and my Grounds why I then believ'd rest still unchang'd nay are unchangeable But yet Reason acts much differently now then â—ormerly Before I came at Faith she acted about her own Objects Motives or Maxims by which she scand the Authorities we spoke of But in Acts of Faith she hath nothing to do with the Objects of those Acts or Points of Faith She is like a dimsighted man who us'd his Reason to find a trusty Friend to lead him in the twi-light and then reli'd on his guidance rationally without using his own Reason at all about the Way it self To make this clearer we may distinguish two sences in the word Reason one as 't is taken for that natural Faculty which constitutes Man which Faculty never deserts or ought to desert us in any action that is Manly or virtuous The other as 't is taken for that Power wrought upon by motives under its own ken in the same sence we call it human Reason by which is not meant the natural Power unactuated or abstractedly for then the word human were a Taâ—tology but Reason as conversant with such objects or inform'd by such knowledges as are commonly found within the sphere of our natural condition as Men such as are those which beget Science And this leaves us when we have once found the Authority now spoken of the Objects of Faith formally speaking being out of her reach nor is she thus understood the motive of our Assent to the verity of the Point of Faith but AVTHORITY onely Wherefore into Authority onely Faith as such is resolvd finally though if you go about to resolve the Rationalness of assenting to the Authority it self it will light into those Evident Reasons which your naturall power of reason as yet uninform'd by Faith but by motives or maxims within its own sphere was capable to wield 5. Reason therefore taken for my natural Power is my Eye or interiour sight as inform'd by common Principles or Maxims antecedent to Faith my Guid to bring me to believe Authority and those motives or Maxims are the Rules to my Reason by attending to which she hath virtue or skill to set her own thoughts right that is to guid me in my way to Faith but when I have once come to beleeve Authority that is come to Faith not Reason but Authority is my Guid for I follow Authority and not my Reason in judging what is Faith what not and though the Light of that naturall power never deserts me yet Reason as rul'd by her own natural maxims is useless to me as a Guid or those Maxims as a Rule for I apply neither of these to the mysteries of Faith to scan their verity or falsity by but purely rely upon Authority and beleeve them Authority then is my Guid and in the Infallibility of that Authority consists the power or virtue it has to guide me right that is to regulate or rule me as one of the Faithfull or as one who must have such Certain Grounds of my Assent as I may securely build my Salvation on This Authority then as it is Inâ—allible is also my Rule in my beleeving or the Rule of my Faith This of my Rule of Faith in Common against Adversaries of Faith in common But with Protestants who grant Christ to be God and consequently his words or doctrine true the onely Rule and Guid we need is to lead us into the Knowledge of what he said and assure it to us We affirm then that the Catholick Church is the Guid we follow and her Infallibility consisting in Tradition our Rule of Faith Hence all Catholicks profess her doctrin uninterruptedly succeeding from the Apostles time and so to continue to the end of the World hence with one voice they lay claim to Christs gracious Assistance to her in defending her from over-growing Errors against Faith or Heresies hence all profess to hear and follow her and pledge undoubtingly even the security of their salvation by relying on the Certainty of her Living Voice for their Tenets and on her Disciplin for the Practice of their Faith And though some Schoolmen make Scripture a partial Rule of Faith yet they can mean onely materially not formally that is that some part of Faith is signifi'd by Scripture's Letter not that Scripture's Letter alone is sufficient securely to signify it to private understandings so as to beget that most strong firm Assent found in Divine Faith as is evident by this that all hold no Scripture is of private Interpretation all hold the living voice of the Church and her constant Practice are the best Interpreters of Scripture Now Faith being Tenets and Sence that must be 〈◊〉 the Rule of Faith which ascertains us of Christs Sence not the materiall Characters which that Certain Interpreter we call the Church works upon and by her Practicall Tradition interprets 6. 'T is high time now to look back upon Dr. Pierce and his party how justly they deal with us and how mistakingly they discourse when they come to the Grounds of their Faith 7. First by the tenour of his discourse he would seem to obtrude upon us a Tenet which none but perfect mad-men could hold namely that we profess we have no reason why we believe the Church which devolves to this that we must profess we have as much reason to believe an old wife's dream as our Faith since there can be no less reason than none at all And hence he will needs assure the Reader that therefore the Enthusiastick Sectaries are in part Romish Proselytes c. And indeed upon so gross a calumny layd down for his principle and a sober Truth what might he not conclude with equal reason he might have inferr'd that all Bedlam were Catholicks and that to turn mad were to turn a Romanist But his carriage to put this upon Mr. S. C. is strangely unjust since he knows and hints it that he writ a Book upon his declaring himself Catholick entitled Motives of his Conversion does he think the word Motives does not signify Reasons or that to write an whole Book of Reasons why he adhea'd to the Catholick Church signifies that he renounc't all reason why he believ'd her 8. Next as for his own tenet he layes this for his Ground that Reason alone is Iudge in all cases I will propose him one case and 't is the Existence of a Trinity To work now with your Reason about this object and see how you evince it I doubt your best reasons will crack ere you make all ends meet But you mean you must have Reason to believe it I conceive speaking properly you should rather say you must have Reason to believe the Authority and Authority to believe It for Belief is as properly relative to Authority as Science is to an Act of true Reason or Evidence Whence 't is as incongruous to say I must have Reason to believe such a Point as to say I know such a point Scientifically by Authority
to a lesser one in the margent and that to Luke 19. 22. And David's cutting of Goliah's Head with his own Sword a story known undoubtedly by all that were like to read his Sermon shall be secured from being thought a piece of a Romance or Knight-errantry by a punctual Citation in the open margent 1 Sam. 17. 51. And to omit diverse of the like pleasant strain lest any Unbeliever should be so impious as to doubt that his THEOPNEVST AHOLIAB was an Embroiderer you shall see it as plain as the nose on a man's face in an express Text Exod. 35. 30. 34. 11. But why insist I thus on so poor a foolery in a Book I design'd for solid or what advantage can I gain to my cause by so sleight an Animadversion I'answer â—Tis my temper when I see an odd action done without reason to trace it to its Original and to search after its proper Cause And upon consideration I finde none so proper for this Effect as a certain kinde of humour of quoting in D. Pierce and others of his Brethren so strongly possessing them and even naturaliz'd into them that so they be quoting they matter not much whether it be to purpose or not This I have shown in the whole bead-roll of his Citations the usefullest part as he sayes of his whole performance and that not one of those which he call Evidences is conclusive that is worth a straw or to purpose But because every one will not be capable to see it in those Citations he brings for Proofs I let them see it in those his late quotations of Scriptures In which he so pittifully betraies his silly and vain humour of quoting to no imaginable end but to satisfy his customary habit or Fancy and as in his Citations so in these imagins the Application of them to his Cause in stead of showing it that I conceive no Universitie-wit but will see in this carriage of his that Dr. Pierce's head is not too Scientiâ—ical nor himself a fit man to to demonstrate against the Papists SECOND APPENDIX Animadversions On Some Passages in Mr. Whitby 1. I Beg pardon of my Reader for my late Merriment and Children's play with aiery bubbles and Feathers Both D. Pierce's manner of writing and his Carriage towards Catholicks merited this kind of return I hope the passages in Mr. Whitby I have design'd to answer will give me occasion to speak more solidly And that they may do so I will pick out those which aim at some point of Concernment I have a particular respect for the person and am sorry his growing hopefulness receiv'd a foil by his Book against Mr. S. C. and this though a threefold disadvantage the badness of his Cause the Patronage of Dr. Pierce's malice and his impar congressus with so learned an Antagonist 2. My Designe leads me to take notice especially of that passage p. 93. Sect. 4. where he begins a discourse about the Soveraignty of Reason and explicates rather than proves it ought to be so what is his Rule and Guide to Faith Which because it look't plausibly yet was prudently neglected by Mr. S C. who hearing of more Eminent Antagonists writing against him judg'd it wisest to reserve himself to answer the Protestanrs second and best Thoughts in Them in case they were found to deserve it and because on the other side the Challenge was made to all the Romanists in the World and many passages in it light cross to the Grounds I had laid I took leave to consider and examin it my way In a great part of it especially at the beginning the discourse is rightly made but in other places he confounds Guide with Rule Power with Motive and by straining a word in Mr. S. C. beyond its necessary signification imposes on us a false Tenet which he mainly builds upon So that I am forc't to begin my answer by putting down our true one which gives Faith and Reason both their due This done his Superstructutes on that Supposition will fall of themselves 3. Our Tenet then is that Faith is the same with Belief that Belief relies on Authority and Divine Faith or Belief on the Divine Authority as its Motive and on the Churche's as on the Applier of the other to my Understanding At next I hold that no Authority deserves Assent further than true Reason gives it to deserve and hence the Divine Authority being Essential Truth deserves in true Reason if possible Infinitely intense Assent or adhesion to its sayings from me and the Churches Authority being found by my Reason to be Certain it applies with Certainty that is closely the Divine Authority to my Understanding and so obliges it absolutely to believe the Truths God has told and to submit whatever reasons I may have against the Object reveal'd to this all-overpowering Authority of Essential Truth This