Part of a

FOURTH LETTER

FOR

TOLERATION, &c.

SIR,

A

Fresh revival of the Controverfie formerly between you and me, is what I fuppofe no body did expect from you after twelve Years filence. But Reputation (a fufficient cause for a new War) as you give the world to understand, hath put Refolution into your Heart, and Arms into your Hands to make an Example of me, to the Shame and Confufion of all those who could be fo injurious to you, as to think you could quit the Opinion you had appear'd for in Print, and agree with me in the matter of Toleration. 'Tis vifible how tender even Men of the most settled Calmness, are in point of Reputation,

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and 'tis allow'd the most excufable part of human Frailty; and therefore no body can wonder to fee a report thought injurious labour'd against with might and main, and the Affiftance and Caufe of Religion itself taken in and made ufe of to put a stop to it. But yet for all this there are fober Men who are of Opinion, that it better becomes a Chriftian Temper that Difputes, especially of Religion, fhould be waged purely for the fake of Truth, and not for our own: Self fhould have nothing to do in them. But fince as we fee it will croud it felf in, and be often the principal Agent, your ingenuity in owning what has brought you upon the Stage again, and fet you on work, after the ease and quiet you refolutely maintain'd your felf in fo many Years, ought to be commended, in giving us a view of the discreet choice you have made of a method fuited to your purpose, which you publish to the World in thefe words, p. 2. Being defirous to put a stop to a Report fo injurious (as well as groundless) as I look upon this to be, I think it will be no improper way of doing it, if I thus fignifie to you and the Reader, that I find nothing more convincing in this your long Letter, than I did in your two former; giving withall a brief Specimen of the answerableness of it. Which I choose to do upon a few Pages at the begin

ing, where you have placed your greatest Strength, or at least fo much of it, as you think fufficient to put an end to this Controverfie.

Here we have your Declaration of War, of the grounds that mov'd you to it, and of your compendious way to affured Vi&tory; which I must own is very new and very remarkable. You choose a few Pages out of the beginning of my third Letter in these, you say, I have placed my greatest Strength. So that what I have there faid being baffled, it gives you a juft triumph over my whole long Letter; and all the rest of it being but pitiful, weak, impertinent Stuff, is, by the overthrow of this forlorn hope, fully confuted.

This is called anfwering by Specimen. A new way, which the World owes to your Invention, an evidence that whilft you faid nothing you did not fpare thinking. And indeed it was a noble Thought, a Stratagem, which I believe fcarce any other but your felf would have found out in a Meditation of twice twelve Years, how to anfwer Arguments without faying a word to them, or so much as reciting them; and by examining fix or feven Pages in the beginning of a Book, reduce to nothing above three hundred Pages of it that follow. This is indeed a decifive ftroke that lays all flat

before

before you. Who can stand against such a Conqueror, who by barely attacking of one, kills an hundred? This would certainly be an admirable way, did it not degrade the Conqueror, whose business is to do; and turn him into a meer talking Gazetteer, whose boasts are of no confequence. For after flaughter of Foes, and routing of Armies by fuch a dead-doing Hand, no body thinks it ftrange to find them all alive again fafe and found upon their Feet, and in a pofture of defending themselves. The event, in all forts of Controverfies, hath of ten better inftructed those who have, without bringing it to trial, prefumed on the weakness of their Adverfaries. However, this which you have fet up, of confuting without arguing, cannot be deny'd to be a ready way, and well thought on to fet you up high, and your Reputation fecure in the thoughts of your believing Readers, if that be (as it feems it is) your business. But, as I take it, tends not at all to the informing their Understandings, and making them fee the Truth and grounds it stands on. That perhaps is too much for the profane Vulgar to know; it is enough for them that you know it for them,and have affured them, that you can, when you please to condescend fo far, confound all that any one offers against your Opinion. An implicit Faith of your

being in the right, and afcribing Victory to you, even in points whereof you have faid nothing, is that which fome fort of Men think most useful, and fo their Followers have but Tongues for their Champion to give him the Praise and Authority he aims at, 'tis no matter whether they have any Eyes for themselves to fee on which fide the Truth lies. Thus methinks you and I both find our account in this Controverfie under your management; you in fetting your Reputation fafe from the blemish it would have been to it that you were brought over to my Opinion; and I in feeing (if you will forgive me fo prefumptuous a word) that you have left my Caufe fafe in all thofe parts you have faid nothing to, and not very much damaged in that part you have attacked, as I hope to fhew the indifferent Reader. You enter upon your Specimen, p. 2. by minding me that I tell you, "That I doubt not "but to let you fee that if you will be true to your own Principles, and stand "to to what you have faid, you must carry your fome degrees of Force to all thofe degrees which in words you declare againft, even to the Difcipline of Fire and Faggot." And you fay, if I make my word good; you affure me you will carry a Faggot your felf to the burning what you have written for fo unmerciful and outragious a Difcipline: