Copy nor that any Copy can be True unless conformable to the True Original And if there can be any failure in any of these nay if you have not Absolute Certainty of all these you cannot have by your Grounds any Absolute Certainty of your Faith For if the Letter be wrong all is wrong that is built on it and it may be wrong for ought you know notwithstanding the Testimony of all Christian Churches relying on this Way of attesting the Truth of the Letter For you can never shew that all those Churches consented to apply their utmost diligence to examine and attest all the several Translations made in their respective languages or witnest that they came from the true Original or took the most exquisit care that was possible to see that the Translaters and the Copiers did their duty Which had they held the Letter to be their onely Rule of Faith and consequently that All Faith that is the very Being of the present and future Church and their own Salvation too depended on the Scripture they were obliged in conscience and under the highest Sin above all things in the World to have done and this with the exactest care imaginable Your Grounds then notwithstanding all you have said or alledged hitherto to ensure the Letter make no Provision for the Absolute Certainty of the Written-Rule nor consequently of your Faith. 27. But what becomes then say you of the Vulgar Latin Translation I answer in our Grounds no harm at all For the Canon of the Books comes down by the Testimony of all Christian Churches that are truly Christian and the Doctrin of Christ transfus'd into the hearts of the succeeding Faithful ever since the beginning both taught them how and oblig'd them to correct the Copy in those particular Texts that concern'd Faith if any Errour through the carelesness unattentiveness or malice of the Translaters or Transcribers at any time had crept in By the same Means as you can now adays correct the Copy in those Texts that ought to express some Point of Morality in case it were corrupted and deviated from Christian Manners viz. by vertue of the Sense of that Practical Tenet you were imbu'd with formerly this even tho' you had no other Copy or Text to amend it by Insomuch that how good an opinion so ever you had of the Copy Translater Printer or Correcter of the Press yet for all that you would conclude they had err'd and the Letter was faulty rather than forgo the Doctrin so firmly rivetted in your heart by the constant Teaching and Practice of the Christian world As for other particular Texts of an Inferiour Concern they could be best corrected by multitudes of other ancient Copies the Churches Care still going along in which too the greatest care that was possible to rectify it's Errours was taken by the Council of Trent that so it might be as exact as Human Diligence could well render it A thing as far as my memory reaches never order'd or very much regarded by any Council formerly 28. But I foresee your method of confuting which is to muster up Extrinsecall objections not at all to the purpose will naturally lead you to discredit this way of correcting Scripture's Letter in passages belonging to Faith as singular or New This being the same your Friend G. B. objected to the Way of Tradition it self as may be seen above Sect. 10. Such piddling Exceptions drest up prettily in gay language go a great way and make a fine shew in your Controversies and which is a benefit of most advantage to you excuse you from bringing any Intrinsecal Arguments tho' these onely are such as conclude any thing and tho' you are bound by your precise Duty to produce such Wherefore to ward this blow I shall alledge the Judgment of that Learned and Excellent Personage Sir Thomas More our first Modern English Controvertist who writing not against you in defence of our Grounds but to another Catholick Divine expresses candidly his Sentiment in these words Ego certe hoc persuadeo mihi idque ut opinor vere quicquid ad fidem astruendam faciat non esse a quovis melius versum quam ab ipsis Apostolis perscriptum Ideoque fit ut quoties in Latinis codicibus occurrat quidquam quod aut contra Fidem aut mores facere videatur Scripturarum interpretes aut ex aliis alibi verbis quid illud sibi velit dubium expiscentur aut ad vivum Evangelium Fidei quod per universam Ecclesiam in corda Fidelium infusum est quod etiam priusquam scriberetur a quoquam Apostolis a Christo ab Apostolis Vniverso Mundo praedicatum est dubios ejusmodi sermones applicent atque ad inflexibilem veritatis Regulam examinent ad quam si non satis adaptare queant aut sese non intelligere aut mendosum esse codicem non dubitent This is my Iudgment and as I conceive a True one that whatever Text is useful to build Faith on was not better translated by any than it was writ by the Apostles themselves And therefore as oft as any thing occurs in the latin-Latin-Books that seems to make against Faith or Good Manners the Interpreters of Scripture either gather from other Words in other places what that doubt should mean or they compare those doubtful sayings to the living Gospel of Faith which was infus'd into the Hearts of the Faithful throughout the Vniversal Church which before any man writ it was Preach't by Christ to the Apostles and by the Apostles to the whole World examine them by the inflexible Rule of Faith with which if they cannot make it square they conclude that either they do not understand it or the Book is faulty where he passes by the former way with a sleight word expiscentur fish out the sense but insists on the latter way of preserving the Copy sincere as Certain and Proper 29. I must not pretermit your Objection p. 19. that the Ancient Christian Church never knew any thing concerning this Method of resolving Faith into meer Oral Tradition I would desire you to add Practical to Oral at least to conceive it to be understood all the way that being our True and constantly-avow'd Tenet But did the Antient Church in reality never know any thing of this way T is wonderful you should not understand they meant the same as we do unless they speak the self-same Words and make the same Discourses we do now Did not they all hold that who taught any thing contrary to the Doctrin delivered down by the Church was a Heretick Did any of them say that the Churche's Tradition of a Doctrin as Christs was liable to Errour Did any of them hold that it was lawful for your Sober Enquirer to rely on his Private Interpretation of the Scripture and relinquish the sense of the Church which is the true Point Not one 'T is one thing to say they oft quoted Scripture
Ages As if this had not been prov'd already and never yet answer'd but by Shuffles and Evasions 7. He frames a Plea for the Arians against the Nicene Councill from my Principles but very untowardly for the Arians allow'd the Copies and quoted Scripture as fast as Catholicks did and yet Err'd most abominably which makes against himself Lastly he tells us that 't is a pernicious Principle a miserable Account c. At which I wonder not For every thing is miserable and pernicious with him that makes the Church good for any thing Yet he could grant the Churches Testimony was needfull at first to abett the Truth of the Gospells and she enjoy'd that Priviledge in St. Austins time and I wonder how she came to lose her Title to God's Gracious Providence and Assistance or how she came to be disabled in the following ages to preserve the Letter uncorrupted in those Texts that contain'd known Points of Faith. It seems Translaters and Transcribers for the most part Mercenary are Sacred with him and admirable Preservers of the Letter but alas the Miserable Church is good for nothing I have already told him why I hold Scriptures Letter no Rule how 't is sometimes call'd a Rule in an improper Sense and why that Sense is improper and his Friend Dr. Tillotson has told him what a Rule of Faith means in our Controversies but he never heeds either but runs on here with frivolous descants upon an ambiguous word and will needs take Rule in a Sense never meant nor possible to be meant in our circumstances He 's not satisfy'd with the Care of the Council of Trent in correcting the Copy But let him remember I spoke there of Texts of Inferiour Concern not of those that concern'd Faith. And why is he not satisfy'd Did she not do her best in the present Circumstances How will he prove it Because Clemens the 8 th recall'd and corrected the Bibles put out by Sixtus the 5 th for an exact Edition But if both did their best according to the Observations were made in their time and the Light they had then neither of them were to blame But all this Humane Diligence amounts not to Absolute Certainty as I. S. requires of us And is it not more reason I should require it of him than he of me since he makes it Scriptures Letter the Proper Rule of Faith which he knows I do not and yet which is pleasant he calls upon me aloud to declare as much and then he knows how to answer And now I know the true Reason why he has answer'd nothing hitherto viz. because I had not declar'd what I had own'd in all my Books near a thousand times over But we have lost our point by answering a multitude of Impertinent Cavills 'T is this The Sense of Scripture cannot be Absolutely Certain unless there be Absolute Certainty the Letter is right Nor can there be Absolute Certainty the Letter is right even in Texts relating to Faith by his Principles which deny this was perform'd by the Churches Knowledge of the Points of Faith but by making out with Absolute Certainty how the Letter was by some other Means secur'd from being wrong This he never attempts even in this very occasion when it lay upon him to do it and therefore for all his empty flourishes he has said just nothing Nor has shewn or defended that even the Ground of his Faith Scriptures Letter is Absolutely Certain Besides his Discourse still beats upon this mistake that We do not hold the Letter Absolutely Certain in such concerning Texts whereas we only say He cannot prove it to be such by his Principles and he makes our words good with not performing it or so much as attempting it Only he tells us for our comfort that as to Books Copies and Translations he has as high a Certainty as the thing is capable of and then 't is Madness to expect and require more So that tho' it happen that the Certainty be but a very sleight one his kind of Faithfull and Converts may take their choice whether they will be Fools if they will believe it or Madmen if they will not He tells us indeed faintly the Faith previous to Divine Faith may have Absolute Certainty but if it only may have it it may not have it In the mean time what is all this voluntary Saying to his Proving that he has really and indeed Absolute Certainty of those Books Copies and Translations 'T is his Proofs we lookt for and not bare Narrations of his own weak Tenets with which he thus puts us off continually 66. But how strangely Insincere if any such carriage could after so frequent use of it be strange in him is the Dr to pretend we hold it is in any Churches Power to correct Original Texts because they contradict the Sense of the present Church These words he puts into Italick Letter as if they were mine but he cites no place and I do assure the Reader I have neither such Words nor Sense The first Originals are not extant so cannot be corrected those call'd Originals which are already acknowledg'd ought as little to be corrected as the other in Texts belonging to Faith. All the Power we give the Church is to correct succeeding Copies upon occasion in Texts relating to the Articles of our Faith when they deviate from the Faith of the Church or which is the same from former Copies allow'd by her universally 67. I desir'd the Dr to satisfy us concerning the Number of Books requisit to a Rule of Faith and how many will just serve the turn as also whether some Book for any thing his Principles can assure us were not lost This lay upon him to prove and this with Absolute Certainty if he would have Scripture an Intire Rule of his Faith How proves he it Why he makes me mightily concern'd to lessen the Authority of the New Testament and that I charge the Christian Church with a Gross Neglect For all this Noise he knows well enough that I agree with him that 't is not in the least probable the Churches should suffer any such Book disperst among them to be last nor do I so much as suppose they did What I say is that he who holds all Humane Authority Fallible can never prove it True they deliver'd down All unless he can convince the World that a Fallible Medium can prove a thing True which he cannot do without proving that What may be False is True. Nor can he do This without proving the same thing may be and not be at once I wish then he would set himself to work and prove this abominable First Principle to be False For otherwise This alone will confute all the substantial parts of his Book and convince every man of Common Sense that his Grounds confest by himself to be Fallible can never make out that 't is True that he has either Right
thing than the Credit of those two or three First Witnesses goes 'T is the First Source of a Testimony which gives the succeeding ones all their weight to prove the Thing that is witnest to be True 'T is that from which the Largeness and Firmness of a Testimony brought to evince the Truth of any thing is to be measured or calculated Since then the stream of Tradition for Doctrin had for its Source innumerable Multitudes of those Christians in the First Age in many places of the World who heard the Apostles preach it and saw them settle the Practice of it in the respective Churches but the Original Testifiers that such a Book was writ by such or such an Apostle or Evangelist were very few in comparison sometimes perhaps not past two or three It cannot with any shew of Sense be pretended that the Tradition for the several Books of Scripture is in any degree comparable in either regard to the Tradition for Doctrin Your next Answer is that This Vniversal Tradition is no more but Human Testimony and that can be no ground for Infallibility which excludes all possibility of Errour Pray why not If things were so order'd as indeed they are that the Testifiers could neither be deceiv'd in the Doctrin being bred and brought up to it nor conspire to deceive us in telling the World in any Age that the new Doctrin they had invented was immediately delivered then it was not possible any Errour could come in under the notion of a Doctrin delivered from the beginning But is not your Tradition for Scripture Human Testimony too And if that can be erroneous may not all Christian Faith by your Principles be perhaps a company of Lying Stories You must be forc'd by your own words here to confess it but I dare say your Parishioners should you openly avow it would hate you for the Blasphemy You would tell them I doubt not as you do us that Moral Certainty is enough to stand on such a Foundation that is such a Certainty as may deceive you and by a necessary consequence may haste to overturn the whole Fabrick of Christian Faith. In the mean time let 's see how manifestly you contradict Dr. St. when you should defend him He avow'd Absolute Certainty for the Book of Scripture and this upon the Foundation of Tradition and you tell us here Tradition can ground but Moral Certainty Now all the World till you writ counter distinguisht Absolute and Moral Certainty which you jumble in one But distinct they ever were are and shall be for the Word Moral signifies a Diminution or Imperfection of Certainty and Absolute plainly expresses the Perfection of it whence 't is Evident that either you contradict Dr. St. perhaps not without his private Order or he himself We shall have all words shortly lose their signification for no other reason but to give you room to shift this way and that when you are too close prest with Reason 35. Now since Dr. St. had granted that Tradition is Absolutely Certain for Scripture and I had prov'd that Absolute Certainty was the same with Infallibility what should hinder me from inferring that unless some special difficulty be found in other things that light into the same channel it must bring them down infallibly too Your Gifts of Interpretation expounds these Words of mine thus These other things are things unwritten in that Holy Book I do assure you Sir you are mightily mistaken I never told you yet that all Faith was not contain'd in Scripture explicitly or implicitly What I meant was that the whole Body of Christs Doctrin and not only that such a Book was Scripture nay the self-same Doctrin of Faith that is contain'd in Scripture comes down by Tradition or the Churche's Testimony But with this Difference as to the Manner of it among others that the Church that testifies it having the sense of it in her Breast can explain her meaning so as to put it out of all Question to Learners Doubters and Enquirers which the Scripture cannot Whence we need not fish for our Faith in the channel of Tyber as your great Wit tells us St. Peter's Ship the Church that caught so many Fishes at first the Body of Primitive Christians who were the first deliverers of Christ's Doctrin hath stor'd up provision enough for the succession of Faith to the Worlds end There we find it to our Hands 'T is your sober Enquirers who Fish for it among dead unsensed Characters and in the Lake of Geneva from whence to save the labour of going thither you and your Friends are deriving a great Channel to run into Thames over-swell it's Banks and drown all the Churches Lacus Lemanus is your Tyber Geneva your Rome and Iohn Calvin the Prime of your new Apostles your St. Peter 36. All this is but prelude But now comes Mr. G's Argument and therefore we are to expect now however you but trifled hitherto more pertinent close Discourse The first Proposition was this All Traditionary Christians believe the same to day they did yesterday so up to the time of our B. Saviour This you seem to deny in regard they may perhaps be so call'd from their adhereing to a Tradition which reaches not so high as our Saviours time but only pretends to it whither we only pretend to it or no will be seen hereafter when the Fourth Proposition comes to be examin'd In the mean time pray jumble not two Questions which are distinct and ought to be kept so The whole Business here is about the use or Sense of the word Traditionary how we both take it in our present Controversy Now that we both agree in the Notion of Tradition whence Traditionary is deriv'd is evident by this that we lay claim to such a Tradition as reaches to Christ and go about to prove it you deny our Claim and endeavour to disprove it But 't is evident you deny the same thing to us which we lay Claim to otherwise we should not talk of the same Thing and so should not understand one another nor could discourse together wherefore 't is manifest we both agree in the Notion or Meaning of that Word however we disagree in the Application of it to the Persons Nor do we pretend in the least what you would put upon us here to inferr hence that this body of Christians that now adheres to it did always so but only contend that if they did not ever adhere to it they must have deserted it and taken up another Rule and so cease to be true Claimers of a Tradition from Christ or Traditionary Christians Moreover we judge we have right to lay Claim to it till we be driven out of it by a former and better Title since we were in possession of this Rule at the time of the Reformation or held all our Faith upon that tenure 37. The second Proposition is this If they follow this Rule they can
Faith about which we are chiefly discoursing But do not your self incline to admit as much as we can expect from a man that affects not too much candour that very thing you so laugh at here I affirm'd that Not one in a million thinks of relying on your Rule of Faith in order to make choice of their Faith c. This you answer with hems and hahs Tho' I fear yet I hope he is out in his Account I am apt to think they are more attentive Yet be it as he would have it c. Now since they must either have their Faith by Reliance on their Pastours and Preachers delivering it to them and educating them in it that is by some kind of Tradition or else by relying on Scripture and your self seems to doubt or rather in a manner grants it That they have it not the later way you must at least doubt that they have it by the Way of Tradition But your Fancy was so big with your empty Jest that you had forgot what you had allow'd but a little before 58. Thus Sir I have trac'd you punctually step by step not as is your constant use pickt out a few words scatter'd here and there which you thought you might most commodiously pervert wherefore I have reason to expect the same exact measure from you The Sum of your Answer is manifestly this Shuffles and wilful Mistakes without number Evasions endless Falsifications frequent Godly Talk frivolous Jests groundless and all these brought in still to stop Gaps when your Reason was Nonplust Be pleas'd to leave off your Affected Insincerities otherwise I must be forc't to Expose them yet farther than which there can be no Task more Ungrateful imposed upon Your Servant J. S. ERRATA Page 3. l. 28. Read both of uâ— p. 10. l. ult find it in p. 11. l. 11 notice there p. 21. l. 24. go forwards p. 22. l. 27. Secret. Again p. 23. l. 9. as I had not p. 32. l. 30. Is it a Way Ibid. l. 32. upon it p. 39. l. 7. Your Reason is because p. 44. l. 17. may hap p. 45. l. 5. Gift Ibid. l. 32. Prince of p. 46. l. 7. it Whether p. 48. l. 27. a most p. 53. l. 12. Adherers p. 57. l. 14. to be at a loss Ibid. l. ult discover'd it p. 60. l. 8. Speculaters p. 62. l. 9. Yet not so explicitly or p. 63. l. 28. formally and. p. 73. l. 13. other then THE THIRD Catholick Letter IN ANSVVER To the Arguing Part of Doctor Stillingfleet's SECOND LETTER To Mr. G. By I. S. Published with Allowance LONDON Printed and sold by Matthew Turner at the Lamb in High-Holbourn 1687. THE THIRD Catholick Letter c. SIR 1. I Come now to take a view of your Second Letter with my Eye as in the former fixt only upon what I think you mean for Argument Whether you give us just your First Words at the Conference or second Thoughts since whether no troublesome Part of Mr. G's Discourse be left out in short whatever belongs to matter of Fact shall be out of my prospect which shall be bounded by what you think fit to open to it You acquaint us here Pag. 7. that you put two Questions 1. How does it appear that the Church of Rome is Infallible in the sense and meaning of Tradition 2. Is this Tradition a Rule of Faith distinct from Scripture And you complain of Mr. G. that his Copy makes you ask a very wise Question viz. How does it appear that the Church of Rome is Infallible in Tradition Why this Question should be ironically call'd a very wise one I cannot imagin I am sure it is very pertinent to the Intention of your Dispute and directly points at one of the Chief Subjects of the Conference But you shall have your Will tho' I beleive it will appear Mr. G's question made better Provision for your Credit in point of Wisdom than you have done for your self 2. For your Second was in truth a very needless Question because both your self and all your Auditours if they ever heard any thing of this kind of Controversy knew beforehand without needing to ask that the Tradition we lay claim to pretends to derive down the Intire Body of Christ's Doctrin and not only the Books of Scripture of which P. 9. you very learnedly seem to counterfeit your self ignorant And this is the first part of your distinguishing the plain Sense of this Word Tradition as held by Mr. G. By this Question you tell us p. 9. you intended to put a difference between the Tradition held by us Protestants and the Tradition disputed For the first meaning of the Word Tradition which you grant you put the Vniniversal Testimony of the Christian Church as to the Books of Scripture The second and deny'd meaning you contra distinguish from the former in these words But if by Tradition be understood either some necessary Articles of Faith not contain'd in Scripture or a Power in the Church to make unnecessary to become necessary this I deny'd c. Certainly Sir you have a Logick of your own so peculiarly fitted to your designes that no man living but your self ever us'd it I ever thought and apprehended I had all the World on my side for thinking so that all Differences or Distinctions were to be Opposites and to divide the Common Genus or the Notion that was to be distinguish't and therefore since the first sense of the Word Tradition was Tradition for Books of Scripture which is your Tenet I verily expected the opposit sense of it should have been Tradition for Doctrines which is Ours and that as the former was Tradition for Christ's Words so the latter should be Tradition for Christ's Sense But while I was vainly imagining the second sense of the Word would be Tradition for Faith instead of that I found nothing but such Articles and such a Power Did ever any mortal Man think or pretend that Tradition was an Article or a Power any more than that it was a Horse shoe Did your self when you granted the Latin and Greek Churches follow'd Tradition intend to signify that they follow'd Articles and Powers The summ then of your learned Distinction is in plain Terms this Tradition is two-fold One is a Tradition for Books the other is no Tradition at all but only Articles and Power Had it not been better then to have accepted of Mr. G's Civility and have answer'd to the purpose rather than out of a pique to his Copy and a desire to make it stand in need to be corrected thus to pervert common sense and out of a too zealous care not to forfeit your Wisdome to commit such an illogical Absurdity But Sense and Logick tho' they be plain and honest true Friends yet I must own that like the Queens Old Courtiers they may appear scandalous Companions to a man of your more polite and modish Education However I dare answer for you it was
pretended We are absolutely Certain such and such particular Points are contain'd there otherwise your General Ground comes not up to the Question nor does your Faith any service at all since it leaves it still Vncertain of which more hereafter Especially since you pretended or rather declar'd openly p. 14. that you now held all the same Doctrin that was taught by Christ and his Apostles Which Profession reaches to all the Points of Faith and not onely to your Ground of Faith. I must confess you render'd that Profession insignificant and cancell'd the obligation as soon as you had made it in the Explication of those words immediately following which makes those hearty expressions Absolutely Certain of all the same Doctrin amount to no more but that you resolve your Faith into Scripture We must I see deal with you as those who have a pretence in Court do with Great Courtiers who lose their repute with them as ill-bred and unmannerly if they will needs take them at their word and do not distinguish between what 's spoken and what 's meant Your Answer was very honest and direct We are absolutely Certain we now hold all the same Doctrin that was taught by Christ and his Apostles The Comment is this I fram'd my Answer on purpose to shew that our Faith is not to be resolv'd into what Christ taught any otherwise than as it is convey'd to us by the Writings of the Apostles Evangelists Whereas if there be so much as one word of Writing or Evangelists even hinted in your Answer it self unless the Word Taught meant Writ which cannot be because we never read that Christ writ any Books or the least Semblance of reason for making this Skewing Explication but to shuffle off your too large Concession I will confess my self too shallow to fathom the profound depth of your inscrutable sense Resolve then your Faith in God's Name into what you will so you but shew us an Absolutely Certain Connexion between the Points resolved and the Rule into which you profess to resolve it Otherwise 't is no Resolution of Faith if the continued Chain of Motives winding it up to the First Truth or God's infinite veracity hangs slack Such Incoherence serves not for Faith which must be indissolubly connected to the Formal Motive of all our Faith else the Resolution of it may be shatter'd and broke to pieces by the way ere we come there Which if it may then the Resolution is no Resolution for that speaks Connexion of the Motives and Faith thus resolv'd may perhaps all be False and so is no Faith. 'T is your work then to shew in particular when you come to it and at present in general that your Rule gives you Absolute Certainty of the Points of Faith more than it does the Socinian who have the same Rule and profess to follow it as much as you do for your heart and yet erre enormously Nay in effect they take the same Method too to interpret Scripture which you do for tho' you give good words to the consent of former ages yet your Grounds do not allow it Absolute Certainty in bringing down Doctrin or interpreting Scripture and less than such a Certainty and in such things signifies nothing in our case And 't is either by your Rule and Method you can arrive thus certainly at the Sense of Scripture or by nothing If you could once with Absolute Certainty convince the Socinians of Obstinacy against a Clear Truth by your Rule or Method or both together I mean if you could make it clear to them that your Rule of Faith cannot possibly bear any other Sense so that the indifferent part of the world judg'd them wilful adherers to a false Interpretation or that you could silence them and put them to open shame for adhering to it you would do somthing Otherwise your starting aside still from the Absolute Certainty of the Points even tho' p. 14. you pretended to be Absolutely Certain you hold them All and talking to us of nothing but a General Ground is meer shuffling and shews plainly you meant not really in that Answer of yours to Mr. G's first Question where you spoke of all the Doctrin which includes every Particular Point so that by All it seems you meant None 'T is very paradoxical to see you distinguish here p. 14 between the Doctrin taught by Christ and that which was taught by the Apostles The reason why you do it is to insinuate into our Readers that we derive the source of our Tradition from Christ's Teaching orally as the Iews affirm of Moses delivering an unwritten Law else to what purpose this Distinction The Tradition we lay claim to has no such obscure Original it takes it's â—ife from the whole Body of Primitive Christians in the Apostles days dispers't in Great multitudes over the World and settled in the Knowledge of his Faith by means of their Preaching So that Tradition starts into motion from a most Publick and notorious matter of Fact viz. That the Apostles taught the First Christians such a Faith. To what imaginable purpose then was this frivolous distinction brought in You knew this was our Tenet and we knew well your Rule was Scripture What needed then this shuffling Paraphrase By Tradition you know we mean a Testimony for Doctrin receiv'd If the source be weak or that the Body of the Witnessers of it's Delivery at first and successively afterwards was smal the Tradition is consequently weak in proportion if Great it was stronger still according as the multitude of the Attesters was more numerous and their Credibleness more unexceptionable Well but admit your Faith be not resolv'd into what Christ taught by his own mouth but what the Apostles taught us from him why must you necessarily resolve your Faith into their Writings only Did the Apostles when they went to convert the world go with Books in their hands or Words in their Mouths Or were those Words a jot less Sacred when it came from their Mouths than when they put them in a Book Or lastly does any Command from Christ appear to write the Book of Scripture or any Revelation before hand that it was to be a Rule of Faith to the future Church No such matter and the Accidental occasions of it's writing at first and it's Acceptation afterwards bar any such Pretences On the other side their Grand Commission was not Scribite but only Predicate Evangelium Yet you can slubber this over without taking notice of it and carry it as if the Apostles Teaching mean't Writing only and that they taught the World no more than they writ Sure you do not mean the Apostles took Texts out of their own Books and preacht Sermons upon then as you do now Why must it be quite forgotten then and buried in silence that they taught any thing by word of mouth or preacht the Gospel publickly Allow that to be equally Sacred as what is writ and to be embrac't if well
