as to the understanding, and only take on them to err when they do not but the consequent is certainly false; therefore so is the antecedent.

O what a difference is there between God's language and yours. The Scripture saith that they are given up to believe a lie. (2 Thess. ii. 11.) You say, it is but a desire and pretence to believe a lie, but they cannot believe it. The Scripture saith, that they err, deceive, and are deceived, their understandings are darkened, blinded, &c. Your doctrine makes them not to err, nor be blinded, or deceived, but only to desire it, and pretend it, making themselves worse than they are. For so far as a man erreth, he knoweth not that he erreth. Christ saith of unbelievers that indeed they " Believe not.” (Matt. xxi. 25; John v. 38, 47; vi. 36, 64; viii. 24, 25; x. 26; xvi. 9; 2 Cor. iv. 4; John x. 25. But you make it as if they did believe, and would not confess it.

Yet further, I pray you see whether you accuse not the Lord Jesus for using the same phrase which you accuse me for, that "Men will not be convinced, or believe." (Luke xx. 67.) "The elders, priests, and scribes, led him to their councils, and said, art thou the Christ? tell us: and he said unto them, if I tell you, you will not believe: except ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe." (John iv. 48.) You see, Christ saith, "They will not believe," as well as I.

And you see here that he determineth the main cause against you about the sin against the Holy Ghost, while he tells you that the pharisees believed not; and therefore did not oppose the known or believed truth. Of which more anon.

Mr. L. Thirdly, I demand: are miracles a convincing way of revealing Jesus Christ? Were the Jews that saw them, really convinced, or not? If not, then they do not sin against the Holy Ghost, which are not convinced by them. For, as himself saith, no man was bound to believe that which was never convincingly revealed; if they be a convincing means, and if those Jews which saw Christ's miracles were really convinced, and yet opposed Christ's kingdom, then human nature is capable of sinning against the Holy Ghost in that way that our divines have defined the sin; that is maliciously, after the knowledge of the truth. And so did those Jews sin by the testimony of that very text which Mr. B. allegeth for his opinion. (John xv. 24.) They hated Christ after they had seen and known him. It is not an act incompatible with the

rational soul, as he supposeth, to hate God and Christ, whom we have seen and known.

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Reply 1. The words "convincing way," is ambiguous. Either it meaneth" an objective sufficiency to convince, in suo genere," and so they are a convincing means. Or it meaneth " jective sufficiency in regard of the whole sort of objects." Or an universal sufficiency in omni causarum genere." Or 66 actual convincing." The three last I deny, as I affirm the first. 2. But you seem to mean it of actual conviction, or else you would never make your second question of equal importance, viz. "Whether the Jews were really convinced?" To which I say, "Those that blasphemed the Holy Ghost, were not then convinced."

3. I was not so far beside myself, as to intend by that saying which you recite, that "No man was bound to believe that which he was not actually convinced of," but "that which had not objective evidence in suo genere, sufficient to convince;" else I should have said, "That no man is bound to believe but he that doth believe; which, methinks, should seem no sweet morsel to any ordinary understanding."

4. They are a convincing means, and yet the Jews were not then really convinced by them, nor some of them ever.

5. You do not fairly change or obscure the case in controversy: whether ever any of those Jews had believed before, and after fell from it, I never determined, but the thing that I affirmed is, that at that time when they sinned against the Holy Ghost, they believed not the doctrine of Christ to be true, and so did not persecute the then known truth. Now you talk of "hating Christ whom they had known, and after they had known him ;" but the question is whether they knew him.

6. Nor is it all knowledge that is in question; but whether they then knew him to be the Son of God, and the Messiah, and his doctrine to be true.

7. Christ doth not say, as you feign him to say, (John xv. 24,) that they had known him; he only saith," they had seen;" that is, his great works and person, and hated him and his Father when he expressly said, (ver. 22,) that they will persecute his disciples, "Because they knew not him that sent him."

8. It was such ill, unfriendly dealing as, by a strange unhappiness, I meet with from other learned, pious divines, that this

reverend man should here publish to the world, among his list of errors and heresies, that "I suppose it an act incompatible with the rational soul, to hate God and Christ, whom we have seen and known:" a mere forgery; never such a passage that I know of, did fall from my pen or or tongue. This strange yet common untruth and injustice makes me resolve yet less to give credit to all that good and sober men shall say of the party that their zeal is kindled against, in the heat of their oblivious disputations. The words that I wrote were these: "That which some divines judge to be the sin against the Holy Ghost, (an opposing the known truth only out of malice against it,) it is a question, whether human nature be capable of; and whether all human opposition to truth be not through ignorance, or prevalence of the sensual lusts; and so all malice against truth, is against it only as conceived to be falsehood, or else, as it appeareth an enemy to our sensual desires. So that I think none can be guilty of malice against truth as truth." And is this the same that I am feigned to suppose? I do affirm not only that it is possible to hate that Christ and God, whom a man hath formerly known, but also, whom at present he doth, in a common sort, know to be the only God and Christ; yea, and that all wicked men and infidels do so; which is clean contrary to that which I am feigned to hold: but I say, that this hatred is not of truth as truth, or of good as good; and this I should have thought I need not, against excellent reformed divines to have been put to prove.

