will see what a heedless Quoter of Scripture you are though it be your best or rather onely Talent You alledge against us 1 John 1. v. 1. where the first words are Quod audivimus That which we have heard as if we forbid you to use your Hearing by which Faith comes For it is evident beyond all need of Proof that as the Church heard Christ so if every succeeding Age had follow'd what they heard from the former Christian Faith must have continu'd till now the self-same the Apostles heard from Christ and as long as this Method call'd by us Tradition is follow'd it must ever continue still the self-same to the Worlds End Now we are so far from bidding you not follow the Advertisements of your Senses that our onely Quarrel to you is that you relinquisht the most certain Sense the Hearing your Lawful Pastors in the Church you left and fell to scan Mysteries of Faith by the less-certain ones employed about Objects not within their cognizance and which is as absurd Glossing Scripture-Texts without any Rule to guide you but your own aukward Fancies Next follow in your Papers the Doctrines taught with Proofs which properly and directly belong onely to the first Article viz. That the True Body of Christ is contained in the Sacrament But such as your self will never he able todisprove viz. the Scripture interpreted by the Church the Testimonies of Fathers witnessing the Tradition of the Church in their time and the Condemnation of the contrary Opinions denying the Real Presence and Transubstantiation as Heretical What should move you thus to shew the weakness of your own Cause which has no other Rule of your Faith but Scripture interpreted by every man's Private Spirit or Reason and can bear no proportion with that of the publick Interpretation of the Church attested by the Authority of the most Eminent Fathers of the Primitive Times and strengthned by the Condemnation of the contrary Heresies I cannot easily imagine but finding them too strong to be combated by so weak a Champion you fairly take leave of them and betake your self to shew in the next place after your fashion that is blindly how hard it will be to believe this Doctrine by asking us Questions And I must confess 't is most insuparably hard if Senses must be admitted to Judge of the hidden and most abstruse Mysteries of Faith which is your darling Method though any wise man would think this would turn Faith into Experimental Knowledge and so rather destroy all the Faith in the world But my Task is set and I must attend to your Questions To the first then I answer That the words This is my Body are to be taken Literally and yet the End of receiving is meant Spiritually And I farther say That this Spiritual Nourishment consisting in raising in us devout Affections is incomparably advanc'd by the Real Presence of Christ's Body and Bloud So that these two are so far from being inconsistant as you would hint that the taking the words Literally does exceedingly conduce to the Spiritual feeding on Christ even as far as the believing him really present is more apt to stir up Devotion in us than the not believing it or the receiving his Real Body is above the receiving a piece of Bread signifying it which is beyond all proportion To the second Question I answer affirmatively If we regard the point of the Real Presence precisely For we grant that 't is sufficient to believe the Body of Christ is really truly present even the same Body but not in the same manner 'T is the very Doctrine of the Council of Trent it self Sess 13. cap. 1. That the Body of Christ is in Heaven juxta modum existendi naturalem according to its natural manner of existing and yet that 't is in other places Sacrament aliter praesens present Sacramentally But I much fear you are not in earnest here when you seem to yield 't is really truly present but that this Kindness of yours will grow cold when it comes to the trial and that these hearty expressions will dwindle away into Christ's Body being here onely in a Sign which is to say the Sign is there and his Body absent Hollow words are but wind and 't is hard to grasp Air. To the Third asking whether the Second and Third Article you put be of equal Truth and Certainty with the First I answer That I was never taught to believe a thing as a half-Truth or a three-quarter Truth but all to be True for Truth consists in an Indivisible which the Church has expresly declared to be of Faith by a General Council and accordingly whatsoever the Church thus believes and proposes as an Article of Faith I absolutely believe and embrace as Truths delivered by Christ and his Apostles To the Fourth I answer as above That the Proofs you set down belong properly and directly only to the first Article And as for the Second and Third they may also shift well enough for themselves for any Authority or Reason you have brought against either the one or the other But I would gladly know how all your Faith will shift for it self having nothing to keep it from sinking into an inferiour Assent call'd Opinion nay into a mass of senceless Errours as far as it opposes Tradition but your self and other Fallible Interpreters like your self to buoy it up As for your Fifth I know no enforcement that is beyond Cavil in any one place of Scripture which is Dogmatical while the words are left to be tost by Criticisms Grammar-learning Allusions of places to one another and such like little tricks No one word in those Sacred Books can escape being equivocal or double senc't while the word God which of all others should seem incommunicable is Wier-drawn by such shifts to signifie a Creature as we experience in the Arians and Socinians glosses upon those Texts which concern Christ's Divinity You know well enough already that neither my self nor any Catholic builds our Faith upon any Text of Scripture interpreted by our own private Fancy but onely by the publick Tradition of the Church Your Sixth asks If the Church must be taken in to expound Scripture whether Reason willeth not that the Church in the Apostles time should be principally heard in their Authoritative Interpretation I answer In case you mean the Apostles were of greater Authority than their Successors 't is granted But if your Question relates to the Truth of what the Church delivers 't is the same as to ask whether the Holy Ghost that assists the Church spake truer one time than another Your Seventh Question whether you are truly represented by putting you to say There is nothing else in the Sacrament but a Memory and Sign of Christ's Passion and whether the Fathers that prove there is something more and condemn such as say there is nothing more do prove any thing against you or condemn you I am heartily glad to see some
