otherwise men must renounce their reason reject the guidance of their conscience and so of Gods Vicegerent act in the concernments of their eternal souls at all adventures who shall pass judgement on the final and irrefragable judge thus Fiat lux Ep. 2. p. 198. Ans The Conscience being subject unto none but God who only knows the secrets of it he only can pass judgement of its actions and pretences and he assuredly will convince the Shismatick and Heretick t was not their Reason but their lusts that did betray them to such errors but the results of such a Judgement which interfere with the received doctrine or customes of the Church must so far be condemned and censured by the Superiors of the Church as they do interrupt the Peace and Unity thereof The Jews were bound to hearken to the Scribes and Pharisees the Sanhedrim and High-Priest and they had power to chastise their disobedience in lawful matters and yet I hope with that discretion which was requisite to preferve them from condemning our Messias for a cheat or for embracing those Traditions which did evacuate the Law of God for otherwise our Saviour was very much to blame when he so often taught the contrary and put in so many caveats against the leaven of the Scribes and Pharisees Thus Rulers are appointed for a terror unto evil doers and an encouragement unto the Good and consequently must have surficient means to be instructed in that Good or evil which they are to reward or punish and power so to do and yet inferiors are forbid to yeild obedience to their unlawful precepts and in such cases are to prefer obedience to the Laws of God which must suppose a judgement of discretion in them to discern what precepts are unlawful and when they intersere with the unerring rule of Scripture so well consistent is the judgement of discretion we allow to private persons both with the power of Superiors and Peace and Unity of the Church Ob. But I denyed them to be judges of Faith Now to be clearly revealed or evident in Scripture and to be of Faith is all one so that they must not be judges of what is evident in Scripture least by necessary consequence they become judges of Faith too p. 195. Ans This Argument supposeth that to be judge of Faith and to be judge of what is Faith are terms equivalent which is a great mistake to judge what is Faith and what is evidently revealed in Scripture is the business of each Catechist and Preacher who declares the Articles of Faith of each believer who assents unto them because his judgement tels him they are such and therefore signally the work of them with whom this Faith is visibly intrusted but to be judge of Faith or to be that person or cōmunity whose judgment in such matters must be infallibly received without farther scrutiny is a prerogative as clearly incompetent to any person or community as it is vehemently pretended to 't was Sir upon this slender Cobweb your doughty inference did hang. Ob. 2. You refuse to admit them as Guides of their Faith which signifies they may have power to require our assents in matters in which they have no power to guide us i. e. they may have power to require us to go wrong for any thing we or they know p. 195. Ans Let me again inform you that to guid others in their faith or to it and to be guide of Faith are things extreamly differring whoever doth instruct his Brother in any matter of Faith or reclaim him from his Error becomes a charitative Guide unto Faith whoever by the Church is authorized so to do becomes an Authoritative Guide unto Faith but to be guide of Faith especially in that sence in which this phrase is taken in our present Controversie is to be such a one whose judgement must determine for us what is Faith what not and thus our Reason onely is our Guide in matters dubious Ob 3. But what can be replyed to a Socinian answering when his assent to the Trinity is required That he humbly submitted to Scrip. that he used al means he could but discovered it not so evident there as you conceive it Answ The very same you would return unto your Brother Carpocratian pretending as humble a submission to your Rule of Faith and yet concluding thence for Heresie or to the Protestant asserting Tradition where it may be had to be as Authentick as the written Word and yet protesting That after all means used he could never finde therein one footstep of the Romish Faith or lastly to the Arrian of old or new Photinian who both laid claim to the Tradition of the three first Centuries In a word the onely answer you can make to such Enquiries must be this That your appeal unto Tradition is both true and just so was not that of the Photmian or Carpocratian Heretick And surely then the like return of Protestants to the Socinian Quaker Independant when pretending the same reason for their separation from the Church of England which we do from that of Rome if founded upon real Truth must vindicate our Church from all your clamors Object But upon the same right and title that we separated from Rome did Independants Quakers c. depart from us for since they do it upon their own discretion and so upon our Principle to deny it to be done by them so justly or so truly is to do wickedly and talk fondly Fiat Lux Ep 2. p. 198 199. or which is trantamount to do and talk after the manner of fiat lux Answ As if not onely the Carpocration but the Jew and Heathen should be thought to act as justly and as truly as the best of Catholicks because as vehement Alsertors of the Traditions of their Fathers and all the Actions and Sentiments of Mankinde should carry equal Truth and Justice in them as being equally the products of what they looked on as reason and discretion Thus Saul the Persecutor must act as justly as Paul the Doctor of the Gentiles because according to his Conscience and the Catholick when Preaching to convert and practising to destroy his Prince must do both with equal Justice provided that his good intentions to propagate the Roman Faith be alike in both Prop 5. In matters which belong not to the Foundations of our Faith to be content with such submission as is consistent with a liberty of opinion and binds us onely to reserve our Judgements to our selves in what they differ from the professed Doctrine of the Church we live in seems most serviceable to the ends of Peace and Unity to the ends of Peace because it lesseneth the Objects and so withdraws the fewel of Contention of Unity because it much enlargeth the conditions of it and rendreth them such as may more easily be submitted to Coroll Hence 't is apparently most safe and prudent to be content with this submission as being most conducive to
told with so much confidence p. 200. That plainest common sence will teach us and every man who considers it that unless we settle some indisputable method of arriving at Christs sence or faith that is some self-evident and so all obliging Rule of Faith the Protestant Church can never hope for power to reduce their dissenters nor to hold together or govern efficaciously their own subjects that is they can never hope for unity within themselves or union with them that have it Which in effect is thus much That both his sacred Majestie and all his Peers and Prelates Laity and Clergy are profest opposers of what plainest common sence and each mans Reason must suggest unto him as the sole expedient of the Churches welfare for which great charity and worthy thoughts of our whole Nation 't is pitty but it should be ordered by the King and Parliament that due thanks be given to Mr. S. especially seeing he hath been at the vast expence of an ipse dixit to confirm the charge hower contenti sumus hoc Catone nor have we need to add homine imprudenti at que imperito nibil quicquam injustius Cor. 2. This shews what spirit of Divination had possessed my friend when thus he talks Hence we may see confessedly in the Protestant principles the Reason of their present and past distractions and divine of the future for mens fancies being naturally various no power in her to keep them in union they must needs ramble into multitudes of Dissenting Sects which to strive to unite in one were to force both nature and conscience too Nature in striving to unite their understandings in Faith without offering them evidence of Authority conscience in binding them to act as Protestants do whereas they are ready to stake their Salvation upon it that their best reasons working upon the very Rule of Faith Protestants recommend obliges them to the contrary For first in fundamentals in which onely we think it necessary to unite the understandings of our people we have confessedly all the evidence that Scripture and Tradition the Role of Protestants and Papists can afford And secondly in other matters we have power to silence such disputes and prevent the spreading of such opinions as may cause divisions and inflict the Churches censures upon those that do so and consequently have sufficient provisions for that peace and unity which is necessary to the Churches welfare And thirdly either we do not bind the conscience and therefore cannot force it or else we do it upon that pregnant evidence now mentioned and therefore cannot be said to oblige the will against the understanding And lastly we are as ready to protest that our best reason working upon the very rule of Faith which Romanists recommend unto us obligeth us to renounce their faith and that to force us to act with them would be to force our consciences unto sin For a close to cry quit with you this shews the reason of that General Atheism Scepticism and Irreligion which is spread over the face of the whole Roman Church which prevails so much in France and Italy and makes Rome Christian little differ from her self whilst Heathen for having built her Faith upon that infallibility which stands liable to multitude of doubts and is confuted by variety of Arguments and Experiences what remains but that Religion perish in its ruines Once more this shews the reason of the sudden growth of Atheism in this our Nation for Catholicks having by experience found that all their endeavours must be fruitless whilest we have Scripture for our Rule that whilst Christianity stands upon its old foundations their politick profession of it cannot find sure footing in our Nation have at last made it their professed business to draw the night upon her to wipe out Scripture at one dash and pronounce all those arguments which the first Champions of Christianity made use of unsatisfactory and null that being thus benighted even by a fiat lux we might take up with an implicite faith and being first made Atheists be in a nearer disposition to act the Papist And lastly that finding no sure footing in the Scriptures we might run unto Tradition for it An Appendix containing an Answer to those few passages in Fiat Lux which beare some shew of Reason and might possibly deceive the unwary Reader 1. THerefore 't is asserted That the power of appealing to the Bishop of Rome mentioned in the Council of Sardica was ad Julium Romanum not ad Papam Romanum and so a personvl priviledge which might cease on the death of Julius p. 59. that is quoth Fiat Lux not to the pope who then was Julius but to Julius who then was Pope p. 55. Whereas he should have said not to him as Pope but as Julius i.e. as one deposed and reviled by the Fastern Bishops against whom this Council did oppose themselves endeavouring to advance him as much as they endeavoured to depress and vilifie him but alas materialiter and formaliter are terms which the poor man is wholly unacquainted with and this answer was grounded upon History which neither his Don Quixot nor Hudibras would afford him and therefore 't was above his shallow capacity T was secondly asserted that the Doctrine stigmatized by Saint Paul as a Doctrine of Divels was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that of those in general that forbid marriage not condemn it upon such and such particular accounts And therefore though the Encratite Montanist were deeper yet they also did participate in the guilt p. 210. To convince this answer of folly falsehood it is thus rejoyned That if so 't would follow that the Church of England must be guilty of the Doctrine of Divels by prohibiting marriage in the times of Lent and Advent p. 182. A. as if it were all one to forbid the thing and to restrain the doing of it at times unseasonable and S. Paul had been as great a criminal for advising abstinence from due Benevolence at times of extraordinary prayer and fasting as they who alwaies thought it necessary to do so and lastly to forbid flesh in general and to forbid it upon daies of fasting and humiliation were things equivalent t is I confess the same to forbid it at times unfit and unto persons to whom it is so but never will it be evinced that that marriage which is honourable in all be undecent in the Clergy 3. But do you not acknowledge their fundamentals to be so perspicuous as what is written with a Sun beam and therefore such as none but fools can possibly mistake in and is it not then justly wondred by Fiat Lux that any Protestant writers should affirm that general Councils who have Authority from Christ of deciding controversies greater assistance in and means of finding out the truth then others should lye under a possibility of erring in what is so perspicuous and cleare Ans 1. This objection doth as much concern the Catholick as us who albeit he pretends infallible and so the greatest evidence for matters of his Faith yet cannot but acknowledge that they are contradicted not only by the Eastern but a confiderable part of the Western Church Doth not my Friend and all his brother Catholicks assert That the authority of their Church is such a motive to beliefe that only irrational vicious and willfully blind persons can recede from it by disbelief S.F.p. 197. yet have not its definitions been solemnly condemned by Arriau Councils as great as any they stile general And by the Provincial Councils of the Reformed Churches are not these condemnations subscribed propugned and adjusted by far greater multitudes of learned men then ever did convene in General Councils and what is incident to them diffused why may it not be incident to a far less number when convened Nay secondly was not the law of Nature were not the Notions of a Deity so manifest and obvious as to render the offender 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or condemned of his own conscience And yet were not the greater part of men such fools for many hundreds of years together to act in contradiction to them Was not the Doctrine of our Saviour confirmed by such Miracles such Prophecies and other signal evidenes as rendred it unquestionably true and the rejectors of it inexcusable and did not yet the Sanhedrim and Jew reject it and Blaspheme it though convinced of its truth nay is not the generality of the learned world much more the giddy and unruly muititude so inconsiderate as to run headlong to that ruine which dayly lays before their eyes and no wonder that it should be so since the Church story shews too plainly that interest pride and faction prejudice false principles and a mistaken Rule of Faith have but too often acted in the Rulers of the Church yea even Reason and Experience informs us that such persons have most subtilty to elude the plainest arguments and most concluding Reasons to find out contrary pretences to oppose against them and many other artifices to bind their Faith unto their interests FINIS