being the First Cause of all those things whence my particular Reasons are taken Nay farther hence it is that I adhere more heartily and firmly to a point of Faith than to any Conclusion of any Science whatever because a more efficacious Cause equally closely apply'd is apt to produce a greater Effect and no Cause is or can be in 〈◊〉 reason comparable to that of the Divine Verâ—city in the point of causing Assent which is closely apply'd by me to the Churches assurance Hence my Faith is ever most Rational because â—is 〈◊〉 rational to believe a point for which the Divine Veracity is engag'd and highly rational to believe the Church assuring me that it is engagâ—d for such and such points Nor yet is the Divine Authority or the Church as Mr. Whitby p. 96. very mistakingly argues beholden to the judgment of my private reason for my belief of her Infallibility but on the contrary my private reason is beholden to them for that Judgment seeing I therefore come to have that Judgment because Those as Objects wrought upon my Apprehension and imprinted a conceit of them there as they were in themselves and so oblig'd my Reason to conclude and my Judgment to hold them such as they were This Rational Assent establishes my Faith against the assaulds of any doubts from Human Reasons resting assur'd thâ—â— the same God who told me this is the Maker of all things else and hath writ all Created Truths in the Things he hath made whence no created â—ruth can thwart my Faith unless He can contradict himself which is impossible Hence if I have true Science I am certain to find no part of it opposit to my Faith but on the contrary conformable to It as being a Child of the same Parent Essential Truth If I have not true Science I ought not to think so nothing therefore but mine own overweening can make me miscarry 4. Reason having thus playâ—d her part in bringing me to Faith deserts me not yet while I act in it nor I her my Acts of Belief are still rational because it was rational to believe at first
Again for God's love who ever deny'd they ought to have reason to believe the Churches Authority Is any thing more frequent in our Controvertists and Divines treating of the Ground of Faith than large Discourses concerning Motives of Credibility 9. Thirdly he saies that disputing with Romanists whether Scripture be the sole Rule he means t is so limitedly that is between Christians who have already acknowledged Scripture a Rule of Faith By which I see Mr Whitby guides him self by sounds though he must need know if he knows any thing of Catholick Tenâ—â—â— our sence is quite different I beseech you Sir deal fairly with us Is not that speaking formally and properly the Rule of Faith which gives us Christs sence and does not that give us the Sence of Scripture which regulates us in the Interpretation of it Did ever Catholick then hold that Scripture interpreted on any fashion much less on your fashion by private Judgments or reasons regulated by Grammatical skill Criticisms and such like verbal knowledges is a Rule of Faith nay do not we constantly abhor this way as the Source of Heresy Take us right then we hold not Scripture's Letter alone a Rule but Scripture interpreted by the Church that is indeed the Church formally speaking and so you see you mistake our Principle Yet upon our joint-agreement in this your Discourse against us proceeds Retrive it then you see your Errour Again you tell us Scripture is your new Rule but forget quite in your discourse to tell us that your Reason assures you Scripture is to be the onely Rule or why it should be so since besides what I have demonstrated to the Contrary in my former Discourses 't is evident Christian Religion had descended many steps ere the Scripture's parts were much scatter'd much less the Whole collected and no less clear that that can never be a Rule or Way to Faith which many follow yet their thoughts straggle into many several Judgments not in indifferent points but in that of the Trinity amongst the rest as your self profess of the Socinian that he rejects not the Trinity in the first place because it seems a contradiction but because 't is not clearly discover'd in Scripture by which you see he adheres firm to your Rule and so ought to be acknowledg'd one of your Church since though he hap to differ in some points yet he holds fast the Rule common to both which is the substantiallest Principle of a Church as such being the Ground of all Faith And indeed your Kindness to him here and your tender care not to displease him shows you have a true brotherly affection for him Though I fear he he will con you small thanks for making his Principle run thus That which is not clearly revealâ—d in Scripture and is coniradictory ti reason is not to be believ'd which seems to imply that were it clear in Scripture yet contradictory to Reason then he would notwithstanding belive it An over-strain of Piety no Socinian was ever guilty of and I can assure you no learned Catholick Divine I ever heard of ever made such an Act of Faith But 't is another case if it onely seems contradictory and is not judg'd by him to be evidently such for then there is room left in his mind for the contrary Assent of Faith to settle there 10. You say you prescribe not the doctrin imputed to the Socinians because it makes Reason the Iudge of Faith but the Rule of Faith Pray take pains to consider what you say He that judges must have some Principles in his head by which he is regulated in making such a Judgment those Principles then must be his Rule in that Action and if that Judgment be an