other reason but to justifie the absurdities and contradictions of Transubstantiation As for the making void the use of Fathers and Councils to unlearned men it is the thing I designed and I am very glad if I have done it but as for learned men they may make such use of them still as such Writings are designed for not to make them the Rule of Faith but either to learn what was the Doctrine and Practice of the Church in their days or what their private Opinions were or how they expounded Scripture and the like that I call it squabling about the sense of Fathers if the expression be undecent it is owing to himself and some such late Scriblers whose Disputes have been nothing else but Squables But I cannot blame him that he is so angry that I direct the Protestant to inquire Whether such Books were written by that Father whose Name it bears for he knows such an inquiry has very lately cost him dear I was going to say a blush but that is impossible If such Questions as I ask cannot be answered to the satisfaction of learned men they are of no more use to them than they are to the unlearned who cannot answer them themselves and want the Learning which is necessary to make them capable of a satisfactory Answer and this is all the Answer I shall return to this Charge His next Charge is a dreadful one Such Principles as make void all use of Civil Charity and Moral Iustice to our Neighbours He lays it in the very last Section of the Preservative Concerning Protestant Mis-representations of Popery Wherein I shewed how vain and silly this charge was and he has not one word to say in defence of it Among other things I observed that these men who complain so much of Mis-representing endeavour to make the Doctrines of the Church of Rome look as like Protestant Doctrines as ever they can as if there were little or no difference between them The truth is the chief Mystery in this late Trade of Representing and Mis-representing is no more but this to joyn a Protestant Faith with Popish Practices to believe as Protestants do and to do as Papists do This I gave some few instances of out of the Representer and shewed that their Faith as he Represented it came very near and in some cases was the very same with the Protestant Faith but their Practice was Popish How is this contrary to Civil Charity and Moral Honesty He says it is this When a man 's exterior Actions are naturally capable of a good and pious meaning and he ever and clearly declares that it is his yet to fasten upon him another opposite design and meaning But how does this concern me who fasten no meaning at all upon their Actions but only barely relate what they profess to believe and what they practice He instances in two and let all the World judge who makes void Civil Charity and Moral Honesty He or I. To insinuate says he that a Catholick thinks the Virgin Mary more powerful in Heaven than Christ he tells you that he says Ten Ave-Maries for one Pater Noster whereas all that I say is He the Papist Represented believes it damnable to think the Virgin Mary more powerful in Heaven than Christ which is Protestant Doctrine But yet he prays to her oftner than either to God or Christ says ten Ave-Maries for one Pater Noster which is a Popish Devotion Is here any breach of Moral Honesty in this is not all this true do I put any sense or interpretation upon this action I believe all men will think that this does more than insinuate what a belief they have of the power of the Virgin and this the Jesuite was sensible of and therefore says that I insinuate it but I will leave it as I did at first to what judgment all indifferent men will make of it In the next place he says I charge the Catholicks with worshipping the visible Species in the Eucharist Hear my words again He believes it unlawful to commit Idolatry and most damnable to worship any Breaden God which is spoke like a Protestant but yet he pays Divine Adoration to the Sacrament which is done like a Papist Here is nothing about worshipping the visible Species in the Eucharist but whatever is the Sacrament they worship and must do so by the Doctrine of their Church if they can make a Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ without the visible Species then according to their Doctrine they need not worship the visible Species if they can't they must for they must adore the Sacrament and if the Sacrament should prove to be Bread and Wine not the natural Body and Blood of Christ and it is strange if it should not then I need not tell them what they worship But those matters have been debated often enough of late He concludes with an advice to Protestants urging the Argument against Scriptures which I had before done against Fathers Amongst Christians there is not one in an hundred thousand who understand all Scripture and it is morally impossible they should and therefore certainly there must be an easier and shorter way to understand Christian Religion than this or else the generality of Mankind even of profest Christians are out of possibility of Salvation I grant every word of it to be true if understanding all Scripture as he puts it were necessary to Salvation but the only easier and shorter way is to understand so much of the Scripture as is necessary to