As for Mr. Lyford's confirmation of his opinion from Heb. vi. and x., valeat quantum valere potest; I shall leave the reader to judge of it as he seeth cause, for I see nothing that I should stand to reply to, or that can prejudice the cause that I maintain; only let the reader, 1. Observe what I have before said on the same texts. 2. And observe that Mr. L. still puts the case of "malicious persecuting the truth which was once known," or else confoundeth it with the other, when the thing denied it; that "all that sin against the Holy Ghost, do maliciously persecute the truth, which they then know or believe, when they persecute or hate it, or that any do hate the truth as truth."

If I had said, as Mr. L. doth, that these apostates had "tasted the heavenly gift of justification," how many tongues and pens would have let fly at me; as experience in a better cause hath told me.

The last section against me is in confutation of these words of mine: "I think none can be guilty of malice against truth as truth; and to be at enmity with truth because it is an enemy to our sensual desires, is a sin that every man in the world is in some measure guilty of, therefore not the true definition of the sin against the Holy Ghost."

Mr. L. "He that doth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved." (John iii. 20.) "Some of the Jews both saw and hated both Christ and his Father," (John xv. 24.) "Cain hated his brother, because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous." Now to hate the light because of its intrinsical properties, namely, to discover and reprove men's evil deeds; to malice the truth because it is an enemy to my lie; to hate my brother because his works be righteous, and my own evil; what is this short of opposing the truth because it is truth?"

Reply 1. You speak full enough against your own cause. He that hateth the light eo nomine, as it reproveth his evil deeds, hates it not as light; for to reprove his evil deeds is an effect of it, and not convertible with light. Besides, the very metaphorical term of light signifieth not truth as truth, but truth as discovering, and so as effecting. What doth this text say, but the very same which I affirmed, that there is a hatred of truth, as it is an enemy to our carnal or sensual desires? The same man may love the truth as truth, yea, and as it discovereth his brother's faults, or any thing that he would know.

2. Did ever good expositor, on John iii. 20, think, that all that hated the light lest his deeds should be reproved, did sin the unpardonable sin?

3. Of John xv. 24, I have spoken already. Of Cain's hating his brother, I say, that he hated him because his works were righteous, crossing and reproving his own evil works. But that righteousness was not hated sub ratione formali aut boni aut veri, not as good, or as truth, but as apprehended evil. Veritas qui veritas, or bonum, qua bonum cannot here be hated by

man.

4. Whatever man hateth is hated by him sub ratione mali; this is certain, from the definition of hatred. But the ratio formalis boni, or veri, is not the ratio formalis mali; therefore whatever man hateth, it is not hated by him sub ratione boni aut veri.

Yea, verum and ens are so proper objects of the understanding,

and bonum of the will, that in quantum apparent, they are embraced by human nature as such. And whenever truth or good is hated, it is only as apprehended either not true, and not good, but evil in itself, or as evil to the person, by depriving him of some dearer appearing good. These things I thought had been unquestionable, and yet I was so modest as but to say, "I thought thus:" I may next be enrolled among the heretics, by some zealous orthodox man, for saying that I think a man is a reasonable creature, and I think on the like grounds.

Mr. L. "But if you spitefully oppose truth, and cast reproaches upon it, only because it appears an enemy to your sensual lusts, especially if it be after illumination, and tasting and professing the good word of God; this is no excuse, but rather a manifestation of this great sin; because such a person doth tread Jesus Christ and his covenant of grace under foot; he treads him under all these base lusts which he prefers before him. And thus to oppose truth, by Mr. B.-'s leave, I think very few men in the world are guilty of."

Reply. If by truth here you mean only that Jesus is the Christ, or the truth of christian religion, or its essentials, the reproaching of this, by apostates, I have spoken of more at large before in this discourse, to which I shall refer the reader. But that is not the case in hand.

2. I have proved, and shall further prove, that the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is not only the sin of such as have believed, or professed belief; no, nor the sin of any that believe while they do believe, and so not of a believer in sensu composito ; for it is an aggravated species of unbelief. Though yet it is sometimes the sin of those that were once some kind of believers.

3. But if you speak of all truth in general, I still say, that it is a common case, maliciously to oppose the truth, because it is against men's lusts. For 1. All men's nature hath in it a hatred of God, and his holy truth and way. 2. That which men hate, "they maliciously hate in this case. 3. And they that so hate it may oppose it, and actually resist the Holy Ghost in the ministry, and at their hearts. 4. The godly are cured of this but in part. 5. These sad days of faction do commonly proclaim it of abundance of professors, who so reproach that truth which is against the interest of their party.

4. Yea, if you mean it of the power of godliness, or practical truth, or yet of Christianity itself, if you will prove that all who maliciously oppose the latter before profession of Christianity,