adhesion to a point of Faith those Principles are his RULE OF FAITH Examin now well your own thoughts whether your Principles by which you find out certainly by interpreting Scripture this is God's sence or a point of Faith be not Maxims of your human Reason I am sure in disputes against us you prove and defend your Faith by such skills as Languages History and other Knowledges got by Human Learning and consequently hold It your selves upon the tenour of those skills which therefore are your Rule of Faith and not upon the bare Letter You I know will deny it But I beg your second thoughts to reflect that a Rule to such an Effect is the immediate Knowledge to the Power as conversant about that Effect and that if another intervene it regulates the former which thereupon becomes the thing ruled not the Rule Do then these skills clear the Letter of Scripture that is make known Gods Sence to you If so since their Immediate effect is to clear it 't is impossible to deny but they are at least part of the Revelation for revealing is clearing and God's Sence was not clearly revealed but by those means that is by human maxims and so they are at least the more formal part of your Rule of Faith Again I ask might you not have mistaken the true Sence without those Human Maxims If so then They and not Scripture's Letter were your Rule If not then onely common Sence is requisit to understand clearly what 's reveal'd in Scripture and then either your Brother Socinian or you want Common Sence which I think you 'l scarce say 11. But will you see you still hold Reason your Rule notwithstanding you cry up the Written word Find you not there expresly that God has hands feet nostrils and passions like ours and this in clear terms Why is it not then a point of Faith You will not answer sure it is against Maxims of Reason you renounc't them formerly p. 94. when you had found out your new Rule and onely allow'd your Reason power to judge if a point were sufficientlie reveal'd that it is most rational to 〈◊〉 it self though it seem to contradict or thwâ—â—â— Reason Now this is sufficiently reveal'd being plainly writ in your Rule of Faith and the direct Letter of Scripture why will you not then captivate your Reason and believe it I see you do but complement with God's incomprehensible Knowledge in speaking so highly of it and so humbly of your own shallow Intellâ—ct Will you deny a point of Faith so plainly reveald for your own capricho or conceit Perhaps you 'l say 't is not clearly reveal'd because the contrary is plain in Scripture too I ask is it as plain if not it cannot overthrow the title of This to be a point of Faith If as plain why should you not believe both Be valiant Sir and believe a contradiction it being clearly reveal'd Perhaps it seems but such and then your own profession p. 94. obliges you to admit it You that can acknowledge an Infinit extension of space when you say all the world besides does so too sure you thought all the World was in your Fancy may also hold Materia ab aeterno and that it is onely a part
with such a person were not he mad that is a renouncor of Reason or Man's Nature who should not believe them You see then these Witnesses have power to propose such an Object as can oblige to Belief You see the Dissenters are Irrational that their act of dissenting springs from some Passion or Vice and Vice is punishable and so is the Effects of that Dissent if it be in such a matter as is highly pernicious to Mankind's best concerns Now our Church makes account she is able to propose an Authority incomparably more ample than the Attestation now spoken of for the true Descent of her Faith and judges such a proposal founded on the eye-sight of all those Witnesses to be able to oblige to interiour Assent in such a degree as to render them most highly wilful vicious and irrational who should disbelieve it hence the crime intrenching upon the order to mankind's Salvation the highest concern imaginable both to edify those dissenters by correcting their vice and the circumstant Faithful by breeding a conceit in them through the punishment of the others of the sacredness of Faith and its Rule and the hainousness of Pride of understanding the ready way to all Heresies they may nay ought punish their Interiour Dissent Not out of an height of Authority without motives as Mr. Whitby conceits but because that Authority is her self such a motive to Belief that onely irrational vicious and wilfully-blind persons can recede from it by disbelief And hence our Churches procedure is rational natural sweet and charitable tending to amend an enormity of Will not bred from a rationally but passionate dissatisfy'd Understanding Nay Mr. Whitby's discourse justifies Our Churches procedure who seems to allow his Church a power to require a positive Assent when the case comes to be such that the denier of it must needs be held wilfull and our Church neither sayes nor acts otherwise 15. By this Discourse I would not have Mr Whitby imagin that I am about proving our Churches Infallibility in this place but onely showing that holding She can evidence her Authority She goes rationally to work and consonantly to her self in requiring Assent to her Proposals whereas Theirs confessing her self fallible even in interpreting Scripture upon which all both her Faith and Authority as a Church depends were self-condemn'd irrational and tyrannical if She should go about to require any such Interiour Assent Now though he in big words denies this to be her carriage asking when did they meaning Bishops Convocations or Parliaments