Sir if you hope to gain any credit to your Cause or would shew your self a Controvertist But I perceive you have been so accustomed to Preaching where you have your full swing in the Pulpit to talk on any fashion against the abominable Rapists without any to controul you that you have conceiv'd some hope the same will pass in Controversie Wherefore I must take the freedom to tell you 't is the duty of a Controvertist to propose his or his Adversary's Tenet clearly and state the Question between them and then bring his Proofs and vouch them to be Conclusive This is what becomes a Man and a Scholar and what falls short of this though it may pass and perhaps with applause in a Sermon is perfectly ridiculous and insignificant in a Controversie But t is high time now to remember the drudging Service I promised you Passing by then your old saying that the Person seeking satisfaction about Transubstantiation least concernd him as if it were nothing to him whether he Adord a piece of Bread with Christ or Christ alone I come to your Stuff for I want another proper word to call it by being forbid by common sence to call it Reasoning You give us a taste of your Philosophy in speaking so soberly of the Judgment of Senses our Senses giving their Judgments and many other expressions of the like nature By which you seem to make account a mans Judgment lies in his Heels or Toes or his Wits in his Elbows for all these have Sense And according to this new Scheme of Philosophy you have enlightned the world with the Sense judges I wish for your own sake you had onely askt Questions here too for you are as miserably out in your Philosophy as in your Divinity As to this whole business then you may please to receive these few Instructions from a Friend 1. That the Senses are onely Organs or Instruments to transmit Impressions to the Brain and so to the Soul onely which judges or knows and if the way to the Brain be intercluded no knowl edge is produc'd by any impression on Sense 2. That if the Senses be duly dispos'd 't is granted they send right impressions thither 3. That 't is granted à fortiori that if the Senses be not vitiated by some Disease or Miracle do not intervene they never give our Judging Power wrong Advertisements concerning their proper Objects 4. That in our case they are employ'd about their Proper Objects which are certain Accidents or Qualities as all Philosophers agree Nor are they in our case fallacious in representing them Now you would make Substance their Proper Object and would have them inerrable in judging of Substances Of which Positions the first is utterly false since all Learned men in the World agree that Substance or Being is the proper Object of the Vnderstanding The second is confuted by experience for we see that in debased Money for example and many other Instances even all the Senses may deceive us in our judging of the Substance of it by their Impressions so that we are forc'd to call to our assistance the Maxims of our Reason and use our best Art to frame a right Judgment in such cases 5. Amongst those Knowledges of which in our case the Faithful are to make use to judge rightly of the Substance the Knowledge that God has revealed 't is his Body and that this is attested by his Church proceeding on an inerrable Rule of Faith deriving down to us Christ's Doctrine is to be taken in for one nay ought to have the chiefest Place and so in due reason ought to restrain the Faithful from judging of this high Mystery according to the ordinary methods of Nature in other common Natural Effects 6. That Faith comes by Hearing which Sense employ'd about Sounds articulated and complext with an almost infinite variety I could were the place proper demonstrate to be more certain than all the rest of the Senses put together unless perhaps the Eyes employ'd about the various figuration of Letters So that you ought not to have impos'd upon us to deny the Certainty of all the Senses but to have excepted that of Hearing conversant in the Objects now spoken of especially as the Scripture tells you this being the proper Sense by which Faith comes you ought in justice to have let the World know that we allow indeed the absolute Certainty of that Sense which introduces Faith and deny only the Certainty of some of the rest in some Cases and in Objects which are not proper to them this being indeed the true state of our Tenet Now if Hearing alone can teach us Christ's Doctrine with a perfect Certainty 't is neither good Manners to his Infinite Veracity nor Justice to such a vast Body of Attesters nor in any regard common sence to trust the more fallacious Senses especially not employ'd neither about their Proper Objects before the more certain one employ'd about it 's assuring us God has said it Remember the Check St. Thomas had for not believing upon the Testimony of others to be credited as to their veracity that is not admitting Faith propos'd and ascertain'd to him by Hearing but he would needs use the other Senses too Beati qui non viderunt crediderunt and apply it to your self 7. You distinguish not between the Senses employ'd about the Motives antecedent