not reasonable but peevish in exacting infallible security and insisting upon every capricious Objection such as is Mr. S's Might it not be otherwise Now as to this degree of Assurance or as he calls it Infallibility I cannot but grant what he says of it to be most true viz. That in a severe acception of the word it is not rigorously infallible that is as he explains it it is not absolutely impossible nor does it imply a flat contradiction that the thing whereof we are so assured may be otherwise But then I utterly deny that according to any true acception of this word such a degree of Assurance as he speaks of can be called Infallibility and withall I affirm That none of those several degrees of Infallibility which he mentions excepting that only which imports an absolute impossibility can with any tolerable propriety of speech or regard to the true meaning and use of the word have the name of Infallibility given to them For Infallibility can signifie nothing else but an utter impossibility that one should be deceived in that matter as to which he is supposed to be infallible and to say such a thing is impossible is to say that the existence of it implies a flat contradiction So that whosoever asserts degrees of Infallibility is obliged to shew that there are degrees of absolute impossibilities and of perfect contradictions and he had need of a very sharp and piercing wit that is to find out degrees where there neither are nor can be any Indeed in respect of the objects of knowledge it is easie to conceive how Infallibility may be extended to more objects or fewer but in respect of the degree of assurance of which Mr. Cressy speaks it is altogether unimaginable how any one can be more or less out of all possibility of being deceived in those things wherein he is supposed to be infallible for no one can be more removed from the possibility of being deceived than he that is out of all possibility of being deceived and whosoever is less than this is not infallible because he only is so who is out of all possibility of being deceived in those matters wherein he is supposed to be infallible So that Mr. Cressy's lower degrees of Infallibility are no degrees of that assurance which may properly be called infallible for that can have no degrees but of that assurance which is less than infallible And he needed not have raised all this dust about the degrees of Infallibility had it not been that by the means of such a cloud he might make the more convenient escape out of that strait he was in between the clamours of his own Church and the advantage which his Adversaries made of his free and open discourse against Infallibility For any one that carefully reads his Book will find that he understands nothing by the Infallibility of the Church but an Authority of obliging all Christians to submit to her Decisions which is no more but what every Supreme Civil Judg hath in Civil matters viz. a power to determine those Controversies that lie before him as well as he can or will and when that is done every one is bound to submit to such determinations but yet for all this no man ever dream't a Supreme Civil Judg to be infallible more than another man I do not now dispute the extent of the Churches Authority but if she have no other Infallibility but what a full Authority of decision does suppose I am sure she hath none at all Before I leave Mr. Cressy I cannot but take notice how unfortunate and disingenuous he is in explaining the meaning of these words of his own viz. Against this word of Infallibility Mr. Chillingworth 's Book especially combats and this with too too great success which in his Appendix he interprets thus Success I mean not against the Church but against his own Soul and the Souls of his Fellow-English Protestants c. As if one that had wished well to Caesar should have said That Pompey had fought against him with too too great success and being afterwards challenged by Caesar's Party as having said that Pompey had Conquered Caesar he should explain himself thus Success I mean not against Caesar but against his own life and the lives of his followers Can any thing be finer than for a man to say that by Pompey's success in fighting against Caesar he means that Caesar had beaten Pompey which is no more than if one should take the liberty to interpret white by black § 6. Lastly Mr. White doth most expresly contradict this Principle of Mr. S's in these following passages In his Preface to Mr. Rushworth he says That such a certainty as makes the cause always work the same effect though it take not away the absolute possibility of working otherwise ought absolutely to be reckoned in the degree of true certainty and that those Authors are mistaken who undervalue it So that it seems Mr. S. is mistaken in affirming that a man cannot be certain of any thing so long as there is any possibility that it may be otherwise In his Answer to my Lord Falkland he says That in Moral matters and such as are subject to humane action we must expect such assurance as humane actions bear If for the government of your spiritual life you have as much as for the management of your natural and civil life what can you expect more Two or three witnesses of men beyond exception will cast a man out of not only his lands but life and all He that among Merchants will not adventure where there is a Hundred to one of gaining will be accounted a silly Factor And among Souldiers he that will fear danger where but one of a Hundred is slain shall not escape the stain of Cowardize What then shall we expect in Religion but to see a main advantage on the one side which we may rest our selves on and for the rest remember we are men subject to chance and mutability and thank God he hath given us that assurance in a supernatural way which we are contented withall in our civil ventures and possessions which nevertheless God knoweth we often love better and would hazard less than the unknown good of the life to come Again If God Almighty hath in all sorts and manners provided his Church that she may enlighten every man in his way that goeth the way of a man then let every man consider which is the sit way for himself and what in other matters of that way he accounteth evidence And if there be no interest in his Soul to make him loth to believe what in another matter of the like nature he doth not stick at or heavy to practise what he sees clearly enough I fear not his choice Once more directing a man in his search after rational satisfaction in matters of Religion he hath this passage Besides this he must have this care that he seek what
in reason he ought to have done before he had forsaken us I shall declare it more particularly in these following Proposiâ—ions § 2. 1. That the Doctrine of Christian Religion was by Christ delivered to the Apostles and by them first preached to the World and afterwards by them committed to Writing which Writings or Books have been transmitted from one age to another down to us So far I take to be granted by our present Adversaries That the Christian Doctrine was by Christ delivered to the Apostles and by them publish'd to the World is part of their own Hypothesis That this Doctrine was afterwards by the Apostles committed to writing he also grants Corol. 29. 'T is certain the Apostles taught the same Doctrine they writ and if so it must be as certain that they writ the same Doctrine which they taught I know it is the general Tenet of the Papists that the Scriptures do not contain the entire body of Christian Doctrine but that besides the Doctrines contained in Scripture there are also others brought down to us by oral or unwritten Tradition But Mr. S. who supposeth the whole Doctrine of Christian Religion to be certainly conveyed down to us solely by oral Tradition doth not any where that I remember deny that all the same Doctrine is contained in the Scriptures only he denies the Scriptures to be a means sufficient to convey this Doctrine to us with certainty so that we can by them be infallibly assured what is Christ's Doctrine and what not Nay he seems in that passage I last cited to grant this in saying that the Apostles did both teach and write the same Doctrine I am sure Mr. White whom he follows very closely throughout his whole Book does not deny this in his Apology for Tradition where he saith that it is not the Catholick position that all its Doctrines are not contained in the Scriptures And that those Writings or Books which we call the Holy Scriptures have been transmitted down to us is unquestionable matter of fact and granted universally by the Papists as to all those Books which are owned by Protestants for Canonical § 3. Secondly That the way of Writing is a sufficient means to convey a Doctrine to the knowledg of those who live in times very remote from the age of its first delivery According to his Hypothesis there is no possible way of conveying a Doctrine with certainty and security besides that of oral Tradition the falshood of which will sufficiently appear when I shall have shewn that the true properties of a Rule of Faith do agree to the Scriptures and not to oral Tradition In the mean time I shall only offer this to his consideration that whatever can be orally delivered in plain and intelligible words may be written in the same words and that a Writing or Book which is publick and in every ones hand may be conveyed down with at least as much certainty and security and with as little danger of alteration as an oral Tradition And if so I understand not what can render it impossible for a Book to convey down a Doctrine to the knowledg of after-ages Besides if he had looked well about him he could not but have apprehended some little inconvenience in making that an essential part of his Hypothesis which is contradicted by plain and constant experience For that any kind of Doctrine may be sufficiently conveyed by Books to the knowledg of after-ages provided those Books be but written intelligibly and preserved from change and corruption in the conveyance both which I shall be so bold as to suppose possible is as little doubted by the generality of mankind as that there are Books And surely we Christians cannot think it impossible to convey a Doctrine to posterity by Books when we consider that God himself pitched upon this way for conveyance of the Doctrine of the Jewish Religion to after-ages because it is not likely that so wise an Agent should pitch upon a means whereby it was impossible he should attain his end § 4. Thirdly That the Books of Scripture are sufficiently plain as to all things necessary to be believed and practised He that denies this ought in reason to instance in some necessary point of Faith or matter of Practice which is not in some place of Scripture or other plainly delivered For it is not a