irreligion or any contrary Religion can pretend to and consequently I stand bound in Prudence to embrace it Obj But what is fallible may be false and if so you have no certainty that it will be true Answ What is fallible not because equally poysed betwixt truth and falshood but onely because not demonstrable by Mathematical mediums or because the contrary doth not imply a contradiction may yet be of sufficient certainty to produce assurance The judgement of sense cannot be proved infallible to the Sceptick he will argue from experience That it may once or twice deceive you and thence that 't is not absolutely impossible that it should frequently do so that it may deceive you for a minute and then ask what infallible assurance you can have that it cannot do so for five ten twenty minutes If you reply Your senses are infallible but with such limitations as having a due medium Organ distance and the like he will call for your infallible assurance that neither God nor the devil do at any time infect the Medium dis-tort the Eye alter the Species and the like Now tell me notwithstanding this denyal of the infallibility of Sense Whether we have any just temptation to question what we daily see and hear Whether he that walls in London streets may not be certain that he sees a Man or Woman and yet less reason had the Primitive Christians to distrust those Miracles which for some Hundreds of Years employed not onely their own Senses but the Eyes and Ears of all the World Again The testimony of ten yea of an hundred Men is fallible as we have seen already and hence 't is evident That the testimony of Two hundred yea a Thousand may be so for seeing all you adde is fallible their Testification most be so Tell me now Whether I have reason to distrust the Existence of such a Man as Alexander Mahomet or that the Alcoran was published by him if not What reason can I have to doubt of what 's delivered to me with greater evidence of general Tradition touching Scripture Christianity you see now what little ground of fear our Doctrine gives you that it might happen to be otherwise p. 196. because we dare not pretend infallibility even as little as you have to fear the constant Testimony of sense or your own sure footing And when you adde That 't is a damnable and diabolical Tyranny to oblige men to the hazards of falshoods in the matters of Faith and in the mean time profess our selves ignorant whether they be false or no. Answ True And 't is as great a falshood that we do so No Sir in matters Fundamental we profess as much assurance as Scripture and Tradition can afford in matters which admit not of the greatest Evidence we oblige not unto Faith but to Submission and Obedience and in neither do we profess what you so dis-ingeniously impose upon us That we are ignorant whether they be false or no. CAP. II. Of the Guide of Faith THat Reason still must be my guide after it hath brought me to my Rule of Faith Prop. 1. and were it otherwise since we have no express from the old Testament that Jesus of Nazareth or the Son of Joseph was to be the Saviour of the world why are we sent to Scripture to be convince of it Why is this word of Prophecy esteemed a surer evidence thereof then a voice from Heaven John 5.39 2 Pet. 1.17 Matt. 22.29 Luk. 24.25 Why doth our Saviour quarrel with the Jew for not concluding that from Scripture which was not to be found expressly there Or rebuke the slowness of his own Disciples to believe all the Prophets had delivered touching his Death his Resurrection and Ascention into Glory When visibly they could not do it without comparing circumstances and using a long train of inferences Why lastly are the Beraeans so much commended for their search of Scripture Judgement of Pauls Doctrine thence seeing his business was to prove that Christ must needs have suffered be raised from the dead that Jesus was the Christ Act. 17.3.11 should this way be rejected as fallacious and unsufficient to establish faith In vain must be Apollos wisdome endeavouring hence to convince the Jew that Jesus was the Christ Act. 18.22 And 't was their weakness to be over-powred by it whilst he produced no express from Scripture in vain did Peter attempt to prove the Resurrection of our Lord from that of David Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell Act. 2.27 and S. Paul