of Errour for the pure Gold of Truth and Soul-poysoning Heresies for means of Salvation Had I a mind to set up a similitude-mender and that you will needs have it a Purse I should beg your leave to put it thus Suppose that Purse's Mouth were tyed up with a knot of such a mysterious contrivance that none could open it I mean still as to the understanding the Mysteries of our Faith but those who knew the Mind of the Bequeather and that the Church to which it was left as a Legacy had knowledge of his Mind and so could open it while others tortur'd their Wits with little tricks and inventions turning and winding the ambiguous folds of it some one way some another and yet entangled their own thoughts more and more while they went about to unty the Knots that so perplex't them 22. This is the true case You make account containing does all the business whereas 't is nothing at all to our purpose which is in the final Intention of it about the Absolute Certainty of your Faith unless we have equal assurance that you can get out thence what 's contain'd there as you pretend to have that 't is contain'd Now it cannot be deny'd but the Primitive Church was imbu'd with Christ's sense by the Preaching of the Apostles and their immediate Successours and so had a sure and proper Way to interpret Scripture and while this sense was still deliver'd down they could not fail of an absolutely Certain Rule to understand it right But there steps up now one Heretick then another opposing himself to the sense of the Church and relying on the dextery of his own wit will needs find out contrivances how to open the Scripture's Meaning by wayes of his private Skill But falls into multitudes of Errours finding no way to unfold the deeply-mysterious Book having refus'd to make use of the right means viz. Christ's sense descending in the Church by Tradition Whence notwithstanding all his little Arts and boasting presumption like the Fox in the Fable Vas lambit Pultem non attingit 23. Mistake me not I do not mean Scriptures Letter is not clear in such passages as concern Common Morality or the Ten Commandments with the Sense of which every one is imbu'd by the Light of Nature Nor in matters of Fact such as were most of those Marks or Signs to know the Messias by foretold us by the Prophets our Saviour's doing such and such Miracles his going beyond Iordan c. Nor in Parables explain'd by himself and such like But in Dogmatical Points or Tenets which are Spiritual and oftentimes profound Mysteries and of these by the way I desire still to be understood when I speak of the Certainty of the Letter or Sense of Scripture for with other Passages I meddle not as the Tenet of a Trinity Christ's God-head the Real Presence of his Body in the Sacrament and such like which have a vast Influence upon Christian Life either immediately or else in a higher Nature being as it were Principles to many other Articles of Faith which depend on their Truth One would verily think I say that such as these should be some of your Golden Points or else there were none at all contain'd in your Purse Yet we experience That even in such as these your Rule is not intelligible enough to keep the Followers of it from erring So that let your Purse have never so Golden and Silver a lining you are never the richer unless you can come at it or can certainly distinguish the pure Gold of Truth from the impure Dross of Errour Your Similitude then comes not home to your purpose nor shews that you have therefore all your Faith or all Divine Revelations because you have a Book which you judge contains them Let 's see now if it does not make against you You put the Doctrin or Points of Faith to be the Gold and Silver contain'd in the Purse and consequently that must be the Purse into which that Doctrin of Faith was put by Christ our Saviour and this was evidently the Heads and Hearts of the Faithful For the Points of Faith being so many Divine Truths are onely contain'd in Men's Minds properly and Words being by their very Definition but Signes of what is in our Minds Truths are no more really in a Book than Wine is really in a Bush which signifies it Since then those Truths were onely in the Breast of Christ Originally and after him in that of the Apostles and their Thoughts could not be communicated nor consequently the Gold and Silver deliver'd to the Legatees otherwise than by signifying it which can onely be done by one of these ways by Living Voice and Practice or by Writing that is by Tradition or Scripture neither of these can with any Sense be liken'd to the Purse it self into which the money is to be put or answer comparatively to It but they are both of them Wayes Means or Methods of putting these heavenly Riches into it's Proper Purse the Souls of the Faithful Of these two Ways our Saviour chose the First which was Teaching his Doctrin orally for he writ nothing and by doing thus told us it was the better For it had been against his Infinit Wisdom to chuse the worser way for Himself to make use of and leave the better to his Servants Nor did his servants the Apostles affect the Way of Writing so as to use it onely but on the contrary they made use of this Oral Way of Preaching constantly and that of Writing for the most part at least if not altogether occasionally They converted the present Church by their Preaching they comforted the future Church by leaving many most edifying Words and Actions of our Blessed Saviour Written which being Particulars and not breaking out openly into Christian Practice might otherwise in likelihood at least to a great degree have been lost to succeeding generations besides the abetment their Writings give to Faith it self when certainly interpreted and rightly understood So that according to this discourse of yours we should either have never a Purse to put Points of Faith in for you take no notice of the Souls of the Faithful into which they are properly put and in which onely they are in reality contain'd Or if you will needs call that a Purse which contains them meerly as a Sign does the thing signify'd or as that which may signify to us our Faith you must put two Purses Tradition and Scripture And then the onely Question is out of which Purse we can with more Certainty get it That is whether a Living Container which can give us perfect light of it's Sense by all the best ways imaginable or the Dead Letter which as Experience demonstrates can neither clear it's Sense to Private Understandings nor if we doubt of it's Meaning and had a mind to ask it could either hear or reply much less pertinently and appositely speak to the Asker as oft as he
Letter of the Scripture as you see we endeavour to demonstrate the Absolute Cettainty of our Tradition for Doctrin There cannot be a worthier Point to exert your self in nor a greater service done to your Rule nor a better way to clear your self to the incredulous part of the World than to perform this for one knows not whence meer Words and outward Professions may proceed but solid and convincing Reasons can come onely from a Heart possest wiih the Truth of what is Profest Go to work then and bless us with the sight of this truly Learned and Iudicious Performance And while your hand is in please to shew us too that the Absolute Certainty of this Universal Testimony reaches to prove your Rule Intire that is reaches to prove no part of the Written Word was lost nay that it reaches to the particular Verses and the most substantial Words in those Verses as well as to the main Books and lastly to Translations also and Transcriptions as you ought to do in case they be as indeed they are of equal Concern in our circumstances as the Books themselves Or if you deny they are equally important and maintain that this Absolute Certainty may be had of your Rule without the same Certainty for these then please to give us your Reasons for it and shew how Faith can be Absolutely Certain tho' the Letter on which it depends may perhaps have been maim'd or corrupted by any of these miscarriages Or if you think fit to say you have Absolute Certainty of your Faith tho' you have not Absolute Certainty for it's Rule then confess candidly and ingenuously your Faith is Absolutely-speaking Vncertain and to make good that rare Christian Tenet fall to work and confute utterly that Positive Book Faith Vindicated which undertakes to produce a multitude of Demonstrations to prove that Faith cannot possibly be false and withal please to inform us to what end you maintain your Rule of Faith to be Absolutely Certain if it do not make your Faith thus Certain too or what that Certainty serves for Any thing would content us so you would once leave fluttering and hovering in common Words Either tell us plainly all Faith is Uncertain or come at length to some firm bottom on which we may with Absolute Certainty ground the Truth of it and raise it above some plausible Likelihood But we remonstrate against your putting us off with the Old Sham Sufficient Certainty unless you particularize to us what kind of Certainty you hold and make out 't is sufficient for the Nature the Ends and Vses of Faith and the Obligations issuing from it and incumbent on the Prosessours of it If you refuse to condescend to these fair Proposals all the World must think you onely temporiz'd with Mr. T. and the occasion and that you have not that Zeal for your Rule of Faith whose grand Interest 't is these things should be made out as you pretend Once more I tell you that if all this will not move you to this every way necessary undertaking I must then plainly challenge you that it is your necessary and precise Duty in this very circumstance as you are a Controvertist and as I am concern'd with you under that notion I must demand it of you 36. I know not well whether it be worth the while to justify Mr. M. for calling your Answer to Mr. G's 5 th Question Trifling or whether it be necessary after so ample a Discovery that all the rest of them taking them in the sense you explicated them deserv'd no better Character You were ask't onely the meaning of your Words Christian Church but you had a mind to be liberal and give more than was ask't the meaning of Vniversal Testimony too and to tell us that by Vniversal Testimony you mean Vniversal Consent That is to say by Vniversal Testimony you mean Vniversal Testimony For all agree or consent in the Testimony if it be Vniversal Then to the precise Question you Answer that by the Christian Church you mean all Christian Churches which is to say that by the Christian Church you mean the Christian Church for All the Parts make the Whole so that instead of an Explication you give us the same thing over again and almost in the same Words And pray who 's the wiser for such an Answer Yet tho' it be impertinent and nothing to the purpose 't is at least True and Evident by its self without needing to make it a Question If you would please to afford us such Evidences when 't is to purpose you would highly oblige us Certainly a Considering Reader cannot but think you are very unhappy in explicating your self for either your Explications run quite away from your Answer which you are to explicate and are a mile wide of them or they come too close to them and are the self-same said over again and almost in the same Words But can any one think so excellent a Wit as Yours is justly reputed should expose himself so manifestly without some latent Design T is incredible Let us take a view then of Mr. G's 5 th Question Being the Words Christian Church may be taken in several Latitudes by Persons of different Religions I desire to know what that Christian Church is c. Here we see plainly that the main of the Question was what Churches were accounted by You Christian or how that Word Christian was to be explicated and You give him for explication the self-same word again and in effect tell him that by Christian is meant Christian and that 's all he can get from You. And You did prudently for had You come to distinguish which Congregation was Christian which not You must have secluded all Hereticks which your Principles could not do for your Ground of Faith here is most manifestly Common to all of them and so You would have lain open to the Disrepute of having and professing a Brotherhead with all those Excrementitious Out-casts and your pretended Rule notwithstanding it s other many Divine Excellencies had appear'd to be utterly unqualifi'd with Clearness and Firmness enough to be call'd a Rule or Ground To avoid this and in Consonancy to your Principles You take all their Testimonies in for Scripture and pretend it strengthens it So it may perhaps as to the Books But You know how the Church complain'd of the Hereticks for corrupting the Letter of Scripture to make it Favourable for them and therefore for any thing You know they cry'd up the Books because they had fitted them for their own purpose Whence tho' the Testimony for the Books should be stronger by their concurrence yet the Credit of the Letter in the respective places that oppose those Hereticks is weaker for their allowing them because they admitted them as consistent with their Tenets otherwise they would have rejected them as they did others upon that score And what advantage can you gain by the former towards the proving your Ground of Faith
already Ship-wrackt The Fourth By it we are to judge what we are bound to believe as Divine Revelations runs upon the same strain for you are to shew us how by it I am to judge my self bound to believe any thing at all as a Divine Revelation that is as taught by Christ with a Firm and Vnalterable Assent such as Faith is till I am Certain it is so by being ascertain'd he taught it This is the True This is the Main Point which you slide over still as smoothly as a non-plust Commentator does over hard Texts that puzzle him to explicate I say once more 't is the Main if not onely Point for till you have made out this you can never prove that Scripture taken alone is a Ground of Faith at all much less an Absolutely Certain Ground and least of all your Ground in particular And therefore you said very True when you lamented p. 28. you were in a hard case for tho' say you there is an Absolute Certainty and this Certainty lies in Vniversal Tradition and we can shew this Vniversal Tradition yet we cannot shew the Ground of our Certainty For you cannot shew Universal Tradition for every particular Text that concerns Faith without our Tradition Rule for Doctrin nor Absolute Certainty you have the true Sense tho' you had that Certainty for the Letter without which 't is not your Ground at all A Certainty there is but not by vertue of your Grounds and so 't is none of your Certainty nor your Ground neither Whereas then you confess here that if you cannot shew the true Ground of your Certainty you deserve to be either pity'd or begg'd you say very true for we do from our hearts pity you let who will take the tother part We pity you to see such excellent Wits who had they a good cause would be honourably victorious forc't by the Patronage of a bad one to employ their Talents in shifting about for by-paths to avoid meeting the Question in the face We pity you for your being necessitated to impose upon your well-meaning Readers with your specious pretences of Gods Word instead of shewing them with Absolute Certainty on your Grounds that you have the true Sense of it in any one passage relating to the controverted points without which you cannot with Honesty pretend it Gods Word as to those Points And if that kind of begging may do you any good we shall earnestly and heartily beg of God's Infinite Mercy to give you hearts to seek Truth and candidly acknowledge it when found 39. I had almost forgot your Id est which connects your Third and Last Proposition together must be the Rule of our Faith Id est say you by it we are to judge what we are bound to believe as Divine Revelations These Id est's which should be us'd to clear things are still so made use of that they are the main Engines to confound them Let your Id est then say what it please I must tell you plainly you quite mistake the meaning of the Word Rule It speaks Rectitude and that such an Evident one as preserves those who regulate themselves by it from obliquity or Deviation that is in our case from Errour You ought then to have said The Rule of our Faith Id est by which while we follow it we shall be absolutely secur'd from erring in Faith For the Primary Effect of a Rule is to give Faith that prerequisit Quality as elevates it to the Dignity of such a kind of Assent and raises it above that dwindling feeble alterable assent call'd Opinion But you will needs to avoid coming neer so dangerous a Rock take it for a kind of Quantitative Measure nor for a Qualifying Principle Whereas indeed 't is not the What or how much we are to believe which is now our Question but the That we ought to believe any thing at all or That you can by your Grounds have any Faith at all for want of this Absolute Certainty which you pretend to 'T is this I say which is the true Subject of our present Debate For tho' we both held the same Quantity or Number of Points to a tittle yet it might be Faith in one of us and but Opinion in the other nay perhaps Opinion in both if both of us wanted Certain Grounds to evince they were Christs Doctrin which is the Formal Motive of our Faith. It belongs then to a Rule to ascertain both the That we are to believe and the What but the former Office of it is Antecedent and Principal the later Collateral and Secondary Common Sense telling us that we ought first to determin whether there is any Faith at all e're we come to debate what Points are of Faith what not These Fast-and-Loose Doings make me when ever I meet with an Id est still expect it means aliud est and that like your other Explications of your self it is brought in to divert our Eyes to another Object instead of keeping them still fixt upon the same 40. Enough has been said I am sure too much ever to be Answer'd to prove that Scripture alone as interterpreted by any Private Mans Judgment wants the Chief Property of a Rule of Faith viz. such a Clearness as is able to give all sorts of People or the Generality of Christians be they never so Sober Enquirers Absolute Assurance of it's Sense even in the highest Mysteries of our Faith without needing the Church's Help Nor will You ever be able to produce the Consent of all Christian Churches affirming that it has this Property Wherefore when it is call'd a Rule by some of the Antients it must be taken as Mr. M. sayes with the Interpretation of the Church adjoyn'd which having the Living Sense of Christ's Law in her Heart can animate the Dead Letter and preserve it from Explications any way prejudicial to the Faith received And thus indeed it may be call'd a Rule of Faith because as 't is thus understood it cannot lead any into Errour but is of good use to abett Truth by it's Divine Authority In which sense Councils proceed upon it often and sometimes call it a Rule And I remember the Famous Launoy when we were Discoursing once about Tradition shew'd me a little Book of his in which he goes about to prove that Councils had frequently defin'd against Hereticks out of Scripture On which occasion I ask't him if he judg'd those Councils fram'd their Definitions by the sense they had of the Letter by their own human Skill or by the sense of the Church which they had by Tradition he answer'd undoubtedly by the later and that there would be no End of Disputing with Hereticks had they taken the former Way By which we may discern that still Tradition was in proper speech their Rule even when they alledg'd Scripture Other call Scripture sometimes a Rule because it contains Faith in which sense even some Catholicks call it a partial Rule
he then said which was that he was much more confirm'd in the Communion of our the Protestant Church and resolv'd to continue in it Pray Sir was he a sober Enquirer or no If he was did he in two hours time that Mr. G. and you were Disputing use the means you say your sober Enquirer is bound to make use of in doubtful cases as his was if he dealt sincerely with Mr. G. and did not play booty Did he in two or three hours time pray meditate compare Scripture and Expositours upon it use the help of spiritual Guides the sense of the Primitive Church which are but some of the Means you prescribe p. 31. He made prodigious hast if he did use those means How comes he then to be so satisfi'd nay so resolv'd without using those means and so worthy of your Patronage if he did not what you say here he was bound to do These are Mysteries which must be veil'd from the eyes of the Vulgar Prophane Nor is there any way to reconcile these Contradictions but to understand you with this Clavis that you say any thing that seems to serve your turn when you are disputing against us and disclaim it again when the circumstance is alter'd and that as you pretended that for your Rule of Faith which not one in a thousand follow so you pretend those methods must be taken to understand your Rule right to the end we may not be deceiv'd by it which neither are taken by any nay need not be taken at all tho' you told us here men were bound to take them the believing your word that your Answer was competent which was indeed none acquitted his Obligation and atton'd for his rashness This this alone was so meritorious that it was equivalent to Prayer Meditation comparing Scripture and Expositours upon it the help of spiritual Guides and the sense of the Primitive Church which you declare here such as he were bound to consult for their satisfaction in Faith. By which I guess your Test to distinguish a Sober from a Rash Enquirer is whether he will rely on your Word or Skill for his security of Heaven If he will he is of your sober sort without more ado and need not trouble himself with those painfull Methods If he will not he must go through them all or be Rash. The Truth is you play sure and may safely defy any man living ever to enquire himself soberly out of your Communion For whoever begins shall be sure to dy before he have enquir'd half way 44. At length to my great Comfort for 't is tedious to find no Reasons to speak to but still to be employ'd in confuting Mistakes I am come to the last Task that as far as I can discern will belong to my Province Towards the end of pag. 31. your Discourse ayms to establish your kind of Iudgment of Discretion which makes such a noise in your Books and of late rings out of the Pulpit too You make way to it thus If we have the Consent of all Christian Churches against the onely pretended Infallible Iudge we have their Consent likewise that every man is to judge for his own Salvation Your Argument such as it is stands thus By the Consent of all Christian Churches there is no Infallible Iudge therefore every man must judge for himself It seems then nothing will content you now but Infallibility and if that be not to be had every one may set up for himself in the Iudging Profession Why suppose the Governours of Our Church when you left Her or of your Own Church either were Fallible are you grown so nice on a sudden and your Conscience so tender in embracing any thing less than Infallibly-Certain for Faith that Fallibility will not serve your turn which hitherto you so contentedly hugg'd and ador'd and so wittily derided any Certainty above it Suppose they had but your Sufficient Certainty or great Likelyhoods fair Probabilities or such like for their Interpretations of Scripture must they therefore lose their Power of Iudging in that particular because they are Bishops Or forfeit the Dignity of Pastours and Leaders because they are not Infallible You have such an a king tooth at the Churches intermeddling in Faith-matters no not so much as to help her Children in the most necessary Points p. 21. so they be doubtful that neither profes't Infallibility nor acknowledg'd Fallibility will put you in good humour with Church-Governours but out they must and your sober Enquirer starts up in their stead For he must judge whether they tell him right or no when all 's done I suppose by the light Scripture gives him as he is to judge of the veracity of General Councils and so we are got into the giddy whirl-pool of a Circle He must learn the Sense of Scripture by them and yet trust himself interpreting Scripture not them for the Sense of it 'T is pitty but he had a blew Apron on and a Tub to hold forth in what heavenly light he had gain'd by interpreting Scripture after the Method you have shewn him T is true if there were no Absolute Certainty in the way to Faith and I believe you hold none in your Church every man must shift for himself as well as he may yet still even in that case he is bound to do that which shall appear best and come up as neer to Certainty as he can And can he in any reason think his own Enquiry will bring him to more Certainty than the Pastors of his Church who had been sober Enquirers too themselves and understood the Means you assign to make that Enquiry perhaps a thousand times better than himself If he thinks them better qualify'd than himself for interpreting Scripture he sins against the Light of Reason not to trust them rather than himself For they have in that Supposition more knowledge than he T is left then that he is to judge himself to be better qualify'd than his Church her Bishops and all his Pastors are for that work and upon this brisk self-conceit the Book of Scripture flies open on a sudden discloses it's Sense and discovers to him his Faith. Certainly such a man is likely to have a very Reverend esteem of his Church her Bishops and Pastors and yet your Principles would have all men such Indeed you would have your sober Enquirers pray and meditate But it should seem they are to pray amongst other things God would give them the Grace not to obey or believe their Pastors so much as themselves in necessary Points I hope you hold the Tenet of a Trinity Christ's God-head and such other Points such which otherwise their honest Natural Reason conscious to it self of it's own Ignorance will very much tempt them to do and to meditate on God's great Mercy in giving them greater Abilities and better Assistance than he does to his Church for they are very ungrateful if they forget so signal and extravagant
the Sence writ in the Heart of the Church at first by the Preaching of the Apostles and continu'd ever since in the manner we have describ'd and prov'd § 24. But The Dr. is got into a Track of mistaking and he cannot get out of it He brings for his Third Argument our B. Saviour's advice to the Iews to search the Scriptures The business was to know whether he was the true Messias and the Prophecies relating to the Messias were Matters of Fact or else Moral and therefore proportion'd to the Understanding of the Searchers and plain enough so they apply'd but Industry Diligence to find them out Are your Mysteries of Christian Faith such Or Must weak unelevated Understandings therefore presume to penetrate the Meaning of the Scripture in Texts of so deep a Sense as those Mysteries are because the Jews were exhorted to do it in a matter within the Sphere of their Capacity Again The Tradition of the Iews was very strong that a Messias should come but that This was the Person there was no Tradition at all This was therefore either to be made known by his Miracles done to attest it or to be found out by the applying of diverse particulars to Him and by seeing they all concurr'd in him And did ever any of us pretend that Tradition was to bring down such particulars If he says we did he must shew where If he confesses we did not he must confess withal his Text and Discourse here is nothing to the purpose He turns it off from the Admonition of searching the Scriptures to know the true Messias to the knowing whether he were a Temporal Prince whereas the Tradition of his Kingdom 's being purely Spiritual was neither Vniversally held taught nor deliver'd at first by the First Founders of that Law nor settled in the hearts of the Synagogue or the Universality of the Jews in the beginning as Christ's Doctrin was by the unanimous Preaching of the Apostles in the hearts of such a numerous Multitude as was the Christian Church of the First Age. Which being evidently so What reason was there our Saviour should refer them to such a slight or rather no-Tradition and not to the Written Prophecies in which he was foretold Or What consequence can be drawn hence to the prejudice of Christian Tradition which and which only we defend and which as was fitting is so strongly supported that it is impossible to find a Parallel to equal or come nigh it And unless this be done all his Arguments against it stand thus A Lesser Force cannot do an Effect therefore a Greater cannot An odd piece of Logick but suitable to all the rest § 25. His Fourth Reason represents Tradition to be meerly Verbal and not Practical That it alone is to bring down particular Matters of Fact or Historical passages nay the Speculative Whimsies of the old Heathen Phylosophers None of which was ever pretended and so all his Discourse runs upon his old and oft-repeated Errour in the true meaning of Tradition § 26. The Reasons he gives for the Certainty of the Books of Scripture we allow to a Tittle and we add to them One over and above which is better than them all viz. the Obligation and Care of the Church which as She ever held the Scriptures to contain the same Doctrin which was preach't to Her at first by Christ's Order and that it was a most incomparable Instrument for the Edification of her Children the Abetment of Faith the Salvation of Mankind nay an Instruction to Her Self too in thousands of most excellent most useful and most enlightning passages so She could not but look upon Her Self as most highly oblig'd to preserve the Letter from any material Alteration and yet more particularly in case any Hereticks went about to corrupt it in any Texts nay Coma's or Pointings that concerned the main Articles of Christianity which they sometimes attempted the Doctrin of Christ in her Breast could easily direct them to set the Text right again and that with Absolute Certainty Nor does any say or so much as suppose any Book of Scripture is indeed lost as he hints p. 29. only upon his saying That the Scripture we have now contains all the Divine Revelations I us'd the right of a Disputant and put him to make good what he says and to prove he has the Absolute Certainty he pretended to that no Book was lost without which he could have no such Certainty those pieces of Scripture we have now did contain All the Divine Revelations which by his Grounds denying any Certainty but what might admit of Deceit I was sure he was not able to perform § 27. Nor do I at all doubt of the Influence of Divine Grace or of the Internal Satisfaction which good Souls who are already Faithful or as St. Thomas of Aquin cited by him expresses himself Have the Habit of Faith by which they have a right Iudgment of those things which are agreeable to that vertue receive concerning Scripture and Christ's Doctrin or that they confirm men more than Demonstration does Arguments have the Nature of Preliminaries to Faith or Searches after it but the Inward Satisfaction that that Heavenly Doctrin rectifies and purifies the Soul and levels it directly towards the Attainment of it's last Blissful End has the nature of a kind of Experience and as it were Possession and Enjoyment of what Humane Arguments previous to Faith had been looking after and contending for I suppose Gentlemen the Dr. brought in this Discourse to prepare your Minds by a shew of Piety to rest appay'd with any slight Reason that falls short of concluding and breed in you a prejudice against the necessity of his producing any such Arguments as place Christian Faith above Possibility of Falshood But he is as much out of the Way here as he was in all the rest For notwithstanding God's Grace and this Internal Satisfaction which is Proper to good Souls who are Believers already the Church and her Pastours must be furnish'd with solid and unanswerable Reasons to satisfie perfectly those both of the lowest and most acute capacity who are looking after Faith that the Doctrin She professes was taught by Christ and to evince and defend its Truth in that particular against the most subtile Adversaries which cannot be done unless the Reasons which we as Controvertists bring set it above possibility of Falshood that Christ taught it We cannot put God's Grace and our Internal Satisfaction into Syllogisms when we are disputing Nor does God intend by His Grace to prejudice the true Nature Himself has given us which is Reason but to perfect and elevate it 'T is against Reason that in Preliminaries to Faith which are the Objects of Natural Reason those who are capable to penetrate the force of reasons should assent beyond the Motive for as far as it is beyond the Motive 't is without any Motive that is without any Reason and