sufficient objection to say that the greatest wits among the Protestants differ about the sense of those Texts wherein the generality of them suppose the Divinity of Christ to be plainly and clearly expressed Because if nothing were to be accounted sufficiently plain but what it is impossible a great wit should be able to wrest to any other sense not only the Scriptures but all other Books and which is worst of all to him that makes this objection all oral Tradition would fall into uncertainty Doth the Traditionary Church pretend that the Doctrine of Christ's Divinity is conveyed down to her by oral Tradition more plainly than it is expressed in Scripture I would fain know what plainer words she ever used to express this point of Faith by than what the Scripture useth which expresly calls him God the true God God over all blessed for evermore If it be said that those who deny the Divinity of Christ have been able to evade these and all other Texts of Scripture but they could never elude the definitions of the Church in that matter it is easily answered that the same Arts would equally have eluded both but there was no reason why they should trouble themselves so much about the latter for why should they be solicitous to wrest the definitions of Councils and conform them to their own opinion who had no regard to the Churches Authority If those great Wits as he calls them had believed the sayings of Scripture to be of no greater authority than the definitions of Councils they would have answered texts of Scripture as they have done the definitions of Councils not by endeavouring to interpret them to another sense but by downright denying their Authority So that it seems that oral Tradition is liable to the same inconvenience with the written as to this particular § 5. And of this I shall give him a plain instance in two great Wits of their Church the present Pope and Mr. White the one the Head of the Traditionary Church as Mr. S. calls it the other the great Master of the Traditionary Doctrine These two great Wits notwithstanding the plainness of oral Tradition and the impossibility of being ignorant of it or mistaking it have yet been so unhappy as to differ about several points of Faith insomuch that Mr. White is unkindly censured for it at Rome and perhaps here in England the Pope speeds no better however the difference continues still so wide that Mr. White hath thought fit to disobey the summons of his chief Pastor and like a prudent man rather to write against him here out
of harms-way than to venture the infallibility of plain oral Tradition for the Doctrines he maintains against a practical Tradition which they have at Rome of killing Hereticks Methinks Mr. S. might have spared his brags that he hath evinced from clear reason that it is far more impossible to make a man not to be than not to know what is rivetted into his soul by so oft repeated sensations as the Christian Faith is by Oral and Practical Tradition and that it exceeds all the power of Nature abstracting from the cases of madness and violent disease to blot knowledg thus fixt out of the soul of one single Believer insomuch that sooner may all mankind perish than the regulative vertue of Tradition miscarry nay sooner may the sinews of entire nature by overstraining crack and she lose all her activity and motion that is her self than one single part of that innumerable multitude which integrate the vast testification which we call Tradition can possibly be violated when after he hath told us that the City of Rome was blest with more vigorous causes to imprint Christ's Doctrine at first and recommend it to the next Age than were found any where else and consequently that the stream of Tradition in its source and first putting into motion was more particularly vigorous there than in any other See and that the chief Pastor of that See hath a particular Title to Infallibility built upon Tradition above any other Pastor whatsoever not to dilate on the particular assistances to that Bishop springing out of his divinely constituted Office when I say after all this quaint Reason and rumbling Rhetorick about the infallibility of Oral Tradition and the particular infallibility of the Bishop of Rome built on Tradition we cannot but remember that this great Oracle of Oral Tradition the Pope and this great Master of it Mr. White who is so peculiarly skill'd in the Rule of Faith have so manifestly declar'd themselves to differ in points of Faith For that the Pope and his Congregation general at Rome have condemn'd all his Books for this reason because they contain several Propositions manifestly heretical is a sign that these two great Wits do not very well hit it in matters of Faith and either that they do not both agree in the same Rule of Faith or that one of them does not rightly understand it or not follow it And now why may not that which Mr. S. unjustly says concerning the use of Scripture be upon this account justly apply'd to the business of Oral Tradition If we see two such eminent Wits among the Papists the Pope and Mr. White making use of the self-same and as they conceive the best advantages their Rule of Faith gives them and availing themselves the best they can by acquired skills yet differ about matters of Faith what certainty can we undertakingly promise to weaker heads that is to the generality of the Papists in whom the Governors of the Church do professedly cherish ignorance for the increasing of their devotion § 6. Fourthly We have sufficient assurance that the Books of Scripture are conveyed down to us without any material corruption or alteration And he that denies this must either reject the authority of all Books because we cannot be certain whether they be the same now that they were at first or else give some probable reason why these should be more liable to corruption than others But any man that considers things will easily find that it is much more improbable that these Books should have been either wilfully or involuntarily corrupted in any thing material to Faith or a good Life than any other Books in the World whether we consider the peculiar Providence of God engaged for the preservation of them or the peculiar circumstances of these Books If they were wrirten by men divinely inspired and are of use to Christians as is acknowledged at least in words on all hands nothing is more credible than that the same Divine Providence which took care for the publishing of them would likewise be concerned to preserve them entire And if we consider the peculiar circumstances of these Books we shall find it morally impossible that they should have been materially corrupted because being of universal and mighty concernment and at first diffused into many hands and soon after translated into most Languages and most passages in them cited in Books now extant and all these now agreeing in all matters of importance we have as great assurance as can be had concerning any thing of this nature that they have not suffered any material alteration and far greater than any man can have concerning the incorruption of their oral Tradition as I shall shew when I come to answer the thing which he calls Demonstration § 7. Fifthly That de facto the Scripture hath been acknowledged by all Christians in former Ages to be the means whereby the doctrine of Christ hath with greatest certainty been conveyed to them One good evidence of this is That the Primitive Adversaries of Christian Religion did always look upon the Scripture as the standard and measure of the Christian Doctrine and in all their writing against Christianity took that for granted to be the Christian Faith which was contained in those Books there having not as yet any Philosopher risen up who had demonstrated to the World that a Doctrine could not with sufficient certainty and clearness be conveyed by writing from one Age to another But how absurd had this method of confuting Christian Religion been if it had been then the publick profession of Christians that the Scriptures were not the Rule of their Faith How easie had it been for the Fathers who apologized for and defended Christian Religion to have told them they took a wrong measure of their Doctrine for it was not the principle of Christians that their Faith was conveyed to them by the Scriptures and therefore it was a fond undertaking to attaque their Religion that way but if they would effectually argue against it they ought to enquire what that Doctrine was which was orally delivered from father to son without which the Scriptures could signifie no more to them than an unknown Cipher without a Key being of themselves without the light of Oral Tradition only an heap of unintelligible words unsensed Cha racters and Ink variously figured in a Book and therefore it was a gross mistake in them to think they could understand the Christian Religion like their own Philosophy by reading of those Books or confute it by confuting them Thus the Fathers might have defended their Religion nay they ought in all reason to have taken this course and to have appealed from those dead senseless Books to the true Rule of Faith the living voice of the Church Essential But doth Mr. S. find any thing to this purpose in the Apologies of the Fathers If he hath discover'd any such matter he might do well to acquaint the World
