there might be free intercourse between God and us: We must have a mighty Saviour for the future, and from what is in us, and yet abides upon us, as well as a Redeemer from what was past; therefore this poor man raised out of the dust, must sit upon the Throne of glory, and become the second man, a quickening spirit, the second root and convey or of good to men; the first having lost all the good he received to convey to us, and now conveying nothing with his nature but the evils of sin and death thereto cleaving. He is ascended, and is on high on the right hand of God, Angels and Principalities being made subject to him, and he made universal Lord over all things, far above what ever the first Adam was advanced to: For as the Word was made flesh and dwelled amongst us, and dyed for us in the flesh in all humility; so the man is now taken up unto God, and filled with the words of eternal glory; the glory which he had as God, with God from before the beginning of the world, and which he laid down as a price of our Redemption, he hath received again of God in the man, and for men, that so he might be our salvation; all with God for us, and all from God to, and with us, the complete Saviour, the Christ or anointed one because anointed fully and immeasurably with the Holy Ghost and Power; the Saviour of all men, and especially of those that believe; the great High-Priest, who by his entering into Heaven with his own blood, in the virtues of it, and presenting himself there for us, as the Lamb that was slain to take away our sins, hath purged the Heavenly things from what was there against us, 
He is our {αβγδ} 1 John 2.2.  and opened Heaven for us, and is the atonement, reconciliation, or propitiation there for us, yea for the sins of the whole world, 1 John 2.2. the Mediator of God and man, who hath power and virtue through the preciousness of his obedience, sufferings and sacrifice, transcending in wotth and virtue all the demerit of our sin in Adam, and in ourselves, to forgive our daily failings, sins and trespasses, and to cleanse us from them, by his Mediation for us; our liberty to Heaven, and a way for blessings upon us from Heaven is kept open for us, even for transgressors, during the day of his grace and patience towards any sinners; yea, he is our way to Heaven, 
Compare Gen. 28.12. with John 1.52.  and to his Father in Heaven; the Ladder that reacheth from Earth to Heaven, and affords us intercourse with God and Heaven, the Angels of God ascending and descending upon him the Son of Man; yea all the delight of God is in him, for he is hi Elect and chosen one, 
Isaiah 42.1.  in whom his soul takes pleasure, so as he hath fi●led him with all his fullness, put his Almighty, Eternal, holy spirit upon him, that as he once dyed for us in the weakness of the flesh, to make atonement for our sins by his blood; so he might live for ever for us in the power of God, to work all in us, do all for us, be all to us, and perfect what concerns our utmost happiness in our obeying him; and so he is the great Prophet to us, Lord and King over us: so speaking to the dead in sins, as to cause or enable them to hear, that hearing they might iive, and so speaking to them that do hear and listen to him, that he makes them live spiritually, and living and receiving the abundance of his grace, to reign in life, John 5.25. Isaiah 55. ver. 3. Rom. 5 17.  
Sect. 5. In him God hath made us a feast of sat things, for all people, of fat things full of Marrow, of Wine upon the Lees, of Wine off the Lees well refined, Isa. 25.6. We have nothing in, and of ourselves, that is good, but are poor, beggarly, blind, deaf, dead, without light, motion or power to move God-ward, have no wisdom, righteousness, holiness or freedom, nothing to live on, nor power to fetch in God's provision, the whole first Adam is lost, and all that's in and from him, is become corrupt and loathsome in us, in our flesh dwells no good thing; yea what evil dwells not in us! But oh wonderful love! Oh glorious Grace! In him God hath given us all things; he is living bread and living water, that comes to us while dead, and prevents us with life, gives life to the world, that a man may eat and drink of him, and so live for ever, John 6.50. God hath given us( even us men generally) eternal life; and this life is in his Son; so as that he that hath the Son, hath life, and he that hath not the Son, hath not life, though there given him: In him is given us spirit and life too, to enlighten us, empower and quicken us, that we might receive him, open our eyes, unstop our ears, unloose our tongues, work all our works in us, and perfect all that concerns us: Yea in him God gives us wisdom, righteousness, holiness, redemprion, all things; so that receiving him, they all with him become ours. In a word, 
Matth. 22.4.  all things are ready for us, forgiveness, blessing, life, spirit, kingdom, yea God himself; and he is most willing and desirous that we should enjoy them. We want nothing good for us: but we yea, any man that will, and will indeed seek it in and of him, during the day of his Grace, may have it in and with him. Grace here, and glory hereafter; the promises of this life, and that which is to come: For every one that asketh, receiveth: and every one that seeketh, findeth: and to him that knocketh, God will open.  
