against Hereticks who had rejected the Authority of the Church even the Council of Trent does so another to say they had no firmer Ground for their Faith but their own private Iudgments of it's sense T is one thing to give it high Commendations for it's Excellency Divine Doctrin Usefulness and Sufficiency for the Ends for which it was Ordained by God 'T is another to say that in those places which relate to Spiritual Points and high Mysteries of our Faith it is so clear that private Fancies can with Absolute Certainty fix upon it's true sense and on that Ground their Faith. T is one thing to say sometimes 't is Plain and Evident when they are Arguing against Hereticks this is a thing not unusual even among us when we are disputing and have an opinion that what we alledge is manifest and those Fathers or Councils which insisted on it had good reason to have that opinion of what they alledg'd having the Doctrin of Faith Scripture's best Interpreter in their hearts Besides when there is full assurance of it's sense who doubts but it is of a vast Authority too being in that case the same as if the Apostle or Christ himself were there and spoke his Mind in the Point under debate Whence they confuted Hereticks with defining from Scripture upon the assurance that they had the true sense of it another Way than the Heretick had by his private Interpretations But 't is another thing to say that as manag'd by Private Judgments working on the bare Letter or relying on Fallible Interpreters it is so unavoidably convictive beyond all possibility of giving it another plausible sense that all Mankind must think him a Renouncer of the clear Light of Reason or stark blind with Passion and Interest and abhorr him as such who shall interpret it after another manner And such the Rule of Faith must be otherwise none could with Conscience think or say any Heretick is obstinate nor any man no not the Church it self condemn him much less abhorr him for being such as was ever her Custome All the former Perfections we as heartily fully and constantly ascribe to Scripture as any Protestant in the world nay we say moreover that this want of Clearness which unqualifies it for being a Rule springs from a very high perfection in it viz. It 's deep Sense onely this one of giving every particular man who by his private Judgment Interprets it such assurance of its sense as is competent to Ground his Faith on we cannot grant this being no less contrary to common Reason than 't is even to Experience also To return then to your Objection You see Sect. 10. that the Antient Fathers were not such Strangers to this Method of Tradition we follow and explicate And you might have observ'd many others both nam'd and cited Surefooting p. 131. to 137. What matters it that they did not express That our Tenet or Dilate upon it in such Terms as we do now so they taught others to hold to what was deliver'd and not to rely on their own private Interpretations of Scripture against the present Churches Doctrin Since in doing this they held the substance of that which we have since more diffusely explain'd and reduc't our Discourses to more Methodical and Formal Resolutions of Faith which were not so much in fashion in former Ages Besides you are not to be told we both have could alledge Fathers enow for our Tenet and the Obligation to hold to the Doctrin deliver'd from Fathers that is to Tradition and how smartly and unanswerably they prest it against Hereticks as a certain Determiner of the Controversies between the Catholicks and Them. On the other side how often they complain'd of the Vncertainty of the Scripture interpreted by private Men as Grounding all Heresies by reason of the mysterious Obscurity of the Letter and its liableness to be misinterpreted and misunderstood Whereas it was never heard that the Rule of Tradition taken in the sense in which we hold it viz. for a Delivery of a Practical Doctrin publickly preach't to great multitudes at first practised by them and held and recommended as Divine and the way to Salvation did ever give rise to any Heresy and impossible it should Which one Reflexion to a Considerate Man is sufficient to conclude the whole present Controversy about the Rule of Faith. 30. From the Qualities requisit to make Scripture's Letter a Rule of your Faith we come to consider the Quantity it ought to have or the Number of Books which you tell us p. 19. Mr. M. suggested In order to which I have onely two things to ask you 1. Whether as I said formerly you have any unanimous Consent of the Christian Church that there was never a Book lost that was writ by some who were Divinely inspir'd and consequently did contain some Divine Revelations Or if you cannot prove but there was how do you know but those Divine Revelations which that Book or Books contain'd were not different from or to be superadded to those contain'd in the Canon we have now If you cannot prove these two Points then 't is manifest you cannot prove with Absolute Certainty that the Books Wee have now contain'd all the Divine Revelations 2. You insist onely on this Universal Testimony for the Canonical Books of the New Testament but I would know whether this Testimony reaches to each Chapter and every Verse of those Chapters nay each material Word in those Verses If it does not as you neither say nor with any Reason can say for 't is hard to prove the former impossible to prove the later but by our Rule then you are as far from your Faith as ever unless you bring some other Testimony that is Absolutely Certain to assure you that such and such a Verse which you would quote and rely on for such and such a Point of Faith nay the main and most significant Word in that Verse is true Scripture which I am sure you cannot For what Testimony else can be invented to do this if the other which was of the whole Christian Church cannot reach it Is there any possible way to ascertain this but by our Doctrin-Rule Upon this occasion pray inform me with what reason you could reflect so severely pag. 15. on the Church of Rome for not receiving the Epistle to the Hebrews in St. Hierom's Time assoon as other Churches and not on the Greek Churches which you use to prefer before the Latin who in the same Father's time refus'd to admit the Apocalypse The accepting or not accepting such Books even according to your own Doctrin depended on their being satisfied of the Evidence produced for their Apostolical Authority and so was an Act of Prudence antecedent to the Judgment or Determination of any Church whether Greek or Latin. But so unreasonable is your pique against the Church of Rome that she cannot act prudently without forfeiting her Infallibility Tho' another man would have
a Favour But let us see what is to be meant by an Infallible Iudge for you do not particularize your acception of those words nor let your Reader see what Judge how or for what reason we hold him Infallible 45. If you mean by Iudge an Authoritative Decider of Controversies about Faith as was said above and that which is what we hold his verdict is Infallible by proceeding upon an Infallible Rule you must either pretend the Christian Church never permitted Church-Governours to exercise their Authority in deciding matters of Faith or else that it never held they had an Infallible Rule to go by And I believe your utmost attempts will fall so far short of producing any such Consent of Universal Tradition for either that it will be directly against you in both and you must have a strange opinion of the Decrees of General Councils in such cases if you apprehend they held either of those self-condemning Tenets And yet I cannot tell but I have made my self too large a Promise concerning this Universal Consent of all Christian Churches being for us or not against us in this particular For I remember now that when you were to state the Notion of Tradition you took in the Consent of all former Hereticks to make your Tradition for Scripture larger and firmer than ours is against you and to make your Argument stronger by their concurrent Testimony and I see a glimmering light already which will grow very clear ere long you take in the same infamous Gang to bear witness against our Infallibility And what a case is the Catholick Church in then We can never expect those obstinate Revolters from that Church or those Churches which were then in Communion with Rome will ever acknowledge the Governours had a just Authority to declare against them as Hereticks for they were all of them to a man true-blew Sober Enquirers or that those Governours proceeded upon an Infallible Rule for this were to cut their own throats and acknowledge themselves Hereticks a mortification not to be submitted to by much contumacious spirits Now all these by your Principles are to be accounted Christian Churches and are call'd so very currently and very frequently by you p. 24. 25. 26. and in many other places without any distinction at all And so we are reduc'd to a very pretty condition according to the admirable mould in which you have new-cast the Church For unless all those Hereticks of old any Lutherans Calvinists and all the inferiour Subdivisions of Faith Reformers vouchsafe to give their concurrent Testimony to the Infallibility of the Roman Catholick Church which condemn'd them all and as appears by the Council of Trent throughout by the same Rule of Tradition she is to have no Infallibility at all allow'd her her old Rule too is condemn'd by them for a False Light because it condemn'd them and their New-Light nor consequently can she be an Infallible Iudge in Faith-Controversies This is a very hard Law Yet your severe Discourses allow us no better quarter You alledge that the Eastern Churches utterly deny the Roman Churche's Infalliblely tho' they be of very different denominations You mean I suppose amongst the rest the Nestorians Eutychians and such kind of good folks And can you without blushing avail your self of such concurrent Testimonies against the Body communicating with the Roman and her Infallible Rule whose Ancestors were condemn'd by that very Body to which the present Roman-Catholick Church uninterruptedly succeeds and were cast out of the Church for receding from the Christian Doctrine held even then upon that very Rule 46. But what have we to do with any of your pretended Christian Churches whether Eastern or not-Eastern Modern or Antient many or few Or what have you to do with them either if you would as becomes a Controvertist speak home to us You know already we place the Infallibility of our Church in delivering defining and Iudging of Faith-Controversies in the Absolutely Certain Rule of Tradition All therefore that have adher'd to Tradition as their Rule must allow to Her this Inerrableness while she adheres to it else they must condemn themselves And those pretended Churches which have deserted Tradition can never for many reasons be of any competent Authority against the Roman-Catholick For having no Certain Rule they can have no sure Ground of what they believe or alledge against her And besides being her Enemies and condemn'd by her and that by vertue of this very Rule they carp at common Equity tells every man 't is not a pin matter what such men say of that Rule or that Church either whether those men live East West North or South I perceive by your far-stretcht words here p. 31. All the Churches of the Christian World All the Eastern Churches tho' of very different denominations that you imagin the force of an Authority depends meerly on the Number of the Witnesses whereas we make account it depends much more on their Weight that is on their Knowledge and on their Sincerity or Indifferency of their Wills as to the Person or Affair concerning which they are to witness And Fallible Congregations which are both Out-casts and Enemies have for each of those regards no weight at all 47. You have another Fetch yet left to prejudice the Reader against our Tenet For you often make mention of our Infallibility the Roman or the Roman Churches Infallibility and as appears p. 15. and 16 of the Infallibility of the Particular Church of Rome whereas the Question and our true Tenet is of those many particular Churches communicating with the Roman so that you seem desirous to convince us you are resolv'd never to speak to any point sincerely or represent it ingenuously For this sleight tho' it seems trivial insinuates into your Readers that we hold the very Spot of Rome is the precise and adequate mold in which Infallibility is cast Please then to remember and pray let it be the last time we tell you of it that it is her following the self-evidently certain Rule of Tradition in which as a Controvertist I do in this Dispute place her Infallibility That being thus absolutely Certain of her Faith we can prove she is qualify'd to be an Infallible Iudge of Faith. That every Bishop is a Iudge of Faith-Controversies in proportion to his Sphere and the Highest Bishop above them all but still the last resort or Test of their final obliging to Belief for any one may oblige his Diocesans to Silence for Peace's sake is with reference to the Body of the Church and the Infallibility of the Church is refunded into the Certainty of her Rule and there it rests Hence conscious to your selves of the want of such an Infallible Rule you dare pretend to no Infallible Iudge but are forc't to leave every particular man to his private Iudgment of Discretion tho' you experience it shatters your Church no better principled into thousands of Sects In a word
