1. THE first attempt of our Dispatcher , is to give an account of his writing at all , and his second to defend his manner of treaty from the charge or blame of contumeliousnesse : These two were to march together in the front , and Syllabus of his first Section , being so ingaged , and intricated the one in the other , that if he may not have liberty to write in that style of scoffe , and declamation , he must not write at all , his ovation being the prime of his strength , his noise and report of his victories the only means to perswade the Reader that he hath obtain'd them .

2. This stratagem promises it self many advantages ; for , 1. It hath the reputation of having gotten some conquests , routed the unexpert adversaries , by crying they flie ( a strange priviledge of confident fiction , by majoration , to lose its nature , and become truth . ) And being thus incouraged , it ( 2 ) likes the augurie , and hopes still to be in like manner successefull ; the slow ravener , whose speed serves him not to overtake and seise his prey , on design to charm , doth roare after it ; and if it thrives not , yet ( 3 ) 't is the putting a good countenance upon an ill matter , and that is the only relief in an irremediable misadventure . Mean-while the admission of this among other of Polyaenus's stratagems is so far from being any ingredient in the Christian warfare , that it is an unquestionable indication of the want of those weapons , with which that arraies its champions ; and the artifice is still so mean , that they must be very importunate interests , that shall be able to recommend it to any trafficker , but ordinarily ingenious , and that can but live without it ; There is none but the profess'd Quack or Mountebanke , that avowedly brings the Zany upon the stage with him ; such undoubtedly is this scoptical humor , when 't is allow'd to bear any considerable part in the Christian palaestra , let it call it self what it please , zeal or drollery , 't is at best the Buffon , designed to assist and combine with Sophistry , ( as the Ballad-singer with the Cut-purse ) to ensnare and lurch the simple ; so one of your Sorbon Doctors lately advertiseth the Benedictine Monke Launoy de Prim . Cenoman . Praes . Epoc . p. 167. , Convitia apud imperitos et st●lidè credul●s rationum instar haberi solent , this kind of treaty uses the Reader , as ill as the adversary , calls them fools , that are moved by it ; The managing a controversie , saith he , with ostentation of words , secularis potius quam Monasticae militiae professorem decet , becomes a Fenser better then a Monke , but for rudenesse or incivility to him that had given him never an ill word , he must more seririously instruct the brother , what character belongs to it . Ibid . p. 180. Modestia virtus est tum omnium , tum maximè Christianorum , & inter Christianos vel maximè Clericorum , & Monachorum , qui caeteris virtutum omnium exemplo praelucere debent : veritas quoque non indiget patrocinio convitiorum , ipsa sibi sufficit , & quò nudior est , ac simplicior , eò comptior , eò amabilior , eò fortior & ad vincendum mendacium aptior . Modesty is the duty of all Christians , especially of Ecclesiasticall persons , and truth needs not contumely for its Advocate , is much more lovely , and apt to convince without this Auxiliary . This I choose to say in his , rather than in my own words , that it may not come to him under the prejudice of preaching or saint-like ; and if Greek , though heathen , may not be as nauseous as either of those , I shall give it a perfect parallel out of {αβγδ} . Plutarch , {αβγδ} , Valour needs not anger , having imbibed reason . Which made Tom . IV . p. 709. l. 33. St. Chrysostome conclude , {αβγδ} . Of all men living they that strive , ( controvertists ) are obliged not to be angry . And if S. W. will turn to a saying of Phavorinus in l. 19. c . 111. A. Gellius ( which assures me the degree of praise which he hath afforded me , p. 18 , 19. was more skilfully designed to my Turpius est exiguè & frigidè laudari , quam insectanter & graviter vituperari . Qui infoecundè & jejunè laudat , destitui à causae videtur . disadvantage , than all his Index of Contumelies ; giving this reason for the Aphorisme , Quoniam qui maledicit & vituperat , quantò id acerbiùs facit , tam maximè illi pro iniquo & inimico ducitur , & plerumque propterea fidem non capit : The bitterer his reproaches are , the lesse they are credited ) he will h●ve reason to think , that what I have hitherto said in these wordish testimonies ( as he will call them ) is more for his , than mine own advantage , if his cause will but allow him to make use of it .