Sect. 6. Further yet, behold his willingness to impart all this to us by his calls and invitations, and that too with much long ●uffering and patience to embrace it, Wisdom having prepared her Feast, and furnished her Table, 
See Prov. 9.2, 3, 4, 5.& 1.20, 21, 22, 23.& 8.1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.  sends forth her Maidens, and she cries aloud her self in the streets without, and in the City and coming in of the Gates: Yea, understanding lifts up her voice that all might hear it: To you O men, I call, and my voice is to the sons of men: whoso is simplo, let him turn in hither, and to him that wants( {αβγδ} heart) understanding, affection, courage, she saith, Come eat of my Bread, and drink of the Wine that I have mingled: As implying, that's the way to have them: The life in Christ is the light of men, and that light shines in darkness, lighting every man that comes into the world, though the darkness doth not receive or comprehend it: 
Psal. 19.1, 2, 3.& 145.9.10.  The Heavens declare the glory of God, and the Firmament shows his handiwork: Day to day teacheth knowledge, and night to night uttereth speech: That God is good to all, and his tender mercies are upon all his works, so as all his works do praise him( not us) all mercies come through Christ to us, and all come and invite us to God in him; they 'allure to their Fountain: towards the Ocean that they run from, is their return: All chastisement beat off from the creatures toward the hand that orders them; 
Micah 6.9  they have a voice in them pressing us to seek refuge and shelter from the evil of them: The goodness, bounty and forbearance of God are leading sinners to repentance, Rom. 2 4, 5. And his corrections are to keep mens souls from going to the pit, and that they might be enlightened with the light of the living, job 33.29. All his works praise him, and his saints, his servants, his chosen ones that have tasted his goodness, felt his sweetness, beholded his glory, they bless him, declare his praises and invite us more expressly and plainly to taste, and prove how good the Lord is: they are the interpreters of Gods work and providences, and of their more abstruse and secret language to them that perceive it not: the stewards of his mysteries, the proclaimers of his excellent loving kindness: the mysteries of his kingdom have been, and are shewed to them, and divulged by them: and they with one mouth speak good of God to men, and call them to him: yea, the Spirit with, and through these means. And so Christ, by his Spirit, stands without patiently, knocking at the doors of mens hearts, with an intention, that if any hear his voice, and open to him,( as the hearing it, is the way to be made willing, and able to open) he will come in unto him, and sup with him, Rev. 3.20. And the Spirit, and the Bride say, Come: and let him that heareth say, Come: and let him that isiathirst, come: and whoever will, let him take of the waters of life freely, Rev. 22.17.  
Sect. 7. Listen then, Oh ye Islands! harken ye inhabitants of the earth, high, and low: rich, and poor: one, and another. harken ye that dwell in your hearts and affections upon the creatures, and neglect the great Creator, and your Redeemer, the Lord of Hosts is his Name. You that worship the beast, and his image: that adore the world, its pomp, its power, its greatness: that are dazelled with its splendour, and in love with its pleasure: that put off God with formalities, and worship him after your own inventions: but reject the power of godliness, and are not acquainted with his Spirit, and spiritual presence. Yea, harken you Kings, and Counsellors, and Courtiers; yea Nobles and Gallants; Scholars, and Souldiers; yea, and all Mankind. Incline your ear, and hear; come to wisdom, and her instructions: hear, and your souls shall live; hear, and mind what God hath done for you; how he loves you, what he gives you in Christ, and how ready he is to impart it to you: Oh! did ye know his gift,( and that you may know, if you seek to know it) ye would ask, and he would give you what would fully satisfy you,& make you happy. What he gives, is so good, so great, so lasting and durable, such a pearl of price, and hath such substance, and worth in it, that it's worthy your casting away your husks and trifles, your idols, and abominations for it. He gave you the world in the first Adam, and therein a pleasant Paradise, but he lost it; he gives you now heaven in, and with Christ: yea, himself, and all his fullness. Oh! take heed that ye lose not that; see what ye want that may do you good, and come hither for it: wait upon him at his door, and watch at the posts of his gates, and ye shall have it: for every one that asketh, receiveth: and every one that seeketh, findeth: and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. It is not a vain thing to seek the Lord, so ye seek him in the belief of his truth, and in his Spirit, and ways, and not after your own self-chosen inventions. Your Crowns, and kingdoms, your Swords, and sceptres: your Titles, and Honours: 
