this distinction in several places of his Treatise And as to his denying the freedom or rather the liberty of the Will because as he alledgeth it always follows and of necessity is acted by the last Dictate of the Understanding He answers it in this Paragraph by contradicting himself in these very syllables Men cannot therefore believe what they please nor think what they please that such or such an opinion or thing is true or false Indeed a man may act contrary to his understanding which is hypocrisie and which if the Gent. pleases he may call wilful hypocrisie And he if he pleases may likewise take notice that this act of hypocrisie which he saith is contrary to mens understandings whilst such mens judgments and perswasions disallow of their practice must be an effect of and can have no other cause than the freedoom or liberty of the Will But if he be unwilling to be Convicted from his own contradiction I refer him to the words of the Sorceress in Ovid. Video meliora proboque Deteriora sequor Page 82. He gives as he fancieth sage Counsel to the Clergy by advising them not to meddle with the Government in the Pulpit but forgot to observe it himself in Composing this Apologie in which he hath made many pert and bold Essays to admonish our Governors like an Atheist or a Pagan to suffer our Religion to truckle to our Trade by hinting that the Phanaticks as a Pack of formidable Heroes should not be disturbed but Experience informs us That the due execution of our Laws will prove this Pretence to be as groundless and false as the rest of his Apologie however we will agree with him That the direful sparks which heretofore have set the Kingdom in a flame have flown from the Pulpit as well as from Pamphlets Page 84. He Combates his Principal again in these words I think it is best to be of the Religion of a man's Country externally He means hypocritically at least and sure I am there is nothing morally evil in ours and for external Worship in Religion as to time and place it is determinable by the Supream Magistrate But how can this be Consistent with the Fundamental Doctrine of the Text as he styles it that every one ought to have leave to govern himself from within not having any regard to Example or Authority or any thing else there can be no Salvo for this Contradiction but that he being a very great Wit may have a very ill memory In the next place I acknowledge I cannot make sense of this Expression Page 92. I mean all Protestants of what Species soever here in England For how can those Votaries who differ specifically in their Worship and Religion be comprehended under the same Denomination our Laws also owning but one sort of Protestants as agreeable to the Principles of the true Protestant or Catholick Church whose Members are obliged to hold and confess the same Doctrine and Faith and to be of the same Communion but it seems you have found out some Centaures in Religion who have coined a new Name for themselves very suitable to this Fiction viz. Protestant Dissenters a Title very agreeable also to the rest of their and your Notions being a Contradiction in terms Thus much for your Apologie Now I come to your Review and Appendix made upon so long Consideration wherefore I did expect in it an absolute Retraction or at least a general amendment of the vain and impertinent Errors and Contradictions in your precedent Reply But instead of that I find it full gorged with a Pragmatick Censure to call it no worse of the Conversation and Deportment as well of the Gentry as Clergie of the Writings of worthy Authors and of the Affairs of Publick Government an excursion so much above your Capacity and Station and so foreign to your Province and the subject of your Discourse that doubtless all sober men will agree that it deserves the severest blame and reprehension rather than the honour of an Answer However I cannot but take notice of two Passages in it which are two other sorts of Ingredients that make it distasteful and nauseous to all Catholick Christians The first is your loose Question to the Parson of Bocking Page 130. Whether if I believed in God and Christ I were obliged to be a Member of any particular Church or no I shall answer it in short You know very well that you may believe in as well as worship the true God and our Saviour after a wrong and false manner as the various and opposite Subdivisions under Christianity at large make too much manifest and then what satisfaction and assurance you can have out of the Communion of the Catholick Church which worships the true God after the true manner according to his revealed and ordinary Declarations not to meddle with his extraordinary Dispensations I leave you to consider And as to the Parson of Bocking's Golden Answer as you call it That if you were one of God's Vniversal Church 't was no great matter whether you were joyned to any petty Church policy here on earth or no. He might make use of this Saying to palliate a Compliance with the several Changes in the Times as if any or no Discipline at all were very indifferent therefore to come up close to him I do not understand what Church can be termed God's Church Universal except that which from its holding and professing all the Fundamentals of Doctrine and Faith contained in the Gospel is truly called Catholick which hath had power in all Ages to establish its own Discipline Rites and Ceremonies to all which its Member are obliged to Conform for the sake of Unity and Communion the two grand external Demonstrations and Accomplishments of the true Worship and Religion The next Passage is pag. 139. by which viz. Reason and by no other mediation it is possible for a man of good understanding and not clogged with false Principles to be satisfied that the natural Dictates of God Reason carry no repugnancy in them to the