to Faith and about the Mysteries of Faith as appears by your Citations out of Scripture In the former it becomes God's Providence to leave Nature to its free course and us to judge according to its ordinary methods in regard we have as yet no other Light to walk or judge by But when once through Hearing we are enlightned by Faith it becomes then God's Providence that the Mysteries propos'd to us they having a nearer approach to an Infinite Agent the Omnipotence of God than Natural Productions have should be so sublime as to be above the reach even of unelevated Reason much more above the common and coarse methods of Sensation or the Judgments we frame from the Senses alone Pause upon these particulars and apply them and you will see you are quite out in what I conceive you would be at for you are at nothing yet but at asking Questions But you divide your Text and tell J. W. first What 't is he must be taught and secondly How hard it will be to believe it Then as to the former you seem to subdivide it into the Doctrines Taught and the method of Teaching them Now the Doctrines taught was the Genus or Thing to be divided and here you seem to make it one of the Species or Members dividing and so make it at once above and under it self But this is onely a slip of your Logick noting as you call it the Doctrines Taught as one of the things to be considered in the Doctrines Taught And certainly such a rare Note is well worth the marking By what 's said above the Reader
glimmering hope of your Conversion For in case there be in the Sacrament something more than a Sign as you seem here to acknowledge is your true Tenet you must say the thing signify'd is there too and so we are good Friends But because this unexpected Confession of yours like the first New in a Gazette needs a Confirmation I beseech you to satisfie me clearly what this Thing is in the Sacrament which is more or more than a Sign This way of questioning is the worst way of explaining in the world though it be a special stratagem to avoid Confute Your Proposals that follow are very Extraordinary I little thought that when you had done Catechizing me you would put me to Swearing nor that when I expected Arguments from another I should be forced to take my Oath my self that my Faith is true But that you may have no cause to complain I will gratifie you in that too and do here frankly declare without any Equivocation which I abhor in an Oath that I do renounce all my hopes of Heaven which is more than you put me to provided there be no fault in the matter nor in the Priest if there be not present in the Sacrament after the words of Consecration Christ's very true Body which was born of the Virgin suffer'd on the Cross was buried arose and now sits at God's right hand and this by the Conversion of the whole Substance of the Bread into his Body as also of the Wine into his Bloud the Species onely of Bread and Wine remaining as is declared in the Council of Trent Sess 13. Can. 2. But now Sir having done this take notice that I must in requital challenge from you the same deep Protestation that your Negative Faith or Opinion is True If you refuse since your exacting it of me has made it decent equitable and just you are convinced to be a very ill man and to doubt of the Faith you profess to hold your self and propose to others as the way to Salvation And if you do it yet acknowledge your own Interpretations of Scripture and your Churches too which grounds all your Faith to be Fallible you are one of the boldest and rashest Swearers that ever called himself a Christian and in either case must lose your credit for ever with your Flock and Auditory But that we may draw to a Conclusion I beseech you Sir if you have any more to say to me let 's have no more of this trifling Consider what you are about you are about Controversie whose work it is to settle Christian Faith upon certain Grounds and since you profess your Faith to have been taught by Christ this is requir'd of your if you have any such Faith to settle or Grounds to settle it on Go to work like a Scholar and do not thus expose your self for Children to laugh at Lay your Principles first then draw your Consequences warrant them rightly deduc'd and bring them to the Conclusion or the Position that is contradictory to your Adversaries Tenet 'T is manly to affirm confidently what one holds heartily 't is becoming a Man to argue against your Adversary smartly and not to spare him but 't is the height of ridiculousness to task him only with Questions and putting him to make sacred Protestations instead of combating him with your Reasons Whenas you knew well enough before-hand what he holds and what he would Answer One thing I must needs re-mind you of at parting because I fear you will be apt to forget it which is that you bear in memory the Oath you owe me that your Tenets are True that is That Christ's True Body is not in the Sacrament That there is no Third or Middle State called Purgatory no Transubstantiation c. Then to uphold the Opinion of your Sincerity let us know what Certain Grounds you confide in to secure you from being Perjur'd The taking this Test may qualifie you in time for some great Office for if your Fallible Principles will justifie your Honesty in taking such an Oath I do not know what you may not be fit for next FINIS
