he was aware it was an Angel to whom he offered it I cannot see but to deny Angel-worship is to say that great Apostle either knew not what was lawful or acted what he knew unlawful two Assertions which to embrace I think nothing but the necessity of defending an ill cause can ingage a man For my part I must desire none will take it amiss if I regulate my actions by those of the beloved Disciple and think allowable whatever he thought so But to look neerer on the place the worship there mentioned being of necessity to be supposed either due or not due I know several things are said to render a reason why the Angel might refuse it in the first Supposition and the Saint be mistaken to offer it in the second but either I understand nothing or neither Supposition affords ground enough to raise a battery against us for if it be put due whatever the reason might be of the Angels refusal we shall be very unjustly quarrelled at for giving every one what 's their due Paying of of debts sure will not become opposite to Scripture if not due what wonder if the Angel refused it And whatever might be the reason of the Apostles mistake this is certain that out of this that an undue honour was refused it will never follow that a due one may not be given That which we give must be first proved undue and unlawful before it can be concluded against by the refusal of one which was so For that some worship is due sure none but a Quaker will deny since certainly an Angel is as good a person as a Justice of Peace to whom nevertheless I hope by the grace of God we may say without Idolatry if it please your Worship And for Religious Worship which seems to stick with you I doubt there is a mistake but know not how to rectifie it if you bar the use of distinctions whose service if you had pleased to make use of so far as to have look'd into the several notions of the Word my service would have been needless to you Religion then signifies the worship of God and Religious by consequence appertaining or relating to the worship of God and this in several and unequal respects as when we say a religious man house book demeanour c. we mean those persons or things have relation though differently to the service of God Now the best and most proper sent of Religiousness is in a soul and since no quality can be more or so much esteemable we conceive the soul which has it to be valuable or to have worth the acknowledgment of which we call worship that is testimony of worth Farther this worship being founded not on the worth rising from natural or acquired parts from eminence of dignity or any civil consideration but purely on supernatural or religious endowments we call religious worship and mean by it an acknowledgment of worth springing from this that the persons to whom we give it are highly in the favor of God meerly as such without mixture of any other consideration This kind of worship then is therefore called religious because it aims at God being given to persons highly dear to him and purely upon the score that they are so and nothing is more plain from common sence then that he who honours a person purely as loving another does by that act heartily honor that other From the action of Cornelius what you would infer I am left to guess all the use you make being to ask whether he took S. Peter for God to which after I have replyed that I conceive he did not I know not what more to say but me thinks Catholike Religion has a strange Fate that no act of Christian modestie and humilitie can pass without being straind into an opposition to it The last place is Matth. 4. whence you would prove the Divel did not desire to be worshipped as God because he confessed God Good Sir does the Divel act according to his knowledg and can you be ignorant his misery consists in obstinate adhesion to things against reason and which he sees to be so Has he changed his mind think you since the fatal Ero similis altissimo This was strangely argued but to wrest the place against our Tenet is I think stranger it being to say men may not honour venerari Angels because God refused to adore the Divel How little consultation did you use with your own thoughts in this Paragraph but you reply in behalf of the Devil our Saviour might have worshipped him and his Father both Which seems to me to evince past dispute that the worship desired by the Devil was such a one as was due to God for had he meant onely a testimony of that excellence which was in him do you think him ignorant of it who created it or backward to express his knowledg of it in necessary circumstances who is justice it self Evidently therefore the Devil desired what belonged not to him and ought not to hinder those happy spirits from receiving Veneration to whom it does belong and yet we are so unfortunate as to evacuate the Law of God by true Traditions while you have the happiness to preserve it by untrue Interpretations ¶ 7. Page 104. Mr. White has a most ingenious evasion of the second Argument confessing the Objection would have force if they did really doubt I think it is clear they did Origen l. 2. in ep ad Rom. sayes Whether the Saints that are with God do any thing for us and labour let this also be reckoned amongst the secret and hidden things of God which may not be committed to writing So Austin de cur mor. c. 39. leaves it undetermin'd whether the dead Martyrs do help us or no and addeth that these things pass our understandings and in Chap. 13. of the same