Pelagianism to conclude that Human Motives which are Preliminaries to Faith and on which the assuredness of Faith it self depends as to us are Truly Certain And Might you not with as much reason say the same if one should maintain the Absolute Certainty of our Senses which is one of those Preliminaries How strangely do you misrepresent every thing you are to meddle with How constantly do you make your voluntary mistake of every Point serve for a Confutation of it 'T is confest ever was That the Human Authority of the Church or Tradition begets only Human Faith as its immediate Effect but by bringing it up to Christ it leads us to what 's Divine yet not by its own force but by Vertue of the Supposition agreed upon That Christ's Doctrin is such Is it Pelagianism to say we must use our Reason to come to Faith or do you pretend all the World must be the worst of Phanaticks and use none Or does it trouble you we offer to justifie that the Reasons we bring to make good that Preliminary which in our way of Discoursing is to introduce Faith are not such as may deceive us And that we do not confess they are Fallible or may deceive us as you grant of your Interpretations of Scripture which ground your Belief No surely we shall not quit the Certainty we have because you have none For if it be not Certain such Doctrines are indeed Christ's who is our Law-giver we cannot be sure they are True their Truth depending on his Authority and would you have us for fear of Pelagianism confess all our Faith may perhaps be but a story But into what an unadvisedness does your Anger transport you to run the Weapon through your own Side to do us a Mischief You bore us in hand First Letter p. 7. that you had a larger and firmer Tradition for Scripture than we have for what we pretend to Yet this Tradition could cause no more but Human Faith for I do not think you will say you had Divine Faith before you were got to your Rule of Divine Faith. By your Discourse then your self are an Arrant Pelagian too Perhaps worse than we because you pretend to a larger and firmer Human Tradition than you say we have nay you pretend it to be Absolutely Certain too which is a dangerous Point indeed Pray have a care what you do for you are upon the very brink of Pelagianism The knowing you have the true Books of Scripture is a most necessary Preliminary to your Faith for without knowing that you cannot pretend to have any Faith at all and if it be Pelagianism in us to hold such Preliminaries absolutely Certain I fear the danger may come to reach you too Yet you have one Way and but one to escape that damnable Heresy which is that you do not go about to demonstrate the Absolute Certainty of Your Tradition as we do of Ours That that is the very Venom of Pelagianism But take comfort Sir my life for yours you will never fall so abominably into the mire as to demonstrate or conclude any thing For what Idaea soever you may frame of it we mean no more by Demonstrating but plain honest Concluding Your way of Discoursing does not look as if it intended to conclude or demonstrate 'T is so wholly pass for as great a Man as you will made up of mistakes misrepresentations petty cavils witty shifts untoward explications of your own Words constant prevarications and many more such neat dexterities that whatever fault it may through human frailty provok't by powerful Necessity be liable to I dare pawn my life it will never be guilty of that hainous Crime of demonstrating or concluding any thing no not the Absolute Certainty of your firmer Tradition And yet unless you can prove or conclude 't is thus Certain 't is a Riddle to us how can you either hold or say 't is such 13 Pray be not offended if on this occasion I ask You a plain downright Question Is it not equally blamable to Falsify your Adversaries Tenet perpetually as 't is to falsify his Words Nay is it not worse being less liable to discovery and so more certainly and more perniciously Injurious And can any thing excuse You from being thus faulty but Ignorance of our Tenet I fear that Plea will utterly sail you too and leave you expos'd to the Censure of every sincere Reader when I shew him to his Eye that You could not but know all this before For in Error Non-plust p. 121. Sect. 8. You must needs have read the quite contrary Doctrine and how those who maintain Tradition do resolve their Faith. There is no necessity then of proving this Infallibility viz. Of the Church meerly by Scripture interpreted by Virtue of this Infallibility Nor do the Faithful or the Church commit a Circle in believing that the Church is Infallible upon Tradition For they believe onely the supernatural Infallibility built on the Assistance of the Holy Ghost that is on the Church's Sanctity and this is prov'd by the Human Authority of the Church to have been held ever from the Beginning and the force of the Human Testimony of the Church is prov'd by Maxims of meer Reason The same is more at large deliver'd in the foregoing Section and in divers other places Now this Book was Writ against your self and so 't is as hardly Conceiveable you should never have read it as 't is Unconceiveable how you should ever answer it And if you did read it what was become of your sincerity when you counterfeited your Ignorance of our Tenet All is resolv'd say you here p. 9. into meer Human Faith which is the unavoidable consequence of the Doctrin of Oral Tradition How shrewdly positive you are in your Sayings how modest and meek in your Proofs Nothing can be more manifest from our constantly avow'd Doctrin and your own opposing it too than 't is that Tradition resolves all into Christ's and the Apostles Teaching And pray do you hold that Christ is a meer man or that the Believing Him is a meer human Faith or that the Doctrin taught by Him and Them is meerly Human If this be indeed your Tenet I am sorry I knew it not before for then I should have thought fit to begin with other Principles to confute you And I pray God by your impugning known Truths you may never need e'm I see I had reason to alledge in Faith Vindicated that the Grace of God was requisit to make men assent to a Natural Conclusion when it came very cross to their Interest For it appears too plain 't is exceedingly needful to assist you here in a meer Point of Common Morality which is to enable you not to speak and represent things directly contrary to your own knowledge And I am sorry I must tell you and too evidently prove it that the greatest part of your Writings against Catholicks when the Point is to be manag'd by Reason
in it The Lady having a high opinion of Dr. St's parts judg'd it impossible a man of his Learning should not be able to give an Answer to a few Lines in so long a time not reflecting how connected Truth hampers an Adversary and is perfectly Unanswerable So she prest vehemently for a Second a Distinct Answer After some tedious expectation he sends another more insignificant if possible than the former Which seen and the Lady now satisfied that he upon whom she most rely'd had done his utmost she alter'd her Judgment upon no other inducement than the seeing plainly that his Principles resolv'd all Certainty of Faith finally into the Private Spirit The Drs Reflecter was set on like an unexperienc't Perdu Souldier to combat it with a distinct Answer but alas he was shown to falter or falsify in every particular This ill success made the Dr. grow wary in speaking to any particular part of it but thought it safest here to stand aloof and throw stones at distance instead of grappling with it neerer hand His answer is that it proceeds upon two False Suppositions and Overthrows the Possibility of any Rule of Faith. My first False Supposition is that there is no Certainty without Infallibility No True or Absolute Certainty good Dr. For as for your Morall Certainty it may be Fallible enough I must confess I hate such nonsense as to say I am perfectly Certain of a thing yet peradventure I am deciev'd The word Absolute signifies Perfect and Certainty if True is taken from the Natures of the Objects or Things without us and if they stand perfectly engag'd by a True Knowledge of them they would not be what they are if when we truly conceive them as they are our Conception or Iudgment of them can be False that is if it be not in that particular Infallible This is plain Sense and told him long ago It has been demonstrated also in Faith Vindicated that True Certainty Infallibility were all one What answers he Why he makes as if he had never known or heard of our Arguments for it but falls to talk of the Stoicks Marke Epicurus his fooleries He learnedly mistakes the Definition Man is a Rational Creature for a Demonstration and dislikes it at the same time Lastly he tells us many other things the Antients held or said which are nothing to me who judge I know what belongs to Certainty and resolving of Truths into their Principles as well as they did and do think them very weak to stand disputing with the perfect Scepticks or convincing them by Criterions because all Discourse supposes something Certain to build upon otherwise it might go on endlessly that is would be to no End and the Scepticks admitted no Certainty of any thing at all 40. His Application of those Preparatives is that we are to expect no Absolute Certainty in proving the present Faith to be Christ's Doctrin And so he hopes to save his own Credit for producing none let the Credit of Christian Faith and the repute of its being an Absolutely Certain Truth go where it will for him However to avoid the shame justly due to such a Position he must cast in some good words to fool his Readers and so he grants that they who use due Care and diligence may attain to a true Certainty and satisfaction of Mind as to the sence of Scripture But he never attempts to show that possibly they may not do so but may hap to fall into damnable Heresies as the Socinians do who for ought he or I know us'd as much Care and Diligence as he and his Party use Again what means Satisfaction of Mind Is Faith ever a jot more Certain or True because some may be Satisfy'd it is Are not the Socinians as well satisfy'd in mind that Christ is not God as the Dr. is that he is God Moreover if the Argument he brings to prove his Faith to be Christ's true Doctrin does not conclude 't is a thousand to one that Acute and Intelligent men will find the flaw in it And what can those men do in that case so they be true to their Reason the only Light they can yet guide themselves by Must they Assent that his Faith came from Christ when they see that notwithstanding all the Proof he brings for it it may not be Christ's and hazard to Embrace that Doctrin for his Faith which may for any thing they know have the Father of Lyes for its Author They must Suspend then in that case and justify themselves by alledging that the best Arguments the most Learned Christians bring to prove it conclude nothing Nay 't is to be fear'd they will disgrace the Faithfull as a company of Fops for believing upon weak Grounds and by showing them such lay a just Scandall upon the Christian Church for pretending to hold what Christ taught when as yet none in it are able to prove it was his Doctrin And how would they laugh Christians out of Countenance if proceeding on Dr St's short Grounds they should only show them a Well-Attested Book containing those Doctrines without ascertaining absolutely the true Sense of it when as only that Sense was the Doctrine of Faith and which is worse when they saw multitudes of numerous Sects at perpetuall and irreconcileable variance about that Sense The true Rule of Faith then must be such as sets Faith above any Peradventure of not being Christ's true Doctrin and so secure all who rely on it how weak soever from being deceiv'd or in an Error and withall it must be such as Intelligent men seeking for assurance of Christ's Faith may be satisfy'd it is able to conclude it to be such and the more Learned Faithfull Evince to Doubters and Convince Opposers that the Faith held now by themselves and the Church is the Self-same that Christ and his Apostles taught at First But Dr St. dares not affirm any of this of his Rule of Faith therefore his pretended Rule is none His Instance of True Certainty attainable without Infallibility in that point of Faith viz. That Iesus was the True Messias is partly answer'd in my Fourth Catholique Letter and his alledging it has one strange inadvertence in it which I wonder he was not aware of which is that the Proof of it depended on the Interpretation of Scripture He had it seems forgot that to manifest himself to be the true Messias foretold by the Prophets was the main Point of our Saviours Doctrin and that he did Miracles to attest that Doctrin and make himself known to be that Person which Miracles were Infallible Marks that that Doctrine of his in that point was True. And when the Dr. produces Miracles to abet his Private Interpretations of Scripture then he may have a fair pretence to lay aside the Publick Interpretation of the Church Again he is quite out as to the Subject of his discourse For tho' it was a Point of
Iohn Biddle did against the Minister of his Parish and the whole Church of England to boot 'T is plain you ought to cherish and commend him for standing firm to his Rule But I am much afraid you would be out of humor with him and esteem your self affronted You may pretend what you please of high Expressions given by Antiquity of Scripture's incomparable Excellency and Sufficiency for the Ends it was intended for which we do not deny to it but I dare say even your self do's not think that either the Ancient Faithful or the Modern Reformers meant that any of the Ecclesia credens or Believing Church should have the liberty to Interpret Scripture against the Ecclesia docens or Teaching Church i. e. Pastors or Coyn a Faith out of it contrary to the present or former Congregation of which he was a Member 26. The sum is 'T is evident hence that Tradition of your Fathers and Teachers and not Scriptures Letter is indeed your Rule That by it you Interpret Scripture which then only is call'd your Rule and made use of as such when you are Disputing against us because having thus set it up to avoid and counterbalance the Authority of the former Church you left you make account your own private Interpretation of it may come to be thought Argumentative against the great Body of those Churches from whose Communion you departed and yet you judge no private Parishioner should claim the same Priviledge against you without affronting your great Learning and Pastoral Authority But I much wonder you should still venture to call Scripture's Letter a Rule of Faith having been beaten from that Tenet so pitifully in Error Nonplust from Pag. 59. to Pag. 72. where I believe you may observe divers Particulars requisit to be clear'd e're the Letter can be in all regards Absolutely Certain which the Consent of all Christian Churches will never reach to by their meer Authority unless you will allow the Sense of Christ's Doctrin descending by Tradition did preserve the Copy substantially right and intire 27. Your pretended Rule of Faith then being in reality the same that is challeng'd by all the Heretics in the World viz. Scripture's Letter Interpreted by your selves I will let you see in this following short Discourse how far it is from being Absolutely Certain I. God has left us some Way to know surely what Christ and his Apostles taught II. 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 III. Scripture's Letter Interpretable by Private Iudgments is not that Way for we experience Presbyterians and Socinians for example both take that Way yet differ in such high Fundamentals as the Trinity and the Godhead of Christ. IV. Therefore Scripture's Letter Interpretable by Private Iudgments is not the Way left by God to know surely what Christ and his Apostles taught or surely to arrive at right Faith. V. Therefore they who take only that Way cannot by it arrive surely at right Faith since 't is impossible to arrive at the End without the Means or Way that leads to it 28. I do not expect any Answer to this Discourse as short as it is and as plain and as nearly as it touches your Copyhold it may be serv'd as Mr. G's Argument is turn'd off so so with an Instance if there be one at hand or with what always is at hand an Irony or scornful Jest your readiest and in truth most useful Servants But you must be excus'd from finding any Proposition or Inference to deny or any thing save the Conclusion it self Which tho' it will not be fairly avoided I cannot hope should be fairly admitted unless I could hope that Men would be more in love with Truth than their Credit Till Truth be taken a little more to heart Catholic Arguments will and must always be faulty but they are the most unluckily and crosly faulty of any in the World faulty still in the wrong place When fault is found in other Arguments it is always found in the Premisses in these 't is found in the Conclusion In which notwithstanding all who know any thing of a Conclusion know there can be no fault if there be none in the Premisses Indeed they shew that to be true which Men cannot endure should be true and that is their great and unpardonable fault That you may not think I talk in the Air I declare openly that you cannot Answer this Discourse unless you will call some unconcerning Return an Answer and I engage my self to shew the Proposition true and the Inference good which you shall pitch upon to deny And the Distinction if you will make any not to purpose The truth is I engage for no great matter for I know beforehand you can no more Answer now than you could to Error Nonplust or can prove an Absolute Certainty in Protestant Faith. 29. To return now to Mr. G. the Second thing which you desire him to make good is That the Tradition from Father to Son is an infallible Conveyance of Matters of Faith notwithstanding the Greek Church is charged by him with Error which adher'd to Tradition That is you desire him to prove over again what you tell us your self he has prov'd once already For you tell us p. 5. he prov'd That they Traditionary Christians could not innovate in Faith unless they did forget what they held the day before or out of malice alter it Pray when it is prov'd that the Conveyance of Faith by Tradition excludes the possibility of Change in Faith save by forgetfulness or malice is it not prov'd That where there could be neither forgetfulness nor malice there could be no change in Faith You do not I suppose desire he should prove that Men had always Memories or that Christians were never malicious enough to damn themselves and Posterity wittingly and yet it can stick no where else If it can said Mr. G. assign where Now you know very well that a Conveyance which makes it impossible that Faith should ever be chang'd is an Infallible Conveyance and the very thing is prov'd which you desire should be prov'd What reason has Mr. G. to prove it a second time And what reason have you to desire it If Proof would content you you have it already but a second cannot hope to content you better than the first unless it be worse 30. Yes but you would have him prove Notwithstanding the Greek Church c. p. 7. Notwithstanding Why do you think it is with Arguments as with Writs where the want of a Non obstante spoils all When a Truth is once prov'd is it not prov'd notwithstanding all Objections And will any Notwithstanding unprove it again Will your Notwithstanding shew us there was a time in which Men were not Men nor acted like Men Will it shew us that a thing which cannot possibly be chang'd may yet
to justifie themselves for not believing rashly or for fear of making them sure of their Salvation 4. I had alledg'd farther that till Protestants produce the Grounds which prove their Faith to be True it cannot with Reason be held Truth You put my Discourse first in my Words only leaving out those which did not please you and then disguise it in your own and laugh at it for being too plainly True For plain Truth it seems is a ridiculous thing with you and you are of opinion that the more plain it is that you ought to bring your Proofs the less you are oblig'd to bring them Thence you start aside to tell us that the vulgar Catholic has less certainty than the vulgar Protestant because the one has only the Word of his Priest the other has the Word of his Minister and the Word of God in Scripture besides Do you think Catholic Priests are at liberty to tell the vulgar what Faith they please as your Ministers may interpret Scripture as seems best to their Judgment of Discretion when you cannot but know they dare not teach them any Faith but what the Church holds nor does the Church hold any but upon Tradition Again You do well to say your People have it in Scripture or in a Book for they have it no where else And you know the vulgar Socinians and Presbyterians and all the rest have it as much there as your vulgar Protestants notwithstanding all you have said or can say and then I suppose you do not think they Truly have the Word of God on their side unless you think the Word of God says different things to different Hearers When you prove that you and your Ministers have any Certain means of making it out that the Sense which by their explaining and catechising they put upon the Written Characters is truly God's Meaning you will do something make many Converts and my self one among the rest Till then to possess your vulgar Protestants with a Conceit of having the Word of God is meerly to delude them Sure you wanted a Common-place to furnish out your Paragraph or else writ it in a Dream For to tell me that Truth can depend no more upon the Saying of a Romish Priest than of an English Minister when I tell you it depends not on any private man's Sayings is not a Reply of a man well awake In two words Bring you Proofs say I the Saying that is the No-proof of a Minister is as good as the No-proof of a Priest say you And the short and the long is No Proof I thank you 5. But two things say you follow from my Position which you fear I will not grant The First is That if we cannot with Reason hold a Truth till the Intrinsical Grounds of it be produc'd we cannot with reason hold any thing for a Truth namely because the Church of Rome hath determined it for her Determination is no Intrinsical Ground of the Truth but only an outward Testimony or Declaration of it and then what 's become either of her Infallibility or Authority to command our Faith As slips of honest Ignorance deserve compassion and instruction and I do not know this to be any more I will be so charitable as to set you right Authority amongst those who already admit it for True has Force to prove that to be Truth which depends on it and will conclude against those who allow its veracity if it be shewn to be engag'd against them But it has not this Effect upon Human Nature by its proper Power as 't is meer Authority but because Intrinsical Mediums justifie it to be worthy to be rely'd on Whence let that Authority come into dispute it will lose it's Credit unless it can be prov'd by such Mediums to deserve what it pretends to And hence you see we go about to demonstrate the Infallibility of the Church's Human Authority in deriving down Christian Faith. To clear this farther I advance this Fundamental Position viz. No Authority deserves any Assent farther than Reason gives it to deserve And therefore without abating any thing of our respect we may affirm that the Authority of the whole Catholick Church would be no greater than that of an old Woman or one of your sober Enquirers were there no more Reason to be given for believing the former than there is for believing the later And consonantly to this Doctrin we declare to you that When Dr. St. comes to argue either out of Authority of Writers or Instances depending on their Authority against Tradition he shall be prest to make out by Intrinsical Mediums they are Absolutely Certain or they shall deservedly be look'd upon and contemn'd as Inconclusive By this time I hope you see that All Truths are built on Intrinsical Mediums and that whereas you apprehended they would overthrow our Church's Testimony or Authority such Mediums in case we produce them are the best means to establish it and give it force upon our selves and others As also how it comes that the Church can oblige to Belief which is not by a dry commanding our Faith as you apprehend but by having its Human Authority so solidly grounded upon Reason that it self becomes a Motive able to beget according to the best Maxims of Rational Nature such an Assent in us to this matter of Fact that Christ and his Apostles taught such Doctrins But what a put off is this We say Truth is not therefore Truth because of mens bare Sayings or Authority and therefore demand your Proofs from Intrinsical Mediums for thither it must come e're it be known for Truth to make out what you pretend Your Answer in effect is You are afraid to do it lest you should destroy our Church's Infallibility and Authority How much is our Church in your Debt that the Care of Her makes you careless of those Souls in your own Church to whom you owe this satisfaction 6. The second thing you fear I will not grant is A Iudgment of Discretion to common People with which they may discern the Intrinsical Grounds of Truth You gave your self at first the Character of a scrupulous man and I see by this you have a mind to maintain it You know that those who write and print can have no design their Books should not be read and you know those that read will and must judge of what they do read and yet your scrupulosity can fear I will not allow the Common People to judge of the Intrinsical Grounds of Truth who take pains they may judge put it into their power to judge and out of my own and so cannot hinder them tho' I would Indeed I think it no great sign of a Judgment of Discretion to pretend to discern the Truth of Faith by Lights that do not shew it to be True and upon such a Judgment I wish and labour People should not venture their Souls But I disallow no other Iudgment of Discretion full
distance with the true Sense of what was deliver'd by the Founders of the Church in the beginning without danger of losing it by the way which cannot be imagin'd as long as Tradition is held to the same believ'd to day which was held yesterday or that the immediately succeeding Fathers still deliver'd the same Doctrin To do which there wanted no Power as has been lately shewn to the full nor Will to use that Power being oblig'd to it by the greatest Penalties GOD himself could inflict the Damning Themselves and their Posterity 4. But say you pag. 8. If the Church may explain the Sense and Meaning of Tradition so as to oblige men to believe that by Virtue of such Explication which they were not oblig'd to before then 't is impossible the Infallibility of Tradition should ly in a constant Tradition from Father to Son for they have no Power to oblige to any more than they received How Plausibly and smoothly this Discourse runs and how shrewdly it seems to conclude Would any well-meaning Reader imagin that it were perfect Non-sense all the while and wholly built on your own Liberality giving us another sort of Tradition which is no Tradition This malignant word Tradition must not be taken in its right sense that 's resolv'd for then it would grow too troublesom but take it in any other sense that is mistake it and then have at it For when you speak of explaining the sense and meaning of Tradition you do not take Tradition as you know well we do and as the word plainly imports for the Delivery of Doctrin but for Doctrins Delivered and so again we have once more lost the Question For what can these words mean If the Church may explain the sense and meaning of Tradition that is of the Method of conveying down Christs Doctrin The Method of Delivery is the very Signification of that Doctrin from Age to Age and how can one Explain the Sense and meaning of a signification of Christ's sense when it 's self is that very Explication of it This gives me occasion to reflect how oddly you have hamper'd our Tradition hitherto instead of handling it P. 9. You seem to doubt by your If no more were meant c. Whether it does not mean Tradition for the Books of Scripture and this you knew well enough before was none of our Tradition in dispute here which as may be seen by Mr. G's Demonstration put down by your self First Letter p. 4. and 5. is confest to be Tradition for matters of Faith or Doctrin Now in this new sense you give us there of Tradition you kindly grant it for 't is your own not that which we here mean by that word Next comes another If and makes it seem to signify Articles and Power And this is no Tradition at all neither ours nor yours nor any body's For neither those Articles nor that Power you speak of p. 10. are or can be the Delivery of Christ's Doctrin from day to day for that speaks such a Method of bringing down things not the things brought down And this you very gravely deny And so you may with my good leave either deny or expunge or condemn it to what doom you please for certainly it comes with a felonious Intention to draw the Reader out of his Road into a Labyrinth of Non-sense and then robb him of his Reason Again p. 7. you make it a Delivery of bare Words at best with a general impossible sense and perhaps a Heretical one too into the bargain whereas you cannot but know Tradition as We mean it is a Delivery of the sense of Christian Tenets and this a particular sense too and such a one as cannot possibly be Heretical while this Rule is adher'd to unless the First-Taught Faith were Heretical which is Blasphemy to imagin And here again p. 8. you make Tradition or Delivery to mean the Point delivered and would have us give you the signification and Explication of That which is it's self the signification and Explication of Christ's Faith and this too the very best that can be imagin'd Is it possible to deform Tradition more untowardly or wrest it into more misconstructions than has been done already After a serious manner certainly 't is impossible But Drollery is now to act its part And to cheer your spirits which droop't under the difficulty of answering the Argument for Tradition you put your self in masquerade and would make the Relation of perhaps two or three it may be partial Friends of yours concerning Mr. G's Discourse about You a perfect parallel to our Rule of Faith and that if they can mistake or misrepresent down goes Tradition Which amounts to this that sooner may all the Christian Fathers in any Age consisting of many millions and those disperst in far-distant Parts of the World be mistaken in their Faith which it imported them no less than their Salvation to know sooner may all of them conspire to deliver to their Children another Doctrin than that which they held the way to Heaven than that a very few of your own Party should to gratify you tell you a false Story or Aggravate tho' all of them were besides profest Adversaries to the Person against whom they witnest and indeed Witnesses in their Own Common Cause I beseech you Sir tho' you be never so much to seek for a solid Answer yet speak at least plausible things and do not thus expose your Credit while you affect to play the Wit. Poor Tradition what has it done to be thus misrepresented Did it deserve no better for bringing down the Book of Scripture but to be expos'd in so many aukward Vizards when it was to come upon the Stage and not once suffer'd to shew it's true face but still travestee'd into another Form and put in all shapes but its own This Carriage of yours is enough to make the Reader think you apprehend it to be some terrible Gorgons Head or some Basilisk and that the very sight of it unless it came thus muffled up would undo you At least he will suspect from such an untoward broken Scene that the Dramma is not like to be regular Indeed you shift too often and to catch and confute you I must travel thro' the whole Compass for no sooner can a man steer one way but your Discourse like the Wind whips straight into another quarter and about we must tack or we must not make forwards at all But I will insist no more at present on this dexterity of yours you will afford your Friends many fresh Instances of it through the whole course of this Letter hereafter Onely I must note your forgetfulness or what else may I call it For you took the Notion of Tradition very right First Letter p. 7. where you alledg'd you had a larger and firmer Tradition for Scripture than we had for us You did not there take Tradition of that Book for the Book delivered
