breaking of God's Commandements without Repentance pertaineth not everlasting Life but everlasting Death as Christ himself saith they that do evil shall go into everlasting fire Mat. 25. These Passages do manifestly show that in the Judgment of the Church of England as sincere Repentance is indispensably necessary to obtain forgiveness of sin so sincere Obedience from a principle of Faith and Love and bringing forth Fruits meet for Repentance is indispensably necessary to the escaping of eternal damnation and obtaining of eternal Salvation Let any Man read and consider the Sermon of Repentance in the same Book Tom. 2. pag. 324. and he will see this to be as clear as the Light at Noon-day We will quote one short Passage out of it in Page 339. they say The filihiness of sin is such that as long as we do abide in it God cannot but detest and abhorre us neither can there be any hope that we shall enter into the Heavenly Jerusalem except we be first made clean and purged from it But this will never be unless forsaking our former Life we do with our whole Heart return unto the Lord our God and with a full purpose of Amendment of Life flee unto his Mercy taking sure hold thereupon through Faith in the Blood of his Son Jesus Christ This excellent Passage shews clearly that as Faith is the receptive applicative Condition so true Repentance is the dispositive Condition of the Covenant of Pardon and Life and that the one is as necessary in its kind as the other is and that unless through Grace we do both we are undone for ever Thus we have shewed at large what was the old Gospel Doctrine of the Church of England at the Reformation and that our Doctrine is exactly the same Therefore it must needs be a most horrid we will not say lye but falsehood that we preach a new Gospel and that we are to be blamed for telling People that they must repent and mourn for their known sins leave and loath them and God will have Mercy upon them for Christ's sake From whole Societies of Protestants we pass to the Testimonies of Individual Pastours of the Reformed Churches And we begin with Calvin who in his Commentary on Ezek. 18.23 sayes Deus ergo non ita vult omnes salvos fieri ut discrimen omne tollat boni mali sed praecedit veniam poenitentia quemadmodum hîc dicitur Therefore God doth not so will all Men to be saved as to take away all difference between good and evil but Repentance goes before Pardon as it is here said And again on the same Text We hold therefore that God doth not will now the death of a Sinner because he calls all to Repentance without making a difference and promises that he shall be ready to receive them modo seriò resipiscant if they or on condition that they earnestly repent And in his Institutions he writes thus Lib. 3. cap. 3. Sect. 20. Quare ubi remissionem peccatorum offert Deus c. For which reason where God offers remission of sins he likewise useth to require on our part Repentance signifying thereby that his Mercy offered ought to cause Men to repent Doe saith he Judgment and Justice because Salvation is come near at band Isa 56.1 Likewise The Redeemer shall come to Sion and to them who turn from transgression in Jacob Isa 59.20 Again Seek the Lord while he may be found call upon him while he is near let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteousness of his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him Isa 55.6 7. Again Be converted and repent that your sins may be blotted out Acts 3.19 Where yet it is to be noted that this Condition to wit of Repentance is not so annexed to those Promises as if our Repentance were the ground of meriting our pardon but rather because the Lord hath determined to show mercy unto Men for this end that they might repent he shews them whither they are to go to wit unto God by Repentance if they will obtain Favour In these passages we observe 1. That Calvin says expresly That Repentance is a Condition annexed to the promise of pardon 2. That the performance of that Condition goes before pardon And 3. That therefore we are to repent and so perform the Condition that we may obtain the Grace of pardon 4. That in Calvin's Judgment Repentance is a Condition of Justification and that because Calvin believed Justification and pardon of sin to be the same thing as is most evident from what he writes against Osiander Instit 3d. Book cap. 11. Sect. 4.11 21 22. 5. That in Calvins Judgment Repentance is the dispositive Condition of Justification For it must be either the receptive or dispositive Condition but it cannot be the receptive Condition for in Calvin's judgment Faith is the only receptive Condition therefore it must be the dispositive Condition And indeed Calvin so held it to be for in his third Book of Institutions chap. 3. Sect. 18. He says Privatim Deo confiteri pars est verae poenitentiae quae omitti non potest Nihil enim minus consentaneum quam ut peccata ignoscat Deus in quibus nobis ipsi blandimur c. To confess our sins in secret to God is a part of true Repentance which cannot be omitted For nothing is less becoming or suitable than that God should forgive us those sins in which we flatter or please our selves On the contrary Calvin writing against Pighius says Contra Pigh de lib. arb lib. 5. Sect. Adducit tamen Sanè humiles Deus respicit sicut illi acceptum cordis contriti afflicti sacrificium David canit Indeed God hath regard unto the humble as David sings in his Psalm that the Sacrifice of a contrite and afflicted heart is acceptable and