Book affirms That the souls of the departed never know what we do here upon earth and doth bring for proof thereof Isai 63.16 and that of the Kings 2.22.20 I will gather thee to thy Fathers c. That place which Mr. White mentions I suppose by what I find in some for Mr. White mentions not the Authors he answers is Nazianzen Invec 1. in Julianum Hear O thou soul of great Constantine Jacobi Billi annot 2. in hanc orat if thou have any sence c. What is this O thou most divine Emperour for I am forced to expostulate with him as if he were here present and heard me though indeed he he with God and in his second Invective he calleth unto Julian being dead and damned in Hell So that for 200 yeers after Christ there was no Invocation of Saints as they affirm who have perused all the Monuments of these times Origen and others after him speaks so as it appears they could not teach it for a truth seeing they profess themselves ignorant of the Saints conditions others flatly deny they know what we do yet I perceive
the Valentinians that I mean which Irenaeus speaks to in this place was as you may see in the beginning of the thirteenth Chapter that none but S. Paul was acquainted with the truth as having only received it by revelation whereby all his Arguments in the precedent Chapter from the authorities of S. Peter S. Stephen S. Philip c. had been overthrown to strengthen them he proves in the thirteenth chapter that not only S. Paul but the rest of the Disciples also understood the Mystery of Salvation and in the 14 particularly S. Luke and these two Viz. Scripture is not the sole rule of Faith S. Paul alone was acquainted with the Mysteries of Salvation an exact studier of Irenaeus and impartial lover of truth would have to be the same As to the place it self this I conceive to be your Argument S. Paul delivered all he knew to S. Luke S. Luke writ all was delivered him therefore S. Paul knew all that was necessary to salvation S. Luke writ all was necessary to salvation To which I have already answered that though I should admit the Conclusion little would be advanced in order to our Question since we deny not but all may be containd in Scripture some way or other particularly or under general heads but that all is so contain'd as is necessary for the salvation of mankind to which effect we conceive certainty and to that evidence requisite neither of which are within the compass of naked words left without any guard to the violent and contrary storms of Criticism But I conceive you do the Saint wrong and understand the word all in a sence far different from what he did for having learnt from S. John so little a Book as S. Lukes could not hold truly all till you can prove he meant his Book for a rule of Faith and intended to deliver in it all things necessary to salvation I must beleeve 't is no ordinary violence that can force such a sence upon it as has neither a likely nor any ground but since your own profession and large citations shew both a confidence and esteem of Irenaeus give me leave with that serious earnestness which the concern of eternity for no less is in Question requires to presse your own words upon you and desire you to observe and impartially weigh the Truth while I represent the proceedings of Irenaeus to you and make you judge whether of us take part with the Father whether with his Adversaries The Error of the Valentinians was built upon certain obscure places of Scripture or rather indeed upon certain deceitful reasonings in Philosophy as your denial of Transubstantiation for example is and a denial even of the B. Trinity if you pleas'd might be but perceiving the Rules of Christianity did not allow that for a foundation of Faith they endeavoured to support the edifice by Scripture bragging no doubt among their followers it was clearly on their side but being press'd to a Tryal giving in evidence the obscure places mentioned Against this Irenaeus contends that Parables because capable of many Solutions are not to be relyed upon and consequently since only the true sense of Scripture is Scripture that Scripture is vainly pretended where the many sences leave us uncertain which is the true one Then examining the places for his side and shewing them both in clearness and number to over-ballance the other he overthrows their pretence and preserves the majesty of Scripture to his party The same do we to you who building most of your mistakes in Faith upon mistakes in Philosophy pretend plain Scripture and when it comes to tryal bring places capable of as many sences as the Valentinian parables were of solutions We answer as he did that there is no relying upon such places And examining those we conceive to be of our side and comparing them with yours both in clearness and number conclude your sences not true and Scripture not only not for you but against you Yet all this while neither he nor we think Scripture for this disputing out of it the only rule of Faith whether it be or no being not in these cases our question But since as the Valentinians did then you will now undertake to prove Scripture is against us and as Irenaeus then so we now acknowledge nothing is to be held against Scripture we do as he did shew you cannot make good your undertaking Next The Valentinians by the priviledg of their neerness to the Primitive times better acquainted with the grounds of faith then you would have justified their Interpretations by Tradition an evident proof what it was