can preserve us from the Commission of them for no man while he used his own Reason rightly ever committed any of them it being impossible to suppose it could be the Effect of Reason to be impious but it may be the effect of the enslaving of our Reason to the brutish part of a man which is his sensual Appetite or the like which indeed is too familiar while Youth lasteth It is true which the Gent. affirmeth that whoever faileth by the willfull neglect of finding out of Truth which was in his Power to help is therefore inexcusable but he that persecutes those who have searcht according to their best means and yet cannot satisfie their own Consciences is more inexcusable by doing that to others which he would for no man would be persecuted not have done to himself But the Gentleman excepts against the Author's asserting That we ought not to believe Errors of Faith to be damnable it being unreasonable to teach men that Errors overthrow our Hopes of Salvation unless we could likewise give them a Catalogue of those Errors which are so Paul indeed saith there are damnable Heresies and Peter but names none in particular but denying of the Lord that bought us thereby bringing swift Destruction c. it is very plain thereby Peter defin'd or rather determin'd the denying of the Lord that bought them to be the only damnable Heresie which indeed I take to be Apostacy However the Gent. adventureth to give us another manner of Catalogue of damnable Heresies which he saith are all such as are continued in in Opposition to the Authority of the Church perversely and obstinately I grant it true But if all are guilty of damnable Errors or damnable Heresie who do not obey what the Church enjoyneth that is the Law in England and Scotland considering the Indifferency of some and the dissenting of others there will be but a few compar'd to the guilty in any Possibility of Salvation in those two Kingdoms and it must needs invite all lukewarm Protestants to the Roman Religion rather than to stick to the Religion of that people so generally infected with damnable Errors the Papists have reason to thank him for it Yet again the Gent. quarrelleth at the Author for saying Where we do not know our Fault we have no means of Repenting of it and consequently cannot expect Pardon for it there being no Forgiveness without Repentance and Repentance is impossible without knowledge of our Fault To which the Gentleman's answer is if this be true it would damn all Mankind and my Reply is If it be not true it must damn most of Mankind for confident I am there 's not one in a thousand that thinketh himself obliged to repent of Sins he never knew of it being enough and more than most men do to repent of known sins Pardon implyeth a Guilt Guilt is a Breach of the Law The old Testament condemneth none but for actual Sins the new maketh few new Sins more than the old for Thoughts if transient and not reduc'd into Act are not Sins and what David saith Who can understand his Errors there is not any more meant by it than that it is difficult to understand them and when he prayeth to be pardon'd his secret Sins he intended not any other than such Sins as were only known to God and himself so against presumptuous Sins which are intended against Light against Reason no man having ever had greater Reason to be thankful to God than he who had been preferr'd and preserved in so admirable a manner more than once from his Enemies c. And the Gent. cannot forget who prayed to be deliver'd from unreasonable men nor who fought with Beasts at Ephesus Again the Author having said the great Probability of Truth on all sides ev'n in the erring ones ought to make us believe that God will pardon those Errors the Gentleman answers thus If our Errors be such as are not the Effects or Causes of any Sin we have no Reason to think but God will pardon them and I say If our Sins be the Causes of our Errors we have no Reason to think that God will pardon them and that Sin is for the most part the Cause of Errors is plain to any man who shall observe the Effects of Debauchery for how is it possible any man can act rationally who drowneth his Reason or believe as convinc'd by Reason when he will offer Violence to it and brutifie himself But saith the Gent. if our Errors are the Effect of willfull Ignorance Pride or Idleness if they have lead us into Schism and Heresie and thereby into Contempt of Authority then we can have no Hopes of Pardon without Amendment wherefore Sin being most commonly the Cause or the Effect of Errors or both it proveth there is no small Danger in them I must mind the Reader here how the Gentleman runneth the Wild-goose Chase one while putting an erroneous person in hope of Pardon in which he implieth Guilt or else why Pardon Another while no Pardon without Amendment as if Amendment were not the tacite Condition of every pardon which if it were not true men might presume to sin daily upon Assurance of daily Pardon or at least upon Presumption of it I suppose he should rather have said no Pardon was to be had without Repentance in any Case which he was afraid or unwilling to say least he should have admitted the Truth of the Author's Assertion which was that true Repentance could not be without fore-knowledge of the Fault and I think as concerning Errors to mend is no more than to repent of them But for that the Gent. makes Wilful Ignorance a damnable sin I do not well