pleasing unto him These passages show That in Calvin's judgment an impenitent sinner is by reason of his impenitence unfit for pardon but that the true Penitent by his Humiliation and brokenness of Heart is disposed and fitted for pardon so that it is agreeable to the perfections of God's Nature to accept such a Person in Christ and to pardon his sins for Christ's sake And as Calvin held Faith and Repentance to be the Conditions of our Justification so did he hold sincere Obedience from a Principle of Faith and Love to be the Condition of our not falling from a justified state and of our obtaining the possession of Eternal Life and Glory For thus he writes in his Institutions Quoties ergo audimus c. Therefore as often as we hear lib. 3. cap. 17. Sect. 6. that God bestows his benefits on them who keep his Law we are to remember that God's Children are there designed or described by the Duty which they ought to be continually exercised in that we are for this reason adopted that we should reverence and honour him for
truth that Repentance is before Justification at least in order of Nature They object further if Repentance be before Justification then it is either before or after Faith but it cannot be before Faith for it is impossible that a man should sincerely repent before he believe Nor can it be after Faith if it be before Justification for a man is justified by Faith and that assoon as he believes We answer That men needed not to be deluded by such a silly sophism if they would distinguish 1. Between the Abiding Seed and Principle and the Transient Act of Faith 2. Between the Assenting Act of Faith and it s fiducially consenting act For though Faith in the Principle of it be but one single Grace yet in the Exercise of it it hath several acts successively following one another and yet not so closely neither but that the Act of Repentance may come between them Now to apply these distinctions we say that from Repentance's being before Justification it doth by no means follow that it is altogether and in all respects before Faith For 1. The Seed and Principle of Faith is before the Act of Repentance 2. The assenting Act of Faith is also before the Act of Repentance And thus from a principle of Faith and by the help of an Act of Faith the Soul sincerely repents in order to Justification and pardon of sin then after the said Act of Repentance there comes another Act of Faith to wit the Act of Fiducial consent to receive Christ as he is offered in the Gospel whereupon the penitent believing Soul is immediately justified and pardoned This we learn of Calvin who in his Institutions lib. 3. cap. 3. Sect. 19. writes thus Sic Christus suas conciones auspicatus est c. So also Christ began his Sermons Mark 1.15 The Kingdom of God is at hand repent ye and believe the Gospel First he declares that the treasures of God's mercy were opened in him Then 2. He requires Repentance And 3. and lastly He requires a trust or relyance on the promises of God Here we have the Lords order of things judiciously set forth 1. He declares that the Treasures of God's Mercy are opened in him This Declaration of God's Infinite Mercy in Christ held forth to lost Sinners of Mankind is the object of our Faith of assent and we are bound to assent to it as an infallible Truth and to be firmly perswaded of it 2. He requires our Repentance he requires that assenting to the Truth of the Gospel and being firmly perswaded that God is upon terms of Mercy with us through him we should repent and be heartily sorry that by our sins we have offended so merciful a God and resolve in God's strength to do so no more 3. And lastly That supposing we so repent from a principle of Faith assenting to the Revelation of God's great Mercy in Christ to lost Sinners indefinitely he requires that we trust and rely on God's promises and on Christ as held forth to us in the promises that according to his promises he will for Christ's sake be merciful to us in pardoning us all our sins When we are through Grace arrived at this Act of Faith whereby we trust and rely on God's promises and on Christ as held forth to us in the promises then we are instantly pardoned accepted as Righteous and get a right to Life for the alone satisfactory meritorious Righteousness of our Lord Redeemer But we could never attain to this Act of Faith and thereby to pardon of sin for Christ's sake if we did not first believe with the Faith of assent that God through Christ is upon terms of Mercy and Peace with us That is the first Act of Faith and when it is of the right kind and proceeds from the right Principle the super-natural Seed of Faith put into the heart it is through the influence of the Holy Spirit of mighty force and efficacy 1. To make us repent to make us through Grace heartily sorry for having displeased and dishonoured so good and Merciful a God by our sins and to make us resolve through Grace to do so no more 2. It is of as great force and efficacy to make us trust and rely on Gods promises and on Christ revealed in the promises that God according to his promises will for Christ's sake justifie and pardon us Thus we have answered that frivolous Objection and clearly shewed how true Repentance is in order before Justification and pardon of sin and yet not altogether and in all respects before Faith but partly after and partly before Faith after the principle and assenting Act of Faith but before the fiducially consenting and trusting Act of Faith And what though no Man could