to convince the Jew by Reasoning from Scripture Act 17.2 In vain did he compose his whole Epistle to the Hebrews so full of Rational deductions thence in a word to infer the unlawfulness of Divorce for any cause from that of Genesis They twain shall be one flesh of Corban from that of Moses Honor thy Father and thy Mother to infer the Lawfulness of plucking ears of corn upon the Saboth from Davids eating the Shew bread And lastly to conclude the Resurrection from that of Moses I am the God of Abraham must be according to the contrary Assertion to argue upon Grounds fallacious and to interpret Scripture against or else besides the tenour of the Churches voice Secondly If Reason may not be my Guide in these conclusions as well as others then 1. must not all Arguments produced by the Romanist against our Church or upon any other subject be pronounced null when bottomed only on the inferences of Humane Reason from the Rule of Faith and must not Vanity be writ upon the labours of their greatest Champions Must it not follow that no promise of the Scripture can administer comfort no threatning terror to the Soul that is not either expressly contained in it or otherwise ascertained and expounded to us from the Tradition of the Church And must not then the greatest part of Scripture-threatnings prove bruta fulina and its Promises be as unsignificative And thirdly might not Jew and Gentile Sadducy and Pharisy have still excepted against Christ his Apostles whose infallibility they little dreamt of for making faith depend on the fallacious deductions of their Reasons for moulding Scripture according to their Daedalean Phancies in opposition to the Churches living voice Had Mr S. been a Traditionary Catholick or which is much the same a Pharisee in those days he would have doubly schoold them 1. For chusing a wrong rule of Faith viz. Scripture so to avoid the Church and next for glossing it as seems best unto their Reasons and that in opposition to the Church who by her practical tradition must interpret Sure footing p. 193. Prop. 2. That to assert Reason as my Guide in matters of Faith is not to resolve Faith into humane Reason for Faith is properly resolved into its Principal efficient or formal object which is not Reason but to the Protestant Divine Veracity to the Catholick the Churches voice for aske the Protestant why he
believes such Articles or asserts their truth he presently replyes because revealed in Scripture by that God who cannot lye whereas the Catholick must Answer because revealed by that Tradition or that Churches voice which is infallible to assure me of the Churches voice is the business of my Eyes and eares to ascertain me of the infallibility of that voice is the work of Reason Is now the faith of Catholicks resolved into their eyes or ears Is it resolved into the use of Reason and not into the Churches voice If not why must this be objected to the Protestant because his Reason doth assist him to evince his Scripture to be the product of Divine Veracity If then you take this prayse in its largest sense as it imports the enquiry into all its causes in their several kinds both Catholicks and Protestants do resolve their faith into humane Reason as giving them assurance of the infallibility both of Scripture and Tradition if in its proper notion as it it implyes the principal efficient cause of Faith 't is evident that neither of them do it Nevertheless I freely grant that all the certainty of our Faith in things not punctually expressed in Scripture depends upon the certainty of our Reason working upon the never sayling Rules of Logick which as it is no disparagement to the certainty of Faith so is it a thing common unto us with Catholicks who must acknowledge with my good Friend That many things have been delivered by the Church which were not formally contained in her tradition or the Rule of Faith but only thence concluded by the help of Reason Sure Footing P. 206. Prop. 3. The Fundamentals of Christianity i. e. all doctrines necessary to the Salvation of each person delivered in the Rule of Faith must be both evident and obvious to the eye of Reason for seing the proper end of a Rule is to regulate and direct and nothing unevident and obscure whilst such can do that office unto those to whom it is so for this were to require the intellect to be regulated by what it cannot know to be a rule what ever is the the Rule of Faith and so of Fundamentals must evidently declare them to such persons to whom it is a rule and is it not monstrous to imagine that God should have suspended our Salvation and Christ the very being of his Church on what 's obscure and void of evidence And secondly seeing what is not obvious cannot be evident to such persons as are unable to search into the depths of Reason and see into the coherence of a continued train of consequences that this Rule may be evident to such it must be obvious Obvious I say in delivering the affirmative heads