understand what he meaneth by the term Wilful there it being as absurd to my apprehension to call Ignorance Wilful as to talk of Free Will the Will alwayes following and being acted by the last Dictate of the Understanding so that it not only seemeth to be but is necessitated being no Faculty in it self men cannot therefore believe what they please nor think what they please that such or such an Opinion or thing is true or false Indeed a man may act contrary to his Understanding which is Hypocrisie and which if the Gent. pleaseth he may call Wilful Hypocrisie nor do I know a fitter man to make Hypocrites than himself who is so fierce nay fiercer than our Laws are themselves to have all men compelled to Conformity whether it be with or against their Reasons after the way Carters use by the Whip to teach their poor Horses obedience Now again the Author having said and truly that there is no such great danger from Errors since there is but one true way for a thousand false ones and that there 's no mark set upon that true way to distinguish it from others Reason being the Judge the Gent. argueth that where the difficulty surpasseth the Faculty that God hath given us Reason still for we have no
our natural passions are contrary to the Laws of reason and for that the Vices of some of the Clergy on both sides have render'd them contemptible for which last God has more than once removed the Candlestick The Object of their Profession being properly Eternal Life the people think and truly they ought not to inter-meddle with Government at least in the Pulpit England has felt the ill Consequence of their Excursions more than once and what Prejudice the Spaniard has gotten and how he has dwindl'd in Power by his bloody and perverted Inquisition and blind Zeal otherwise he that runs may read What Liberty the Turk allows to peaceable Christians in his Empire is well known and how he thrives by it has been here hinted before We are near enough to the Vnited Provinces to understand their Permissions as to Conscience and the Advance of their politick Interests thereby which never lyes The Seat of Power is absolute there and every where therefore a Lenitive Law is not impracticable here in reason if our Superiors please nor inconsistent with our Government Regal The Church depends upon the State not the State upon the Church for the King is Head of both and they both â—re consolidate in him Jure Coronae All Kings as Kings were originally vested with that Power so the Pope in his own Dition has it Jure Papatus Some say Nothing is Conscience to any man which ought not to be so to another 't is regularly true I think and though sure he that said Tales publickly told and allow'd was Religion spake wittily relating to Sacred History yet methinks 't was something below his Gravity it was a Definition a little too jocular but that Gentleman spake of Religion in General However since the Gent. in his Plain Dealing has discover'd his dislike of T. H. I may take leave to say I think him a most excellent Philosopher and Great in several other respects for warranty whereof I need only produce that admirable Pindarick Ode upon him written by my School-fellow Cowley where he saith There 's none but God does know Whether the fair Idaea thou dost show Agrees intirely with thine own or no. Speaking of T. H. 'T is such an Ode as perhaps excells all made before it and I shall think it true till I see a fairer Idaea of Truth and no longer for it is not my purpose to be an obstinate Heretick no nor a State-Martyr neither Nor to suffer at all for Disobedience to Laws I take him to be the best Subject who obeys them not him who patiently yields to pay the Penalties Passive Obedience and Free Will are sense alike to my Understanding Why should a man be miserable before his time was the Question of the Wise King I do think 't is best to be of the Religion of a man's Countrey Externally at least and sure I am there is nothing morally evil in ours and for External Worship in Religion as to time and place it is determinable by the Supreme Magistrate in my opinion not as a Christian but as King For neither the Brazen Serpent nor the Golden Calf were naturally preferrible one more than another 't was Moses gave the Precedency Betwixt the Laws of Reason which are undoubtedly God's Eternal Laws and the Laws of a man's Civil Sovereign which we are commanded to obey I know none the Moral Law being but a repetition of the Laws of Reason This Consideration gives me occasion to slight the huge Volumes of stuff obtruded upon us otherwise impertinently as grounded upon the Old Testament but without any warrant to oblige us as Christians and Subjects to believe the Authors of such waste Papers in what they write All this while every good man is to consider the most Excellent Counsels of cur Saviour every where in the New Testament and the History of God's Divine Providence in the old Herein we agree but I do not understand what the Gent. means by the Laws of the Church for the Church of England never did nor can make any Law nor is it Rational to say she can for when Laws are made they are the King's Laws and the Bishops are his Bishops And if all the Bishops in England had been dead when the King was restor'd there did not above three survive the Usurpation as I am inform'd unless the King had been pleas'd to grant his Licentiam Eligendi there could have been no new