attested and blame the Attestation and Tradition as it may be found to deserve but still when you would put your own Tenet as distinguish 't from ours be so kind as to put ours too and do not stand talking to us and fooling your Readers with the Rabbies pretended Tradition from Moses his mouth no more like ours than an Apple is like an Oyster Again this Resolution of your Faith gives every one Absolute Certainty of his Faith who believes he has Absolute Certainty of Scripture's letter and that it contains the Word of God. And yet Experience tells us that whole Bodys of Learned men believe all this and yet differ that is one side errs in the highest Mysteries of Christian Faith. Whence follows that both sides by this Doctrin are Absolutely Certain of their Faith one side for example is Absolutely Certain there is a Trinity and that Christ is God the other that there is no Trinity and that Christ is not God. This seems but a very odd account of the Certainty of Protestant Faith. 17. But you refine upon your self in your Answer to the 3 d Question p. 15. It was ask't there By what Certain Rule do you know that the New Testament which we now have does contain all the Divine Revelations of Christ and his Apostles This Question evidently aims at two things viz. First whether some Books writ by the Apostles were not lost as appears by those words which we now have For if they were then being penn'd by men divinely inspir'd they must necessarily contain some Divine Revelations in them too as well as did the other and then how does it appear there were not more or other Revelations contain'd in them than were contain'd in the books now extant The other is that you know well very many hold that diverse Divine Revelations were deliver'd down by Tradition and not all by Writing Let 's see now how your Answer sutes with this Question By the Vniversal Testimony say you of the Christian Church from the Apostles times downwards This Reply if pertinent to that Question must mean that this Vniversal Testimony ascertains us that the Scriptures we have now contains all the Divine Revelations But when you come to explain your self it comes to no more but that The Testimony of the Apostolical and the succeeding Churches did by degrees make men fix upon the Certain Canon of the New Testament What a flight have you taken on a sudden Where will you pitch when you light I am sure not on the place where you took wing and where you ought to have stay'd For What is their Testimony for the Books we now have to the Books which have or may have prerish't and to their containing some other Divine Revelations Or what is the fixing upon the Certain Canon of the Books to the difficulty whether some Divine Revelations did not descend by Tradition without Writing Do the Apostolical or succeeding Churches testify either of these Or do you so much as pretend they do Not a syllable of this do you say or take notice of and so not a syllable have you Answer'd to his Question Which was not about the Canon of Scripture or how you would resolve your Faith with which you keep such a pother over and over but whether the New Testament we have now contain'd all the Divine Revelations If you explicate Scripture no better for your Faith than you do your own words here you will questionless make a very extraordinary piece of work of it Your Answers come now and then pretty home the smartness of the Questions obliging you to it but your Explications of them immediately after seem purposely fram'd that we should not take you at your Word in your Answers 18. That Answer then prevaricating from the whole Question Mr. G. endeavour'd to press for a pertinent return to what was demanded and therefore puts his fourth Question thus Was that Vniversal Testimony an Infallible Rule to assure us certainly down to our time that the New Testament contain'd all the Divine Revelations of Christ and his Apostles Your Answer was The Vniversal Testimony of the Christian Church concerning the Book of Scripture and the Doctrin contain'd therein is a sufficient Ground to make us certain of all matters necessary to our Salvation 19. Here are many things worth our Admiration In the First Letter p. 7. this Universal Testimony was onely to ascertain the Scripture In the Answer to the Third Question here 't is onely to assure us that the New Testament contains all the Divine Revelations But here it is to certify us of the Doctrine too contain'd in it which if you mean as your Words seem to sound is all we require in our Tradition-Rule There may be some other subtle meaning lying yet coucht in those Words which Time may discover tho' we cannot yet till he that made the Lock bring the Key Again 't is ask't if it be an Infallible Rule T is answered T is a sufficient Ground T is ask't whether this Testimony assures us certainly the New Testament contains all the Divine Revelations T is answer'd it makes us certain of all Matters necessary to our Salvation which is clearly intended for a diminishing expression and argues some fear of undertaking for All the Divine Revelations being contain'd there or All the Doctrin that was taught by Christ and his Apostles as was pretended p. 14. One would verily imagin by this unsutable Answer that Dr. St. and Mr. G. were playing at Cross-purposes the Answer is so wide from the Question at least that there is some indirect design lies lurking it being so opposite to the wayes of honest Nature When one asks a positive Question all Mankind expects a Positive Answer to the very words as they ly I or No Or if the words be ambiguous 't is the duty of the Answerer to desire to be satisfied of the meaning of the Asker if present ere he answers without which in that case 't is impossible to reply pertinently But it is not your temper nor interest to use such clear and open candour For you saw that great multitudes had the Letter thus secur'd to them yet had not Absolute Certainty that all the Divine Revelations are contain'd in it therefore by adding and the Doctrin contain'd therein you had some faint hopes you might be safe Again you saw well that should you grant Universal Testimony to be an Infallible Rule you would hazard to grant too much to Tradition and all the learned Jests you have broke upon us for asserting Infallibility would fly back upon your self therefore grant it you durst not Nor yet durst you deny it to be an Infallible Rule for then since one of the two it must forcibly be you must affirm it to be a Fallible Rule And then the common sence of all Mankind Mr. T. amongst the rest would be justly scandaliz'd at the non sense For an intellectual Ground that may perhaps let sink
had occasion to press still for satisfaction Again the Written Instrument or Means of putting this heaven-stampt coyn in our Souls is an Ignoble Instrument in comparison being in reality as to it 's Material part or taken as abstracted from the Sacred Sense which is signify'd by it nothing but Ink thus figur'd on Paper Whereas the material part of the other is the most Noble that can be found under Heaven it self viz. the Church which all Christians must acknowledge to be the Spouse of Christ the Pillar and Ground of Truth and consisting of the Living Temples of the Holy Ghost That for whose edification the Scripture was writ and so holds proportion with it as the Means does with the End which is in a manner Infinit Nay That for which all the Material World was created and the Oeconomy of it still carry'd on from the first beginning of Time to it's last Period Lastly That for whose sake God himself was made Man and dy'd a most cruel Death on a Cross. So that 't is unconceivable that it can enter into the thoughts of any intelligent man who believes this to be the due Character of the Church there should be any competition betwixt the Letter of Scripture and it or that it can possibly be doubted to which of them all things consider'd we ought to attribute most in looking after Faith. But to return to your similitude The sum of it is this That the Gold and Silver you speak of being the Doctrin of Faith not the Scripture but the Heads and Hearts of the Faithful that is of the Church does really and indeed contain it and consequently this onely can with any propriety be compar'd to a Purse That both Tradition and Scripture are to be liken'd to the several Ways of putting the Heavenly Treasure of Faith into this Purse or Faith into the Souls of the Faithful Lastly that taking them as containing them as signes do the things signify'd it is not their containing this Treasure does us any good but the delivering it out to us no more than a man is better for having a Trunk full of Money so circumstanc't that he could never come at it and that between these two ways of coming at this Treasure or their delivering it out to us there is no comparison whether we regard the Intelligibleness or Providential Establishment of those respective Instruments in order to such an End. So that your similitude how prettily soever it look't at first hath one misfortune very common to such fine useless toys that is to be good for nothing for it neither comes up to the Question nor sutes with your own Tenet 24. But ere we part from this Point it were not amiss to examin a little that cautious expression of yours all things necessary for salvation into which you change that bold assertion that you are absolutely certain you now hold all the same Doctrin that was taught by Christ and his Apostles I ask you then what do you mean by those words necessary for Salvation which mince the matter so warily Do you think Christ taught any unnecessary Points or did a needless action Sure you will not say it And yet my self will grant too and agree with you that fewer Means than the Knowledge of all Christ taught may suffice for the Salvation of some particular persons What follows then but that since they are all necessary for some body and yet not all necessary for every particular person more of them are necessary for one man than for another and all of them necessary for the body of the Church whose Pastours are to instruct their Children in them and apply the Efficacy of them to their Souls as their capacities admit and exigencies require For tho' some few may be saved without the knowledge of such such Points slender Motives being enough for their circumstances yet multitudes of others may require incomparably more effectual Means to buoy them up from the World and raise them to heaven and so they would certainly miscarry for want of them Particularly the points now mention'd are of such a high and general Influence that without these the Devotion of a very great portion of the Church would be enfeebled many of the Souls that want them be lost eternally and others be but dim Stars in the Glorious Firmament of Heaven in comparison of what they might have been had their Minds been cultivated with such elevating considerations And can the Church which God has entrusted with those Souls think that 't is agreeable to his Will his Flock should either dy or fall short of the full growth they might have had in the plentiful Pastorage he had provided for them It rests then for you either to shew those Points not necessary for the Generality and that your Grounds are sufficient to give men both as able and as willing for ought appears to understand Scripture right as your self is Absolute Certainty of Them which is to confute Experience and dispute against your own Knowledge or else to confess ingenuously you have no Absolute Certainty of even the highest Fundamentals and most necessary Points for the Salvation of Mankind 25. Thus much to shew that your Rule gives you no Absolute Certainty of all such matters as are necessary for your Salvation with reference to the Points of Faith to certify which Experience assures us it does not reach Now should we speak of the Assent of Faith the Short Discourse p. 30 31. of my former Letter demonstrates clearly you can have no Absolute Certainty of any one and so cannot with reason affirm your Faith is True since wanting Absolute Certainty that Christ taught it it may be False The same point has been prest upon you in Faith vindicated Reason against Raillery Errour non-plust and diverse other Books yet tho' it was the most important objection that is or can be imagin'd as plucking up by the roots all your Faith and destroying it from it's very Foundation no return could ever yet be obtain'd nor candid Reason produc't but onely a put-off with sufficient Certainty and such dow-bak't words without being able or even endeavouring to shew that Grounds less than Absolutely Certain can possibly be thus sufficient for the Nature the Ends and Vses of Faith. But 't is high time to return to our Disputants 26. Against this pretended Answer of yours you introduce Mr. M. suggesting several things First As to difference of Translations To which you reply Doth Mr. M. think our Faith is to be resolv'd into the Original Texts What he thinks you know better than you would seem to do He cannot but think if he may believe you that you resolve your Faith into the Letter of Scripture He cannot but think that by these words you mean the Right Letter for otherwise it would not be Scripture Nor can he think or you either it can be the Right Letter unless it have a Right Translation and this from a True