challenge any power over our minds and Consciences and alledges the consent of their Divines for it yet I wonder what he thinks of the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy made by a Protestant Parliament is there no obligation there to hold any thing Yes as strong as Oath can tye it And which is worse 't is more Irrational to go about to bind Our Assents who are not of their Church than to bind their own Subjects This in practice is perform'd towards all but so imprincipled a procedure that their Church waves it when it comes to a rational scanning in a Dispute and Controversy acknowledging so their want of Grounds to make it good Which shows that the Authority of their Church sprang from the Parliament or Secular State in regard She professes her self very heartily content with external Obedience let the Interiour Assent goes where it will most unlike the Church settled by the Wisdome of the Eternal Father and constituted the Pillar and Ground of Truth who provided in the first place for the Churches Power to hold us to the same Tenets which are the Principles of our Actions knowing that unless the Root of Faith be sound the Actions its branches must needs be rotten and unconscientious and that no Congregation could long hold together nor indeed longer than the plain force of the Secular Sword aw'd them unless by power to evidence its Authority it had power to oblige men's Understandings connaturally to an Unity in the same Faith which done all else would follow And hence we may see confessedly in the Protestant Principles the reason of their present and past distractions and divine of the future for men's Fancies being naturally various and no power in her to keep them in an Union they must needs ramble into multitudes of dissenting Sects which to strive to unite into one were to force both Nature and Conscience too Nature in striving to unite their Understandings in Faith without offering them Evidence of Authority Conscience in binding them to Act as Protestants do whereas they are ready to stake their Salvation upon it that their best reasons working upon the very Rule of Faith Protestants recommend obliges them to the contrary and that to force them to act with Them is to force them to sin So that the Protestants at once profess they will not or cannot oblige their Vnderstandings and yet at the same time contend by force to oblige their Wills without nay against their Understandings 16. In a word let Protestants write talk quote words as long as they will Plainest Common Sence tells them and every man who considers it that unless they settle some undisputable Method of arriving at Christ's Sence or Faith that is some self-evident and so all-obliging Rule of Faith the Protestant Church can never hope for Power to reduce their Dissenters nor to hold together or govern efficaciously their own Subjects that is they can never hope for Unity within themselves nor lastly Union with them that have it and charitably endeavour they may have it too THIRD APPENDIX Animadversions On Some Passages in Mr. Stillingfleet 1. THe loud Fame of Mr. Stillingfleet's Book preventing its Publication and withall the report of his good parts coming from diverse Judicious Persons bred in me a great Impatience to see something of his other Writings that so I might have more solid Ground to build my Expectation on than common rumour or commendation of acquaintances A Protestant Friend show'd me a little Treatise of his concerning Excommunication I perus'd the beginning of it and immediately told him Mr. Stillingfleet was a very ingenious person and writ the best I ever yet saw any Protestant For he settled first his notion or the true nature of the Thing and thence attempted by intrinsecal mediums to draw immediate Consequences which show'd that his head lay right for Science But withal I assur'd my Friend 't was impossible he could write against us and take that method the nature of his Cause not enduring so severe a Test. His Book coming forth and bearing in its Title a Rational Account of the Grounds of Protestant Religion my Expectation was more erected and till my self could get leasure to peruse it I told diverse both Catholicks and Protestants that they might expect from Mr. Stillingfleet's Wit the most that could be said either for the later or against the former But coming to over-look cursorily his Infallibility of Tradition
to Demonstrations for the Ground of our Faith Not to note the unconsonancy of this carriage I shall yeild him the honour of professing he has no Demonstration but onely Probability for the Ground of his and to make this serious protestation for my self that I should esteem my self very dishonest did I assert and press on others any Argument for the Ground of my Faith which I judge not Evident that is Demonstrative This I hope will secure the Honesty of my Intentions however my Weakness may permit me to fail in my performance After this he endeavours to forestal my Reason for the Point in these words They have understandings of another mould from others who can conceive it Impossible that men should not think themselves oblig'd to believe and do all just as their Predecessours did Which words I desire the Reader to review and note for thence my Discourse takes its rise 13. What is it then that we affirm the later Ages oblig'd to hold and act as their Forefathers held and acted Wearing their clothes or building their houses No For both those matters of their own nature are of trivial concern and the fashion of both depend on Fancy which is too sleight a Principle