not by forcing of Assent destroy the Nature and Virtue of it and he hath declar'd that he will permit Heresies that those who are approved and excellent Christians may be distinguished from those who are not This Expedient of the Romanists is like that of the Atheist Spinoza who has left the following Maxim to the World as his Legacy for Peace viz. That the Object of Faith is not Truth but Obedience and the quiet of human Society And they say in effect Shut all your Eyes and agree in one who shall lead you all and you will all go one way But the difficulty lies in getting them to agree It is not difficult to say a great deal more upon this Subject but in stead of that which might be here offer'd from myself I will refer the Reader to a Book lately publish'd and call'd A Discourse concerning a Iudge in Controversies if he be not satisfi'd with that which Mr. Chillingworth hath said long ago and to which this Author has here said nothing You say again confidently That if this Infallibility be once impeach'd every Man is given over to his own Wit and Discourse By which if you mean Discourse not guiding itself by Scripture but only by Principles of Nature or perhaps by Prejudices and popular Errors and drawing Consequences not by Rule but by Chance is by no means true If you mean by Discourse Right Reason grounded on Divine Revelation and common Notions written by God in the Hearts of all Men and deducing according to the never-failing Rules of Logick consequent Deductions from them If this be it which you mean by Discourse it is very meet and reasonable and necessary that Men as in all their Actions so especially in that of greatest importance the choice of their way to Happiness should be left unto it And he that follows this in all Opinions and Actions and does not only seem to do so follows always God whereas he that followeth a Company of Men may oft-times follow a Company of Beasts And in saying this I say no more than S. Iohn to all Christians in these words Dearly Beloved believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they be of God or no And the Rule he gives them to make this tryal by is to consider whether they Confess IESUS to be Christ that is the Guide of their Faith and Lord of their Action not Whether they acknowledge the Pope to be his Vicar I say no more than S. Paul in exhorting all Christians To try all things and hold fast that which is good Than S. Peter in commanding all Christians To be ready to give a reason of the hope that is in them Then our Saviour himself in forewarning all his Followers that if they blindly followed blind Guides both Leaders and Followers should fall into the Ditch And again in saying even to the People Yea and why of your selves judge ye not what is right And though by Passion or Precipitation or Prejudice by want of Reason or not using what they have Men may be and are oftentimes lead into Error and Mischief yet that they cannot be misguided by Discourse truly so called such as I have described you yourself have given them security For what is Discourse but drawing Conclusions out of Premises by good Consequence Now the Principles which we have setled to wit the Scriptures are on all sides agreed to be Infallibly true And you have told us in the Fourth Chapter of this Pamphlet That from Truth no Men can by good Consequence infer Falshood Therefore by Discourse no Man can possibly be led to error but if he erre in his Conclusions he must of Necessity either err in his Principles which here cannot have place or commit some error in his Discourse that is indeed not Discourse but seem to do so 13. You say Thirdly with sufficient confidence That if the true Church may err in defining what Scriptures be Canonical or in delivering the sense thereof then we must follow either the private Spirit or else natural Wit and Iudgment and by them examine what Scriptures contain true or false Doctrine and in that respect ought to be received or rejected All which is apparently untrue neither can any proof of it be pretended For though the present Church may possibly err in her Judgment touching this matter yet have we other directions in it besides the private Spirit and the Examination of the Contents which latter way may conclude the Negative very strongly to wit that such or such a Book cannot come from God because it contains irreconcileable Contradictions but the Affirmative it cannot conclude because the Contents of a Book may be all true and yet the Book not Written by Divine inspiration other direction therefore I say we have besides either of these three and that is the Testimony of the Primitive Christians 14. You say Fourthly with convenient boldness that this Infallible Authority of the Church being denied no Man can be assured that any parcel of the Scripture was Written by Divine Inspiration Which is an untruth for which no proof is pretended and besides void of Modesty and full of Iniquity The First because the Experience of Innumerable Christians is against it who are sufficiently assured that the Scripture is