be Answering for all that 'T is his Interest to do it solidly for he has all the World who in their Disputes follow the contrary Method to confute His main reason to prove that Arguing is a good way to Answer is because the Argument attempts to prove a thing Impossible and that 't is contrary to Sense and Experience to say the Latin and Greek Churches do not differ in what they receive upon Tradition and so the same Answer that Diogenes gave to Zeno's Argument against Motion by Walking will serve the turn Let 's examin this parallel in which consists the substance of his Defence of his bad Logick Does all the World see that the Generality of the Greek Church proceed upon Tradition in what they differ from the Latin as certainly and evidently as they see there is Motion Have not I produc't in my First Catholick Letter p. 35. reasons enow to shew him how disputable this point is none of which he so much as mentions Did not I there p. 13. quote him out of his own book Peter Lombard saying that the Difference between the Greeks and Latins is in Words and not in Sense Nay Thomas a Iesu Azorius c. who were of the same Judgment And could not these Learned men see a thing manifest to Sense and Experience Our point then is nothing like that of denying Motion nor is it contrary to Sense and Experience but such as bears a Dispute amongst intelligent Men and Great Schollars and therefore even by the Drs own Discourse an Argument or Instance brought against the Conclusion was no Answer to the Premises of the Argument brought by Mr. G. and so all the Division he runs upon it here is perfectly frivolous Nor was Mr G. oblig'd either to grant or deny the Greek Church had Err'd but was to insist on an Answer to his Argument because the Dr had playd foul play in attacking his Conclusion when he was to answer his Proof which if admitted no Discourse could possibly proceed For let us suppose Dr. St. had been to argue and had brought this Instance of the Greek Church would he have thought it fair that Mr G. when he was to answer it should have brought the Argument he made use of in the Conference and have bid him prove that two Churches following Tradition differ'd in Faith notwithstanding his Demonstration that they could not Or would it be held a competent Answer to his late Book against the Council of Trent to bid him prove it had not follow'd Tradition notwithstanding all that a multitude of Learned Catholick Authors had writ to the contrary I took heart then indeed as he says seeing the Dr so Nonplust but 't is his own fiction that I resolv'd to grapple with his Instance it being impertinent to do it in those circumstances and so he may thank himself if he were disappointed I was ty'd to the known Laws of Dispute and not bound to dance after his Pipe when he strays from all the Clearest Methods of Reasoning I objected that himself had defended the Greek Church from Erring in his Rational Account which spoils his own Instance of a Church going upon Tradition and Erring He calls this Trifling and says the Dispute was about Mr G 's Argument Yes but these words were not brought to abet his Agreement but expressly to shew the Drs Inconsonancy to himself and his Unconscienciousness in arguing from the Greek Churches Erring whereas it was his Opinion it did not Err. And tho' Mr G's Answer may be pretended not to be so pat to the particular Demand yet it was apposit to the main Point that no Church did at once adhere to Tradition and Err at the same time For which I gave my reason because if each Successive Generation follow'd their Fathers Tradition from the beginning the last Son must believe as the first did This was too hot to handle and so 't is answer'd with Good Night to the Greek Church which is Learned beyond expression Lastly upon my saying He might as well have instanc't in the Latin Church it self without running so far as Greece he takes hence an occasion to accept of the Challenge tho' it did not look like one being only spoke occasionally and threatens us not with a bare instance but a whole Book against us He may use his pleasure tho' I must tell him it looks but cowardly to threaten when he 's running away from his business undertaken and not yet perform'd and leaving the Absolute Certainty of his poor destitute Faith in the suds One would think it had been the more Compendious Way to overthrow our Cause to answer five or six lines if he could have done it But he had a mind to be at another Work more suitable to his Quoting Genius and hop'd to draw us after him from a Conclusive and short way of Discoursing to an Endless one of answering every frivolous misunderstood or misapply'd Citation 71. But now he will shew us how 't is Possible to adhere to Tradition yet err A hard Task if apply'd to our business For since to adhere to Tradition is still to believe what was deliver'd to shew that those who adhere to Tradition do err is to shew that they who still believ'd the same Christ taught did not believe the same Christ taught A Point so Evident that his Reflecter could not but grant it Yet let the Dr alone I dare hold a good wager on his side that he can by his confuting Method his Logick prove direct Contradictions to be True without any difficulty or as he calls it here with an Easy Distinction He begins with two Senses of Adhering to Tradition One of adhering to it as the Rule and Means of conveying matters of Faith. The other for adhering to the very Doctrin taught at first and truely convey'd down since by Tradition That is there are two sorts of Tradition or Delivery One is Tradition the Other is not Tradition or Delivery but the Points deliver'd Parallel to this is his Distinction of Traditionary Christians To what purpose is it to talk Sense to a man who is resolv'd to run still so wildly into Nonsense Do but see good Reader with what care I had forestall'd this very Absurd Distinction in my Third Catholick Letter p. 4.5.9.12 and shew'd how he had deform'd Tradition into all the untoward Senses man's wit could invent by making it now signify Articles now Power now Points deliver'd yet to convince the World that he cannot or rather must not speak Sense he 's at the same work again as briskly as ever And good reason Contradictions are better Friends to him than Principles for nothing more confounds the Reader which is all he looks after and to confound him with a shew of Distinguishing which Nature intended for a way to clear things does it with a better grace The same work he makes with the word Traditionary and tho' he were told what
weakly and insincerely objected Lastly he tells us that if Divine Faith fixes not on the Infallibility of Tradition then we may have Divine Faith without it Yes by his Enthusiastick Principles but not by Connatural ways since himself must acknowledge that neither the Letter nor Sense of Scripture is Absolutely Certain without it 79. It would be very pleasant to see how this Gallant Caviller would prove St. Paul a Pelagian Heretick That Blessed Apostle affirm'd that Fides per auditum Faith comes to our knowledge by Hearing For the Certainty of the Primitive Faith was resolv'd into the Certainty of the Senses as the Means to come to the first knowledge of the Doctrin and of That Sense more particularly because Preaching was the Way of instilling Faith then Now comes Dr St. and having pray'd I suppose for Wisdom before-hand tells that Holy Apostle that Divine Faith must have Infallible Grounds but that the Certainty of the Senses is meerly Natural That he runs from Divine Motives to Humane ones He asks him smartly what Infallible Ground is there for this Divine Faith and where it fixes If not on the Certainty of the Senses then we may have Divine Faith without them If it does fix on their Certainty then Divine Faith is to be resolv'd into Naturall Means And what is this but Pelagianism Thus the stupendiously Learned and more then supernaturally Enlighten'd Dean of St. Pauls has clearly prov'd St. Paul himself an arrant Pelagian But if St. Paul should answer as I do that he spoke not of Divine Faith or the Doctrin of it as in it self or as 't is formally supernatural but only of Divine Faith as standing under Natural Means for us to come to know it then it would follow that it would require higher Grounds to be resolv'd into as 't is Divine yet for all that that he could have no Faith at all nor certainty of it unless by Miracle but by virtue of these Natural Means to give him knowledge of it But our Verball Controvertist never reflects that there may be divers Resolutions made of Faith as 't is controverted according to the nature or exigency of the Dispute Against a Deist that holds it not Divine it is to be resolv'd into the Divine Authority and this must be shewn to be engag'd for it by those Motives of Credibility which prove it to be such But this is quite besides our present Dispute since both parties grant it and consequently all his Discourse here is quite besides the purpose 80. I doubt not but the Dr would have had another fling at St. Paul for Pelagianism in case he would not allow that a Pious Disposition of the Will did make the verdict of the Sense of Hearing Certain and piece out the Deafishness of the Auditours when that Sense had some Imperfection as he does here by making me a Pelagian for saying the Will 's Assistance cannot make an Argument if it be defective Especially should we both say that Dr St's Moral Qualifications Purity of Heart Humility of Mind and Prayer for Wisdom would not make a deaf Ear hear well or a bad Argument conclude For both our cases are perfectly Parallel since we both speak of the Way to come at the Knowledge of Divine Faith. But his Logick I see would have his Readers when an Argument drawn from meer Nature is propos'd which is short of Concluding let it be in Physicks Metaphysicks or what he will for it alters not our case shake their heads very piously and answer Truly Sir tho' I see your Reason does not conclude or satisfy my Understanding that the thing you would prove is True yet out of a Pious Inclination to the Cause I will call in my Wills Assistance and out of pure Goodness think it does conclude and that the Thing is for all that really True. I would wish him by all means to maintain still that 't is Pelagianism to deny that the Inconclusiveness of an Argument is supply'd by the kind-heartedness of the Will. Nothing in the World but this can justify all his Insignificant Proofs make them pass for valid good ones 'T is ridiculous he says to alledge that I resolve all into Christ's and the Apostles Teaching Why Is it not agreed on between us that Christ is God and his Doctrine Divine And is not this to bring us to Divine Faith if we prove it to be His Doctrine Or is it not enough for our purpose when 't is confess'd on both sides that Christ's Doctrine is Divine Why is it then ridiculous to profess we do this Because Caelestius Pelagius did the very same And so I must be a Pelagian still that 's resolv'd on Those Hereticks did indeed pretend their Heresies were Christ's Doctrin But this is no particularity in Them for every Heretick since Christ's time did the same else they had not been Hereticks but Pagans Iews Turks or Deists But we go no further upon this Principle than they did Why Did they ever alledge that the Tradition or Immediate Testimony of the Body of the Church deliver'd down their Doctrin for Christ's Or durst they disgrace themselves by going about to avail themselves of such an open and Notorious Lye This he should have prov'd solidly and clearly But instead of proving it he barely says it and who will at this time of day believe his word And yet if he does not this every sincere Reader must see that he has sacrific'd his sincerity to his spite against Catholicks and judges Slander and Calumny no Sin. Observe here by the way his consistency with himself In his Second Letter to Mr G. p. 9. he affirm'd that we resolv'd All into meer Humane Faith and here he confesses we resolve all into Christ's and his Apostles Teaching Had not I then good reason to ask him if Christ was a meer Man it falling in so Naturally Yet he is mighty angry at those words and says he gave no occasion for them and imputes it to Malice I do assure him that I us'd those words to shew that by resolving All into Christ's Teaching I resolv'd Faith finally into what is confessedly Divine Why he should take it so to heart or apply it to himself when it was not in the least intended his conscience best knows However it puts him to make a Profession of his Faith in that point which I heartily pray may be sincere 82. The last point which he thinks fit to take notice of omitting by his favour many which were more concerning is that the Council of Trent disowns a power of making Implicit Articles of Faith contain'd in Scripture to become Explicit by its Explaining the Sense of them He proves this Because the Church of Rome doth not pretend to make New Articles of Faith whereas to make Implicit Doctrines to become Explicit is really so to do This a little varies from what he said in his Second Letter nor can I find a
