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
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
Iudgments and ask if the Letter be a Way to Them and you reply it is not a way to the Incompetent And so you who good squeamish Gentleman fall into a Scruple at the very name of Cards can play at Cross-purposes all along very freely even when Souls are at Stake I desire you to remember that I speak of a Way which they who take shall and that surely arrive at Christ's Faith. You talk of a way by which men so and so qualify'd may arrive at it As if may be were any thing to shall and must be or the qualifications of Travellers any thing to the way I foretold I should have nothing but an unconcerning Return for an Answer And you have made me tho' against my will prophesie not bating so much of my Prediction as the scornful Iest. For there is the Mountain and the Mouse and Reading a Lecture in Logick to verifie it 30. You conclude with an Argument against my Conclusion You I say who are Answering and have nothing to do with Arguing But what would we have Men who are uneasie will alwaies be shifting places All our earnest Sollicitations could not wring one Argument out of you when it was your turn to prove and now 't is your turn to Answer you thrust your Arguments upon us unbidden Nor is there any keeping you from falling into the same Fault with your Suppositions that Dr. St. did with his Instance You suppose then 1. That the Scripture is God's Word And so do I too provided you mean the true Sense of it For a false Sense whatever you think is in my Judgment not God's Word 2. That it was written to be understood Undoubtedly but not by every one barely by means of the Letter All Books are written to be understood Grammar for Children to understand Construction Mathematical Books for those who will understand Mathematicks and yet those Books without Masters will make but few Grammarians or Mathematicians 3. That it is written for the Instruction of Private Men. Yes but not for the only or sufficient means of their Instruction barely by the Letter 4. That they are concern'd to understand it Yes again and as much concern'd not to misunderstand it 5. That they may believe and live as it directs They not onely may but ought But pray remember that It directs no believing or living according to a false sense 6. That they have means left them of God for the Vnderstanding of it so far as it is of necessary concernment to them Yes and that Absolutely Certain Means the publick Interpretation of the Church or Tradition 7. And that using those Means as they ought they may understand it Never mince it with may they shall and certainly shall understand it who use those means From all you conclude at last And thus it is to them the way to know surely what Christ and his Apostles taught as necessary to their salvation How The way to those who use those Means Why this is just as I say But what becomes of those who use not those Means 'T was ill forgot when your Hand was in at supposing not to suppose in amongst the rest that Private Interpretation is the Means lest by God for understanding Scripture For if publick Interpretation be those Means as it needs must since I have prov'd that Private is not the Scripture plainly is no Way to those who only rely on the Private Means to understand it And your Protestants are much beholding to your Argument which shews that Scripture interpreted as they interpret it by private Iudgment is no Way to them And I were very unreasonable if I should take offence at your Challenge which bids me shew when I can that your suppositions are Vnreasonable or False Not I believe me For I should be very cross-natur'd to fall out with a man who takes my part 31. Thus you have try'd as you call it to answer my Argument and have succeeded even in your own Judgment I guess very sorrily For had you been Confident of your performance against it as it is you would never have thought of changing it as you do here p. 17. Men who have put by a Thrust are not sollicitous to instruct their Adversary how he should have Thrust And yet you will needs be teaching me how I should have done to have made sure work that is to have been sure to hit your Buckler I mean not to lose time on your Argument It were ridiculous for me to amuse my self with what never was nor will be said by any but your self No body else would have left out the principal Consideration using the Rule and so coming to Right Faith by using it As if a Rule would make a Line of it self tho' no body draw by it And a Way bring to the Journeys End even those who travel not in it In a word your Argument has all the faults of your Answer in short and onely shews you can speak from the purpose more solemnly and methodically by way of Syllogism 32. After you had thus nobly acquitted your self in answering my short Discourse you proceed in the same Method to answer Mr. G's Argument for the Infallibility of the Catholick Church Which e're I come to examin I must first say something to your Preliminaries 33. You doubt whether I think it needs any Proof that the Church of Rome is Infallible To those who reflect on the force of a vast Human Testimony attesting notorious matter of Fact and what Assent it claims from Human Nature in parallel occasions I do indeed judge it does not so much need Proof as Reflection But why should I think it needs no Proof against You who we see plainly have interpreted your selves out of your Natural Sentiments Your reason Sir because I say 'T is in vain to talk against one Infallibility without setting up another Now it has been demonstrated to you and never yet answered That Infallibility and Certainty are the same and Nature tells us that All Discourse supposes something Certain otherwise it may run on endlesly and so nothing can ever come to be concluded How is it possible then to discourse against Infallibility or any thing else without setting up and proceeding upon something that is Certain or Infallibly true By your constant jesting whenever Infallibility comes in the way you discover your anger against it because you know you can produce nothing that is truly Certain to ground your Faith. Notwithstanding the vulgar use to say commonly I am infallibly Certain of such a thing yet none laughs at them or thinks them extravagant And must we be afraid to use the same Language in our Controversie because your Ears are so tender or rather your Grounds so soft they cannot bear it If you will needs declare against Infallible Certainty be but so candid as to say still you are Fallibly Certain and see how your Readers will smile at your Folly And yet you ought
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
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
Absolutely Certain if you be not equally Certain of the later Surely none at all For 't is not the whole Book in the lump that can be produc't to prove Faith or confute Heresy but particular Texts and if These and the mainly significant Words in them be not Absolutely Certain what becomes of the Absolute Certainty of your Rule or your Faith Nay I am not fully satisfied that their concurrent Testimony does strengthen the Certainty of even so much as the Books For I observe that our Judges suspect the Testimony of honest men and misdoubt the justness of the Cause if known Knights of the Post are call'd in to corroborate their Evidence But you have prudent Maxims of your own which are beyond the reach of Lawyers 37. You endeavour to come a little closer to the Point p. 29. and set your self to prove that Scripture is your Rule of Faith ay that it is In order to which You advance this Proposition that Certainly all that believe it to be the Word of GOD must take it for a Rule of Faith. These two confident Words Certainly and Must are very efficacious to perswade those who will take it upon your Word nay they are so magisterial that they impose a kind of necessity upon them of believing all is as you say or else of denying your Authority which would break Friendship But if they will not but happen to be so uncivil as to require Proofs for it they quite lose their force and which is worse such positive Assertions make People expect very strong Arguments to Answer and make good such confident Affirmations else it hazards Credit to pretend Great Things and bring little or no Proof How you will justify those big Words we shall see shortly In the mean time let us ask you how you come to be thus Certain of it Is there no more requisit to a Rule but to be the Word of God Or did you never read in Errour non-plust long ago p. 73 74 75. the Answer now given You to this Pretence in the Confutation of your 12 th Principle in which You endeavour to establish Scripture to be a Rule Or can You so much forget your self and your duty to reply to it as to discourse still thus crudely with the same confidence as if You had never read or heard of such a Book or any thing alledg'd there to the contrary If we must needs mind You of it so often take these few words along with you now at least and till you have reply'd to them and others such which are there alledg'd I beseech you let us be tir'd no more with such Talk as serves onely to amuse but can never edify or convince To be writ by men divinely inspir'd to be Divine Infallible and the Word of God signifies no more but that they the Scriptures are perfectly Holy and True in themselves and beneficial to Mankind in some way or other and this is the farthest these Words will carry But that they are of themselves of sufficient Clearness to give sincerely endeavouring Persons such security of their Faith while they rely on them as cannot consist with Errour which is requisit to the Rule of Faith these Words signifâ—y not They may be most Holy they may be most True in themselves they may be exceedingly Useful or Beneficial to Mankind and yet not endow'd with this Property which yet the Rule of Faith must have And pag. 75. What then Dr. St. is to do is to produce conclusive Reasons to evince that the Letter of Scripture has such a Perspicuity and other Perfections belonging to such a Rule as must Ground that most Firm and Unalterable and if rightly Grounded Inerrable Assent call'd Christian Faith. We see here the Question rightly stated and the Point that sticks now let 's see whether your Proof does so much as touch it or in the least mention it 38. The Argument you make choice of I suppose it is your best the matter in hand being of highest consequence to prove that all who believe Scripture to be the Word of God must take it for a Rule of Faith is this For since the reason of our believing is because God has reveal'd whatever God has reveal'd must be believ'd and a Book containing in it such Divine Revelations must be the Rule of our Faith. i. e. by it we are to judge what we are bound to believe as Divine Revelations What a wild medly is here instead of a Reason Here are four Propositions involv'd The First is this the reason of our believing is because God has reveal'd and this is granted onely you may note that we are equally bound to believe what God has reveal'd by the Church's Testimony as by Writing if it be equally clear it was thus reveal'd nay more by the former than by the later in case that way of ascertaining the Divine Revelation be more clear than this nor does your First Proposition deny this but rather asserts it The Second This whatever God has reveal'd must be believ'd And this is pretended for an Inference but alas 't is nothing less For how does it follow that because the reason of our believing is God's Revealing therefore we are bound to believe what God has reveal'd whether we know it or no All then that can be said of it is that 't is pious Non-sense unless you add to it that we have also Certain Grounds God has indeed reveal'd it For otherwise besides the danger of erring our selves in matters of the highest moment and this unalterably too in regard we entertain that Errour as recommended by the Divine Revelation we shall moreover hazard to entitle God's Infinit veracity to a Falsehood and make Truth it self the Authour of Lies The Third that a Book containing in it such Revelations must be the Rule of our Faith is absolutely deny'd For a Book may contain in it Divine Revelations and I may not know certainly it does contain them Or I may know certainly by very good Testimony it does contain them yet not know certainly it does contain them all Or I may know it does contain them all yet perhaps not be able to know any one of those Divine Revelations in particular which are contain'd there for example if it be in a language I understand not Or tho' I do understand the language yet by reason of it's mysterious Sublimity and deep Sense and thence Obscurity and Ambiguity in many passages relating to spiritual matters and the Chief Articles of our Christian Profession I cannot be assur'd with Absolute Certainty which is the right Sense of it and therefore considering me as in the way to Faith that my Assent depends necessarily on the Truth of some Preliminary which is the object of pure Reason I might not nay cannot with any true Reason firmly assent to what I see may be an Errour nor hazard my salvation upon an Vncertain Ground and on which I know great multitudes have
to do with his Objecting some of our Writers but shall come to his Second Reason drawn from the notorious Vncertainty of meer Tradition and that never was any trial made of it but it fail'd even when it had the greatest Advantages Expect Gentlemen by those high and mighty Words he will bring most Convincing Arguments to prove that the Universal Testimony of the Church in delivering down those high Points of Faith is notoriously Vncertain and fail'd in every Age nay the very First for then it had the Greatest Advantages the Christians having then fresh Memories and being then Infallible since they could not agree to approve false Doctrin as himself told us p. 11 12. For my part I am of his mind and never knew any other Tradition have Advantages comparable to what Christian Tradition had for transmitting the Doctrine of Faith and if he lets you know what those Advantages of Christian Tradition were and shews them unable to oblige the Church to convey Christ's Doctrin down he will gain his Point But if he prevaricates from this necessary Duty he abuses you with fine Luke-warm Words to no purpose I do assure you before hand tho' he talks here of Advantages he has not in his whole Sermon mention'd much less ingenuously inform'd you of any one Advantage Christian Tradition has but industriously conceal'd every particular that gives it force Yet who sees not that without doing this 't is impossible to impugn it or deal fairly with his Auditory for how should you judge of the Comparison without a clear sight of the things Compar'd § 22. He did very prudently not to insist on the falling of Tradition in the Law of Nature For 1. He must have shewn It fail'd them and not They fail'd It by deserting it which could only be done