of Christian Faith not in affording means to extricate the understanding from all the Sophistry of a Learned Adversary which to require from the Rule of Faith especially as applyed to the illiterate person and his certainty thereof is as absurd and monstrous as to require in order to his certainty that he sees walks or hears that he should have ability to Answer all the quirks of Zeno and demurs of a Gascendus to the contrary As therefore in these matters the clear and immediate evidence of sense is a sufficient preservative to the rudest person from all the Sophisms of Zeno and his Academy even so the full and pregnant evidence of Fundamentals especially if joynd with that internal evidence of the Holy Spirit which is promised by our Saviour to all those that do his will is sufficient settlement unto the meanest person capable of Religion against all the Fallacies of a subtle Heretick Coroll Hence I conceive it Sophistically objected by my Friend That we prove and defend our Faith by skils and languages history and humane learning and so make them our Rule of Faith For we aver the Fundamentals of our Faith are so perspicuously revealed in Scripture as to need no farther skill to apprehend them then what is necessary to understand that language in which our Rule of Faith is writ yea what is equally necessary to understand the Churches voice which constantly is delivered by her representatives in Greek or Latine and therefore the preceding skils are not of absolute necessity to Faith in General but only to some portions of it of which we may be ignorant without considerable prejudice to our eternal welfare of which nature is the legitimacy of Baptism conferr'd by Hereticks the Millenium c. and if we use such mediums in matters of the highest nature we do it still ex abundanti either to conclude the same things from obscurer places which are perspicuously revealed elsewhere or to obviate the evasions and confute the cavils of the Hereticks all which the Catholick doth and must do both when engaged with him and us Thus when again he tels us That our Rule is deal Characters waxen-natured and plyable to the Dedalean Phancy of the ingenious moulders of new opinions P. 194. Ans 'T is true some passages there are in it which are may be wrested to such evil purposes but still the Fundamentals of our Faith are such as are by no means plyable to any other sence Prop. 4. Reason in judging of the sence of Scripture is regulated partly by principles of Faith partly by Tradition partly by Catholick maxims of her own 1. By Principles of Faith for Scripture is to be interpreted secundum analogiam Fidei that is say we particular Texts of Scripture when dubious are so to be interpreted as not to contradict the Fundamentals of Faith or any doctrine which evidently and fully stands asserted in the Word of God and 2ly since Scripture cannot contradict it self When any Paragraph of Scripture absolutely considered is ambiguous that sence must necessarily obtain which is repugnant to no other paragraph against what may be so and thus may Scripture regulate me in the sence of Scripture and what I know of it lead me to the sense of what I do not Secondly By tradition for since tradition is necessary to assure us that there were once such men as the Apostles who delivered that Christianity and these Scriptures to us which we now embrace to question the sufficiency of the like tradition to assure me of the sence of Scripture is virtually to call in question the motives which induce us to believe it such this then would be an excellent help unto the sence of Scripture only the mischief is that where it can be had we do not want it and where we want it 't is but too visible it cannot be had Note only that I speak here of a like tradition to which two things are requisite First That it be as general as that of Scripture And Secondly That it be such as evidenceth it self by Reason to have been no forgery as here it doth it being morally impossible that the whole Church in the delivery of Scripture to us should deceive or be deceived For the
infallibility of Tradition doth not consist entirely in the delivery of such a Doctrine but in the assurance which it gives my reason that it could not possibly have been imbraced upon other terms The Baptism of Infants is at present as the communicating of Infants was of old the tradition of the Church but this gives no unquestionable assurance of the truth or derivation of these customs from our Lord and his Apostles for haply the Church embraced them upon other motives The 1. from a conceived analogy therein to Circumcision The 2d from a mistake of that of the Evangelist except you eat my flesh c. Coroll Hence you may see how injurious my Friend is in representing us as rejectors of Tradition whereas we manifestly own it where we can have assurance of it only we dare not boast of it as the Papist doth where 't is notoriously evident that both do want it we own the constant not the present Tradition of the Church Corol. 