Divinely inspired and yet deny the Infallible Authority of your Church or any other The Second because if I have not ground to be assured of the Divine Authority of Scripture unless I first believe your Church Infallible then can I have no ground at all to believe it Because there is no ground nor can any be pretended why I should believe the Church Infallible unless I first believe the Scripture Divine 15. Fifthly and lastly You say with confidence in abundance that none can deny the Infallible Authority of your Church but he must abandon all infused Faith and True Religion if he do but understand himself Which is to say agreeable to what you had said before and what out of the abundance of the Heart you speak very often that all Christians besides you are open Fools or concealed Atheists All this you say with notable Confidence as the manner of Sophisters is to place their Confidence of Prevailing in their Confident manner of Speaking but then for the Evidence you promis'd to maintain this Confidence that is quite vanished and become invisible Hitherto I have been arguing against our Author but now in the close I cannot but joyn with him in his Protestants Exhortation to Humility It is an Admirable Virtue and may God grant to me and to all Men a greater Measure of it It is a Virtue proper even for Guides in Religion that they may humbly help the Faith of others and not exercise Dominion over it And because a late Writer has been pleas'd to suffer this severe censure to drop from his Pen it is the less to be admir'd that our Author is such a stranger to that Spirit of
inclined to believe that the way to Socinianism has been much open'd and widen'd by the Popish Doctors who have so vehemently urg'd the Obscureness of the Scriptures in the Doctrine of the Trinity and who at this very time furnish the Hawkers with their little Dialogues endeavouring to equal the new Doctrine of Transubstantiation with that of Three Persons in one incomprehensible Essence For to say that that invention of Paschasius is as reasonable to be believ'd as the great Mystery of the Trinity by all good Catholicks is in effect to say that neither of them is reasonable CHAP. II. Considerations touching the General Argument of the Protestants Plea for a Socinian shewing the weakness of it and that it is not of force enough to overthrow the Plea of the Reformed LET that which hath been said suffice for the Quality of this Writing I will proceed to the General Argument of it which may in brief be thus represented The Protestants and Socinians agree in their Plea they alledge Scripture they measure Faith by it as by a compleat and clear Rule They reject Councils and the Major part of Church Authority if they are not convinc'd that they are founded on the Scriptures in finding out the sense of which both sides profess due Industry Both parties excuse themselves whatsoever Doctrines they advance whatsoever Wounds they open in the Church as uninfected with Hâ—…si and free from Schisan till their private Spirit be satisfi'd and before the Tribunal they erect in their own Heads they are self-accus'd and self-condemned Therefore Protestants make Apology for Socinians and are neither able to confute them upon these Principles and Methods nor to justifie themselves but are oblig'd to appeal to the Infallible Iudge or the Major part of the Bench of Iudges in the Roman Church where all such Controversies may be effectually ended The force of this specious Argument will be abated as all such Arguments may easily be whose force lays only in plausible appearance by a few plain Considerations First the Socinians will not allow their Plea to be perfectly the same with that of the Protestants especially those of the Established Church of England The Socinian Author of the Brief Disquisition proceeds upâ—…n a supposed difference and he endeavours to shew that unless the Evangelical quitted their own way of Resolving Faith and made use of the Methods of Socinus they could not Solidly and Evidently refute the Romanists and particularly the Judgment of Valerianus Magnus concerning the Protestant Rule of Believing Secondly Both Arians and Socinians plead Tradition though their Plea is not manag'd exactly after our better manner And when they plead Tradition why is not theirs then as much the Popish Plea as when they plead Scripture it is the Protestants for neither do they plead that just as this Church does Two Assertions may be here advanc'd First that the Arians and Socinians plead Tradition Secondly that some Papists have help'd the more Modern of them to Materials for the making of that Plea. First Arians and Socinians plead Tradition against the Divine Nature of Christ as the Romanists plead Tradition for it Artemon taught the Heresie of our Saviours being a meer Man. And we are assured by an unnamed but an antient and as appeareth by his Fragments a very sagacious Author that his Party declared that they follow'd Antiquiry that their Ancestors and the Apostles themselves were of the same belief that to the time of Pope