to the next Age that They had heard seen and practic 't and the whole next Age to the Third and so forwards with an Obligation still to transmit it Equal to that the First Age had to believe it there had been no place left for his ridiculous Raillery But his constant Method is this he endeavours to put you out of conceit with Tradition by concealing every thing that might give you a true Conceit what Tradition is and what we mean by it § 14. The Argument or Instance he brings to prove that the Authority of Tradition was mightily sunk in the Second Century is if possible ten thousand times worse One would verily think from those big words he would prove that All the Christians of the First Age had conspir'd to tell a Ly to the Second concerning Christ's Doctrin But this mountainous Expectation came off with a poor little mouse the relation of one single man Papias of what an Apostle had told him which he being a good honest Soul gain'd credit with diverse Tho' as for his wit Dr. St's Author Eusebius tells us he was a man of a mean capacity and scarce understood the meaning of what was spoken I wonder the Dr. blush't not to put such a Slur upon his Auditory as to compare the Publick Authority of the whole Christian World and the Universal Testimony of God's Church to the private story of one weak man or to pretend hence that if he were mistaken the Authority of Tradition mightily sinks and fails whereas 't is only his own Credit that falls into that disaster by making such a senseless Argument Yet this is the best and as far as I can find the only one he has brought to prove directly the First Age of Christians had bely'd Christ's Doctrin to the Second and that because one man of a mean Capacity mistook we may stand in doubt of our Assurance whether all the Learneder Faithfull nay all the Pastours and Bishops in the Church had Capacity enough to know an open matter of Fact viz. what had been taught and practis'd publickly every day by a World of Fore-fathers or the Integrity not to deceive us § 15. Of the same stamp is his alledging that St. Luke's reason why he writ his Gospel was to give Theophilus Certainty of those things wherein he had been instructed The Subject of our Enquiry is about the High Points of Christian Belief Does the Dr. think then that Theophilus was not a Christian or had no Certain Knowledg of his Faith ere St. Luke writ Or that the Apostles did not instruct people in those Main Articles Or that St. Luke's Writing those Points in short for those Points we speak of take up a very inconsiderable part of his Gospel could make him know it better and with more Certainty than their Preaching it at large With what Sense can any of this be pretended The Apostles did Miracles to attest their Doctrin Did St. Luke do any to attest the True Sense of all he writ in those Points Again what did his Gospel contain Only those Dogmatical Points controverted from time to time between the Sons of the Church and her Deserters of which and none but which we speak Alas these are the least part of his Gospel and make but a small appearance in it He relates our Saviour's Genealogy Temptation Fasting Miracles Parables his sending his Apostles and Disciples his Exhortations to Repentance and good Life the Manner of his Entring into Ierusalem his Instituting the Last Supper the particulars of his being apprehended accus'd condemn'd and Crucify'd Lastly his Burial Resurrection Apparitions and Ascension These are laid out in that Gospel at large together with many excellent sayings of our Blessed Saviour related verbatim And These as they were never pretended by us to be the Object of Tradition so tho' spoken of frequently and perhaps variously amongst Christians were Impossible ever to be perfectly remember'd by the Generality unless put in a Book and therefore St. Luke gives Theophilus and others the Certain and particular knowledge of all these Passages by Writing And Dr. St. confesses the same p. 17. and that his aym and Intention was to give an Account of the Life and Actions of Christ but not a word that his Writing was to give Theophilus Certainty or a Clearer Knowledge of those Main Articles to ascertain which Tradition is pretended by us to be the most proper Means § 16. Now let 's see how many notorious prevarications and faults he has fallen into in this one Instance 1. Our whole Controversy is about the Certainty of those sublime Points of Christian Faith which he conceals and confounds them with a multitude of particular Passages 2. He intimates our Tradition is to ascertain all that 's contain'd in St. Luke's Gospel Whereas he knows well we rely upon no Tradition but what 's in some degree Practical which those Particulars are not unless it be those of which we keep Anniversary Solemnities 3. He is so angry at Tradition that he pretends the very Oral Tradition or Preaching of the Gospel by the Apostles needed something to strengthen and confirm it Lastly he makes our Tradition to begin with the first Preaching of the Apostles whereas it dates it 's Original from the first Age of Christianity already perfectly instructed by them during all their Lives and settled into Ecclesiastical Order and Discipline at their Decease § 17. He seems at length to come neerer the Point and affirms That the Writings of the Apostles when Matters of Doctrin came to be contested were the Infallible Rule whereby they were to judge which was the true and genuin Doctrin of Christ and which is yet better that They were intended by the Holy Ghost to be a standing Rule whereby the Church was to judge which was the true and genuin Doctrine of Christ. I am glad with all my heart to hear him speak of the Church being a Judge of Controversies or that he allows Her any hand in ascertaining and proposing Faith. I ever understood him hitherto That every sober Enquirer was to judge of the sense of Scripture for himself That it was plain to him even in the highest Points and that if in any contested or dubious Articles the Letter of Scripture did not declare it explicitly his sober Enquirer could by parity of Reason render any Implicit Point Explicit without the Church's Help tho' this was the most difficult Task as to the penetrating the Sense of Scripture that is possible and far beyond the understanding what 's there Explicitly He told us too in his second Letter p. 31 32. that because there is no Infallible Iudge every man is to Iudge for himself and this by Scripture his Rule But here the case is alter'd and the Church is to judge of Christ's Doctrin by Scripture I can allow honest Retractions without upbraiding them and am contented that the Church should judge by Scripture both when
to do with his Objecting some of our Writers but shall come to his Second Reason drawn from the notorious Vncertainty of meer Tradition and that never was any trial made of it but it fail'd even when it had the greatest Advantages Expect Gentlemen by those high and mighty Words he will bring most Convincing Arguments to prove that the Universal Testimony of the Church in delivering down those high Points of Faith is notoriously Vncertain and fail'd in every Age nay the very First for then it had the Greatest Advantages the Christians having then fresh Memories and being then Infallible since they could not agree to approve false Doctrin as himself told us p. 11 12. For my part I am of his mind and never knew any other Tradition have Advantages comparable to what Christian Tradition had for transmitting the Doctrine of Faith and if he lets you know what those Advantages of Christian Tradition were and shews them unable to oblige the Church to convey Christ's Doctrin down he will gain his Point But if he prevaricates from this necessary Duty he abuses you with fine Luke-warm Words to no purpose I do assure you before hand tho' he talks here of Advantages he has not in his whole Sermon mention'd much less ingenuously inform'd you of any one Advantage Christian Tradition has but industriously conceal'd every particular that gives it force Yet who sees not that without doing this 't is impossible to impugn it or deal fairly with his Auditory for how should you judge of the Comparison without a clear sight of the things Compar'd § 22. He did very prudently not to insist on the falling of Tradition in the Law of Nature For 1. He must have shewn It fail'd them and not They fail'd It by deserting it which could only be done by proving that had they continu'd to follow it they could have stray'd into Polytheism which he can never do it being evidently Impossible 2. That to make good the Parallel he must have prov'd it had as Ample an Original which gives a vast force to Testifying Authority as Christian Tradition had which is equally impossible for it had for its Source but one single man Adam 3. That there were not more powerful Motives nor greater Assistances of Grace to continue the Christian Doctrine under the Law of Grace than there were under that most imperfect Law of Nature nor more exact Discipline in the Church of Christ than there was in that loose State which had been hard Points and altogether impossible even to attempt with any shew of Reason He did very wisely too to Wave the Opinion of the Millenaries the time of Easter and the Communicating of Infants For he both knows that every Apostolical Tradition had this last been suppos'd such is not necessarily an Article of Faith as also that none of these nor yet their contrary was a Point of Christian Doctrine Preach't and Settled unanimously over the World by the Apostles He made account he had a better game to play by shewing how Tradition fail'd in delivering down the Apostles Creed But he might had he pleas'd as well have left out That as the Others for none of the Explainers of Tradition ever held or said it was to bring down Set Form of Words which requir'd application of Memory and Repetition of them in Order but only the Sense of the First Age which was Christ's true Faith instill'd after a connatural way by Education and apt to be exprest in different Words according to different Circumces § 23. Were it granted him That things Written supposing the Letter could be prov'd to be still continu'd Absolutely Certain had the Advantage as to the Certainty of Conveyance above things meerly committed to Memory and Tradition yet he is where he was The Point between us still sticks that is Whether meer Words expressing in short such sublime spiritual Tenets as are most of the chief Articles of Christian Religion are so Clear to private Judgments nay to All even the Vulgar that are looking for Faith that they can have that perfect Assurance of their true Sense as to build that Never-to-be-Alter'd Assent call'd Faith upon their understanding them This is the summ of our difficulty this is what we most insist upon and are perpetually pressing him to shew the security of the Method he takes to give us this Certainty I do not mean the Certainty of the Letter about which he keeps such ado but of the sense of it in such Points if he thinks any one of them so necessary that the Generality cannot be sav'd without the knowledge of it This is it which most imports you to know if you value the having such Grounds for your Faith as ought in true reason to perswade you 't is true that it was Taught by Christ or that you are not perhaps dociend and in an Errour all this while But not one word of this in the whole Sermon He argues from God's making choice of Writing when he deliver'd the Ten Commandments What means he or how can he apply this to our Question Are the Ten Commandments which are plain honest Nature of as Deep and Mysterious a Sense as the high Points we speak of Are they so hard to be understood that Writing is not a clear Conveyer of God's Sense in such Matters Does he hear a great part of the World at variance about the Meaning of the Ten Commandments as multitudes of Hereticks have been Wrangling with the Church ever since Christ's time about the Sense of Scripture in those Dogmatical Points Were the Texts which contain those Points as plain to all Mankind as the Ten Commandments are or as are generally the Historical and Moral parts of Scripture I should frankly declare that Scripture might in that Supposition be a Rule of Faith as to the Points contained in it and that there would be no need of the Church for our simply believing but only to confirm our Faith explain it more throughly when any part of it imply'd in some main Point is deny'd apply it to our Consciences by her Preaching and keep us up to the Doctrin it delivers by her Government and Discipline So that our Controversy-Preacher who has never hit the Point hitherto doubly misses it here in his representing Tradition as held by us needful to supply the defect of Clearness in Moral passages that are plain enough of themselves and that 't is to bring down Set-Forms of Words which is not its business whatever it be those Words express And this shews his Mistake in his Second Proof viz. the restoring the Knowledge of the Law Written by a Written Book which was a Way most Proper for that End. Whence for the same Reason if there were any deviation from the Christian Doctrin which as contradistinguish't to that other was writ in the Living Tables of the Hearts of the Faithful the best Way of preserving or restoring That was by
Genuin Effect of some kind of Evidence and therefore Absolute or Perfect Certainty ought to be the Effect of Perfect Evidence nor is any Evidence a Perfect one unless it Concludes Now he does not like Conclusive Evidence and so he ought to renounce Absolute Certainty 'T is as difficult to guess what he means here by those words in point of Reason True Reason knows no Methods but this to Assent if the Thing be Clear and to Suspend if it be Not and to conclude or argue being the proper Act of Reason straining after Truth what 's not concluded is not Clear and therefore not to be accepted for an Absolute Truth or Assented to as such The summ then to come close to our present Question is that Absolute Certainty of such a Doctrine's having been taught by Christ must either be built on True Evidence of the Grounds for it and then it cannot consist with Deception and so is Infallible Or it is not and then indeed it may sometimes come to Iustify a great Propension Hope or Deeming that 't is so Or if I conceive it to be of small concern an unexamining letting it pass for such but it can never Iustify an Absolute Assent See more of this Subject and a perfect Confutation of this wild Assertion in Errour-Nonplust and Reason against Raillery After many rambling sayings of his own he falls to speak of putting an End to Controversies especially about Certainty and Fatality What we have to do with Fatality I know not but I believe he heartily wishes an end of This Fatall Controversy concerning Certainty for he is in a miserable ross about it being driven now to declare whether he will deny First Principles or renounce his Vnprincipled Doctrin The best way I can invent to end all Controversies is this that since Controvertists are Disputants and are to produce their Arguments which are good for nothing nor can ever End Controversies unless they Conclude those who renounce Conclusive Evidence and instead of it bring Invisible Motives Qualifications may be expos'd and turn'd out of the Lists as being even by their own Confession Insignificant Talkers and Endless Brabblers His wrangle about Light and Darkness Christ and Belial is spoke to in my Second Catholique Letter Let him shew that his Rule Scripture interpreted by Private Judgments does not Patronize Heresy as well as Faith which he will never do and we will be content to acquit him from that horrid Blasphemy of making Light and Darkness very consistent and Christ the Author of our Holy Faith and Belial the Father of Heresy and Lies very good Friends of which wicked Doctrin 'till he does this he stands Indicted 49. I alledg'd that Scripture being the Common Rule to him and all Hereticks the particular or distinguishing Rule must be their own Private Iudgments interpreting Scripture Does he deny this or shew my Discourse faulty by assigning any other that particularizes or distinguishes them No neither What does he then Why he sends me to the old Philosophers to learn Logick And I tell him with many thanks I know none except Aristotle a competent Master for Me. Next he makes Sense to be a Rule of Iudging that is an Intellectual Rule which I deny For the Rule to any thing is the Immediate Light to judge of any thing and multitudes of intervening Knowledges are requisit to inform us when the advertisements of our Senses are right as is evident