by proving that had they continu'd to follow it they could have stray'd into Polytheism which he can never do it being evidently Impossible 2. That to make good the Parallel he must have prov'd it had as Ample an Original which gives a vast force to Testifying Authority as Christian Tradition had which is equally impossible for it had for its Source but one single man Adam 3. That there were not more powerful Motives nor greater Assistances of Grace to continue the Christian Doctrine under the Law of Grace than there were under that most imperfect Law of Nature nor more exact Discipline in the Church of Christ than there was in that loose State which had been hard Points and altogether impossible even to attempt with any shew of Reason He did very wisely too to Wave the Opinion of the Millenaries the time of Easter and the Communicating of Infants For he both knows that every Apostolical Tradition had this last been suppos'd such is not necessarily an Article of Faith as also that none of these nor yet their contrary was a Point of Christian Doctrine Preach't and Settled unanimously over the World by the Apostles He made account he had a better game to play by shewing how Tradition fail'd in delivering down the Apostles Creed But he might had he pleas'd as well have left out That as the Others for none of the Explainers of Tradition ever held or said it was to bring down Set Form of Words which requir'd application of Memory and Repetition of them in Order but only the Sense of the First Age which was Christ's true Faith instill'd after a connatural way by Education and apt to be exprest in different Words according to different Circumces § 23. Were it granted him That things Written supposing the Letter could be prov'd to be still continu'd Absolutely Certain had the Advantage as to the Certainty of Conveyance above things meerly committed to Memory and Tradition yet he is where he was The Point between us still sticks that is Whether meer Words expressing in short such sublime spiritual Tenets as are most of the chief Articles of Christian Religion are so Clear to private Judgments nay to All even the Vulgar that are looking for Faith that they can have that perfect Assurance of their true Sense as to build that Never-to-be-Alter'd Assent call'd Faith upon their understanding them This is the summ of our difficulty this is what we most insist upon and are perpetually pressing him to shew the security of the Method he takes to give us this Certainty I do not mean the Certainty of the Letter about which he keeps such ado but of the sense of it in such Points if he thinks any one of them so necessary that the Generality cannot be sav'd without the knowledge of it This is it which most imports you to know if you value the having such Grounds for your Faith as ought in true reason to perswade you 't is true that it was Taught by Christ or that you are not perhaps dociend and in an Errour all this while But not one word of this in the whole Sermon He argues from God's making choice of Writing when he deliver'd the Ten Commandments What means he or how can he apply this to our Question Are the Ten Commandments which are plain honest Nature of as Deep and Mysterious a Sense as the high Points we speak of Are they so hard to be understood that Writing is not a clear Conveyer of God's Sense in such Matters Does he hear a great part of the World at variance about the Meaning of the Ten Commandments as multitudes of Hereticks have been Wrangling with the Church ever since Christ's time about the Sense of Scripture in those Dogmatical Points Were the Texts which contain those Points as plain to all Mankind as the Ten Commandments are or as are generally the Historical and Moral parts of Scripture I should frankly declare that Scripture might in that Supposition be a Rule of Faith as to the Points contained in it and that there would be no need of the Church for our simply believing but only to confirm our Faith explain it more throughly when any part of it imply'd in some main Point is deny'd apply it to our Consciences by her Preaching and keep us up to the Doctrin it delivers by her Government and Discipline So that our Controversy-Preacher who has never hit the Point hitherto doubly misses it here in his representing Tradition as held by us needful to supply the defect of Clearness in Moral passages that are plain enough of themselves and that 't is to bring down Set-Forms of Words which is not its business whatever it be those Words express And this shews his Mistake in his Second Proof viz. the restoring the Knowledge of the Law Written by a Written Book which was a Way most Proper for that End. Whence for the same Reason if there were any deviation from the Christian Doctrin which as contradistinguish't to that other was writ in the Living Tables of the Hearts of the Faithful the best Way of preserving or restoring That was by