Law and Will of God revealed in the Scripture c. This Averment notwithstanding all your palliating Circumstances must necessarily be understood of Reason corrupted for right Reason being above our degenerated Capacity and likewise not the Province to defend can neither be the Subject of the Question in this Clause nor of any other part of your discourse Now then if lapsed Reason is so perfectly righteous and that the Will cannot but follow the last dictate of that as you have declared heretofore then no man can offend or need any repentance a Principle so prophane and of so hainous a tincture that we never hear of it mentioned by the most barbarous Heathens Nay had you but considered that in the short Epoche of Innocence when Adam was endued with Humane Reason in its highest and most perspicacious degree it was not so perfectly fixed as to guide him in his obedience to one Command of the Deity for his preservation in Paradice you must either out of shame or dread have been discouraged to have offered such Sentiments to the World But for an entire and final convincement of this Apologist let him own or disallow the Authority of the Scriptures it cannot on the one hand be denied but that the imbecility of our Understanding according to the tenor of Holy Writ is a just and genuine punishment for our first Parents Ambition to obtain a knowledge against the Command of the Deity and above the state of a Creature and on the other every days experience evinces without revelation that Fancy and Humour usurp a very great share in the Regiment here below of Humane Transactions which Reason claims to be its proper Sphere of activity and natural dominion To this it may be added for the confirming of this Argument that Infallibility is the peculiar as well as the inseparable Attribute of an Omniscient Being which admits of no higher Understanding to oppose or confute it And since this cannot be truly affirmed of any being that is created the Creature of it self must consequently labor under a general subjection to errour from its general imperfection and the highest instance to prove this is the fall of those Angels who revolted from the Worship as well as from their Allegiance to the Deity Therefore I leave the Reader to judge whether this Apologists fantastick Expression and Censure which he puts upon others is not due to himself That he ought to be reckoned among the number of the delirious for attempting to defend the Infallibility of Humane Reason without the least evidence to support it either Humane or Divine After all this advertisement if he shall be given to rescribling as he hath vaunted to Plain-dealing I hope the highest Bigots to Novelty from a luxuriancy of Wit will for the future be convinced that such wretched discourses as these can only deserve a publick Reprimand FINIS
commanded as agreeable to Truth and most conducible to his Honour and to the bond of Peace among men I hope this may convince any one who acknowledges Divine Revelation As to your subsequent Objection concerning the uncertainty in the interpretation of Scripture the Catholique Church declares that the Essentials of Faith and all things of necessary obedience are set down positively and plainly enough in the Scriptures for the understanding of all such who diligently observe them and make a right use of those aides which God hath prepared for that end Consistent with this also is our Divines asserting a literal and typical sence from a simple and a compound signification of the same Text This latter is applicable to the Types and Sacraments in the Old Testament which as they were of present use in the Worship of the Jews so it cannot be denyed but that they had a prospect and a reference to the coming of our Saviour And the same Text also may contain in it an Analogical Sence in relation to another and all this according to the intent of the Spirit of Unity that penned them which the same Divines will tell you hath ever been accounted the best medium to comprehend and preserve the harmony of Holy Writ Your next is such an Argument as was never heard of before I say that the Commands of God concerning Religion are equally obeyed and fulfilled by all the various kinds of obedience which the Consciences of men conceive themselves bound to pay unto them how erroneous or senceless soever for so your Assertion ought to be understood as if nonsence and error were as agreeable to his Divine Will and Pleasure as what is Right and the Truth Thus while your natural Guide bids defiance to all Authority of others it sets up its own and most stupidly out-faces God's own Declarations In the next place you would deduce from the Suns melting the Wax and hardning the Mud that Faith is properly one though according to the divers receptions of it it produceth not only divers but contrary effects That is that the same Faith may be the Cause of Godliness and Profaneness Piety and Irreligion of the true Worship and Idolatry the owning of one God and Polutheism and Atheism for all these lie couched under that futilous Sophism of contrary effects and your suitable similitude of a hard and soft temper but I hope I shall not need to Advertise any Reader that these inconsistent Notions are the effects of your new Humane Reason Page 40 41 42 43. you Phantastically accumulate inveighing Similitudes against too austere and uncharitable censuring of Members infirm or weak in matters of Faith but as they are altogether unapplicable to the Methods and Tenents of our Church as hath been made evident so neither are they in the least available for the defence of your Doctrine which by an extream on the other hand much more mischievous and destructive to all Order in Religion doth not admit of any Censures at all Page 44 45. How ever others as you guess with probability enough may