to oblige to a Constancy What is it then To manage their Estates thus or thus no for the Inconvenience or Convenience of the different wayes were perhaps held not very material and the judging which was best depended upon Prudential Principles which are of their own nature variable and accommodable to circumstances and therefore not obliging them to think and Act as their Forefathers did Let us proceed Was it some piece of Skill or a Speculative Opinion depending on the Goodness or Badness of the Ancestors knowledge No For experience teaching that men differ in such Judgments and are errable it could never oblige posterity to believe Unalterably as They did Is it then some Historical passage or matter of Fact of great note and as such apt to strike their Fancy strongly yet still such as the succeeding Age was not highly concern'd whether it were true or no for example that of Alexander's Conquest of Asia to the Asian and Grecian off-spring of the next age after No Yet Experience tells us the memory of this is fresh and lively even amongst Us who are not the immediate descendents of those where he conquer'd though some thousands of years since 14. Before we go any further let 's examin how this History comes to obtain so firm and unshaken a Beleef from the whole World to this very day And first he must be a very weak Speculater that can think the universal and strong Perswasion of this matter of Fact was caus'd by Books Curtius his History for Example For since all Mankind knows naturally that Falshoods may as easily be charactered in Letters as Truths 't is evidently the continu'd Beleef of the Thing or Sence in mens hearts of it's Truth that is Human Tradition which gives that Book all its Authority and secures its strange Contents from being held Romanical which the very being-writ could never have done Let 's see next whence this Human Tradition had its force to continue hitherto so settled and unalterable a Persuasion of Alexanders Conquests And looking into the Thing for Proper Causes that is the best demonstrative mediums we shall find the Object it self was very Universall strange notorious and held of concern to the then livers which made their Hearts and Fancies full of it and so oblig'd them to burst out into Expressions of it and relate it to their Off-spring of the next Age. I but what oblig'd the Off-spring to beleeve their Forefathers telling it and to act or talk of it again to their Children as the Fathers did without which obligation it could not have descended to us Regarding once more the Thing we shall discover that it was imprinted into the Off-spring by the Forefathers Testifying what their senses had told them which put Common Sense inform'd them the thing was Infallibly-true and as Certain as if they had seen it with their own eyes For no reach of Reason but onely Extravagance of Madness could have furnish't them with any imaginable motive why the whole world should conspire to deceive them or be decievable in their Sensations By this means the Conceit of the Thing or matter of Fact as to the main for circumstantial Considerations were not so evident to all at first and so could not be universally deliver'd as ascertain'd by Sence was in the same degree of firmness and Certainty rivetted into the Hearts of next Age and so there being necessarily in the Rational part of the World some curious persons whom Nature her self could not but incline to an Inquisitiveness of what was done formerly and others too naturally inclin'd to tell it Children who were capable of it and delighted with hearing such strange-true Stories It went down continuing by the way of Tradition to our very dayes 15. But we have over-shot our mark The question is of the Obligation not to believe contrary to Forefathers from Age to Age. And t is already evident that the second Age after Alexander was oblig'd to beleeve the First because They saw with their eyes what was done But how could those in the Third Age be oblig'd to beleeve the Second who saw it not To answer this we must ask whether the third Age could be Certain that the second could not be deceiv'd in what the first Age told them and the notoriousness of the Thing being no speculation but a plain matter of Fact secures that or conspire to bely the second Ages Authority and common reason satisfying them by the circumstances of the honesty of the persons their Consent and the disinteressedness of the position that they could not thus conspire even the rudest have a Demonstration the second Age truly testifi'd what the First said and so those of the third Age have the first Ages Authority certainly apply'd to them and by means of its Authority its Sensations too and perfect knowledge of the Thing springing from that Experimential Perception which therefore must needs work the same Effect upon the third Age as it did upon the second And by virtue of the same Argument upon the the fourth fifth and five hundredth while it is known to have come down by the way of Testification and this is known by its being receiv'd in the five-hundredth Age as testify'd For if the second Age could not tell the third it was testify'd by the first unless it had been so testify'd the same reason I have assign'd for the Impossibility of that will hold for each Age to the End of the world that is 't will follow no Age could say a former Age testifyd so unless they did so whence nothing can come in as Testify'd by a former Age unless thus Testifyd If therefore the five-hundredth Age receiv'd a thing as testify'd supposing the notoreity of it secur'd the thing