01.01 Personal Remarks

Chapter I Personal Remarks The first place in which I find you naming me is in page 75 of the first edition of the first part of your Gangraena. There you have these words: "The full relation of the Time-serving, and Innovations of Den, Cox, Ellis of Colchester, Dr. Holms, Saltmarsh, Cummius, Wale of Norfolk, cum multis aliis, would make a new Book."

Seilicet, You could easily fill a new Book, as you have done this, with false and slanderous accusations of such Time-Serving and innovations, as we are as truly guilty of as Naboth was of Blasphemy. No wonder that you were so free in your promise to write books so frequently, being so stored with matter.

Many Former Bishops Turned Presbyterians The next and last place in which I find you mentioning me, is in pages 95 and 96, of the same Book, where your words are these: "One Mr. Cox, who came out of Devonshire, &c."

What is the reason of this alteration? Before it was Den, Cox, Ellis, &c. Now, One Mr. Cox, &c. It seems at last that you remembered that I had sometimes been a man of your own coast; a Reverend Bishop, whom you and some others have now metamorphosed into a Presbyter, having laid his hand on my head as well as yours, and therefore now it is Mr. Cox. If I could handsomely claw you, following the example of the Epistles that you have printed, calling you, Good Mr. EDWARDS, Worthy Sir, Reverend Sir, &c. it where then probable that I should still be Mr. Cox, at every word. But as I account it no dishonor to be degraded or slighted by your Pen, so neither do I account it any honor to have from you any title implying respect, it being so familiar with you to contemn them that fear God, and to honor vile persons.

You add: "An Innovator, and great Time-Server in the Bishops’ time." Here you speak of me as truly, and as charitably, as Tertullus spoke of Paul, when he said of him, "We have found this man a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world, and a Ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes," Acts 24:5. Touching your numbering me here among those whom you are pleased to call Sectaries, (for so you do) you are no more able to prove me a Sectary, then Tertullus was able to prove Paul to be the ringleader of a sect. My true and direct answer hereunto shall not be much unlike to Paul’s, in Acts 25:14, "After the way which they call Heresy (or Sect) so worship I the God of Israel, believing all things that are written in the Scriptures." Touching Innovations, I shall hear more from you, and you from me, by and by. No Time-Serving Stood Alone Against Profane Sports on the Lord’s Day

Touching my Time-Serving, it partly appeared when I lived in London, in the year 1618, when that base and licentious Pamphlet, that proclaimed liberty for profane sports on the Lord’s Day, came forth in King James’ name, then (according as my conscience directed me) both in the public Meeting-House of great Alballows, where I was then Lecturer, and also at Paul’s cross, I did in my public Preaching openly and earnestly reprove and condemn, as profane and hateful, those things to which liberty and commendation was given in that Pamphlet. So that it was admired at, that the Persecutions of those times did not then violently seize upon me.

Reproves Scandalous Ministers and Ungodly Society

Afterwards when I was Lecturer at Barstaple, (which was the first place in Devonshire that I lived in) my time-serving farther appeared by my open and sharp reproving of my Fellow-Ministers (as we then called one another) for their scandalous life, their not Preaching, and their preaching loose and false doctrine. Whereby I incurred the hatred of the Profane and Prelatical crew. That hatred appeared also by my reproving and condemning of their Doctrine, who hold bare Reading to be that Preaching which is required of a Minister, and by my justifying that Reproof, when I was questioned for it, and by my renewing and confirming of the same in a public Sermon, when a Recantion was required and expected. It appeared also by my bold declaring of the intolerable baseness of Stage-Players, (though then going about with the King’s license) and my sharp reproving of the Magistrates for suffering them, and of others for seeing their Plays, and countenancing them, whereby I exceeding angered the profane Gentry in the adjacent parts of the country, and the profane ones in the Town, both Magistrates and others. For which also I was convented before Bishop Carey, but never yielded to any acknowledgment of any fault herein, or any relinquishing of my opposing of that baseness. It like appeared by my open reproving of the Magistrates, for their suffering Whoredom, Adultery, Drunkenness and Profane Swearing to so much unpunished, and by my continual standing up for Godly persons and their ways which did then lie under the contempt and reproach of the world.

These things were not done in a corner, neither can they be denied by my very enemies, which knew me at that time.

Leaves Barstaple At my going off from Barstaple, I showed my Time-Serving, and Self-Seeking, by my leaving of that place, for another of less profit and less honor in the eye of the world, which was a place near Credition in the same Country of Devon, where I remained till my conscience would not permit me to possess any such place nay longer. To that place I then conceived myself to be called, not by the call of so many Pounds per annum, but by the desire and necessity of the people there.

Preaching Against Arminianism

There my Temporizing did in like manner appear, by my preaching constantly against the Arminian errors, not withstanding the King’s Directions to the contrary, and against the profanation of the Lord’s Day, notwithstanding King Charles’ reviving of the base Pamphlet aforespoken of, (which Pamphlet the Ministers about me did publicly read, yet I neither read it myself, neither was it read by any other for me).

Against Alter-Worship My Temporizing was further seen by my preaching against Altar-Worship, and against divers other evils which that time did favor, which my soul did (and still does) abhor.

Episcopal Prelacy a Human Thing

There in my latter time, my Temporizing did more fully appear by my preaching, that Episcopal Prelacy was a human thing, and by my giving to Bishop Hall a true and full copy of that Sermon, when I was questioned for it, and owning the same not only before him, but also before the Arch-Prelate of Canterbury, and coming off from that business with such an Explication of my self, as had not in any Recantation or Retracting of any one sentence that I had before delivered, and was immediately followed (in the same Sermon) with a sharp reproof of those Arminian tenets that were then defended, and divers evils which were then countenanced. All this was before this present Parliament.

God Gives More Light Against Anglican Practices and Preaches A Holy or Closed Communion

Presently after this followed (as God gave in more light) my casting away, and preaching against the Ceremonies, laying aside the Service Book, and refusing to admit the mix multitude to Communion. At the last, the leaving of my place, because I could not keep it with a quite conscience. And now, Mr. Edwards I freely confess that I cannot object unto you any such time serving. For myself, If I am become a fool in glorying, you have compelled me.

Evils of Old Conformity But this I freely confess, not so much to you, as to the people of God, into whose hands these lines shall come, that as though ignorance for a long time I swallowed (as well as others) the Bishop’s Ordinations, and Licenses, and the Service-Book and old conformity, as you call it. So in part of that time, the expectation of a High-Commission suit, that I was threatened with, did make me for a season, through my weakness at that time, so exact in that Conformity, that I cannot now think of it without being ashamed. Yes, and touching bowing at the name of Jesus, I did for a while submit to that also, then seeing no more sin therein, then in the rest of that old conformity. But I still reproved those that urged it as a duty from Scripture, and I never pressed any to it. As soon as the Lord showed me the evil of it, I did not only forebear it, but also preach against it in the same place where I had practiced it, preferring the glory of God before my own credit among men. Thus I am, and will be fare, not only from denying nay thing that is true, but also from justifying my self in any thing wherein I can see that I have failed. But truly when I now consider how far I was then from a good way, wherein I thought I had been right, I acknowledge it to be the wonderful goodness of God unto me, that I did not then run much farther, and offend more grievously then I did.