syllable the sense of Tradition will be in the very same danger of uncertainty and be liable to vanish we know not how Dr. Holden lays down these two Principles First That no truth can be conveyed down from man to man but by speech and speech cannot be but by words and all words are either equivocal in themselves or liable to be differently understood by several persons Secondly That such is the frame of mans mind that the same truths may be differently apprehended and understood by different persons And if this be true then Traditional Doctrines if they be deliverd by speech and words will be liable to uncertainties and ambiguities as to their sense as well as Scripture Mr. Cressy tells us That Reason and Experience shews that differences will arise even about the Writings of the Fathers and any thing but the Testimony of the present Church If this be true Tradition wholly falls into uncertainty For if difference will arise about the Writings of the Fathers how they are to be interpreted I suppose the Writings of Councils will be liable to the same inconvenience And if the whole present Church cannot declare her sense of any Traditional Doctrine otherwise than by a Council unless with the Jesuites they will epitomize the Church into the Pope and the Decrees of a Council cannot be universally dispers'd or at least never use to be but by Writing And if Differences will arise about the interpretation of that Writing as well as any other then this present infallible Authority which Mr. Cressy magnifies so much for ending Differences leaves all Controversies arising about the sense of Tradition as indeterminable as ever and they must for ever remain so till general Councils have got the knack of penning their Decrees in words which will so infallibly express their meaning to the most captious Caviller that no difference can possibly arise about the interpretation of them or else which will be more suitable to this wise Hypothesis till general Councils being convinc'd by Mr. S's Demonstrations shall come to understand themselves so well as not to entrust their Decrees any more to the uncertain way of Writing but for the future to communicate them to the World by the infallible way of oral Tradition And to mention no more Mr Knott who agrees with the other thus far that the certain sense of Scripture is only to be had from the Church speaks to this purpose That before we can be certain that this is the sense of such a Text we must either be certain that this Text is capable of no other sense as Figurative Mystical or Moral or if it be we must have some certain and infallible means to know in which of them it is taken which can be known only by revelation If this be true then by a fair parity of reason before I can be certain that this is the sense of a Doctrinal Tradition delivered down to me I must either be certain that the words in which this Tradition was expressed when it was delivered to me are capable of no other sense as Figurative Mystical or Moral besides that in which I understood them or if they be as certainly they will be capable of any of these other senses then must I have some certain and infallible means whereby to know in which of these they are taken And this can no more be known without a revelation than which is the true sense of such a Text of Scripture If it be said that the sense of a Traditional Doctrine may by different expressions be still further and further explained to me till I come certainly to understand the sense of it this will not help the matter For if these kind of cavils be good that a man cannot be certain of the meaning of any words till he can by an infallible argument demonstrate either that they cannot be taken or that they are not taken in any other sense I say if this cavil will hold then every new expression whereby any one shall endeavor to explain any Traditional Doctrine is liable to the same inconvenience which those words in which it was first delivered to me were liable to From all which it is evident that the Traditionary Church can be no more certain of the sense of their Traditional Doctrines than Protestants may be of the sense of Scripture § 12. These are his Exceptions contained in his second Discourse and of what force they are hath been examined But because he foresaw that it might be replied that these defects might in part be provided against by History by the Providence of God by Testimonies of Councils and Fathers and by the sufficient clearness of Scripture as to Fundamentals He endeavors to shew that these signifie little to this purpose First Not History because few are skilled in History and they that are not cannot safely rely upon those that are skill'd unless they knew certainly that the Historians whom they rely on had secure grounds and not bare hear-say for what they writ and that they were not contradicted by others either extant or perished How much credit is to be given to uncontrolled History by the learned and how much by the vulgar to men of skill I have already shewn I shall only add now that if this reasoning be true it is impossible for any man to be certain by History of any ancient matter of Fact as namely that there were such persons as Julius Caesar and William the Conqueror and that they invaded and conquered England because according to him we cannot know certainly that the Historians who relate these things and upon whose authority we rely had secure grounds and not bare hear-say for what they writ And that they were not contradicted by others either extant or perished is I am sure impossible for any man to know For who can tell now what was contained in those Books which are perished So that if this be requisite to make every Historical Relation credible to know certainly that it was not contradicted by any of those Books which we do not know what they were nor what was in them we can have no certainty of any ancient Fact or History for who knows certainly that some Books that are perished did not contradict whatever is written in Books that are extant Nay if this reasoning hold we can have no certainty of any thing conveyed by oral Tradition For what though the Priest tell me this was the Doctrine of Christ delivered to him unless I know that all others agree with him in this Tradition I cannot rely upon his testimony Nor then neither in Mr. Knott's opinion because the testimony of Preachers or Pastors is human and fallible unless according to his Jargon a conclusion deduced from Premises one of which is only probable may be sufficient to bring our understanding to an infallible act of Faith viz. if such a conclusion be taken Specificative whereas if it be taken Reduplicative
a Hundred years to a Hundred but from Month to Month and even less If this be all that Tradition doth this is nothing but what is done among Protestants and that with greater advantage because we always teach Children to say their Prayers in a known Tongue so as they may understand them And we also teach them the Creed and Ten Commandments and the Sacraments so many as Christ hath instituted and no more So that if this be so infallible a way of conveying the Doctrine of Christianity we have it among us And we do over and besides instruct them in the Scriptures which are the authentick Instrument whereby Christ's Doctrine is conveyed to us But then we do not suppose as his Hypothesis necessarily enforceth him to do that the Christian Doctrine is equally taught and learned by all but by some more by others less perfectly according to the different abilities and diligence of Parents and Teachers and the various capacities and dispositions of Children whereas his Hypothesis falls if all or at least the generality of Parents do not instruct their Children with the like exactness and if the generality of Children do not receive this Doctrine in the same perfection that it is delivered For if it be taught or received with any variation it must necessarily be so conveyed and these variations will grow daily I had thought he would have told us how all Parents do teach their Children the whole Body of Christ's Doctrine and explain to them every part of it in a Hundred or a Thousand several expressions signifying the same sense and not have instanced in two Set-forms such as the Creed and Ten Commandments for according to Mr. White That cannot be a Tradition which is delivered in set-words § 2. Having thus explained Oral Tradition he comes to shew that the Properties of a Rule of Faith agree to it I have already shewed that the true Properties of a Rule of Faith are but two viz. That it be plain and intelligible and that it be sufficiently certain The first of these that Oral Tradition may deliver a Doctrine plainly and intelligibly I grant him All the difficulty is about the second Property whether we have sufficient assurance that the Doctrine delivered down by Oral Tradition hath received no coruption or change in its conveyance And all that he pretends to prove in this Discourse is That if this Rule hath been followed and kept to all along the Christian Doctrine neither hath nor can have received any change that is if the next Age after the Apostles did truly and without any alteration deliver the Christian Doctrine to their immediate Successors and they to theirs and so on then upon this supposition the Doctrine of the present Traditionary Church must be the very same with that which was delivered to the Apostles All this is readily granted to him But that this Rule hath always been followed nay that it is impossible there should have been any deviation from it as he pretends this we deny not only as untrue but as one of the most absurd Propositions that ever yet pretended to demonstrative evidence THE RULE of FAITH PART III. In which Mr. S's Demonstrations and Corollaries are examined SECT I. § 1. BEfore I come to speak particularly to his Demonstrations I shall premise these two Considerations First That according to the Principles of the Patrons of Tradition no man can by his private Reason certainly find out the true Rule of Faith Secondly That according to Mr. S. the way of Demonstration is no certain way to find out the Rule of Faith If either of these be made out his Demonstrations lose all their force If the first be made good then he cannot demonstrate the Infallibility of Tradition nor consequently that that is the Rule of Faith If the second then the way of Demonstration which he pretends to take signifies nothing § 2. First No man can according to the principles of the Patrons of Tradition by his private Reason certainly find out what is the Rule of Faith Suppose a Heathen to be desirous to inform himself of the Christian Faith in order to which he is inquisitive after some Rule by which he may take a measure of it and come certainly to know what it is He enquires of Christians what their Rule is and finds them divided about it some saying that the Scriptures others that Oral Tradition is the Rule In this case it is not possible without a Revelation for this man to find out the Rule of Faith but by his own private Reason examining and weighing the arguments and pretences of both sides And when he hath done this unless he can by his Reason demonstrate that the one is a certain and infallible Rule and the other not so he hath not according to Mr. S. found out the Rule of Faith But Reason can never do this according to Mr. S. For speaking of demonstrating the certainty of Tradition he tells us That Tradition hath for its Basis mans nature not according to his Intellectuals which do but darkly grope in the pursuit of Science c. And again speaking how Reason brings men to the Rule of Faith he uses this comparison She is like a dim-sighted man who used his Reason to find a trusty Friend to lead him in the twilight and then relied on his guidance rationally without using his own Reason at all about the Way it self So that according to him the certainty of Tradition cannot be founded on Demonstration because it is not founded in the intellectual part of man which only can demonstrate Besides if it were founded in the intellectual part yet that can never be able to demonstrate the certainty of Tradition because that faculty which is dim-sighted and does but grope darkly in the pursuit of Science is uncapable of framing Demonstrations Nor can any man understand how dim-sighted reason should see clearly to choose its guide any more than its way especially if it be considered what a pretty Contradiction it is to say that Reason as it is dim-sighted can see clearly But Mr. Cressy is not contented to call every mans Reason dim-sighted he ventures a step further and calls it hood-winkt and blind For he tells us That private Reason is apparently a most fallible guide and he pities my Lord Falkland's case because in the search of the true Religion he did betake himself to the casual conduct of blind humane natural Reason which afterwards he calls a guide that two persons cannot possibly follow together because no two persons that ever followed any other guide beside Authority did or could think all things to be reasonable that all others thought so and by consequence such a guide that as long as he continues in that office there cannot possibly be any Church any where which says he is an infallible eviction that this is an imaginary seducing guide since it is impossible that that should be
