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 â— 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
THE PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES Of certain Moderate Divines of the CHURCH of England greatly mis-understood Truly Represented and Defended Wherein by the way Some Controversies of no mean Importance are succinctly discussed IN A Free Discourse between two Intimate Friends In III Parts Phil. 4. 5. Let your Moderation be known unto all men LONDON Printed for Lodowick Lloyd at the Crown in Duck Lane MDCLXX To the Reader READER WHat may be the Fate of this Book I can't Divine nor will I be solicitous concerning it But I expect and also claim at thine hands so much Candour as that how meanly soever thou mayest think of it thou wilt not judge uncharitably of the Author's Design in writing it I that may best know it am able to assure thee that it was not to gratifie those Persons he wisheth he may not rather offend them whom he therein giveth a true account of but to serve a more noble Interest Nor is it his desire that their Adversaries would entertain a more favourable opinion of them upon their reading the following Lines but onely in order to their being reconciled to their Spirit and Principles This is an Age wherein plain and open-hearted Dealing will be by no means endured and must look for no better thanks from the generality than Calumnies and down-right Rayling But I am very sure that no man can be easily provoked by any thing in this Dialogue but he that accounts Moderation a great Crime and is conscious to himself that he is in the way it hath pleased him to espouse a hot spirited and violent Zealot For neither Theophilus nor Philalethes have taken a course to exasperate any one of the contesting Parties but only and much alike too the high and fierce men of each Party And as for such they could not perswade themselves to be over-careful not to displease them as too well knowing that it would signifie nothing so to be they being a Generation of people whose waspish and testy not to add proud Spirits can by no means brook a Dissenter scarcely in the smallest and most trivial matters Whereas Theophilus as he passeth along doth engage himself in the Confutation of certain Opinions I desire thee to take notice that he is notwithstanding so far from a disputing or contradicting Genius that I know no man more averse than himself thereto And he thinks time infinitely better spent in the serious practice of true Piety than in disputing or studying Controversies and that there is no such life when all is done as that which is chiefly employed in mortifying Corruptions and making our selves more and more like to God and fit for the enjoyment of him And indeed if all our Professors of Christianity did sincerely love God and made it their great business to keep Consciences void of offence towards him and men it would be scarcely worth the while to concern our selves much about curing them of any of their mistakes For so long as they are careful to exercise themselves in so doing to be sure they cannot possibly be such as would so far injure them as to render them uncapable of Eternal Blessedness But seeing there are several Opinions very highly cryed up among us which do apparently make many of the Embracers of them much worse and have an extreamly bad influence upon their Lives and therefore much more upon their Souls it must needs be a work of great Charity to endeavour to undeceive those that hold them And they are such Doctrines alone as Theophilus is assured are of very bad consequence that he hath much troubled himself about in this Discourse As for the last Opinion that he spends any considerable time in endeavouring to shew the falsity of it was at first his intention to take no notice of it But to deal freely with thee he could not upon second thoughts gain leave of his Conscience to let it pass for that told him that he would shew but little love to his infinitely Good God or concernment for his Honour should he not take advantage of so fit and proper an occasion as was then offered him to vindicate him from the most unworthy Representation that Doctrine giveth of him And he solemnly professeth that he would have said nothing of it were he not constrained to do otherwise by his Love to God and the Souls of Men And by his earnest desire to give his Testimony against the abuse that is thereby put upon the best of Beeings also to contribute his little Mite towards the utter silencing of that Plea for Carelesness and Irreligion that very many if not most men from thence make Whoever they be that shall take offence at that Person for freely speaking his own mind because it hath the ill hap not to jump with theirs I would fain know of them why he may not be as much out of humour though he is resolved he will not with them again For surely he doth not more differ from them than they do from him Well Reader it is high time to be reconciled to Moderation and Sobriety to lay aside our uncharitable and therefore unchristian heats against each other And to labour to preserve the Unity of the Spirit if it be not already quite lost in the bond of Peace and throw water upon those Flames that threaten our destruction and but for God's Infinite Mercy would have effected it before now instead of adding more fewel to them And that is the great Design as thou wilt easily perceive of the ensuing Discourse Moreover I most humbly entreat thee to consider that as God was not in the Whirlwind but in the still Voice So Divine Truth is far more unlikely to be found among men of violent and boisterous Passions than among those that are soberly and sedately considerative Passion doth cloud and darken the understanding it casts a thick mist before the eye of the Soul and makes it altogether unapt to discern a difference betwixt Truth and the error that is nearest to it and to distinguish it from one of the extreams which it lyeth between I have another Request to make to thee viz. If thou shalt vouchsafe to cast an eye upon this Discourse that thou wouldest not only read here and there some part of it but take the small pains to run it through For by this means thou mayest understand the Authors sence in several Passages which otherwise thou wilt be lyable to be mistaken concerning And also to go away with a false notion in some Particulars of the Persons therein represented Whom should they judge it an over-bold attempt to give the VVorld without their own consent or knowledge a Character of them he knows to be Masters of so great ingenuity as will easily encline them to put up such faults how great soever they may seem in themselves as are mitigated by the Circumstance of well-meaning The Author is aware that the matters discoursed might have been digested into a more accurate Method but