held whence they could need no Proof to us and if they needed any to others it was certainly our proper Duty not theirs to produce them Many when they are hard put to it have wav'd the consideration of Shame but 't is a sad thing utterly to renounce Common Sence too Yet what is it you will not do What absurd pretences not lay hold of rather than be brought to this odious and dangerous thing call'd Proving You reflect out your Paragraph with the H. Scripture the good men who penn'd it with the Primitive Church and Primitive Creeds and the Council of Trent and this you call Reflecting on my Letter 16. Yet you set a good face on 't at pâ—râ—ing and tell us You decline no Proof that is incumbent on you as if it were not incumbent on you to prove what you say You add That we see by this time as if there were any thing to be seen in all your Reflections but that they decline all Proof and that with the most aukward shifts in the World as Because the Council of Trent had made a Declaration concerning Grace p. 3. Because a Minister is as good a man as a Priest p. 4. Because the Infallibility and Authority of the Church of Rome might run a risque p. 5. Because Catholicks and Protestants hit it not about Judgment of Discretion Ibid. Because Dr. Tillotson is an Excellent man p. 6. Because we will not dispense with the word Absolute which was Dr. St's but will needs take it in its natural sense and not admit of your no-sense of it Ibid. These and many other such weighty Reflections have been our chief entertainment and yet your scrupulous Modesty has the Confidence to say you decline no Proof that is incumbent on you when you have incumb'd all the while if that be the word on nothing but throwing out Baits to draw us from your incumbent Proof to other matters You talk indeed of Proof at last and that which you say of it is That you prove when you prove Moreover you blame me for desiring Proof of two things more whereof One is the very thing your selves have made the point to be prov'd and the other I never desir'd you to prove at all With this stuff you face it out that You prove Scripture to be the Word of God which if one should put you to it you cannot and every Article of your Faith by the Scripture common words which every Heretick may and does use when I have been all this while solliciting with all the earnestness I can to know which way you can prove any Article with Absolute Certainty by Scripture and you will not tell me and I am sure cannot Though you have the Confidence to say you do it yet every body may perceive you know you cannot For your very next words are Thus we prove we have sufficient Certainty of our whole Faith which is to say You decline Dr. St's Absolute Certainty nor know of any way to prove more than sufficient Certainty And this sufficient Certainty of yours may be no-Certainty For there goes no more to make a thing sufficient than to make a man content with it A Yard of Cloth will make a sufficient Garment for him who is content to go half naked and a Table without Meat is a sufficient Meal for him who is contented to fast And so as long as you can prevail with your Protestants to be content without Certainty you can prove they have Certainty abundantly Sufficient because no-Certainty will suffice Marry if they will insist upon having at least this Sufficient Certainty which you promise I know not how you will do without Weights and Scales to weigh out your Certainty according to several mens Exigencies and make down-weight Sufficient except they will take your word for you have no more to give them even for so much But for Absolute True Certainty the only Certainty of which Dr. Stillingfleet spake and I demanded Proof They must absolutely excuse you Poor Protestants to be thus us'd That Empty Words and solemn Outsides and Confident Noise should be offer'd to them for Truth and which is more deplorable pass upon them That they should not yet perceive they are but the Stratagems of those no-principled men who impose on them and secretly laugh at them for their Easiness and yet reflect not that they must answer one day with their souls for suffering themselves to be so impos'd upon 17. From your Proving Talent you pass to your Answering Talent and will try to answer a Discourse of mine in which there are but Five Propositions The First God has left us some way to know surely what Christ and his Apostles taught This you grant to be a Certain Truth and so there is one step of our Journey made I think you grant the second too not that you positively say I or No for that is too precise dull a Method for a Man of your parts But as Plain Truth seems always ridiculous to you you laugh at it for a foolish Inference because 't is so visibly in the Antecedent You are not aware I perceive that your Raillery is Complement To be contain'd in the Antecedent which you make the Fault is the Praise of an Inference without which it would indeed be good for nothing or rather not be at all For which way can an Inference be drawn from an Antecedent in which it was not to be drawn Would you have us draw Wine out of an empty Cask or Beer out of a Jarr of Oyl Again the more we know the thing is where we would draw it the surer our Draught But you seem to be so little acquainted with Antecedents Inferences that 't is no wonder by making them your sport you make your self the sport of those who do understand them In the mean time your laughing is owning that the Inference is contain'd in the Antecedent and therefore Certain as you before own'd the Antecedent was And so we are another step onwards and might so forwards without stopping longer if you could have let my Proposition alone But you must needs be wording on 't your own way to shew that either you did not understand it or that you had a mind to inform us how neatly and dexterously you could change and pervert words as well as Answer My Words were Therefore this way must be such that they who take it shall arrive by it at the End it was intended for that is know surely what Christ and his Apostles taught Your Words which you pretend equivalent to mine are these If God has left us a Way to know then by that Way we may know Pray Sir do You take my sence or say what I do Is shall know and may know all one I say that they who take the Way left by God shall that is cannot chuse but know as he cannot chuse but draw a straight Line who draws it by a straight
most wicked Falsification so you close it up here with a double one and those too of so large a size that were they True they had carry'd all before them Your intermediate Endeavours are many of them of the same kind the rest Mistakes and generally wilful ones which I thought at first to have reckon'd up but they thicken'd so upon me that I saw it would be tedious to count them and so gave it over But your excuse for this insincere Carriage is That you do no more than all Writers use to do who have had the bad luck to defend an ill Cause and come to be prest with Close Truth All they can do when they are not able to give a good acount of themselves is to bend all their study and seek about for shifts how they may give no account And the D. of P. and you are of this prudent Generation I say once again 'T is your Chief Study how to shift and long Study of any thing with frequent practice makes a man Excellent at it every man loves most to do that he is Excellent at and so we are to expect it To convince the Reader whether I wrong you or no Put you your Arguments for the Absolute Certainty of your Rule in conveying to us Christ's Sense and for your following it as close and home as you can possibly and see whether I do not answer it directly fairly squarely without any of these shifting Excursions or Falsifications And let our different Carriage be the Test to distinguish the candid Asserters of Truth from the Insincere Abetters of Errour 53. After I had shew'd that Scripture privately interpreted could not be a Rule of Faith the nature and method of our Dispute led me into an Enquiry what was in reality your Rule as you are such a kind of Protestant and to this End I discours't thus That Scripture was a Generical Rule common to you and all Heresies in the world and That your Specifical Rule must be as my self and those of my Iudgment understand or interpret it And can there be any thing more Evident Do not they all strive to lay claim to the Letter of Scripture for their Rule as well as you Do not they all as much as you rely upon it and avail themselves by quoting it still and endeavouring to shew it favourable to their respective Tenets Plain Experience informs us and every one they all do this and that too with an ardour and earnestness equal to yours as far as we can discern In this then you all agree and therefore 't is beyond all dispute Scripture is your Common or Generical Rule if we may believe your Carriage and Profession Now let 's see what 't is you disagree in And 't is manifest you disagree in the Sense of Scripture otherwise the Sense of Scripture being God's Sense or your Faith you would be of the same Faith which cannot be pretended since you contradict them and they You in matters belonging to Faith and What 's the Way to arrive at the Sense of Scripture Certainly the Interpreting it for Interpretation signifies in proper speech the Giving or Assigning to Words their sense and do not you accept that Sense of Scripture for your Faith which your Private Judgment interpreting it conceives to be truly its meaning and they in like manner as they apprehend it ought to be interpreted Is it not for this very end you so cry up your Judgment of Discretion and that you are not to submit to the Decrees of Councils or Consent of Fathers farther than you conceive them agreeable to the Word of God Does not Dr. St. profess openly that his sober Enquirer may understand the Explicit Sense of Implicit Points that are Doubtful such as all main Points of Faith are without the Church's help Second Letter p. 21. that is without any Publick Interpreter And Will you after this deny that Scripture is your General Rule in which you agree with all Hereticks and your specifical peculiar or proper Rule in which you differ from them and they from one another is Scripture as Interpreted by your selves The thing is plain let 's see what you say to it You with a very dexterous artifice grant and not grant it as we shall see anon and tell us 1. That Scripture is and ought to be common to all Hereticks tho' they miserably abuse it Pray Sir use my words I said a Common Rule to them and you and Can that be truly a Rule which they direct themselves by and yet warp into Errour You tell us indeed they miserably abuse it and the Socinians will say the same of you while you pretend to prove thence Christ is God. And how shall this Quarrel be decided For 't is hitherto a drawn Match between you while you fight with that ambidextrous Weapon Scripture's Letter interpretable by Private Iudgments The Point still sticks How can an indifferent man seeking for Faith by your Rule be satisfy'd They abuse it more than You Must not you be oblig'd to shew him some clearer Light than They have and that this Light justifies you for judging thus harshly of them that they are such miserable Abusers of Scripture And if you do not must he not in true reason judge 't is pretended by you gratis as also that you are highly uncharitable to charge them downright with so hainous a Crime 'T is that farther degree of Light in You that must justifie you for these pretences which we would gladly see for whatever it is 't is That which distinguishes you from them and sets you up to be Right Vsers of Scripture that is it gives you the Right Sense of it or your Faith and so it must difference you Essentially from them in your Grounds or Rule 'T is this Light I say we would be at Why is it so shy to shew its Face 2. Tho' 't is hard to conceive how they can be said to abuse Scripture who follow it to their Power yet since you will have it allow'd you gratis Does not their pretended miserable Abuse of Scripture consist in misinterpreting it Certainly you must say it does And if so then your right Interpretation of it or your taking it in a right sense is that in which your right Vse of it consists wherefore your own Interpretation of it is beyond all Evasion that which differences you from them and so 't is your peculiar or specifical Rule of Faith. 3. Do those Hereticks who thus miserably abuse it do this out of Wilfulness that is do they indeed understand it right but pretend they do not or do they use their endeavour to understand it and yet hap to abuse it by misunderstanding it If the former then again you must tell us gratis and ought to make it out to an Indifferent man seeking for Faith that the Socinians and all the erring Sects are the most wickedly insincere and the most blasphemous men in the World nay
that Decree Sess. 4. was to repress the insolency of Hereticks wresting the Scripture to their own private sentiments contrary to the Sense of the Church or the unanimous Consent of the Fathers And how this is directly contrary to this power of obliging to believe somthing as in Scripture explicitly now which was not so known before is unconceivable unless you will prove that that Explicit Sense is directly contrary to the unanimous Consent of the Fathers or the Church which you will never do But t is a trivial Exploit to make Mr. M. clash with Mr. G. or the Church of Rome with the Council of Trent you can make that very Church clash with her self Suis et ipsa Roma and that openly and professedly too Nay which is most wonderful fall out with her self about her own Prerogatives For you tell us p. 23. that tho' it has assum'd this Power now spoken of yet it still disown'd it Now to assume a Power is to challenge it and to disown it is to renounce it which hang together much alter the rate of all your Discourse hitherto This Church of Rome is a most monstrous kind of Creature It goes backwards and forwards blows and sups declares for and against and all at once but we must imagin her to be such onely as she stands pourtray'd in Dr. St's Fancy 34. Your main Stratagem to elude all this discourse remains yet to be more fully detected tho' it has been occasionally toucht at diverse times formerly T is this that you are now upon the General Ground of Faith and not the particular Acts of it or the particular Certainty as to this or that Doctrine And you seem to have reason for it too because the main point in Dispute was whether Protestants could shew any Ground of Absolute Certainty for their Faith. And this you think justifies you for hovering in the ayr and onely talking of your Scripture-Rule in common without lighting on or applying it to any one particular point contain'd in that Rule But this will avail you nothing For first Neither does our Discourse pinch upon any one particular Point but upon the Uncertainty of your Faith in general or on all your Points of Faith at once as built on your Ground So that 't is the pretended Ground of your Faith we are disputing against all the while and not any one particular Tenet We bring indeed Instances now and then of some particular Articles but 't is to shew that if your Ground has not power to ascertain absolutely those most Fundamental Points it has power to ascertain none and so is no Ground of Faith at all Secondly A pretended Ground cannot be known or