accuse you of Pride and Vanity for attributing so much to your own reason yet I will not pretend to have so clear a sight into the whole Contexture of your Thoughts and Actions as to judge whether it was Pride and Vanity or humility and Charity most scandalously mistaken which induced you first to embrace and then to publish this Doctrine so absolutely new to the World but I hope I may without any tyrannical Assumption let you know that in my apprehension wise men will hardly be perswaded to allow that for a good natured or peaceable opinion which encourageth every one stubbornly and inhumanely to undertake to govern himself from within in opposition to all Authority and Example especially since the Creator hath instituted Subordination and Order for the prime and original Cement not only of all Societies Celestial and Terrestrial but also of the Fabrick of the material World As for your so often reiterated Accusation of such who claim an Infallibility for their Party by saying That who ever is not of my opinion is in the wrong and whoever is in the wrong is to perish eternally for his Error It cannot be at all applyed to the practice of the Protestant Church for which I am only concerned for that steers a rational and moderate Course betwixt the two Extreams of their Opinion and yours as hath been manifested before But let me remind you also that your Doctrine might more reasonably deserve the Encomium you give it in this Paragraph for allowing its Disciples to lay down an Opinion when Cause shall appear for so doing if it did also advise them to renounce the Guide that brought them into it which is all the reason in the World Page 46 47. As to your Quarrel with Mr. Hobbs I am not concerned to maintain his Opinions or to reconcile them with yours yet in my weak apprehension you will find it a Task too hard for your Natural Reason to make good that Position by which you design his Defeat That men ought not to think those Worships dishonourable to God that are not practised by themselves For whoever shall hold this Assertion must either want sincerity and deceive their own Souls by practising one sort of Worship and approving of others or else they must believe that all sorts of Worship are right which are practised among men or that the Deity equally approves of both the right and the wrong all which is not only contradictory to Divine Revelation but also repugnant to the Fundamentals and Systems of all the Religions in the World and consequently your Doctrine by broaching an universal Dissention amongst all mortal Votaries would introduce a variety in Divine Worship more unaccountably ridiculous than any that ever was heard of in this or former Ages however you abuse them In the next place you alledge That if ignorant or malicious Physicians in this violent Fever did not apply new Heats instead of Julips they might by Writing Disputing Preaching and Living Charitably which is all the former reduce the World in a short time to its ancient healthful and natural temper But what Coherence or Alliance hath the natural temper of the World with its ancient and healthful state in Religion Therefore to make better sense of this Clause we will rectifie it thus That we allow Writing Preaching Disputing and living Charitably to be the chief outward means as well to Confute Errors in Notion as to reclaim evil Doers and so reduce the Christian World to the Primitive Integrity of Life and Purity of Doctrine But let me remind you though that the Exercise and Effects of these Performances chiefly depend upon Example and Authority both which your Doctrine most irrationally disavows neither can we possibly agree with you that this ancient and healthful Temper of the World was a general Idolatry among the Sons of men which within six Lines after you
the Heathens And now it would be but trifling and delaying the Reader to quote the particular and so well known Instances both in prophane and sacred Story that opposition in Religion nay separations and Sects under the same general profession as well in the Wars betwixt the Gentiles and the Jews as either party among themselves have caused the most inveterate Feuds and Massacres and the greatest destructions to Cities and Common-wealths before the Nativity of our Saviour however you are pleased to scandalize Christians It plainly appears also that in the heat of your project for this Treatise you either forgot or slighted God's Precepts to his people although you allow of the Scripture to practice one Religion and to endeavour the extirpation of all prophaneness and false worship two unavoidable Consequences of your good nature and liberty I shall not undertake to determine what Church you design to defame in your 10.11 12 and 14th Pages as Author of all the miseries which have followed the variety of Opinions since the Reformation by tying Infallibility to what they think truth and Damnation to what ever they think error but if you intend this Accusation against the Catholick Church give me leave to tell you that it is most unworthily framed and it would be an injury to the Protestant Principles to deign it any other Answer than to refer the Reader to the Practice of our Government both Ecclesiastical and Civil in the several Condescentions to weak Consciences among us and this not only our Laws but the difference we have ever had with the Church of Rome in that Point makes apparent A famed Instance of which is that of H. the Fourth of France whom our Church lost upon the account of its Charity in that very Tenent Page 14. Another absurdity you say your Doctrine is accused of is That we shall not only every one differ from every body else but every one from himself The truth of this Objection is evident enough in the various delusions of the brain sick Phanaticks who by following a wrong