Victor the true Doctrine of the Apostles was preserved and that it was corrupted in the times of his Successor Zephyrin These how unjust soever were their Allegations Socinus takes the boldness to affirm That the Romanists are not able to defend their Principles about the Trinity by the Authority of the Fathers And on the contrary that the Earlier Fathers who liv'd before the Council of Nice were firm in his belief He cites the Council of Ariminum Iustin the Martyr and S. Hilary He promiseth upon supposition of leisure to write a Tract on this Subject for the satisfaction of those who are moved with such Authority Crellius pretends that during 300 years after Christ the Doctors of the Church consented in this Faith That the Father was the most High God whilst the Son was a Diety different from the Creator of the World. He says of Grotius in upbraiding manner That he must needs know of this Historical Truth being a Man conversant in the Fathers He quotes Iustin Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho as Evidence on his side He has the Confidence to say That the Men of his Way have demonstrated this and that the very Adversaries of the Unitarians have confessed this to be true in Tertullian and Origen He introduceth S. Hilary as a Patron of that Doctrine which denies the Divinity of the Spirit of God. He presumes to say That the nearer approaches we make to the Anti-Trinitarians the higher we come to the Apostolical Faith. Moscâ—…rovius charges his Adversaries with misrepresenting of the first Fathers when they bring them in as Witnesses of that Faith concerning the Trinity which they profess And he proceeds in telling of them That Ignatius the most antient of those Church-Doctors whose Writings are extant does openly say the contrary in his Epistle to those of Tarsus affirming that Christ is not the Deity who is God over all but only the Son of God. He goes on in citing Iustin Martyr Irenaeus Origen how much to the purpose it is not my business here to determine It is true Ignatius is not the most antient of those Doctors whose Writings are extant but when he wrote this Mr. Young had not published Clements Epistle nor Mâ—…rdus that of Barnabas It is also confess'd that he cites a spurious Piece of Tradition for Ignatius wrote not that Epistle Ad Tarsenses but in the mean time to Tradition he in part appeals Lubieniecius spends a Chapter in Demonstrating as he imagin'd that God had not left his Church from the Apostles times to his without Witnesses of the Doctrine which denies the Trinity He glories in Artemon Samosatenus Photinus and others for Men are apt in all Factions to pretend to Number and Antiquity Christopher Sandius wrote his indigested Heap of Church-Story with this very design that in the several Centuries he might take especial notice of the Favourers of the Arian Doctrine And under the borrowed Name of Cingallus he gives himself the Honour of having made a most solid proof concerning all the Fathers of the three first Ages that they believed as Arius believ'd Mr. Biddle in the Appendix to his Book against the Holy Trinity endeavours to strengthen his Plea with the Testimonies of Irenaeus Iustin Martyr Novatian Theophilus Origen Arnobius Lactantius Eusebius of Caesarea and Hilary of Poictiers He pretends to the Fathers though he is guilty of false mustering Monsieur-Aubert du Versoy tells the World with great assurance That all
was conceiv'd in the Body of the Virgin That the Question Whether Christ was before the World or after it is of no moment That his Blood is not a proper Sacrifice That the Holy Spirit is not any Person at all either Divine or Created That those who are not Ordained by others may step forth and preach the Gospel and administer the Sacraments That although Officers are generally employ'd in those Functions yet other Christians are not under Obligation to forbear the performance of them That Baptism is none of Christ's perpetual Precepts in his Church That it may be used in admitting those of riper years into a Church but not as a necessary Christian Rite That to hold it to be such is to add to the Scriptures That it is an indifferent Ceremony and if to be us'd it is to be us'd in the admission of those who come from some other Religion to Christianity That in the words of Christ This Cup is the New Covenant in my Blood which is shed for you there is a Solaecism or false Grammar and that there are many such Incongruities in the New Testament That it is an abuse of the Lords Supper to believe that it confers any benefit upon us conveighs any Grace from God or give us any further assurance of his favour That it is Idolatry to kneel at the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and that it may be Celebrated with the Head cover'd If these Doctrines be the results of due Industry in searching the Scriptures Prejudâ—…ce and Negligence may likewise put in their Plea as Preparatives to true Interpretation But farther in the very manner of Socinian Exposition there is apparent failure For though the Holy Writers