in the fallaciousness of Sense in a Stick seeming crooked in water the bigness of things seen at distance and innumerable other particulars But I ought to distinguish between the Rule of Iudgment and the Iudgment made according to that Rule And so I do if that be all For the Rule is the Informer my Iudgment the thing inform'd But yet if my Judgment follow the Information and still go wrong my Informer was no good Informer The Evidence of this and the propension of uncorrupted Nature to believe Pastours Fathers and Teachers and those who were wiser than themselves in things they were Ignorant of did I told him make the Generality of those out of the Church follow the Way of Tradition of their own Church and not regulate themselves in the choice of their Tenets by their private Judgment of Discretion working upon Scripture's Letter as is evident in whole Nations as Denmark meeting in one particular Belief and whole Sects agreeing in the very Judgment of their respective Leaders whence the Sense they make of Scripture as themselves understand it is not their Rule First he quotes a Decree of the Church of England that nothing is to be requir'd of any man to be believ'd as Faith but what 's read in Scripture or may be prov'd by it But this makes against himself unless he thinks the Generality that is the Layity of that Church esteem themselves more able to judge of the Sense of what 's read in Scripture or to prove all the highest Points of Faith by it than their Pastours and Church-Governours are for otherwise Nature will and ought to incline them to believe their Judgment rather than their own in that affair which is to follow the Way of Tradition Indeed I must confess that by the Doctor 's Principles every one of his Sober Enquirers ought to preferr his own Judgment of Discretion above the Church'es but what He says is one thing what the Dictates of honest Nature teaches Mankind is another 'T is confest the Layity of each Congregation judges the Sentiments of their Leaders to be agreeable to Scripture but I affirm withall that not one in ten thousand when he comes at age lays aside Prejudice and setts himself to consider anew by his scanning the Letter whether his Leaders told him right or presumes of the competency of his own knowledge to judge or determin whether They understood Scripture in the right Sense or no. He talks to us indeed of Helps and how they call in the old Interpreters of the Church and desire them to use their own Reason c. But every man sees that Few or None stand Indifferent 'till they have us'd all these Helps but undoubtingly accept that very Faith in which they were educated And so they continue 'till the discoursing or reading those of a contrary Opinion unsettles them and put them into Doubts Besides if those Helps he talks of are not secure from erring themselves as to what they help others in they may help them to Misunderstand the Sense of Scripture in the Highest Points of Faith and so help them to be Hereticks And yet these are all the best Helps his Principles can Help them to For he assures us and maintains stoutly by affirming them all to be Fallible in what they are to help us that all his Helps may be deceiv'd in that very thing in which they are to help others They may indeed according to him give a strong guess at what is Christ's Doctrin
admitted that the Certainty of Scripture is from Tradition there was no refusing to admit that Tradition causes Certainty and makes Faith as Certain as Scripture And then it would have prov'd something difficult to satisfie even a willing Man that the Faith is Certain which is opposit to a Faith come down by Tradition But it was seen whereto it would come and thought fit to break off in time and not let the Conference proceed too far In the mean time Absolute Certainty of Scripture was not the Point of the Conference nor is it the Point of Concern Besides that 't is agreed on all hands Men are Sav'd by Believing and Practising what Christ taught not barely by believing Scripture is Scripture And Salvation is the thing that imports us in these Disputes and 't were well that nothing else were minded by Disputers But it imported you it seems both to shift off Proving from your self and to stifle any further Talk of the Certainty of Protestant Faith and keep us from looking that way by fixing our Eyes on another Object And this is all you do but with so much Art that I verily think many a Reader is persuaded you are talking all the while to the purpose The truth is you have reason to carry it as you do for it is good to avoid undertaking what cannot be perform'd And you cannot and I believe know you cannot make out That Protestants are Absolutely Certain that they now hold all the same Doctrin that was taught by Christ and his Apostles as you affirm'd in your Answer to Mr. G's first Question And this I thought it imported to tell you plainly and publickly that it might be in your hands to pin the Controversie-basket and bring all Catholics to your Church where I will answer you will be sure to find us if you make us sure we shall find this Certainty there when we come 6. In the mean time why has not Mr. G. done already as much as should be done It is plain that where Churches differ in Faith Infallible Faith in one cannot stand with Certain Faith in the other Wherefore if Mr. G. have fix'd Infallibility in his own Church he has remov'd Certainty from all that differ from her Let us then take and sift Mr. G's Argument even as you put it who had not I suppose partiality enough for him to make it better than it was You put it thus p. 4 5. 7. All Traditionary Christians believe the same to day which they did yesterday and so up to the time of our Blessed Saviour and if they follow this Rule they can never err in Faith therefore are Infallible And you Mr. G. prov'd they could not innovate in Faith unless they did forget what they held the day before or out of malice alter it And now That there may be no mistake let us take each Proposition by it self 8. The First is All Traditionary Christians believe the same to day which they did yesterday and so up to the time of our Blessed Saviour You have nothing to say to this I hope For since Traditionary Christians are those who proceed upon Tradition and Tradition signifies Immediate Delivery it follows that unless they believe the same to day which they did yesterday and so upwards they cease to be Traditionary Christians by proceeding not upon an Immediate but an Interrupted Delivery or some other Principle And so there is no denying this Proposition but by affirming that Traditionary Christians are not Traditionary Christians 9. The second Proposition is this And if they follow this Rule they can never err in Faith. This is palpably self-evident For to follow this Rule is to believe still the same to day which they did yesterday And so if they did this from Christ's time and so forwards they must still continue to believe to the end of the World the self-same that Christ and his Apostles taught and therefore cannot err in Faith unless those Authors of our Faith did Which that they did not is not to be prov'd to Christians 10. There follows this Inference Therefore they are Infallible This is no less plainly self-evident For these words They can never err in Faith in the Antecedent and They are Infallible in the Consequent are most manifestly the self-same in sense and perfectly equivalent 11. The fourth and last which according to you aim'd to prove that they could not innovate is this They could not innovate in Faith unless they did forget what they held the day before or out of malice alter it And this is no less unexceptionable than its Fellows For if they knew not they alter'd Faith when they alter'd it they had forgot what they believ'd the day before If they alter'd it wittingly excuse them from Malice who can who believing as all who proceed upon Tradition do that Tradition is the certain Means to convey the Doctrin of Christ would notwithstanding alter the Doctrin convey'd to them by Tradition Pray what ails this Argument and what wants it save bare Application to conclude what was intended as fully and as rigorously as you can desire And pray what need was there to apply it to the Roman Church and say she follow'd Tradition to you who deny it not either of the Roman or Greek Church As every thing is true and every thing clear who now besides your self would have thought of an evasion from it And yet you venture at one such as it is 12. You tell us then p. 5. That you thought the best way to shew the vanity of this rare Demonstration was to produce an Instance of such as follow'd Tradition and yet Mr. G. could not deny to have err'd and that was of the Greek Church c. You had e'en as good have said what Mr. G. says is true but yet he does not say true for all that For to pitch upon nothing for false is in Disputes to own that every thing is true The best way say you I should have thought it every jot as good a way to have said nothing when one has nothing to say But yet the World is oblig'd to you for letting them know what Scholars knew before that Protestants think it the best way to answer Catholic Arguments to give them no Answer at all For you are not to be told that this Instance of yours is not an Answer to Mr. G-'s Argument but a new Argument against him of your own which undoubtedly you might have produc'd as well as my Lord Falkland if you had been as my Lord Falkland was arguing But it is your turn now to answer And must you be minded of what every Smatterer in Logic knows that an Answerer is confin'd to his Concedo his Nego and Distinguo as the Propositions which he is to speak to are True False or Ambiguous He may deny the Inference too if he find more or other Terms in the Conclusion than in the Premises But these are his Bounds and Answering turns
set Solid Meat on the Board and all this done send them hungry away Pray when will that When of yours be When will the day come in which you will shew your Faith to be solidly-grounded on the Word of God Every Article as you word it to bring it I suppose to your solid Endless way of Quoting and Criticizing is too much at present We are not got so far yet It will be time to talk of This or That Article when This or That Article is in Question At present you are to shew if you can that you have any Means unless you take Ours to ground any Article solidly on the Word of God. You are to shew your interpretation of it is Absolutely Certain and that God's Word means as you teach it does Otherwise your Confident Talking will not hinder us from seeing that you wretchedly delude your Followers while you are your selves truly Vncertain whether any thing you teach them be True and Conscious that you are so 13. And yet tho' you have served us thus you have a fetch to lay the blame upon me for being harder to you than the Laws of Disputation are I will have them he says prove two things more First that they are absolutely certain of All This. By the way I take for granted that by All This you mean All which Dr. St. affirm'd which was All of which I desir'd Proof And Secondly Not only this but of All that more which Our Saviour taught his Apostles Of this Charge I own the first half I did demand proof of Absolute Certainty and that for All This and shall persist to demand it till you shew me the Disputation-Law-Book which allows a Disputant to say what he pleases and chuse whether he will prove it or no when he has done Dr. Stillingfleet did affirm that You are Absolutely Certain and absolutely Certain that you now hold All the same Doctrin that was Taught by Christ his Apostles And of All this all the Laws of Disputation that I ever read or heard of warrant me to demand proof And you shall permit me to believe there was something in the Wind besides those Laws which makes you decline to give it I had been Logician good enough if you had known how to have prov'd Yes but I make Absolutely-Certain and Infallible all one I make them all one Why all Mankind made them so before I was born Take all the Men who pretend to Absolute Certainty and all the ways by which they pretend Authority Demonstration Sense Experience or what you will and see whether all Mankind agree not that when there is room for Deceit there is no Absolute Certainty and let a man pretend to be Absolutely Certain as much as he will if he be or may be deceiv'd he will be but laught at for his pains and not thought Absolutely Certain by any man in the World no not by your Reflecting self And yet you would perswade us I break the Laws of Disputation by understanding that Word as every body else does Certainly you would make a pleasant Law-maker for Disputation For when you have forbid us to understand words as others do we could dispute no longer nor so much as converse for there would be no knowing one anothers meaning 14. But if I take that word ill how must I do to take it well Not to mistake a second time I would be glad to know how your self take it who to be sure take it right But this you keep to your self and you have reason if by Absolutely Certain you mean not Absolutely Certain which I suspect is the true case and must be unless you would have it mean nothing Otherwise why might not we know what you will let it mean if you will not let it mean what I and every body else think it does Since you leave me to my self I shall at the hazard of incurring again the Penalties of your Laws of Disputation venture to think that He who will not suffer those who are Absolutely Certain to be Infallible will have them Fallible that is Deceivable in that whereof they are Absolutely Certain and for ought they can tell actually deceiv'd And then he will have Protestants believe that their Religion is the same that is taught by Christ stand firm and draw over to it as many as they can and vex and persecute their Neighbours whom they cannot prefer it before the Unity of the Church and keep up differences in Religion with as much jealous Concern as if the Wall of Division in the Church were the only safe Fence of the Nation in a word stake their Souls and Eternity upon it When all the while he cannot Absolutely tell whether it be True or No nay knows he cannot Let him honestly tell Protestants so and if they will venture Persecution and Schism and Salvation on those terms the Fault is their own and he has wash'd his Hands Otherwise he deludes them shamefully If they waver and stand upon Security they are told they are Absolutely Certain and this confirms them for it is as good Security as Heart can wish But when it comes to be sifted it appears they may be deceiv'd for all their Security and their Absolutely-Certain Religion proves to be such as perhaps is arrantly False In short they have a bare Sound to rely upon for their Souls Call their Security Absolutely Certain and 't is good Protestant Doctrin but call it Infallible which is the same and 't is rank Popery and your Protestants will none of it And so they may if they will and must if they will continue to be of your principles be content with Sounds But if they will stand upon Security from Deceit they must look for it where it is to be had With all they can get here it remains They may be Deceiv'd 15. The second-half of your Charge is purely your own Invention and as pleasant an Invention as ever roving Fancy suggested Absolute Certainty of Protestant Faith was turn'd by Dr. St. to Absolute Certainty of Scripture Since then Protestants believe more than that Scripture is Scripture I said they were to prove their Absolute Certainty of the more which they believ'd besides You have taken such extraordinary pains to mistake me as plainly as I exprest my self that you fancy I would have them say they are thus certain of those Points which they deny to be in Scripture and think them to be added by the Council of Trent and which therefore they believe not And these Points you understand to be the more of which I demanded Proof and so by your power in Reflection to desire Proof of what they do believe is to desire Proof of what they do not believe Absolute Certainty of what is their Faith is Absolute Certainty of what is not their Faith and their not-Faith is their more-Faith Ridiculous Folly To pretend we expected Protestants should prove to us such Points as they deny'd and our selves