Truth 's behalf I am engag'd with an Adversary to whom no Personal Insufficiency can be objected Nothing could make the Victory come more Clear to the Cause I am defending and the more Dr St. is rais'd above the Common Levell of Writers the more Evidently it will appear that nothing but the pure force of Truth could drive a man of his Abilities to such unparallel'd Shifts and Subterfuges to palliate that Errour the Patronage of which he had so unfortunately espous'd Nor is it to be wonder'd at that even the best Wit in the World should be baffled while it maintains such a Cause For were it some Errour of an ordinary size that he defended or were the Truth which he opposes of a trivial Importance Rhetorick and misus'd Wit might perhaps bear it down and gain a seeming Victory over it but when the sole Point is whether even what we all hold to have been the Faith taught by Christ may for ought any man living knows be perhaps none of his and so a Falshood and a Lying Story 't is not to be imagin'd that any Tricks of Human Skill can prevail against a Point of that Sacred Concern It belongs to the Wisdom of our Good God to settle those things most firmly which are of the greatest Weight and therefore the Certainty we are to have that Christ was indeed the Author of the Faith we profess being such an Incomparable Good and the Basis of all our Spiritual Building must be by far more unremovably establisht and more surely plac't above a tottering Contingency than the strongest Pillars of this Material World whence all Attempts to undermine and weaken this Certainty which as shall be seen is the Chief Endeavour of Dr St. must be proportionably Weak and Ruinous To give you a Map of his main Performances taken from his Book in short and prov'd upon him in this Reply First Whereas 't is the Principal Duty of a Controvertist especially writing about the Grounds of Faith to justify that is to prove Faith to be True the Dr is so far from doing or allowing this good Office to be done to Faith that he maintains the direct contrary Nay he will not grant so much honour to any Particular Point of Faith and our Whole Faith is made up of such Particulars as to let it enjoy even his own kind of Absolute Certainty tho' that falls short of proving any thing to be above possibility of Falshood or which is the same True but says over and over in perfectly equivalent terms that the Sense which himself or any man or Church either has of Scripture in particular Points may not be the True Sense of it that is may not be Christ's Doctrin which if it be not it may not be True And is it possible that what may not be True can at the same time be True that is Is it possible that Truth may not be its self Secondly We are writing Controversy and consequently treating of Faith precisely according to a particular consideration belonging to it which is by what way 't is with Absolute Certainty derivable from Christ. This has been repeated and Eccho'd to him over and over even to Surfeit This was the Scope and Occasion of the Conference This is exprest in my Short Discourse against his way of having Certainty of Christ's Doctrin and clearly aim'd at in Mr G's Demonstration Nay this has been told him fifteen years ago in Errour Non-plust p. 44. Where I in these plainest words thus Stated the Question It being then agreed amongst us all that what Christ and his Apostles taught is God's Word or his Will and the Means to Salvation all that is to be done by us as to matters of Faith is to know with Absolute Certainty what was the first-taught Doctrin or Christ's Sense and whatever can thus assure us of That is deservedly call'd The Rule of Faith. Yet tho' we should trumpet this into his Ears every moment he is still Deaf and never takes notice of it or regards it in his whole Reply Nay he diverts from it with all the hast he can make when our express words force him to it To do this with the greater Formality and Solemnity he Entitles his Book A Discourse concerning the Nature and Grounds of the Certainty of Faith. Which Expression is so Large that it leaves it Indifferent for him under that Head either to treat of Faith as 't is in its self viz. as 't is Divine or of Faith as 't is Controverted between us that is of our Faith as 't is Ascertainable to us to be Christ's true Doctrin And that we may see this was done by Design when he comes to determine the Sense of those Equivocal Words he pitches upon that Meaning of them which is quite beside our purpose and nothing at all to our Question viz. upon Christ's Faith as 't is Divine which is not disputed but agreed to be such and this whether the Faith comes to our knowledge by Tradition attesting it or by an Absolutely Certain Interpretation of Scripture and the sole Question is whether the Tradition of the Church or the Letter of Scripture interpreted by any Way his Principles afford us be the more Certain and more Clear Way to give us Christ's Sense or which is the same our Faith. How untoward a Procedure is it then to stand quoting our School-Divines against me whenas the Objects of Controversy and of School-Divinity are