Salvation and let him when he pleases if he dare venture the Blasphemy of it prove that this is morally impossible to the generality of Mankind even of profest Christians A VINDICATION OF THE SECOND PART OF THE Preservative against POPERY HEre our Jesuite gives me a great many hard Words but nothing of Argument He talks tragically of Calumnies and Misrepresentations how much he proves of it unless a bold Accusation must pass for a Proof I dare leave to every ordinary Reader who will compare my Book with his He is much off of his byass here for I did not dispute directly against any Popish Doctrines but used such collateral Arguments as are very evident and convincing to ordinary Readers but so much out of the road that the Jesuite could find nothing in his Common-place Book about it and therefore does not pretend to answer any one Section of my Book but yet out of every Section he picks some single Sayings and if he meets with an Argument that he cannot answer he takes some few words of it and calls it Calumny and Misrepresentation the only way I have to write such an Answer to him as may be fit to be read is to give a short Abstract of each Section of my Book and to take notice where those Passages come in which he calls Calumnies and Misrepresentations SECT I. Concerning Idolatry I Shewed the great Design of our Saviour was more perfectly to
an Argument and yet this is the utmost that I say that the supposed necessity of an infallible Judge does not prove that there is such a Judge but only that there ought to be one and I must conclude no more from it and does this overthrow the use of Reason to conclude no more from an Argument than the Argument will prove whatever any man apprehends necessary to be sure he is mightily inclined to believe but whoever will believe like a reasonable creature must have good evidence for what he believes and yet that we believe it necessary is no evidence that it is not that God will not do what is necessary to be done but because that may not be necessary which we vainly and presumptuously imagine to be so which is the very reason I assign for it in the words immediately following Indeed this is a very fallacious way of reasoning because what we may call useful convenient necessary may not be so in itself and we have reason to believe it is not so if God have not appointed what we think so useful convenient or necessary which is a truer and more modest way of reasoning than to conclude that God has appointed such a Iudge when no such thing appears only because we think it so useful and necessary that God ought to do it Which is not to excuse a bad Saying with a good one as the Jesuite pretends in answer to the Footman Preservat Consider p. 36. but to justifie a good Saying with a good Reason But if it were such blasphemy in Alphonsus to say that he thought he could have ordered some things better than God did at the first Creation let the Jesuite consider what it is to mend what God has done in the work of our Redemption upon a meer supposition that it may be mended for Popery is nothing else but a mending or more properly speaking a corrupting the Gospel of Christ with a blasphemous opinion of mending it And I think to say that God has done what there is no other proof he has done but only that we think he ought to have done it is to say that God ought to have done what it does not appear he has done and if not to be and not to appear be the same in this case then this is equivalent to saying that God ought to have done what he has not done And this I hope is sufficient for the Vindication of those Principles which are pretended to overthrow the Use of Common Sense and Reason SECT II. The Principles pretended to make void all Faith vindicated HE begins with proving the Protestant Faith not to be a Divine Faith because it is not a certain one which if it were true is like proving a man not to live because he is weak for if there be as much certainty as is absolutely necessary to the essence of Faith it may be a true Faith though weak as a weak man is alive still and Faith receives its denomination of Divine or Humane Faith not from the Certainty or Uncertainty of it but from the Authority on which it rests a Divine Authority makes a Divine Faith Humane Authority an Humane Faith and both these may be either certain or uncertain or to speak properly strong or weak so that to prove that the Protestant Faith is not Divine because it is not Certain is like disproving the Essential Properties by Changeable Accidents that a Man is not a reasonable Creature because he is not strong for there is no more necessary connexion between Faith being Divine and being Strong or Certain than between Reason and Bodily Strength a weak Man may be a reasonable Creature and a weak Faith may be Divine if it be founded on a Divine Authority But I wish the Jesuite had told us what that degree of Certainty is which makes a Faith Divine whether any thing less than the certainty of Infallibility can do it for this used to be the old Argument that our Faith is not Divine nor Certain because it is not infallible but if they will abate any thing of Infallibility we will vie all other degrees of Certainty with them and that he very fairly quitted before when he