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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A40084	The principles and practices of certain moderate divines of the Church of England (greatly mis-understood), truly represented and defended wherein ... some controversies, of no mean importance, are succinctly discussed : in a free discourse between two intimate friends : in three parts.	Fowler, Edward, 1632-1714.	1670 (1670)	Wing F1711; ESTC R17783	120,188	376

Nay how then could he marvail as we read he did at their unbelief Philal. But they will tell you that to assent to the truth of the Scriptures from the forementioned motives is no divine Faith Theoph. But I dare tell them that the believing of Divine things is a divine Faith let the motives inducing thereunto be what they will and that it is no unusual thing for the Act to receive its denomination from its Object But with a divine Faith in their sense also we no less than they believe what is contained in the Scriptures true viz. because God that cannot lye hath reveled it but that he hath indeed reveled it the Miracles as was said whereby this is confirmed and the goodness of the Doctrine to which I may adde also the completion of Prophecies as being of no less consideration than the Miracles do assure us And again that such Miracles as are recorded were really wrought for the confirmation of the Gospel and likewise that the Doctrine contained in our Books is that Gospel that was confirmed by them we may be convinced by as undeniable Arguments as any matters of fact men have not seen with their own eyes can be proved by and so undeniable that he must needs be a most unreasonable person that requires better Nay he must resolve if he will be consistent with himself to believe nothing he hath not himself seen I will adde too that whoever he be that is dissatisfied as to this matter he doth undoubtedly believe hundreds of things and thinks he should be unwise in questioning them that have not the quarter part of the evidence that this hath nay I may say not the twentieth part If they please Philalethes to call it a humane faith to believe matters of fact upon the account of Tradition I will not contend with them but tell them plainly that I like it never a jot the worse for being so nor can I understand how any wise man should But yet take notice too that such a degree of faith concerning these matters of fact also as hath a powerful operation upon our lives and souls is imputed by us no less than by them to the grace of God and his Holy Spirit though not as operating in us in an immediate manner as I said ordinarily but in making the means effectual and I hope they will acknowledge this in the best of senses a Divine faith Philal. But they say that onely a moral certainty can result from the evidence that is in the most uninterrupted and universal Tradition and therefore how closely soever you tell us the Spirit of God applieth that evidence this way of yours tends to make men no better than morally certain of the truth of our Religion Theoph. What a fault that is ● our certainty thereof may be perfectly undoubted as moral as it is And I fear not to declare that I do not desire to be more undoubtedly assured that there were such persons as our Saviour and his Apostles that they performed such works and preached such Doctrines as we have on Record and that the Books we call Canonical were written by those whose names they bear than I have cause to be and am that there were such great Conquerors as Alexander and Iulius Caesar which yet lived before our Saviour or that those which pass for Tully's Orations were really for the substance of them at least his which yet are elder than the Gospel but for all that my certainty of these things can be no more than moral yet I do notwithstanding no more doubt of them than I do of those things that are plainly objected to my Senses for I do not at all doubt of them and I should be laugh'd at as an arrant fool if I did but should I deny them I should be thought a mad-man by all wise people And yet let me tell you that we have from Tradition a greater certainty in some respect of most of those particulars than we have of these for it hath been the interest of many that those should be false but so hath it not been of any that these should be so But the greatest enemies of the Christian Religion have not so much as attempted to disprove those nay have taken all for granted except one or two Miracles Philal. I have but a Moral assurance that there is such a City as Rome or Venice or that there were such persons as Queen Elizabeth and King Iames yet I should be a Brute did I more question whether there are such Cities or were such persons than I do whether there be such a place as London or Bristol where I have several times been or whether there are such men as Theophilus and Philalethes Theoph. To be sure so you would Well I wish that those men would shew us a more certain way of conviction concerning this matter of weightiest importance and then see whether we would not with great thanks leave ours for it But I fear me in stead of so doing should we give up our selves to their conduct they would most sadly bewilder us and in stead of setled and unshaken believers make mere Scepticks of us or what is worse Philal. There are others Theophilus that say that the Scripture is sufficiently able to convince men of its Divine authority by the witness it can give to it self or to use their own Metaphorical expression by the resplendency of its own light So that he doth enough in order to his believing it to be Gods Word that doth but acquaint himself with the contents thereof which I think follows from that opinion Theoph. If these understand what they say there is no difference betwixt them and us for the Miracles and Goodness of the Doctrine we prove the Scriptures Authority by we fetch onely out of the Scriptures themselves And therefore supposing we believe the matters of fact therein written we say as they do that we need no Argument to prove them Divine but what is therein included But if their meaning be as by their manner of expressing themselvs one would think it should that there is such a light in Scripture as immediately operates upon mens mindes as proper light doth on the Optick nerves there can be nothing said more inconsiderately For mens understandings cannot discern the truth of things by immediate intuition but onely in a discursive manner that is by such reasons and arguments as perswade to assent And besides if that be true not onely what you concluded from thence is so also viz. that 't is enough in order to our believing it to acquaint our selvs with the contents thereof but likewise that 't is altogether impossible that any man should read the Scriptures and not believe them supposing he be compos mentis and understands what he reads But to convince us that this is not so I fear there are very many sad instances have too good ground for my fears Well Philalethes it