give a clear account of the exact order observed by our Souls in the acting of their several Graces yet that should hinder no Christian from believing that true Repentance is in order before pardon of sin because God who cannot he hath plainly told us in the Scripture of Truth that it is in order before pardon as hath been proved If then we have any Faith in God and his Word We should say Let God be True who ever proves a Lyar. Certainly it is very unreasonable foolish and dangerous too to deny or doubt of that which is clear because we cannot throughly understand that which is obscure to wit the precise order of the Souls acting its Graces This may suffice at present to prove that the Gospel-promise of Justification and pardon of sin is conditional and that Faith and Repentance are the Condition of it 2. In the second and last place we shall briefly prove by Scripture that the Gospel-promise of Glorification and Eternal Salvation is conditional and that sincere obedience is the Condition of it For the better understanding of our meaning in this matter we premise a few things As 1. That this is to be understood upon supposition that a man lives some considerable time after that he is effectually called and justified and pardoned upon his first believing and repenting and that he hath space and opportunity to perform his Covenant Engagement unto the Lord and to bring forth Fruits meet for Repentance If the Man dye presently after his Justification and pardon there is no more required on his part the Spirit perfects his begun Sanctification and God through Christ consummates his Salvation without requiring any more of him than what he is inabled to do as he is a dying But if God give him time and opportunity and he live It is required that proportionably to his Talents and time he serve the Lord in Faith and Holy Obedience that he renew his Faith and Repentance for pardon as often as he finds that he has fallen into sin and that he return to his Duty again serving the Lord all his days in Faith Hope Love Fear Patience Meekness Humility and Heavenly-mindedness c. 2. The Obedience that is required as aforesaid must
pleased him This Proposition is self-evident for it is of the very Essence of Free-will in God the First and Freest Agent that in all external temporal things which fall under his Free-will he might have done them or not have done them he might have done them thus as he doth them or he might have done them otherwise than he hath done if he had pleased But antecedently to his free Purpose and Decree the whole ordering of the Covenant of Grace and of its terms and receptive Condition depended upon God's Free-will and Soveraign Pleasure Hence the Gospel is called the Mystery of God's Will and the Revelation of the Gospel unto us is said to be the making known unto us the Mystery of his Will according to his Good Pleasure which he hath purposed in himself Eph. 1.9 Now if the whole Mystery of the Covenant of Grace depended on God's Free-will then the ordaining of this or that to be the receptive Condition of the Covenant depended on his Will also and so antecedently to the free Purpose of his Will there was no natural necessity that Faith alone and no other thing should be the receptive Condition of the Covenant 2. It is not yet past Dispute amongst Divines Whether antecedently to God's free Purpose and Decree to save us by the Satisfaction and Merits of Christ alone he might not have freely purposed and decreed to have pardoned and saved us some other way Amongst our Reformed Divines Calvin Twiss and Rutherford and others were of this Opinion yea even Dr. Owen himself was once of this Opinion though afterwards he changed his mind in that as he did in other things witness what he wrote in his Book called The Death of Death in the Death of Christ Or A Treatise of Redemption c. Book II. Chap. II. Page 57. The Foundation of this whole Assertion seems to me to be false and erroneous viz that God could not have Mercy on Mankind unless satisfaction were made by his Son It is true indeed supposing the Decree Purpose and Constitution of God that so it should be that so he would manifest his Glory by the way of vindicative Justice it was impossible that it should otherwise be for with the Lord there is neither change nor shadow of turning Lam. 1.18 1 Sam. 15.29 But to assert positively that absolutely and antecedently to his Constitution he could not have done it is to me an unwritten Tradition the Scripture affirming no such thing neither can it be gathered from thence in any good consequence if any one shall deny this we will try what the Lord will enable us to say unto it and in the mean time rest contented in that of Augustin though other ways of saving us were not wanting to his Infinite Wisdome yet certainly the way which he did proceed in was the most convenient because we find he proceeded therein Thus Dr. Owen in that Book and though he unsaid this again and embraced that Opinion which he then called an unwritten Tradition yet there are other Learned Divines of that same Opinion at this Day Mistake us not for we do not say that we are of it but that some are and that the matter is not yet past dispute And the Consequence which we infer is undeniable that if God antecedently to his Constitution and Degree could have pardoned and saved us some other way without the Satisfaction and Merits of Christ then surely he could have offered and promised us Pardon and Salwation without the Condition of Faith in