numerically the same through all the successions of his natural Constitution although he hath the same Appellation But when we see the body of a man left uninformed and lifeless by the departure of his Soul from that time we declare the being of that Compositum and peculiar denomination to be determined and cease and if we could perceive the departed Soul according to Pythagoras his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 undertake the Information of another body we should as readily pronounce that to be a new Compositum or another person this is the case of your Disciples Conscience which you call the Soul of his Faith in its transmigration from the System or Body of the Protestant Faith to that of the Papists which from its dissonant Articles and Essentials to those of our Church hath been ever distinguished by a different Appellation so that these two neither in Name nor Essence are the same Faith and consequently if one is true the other is false therefore I shall leave your Disciple to be informed by your self after what manner with both these Faiths he shall behold his Saviour and thus you may observe how easie it is for you to mistake an equal Sincerity of Conscience for an Identity of Faith in your Allegorical Arguments From Page 20 to Page 26. you employ your confident Guide to assert its own Sufficiency by recriminating ours as not totally exempt from mistakes as well as its self but of the validity of that sort of arguing I shall leave the Reader to judge and proceed to the Merits of the Cause Thus much then we acknowledge that we do not think our selves obliged to believe the Pastors of Holy Church upon the bare account of Humanity to be absolutely infallible neither do we attribute to them so high Illuminations and Gifts as the first planting of the Gospel did require and Christ's Conversation afforded his Apostles who likewise was not altogether exempt from mistakes but yet we rely upon the Spirit of Truth which our Saviour promised to send to the Apostles and their Successors after his Ascension to preserve them from teaching such Errors as are inconsistent with the Divine Oeconomy in Affairs of Religion and the harmony of the Scriptures And this in one of your lucid Intervals Page 24. you in effect affirm in these very syllables And I verily believe if God had not stirred up some persons of excellent Abilities and worthy Spirits for such surely they were though not exempt from humane weakness to examine by the Rules of their own Reasons those Follies and dangerous Errors in Religion which c. Now in my poor Opinion it will neither blemish your style nor injure your Notion to Pen it plainly thus If God had not by the assistance of his Grace stirred up c. For that is the means according to the Promise of our Saviour and the Tenor of the Scripture by which God stirs up and enables the Minds of men to all religious Performances whether private or publick I choose to answer your Recrimination after this manner rather than to rake into Antiquity by reviving the exceptions to the Constitutions of those Counsels you quote in this Paragraph and therefore shall say no more to this Point but that our Saviour's not promising the same measure of his Spirit to every private man as to his Apostles and their Successors states the right Guides of Holy Church above the scandal of your Comparison Page 25 26. You again tell us that we are in much more danger of being drawn from the Christian Faith by building our Belief wholly upon the Authority of past or present Ages then to remit the Judgment of those things to our own Reasons in this Assertion the term wholly altogether excludes a Rational Satisfaction on the Believers part and therefore doth not assault the Protestant Principles for which only I am concerned You reinforce this Argument against the Authority of the Church with another absurd Allegation much of the same Class with the former that the Christian was neither the most ancient nor universal Religion in the world As to the last I doubt not but you will agree with us that immense Dominions or vast numbers of Votaries are not the inseparable Characteristicks of the true Religion for the greatest part of the World was inslaved to Idolatry and Gentilism as you observed in the time of the Law as well as of the Gospel and you who own the Scriptures must acknowledge with us that the first was dictated by God the Father and the other by his Son the Supream Testimony for the truth of both 2ly As to the Antiquity of the Christian Faith you cannot but know that the Contents of the Scriptures and the Consent of learned men assert the foundation of the Gospel to be laid in the Eternal Decree of a Messias before the Creation of the World and that the first notice of it here below was immediately after the Fall of our first Parents when God promised a great Redeemer for the Relief of man who should vanquish and be avenged of the subtilty of the Serpent and after this the Substance of the Christian Principles were existent in the Primitive Integrity of Abel and his Successors until the time