acknowledg'd to be a real and firm Ground till we see it grounds somthing It 's Notion plainly imports a Relation to the Superstructure and you may as well prove a man a Father without proving he has a Child as prove any thing to be a Ground without proving such and such Points to be grounded on it and this in our case with Absolute Certainty Pray take that along with you still otherwise you turn your back to the Question and run away from it in the open Field T is tedious and mortifying beyond measure to hear you still talking and pretending you have an Absolutely Certain Ground for Faith and yet never see you so much as once endeavouring to shew how it 's Ascertaining Virtue affects the Articles you build upon it and that this particular Sense of Scripture in each respective Point has such a close and necessary Connexion with the Letter on which 't is built as to give Absolute Certainty of it to all that are competent Judges of the Sense of Words Which the Experience of all Ages since Christ confutes and our own Eyes Witness to be false in the Socinians and others Thirdly Your self confest once upon a time that you are absolutely Certain you now hold all the same Doctrin that was taught by Christ and his Apostles Now this candid expression would make any honest well-meaning man verily believe that you meant you had been absolutely Certain of every particular Christian Doctrin by vertue of your Ground or Rule But your incomparable dexterity quite and clean over-reach't us For when you came to explain your self there it amounted to no more but that your Faith was resolv'd into Scripture that is that you pretended to Scripture which contains all or as you told us p. 17. that you were absolutely certain you hold all because you hold all not in your Soul or Mind where Points of Faith are to be held but in a kind of Purse as it were as one is said when he holds a Book in his hand to hold all that is in it being possest of which tho' you cannot come at it's sense which is little better than if it were lock't up in a Trunk you are in possession of all Christian Faith notwithstanding and hold very firmly in that Sense all that was taught by Christ and his Apostles Fourthly Hence you have not perform'd what you undertook viz. to shew that Protestants had any Absolutely Certain Ground of their Faith. For 't is not enough to point out a Book and cry out aloud T is your Ground but you must shew that 't is indeed such a Ground Now a Ground or Rule bears in it's notion Evidence to those who are to use it and to know other things by it's Direction Nay more Clear Evidence For as all Certainty must have some kind of Evidence to create it in us so this Effect of Absolute Certainty can have no less than Clear Evidence for it's Cause But you may as easily prove Mankind has no Eyes to see with as go about to shew that the Letter of Scripture is thus clear in order to the discovery of right Faith even in the highest and most concerning Points of our Christian Belief Fifthly T is pleasant to observe what a rare Resolution of your Faith you give us p. 24. Our Faith say you is resolv'd into the Scripture as the Word of God and whatever is built on the Word of God is absolutely Certain You must indeed having deserted the Tradition of the Church either pretend to Scripture or nothing unless you will confess your selves to be pure Phanaticks or Pagans and it looks mighty plausibly to say that whatever is built on the Word of God is absolutely Certain for 't is a great Truth But the only Point is still Are you absolutely-certain by your Grounds that your Faith is indeed built on the Word of God You say indeed Scripture is your Ground you pretend to it as your Ground perhaps you think it so too and 't is not about your saying pretending or thinking it to be such that we dispute with you for we should not scruple to grant you all this without any Dispute at all But does your saying pretending or thinking Prove it to be so really and indeed All
so Wicked as to decline from it voluntarily or neglect to educate the others in it however it was to be expected there would be now and then a failure in some Particulars deserting the former Doctrin and drawing Proselytes after them 3 dly That the same reason holds for the Continuate Delivery of the same Doctrin by the Second Age to the Third and so still forwards the most powerful Motives God himself could propose being laid to oblige Christians not to deviate from it in the least or be careless to recommend it And those Motives too a thousand times more lively imprinted and apprehended by the heaven-instructed Faithful than they were by any in the former Ages of the World before Christ. 4thly That by Tradition then is meant The Testimony of the whole foregoing Age of Christians to the next Age of what had been deliver'd and explain'd to them by their Living Voice and Practice Or taking Tradition as it ought to be for Oral and Practical both 'T is A Continu'd Education of undergrowing Posterity in the Principles and Practice of their Immediate Predecessours 5 thly That hence 't is Evident beyond needing Proof that this Rule cannot on it's part deceive us For putting that it was still follow'd or that Posterity still believ d and practis'd as their Immediate Fore-Fathers did who at first believ'd and practis'd as the Apostles had instructed them 't is manifest the Last Age of the World must have the same Faith that the First Age of Christianity had Whence follows evidently that no Errour could possibly come in at any time unless this Rule of Tradition had been deserted 6 thly That Tradition thus understood and we never understood it otherwise being the Living Voice and Practice of the Church in the immediate Age before is applicable to all even of the lowest Capacity as we experience to some degree in the instructions by Pastours even now adays And since it delivers it's Sense which in those that have follow'd that Rule has been even now shewn to be Christ's Doctrin by Preaching Catechizing Explaining daily Practising and all the ways imaginable to make it understood 't is also an Absolutely-Clear Conveyer of Christ's Doctrin downwards Add that should it's sense be at any time misapprehended the Church and her Pastours can explain their own meaning pertinently to the Askers Doubter's or Mistaker's Exigencies which a Letter in a Book cannot 7 thly That the Chief Care of the Church was to inculcate to the Faithful and preserve inviolate the Chief Points of the Christian Faith and therefore that Tradition did most particularly exert it's self in Teaching and Transmitting Those 8 thly 'T is not to be deny'd but Scriptural Tradition went along with this other we have explain'd For the Church having the same sense in her breast which the First Writers had were consequently the best Interpreters of it which was one Reason why the Fathers and Councils often made use of it to confute Hereticks and comfort the Faithful by it's concurrence But when they were to convert any to Faith it was never heard they took such a Method as to put the Bible in his hand and bid him look for his Faith there telling him 't was Plain even in the highest points that were dubious or Controverted to every capacity 9 thly That hence Scripture without the Churches help was never held by them Anciently nor can with reason be held by us now to be the Rule of Faith in the sense we use that word that is to be a Means or Way for All who are coming to Faith to arrive unerringly at it Lastly we hold that the Sense of Scripture's Letter in those sublime Points surpasses the apprehensions of private men coming to Faith and so the Letter alone cannot be an assured Ground to build the Truth of Christian Faith upon whence follows that Tradition which is Plain and Easy and only It can be in Proper Speech the Rule of Faith. § 6. This then is the true State of the Question between us This is our true Tenet both concerning Scripture and Tradition and what are the Points to be ascertain'd by them Now let us see how the Sermon represents us and whether your admired Preacher does so much as touch any one of these particulars § 7. In the first place you may please to take notice that he never lets you know or so much as suspect that the main Contest between him and me is about the Absolute Certainty or Uncertainty of Christian Faith His wicked Doctrin in that Point oblig'd me to write a whole Treatise formerly in Vindication of Christianity from such an Intolerable Scandal which I apply'd in the cloze of it against himself and Dr. Tillotson Had he let you know this he prudently foresaw your Zeal for Christianity your best Concern would have given you a just prejudice against his Sermon and the Preacher too and the very Conceit all Christians have of the Truth of their Faith would have made you abhor a Discourse out of a Pulpit maintaining it might possibly be a Ly. As for particulars § 8. First he talks of a Stedfastness and a firm and well-settled resolution to adhere to that Faith which Christ himself deliver'd But ought you not to be assur'd first that he did indeed deliver it Or are you to adhere to it as his whether you are certain 't is his or no Or is a resolution to hold stedfastly to what you judge is the Faith of Christ well-settled if that Faith of yours the Basis of your Spiritual Building and Ground of that Resolution be not well-settled it self but may sink into False-hood This is the true Point you are to look after and till you have perfect satisfaction from him in this wisely to consider that Pious Talk without Solid Grounds to support their Truth is but painting the out-side of a Sepulcher The tinkling cymball of a little Rhetorick and shews of much Reading may go far with persons whom such flourishes can prevail upon to forgo their Reason but he had but a very small respect for you if he hop't you were so easy to be play'd upon with the wind of a little articulate ayr § 9. It was very possible he says for them to have mistaken or misremember'd what was at first deliver'd Whom does he mean by Them What by First Delivery Does he mean the Vniversality of Christians in the First Age or any succeeding one Or that those Great Bodies settled in their Faith form'd into Church-Government and kept up to their Christian Duties by Disciplin could thus mistake or misremember the former Teaching and Practice which was a plain matter of Fact This is the only Tradition we ever spoke of or went about to defend None doubts but that when some single Apostle was Preaching in some places at first the Thoughts of the Hearers were as yet raw and the things that were told them were so strange that they did not
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
Absolute Certainty you would assign for your that is Protestant Faith and you give him only a Generical Latitudinarian Rule common to all the Heresies in the World. The Project of the Comprehension-Bill was a trifle to this It brings into one Fold all the most enormous Straglers that have been since Christ's time nay Wolves and Sheep and all It blends into one Mass the most heterogeneous and hitherto irreconcilable Sects Nay it miraculously makes Light and Darkness very consistent and Christ and Belial very good Friends For your own Credit sake then distinguish your kind of Protestants if you be indeed one of that Church from that infamous Rabble of stigmatiz'd Hereticks and let us know what is the Proper Difference that restrains that Notion of a Common Rule to your particular as such a kind of Protestant and shew us that specifical Rule to be Absolutely Certain I say such a kind for even the word Protestant too is a Subaltern Genus and has divers Species and 't is doubted by many who are no Papists under which Species you are to be rankt But why should I vex you with putting you upon manifest Impossibilities For the Letter being the common Rule to them all and as daily experience shews us variously explicable that which particularizes it to belong specially to this or that Sect as its proper Rule can be only this According as my self and those of my Iudgment understand or interpret it The Difference then constituting your Protestant Rule as distinguisht from that of those most abominable Heresies can only be as my own Iudgment or others of my side thus or thus interpret Scripture's Letter and wriggle which way you please there it will and must end at last Go to work then distinguish your self by your Ground of Faith and then make out this your proper Rule to be Absolutely Certain or Infallible and then who will not laugh at you for attempting it and assuming that to your self which you deny to God's Church and preferring your self as to the Gift of Understanding Scripture right before the whole body of those many and Learned Churches in Communion with Rome Nay and before the Socinians too without so much as pretending to make out to the World that you have better Means either Natural or Supernatural to interpret those Sacred Oracles than had the others 25. My last Exception is that you pretend the Letter of Scripture is a Rule of Faith for your People which not one in a Million even of your own Protestants relies on or ever thinks of relying on in order to make choice of their Faith or determining what to hold This pretence of yours looks so like a meer Jest that I cannot perswade my self you are in earnest when you advance such a Paradox For 't is manifest that while your Protestants are under Age and not yet at years of Discretion to judge they simply believe their Fathers and Teachers that is they follow the way of Tradition however misplac'd And when they come to Maturity pray tell us truly how many of your Sober Enquirers have you met with in your life who endeavour to abstract from all the prejudices they have imbib'd in their Minority and reducing their inclin'd thoughts to an equal Balance of Indifferency do with a wise Jealousie lest this Popish way of believing immediate Fathers and Pastors should delude them as it has done the whole World formerly