opportunity, have sought to break us in pieces, merely because we are not, in their way, all baptized first: I could not, I durst not, forbear to do a little, if it might be, to settle the brethren, and to arm them against the attempts, which also of late they begin to revive upon us. That I deny the ordinance of baptism, or that I have placed one piece of an argument against it, though they feign it, is quite without colour of truth. All I say is, That the church of Christ hath not warrant to keep out of their communion the Christian that is discovered to be a visible saint by the word, the Christian that walketh according to his light with God. I will not make reflections upon those unhandsome brands that my brethren have laid upon me for this, as that I am a machivilian, a man devilish, proud, insolent, presumptuous, and the like, neither will I say as they, The Lord rebuke thee; Words

fitter to be spoken to the devil than a brother. But reader, read and compare; lay aside prejudice and judge. What Mr. Kiffin hath done in the matter I forgive, and love him never the worse, but must stand by my principles because they are peaceable, godly, profitable, and such as tend to the edification of my brother, and as I believe will be justified in the day of judgment.

I have also here presented thee with the opinion of Mr. Henry Jesse, in the case, which providentially I met with as I was coming to London to put my papers to the press; and that it was his judgment is asserted to me, known many years since to some of the Baptists, to whom it was sent, but never yet answered; and will yet be attested if need shall require. Farewell.

Thine in all Christian service, according to my light and power, JOHN BUNYAN.

SIR,

Your seemingly serious reflections upon that part of my plain-hearted confession of faith, which rendereth a reason of my freedom to communicate with those of the saints and faithful who differ from me about water baptism; I have read and considered, and have weighed them so well as my rank and abilities will admit me to do. But finding yours, if I mistake not, far short of a candid replication, I thought [it] convenient, not only to tell you of those impertinencies everywhere scattered up and down in your book; but also, that in my simple opinion, your rigid and church-disquieting principles are not fit for any age and state of the church.

But before I enter the body of your book, give me leave a little to discourse you about your preamble to the same, wherein are two miscarriages unworthy your pretended seriousness, because void of love and humility. The first is, In that you closely disdain my person because of my low descent among men, stigmatising me for a person of THAT rank, that need not to be heeded or attended unto. p. 1.*

* Who is there that reads these revilings of Bunyan for his poverty and mean descent, but must be struck with the unsearchable wisdom of the Almighty. The salvation of the church requires that 'GOD should be manifest in the flesh.' Does he appear in his glory? Does he honour riches, and power, and wisdom, by descending in one of these classes? No; the poor, the despised in this world, claim kindred with him-'Is not this the carpenter's son ?' 'Have any of the rulers or pharisees believed on him?' Even with these examples before them, his Baptist ministerial brethren, who sat at

VOL. II.

Answ. What it is that gives a man reverence with you, I know not; but for certain, He that despiseth the poor reproacheth his Maker; yet, ‘a poor man is better than a liar.' To have gay clothing, or gold rings, or the persons that wear them in admiration; or to be partial in your judgment, or respects, for the sake, or upon the account of, flesh and blood, doubtless convicteth you to be of the law a transgressor, and not without partiality, &c., in the midst of your seeming sanctity.

Again, you say, 'I had not meddled with the controversy at all, had I found any of parts that would divert themselves to take notice of you.' p. 2. Answ. What need you, before you have shewed one syllable of a reasonable argument in opposition to what I assert, thus trample my person, my Read Ps. i. gifts, and grace, have I any, so disdain1,2.t fully under your feet? What kind of a YOU am I? And why is MY rank so mean, that the most gracious and godly among you, may not duly and soberly consider of what I have said? Was it not the art of the false apostles of old to

his feet when he came to London, and listened to his eloquence, now, in their hot dispute, revile and taunt him with his imprisonment-his poverty-his want of book learning. Refused the communion of some eminent earthly saints, it drove him to closer communion with his God, and the prison became a Bethel-none other than the house of God, and the very gate of heaven; and in a holy, happy frame of soul, he breathes forgiveness: 'What Mr. Kiffin hath done in the matter I forgive, and love him never the worse'!!-ED.