Prov. 3.14, 15.& 8.10, 11.  your Sciences, and Studies: your Lands, and Houses: your Gold, and Silver: your Buildings, and Ornaments: your Perfumes, and Pleasures; yea all things ye can desire, and dote on, are not to be compared to what wisdom invites you to, and will certainly give you, if you hearty embrace her. Oh that ye knew the gift of God, the Spirit, and power of God, the sweetness, and satisfaction of Christ Jesus! then would you not so dote on, and idolize your empty forms, and worship your images, the works of your own hands: you would not so court the world, and covet its places and preferments, and be mad on its pleasures, and be proud of your science, and lose your souls for such sorry trifles. Seek the Lord while he may be found, and call upon him while he is nigh at hand: 
Isa. 55.6, 7.  Let the wicked forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his vain thoughts, and turn to the Lord for he is gracious, and to our God, for he will multiply to pardon, and fill your souls with unspeakable consolation. Oh! taste and see that the Lord is gracious, blessed is the man that makes him his confidence: 
Psal. 34.8.  you have tasted the world, and the more you taste it, the more it will deceive you: and at last you will find it nothing but emptiness and vexation of spirit. Oh! taste and see how good the Lord is: all that have tasted his goodness, 
Psal. 22.3, 26.  at last praise him perpetually: whereas all that have tasted the world, at last discommend it. Why will ye lay out your money for that that is not bread? and your labour for that which well not satisfy? harken diligently, and eat ye that which is good, and let your souls delight themselves in fatness. Have you found Christ, and God, and his Spirit, and the consolations thereof? have ye intercourse with heaven? know ye the things that are freely given you of God? if not, oh! seek them while you have time and space: say not you cannot, make not excuses: for while it is to day, you may hear his voice, if you harden not your hearts: while it is an accepted time, a day of salvation, God is nigh at hand to help thee, and enable thee to, and assist thee in thy seeking of him, and will be sound of thee. Oh! do not by observing lying vanities forsake thine own mercies: 
Jon. 2.8.  Ye that are profane, what will it advantage you to satisfy your lusts here a while, and afterwards lie down in eternal torments? Sell not your liberty to heaven and happiness, for a Mess of Pottage: the pleasures of sin are but for a season, and very muddy: and how grievous will the remembrance of them be to you, when death and judgement come upon you? you that covet after, and scrape for the world, hunt after riches and honours, or rejoice in the multitude of your enjoyments, what will the world profit you, had you it all, when God shall take away your lost souls? you may have better pleasures, and better riches, in and with Christ: durable riches, and righteousness: fullness of joy, and satisfaction: yea, and a certain provision, and dispensation of what is good for you here too, if you embrace Christ. For seeing God gives us Christ, and with him all things: he that receives him, 
Rom. 8.32. Psal. 34.9.  and walks in him in the fear of God, is said to want nothing good for him. You that hunt for knowledge, trifle not out your time in impertinent studies that fill but your heads with notions, and your hearts with pride and vain-swellings. Instead of t●rning over many volumes, seek to know Christ, and him crucified, and spiritual acquaintance with God through him, and rest not without it: the knowledge of him will do you good, when all the multitudes of arts and sciences, that do but busy you about many things, while the one thing needful is not know and minded, will stand you in no stead. You that glory( if any such there be) in your power, and high places, and sometimes decree unrighteous decrees, and writ grievous things which ye have prescribed, to turn aside the needy from judgement, 
Isa. 10.1, 2, 3. Hos. 5.1, 2.  and to take away the right from the poor people of God: Judgement is towards you, because ye are a snare in Mizpeh, and a net spread upon Mount Tabor: and revolting from God are profound to make slaughters, though God hath been a rebuker of you all. What will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation that comes from far? To whom will ye fly for help, and where will ye leave your glory? Oh! let go all your pride, and seek to know the Lord, that ye may be numbered with his members, whom now ye hate. Yea, ye professors, that look for the streams, and neglect the fountain: that would have particular graces, and frames to live on, and be signs of your good condition, while the root, and life of all ye neglect, and know not; Come ye hither to wisdoms provision, behold the gift God, even Christ himself, the fountain of all streams and graces, who being known and enjoyed, ye cannot miss them: believe the testimony of God concerning him, and receive him as freely given of God to the world, that you may live upon himself, his sacrifice, and all his fullness; so shall ye rightly have those frames and graces which do flow from him, and which you cannot have a right, nor live by without him: He is to the right believer all things himself; their light, strength, wisdom, righteousness, life, bread, drink, every thing: He is all for them in Heaven, and all to and in them by faith in him. Do thou also cease seeking particular frames out of, and besides him, and seek and embrace him the spring of them all, and thou shalt not want them. In a word, All people, believe ye the goodness of God, receive his Grace with thankfulness, and receive it not in vain; put it not from you, neither seek it carelessly when God brings it near to you: when God says, Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it, be not thou like Israel that would not hear his voice, that would none of God, 