A LETTER Written by a MINISTER For the Satisfaction of a PERSON Doubting in RELIGION Shewn to be Unsatisfactory LONDON Printed by Henry Hills Printer to the King 's Most Excellent Majesty for His Houshold and Chappel 1686. TO THE READER I Know it will be expected by the Reader I should inform him what it was that occasion'd these following Papers J. W. a young man of Preston in Lancashire fell into some doubts about the main concern of his Soul Whether he had hitherto the right Faith or were in the true Church Mr. T. B. whose Parishioner he was us'd his best endeavours to disswade him from embracing the Catholic Communion For which I should not discommend him for it was precise duty in him in case he verily judg'd the Negatives in which Protestants differ from Catholics were True and that he had any solid Grounds for judging so Nay he offer'd too to dispute with any Roman-Catholic before him to settle his Doubts and give him satisfaction that the Protestant Religion was True which was a very fair Proffer had it been as candidly perform'd Whereupon I was invited to give him a meeting And when I came to make the Dispute short I began with the first Principle in Controversie The Rule of Faith I told him that all our Contest was summ'd up in this one Enquiry What it was that Christ and his Apostles taught and that if the Rule which was to acquaint us with that were not absolutely or infallibly Certain all our Faith must by consequence be Vncertain and might possibly be an Errour I alledg'd that all His Rule that grounded His Perswasions about what was Faith depended on Interpretations of Scripture made by himself or the Protestant Church both which being confessedly fallible or possible to be deceiv'd he might possibly that is perhaps was actually in an Errour as to all his Faith for ought he or they knew When I expected an Answer he stept to his Study and fetch 't down a great Book biding me read that and offering me to lend it I admir'd at this strange method of answering that instead of replying when he was prest by my Reasons he could think it a competent satisfaction to tell me he would lend me a Book to Read Whereupon I prest him for a positive Reply to my Discourse telling him that since he had now Preach't a Doctrine pretended to be Christ's so many years it was incredible he should not be able to give an account of his Faith and the Ground it was built on without the assistance of a Voluminous Book the tossing over which I saw was very convenient for him to avoid answering and to turn our Dispute into an endless Wrangling which was all he aym'd at but never to bring the point to any Issue He still insisting upon my Reading that huge Book I desir'd him to turn to any particular place in it which he would undertake gave an Answer to my former Discourse and I would be contented to excuse him and consider what it said But it would not be granted so that I saw plainly this was onely an invention to ward the blow from himself and let it fall upon another I prest him again to make out to us by Grounds of His he could be absolutely certain of any one point of Faith nay even that Christ was God He reply'd he believ'd it because it was in the Creed I could have told him the Socinians grant those words in the Creed and yet deny Christ to be truly God but I wav'd this and urg'd him to declare upon what inerrable Rule he believ'd what was contain'd in the Creed Vpon this to avoid answering he began the most disingenuous cavil that ever man heard and fell upon me as if I believ'd not the Creed my self whereas I onely prest him to show us by His Grounds or by any Rule of Faith proper to Protestants as they are distinct from Catholics how He could rationally believe even the Creed to be certain and know the certain sense of it since it's Letter is as liable to misconstructions as the Scripture is I could do no less than tell him how unhandsome this procedure was to put upon me without the least show of reason or common sense a thing that never yet was said or thought of any Roman Catholic in the World But he with much heat still insisted that I did disbelieve it because I urg'd him to show how by His Principles He did or could believe it and fell into a high passion Vpon which perceiving plainly that all this pother and dust was rais'd to get clear of disputing and despairing to bring him to give any account of his Faith even so much as pretending to show it to be as true Faith ought to be Infallibly certain I came away with the young man he having first declar'd before Mr. T. B's face that he was fully satisfi'd he could give no account of his Faith and consequently was not to be follow'd and upon this became a Catholic These things having past on in this manner here related as soon as I saw a Paper from him to the young man which here follows I durst have sworn it had been some Account of the Certainty of his Faith in regard that was still incumbent on him having been left in so great a passion about that Point at our last Interview But it seems it was too hard a morsel for his tender skill to nibble upon and instead of that other points though never so remote are fetcht in by head and shoulders to keep off that discourse How ill he handles these too will appear by the following Answer But all these diversions shall not serve his turn That is the point about which our Discourse was then 't is that which stuck on his side 't is that concerning which he yet owes satisfaction and consequently 't is that to which with all right and reason I must still demand an Answer and challenge him to run the Lists if he do not perform it P. I. Mr. T. B.'s PAPER To J. W. PRESTON Aug. 3. 1686. Poor Soul IT is now more than six Weeks since I observed your Apostatizing from our Church during which time I have not been remiss in praying for your Recovery and now think it seasonable by this short Paper to endeavour it The pretended cause is you cannot obtain satisfaction among us about those two points Transubstantiation and Purgatory but mostly the former Your Soul being in my opinion in great danger by the course you take I could not with any quiet see you so expose your self and wished that you might rather bestow your thoughts on what more immediately touched you and was more suited to your Capacity But seeing it verified in you which is in most persons that you are most busie about what least concerns you and nothing pleaseth your Fancy but what flies above your Understanding I purposed to let you know my thoughts even in the remote