Had your answers been just, you would have observed the rules of a respondent, which you have not done ; and if they had been sober, you had never been so free in your reproaches, and sparing in your arguments, as you have been. Is this the man, of whom it is said in the Epistle to his Solemn Call, That his lines are Jree Jrom reflection and reproach towards those of the persuasion he con- tends zvith f Is this my old friendly neighbour ? It calls to my mind
548 A POSTSCRIPT TO MR. GARY.
the Italian proverb, God keep us froTii our frietids^ and we will do what ice can to keep ourselves from our enemies. And though you act the part of an enemy, you shall be my friend whether you will or not. If you will not be my friend out of love, I will make you so by a good improvement of your hatred.
I have been musing with myself, what might be the true cause of all your rage against my book ; one while I thought it proceed- ed from want of discretion, that you were not able to distinguish betwixt an adversary in a controversy, and an adversary to the person ; but thought every blow that was given to your error, must needs be a mortal wound to your reputation. But, Sir, how close and smart soever my discourses against your errors be, I am sure they are more full of civility and respect to you, than such a reply as you have made deserves : And if, in exposing your errors, your reputation be exposed, you must blame them for occasioning it, and not me.
Sometimes I thought it an effect of your policy, that when fol- lowed close, and hard put to it, you endeavoured an escape this way. Camero, speaking of this kind of subtilty in his adversaries, saith, Faciunt quod quarundum ferarum ingenium est, utj'cetore et graveolentla, defectcejam viribus, ac fractoe, venatorem abigunt. Some cunning animals, as foxes, &c. when pursued at the heels, drive away both dogs and huntsmen with their intolerable stench. And Hierom long ago told Helvidius his adversary, Arbitror te ve- ritate convlctum ad maledicta converti ; being vanquished by truth, he betook himself to ill language. After the same manner you act here, being no longer able to defend yourself by solid and sober ratiocination, you trust to your faculty in crimination ; bad causes only drive men into such refuges.
In a word, I am satisfied that nothing but your extravagant zeal for your idolized opinion, could have thrown you into such disinge- nuous methods and artifices as these. The Ephesians were quiet enough till their Diana began to totter. Your passionate outcries signify to me, something is touched to the quick, which you are more fondly in love with than you ought. When one told Luther what hideous outcries his enemies made against him, and how they reviled him in their books ; / know by their roaring (saith he) that I have hit them right.
You tell me in your reply, p. 24. That you perceive / have a mighty itch to find out your absurdities. I wish. Sir, you were no more troubled with the itch after them than I am after the disco- very of them. Had I affected such employments I could easily have gathered three to one out of your book more than I did ; and have represented those JL gathered much more odiously (and yet
A POSTSCRIPT TO MR. CARV. 549
jtistly) than I did : but friendship constrained me to handle tliem (because yours) as gently as I could.
I might have justly charged you from what you say, p. 174, 175. of your Solemn Call, where you place ail the believers on earth, without exception of any, under the covenant of works, as a minis- tration of death and condemnation, and the severest penalties of a dreadful curse: I might thereupon have justly charged you for presenting to the world such a monstrous sight as was never seen before since the creation, viz. a whole church of condemned and cursed believers. This I might as well have charged upon your position, and done it no wrong.
I could tell you from what you say, p. 76. of your reply. That God doth indeed, in the covenant ofworJcs, malce over himself to sinners^ to be thei?- God in a way of special interest ; but it being' upon such hard terms, that it is utterly impossible that way to at- tain unto life, &c. I could justly have told you, that these passages of yours drop pure nonsense upon the reader's understanding ; as if salvation were impossible to be attained by the same covenant, wherein God becomes our God, and makes over himself by way of special interest to us.
Had I had an itch to expose the burlesque and ridiculous stuff which lies obvious enough in your book, T should then have told your reader, That according to your doctrine, how opposite and inconsistent soever the two covenants of works and grace are, yet the same subjects, viz. believers, may, at once, not only stand under them both, but that the same common seal, viz. circumcision, equally ratifies and confirms them both : For you allow, in your Call, p. 205. That it sealed the covenant of grace to believing Abraham, and yet zc-as a seal of the covenant of works, yea, the very condition of that covenant, as you frequently affirm it to be, Vicle p. 81. of your Reply, and Passim.
I could as easily and justly have told you. That the most mali- cious Papist could scarcely have invented a more horrid reproach against our famous orthodox Protestant Divines than vou (I dare not say maliciously, but) ignorantly have done ; when you charge such men as Mr. Francis Roberts, Mr. Obadiah Sedgwick, and, indeed, all that assert the law, complexly taken, to be an obscurer covenant of grace ; that they comprise perfect doing with the con- sequent curse for non-performance and believing in Christ unto lif? and salvation in one and the same covenant : This is an intolera- ble abuse of yours, p. 5. of your Reply. They generally assert the law in that complex sense and latitude you take it, to be a true covenant of grace, though more obscurely admir.i.stered ; and that the distinction of the covenants into old and new, is no parallel
550 A POStSCRIPT TO MR. CARY.
distinction vv ith that of works and grace, or of Christ's and Adam's covenant. Your public recantation of the injury you have done the very Protestant cause herein, is your unquestionable duty, yet scarce a due reparation of the injury.