Christ and upon what other Condition he pleafed 3. Though we grant that upon supposition that God would pardon our Sins and save our Souls it did not consist with the Glory of his Justice and Honour of his Law and Government to do it without Satisfaction for the Offence we had given and the Dishonour we had done him by our Sins and therefore it was necessary not onely from the free purpose of God's Will but also from the nature of his vindictive governing Justice that Christ by suffering in our stead should satisfie his Justice for our Sins yet doth it not follow at all by any natural necessity arising immediately from the essential nature of Faith without any appointment and constitution of God's Will that Faith because it is of a receptive nature and nothing else shall be the Condition upon the performance whereof Christ with his Satisfaction and Merits shall be not only offered but given unto us For as Dr. Owen saith very well in his little Book of the Trinity and Satisfaction of Christ pag. 208. The satisfaction made for Sin being not made by the Sinner himself there must of necessity be a Rule Order and Law-constitution how the Sinner may come to be interested in it and made Partaker of it for the consequent of the freedome of one by the suffering of another is not matural or necessary but must proceed and arise from a Law-constitution Compact and Agreement Now the way constituted and appointed is that of Faith or believing as explained in the Scripture Thus Dr. Owen To which we add that the Scripture explains it thus Gal. 5.6 That in Christ Jesus neither Circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth any thing but Faith which worketh by Love From this Passage of Dr. Owen and the Argument contained in it it is most evident that it doth not arise immediately and necessarily from the receptive nature of Faith that it is the Condition of the Offer and Promise but from the Will of God constituting and appointing it to be the Condition Faith's receptive apprehensive nature is but a remote Reason of its Conditionality and doth but make it fit to be the Condition if God please to make it so And it is God's Will and Law-constitution onely which is the nearest and formal Reason of its Conditionality and which doth immediately and formally make it to be the Condition of the Covenant Joh. 6.40 This is no new notion of ours we find it long agoe before many of us were born Walaeus Doctor and Professor of Divinity in Leyden in his Enchiridion Religionis Reformatae pag. 112. said that Fides nos Justificat sed relativè considerata quia haec est Voluntas Dei ut qui credit in Christum ejus meriti fiat Particeps Faith Justifies us but relatively considered because this is the Will of God that he who believes in Christ shall be made Partaker of his Merit And not onely Mr. Baxter but Cartwright also pag. 179. of his Book against Baxter agrees with him in acknowledging this Truth his Words are these The Reason why Christs Righteousness cannot Justifie except it be apprehended by Faith is this That God doth require Faith of us Faith I say apprehending Christ and his Righteousness believe in the Lord Jesus Christ that so we may be Justified Gods Will is properly the cause yet there is a congruity in the thing it self an aptitude you grant in the nature of Faith It is of an
not so with us at this day But when we look abroad into the World and into the present state of the Reformed Churches at home and abroad and see or hear what lives Men generally lead how they fight against God and against one another against God by transgressing all his holy just and good Laws and by turning his Grace into Lasciviousness And against one another by injustice and uncharitableness by malice and envy by lying and slandering c. We cannot but fear that God is against us and will fight against us as we are against him Levit. 26.23 24. and fight against him And it greatly encreases our fear to see that those who pretend to greatest seriousness in Religion have lately fallen out and have been quarrelling together about such a practical point of Religion as that is Whether true Repentance is necessary before we can obtain from God the pardon of our sins through the alone satisfaction and Merits of Christ When God is loudly calling us to Repentance for obtaining the pardon of our sins and we should all be found in the practice of Repentance in order to that end we are like Mad-men fallen to disputing Whether our Repentance be necessary before we are pardoned when we are pardoned or after we are pardoned And there are those amongst us who have raised a great clamour against such honest and faithful Ministers of Christ as dare tell and dare not but tell the People that they must truly repent of their sins before they can obtain the pardon of them although at the same time they assure the people from the Lord that God for Christs sake will most certainly pardon them immediately after they have repented This is cried out against as dangerous Doctrine by a sort of Religious People amongst us who will have it that Repentance is only necessary after God hath pardoned us but not before And though to please these People some Ministers have openly granted That Repentance and pardon of Sin are simultaneous in time that is they are not one before another for any space of time but are both together only Repentance is first in order of Nature by the grace thereof to dispose and prepare us for receiving our Pardon by Faith in Christs Blood Yet this