so vastly different the one treating of Faith as made known to the World at first by Divine-Revelation the other of the Way to know now what was at first Divinely reveal'd by Human Motives inducing men to the Acceptation of it of for the same Doctrin Hence also when he was to bring Arguments which should evince by his Principles that the Faith held now is the same that was reveal'd at first to avoid that impossible task he falls unseasonably to alledge God's Grace and Invisible Moral Qualifications Which tho' absolutely requisit in many regards to Faith as 't is formally Divine yet are they most improper to be alledg'd in Controversy against an Adversary for a Proof that what he holds is the first-taught Doctrine since only God himself can know whether the Alledger or any man else has those Supernatural Means or no. To put a stop once for all to this impertinent Topick and to shew how he trifles while he quotes our School-Divines I alledge First that the plain state of the Question lately given which runs through our whole Controversy has forestall'd all he can object from them unless he can shew that they stated the Question and treated of Faith under the same Consideration as we do in our Controversy which I am Certain he cannot instance in so much as any one of them And in case they do not state it after the same manner we do in our Controversy with what sense can it be pretended that I contradict Them or They Me whenas we do not
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
Certainty in such Tradition I know no Party if Christian that has any Interest to oppose him The stronger any one can make this Faith they have all reason to like it the better By which 't is apparent that he is so far from condemning and censuring the way I take that he declares 't is not the Interest of any Party if Christian to oppose it and that himself and every one ought to like it better than the other way so it could be made good And that it can my best Reason tells me since as appears by my Method it has born the Test of being reduc't even to Self-Evidence and the miserable shifts and Evasions to which the most Learned of our Adversaries are driven to avoid it's force do more and more assure me 't is not at all hard to compass it 22. In the last place to omit many others I shall put the Testimony of that very Reverend Person F. Martin Harney Dr. of Divinity of the University of Lovain and Principal Regent of the General Studies of the Order of St Dominick Who being askt at Rome where he was at the time of the Contest his Judgment of my Doctrin compriz'd in my Method and of the Sense of the three Propositions as they lie in my Books gave under his hand this Testimonial of both I under-written have attentively read the Method writ by Mr John Sergeant and his Vindication of the three Propositions pickt out of his Books and I have found that the Method is sound Doctrin and usefull to reduce many to the Catholick Faith. And in his Vindiciae 'tis plainly demonstrated that the foresaid Propositions as written by the Author do make a Sense altogether Orthodox This Reverend Person I had never seen nor heard of nor could any thing but the love of Truth move him to this Approbation nay he must have lost much Credit with the Sacra Congregatio had my Doctrin been prov'd Vnorthodox or the Propositions in my Book as Infallible Dr. St. affirms Heretical 23. Modesty forbids me to mention the excessive Encomiums of that Eminent Controvertist Mr. Edward Worsley a Father of the Society who though utterly unknown to me took such a Friendship for me upon the reading my Books and in all places where he came extoll'd my poor Endeavours with such immoderate Expressions that to save my blushes in rehearsing them I intreat those who have the Curiosity to read them in my Declaratio from p. 73. to p. 78. I shew'd them to the Right Honourable the Earl of Castlemain who was pleas'd to do me the right to attest them to be his hand-writing The same noble Personage as many as knew F. Worsley will I doubt not do that right to his Memory as to witness for him that as he was Second to none in ability to distinguish between Sound and Tainted Doctrine so his sincere Candour and Integrity set him as far above the humour of Flattery as my Meanness could incline any to it 24. The Sum of my present Defence is this Eight Divines of great Repute appointed by the Arch-Bishop of Paris and admitted by my Adversary himself do unanimously attest that the Sense condemn'd is not in my Books but the contrary My Judge clears me the Censurers are commanded to make me Satisfaction The Highest Tribunal allows my Plea and acquits me Primates Arch-Bishops Bishops the Sorbon Eminent Divines and even those who take another way in their Writings approve and commend my Doctrine and most of them in very high and extraordinary expressions my own Superiour does the same nay even those who were formerly highly prejudic't declar'd themselves satisfy'd in it So that poor Dr. St. is left alone to