Temptation of being byassed in their judgements in this particular So that I say It is a most reasonable postulatum that Conformity to the present enjoyned Rites may be by those that oppose it acknowledged not to be so plainly at least condemned but that very wise and good men may not see it so to be and therefore may judge it not onely lawful to conform but also their duty so long as they persist in that opinion Philal. I think it a very clear case that the Conformists Adversaries have sufficient reason to desire and take kindly the same favourable thoughts of their Nonconformity they well knowing how obnoxious it hath been to an ill construction and hard censures Nor can they be ignorant what a black and odious character is by some men given themselvs wherein those have paid divers of them in their own coyn and measured to them with the same measure wherewith they have meted to those our Friends we are speaking of in an especial manner and more than to any other Conformable persons Theoph. What you say is most true but yet I must tell you that these friends of ours and I thank you for giving me this occasion though as you said most provoked are not in the number of those Warm Gentlemen of the other extreme but as I have often observed they express great candor towards them Philal. I am glad to hear it and that they are so wise men and good Christians as not to return censures for censures and evil for evil Nor can I well conceive how any ingenuously-minded person can admit so much as an hard thought of any meerly upon the account of their not being of his minde in matters that have been controverted as these things have been between men of confessedly-great worth and goodness I declare for my part and I care not who knows it that I love with my heart a sober and peaceably minded Nonconformist as much Conformist as I am my self Theoph. Gods blessing on your heart for that Philalethes and I also do freely declare the same and that I think him never the worse man that is so supposing I perceive him conscientious in other matters and particularly that he is not of a censorious seditious and tumultuous spirit but yet such I would not hate neither but pitie and pray for them But now do you not think it unaccountably strange that those our Friends upon the score of their Conformity should not be so much censured as erroneous and mistaken as men of no conscience as if it were as plainly prohibited as Murther Adultery and the grossest sins Philal. I cannot think otherwise but yet 't is not more strange then it is true as I my self also well know For I happened but the other day upon a Book written by a Divine that is of a Separated party and looking into it chanced to light upon an opposition of the Conformists to the three children and These being commended for their Heroick resolution rather to be thrown into the fiery furnace than to serve the Kings Gods and worship the Image which he had set up he next falls bewailing Those in these words How many in this hour of temptation are caught in this ensnaring tryal What say some Come let us rather conform to the Ceremonies than lose our Liberties rather let us bow at the name of Iesus than lose all for the sake of Iesus it is better to baptize with the Cross than to bear the cross and to wear a Surplice than to pinch our carcase Thus many it is to be feared destroy their consciences to keep their places And so he goes on talking after that rate And though he qualifieth his Censure with an it is to be feared yet he plainly supposeth that to use the Ceremonies of our Church is as unquestionably sinful as to worship false Gods and fall down to graven images and therefore not withstanding that Parenthesis he endeavours to make his Readers conclude rather than fear that Conformists destroy their Consciences that is those of them that he thinks had ever any to keep their Places Nay three or four lines after as he doth also before without mincing the matter he positively asserts as much in these words Alas poor souls how are they fallen in the hour of temptation Theoph. You have I perceive a very happie memory for I my self some days since met also with the same Book and passage and I dare say you have been so faithful as to quote it word for word But whether thus to judge be consistent with the ingenuity of a Christian I leave to that Gentleman and his Brethren in their cool bloud to consider But I am sure if this be not a most manifest transgression of the law of Charity it is no easie matter to transgress it But let these men print or preach what they list I am shrewdly tempted much to question whether they so much declare their own thoughts as what they would have their people think it being their great interest that themselvs should be reputed the onely men that have not shipwrackt faith and a good conscience Philal. This sounds like such an uncharitable Censure as you blame them for Theoph. I expected that reply but there is too good reason thus to fear for I profess it cannot enter into my head that those of them that are men of competent Learning and Parts should suffer their tongues and pens so to lash out if there were not more of cunning than any thing else in it For they must needs know as well as any body can tell them let them make their Admirers believe what they will that it is no easie matter to make it good that the things upon the account of which they so asperse their Brethren are against any Law of God but yet the people must be born in hand that they are so plainly sinful that he must needs shut his eyes against the light that is not convinc'd they are so or rather that all knowing men can not but suspect them at least so to be but most have so little of their self-denial and zeal for Gods honour as rather to yield to them than lose their Livings and expose themselvs to sufferings Philal. You have sufficiently vindicated your self from uncharitable Censuring for surely that cannot deserve so ill a name which is grounded upon so good a reason as you have given Theoph. And I thank you my Friend that you gave me this occasion of purging my self from so foul and unchristian a crime Philal. And you have done it as I said very satisfactorily for Prudence no question is a necessary ingredient in every virtue nor could I ever think blinde charity to be more truly so than blinde zeal Theoph. But to proceed where we brake off Is it not greatly to be wondered at Philalethes that these men will not afford those that differ in their practice from them in disputable matters any more favourable Title than that
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