which those first Ages held the Interpreter of Scripture and that so undeniably that even Hereticks pretended to it What says Irenaeus to this Does he answer as you do that Tradition is not to be regarded but the cause to be decided by Scripture and that the only Rule by no means but carefully and diligently proves Tradition to be against them Which he also declares to be not what they pretended by abuse of those words Sapientiam loquimur inter perfectos whispering corner conveyances of one to another such as the Cabala you object to us but the open plain profession of those Churches to whom the Apostles left their doctrine and its practice and among which he conceives that of the Roman Church alone sufficient This publike Testimony as he so we lay claim to and profess with him would be sufficient even though there were no Scriptures at all which nevertheless since Gods infinite goodness has provided for us we do not understand the force of the former impaired by the addition of a new force But that belonging to another question give me leave to end the present one with this confidence that you cannot but see we follow the Fathers steps and you those who follow the Valentinians and that it appears by what hath been said your Minor neither is nor since you have failed in likelihood ever will be proved PART II. Tradition the Rule of Faith SECT I. ¶ 1 Certainty of Tradition ¶ 1. IN the third Dialogue the certainty of your Traditions having endeavoured to take away the certainty of Scripture I think in vain is endeavoured I was glad of the promise to do the work only by reason and common sence without any quotations of Authors because I want that vast knowledge in Antiquity which is requisite for the deciding of this Question by it but I see my hopes are frustrated for your cause neither is here nor can be proved by reason alone without that reading which yet I want The Reasons here or any other that may be managed without quotations of Authors I am ready to see and examine and as ready to subscribe unto if they convince me but I thinke it unreasonable for you to pretend to prove your Religion infallible and yet bring no positive Arguments that are of themselues sufficient to convince but only to stand upon your guard
one may somtimes seem the more proper is nothing to the purpose For besides that to offer plausibility to those who look after truth and can discern it is to go about to allay hunger with steam in stead of meat 't is agreed by all parties that many times the improper acception is the true one So by first-begotten in Mat. 1. we both understand only begotten which nevertheless are in rigour very different and 't is the same of many other and universally of all mystical places To apply all to our case can you deny but that he who sees the thing may be false does not see it is true and consequently that to accept it for truth is to wrong his nature Conformably to your Maxime in the 2d Part That no man must give assent without sufficient evidence Can you deny that amongst all the differing Sects of Christians there is any one which does not in whatever place of Scripture you urge against them find a sence favourable to themselves which they make the words tolerably bear Can the charity you claim suffer you to say there is no sincerity no wit but in your own party and deny there are amongst the Presbyterians Anabaptists Independents c. persons as sincere as your selves as desirous of truth who search and pray and yet differ if none of all this can be denied consider what a desperately wretched principle it is according to which there is no effectual means of truth provided not only for obstinate opposers but neither for earnest pursuers of it And since without the truths we speak of there is no salvation and they are not to be had without being seen to be truths and your principle will not let them be seen being applicable also to falshood 't is a plain case that according to it these men that is the most considerable part of mankind if not in number at least in value must be either Infidel or irrational either eternally miserable men or not men in their most important actions for certainly who acts against reason is so far not man but beast ¶ 6. I thinke Mr White p. 139. does but beat the air in requiring Gods written Word if it be to decide to proceed artificially or scientifically Let the Almighty have liberty to deliver himself as he please I think the learnedst and acutest have cause to blesse his Majestie that he will stoop to meanest capacities intending his Law for all that so the greatest if the mean may might more easily understand his oracles and pleasure that very thing Mr. White thinks wanting in Scripture to the making of it a sufficient Rule to decide St. Paul glories in as most suitable to the highness of divine mysteries which scorn rather then they will be beholden to the props of humane wit and invention 1 Cor. 2.1 2 3 4 5 6 7 c. I came not saith the Apostle to you with excellencie of speech or of wisdome declaring unto you the testimony of God my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of mans wisdome but in demonstration of the spirit and power that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God c. The demonstration of divine truths was given in plain language without humane arts though St. Paul had them yet all the Apostles were not so some being illiterate plain Fishermen as was their writing such was their preaching for we