resolve to examin the Book of Scripture it self read it attentively pray daily and fervently that God's Spirit would discover to them whether what they have learn'd hither to be true or no and what is and in a word use all the Fallible means for you allow them no other which your Sober Enquirers are to make use of to find out their Faith I doubt if you would please to answer sincerely you would seriously confess you scarce ever met with such a one in your life that is never met with any one who rely'd upon Scripture's Letter practically for his Rule of Faith whatever you may have taught them to talk by rote Can any Man of Reason imagin that all the Reformed in Denmark or Sueden to omit others did light to be so unanimously of one Religion meerly by means of reading your Letter-Rule and your Sober Enquiry Or can any be so blind as not to see that 't is the following the natural way of Tradition or Childrens believing Fathers that is indeed of Education that such multitudes in several places continue still of the same perswasion and that you consequently owe to this way which you so decry in Catholics that any considerable number of you do voluntarily hang together at all And that those Principles of yours which you take up for a shew when you write against Catholics would if put in practice in a short time crumble to Atoms all the Churches in the World Perhaps indeed when your Protestants come at Age they may receive some Confirmation from their Fathers and Preachers quoting Scripture-places against what Catholics hold or what they shall please to say they hold and by the same means come to believe a Trinity the Godhead of Christ Christ's Body being absent in the Sacrament and such like but do the Hearers and Learners make it their business to use all careful disquisition for a slubbering superficial diligence will not serve the turn in matters of such high Concern whether the Catholics and those great Scripturists who deny those other Points do not give more congruous explications of those places than their own Preachers do unless they do this or something equivalent 't is manifest the Letter of Scripture is not their Rule but honest Tradition And that they do no such thing is hence very apparent that they rest easily satisfi'd and well appaid with their Parson's interpretation of Scripture they presently accept it for right and good and readily swallow that sense which some Learned Men of their own Judgment assign it without thinking themselves oblig'd to observe your Method of Sober Enquiry You may rail against the Council of Trent as you will for forbidding any to interpret Scripture against the Sense which the Church holds but 't is no more than what your Hearers perpetually practise and the Preachers too for all their fair words expect from them And I much doubt even your self tho' your Principles are the most pernicious for taking matters out of the Churche's and putting them into private Hands of any Protestant I ever yet read would not take it very well if some Parishioner of yours presuming upon his Prayers for Direction c. should tell you that you err'd in Interpreting Scripture and that the Sense he gave it was sound and right Faith yours wrong and Heretical and I would be glad to know what you would say to him according to your Principles if he should hap to stand out against you that he understands Scripture to be plainly against a Trinity and Christ's Divinity as
Copy nor that any Copy can be True unless conformable to the True Original And if there can be any failure in any of these nay if you have not Absolute Certainty of all these you cannot have by your Grounds any Absolute Certainty of your Faith For if the Letter be wrong all is wrong that is built on it and it may be wrong for ought you know notwithstanding the Testimony of all Christian Churches relying on this Way of attesting the Truth of the Letter For you can never shew that all those Churches consented to apply their utmost diligence to examine and attest all the several Translations made in their respective languages or witnest that they came from the true Original or took the most exquisit care that was possible to see that the Translaters and the Copiers did their duty Which had they held the Letter to be their onely Rule of Faith and consequently that All Faith that is the very Being of the present and future Church and their own Salvation too depended on the Scripture they were obliged in conscience and under the highest Sin above all things in the World to have done and this with the exactest care imaginable Your Grounds then notwithstanding all you have said or alledged hitherto to ensure the Letter make no Provision for the Absolute Certainty of the Written-Rule nor consequently of your Faith. 27. But what becomes then say you of the Vulgar Latin Translation I answer in our Grounds no harm at all For the Canon of the Books comes down by the Testimony of all Christian Churches that are truly Christian and the Doctrin of Christ transfus'd into the hearts of the succeeding Faithful ever since the beginning both taught them how and oblig'd them to correct the Copy in those particular Texts that concern'd Faith if any Errour through the carelesness unattentiveness or malice of the Translaters or Transcribers at any time had crept in By the same Means as you can now adays correct the Copy in those Texts that ought to express some Point of Morality in case it were corrupted and deviated from Christian Manners viz. by vertue of the Sense of that Practical Tenet you were imbu'd with formerly this even tho' you had no other Copy or Text to amend it by Insomuch that how good an opinion so ever you had of the Copy Translater Printer or Correcter of the Press yet for all that you would conclude they had err'd and the Letter was faulty rather than forgo the Doctrin so firmly rivetted in your heart by the constant Teaching and Practice of the Christian world As for other particular Texts of an Inferiour Concern they could be best corrected by multitudes of other ancient Copies the Churches Care still going along in which too the greatest care that was possible to rectify it's Errours was taken by the Council of Trent that so it might be as exact as Human Diligence could well render it A thing as far as my memory reaches never order'd or very much regarded by any Council formerly 28. But I foresee your method of confuting which is to muster up Extrinsecall objections not at all to the purpose will naturally lead you to discredit this way of correcting Scripture's Letter in passages belonging to Faith as singular or New This being the same your Friend G. B. objected to the Way of Tradition it self as may be seen above Sect. 10. Such piddling Exceptions drest up prettily in gay language go a great way and make a fine shew in your Controversies and which is a benefit of most advantage to you excuse you from bringing any Intrinsecal Arguments tho' these onely are such as conclude any thing and tho' you are bound by your precise Duty to produce such Wherefore to ward this blow I shall alledge the Judgment of that Learned and Excellent Personage Sir Thomas More our first Modern English Controvertist who writing not against you in defence of our Grounds but to another Catholick Divine expresses candidly his Sentiment in these words Ego certe hoc persuadeo mihi idque ut opinor vere quicquid ad fidem astruendam faciat non esse a quovis melius versum quam ab ipsis Apostolis perscriptum Ideoque fit ut quoties in Latinis codicibus occurrat quidquam quod aut contra Fidem aut mores facere videatur Scripturarum interpretes aut ex aliis alibi verbis quid illud sibi velit dubium expiscentur aut ad vivum Evangelium Fidei quod per universam Ecclesiam in corda Fidelium infusum est quod etiam priusquam scriberetur a quoquam Apostolis a Christo ab Apostolis Vniverso Mundo praedicatum est dubios ejusmodi sermones applicent atque ad inflexibilem veritatis Regulam examinent ad quam si non satis adaptare queant aut sese non intelligere aut mendosum esse codicem non dubitent This is my Iudgment and as I conceive a True one that whatever Text is useful to build Faith on was not better translated by any than it was writ by the Apostles themselves And therefore as oft as any thing occurs in the Latin-Books that seems to make against Faith or Good Manners the Interpreters of Scripture either gather from other Words in other places what that doubt should mean or they compare those doubtful sayings to the living Gospel of Faith which was infus'd into the Hearts of the Faithful throughout the Vniversal Church which before any man writ it was Preach't by Christ to the Apostles and by the Apostles to the whole World examine them by the inflexible Rule of Faith with which if they cannot make it square they conclude that either they do not understand it or the Book is faulty where he passes by the former way with a sleight word expiscentur fish out the sense but insists on the latter way of preserving the Copy sincere as Certain and Proper 29. I must not pretermit your Objection p. 19. that the Ancient Christian Church never knew any thing concerning this Method of resolving Faith into meer Oral Tradition I would desire you to add Practical to Oral at least to conceive it to be understood all the way that being our True and constantly-avow'd Tenet But did the Antient Church in reality never know any thing of this way T is wonderful you should not understand they meant the same as we do unless they speak the self-same Words and make the same Discourses we do now Did not they all hold that who taught any thing contrary to the Doctrin delivered down by the Church was a Heretick Did any of them say that the Churche's Tradition of a Doctrin as Christs was liable to Errour Did any of them hold that it was lawful for your Sober Enquirer to rely on his Private Interpretation of the Scripture and relinquish the sense of the Church which is the true Point Not one 'T is one thing to say they oft quoted Scripture
tho' a private person can discover those Explicit Points and I suppose may declare them too to as many as he pleases for how can he in Charity do less But alas The silly insignificant Church can do nothing at all she must submit to the wondrous Gifts you have bestow'd upon the Rabble and her Governors and Pastors be accounted Tyrants if they shall dare to encroach upon their high Prerogatives or presume to share in their Priviledges of being able to unfold or know the Explicit Meaning of Scripture-Texts For in case they can know this and this Knowledge be good for the Faithful as it is being as you say necessary to Salvation 't is without question they may declare them or make them known to others nay and use their Authority too if you will vouchsafe to allow them any to edify the Faithful by making this Knowledge sink into them Nor can it prejudice their Reason that the Church obliges them to believe them for this is no more than obliging them to act according to Reason which tells them that since they must either trust themselves or their Pastours in such things and the Pastours must be incomparably better qualify'd than themselves are for the discovering of such mysterious Truths and withall appointed by God to teach them 't is far more Rational to submit to their Judgments in such things than to use their own But indeed you have reason to stand up for your Sober Enquirer for all Ring-leaders of any Heresy or Faction against the Church took this very Method in their proceedings The Spirit of Pride which possest them principled them with these Rational and Peaceable Maxims that they had Authority to judge their Judges teach their Teachers direct their Guides and that their own Wit excell'd that of all the World before them But when a Faction was form'd into a good lusty Body the Scripture-Rule was laid aside again so that 't is doubtful whether we have had ever a Sober Enquirer since as was shewn in my First Letter Sect. 25. 