Make use therefore of what form of Subscription you please I replied Then I will declare that I do Subscribe not retracting my Doctrine but persisting in it which he allow'd and I did it in the self-same terms adding that I persisted in it as being free from Censure and approv'd by very Eminent Personages Which done the Censurers were order'd nay commanded to make me Satisfaction by an Instrument Sign'd by them both declaring that no Proposition in any Book of mine was toucht by their Censure Could there be a greater and more Authentick Clearing my Books and Doctrine from being Censur'd than that was or might not Dr St. by parity of reason as well have pretended that the Scripture teaches Atheism or that King David deserv'd to be Censur'd for saying There is no God as that any Proposition as found in my Books was there Censur'd or Declar'd Heretical 15. And now to lay open some of the Doctor 's Falshoods upon this occasion They are these 1. That the main Design of my Catholick Letters are there declar'd to be no Catholick Doctrine Well bowl'd Doctor Have I a word there pretending to shew the Mysteries of Faith or the Authority of the Church that is believ'd by Faith that is it's Supernatural Infallibility by Assistance of the Holy Ghost to be Demonstrable Is it not shewn you in most express words Third Cath. Letter p. 22.23 and in many other places that we speak only of the Humane Authority of the Church which is to be prov'd by Natural Mediums and not of the other which is believ'd by the Faithfull This then is a meer forg'd pretence against your own Conscience and perfect Knowledge 2. That I was Censur'd and retracted whereas 't is manifest not any thing as it lay in my Books that is indeed nothing of mine was Censur'd nor did I subscribe otherwise than as not Retracting my Doctrine but persisting in it as being free from Censure This the Arch-Bishop of Paris allow'd and the Censurers themselves judged to be Iust and True and upon those terms acquitted me and made me Satisfaction 3. He says that if this the Sense Condemn'd be not Catholick Doctrine he is Infallibly Certain my Letters are far from being Catholick in their Sense Now not one word is there in those Letters which is the Sense Condemn'd as I shew'd lately however I am glad he who has still been so high against all Infallibility in his Writings and deny'd it to the Catholick or any Church owns it at least in Himself I see now what Grounds he went upon when he would not make a Candid Retractation of his Irenicum Certainly this man would persuade us to take his word for our Rule of Faith. But the ill luck is his Infallibility is evidently prov'd already to be willfull Forgery against plain and Authentick matter of Fact. He say the A. B. of D. averrs many fine things already answer'd and that my Plea was ridiculous Which is false for any thing he or I know For that Illustrious Personage deny'd that Book of Lominus to be his or did any man own it but it came out surreptitiously without the Approbation of any man under an unknown name nay without so much as the Printers name to it which was punishable by the Laws there Whence we may judge of our Drs. sincerity In his Second Letter to Mr. G. p. 8. by putting Heresis Blacloana in the Margent over against his Appeal to F. W. He hinted that that Venerable Person was Author of that Book Beat off from that False and Ungrounded pretence he has found us another Author for it and I expect in his next piece we shall have a Third or Fourth according as his fancy so heated now that it has shaken off all regard to Civility shall prompt him Again he shews us how wonderfully ingenuous he is by his quoting against me the railing Book of an unknown Adversary which had besides all the Marks of a Libel in it and over-flipping the Attestation of Eight Worthy Divines of great repute who openly and owning their names did witness that those places in my Books did not bear the Sense in which those words pick't out thence were censur'd Add that Dr. St. knew all these particulars were clear'd satisfactorily since it appears by his quoting them he had read my Defences in which they are printed at large Which Common Sense may assure him I durst not have done in the Life-time of all the Persons mention'd and concern'd without quite losing my Cause Nay I should have expos'd my self to new Accusations as a Falsifier had I not dealt sincerely to a tittle and preserv'd all the Authentick Originals in my own hands for the Justification of my Defences which I yet have I charge the Dr. then to have publisht against me Willfull and Notorious Falshoods which he had reason to know to be such Yet we are still to think he did all this out of his pure Love to Moral Honesty of which he makes such a Saintly Profession I Challenge him moreover to shew me any one Catholique Writer of any Eminency I do profess I do not know so much as one of any degree whatever whoever Censur'd this Position that the Infallibility of the Churches Humane Authority antecedent to Faith and deriving down Christ's Doctrine might be demonstrated which is all I require in my Catholick Letters Whereas the Right Reverend F. W. has named him divers both Ancient and Modern who follow that Method in general and I have quoted divers Eminent Controvertists as occasion serv'd and particularly insisted on two beyond all Exception F. Fisher here in England and Dominicus de Sta Trinitate who writ and printed his Book at Rome and had it approv'd by the Magister Sacri Palatii who take the same way I do almost to a tittle I may add to the Drs. greater confusion the Authority of the Arch-Bishop of D. himself and of all those Eminent Persons who have approv'd my Doctrine as shall be seen hereafter 16. Not a man then has Dr St. on his side but one unknown and altogether unapprov'd Author Lominus and a bitter Adversary to me besides out of whose Falshoods interlarded with his own and by his Concealing my Replyes to all he objects and those such as fully satisfy'd my Judges and Superiours he makes a shift to patch up his Calumnies We will see next whether to his further shame my Books or Doctrin have not had Testimonials of greater weight to approve and authenticate them than that of Lominus was to Condemn them 17. In the first place that Blessed and Glorious Martyr the Illustrious and Eminently Learned Oliver Plunket Arch-Bishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland assoon as he heard my Books were oppos'd out of his meer Justice love of Truth and the Esteem he had of my Doctrin unsought to nay unthought of sent me out of Ireland an Approbation of it writ
retract them Nor shall he name any one Learned and Orthodox man of our Church who says my Explication is not Genuin and Sincere whereas I have nam'd him many Eminent in both those Qualities who have attested under their hands they are such He ends with bidding the Reader judge what I. S. has gotten by the Confession of Parties As much as in Modesty he could have wisht as appears by the Approbations of his Books and Success in his Suit. What Dr. St. has got by the Confession of his Party may be seen by an Eminent man not writing in hugger-mugger and Disguise but owning his Name viz. that he is accus'd of having Mountebankt and Quackt for full five and twenty years And these wretched shifts he has thought fit to use here to avoid the Point le ts us see he has not left it yet Nor am I to expect he should easily quit such an Inveterate Habit grown into a kind of Nature by a five and twenty years Custom and Practice 31. Now comes the State of the Question as his Second Letter has craftily put it tho' I conceive it was best Stated by shewing the Occasion and sole End of the Conference to which I will hold nor will I be beat off from it by any Excursions either then or since There was a Question then put to Dr. St. in these words Whether you are absolutely Certain that you hold now the same Tenets in Faith and all that our Saviour taught his Apostles I thought I did well in putting him to answer directly that He was He says by my favour he us'd other words And what were those Why instead of the same Tenets in Faith and all that our Saviour taught to his Apostles he answer'd All the same Doctrin that was taught by Christ and his Apostles There 's a Cloud in this carriage of his it being against the Clear way of honest Nature Was the Position as it lay in the terms of the Proposer true and so to be granted Why did he not grant it then Was it False why did he not deny it Was it Ambiguous why did he not the Proposer being present desire him to explain it No neither None of these plain and common Methods would please him What then He would needs change the words of the Question in his Answer And by what Rule Was his Answer the same in Sense with the Question If not his Answer was no Answer to that Question but the saying another thing on his own head If it was the same Sense why did he not speak to it directly in the Proposers words The reason he gives is because he 's afraid of Orall Tradition lest it should vary the Sense Whose Sense The Proposer's His Sense was fixt in determinate words and if it were not known the Doctor might have known it if he had pleas'd He means then his own Sense What must he put what Sense he thinks fit to the Question This is a quaint way of Answering And why should not the Proposer fear as himself did here lest by changing his words as he did enormously he should change his Sense too But this Orall Tradition like a Spright so haunts his Fancy that all along as shall be seen he either starts perpetually into Excursions and counterfeit Mirth or stumbles into downright Nonsense And this I believe verily is the General reason of all his failings But we are now to seek out his particular reason of changing the words here The last words that differ in the Question and Answer can break no squares for Christ and his Apostles agreed well enough and that Heavenly Master of theirs taught them All Faith either by Himself or the Holy Ghost sent in his name The danger then must be in these words the same Tenets in Faith which he changes for his security into the same Doctrin Because the word Doctrin signifies all in the lump as he expresses it to shew which he hop't it might be sufficient to shew the Book of Scripture whereas the Plural word Tenets might come to oblige him to shew how he has Absolute Certainty of each or any Point in particular to which he has a great Antipathy And accordingly when he came to perform this he chang'd again the Absolute Certainty of Faith into Absolute Certainty of Scripture I answer'd They held more to be of Faith than that the Book so call'd is Scripture He first trifles that we mean more than is contain'd in Scripture contrary to our express words where there 's not a Syllable of containing or not-containing all Faith. However if I mean his assent to Points of Faith contain'd in Scripture he promises a full Answer afterwards which we impatiently long to see Only we intreat him because 't is a far off he would not lose Absolute Certainty by the way nor fool our expectations when we come at it by letting the full Answer promist us vanish away into a flat denial he has any such Certainty of those Points at all 32. I argu'd ad hominem that since he confesses Tradition causes Certainty it makes Faith as Certain as Scripture He seems to confess it but denies we have such an Universal Tradition for our Tridentin Faith. As if the Faith come down by Tradition were not the same before and since that Council or that the Tradition we build on did not consist of such a vast Body of Attesters as were able to evince the truth of a plain matter of Fact unless those who had renounc't Tradition did club to it's Certainty But is it not pretty to observe that he pretends not to hold Faith to be Certain by our Tradition because 't is not Universal and yet at the same time disputes against Tradition's being a Certain Deriver of Christ's Faith even tho' it were Universal For his Principles allow no more hand in our Faith to Universal Tradition but only to bring down the Book of Scripture and then make that Book the only Ascertainer of our Faith. He threatens to shew the Tridentin Council had not Universal Tradition for it's Decrees and to give us a taste before-hand of that Treatise he adds Let the matter of Tradition it self as a Rule of Faith be one of those Points Well shot Doctor The Points he speaks of here are exprest to be Points of Faith and the Tradition we defend in our Controversy at present is the Human Authority of the Church which we make to be the Rule to those coming to Faith and so it is Antecedent to Faith and the Object of pure Natural Reason And does he in his Great Learning think This is a Point of Faith Or is it not possible to keep this roving Pen of his to any thing But he designs to prove this mighty Advantage of his Cause and that no Catholick Tradition can be produc't against his Church in any one Point of the Additional Creed of Pius IV. Suppose it could not has he therefore
Letter or Right Sense of Scripture or that no Book is lost c. and so there 's an End of his Problematical Faith. I must confess that to prove First Principles False is something difficult but I have reduc't the business to as narrow a compass as I can that he may make short work of it He recurrs at present for want of some Clear Proof to Gods Providence concern'd in preserving Books written by Divine Inspiration Of which none doubts But why should not God's Providence be as much concern'd in preserving his Church from Erring in Faith that so both all those Books their Letters and Sense might be kept right as far as was Necessary Or why was God's Providence the Less for making the Churches Care and Help the Means to preserve both the Books and Letter of Scripture from suffering detriment Lastly why must his Providence be confin'd to only Translaters and Transcribers 68. Dr St. in his second Letter to Mr. G. p. 32. made the Canon of the New Testament the Rule of his Faith. To show the Inconsistency of his Tenets and utterly overthrow his Pretence of that Rule I alledg'd that If the whole Canon be his Rule then his Rule was deficient for some hundreds of years till the whole Canon was Collected and Acknowledg'd I prest farther that since it must take up some time e're those severall Books were Spread and accepted sometimes the Primitive Church had according to his Principles but Three quarters of their Faith Half of their Faith or less and so were but Three-quarters or Half-Christians according as the several pieces came by degrees to be Vniversally accepted For no man of Sense can doubt but that it cost some time e're the Churches so diffus'd heard of all those Books and much more e're they could be perfectly satisfy'd of the Universal Testimony of the Church Ascertaining them to have been writ by men Divinely inspir'd in regard it was of most Dangerous Consequence to accept that for Gods Word which was not beyond all doubt such So that we may with reason imagin that some Churches had at first but Two or Three Books of Scripture others but Four or Five that were well attested or could be rely'd on in such a High Concern Add that there were divers false Gospells and Spacious Books given out under the names of having the Apostles or Apostolical Men for their Authors which must have redoubled their care and made them backward to receive any that were not Authentick which would take up still more time to examin thoroughly To press my Argument still more home I urg'd that perhaps according to him they had no Faith at all during that long Interval because wanting other Books or sufficient warrant to rely on them they by consequence wanted a Multitude of other Texts with which they might Compare those they already had which is one part of his Method to find true Faith in Scripture To show more the Inconsonancy of his Doctrine I noted that notwithstanding all this he declar'd that he lookt upon the Primitive Church tho' so ill furnish't with his Rule as on the Best Arbitrator between us in all our Controversies about the Sense of the doubtfull that is Controverted places of Scripture Now one would verily think this pressing Discourse following the Point in Question so Close and pursuing it so Home were exceedingly worth his while to Answer if he could since it toucht his Rule and his Cause to the quick Now le ts see what he says in their Defence The Substance of his Answer for all the rest is impertinent is a most doughty and most weighty word If If God says he hath so Abundantly provided for his Church that there may be a full Revelation of all Points of Faith in the rest then the disputing the Authority of such an Epistle meaning that to the Hebrews doth not derogate from the Compleatness of the Rule of Faith. What 's become of his Sincerity and Morall Honesty which he so profest to Love Did I speak of the Epistle to the Hebrews Did not I not only speak of but most Expressly discourse all along of those many or most Books of Scripture not Universally known and accepted at the very first but by degrees spreading and gaining in Process of Time the Credit of being Authentick Does not my Discourse that by his Principles The Primitive Church had but Three quarters of her Faith half her Faith or less barr this Shamming Pretence that I speak only of that Epistle Or does he think I meant that that single Epistle was half or three quarters of the Canon of Scripture And now Reader I beg thy leave to insist here upon this Prevarication as an instance of one great Part of his Method in Confuting He picks out a word or two which may best serve him to slip away from the Point and turn it to quite another business but leaves the whole Stress and full import of the Argument Unanswer'd It were tedious still to reflect how oft he has done thus in this pretended Reply to my Catholique Letters But whoever compares his severall Answers to the respective places he pretends to speak to will see how dull and insignificant they are tho' if he be read alone especially with an Implicit Belief of his dealing fairly they look very jolly and brisk However to divert the Readers Eye he is even with me in another Point I said the accepting or not accepting Books whether in the Latin or Greek Churches was an Act of Prudence Antecedent to the Iudgment or Determination of any Church and so could not make or marr the Latin Churche's Infallibility in her Iudgment or Decrees He falls into a gross mistake of the word Antecedent and erects a Trophy of Victory upon his own Errour To clear which 't is to be observed that our Divines admit Prudentiall Considerations in any Church even tho' held Infallible Previous to her Decrees yet do not hold that Church is Infallible in those Acts of Prudence which are thus Antecedent Now tho' the whole Series of my Discourse there shows clearly that I spoke of an Antecedency in the Course of Humane Actions or of a Prudentiall Deliberation Antecedent to an Absolute Decision he turns it to an Antecedency in Chronology or of more Antient Writers and when he has apply'd that word to a wrong matter he has the Vanity to insult But he says I say not a Syllable to his proving hence the Roman Church was not then believ'd Infallible Surely he never consider'd what he pretends to Answer for by saying it was not only an Act of Prudence Antecedent to any Degree I show there was no occasion to show what was then believ'd of her Infallibility or not believ'd Again since the Certainty of that Epistles being writ by St. Paul depended on Testimony other Churches might perhaps know that better for some time than She. But the worst is he was preparing
be Answering for all that 'T is his Interest to do it solidly for he has all the World who in their Disputes follow the contrary Method to confute His main reason to prove that Arguing is a good way to Answer is because the Argument attempts to prove a thing Impossible and that 't is contrary to Sense and Experience to say the Latin and Greek Churches do not differ in what they receive upon Tradition and so the same Answer that Diogenes gave to Zeno's Argument against Motion by Walking will serve the turn Let 's examin this parallel in which consists the substance of his Defence of his bad Logick Does all the World see that the Generality of the Greek Church proceed upon Tradition in what they differ from the Latin as certainly and evidently as they see there is Motion Have not I produc't in my First Catholick Letter p. 35. reasons enow to shew him how disputable this point is none of which he so much as mentions Did not I there p. 13. quote him out of his own book Peter Lombard saying that the Difference between the Greeks and Latins is in Words and not in Sense Nay Thomas a Iesu Azorius c. who were of the same Judgment And could not these Learned men see a thing manifest to Sense and Experience Our point then is nothing like that of denying Motion nor is it contrary to Sense and Experience but such as bears a Dispute amongst intelligent Men and Great Schollars and therefore even by the Drs own Discourse an Argument or Instance brought against the Conclusion was no Answer to the Premises of the Argument brought by Mr. G. and so all the Division he runs upon it here is perfectly frivolous Nor was Mr G. oblig'd either to grant or deny the Greek Church had Err'd but was to insist on an Answer to his Argument because the Dr had playd foul play in attacking his Conclusion when he was to answer his Proof which if admitted no Discourse could possibly proceed For let us suppose Dr. St. had been to argue and had brought this Instance of the Greek Church would he have thought it fair that Mr G. when he was to answer it should have brought the Argument he made use of in the Conference and have bid him prove that two Churches following Tradition differ'd in Faith notwithstanding his Demonstration that they could not Or would it be held a competent Answer to his late Book against the Council of Trent to bid him prove it had not follow'd Tradition notwithstanding all that a multitude of Learned Catholick Authors had writ to the contrary I took heart then indeed as he says seeing the Dr so Nonplust but 't is his own fiction that I resolv'd to grapple with his Instance it being impertinent to do it in those circumstances and so he may thank himself if he were disappointed I was ty'd to the known Laws of Dispute and not bound to dance after his Pipe when he strays from all the Clearest Methods of Reasoning I objected that himself had defended the Greek Church from Erring in his Rational Account which spoils his own Instance of a Church going upon Tradition and Erring He calls this Trifling and says the Dispute was about Mr G 's Argument Yes but these words were not brought to abet his Agreement but expressly to shew the Drs Inconsonancy to himself and his Unconscienciousness in arguing from the Greek Churches Erring whereas it was his Opinion it did not Err. And tho' Mr G's Answer may be pretended not to be so pat to the particular Demand yet it was apposit to the main Point that no Church did at once adhere to Tradition and Err at the same time For which I gave my reason because if each Successive Generation follow'd their Fathers Tradition from the beginning the last Son must believe as the first did This was too hot to handle and so 't is answer'd with Good Night to the Greek Church which is Learned beyond expression Lastly upon my saying He might as well have instanc't in the Latin Church it self without running so far as Greece he takes hence an occasion to accept of the Challenge tho' it did not look like one being only spoke occasionally and threatens us not with a bare instance but a whole Book against us He may use his pleasure tho' I must tell him it looks but cowardly to threaten when he 's running away from his business undertaken and not yet perform'd and leaving the Absolute Certainty of his poor destitute Faith in the suds One would think it had been the more Compendious Way to overthrow our Cause to answer five or six lines if he could have done it But he had a mind to be at another Work more suitable to his Quoting Genius and hop'd to draw us after him from a Conclusive and short way of Discoursing to an Endless one of answering every frivolous misunderstood or misapply'd Citation 71. But now he will shew us how 't is Possible to adhere to Tradition yet err A hard Task if apply'd to our business For since to adhere to Tradition is still to believe what was deliver'd to shew that those who adhere to Tradition do err is to shew that they who still believ'd the same Christ taught did not believe the same Christ taught A Point so Evident that his Reflecter could not but grant it Yet let the Dr alone I dare hold a good wager on his side that he can by his confuting Method his Logick prove direct Contradictions to be True without any difficulty or as he calls it here with an Easy Distinction He begins with two Senses of Adhering to Tradition One of adhering to it as the Rule and Means of conveying matters of Faith. The other for adhering to the very Doctrin taught at first and truely convey'd down since by Tradition That is there are two sorts of Tradition or Delivery One is Tradition the Other is not Tradition or Delivery but the Points deliver'd Parallel to this is his Distinction of Traditionary Christians To what purpose is it to talk Sense to a man who is resolv'd to run still so wildly into Nonsense Do but see good Reader with what care I had forestall'd this very Absurd Distinction in my Third Catholick Letter p. 4.5.9.12 and shew'd how he had deform'd Tradition into all the untoward Senses man's wit could invent by making it now signify Articles now Power now Points deliver'd yet to convince the World that he cannot or rather must not speak Sense he 's at the same work again as briskly as ever And good reason Contradictions are better Friends to him than Principles for nothing more confounds the Reader which is all he looks after and to confound him with a shew of Distinguishing which Nature intended for a way to clear things does it with a better grace The same work he makes with the word Traditionary and tho' he were told what