innovated have made the same pretence to uninterrupted Tradition Fourthly That it is not the present perswasion of the Church of Rome whom he calls the Traditionary Christians nor ever was that their Faith hath descended to them solely by Oral Tradition If I can now make good these four things I hope his Demonstration is at an end SECT VII § 1. THat these Principles wholly rely upon the truth of the Grounds of his Demonstration a Priori For if the Doctrine of Christ was either imperfectly taught in any Age or mistaken by the Learners or any part of it forgotten as it seems the whole Greek Church have forgot that fundamental Point of the Procession of the Holy Ghost as the Roman Church accounts it or if the Arguments of hope and fear be not necessary causes of actual will to adhere to Tradition then there may have been changes and innovations in any Age and yet men may pretend to have followed Tradition But I have shewn that Ignorance and Negligence and Mistake and Pride and Lust and Ambition and any other Vice or Interest may hinder those causes from being effectual to preserve Tradition entire and uncorrupted And when they do so it is not to be expected that those Persons who innovate and change the Doctrine should acknowledg that their new Doctrines are contrary to the Doctrine of Christ but that they should at first advance them as Pious and after they have prevailed and gained general entertainment then impudently affirm that they were the very Doctrines which Christ delivered which they may very securely do when they have it in their power to burn all that shall deny it § 2. I will give a clear Instance of the possibility of this in the Doctrine of Transubstantiation by shewing how this might easily come in in the Ninth or Tenth Age after Christ. We will suppose then that about this time when universal Ignorance and the genuine Daughter of it call her Devotion or Superstition had overspread the World and the generality of People were strongly enclined to believe strange things and even the greatest Contradictions were recommended to them under the notion of Mysteries being told by their Priests and Guides that the more contradictions any thing is to Reason the greater merit there is in believing it I say let us suppose that in this state of things one or more of the most eminent then in the Church either out of design or out of superstitious ignorance and mistake of the sense of our Saviour's words used in the Consecration of the Sacrament should advance this new Doctrine That the words of Consecration This is my Body are not to be understood by any kind of Trope as the like forms in Scripture are as I am the Vine I am the Door which are plain Tropes but being used about this great Mystery of the Sacrament ought in all reason to be supposed to contain in them some notable Mystery which they will do if they be understood of a real change of the substance of Bread and Wine made by vertue of these words into the real Body and Blood of our Saviour And in all this I suppose nothing but what is so far from being impossible that it is too usual for men either out of Ignorance or Interest to advance new Opinions in Religion And such a Doctrine as this was very likely to be advanced by the ambitious Clergy of that time as a probable means to draw in the People to a greater veneration of them which advantage Mr. Rushworth seems to be very sensible of when he tells us That the power of the Priest in this particular is such a priviledg as if all the learned Clerks that ever lived since the beginning of the World should have studied to raise advance and magnifie some one state of men to the highest pitch of Reverence and Eminency they could never without special light from Heaven have thought of any thing comparable to this I am of his mind that it was a very notable device but I am apt to think invented without any special light from Heaven Nor was such a Doctrine less likely to take and prevail among the People in an Age prodigiously ignorant and strongly enclined to Superstition and thereby well prepared to receive the grossest Absurdities under the notion of Mysteries especially if they were such as might seem to conciliate a greater honour and reverence to the Sacrament Now supposing such a Doctrine as this so fitted to the humor and temper of the Age to be once asserted either by chance or out of design it would take like wild-fire especially if by some one or more who bore sway in the Church it were but recommended with convenient gravity and solemnity And although Mr. Rushworth says It is impossible that the Authority of one man should sway so much in the World because sayes he surely the Devil himself would rather help the Church than permit so little pride among men yet I am not so thoroughly satisfied with this cunning reason For though he delivers it confidently and with a surely yet I make some doubt whether the Devil would be so forward to help the Church nay on the contrary I am enclined to think that he would rather choose to connive at this humble and obsequious temper in men in order to the overthrow of Religion than cross a design so dear to him by unseasonable temptations to pride So that notwithstanding Mr. Rushworth's reason it seems very likely that such a Doctrine in such an Age might easily be propagated by the influence and authority of one or a few great Persons in the Church For nothing can be more suitable to the easie and passive temper of superstitious Ignorance than to entertain such a Doctrine with all imaginable greediness and to maintain it with a proportionable zeal And if there be any wiser than the rest who make Objections against it as if this Doctrine were new and full of contradictions they may easily be born down by the stream and by the eminency and authority and pretended sanctity of those who are the heads of this Innovation And when this Doctrine is generally swallowed and all that oppose it are looked upon and punished as Hereticks then it is seasonable to maintain that this Doctrine was the doctrine of forefathers to which end it will be sufficient to those who are willing to have it true to bend two or three sayings of the Ancients to that purpose And as for the contradictions contained in this Doctrine it was but telling the People then as they do in effect now that contradictions ought to be no scruple in the way of Faith that the more impossible any thing is 't is the fitter to be believed that it is not praise-worthy to believe plain possibilities but that this is the gallantry and heroical power of Faith this is the way to oblige God Almighty for ever to us to believe flat and down-right
sense and explication thereof to have descended to them by Oral Tradition For just as the Traditionary Christians do now so Josephus tells us the Traditionary Jews of old the Pharisees did pretend by their Oral Tradition to interpret the Law more accurately and exactly than any other Sect. In like manner he tells us That all things that belonged to Prayer and Divine Worship were regulated and administred according to their interpretations of the Law And they both agree in this to make void the Word of God by their Tradition which the Pharisees did no otherwise than Mr. S. does by equalling Oral Tradition to Scripture nay preferring it above Scripture in making it the sole Rule of Faith and interpreting the Scripture according to it Hence are those common sayings in the Talmud and other Jewish Books Do not think that the written Law is the foundation but that the Law Orally delivered is the right foundation which is to say with Mr. S. that not the Scripture but Oral Tradition is the true Rule of Faith Again There is more in the words of the Scribes viz. the Testifiers of Tradition than in the words of the written Law Again The Oral Law excells the Written as much as the Soul doth the Body which accords very well with what Mr. S. frequently tells us That the Scripture without Tradition is but a dead Letter destitute of life and sense Hence also it is that they required the People as the Traditionary Church does now to yield up themselves to the dictates of Tradition even in the most absurd things as appears by that common saying among them If the Scribes say that the right hand is the left and the left the right that Bread is Flesh and Wine is Blood hearken to them that is make no scruple of whatsoever they deliver as Tradition though never so contrary to Reason or Sense And lastly The Doctrines of the Pharisees were many of them practical such were all those which concerned external rites and observances as washing of hands and cups c. So that these Pharisaical Traditions had also that unspeakable advantage which Mr. S. says renders their Traditions unmistakeable That they were daily practised and came down clad in such plain matters of Fact that the most stupid man living could not possibly be ignorant of them Therefore according to Mr. S's Principles it was impossible that any Age of the Jews should be perswaded that these things were commanded by Moses and ever since observed if they had not been so And yet our Saviour denies these Customs to have been of any such Authority as they pretended § 2. But I needed not to have taken all this pains to shew the agreement which is between the Traditionary Jews and Papists their own Writers so liberally acknowledging it Mr. White indeed says That the Faith of the Jews was not delivered to them Orally but by Writing than which nothing can be more inconsistent with his Hypothesis For if the Jewish Faith was conveyed to them not Orally but by Writing then either the Jewish Church had no sufficient Rule of Faith or else a Writing may be such a Rule But other of their Champions make great use of