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
immediately sink deep into the Conceptions of the Generality But it was otherwise when in tract of time that Doctrin was farther spread more often inculcated and more clearly explain'd and well-instructed Pastours constituted to Teach it more expressly and put them forwards to practise it He mistake◠then and misrepresents the whole nature of Our Tradition and by antedating it sights against it before it could have a Being And as this Errour runs through all his Discourses and weak Inferences out of Scripture so the laying it open once for all is a full confutation of them all at once Add that he never consider'd whether when those several Churches Err'd or were in hazard to Err they did so by following even that particular Tradition or Preaching of such or such an Apostle or whether they came to err by deserting it If the Later the Tradition was not faulty but They who Deserted it Yet how different soever these two Points are the one making for that particular Tradition the other against it he never thinks of distinguishing them or letting the Reader know when the Tradition was in fault and when the Persons but runs on in common words as if he had no Design or determinate prospect whither he was going I am sure it is not at all towards the true Question nor against Us. § 10. But tho' all his Reflexions from the several pieces of Scripture are quite besides the purpose yet his Candid and Solid way of managing his own Mistakes and how he wire-draws every thing to make it seem fit deserves our particular observation He tells us speaking of the Church of Corinth that They which signifies the whole Church had like to have lost All their Faith whereas the Text only sayes Some among you And is it such a wonder that some among many should hap to be imperfectly instructed fantastical or refractory to their Teachers But his Partiality is most remarkable When he was forc't to be beholding to the Churches Testimony of Doctrine which is our Tradition to abet the Scripture he could tell us then This is very different from the Case of particular Persons in some Churches who might mistake or forget what was taught but sayes he the Churches themselves could not agree to approve on Errour in the Gospel contrary to the Faith deliver'd to them So that there it was a very different Case but here it seems the Case is not different at all but the very same For Some among You are enlarg'd to signify that Church it self and whereas the only Point those Some deny'd was The Resurrection of the Dead to let you see how utterly insignificant a thing Tradition is that can do no good at all he extends it to signify All their Faith hoping I suppose any thing would pass upon you so 't were spoke out of a Pulpit 'T is told you there All 's Gods Word and he presumes you will be so Civil to God Almighty and so Kind to himself as to accept it for Such and swallow it for Pure Truth § 11. I am oblig'd to him for allowing That the Testimony of every Christian Church did shew the Concurrence of all the Apostles as to the Doctrine contain'd in the several Gospels For then I hope they may be able to shew to the next Age and so forwards the concurrent Doctrine of the First which establishes the Original of our Tradition to be Absolutely Certain He discourses well p. 11. and he ends better That the Memory of the Apostles Doctrin was so fresh in their Minds that it was in effect the Consent of all the Apostles who had taught them And yet better That the concurrent Testimony of all the Apostolical Churches could not let them agree to approve an Errour in the Gospels contrary to the Faith deliver'd to them This is very extraordinary kind and no less solid For 1. these Words could not agree to approve a contrary Doctrine makes their Testimony Infallible 2. This discourse makes the acceptation of the Truth of the Gospels that is of their Sense depend on Vnwritten Tradition 3. We cannot doubt but that Doctrine was Full as fresh in their Memories when they were grown Older and were to transmit it to the next Age after the Apostles decease as it was before unless they lost the Memory of it by discoursing of it more while they taught it to others by Practising it longer themselves 4. As little can it be doubted but the Doctrine and Practise of the First Age was as Fresh in the minds of the Second Age since they Led their Christian Lives by it for it was Equally Intelligible and of Equal Concern still to them to Learn and Teach it as it was to the First Lastly That this being so the Testimony of that Body even now adays that adheres to Tradition is in effect the Consent of all the Apostles that taught it at First Observe Gentlemen that this is the only time Dr. St. has so much as touch 't upon Our Tradition and that he is so far from impugning or confuting it that he in some part directly in others by necessary Consequence acknowledges it's force and strongly abets it But it was not out of good will he was intent in that place upon making good the Truth of the Gospels and assoon as he has made use of it to serve a present turn he immediately discards it as good for little or nothing or nothing to the particular purpose he had lately allow'd the Testifying Christs Doctrine § 12. For the very next page he reckons up three things for which The common Tradition of the Apostolical Churches were useful after the Decease of the Apostles But not a word of their Vsefulness to Testify to others what they had learnt from those Masters of Christianity No sooner were the Apostles dead and that first Age had by their concurrent Testimony of the Doctrine they had receiv'd from them given credit to the Truth of the Written Gospels but immediately the whole Christian World had lost their Memory of that Doctrine on a sudden and the Grace to preserve and propagate it One would think by this wild Discourse of his that both Common Natural parts and all degrees of Ordinary Honesty had been preserv'd to them miraculously thitherto meerly to recommend the Truth of the Gospels and that assoon as that was done and the Apostles were dead the Author of Nature and Grace suspended or rather subtracted for ever all his Influence left them a Tabula rasa without either Memory or Goodness to learn their Faith a new out of Scripture § 13. And hence it is that he rallies upon Universal Testimony or Tradition as if it were some sleight story of a few Tatling Gossips or of those who heard what some say that others told them who had it from such c. Whereas had he said as he ought to have said What the whole First Age of Christians witnest
Certainty in such Tradition I know no Party if Christian that has any Interest to oppose him The stronger any one can make this Faith they have all reason to like it the better By which 't is apparent that he is so far from condemning and censuring the way I take that he declares 't is not the Interest of any Party if Christian to oppose it and that himself and every one ought to like it better than the other way so it could be made good And that it can my best Reason tells me since as appears by my Method it has born the Test of being reduc't even to Self-Evidence and the miserable shifts and Evasions to which the most Learned of our Adversaries are driven to avoid it's force do more and more assure me 't is not at all hard to compass it 22. In the last place to omit many others I shall put the Testimony of that very Reverend Person F. Martin Harney Dr. of Divinity of the University of Lovain and Principal Regent of the General Studies of the Order of St Dominick Who being askt at Rome where he was at the time of the Contest his Judgment of my Doctrin compriz'd in my Method and of the Sense of the three Propositions as they lie in my Books gave under his hand this Testimonial of both I under-written have attentively read the Method writ by Mr John Sergeant and his Vindication of the three Propositions pickt out of his Books and I have found that the Method is sound Doctrin and usefull to reduce many to the Catholick Faith. And in his Vindiciae 'tis plainly demonstrated that the foresaid Propositions as written by the Author do make a Sense altogether Orthodox This Reverend Person I had never seen nor heard of nor could any thing but the love of Truth move him to this Approbation nay he must have lost much Credit with the Sacra Congregatio had my Doctrin been prov'd Vnorthodox or the Propositions in my Book as Infallible Dr. St. affirms Heretical 23. Modesty forbids me to mention the excessive Encomiums of that Eminent Controvertist Mr. Edward Worsley a Father of the Society who though utterly unknown to me took such a Friendship for me upon the reading my Books and in all places where he came extoll'd my poor Endeavours with such immoderate Expressions that to save my blushes in rehearsing them I intreat those who have the Curiosity to read them in my Declaratio from p. 73. to p. 78. I shew'd them to the Right Honourable the Earl of Castlemain who was pleas'd to do me the right to attest them to be his hand-writing The same noble Personage as many as knew F. Worsley will I doubt not do that right to his Memory as to witness for him that as he was Second to none in ability to distinguish between Sound and Tainted Doctrine so his sincere Candour and Integrity set him as far above the humour of Flattery as my Meanness could incline any to it 24. The Sum of my present Defence is this Eight Divines of great Repute appointed by the Arch-Bishop of Paris and admitted by my Adversary himself do unanimously attest that the Sense condemn'd is not in my Books but the contrary My Judge clears me the Censurers are commanded to make me Satisfaction The Highest Tribunal allows my Plea and acquits me Primates Arch-Bishops Bishops the Sorbon Eminent Divines and even those who take another way in their Writings approve and commend my Doctrine and most of them in very high and extraordinary expressions my own Superiour does the same nay even those who were formerly highly prejudic't declar'd themselves satisfy'd in it So that poor Dr. St. is left alone to ballance against all this weighty Authority with one Lominus a meer Utopian or Man in the Moon on whose sole no-Authority he grounds all his sensless Calumnies Was ever weak man so baffled Add that he knew that all these Defences of mine had been made and accepted many years ago and those Authorities alledg'd and my Doctrine thus approv'd and clear'd yet he had not the Candour to let his Reader have the least hint of any of those particulars which argues not too great love of Moral Honesty Nor does he take off any one Answer of those many I had given but only says over again rawly some few things objected reply'd to and printed fourteen Years ago and plays upon a double-sens't word or two by applying them still to wrong Subjects which is in effect to tell the Reader he must either talk insignificantly against evident matter of Fact or say just nothing and to confess in plain terms he is at a perfect Nonplus 25. To close this present business I desire the Reader to reflect that those Judges Approvers and Commenders of my Books and Doctrine liv'd generally in divers and far-distant Nations were of different Faculties and Universities of different Education different Orders and to some degree of different Principles and Interests some of them of slight acquaintance divers utterly unknown to me or I to Them. So that 't is impossible to imagine that any thing but the Force of Truth and the Integrity of my way of proving the Certainty of our Faith as to it 's being taught by Iesus Christ could make them conspire to allow or abet my Writings so heartily and unanimously Nor could there be any Human inducements to make them so partial to a private man every way inconsiderable and of no Esteem at all but what my Writings and Principles gave me Whence though no one Church as Dr. St. weakly objects has ever own'd my Doctrine to give formal Approbations of Controversial or Theological Writings not being a work proper for Churches yet the Dignity of the Persons and all these Circumstances consider'd I conceive it may amount to the full weight of the Judgment of any one particular Church whatsoever that my Doctrin is Sound and Orthodox Nor will he I believe find that any work of a particular Writer hath had more Authentick Testimonials for it than my poor Endeavours have had except that of the never-enough-praised the Bishop of Condom And 't is not the least Confirmation of their Integrity that they have been twice brought to the Tryal at Paris and Rome and nothing unsound found in them Though I must do the Doctor the right to acknowledge he has spoke one and hitherto but one true word but he is to be pardon'd for prevaricating from his constant method of speaking Falshoods for it was at unawares and he knew not he did so The Truth he spoke against his will was this That I hardly escaped Censure at Rome and therefore to make his words good I 'le tell him how it was All my Books were sent thither to Cardinal Barberin and amongst them one written by the Right Honourable my Lord Chancellour Hyde in defence of Dr. St. against Mr. Cressy pretending the Title of this last being torn out they were all writ by