will not give them content but they will have their Pardon before Repentance and the Ministers who preach or write otherwise shall be proclaimed to be Antichristian Arminian or any thing that Passion suggests This we say greatly encreaseth our fears for to us it seems evident that the hand of Joab is in this matter that is plainly that Satan has a wicked design by this means to keep the People from Repentance and so from obtaining the pardon of their sins that the desolating Judgments of God may come upon the Nation and that we may be all destroyed together And that Satan may not be discovered he hath artificially disguised himself and appears on the Stage transformed into an Angel of Light pleading for the exaltation of the glorious riches of free grace in the Justification of Sinners by the Blood of Christ without all works of any Law whatsoever and with great appearance of Zeal asserting That the freeness of Gods Grace in the Justification of Sinners by Faith in the Blood Merits and satisfaction of Christ cannot possibly be maintained unless it be denyed that true Repentance is antecedently necessary to our obtaining the pardon of our Sins It seems to us that this is Satans Plot against us and that he hath thus disguised himself the better to carry it on and the more effectually to compass his design upon us And this is the more probable because we find that at the beginning of the Reformation Satan plaid the same game when he perceived that by our first Reformers preaching up Justification by Faith only and not by Works many People were induced to separate from the Church of Rome and embrace the Reformation he endeavoured to make them believe that since Sinners are Justified and Pardoned by Faith only and not by Works then there was no necessity that they should repent of their Sins in order to their obtaining the Pardon of them And thus he thought that though they had got their feet loosed out of one of his Snares yet he should still keep them fast in another and lead them Captive at his will That this is so indeed and no Fiction of ours is manifest from the Testimony of Bishop Hooper that blessed faithful and valiant Martyr of Christ who in the Reign of Queen Mary was burnt alive for the Protestant Religion in a slow Fire about the space of three quarters of an hour and sealed the Truth of the Gospel with his blood This Man of God in a Book of his Intituled A Declaration of Christ and his Office Printed at Zurich in the Year 1547. Chap. VII th handling the point of Justification saith This is certain and too true Let the whole Gospel be preached unto the World as it ought to be Repentance and a vertuous Life with Faith as God preached the Gospel unto Adam in Paradise Noah Abraham Moses Isaiah saying Vae Genti Peccatrici c. Isa 1.4 c John the Baptist repent ye for the kingdom of heaven is at hand As Christ did Repent and believe the Gospel Mark 1. and then of an hundred that come to the Gospel there would not come one When they hear sole or only faith and the mercy of God to justify and that they may eat all ments at all times with thanksgiving they embrace that Gospel with all joy and willing heart And what is he that would not receive this Gospel the flesh it self were there no immortal soul in it would receive this Gospel because it promiseth aid help and consolation without Works But now speak of the other part of the Gospel as Paul teacheth Rom. 8.13 If ye live after the flesh ye shall dye And as he prescribeth the life of a Justified man in the same Epistle Chap. 12 13 14 15 16. And Christ Mat. 10. And Peter in the 2 Epistle and 1 Chap. This part of the Gospel is not so pleasant therefore Men take the first liberty c. Thus that blessed Saint who feared neither Man nor Devil but in the true faith and fear of God set himself with a Divine courage and holy boldness to oppose the Devil and all his Instruments to destroy his Kingdome in the World and on the contrary to exalt the Name and Glory of God and to set up Christs Spiritual Kingdom in the hearts and lives of Men. Would to God! that we had many Hoopers amongst us at this day who saith again in the same Chapter not far from the beginning Nothing maketh the cause wherefore this mercy to wit of Justification should be given saving only the death of Christ which is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the only sufficient Price and Gage for sin And although it be necessary and
requisite that in the Justification of a Sinner contrition be present and that necessarily charity and vertuous life must follow yet doth the Scripture attribute onely remission of sin unto the mercy of God which is given onely for the Merits of Christ and received solely by Faith Paul doth not exclude those vertues to be present but he excludeth the merits of those vertues and deriveth the cause of our acceptation into the grace of God onely for Christ. If we could all be so wise and humble as to learn of that holy Man and to follow him as he learned of and followed Christ and his Apostles we might yet defeat Satan as to the foresaid Plot that he is carrying on to ruine us But alas it grieves us to the heart that some Ministers by not watching against that most subtile malicious enemy of God and Man have suffered themselves to be imposed upon so far as to turn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Accusers of the Brethren who stand up for God and Man in opposition to Satan and faithfully tell the People that they must through Grace truly