the Parallel between the Traditionary Jews and the Romish Church to confirm from thence their own Traditionary Doctrines Cardinal Perron hath a full passage to this purpose As this says he is to preserve a sound and entire respect to the Majesty of the ancient Mosaick Scripture to believe and observe not only all the things which are therein actually contained but also those things which are therein contained mediately and relatively as the Doctrines of Paradise c. which were not contained therein but mediately and by the authority which it gave to the deposition of the Patriarchal and Mosaick Tradition preserved by heart and in the Oral Doctrine of the Synagogue So this is to preserve a sound and entire respect to the Majesty of the Apostolical Scripture to believe and observe all the things which it contains not only immediately and by it self but mediately and by reference to the Apostolical Traditions to which in gross and generally it gives the Authority of Apostolical Doctrines and to the Church the Authority of Guardian and Depositary to preserve and attest them Voysin in his Observations upon Raymundus Martyn tells us That as in the Old Law the great Consistory at Jerusalem was the foundation of the true Tradition so says he the See of Rome is the foundation of our Traditions And as the continual succession of the High Priests and Fathers among the Jews was the great confirmation of the Truth of their Traditions so says he with us the Truth of our Catholick Doctrine is confirmed by a continual succession of Popes § 3. From all this it appears that the Pharisees among the Jews made the same pretence to Oral Tradition which the Papists do at this day according to Mr. S. And if so then Mr. S's Demonstration a Posteriori is every whit as strong for the Jews against our Saviour as it is for the Papists against the Protestants For we find that in our Saviour's time it was then the present perswasion of the Traditionary Jews that their Faith and their Rites and the true sense and interpretation of their written Law was descended from Moses and the Prophets to them uninterruptedly which we find was most firmly rooted in their hearts But the Jews had a constant Tradition among them that the Messiah was to be a great temporal Prince And though the Letters of the Prophesies concerning him might well enough have been accommodated to the low and suffering condition of our Saviour yet they did infallibly know that their Messiah was to be another kind of person from sense written in their hearts from the interpretation of those Prophesies Orally brought down to them from the Patriarchal and Mosaick Tradition preserved by heart and in the Oral Doctrine of the Synagogue and from the living voyce of their Church essential that is the universal consent of the then Traditionary Jews If it be said That the Jewish Tradition did indeed bring down several Doctrines not contained in Scripture of Paradise of Hell of the last Judgment of the Resurrection c. as Cardinal Perron affirms but it did not bring down this Point of the Messiah's being a Temporal Prince Then as Mr. S. asks us so the Jew does him By what vertue Tradition brought down those other Points and whether the same vertue were not powerful to bring down this as well as those Then he will ask him farther Is there not a necessary connexion and relation between a constant Cause and its formal Effect So that if its formal Effect be Points received as delivered ever the proper Cause must be an ever-delivery whence he will argue from such an Effect to its Cause for any particular Point and consequently for this Point that is in Controversie between Jews
proof of this I appeal to that Decree of the Council of Trent in which they declare That because the Christian Faith and Discipline are contained in written Books and unwritten Traditions c. therefore they do receive and honour the Books of Scripture and also Traditions pari pietatis affectu ac reverentiâ with equal pious affection and reverence which I understand not how those do who set aside the Scripture and make Tradition the sole Rule of their Faith And consonantly to this Decree the general Doctrine of the Romish Church is that Scripture and Tradition make up the Rule of Faith So the Roman Catechism set forth by order of the Council of Trent says that the sum of the Doctrine delivered to the Faithful is contained in the Word of God which is distributed into Scripture and Tradition Bellarmine speaks to the same purpose That the Scripture is a Rule of Faith not an entire but partial one The entire Rule is the Word of God which is divided into two partial Rules Scripture and Tradition According to this the adequate Rule of Faith is the Word of God which is contained partly in Scripture and partly in the Tradition of the Church And that Scripture is look't upon by them as the principal Rule and primary foundation of their Faith and Tradition as only supplying the defects of Scripture as to some Doctrines and Rites not contained in Scripture must be evident to any one that hath been conversant in the chief of their controversial Divines Bellarmine where he gives the marks of a Divine Tradition speaks to this purpose That that which they call a Divine Tradition is such a Doctrine or Rite as is not found in Scripture but embraced by the whole Church and for that reason believed to have descended from the Apostles And he tells us further That the Apostles committed all to Writing which was commonly and publickly Preached and that all things are in Scripture which men are bound to know and believe explicitely But then he says that there were other things which the Apostles did not commonly and publickly teach and these they did not commit to Writing but delivered them only by word of mouth to the Prelates and Priests and perfect men of the Church And these are the Apostolical Traditions he speaks of Cardinal Perron says That the Scripture is the foundation of the Christian Doctrine either mediately or immediately And that the Authority of unwritten Tradition is founded in general on these sentences of the Apostle Hold the Traditions c. Again The things which thou hast heard of me among many Witnesses commit to faithful men c. And that the Authority of the Church to preserve and especially to declare these is founded in this Proposition viz. That the Church is the pillar and ground of Truth So that according to him the primary Rule of Faith is the Scripture in which the Authority of Tradition is founded Mr. Knott says expresly We acknowledg the H. Scripture to be a most perfect Rule for as much as a Writing can be a Rule we only deny that it excludes either Divine Tradition though it be unwritten or an external Judg to keep to propose to interpret it c. So that according to him Scripture is a perfect Rule only it does not exclude unwritten Tradition c. By which that he does not understand as Mr. S. does a concurrent Oral Tradition of all the same Doctrines which are contained in Scripture but other Doctrines not therein contained is plain from what he says elsewhere We do not distinguish Tradition from the written Word because Tradition is not written by any or in any Book or Writing but because it is not written in the Srripture or Bible Bellarmine also says the same And as for the interpreting of Scripture he tells us that this is not the office of a Rule but of a Judg. There is says he a great and plain distinction between a Judg and a Rule For as in a Kingdom the Judg hath his Rule to follow which are the received Laws and Customs which are not fit or able to declare and be Judges to themselves but that Office must belong to a living Judg So the Holy Scripture is and may be a Rule but cannot be a Judg. Here he makes the Scripture as much a Rule for matters of Faith as the Laws of the Land are for Civil matters And in his Reply to Mr. Chillingworth he hath a Chapter of above 150 Pages the Title whereof is Scripture is not the only Rule of Faith which had he with Mr. S. believed Oral Tradition to be the sole Rule of Faith had been as absurd as it would be to write a Book to prove that Turks are not the only Christians in the World Mr. Cressy likewise not very consistently to himself lays down this Conclusion The entire Rule of faith is contained not only in Scripture but likewise in unwritten Tradition § 2. Now all this is as contrary as can be to Mr. Rushworth's new Rule of Faith Therefore Mr. White says They speak ill who teach that some things are known in the Church from Scripture some by Tradition And Dr. Holden in opposition to those who make Scripture any part of the Rule of Faith advances one of the most wild and uncharitable Positions that ever I yet met withall viz. That if one should believe all the Articles of the Catholick Faith c. for this reason because he thought they were all expresly revealed in Scripture or implicitely contained so as they might be deduced from thence and would not have believed them had he not judged that they might be evinced from Scripture yet this man could be no true Catholick Because as he tells us afterwards we must receive the Christian Doctrine as coming to us by Tradition for only by this means excluding the Scriptures Christ hath appointed revealed Truths to be received and communicated In the mean time Cardinal Perron unless he altered his mind is in a sad case who believed the Authority of Tradition it self for this reason because it was founded in Scripture § 3. And this fundamental difference about the Rule of Faith between the generality of their Divines and Mr S's small party is fully acknowledged by the Traditionists themselves Dr. Holden says That their Divines who resolve Faith according to the common Opinion do inevitably fall into that shameful Circle of proving the Divine Authority of the Scripture by the Church and the Infallibility of the Church back again by the Scripture because they dare not build their Faith upon the natural evidence and certainty of Tradition So that Dr. Holden's way of resolving Faith is different from the common Opinion of their Divines which he says does not differ from the Opinion of those who resolve their Faith into the private Spirit and this according to Mr. White