owned and proved that there could be no more than Moral Evidence for the Infallibility of their Church and then I am sure they can have no more than a Moral Evidence for the rest of their Faith which is all founded upon their Churches Infallibility Well having proved that our Faith cannot be Divine because it is not certain he next undertakes to prove that our Faith is not certain because we cannot have an Act of Faith of any One Article till our Rule of Faith proposes it i. e. till we know certainly what Scripture teaches of it not by any one Text but by comparing all the Texts that speak of that Subject Very well we cannot believe any thing upon the Authority of Scripture which is our Rule of Faith till we know that it is in Scripture wisely observed and we grant it Let us see what follows 1. Then a Protestant must certainly know that he hath all the Books of Holy Writ 2. That all those he owns for such were really written by inspired Pens The second we accept of but there is no need to submit to his first Condition That a Protestant must certainly know that he hath all the Books of Holy Writ that is he must be able to prove that there never were any other Books written by the Apostles or other inspired Men but what we receive into our Canon of Scripture which is to prove a negative which is always thought unreasonable and at this distance from the Apostolick Age is impossible but whenever the Church of Rome will prove this of their Canon of Scripture we will prove it of ours In the mean time it is sufficient that we reject no Books which have been always acknowledged by the Universal Church and that the Books we receive have been received for inspired Writings by the Universal Church and if ever there were any other Books written by the Apostles or Evangelists which are now lost we have reason to believe that the Church does not need them but has a perfect Rule of Faith and Manners without them for the Divine Providence would never permit that the Church should want any necessary part of the Rule of Faith. He proceeds 3 ly And since the Letter kills that he understands the true sense of each Text which relates to the Object of that Act of Faith. 4ly That he remember them all so as comparing them to see which is the clearer to expound the obscurer and what is the result of them all for any one he understands not or hath forgotten may possibly be that one that must expound the rest he cannot have one Act of Faith. Now not to take notice of his ridiculous not to say blasphemous misapplication of Scripture in that Parenthesis the Letter kills by
they be contâ—ite and absolved again they are restored to a state of Grace again and so toties quoties Now such Penitents as are sorry for their sins but do not reform them are condemned to Hell 〈◊〉 the Protestant Church and only to Purgatory in the Church of Rome and therefore the First is no Calumny The Second is That Indulgencies may be bought for Money this is no Calumny as I have already shewn or avail a Soul undisposed to receive the benefit of them through want of contrition the guilt of sin not being before remitted This I never said and therefore is no Calumny of mine The third That Masses said for any Soul in Purgatory avail such as during life have not deserved and merited that mercy This I take to be nonsense according to the Doctrines of their own Church For certainly those Souls who have merited to get into Purgatory have merit enough to receive the benefit of Masses Another Gospel-Motive to Holiness are the Examples of Good Men but in the Church of Rome the extraordinary Vertues of great and meritorious Saints are not so much for imitation as for a stock of Merits The more Saints they have the less need is there for other men to be Saints unless they have a mind to it because there is a greater treasure of Merits to relieve those who have none of their own and if one man can merit for twenty there is no need there should be above one in twenty good Here he quibbles upon the different acceptation of Merit as it relates to a reward or as it expiates the punishment of sin In the first sense he says Merit is personal not communicative but if it be communicative in the second sense that one man may be delivered from punishments by the Merits of another and if it be not there is an end of the gainful trade of Indulgencies that is sufficient to my Argument and will satisfie most sinners who are not concerned about degrees of glory if they can escape punishment Lastly I shewed that the Gospel-Means and Instruments of Holiness do not escape much better in the Church of Rome among others I instanced in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper which besides those supernatural conveyances of Grace which are annexed to it by our Saviour's Institution is a great Moral Instrument of Holiness but in the Church of Rome this admirable Sacrament is turned into a dumb shew which no body can be edified with or into a sacrifice for the living and the dead which expiates sin and serves instead of a holy life Here he says there are three crying Calumnies 1. That the Sacrament among them is nothing but a shew or a sacrifice whereas they very often receive it and did I say the Sacrament was never received in the Church