3. For my self , as I must professe to believe that there is no one simple error in Popery more pernicious , nor consequently more fit to be resisted , and contested with , than are the contrarieties to charity , the fermentations , and paroxysmes of bitter zeal , which are here avowed and justified by S. W. so I have not a greater obligation to any part of this Reply , than to proceed yet farther on this proemiall Theme , how extrinsecal soever it may seem to the main Controversie ; and examine ( with what brevity I may , being herein tied to anothers motions ) all that he hath here said in defense of it , separating as well as I can his pleas from his scoffes , his Logick from his Rhetorick , and making my rejoinder only to the united force of the former , not to the diffused of the latter .

4. And first to the plain texts of Scripture , which I produced against railers , revilers , contumelious persons , he replies , A sad case , that no punishment lesse than hell must be poor S. W's doom , because he layd open the weaknesse of D. H's defense of a pernicious cause , after the manner that such a defense deserved ; and he wonders I had no more charity , than not to be afraid , lest I should drive S. W. into despair of his salvation , by denouncing and preaching to him such horrid judgements for writing against the Saints . ] To this I reply , 1. That it is indeed a sad case , that Gods denuntiations against a sin , so charitably , and affectionately mention'd by an Apostle as a speciall part of his Apostolicall office , to call all to self-examination , but the guilty to repentance , should be entertain'd with so little of earnest , or of that temper of mind , which is due to any Apostolical denuntiation . 2. I demand as sadly , whether if S. W. did but suspect that any Christian ( though most unknown to him ) which he had to deal with , were guilty of drunkennesse , or adultery , and should thereupon mind him of the Apostles denuntiations against such , that neither the Drunkard nor Adulterer should enter the Kingdome of God , and the other should return , whether seriously or but scoptically , that he wondred S. W. had no more charity , than not to be afraid of driving him into despair of his salvation , he would think it a Christian reply , and either an argument of his innocencie , or a symptome of his relenting ? 3. I hence learn somewhat of his dialect , 1. His notion of preaching , which he so oft useth as a style of scorn . 2. That other of Saints , which with him is wont to sound the same way . Preaching is here joyned with denouncing such horrid judgements , as were cited out of St. Paul , and can signifie no other than what St. Paul was guilty of , and I no otherwise , than as I transcribed St. Pauls words . And let him then judge , if 't were truely his art , as elsewhere he pretends , which suggested this ironie , this part of his dialect to him . Next [ the Saints ] can signifie no more or other than Dr. H. for against him only it was that S. W. was charged to have written that , which he here affirms written against the Saints : and then he that most seriously thinks himself ten thousand times lesse than the least of all Saints ( and never assumed more , if so much as this ) that knowes it hath been the general practice of Hereticks and Scismaticks , to call themselves by titles of this kind , the pure , the perfect , the spiritual , the holy , the Saints , the godly , ( and the very worst of men , the Gnosticks , meant the same , when they assumed that title ) must yet be as solemnly scoff't at under that style , as if he had indeed assumed it . 't is true I had mentioned saints in that Paragraph , to which he thus replies , and so also the true prophets of God , but the former in the expresse Scripture notion , for those that reign in heaven , and shall judge the world ; and the second for those very Prophets whom the Jewes defamed and persecured ; far from imagining , and as far from appearing , to include my self in either number ; and if he meant to perswade any incautious Reader , that I did , then this was very injurious to us both , and an early instance of the undue and undeserved manner of his replies to my defense , which yet he averts in this period , and pretends no farther to vindicate his practises from the Apostles sentence , than he can justly avert it . I demand therefore , did I in the Paragraph he now replies to , ( or any where else ) assume to my self or party , the title of Saints ? If he saith I did , I leave him to his own eyes and conscience to refute him ; If I did not , then this part of my defense deserved not this manner of Reply which he hath given it ; and having nothing to pretend for it but my desert , he hath already lost his only plea , as soon as he hath produced it .