Guide also their new Light as they call it are ordinarily brought into the grossest Absurdities and Contradictions as well of themselves as others both in opinion and practice Now to excuse the foregoing Absurdity and the inconstancy as you term it which will be consequential to your Doctrine you make as absurd and groundless a supposition that those who decline the scandal of your way must on the contrary be obliged to a blind and unalterable observance of those Laws and Opinions which either the fate of their Birth and Education or the fortune of other Accidents without any limitation shall engage them in which may be Ambition worldly Interest Debauchery or a pragmatick Fancy for a new fangled Treatise To enumerate no more of those unaccountable infirmities and accidents which too often influence the frailty of mens minds who resist Instruction and the Grace of the Holy Spirit both which are abandoned by your licentious design therefore this Accusation which you have framed against the Catholick Principles is more applicable to yours than to any other Doctrine in the world But on the other hand you could not have forged so vain a Supposition had you observed as you ought the just measures of Holy Church which proposes nothing to its Votaries but what is both capable and worthy of a rational Assent the best medium without doubt betwixt a blind obedience to Governours and an absolute renouncing all Authority and Example in Affairs of Religion Nay so wild and unaccountable are your Positions in this Paragraph that it cannot be denied but that even a blind Obedience to qualified Guides and Superiours who are persons more concerned to Communicate and abler to find out the true Religion than every private man is much more safe and agreeable to Peace and Society than to set up Panaticism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by licensing every one in matters of Religion to gad whether they list like Brutes in Summer stung by the various insects of their own fancies But in your 16 and 17 Pages you would seem something to regulate your foregoing Exorbitancy by enjoyning your Disciples to make a long and serious inquiry whether they I suppose you mean the former Obligations agree most with that light of their Vnderstanding which God hath infused into them for that end according to the best extent of those means which are allowed by him to their understandings for this examination Now according to your style this may pass for an imbezel'd description of a compliance with the infusion of Grace and plainly shews that it is a task too hard for the Natural Capacity of man upon its own account to make such a disquisition which both contradicts and confutes the whole design of your Treatise It seems by your Instance of Chance-medley in this Paragraph likewise that you are subject to mistakes in the Law as well as in making of Comparisons for to state any Fact Chance-medley there must be a wilful and rash or sudden fury or purpose for the incitation to commit it which is altogether omitted as you have described the Crime and makes your Instance but Homicide per infortunium Your words are these And if in this Permutation after all Industry and Humility therein it shall be our ill fortune to give away a Truth for a Falsehood it will be as killing a man against our will is no murder at the worst but an Error by Chance-medley and I will both find I had almost said Claim mercy from God and Pity from men But not to insist upon this mistake we shall examine your Argument as you have stated your Allegory Homicide by misadventure then is when any person kills a man without malice prepense foresight or any act of his Will as he is performing some lawful Employment but the difference is great when one man shall kill another after he hath put himself into any unwarrantable Condition as an immoderate Fury Drunkenness and the like or is exercised in any thing that is not allowable by Law for such previous qualifications state the subsequent Fact voluntary and criminal which Case is parallel to that of your natural Reason when it is employed in matters too high both for its Capacity and Station What ground have you then both these Instances considered to be so confident of finding or claiming mercy from God and of deserving pity from men Your next Argument or Reinforcement of your last I know not well which is another incompetent Comparison betwixt Physical Notions and those in Theology which is regulated and answered thus That although in unscholastick and common Parleance a man is said from his birth to his death to be the same person because his body all along is informed by the same soul yet it is with an allowance during the flux of that time for his nutrimental mutation so that we do not Physically affirm that every particle of man's body continues
side you know the doom of those who shall attempt to press it more open than they have set it but in them the Way is said to be streight and the Gate narrow and that few shall enter therein Is it not plain therefore that leaving the right and following your wrong and natural Guide you are brought into a streight between two excesses that to shun Austerity as you term it on the one side you are put upon that profane and wretched belief of an equal possibility for the Salvation of Turks Heathens and Jews with that of the Christians nay of Atheists themselves if there be any such now if you will believe the Scriptures the fool hath said in his heart there is no God And amongst the Heathen Philosophers not to mention single Instances the whole Sect of the Epicureans could be no less who whilest they could not track the Methods of Divine Power and Providence denyed the Deitie's Creation and his Government of the World After all therefore it seems much safer to suspend your belief concerning