of Rome 2. That they require the practice of no Vertue to the receiving the Sacrament whereas they require the Sacrament of Penance to prepare for the Eucharist But I spoke of those Vertues which were to be exercised in receiving which there are not such advantages for in the Church of Rome where the Office is not understood and the mind diverted with a thousand insignificant Ceremonies 3. That our exposing the blessed Sacrament is a dumb shew and so we assist at holy Mass. And whether it be or no let those judge who have seen the Ceremony How much the Sacrifice of the Mass encourages Vertue we have already seen I doubt not but our Jesuite can give as good an Answer to this Vindication as he did to the Preservative and I as little doubt but he will unless Mr. Needham's Name to the License may be my security for he has threatned it shall be to him a sufficient Note and Character of a Book not worth the Reading much less the Censuring where-ever he sees that Reverend Person has opened it the Press and I commend him for it for he has had very ill success with such Books of late but though I never grudge my pains in answering an Adversary who gives occasion for any useful and material Discourse for I desire whatever I say should be sifted to the very bottom and am as ready to own any Error I am convinced of as to vindicate the Truth yet it is very irksom to be forced to write a great Book meerly to rescue my words from the injuries of a perverse Comment which has been my present Task Thus any Book may be answered by a man who has wit or ignorance enough to pervert it and such Answers may be easily answered again by men who have nothing else to do but if this trade grow too common they must be very idle people indeed who will find time to read them And therefore to prevent such an impertinent trouble for the future before I take leave of my Adversary I will venture to give him a little good Advice which may stand him in stead against the next time 1. That he would be more modest and sparing in his Title-page not to paint it so formidable as to make it ridiculous it is a little too much to talk of Principles which destroy all right use of Reason Scripture Fathers Councils undermine Divine Faith and abuse Moral Honesty Or Forty malicious Culumnies and forged untruths besides several Fanatical Principles which destroy all Church Discipline and oppose Christ's Divine Authority If such things be proved against any Book I assure you it is very terrible though there be nothing of it in the Title but the World has been so long deceived with Titles that commonly the more the Title promises the less they expect in the Book Some cry it is a Mountebank's Bill otheâ—s the Man raves and if curiosity tempts any to look any farther the disappointment they meet with provokes their scorn or indignation The bare name of an Answer to a Book which is commonly known and approved is a sufficient invitation to all men to read it but it is a very impolitick thing to prejudice the Readers by a frightful Title 2. That he would not think he has confuted a Book by picking out some sayings which he thinks very inconvenient and obnoxious but in which the main Arguâ—ent of the Book is not concerned this is the case in many passages he has objected against the Preservative for though there is never a one but what is very defensible and what I have defended yet there are many that if they could not be defended the main Argument of the Book is never the worse This is as vain as to think to kill a man by launâ—hing a Sore while all his Vitals are sound and untoucht 3. That he would not boast of confuting a Book without bearing up fairly to any one Argument in it I know in his Postscript he says that he omitted nothing in Answer to the First part of the Preservative that even pretended to the appearance of an Argument that all the rest which he did not answer in his
Answer the Question and if there be a Dispute depending which of them contradicts St. Paul's Doctrine I would desire him to tell me How we shall know which of them does it without examining them When we know these Books which contradict St Paul's Doctrine we will reject them with an Anathema and for that reason we reject the Council of Trent whose Authority we think to be inferior to an Angels and that shews that we do not think rejecting and yet reading such Books to make void common Sense for though we reject the Council of Trent yet we read it as they find to their cost His next Question or else I cannot make three of them is By what Text doth God deliver this Injunction viz of reading Heretical Books which in his Sense of Heretical Books is a very senseless Question for no man pretends that God commands us to read Books which we know to be Heretical though a man who is inquiring after Truth must read such Books as the several divided Sects of Christians may call Heretical But his killing Question is to come I asked further How standing to the first Principles of Common Sense a Church which declares all men bound to judge for themselves could countenance Laws which exact of Dissenters that they stand not to that their Iudgment but comply against it and that constrain their liberty of judging by the dread of Excommunications Sequestrations