5. Secondly , he proceeds to view the charge of contumelie , how he may appear to be concerned in it , and begins with my acknowledgement ( as if that would yield him some advantage ) that it was not he which wrote the Bill of fare , to which he saith he may with truth adde , that he did not so much as know of it . ] I reply , 1. That my confession of the Romish factor , concerned only the style of drollery and Picquant sauce , by him made use of , and is no farther to be extended , then that the publisher gave a civiller title to his contumelies , than the Author himself . 2. That the list which the publisher set in the front of the book , was exactly conformable to what the Author had dispe●sed in the body of it , and can no more lessen by dividing and taking part of his blame , than the divulger or proclaimer of a libell extenuates the crime of him that pen'd it , and delivered it to be publisht . Nay 3. the bill of fare is so imperfect an Index of the contumelies of the book , that I have reason to think it set as a blind rather to conceal the greater variety of them , which was sure to be found in the Book , than a map only to point at them . 4. That as I , whose only businesse it was to consider the contumelies , can be no more presumed to know , or consequently to reflect on the person of S. W. than of the Romish factor , the Master of the Feast , than the collector of the bill of fare : so nothing that I have said in this matter is concerned in that inquiry . I have indeed oft heard the names , by which both of them are known , but as I am no whit satisfied for the injustice of their contumelies , by my having those imperfect images of them , or by their having shared it betwixt them , ( the heap , or load of soil smells never the more temperately , that there were more hands joyned to the collecting of it ) so the Apostles sentences against that sin were produced by me for the use of all that had any part of that guilt on them , and meant not to raise a suspicion of guilt on any , that had it not . And yet 5. if S. and W. be characters that any one person means , or is willing to be known by , whoever it is that hath the comfort of being , or vanity of assuming to be the Author of these Answers , he is certainly responsible for all that appears from the Presse under his Signatures , as a Merchant is for the transactions of his Factor . Lastly , I have now no motive to incline me to affixe the collecting of the Index of Schisme dispatcht to any other hand , than what compiled the book , and that is much more contumelious , and injurious , than the former bill of fare , and so here be grounds enow to supersede and deprive him of all benefit of that confession of mine , with which he begins his defense .

6. But , saith he , Dr. H. thinks he hath got a notable advantage against me from my own confession , that my blowes were rude and my adversary civil , whereas I used both those phrases as an objection of the Readers , as is most palpable . ] I reply , 1. How he used them , must be judged by his own words , to which I referred in the Epistle to the Reader . Before , saith he , you can have past three Chapters , I know you will be objecting , that the blowes I give are too rude for so civil an adversary . ] From hence all that I assumed was , that the Author who was fittest to name his own births , hath allowed them the plainer title of rude blowes . And what can be more palpable , than that he hath done so ? 2. 't is as palpable that when this was written to the Reader , to meet him , as he saith , in the very entry , the Reader , of whom he speaks , could not as yet have made this objection , or be with truth by him pretended to make it , any otherwise then as S . W's conscience assured him , there was place for this objection ; These words [ I know you will be objecting ] being spoken by the Disarmer , can import no lesse to my understanding , than that this was a reflex't act of his own conscience , that there were in the three first Chapters competent motives to suggest to the Reader this objection , and I am not subtile enough to distinguish betwixt this signification of this reflex't act of conscience , and his own confession , which yet he here vehemently averts , with what palpablenesse or evidence of truth , let him now judge . 3. If the Reader indefinitely taken , i.e. ( in materia necessariâ , which alone is the matter of knowledge , here mention'd ) every Reader be by S. W. yielded to object this , then is this as fair and large a testimony as may be , of the truth of the thing questioned , viz. That S. W's blowes were not only rude , but too rude , which was all that I designed to conclude from this medium . Other collections I might have made from his mentioning the three first Chapters , and no more , and his mentioning them in an undue style , when that book of his is not divided into Chapters , but into three parts : and 13 Sections in the first part : But I desired not then , nor am yet fond of making impertinent discoveries .

