a Fast was not an occasion offered to
them, how was a Fast an occasion offered to him to fall upon the same
controversy first, and when none had dons the like before him.

A fourth calumny is this: He had first blamed two parties that they came
biassed to the Assembly; I answered, How then shall he make himself
blameless who came biassed a third way; which was the Erastian way; and
that, for our part, we came no more biassed to this Assembly than the
foreign divines came to the Synod of Dort, Alexander to the Council of
Nice, Cyril to that of Ephesus, and Paul to the synod at Jerusalem. But
now, p. 6, 7, instead of doing us right he doth us greater injury; for now
he makes us biassed, not only by our own judgments, but by something
adventitious from without; which he denieth himself to be (but how truly I
take not on me to judge: beholders do often perceive the biassing better
than the bowlers); yea, he saith that I have acknowledged the bias, and
justify it. Where, Sir? where? I deny it. It is no bias for a man to be
settled, resolved and engaged in his judgment for the truth, especially
when willing to receive more light, and to learn what needeth to be
further reformed. Hath he forgotten his own definition of the bias which
he had but just now given? But he will needs make it more than probable,
by the instances which I brought, that the Commissioners from Scotland
came not to this Assembly as divines, by dispute and disquisition, to find
out truth, but as judges, to censure all different opinions as errors; for
so came foreign divines to Dort, Alexander to the Council of Nice, Cyril
to Ephesus. Is it not enough that he slander us, though he do not, for our
sakes, slander those worthy divines that came to the Synod of Dort,
Alexander also, and Cyril, prime witnesses for the truth in their days?
Could no less content him than to approve the objections of the Arminians
against the Synod of Dort, which I had mentioned, p. 33? But he gets not
away so. The strongest instance which I had given he hath not once
touched: it was concerning Paul and Barnabas, who were engaged (not in the
behalf of one nation, but of all the churches of the Gentiles) against the
imposition of the Mosaical rites, and had so declared themselves at
Antioch, before they came to Jerusalem. Finally, Whereas he doubts, though
not of our willingness to learn more, yet of our permission to receive
more: That very paper, first given in by us (which I had c