Imprisonments c. which is to make it Death not to act against a strict Duty of Conscience acknowledged by the Persecutors to be such But what is this to reading Heretical Books Is there any Law in the Church of England thus to punish men for reading Heretical Books There is we know in the Church of Rome where besides other Heretical Books to have and to read the Bible in the vulgar Tongue without License which is rarely granted and ought not to be at all brings a man in danger of the Inquisition which one word signifies more than any man can tell but he who has felt it witness the late account of the Inquisition of Goa Well but to allow a liberty of Judging and not to suffer men to stand to their Judgment is contrary to Common Sense It is so but who gives a liberty of Judging and forbids men to stand to their own Judgment I am sure the Church of England accounts any man a Knave who contradicts his own Judgment and Conscience There is no Inquisition for mens private Opinions no ransacking Consciences in the Church of England as we know where there is Yes We constrain this liberty of Iudging by the dread of Excommunications Sequestrations Imprisonments Exclusion from the chiefest Properties of free born Subjects even by Hanging and Quartering which is to make it Death not to act against a strict Duty of Conscience acknowledged by the Persecutors to be such It is a blessed time for these Jesuits who like that no body should be able to Persecute but themselves to rail at Persecution but let that pass It seems then it is contrary to Common Sense to allow a liberty of Judging and to deny a liberty of Practice for God suppose to allow men to choose their Religion and to Damn them if they choose wrong That is to say a Natural liberty of Judgment and by the same reason the Natural liberty of Will is inconsistent with all Government in Church and State If this were so it would indeed make Persecution as he calls it in a free-judging Church very absurd but it is very reconcileable to Common Sense for a Church which denies this liberty of Judging to Persecute too and this justifies the Persecutions of the Church of Rome Let Protestants here see if such Jesuits could rule the Roast what it will cost them to part with their liberty of Judging they loose their Argument against Persecution for an Infallible Church which will not suffer men to Judge may with good Reason Persecute them if they do that all men who like Liberty of Conscience are concerned to oppose Popery which it seems is the only Religion that can make it reasonable to Persecute nay which makes it unreasonable not to Persecute for it is as much against Common Sense for a Church which denies a liberty of Judging to allow a liberty of Conscience as for a Church to deny Liberty of Conscience which allows a liberty of Judging Thus far the Preservative is safe and let his following Harangue against the liberty of Judging shift for it self that is not my business at present His next Quarrel is that Preser p. 4 5. I advise Protestants not to dispute with Papists till they disown Infallibility I own the charge and repeat it again that it is a ridiculous thing to dispute with Papists till they renounce Infallibility as that is opposed to a lâ—berty of Judging for so the whole Sentence runs Here then let our Protestant fix his Foot and not stir an inch till they disown Infallibility and confess that every man must Iudge for himself in Matters of Religion according to the Proofs that are offered to him This the Jesuit either designedly concealed or did not understand though it is the whole design of that Discourse For the plain state of the Case is this The Church of Rome pretends to be Infallible and upon this pretence she requires us to submit to her Authority and to receive all the Doctrines she teaches upon her bare Word without Examination for we must not Judge for our selves but learn from an Infallible Church Now I say it is a ridiculous thing for such men to pretend to Dispuâ—e with us about Religion when they will not allow that we can judge what is true or false for it is to no purpose to Dispute unless we can Judge and therefore a Protestant before he Disputes with them ought to exact this Confession from them that every man must Judge for himself and ought not to be over-ruled by the pretended Infallible Authority of the Church against his own Sense and Reason and this is to make them disown Infallibility as far as that is Matter of Controversie between us and the Church of Rome to disown Infallibility as that is opposed to a liberty of Judging If it be absurd to Dispute with a man who denies me a liberty of Judging then I must make him allow me this liberty before I Dispute and then he must disown the over-ruling Authority of an Infallible Judge which is a contradiction to such a Liberty By this time I suppose he sees to what little purpose his Objections are that to require such a disowning of Infallibility is to say 'T is impossible to convince a man that in Reason he ought to submit his Iudgment to any other though Infallible No Sir but 't is to say that I cannot make use of my Reason in any thing till I am delivered from the Usurping Authority of such an Infallible Judge who will not suffer me to use my