A LETTER To the D. of P. IN ANSWER TO THE Arguing Part OF HIS FIRST LETTER To Mr. G. Published with Allowance LONDON Printed by Henry Hills Printer to the King 's Most Excellent Majesty for His Houshold and Chappel 1687. A LETTER To the D. of P. In Answer to the Arguing Part of his First Letter 1. THAT you may not take it unkindly the Arguing Part of your Letter to Mr. G. should pass unregarded I have been prevail'd upon to accept of his Commission to hold his Cards while he is not in Circumstances to play out his Game himself But can assure you beforehand since Matter of Fact is clearing by other Hands more proper I mean to confine my self to Matter of Right and so shall give you the least and most excusable trouble that can be a short one 2. Your Letter tells us that the Conference was for the sake of a Gentleman who I heard desir'd to be satisfi'd that Protestants are absolutely certain of what they believe and made account you could satisfie him and profess'd if you could not he would quit your Communion And you take care to inform us p. 2. that he was satisfi'd and declar'd immediately after the Conference that he was much more confirm'd in the Communion of your Church by it and resolv'd to continue in it But could you not have afforded to inform us likewise by what he was satisfi'd For there is many a Man who would be as glad and is as much concern'd to be satisfi'd in that Point as that Gentleman and he would not have been a jot the less confirm'd or the less resolv'd if his Neighbor had been confirm'd and resolv'd with him I cannot for my life imagin why you should make a Secret of a thing which besides your own and your Churches Honor concerns the Salvation of thousands and thousands to know 3. Your Letter I perceive would shift it off to Mr. G. whom you desire p. 7. to prove that Protestants have no Absolute Certainty c. Of this Proposal there will be occasion to say more by and by At the present I pray you consider how you deal with those Souls who rely on you If you should move them to trust their Estates with a Man of your naming of whom you would give no other satisfaction that he were able to manage them and faithful and responsible but only to bid those who doubted prove the contrary I fancy there would need all the Credit you have to hinder the Motion from appearing very strange And yet you have the confidence to make them one as much stranger as their Souls are more worth than their Mony For you would have them hazard their Souls where they are not safe for any care you take to satisfie them that they are Why suppose Mr. G. could not prove that Protestants are not Certain are they therefore Certain Has Peter Twenty pounds in his Purse because Paul cannot prove he has not Or ever the more Title to an Estate because an Adversary may have the ill luck to be Non-suited Must not every body speak for himself one day and bring in his own Account which will pass or not pass as it is or is not faulty in it self whether any fault have been found in it before or no And will not the Happiness or Misery of their Souls for ever depend on that Account Can you suffer them to run that terrible hazard without making them able to justifie their Accounts themselves and furnishing them with assurance that they can and with no more to say but that they hop'd Dr. St. would make his Party good with Mr. G. That things so precious to God as Souls should be of no more value with those who set up for Ministers of the Gospel That their great and only care as far as I see should be to make a shew and pass for some body here let every one take his chance hereafter Besides Truth is therefore Truth because 't is built on Intrinsecal Grounds which prove it to be such and not on private Mens Abilities or their saying this or that wherefore till those Grounds be produc'd it cannot be with reason held Truth And Dr. St. is more particularly oblig'd to make good he has such Grounds having had such ill fortune formerly with the Principles to which he undertook to reduce Protestant Faith as appears by the Account given of them in Error Non-plust 4. But leaving these Matters to be Answer'd where we must all answer why we have believ'd so and so pray let us have fair play in the mean time Let every one bear his own Burthen and you not think to discharge your self by throwing your Load on another Man's Shoulders You affirm there is Absolute Certainty on the Protestants side and 't is for him to prove it who affirms it If you do it but half so well as Mr. G. can and has the Infallibility which he asserts you will earn Thanks from one side and Admiration from the other But it is for you to do it To trick off proving the contrary upon your Adversary is to own that Proving is a thing which agrees not with your Constitution and in which your Heart misgives you 5. Yet even so you were uneasie still and would not venture what Mr. G. could do as slightly as you think or would have others think of him You know well enough that to prove Protestants have no Absolute Certainty of their Faith is no hard Task even for a weak Man You know any Man may find it confess'd to his hand by Protestants And therefore you had reason to bethink your self of an Expedient to trick it off again from that Point and put Mr. G. to prove That Protestants have no Absolute Certainty as to the Rule of their Faith viz. the Scripture The Merits of this Cause too I think will return hereafter more fitly in this place I mind only the Art. Pray was not the very First Question at the Conference Whether Protestants are absolutely Certain that they hold now the same Tenets in Faith and All that our Saviour taught to his Apostles And your Answer that They are Did our Saviour teach and do Protestants believe no more than that the Book so call'd is Scripture Is Certainty of this more and Certainty of this Book all one And was not the Question plainly of the Certainty of this and of All this more Here is then an Enquiry after one thing plainly turn'd off to another Yes but this was one of the two things which the whole Conference depended upon As if the whole Conference did not depend on that thing which was to be made manifest by the Conference viz. the Absolute Certainty of Protestant Faith. Mr. G. indeed did himself ask some Questions about your Certainty of your Rule Questions whose course it was wisely done to cut off before they had question'd away your Certainty of Faith. For after they had caus'd it to be
Absolute Certainty you would assign for your that is Protestant Faith and you give him only a Generical Latitudinarian Rule common to all the Heresies in the World. The Project of the Comprehension-Bill was a trifle to this It brings into one Fold all the most enormous Straglers that have been since Christ's time nay Wolves and Sheep and all It blends into one Mass the most heterogeneous and hitherto irreconcilable Sects Nay it miraculously makes Light and Darkness very consistent and Christ and Belial very good Friends For your own Credit sake then distinguish your kind of Protestants if you be indeed one of that Church from that infamous Rabble of stigmatiz'd Hereticks and let us know what is the Proper Difference that restrains that Notion of a Common Rule to your particular as such a kind of Protestant and shew us that specifical Rule to be Absolutely Certain I say such a kind for even the word Protestant too is a Subaltern Genus and has divers Species and 't is doubted by many who are no Papists under which Species you are to be rankt But why should I vex you with putting you upon manifest Impossibilities For the Letter being the common Rule to them all and as daily experience shews us variously explicable that which particularizes it to belong specially to this or that Sect as its proper Rule can be only this According as my self and those of my Iudgment understand or interpret it The Difference then constituting your Protestant Rule as distinguisht from that of those most abominable Heresies can only be as my own Iudgment or others of my side thus or thus interpret Scripture's Letter and wriggle which way you please there it will and must end at last Go to work then distinguish your self by your Ground of Faith and then make out this your proper Rule to be Absolutely Certain or Infallible and then who will not laugh at you for attempting it and assuming that to your self which you deny to God's Church and preferring your self as to the Gift of Understanding Scripture right before the whole body of those many and Learned Churches in Communion with Rome Nay and before the Socinians too without so much as pretending to make out to the World that you have better Means either Natural or Supernatural to interpret those Sacred Oracles than had the others 25. My last Exception is that you pretend the Letter of Scripture is a Rule of Faith for your People which not one in a Million even of your own Protestants relies on or ever thinks of relying on in order to make choice of their Faith or determining what to hold This pretence of yours looks so like a meer Jest that I cannot perswade my self you are in earnest when you advance such a Paradox For 't is manifest that while your Protestants are under Age and not yet at years of Discretion to judge they simply believe their Fathers and Teachers that is they follow the way of Tradition however misplac'd And when they come to Maturity pray tell us truly how many of your Sober Enquirers have you met with in your life who endeavour to abstract from all the prejudices they have imbib'd in their Minority and reducing their inclin'd thoughts to an equal Balance of Indifferency do with a wise Jealousie lest this Popish way of believing immediate Fathers and Pastors should delude them as it has done the whole World formerly resolve to examin the Book of Scripture it self read it attentively pray daily and fervently that God's Spirit would discover to them whether what they have learn'd hither to be true or no and what is and in a word use all the Fallible means for you allow them no other which your Sober Enquirers are to make use of to find out their Faith I doubt if you would please to answer sincerely you would seriously confess you scarce ever met with such a one in your life that is never met with any one who rely'd upon Scripture's Letter practically for his Rule of Faith whatever you may have taught them to talk by rote Can any Man of Reason imagin that all the Reformed in Denmark or Sueden to omit others did light to be so unanimously of one Religion meerly by means of reading your Letter-Rule and your Sober Enquiry Or can any be so blind as not to see that 't is the following the natural way of Tradition or Childrens believing Fathers that is indeed of Education that such multitudes in several places continue still of the same perswasion and that you consequently owe to this way which you so decry in Catholics that any considerable number of you do voluntarily hang together at all And that those Principles of yours which you take up for a shew when you write against Catholics would if put in practice in a short time crumble to Atoms all the Churches in the World Perhaps indeed when your Protestants come at Age they may receive some Confirmation from their Fathers and Preachers quoting Scripture-places against what Catholics hold or what they shall please to say they hold and by the same means come to believe a Trinity the Godhead of Christ Christ's Body being absent in the Sacrament and such like but do the Hearers and Learners make it their business to use all careful disquisition for a slubbering superficial diligence will not serve the turn in matters of such high Concern whether the Catholics and those great Scripturists who deny those other Points do not give more congruous explications of those places than their own Preachers do unless they do this or something equivalent 't is manifest the Letter of Scripture is not their Rule but honest Tradition And that they do no such thing is hence very apparent that they rest easily satisfi'd and well appaid with their Parson's interpretation of Scripture they presently accept it for right and good and readily swallow that sense which some Learned Men of their own Judgment assign it without thinking themselves oblig'd to observe your Method of Sober Enquiry You may rail against the Council of Trent as you will for forbidding any to interpret Scripture against the Sense which the Church holds but 't is no more than what your Hearers perpetually practise and the Preachers too for all their fair words expect from them And I much doubt even your self tho' your Principles are the most pernicious for taking matters out of the Churche's and putting them into private Hands of any Protestant I ever yet read would not take it very well if some Parishioner of yours presuming upon his Prayers for Direction c. should tell you that you err'd in Interpreting Scripture and that the Sense he gave it was sound and right Faith yours wrong and Heretical and I would be glad to know what you would say to him according to your Principles if he should hap to stand out against you that he understands Scripture to be plainly against a Trinity and Christ's Divinity as
well knowing that the more Judgment a man has and the more he uses it the sooner and better he will discern that the Doctrin of Christ cannot be securely learnt from those of Your and Dr. St's Principles But Why all this Or How come I to stand in your way Do I hinder you from shewing Protestants that They are Certain of their Faith They allow a Judgment of Discretion if it stick there whether I do or no. But you cannot gratifie Catholics with Proof it seems because they are against Judgment of Discretion nor Protestants because they are for it that is in plain terms you will not prove the Certainty of your Faith at all You conclude very conformably that I have set us all on even Ground Yes most Mathematically even For I set Absolute Certainty on the one side and Vncertainty on the other and this in your Language is even Ground 7. Your next Paragraph says I fall upon the Certainty of Protestant Faith which I hope easily to overthrow The Reader cannot but apprehend now that I am making Arguments against it of which you know very well I did not think Where do I fall upon this Matter Why I said Suppose Mr. G. could not prove Protestants are certain are they therefore certain The meaning of which words is clearly this that the Certainty of Protestant Faith must depend on their own Proofs for it not on any Man 's being able or not able to prove the contrary which is what Dr. St. would have put upon us So that to avoid proving which was demanded you put upon me the direct contrary to what I affirm'd viz. That the Certainty of Protestant Faith does depend upon our not proving they have none whereas I contend it does not depend upon it What shifts are you put to that you may escape this dangerous business of proving your Faith Certain Well but did I say true or no You trouble not your Head with such impertinent thoughts but fall to prophesie what I imagin'd This say you he first imagins that all the certainty of our Faith is this That Papists cannot prove it to be uncertain and that then I make sport with my own Imagination Better and better Not to take notice of your shuffling in that Papists cannot prove Protestants are not Certain which I am very far from imagining because I said our not-proving the contrary is no Certainty to Protestants he will have me imagin it is their Certainty nay All their Certainty when he knows I am aware and confess they pretend to Scripture for it and p. 26. urg'd them to make out they had Absolute Certainty by It. The rest is to tell me I play and you will be serious And your way of being serious when you have chosen to fall upon this Question whether Protestants become Certain by our not proving them Uncertain is without saying a word to it to skip to another Paragraph of mine 8. Where I had said that Any man may find it confest to his hand by Protestants that they have no Absolute Certainty of their Faith For which I cited Dr. Tillotson And you tell me first that Dr. Tillotson is an excellent man and so he is for he excells even your self which requires a great Talent in your way of handling Controversie in all your Arts. Next to take your turn in imagining you imagin single Dr. Tillotson too many for all the Traditionary Catholicks to answer his Rule of Faith. And I imagin that Dr. Tillotson knows the contrary For I have been inform'd Dr. Tillotson had the offer of an Answer from a Traditionary Catholic long ago upon condition he would contribute his Credit to get it printed which he thought not sit to do Since I perceive you do not know an Answer when you see it unless the word Answer be in the Title-page I will not tell you it is answer'd already tho' I believe I can make it good But I will venture a fair Wager with you it will be answer'd in his own Formal way every jot as soon as Reason against Railery Lastly You deny that this Confession That Protestants have no Certainty no Absolute Certainty if it please you of their Faith is to be found in the pages cited or any other part of Dr. Tillotson's Book If you do not understand English I cannot help it but any one that does may find in the last of the pages cited As far as silence gives consent it is own'd by Dr. Tillotson himself For it was laid before him by Reason against Railery and with him it has lain these fifteen Years and yet you would perswade us you see it not nor I neither if I may be believ'd against my self 9. Your Rhetorick Sir is very great if it will do you this piece of Service but let us hear it however I had said to Dr. St. p. 23. You seem to grant you are thus Absolutely-Certain or Infallible by vertue of Tradition Upon which Theme you thus declame How confess we have no Certainty no Absolute Certainty I beseech you again and yet seem to grant we are Infallible and that too by Vertue of Tradition Some people had need of good Memories As if it were so strange a thing for Protestants to contradict one another or the same man himself or that there needed Memory to observe what passes every day By the favour of your Exclamations Dr. St. did say at the Conference that They are Absolutely Certain that they now hold all the same Doctrin that was taught by Christ and his Apostles by the Divine Revelations contained in the Writings of the New Testament and of those Revelations by the Vniversal Testimony of the Christian Church And in his First Letter he did desire Mr. G. to prove that they have no Absolute Certainty as to the Rule of their Faith altho' they have a larger and firmer Tradition for it than we can have for the points of Faith in difference And Dr. Tillotson did say in his Rule of Faith p. 118. We are not infallibly certain that any Book speaking of Scripture is so ancient as it pretends to be or that it was written by him whose Name it bears or that this is the sence of such and such passages in it It is possible all this may be otherwise Now if one of those Writers do not seem to grant that they are Absolutely Certain or Infallible and that too by vertue of Tradition and the Other confess that they have no Absolute Certainty of their Faith English is no intelligible Language in England If you think this a Contradiction you may talk with your excellent men about it and let me alone till you can shew I talk against my self by relating barely what others say Must my Memory be blam'd when their Judgments are in fault For a Contradiction it is if Absolutely Certain and Infallible be the same which I both prov'd formerly and it will come
till at last they were own'd and impos'd as necessary to be believ'd and practised Answ. If they belong'd to Faith they could not come in while the Rule of Tradition was adher'd to as has been prov'd and granted Tho' perhaps some Points involv'd in the main Body of Faith yet so particularly or universally known might on emergent occasions be singled out defin'd and more specially recommended than formerly without any Detriment to the Faith received but rather to the Advantage and farther Explication of it And as for unwarrantable Practices as they belong not to Faith so they do not concern our present business 6. What if Errour any of these Ways brought forth grew multiply'd spread obtain'd most power and drove out all that held the naked Truth out of all those Countries where it came Of which all Histories furnish us with Instances Answ. But does any History tell you this Errour spread over the whole Church without your supposing the Question that such or such a Tenet is an Errour which you pretend such which is above the Skill of Historians to decide and is only to be determin'd by examining First who have who have not a Certain Rule of Faith. Besides Errour in Faith never yet appeared even though abetted by Great men in the Church but it was oppos'd and Truth grew clearer by the Opposition made to it and tho' for a while it grew under the shadow of some Particular State yet no History ever recorded that all the States of Christendom ever joyn'd to protect it 48. Well but what are all these rambling Questions to our Argument which insists on the impossibility of Altering the yesterdays Faith but either out of want of Memory or out of Malice Apply them to this and they lose all their force how plausibly soever a witty man that talks at rovers supposes all to be Errour which the Revolting Party Held and never considers the Nature of Christian Mankind and their Circumstances may descant upon it For what Paradox is there tho' never so ridiculous that Wit discoursing thus wildly and at randome cannot make plausible Our General Objection then against your whole Paragraph is this that you never apply your several What ifs to our Argument Besides that you pretend in the beginning of it that you will shew other Reasons of such an Alteration which are neither Forgetfulness nor Malice and yet most of those you here assign are Defects of Goodness which implies some degree of Malice and some of them the highest Malice that can be 49. But say you we must seek out a new Medium to prove our Church Infallible for this already brought proves only she does not err so long as she holds to Tradition but still she may err if she leaves it wherefore we must prove she cannot leave Tradition or else She is not Infallible and so we are but where we were And do not you see this is already prov'd to your Hand For not to repeat the many Reasons produc't for this Point Sect. 45. Innovation and Tradition being formerly and diametrically opposite what proves she could not Innovate proves also that she could not leave Tradition for this were to Innovate And this our Argument you see has already prov'd nor is the force of that Proof weaken'd by any thing you have hitherto said I wonder you should dissemble a thing so obvious and run forwards upon that affected Inadvertence of yours as if it were a business unthought of by us before and requir'd a new Medium whereas it is the very thing our Argument chiefly aims at and for which we had of our own accord without any one's bidding made provision for before hand 50. Your next Sect. P. 25. would perswade us rather to prove our Church free from Errour which say you is a much easier task if she be so than to prove Her Self Infallible Very Good Your wise advice amounts to this that you would have us prove our Conclusion without beginning with our Premises or Principles If this be Yours and Dr. St's Logick 't is a very preposterous one and can only be made good by a Figure call'd Hysteron Proteron or Cart before Horse Though I must confess it keeps decorum and is perfectly of the same hue with all your Logick hitherto Please then to know that all our Faith may be Errour if the Testimony of the Church our Rule may be Erroneous and if it cannot nothing we hold of Faith can be so Again what mean you by our proving her free from Errour Your meaning is we should only prove she Embraces no Errour now but what Provision would this make for Her not falling perhaps into Errour to morrow We ought then to prove and so ought you too of your Rule that if we adhere to it it can at no time permit us to Err which could not be if at any time it might be deceiv'd it self or leave us deceiv'd while we follow it Besides if it were granted Fallible or Liable to Errour by what more evident Light or greater and clearer Testimony could we guide our selves to know when it did actually Err when not in deriving down Christs Doctrine Or by what more certain Way could we be directed to arrive at Christ's sence If there were any such It and not Tradition ought to be our Rule We return you then your Counsel back with many Thanks for it neither suits in any degree with Logick Common Sense our own or any other Principles But however it suites better with your convenience than these crabbed Demonstrations For you tell us One single Instance of her erring is enough to Answer all the Arguments can be brought for her Infallibility Sure you have a mind to convince all Schollars that read your Books you never heard of Logick in your Life Or else you would endeavour to baffle the whole Art of Discoursing because you foresee 't is like to baffle you An Instance may perhaps make an Objection against the Conclusion taking it single for a meer proposition and not as standing under Proof but Arguments are answer'd by finding defects in the Premises or the Consequence You might have seen to use your own words better Logick read to the D. of P. in my Pag. 10 and 11. Where 't is shewn you that if the Premises be right and the Inference good the Conclusion must be as necessarily True as that the same Thing cannot be and not be at once Yet you take no notice of it but still run on obstinately to confute all the Schools and Universities that ever Writ or Taught Logick from the beginning of the World to the Time of His and Your Writing The Truth is you are sick of the Argument and would shift it off on any Fashion Bring what Instances you please But first you are to Answer our Argument and next to see the Authority that qualifies your Instance for an Argument be above Morally Certain otherwise it will be
distance with the true Sense of what was deliver'd by the Founders of the Church in the beginning without danger of losing it by the way which cannot be imagin'd as long as Tradition is held to the same believ'd to day which was held yesterday or that the immediately succeeding Fathers still deliver'd the same Doctrin To do which there wanted no Power as has been lately shewn to the full nor Will to use that Power being oblig'd to it by the greatest Penalties GOD himself could inflict the Damning Themselves and their Posterity 4. But say you pag. 8. If the Church may explain the Sense and Meaning of Tradition so as to oblige men to believe that by Virtue of such Explication which they were not oblig'd to before then 't is impossible the Infallibility of Tradition should ly in a constant Tradition from Father to Son for they have no Power to oblige to any more than they received How Plausibly and smoothly this Discourse runs and how shrewdly it seems to conclude Would any well-meaning Reader imagin that it were perfect Non-sense all the while and wholly built on your own Liberality giving us another sort of Tradition which is no Tradition This malignant word Tradition must not be taken in its right sense that 's resolv'd for then it would grow too troublesom but take it in any other sense that is mistake it and then have at it For when you speak of explaining the sense and meaning of Tradition you do not take Tradition as you know well we do and as the word plainly imports for the Delivery of Doctrin but for Doctrins Delivered and so again we have once more lost the Question For what can these words mean If the Church may explain the sense and meaning of Tradition that is of the Method of conveying down Christs Doctrin The Method of Delivery is the very Signification of that Doctrin from Age to Age and how can one Explain the Sense and meaning of a signification of Christ's sense when it 's self is that very Explication of it This gives me occasion to reflect how oddly you have hamper'd our Tradition hitherto instead of handling it P. 9. You seem to doubt by your If no more were meant c. Whether it does not mean Tradition for the Books of Scripture and this you knew well enough before was none of our Tradition in dispute here which as may be seen by Mr. G's Demonstration put down by your self First Letter p. 4. and 5. is confest to be Tradition for matters of Faith or Doctrin Now in this new sense you give us there of Tradition you kindly grant it for 't is your own not that which we here mean by that word Next comes another If and makes it seem to signify Articles and Power And this is no Tradition at all neither ours nor yours nor any body's For neither those Articles nor that Power you speak of p. 10. are or can be the Delivery of Christ's Doctrin from day to day for that speaks such a Method of bringing down things not the things brought down And this you very gravely deny And so you may with my good leave either deny or expunge or condemn it to what doom you please for certainly it comes with a felonious Intention to draw the Reader out of his Road into a Labyrinth of Non-sense and then robb him of his Reason Again p. 7. you make it a Delivery of bare Words at best with a general impossible sense and perhaps a Heretical one too into the bargain whereas you cannot but know Tradition as We mean it is a Delivery of the sense of Christian Tenets and this a particular sense too and such a one as cannot possibly be Heretical while this Rule is adher'd to unless the First-Taught Faith were Heretical which is Blasphemy to imagin And here again p. 8. you make Tradition or Delivery to mean the Point delivered and would have us give you the signification and Explication of That which is it's self the signification and Explication of Christ's Faith and this too the very best that can be imagin'd Is it possible to deform Tradition more untowardly or wrest it into more misconstructions than has been done already After a serious manner certainly 't is impossible But Drollery is now to act its part And to cheer your spirits which droop't under the difficulty of answering the Argument for Tradition you put your self in masquerade and would make the Relation of perhaps two or three it may be partial Friends of yours concerning Mr. G's Discourse about You a perfect parallel to our Rule of Faith and that if they can mistake or misrepresent down goes Tradition Which amounts to this that sooner may all the Christian Fathers in any Age consisting of many millions and those disperst in far-distant Parts of the World be mistaken in their Faith which it imported them no less than their Salvation to know sooner may all of them conspire to deliver to their Children another Doctrin than that which they held the way to Heaven than that a very few of your own Party should to gratify you tell you a false Story or Aggravate tho' all of them were besides profest Adversaries to the Person against whom they witnest and indeed Witnesses in their Own Common Cause I beseech you Sir tho' you be never so much to seek for a solid Answer yet speak at least plausible things and do not thus expose your Credit while you affect to play the Wit. Poor Tradition what has it done to be thus misrepresented Did it deserve no better for bringing down the Book of Scripture but to be expos'd in so many aukward Vizards when it was to come upon the Stage and not once suffer'd to shew it's true face but still travestee'd into another Form and put in all shapes but its own This Carriage of yours is enough to make the Reader think you apprehend it to be some terrible Gorgons Head or some Basilisk and that the very sight of it unless it came thus muffled up would undo you At least he will suspect from such an untoward broken Scene that the Dramma is not like to be regular Indeed you shift too often and to catch and confute you I must travel thro' the whole Compass for no sooner can a man steer one way but your Discourse like the Wind whips straight into another quarter and about we must tack or we must not make forwards at all But I will insist no more at present on this dexterity of yours you will afford your Friends many fresh Instances of it through the whole course of this Letter hereafter Onely I must note your forgetfulness or what else may I call it For you took the Notion of Tradition very right First Letter p. 7. where you alledg'd you had a larger and firmer Tradition for Scripture than we had for us You did not there take Tradition of that Book for the Book delivered