have some part of their discourses penn'd which were accomodated to vulgar capacities to whom they preached I ask whether they did not sufficiently demonstrate divine truths to their people in plain language if not then they did not leave the Gospel evident enough if they did then we have a sufficient demonstration of divine truths although the Bible be not written logically and its plainnesse hinders it not from being a sufficient Rule to decide or know truths ¶ 6. I do not find that Mr. White in the place you cite ties Almighty God to such strict conditions in saying no more then that writings penn'd according to the severity of science are more easily understood then such as are written loosely without connexion and this I think you deny not The second â—â—â—â—â—gue indeed out of this that the Scripture is not written in a method necessary to deliver a judging Law gathers it was not meant by God for such But this consequence you do not and I think the candid ingenuity you are Master of will not suffer you to oppose What you cite from the Apostle I cannot imagin which way you will draw to your assistance The whole place is expresly of preaching and speech writing not so much as once glanc'd at and how Scripture should be proved to be sole Judge of controversies from thence where 't is not either named or thought of I professe my sight is too short to discover your self seem to make use of it against your self when you say that if they did sufficiently demonstrate divine truths to their people in plain language then we have sufficient evidence of them True but not by the Bible for 't was not by writing but by preaching they taught the people and 't is by adhering to what they so taught that we also whom personally they did not teach come to have sufficient evidence of divine truth 〈◊〉 ¶ 7. I 〈…〉 that as Acts 2. c. and Acts 18.28 Apollos mightily convinced the Jews and that publiquely shewing by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ so that Scripture affords sufficient Arguments to prove even most material points sufficiently although obstinate opposers as the Jews are not silenced It will be an aggravation to their punishment that will not be convinced by Scripture evidence and I see not how it can deserve punishment if there be not evidence enough to convince ¶ 7. What you may urge out of the Acts know not what I can find of my self I am sure makes nothing against me For the example of Apollos no body doubts but arguments may be drawn out of Scripture with marvellous efficacy You know the Dialogues hold Catholicism may be victoriously evidenc'd to be more conformable to Scripture than Protestancy by arguments purely drawn from the Text without extrinsical helps and what they hold may be done against you I conceive was the very thing Apollos did against the Jews not that he pretended Scripture was the onely foundation of Faith The place will not be drawn to any such meaning and we know our Saviour tells the Jews his works give testimony of him and that they should beleive the works and not believe him without them Now I imagine that to this evidence of miracles when the Jews oppos'd the Authority of Scripture pretending those could not be the works of God which justified a Doctrine contradictory to the word of God Apollos took away this pretence by shewing his doctrine not onely not contradictory but much more conformable then theirs and this I apprehend was the
washing boul will ferry me over the Thames which Oars perhaps will hardly do to morrow Now since he that meets with no rubs seldom stumbles if the way be smooth and even every thing overcoms it if rugged or deep 't is not passed without much labour and difficulty And so the faithful who live in a deep peace need not that strength of certainty which is necessary for those who are assaulted by the outward wars of Heresie or intestine broils of Schism Observe then if you please what your witnesses to gain your cause should depose for you That Scripture taken for the words teaches the Church that is mankind the way to salvation so as not to need the assistance of Tradition or any other Interpreter to secure them against all possible assaults of all possible adversaries or taken for the sence that the sence of Scripture is so known by the bare words without the help of Tradition or other Interpreter that no subtlety or malice can weaken the certainty it gives of as much as is necessary for the salvation of mankind This is what they should say What they do let us now examine But first you tell us you receive not their Testimony as authoritative but embrace both their and any other as rational which is a peece of learning I should have been not sorry to have met in an Adversary I had desired to treat like one To you I can onely say your difference to those who mint such adulterate coin is much greater then the blind obedience with which we use to be reproached Of the two ways of moving assent Authority Reason the one is distinguished from the other in this that the first relies upon the credit of the Proposer whom if we be satisfied he is so wise as to know what he says and so good as not to say against what he knows 't is rational to beleeve and lay hold upon the truth he presents us which we see with his eyes not our own The second carries us by the evidence of truth it proposes barefaced and without any consideration of the Proposer in which way we rely upon our own eyes not another mans credit Wherefore