7. But he hath more to say to this head . Had I , saith he , used them , the rudenesse of blowes argues not that they were not just , since none doubts but malefactors are very rudely , yet most justly whipt , and the courteous Epithet of civl denyed not , but the oyle in his tongue was accompanyed with venome in his heart , and so made it more necessary to discover that , whose only advantage it was to lurk undiscoverable . I reply , 1. That I assumed no more from his confession , than that the blowes were rude , and the adversary civil , and if that be granted , I have no more to demand , nor he to quarrel in this matter . For 2. if rudenesse should not conclude injustice , much lesse will it conclude the contrary ; there will need other mediums to prove the blowes just , than [ that they are rude , or that malefactors are punished justly ] And till those mediums are produced and proved effectual to the end , the affirming them just , is the begging the question , and so of no force to his present defense , and will be proved but a new contumelie , as oft as I shall in the process of this answer shew , that there is as much injustice , as rudenesse in his blowes . 3. I shall appeal to custom of speech , the best Dictionary , whether when a malefactor is whipt by the Lictor , or beheaded by the Executioner , without any addition of his own spleen to the Judges sentence , he shall be said to have dealt rudely , or contumeliously with the malefactor ? or whether strength of argument in a disputant would by the Reader indefinitely be certain ( and so , as to be the object of S . W's knowledge ) to be styled rudenesse ? If so , he hath not lost by this instance , though withall he hath not gained by it ; but if not , let him then judge what cause it is , that is capable of no better defenses . But then 4. I must set a remark on that piece of Logick that follows , [ The courteous Epithet of Civil denyed not , but the oyle in the tongue was accompanyed with venome in his heart , and so made it more necessary to discover that — ] The force of this consequence and propriety to its being a part of S. W's defense , depends on these two things , 1. That under the outside of Civility , poyson was discovered to lurk . 2. That the rude blowes were some way necessary to the making this discovery ; now 1. I demand , is that presently eo ipso inferred and proved , that every thing else doth not deny : The word [ civill ] is not pretended by me to have any force of probation , either as to the truth , or the wholesomenesse of what is propounded , but neither is it any symptome of falsehood or poyson , any more than the contrary rudenesse is of the contrary . By what means then is the discovery made , which is here supposed ? The only medium here mention'd , is , That [ The courteous Epithet of Civil denyed it not . ] But 1. it doth as much deny it , as words signifie things , or lips are interpreters of the heart , ( for he that treats a man civilly , doth at least tell him , that he means him no hurt ) and all humane affirmations and negations are thus transacted ; though it is true , there is frequently deceit in them , when false hearts have the managing of them . 2. Therefore , if it doth not deny it , what is gained toward the discovery ? There be ten thousand propositions ( which are more than single words ) in the Bible , none of which deny Lucifer to be the Messias ; will this yield him any assistance toward the acquiring of that dignity ? To suppose then this lurking poyson without any other ground of inferring it , than that the Epithet of Civil denyed it not , is one essay of his discursive faculty that I was here to consider . And another is , the influence that this hath on the rude blowes , or propriety to be an ingredient in the plea for them . For I must again demand , In case there were any latent poyson in the civil Tract of Schisme , was not civil reason able to search and discover it ? Doe Physitians use to inveigh , or scoffe at poysons ? tell them they are absurd and ridiculous , and Saint-like ; or do they not think it sufficient to furnish their patients with Antidotes against them ? If there were never a Smith in Israel , could not the true Religion be preserved , without going down to the Philistins Grindstones to whet their piety , as well as their Shares ? If all the Romanists were throughout good Christians , and so really the meekest men upon the earth , and such as would not rail , any more than ly for God , were the Infallibility and visibility of their Church ascertain'd ( or but more likely ) to be lost by this means ? If so , then S. W. need no more be rude , Dr. H's civility hath insured and prepared his own ruine , and then still , be the supposition of the poyson never so certain , and the discovery never so necessary , yet ad quid perditio haec , why were these loads of contumelies brought in , which might have been sold to the Jewes for some price ( it matters not how great ) or laid out in charity on some strong-hearted Heretick , which were like to dye a lingring death , without them . If a wordish testimony or two may here have place against such rigorous evidences as these , I shall propose to him the words of Cicero and Seneca , which may deserve to be believed in their own faculties Cic . Tusc . Qu . l. IV . . Non desiderat fortitudo advocatam itacundiam , satis est instructa , armata , parata per sese ; An non vir fortis nisi stomachari coeperit , non potest esse fortis ? Gladiatorum id quidem est . And Senec . de Ira . l. 1. c . XVI . Nil aliu instrumentis opus est , satis nos instruxit ratione natura : Haec dedit telum firmum , perpetuum , obsequens , nec anceps , nec quod in dominum remitti possit : The common notions that prevailed uniformly with these , might , if consulted , have assured S. W. that reason , without the rude blowes , was his best armature , such as would not fail to doe , what he would have it , could not be taken out of his hands , and used against him , as all other weapons may , but especially that of contumelie , if the adversary be no better man than S. W. is a Disputant .

8. I shall not now further disquiet him , by examining how he could , as he saith , discover that venome , whose advantage , he also saith it was , to lurk undiscoverable , because I doubt not , but this new tube hath the faculty of discovering things , which are otherwise undiscoverable , this magnifying glasse hath alwayes been able not only to inlarge , but create , first to improve Mites into Swine , and then each single meer nothing into the largest Colossus , and all this by the rules of severe reason , and rigorous demonstration .