Discourse in which he pretends to open the incomparable strength of the Churches humane Authority and the Advantages which accrue to it by the supernatural assistances of the Holy Ghost But that there is nothing material in it which hath not been answered already Only I desire him to explain how the supernatural Assistances of the Holy Ghost can according to his Principles add to our assurance of the certainty of Tradition Because we can have no greater certainty of the supernatural Assistance of the Holy Ghost than we have that there is an Holy Ghost and of this we can have no certainty according to Mr. S. but by Tradition which conveys this Doctrine to us And if Tradition of it self can infallibly assure us that there are supernatural Assistances of the Holy Ghost then a man must know that Tradition is infallible antecedently to his knowledg of any supernatural Assistance And if so what can any supernatural Assistance add to my assurance of the certainty of Tradition which I do suppose to be infallible before I can know of any supernatural Assistance Can any thing be more ludicrous than to build first all our certainty of the Assistance of the Holy Ghost upon the certainty of Tradition and then afterwards to make the certainty of Tradition to rely upon the Assistance of the Holy Ghost As if that could contribute to our assurance of the certainty of Tradition which unless Tradition be first supposed certain is it self wholly uncertain § 2. The Conclusion of this Ninth Discourse is somewhat Extatical possibly from a sudden disorder of his fancy upon the contemplation of his own performances to see what a Man he has made himself with the help of Rushworth's Dialogues or rather what his Party has made him by the Office they put upon him For it seems by his telling Mr. Cressy and the rest are ordained to cajoll the Fools leaving him the way of Reason and Principles and that himself is chosen out to Demonstrate to the Wise or those who judg of things per altissimas causas In the discharge of which glorious Office he declares that he intends no Confutation of those Authors which Mr. Cressy and others have medled with Yet if any will be so charitable as to judg he hath solidly confuted them because he hath radically and fundamentally overthrown all their Arguments c. he shall rejoyce and be thankful That the intelligent Reader for he writes to none but such may also rejoyce with him I shall recite the whole passage for it is thick of Demostration and as likely as any in his Book to have the altissimas causas contained in it § 3. It would require a large Volume to unfold particularly how each virtue contributes to shew the inerrable indeficiency of Tradition and how the Principles of almost each Science are concerned in demonstrating its Certainty Arithmetick lends her Numbring and Multiplying Faculty to scan the vast Number of Testifiers Geometry her Proportions to shew a kind of infinite strength of Certitude in Christian Tradition above those Atté stations which breed Certainty in humane Affairs Logick her skill to frame and make us see the connexions it has with the Principles of our Vnderstanding Nature her Laws of Motion and Action Morality her first Principle that nothing is done gratis by a cognoscitive Nature and that the Body of Traditionary Doctrine is most conformable to Practical Reason Historical Prudence clears the Impossibility of an undiscernable revolt from Points so descended and held so Sacred Politicks shew this to be the best way imaginable to convey down such a Law as it concerns every man to be skilful in Metaphysicks engages the Essences of Things and the very notion of Being which fixes every Truth so establishing the scientifical Knowledges which spring from each particular Nature by their first Causes or Reasons exempt from change or motion Divinity demonstrates it most worthy God and most conducive to bring Mankind to Bliss Lastly Controversie evidences the total uncertainty of any thing concerning Faith if this can be uncertain and makes use of all the rest to establish the Certainty of this First Principle A very fit conclusion for such Demonstrations as went before It is well Mr. S. writes to none but intelligent Readers for were it not a thousand pities that so manly and solid and convincing a discourse as this should be cast away upon fools SECT XII § 1. AS for his Corollaries supposing them to be rightly deduced from his former Discourses they must of necessity fall with them For they signifie nothing but upon this supposition that his fore-going Discourses are true And yet this being granted it were easie to shew that most of them are grosly faulty For First Several of them are plainly coincident The second viz. None can with right pretend to be a Church but the followers of Tradition is the very same in sense with the 11 th viz No company of men hang together like a Body of a Christian Commonwealth or Church but that which adheres to Tradition So likewise the 12 th and 14 th are contained in the 15 th The 16 th and 17 th in the 19 th The 16 th 17 18 th and 19 th in the 21 st And the 32 d and 34 th in the 31 st Secondly Divers of them are manifestly absurd as the 12 th 13 th 14 th 16 th 17 th 18 th 19 th the sum of which is That there is no arguing against Tradition from Scripture or the Authority of the Church or Fathers and Councils or from History and Testimonial Writings or from contrary Tradition or Reason or any Instances whatsoever which is as much as to say If this Proposition be true That Tradition is certain then it cannot by any kind of Argument be proved to be false But is this any peculiar Consectary from the truth of this Proposition Doth not the same follow from every Proposition That if it be true it cannot be proved to be false yet no man was ever yet so frivolous as to draw such a consequence from the supposed truth of any Proposition His 23 d also is singularly absurd That there is no possibility of arguing at all against Tradition rightly understood or the living voyce of the Catholick Church with any shew of Reason These are large words It might have contented a reasonable man to have said that no good Argument could be brought against it But he is jealous of his Hypothesis and can never think it safe till it be shot-free nor will that content him but it must be also impossible for any one to make a shew of shooting at it This were I confess a peculiar priviledg of Mr. S's Discourses above other mens if they were as he says by evidence of Demonstration so secured that not only no substantial Argument could be brought against them but that even the most subtile Schoolman of them all should not be able to come near
entertained as matters of faith His words are It being evident that we have but two ways of ordinary knowledg by acts of our soul or operations on our body that is by reason and experience the former of which belongs to Speculators or Doctors the second to Deliverers of what was received or Testifiers And this distinction he frequently admits not only in the present age of the Church but in any for the same reason will hold in all From hence I propose several Queries further to Mr. S. 1. If every one in the Church looked on himself as bound to believe just as the precedent age did whence came any to have particular opinions of their own For either the Church had delivered her sense in that case or not if not then tradition is no certain conveyer of the doctrine of Christ if she had then those who vented private speculations were Hereticks in so doing because they opposed that doctrine which the Church received from Christ and his Apostles If Mr. S. replies that private speculations are in such cases where there is no matter of faith at all he can never be able to help himself by that distinction in the case of his own Church for I demand whether is it a matter of faith that men ought to believe oral tradition infallible If not how can men ground their faith upon it If it be then either some are meer speculators in matters of faith or all who believe on the account of the Popes infallibility are Hereticks for so doing 2. If there were speculators in former ages as well as this whether did those men believe their own speculations or no If not then the Fathers were great Impostors who vented those speculations in the Church which they did not believe themselves And it is plain Mr. S. speaks of such opinions which the asserters of do firmly believe to be true And if they did then they look on themselves as bound to believe something which was not founded on the tradition of the Church and consequently did not own oral tradition as the rule of faith So that as many speculators as we find in the Churh so many testifiers we have against the infallibility of oral tradition 3. Whether those persons who did themselves believe those opinions to be true did not think themselves obliged to tell others they ought to believe them and consequently to deliver these as matters of faith to their children Let Mr. S. shew me any inconsequence in this but that it unavoidably follows upon his principles that they were bound to teach their Children what themselves received as the doctrine of Christ and that the obligation is in all respects equal as if they had believed these things on the account of oral tradition 4. If Children be obliged to believe what their Parents teach them for matters of faith then upon Mr. S's own concessions is not posterity bound to believe something which originally came not from Christ or his Apostles For it appears in this case that the first rise was from a private opinion of some Doctors of the Church but they believing these opinions themselves think themselves obliged to propagate them to others and by reason of their learning and authority these opinions may by degrees gain a general acceptance in the ruling part of the Church and all who believe them true think they ought to teach them their Children and Children they are to believe what their Parents teach them Thus from Mr. S's own principles things that never were delivered by Christ or his Apostles may come to be received as matters of faith in the present Church Thus the intelligent Reader needs no bodies help but Mr. S. to let him understand how Invocation of Saints Purgatory Transubstantiation c. though never delivered either by Christ or his Apostles may yet now be looked on as articles of faith and yet no age of the Church conspire to deceive another Either then Mr. S. must say there never were any private opinators or speculators in the Church as distinct from testifiers and then he unavoidably contradicts himself or he must deny that posterity is bound to believe what their fore-fathers delivered them as matters of faith which destroys the force of his whole demonstration Perhaps he will answer that Children are not bound to believe what barely their Parents or any other number of persons might deliver as matters of faith but what the whole Church of every age delivers This though the only thing to be said in the case yet is most unreasonable because it runs men upon inextricable difficulties in the way of their resolving faith For suppose any Children taught by their Parents what they are to believe Mr. S. must say they are not bound to believe them presently but to enquire whether they agree with the whole Church of that age first before they can be obliged to assent Which