if you will proceed the first way by Testimonies they are onely and so far valuable as their Author has authority and must be either authoritative or of no force at all If the second 't is impertinent to cite an Author for what is considerable onely in respect of what it is not in respect of him that said it for reasons have weight from their inward vertue and are neither greater in the mouth of Aristotle nor lesse in the mouth a Cobler Neither therefore can authoritative be separated from testimony nor rational joyned to it a rational Testimony in true English saying a Testimony which is not a Testimony but a reason Your 3 Paraph too has a very pretty distinction in these terms that the Church is is no infallible decider but a credible witness whereas these two are at least in our subject matter inseparable For since not infallible says fallible and fallible says that which may deceive and credible says what 't is rational to beleeve and nothing is more irrational then to beleeve what may deceive the beleever plainly if the Church be not infallible neither is she credible Besides her power of deciding in things of this nature is founded upon her power of witnessing she being therefore able to decide because she is able to witness what it was which Christ and his Apostles taught her and she has till now preserved in which if she can credibly that is infallibly witness she can also infallibly decide if her testimony be fallible she cannot be credible The rest of what you say till you come to the Testimonies themselvs although I do not allow yet I think not necessary to meddle with apprehending the concern of our dispute to be very independent of it But now St. Austin tells us non Catholicis Episcopis consentiendum est sicubi forte fallantur ut contra Canonicas Scripturas aliquid sentiant Very true and sure no body at least no Catholick Bishop ever pretended to be believed against Scripture that is its sence concerning which our contest is how t is known and to that the witness says nothing Again Ecclesiam suam demonstrent non in sermonibus c. sed in Canonicis librorum authoritatibus And utrum ipsi Ecclesiam teneant non nisi divinarum Scripturarum Canonicis libris ostendant Lastly non Audiamus haec dico sed haec dixit Dominus c. ibi quaeramus Ecclesiam c. In which three places he challenges his Adversaries to prove their cause by Scripture a course not onely commendable in him but practis'd dayly by us Several of our Books will witness for us we are so far from thinking our cause lost by Scripture that we know it infinitely superior even in that kind of tryal but what 's this to the purpose Because St. Austin then and we now know the advantage Scripture gives us above all our Adversaries does therefore either he or we think the bare words of it are our Rule of faith or that its sence needs no other means to be found out but the bare words These Sir are our onely Questions but not so much as thought on by the Judges you bring to decide them The place you bring from his Doct. Christ seems more to the purpose but yet comes not home it being violence to extend it farther then private Readers and these qualifi'd as he expresses with piety humility and fear of God pietate mansuetis as his words are de timentibus Deum piously meek and fearing God And of these t is also Mr. Whites opinion that the Scripture is plain enough to make them perfect beleeving Catholicks But that 't is able to contest with captious frowardness and those crooked dispositions which accompany Heresie or satisfie the nice sharpness of sincere but piercing wits or that the plainness he speaks of ought to bee understood with respect to the exigencies of the Church that is mankind which may be true in respect of such excellently dispos'd persons as he mentions are things however necessary yet not at all touched St. Hieroms authority is wider all it says being thus much that where there is but one authentick History extant of the Subject to be spoken of what is not found there has no sufficient ground to keep it from being unblamably rejected Which is his case for there is no authentick History of the actions of St. John Baptist but the Bible wherefore since they are no subject of Traditions they must either deny their ground from thence or have no ground at all Tertullians words are plainly changed for whereas you make him tye and as it were challenge Hereticks to defend their cause by Scripture his words are ut de Scripturis solis questiones suas sâ—stant That they may not defend but present or handle
that 's all Mr White doth a subtile Turk might the same way prove as well his false religion true PART II. SECT 1. ¶ 1. BEing now arrived at the second Part of your Discourse I find nothing in the first Paraph necessary to be taken notice of but the last words Viz. That 't is unreasonable to pretend to prove our Religion infallible and yet bring no positive Arguments c. In the first Branch of which saying you are not much amiss nothing being more unreasonable then that a Church which confessedly was once the true one should be put to prove she is now no false one when all the Maximes of common sence and proceedings of nature suppose her innocence till the contrary be not by surmises and probabilities but plainly and undeniably proved Whoever therefore says she has fail'd ought to prove it and not expect she should prove the impossibility of the contrary 'T is true the condescendence of charity has prevailed to