Pelagianism to conclude that Human Motives which are Preliminaries to Faith and on which the assuredness of Faith it self depends as to us are Truly Certain And Might you not with as much reason say the same if one should maintain the Absolute Certainty of our Senses which is one of those Preliminaries How strangely do you misrepresent every thing you are to meddle with How constantly do you make your voluntary mistake of every Point serve for a Confutation of it 'T is confest ever was That the Human Authority of the Church or Tradition begets only Human Faith as its immediate Effect but by bringing it up to Christ it leads us to what 's Divine yet not by its own force but by Vertue of the Supposition agreed upon That Christ's Doctrin is such Is it Pelagianism to say we must use our Reason to come to Faith or do you pretend all the World must be the worst of Phanaticks and use none Or does it trouble you we offer to justifie that the Reasons we bring to make good that Preliminary which in our way of Discoursing is to introduce Faith are not such as may deceive us And that we do not confess they are Fallible or may deceive us as you grant of your Interpretations of Scripture which ground your Belief No surely we shall not quit the Certainty we have because you have none For if it be not Certain such Doctrines are indeed Christ's who is our Law-giver we cannot be sure they are True their Truth depending on his Authority and would you have us for fear of Pelagianism confess all our Faith may perhaps be but a story But into what an unadvisedness does your Anger transport you to run the Weapon through your own Side to do us a Mischief You bore us in hand First Letter p. 7. that you had a larger and firmer Tradition for Scripture than we have for what we pretend to Yet this Tradition could cause no more but Human Faith for I do not think you will say you had Divine Faith before you were got to your Rule of Divine Faith. By your Discourse then your self are an Arrant Pelagian too Perhaps worse than we because you pretend to a larger and firmer Human Tradition than you say we have nay you pretend it to be Absolutely Certain too which is a dangerous Point indeed Pray have a care what you do for you are upon the very brink of Pelagianism The knowing you have the true Books of Scripture is a most necessary Preliminary to your Faith for without knowing that you cannot pretend to have any Faith at all and if it be Pelagianism in us to hold such Preliminaries absolutely Certain I fear the danger may come to reach you too Yet you have one Way and but one to escape that damnable Heresy which is that you do not go about to demonstrate the Absolute Certainty of Your Tradition as we do of Ours That that is the very Venom of Pelagianism But take comfort Sir my life for yours you will never fall so abominably into the mire as to demonstrate or conclude any thing For what Idaea soever you may frame of it we mean no more by Demonstrating but plain honest Concluding Your way of Discoursing does not look as if it intended to conclude or demonstrate 'T is so wholly pass for as great a Man as you will made up of mistakes misrepresentations petty cavils witty shifts untoward explications of your own Words constant prevarications and many more such neat dexterities that whatever fault it may through human frailty provok't by powerful Necessity be liable to I dare pawn my life it will never be guilty of that hainous Crime of demonstrating or concluding any thing no not the Absolute Certainty of your firmer Tradition And yet unless you can prove or conclude 't is thus Certain 't is a Riddle to us how can you either hold or say 't is such 13 Pray be not offended if on this occasion I ask You a plain downright Question Is it not equally blamable to Falsify your Adversaries Tenet perpetually as 't is to falsify his Words Nay is it not worse being less liable to discovery and so more certainly and more perniciously Injurious And can any thing excuse You from being thus faulty but Ignorance of our Tenet I fear that Plea will utterly sail you too and leave you expos'd to the Censure of every sincere Reader when I shew him to his Eye that You could not but know all this before For in Error Non-plust p. 121. Sect. 8. You must needs have read the quite contrary Doctrine and how those who maintain Tradition do resolve their Faith. There is no necessity then of proving this Infallibility viz. Of the Church meerly by Scripture interpreted by Virtue of this Infallibility Nor do the Faithful or the Church commit a Circle in believing that the Church is Infallible upon Tradition For they believe onely the supernatural Infallibility built on the Assistance of the Holy Ghost that is on the Church's Sanctity and this is prov'd by the Human Authority of the Church to have been held ever from the Beginning and the force of the Human Testimony of the Church is prov'd by Maxims of meer Reason The same is more at large deliver'd in the foregoing Section and in divers other places Now this Book was Writ against your self and so 't is as hardly Conceiveable you should never have read it as 't is Unconceiveable how you should ever answer it And if you did read it what was become of your sincerity when you counterfeited your Ignorance of our Tenet All is resolv'd say you here p. 9. into meer Human Faith which is the unavoidable consequence of the Doctrin of Oral Tradition How shrewdly positive you are in your Sayings how modest and meek in your Proofs Nothing can be more manifest from our constantly avow'd Doctrin and your own opposing it too than 't is that Tradition resolves all into Christ's and the Apostles Teaching And pray do you hold that Christ is a meer man or that the Believing Him is a meer human Faith or that the Doctrin taught by Him and Them is meerly Human If this be indeed your Tenet I am sorry I knew it not before for then I should have thought fit to begin with other Principles to confute you And I pray God by your impugning known Truths you may never need e'm I see I had reason to alledge in Faith Vindicated that the Grace of God was requisit to make men assent to a Natural Conclusion when it came very cross to their Interest For it appears too plain 't is exceedingly needful to assist you here in a meer Point of Common Morality which is to enable you not to speak and represent things directly contrary to your own knowledge And I am sorry I must tell you and too evidently prove it that the greatest part of your Writings against Catholicks when the Point is to be manag'd by Reason
attested and blame the Attestation and Tradition as it may be found to deserve but still when you would put your own Tenet as distinguish 't from ours be so kind as to put ours too and do not stand talking to us and fooling your Readers with the Rabbies pretended Tradition from Moses his mouth no more like ours than an Apple is like an Oyster Again this Resolution of your Faith gives every one Absolute Certainty of his Faith who believes he has Absolute Certainty of Scripture's letter and that it contains the Word of God. And yet Experience tells us that whole Bodys of Learned men believe all this and yet differ that is one side errs in the highest Mysteries of Christian Faith. Whence follows that both sides by this Doctrin are Absolutely Certain of their Faith one side for example is Absolutely Certain there is a Trinity and that Christ is God the other that there is no Trinity and that Christ is not God. This seems but a very odd account of the Certainty of Protestant Faith. 17. But you refine upon your self in your Answer to the 3 d Question p. 15. It was ask't there By what Certain Rule do you know that the New Testament which we now have does contain all the Divine Revelations of Christ and his Apostles This Question evidently aims at two things viz. First whether some Books writ by the Apostles were not lost as appears by those words which we now have For if they were then being penn'd by men divinely inspir'd they must necessarily contain some Divine Revelations in them too as well as did the other and then how does it appear there were not more or other Revelations contain'd in them than were contain'd in the books now extant The other is that you know well very many hold that diverse Divine Revelations were deliver'd down by Tradition and not all by Writing Let 's see now how your Answer sutes with this Question By the Vniversal Testimony say you of the Christian Church from the Apostles times downwards This Reply if pertinent to that Question must mean that this Vniversal Testimony ascertains us that the Scriptures we have now contains all the Divine Revelations But when you come to explain your self it comes to no more but that The Testimony of the Apostolical and the succeeding Churches did by degrees make men fix upon the Certain Canon of the New Testament What a flight have you taken on a sudden Where will you pitch when you light I am sure not on the place where you took wing and where you ought to have stay'd For What is their Testimony for the Books we now have to the Books which have or may have prerish't and to their containing some other Divine Revelations Or what is the fixing upon the Certain Canon of the Books to the difficulty whether some Divine Revelations did not descend by Tradition without Writing Do the Apostolical or succeeding Churches testify either of these Or do you so much as pretend they do Not a syllable of this do you say or take notice of and so not a syllable have you Answer'd to his Question Which was not about the Canon of Scripture or how you would resolve your Faith with which you keep such a pother over and over but whether the New Testament we have now contain'd all the Divine Revelations If you explicate Scripture no better for your Faith than you do your own words here you will questionless make a very extraordinary piece of work of it Your Answers come now and then pretty home the smartness of the Questions obliging you to it but your Explications of them immediately after seem purposely fram'd that we should not take you at your Word in your Answers 18. That Answer then prevaricating from the whole Question Mr. G. endeavour'd to press for a pertinent return to what was demanded and therefore puts his fourth Question thus Was that Vniversal Testimony an Infallible Rule to assure us certainly down to our time that the New Testament contain'd all the Divine Revelations of Christ and his Apostles Your Answer was The Vniversal Testimony of the Christian Church concerning the Book of Scripture and the Doctrin contain'd therein is a sufficient Ground to make us certain of all matters necessary to our Salvation 19. Here are many things worth our Admiration In the First Letter p. 7. this Universal Testimony was onely to ascertain the Scripture In the Answer to the Third Question here 't is onely to assure us that the New Testament contains all the Divine Revelations But here it is to certify us of the Doctrine too contain'd in it which if you mean as your Words seem to sound is all we require in our Tradition-Rule There may be some other subtle meaning lying yet coucht in those Words which Time may discover tho' we cannot yet till he that made the Lock bring the Key Again 't is ask't if it be an Infallible Rule T is answered T is a sufficient Ground T is ask't whether this Testimony assures us certainly the New Testament contains all the Divine Revelations T is answer'd it makes us certain of all Matters necessary to our Salvation which is clearly intended for a diminishing expression and argues some fear of undertaking for All the Divine Revelations being contain'd there or All the Doctrin that was taught by Christ and his Apostles as was pretended p. 14. One would verily imagin by this unsutable Answer that Dr. St. and Mr. G. were playing at Cross-purposes the Answer is so wide from the Question at least that there is some indirect design lies lurking it being so opposite to the wayes of honest Nature When one asks a positive Question all Mankind expects a Positive Answer to the very words as they ly I or No Or if the words be ambiguous 't is the duty of the Answerer to desire to be satisfied of the meaning of the Asker if present ere he answers without which in that case 't is impossible to reply pertinently But it is not your temper nor interest to use such clear and open candour For you saw that great multitudes had the Letter thus secur'd to them yet had not Absolute Certainty that all the Divine Revelations are contain'd in it therefore by adding and the Doctrin contain'd therein you had some faint hopes you might be safe Again you saw well that should you grant Universal Testimony to be an Infallible Rule you would hazard to grant too much to Tradition and all the learned Jests you have broke upon us for asserting Infallibility would fly back upon your self therefore grant it you durst not Nor yet durst you deny it to be an Infallible Rule for then since one of the two it must forcibly be you must affirm it to be a Fallible Rule And then the common sence of all Mankind Mr. T. amongst the rest would be justly scandaliz'd at the non sense For an intellectual Ground that may perhaps let sink
acknowledg'd it was rather a very commendable cautiousness in the Latin Greek Church too not to admit into such a sacred Roll Books that were not yet clearly prov'd to be authentickly such than a blameable Lapse or so hainous a Crime that for committing it she must needs lose all her Title to Christ's promis'd Assistance 31. This gives me occasion to ask you what becomes of Your Rule and consequently of Your Faith all that while If the Letter of the Canonical Books that is of the whole Canon of the New Testament be your Rule and those Books were part of this Canon they must necessarily be part of your Rule too whence it follows that your Rule was not Intire but deficient for some hundreds of years till the whole Canon was Collected and Acknowledg'd I see you do but complement with the Primitive Church of the first 300 years and that you onely cry it up to avoid the unkindness which the succeeding Ages shew to your Cause for by your Doctrine you cannot but hold that the Ages which follow'd it are to be prefer'd Since These had your intire Rule the Others wanted some parts of it and sometimes held but three parts of it half of it or less and so by your Principles were but three quarters or half Christians according as the several pieces came by degrees to be acknowledg'd and universally accepted I doubt Mr. M's Discourse about the Number of Books more perplexes you than your are willing to make shew of For pray how many of these Books go to make up your Rule of Faith If any one or some few then you should not have stood upon the Canon we have now that is all the Apostolical Books or Scripture in general If all the Canonical Writings be your Rule then perhaps the Primitive Christians had but half their Faith or less it may be none at all because wanting yet those other Books they wanted necessary places to compare those Texts with they already had which is a great part of your Method to find out your Faith in Scripture Pray satisfy us about this exact Number of Books and how many will just serve the turn and make something cohere for I cannot for my heart as yet find any thing that does You talk to us of a Purse and say it must be full but when we come to look at it more narrowly it appears to have been for some time but half a Purse and wanted one side of it at least had a great Hole in it so that you put us into an apprehension that many of the Gold and Silver Points might have dropt out of it in the time of the Primitive Church by which Church notwithstanding and no other in our disputes about Faith you seem heartily willing to be judg'd But let us examin a little the Consent of all your Christian Churches for Scripture you make such brags of In the first place marches and leads the Van your Christian Church of the Noble Arch-Heretick Marciou who blotted out of the Canon the Epistle to the Hebrews that to Titus and both those to Timothy who admitted onely St. Luke's Gospel to be Divine and rejected all the Epistles of St. Paul as an Apostate from the Law. In the next rank go abreast those three Famous Christian Churches of Ebion Valentinus and Cerinthus Of which the First admitted onely St. Matthews Gospel the second onely St. Iohn's and the third onely St. Mark 's After them come others mentioned by St. Hierom and Epiphanius who in a manner brought all into doubt especially if Faith depended in those days on the comparing of places for they held that diverse things both in the Old Testament and the New were not inspir'd by GOD but writ by a Human spirit I need not acquaint you that Luther Brentius Chemnitius did revive the old Doubts about the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse of later dayes Nor need it be recounted how many Orthodox Christian Churches did not accept diverse Books formerly And tho' afterwards as you say well they came by degrees to fix on the Certain Canon of the New Testament yet I am apt to judge that this was not perform'd by Immediate Testimony For the Witnesses were long ago dead and their Grand-Fathers too who could attest that such a Book was indeed to their knowledge written by such an Apostle or Evangelist It descended then by Oral Tradition in those respective Churches Whence as that Tradition was not so Practical so it was restrain'd to some few in each Church and was withal very narrow at first in comparison of our Tradition for Christ's Doctrin which was in a manner universally and publickly preach't and practis'd Now the strength of a Tradition and the largeness of it are to be taken from the largeness of the first Attestation and all that after-Ages can do when they attest such things is to witness that they received it from some others but so that the Tradition was still narrower as it came nearer the fountain which very much weakens it By what other Lights the Church guided her self in her accepting such and such Books for Canonical Scripture belongs to another place Your Tradition then was not Universal for Scripture in the first 300 years and its Original Attestation was weak in comparison of that which was for Doctrin 32. I have little to say to your Explicit or Implicit Points contain'd in Scripture For I see they are both equally to no purpose while but contain'd there till you bring us a Rule to interpret the Letter with Absolute Certainty If any ought to be explicitely there none can have so good a Title to it as those high and most Fundamental Articles spoken of so often yet we see there are no places producible for them but may have other senses given them and bear as experience shews us not yet ended and for ought we know endless Disputes among your sober Enquirers attending to your Rule Onely I a little wonder you should say 't is sufficient for your purpose that all Doctrin of Faith necessary to Salvation are contain'd in the Letter of Scripture either explicitly or implicitly If they be necessary to Salvation they must be necessary to be believ'd or known to be there for they must save men by believing them and acting according to that Belief or no way and if they be onely implicitly there they are as yet unknown or not believ'd So that according to you that is a Point necessary to Salvation which does not at all conduce to it But I wonder more at the happiness of your Sober Enquirer to whom you affirm and stand to it stoutly those Implicit Points will become Explicit without the help of the Church and yet you call it assuming in the Church of Rome to do the same or declare the Sense of such Articles Certainly this Sober Enquirer is your special Darling and Favourit He
in the way of our Controversy all Discourse ought to begin Originally and end Finally in an absolutely Certain Rule of Faith that is in such a Rule as influences our Tenets with the same Certainty We are sure we have such a Rule and so we are sure we have true Faith and we are sure you can have no Certainty that You have true Faith because true Faith requires Absolute Certainty and therefore an Infallible Rule which you renounce This is the main Point between us on which depends all the rest whether it relates to an Infallible Church or Infallible Iudge Look it then in the face spare it not but level your whole quiver of Reasons at this mark Unless you do this you do but trifle you beat the bush and scatter leaves but spring nothing While this Infallible Rule remains unconfuted you must confess there may and ought to be an Infallible Iudge and your Iudgment of Discretion is convinced to be a meer Libertinage forcibly granted to all for want of Principles in your selves to Ground them certainly in their Faith keep them steady in it and reduce them to it when they deviate 48. To come closer and take a more distinct view of this Iudgment of Discretion I will acquaint you how far and in what I allow it how far and in what I reject it I grant that every man is to judge for his own salvation and to endeavour by his Reason to find the Way to right Faith. I grant with you that all Mankind agrees in it and therefore wonder at your self-contradiction to make us disagree to it who certainly are some part of Mankind I grant that otherwise 't is to no purpose to go about to make Converts I add nor for you and me to write Controversies I grant that every man is to judge of the best way to Salvation and of all the Controversies between us and you and especially of the true Grounds of Faith and to be well satisfy'd who proceeds on a Certain Rule who not and that the contrary Tenet is as ridiculous as what 's most unless your putting upon us against your daily experience such a sottishness as to hold it I add that since every man is to judge of his Grounds therefore the Rule of Faith must be such as needs not much Learning and Reading but must ly level to every man's Natural Light of Understanding as the nature of Testifying Authority and it's Certainty does I will grant you moreover that to deprive Mankind of this Priviledge of judging thus is to debarr him of the Light and Use of his Reason when 't is most needful for him that is when it should direct him how to find out the way to his Eternal Happiness and avoid the paths that lead him to Eternal Misery But I utterly deny that therefore he ought to think it Discretion to hammer out his Faith by the dints of his private and unelevated Reason from Words that are of so deep and mysterious a sense and this after he has experienced that multitudes of other men as wise or wiser than himself and for ought he can discern very sincere too do their best to understand them right and yet as appears by their contradicting one another in matters of highest importance one of those Great and Learned Parties does erre most dangerously I deny that his Discretion can lead him to judge that God's Providence has left no absolutely Certain Way to Faith it being of so vast a Concern and highest necessity Or that it can command him to Assent firmly and unalterably to any Tenet as a Truth nay profess it to be such even with the laying down his Life to attest it and yet that notwithstanding it may be a Lye for any thing can be known by the Grounds he goes upon And therefore I deny that in case Faith depends on some Authority bringing it from Christ without Certainty of which none can be Certain 't is True at all that Authority should be Fallible in that affair and perhaps deceive him while he trusts it or relies on it Or in case it depends on some other Means viz. Scripture's Letter and his own Interpretation of it that Means should not certainly bring him to the End if he makes use of it to the best of his power I deny it to be Discretion to think himself capable to judge he has Absolute Certainty of the Intire Books of Scripture even to such particular Words or Verses he builds on but by our Tradition for Doctrine as likewise of their Translations and Transcriptions all along and of the Copies being taken at first from the true Original whence I deny he can with true reason judge his Faith True since a fault in any of these may make it False I deny that he can with any Discretion judge that the ways you prescribe p. 31. for your Sober Enquirer to understand the Letter of Scripture right and so come at true Faith viz. comparing Scripture and Expositours upon it help of spiritual Guides who confess they may all be deceiv d and so may mislead him and knowing the sense of the Primitive Church c. are the means left by God for Men to arrive at Faith and Salvation since to do this he sees so many volumns must be read over compar'd and well-weigh'd that in all likelihood a hundred parts of Mankind for one I may say a thousand would Dy e're they could make a certain choyce which side to take in dubious points and to add to his discomfort those Points which of all other are of highest concern as are the Trinity Christ's Godhead the Real Presence of Christ's Body in the Sacrament the Efficacy of God's Grace and such like are the most dubious as being most controverted by the Pretenders to the Scripture-Rule I deny he can with any Discretion when he comes to receive satisfaction of the Absolute Certainty of his Faith suffer himself to be fobb'd off with telling him there is Absolute Certainty of such a Book which contains it when common Sense tells him he is as far as ever from having such a Certainty of his Faith unless he has the same Certainty he interprets that Book right and does not err perniciously by misunderstanding the sense of it in those important Articles Especially since your selves tho' it be against your own Interest are forc't to confess other Great and Learned Bodies had most grievously misunderstood its meaning who had both the same Letter and the same Means to look into it that he has all that your Grounds afford him I deny he can with the least Discretion Judge it possible that all Christian Fathers could forget to day what they held yesterday or that they should if they remember'd it knowingly resolve to damn themselves and Posterity by teaching them a wrong Faith or that they could conspire to do so if they would and consequently that he ought not if he acts discreetly judge that this
therefore whatever often happens through the Imperfection of Creatures such an Irrational Assent could never have been intended by God. Whence as it belongs to Infinite Goodness to give those who sincerely seek for Truth the Grace to embrace it so it belongs to infinite Wisdom to lay such means to arrive at Truth that is in our case such a Rule of Faith as both evince it 's Truth to those who are capable according to the most exact Methods of True Reason and withal perfectly secure those from Errour who follow that Rule let them be as Weak as they will. If then we are bound to embrace Christian Faith as a Truth and profess it to be so it must be indeed such and therefore the Grounds left us by God must be of that nature as to prove or conclude it to be such and if Dr. St. have no such Grounds that what he holds is really Christ's Doctrin he ought not to handle or preach Controversie since he must necessarily disgrace and weaken Christian Faith when he is to credit and establish it Nay he ought not to pretend he has that most firm and most strongly-supported Assent call'd Faith which depends necessarily on the Certainty that it was taught by Christ but candidly yield he has Opinion only in that Point not an Vnalterable Belief it is True but only a good Conceit or Hope that it is so or may be so Too weak a Prop to sustain it's Truth as it leans on Christ or his Apostles having taught it or to settle the Basis of all our Spiritual Life § 28. And now let 's apply this Discourse to his Ground or Rule by means of which he is to be thus assur'd or able to assure You of the Truth of those Controverted Points which you hear so warmly disputed in the world and which it so much imports you to be satisfy'd in 'T is Scripture's Letter in Texts that are thought to relate to those Points as understood or interpreted by Himself or any other Private Judgment What he has then to do is to make out with Absolute Certainty that this Method of arriving at the Knowledge of Christ's True Doctrin as to those Points cannot be Deceitful and Erroneous Otherwise 't is unavoidable his Faith and all Christian Faith no better grounded may be False and by consequence is not True. He will tell you Twenty fine Stories and give you many pretty words of it's being Sufficiently Certain Morally Certain that it has such Assurance as men accept for other matters c. But ask him smartly and closely if any of these Certainties or Assurances are Impossible to be False and he must not nor will deny it for should he say it he must pretend he could not be deceiv'd in his understanding those Texts right which he could not do without professing Infallibility in that particular Observe I beseech you where the stress of the whole Question lyes 'T is in this Whether this Ground or Method of his to be assur'd of Faith is able to prove it to have been truly and indeed taught by Christ so as it was not possible it should be otherwise By this Test if you examin the very good-Grounds for the Certainty of his Protestant Faith which he promises you here in his Preface you will find evidently he only gives you very good Words instead of very good Grounds and that whatever he produces whether he quotes or argues he will never vouch them to be so Certain but Deceit and Errour may possibly consist with them He will complain that 't is an unreasonable expectation because the nature of the things will not bear it And what 's this but to tell you in other terms that there neither is any Absolute Certainty of Faith nor can be any which bids fair for Atheism unless Interest satisfies the Will and by it the Reason By his speaking there of the main Points in Controversie between us I perceive he is running from the whole business in hand and seeking to shelter himself and hide his Head in a Wilderness But he shall not shift the Question thus and fall to ramble into endless Disputes Himself confest Second Letter p. 20. our Question was about the General Grounds of our Faith and not the particular Certainty as to this or that Doctrin and I joyn'd issue with him upon the same To run to particular points while That 's a settling is to put the Conclusions before the Premises and to go about to ascertain things depending intirely on a Method or Rule without ascertaining that Method or Rule first is to begin at the wrong end and make the Cart draw the Horse § 29. I owe him yet an Answer to St. Austin He alledges that Father p. 16. whose Testimony says only That the Gospels are to be look't upon as Christ's own Hand-writing and that he directed the order and manner of the Evangelist's Writing which only signifies they were divinely inspir'd in both which none denies nor has This any Influence upon the Point in hand He could have quoted you other places out of Him if he had pleas'd which come up to it fully and I shall supply his backwardness with doing it my self Quaerendi dubitatio c. says that Learned and Holy Father The Doubt of Enquiry ought not to exceed the Bounds of Catholick Faith. And because many Hereticks use to draw the Exposition of the Divine Scriptures to their own Opinion which is against the Faith of the Catholick Disciplin therefore Ante tractationem hujus Libri Catholica Fides explicanda est Before the handling this Book the Catholick Faith is to be explained Where Dr. St's Sober Enquirer is curb'd and restrain'd in his licentious Search of his Faith in Scripture by the Catholick Faith had it seems some other way for were his Faith to be had meerly by searching Scripture for it with what sense ought he to be restrain'd while he was in the Way to Faith To restrain one who is in the right Way is to hinder him from going right or perhaps to put him out of his Way Again Tho' those Heretical Opinions were both against the true Sense of Scripture and against Tradition too yet had he held Scripture the Rule he should rather have said they were against the true signification of Scripture's Letter than against the Faith of the Catholick Discipline Besides if Catholick Faith was to be explain'd before they came to handle Scripture how was Scripture the Rule for all to come to Faith when as Faith was to be had nay well understood by the Explanation of it antecedently lest they might otherwise fall into Heresie And in another place speaking of a false Pointing of the Letter made by the Arians to abet their Heresie he confutes them thus Sed hoc But this is to be refuted by the Rule of Faith by which we are instructed before-hand in the Equality of the Trinity Had this Rule of Faith been held by him to