9. 't is time we now advance from the rude blowes ( for which I am to account not with S. W. it seems , but with the Reader only , it being so palpable , that the Reader was the man , that put those words into S. W.'s mouth , without any the least consent of his ) to the twitchings by the beard ] which he cannot , doth not deny to have been his own style ; Nay , ( that I may not conclude , as he doth , from not denying ) he expressely confesses , he spoke it . But to this he hath some few things to say also . 1. That I reiterate it to make my Reader smile . 2. That the twitching by the heard is indeed somewhat too rude a carriage , if understood in the down right sense , as , saith he , I seem to take it , but he spake it only in an allegory , and in order to my wearing a Vizard , which he pluck't off . 3. That since he did only so , let me but acknowledge that he found me attired in such a Mask , and he is contented to be thought so unreasonably uncivil , as to plucke it off so rudely . ]

10. This , it seems , is all the satisfaction that may be expected to attend on S . W's confession , when himself is both the penitent and the confessor . But to these I reply , to the first , 1. That it were not unreasonable in him to allow me the comfort once to sollicit the Readers smile , when he hath the profuser joyes of entertaining him with a loud laughter , whole dayes together . Hath he the Leviathans priviledge of sporting alone in the waters , the inclosure of game , the patent of having all mirth wrapt up in his papers ? Was it an undecency in me thus to refresh the Reader , once in a long wearisome journey , or was it not ? If not , why is it mention'd by him , whose every word is presumed to be immediate , and so to have demonstrative force in it ? If it was , why doth S. W. so over-imitate what he thus condemns ? But 2. for the truth of what he charges on me , either that I reiterate it at all , or to that end of making the Reader smile , I have been at so much leisure , as to read over all I have said in that matter , and find his suggestion very distant from all appearance of truth , in both particulars . I name the phrase but twice , and that at no lesse distance than is between the first part of the 2d , and the last of the 6th page , once in reciting his words , the other time in refuting them , and if this had been called iterating , I had not resisted , but I am sure it is not reiterating . And when the Reader turns to the places , he will find , that as the iteration had no propriety to make any man smile , so each passage was delivered with as much of earnest , and as little of irony , as any other line of the Book , and then again he will judge , what credit is to be given to S. W's relations .

11. To the second , 1. What appearance or semblance is there , that I took the phrase in the downright sense ? or how was it possible I should so take it ? Could I think his printed sheets had fingers , or pincers , or other instruments of violence or rud●nesse , properly so called ? or did I expresse an attempt to phancy what was thus impossible ? Nay , are not these my words ? Rude blowes and twitchings by the beard , declamation and satyre , are none of these justifiable and lawfull means ? What could more witnesse my understanding his allegory , than my interpreting it ? 2. If in the down-right sense his twitching be acknowledged somewhat too rude , can it avoid being so in the allegory ? Are his tropes so inartificial , his expressions so feeble , and imperfect , as to signifie lesse than they sound ? Is not that which was allegorically meant by that style , as really rude in another kinde , as the down-right twitching would be ? If it be , then what a defense is this ? [ if understood in the down-right sense it was somewhat too rude , but being spoken in a sense that signified as much as the downright , it did not yet signifie so much rudenesse . ] If it be not , we have then lost our Rhetoricks too , as well as our Logick formerly . 3. Then , hath he mended the matter by adding , he spake it in order to my wearing a Vizard ? Is a contumely allayd by being doubled , shall falsities imitate negations , and two Pasquils become a Panegyrick ? I must not blame S. W. but his art , for this also .

12. Yet all these are but preparatives to his third , and last medicament , wherewith he hath throughly purged himself . Let me confesse that he found me in a vizard , and he is content to be thought so uncivil — It seems , I must justifie his calumnies , and then he will bear the blame of them . My avowed guilts must evince me injured , and the truth of his accusations demonstrate them unreasonable : Mean while , till I deserve rudenesse , he that heaps it on me , is innocent . Thus deer must a man pay for S. W's repentance , for which yet there is no place , till it be confess'd , that he hath not offended . I may court the Readers compassion , though not his smile , when a hundred such Monsters of discourse as this , are all commenced branches of rigorous evidence .