Psal. 81.11.  that would have had their Enemies subdued, and been fed with the finest of the Wheat, but would none of him that would have done those things, yea all things for them; the Kingdom of Heaven is opened for,& brought nigh to you, reject it not; lay hold on Eternal life while ye may have it; delays are dangerous; thou hast no certainty of this life, thou canst lay no fast hold of it though thou wouldst never so fain, but at God's pleasure thou must part with it, and what will become of thee then, if while thou hast lived, thou hast neglected God? for after death comes the judgement, wherein Christ that dyed for thee, and hath called and wooed thee to himself, will come in terror and great glory, to judge thee and render to every man according to his works. Presume not on thy life; for what is thy life but a bubble? and who can tell how short it may be? or if thou shouldst live long, how hard thy heart may be, dreaming of yet a little longer, and a little longer time, till destruction suddenly fall upon thee? while it is a day of grace, thou mayest enter the straight gate, though never so straight, if thou strivest diligently, because God will put forth his hand and help thee: But if thou loiterest, God may shut the door upon thee, and then thou shalt do then( what thou saist thou canst not do now, but indeed it is thy will not) cry and call to him, but there will be no hearing, no admission for thee: May not the time past suffice thee to have slighted Christ, and preferred thy lusts and idols before him? Hath not be been long and often calling to thee, knocking at the door of thy heart, drawing rhee by mercies and benefits, moving thee by corrections and chastisements, making thy heart often smite thee? Hast thou not been often convinced of the vanity of thy courses, and thy heart  told thee all is not right with thee? Hast thou not often been ready to promise and purpose, and resolve to seek him, and yet thou hast hardened thy heart again against him, and yet continuest in thy iniquity, and restest short of him and his salvation and satisfaction? How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard! When wilt thou awake out of thy sleep? When, when wilt thou open to, and entertain thy Saviour, in letting in his grace and power into thee? when, oh when will it once be? yield but up thyself to him, and follow in his drawings after him, he will yet pardon all that's past, and work all his good works in thee, sancti●●● and save thee; stand not out till there be no remedy. All is ready for thee, come to the Wedding: consider what is set before thee, and said unto thee, and the Lord add his blessing, Amen.  

Psalm 27.1, 2.  
THe Lord is both my health and light,  
Shall man make me dismayed?  
Since God doth give me strength& might,  
Why should I be afraid?  
While that my foes with all their strength  
begin with me to brawl,  
And think to eat me up at length,  
themselves have caught the fall.   

Psalm 116.7.  

And now my soul, sith thou art safe,  
return unto thy rest:  
For la●●●●y to, the Lord to thee  
his bounty hath expressed.   

— Totum laudabile tunc est  
Cum bonus est     
FINIS.   

An Advertisement.  
SInce this Book was not onely finished to the last word of it, but also was sent up to the press, yea after I had received five sheets of it in Print,( and might, had the Printer been diligent, have received it all divers weeks sooner) I received intelligence of the sad and sudden death of Mr. Hacon my Antagonist by a fall from his horse: Which I give notice of to prevent any uncharitable constructions of the close of my Book in the metre added, as if I had done it as insulting over the dead: It was so written and concluded when I first sent it up: and had not my Book been begun, and well towards the finishing before I heard of his death, I had not at all printed it, but had suffered our contests to be buried with him. My Book was finished and sent up about the middle of May, or little after, and his death happened about the middle of September. The judgements of the Lord are to be adored, as being unsearchable, and his ways past finding out: but the persons judged not to be by us rashly censured: Both he, and I, and all must appear before the Tribunal Seat of Christ, to be judged righteously by him: Our writings in the mean while ( Reader) are left to thy perusal and judgement thereupon: red and judge as thou findest cause concerning them.