33. You desire to see this Power of the Church in Scripture in Express Terms and we tell you we need not let you see it in Scripture at all for Tradition even Common Sense tells us that the Church has Power to feed and instruct her Flock and enlighten them in what she knows and they are ignorant of If you demand how the Roman Church came by this knowledge of making Implicit Points Explicit I answer by Tradition giving her the Sense of Christ's whole Law and each Intire point of it and by the Light of Nature purify'd by supernatural knowledges antecedently as also by her Application when occasion required to reflect upon and penetrate deeply into that Sense which enables her to explicate her own thoughts or the Points of Faith more clearly now which she had indeed before but did not so distinctly look into them or set her self to explain them But pray what express Scripture has your Sober Enquirer for his Power to make the Implicit Points Explicit You reckon up diverse agreeablenesses p. 21. why this should be but not one word of express Scripture do you pretend to for it And if himself pretend to any such Power besides that it will look a little odd that God should take more care of private men than of his Church let him either shew us he has better means Natural or Supernatural to do this than the Church has or he discovers his Pride and Folly both to pretend to it You say p. 21. that the Church of Rome has no where declar'd in Council it has any such Power viz. to declare explicitly Points imply'd in Scripture But First you may please to know It has made such a declaration Sect. 4. where it defines that it belongs to the Church judicare de vero sensu et interpretatione Scripturarum to judge of the true sense and Interpretation of Scripture Next It accordingly proceeds upon this Power as I shall manifest by three several Instances One Sess. 13. cap. 4. where it explains those Texts Luc. 22. Io. 6. and 2 Cor. 11. to be meant of being truly Christ's Body and declares thence that the Church was ever perswaded of the Doctrin of Transubstantiation Another Sess. 14. cap. 7. Where it declares the Text 1 Cor. 1. Let a man examin himself c. to be understood by the Custome or Practice of the Church of Sacramental Confession necessary to be us'd before receiving the Sacrament by all those who are conscious to themselves of mortal sin The Third Sess. 14. cap. 1. where it interprets that Text of S. Iames cap. 5. to be by Apostolical Tradition understood of the Sacrament of Extreme Vnction Which places you do not judge so much as implicitly to contain that Sense but hold that they contain another thing How the Churches declaring explicitly Points descending by Tradition makes no new Articles of Faith is discours't above Sect. 4 5 6 7. By which you may see that Mr. G. and Mr. M. whom pag. 22. you will needs set at variance are notwithstanding very good Friends For if the Church knew the the sense which is contain'd in that place before the Doctrin is Old tho' the declaring it to be signifi'd by that particular Text be perhaps New. I say perhaps for in some signal passages much in use in the Churches Preaching Catechisms and Practise I doubt not but that not only the particular Doctrin but also that 't is signifi'd by such a Text comes down by Tradition in the Ecclesia docens Notwithstanding the agreeableness of these two Positions you triumph mightily here p. 23. that Thus Mr. M. has answer'd Mr. G 's Demonstration As much as to say I know not for my life what to say to it my self and therefore would gladly shift it off upon any Body so I could handsomely rid my Hands of it Thus you make for you can make any thing by your Method of mistaking every thing the Council of Trent clash with the Church of Rome a hard Task one would think by pretending to interpret Scripture according to the unanimous sense of the Fathers which you judge contradicts the making known and obliging Men to believe that explicitly now which they were not oblig'd to by any precedent Sense or Explication What mean the words Men and They If they signify all men and intend to signify that no man knew those imply'd Points before but all might hap to contradict them you mistake our Tenet for we judge it absolutely impossible that none of the Fathers should reflect more attentively on the full sense of the Points deliver'd or look into their own thoughts as Faithful and therefore it was much more impossible they should unanimously contradict those Points And unless they did so the Council of Trent and the Church of Rome may by the Grace of God very well correspond in their Doctrin for all your mistake For the Intention of the Fathers in
Heresies in the world do as much as this comes to and yet are no less Heresies than if they did none of this T is your Proving it to be your Ground and that an Absolutely Certain one too which we would be at but we justly complain you flinch from the onely thing in Dispute and perpetually balk us We tell you once more and we cannot repeat it too often there is a necessary Connexion between the Ground and the Building for 't is not a Building if it have no Ground nor the Ground of a Building if nothing be built on it You are then to shew us Absolute Certainty of this necessary Connexion between the Scripture and your Faith or you do nothing but talk at random But alas You have not the Confidence to make out this or produce your Reasons to conelude this Ground and this Building have such a necessary Relation and I must tell you plainly you can never do it For pray tell me May not the Socinians and indeed all Hereticks that ever arose in the Church say pretend and perhaps think the same that you do Nay do not they all alledge the same Do not they all profess to resolve theit Faith I mean their abominable Errours into the written Word Do not they pretend it for their Ground and that they build their prophane Tenets on it lastly avow as stoutly as you do for your heart that whatever is built on Gods Word is absolutely Certain Will you allow these Pleas Argumentative for them or that their wicked Errours are therefore true Faith and Absolutely Certain because they alledge all this And can you be so unreasonable as to expect we should pass that for a good Argument or a conclusive Reason to prove you have Absolute Certainty for your Faith which your self disallows when 't is alledg'd for them nay which you must disallow and declare against unless you will patronize all their Heresies Pray lay your hand on your Heart and consider I am sure 't is more your own Good than mine you should into what a Lamentable or rather Chimerical Condition God's Church is reduc't by your Resolution of your Faith here and the Account you give of it The Pillar and Ground of Truth is reduc't by you into a confused Chaos of incoherent Errours Christ's immaculate Spouse is associated with all the Adulterate Synagogues of Sathan lastly Faith as to it's Certainty is in no better a Condition than Heresy and Heresy is upon even Ground with Faith. I have a better opinion of the Church of England than to believe Her most learned and genuin Members will own such a Resolution of her Faith as will make the Socinians and all other Hereticks in the World their fellow-Christians and Brothers as they must be forced to do if they own no other Resolution of it than all those pestilent Sects unanimously profess I see Mr. G had good reason to ask you in his 5 th Question What Churches you accounted Christian Churches For I much fear by your Discourse and Principles you exclude None Nor ought you so they heartily hold the same Gound of Faith with you for then all their Vnchristian Tenets are to pass for Material Errours not Formal Heresies They hold all true Faith in the Purse still tho' they mistake the coyn and mettal and that 's enough in all conscience for such a Church as that you are about rearing or dawbing up You pass a complement indeed upon the four first General Councils and that you reject all such Doctrins as were condemn'd by them which use to be words of course in your Controversies as your humble servant and such like are in our common Conversation but when you are once got out of the circumstance of pretending to hold to some Antiquity that so you may set a better face on it when you oppose the Papists when that job is over they are but Fallible Congregations and so perhaps were deceiv'd in all they defin'd against the Arians Eutychians c. Especially if one of your sober Enquirers comes to fancy otherwise and no doubt there were many such even in those dayes And then comes the 21 st Article of Q. Elizabeth's Symbol and knocks them down all at once with a Declaration that their Decrees have neither Strength nor Authority unless it may be declar'd that they be taken out of Holy Scripture and so all is with a turn of ones hand brought back to the same Point again and farewell Councils Your self and any one of your sober Enquirers are at full liberty still to judge of them by your Scripture-Rule and the Resolution of your Faith is establish't by that Article at least as you make use of it to be the same with that which is made and profest by all the vile Hereticks in the world For as Dr. Burnet sayes very candidly in his Answer to the Method of oonverting Protestants p. 83. and no doubt upon your Principles If any man after his strictest Enquiries is still perswaded that a Council has decreed against the true meaning of the Scriptures in a point necessary to Salvation then he must prefer God to Man and follow the Sounder tho' it should prove to be the lesser party And if any Company or Synod of Protestants have decree'd any thing contrary to this in so far they have departed from the Protestant Principles Where we see he gives every sober Enquirer leave to judge of Councils even tho' General ones for he excepts None and himself shews them the way by Judging Censuring the Councils of his own Church 35. Another scruple yet remains incumbent on you to clear which is that by your putting it upon Mr. G. to prove you have not Absolute Certainty as to the Rule of your Faith and by your innate Antipathy against Infallibility 't is very dubious whether your self do indeed hold the Tradition of all Christian Churches Absolutely Certain even for the Scripture however to save your Credit you then pretended it fearing your denying it might disedify Mr. T. Since then you ly under a shrewd suspicion that you do not deal really with him and the rest of your Readers in this forc't Profession it would become you in your Reply both to shew why you allow that Testimony to be Absolutely Certain and yet are such an Enemy to Infallibility since common sense tells us no man can judge himself Absolutely Certain of a thing if he judges he may at the same time be deceiv'd in it and withal that you may give more satisfaction to your Readers herein than an empty and scarce credible acknowledgment of it when you were in untoward Circumstances pray go to work like a Schollar and demonstrate to us by way of solid Reason working upon the Nature of the Thing for no Argument meerly probable will suffice to prove a Testimony Absolutely Certain how and by what vertue this Tradition of all Christian Churches comes to be thus Absolutely Certain for the
already Ship-wrackt The Fourth By it we are to judge what we are bound to believe as Divine Revelations runs upon the same strain for you are to shew us how by it I am to judge my self bound to believe any thing at all as a Divine Revelation that is as taught by Christ with a Firm and Vnalterable Assent such as Faith is till I am Certain it is so by being ascertain'd he taught it This is the True This is the Main Point which you slide over still as smoothly as a non-plust Commentator does over hard Texts that puzzle him to explicate I say once more 't is the Main if not onely Point for till you have made out this you can never prove that Scripture taken alone is a Ground of Faith at all much less an Absolutely Certain Ground and least of all your Ground in particular And therefore you said very True when you lamented p. 28. you were in a hard case for tho' say you there is an Absolute Certainty and this Certainty lies in Vniversal Tradition and we can shew this Vniversal Tradition yet we cannot shew the Ground of our Certainty For you cannot shew Universal Tradition for every particular Text that concerns Faith without our Tradition Rule for Doctrin nor Absolute Certainty you have the true Sense tho' you had that Certainty for the Letter without which 't is not your Ground at all A Certainty there is but not by vertue of your Grounds and so 't is none of your Certainty nor your Ground neither Whereas then you confess here that if you cannot shew the true Ground of your Certainty you deserve to be either pity'd or begg'd you say very true for we do from our hearts pity you let who will take the tother part We pity you to see such excellent Wits who had they a good cause would be honourably victorious forc't by the Patronage of a bad one to employ their Talents in shifting about for by-paths to avoid meeting the Question in the face We pity you for your being necessitated to impose upon your well-meaning Readers with your specious pretences of Gods Word instead of shewing them with Absolute Certainty on your Grounds that you have the true Sense of it in any one passage relating to the controverted points without which you cannot with Honesty pretend it Gods Word as to those Points And if that kind of begging may do you any good we shall earnestly and heartily beg of God's Infinite Mercy to give you hearts to seek Truth and candidly acknowledge it when found 39. I had almost forgot your Id est which connects your Third and Last Proposition together must be the Rule of our Faith Id est say you by it we are to judge what we are bound to believe as Divine Revelations These Id est's which should be us'd to clear things are still so made use of that they are the main Engines to confound them Let your Id est then say what it please I must tell you plainly you quite mistake the meaning of the Word Rule It speaks Rectitude and that such an Evident one as preserves those who regulate themselves by it from obliquity or Deviation that is in our case from Errour You ought then to have said The Rule of our Faith Id est by which while we follow it we shall be absolutely secur'd from erring in Faith For the Primary Effect of a Rule is to give Faith that prerequisit Quality as elevates it to the Dignity of such a kind of Assent and raises it above that dwindling feeble alterable assent call'd Opinion But you will needs to avoid coming neer so dangerous a Rock take it for a kind of Quantitative Measure nor for a Qualifying Principle Whereas indeed 't is not the What or how much we are to believe which is now our Question but the That we ought to believe any thing at all or That you can by your Grounds have any Faith at all for want of this Absolute Certainty which you pretend to 'T is this I say which is the true Subject of our present Debate For tho' we both held the same Quantity or Number of Points to a tittle yet it might be Faith in one of us and but Opinion in the other nay perhaps Opinion in both if both of us wanted Certain Grounds to evince they were Christs Doctrin which is the Formal Motive of our Faith. It belongs then to a Rule to ascertain both the That we are to believe and the What but the former Office of it is Antecedent and Principal the later Collateral and Secondary Common Sense telling us that we ought first to determin whether there is any Faith at all e're we come to debate what Points are of Faith what not These Fast-and-Loose Doings make me when ever I meet with an Id est still expect it means aliud est and that like your other Explications of your self it is brought in to divert our Eyes to another Object instead of keeping them still fixt upon the same 40. Enough has been said I am sure too much ever to be Answer'd to prove that Scripture alone as interterpreted by any Private Mans Judgment wants the Chief Property of a Rule of Faith viz. such a Clearness as is able to give all sorts of People or the Generality of Christians be they never so Sober Enquirers Absolute Assurance of it's Sense even in the highest Mysteries of our Faith without needing the Church's Help Nor will You ever be able to produce the Consent of all Christian Churches affirming that it has this Property Wherefore when it is call'd a Rule by some of the Antients it must be taken as Mr. M. sayes with the Interpretation of the Church adjoyn'd which having the Living Sense of Christ's Law in her Heart can animate the Dead Letter and preserve it from Explications any way prejudicial to the Faith received And thus indeed it may be call'd a Rule of Faith because as 't is thus understood it cannot lead any into Errour but is of good use to abett Truth by it's Divine Authority In which sense Councils proceed upon it often and sometimes call it a Rule And I remember the Famous Launoy when we were Discoursing once about Tradition shew'd me a little Book of his in which he goes about to prove that Councils had frequently defin'd against Hereticks out of Scripture On which occasion I ask't him if he judg'd those Councils fram'd their Definitions by the sense they had of the Letter by their own human Skill or by the sense of the Church which they had by Tradition he answer'd undoubtedly by the later and that there would be no End of Disputing with Hereticks had they taken the former Way By which we may discern that still Tradition was in proper speech their Rule even when they alledg'd Scripture Other call Scripture sometimes a Rule because it contains Faith in which sense even some Catholicks call it a partial Rule