undertake so unreasonable a Task here but not without protesting against the necessity of doing it as you see in the second Paraph of this Dialogue But the second is so injurious that had all men been of your temper perhaps it would have been well done to have stood wholly upon that sure guard you reproach Mr White withal and which the advantage of his cause gives him and never medled with positive Arguments which though unanswered and for ought I can imagin unanswerable since I do not beleeve any man can say more then you have done you would yet deny to be so much as Arguments That perswasion of yours too which thinks so much reading necessary to your Information I cannot allow of but because you produce no reason for it can oppose it no otherwise then by professing my dislike of it ¶ 2. In his first Encounter he gives a Compendium of the Argument page 8. Her doctrine is received from Christ and still handed along to the present time Suppose I say for example in the eighth Age an Error crept in Hee 'l reply it entred not in because that Age held nothing was to be admitted as of Faith except that was delivered to it by the former therefore seeing that was then first beleeved it was not delivered by the former therefore not received I answer no new opinion when first it creeps up is entertaind by any as a new thing which was not before but as forgotten or not discern'd or lost before do you think the Arians lookt upon their Doctrine as new which was never beleeved before or that was contrary to what the Apostles taught If they did they would hav◠cast off all Christianity and held nothing with the Orthodox Mr White brings in our Objection The Church did not stand upon that same traditional ground formerly as Rome now He replys If this principle did not always govern the Church it was introduced in some Age the eighth for example either says he against this the Church had assurance in that eighth Age all she held was descended lineally as we speak from the Apostles or not if she had then questionless she held her Doctrine upon that Maxime If not then she wilfully belied and damned c. voluntarily taking up this new c. Is this the Demonstration ¶ 2. Your stating and opposing Mr Whites Argument making me suspect you did not yet perfectly comprehend it I beg leave to put you in mind there are two things he endeavours to prove 1. That if the Church always rely'd upon the Maxime of immediate delivery she could admit no error into her Faith 2. That she did always rely upon that Maxime The first he proves thus if an Error came in it came in at some time let that time be the eighth Age and if the Church then admitted nothing but what she had received and this she had not received for you put it then first to come in she did not admit it then nor by the same evidence could admit any error in any age To the second we shall speak in the fourth Paraph to this you answer no new opinion is entertain'd as a new thing which was not before but as forgotten or not discern'd or lost before An Answer which I dare not profess a perfect comprehension of not seeing to which of the premises 't is directly oppos'd by a plain grant denial or distinction one of which ought always to keep company with every answer but conceive the force of the Argument is not any thing empair'd by it for let it be entertain'd as lost as forgotten or how you will so it were not immediatly delivered either the Rule must be broken or it could not be entertain'd And this I think evident even by your very termes for if it were entertain'd as forgotten then 't was entertain'd as a thing which some former Age forgot to deliver then some former Age did not deliver it then if nothing were entertain'd but what was delivered pray how could this find entertainment To your question of the Arians I answer 't is very likely the Ringleaders among them perswaded their followers such fine things as you say That their doctrine was not new c. but nothing could blinde them so far as not to see 't was not taught them by their immediate forefathers And though conceit of Arius's vertue and learning prevail'd with the more ignorant as ambition and interest with the more subtle not to value and to desert this Rule yet 't was impossible they should be ignorant that they did desert it They would then have cast off all Christianity say you and truly the experience of my own Countrey makes me believe they would had they continued unopposed long enough to have pursued their principle whether it would have led them But nature endures not an immediate passage from one extreme to another a consideration which being touched before I now say no more to and passe to your next difficultie which by your acknowledging is brought in by Mr. Whites objection I perceive is levelled against the second not the first Conclusion our businesse now therefore is to examine whether the Church has always adhered to this maxime there being no dispute but that if she hath she could not admit of any Error in her Faith ¶ 3. This I am sure of that either I do understand nothing of it or there 's no force in it By assurance I suppose he means not absolute certainty if he do the second horn of the Dilemma upon which we fall does us no hurt I conceive he means thought if the eighth Age thought all she held was descended lineally from the Apostles then she held her Doctrine upon that Maxim But she thought all she held was descended lineally from the Apostles is not that the Minor to be supplied if we turn the first part into a Catagorical Syllogism therefore she held her Doctrine upon that Maxim This I think is the Conclusion for I do not clearly discern