Believers and threatnings of the most dismal punishment to those that shall persist in impenitence and unbelief c. Philal. You need say no more than you have done to make the Christian a most incomparable Religion but did you not say too much under the former Head in affirming that therein is contained our whole duty so as that we need do no more than read the Gospel to come to the knowledge of it For there are very many Moral cases wherein men are forced to use their Reason to the utmost and also to call in the assistance of other mens for the understanding of their duty in them Theoph. Surely Philalethes you could not think me so extremely weak as to mean by what I said that the Scriptures descend minutely to determine all possible cases in particular for this cannot be done in Books they being infinite and varying with mens innumerable circumstances But this was my meaning that the particular duties men are constantly obliged to are all plainly there reveled and in the most express terms And I adde that there are also general Rules laid down whereby all emergent cases may be determined and such as ordinarily occur at least for the most part with the greatest ease But to go on To say that there is nothing required but what is most sutable to our Rational faculties tends as much to magnifie Gods goodness to us and to commend the Gospel as any thing that can be said And should it consist much of perfectly new Precepts which the world could never before so much as once have dreamt of or of any thing like to them and the reasonableness of which could not be at all or not without great difficulty apprehended it would be exceedingly less easie to believe it to be a Religion sent from God than now it is This also makes it a Religion as easie to be practised by Mankinde as can be for all the Duties wherein consisteth the substance of it must have continued to oblige us whether they were therein expressed or no. From what hath been said it is most manifest that while we continue to be men they cannot cease to be our duty and therefore whatsoever other precepts the Gospel might have consisted of they would have been an addition to our Burthen And we may be hereby convinced that Gods designe in giving us the Gospel is purely our own good seeing the impositions wherein as I said consists the substance of it are but just so many as obedience to which is absolutely necessary in themselvs considered much more then to the qualifying of us for the full enjoyment of himself in blessedness and the rest are enjoyned onely as helps to enable us to obey them Philal. But do those Preachers content themselvs to shew that the duties of the Gospel are very reasonable I have been informed that they rise higher in this attempt and that sometimes they undertake to demonstrate that the points of meer belief and even the most mysterious too are so and endeavour to level them with mens shallow Capacities Theoph. This Philalethes is partly true and partly as false It is in a sense true that they have proved sometimes that all the points of meer belief are reasonable that is consistent with Reason so that we can have no temptation to dis-believe any upon the account of their contrariety to the innate and natural notions of our mindes They some of them at least endeavour to convince their Auditors that our Saviour hath not imposed upon our Faculties in requiring our assent to Contradictions that he puts not his disciples as his pretended Vicegerent doth his proselytes upon offering violence to their understandings in any thing as a matter of Faith proposed by him Philal. This is no more in my opinion than is necessary for men to know For though our best Reason could never have proved to us divers Gospel-truths had they not been reveled yet they being reveled there is nothing surely in them that rightly understood sounds so harshly but that our Reason may admit of it and close with it But do they not as I said I have heard go about to bring down all such points to mens capacities Theoph. That be you assured is a notorious Calumny for they onely say that the Doctrines of the Gospel are all such as we may be able to make sence of and that there is nothing in them that is opposite to our Reason But they most freely acknowledge that there are such Mysteries as are so sublime as much to exceed our apprehensions and that can by no means be comprehended by the most rational persons And this acknowledgement they have well proved is no disparagement to our Saviours Religion but rather procures to it the greater veneration there being no wise man but will willingly confess that there are even in Nature innumerable things which he knows to be but yet is not able to imagine how they are and that his very Senses do assure him of many such things as no faculty of his can give him a satisfactory account of Philal. I have often thought it to be very fit that there should be some such Points in our Religion as are not comprehensible and adaequate objects of our Understandings that so as we are to take occasion from the consideration of those Doctrines that God hath made facile and adapted to our understandings to admire his gracious condescention so from the consideration of those which we finde surpass our reach we may no less adore his wisdom But Theophilus do those Divines ever undertake to demonstrate the consistency of some Mysterious points with our Reason as they are by the School-men and other over subtile Gentlemen made out Theoph. No I hope you think them wiser men than to adventure upon a Task so desperate They consider those Points as they are delivered in the Scriptures and not as dressed up with the Metaphysical Subtilties of Wanton Wits who have been so far from doing service to those Doctrines that they have rendered them much more doubtful to many inquisitive persons and such as are not easily imposed upon by confident Sayings and great Names Philal. But now it comes to my minde I am confident I have been told by some of their good Friends that they assert more concerning the reasonableness of the Speculative Doctrines of Christianity than that they are onely not inconsistent with Reason but moreover that they are very suitable to its dictates Theoph. I thank you for helping my Memory in this as well as in many other particulars your information is very true as to many of the weightiest Points and there is no wise man but will assert the same For it is well known that the Heathens had a notion of them Life and immortality are said to be brought to light by the Gospel i. e. to give Mankinde full satisfaction in that Article of Faith is the sole prerogative of