irregularly he hinders any Conclusion from following False because no two men can differ in a Sum unless they wrong or abuse the Rules of Computation Irregular because instead of the words who take that Way found in his Second Proposition and in our Discourse he coggs in the words make use of that way which are not so express in sence as the word Take is which imports following whither it leads or making a right use of it And it would have been too palpably absurd to say a man takes a way who leaves it as an Ill-reckoner must needs leave the true Rules of Arithmetick But those who both Take and Follow all along the Letter of Scripture interpreted by their private selves and this to their power and are skilfull in Languages in comparing places do yet go wrong therefore his Way is no Way and his Rule is no Rule Then follows the Triumph over my Inconsiderateness in not distinguishing between the Rule and its Application and I tell him the taking it following it or holding to it is the Applying it and all the Application it can need Nor shall all his starting holes and tricks ever be able to evade the force of this Argument 43. His Discourse of Moral Qualifications requisit to the Certainty of Faith as to know the Sense of the New Testament if apply'd to our present Question amounts to this that no man can see the force of a Natural Medium leading to Faith without Humility of Mind Purity of Heart Prayer to God sincere Endeavours to do God's Will c. So that for want of a good Argument he has left off Disputing and falls to Preaching tho' he has had but ill Success in his Guildhall Sermon 'T is granted all these are excellent means to purge the Will from By-affections and by doing so to leave the Understanding free to see the force of the Proof and thence inferr the Truth of what 's prov'd or shewn to our Reason But where 's this Proof where 's this Truth all the while Must we produce such invisible things for open Proofs If all these Moral Qualifications be requisit as he says to make men Certain of Christ's Doctrin he must prove that Himself and all his Sober Enquirers which are the Members of his private-Spirited Church have all these Qualifications e're we or any man living can be certain they have true Faith. Again how will he satisfy Doubters and convince acute Opposers and Adversaries what is the true Doctrin of Christ Will the alledging Invisible Qualifications do the work Moreover he is Certain of his Faith by his Rule and yet his Rule of Scripture ascertains none by his Doctrin but by vertue of these Moral Qualifications These then are either his Rule or the best part of it At least he maintains here they are requisit and that otherwise Scripture is no Rule He must then prove He has these Qualifications or he cannot shew he has any Rule or any Faith. In a word we are disputing as Controvertists and demand open intelligible Proofs and he sends us to Invisible holes which only God the searcher of Hearts can find out and is not this mighty Learned I wonder how he can pretend to Convert any man to Christ's true Doctrin by these Principles All he can do is to alledge and compare Texts to prove it certainly Christ's Doctrin I but Sir says the other how shall I be satisfy'd you have Humility of Mind Purity of Heart c. without which your self confess you cannot be certain of the true Sense of Scripture at all What Art the Doctor has to satisfy him in this hard Point I know not But setting the Doctor 's Faith aside what Provision has he made for the standing Visible Body of the Church to defend and maintain she has Christ's true Faith None in the world by his Principles unless she can prove she has all these Moral Qualifications So that all is left to each private man's breast and if he has but this good Conceit of himself that he is endow'd with all those excellent Virtues and fancies that he prays better than all his Neighbours let them be Socinians Quakers or what you will he is certain of his Faith meerly by vertue of this Self-conceit that he is such a Saint since by Dr. St's Principles without firm assurance that he is thus requisitly qualify'd he can never have any assurance at all of his Faith. Might he not as well have told us in one word that Himself and all his Friends are pure Saints and know themselves to be so and therefore they are Certain they have these rare Qualifications and by them Assurance of the Sense of Scripture or Christ's Doctrin but that all who do not think as they do want those Qualifications are of the Wicked and Children of Darkness and so can never have any Light to know whether they have Christ's true Doctrin or not This then is the rare Resolution of Dr. St's Faith. I expected he should produce clear Arguments as became a Controvertist and he alledges the most hidden Means in the world as becomes an Enthusiast 44. Yet the force of Truth is so great that it obliges him to confess that The Right Way will certainly bring men to their Iourneys End if they continue in it I subsume But the Letter of Scripture Interpretable by Private Judgments does not bring the Socinians to their End that is to know surely what Christ and his Apostles taught tho' they continue in it whence I conclude that Scripture's Letter Interpretable by Private Judgments is not the Right Way to know surely what Christ his Apostles taught To escape this most evident Conclusion which utterly overthrows his whole Cause he starts aside with one If to the remote End Salvation whereas the End I spoke of in my Discourse which he is now answering was expressly to know assuredly Christ's Doctrin Then after a second If he tells us Scripture was not design'd as an Infallible Way to know the Truth on Falshood of particular Opinions by What have we to do with Opinions We speak of Points of Faith and instanc't expressly in the Blessed Trinity and the Godhead of Christ. Are these with him but Opinions Indeed I have reason to doubt that all Points of Faith are but Opinions with him nay he ought to doubt they are or may be worse than Opinions viz. Heretical Falshoods unless he thinks himself absolutely Certain of his Moral Qualifications for 't is those it seems must do the deed when all Arguments fail As for Infallibility there was no such word in my Discourse and he ought to answer my Argument in the words I put it and not to start into such Evasions and Logomachies Tho' the allowing of Natural Infallibility has been prov'd against him by Reason and Authority of those even of his own Church he never answers it but barely says over again there is no such thing as Infallibility in
Mankind but by Immediate Divine Assistance Yet he had the boldness or Forgetfulness to say p. 5. that If this be not Catholick Doctrin then I am Infallibly Certain I. S's Letters are far from being Catholick in their Sense It seems than either some men are Infallible for seriously I take Dr St. to be a Man or he fancies himself to be something above the Herd of Mankind or else sticks not at the Blasphemy to entitle the Blessed Spirit of Peace to have inspir'd him with such a quarrelsome Falshood 45. He discourses against Tradition as 't is Practical but has he said any thing against it as 't is Oral the force of which to clear Christ's Sense delivered down in the Church consists in Catechizing Preaching dilating upon the Points and explicating themselves at large replying to difficulties and accommodating their Discourse to all the Learners Exigences All which is found in the Living Voice of the Church and her Pastours as I shew'd him at large and none of it in the Letter in a Book What answers he to common Sense and to his own Experience too when he instructs others why he puts us off still with this frigid Cuckoo Answer that he is of another Opinion that writing is as plain as speaking and that words written have as much he ought to have said as Clear Sense in them as words spoken Which apply'd to our case is most palpable Nonsense and makes all Explications frivolous and all Catechizers and Commentators upon Scripture ridiculous The force I put in the Practicalness of Tradition is that supervening to the Oral delivery or being consonant to it it confirms it and makes it more Visible But he Combats the Practicalness of it consider'd alone and so impugns his own willfull Mistake But what says he to my discourse He alledg'd that Tradition might come down in Common Equivocal Words and so deliver no determinate Sense I reply'd that 't is inconsistent with the Nature of Mankind to mean nothing by the words they use especially in Tenets they were to be sav'd by therefore the Body of the Church had some Meaning or other of those Words Christ is the Son of God and Christ's Body is really in the Sacrament But this Meaning or Notion could not be a Common or General one in regard no Notion can be common to God a Creature to the Substance of Christs Body to the Substance of Bread much less to that Sacred Substance and some Accidents or Qualities Therefore there could not come down any such Common Notion by means of those Words wherefore there must have descended some particular Notion of each Point determining the signification of the Words to one sense or the other This was the true force of my Discourse I do still pretend it Demonstrable and let him answer it when he can for did he know the Consequences it will draw after it he would think it worth his while He 's at his old Logick again which is to bring an Instance against the Conclusion and is very brisk that it overthrows my Demonstration And what says his Instance It says the Corinthians and Artemonites understood by those words that Christ was only an Adoptive Son that is a Creature which is as much as to say they understood them in a Particular Sense which is all I there pretended And so his Instance is as he says truly Unlucky but 't is to himself not to mee for it makes good my words and instead of overthrowing confirms my Discourse that Men must have understood some Particular Sense by those words and our Learned Dr is so weak as to think that when what he brings for an Answer is so evidently for me it makes against me As for their pleading Tradition for their Sense surely he means a private Tradition from some former Hereticks and not the Publick Tradition of the Christian Church or that their Heretical Tenets were immediately deliver'd by that United Body of Christians for the manifest Falshood of this would have been confuted by Experience and have sham'd the Alledgers Nor could the Church in that case have condemn'd them since they spoke her sense But the good Dr mistook the Pretence of two or three quibbling Hereticks for the Vniversal Tradition of the Church as wicked an Error as it was possibly to stumble upon then triumphs how rarely his Instance has answer'd my Demonstration And thus ends his Reply to my short Discourse which having done he assures the Reader he has fully answer'd my main Argument against his Rule of Faith. Whereas he has not so much as touch't any single Proposition in it trifled or done worse even in the ridiculous odd way he has taken to answer it Which confirms me more then ever 't is past his skill to hurt it and even beyond his Courage to grapple with it 46. His contradicting himself is still urg'd upon him unless he can shew that true or Absolute Certainty does not secure those who have it in any thing from being deceived in that thing Again in his 15th Principle he said there needed no Infallible Society of men either to attest or explain the Scripture I reply'd that if it be Fallible we cannot by it be more than Fallibly Certain and we can have no Absolute Certainty from a Fallible Testimony This seems very plain for how should a man be absolutely or perfectly Certain of a thing by that very Testimony which not being perfectly Certain may perhaps deceive him in that very Thing His first Answer is that he understands no such thing as Infallibility in Mankind but by immediate Divine Assistance He understands Is that an Answer Does he understand how to answer our many Arguments to prove it By his not taking notice of them we are to understand and conclude he does Not. Again he declares that in that Principle of his he meant there needed no Infallibility by Divine Assistance and he utterly denies Natural Infallibility whence 't is manifest he allows no Certainty at all but Fallibility His Faith is in a fine case in the mean time He must shew I say that Fallibility in the Testimony can ground Absolute Certainty of the thing attested and this tho' a man sees that the Testimony and himself who relies on it may be in an Error before he can make either the Letter or the Book of Scripture Absolutely Certain by Tradition or Human Testimony which he maintains here is Fallible Can a man think or say interiourly I am Absolutely or perfectly Certain of a thing peradventure When that very Peradventure hinders his Certainty from being Absolute or Perfect What answers he to this plain Evidence Or how shews he that a seen Fallibility is able to beget Absolute Certainty Why First he says If by Fallible Certainty I mean this and that c. I mean Why I mean nothing by it but that 't is a wicked Contradiction I mean the same by
Letter or Right Sense of Scripture or that no Book is lost c. and so there 's an End of his Problematical Faith. I must confess that to prove First Principles False is something difficult but I have reduc't the business to as narrow a compass as I can that he may make short work of it He recurrs at present for want of some Clear Proof to Gods Providence concern'd in preserving Books written by Divine Inspiration Of which none doubts But why should not God's Providence be as much concern'd in preserving his Church from Erring in Faith that so both all those Books their Letters and Sense might be kept right as far as was Necessary Or why was God's Providence the Less for making the Churches Care and Help the Means to preserve both the Books and Letter of Scripture from suffering detriment Lastly why must his Providence be confin'd to only Translaters and Transcribers 68. Dr St. in his second Letter to Mr. G. p. 32. made the Canon of the New Testament the Rule of his Faith. To show the Inconsistency of his Tenets and utterly overthrow his Pretence of that Rule I alledg'd that If the whole Canon be his Rule then his Rule was deficient for some hundreds of years till the whole Canon was Collected and Acknowledg'd I prest farther that since it must take up some time e're those severall Books were Spread and accepted sometimes the Primitive Church had according to his Principles but Three quarters of their Faith Half of their Faith or less and so were but Three-quarters or Half-Christians according as the several pieces came by degrees to be Vniversally accepted For no man of Sense can doubt but that it cost some time e're the Churches so diffus'd heard of all those Books and much more e're they could be perfectly satisfy'd of the Universal Testimony of the Church Ascertaining them to have been writ by men Divinely inspir'd in regard it was of most Dangerous Consequence to accept that for Gods Word which was not beyond all doubt such So that we may with reason imagin that some Churches had at first but Two or Three Books of Scripture others but Four or Five that were well attested or could be rely'd on in such a High Concern Add that there were divers false Gospells and Spacious Books given out under the names of having the Apostles or Apostolical Men for their Authors which must have redoubled their care and made them backward to receive any that were not Authentick which would take up still more time to examin thoroughly To press my Argument still more home I urg'd that perhaps according to him they had no Faith at all during that long Interval because wanting other Books or sufficient warrant to rely on them they by consequence wanted a Multitude of other Texts with which they might Compare those they already had which is one part of his Method to find true Faith in Scripture To show more the Inconsonancy of his Doctrine I noted that notwithstanding all this he declar'd that he lookt upon the Primitive Church tho' so ill furnish't with his Rule as on the Best Arbitrator between us in all our Controversies about the Sense of the doubtfull that is Controverted places of Scripture Now one would verily think this pressing Discourse following the Point in Question so Close and pursuing it so Home were exceedingly worth his while to Answer if he could since it toucht his Rule and his Cause to the quick Now le ts see what he says in their Defence The Substance of his Answer for all the rest is impertinent is a most doughty and most weighty word If If God says he hath so Abundantly provided for his Church that there may be a full Revelation of all Points of Faith in the rest then the disputing the Authority of such an Epistle meaning that to the Hebrews doth not derogate from the Compleatness of the Rule of Faith. What 's become of his Sincerity and Morall Honesty which he so profest to Love Did I speak of the Epistle to the Hebrews Did not I not only speak of but most Expressly discourse all along of those many or most Books of Scripture not Universally known and accepted at the very first but by degrees spreading and gaining in Process of Time the Credit of being Authentick Does not my Discourse that by his Principles The Primitive Church had but Three quarters of her Faith half her Faith