Both Robert Baillie and Benjamin Bourne had seen the treatise before their respective books against heresy appeared in 1646, and they were deeply stirred against Randall for sowing what to their minds seemed such dangerous doctrines and such regard for "Popish writings."[65] His critics further connect Randall with other books. Baillie speaks of two books: "the one by a Dutch Frier [evidently the Theologia] and the other by an English Capuchine." Bourne writes against those dangerous books _Theologia Germanica, The Bright Star, Divinity and Philosophy Dissected_, and Edwards couples with _the Vision of God_ (the treatise by Nicholas of Cusa) "the third part of the Rule of Perfection by a Cappuchian Friar."[66]
John Goodwin, vicar of St. Stephen's in Coleman St., commenting on Edward's _Gangraena_, humorously says: "I marvaile how Mr. Edwards having (it seems) an authorized power to make errors and heresies at what rate and of what materialles he pleaseth, and hopes to live upon the trade, could stay his pen at so small a number as 180, and did not advance to that angelicall quotient in the Apocalypse, which is _ten thousand times ten thousand_," and he adds that if Edwards had consulted with a book "printed within the compasse of his foure years, intitled _Divinity and Philosophy Dissected, set out by a mad man_, with some few others . . . He shall be able to increase his roll of errors from 180 to 280, if not to 500."[67] Samuel { 258} Rutherford says: "So hath _Randel_ the _Familist_ prefixed an Epistle to two Popish Tractates, furnishing to us excellent priviledges of Familisme, the one called _Theologia Germanica_, and the other _Bright Starre_, which both advance perfect Saints above Law, and Gospel". . .[68]
This treatise, called _A Bright Starre_ (London, 1646), which so deeply disturbed the seventeenth-century guardians of orthodoxy, is a translation of "The Third Part of the Rule of Perfection," written by an English Capuchin Friar, and "faithfully done into the English tongue," apparently by Randall, "for the common good."[69] It is a profoundly mystical book, characterized by interior depth and insight. Its central aim is the exposition of a stage of spiritual life which transcends both "the active life" and "the contemplative life," a stage which the writer calls "the Life Supereminent." In this highest stage "the essential will of God is practiced," without strain or effort, because God Himself has now become the inner Life and Being of the person, the spring and power of the new-formed will.