this man do himself a greater prejudice than by thus confessing that he holds not Christian Faith absolutely speaking True Or can he lay a greater scandal on Christian Faith it self than to quarrel at a Position that can give him no displeasure but by asserting it's perfect Truth If this do not like his new-fashion'd Christian Principles I suppose he will own the contrary Position and affirm that True Faith by reason of it's Moveable or Uncertain Grounds Cannot bear an asserting the Absolute Impossibility of it's Falshood And this is in plain terms to assert that absolutely speaking True Faith may all be False which is both Unchristian and strong Nonsense to boot He should have Preach't this to his Auditory at Guildhall and then he should have seen how every honest Hearer would have abhorr'd his Doctrine have lookt upon Him as scarce half a Christian and on such a Faith as absurd praeternatural and Irrational as well as I did 14. These are the greatest Contradictions the Dr. could pick even out of an Adversaries Book concerning which he keeps such a mighty noise blusters and triumphs He tells the Reader I affirm that Moral Certainty destroys the Essence of Faith. And I affirm it does taking Faith without some absolutely certain Principle as Demonstration is to ground it on For Faith is essentially True and it cannot be True to those who see that notwithstanding it's Grounds which are to prove it Christ's Doctrine it may yet be none of his Doctrine Again he says I make Moral Certainty Sufficient and Insufficient for Faith. Distinguish good Doctor 'T is not Sufficient for the Ground of Faith as we treat of it for if there may be Deceit in that Ground the Truth of Faith as to us sinks And yet Moral Certainty and even less of the force of that Ground is Sufficient to many nay All so they adhere to a Ground that is really Infallible and Salvation is attainable by those Persons Oh but Salvation is to be had by such a Faith no better grounded and that 's the main business What If for want of a firm Ground Faith hap to be False Who ever said it or that in case any Point embrac't upon such a Ground happen to be Vntrue it could be a Point of Faith or that any man could be sav'd by vertue of a Heretical Tenet or a pernicious Falshood Yet for want of Dr. St's understanding plain sense and his applying my words to a wrong subject I must forfeit my Sincerity and Moral Honesty whereas himself forfeits both by confounding every thing which I had so carefully distinguisht There is not a tittle objected by himself or Lominus but I distinctly and clearly answer'd in my Clypeus Septemplex and Vindiciae to the satisfaction of all my Superiours and Judges Yet this man of Moral Honesty has the Ingenuity to object them afresh without taking notice of my Answers or letting the Reader so much as know any such Satisfactory Answers or any answer at all had been already given 14. As for the three Propositions pickt out of my Books apart from the Context and which as taken in the precise words in which they were exhibited were censur'd I desire the Reader to reflect that these words There is no God tho' found in the Holy Scripture it self yet as separated from the words adjoyning and exprest in those precise terms are perfect Atheism and deserve the highest Censure and yet the same words as they lie in the Sacred Book it self with these foregoing words The Fool hath said in his heart joyn'd with them the direct contrary is signify'd by that place This was my very case The words or passages taken alone without the Prefaces declaring the sole Intent of the Author without the State of the Question and other Paragraphs or words in the same Paragraph giving light by the Tenour of the Discourse to my true meaning bore a shew as if I had affirm'd that it was requisite to Faith to demonstrate the Mysteries of Faith and among them the Supernatural Infallibility of the Church which is a Point of Faith. Especially since there was inserted by the Exhibiter a Parenthesis in the middle of the second Proposition he speaks of Propositions of Faith whereas there was not a word of any such thing but about fifteen times the contrary in the self-same Paragraph viz. That I spoke of Motives Premisses and Grounds of Faith. Now the Censurers knew not that those Propositions were in any Book or had any Antecedents or Consequents as they publickly declar'd and I have it under their hands and consequently Censur'd them as my self should have done had I been in their Circumstances and circumvented as they were As soon as I saw the Censure I offer'd voluntarily to Subscribe to it knowing that those Propositions thus singled out were no more my Doctrine than There is no God was the Sense of the Sacred Writer nay quite contrary to it The Censurers declar'd they were surpriz'd and complain'd they were by indirect wiles impos'd upon So at the Arch-Bishop of Paris his Command I writ my Vindiciae to manifest the true Sense of those passages as they lay in my Books which I shew'd very clearly and particularly to be that I only spoke of Faith as standing under a Rule ascertaining it's Descent from Christ. My Books being in English it was order'd that some Persons of great Learning and Repute who understood English should examine and testify whether taking those Propositions as they lay in my Books the Orthodox Sense I assign'd to them were indeed my genuine meaning in those places My Adversary too allow'd of them to attest it for indeed their known Probity and Learning was such that it was impossible to except against them and that Venerable and Pious Personage Abbot Montagu to whom they were known it being requir'd gave Testimony to both those Qualifications in them They all unanimously attested by their Subscriptions that the Orthodox Sense I assign'd was indeed the true meaning of those Places and that the Sense condemn'd was not in those Books but the direct contrary whence follows that when I Subscrib'd the Censure I subscrib'd only to what had ever been my own Doctrine Those Reverend and Judicious Persons were Mr Francis Gage Dr. of Sorbon Mr Thomas Godden Dr. of Divinity Mr Robert Barclay Principal of the Scotch Colledge in Paris Mr Bonaventure Giffard and Mr Iohn Betham then Batchelours of Divinity in Sorbon both of them since Doctors of the same Faculty and the former of them now Bishop of Madaura Mr Edward Cary Mr Edward Lutton and Mr G. K. The Arch-Bishop of Paris being perfectly satisfy'd hoping it might end future Disputes desired me to Subscribe to the Censure I refus'd at first alledging that such a Subscription might be improv'd into a pretence that I had retracted He replied Uteris itaque quâ Subscriptionis formulâ tibi placuerit
with his own hand and Seal'd with his Archiepiscopall Seal in these words Infrascripti testamur c. Wee underwritten do attest that we have read thorough diligently and accurately and that with both Profit and Pleasure three Books writ in the English Dialect Publish'd by that Learned Person Mr. Iohn Sergeant whose Titles and Arguments are these Surefooting in Christianity Faith vindicated and Reason against Raillery In which I have not only found nothing against the Integrity of the True Faith and of good manners but moreover Clear and Solid Principles which admirably conspire to the Estabishing and confirming the Catholick Doctrin For both by Reasons and Authorities they excellently impugn the Protestants affirming the Holy Scripture is the only Rule of Faith and vigorously maintain that the genuin Doctrin of Christ and his Apostles has descended by the force of Tradition from Century to Century nay from year to year incorruptedly to our time and still remains inviolably in the Orthodox Church In Testimony whereof we have Subscrib'd and have caus'd our portatil Seal to be assixt this 15 th of March 1674. at Armagh Oliversus Armachanus totius Hiberniae Primas Can any man imagin that this Grave and Learned Personage who had for twelve years profest Divinity in the Sacra Congregatio at Rome and had been advanc'd by them to this high Dignity would have hazarded his Credit there in approving so highly the Writings of one who was a Stranger to him and no ways capable to oblige him had he not been perfectly assur'd there was nothing Censurable in them Yet this tho' known to our ingenuous Dr. is nothing with him He crys still Lominus for my money let him be what he will and assures the Reader upon his Morall Honesty he is Infallibly Certain my Doctrin in my Letters is not Catholik 18. The next in Dignity is that Illustrious and Right Reverend Personage Mr. Peter Talbot Arch Bishop of Dublin who dy'd a Confessor of the Catholik Faith in Dublin Castle in the time of that truly Hellish tho' not Popish Plot. This Eminent Person more than once has approv'd and highly commended my Doctrin The Author of Surefooting says he has with great zeal writ divers Treatises of this matter viz. the force of Tradition and has overwhelm'd those who defend only Morall Certainty in Faith with so great Confusion that they can no way clear themselves from the blemish of Atheism to which their Principles and meer Probability of Faith lead of which crime the foresaid Author proves them Guilty beyond all possibility of Reply And a little after he acknowledges that the Rule of Faith viz. in our Controversies is the Humane Authority of the Church and that it must be an Infallible Directress otherwise it might lead us out of the way Unfortunate Dr. St. to quote an Authority against me which so highly approves my Doctrine and condemns his as leading to Atheism The Reader may hence discern how likely 't is the Archbishop of Dublin should be the Author of Lominus his Book where he and Dr. Tillotson are praised for Writing so Catholickly against mee whereas that Right Reverend Prelate so highly extolls my Books as writing so unanswerably against Them. Lastly in his Appendix to that Book of his cited above he has this solid Discourse Altho' Tradition does not demonstrate or conclude evidently the Divinity of Christ nor consequently can demonstrate or conclude evidently that the Revelation of our Faith was Divine yet 't is a Conclusive Argument ad hominem against Protestants and all those who acknowledge the Divinity of Christ that God reveal'd all the Articles which the Roman Catholick Church professes in regard they acknowledge Christ to be God. And thus the Author of Sure-footing Faith Vindicated c. argues invincibly against his Adversaries for the Conclusive Evidence by the force of Tradition that God reveal'd all the Articles of the Roman Catholick Faith out of the Supposition that Christ is God. Note that this Appendix was write purposely to clear me after the Conference in Abbot Montague's Chamber where tho' I would not then answer to propositions taken out of books when no Books were there to clear them by the Context Yet after I had the Objections in writing I did answer them and this to the Satisfaction of the Arch-Bishop himself and of Dr. Gough who was present and prejudic'd formerly against my Writings 19. I had compriz'd the Sum of my Doctrine into a short Treatise Entituled A Method to arrive at Satisfaction in Religion which when I was at Paris I translated into Latin and shew'd it to that Excellent Prelate the Bishop of Condom my singular Friend and Patron desiring his Judgment of it He read it and at my request made his Exceptions which being clear'd by me he askt me why I did not Print it I reply'd I would so his Grandeur would please to give me leave to Dedicate it to himself Which obtain'd it was propos'd to the Sorbon for their Approbation of it the former of them Monsieur Pirot testifying it contain'd nothing against Faith or good manners the later of them Dr Gage added that the most certain Rule of Faith was in that Treatise exactly settled and invincibly defended But still obscure Lominus is worth twenty Sorbons in Dr. St's Learned Judgment Tho' 't is here to be observed that the Bishop of Condoms Approbation was antecedent to theirs not only as allowing and owning the Book but as inviting me to Print it 20. I alledge in the Fourth place the Testimony of my Superiour here in England Mr. Humphry Ellice an Ancient Dr. and Professor of Divinity and late Dean of our Catholick Chapter whose Sanctity of Life and solid Judgment gave him a high Esteem with all that knew him This Grave and Venerable Person besides the Ordinary and Customary Approbation of my Books added that They do clearly demonstrate out of the very nature of Ecclesiastical Tradition that the Doctrin delivered by Christ and his Apostles was inviolably eonserv'd in the Roman-Catholick and Apostolick Church even to this Age in which we now live and by Irrefragable force of Reason did evidently convince the Grounds of the Hereticks meaning Dr. St. and Dr. Till against whom I had writ to be meer Tricks and vain Fallacies But still Lominus that is the Lord knows who is Dr. St's only Saint and Infallible Oracle 21. It were not amiss to add next the Testimony or rather Judgment of that deservedly Esteemed and Learned man Mr. R. H. Author of The Guide of Controversy This Excellent Writer though he inclines rather to the School-opinion of the sufficiency of Moral Certainty yet like a truly ingenuous and Charitable man preferring the Common Good of Christianity before his own private Sentiment after having discourst according to his own Grounds he in allusion to my way of proceeding subjoyns these words But then if any after all this can make good any farther
reason to reflect on the Dean when he speaks of Church Authority takes away with one hand what he gives with the other That the Authority of meerly proposing matters of Faith and directing men in Religion is no Authority at all nay that they rather imply a Power in those to whom they are propos'd at Discretion to reject them and that it makes the Church'es Authority precarious and lays her open to all manner of Hereticks This is what I ever judg'd lay at the bottom of his heart that in things belonging to Faith he sets the judgement of every one of his Sober Enquirers above the Church'es Which made me reflect so severely upon it in my Errour Nonplust and in divers other places of my Third Catholick Letter But of late the juncture as he hopes being more favourable he is gone beyond his former self for in his Second Letter to Mr. G. he confidently affirms that every Sober Enquirer may without the Church'es Heâ—p find out all necessary Points of Faith in Scripture Now Proposing and Directing are some kind of Help but here they are both deny'd it seems and all Help from the Church as to the matter of saving Faith is deny'd This then seems to be the Antecedent Belief the Dr. sets up and thence inferrs That a man may be in a State of Salvation in his single and private Capacity apart and out of all Church Society and Ecclesiastical Communion tho' he live where it is to be had which says the Answerer utterly overthrows all Church Government This ought to give every honest man who loves Order and Government of what Judgment soever he be such grounded Jealousies that he is setting up a Babel of No-Church-men against Christ's Church that no satisfaction competent unless the several Propositions be extracted out of his Books and either formally and expressly retracted or else that he shew that as they ly in his Books they bear not that wicked Sense they seem to do neither of which has been done Nay lest he should deal slipperily by Common and palliating words at which he is very expert it will be farther requisit that he be oblig'd to write against those ill Tenets himself and offer convincing reasons to prove them False that so men may see it comes from his heart And this done and the Interest of Truth once in demnify'd he is one of the worst Christians who refuses to honour him far more than if he had never lapst Si non errasset fecerat ille minus 27. What concerns Me particularly is to note hence the prodigious Imprudence of Dr. St. in objecting against me Self contradictions which have long ago been clear'd and the Dissatisfaction of two or three Roman-Catholicks for I know of no more who became well satisfy'd when they had read my Books and compar'd them with my Explication and when as He knew my self after a severe Trial was clear'd by my Judges which he will never be and during the time of it when it was most dangerous for any to stand up for me my Books and Doctrin were most authentickly approv'd nay highly commended by most Eminent Authority What a madness was it for him to object falsly and against evident matter of Fact that I retracted Whenas all the while he knew himself had had the misfortune to have writ such unsound Doctrin that his Vindicator is forc't to confess it as his best Plea that He has retracted it and yet tho' as 't is said he has done it on his fashion he is still apprehended to be so hollow that he cannot yet gain the Belief to have done any more than palliate his gross Errours to be inconsistent with himself and to take away from the Church with one hand what he gives it with the other Of these things he never yet clear'd himself nor can but is still accus'd of harbouring the same Errours in his breast nay to grow still worse and worse Which I was so far from desiring to lay open that I civilly insinuated it afar off in my Third Catholick Letter p. 20. without so much as naming his Person that I might keep him from such Impertinent and Extrinsical Topicks which the Reader may observe do for want of better make up three quarters of his Controversial Writings SECT II. How Dr. St. settles the true State of the Controversy 28. I Have been longer about this First Section than seem'd needfull But the Influence it has upon our future Dispute will recompence my trouble and excuse my Prolixity The Second thing his Method leads him to for hitherto it has led him quite out of the way is to state the Controversy And to this end he acquaints us with the Occasion of the Conference which was that Mr. G. affirm'd in some company that no Protestant could shew any Ground of Absolute Certainty for their Faith and that Mr. T. had promis'd him that if Dr. St. were not able to manifest the contrary he would forsake his Communion Will the Dr hold to these words 'T is plain here that Mr G. demanded he should shew Grounds to ascertain his Faith absolutely Mr. T. expected he should manifest they had such Grounds as did ascertain their Faith and if he could not was to leave his Communion Lastly that Dr. St. by accepting the Challenge became engag'd to satisfy Mr T 's expectation and to manifest the contrary to what Mr G. had asserted that is to manifest he had Grounds of Absolute Certainty for his Faith or which comes to the same for Christian Faith upon his Grounds being taught by Christ. And how did the Dr. acquit himself and perform this Why he assign'd Scripture for the Ground or Rule of his Faith and Universal Tradition for the Proof of the Books of Scripture All the company knew this before For both sides knew held and granted already that the Book of Scripture was prov'd by Universal Tradition and every one knew too that Dr St. would assign It for the Ground or Rule of his Faith. Wherefore unless all the company were out of their Wits surely something more was expected and what could that be but that he should manifest his Faith was absolutely Certain by relying on that Rule or that the Rule he assign'd gave him and his Absolute Certainty of their Faith or of those Tenets which they held upon it For it being agreed on both sides that the Sense of the Scripture was in it self True Faith Gods Word and as such to be embrac't the only Question was of the sense of Scripture as to us or as to our knowledge of it And of This the Dr was to shew and manifest he had Absolute Certainty by any way his Grounds afforded him otherwise he might fall short or be wrong in the knowing Scriptures Sense that is in his Faith tho' the Letter were never so Certain Again by his counterposing to those words of his than you can have for the points in difference
Mankind but by Immediate Divine Assistance Yet he had the boldness or Forgetfulness to say p. 5. that If this be not Catholick Doctrin then I am Infallibly Certain I. S's Letters are far from being Catholick in their Sense It seems than either some men are Infallible for seriously I take Dr St. to be a Man or he fancies himself to be something above the Herd of Mankind or else sticks not at the Blasphemy to entitle the Blessed Spirit of Peace to have inspir'd him with such a quarrelsome Falshood 45. He discourses against Tradition as 't is Practical but has he said any thing against it as 't is Oral the force of which to clear Christ's Sense delivered down in the Church consists in Catechizing Preaching dilating upon the Points and explicating themselves at large replying to difficulties and accommodating their Discourse to all the Learners Exigences All which is found in the Living Voice of the Church and her Pastours as I shew'd him at large and none of it in the Letter in a Book What answers he to common Sense and to his own Experience too when he instructs others why he puts us off still with this frigid Cuckoo Answer that he is of another Opinion that writing is as plain as speaking and that words written have as much he ought to have said as Clear Sense in them as words spoken Which apply'd to our case is most palpable Nonsense and makes all Explications frivolous and all Catechizers and Commentators upon Scripture ridiculous The force I put in the Practicalness of Tradition is that supervening to the Oral delivery or being consonant to it it confirms it and makes it more Visible But he Combats the Practicalness of it consider'd alone and so impugns his own willfull Mistake But what says he to my discourse He alledg'd that Tradition might come down in Common Equivocal Words and so deliver no determinate Sense I reply'd that 't is inconsistent with the Nature of Mankind to mean nothing by the words they use especially in Tenets they were to be sav'd by therefore the Body of the Church had some Meaning or other of those Words Christ is the Son of God and Christ's Body is really in the Sacrament But this Meaning or Notion could not be a Common or General one in regard no Notion can be common to God a Creature to the Substance of Christs Body to the Substance of Bread much less to that Sacred Substance and some Accidents or Qualities Therefore there could not come down any such Common Notion by means of those Words wherefore there must have descended some particular Notion of each Point determining the signification of the Words to one sense or the other This was the true force of my Discourse I do still pretend it Demonstrable and let him answer it when he can for did he know the Consequences it will draw after it he would think it worth his while He 's at his old Logick again which is to bring an Instance against the Conclusion and is very brisk that it overthrows my Demonstration And what says his Instance It says the Corinthians and Artemonites understood by those words that Christ was only an Adoptive Son that is a Creature which is as much as to say they understood them in a Particular Sense which is all I there pretended And so his Instance is as he says truly Unlucky but 't is to himself not to mee for it makes good my words and instead of overthrowing confirms my Discourse that Men must have understood some Particular Sense by those words and our Learned Dr is so weak as to think that when what he brings for an Answer is so evidently for me it makes against me As for their pleading Tradition for their Sense surely he means a private Tradition from some former Hereticks and not the Publick Tradition of the Christian Church or that their Heretical Tenets were immediately deliver'd by that United Body of Christians for the manifest Falshood of this would have been confuted by Experience and have sham'd the Alledgers Nor could the Church in that case have condemn'd them since they spoke her sense But the good Dr mistook the Pretence of two or three quibbling Hereticks for the Vniversal Tradition of the Church as wicked an Error as it was possibly to stumble upon then triumphs how rarely his Instance has answer'd my Demonstration And thus ends his Reply to my short Discourse which having done he assures the Reader he has fully answer'd my main Argument against his Rule of Faith. Whereas he has not so much as touch't any single Proposition in it trifled or done worse even in the ridiculous odd way he has taken to answer it Which confirms me more then ever 't is past his skill to hurt it and even beyond his Courage to grapple with it 46. His contradicting himself is still urg'd upon him unless he can shew that true or Absolute Certainty does not secure those who have it in any thing from being deceived in that thing Again in his 15th Principle he said there needed no Infallible Society of men either to attest or explain the Scripture I reply'd that if it be Fallible we cannot by it be more than Fallibly Certain and we can have no Absolute Certainty from a Fallible Testimony This seems very plain for how should a man be absolutely or perfectly Certain of a thing by that very Testimony which not being perfectly Certain may perhaps deceive him in that very Thing His first Answer is that he understands no such thing as Infallibility in Mankind but by immediate Divine Assistance He understands Is that an Answer Does he understand how to answer our many Arguments to prove it By his not taking notice of them we are to understand and conclude he does Not. Again he declares that in that Principle of his he meant there needed no Infallibility by Divine Assistance and he utterly denies Natural Infallibility whence 't is manifest he allows no Certainty at all but Fallibility His Faith is in a fine case in the mean time He must shew I say that Fallibility in the Testimony can ground Absolute Certainty of the thing attested and this tho' a man sees that the Testimony and himself who relies on it may be in an Error before he can make either the Letter or the Book of Scripture Absolutely Certain by Tradition or Human Testimony which he maintains here is Fallible Can a man think or say interiourly I am Absolutely or perfectly Certain of a thing peradventure When that very Peradventure hinders his Certainty from being Absolute or Perfect What answers he to this plain Evidence Or how shews he that a seen Fallibility is able to beget Absolute Certainty Why First he says If by Fallible Certainty I mean this and that c. I mean Why I mean nothing by it but that 't is a wicked Contradiction I mean the same by
