Chapter 1: Our Author's Preface and Method

Our Author's Preface. And his Method.

It is not any disputation, or rational debate about differences in religion that our Author intends; nor, until towards the close of his Treatise, does he at all fix directly on any thing in controversy between Romanists and Protestants. In the former parts of his Discourse, his design is sometimes covered, always carried on in the way of a rhetorical declamation; so, that it is not possible, and is altogether needless to trace all the particular passages and expressions as they lye scattered up and down in his Discourse, which he judges of advantage to him in the management of the work he has undertaken. Some suppositions there are which lye at the bottom of his whole superstructure, quickening the oratory and rhetorical part of it, (undoubtedly it's best,) which he chose rather to take for granted, than to take upon himself the trouble to prove. These being drawn forth and removed, whatever he has built upon them, with all that paint and flourish wherewith it is adorned, will of itself fall to the ground. I shall then first briefly discuss what he offers as to the method of his procedure, and then take this for my own; namely, I shall draw out and examine the fundamental principles of his Oration, upon whose trial the whole must stand or fall, and then pass through the several parts of the whole Treatise, with such animadversions as what remains of it may seem to require.

His method he speaks to, pag. 13. My method, says he, I do purposely conceal, to keep therein a more handsome decorum: for he that goes about to part a fighting fray, cannot observe a method, [illegible] must turn himself this way and that as occasion offers; be it a corporal or mental duel. So did good Saint Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, which of all his other Epistles as it has most of solidity, so it has least of method in the context; the reason is, etc. These are handsome words, of a man that seems to have good thoughts of himself and his skill, in parting frays. But yet I see not how they hang well together, as to any congruity of their sense and meaning. Surely, he that uses no method, nor can use any, cannot conceal his method; no, though he purpose so to do. No man's purpose to hide, will enable him to hide that which is not. If he has concealed his method, he has used one: if he has used none, he has not concealed it: for, that which is wanting cannot be numbered. Nor has he by this, or any other means, kept any handsome decorum: not having once spoken the sense, or according to the principles of him whom he undertakes to personate: which is such an observance of a decorum as a man shall not lightly meet with. Nor has he discovered any mind so to part a fray, as that the contenders might hereafter live quietly one by another; his business being avowedly to persuade as many as he can to a conjunction in one party, for the destruction of all the rest. And whatever he says of not using a method, the method of his Discourse, with the good words it is set off withal, is the whole of his interest in it: he pretends indeed, to pass through loca nullius an[illegible] Trita solo; yet setting aside his management of the advantages given him by the late miserable tumults in these nations; and the provision he has made for the entertainment of his reader, are worts boiled an hundred times over, as he knows well enough. And, for the method which he would have us believe not to be, and yet to be concealed, it is rather [in non-Latin alphabet] than [in non-Latin alphabet] rather a crafty various distribution of enticing words, and plausible pretences to inveigle and delude men unlearned and unstable, than any decent contexture of, or fair progress in, a rational discourse, or regular disposition of nervous topics, to convince or persuade the minds of men, who have their eyes in their heads. I shall therefore little trouble myself further about it, but only discover it as occasion shall require; for, the discovery of sophistry is its proper confutation.