being an impossible task either for Children or men of age to find out in the way of oral tradition this way of resolving faith doth but offer a fairer pretence for infidelity For we see how impossible it is for Mr. S. to make it appear that their Church is agreed about the rule of faith for by his own confession the far greater number as speculators oppose the way asserted by him how much more difficult then must it needs be to find out what the sense of the whole essential Church is in all matters which Parents may teach their Children for doctrines of faith So that if Children are not bound to believe what their Parents teach them till they know they teach nothing but what the whole Church teaches it is the most compendious way to teach them they are not bound to believe at all But if this distinction be admitted as Mr. S. makes much use of it then it appears how errors may come into the Church at first under the notion of speculations and by degrees to be delivered as points of faith by which means those things may be received in the Church for such which were never delivered by Christ or his Apostles and yet no age conspire to deceive the next which was the thing to be shewed This is one way of shewing how errors may come into the Church without one ages conspiring to deceive the next but besides this there are several others I might insist upon but I shall mention only two more 1. Misinterpreting the sence of Scripture 2. Supposing it in the power of some part of the Church to oblige the whole in matters of faith For the first we are to consider that no imaginable account can be given either of the writing or universal reception of the Books of the New Testament if they were not designed for the preservation of the doctrine of Christ. And although it should be granted possible for the main and fundamental articles of Christian faith such as the Apostles Creed gives a summary account of to have been preserved by
the help of tradition yet unless we be extreamly ungratful we cannot but acknowledg that God hath infinitely better provided for us in not leaving the grounds of our Religion to the meer breath of the people or the care of Mothers instructing their Children but hath given us the certain records of all the doctrines and motives of faith preserved inviolably from the first ages of the Church And when the Church saw with what care God had provided for the means of faith oral tradition was little minded thence the memory of those other things not recorded in Scripture is wholly lost all the care was imployed in searching preserving and delivering these sacred Books to posterity To these the primitive Church still appeals these they plead for against all adversaries defending their authority explaining their sense vindicating them from all corruptions Tradition they rely not on any further than as a testimony of the truth of these records or to clear the sense of them from the perverse interpretation of those Hereticks who pretended another kind of tradition than what was in Scripture And when these were silenced all the disputes that arose in the Church concerning matters of faith was about the sense of these Books as is evident by the proceedings in the case of Arius and Pelagius Wherein tradition was only used as a means to clear the sense of the Scriptures but not at all as that which the faith of all was to be resolved into But when any thing was pleaded from tradition for which there was no ground in Scripture it was rejected with the same ease it was offered and such persons were plainly told this was not the Churches way if they had plain Scripture with the concurrent sense of Antiquity they might produce it and rely upon it So that the whole use of tradition in the primitive Church besides attesting the Books was to shew the unreasonableness of imposing senses on Scripture against the universal sense of the Church from the Apostles times But as long as men were men it was not avoidable but they must fall into different apprehensions of the meaning of the Scripture according to their different judgments prejudices learning and education And since they had all this apprehension that the Scripture contained all doctrines of faith thence as men judged of the sense of it they differed in their apprehension concerning matters of faith And thence errors and mistakes might easily come into the Church without one age conspiring to deceive the next Nay if it be possible for men to rely on tradition without Scripture this may easily be done for by that means they make a new rule of faith not known to the primitive Church and consequently that very assertion is an error in which the former age did not conspire to deceive the next And if these things be possible M. S's demonstration fails him for hereby a reasonable account is given how errors may come into a Church without one age conspiring to deceive another Again let me enquire of Mr. S. whether men may not believe it in the power of the ruling part of the Church to oblige the whole to an assent to the definitions of it To speak plainer is it not possible for men to believe the Pope and Council infallible in their decrees And I hope the Jesuits as little as Mr. S. loves them or they him may be a sufficient evidence of more than the bare possibility of this If they may believe this doth it not necessarily follow that they are bound to believe whatever they declare to be matter of faith Supposing then that Transubstantiation Supremacy Invocation of Saints were but pâ—ivate opinions before but are now defined by Pope and Council these men cannot but look on themselves as much obliged to believe them as if they had been delivered as matters of faith in every age since the Apostles times Is it now repugnant to common sense that this opinion should be believed or entertained in the Church if not why may not this opinion be generally received if it be so doth it not unavoidably follow that the faith of men must alter according to the Churches definitions And thus private opinions may be believed as articles of faith and corrupt practices be established as laudable pieces of devotion and yet no one age of the Church conspire to deceive another Thus I hope Mr. S. may see how far it is from being a self-evident principle that no error can come into the Church unless one age conspire to deceive the next in a matter of fact evident in a manner to the whole world Which is so wild an apprehension that I believe the Jesuits cannot entertain themselves without smiles to see their domestick adversaries expose themselves to contempt with so much confidence Thus I come to the reason I gave why there is no reason to believe that this is the present sense of the Roman Church My words are For I see the Roman Church asserts that things may be de fide in one age which were not in another at least Popes and Councils challenge this and this is the common doctrine maintained there and others are looked on as no members of their Church who assert the contrary but as persons at least meritoriously if not actually excommunicate Where then shall I satisfie my self what the sense of your Church is as to this particular Must I believe a very few persons whom the rest disown as heretical and seditious or ought I not rather to take the judgment of the greatest and most approved persons of that Church And these disown any such doctrine but assert that the Church may determine things de fide which were not before In answer to this Mr. S. begs leave to distinguish the words de fide which may either mean Christian faith or points of faith taught by Christ and then he grants 't is non-sense to say they can be in one age and not in another Or de fide may mean obligatory to be believed In this latter sense none I think saith he denies things may be de fide in one age and not in another in the former sense none holds it Upon which very triumphantly he concludes What 's now become of your difficulty I believe you are in some wonderment and think I elude it rather then answer it I shall endeavour to unperplex you I must confess it a fault of humane nature to admire things which men understand not on which account I cannot free my self from some temptation to that he calls wonderment but I am presently cured of it when I endeavour to reduce his distinction to reason For instead of explaining his terms he should have shewed how any thing can be obligatory to be believed in any age of the Church which was no point of faith taught by Christ which notwithstanding his endeavour to unperplex me is a thing as yet I apprehend not because I understand no obligation
but this if a Pope and Council should define a new thing and declare they ground themselves on new lights as did their first reformers in England but I shall find he saith no such fopperies in faith-definitions made by the Catholick Church Is this the man who made choice of reason for his weapon could there be a greater calumny cast on our Church than to say her reformers grounded themselves on new lights when our great charge against the Church of Rome is for introducing Novelties and receding from pure and primitive antiquity Whether the charge be true or no yet sure it follows they did not declare they ground themselves on new lights but expresly the contrary Well but Pope and Councils neither define new things nor ground themselves on them but what means the man of reason that they make no new definitions surely not for then what did they meet for and what mean their decrees but he intends that they deliver no new doctrine but how must that be tried or hath Mr. S. gained the opinion of infallibility both from Pope and Councils that we must believe his bare word but we not only say but prove that even their last Council hath defined many things which never were delivered by Christ or his Apostles And it is to no purpose whether they say they ground themselves on new lights or pretend to an infallible assistance for it comes all to the same at last For if the assistance be infallible what matter is it whether the doctrine hath been revealed or no for on this supposition it is impossible that Pope and Council should miscarry Therefore if any Church be guilty of fopperies in faith-definitions it must be that which you miscall the Catholick but is more truly known by the name of the Roman Church There is yet one piece of Mr. S's sagacity to be taken notice of as to this particular which is that I am at an end of my argument because I say the opinion of the Pope and Councils infallibility is the common doctrin maintained in which I confound the Church with the schools or some private opinaters and then carp at those mens tenets And this is the force of all that Paragraph He tells me I want not wit to know that no sober Catholick holds humane deductions the rule