ones made His Majesty in his Natural Capacity is the Causa sine quâ non This strikes off the Exploded Pretence of the Bishops Jus devinum and for their Politicum they were better without it Let the Parliament judge as to their Legal Rights But whether the greatest part of our Dissenters go to Meetings out of Interest to carry on their Trades and not out of Religion which the Gent. saith they do I know not Probably they do and 't is as true that many go to our Churches for such Ends or worse Let every man examine himself and by the Lives of each sort judge which are most probably Atheistical it being hard to believe that they who live in advised sins do really believe there is any God at all let them be of what Party they please As for my own part I am apt to think there are with us two main and Evident Causes of Atheism The first is the Example of Great Men and Vicious the second is the Debauchery of some Ministers especially in Countreys far off London for in and about London to speak candidly I find many worthy Preachers and vertuous men but how the Flights and Mountees of the Gent. against Atheism came to be inserted into Plain Dealing as in answer to our Author I cannot tell unless it were to shew his flosculous Oratory much good may it do him he is a Plain-dealing Person but the plain truth is the midling sort of men will not be brought to rest with an implicit Faith in their authoriz'd Teachers that will not do in England the People apprehend well enough for they feel soonest so far Vox populi is Vox Dei 'T is the mediation of Reason must convince them and reduce them or the special Revelation of Gods Spirit which how easily mistaken is easily understood I say mistaken by such who take their own Dreams for the Holy Spirit All mens Condescentions Adherencies and Procedures in Moral Religious and Politick Affairs being built upon what they think Reason and no otherwise which needs no illustration to a direct Atheist for he disbelieving a Deity gives no Adoration to a mere Pagan for he probably gives it to Sun or Moon and yet thinks they are Divine Powers to one of the Roman Church for he takes the Pope to be infallible c. to any Dissenter for if his dissenting proceed from Conscience it proceeds from his Reason So the Merchant and all other Tradesmen are directed and conducted by that which seems the most Rational way towards their respective
Gent. has offer'd against Humane Reason Upon Review of his Answer I am oblig'd to say once more that one part of three in it swells with illogical Consequences and is against constant Experience for he undertakes to shew what mischiefs must come to pass if Liberty of Conscience were permitted as to that 't is plainly otherwise for since Liberty has been generally assum'd the Nation has been very peaceable and obedient every way otherwise this I say is another experimental confutation of the main part of his Answer Therefore I would not have the Gent. spoil the Tone of his Stomach by Choler if I do discomply with him in not granting the not so horrible consequences of such a Liberty as he presumes contrary to Reason and Experience For if the Gent's desire had been seconded with Execution rigorously against the Dissenters it might have hazarded the putting of the English Nation into great Disorder by this time his words being Pag. 152 of Plain Dealing That if the Nobility and Gentry will not suppress the Sectaries by the Execution of the Laws they will soon arrive at that height that the Sword must do it or else there will be no Government at all in our Nation but what if it be impracticable to suppress them because the People will not accuse one another 'T is true Reason of State has been forc'd to strike smartly that other sort of men who by their barbarous and impolitick Actions have dared to confront the Government but I hope they will be made wiser hereafter by the late Examples of publick and infamous Inflictions for it seems the Common Law is in many Cases in the breasts of the Judges de Modo Poenae And let the Event be what it will to use the Gent's own words in the close of his Answer I must also with him profess that I have fully satisfi'd not only my Conscience but my Reason also which is the surer way and from better motives in this Reply by shewing my self according to my Duty a sincere Lover of Peace of Religion in general and of that particular Religion the support whereof I have asserted to be the true Interest of England and was alwayes so esteem'd since the Reformation And I will add my promise to the Gent. and that upon the word of a Gentleman which ought to be as sacred as that of a Priest that if he shall please to give me a Rejoynder without departure from his first Plea I will not demurr for want of Form but leave the Dispute to the Censure of indifferent Judges upon the whole Argument viz. Whether Humane Reason be not the best and safest Guide with its due helps beyond Popes Councils Fathers Canons and all Books whatsoever the Scripture excepted which yet if any man will ask me how I think to understand I can give him no other Answer but this that I must do it by Reason which is the only Talent God has indu'd me with for my preservation here and hereafter and by which and no other mediation it 's possible for a man of good Vnderstanding and not clogg'd with false Principles to be satisfy'd that the natural Dictates of God Reason carry no repugnancy to