However the course he steers is the same that good Saint Paul used in his Epistle to the Romans, which has, as he tells us, most of solidity and least of method of all his Epistles; I confess, I knew not before, that his Church had determined which of Saint Paul's Epistles had most of solidity, which least. For I have such good thoughts of him, that, I suppose, he would not do it of his own head: nor do I know, that he is appointed Umpire to determin upon the Writings that came all of them by Inspiration from God, which is most solid. This therefore must needs be the sense of his Church, which he may be acquainted with, twenty ways that I know not of. And here his Protestant vizor which by and by he will utterly cast off, fell off from him, I presume at unawares. That he be no more so entrapped, I wish he would take notice against the next time he has occasion to personate a Protestant; that although for method purely adventitious and belonging to the external manner of writing, Protestants may affirm, that one Epistle is more methodical then another, according to those Rules of method, which our selves, or other Worms of the Earth like to our selves, have invented; yet, for their solidity, which concerns the Matter of them, and Efficacy, for Conviction, they affirm them all equal. Nor is he more happy in what he intimates of the immethodicalness of that Epistle to the Romans: For, as it is acknowledged by all good Expositors, that the Apostle uses a most clear distinct and exact method in that Epistle, from where most Theological Systems are composed by the Rule of it; so our Author himself assigneth such a design to him, and the use of such ways and means in the prosecution of it, as argues a diligent observation of a method. I confess, he is deceived in the occasion and intention of the Epistle, by following some few late Roman Expositors, neglecting the Analysis given of it by the Antients: but we may pass that by; because I find his aim in mentioning a false scope and design, was not to acquaint us with his mistake, but to take an advantage to fall upon our Ministers; and I think, a little too early, for one so careful to keep a handsome decorum, for culling out of this Epistle Texts against the Christian Doctrine of good Works done in Christ, by his special Grace, out of obedience to his command, with a promise of everlasting reward and intrinsick acceptability from there accrewing. Thus we see still Incoeptis gravibus plerunque & magna professis Purpureus latè qui splendeat unus & alter Assuitur pan[illegible]us; — Sed nunc nonerat his locus. Use of Disputing, has cast him at the very entrance of his Discourse, upon, as he supposeth, a particular Controversie between Protestants and Roman-Catholicks, quite besides his design and purpose; but instead of obtaining any advantage, by this transgression of his own Rule, he is fallen upon a new misadventure; and, that so much the greater because it evidently discovers somewhat in him besides mistake. I am sure, I have heard as many of our Ministers Preach as he, and read as many of their Books as he, yet I can testify, that I never heard or read them opposing the Christian doctrine of good works. Often I have heard and found them pressing a universal Obedience to the whole Law of God teaching men to abound in good works, pressing the indispensable necessity of them from the commands of Law and Gospel, encouraging men to them by the blessed promises of Acceptance and Reward in Christ, declaring them to be the way of men's coming to the Kingdom of Heaven; affirming, that all that believe are created in Christ Jesus to good works, and for men to neglect, to despise them, is wilfully to neglect their own Salvation: but, opposing the Christian Doctrine of Good Works; and that with sayings [illegible]ulled out of Saint Paul's Epistle to the Romans, I never heard, I never read any Protestant Minister. There is but one expression in that Declaration of the Doctrine of Good Works, which, he says, Protestants oppose used by himself, that they do not own; and, that is their intrinsick acceptability: which I fear he does not very well understand himself. If he mean by it, that there is in good works an intrinsical worth and value, from their exact answerableness to the Law, and proportion to the Reward, so as on rules of Justice to deserve and merit it; he speaks daggers, and does not himself believe what he says, it being contradictious; for he lays their acceptability on the account of the promise. If he intend, that God having graciously promised to accept and receive them in Christ, they become thereupon acceptable and rewardable; this, Protestant Ministers teach daily. Against the former Explication of their acceptability, in reference to the Justice of God, on their own account, and the Justification of their persons that perform them, for them; I have often heard them speaking, but never with any Authority, or force of Argument, comparable to that used by Saint Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, to the same purpose. But this tale of Protestants opposing the Christian Doctrine of Good Works, has been so often told by the Romanists, that I am persuaded, some of them begin to believe it; however it be not only false, but from all circumstances, very incredible: and finding our Author hugely addicted to approve any thing that passes for current in his Party, I will not charge him with a studied fraud; in the finding it so advantageous to his cause, he took hold of a very remote occasion to work an early prejudice in the minds of his Readers, against them and their Doctrine whom he designeth to oppose. When he writes next, I hope he will mind the account we have all to make of what we do write, and say, and be better advised, than to give countenance to such groundless Slanders.