but that 's all for he allows none to be Absolutely Certain of the Sense of Scripture but only of the Letter He proceeds after a strange rate and talks of Opinions doubtfull and Obscure places but avoids still to come up to those High Points of Faith particularly those of a Trinity and Christ's Godhead in which he knows I instanc't Then he blames my Logick for not distinguishing between the Rule of Faith and the Help to understand it And my Logick remembers its respects to his no Logick and sends him back word that since an Intellectual Rule to such a thing is an Immediate Light or Means to know that thing as his Friend Dr. T. has told him Rule of Faith p. 40. and is purposely fram'd to give us that Knowledge nay Essentially Ordain'd to that End 't is a Contradiction to say it needs another thing to lend it Clearness in order to give us Christ's Sense for then this other thing would be clearer than It as to that particular Effect and so This not the Other would be the true Rule of Faith. Yet he will needs prove this Contradiction True and that it may be a Rule and yet not have Power to regulate without the help of another And by what Argument will he prove it Oh he can prove things by better means than Arguments He has an Instance still at hand either when he is prest too close with anothers Arguments or wants one of his own These Instances are good Serviceable drudges and are ever ready to do all his Jobbs and yet I doubt his Instance brought to prove a Contradiction must it self be of the same Chimericall Family Let 's see 't is this that a Nurse teaches Children to Spell and read the New Testament so by degrees to understand Christ's Doctrin and yet the Faith of those persons is not resolv'd into this Help of the Nurse's Teaching but into the New Testament it self as the Ground of their Faith. I must confess I extreamly admire at this Drs Confidence and no less at his Imprudence that he does not rather not write at all then perpetually put such shams as these upon his Reader Are we speaking of all remote helps whatsoever or are we speaking only of a Help for the Rule to do its Proper Effect which is to give us Christ's Sense or our Faith God and Nature has helpt us with a Rational Being Eyes and Brains Conversation or Masters have helpt us with skill in the Language in which the Letter of Scripture is deliver'd and Tradition has helpt us with the Right Books and Copy of Scripture Do any of these concern our present enquiry Are not these all presuppos'd to his Rule The only Question is what help is necessary to give his Rule the rest being all presuppos'd the Power to regulate us in knowing the Sense of that Book or our Faith as to those Spiritual and most Important Articles To do this being the Proper Effect of his Rule and a Thing not being what it should be or is pretended to be unless it have a power in its self to do its Proper Effect since it 's Essence was ordain'd for it hence I affirm it must need no help to do this but must have it of it self and therefore if Scripture's Letters have not of it self Clearness enough to give those who are coming to Faith the requisite Certainty or knowledge of what 's its true Sense in those Dogmaticall Points 't is no Rule of Faith. This is the only Point and therefore must only be omitted what 's this to a Nurse's Teaching to read Or what 's her Teaching to the Immediate and Certain Light to know Christs Sense in those Main Articles His Friend Dr. T. goes by chance a little more consonantly and confesses the substance of this discourse of mine by allowing that the Letter of Scripture must be Sufficiently Plain even in those High Points I mention Rule of Faith p. 86.87 But it seems that upon second thoughts fearing to be pinch't hard upon that point they have since that time chang'd their measures 50. Put case then one of Dr. St's Flock should say to him Doctor this very Rule you bid me follow to my best Iudgment tells me you have err'd in holding the true Godhead of Christ nay suppose he should say the same to the whole Church of England what could He or that Church either say to such a man according to his Principles They can only propose and direct and that 's the utmost they ought to do and if he likes not their Proposal Direction they ought to let him alone nay commend him for sticking so close to his Rule as he understands it without fearing the face of Man. For 't is the greatest Injustice and Tyranny in the world to punish a man Temporally or which is worse by Ecclesiastical Censures for following sincerely this Rule of Faith. Besides who can tell but this man is better stock't with Dr. St's Morall Qualifications and Inward Light than his Judges and Pastours are And then to vex such a Saint is to fight against God And therefore the Scabb'd Sheep must be let alone to run astray or infect the Flock let the Church her Government go where they will. Now who sees not that these Principles must shatter the Church in pieces fill her with a multitude of Bedlam Sects and utterly overthrow Church-Government But what would I. S. do with such a man Why first I would endeavour to dispossess him of that Luciferian Spirit of Pride which such wicked Principles have tainted him with and win him to a rational Humility by representing how all Mankind in their several affairs seek out one more skill'd than themselves and use their best reason in pitching upon him and then trusting him in things themselves are Ignorant in I would shew him how the Order of the World the Commands of God and his known Duty do all oblige him to believe the Church in such matters rather than his own Private Interpretations I would endeavour to shew him that the Preservation of these necessary Orders engages God's Providence to assist his Church and keep her from Erring in Faith rather then private Men. I would show him that since the only thing he doubts of is to know what Christ taught that God has left some Way to make us sure of his true Doctrin he must first find out such a Way that if men follow'd it would secure them from Errour in that particular Nor would it be hard to demonstrate to him that Tradition is such a way and that Scripture's Letter interpretable by private Judgment is not that way I would shew him how impossible 't is the Body of the Church should have unanimously deserted that Way And amongst other things I would inform him how weakly Dr St. had defended his Own Rule and impugn'd ours and lastly how he and others who follow'd another way have been forc't to grant
to direct passengers in their Way and leaves Men much at like Liberty to regard either More is justly and prudently requir'd viz. A Power to make her Declarations Law and this as to Matters of Faith not only in things belonging to Order and Decency otherwise the Later without the Former makes as he argues very well some kind of Fence about the Church against Schismaticks but lays her open to all manner of Hereticks 57. This just Censure of mine upon the Drs. Principles was such a Choak-Pear to him that 't is no wonder he keck't at it so vehemently The Great Credit he had got whether for defending Christian Faith or no the Reader is to judge made him scorn to bring it up again and retract it But he uses all the Arts imaginable to Palliate and Excuse it and those such wretched ones that 't is a shame to mention them and certainly never was so Heavy a Charge so Miserably refuted He says confidently this Doctrine of his is own'd by all Men of Understanding in both Churches Whereas if he can show me any one Catholick who maintains that he can have any Faith at all or ground such a Firm sacred Assent upon his own private Interpretation of Scripture without the Churches Help in those most sublime and necessary Articles which have been dubious and contested between the Church and any Heretick of which only we speak he will do more than Miracle But I am mightily mistaken he will name one and who should that be but I. S. himself What a boldness is this to make me his Patron to defend him in that very Position which I am in this very place Impugning Well but what says I. S. Why he says that every man is to judge for his own Salvation and of the best way to his Salvation and of all the Controversies between them and us and especially of the true Grounds of Faith and all this without the Churches Help Now I. S. says indeed that a man coming to Faith does by his Reason find out the True Rule and True Church that thus he Iudges for his own Salvation by using his Reason to find out a Rule Ground or Way to right Faith which is to bring him to Salvation that by his Rule thus found out he Judges of all our Controversies in judging that to be Christ's true Doctrin which that Rule recommends as such but is this to judge of Points of Faith without the Churches Help when that very Rule by which he judges of them is avow'd by him to be the Churches Testimony Above all does he not all along declare his abhorrence of finding out Faith in Scripture's Letter by private Judgments which is the Drs Position And must I. S. still be of the Drs Sentiment tho' he in all occasions contradicts it disputes against it and baffles it What will not this nonplust man say when he is put to his Shifts Any Common words tho' when apply'd to particulars they be directly contrary to him must be presum'd to be for him in despite of a long and constant Tenour of all circumstances and whole discourses to the contrary whoever peruses my Third Catholick Letter from p. 99. to the End will see that my way of Iudging for our Salvation is as opposite to his as one Pole is to another and he has the incredible Confidence to make them the Same At length he hopes to come off by alledging that he spoke it only by way of Supposition that If one may without the Churches Help find out the Churche's Authority in Scripture then why not all necessary Points of Faith And was this All he said Indeed he craftily introduc't his Position Conditionally but did he not after the words Then every such Person viz. any sober Enquirer may without the Churche's Help find out all necessary Points of Faith Espouse the Position it self which had been thus introduc't and this most Peremptorily by immediately subjoyning these words which is a Doctrin I am so far from being asham'd of that I think it most agreeable to the Goodness of God the Nature of the Christian Faith and the Vnanimous Consent of the Christian Church for many Ages And will he now tell us after all this Positive asserting it that it only proceeds upon a Supposition a why not a Parity of Reason He objects I answer it not Why was it an Argument or must I stand answering every voluntary saying of his which are infinit every Supposition and every why not If I must needs speak to it the Imparity of Reason consists in this that the Church being constituted by God to instrust the Faithfull in their Faith it was but fitting Scripture should be Clearer in those Texts that concern the Churches Governing them in Faith and their Obligation to hear her than in the particular Points which they were to be assur'd of by her Teaching Besides the Former Point viz. the following the Churche's Instructions and being govern'd by her in their Faith is a kind of Morall Point whereas the other Points were many of them Sublime Mysteries and therefore not so easily Intelligible without a Master And St. Austin had beforehand confuted his pretended Parity of Reason by telling him that Proinde quamvis hujus rei c. Wherefore tho' no Example of this thing were produc't out of the Canonicall Scriptures yet the Truth of the same Scriptures is held by us even in this Matter when we do what seems good to the Universall Church which the Authority of the same Scripture Commends And because the Holy Scripture cannot deceive us whoever fears to be deceiv'd by the Obscurity of this Question let him consult the same Church concerning it which Church the Holy Scripture demonstrates without any Ambiguity Where he clearly intimates the infallibility of the Church that 't is to be consulted in dubious Points and all Controverted Points of which we speak have been call'd into Doubt which makes its Help very Needfull and which I chiefly insist on that its Authority is Clearly and without any Ambiguity demonstrated in Scripture whereas yet in his Second Book de Doctrinâ Christianâ he acknowledges the Obscurity of Scripture in divers places Obscurè quaedam dicta densissimam caliginem obducunt Some things spoken obscurely involve us in thickest Darkness And if any be Obscure then surely those necessary and High Mysteries of our Faith which are of such a Deep Sense must be such when they come to be scann'd by Eyes as yet unenlighten'd with Faith as the same Father cited in my Fourth Catholick Letter has also told him 58. After this he sums up his Performances and tells us in short how he has err'd at large Next he gives us a lame excuse for his Indirect Answer to the Fourth Question propos'd at the Conference and in effect only commits over again the same Faults he was charg'd with a little more formally as his fashion is and
then calls it an easy Answer and if it be an answer at all I must confess 't is an easy one for any man may with ease answer a thousand Objections in a trice at that rate nothing is easier than to omit all that is objected But I dare undertake that whoever reads my Third Catholick Letter p. 37.38.39.40 where four several prevarications were charg'd upon him in giving one single Answer to Mr. G's Question will judge it so far from easy that 't is Impossible for him to answer even with any degree of plausibility But with this sleightness he slips over most of my Objections in my Letters and supplies the defect with confident Talk or a Scornfull Iest. But because his main shuffle is his altering those words of the Question All the Divine Revelations of Christ and his Apostles into All matters necessary to Salvation and this is his constant evasion we will examin it more particularly in order to the sole End of the Conference to which all the particular Questions were to be directed viz. his showing Grounds of Asbolute Certainty for his Faith. 1. I ask with the good leave of his Jest Does he think Christ and his Apostles taught any unnecessary Points If not why did he use such cautious diminishing expressions and instead of All their Doctrin put All matters necessary to our Salvation 2. Christians are wrought up to the Love of Heaven the Immediate Disposition to it by Motives and Some may need more than Others nay the variety of Peoples Tempers and Circumstances is so Infinite that scarce two persons will precisely need the same He is to acquaint us then how he knows or how he can make out that every man shall by reading the Scripture be sure to find his own Quota of Motives adjusted and serving for his particular Exigencies 3. Is he Sure they cannot err as to what 's necessary to their Salvation If provided they do their best they cannot then every man is so far Infallible which the Doctor has deny'd hitherto to all Mankind but to himself If they can err in matters necessary to Salvation then doubtless many will err and how can errour Save them 4. Tho' all cannot err in all Moral Points yet can he shew us any thing securing them from Erring in all those Articles of Faith held by the Church and renounc't by her Heretical Dissenters ever since Christ's time If he cannot and he declines shewing us they can nay he by his Doctrin confesses they may then they may be Sav'd tho' holding all the Heresies that ever were in which case I doubt he will scarce find them competent Assurance of their Salvation Again how knows he but the mixture of many of those gross Errours may not as much deprave their Souls as their understanding plainer places will edify them especially if the Church interposes and Excommunicates them for Hereticks For his Grounds forbid them to meddle with those high Points but leave the whole Scripture to their scanning and his approved Friend Dr. T. says they are Plain and so are subject to their profound Judgment of Discretion 5. He must tell us how must Church-Disciplin be exerciz'd upon such a Miscellany of Heterogeneous Members of which many obstinately deny what others pertinaciously affirm 6. Is the holding the Godhead of Christ and that God dy'd to save and redeem Mankind a Matter Necessary to Salvation Or is it enough to hold it was only a Man to whom they owe that highest Obligation to Love him Let him speak to this at least For I am not to expect but his aiery wordish Divinity makes him look upon the Mystery of the most Blessed Trinity as on a kind of dry Speculation Tho' were it seasonable to dilate on that Article I could shew him that besides it's exceeding Usefulness to the sublime Contemplatives the most Sacred and most Influential Points of Christian Faith and the main Body of Christian Language and the Truth of it depend on it's Verity Lastly Who told him that all sorts of People who are yet Unbelievers and looking after Christ's true Doctrin shall by reading Scripture come to all-saving Faith Has he it by Divine Revelation or by Reason Or will he recurr to Divine Assistances to keep Particular Persons from Errour and yet deny them to the Church If so how proves he This at least I wish he would speak out fairly and candidly to these Points and make something cohere For I profess with all sincerity I cannot for my heart make any Idea or Sense of this Motly Church which his Principles would patch up The several Members of it hang more loosely together than if they were ty'd to one another with Points Nay they agree worse than Fire and Water and all the several Contrarieties in in Nature for they are distanced by direct Contradiction of one to the other Whence they are utterly incapable of any kind of Coalition there being no imaginable means left to refract the irreconcileably-opposit Qualities of his Affirmative and Negative Faithfull or reduce so many Independent private-spirited Members into one Compound He is to shew us then how the parts of this Rope of Sand as it may more fitly be called must hang together I much fear it will be Invisibly by vertue of their being of the Elect and at the same rate as the Terms coher'd in the Invisible Proofs he alledg'd to shew us he and his Followers had Christ's true Doctrin 59. We shall never have done with this Purse of his He is so fond of the pretty Similitude that he puts it here over again at large and spends incomparably more time and pains in defending it than he does in making out the Absolute Certainty of his Faith tho' he both stood engag'd to do it and any good Christian too would think it were far more worth his while Had he done this the rest might have been more fairly compounded and his Purse have remain'd unransack't However he thinks it sutes well with the Conceit he had of Scripture but I am sure it sutes not at all with our purpose his shewing the Absolute Certainty of his Faith. Hence I told him that Scripture's containing Faith was impertinent to the whole drift of the Conference That the only business was how to get the Gold and Silver of Faith out thence with Absolute Certainty and how to secure those that aim'd to enrich themselves by it that instead of extracting the Pure Gold of Truth by understanding right those high and most Inestimable Articles the ransackers of it did not draw out thence the Impure Dross of Errour and Heresy Lastly that he ought to have put two Purses One the Heads and Hearts of the Faithfull into which the Apostles put this Heavenly Treasure of Faith by their Preaching the Other the Book of Scripture into which they put it by Writing and that Faith was properly in the Former only in regard Truth is no where Formally but in the
Minds of Intellectuall Beings whereas it was only in Words Written as in a Sign that is no more properly than Wine was in a Bush and that therefore the former had incomparably Better Title to be the Purse if no Metaphor else would serve his turn but such an odd one at least it ought not to have been quite set aside But the Dr. without troubling himself much to mind what any body says but himself by which Method of Answering he has left above forty parts for one of my several Discourses unanswer'd will needs have Scripture to be the only Purse Containing Faith shall be enough for His purpose Ay that it shall tho' it be to No purpose And so he tells us that If all the Doctrin of Christ be there we must be Certain we have all if we have the Scripture that contains all And I tell him what common Sense tells all Mankind that a man may have all Aristotles works which contain all his Doctrin and yet not know or have one Tittle of his Doctrin Nor by consequence has the Dr. one jot of Christ's Doctrin by having meerly the Book that contains it Shall we never have done with this ridiculous and palpable Nonsense How often has it been prov'd against him in my Catholick Letters that the having a Book which contains All Faith as in a Sign for words are no more argues not his having any Faith at all unless he knows the Signification of that Sign Let 's examin then the meaning of the word have A Trunk has the Book of Scripture when that Book is laid up in it and that Book contains all Faith and so that Trunk may by his Logick have all Faith. Dr. St has the same Book and by having it has according to him all Faith too I ask Has he all Faith by having the Book any other way then the senseless Trunk has it If he Has then he has it in his Intellectuall Faculty as a Knowing Creature should have it and if so he knows it that is he knows the Sense of it as to determinate Points in it for All Christ's Faith consists of those determinate Points But he still waves his having Knowledge of determinate Points and talks still of Faith only as contain'd in Scripture in the lump and 't is in the lump in the Book too lying in the Trunk whence abstracting from his Knowledge of the particulars of Faith the wooden Trunk has all Faith as much as He. He 'l say he believes implicitly all that 's contain'd in Scripture whether he knows the Particular Points or no But is not this to profess he believes he knows not what Or is Implicit Belief of all in the Book Saving Faith when 't is the vertue of the Particular Points apply'd to the Soul 's Knowing Power and thence affecting and moving her which is the Means of Salvation He tells us indeed for he must still cast in some good words that he pretends not 't is enough for Persons to say their Faith is in such a Book but Now did I verily think that the Adversative Particular But would have been follow'd with they must be sure 't is in it But this would have made too good Sense and have been too much to the Point His but only brings in a few of his Customary lukewarm Words which are to no purpose viz. that they ought to read and search and actually believe whatever they find in that Book He means whatever they fancy they have found in it for he gives neither his Reader nor them any Security but that after their Reading and Searching they may still believe wrong He skips over that Consideration as not worthy or else as too hard to be made out and runs to talk of things Necessary and not Necessary I wish he would once in his life speak out and tell us how many Points are Necessary for the Generality of the Faithfull and whether God's dying for their Sins be one and then satisfy the World that the Socinians who deny that Point do not read search and actually believe what their Judgment of Discretion tells them is the Sense of Scripture and yet notwithstanding all this do actually believe a most damnable Heresy But still he says if a man reads and considers Scripture as he ought and pray for Wisdom he shall not miss of knowing all things necessary for his Salvation So that unless we know that he and his Party do pray for Wisdom and not pray amiss and consider Scripture as they ought none can be Certain by his own Grounds that He and his good Folks have any Faith at all or that their Rule directs them right He would make a rare Converter of Unbelievers to Christ's Doctrin who instead of bringing any Argument to prove that what his Church believes is truly such tells them very sadly and soberly He has right Knowledge of it and is sure of it because he has consider'd Scripture as he ought and begg'd Wisdom of God. But if this sincere Seeker hap to reflect that these pretences are things he can never come to know and that Socinians and all other Sects equally profess to consider Scripture as they ought and to pray for Wisdom too and yet all contradict one another he must if he have Wit in him and light upon no better Controvertists think Christians a company of Fops who can shew him no assured Ground of Faith but such a blind one as 't is impossible for him to see and would have him believe that That is a Certain Means for him to arrive at Christ's Faith which every side as far as he can discern do equally make use of and yet are in perpetual variance and Contention with one another about it So that our Doctor got deep into his old Fanaticism again and which is yet something worse would have pure Nonsense pass for a Principle to secure men of the Truth of the Points of Faith we believe and be taken for a good Argument in Controversy Certainly never was weaker Writer or else a Weaker Cause 60. I am glad he confesses that a Rule of Faith must be Plain and Easy and that otherwise it could not be a Rule of Faith for all Persons Let him then apply this to the Dogmatical Points which are only in Question and shew it thus Easy to all Persons in those Texts that contain those Articles and his Work is at an End. But alas that Work tho' 't is his only Task is not yet begun nor for any thing appears ever Will. For 't is a desperate Undertaking to go about to confute daily experience What new Stratagem must be invented then to avoid it Why he must slip the true Point again and alter it to an Enquiry Whether the Scriptures were left only to the Church to interpret it to the People in all Points or whether it were intended for the General Good of the Church so as to direct themselves in their Way
Equivocated in the Tenet of the Reall Presence and according to the Drs late Distinction making Not-Regulating to be one sort of Regulating would needs have the word Reall to mean Not-Reall whence it was judg'd expedient to put it past quibble by such a rigorously-express Definition And I much fear this vexes the Drs Sacramentarian Spirit far more then Transubstantiation it self I omit that he has forgot here the Common distinction of what Points are necessary Necessitate Medij and what Necessitate Praecepti I suppose because this Later did not sute with his Levelling Principles which set the Church and his Rabble on even Ground as to Matters of Faith. 64. I alledg'd that those Articles of the Trinity and Christ's Godhead were Fundamentall Points and therefore if his Rule could not Absolutely Ascertain People of all sorts coming to Faith of those Articles it could assure them of None and so is no Rule of Faith. He runs quite away from the Points and thinks he has done enough to say It is Absolutely Certain that God has reveal'd the Fundamentalls of our Faith. But the Question sticks still Are you Absolutely Certain by your Rule that the Trinity and Christ's Godhead are Christ's Doctrin or signify'd with Absolute Certainty by Scripture's Letter To this he says nothing but shifts it off most Shamelessly to another thing Let him set himself to do this which is his Task and we will undertake to examin the Nature of his Medium and show it Inconclusive I alledg'd that there is Experience by the Socinians taking the same way that his Medium or way to be Certain of this is not Certain He again turns off Experience that the way he takes is not Certain to Experience of his Inward Certainty or his Inward Persuasion And asks briskly whether he or I know best A pleasant Gentleman Why does he not confute all my Book by that Method Does he think 't is enough to show he is Absolutely Certain of the Sense of Scripture as to those Points with barely saying he knows he is thus Certain of it better than I What wretched Shifts are these In pursuance of this new Method of Proving and Confuting He asks again How comes Mr. S. to know we are not Certain when we say we are Because when you are most highly Concern'd and stood Engag'd by promise to show this Absolute Certainty and are Prest to it Vehemently and upon the brink of losing your Credit for not doing it you still decline the showing you have any such Certainty for the Sense of Scripture as to those Points Still he asks Are not we Certain because some that is the Socinians are not Certain No Sir not barely for that reason but because the Socinians proceeding upon the Same Rule are so far from being Certain of the Sense of Scripture as to those Points that they esteem themselves Certain by the same Scripture of Hereticall Tenets Point-blank Opposit to those Points Common Reason assures us no End can be compass'd without a Means and therefore you can never show us You are Certain till you show us you follow a better Way rely on a firmer Ground and Guide your selves by a Clearer Light to make you Certain of Scriptures Sense in those passages than They do which you can never show and as appears by your wriggling from that Point by the most untoward Shifts imaginable dare not Attempt But some are uncertain of Orall Tradition nay Censure it I do not know one man but holds and reverences it It lies upon his Credit to name those who Censure it For Lominus is a Chimaerical name and signifies no body that he knows But suppose Some did yet it being an object of Naturall Reason they and I in that case could not proceed on the Same Grounds or Reasons as his Protestants and the Socinians do upon the Same Rule of Faith. 65. I alledg'd that by his Principles he could be no more Certain of his Rule then he is of the Truth of the Letter of Scripture in regard the Truth of the Sense of Scripture depends on the Trueness of the Letter Does he deny this Or does he show that without the Care of the Church preserving the Letter Right all along he can have any Such Certainty of the Letter He not so much as Attempts either I alledg'd farther that he cannot be thus Certain of the Right Letter without having the same Certainty of the Right Translation or the True Copy nor that any Copy is True unless it be taken from the First Originall Does he deny this Or does he show that all these may not fail if the Churches's Care be set aside No neither What Shift has he then Why he says 1. That some of us are Concern'd to Answer this as well as He. Not at all for those who say that Part of Faith is Contain'd in Scripture do not for all that say that their Faith is built on Scripture's Letter interpreted by any but the Church nor do they say but the Church without Scripture could have ascertain'd them of their Faith. 2. He says This strikes at the Authentickness of the Vulgar Translation Not at all For we have other Grounds to go upon which they have Not. 3. He skips after bringing some words of mine for what they were never intended from the Translation to the Canon of Scripture which are a Mile wide from one another that so he may however he speeds in all the rest at least talk plausibly of the Concurrent Testimony for the Canon In order to which he stands up a Patron for those Christian Churches of his who thus concurr'd and will not condemn them as not truly Christian till their Cause be better heard and examin'd Yet 't is Evident from his Second Letter to Mr. G. p. 25. that some of those Churches were Arians Nestorians and Eutychians condemn'd for Hereticks by most Antient General Councils which he blames it seems for declaring so rashly against them and reprieves his Friends from their Censures till a fairer Hearing It had been happy for them had Dr. St. presided in those Councils for he would doubtless have dealt with them very kindly and have clapt them head and tail together with good Catholicks into one Latitudinarian Bill of Comprehension 5. I alledg'd that the same Sense in the heart of the Church enabled and oblig'd Her to correct the Copy when faulty in Texts containing Points of Faith which instead of shewing it Incompetent or Disagreeable to the Nature of things he confutes most Learnedly by pretending that Atheists and Unbelievers would be scandaliz'd at it Whereas they would be much more scandaliz'd to see no Certain Means assign'd to preserve the Letter right from the beginning the very first Originals being lost and all left the Churches Care set apart to so many contingences of Translating and Transcribing 6. We must prove it first to be impossible for the Sense of the Church to vary in any two