How do these verses cut down all the carnal pride of man. Who is THE BLESSED? not the rich, or powerful, or worldly wise, but those that delight in the word of God.--ED. 41

27, 28.

As for my confession of faith, which you also secretly despise. p. 1. If it be good and godly, why may it not be accepted? If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou me? If you, and the brethren of your way, did think it convenient to shew to the world what you held; if perhaps by that means you might escape the prison: why might not I, after above eleven years' endurance there, give the world a view of my faith and practice; if peradventure, wrong thoughts, and false judgments of me, might by that means be abated, and removed. But you suggest; I did it, because I was so willing to be known in the world by my SINGULAR faith and practice.* How singular my faith and practice is, may be better known to you hereafter: but that I did it for a popular applause and fame, as your words seem to bear, for they proceed from a taunting spirit, that will be known to you better in the day of God, when your evil surmises of your brother, and my designs in writing my book, will be published upon the house-tops. Lu. xii. 1—4.

And even now, before I go any further, I will give you a touch of the reason of my publishing that part thereof which you so hotly oppose. It was because of those continual assaults that the rigid brethren of your way, made, not only upon this congregation, to rend it; but also upon many others about us. If peradventure they might break us in pieces, and draw from us disciples after them. Assaults, I say, upon this congregation by times, for no less than these sixteen or eighteen years. Yea, myself they have sent for, and endeavoured to persuade me to break communion with my brethren; also with many others they have often tampered, if haply their seeds of division might take. Neither did they altogether fail of their purpose, for some

* Nearly all the Baptist churches of that day limited communion to them who had been baptized in water on a profession of their faith. It is very different now; Bunyan's principles have spread, are spreading, and must soon become

universal.-ED.

The judgment of God so following their design, that the persons which then they prevailed upon, are now a stink, and reproach to religion. Neither were these spirits content with that discord they did sow among us, but they proceeded to seize upon others. But to pass these. The wild, and unsound positions they have urged to maintain their practice, would be too large here to insert. Now, Sir, to settle the brethren, the brethren of our community, and to prevent such disorders among others, was the cause of my publishing my papers: and considering my concern in the house of God, I could do no less than to give them warning, 'That every man might deliver his soul.'

You proceed, saying, 'It is my liberty, as well as others into whose hands it falls, to weigh what you have said in truth's balance, and if it be found too light, to reject it whether you will or no.'

Answ. Do but grant me, without mocking of me, the liberty you desire to take, and God helping me, I desire no more [than] to shift for myself among you. As to your saying, that I proudly and imperiously insult, because I say they are babes and carnal, that attempt to break the peace and communion of churches, though upon better pretences than water.' You must know I am still of that mind, and shall be, so long as I see the effects that follow, viz. The breach of love, taking off Christians from the more weighty things of God; and to make them quarrel and have heartburnings one against another.

Where you are pleased to charge me with raging, for laying those eighteen particular crimes to the charge of such who exclude Christians from church communion, and debar them their heavenborn privileges, for the want of that, which yet God never made the wall of division between us. p. 116. I say, when you can prove, That God hath made water baptism that wall, and that the stress of the after eighteen charges lie wholly and only in that; then you may, time enough, call my language such as wanteth charity: but I question though that was granted, whether your saying, I RAGE, will be justified in the day of judgment.

My great noise, as you call it, about an initiating ordinance, you say, you shall take no notice of. p. 3.

Answ. 1. Although you do not, I must: For if baptism be not that, but another; and if visible saints may enter into fellowship by that other, and are nowhere forbidden so to do, because they have not light into water baptism: it is of weight to be considered by me; yea, and of others too who are unprejudiced. 2. How ignorant you are of such as hold it the initiating ordinance I know not: nor how long you have been of that persuasion I

Sir, did you not answer these things? but slip them with others, as if you were unconcerned; troubling your reader with such kind of insinuations, as must needs be unsavoury to godly ears. You make the moral law none of Christ's but Moses'; not the son's but the servant's; and tell me, because I plead for faith and holiness, according to moral duties gospelized, (they are my words, p. 79.) whereby we ought to judge of the fitness of members; that therefore Moses is more beholden to me than Christ. p.6.

