PREFACE.

§ 1. HAVING read through the work of the Reverend T. PREF. Tully, Doctor of Divinity, which he has entitled "Justification as taught by St. Paul," (Justificatio Paulina,) I confess I was completely overcome with astonishment. It is nearly five years since I heard, from persons whom I could trust, that he had undertaken and begun an answer to the tract called "Harmonia Apostolica." All of us therefore who had entertained a fair opinion of his learning, were expecting that from such an author, after so long an interval, some excellent work would at last come forth: or (if the barren and unfruitful cause which he had undertaken to defend would hardly allow of this) something certainly which might carry with it the appearance of a fair and full answer. Forsooth the lines of the poet had occurred to us—

Could man's right hand have in Troy's cause prevailed
Here was a hand for Troy that had not failed.

At any rate we were expecting from the well-known kindness
and piety of the man a candid and courteous answer, and
further, one which would throughout breathe a spirit of
sincerity and Christian love.

:

§ 2. But every thing has turned out contrary to my expectation for not one entire chapter or paragraph has the reverend gentleman gone through of a book which he wished to have the credit of having examined most accurately, and in which he therefore expressly informs his reader that nothing of any moment had knowingly been passed over by him: the only place in which he appears to have accomplished any thing of the kind, is in the argument concerning the meaning of St. Paul in the seventh chapter to the Romans, in which he answers the ninth chapter of my second Dissertation. And even how here he has really accomplished nothing

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General character of Dr. Tully's work.

PREF. will plainly appear when we come to treat of that place. By far the greatest number of my arguments, and those of the greatest importance, he very prudently passes over in silence; and the answers which he makes to the very few he just lightly touches upon, I had already abundantly refuted; and yet he again brings forward these same, almost without any additional support. He himself uses arguments to which I had given sufficient satisfaction, keeping back from his reader in no fair way my solutions to them. He merely examines the digressions of my work, and, as if he were leaping about on the extremities of branches, he here and there catches at a few little points liable to his bite. Lastly, (and what is worst of all,) he puts words and opinions in my mouth just as he pleases, which are no where to be found in my work, and of which I never even dreamed, and with these phantoms he strenuously carries on the battle. He also miserably pares away and mutilates my words, which if they were given in their full sense would suffice for their own acquittal, and tragedias thence he gets up wonderful pathetic stories fastening upon me I know not what absurdities and heresies. If the Doctor's strophis book teem not on all sides with such tricks as these, I am content to pass for a greater liar than a Cretan. Forsooth this is his way of thoroughly refuting the 'Harmonist,' as he calls him by such artifices as these (which ill become a serious man, not to say a Doctor of Divinity) he gets up his illustrious triumph over his adversaries.

larvis

§ 3. But what, I ask, can you do with a book made up of fine words and empty pieces of rhetoric, of tragical sayings in no way belonging to the subject, of sophistry, sarcasms, and (to speak the truth) such manifest calumnies? For my own part, I remained long in doubt whether it would not be better to let the book go without any answer, until some pious and learned friends to whose judgment I owe much, suggested to me that there was need of some answer, lest in any point I might seem wanting to so excellent a cause, and that the book might not become a snare to the more simple and less educated, and do them injury by the deception of lenociniis its sophistry, and its plausible language. They also added, that one ought to look to the credit and reputation of our most renowned theologians, and, further, of the much

The Harmonist not the only one attacked in it. 227

revered prelates of our Church, since it requires no great PREF. wisdom to see that however unimportant a person I may be myself, they are wounded through my sides. For the reverend gentleman has taken occasion from my book (which it by no means afforded) to complain openly and before foreigners of the religion of our forefathers being innovated on by us, and that too by those who call themselves most devoted sons of the Church of England, and who are now occupants both of our press and pulpits: he complains also of noxious dogmas which are disseminated on all sides by these same men, and this not only with impunity, but even (as he very often and plainly insinuates) with the favour and approbation of their superiors.

§ 4. Thus spurred on, I immediately took up my pen to apologize not so much for the Harmonist (whom I could easily endure to see despised, abused, and trampled on by any one) as for the Fathers and most learned theologians of our Church, against whom the reverend gentleman has taken upon himself so free a licence of declaiming and at the same time to expose, candidly, sincerely, and thoroughly, the real cause of all this ado. And if any where in this defence I am rather stringent, as is often the case, on the Doctor, this must be imputed to the indignity and atrocity of the matter, which could not be animadverted upon without satire. I hope, however, that by the grace of God I have so mastered my feelings, although justly roused, that nothing has escaped from my pen in the warmth and speed of writing, which may seem to have exceeded the limits either of the exact truth, or (all things duly weighed) of Christian meekness and humility, or in short, to use the words of casuistry, the moderation of a guarded innocence. However, that the reader may know what to expect in this answer, I may say that I have only followed the Doctor, step by step, up to the end of the fourth chapter; since in the four first chapters he may have appeared to some especially to have triumphed, and to have completely crushed the poor Harmonist, by the authority both of the ancient, our own, and the rest of the reformed Churches. And of those points which here and there in the other chapters, after having lengthily refuted or rather grumbled at, first Bellarmine and then Baxter, are directed

228

Invidiousness of the title of the book.

PREP. by him against the author of the Harmony, one meets with hardly any thing of consequence which has not been already abundantly refuted in the Examen. Wherefore, not to go over old ground, I shall leave those chapters untouched. I shall in the last place examine with greater accuracy the short Dissertation which he has added on the meaning of St. Paul in Rom. vii., on which point our former critic had found no fault with us. With these few remarks by way of preface, let us (and may it be with good success) enter upon our Apology.

p. 5.

p. 76.

SECTION I.

ON THE TITLE OF THE BOOK.

§ 1. I begin with the title of the book. And here what do I hear? "The doctrine of justification as taught by St. Paul &c., maintained against recent innovators." An odious expression, with which he has taken care that his opponents should be branded in the very title-page of his book, so that he might by this method gain the hatred of those unacquainted with them, and might keep credulous persons, prejudiced by this imputation, from a true investigation of the matter: he speaks in the plural too, that all may know that this invective is not directed against me alone, but that very many others in our Church, of the same opinions as myself, are also censured. And that there might be no doubt concerning his meaning, he complains loudly and mournfully in his Preface, "That the Church of England, attacked on all sides, traduced in the streets, the pulpits, and the press, seemed as it were to be dragged behind a triumphal car;" and in the same place he says that he is speaking of what is well known. He elsewhere says that the truth which he defends is not only abused and laughed at by Socinians and Papists, but even by those "who perfidiously serving the interest of one or other of these parties, shamelessly take to themselves the title of Sons of the Church of England ;" and he adds in the same passage, "that he speaks of what is the common theme every where in every pulpit and press.

§ 2. What foreigner is there who in reading these words