the Fate of those People who are out of the Pale of Christianity and leave them as you acknowledge some do in the hands of the Creator than to descant in the least on his extraordinary Disposals not revealed to our Understandings But above all how heretical and horrid is your Conceit about the possibility of the Salvation of Devils from the excessive kindness of the Judge which contradicts all Divine Declarations nor is there any colour on their part to plead either invincible Ignorance or the Merits of a Redeemer the two grand means even according to your own Doctrine for the obtaining of Pardon Thus you see to what extravagancies your Natural Reason is brought by a high Conceit and Partiality to its self under a pretence of Charity to the World As to your Discourse Page 33. That although Christ is the onely Source and Cause of Eternal Felicity yet you may very well believe that there are secret and wonderful ways by which God may be pleased to apply his Merits to Mankind besides those direct open and ordinary ones of Baptism and Confession let it suffice those ways are not revealed and therefore ought not to be pryed into by the Rules of Christianity Page 34. In defiance of the Churches Anathemaes you assert That all sorts of Christians shall be saved except their Lives disagree from their Doctrines which likewise is a Disobedience to their Reasons and this also you in effect have affirmed of men of the worst Religions for brevity sake Therefore I shall endeavour to answer them both together That it is obvious enough to those who have any insight into the vast differences in the profession of Christianity at large that many pass under the Title of Christians because they in general profess the Mission of the Messias yet hold many Tenents heretical and derogatory both to his Nature and Office and those Opinions as an additional mischief so much influence their Actions that they lead ill Lives suitable to the Errors of their Understandings And this also is most true of the strictest Professors of the worst Religions and it is observable that those sorts of men who after this manner oppose the Catholick Church and the Precepts of the Scriptures are such as pay too much Obedience to their Natural Reasons in Divine Matters the Instances are too frequent and obvious in all Ages to need particular Quotations Page 35. Your discovery and stating of Heresie is as insignificant as the rest of your Opinions for if any one shall stubbornly set up his own private Reason and Judgment against that of the Publick and shall upon that incompetent account broach Positions contrary to the Principles and Authority of the Catholick Church or Practice accordingly doubtless our Ecclesiastical Guides in these later Ages may pronounce the Censures of the Church against such persons according to the pattern of Primitive Governours who did as little as ours pretend to the Deities Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as you phrase it to have a perfect sight of the whole Contexture of mens thoughts and actions Lastly as to your feigned Law about Murder and its qualifying Circumstances to make the sentence Conditional I shall only answer that as a Comparison at best is no good argument of it self so neither can you deduce any from this for mens disobedience to the Church in matters of belief For the foundation of the Catholique Faith deduced from the Notions and Usage of Primitive times backed by the Scriptures is the highest accompt which the nature of the Subject is capable of therefore whoever it is proposed to may give their rational assent and is the best ground for an unqualified sentence upon all stubborn opposers Page 36. Thus much for Herisy as you say now for Schism but your way The remedy for that is the disease it self for Schism is defined to be a voluntary seperation from the Church upon a trivial account without any mention either of censure or connivance the first of which you say makes the other cures it but if this difinition be true then your individual Sects however allowed will be guilty of it after a most intolerable manner neither can your absolute Independency in affairs of Religion admit of any thing more than a civil Compliance in mens outward conversation but utterly ravels that continuity of Faith which is necessary to preserve that unity of the Church you your self mention nay should such a Licence be but admitted in Temporals in which Reasons Plea is much stronger to intitle it to an Independency than in matters of Religion it will utterly rase out all Society and Government in them as all order and communion in Spirituals You endeavour to reinforce this Argument for Independency in Religion from the great variety which God hath constituted in mans material parts their motions as if he may be delighted with no less variety not only in mans immaterial Parts but even in the most immaterial Actions of those Parts the Worship and Adoration of a Deity when the very nature of Truth and the Words of Holy Writ plainly informs us that it can be but one sutable to the unity of the object besides if a comparison altogether feigned by a wild supposition only without any demonstration betwixt beings of most dissimular natures may pass for an Argument what Proposition or Truth can be established among men Page 38. Of what weight or advantage to your Cause can you imagine your next Allegation can be that God without any distinction receives neither hurt nor advantage from the worship of man when this is a plain truth that his Essence indeed is not concerned at the operations of the Creature but his Glory is as it relates to the Creation and therefore for the magnifying of that here below he made man and instituted Divine Worship and hath expressed his delight in the uniformity of that devotion which himself hath