of Abraham to whom it was revealed that the Messias should descend from his own Loins and afterward more particularly to Jacob of what Tribe he should be born After this manner the Christian Faith was preserved and conveyed down to the Penning of the Scriptures and then the Types and Predictions under the Law were the Harbingers of its manifestation in the Incarnation Doctrine and Miracles of our Saviour until he sealed it with his Passion Upon this account you may very well conclude as you do although against your foregoing Allegation in the same Page that there is more and greater reason to be found for the Belief of a Christian than for any other whatsoever In your 27 28 Pages I find such a medley of vile Contradictions as never before was vented by man for here in your Allegorical Style you take it for granted that there may be a thousand right Religions or ways of true Worship although you have acknowledged the truth of the Scriptures which admit but of one And secondly That your infallible Guide by wandring up and down in this multiplicity of Paths will by a long troublesom and tedious Voyage bring you to happiness at last Now for the applying this Allegory you should have made a new Demonstration That there are so many right ways to Eternal Salvation otherwise if you will measure your Metaphor by the Rules of Holy Writ it is a thousand to one but your Guide will deceive you As to the Contents of your 29 30 31 32 Page I acknowledge that it is not only an Act of Charity but the absolute duty of Christians to allow the Gate of Heaven to be as broad as the Scriptures have stated it And on the other
side you know the doom of those who shall attempt to press it more open than they have set it but in them the Way is said to be streight and the Gate narrow and that few shall enter therein Is it not plain therefore that leaving the right and following your wrong and natural Guide you are brought into a streight between two excesses that to shun Austerity as you term it on the one side you are put upon that profane and wretched belief of an equal possibility for the Salvation of Turks Heathens and Jews with that of the Christians nay of Atheists themselves if there be any such now if you will believe the Scriptures the fool hath said in his heart there is no God And amongst the Heathen Philosophers not to mention single Instances the whole Sect of the Epicureans could be no less who whilest they could not track the Methods of Divine Power and Providence denyed the Deitie's Creation and his Government of the World After all therefore it seems much safer to suspend your belief concerning the Fate of those People who are out of the Pale of Christianity and leave them as you acknowledge some do in the hands of the Creator than to descant in the least on his extraordinary Disposals not revealed to our Understandings But above all how heretical and horrid is your Conceit about the possibility of the Salvation of Devils from the excessive kindness of the Judge which contradicts all Divine Declarations nor is there any colour on their part to plead either invincible Ignorance or the Merits of a Redeemer the two grand means even according to your own Doctrine for the obtaining of Pardon Thus you see to what extravagancies your Natural Reason is brought by a high Conceit and Partiality to its self under a pretence of Charity to the World As to your Discourse Page 33. That although Christ is the onely Source and Cause of Eternal Felicity yet you may very well believe that there are secret and wonderful ways by which God may be pleased to apply his Merits to Mankind besides those direct open and ordinary ones of Baptism and Confession let it suffice those ways are not revealed and therefore ought not to be pryed into by the Rules of Christianity Page 34. In defiance of the Churches Anathemaes you assert That all sorts of Christians shall be saved except their Lives disagree from their Doctrines which likewise is a Disobedience to their Reasons and this also you in effect have affirmed of men of the worst Religions for brevity sake Therefore I shall endeavour to answer them both together That it is obvious enough to those who have any insight into the vast differences in the profession of Christianity at large that many pass under the Title of Christians because they in general profess the Mission of the Messias yet hold many Tenents heretical and derogatory both to his Nature and Office and those Opinions as an additional mischief so much influence their Actions that they lead ill Lives suitable to the Errors of their Understandings And this also is most true of the strictest Professors of the worst Religions and it is observable that those sorts of men who after this manner oppose the Catholick Church and the Precepts of the Scriptures are such as pay too much Obedience to their Natural Reasons in Divine Matters the Instances are too frequent and obvious in all Ages to need particular Quotations Page 35. Your discovery and stating of Heresie is as insignificant as the rest of your Opinions for if any one