ballance against all this weighty Authority with one Lominus a meer Utopian or Man in the Moon on whose sole no-Authority he grounds all his sensless Calumnies Was ever weak man so baffled Add that he knew that all these Defences of mine had been made and accepted many years ago and those Authorities alledg'd and my Doctrine thus approv'd and clear'd yet he had not the Candour to let his Reader have the least hint of any of those particulars which argues not too great love of Moral Honesty Nor does he take off any one Answer of those many I had given but only says over again rawly some few things objected reply'd to and printed fourteen Years ago and plays upon a double-sens't word or two by applying them still to wrong Subjects which is in effect to tell the Reader he must either talk insignificantly against evident matter of Fact or say just nothing and to confess in plain terms he is at a perfect Nonplus 25. To close this present business I desire the Reader to reflect that those Judges Approvers and Commenders of my Books and Doctrine liv'd generally in divers and far-distant Nations were of different Faculties and Universities of different Education different Orders and to some degree of different Principles and Interests some of them of slight acquaintance divers utterly unknown to me or I to Them. So that 't is impossible to imagine that any thing but the Force of Truth and the Integrity of my way of proving the Certainty of our Faith as to it 's being taught by Iesus Christ could make them conspire to allow or abet my Writings so heartily and unanimously Nor could there be any Human inducements to make them so partial to a private man every way inconsiderable and of no Esteem at all but what my Writings and Principles gave me Whence though no one Church as Dr. St. weakly objects has ever own'd my Doctrine to give formal Approbations of Controversial or Theological Writings not being a work proper for Churches yet the Dignity of the Persons and all these Circumstances consider'd I conceive it may amount to the full weight of the Judgment of any one particular Church whatsoever that my Doctrin is Sound and Orthodox Nor will he I believe find that any work of a particular Writer hath had more Authentick Testimonials for it than my poor Endeavours have had except that of the never-enough-praised the Bishop of Condom And 't is not the least Confirmation of their Integrity that they have been twice brought to the Tryal at Paris and Rome and nothing unsound found in them Though I must do the Doctor the right to acknowledge he has spoke one and hitherto but one true word but he is to be pardon'd for prevaricating from his constant method of speaking Falshoods for it was at unawares and he knew not he did so The Truth he spoke against his will was this That I hardly escaped Censure at Rome and therefore to make his words good I 'le tell him how it was All my Books were sent thither to Cardinal Barberin and amongst them one written by the Right Honourable my Lord Chancellour Hyde in defence of Dr. St. against Mr. Cressy pretending the Title of this last being torn out they were all writ by
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
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
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
the highest Mysteries of our Faith be necessary for Salvation But must we still be put off with that frigid Evasion that such sublime Points are as intelligible now at this distance from the time of the Apostles tho' only couch't in a few words in a Book as they were when spoke by those Living Teachers who doubtless not only deliver'd their Sense in a few set words but such Points needing it explain'd it and dilated upon it to settle it better and sink an express conceit of it deeper into the minds of their Auditors Can it be imagin'd but that many of the People and the Pastours especially put their doubts and askt them Questions concerning the Points of Faith they had Preacht and receiv'd pertinent Answers none of which a Book could do How ridiculous a pretence then is this Yet this is his best shift For unless the Book have This or an Equivalent Virtue to make Clear its Sense it cannot have the Plainness or Clearness requisit to a Rule of Faith. He contends that if those Points be necessary to Salvation they must be so Plain that we may be Certain of our Duty to believe them Which retorts his Discourse upon himself for if those two sublime Articles there spoken of be Necessary for the Salvation of the Generality which cannot be deny'd without accusing the Primitive Church of Tyranny for casting those out of the Church who deny'd them then they must be Certain one way or other that 't is their Duty to believe them and since he does not think fit to say this Duty can be Certainly shewn them by the Letter of Scripture it follows that this Duty to believe them must be made Certain by the Testimony of the Church delivering them 'T is easy to be seen the whole force of his Discourse here