Sir, know you not yet, that a difference is to be put betwixt those rules that discover the essentials of holiness, and those that in themselves are not such; and that that of faith and the moral law is the one, and baptism, &c. the other. Is not love to God, abhorrence of idols, to forbear blaspheming, to honour our parents, to do no murder, to forbear theft, not to bear false witness, nor covet, &c. are not (I say) these the precepts of the Lord Jesus, because delivered by Moses? Or, are these such as may better be broken, than for want of light to forbear baptism with water? Or, doth a man while he liveth in the neglect of these, and in the mean time bustle about those you call gospel commands, most honour Christ, or best fit himself for fellowship with the saints? Need I tell you, That the faith of Christ, with the ten commandments, are as much now gospel commands as baptism; and ought to be in as much, and far more respect with the holy ones than that, or other the like.*

Yea, shall I tell you, That baptism will neither admit a man into fellowship, nor keep him there, if he be a transgressor of a moral precept; and that a man who believeth in Jesus, and fulfilleth the royal law, doth more glorify God, and honour religion in the world, than he that keepeth, if there were so many, ten thousand figurative laws. As to those commands that respect God's instituted worship in a church, as a church, I have told you that baptism is none of them, and you have been driven to confess it [p. 40. of your book]. The church then must first look to faith, then to good living according to the ten commandments; after that she must respect those appointments of our Lord Jesus that respects her outward order and discipline, and then she walks as becomes her, sinning if she neglecteth either; sinning if she overvalueth either. But why did you not answer those texts I produced for the strengthening of my argument, viz. Ro. xiv. 17, 18. De. xxvii. 47. Ja. ii. 8–12. 1 Co. ix. 21; v. 9—11. Ga. vi. 15, 16. Phi. iii. 1 Ti. i. 9—11. Ac. xx. 28-32. Ro. xiii, 13. Ja, iv. 11. 1 Co. v. 12. Deal fairly; Answer those texts, with the argument made upon

* A modern writer, in a critique on Bunyan, says that he did as much justice to grace as his Calvinism would allow him! May all the world be such Calvinists.-ED.

them; and when you have after a godly manner done that, you may the more boldly condemn.

You tell me, that in p. 93. of mine, I say, 'None ever received baptism without light therein.' What if I did? (as I did not) but you grant it: and now I will ask you, and pray deal fairly in your answer. May a man be a visible saint without light therein? May he have a good conscience without light therein? And seeing that baptism is none of the worship that Christ instituted in his church for them to practice as a church, must he be kept dark about all other things concerning the worship of God in his church, until he receive light therein?

You have answered already, p. 7. That they ought to be ashamed, and to repent of that abomination (their sprinkling) BEFORE they come to have a sight of the pattern of the house of God, the goings in and the comings out thereof.' Eze. xliii. 10, 11. But, Sir, where do you find that want of light in water baptism, or because a man hath been sprinkled, that he is to be kept dark in all other temple-institutions, till he be ashamed and repent of that? Pray produce the texts, for Ezekiel helps you nothing: he speaks only of the pattern of the house, the goings out, and comings in thereof. As for the coming in, you have already confessed, That baptism is not the entering ordinance. And as for the worship that Christ hath instituted in his church, as a church, I say, (and you also have said it, p. 40.) baptism is none of the forms thereof, none of the ordinances thereof, none of the laws thereof; for baptism is, as to the practice of it, that which is without the church, without the house of God. Then by your own text, if a man do repent him of his christening in his childhood, he may be received into fellowship without submitting to baptism: but I will not strain you too far.

You add, Is it a person's light that giveth being to a precept?'

Answ. Who said it? Yet it is his light and faith about it, that can make him to do it acceptably.

You ask again, 'Suppose men plead want of light in other commands?'

Answ. If they be not such, the forbearance of which, discapacitates him of membership, he may yet be received to fellowship.

'But what if a man want light in the supper?' p.7. Answ. There is more to be said in that case than in the other: for that is a part of that wor ship which Christ hath instituted for his church,