because Part of Christ's Doctrin is contain'd in it the other part descending by Tradition which acceptation of the Word Rule is yet less Proper because as has been prov'd it may be contain'd there and yet we be never the neerer knowing our Faith meerly by virtue of Scripture's containing it But no Catholick ever said that every sober Enquirer may find out all necessary Points of Faith in Scripture without the Churches Help A Doctrin which You declare p. 21. You are far from being asham'd of And yet let me tell You Sir You will never find this Position of yours as it lies without the Churches Help in the Universal Tradition of all Christian Churches and unless You find this You will never prove they held it a Rule in the genuin and proper signification in which we take that Word and tho' they shou'd call it a Rule in either of the former Senses lately mention'd they impugn not us at all who grant the same 41. You will needs run out of the way p. 30. to talk of a Iudge of Controversies but the best is You acknowledge you do go thus astray by acknowledging 't is another distinct Controversy and yet tho' you acknowledge this You still run on with it that is You still wander from the Point You triumph mightily p. 31. that it is impossible for us to bring such an unanimous Consent of all Christian Churches for our Infallible Iudge or our Infallibility as Protestants bring for their Rule As for the later where were your thoughts Sir while you thus bad adieu to the plainest Rules of Discourse Cannot we go about to demonstrate the Infallibility of a Human Testimony by Natural Mediums but instead of Answering it you must object against our Conclusion and bid us bring the Consent of all Churches to abett that which neither depends nor is pretended to depend on Authority but on meer Reason Cannot one say two and three make five but he must be presently bobb'd in the mouth that he cannot shew the Consent of all Christian Churches for it and that unless he does this let it be never so evident 't is not True T is very pleasant to reflect how brisk you are still with this Consent of all Churches I suppose because 't is a Topick very seldom heard of in your Controversies tho' as has been shewn over and over 't is not a jot to your purpose nor avails any thing to the evincing you have an Absolutely-Certain Ground of your Faith. And if we have an Infallible Rule or such a Rule as permits not those to be deceiv'd that follow it can there be any thing more Rational than to hold by consequence that there is an Infallible Iudge or that our Church can judge unerringly in matters belonging to Faith the word Iudge onely signifying that that Person or Persons are in Authority or are Authoritative Deciders to preserve the Integrity of Faith and the Peace of the Church So that supposing Church-Governours or Bishops and that those Sacred Concerns are to be provided for plain Reason demonstrates to us this too as well as the other without needing the Consent of all Christian Churches tho' you need not to be told this does not want neither unless you think that all the General Councils that defin'd against Hereticks imagin'd they might perhaps be in an Errour all the while and the Heretick whom they condemn'd in the right Your Appeal to all the Churches of the Christian World for your Rule has a plausible appearance but vanishes into air when one comes to grasp it How often must it be repeated that you have as yet produc't no Rule at all for your Faith For you have neither prov'd that Scripture's Letter as to every substantial word that concerns Faith is absolutely-Certain nor that it has in it the nature of a Rule nor that 't is your Rule more than 't is to all the Hereticks in the world nor that your Assent to any Point upon that Rule as made use of by you for want of Connexion between the Points to be believ'd and the Rule on which they are believ'd can have the nature of true Faith in it If talking big would do the deed you would indeed do wonders but let your Reasons be proportionable otherwise strong words and faint blows are but very ill-matcht Now I must declare plainly I cannot see the least semblance of so much as one solid Proof in this whole Treatise of yours If there be confute me by shewing it and maintaining it to be such You explain you own Tenet over and over till one is weary of readding it and half asham'd so often to answer it You talk much of God's Word that we are bound to believe it that it contains God's Will and all things necessary to Salvation and twenty such fine things which bear a Godly Sound and would do well in a Sermon where all goes down glib there being none to contradict you but are very dull and flat in Controversy On the contrary not one Argument have you even offer'd at to prove you have Absolute Certainty of the Rule or Ground of your Faith but have faln short in every one of those Considerations both as to the Notions of Certainty Ground Rule Faith and that 't is your Ground your Rule and your Faith. 42. A Rule to any thing if we take that word in a proper sense as we do in our modern Controversies is the Immediate Light to direct us in order to our knowing that thing For in case it be not Immediate but some other thing intervenes that is needful to direct us and by whose Rectitude we frame our thoughts as to that affair and that it renders the other capable to direct us that other becomes presently the Thing Ruled and not the Rule in regard it wanted the Rectitude of another thing to direct it that so it might be fit to direct us Wherefore the Interpretation of Scripture being more Immediate to the knowing the Sense of it's Words that is to the knowing our Faith than is the Letter for it is manifest that all who have the Letter have not right Faith unless they make a right Interpretation of it hence Mr. M. had reason to object that The Christian Church did not agree that every man is to interpret Scripture for himself or to build his Faith upon his own private Interpretation of it Nor ought you to be offended at his position in regard you told us before p. 7. 8. a Heretical Sense may ly under these General Words Christ is the Son of God and different Senses may be couch't under these Christ is really in the Eucharist and so even according to your self 't is the Interpretation or the assigning the Sense to those words which makes True Faith or Heresy Wherefore 't is plain that your own Interpretation of Scripture is in true speech your Rule for That is a more Immediate Direction to give you the Sense of
very Principles oblige me to declare that what I attribute to them is First That they have All those Excellencies which Dr. St. yields them and one more which he does not of which hereafter Secondly That they are Profitable to all the Ends St. Paul writing to Timothy ascribes to them and that in such a high measure that I do from my heart grant them to be so great an Instrument of our Salvation that the Church had been at an incredible loss without them that not near half the number of Christian Souls would have been sav'd had it not pleas'd God to leave to the Church such a Powerful Means to instruct them in a virtuous life and raise them up to it Thirdly That when they are animated with the Sense of the Divinely-Inspired Writers by a Certain Interpretation they are very useful to confute Hereticks and that Thus Interpreted they are with much profit made use of to that end by Fathers and Councils Fourthly That tho' they were written on several occasions it was not without the Design of God's good Providence which orders all our Actions to the bringing about his Best Ends however they be occasional to us much more an Affair so mainly important to the Churches improvement Fifthly That there was also a peculiar Providence in preserving the Letter from any material Corruption and that the Second Causes by which this Providence exerted it self was the most obligatory Care of the Church to whom those Sacred Oracles were committed and the Knowledge she ever had of Christ's Doctrin 6 thly That the Sense of Scripture is so sublime in Spiritual Points and high Mysteries of Faith which are above Nature and could only be known to the World by Divine Revelation that no men by their Private Judgments much less all sorts of men coming to Faith and therefore unelevated and unenlighten'd by It can arrive at the knowledge of it's Sense by the Letter in those difficult Texts with such an unerring Certainty as is requisit for that most Firm Rational and Unalterable Assent call'd Faith and therefore that in These they need the Help of the Church Whereas in other passages that are Historical Moral c. where the subject matter is more obvious to ordinary Reason they are either clear of themselves or may be clear'd as much as is necessary by the Learning of the more Knowing Faithful For the same reason I hold that Scripture thus privately interpreted is not convictive of Hereticks who have imbib'd a contrary sentiment to that of the Divine Enditer because those men admit no Certain Interpreter of those difficult places And this want of Clearness in such Texts I do not take to be a Privative Imperfection but on the contrary to argue a very high Perfection in Scripture viz. as Vincentius Lirinensis has told us 1200 years ago Commonitor cap. 2. It 's Deep Sense Whence 't is rather to be call'd properly a Disproportion of that Sense to the low Conceptions of Private Iudgments looking after Faith or an Obscurity relatively to such Persons than an Absolute one since the Faithful who are instructed in that Sense are both capable to understand it right and moreover to discover still more and more Excellent Truths in it 7 thly That for this reason I cannot hold the Letter of Scripture privately interpreted the Rule of Faith or a Means for people of every capacity looking after Faith to know the Sense of it in those Dogmatical Articles with such a Certainty as was shewn above to be Necessary for a Ground of Faith nor can I allow that the Truth of Christian Faith ought to be built upon such a Sandy Foundation as are those Private Interpretations And therefore that there needs some other Rule to Ascertain people of all sorts what is Christ's true Doctrin in those points Moreover I make account the Experience of all Ages since Christ's time abets my Position Every Heretick and all his Followers relying on his private Interpretations of Scripture for his wicked Blasphemies as the Socinians do now who are as far as we can discern sincere and exact Followers of that Rule or Vsers of that Means and yet fall short of Christ's genuin Doctrine denying his Godhead and the Mystery of the B. Trinity A plain Argument that That cannot be the way to Truth which such vast multitudes have follow'd and yet have been led into Errour unless we knew them all to be wilfully sincere or strangely negligent which we can neither know nor have reason to think And as experience has shewn this to every mans eye so neither is it my sentiment onely The same Lirinensis telling us That by reason of the Scripture's Depth as many Opinions as there are Men seem possible to be drawn thence Where he ascribes the obscurity of the Letter not meerly to the fault of the Persons nor the hardness of the Words in which the Sense is deliver'd but to the Profoundness of the Sense it self Reason and Experience both informing us that where the matter is above the Readers capacity tho' the Words be never so plain yet the Doctrine is not easily comprehended without some who is already skill'd in that Sense § 5. As for Tradition The very sound of the Word may perhaps give you some prejudice against it because our Saviour reprehended the Jews for some unwarrantable Traditions of theirs This obliges me to give you a true Character of our Tenet concerning It and to make known to you particularly what Tradition means as we understand it in our Controversies which Dr. St. tho' he knows it will never do but on the contrary as shall be seen misrepresents it all along very disingenuously in every particular What we hold of it then is First That the Apostles by their Preaching during the whole time of their lives settled the self-same Christian Doctrin in the minds of the Generality of the Faithful dispersed in several Countries and not only at large and particularly explicated it and fixt it by their heavenly Preaching but riveted it as we may say by Miracles founded Churches and constituted Disciplin by means of which and their own Example they establish't them in the Practice of that Doctrin Lastly They recommended the continuing it as the means of Salvation and consequently that the swerving from it themselves or neglecting to educate their Children in it was the assured way to Eternal misery to them and their Posterity 2 dly That this vast multitude unanimously settled in the same Faith is that which we make the First Source of Tradition which had no more to do but to attest to the next Age what the First had receiv'd and practis'd nor could they forget a Doctrin which was so recommended and according to which they had led their Christian lives so long Nor could true Faith the Parent of all other Virtues which was in their hearts no nor even the Natural love to themselves and their Children permit them all to be