of their faith schoolmen definers of it nor the schools the Tribunal whence to propose it authoritatively and obligingly to the generality of the faithful Neither doth Mr. S. want the wit to know that our present enquiry is concerning the sense of their present Church about the rule of faith Since then Mr. S. must confess it necessary to faith to know what the certain rule of it is let me enquire further whether any particular person can know certainly what it is unless he knows what the Church owns for her rule of faith and whether that may be owned as the Churches judgement which is stifly opposed by the most interessed persons in the Roman Church and the most zealous contenders for it Especially when the Pope who is said to be Head of the Church condemns the doctrine asserted and that only by a small number of such who are as much opposed by themselves as by any of us Is it then possible to know the Churches judgement or not if not 't is to no purpose to search for a rule of faith if it be which way can we come to know it either by most voices or the sense of the Governours of the Church either of the ways I dare put it to a fair tryal whether oral tradition or the infallibility of Pope and Councils be the Doctrine most owned in the Church of Rome But Mr. S. still tells us these are only private opinators and schoolmen who assert the contrary doctrine to his But wiill not they much more say on the other side that this way of oral trodition is a novel fancy of some few half-Catholicks in England and tends to subvert the Roman Church But is the present Pope with Mr. S. a private opinator or was the last a meer schoolman I am sure what ever Mr. S. thinks of him he thought not so of himself when he said he was no Divine in the controversie of Jansenius Doth the Court of Rome signifie no more with Mr. S. than a company of scholastick Pedants that know not what the sense of the Church is concerning the rule of faith I meddle not with the Schools but with the authority of the present Church and him whom Mr. S. owns for the head of it and is it consistent with his headship to condemn that doctrine which contains in it the only certain rule of faith Mr. S. may then see they were no such impertinent Topicks which I insisted on and as stout as Mr. S. seems to be I an apt to believe he would not look on the censure of the Inquisition as an impertinent Topick But at last Mr. S. offers at something whereby he would satisfie me of the sense of the Church as to this particular and therefore asks whether I never heard of such a thing as the Council of Trent I must ingenuously confess I have and seen more a great deal of it than I am satisfied with But what of that there he tells me I may find a clear solution of my doubt by the constant procedure of that most grave Synod in its definitions That is I hope to find that oral tradition was acknowledged there as the only self-evident rule of faith If I do this I confess my self satisfied in this enquiry But how much to the contrary is there very obvious in the proceedings of it For in the 4 th Session the Decree is That Scripture and tradition should be embraced with equal piety and reverence and the reason is because the doctrine of faith is contain'd partly in Scripture partly in tradition but what arts must Mr. S. use to infer from hence that oral tradition in contradistinction to Scripture was looked on as the only rule of faith I cannot but say that the ruling men of that Council were men wise enough in their generation and they were too wise wholly to exclude Scripture but because they knew that of it self could not serve their purposes they therefore help it out with tradition and make both together the compleat rule of faith Where I pray in all the proceedings of that Council doth Mr. S. find them define any thing on the account of oral tradition instead of which we find continual bandyings about the sense of Scripture and Fathers which might have been all spared if they had been so wise as to consider they could not but know the sense of the present Church nor that of the precedent and so up to the time of Christ. But they were either so ignorant as not to light on this happy invention or so wise and knowing as to despise it It is true they would not have their doctrines looked
take notice of what I have elsewhere said I am resolved to let him see I am not at all concerned about it I begin to understand him so well by this Appendix that I can give my self a reasonable account why he thought it not fit to meddle with any other part of my Book But if Mr. S. be resolved not to answer any of the testimonies I there produce unless I single them out and print them at the end of this Answer i. e. remove them from that evidence which attends them in the series of the discourse I can only say he is the most imperious answerer I have met with who is resolved never to deal with an adversary but on his own unreasonable terms Thus heartily wishing Mr. S's Science as great as his opinion of it and a good effect of our endeavours to promote the one by removing the other I am Sir Your affectionate friend and servant Edward Stillingfleet London June 28. 1665. FINIS Postscript SIR SInce the dispatch of the former Papers I have met with another Treatise wherein I find my self concerned written by the Author of Fiat Lux the Title whereof is Diaphanta I am afraid the Title affrights you for I assure you it is the most formidable thing in his whole Book But the man is a very modest man and hugely different from Mr. S's humor for he is so far from offering to demonstrate the grounds of faith that all he pretends to in the title of his Book is to excuse Catholick Religion against the opposition of several Adversaries What fault I pray hath the Catholick Religion committed that it must now come to be excused instead of being defended But when I look into that part which concerns my self I presently understand the meaning of it which is not to excuse Catholick Religion but themselves for not being able to defend it For he very ingeniously tells us that faith is firm and constant though all his talk for it be miserably weak i. e. he is sure they have an excellent Religion though he knows not what to say for it and their faith is a very good faith but it hath not yet had the good fortune to be understood by them For he acknowledges that as often as they dispute they are beyond the business so may any one believe who reads their late Books which is in effect to say there is no way left of disputing any longer with adversaries about their faith only they must believe it stoutly themselves but it is to no purpose to offer to defend it Nay it doth their faith a great deal of mischief for saith he in reading controversies we see not so much the nature of the faith as the wit of him who opposes or defends it From whence we may easily gather what unspeakable mischief they do their cause by writing for it By which expressions we may guess at what a low ebb the defence of their faith is among them for the way now taken to defend it is by disowning the defenders of it and by saying that they only vent their own opinions and though we confute them never so much yet their faith holds good still Was ever a good cause driven to such miserable shifts as these are especially among those who pretend to wit and learning One he saith T. C. vents a private opinion of his own and it is not a pin matter whether it stand or fall another he saith the same of I. S. a third of J.V.C. and yet for all this their religion is very firm and sure and they are all at perfect agreement about it Is this the victory over me Mr. S. mentions to be so easie a thing I see that by the same figure M. S. calls his way of arguing demonstration running out of the field shall be accounted conquering For I never saw any person do it more openly than this Author does For he plainly confesses that his Catholick Gentleman went quite besides his business that he built upon indefensible principles that his theological ratiocination was indeed pretty but too weak to hold And are not we hugely too blame if we do not cry up such mighty Conquerors as these are Truly Sir I expect the very same answer should be returned to your Book that Mr. S's argument is a pretty theological ratiocination and that your answer is not unwitty but though that way will not hold another will Thus when they are beaten off Infallibility they run to Tradition and when they are again beaten off Tradition then back again to Infallibility So that the short of all their answers is though such a one cannot defend our faith yet I can though I cannot yet the faith is firm and constant still I wonder what their Superiors think of this way of proceeding among them we should imagine if they be so weak as they say themselves they had much better keep them from appearing abroad and exposing their cause so ridiculously to contempt But it may be they think their faith is the better as well as their devotion for their ignorance and that it would be a mighty disparagement to their cause for such silly people to be able to defend it It is enough for them to admire it themselves and to say as their common people use to do though they cannot defend it yet there are some that can And although it may be no particulat person can do it yet their cause is able to defend it self But for all that I can see by such kind of answers the intention of them is to intreat us not to triumph over the weakness of their present Writers but to wait till the Cause it self thinks fit to write And when it doth so they may expect a further answer but it were a great piece of cruelty for us to hasten their ruine who fall so fast before us by each others Pens FINIS Books Printed for and Sold by Henry Mortlock at the Phoenix in St. Pauls Church-yard and at the white Heart in VVestminster-hall A Rational account of the grounds of Protestant Religion being a Vindication of the Lord-Archbishop of Canterbury's Relation of a Conference c. from the pretended Answer of T.C. folio Sermons preached upon several occasions with a discourse annexed concerning the true reasons of the sufferings of Christ wherein Crellius's Answer to Grotius is considered fol. Irenicum A Weapon-Salve for the Churches wounds in quarto Origines Sacrae or a Rational Account of the Grounds of Christian Faith as to the Truth and Divine Authority of the Scriptures and matters therein contained quarto A Discourse concerning the Idolatry practised in the Church of Rome and the hazard of Salvation in the Communion of it in Answer to some Papers of a revolted Protestant wherein a particular account is given of the Fanaticisms and Divisions of that Church octavo An Answer to several late Treatises occasioned by a Book entituled A Discourse concerning the Idolatry practised in