destroys all possibility either of advance in your self or success in the pains which are taken for you for what more can be done then to deliver a truth with that plainness that no reason can be found out to encounter it But quotations are necessary to make up Mr. Whites proof if it were so eternal happiness might well deserve a little labour but must Authors be quoted to shew that if the corruption be taken notice of it could not come in unawares and if not unawares then openly and this either by reason which is to change the natures of truth and falshood or force which to overcome the extent of the Church and continue so many ages as is necessary to the plantation of Errors of this importance nature without looking into Books tells us the impossibility of The Argument you make in the last place I beseech you make against your self and since 't is in a matter of no lesse concern then eternal either happiness or misery make it faithfully Consider that if not to act no reason is requisite to act there must be reason you have acted and though not actually begun a separation yet actually follow and adhere to those who did begin it and do continue it This action in a case of such importance as Sâ—â—ism requires such reason as is fit for salvation to depend on Examine therefore your reasons but severely and so as your Conscience be willing and secure to own them at that Judgment where the sentence is eternity and if you find them to have neer the force of those of ours which you say have no force I shall think either your judgment strangely byassed or mine strangely blind This to you but to a Pagan I acknowledg he is not to be put upon the proof you may if you please for your experience reflect what yourself would say to one and see whether you can say any thing stronger to him then we do to you if your thoughts be faithful to you I doubt what you deny reason against your self must either be reason against him or you will have much ado to keep your Arguments from being unreasonable I have had some proof of this in a Divine of yours famous and I think deservedly as any of your side whose discourse upon this Theam makes experience joyn with my reason to strengthen the confidence I have of the truth of what I say ¶ 8. I cannot see how you that take away the distinction of Fundamental and a non-Fundamental in points of faith can evade that of the Quartadecimans proving the chief part of Christians to have been mistaken in this Traditional way holding by it contradictions while each part pretends this title and so shews it not an infallible way to say it was a small point received in some Churches In answer to the gradual receiving of the Cannon you confess one Province may have sufficient evidence of that one truth which from it must be spread over the rest of the Church I think those things which I have written prove not only your way not only fallible but false in many points Several other things I have observed in Mr. White which do not satisfie me but because I want those Authors necessary to make my Objections cleer I chuse rather to be silent in them then not to speak to purpose Had I time to write these over again I might make what I say cleerer but I doubt not but your ingenuity will discerne my meaning and according to promise grant me a candid answer which I shall gratefully embrace and if convincing as readily acknowledge In the mean while I rest Yours to serve you in what I may ¶ 8. As for your distinction of fundamental and not fundamental in points of faith the words possibly may be taken in such a sence that it may be tolerable but if by fundamental you mean necessary this being plainly a relative word it ought to be expressed to whom they are necessary if you say to mankind 't is evident no point is not-fundamental since so God would have taught us what is unnecessary that is done a needless action if to a single man then they can never be assigned since they vary according to the several exigencies of several persons The instance of the Quartadecimans being I conceive fully answered by Mr. White p. 44. I have no more to do after I have referred you thither where you will find the point it self was no subject of Tradition but a practise which according to the different circumstances of different places was by the wisdom of the Apostles who saw what was convenient for the time and place they lived in practised differently and afterwards by the wisdom of the Church those circumstances ceasing reduced to an Uniformity For the rest I hope what I have written will satisfie you that neither falsity nor fallibility of Mr. Whites way appears in your Exceptions It had been easie and perhaps necessary had the piece been intended for more then your self to have woven it something closer but a sight that pierces so far into the bracks of an Argument can be no less sharp in discovering its fastness and I think your eye too strong to need spectacles or glasses or whatever helps are invented for weaker Organs I am onely to make Apologie for the delay of this Reply occasioned by a little business and a great deal of sickness and to profess that if this Answer be not such a one as you desire 't is the mis-fortune of many a good cause to suffer by the badness of its Advocates Your very Humble Servant J. B. FINIS