shall stubbornly set up his own private Reason and Judgment against that of the Publick and shall upon that incompetent account broach Positions contrary to the Principles and Authority of the Catholick Church or Practice accordingly doubtless our Ecclesiastical Guides in these later Ages may pronounce the Censures of the Church against such persons according to the pattern of Primitive Governours who did as little as ours pretend to the Deities Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as you phrase it to have a perfect sight of the whole Contexture of mens thoughts and actions Lastly as to your feigned Law about Murder and its qualifying Circumstances to make the sentence Conditional I shall only answer that as a Comparison at best is no good argument of it self so neither can you deduce any from this for mens disobedience to the Church in matters of belief For the foundation of the Catholique Faith deduced from the Notions and Usage of Primitive times backed by the Scriptures is the highest accompt which the nature of the Subject is capable of therefore whoever it is proposed to may give their rational assent and is the best ground for an unqualified sentence upon all stubborn opposers Page 36. Thus much for Herisy as you say now for Schism but your way The remedy for that is the disease it self for Schism is defined to be a voluntary seperation from the Church upon a trivial account without any mention either of censure or connivance the first of which you say makes the other cures it but if this difinition be true then your individual Sects however allowed will be guilty of it after a most intolerable manner neither can your absolute Independency in affairs of Religion admit of any thing more than a civil Compliance in mens outward conversation but utterly ravels that continuity of Faith which is necessary to preserve that unity of the Church you your self mention nay should such a Licence be but admitted in Temporals in which Reasons Plea is much stronger to intitle it to an Independency than in matters of Religion it will utterly rase out all Society and Government in them as all order and communion in Spirituals You endeavour to reinforce this Argument for Independency in Religion from the great variety which God hath constituted in mans material parts their motions as if he may be delighted with no less variety not only in mans immaterial Parts but even in the most immaterial Actions of those Parts the Worship and Adoration of a Deity when the very nature of Truth and the Words of Holy Writ plainly informs us that it can be but one sutable to the unity of the object besides if a comparison altogether feigned by a wild supposition only without any demonstration betwixt beings of most dissimular natures may pass for an Argument what Proposition or Truth can be established among men Page 38. Of what weight or advantage to your Cause can you imagine your next Allegation can be that God without any distinction receives neither hurt nor advantage from the worship of man when this is a plain truth that his Essence indeed is not concerned at the operations of the Creature but his Glory is as it relates to the Creation and therefore for the magnifying of that here below he made man and instituted Divine Worship and hath expressed his delight in the uniformity of that devotion which himself hath
find that Animalis there signifies à divinis alienus and so is intended of the rational man and is distinguished from sensualis as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and this Commentators upon the place affirm to be agreeable to the Context the most approved way for stating Controverted Scriptures Page 61. To justifie your former mistake of the Scriptures you hazard another by affirming that when the Apostle speaks of his fighting with Beasts at Ephesus he means Disputations with sensual men but certainly you cannot be ignorant that you have considerable Antagonists in this Point also who understand the Place according to the Letter because to be exposed to wild beasts was a punishment in those times to which the Christians were deplorably subject from whence the Outcry upon any publick Discontent Christiani ad leones Beside whether the words literally understood shall be interpreted to contain in them a direct Affirmation that he had really fought or as a Supposition only if or in case he had fought with beasts at Ephesus of which he might have been in some hazard at least and as some think was prevented by his Associates they are alledged to be either way more forcible to demonstrate what the Apostle intended to prove at that time his belief of the Resurrection than if they shall be understood of a Metaphorical Combate I only hint this to remind you how unsuitable this Magisterial and Capapricious Project is to your design of an universal peaceable liberty and that you may collect from your own miscarriages in laying the Plot what is likely to prove the common fate of your Disciples Page 62. You would be at your Victory both ways again I shall transpose your words but not vary the