the Law and Will of God revealed in the Scripture the study of which Learning is the foundation of all true Ratiocination and the most generous and most useful Science for all men to aspire unto who would know their respective Duties as Christians and Subjects and upon the Presumtion of which Axiome it is that our Law of England if it were well digested into Method certainly the best in the World does say that if any Law shall be enacted contrary to Reason it is void eo instante because contrary to God's undoubted Eternal Law the Law of Reason my Province to maintain wherein if any thing have slipt from my Pen not consistent with the Duty of a good Subject or true Christian I do submissively and heartily beg pardon for it And to compleat my candid and at present sole Design of supporting Reason's Energy and for the justification of H. the Eighth's forsaking the Roman Church and thereby to justifie the Reformed Protestant Religion let the Reader consult the Decretory Council held under and by the Command of Pope Paul the Third 1538 Printed 1609 at London and taken out of Mr. Crashaw's Library then Preacher of the Temple wherein the Abuses of the Roman Ecclesiasticks are manifested under the Certificate of Nine of the most Eminent Cardinals then living whereof Pool was one and Sadolete another to whose Inspection the Inquiry was then referr'd by the said Pope which Abuses the Court of Rome would not then correct nor are they yet corrected the Book being suppress'd by Order of that Church and coming to my hands something late from a worthy Bencher of Grayes Inn which otherwise had sooner been made Use of to prove Reason a safer Guide than that Church which pretends to Infallibility and may serve for Answer to that Romanist who published some weak Reflections upon our Author's Discourse of Humane Reason who if he fail'd in any thing handled in his Book 't was in his a little too slightly referring the Cause of H. the Eighth's deserting of the Roman See to his Wantonness c. For that there were many other concurring motives to his Desertion is very probable from some Speeches I have seen of his in Parliament and from Histories about him who was tho a severe yet withal a very stout and inquisitive Prince and fitted thereby for the Work he so worthily began and whereof the Advantage accrues to us at this time Such are the unsearchable depths of Providence which tho few observe and fewer are willing to resign their Wills unto will do what is best for good men Lastly Because some men are most guided by Book Authorities I think fit to add that Montaigne Erasmus Raymond Sebond Charone Cassauder Chillingworth Cartesius Milton Gell Baxter and Hobbs also with others of Fame as D. Stillingfleet not to forget Bishop Tayler have unanimously approv'd of Reason as the best Guide and favour'd or cooly advis'd a circumscrib'd Toleration I having named Grotius before but I refer the ingenuous Reader once for all to that excellent Discourse of the Rise and Power of Parliaments Laws Courts c. and of Religion printed 1677. by way of Letter to a Parliament-man wherein a Toleration in Religion here for all but the Jesuits and Seculars is argued to be not onely Political but highly Rational and consonant to the Doctrine of the Holy Jesus of which Opinion till I am convinc'd otherwise by Reason I am resolv'd to be and no longer for I cannot Mean time as a Corollary to this Reply I subjoyn with submission that it appears plainly by his Majesties Royal Father 's Golden Book he was not much averrse to it and that ev'n Charles the Fifth during the Interim see Sleydan did allow a kind of Toleration in Germany where I leave the Cause but really unwillingly for further Proofs crowd so fast into me that to forbear venting them is a kind of Disease upon me tho I hope not Mortal Neither do I stand in awe of any Censure upon my Conclusions already publish'd by the future Impressions of any Bigotical Opponent whatsoever Epitaphium Cliffordianum HIC jacet insignis Cliffordi capsula terrae Reddita sed melior pars resoluta Polo Carmine non opus est famam celebrare polite Ni fallor Libro gloria certa micat Humanae Rationis opus munivit ultro Esse ducem vitae subsidiumque viae Si quae praeterea superaddere vota Poēsis Auderet nitida sacrificanda manu Englished HEre snatcht by Death Clifford interr'd does lye Whose Nobler Part is vehicl'd on high There needs no Muse to celebrate his Fame Whose Book eterniz'd has his gen'rous Name He proved Humane Reason's worth so well From other Arts it bears away the Bell. If any Poet superadds to this With impure hands his Holocaust's amiss His Character AS to his Person 't was little his Face rather flat than oval his Eye serious Countenance Leonine his Constitution Cholerick Sanguine tinctur'd with Melancholy of a facetious Conversation yet a great Humorist of quick Parts so of quick Passions and Venereal thence Lazy he was learned very critical positive and proud charitable enough and scorn'd to be rich he had a will to be just would drink to excess sometimes His Religion was that of his Countrey he was always Loyal to his King and a very good Poet. He died 'twixt 50 and 60 at Sutton's Hospital whose Master he then was not much lamented by the Pensioners few knew him well He was a man strangely compos'd 't is question'd whether his Virtues or Vices were most I incline to the last yet he departed peaceably and piously FINIS