repent of their sins in order to obtain the pardon of them And particularly we are truly sorry that the Authour of the Letter from a Minister in the City c. should have medled in this matter and that he should become Accuser of the Brethren especially of those pious Young Men who gave themselves up to the work of the Ministry in difficult and dangerous times without any visible encouragement thereunto from any thing in this World and also against groat visible discouragements both from the World and the Devil What have those Younger Brethren done to provoke this Brother who is himself also one of the younger sort to become their Accuser Some of us who are Older than they have known several of them these many years and yet never knew any evil by them nor heard any evil of them Since we first knew them it hath to us looked like a Token for good to his People in this Nation that the Lord hath raised up so many young men and hath spirited and to such a degree gifted them for the Ministry under such discouraging circumstances But now after all that God hath done for and by those Brethren notwithstanding the presence of God with them and the blessing of God upon their Labours up starts one who calls himself a Minister in the City and accuses them of being Corrupters of the pure Gospel of Christ of new vamping an Arminian Gospel and obtruding it on the People Let. pag. 10. to the certain peril of their Souls that believe it Yea he raiseth the Charge higher in pag. 13. and saith That Judicious Observers cannot but already perceive a coincidency between their cause and that of those two Pests of the Church Pelagius and Arminius and do fear more when c Here is an high Charge indeed but where is there any evidence for all this One would think that no Man who pretends such relation unto Christ and such seriousness in Christian Religion as this Man doth should dare thus to accuse his Brethren and fellow-Ministers of such horrid Crimes without clear and certain evidence whereby he can prove them guilty For if Men be suffered to accuse one another of atrocious Crimes without being obliged to prove their accusation no Man will be able to preserve his Good Name nor will it be possible for Men to live peaceably together in any Society Civil or Religious This Brother therefore ought to have been made to prove his accusation that the Churches might have been delivered from those young Hereticks if he had proved them to be such Or if he had failed in his proof that the Churches might know what spirit he is of who hath kindled a Fire in the Church by traducing the Ministers of Christ and falsely accusing them of Heresie But some may possibly say Hath he not by his printed Letter proved them guilty of Arminian and Pelagian Heresie To which we answer that no Man of Judgment who reads it can see any such proof in it nor indeed see just cause to harbour any such Thought of them if he but know the Men accused have heard their Doctrine and seen their manner of life and if withal he understand what Pelagianism and Arminianism are It is true he boldly accuses them of Arminianism and Pelagianism and of preaching a new Gospel and to make the simple People believe that his accusation is well grounded he saies that Judicious Observers perceive their cause to be coincident with that of Pelagius c. That they are reserved and do not yet speak out upon such and such points and that they hold such things as are utterly inconsistent with the Freeness of Gods Grace in Justifying Sinners by the Satisfaction and Merits of Christs Blood These things are often affirmed or insinuated throughout the Letter but none of them proved A Monster or a Man of Straw of his own making is set up to represent the Brethren and then he calls upon the People to come and see with what a Spirit of Zeal he hews it all in pieces This is a way of writing that is taking with weak well-meaning People Let. p. 14 15 30. and his holding Repentance not to be necessary in order to the obtaining pardon of sin may be pleasing to Satan and very taking with Hypocrites but no body of Judgment and Understanding can ever think that this is the way to prove the foresaid Accusation in matter of fact For our parts we have diligently considered every Paragraph of his Letter and in it all cannot find one proof of the said Accusation And after all we believe in our consciences that the Brethren accused are innocent of the Crime he lays to their charge Indeed we know assuredly that several of them are innocent thereof and till the contrary be proved and appear we must think so of them all We would have all Men to do so by us in case we were falsely accused and it is but just and reasonable that we do as we would be done by If we should happen to be mistaken as to any of the Brethren whose cause we plead we err on the safer side 1 Cor. 13.5 for charity thinketh no evil True Love will not suffer a Christian heart to entertain a deliberate Thought of his Brother that he is an ill Man or an Heretick without sufficient evidence that he is so We have met with no such evidence either in the aforesaid Letter or any where else and therefore we must still think that the accused Brethren are innocent of the Crime they are charged with and that the Accuser of them if he be a good man yet hath done a very ill thing in standering the Lords Ministers and we heartily pray God to give him repentance and forgiveness for Christs sake And that the World may see and that this Brother himself may see how rash and