Equivocated in the Tenet of the Reall Presence and according to the Drs late Distinction making Not-Regulating to be one sort of Regulating would needs have the word Reall to mean Not-Reall whence it was judg'd expedient to put it past quibble by such a rigorously-express Definition And I much fear this vexes the Drs Sacramentarian Spirit far more then Transubstantiation it self I omit that he has forgot here the Common distinction of what Points are necessary Necessitate Medij and what Necessitate Praecepti I suppose because this Later did not sute with his Levelling Principles which set the Church and his Rabble on even Ground as to Matters of Faith. 64. I alledg'd that those Articles of the Trinity and Christ's Godhead were Fundamentall Points and therefore if his Rule could not Absolutely Ascertain People of all sorts coming to Faith of those Articles it could assure them of None and so is no Rule of Faith. He runs quite away from the Points and thinks he has done enough to say It is Absolutely Certain that God has reveal'd the Fundamentalls of our Faith. But the Question sticks still Are you Absolutely Certain by your Rule that the Trinity and Christ's Godhead are Christ's Doctrin or signify'd with Absolute Certainty by Scripture's Letter To this he says nothing but shifts it off most Shamelessly to another thing Let him set himself to do this which is his Task and we will undertake to examin the Nature of his Medium and show it Inconclusive I alledg'd that there is Experience by the Socinians taking the same way that his Medium or way to be Certain of this is not Certain He again turns off Experience that the way he takes is not Certain to Experience of his Inward Certainty or his Inward Persuasion And asks briskly whether he or I know best A pleasant Gentleman Why does he not confute all my Book by that Method Does he think 't is enough to show he is Absolutely Certain of the Sense of Scripture as to those Points with barely saying he knows he is thus Certain of it better than I What wretched Shifts are these In pursuance of this new Method of Proving and Confuting He asks again How comes Mr. S. to know we are not Certain when we say we are Because when you are most highly Concern'd and stood Engag'd by promise to show this Absolute Certainty and are Prest to it Vehemently and upon the brink of losing your Credit for not doing it you still decline the showing you have any such Certainty for the Sense of Scripture as to those Points Still he asks Are not we Certain because some that is the Socinians are not Certain No Sir not barely for that reason but because the Socinians proceeding upon the Same Rule are so far from being Certain of the Sense of Scripture as to those Points that they esteem themselves Certain by the same Scripture of Hereticall Tenets Point-blank Opposit to those Points Common Reason assures us no End can be compass'd without a Means and therefore you can never show us You are Certain till you show us you follow a better Way rely on a firmer Ground and Guide your selves by a Clearer Light to make you Certain of Scriptures Sense in those passages than They do which you can never show and as appears by your wriggling from that Point by the most untoward Shifts imaginable dare not Attempt But some are uncertain of Orall Tradition nay Censure it I do not know one man but holds and reverences it It lies upon his Credit to name those who Censure it For Lominus is a Chimaerical name and signifies no body that he knows But suppose Some did yet it being an object of Naturall Reason they and I in that case could not proceed on the Same Grounds or Reasons as his Protestants and the Socinians do upon the Same Rule of Faith. 65. I alledg'd that by his Principles he could be no more Certain of his Rule then he is of the Truth of the Letter of Scripture in regard the Truth of the Sense of Scripture depends on the Trueness of the Letter Does he deny this Or does he show that without the Care of the Church preserving the Letter Right all along he can have any Such Certainty of the Letter He not so much as Attempts either I alledg'd farther that he cannot be thus Certain of the Right Letter without having the same Certainty of the Right Translation or the True Copy nor that any Copy is True unless it be taken from the First Originall Does he deny this Or does he show that all these may not fail if the Churches's Care be set aside No neither What Shift has he then Why he says 1. That some of us are Concern'd to Answer this as well as He. Not at all for those who say that Part of Faith is Contain'd in Scripture do not for all that say that their Faith is built on Scripture's Letter interpreted by any but the Church nor do they say but the Church without Scripture could have ascertain'd them of their Faith. 2. He says This strikes at the Authentickness of the Vulgar Translation Not at all For we have other Grounds to go upon which they have Not. 3. He skips after bringing some words of mine for what they were never intended from the Translation to the Canon of Scripture which are a Mile wide from one another that so he may however he speeds in all the rest at least talk plausibly of the Concurrent Testimony for the Canon In order to which he stands up a Patron for those Christian Churches of his who thus concurr'd and will not condemn them as not truly Christian till their Cause be better heard and examin'd Yet 't is Evident from his Second Letter to Mr. G. p. 25. that some of those Churches were Arians Nestorians and Eutychians condemn'd for Hereticks by most Antient General Councils which he blames it seems for declaring so rashly against them and reprieves his Friends from their Censures till a fairer Hearing It had been happy for them had Dr. St. presided in those Councils for he would doubtless have dealt with them very kindly and have clapt them head and tail together with good Catholicks into one Latitudinarian Bill of Comprehension 5. I alledg'd that the same Sense in the heart of the Church enabled and oblig'd Her to correct the Copy when faulty in Texts containing Points of Faith which instead of shewing it Incompetent or Disagreeable to the Nature of things he confutes most Learnedly by pretending that Atheists and Unbelievers would be scandaliz'd at it Whereas they would be much more scandaliz'd to see no Certain Means assign'd to preserve the Letter right from the beginning the very first Originals being lost and all left the Churches Care set apart to so many contingences of Translating and Transcribing 6. We must prove it first to be impossible for the Sense of the Church to vary in any two
for New Questions to avoid the danger in keeping to the True one For he knew the Infallibility of the Church we are here defending is that of Tradition in delivering down the Doctrin of Christ and he does not sure judge it a Point of Christ's Doctrin that the Epistle to the Hebrews was writ by S. Paul. Add that when the Church of Rome did Decree any thing at all in that matter it was for the Reception of that Epistle in doing which he will not I hope say she Err'd So that our great Dr is out in every particular in which he shows such Confidence or rather he is to talk very Confidently whenever he is out that he may not seem not to be out 69. He puts my Objection against his Universall Consent of the Testimonies of Marcion Ebion Valentinus and Cerinthus who as he makes me say rejected the Canon of the New Testament and then asks Could any man but J. S. make such an Objection as this And I may I hope ask another Question Could any Man but Dr St. put such a Gull upon his Adversary and the Reader too Now if I us'd such words as who rejected the Canon of the New Testament I spoke Nonsense for those Hereticks were dead long before that Canon was settled But if I did not then he has abus'd me and our Readers too and done no great right to himself Let Eye-sight decide it In my Third Catholick Letter p. 59. the place he cites line 11.12 my express words are The Consent of all your Christian Churches for Scripture and he instead of Scripture puts down as my words The Canon of the New Testament I can compassionate Humane Oversight for it may hap possibly tho' it can never knowingly to be my own Case and not too severely impute a mistake in altering my Words and by them my Sense Yet I must needs say that to put those wrong words in the Italick Letter to breed a more perfect Conceit they were mine and quote the very page in the Margent where no such words were found to make me speak Nonsense looks a little Scurvily especially because when men have their Eyes upon the very Page as he had they have an easy and obvious direction to the words too But why do I make such a Spitefull Reflexion on him as to call them His Christian Churches Because he would needs allow other Sects as perfectly Hereticall as they were to be Christian Churches tho' he was put upon it to give them a distinct Character and here again he grants them to be parts of the Christian Church tho' they be cut off by Lawfull Authority from the body of Christianity Next that I may speak my conscience because I fear by many passages in his Books by his ill-laid Principles and the very grain of his Doctrin and discourses he judges all to be good Christians who profess to ground their Faith on Scripture let them hold as many Heresies as they will. And lastly for his fierce anger here against me for calling those Hereticks viz. The Arians Nestorians c. which have been Condemn'd by Generall Councils for I concern not my self with his Greeks or Abyssins or any others Excrementitious Outcasts and that I sling such dirt in the face of so many Christian Churches And is not this to cry Hail fellow well met But my Cause he says is desperate because I call such men Knights of the Post. Yet he knows the Fathers oft complain of Hereticks for corrupting the Scripture and the Testimony of the Churches Truly Christian was Absolutely Certain without calling in so needlessly Blasted Witnesses Moreover I told him that the Universall Testimony he produc't did attest the Books but it must attest the Chapter and Uerse too to be Right nay each Significant Word in the Verse otherwise the Scripture could not assure him Absolutely of his Faith. Can he deny this If the Chapter or Verse he cites be not True Scripture or if any materiall Word in the Verse be alter'd can he securely build his Faith on it What says he to this Does he deny it or show that His Grounds reach home to prove these particular Texts or Words to be right by Universall Testimony or any other Medium Neither of them is his Concern What does he then Why he complains how hardly we are satisfy'd about the Certainty of Scripture and that we are Incurable Scepticks Sure he dreams We are Satisfy'd well enough but his Vexation is that we are not satisfy'd of it by his Principles and how should we if when it was his Cue to satisfy us he will never be brought to go seriously about it And why must we be Scepticks when as we both hold the Rectitude of the Letter our selves in Texts relating to Faith and Assign a way to secure it Absolutely which he cannot Must all Men necessarily be Scepticks who allow not his No-way of doing this tho' they propose and Maintain a certain way that can do it This is a strange way of Confuting He says There are different Copies in all Parts to examin and Compare 'T is these very Copies that are in Question whether they give Absolute Certainty of every Verse or materiall Word in the Letter of Scripture and we expected he should have shown how they did so and not barely name them and say there are such things But the main Point is Must those who are looking for Faith run to all parts of the World and examin and Compare all the Copies e're they embrace any Faith This looks like a Jest Yet 't is a sad tho' a mad Truth by his Principles For without knowing this Scripture cannot be their Rule and hee 'll allow no way to come to Faith but by Scripture So that for any Assurance he can give them even of his Necessary Points they must e'n be content to stay at home and live and dye without any Faith at all He ends And Thus I have answer'd all the Objections I have Met with in J. S. against our Rule of Faith. Here are two Emphaticall words Thus and Met of which the word Thus has such a pregnant Signification and teems with so many indirect wiles and Stratagems that it would be an ingratefull task to recount them and the word Met is as Significant as the other For how should he Meet those that lay in the way while he perpetually runs out of the Way SECT IV. How solidly Dr. St. Answers our Arguments for the Infallibility of Tradition 70. BUt now he exerts his Reasoning Faculty which he does seldom will answer Mr G's Argument for the Infallibility of Oral and Practical Tradition With what success we shall see anon But first he will clear his bad Logick for letting the Argument stand yet in its full force and falling very manfully to Combat the Conclusion and tho' Common Sense tells every man this is not to Answer but to Argue yet he will have Arguing to