sense That it is impossible for Humane Reason to lose any thing in one place without gaining as much in some other for by our Reasons being guided conquered and inslaved theirs are become Guides Conquerors and Masters which when they have done then they will lose what they contend for But you here forget that such a Conquest cannot be made upon so impregnable Principles and on the other side if this Supposition could be made an Experiment that way also your uncontroulable liberty will be utterly quashed which is all we contend for Nay had you well weighed the Contents of your foregoing Paragraph that St. Paul by true reason overcame and captivated the false ones and that by right of Conquest you must necessarily have seen in this Assertion as strong an Argument as can be for Example and Authority grounded upon reason which might happily have prevented your publishing to the World so many Impertinencies and Contradictions as are contained in this Treatise In the next place you undertake to fortifie your Project with three Arguments as you style them but they are rather Tautologies for they are nothing more in effect than the former Positions in other Similies and Phrases but I will cursorily examine them for full satisfaction Your first Argument like the Trojan Horse contains in its Bowels six monstrous Reasons to make good the Combate Page 63. For your first Reason you aver that we have no more warrantable ground for our Obedience to Authority than the Fanaticks and Enthusiasts have for following the Ignis fatuus of their own brains or that of evil Spirits and that our happening into the right by following it is meerly good fortune c. but if you intend this Derogation against the Authority of the Church deduced upon a rational account from the Contents of Holy Writ and Primitive usage as it hath been stated before then I doubt not but all sober men will agree that you ought with much more justice and correspondence to your own Concessions have compared their pragmatick and haughty Presumptions to that of your own Reason for you have acknowledged that your Guide as well as theirs will lead its followers into Errors but to solve this Phoenomenon you are reduced most absurdly to give us your single Authority that the Errors of you and your Guide are safe but theirs unpardonable but it hath already been made good against you that your Guide as well as theirs ingages in an Office without any warrant which makes the Errors on both parts consequential to that Assumption equally blameable 2ly To reinforce this Argument you quote Eves pleading the Authority of the Serpent and Adam hers yet all were punished but this Instance is as unapplicable as their Pleas were unwarrantable and plainly shews that your Reason is so far from being a good Guide in Divine matters that it is an ill one in common sence for the degrees of that Seducement rising by a Climax the inferiour all along influencing the superiour is the method of true Authority absolutely reverst but I admire also that you did not correct your Error by consulting the Text The woman that thou gavest not to be over me but with me as the expression in the Hebrew imports Page 65. You as absurdly give us again your own Affirmation only That the followers of your Guide if they commit themselves wholly to it are as safe in their Errors as others are in embracing the truth and whether it takes its Voyage to the Artick or Antartick to the left or the right it will bring them to the wished end of their Journey Happiness at last as if Errors and what is false were Mediums as safe and prevalent as the Truth for the obtaining of Bliss which contradicts the general Oeconomy of the World and the Natural and Common Reason of all Men. Page 66. After a most impertinent imbezelling both of Words and Sense you at last assert Now He that is God that bids you search is cruel and barbarous in his mockery if he knoweth you have no power or faculty so to search as he commands you there is therefore in man a natural ability of searching spiritual Truths Now as your Supposition is groundless so is your Conclusion and directly opposite to a Position of your own that natural reason of it self seeth neither the what nor the how of Spiritual Verities Therefore as I have demonstrated before God hath ordained and administred means peculiarly appropriate to the Condition of every Age for the enabling the Humane Faculty to search according to his Commands much better than it possibly can upon the score of lapsed Nature which fully acquits him of your blasphemous Supposition and shews you the falshood of your Hetrodox Assumption Your second Reason hath been often confuted before for your Natural Reasons setting it self up for a Guide in matters too high for it in that commits an error which otherwise is avoidable and upon that score also cannot possibly make a search that is truly mature which gives a just Provocation to the Deity to condemn such ill Beliefs and ill Actions as proceed from that Presumption In your third Reason you are at your large Principles of Charity again for the