express the same thing very differently and without respect to nicety of Words as is evident from the several forms of Words us'd in representing Christs Institution of the Lords Supper yet the Socinians make Interpretations of places which relate to the great Articles of Christian Faith to turn upon subtleties of Grammatical construction For Example sake they perplex the most comfortable Doctrine of Christs satisfaction with curious observations about the Particle For Whereas our Churchmen make the Old Testament the Key of the New and finding plainly that the Sacrifices of Attonement under the Law were the Types of the Offering the Blood of Jesus upon the Cross they conclude that God with respect to Christs Death in the quality of the great Expiation did admit the guilty World into a reconcileable Estate I might add that by coming to particulars the Socinian Prejudice and insincere Artifice in expounding such places of Holy Writ as concern their Scheme will appear to all unbyassed Readers I will instance in the Interpretation of that place in S. Iohn No Man hath Ascended up to Heaven but he that came down from Heaven even the Son of Man which is in Heaven Socinus for the avoiding a twofold nature in Christ by which he might be both in Heaven and in Earth and exist before he was born of a Virgin sets down a twofold Evasion in the place of an Explication First he interprets Ascending into Heaven by seeking after Heavenly things and Descending from Heaven by having Learned such Celestial things And to make all sure he takes the hardiness to say in the Second Place that as S. Paul was snatch'd up into the third Heavens and let down again so the Man Christ Jesus was taken up into Heaven somewhile before his Death and made some stay there And by his coming down again he explaineth his going forth from the Father his Ascending into Heaven his being in Heaven If this be Interpreting what is Perverting Sixthly Whereas in the end of this first-Conference the Author himself speaks as a third Person and a Romanist and raises a doubt about the certainty any Man can arrive at in having rightly used his Industry I would only ask him Whether a Man cannot be as sure of his industry in consulting his Reason and the Scriptures as in attending on Councils Fathers Decrees of Popes and the Method of the Major part of Church-Governors in the Universal Church of all Ages For the Argument of the Second Conference this is the Substance of it THE Socinians Plead that they ought not to receive the Article of the Divinity of Christ from the Major part of Church-Governors That it was not originally in the Creed That no Article ought to be receiv'd from church-Church-Authority till Men are convinc'd that it is grounded on the Scripture which Conviction they want Now unless the Church were Infallible in all she determin'd or at least in distinguishing those necessaries in which she cannot err from Points which are not of such necessity she cannot justifie her self in putting her Definitions into a Creed Protestants not withstanding they own the Article of Christs Divinity and urge the whole Creed into which it is put do yet argue after the manner of the Socinians against Church-Authority and plead the Scripture as their Ground and a necessity of Conviction therefore whilst they continue this kind of Plea they cannot by Church-Authority either justifie themselves or confute their Adversaries All this reasoning may be confuted by these distinct Answers 1. We have no need of confuting Arians and Socinians by Church-Authority seeing we can do it more effectually out of the Scriptures and if they say that the Scriptures are on their side their saying so does not alter the Nature of Truth And the Romanists allow that they say not true and they may be confuted when they are not silenc'd Protestants decline not a disputation with Socinians by the Rule of Primitive Church-Authority But if they undervalue this rule it is discretion in Protestants to debate the matter with them in a way which they themselves best like of seeing that is also a more certain as well as a more speedy way to Victory 2. Protestants do not well understand what Romanists mean by Church-Authority for some of their Doctors can by a new figure of their own make a part and the whole of the Church to be the same They do not think that the present Major part of Church-Governors throughout the Church can be their Rule because the People cannot always know which is that Part or that it ought to be their Rule because in some Ages the Minor part is the wiser and better Let not the Roman Church be griev'd at this as said from me Vincentius Lirinensis said it long ago that in the Arian times there was a general darkness even over the face of the Latin Church In the mean time they are made to suppose by this Author what they do not suppose that the judgment of the Catholick Church is not Infallible in judging what points are necessary what are not For though this or that Church or party of Christians may fail yet all cannot at once for then the Church