Page 105
P. S. §. CXXXIX.
FInding the Controversie maintained, concerning a Change of Per∣sons between Christ and Believers, and Dr. Crisp much re∣flected on in a Letter, that Mr. Williams hath procured, from the Reverend Bishop of W— in order to justifie himself from the Charge of his denying a Change, I cannot well avoid saying a word or two to the said Letter, with great deference to the Author. I commend Mr. Williams for fleeing for Refuge to Men of Name; but all the Names and Men in the World cannot help him in this Case, when he had absolutely denyed a Change. Now to be thought to own a Change, unless he first plainly owns his Error in his flat deny∣ing a Change, he may not fairly shift it off, that he owned it in a Sense, but disowned it in the Doctor's Sense; when, without any di∣stinction, he said plainly thus, Whether there be a Change, this the Doctor affirms, and I deny. Which is so manifest a denyal of a Change in any Sense, as words can in general make it. 'Tis as if I should say, I went into Paul's Church to hear the Organs, and there was not a Man there. I saw a Singing-Boy, and he said, there was a Man there. The Boy affirmed there was a Man there. This the Boy said, and this I deny. Can I help my self, and say, there was a Man in a Surplice, but there was not a Bishop there, or a Doctor there? This is a sorry shift, with an untruth into the bar∣gain, for me to say, there was not a Man there; and then shift it off with, I owned there was a Man in a Surplice there. So Mr. Williams, Whether there be a Change, this the Doctor affirms, and I deny. This, a Change, here must, in all ordinary acceptation of the words, be taken for any Change, without any sort of distinction. This I deny said Mr. Williams. Now to help him over this stile, he troubles the Bishop, whom I honour as a Person of great Worth and Learning, though I cannot admire that sort of Station, of Lord-Bishop, in the Church of the Living God, which very Station might occasion the Treatise of The Mischief of Separation, and produced my Dear Kratiste's Mischief of Imposition, yet I make bold to say, with Thanks to the Bishop, How warily soever he writes, as to clearness in the Point of Commutation, yet he writes with wonderful Modesty, and, in every Tittle, like a Gentleman, not be-heriticking, not be∣monstring