wherein notwithstanding he persists in his former sentence, and condemnes again of wickednesse, either ignorantly or wilfully, not onely Martin Bucer, and all the choisest and holiest of our Reformers, but the whole Parlament and Church of England in those best and purest times of Edward the sixth. All which I shall prove with good evidence, at the end of those Explanations. And then let it be judg'd and seriously consider'd with what hope the affairs of our Religion are committed to one among others, who hath now onely left him which of the twain he will choose, whether this shall be his palpable ignorance, or the same wickedness of his own book, which he so lavishly imputes to the writings of other men: and whether this of his, that thus peremptorily defames and attaints of wickedness unspotted Churches, unblemisht Parlaments, and the most eminent restorers of Christian Doctrine, deserve not to be burnt first. And if his heat had burst out onely against the opinion, his wonted passion had no doubt bin silently born with wonted patience. But since, against the charity of that solemne place and meeting, it serv'd him furder to inveigh opprobriously against the person, branding him with no lesse then impudence, onely for setting his name to what he had writt'n; I must be excus'd not to be so wanting to the defence of an honest name, or to the reputation of those good men who afford me their society, but to be sensible of such a foule endeavour'd disgrace: not knowing ought either in mine own deserts, or the Laws of this Land, why I should be subject, in such a notorious and illegal manner, to the intemperancies of this mans preaching choler. And indeed to be so prompt and ready in the midst of his humblenesse, to tosse reproaches of this bulk and size, argues as if they were the weapons of his exercise, I am sure not of his Ministry, or of that dayes work. Certainly to subscribe my name at what I was to own, was what the State had order'd and requires. And he who lists not to be malicious, would call it ingenuity, cleer conscience, willingness to avouch what might be question'd, or to be better instructed. And if God were so displeas'd with those, Isa. 58. who on the solemne fast were wont to smite with the fist of wickednesse, it could be no signe of his own humiliation accepted, which dispos'd him to smite so keenly with a reviling tongue. But if onely to have writ my name must be counted impudence, how doth this but justifie another, who might affirm with as good warrant, that the late Discourse of Scripture and Reason, which is certain to be chiefly his own draught, was publisht without a name, out of base fear, and the sly avoidance of what might follow to his detriment, if the party at Court should hap to reach him. And I, to have set my name, where he accuses me to have set it, am so far from recanting, that I offer my hand also if need be, to make good the same opinion which I there maintain, by inevitable consequences drawn parallel from his own principal arguments in that of Scripture and son