for New Questions to avoid the danger in keeping to the True one For he knew the Infallibility of the Church we are here defending is that of Tradition in delivering down the Doctrin of Christ and he does not sure judge it a Point of Christ's Doctrin that the Epistle to the Hebrews was writ by S. Paul. Add that when the Church of Rome did Decree any thing at all in that matter it was for the Reception of that Epistle in doing which he will not I hope say she Err'd So that our great Dr is out in every particular in which he shows such Confidence or rather he is to talk very Confidently whenever he is out that he may not seem not to be out 69. He puts my Objection against his Universall Consent of the Testimonies of Marcion Ebion Valentinus and Cerinthus who as he makes me say rejected the Canon of the New Testament and then asks Could any man but J. S. make such an Objection as this And I may I hope ask another Question Could any Man but Dr St. put such a Gull upon his Adversary and the Reader too Now if I us'd such words as who rejected the Canon of the New Testament I spoke Nonsense for those Hereticks were dead long before that Canon was settled But if I did not then he has abus'd me and our Readers too and done no great right to himself Let Eye-sight decide it In my Third Catholick Letter p. 59. the place he cites line 11.12 my express words are The Consent of all your Christian Churches for Scripture and he instead of Scripture puts down as my words The Canon of the New Testament I can compassionate Humane Oversight for it may hap possibly tho' it can never knowingly to be my own Case and not too severely impute a mistake in altering my Words and by them my Sense Yet I must needs say that to put those wrong words in the Italick Letter to breed a more perfect Conceit they were mine and quote the very page in the Margent where no such words were found to make me speak Nonsense looks a little Scurvily especially because when men have their Eyes upon the very Page as he had they have an easy and obvious direction to the words too But why do I make such a Spitefull Reflexion on him as to call them His Christian Churches Because he would needs allow other Sects as perfectly Hereticall as they were to be Christian Churches tho' he was put upon it to give them a distinct Character and here again he grants them to be parts of the Christian Church tho' they be cut off by Lawfull Authority from the body of Christianity Next that I may speak my conscience because I fear by many passages in his Books by his ill-laid Principles and the very grain of his Doctrin and discourses he judges all to be good Christians who profess to ground their Faith on Scripture let them hold as many Heresies as they will. And lastly for his fierce anger here against me for calling those Hereticks viz. The Arians Nestorians c. which have been Condemn'd by Generall Councils for I concern not my self with his Greeks or Abyssins or any others Excrementitious Outcasts and that I sling such dirt in the face of so many Christian Churches And is not this to cry Hail fellow well met But my Cause he says is desperate because I call such men Knights of the Post. Yet he knows the Fathers oft complain of Hereticks for corrupting the Scripture and the Testimony of the Churches Truly Christian was Absolutely Certain without calling in so needlessly Blasted Witnesses Moreover I told him that the Universall Testimony he produc't did attest the Books but it must attest the Chapter and Uerse too to be Right nay each Significant Word in the Verse otherwise the Scripture could not assure him Absolutely of his Faith. Can he deny this If the Chapter or Verse he cites be not True Scripture or if any materiall Word in the Verse be alter'd can he securely build his Faith on it What says he to this Does he deny it or show that His Grounds reach home to prove these particular Texts or Words to be right by Universall Testimony or any other Medium Neither of them is his Concern What does he then Why he complains how hardly we are satisfy'd about the Certainty of Scripture and that we are Incurable Scepticks Sure he dreams We are Satisfy'd well enough but his Vexation is that we are not satisfy'd of it by his Principles and how should we if when it was his Cue to satisfy us he will never be brought to go seriously about it And why must we be Scepticks when as we both hold the Rectitude of the Letter our selves in Texts relating to Faith and Assign a way to secure it Absolutely which he cannot Must all Men necessarily be Scepticks who allow not his No-way of doing this tho' they propose and Maintain a certain way that can do it This is a strange way of Confuting He says There are different Copies in all Parts to examin and Compare 'T is these very Copies that are in Question whether they give Absolute Certainty of every Verse or materiall Word in the Letter of Scripture and we expected he should have shown how they did so and not barely name them and say there are such things But the main Point is Must those who are looking for Faith run to all parts of the World and examin and Compare all the Copies e're they embrace any Faith This looks like a Jest Yet 't is a sad tho' a mad Truth by his Principles For without knowing this Scripture cannot be their Rule and hee 'll allow no way to come to Faith but by Scripture So that for any Assurance he can give them even of his Necessary Points they must e'n be content to stay at home and live and dye without any Faith at all He ends And Thus I have answer'd all the Objections I have Met with in J. S. against our Rule of Faith. Here are two Emphaticall words Thus and Met of which the word Thus has such a pregnant Signification and teems with so many indirect wiles and Stratagems that it would be an ingratefull task to recount them and the word Met is as Significant as the other For how should he Meet those that lay in the way while he perpetually runs out of the Way SECT IV. How solidly Dr. St. Answers our Arguments for the Infallibility of Tradition 70. BUt now he exerts his Reasoning Faculty which he does seldom will answer Mr G's Argument for the Infallibility of Oral and Practical Tradition With what success we shall see anon But first he will clear his bad Logick for letting the Argument stand yet in its full force and falling very manfully to Combat the Conclusion and tho' Common Sense tells every man this is not to Answer but to Argue yet he will have Arguing to
must want the Accusative Case after it due to its Transitive Sense by the Laws of Grammar meerly to avoid his putting the Right one because it would have been unsutable to all his foregoing Discourses which never toucht it But since he speaks still what Causes of Errour he has shown tho' I have already manifested that all those Causes were accompany'd with Malice in the First Deserters of Tradition yet to enforce our Demonstration the more I discourse thus If Tradition could be deserted or Innovation in Faith made by the Generality of Christians for none ever said or doubted but Many Particulars might do so it must either proceed from some Defect in their Vnderstandings or in their Wills. A defect in the Will is call'd Badness or Malice whence if they willfully Innovated it must spring from some degree of Malice If in their Understanding then it must either be in that Power as Apprehending or Knowing Christ's Doctrin or as Retaining it It could not be in the Former for none doubts but the body of the Church particularly the Teachers who were to instruct the Rest did very well Comprehend Christ's Doctrin in the Beginning and the many Clear ways Tradition comprizes to deliver it down renders Faith Intelligible still to each succeeding Age. Wherefore since the Defect cannot be in their Understanding or their having Christ's Doctrin in their Hearts it must be if any where in that knowing Power as 't is Retentive that is in their Memory But it was absolutely impossible the Generality of the Church should be so weak as to forget in any little determinate part of Time by which Immediate steps Tradition proceeds what was Taught and Practis'd a little before or Considering the Motives to keep them firm to it so Wicked as to conspire to Alter it purposely Therefore whatever Contingency there must be in some Particulars it could not be that the Generality of the Church should have alter'd it or consequently Err'd in Faith. Wherefore this Conclusion stands yet Firm the Premisses remaining yet Untoucht Since he neither shows nor can show more Faculties in Mankind engag'd in the Perpetuating the Former Faith than these Two. Add that he does not even Attempt to show that the Causes he produces can have the Power to prevail or carry it against the force of Tradition and unless he does this all he alledges signifies nothing But his Especiall Reason why he gives no other Answer he should have said none at all to our Fourth Proposition is because he intends to shew in a particular Discourse how the Errours and Corruptions he Charges on the Church of Rome did come into it That is we cannot have an Answer to Two lines but by perusing a Large Book I would desire him to resume the Force of all his little Testimonies and Conjecturall Descants upon them with which that book abounds and to be sure they Conclude the Point which he shall never do And unless he does this he only shows he has taken a great deal of pains to no kind of purpose since he leaves a presum'd Demonstration in its full force without bringing so much as a pretended Conclusive Proof against it Indeed it is a great shame for him to pretend it for 't is to profess publickly to the world that he can produce Better Arguments against the Papists then he can for his own Faith and that he cannot Answer the Argument or say any thing to the Premisses yet he will revenge himself upon the naughty Conclusion when he catches it alone and unback't with any Proof for it 78. Next he will prove that our way of resolving Faith into Christ's and his Apostles Teaching by the Infallibility of the Church's Human Authority or Tradition is Pelagianism But never was such a Malicious and Silly Charge so impotently defended We were told says he that Divine Faith must have Infallible Grounds and when we come to examin them we find nothing but what is Naturall Here again our whole Controversy is lost and a new State of the Question is obtruded Faith as 't is formally Divine has for its Grounds the Divine Authority But are we in our Controversy Examining it as 't is Formally Divine Do either of us alledge Miracles or any Arguments that Proves it to be such Is it not Confest and Suppos'd by both Parties that the Faith Taught at first was Divine and are we to Examin what 's Confest and Granted Or that Supposition being agreed to have we any more to do but to prove what was the Doctrin taught at first by Assigning a Certain Method of Conveying it down to us He proceeds And now to avoid the Charge of Pelagianism this Divine Faith is declar'd to be meer Human Faith. Alas for him Does not Divine Faith stand yet on it's own bottom the Divine Authority because Human Authority gives those who yet know it not Assurance of its Derivation to us The Immediate effect then of our Tradition is Human Faith the Remote effect is to give us knowledge of a Doctrin of Faith which is Divine not prov'd to be such by Tradition but acknowledg'd to be so by our Mutuall Concession But how shamelesly insincere the Dr is to object that I Chang'd this purposely to avoid the Charge of Pelagianism whenas he knows I had told himself the same in Errour Nonplust some years before any Contest arose about my Writings Does he not cite my words here that this Human Faith had by Tradition leads us to what 's Divine Human Faith is the Way or Means to know Divine Faith And cannot we obtain the favour of him to intermit a while his constant Nonsence and allow the Means to be distinguisht from the End He goes on And so Human Faith must have Infallible Grounds but Divine Faith must shift for it Self Can any thing be more Trifling What Shifts is Faith put to for Grounds taken as 't is formally Divine in a Controversy which supposes it such in which case no Proof nor Grounds for it need be produc't Do those that holds the Infallibility of the Churches Humane Authority deriving it down to us deny but the Verity of the Mysteries thus deriv'd as in themselves depend on Divine Revelation as on their Formall Motives Do not these two consist well together May not Faith depend on the Divine Authority in it self and as it was made known at first and yet not be known to us who live now but by Humane Authority Can he be Certain of Christian Faith by his own Grounds but by the Book of Scripture and yet does not himself say that the Certainty he has of that Book depends on Tradition or Humane Authority and consequently that Humane Faith is the way to know Divine Faith What Quacking then and Mountebanking is this to make me a Pelagian for doing the same himself does and publickly avows omitting in the mean time my Answers which at large clear'd before-hand all that he has here so
his 12th Page he will needs repeat our Tenet or as he with much Formality is pleas'd to call it the Lesson I have taught him which put into distinct Sentences he makes to be this 1. Your Churches Authority is Human Authority Answ. Our Church'es Authority is also Divine and as such 't is the Rule of Faith to those who are already Faithfull But in our Controversy which is about the Way for men to come to Faith 't is not proper to alledge any other than her Natural or Humane Authority consisting of a vast Body of Men both able and oblig'd to testify such open matters of Fact as is the Delivery of a Doctrin so Qualify'd by those that educated us And the Reason is because 'till men come at Christ's Faith they can only guide themselves by their Reason whence the Credibility of that Authority must be provable by Reason against those who shall deny it 2. He says It has force to prove the Truths which depend upon it Yes it has force to prove to us this matter of Fact that those Truths descended from Christ but not the Intrinsical Truth of any one Article in it self To do this is the work of Divine Revelation not of Humane Authority 3. It has this force and concludes against such as own its Veracity but it deserves no Assent further than Reason gives it to deserve Well then since we bid him guide himself by his Reason e're he admits it will he at least admit it and yield assent to it when Reason shews him it deserves it This is all we desire of him and 't is a very reasonable request in us for it only desires he would not renounce his Reason and forfeit his Manhood Now come his Conclusions from mistaken Premisses Hence I conclude Seeing We admit not your Church'es Authority nor own its Veracity it proves nothing to us nor concludes any thing against us From what Antecedent is this Conclusion drawn Did we ever press him to admit it blindly the Point is will he renounce his Reason when it tells him this Authority ought to be believ'd This is our Tenet and should have been taken in e're he had inferr'd any thing at all but then it would have marr'd his Conclusion and his admirable Method of taking every Discourse of mine to pieces and never putting it together again and so it was thought expedient to neglect it His next Conclusion is Seeing Articles of Faith depend not on Humane Authority your Church'es Authority can have no effect on Humane Nature to oblige to a Belief of them Where we have near as many Faults as Words For First Articles of Faith in themselves or as to their Intrinsicall Verity depend only on the Divine Authority as their Formall Motive but as to us or as to our knowledge of those Articles Now which were taught by Christ long since which is our only business a successive Human Authority the most strongly supported of any that ever was in the World to convey down a matter of Fact of Infinit Concern is the properest way to Attest them whence all those Articles in that regard do depend on that Human Authority after the same manner as even himself also holds the Book of Scripture does Secondly What an Incredible Folly is it not to distinguish between those Articles which were Taught at First and so are Divine as in Themselves and the same Articles as Knowable by us Now to have been Taught Long ago nor to reflect that our Controversy only treats of them under this latter Consideration Nor to know that as thus Consider'd All Articles of Faith not only May but Must necessarily depend on Human or Naturall Means since without Such they cannot be introduc't into our understandings connaturally nor by any way but by Immediate Inspiration which is perfect Enthusiasm Nor Lastly not to advert that even the Divinity of Faith depends in some sort on Naturall Means St. Paul tells us Faith comes by Hearing and if so then Faith depended on Hearing as to its coming to be Known by us Nay as Christian Faith was Formally from God it depended thus on Miracles which could not be known to be such but by their being above the Course of Nature nor could they be known to be above the Course of Nature unless the course of Nature it self had been fore-known the Knowledge of which is only Naturall or Human. Thirdly His following words in this Ridiculous Conclusion shew him utterly ignorant of our whole Question otherwise he could not with any degree of sincerity have put it upon us that we hold the Human Authority of our Church obliges to a Belief of the Articles themselves whereas what we hold is that it only obliges us to Assent they came from Christ or were inerrably deliver'd down by the Churche's Testimony Fourthly By leaving out all mention of what 's most particularly our Tenet in this Point he puts it upon us to hold that Human Authority has effect upon Human Nature of it self whereas we never presum'd or affirm'd it either had or ought to have any but by Vertue of the Reasons which vouch't for its Veracity nay I both Affirm'd and Prov'd the direct Contrary His Third Conclusion is Seeing all its Credit depends on its Intrinsicall Reasons produc't till they be produc't we are not bound to give any Credit to it No nor bound to mind them much it seems nor Answer them fully when produc't as appears by his omitting the most forcible Reasons for the Certainty of Tradition's Continuance as was Lately shown But why is this made a distinct Conclusion or disjoynted from the rest whereas it was the most necessary and Essentiall part of our true Tenet Because the Method he so Religiously observ'd throughout his Dialogue-Answer which is to shatter asunder the intire Sense of every passage would not allow it His Fourth Conclusion is When these Reasons shall be produc't its Testimony has but the Nature of an Externall Motive not of an Intrinsicall Ground Answ. Intrinsicall Ground To what To Christian Faith as 't is Divine 'T was never pretended nor can it belong in any regard to our Question since 't is not disputed between us but Acknowledg'd by us both that Christ's Doctrin is Such Means he then 't is not a Proper Medium to prove Christ's Faith deriv'd to us who live now How can he even pretend to shew that so vast a Testimony is not proper to Attest a Notorious Matter of Fact viz. what Doctrin was Deliver'd immediately before and this throughout every Age Year or Day Again what means he when he says Testimony is not an Intrinsicall Ground What man in his senses ever said or thought it We spoke indeed of Intrinsicall Grounds to prove the Credibleness of that Testimony but not a word have we even hinting that Testimony it self is an Intrinsical Ground to any thing If he will needs be talking Nonsense let him take it to himself and not put it upon me
into Certainty of the Grounds on which we believe Scripture to contain the word of God. Why not a word of Reply to my Discourses there and in many other places shewing that Scripture's Containing Faith is nothing at all to our purpose but the Getting out from Scripture it 's true Meaning or Sense this only being our Faith and that his Faith is still Vncertain unless there be Certainty that such and such Articles Are Contain'd there Which Point tho' it be of the Highest Consequence yet he never sets himself to Solve our Arguments against it in his whole pretended Answer but he runs on still in the same Errour as if nothing had been alledg'd to shew his Discourses insignificant and frivolous Why no Answer to my Discourse proving that a Rule or Ground is none if it carry not thorough to the particular Points especially to those which are most Fundamentall unless granting it in effect p. 36. and allowing no Absolute Certainty to any particular Point of Faith may be called an Answer Why no Excuse for his Skewing Comment upon his own Answer which spoke of Absolute Certainty of all Christ's Doctrin which consists of such and such particular Tenets to the Writings of the Apostles whereas there was not a word of Writing in Mr. G's Question or in his own Answer either Nor any notice taken of my Argument manifesting that a Resolution of Faith speaks Connexion of the Motives that are to prove it Christ's Doctrin to the Points of Faith laid home to him in a Close Discourse demonstrating the Necessity it should be such Why no Account of his distinguishing between Christ's Doctrin and that of the Apostles that so he might mis-represent Tradition and alter the Question from a Publick to a Private Delivery Why no Reason given of his not Resolving his Faith into the Apostles Preaching but only into their Writing I mean no Answer to my Reasons why he ought to have resolv'd it into the former at least Equally Why no Answer to my Reasons shewing from his ill-laid Principles that Perfect Contradictories Points of Faith and wicked Heresies opposit to them are both Equally Certain Why no Excuse for his Shuffling from the New Testament's Containing all the Divine Revelations to the Church'es making men fix by degrees upon the Certain Canon of it which is there shewn and indeed appears of it self to be a quite disparate business Why not the least Excuse for his most abominable four-fold Prevarication in answering to one single Question expos'd there at large and why no Defence or particular Explication of his beloved Sufficient Certainty nor any Application of it to the Nature Ends and Uses of a firm Faith that any Point is Christ's true Doctrin shewing that his feeble Motives are sufficient for those particular purposes Why to make his odd Similitude of Scripture's being a Purse apposit does he not shew us some Certain Way how the Gold and Silver Points of Faith as he calls them may be got out of it without danger of extracting thence the impure Dross of Errour and Heresy instead of True Faith Again to make it square why does he not rather make the Heads and Hearts of the First Faithfull the Purses since as was shewn him Faith is more properly Contain'd there than in a Book Or if he will needs make use of an Improper Container of Faith too why does not he put two Purses viz. the Souls of the Faithfull and the Scripture And why not a word of Reply to my Plain Reasons why he ought to have done both these Why no Answer to my Reasons proving that All the Points of Faith are Necessary for the Salvation of Mankind and for the Church otherwise than by rambling to Transubstantiation p. 84. and that he sees no Necessity of it Which makes his often-alledg'd Distinction of Necessary Unnecessary Points brought to avoid the Question perfectly frivolous and why runs he still on with the same Distinction in this pretended Answer without taking off the Exceptions against it by only crying Alas for him when I askt him If Christ taught any unnecessary Articles and by saying they are not equally Necessary p. 33. Why nothing to justify that his Assent of Faith may not be False and so no Faith Why no Reply to my Reasons that notwithstanding his pretended Grounds He has no Absolute Certainty that even the Letter of Scripture is Right whereas if it be not he can have no Certainty but all is Wrong that is grounded upon it since in that case he may embrace a Grand Heresy for True Faith Why no Answer to my plainest Argument shewing how Christ's Doctrin continu'd all along in the Breast of the Church is the best Means to correct the Letter in Texts that contain Faith Why no Reply to my many Reasons shewing that the Ancient Church allow'd our way of Tradition and disallow'd his of Scripture privately Interpreted Why does he not confute my Discourses manifesting that he can have no Absolute Certainty by his Principles of the Number of Books or of each Chapter Verse and Material Word in each Verse that concerns any Point of Faith without doing which he cannot pretend to have Certainty of the Letter nor consequently of any one of those Points Why no Reply to that Important Objection that if Scripture were the Rule of Faith the Primitive Church had for some time but half or three-quarters of their Faith or less and so by his Principles were but three-quarters or half Christians according as the several pieces came by degrees to be spread accepted or universally acknowledg'd nay perhaps no Faith at all as was there shewn and why did he instead of replying turn it off to the single Epistle to the Hebrews and to an Insignificant If Why when it was objected that divers of his Christian Churches doubted of divers Books of Scripture and some late Brethren of his of some others does he again turn it off as to the former to the Canon of Scripture made afterwards and to the later says nothing Why not a word to my Clearest Proof that our Tradition or Testimony for Doctrin is incomparably more large in its source which gives it its chief force than his is for Scripture's Letter Why does he not clear himself of his preferring his Sober Enquirer before the Church the unreasonableness of which was urg'd home against him nor justify his weak discourses in some sleigter passages laid open p. 64.65 Why not a syllable of Answer to that most highly-concerning Discourse and which if it stands in its full force overthrows all the whole Fabrick of his Doctrin viz. that a Rule or Ground are Relative Words and therefore Scriptures Letter cannot be an Absolute Certain Rule or Ground unless its Ascertaining virtue affects the Articles known by it This Point has been prest upon him so vigorously
and pursu'd with so many forcible Arguments that there can be no plainer Confession that his Cause is lost than not to attempt to answer them especially since the hinge of the whole Controversy depends upon it It was his Concern too to avow or disavow his dear Friend Dr. Burnet's Position making his Sober Enquirer judge of Councils but he would not be so candid Why declines he the giving us satisfaction that he does indeed hold the Testimony for Scripture Absolutely Certain by making out from the Nature of the Things why it must be so See Reader how it was there demanded of him and urg'd upon him to do himself and his Faith that Honour and Credit Yet he is perfectly deaf to all sollicitations of that kind And the Reason is because should should he do this as he ought to do he must necessarily make the Church Infallible and rely upon her Infallibility for the Certainty of Scriptures Letter and should it come to be prov'd that 't is easier to transmit down the same Doctrin than an Exact Copy this would oblige his Sober Enquirer to be led by her in matters of Faith. A condescendence not to be submitted to by his Fanatick Friends both because their First Principle is to think themselves wiser than the Church as also because to prove this would make the Knowledge of Christ's Doctrin too strong by Proofs and Outward Means which their Gifted and Inspir'd Genius impossible ever to be prov'd but by doing Miracles cannot away with To proceed Why clears he not himself from being oblig'd by his Principles to own a Brotherhood with all Hereticks who profess to follow Scripture as much as he does by shewing some Absolutely Certain Means to distinguish his Faith from theirs Did not the doing this mainly concern his Credit when it was severely objected and shewn that he had given just occasion for this Suspition of all comprehending Principles Why no Account given of the Absolute Certainty of Particular Texts and the most significant Words in each of them as well as of the Canon or Number of Books without which let the Canon be as Certain as it will 't is impossible for him to know assuredly whether what he holds be True Faith or Heresy Why no Answer to my Objection that to be the Word of God is not sufficient to make Scripture a Rule unless it has withall Perspicuity or Clearness to give those who read it and rely on it Absolute Certainty of its true Sense or Faith in those high Mysteries and Spiritual Points controverted between the Church and her Deserters Why no Reply to my Confutation of his smartest or rather Only Argument to prove Scripture a Rule given by me particularly to every Branch of it Is not a business of such high Consequence worth his Defence his whole Cause as far as 't is manag'd by him standing or falling by his maintaining or deserting that main Proof for it Why does he give us no Grounds that elevate Faith as it depends on the Rule ascertaining us it came from Christ above Opinion whenas it was charg'd upon him that he had no such Grounds and he was loudly call'd upon to produce them but to aggravate the fault to call here p. 41. all the Points of Christian Faith there spoken of Particular Opinions Why takes he no notice of the several Senses of the word Rule and in which of those Senses it is taken properly and why it must necessarily be taken in such a Sense in our Controversy but instead of doing this run on wilfully mistaking it still Why not a word in Confutation of an Infallible Iudge as that Point is stated by me Why did he not accept my Challenge that he could not shew me any one Solid Proof in his whole Treatise that he could maintain since the doing this had been a great Blurr to me and a high Credit to himself nay the very offering at it might have kept our Readers in some Suspence whether he were perfectly baffled or no whenas his total declining it is a plain Confession he does not think fit to stand to any one Proof he has produc't Why no Reply to my Discourse demonstrating that a Rule must be the Immediate Light to know the Thing in order to which 't is to regulate us and therefore that however he pretends to Scripture yet his own Interpretation or the Means he uses to Interpret it is unavoidably his Rule As also that the Testimony of all Christian Churches did not recommend to him such a Rule of Faith and that a Testimony for the Letter confess'd by himself to be Fallible stood in great need of his Logick to make what 's built on it to be Absolutely Certain Why not a word to the Testimony of that Antient and Holy Father and most Solid Controvertist St. Athanasius which quite overthrows the whole Scheme of his Doctrin and makes all his Sober Enquirers Unbelievers or Infidels And why no Excuse for his not putting amongst his Helps the Iudgment of the present Church at least of the Church of England this being both an easier Help than 't is to use his other painfull Methods to understand Scripture right more agreeable to the Order of the world especially since he stands impeacht of destroying Church-Government as to any thing belonging to Faith Why does not he shew us how Mr T. could be a Sober Enquirer whom he defends for so suddenly settling his Enquiry and Resolving tho' he did not use those Means which the Dr himself affirm'd his Sober Enquirers were bound to use especially since this carriage of the Dr's shews him very willing to contradict at pleasure even his own Principles and to dispense with those Obligations he himself had impos'd when it suits with his Interest Whence every considering man must necessarily conclude he holds not heartily and steadily to any Principle at all Why should not his Sober Enquirers trust the Church rather than themselves and why no Answer to the Reasons why they should Why does not he confute my Discourse proving that a Judge proceeding upon an Inerrable Rule is Infallible and that 't is no prejudice to the Church that those whom she has cast out or are her Enemies deny her to be such Why answers he not my Particular Reasons against his kind of Judgment of Discretion or the Reasons given for ours but makes impertinent Discourses of his own at random without regarding either our Objections or our Proofs nay when he had occasion without acknowledging their Distinction but most unconscionably pretending them to be the same whereas their Difference and perfect Opposition to one another is laid out there very largely and particularly And now Gentlemen I request even those who are the most Partial of his Friends to count over the Pages cited in the Margent and if you find by an exact Review that I have neither misreckon'd