or less barr this Shamming Pretence that I speak only of that Epistle Or does he think I meant that that single Epistle was half or three quarters of the Canon of Scripture And now Reader I beg thy leave to insist here upon this Prevarication as an instance of one great Part of his Method in Confuting He picks out a word or two which may best serve him to slip away from the Point and turn it to quite another business but leaves the whole Stress and full import of the Argument Unanswer'd It were tedious still to reflect how oft he has done thus in this pretended Reply to my Catholique Letters But whoever compares his severall Answers to the respective places he pretends to speak to will see how dull and insignificant they are tho' if he be read alone especially with an Implicit Belief of his dealing fairly they look very jolly and brisk However to divert the Readers Eye he is even with me in another Point I said the accepting or not accepting Books whether in the Latin or Greek Churches was an Act of Prudence Antecedent to the Iudgment or Determination of any Church and so could not make or marr the Latin Churche's Infallibility in her Iudgment or Decrees He falls into a gross mistake of the word Antecedent and erects a Trophy of Victory upon his own Errour To clear which 't is to be observed that our Divines admit Prudentiall Considerations in any Church even tho' held Infallible Previous to her Decrees yet do not hold that Church is Infallible in those Acts of Prudence which are thus Antecedent Now tho' the whole Series of my Discourse there shows clearly that I spoke of an Antecedency in the Course of Humane Actions or of a Prudentiall Deliberation Antecedent to an Absolute Decision he turns it to an Antecedency in Chronology or of more Antient Writers and when he has apply'd that word to a wrong matter he has the Vanity to insult But he says I say not a Syllable to his proving hence the Roman Church was not then believ'd Infallible Surely he never consider'd what he pretends to Answer for by saying it was not only an Act of Prudence Antecedent to any Degree I show there was no occasion to show what was then believ'd of her Infallibility or not believ'd Again since the Certainty of that Epistles being writ by St. Paul depended on Testimony other Churches might perhaps know that better for some time than She. But the worst is he was preparing
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
Faith be Immediate even from day to day And thus Dr St. has begun to answer Mr G's Demonstration by keeping such a huge pother about a Proposition Evident by its own Light and pretending more faults in it than even a wise man could have shown in the Arrantest Falshood But he has not done with it yet the most Essentiall part of it remains yet behind And so up to the time of our Blessed Saviour Now the Proposition speaks of Believing the same all that while and he confutes it with talking of Claiming and Pretending to follow it Whence since to believe the same that was deliver'd is Actually following Tradition his distinguishing Talent has afforded us two sorts of following Tradition One which is really and indeed following it the other is only pretending to follow it and not doing so that is there is one sort of believing the same or of following Tradition which is not-following of it which is still of the same Learned Strain 74. The Second Proposition is And if they follow this Rule they can never Err in Faith what says he to this If they follow this Rule that is believe the same from Christ's time that was taught at first do not they believe the same Christ Taught One would verily think that this is as Evident as 't is that to believe the same is to believe the same True 't is so and therefore 't is with him Self-Evidently a meer Fallacy Certainly never was any Mortall Man such an Enemy to Common Sense But 't is his constant humour to talk big when he 's at a perfect Nonplus Well but how proves he 't is a meer Fallacy Why 1. He grants that those who believe Christ's Doctrin cannot Err. And is not this a rare Answer We both grant that Christ's Doctrine is True and consequently that who hold it cannot Err All this is Presuppos'd to our Question and so is no part of it But our Point is how we shall know assuredly what is Christs Doctrin Or by what Means shall we come at it 2. He says They might mistake in this Rule It has been shown him Third Cath. Letter p. 6 7.8.9 and in many other places upon occasion that they could not mistake in this Rule he never takes notice of it in his whole Answer and yet has the Confidence to object it afresh 3. He says They might follow another Rule This too has been prov'd against him nay 't is here prov'd in the Fourth Proposition of this very Argument for by proving they could not innovate in Faith 't is prov'd they that is the Body or Vniversality could not desert Tradition But what a shift is the Dr put to Do we contend here they could follow no other All the Proposition pretends to is that If they follow this Rule they cannot err in Faith. What says he to this Can they or can they not If they cannot then the Rule is a good Rule which is all we labour to prove here the rest is prov'd in the Fourth Proposition And if they can err tho' following it then since to follow it is still to believe the same the Dr must say that the same Faith tho' still convey'd down the same is not the same it self was at first which is a direct Contradiction Not one single word of Answer then to the Proposition has he given us only he affirms stoutly 't is Fallacious a very Cheap Answer to any Argument that is too crabbed and difficult but he cannot for his heart tell where the Fallacy lies The Conclusion is naught that he 's resolv'd on but he has nothing that is pertinent to say to the Premisses or Proof Yet something he must say for a shew and so he will shew some other ways that Errours might come in And perhaps I can shew him twenty more but still what 's this to the Point Can Errours in Faith come in while men follow this Rule of Tradition that is while they continue to believe the same that was still taught immediately before and this ever since Christs time This is our only business 75. Since I must now run out of the way after our Straggling Disputant I desire first the Reader would remark that the Proposition he is now answering is this If they follow this Rule viz. Tradition they can never err in Faith as also that by Tradition is meant the Publick Testimony of the Church of what was deliver'd as Christs Doctrine His first particular way of introducing Errours is by the Authority of False Teachers But was Tradition follow'd while they follow'd their Authority If it was then the Christian Church was a False Teacher and her Publick Testimony attested false Doctrin to be Christs which if he holds let him speak out and see how all Christians will detest him If Tradition was not follow'd but deserted when men were led by False Teachers what 's this to us or whom does it oppose For 't is plainly to abet Tradition to say that none could follow False Teachers but they must at the same time desert It. 'T is hard to conjecture then what he meant by alledging de Molinos unless it were to make his Friend Dr Burnets Book concerning Molinos sell. 'T is no news that False Teachers may introduce Errours and that that man pretended the Publick Testimony of the Church or that his whimsies were Christ's Doctrin deliver'd down from the beginning is both unheard of and Incredible His Second way of introducing Errours is by Enthusiasm Very well Did the Testimony of the Christian Church tell them that Enthusiasm was Christ's Doctrin If he says it did he makes the whole Christian Church in some Age to have been a pack of hare-brain'd Enthusiasts If it did not then 't is an honour to Tradition that they deserted it when they fell into that Spiritual Madness His Third way is by a pretence to a more secret Tradition But was this pretence to a Secret Tradition a pretending to follow the Publick Tradition of the Church If it was not it opposes not our Tradition but credits it And if he says it was then he makes what 's Secret to be Publick which is a Contradiction and the very alledging this makes him in some manner Guilty of that old Failing of his His Fourth is Differences among Church-Guides about the Sense of Scripture and Tradition I have already shewn him that it was impossible the Generality especially of Pastours should not know the Sense of Tradition and as for some Church Guides differing about the Sense of Scripture it was equally impossible they should Err in Faith as long as they interpreted Scripture by the Rule of the Church's Tradition and when they once left that Rule instead of being any longer Church-Guides they became generally if they were any thing Eminent Ringleaders of Heretical Sects which gives a high repute to our Tradition even by their erring when they deserted it His Fifth
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
yet for all his flourishes about Criterions he has said nothing to those Reasons only he has made a sleight Discourse of his own p. 53.54 but never shew'd any particular Means securing his Party from Erring more than the vilest Hereticks us'd Why little or no regard to my Reasons shewing that Scripture Interpretable by their private Judgment of Discretion is not the Rule which the Generality of Protestants rely on which if true utterly overthrows his whole Pretence to That for his Rule He blunders indeed about it in clear words and tells his own Tale very prettily but he has not answer'd my Reasons as the Reader may discern who is pleas'd to compare them with his Reply Lastly why no Answer to each particular Proposition of my Short Discourse or shewn it inconnected demonstrating that none who follow'd his Rule can have Assurance that what they believe is Christ's Doctrin But instead of this Duty bringing pretended False Suppositions against the Whole which suppos'd nothing but that we could have no more Reason to judge the Socinians Insincere or Careless or less Skilfull in the Sense of words than we have to think He is 86. These are his Omissions in Answering my First Catholick Letter As for my Second since his Title pretends an Answer to them All in Generall and he referrs us to another able to speak for himself meaning his Reflecter we are to imagin he makes account he has Answer'd them All by Himself or by his Proxy But good God! what an Answer has that weak man given us His Discourse is a Chain of Sand. 'T is a mess of Controversy dish't up in Sippets a meer Hash of Repartees or reason torn into Raggs A Discourse as every man knows has it's true Force by the Constant Tenour of it and this Tenour is shatter'd all to pieces by a new invented Method of short Dialogues where he makes me at his pleasure say as little at a time as he lists and he plays upon it as much as he pleases I must break-off just where he thinks fitting and he Enlarge against an imperfect Discourse unassisted by it's Comparts as long as he Judges convenient Now he 's at the beginning of my Book and immediately at the Middle or End of it gathering thrums-ends of little Sentences which he patches together so aukwardly that they have no Connexion at all but what his unskillfull or Partiall hand bestows upon them If we expect Reason from him he tells us he never undertook to Prove but to Reflect A very pretty come off I wonder what Answer is proper to a man who proves nothing nay not so much as Vndertook it Thus much for his Method But the Tricks and Shifts in managing it are Innumerable 'T is almost as easy to determin how many words may be made of the four and Twenty Letters as to trace all the Anagrams he makes of my Sense by weaving it in his loom to sute his own Fancy or Interest When our Question is only about a Certain Rule of Faith he alters it when he lists to a Certain Rule of Life p. 33. as if we pretended Scripture not Clear in Morall Points by which means he turns the whole Question to a quite different Subject His Contradictions are frequent for he never speaks of the Nature of any thing that concerns our Dispute but he constantly falls into that irrecoverable lapse As he turn'd the precise Duty of proving into the Needless Impertinency of Reflecting so tell him of Falsifications he tells you p. 52. he meant them for Ironies And indeed his whole Reflexionary if I may call it so is nothing but a continu'd Irony it being very hard to know when he 's in Jest when in Earnest Only he garnishes his Scorn with demure pretences of Charity and Civility that so he may affront his Adversary with a more plausible Garb of Affected Gravity and Godliness 87. As for the strength of his Reasons since one Instance is held by Dr St. and him a Competent Answer to a pretended Demonstration I hope one pregnant Instance how he quite misses the whole matter in hand may be allow'd sufficient to render insignificant his Hopping and Skipping Dialogues by shewing plainly that his ill-levell'd Reflexions hit not me but Squint aside to other Subjects E're I come to my Instance I desire the Reader to bear in Remembrance for I cannot repeat it too often because my Adversary is resolv'd never to take notice of it that Our Controversy Supposes as agreed to by both Parties that Christ's Doctrin is Divine and that our Whole Question is about the Means to bring down to us those Sublime Spiritual Articles of Christian Faith with such a Certainty and Clearness as may oblige us to assent firmly and unalterably that what we hold concerning them now at present is the self-same that was taught by him and his Apostles and consequently is Divine and True. Next we affirm that the Letter of Scripture not being Clear to people of all sorts looking after Christ's True Doctrin in those Texts which relate to such High Points the best way to satisfy such men that those Articles came down invariably from Christ is the Humane Authority of the Christian Church And Lastly that the Credibleness of this Authority is prov'd by Intrinsical Mediums taken from the Natures of Things lying levell to our Reason which contribute to support it from being liable to be deceiv'd or to deceive us in that affair viz. from the Nature of Man who being a Rational Creature cannot possibly act without a Motive or a Reason and is withall endow'd with such and such Faculties belonging to such a Nature As also from the Practical Nature Highest Import of the Doctrin to be deliver'd and the Nature of those most powerfull Motives obliging the Generality to whom they are apply'd to transmit down faithfully a Doctrin held Divine and Lastly from the Nature of divers Circumstances of the Universe All which are laid out in my Second Cath. Letter p. 57.58.59.60 To which nothing but a very sleight return with many Omissions has been given us by Him and nothing at all by Dr St. tho' these as the Reader may see if he pleases to review them be the most forcible part of that Treatise to prove the uninterrupted Perpetuity of Tradition hitherto on which the Resolution of our Grand Question mainly depends 'T is enough it seems for such a trifling Reflecter at the end of his Pamphlet to call the passages he has omitted amongst which are the Natures of those things Hedges and Puddles and close Reasons drawn from them frisking Fancies and that 's all can justly be expected from one who seems to be a sworn Schollar to the Great Professor of Learned Jests and Ingenious Prevarications 88. These particulars concerning our Tenet known to all that have read our Controversy being reflected on let 's see how this Gentleman represents it and how profoundly he discourses against us In