is built on his begging the Question that Scriptures Letter as understood by Private Judgments is the Rule of Faith and that it is plain in all Necessary Points Which he ought not to do without shewing us first which Points are Necessary at least those of the Trinity and Godhead of Christ if he think them so and then proving his Rule is Plain in all such Points and not still to suppose presume upon and occurr to that which is yet under Dispute Vngranted and Unprov'd Let me then mind him of one piece of Logick which tho' it be not Admirable yet 't is Solid and never regarded by him 'T is this that no Argument has any force upon another but either by its being so Evident that he must forfeit his Reason to deny it or Granted by his Adversary so that he must either Argue from something Clear of it self or made Clear by Proof or else argue Ex concessis from the Party 's own Concession By which Rule if all the Reasons he brings here were examin'd it will manifestly appear he has not spoken one word of True Reason against me in his whole Answer I do here Challenge him to shew me so much as any One Argument of his that has either of these Qualifications and to encourage him to such a performance if he can shew me any One such I promise him to pass all the rest for valid and good I end with desiring the considering Reader to reflect on the Drs Discourse here p 82. and upon an exact review of it to determine whether Principles are not deeply laid here to make the Socinians and many other known Hereticks Members of his Church and to free them from Church Censurers For if they find not in Scripture that the Apostles Preacht the Trinity and Godhead of Christ in clear and Express terms and with this Connotate as necessary to Salvation they cannot be Certain of their Duty to believe them the Consequences of which I need not dilate on His own Church is more concern'd to look to his Tenets than I am 63. He triumphs much that I grant Some may be sav'd without the Knowledge of all Christ Taught He means those Spiritual Points so often mention'd But if he knew how little advantage he gains by it he would not think it worth his taking notice of What may be done in an abstracted case is one thing what if they live in a Church and hold Heresies contrary to Christ's and the Church's Doctrin is Another Some Catholick Divines treating of Faith do mantain that to hold There is a God and that He is a Rewarder and Punisher is Simply enough for Salvation if they live up to those Tenets whence they conceive hopes that Nebuchadnezzar was sav'd tho' he was no Iew. But what 's this to our case Christ has left us a Body of Doctrin and since he did nothing Unnecessary for the Salvation of Mankind this being the End of his Coming and Preaching each Point conduced to that End either immediately or by Consequence whence by the way 't is a Folly to expect the Apostles Taught such Points as necessary to Salvation others as not necessary since no Point was Vnnecessary for the Salvation of Mankind except when they said for Distinction Dico ego non Christus or us'd some Equivalent expression But to return God has also settled a Church to conserve that Doctrin of Christ Intire Whence if any falls into Heresies contrary to that Doctrin by Misunderstanding Scripture's Letter in such passages 't is her Duty to cast them out of the Church and deliver them over to Satan for their contumacious Pride in preferring their own Private Judgments before the Judgment of their Pastours and the Church whom God appointed to Teach Them. Whence I do assure him I do not hold that any one such Privative Unbeliever will ever be sav'd tho' he holds some Points which of their own Nature might suffice for Salvation For such a man believes nothing at all but upon his own Self conceit and the very Ground of his Faith let him prate of Scripture as much as he will is Spiritual Pride which Vice alone is enough to damn him even tho' he held all those Points of Christ's Faith to a Tittle Hence follows that either the Primitive Church as hinted above was very uncharitable in Excommunicating those who dissented from those High Articles Or else the Rule of Faith must be so Plain and Clear that it must preserve those from Heresy who follow it and render them Inexcusable who by deserting it do fall into the opposit Heresies And therefore that we may bring our Discourse back to the Question he must either prove his Rule of Faith thus Qualify'd or 'T is no Rule What follows to p. 85. is meer Drollery which gives all the seeming Strength to his Weak reasoning Only he has a fling at Transubstantiation which is a Topick of course in his Controversy He thinks 't is Unnecessary to the Church but the Church it seems thought it necessary to define it in her Circumstances and I humbly conceive the necessary occasion of defining it was because such as He
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
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
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