2. Hence see the stability of the Faith of Protestants above that of Papists The Protestant first denyes the Tradition which the Catholick pretends to to be sufficient ground of Faith And 2dly he denyes the Articles of his Faith to have the least Sure-footing in Tradition or his rule of Faith nay proves them wholy opposite unto it the Papist doth acknowledge that even by his own the Prorestants Rule of Faith must be infallibly certain and pronounceth her Anathema upon all who do not own both Scripture and Tradition for infallible and receive them both pari pietatis affectu with the like pious affection as the Trent Council phraseth it Sess 4. The Papists Faith is not to be found in the Protestants Rule of Scripture and this necessitates him to flie unto Tradition but the Protestants Creed and all his fundamentals are confessedly certain from the Papists Rule if therefore prudence doth direct us to the safer way and that be such which both sides do agree upon which they so frequently insist on to pervert the people it must be every mans concern to be a Protestant rather then a Papist Thirdly Reason is herein guided by her propper Maxims and cannot rationally admit of any thing as the sense of Scripture which is apparently repugnant to them for seeing 't is impossible to yield a rational assent without reason it must be more impossible to do it against reason Besides right Reason must be true and therefore should a Revelation be manifestly repugnant unto right Reason it must equally be opposed to truth Thirdly Do we not all endeavor to give Reasons of our Faith Would we not all be thought to follow it when we conclude our Faith from Scripture or Tradition Should we renounce her conduct might not the worst absurditys be imbraced as the sense of Scripture and finde their Patrimony from thence without all fear of refutation from that Reason which must not be admitted to dispute its sense must it not follow That no Controversie could be determined no Dispute resolved no Contest about the sense of Scripture finde an issue from any rational procedure Obj But doth not the Mystery of the Sacred Trinity the Resurrection of the Body the Hypostatical Vnion speak Contradictions unto Humane Reason Why therefore do you not expunge them from among the Articles of your Faith Answ These things as far as Scripture doth assert them are lyable to no immediate Contradictions but if your Curiosity proceed to dive into the Modes of their Existence you will presently discourse your self into perplexing Difficulties not in these onely but most other Matters That God is omnipresent speaks no contradiction to my Reason but to enquire into the Modus of this Presence is to be lost in mazes of them That he hath infinite Duration is a necessary truth but to call this Duration momentaneous or successive is to lay a foundation for endless Contradictions to assert Gods Omniscience is to assert a most received Article of our Faith but how this knowledge can consist with the contingency of things is beyond humane infirmity to shew that there is such a thing as motion we all see but whether it be a mode quality or substance successive only or instantaneous continued or intermixt with morula's needs an Elias to resolve us that there is quantity and corporeal Beings in the world our senses can assure us but how their parts are knit unto each other and how far they may be divided is indeed a Philosophick Trinity 't is then no prejudice to the forementioned Articles that we may discourse them into contradictions since this is common to them with the most ordinary things our senses view the reason of these perplexing difficulties in matters of this nature may happily be the exceeding greatness or parvitude of the thing which renders it impossible for us to frame Ideas of them from any thing which occurs unto our senses and consequently to pass judgment on them thus all the difficulties both of quantity and motion are bottomed upon instants and indivisibles and that which gravels still the mind in the consideration of a Deity is the infinity of his nature and therefore these affections of Goodness Wisdome and Mercy c. Which we stile communicable when once infinity is annexed to them do as much be jade the intellect as that amazing mystery of the holy Trinity but secondly I answer Ans 2. That Reason cannot think it proper to apply her maxims to these instances and consequently cannot judge them repugnant thereunto This will appear from these conclusions 1. That Reason Guided by her own maxims Tradition and by Scripture assures me that the divine nature is incomprehensible it being impossible that what is finite should comprehend what is infinite and certainly if Mathematicks have her Paradoxes and can vie demonstrations pro and con if matters obvious to sence do so be jade the intellect and lock it up in contradictions 't is little to be hoped she should conveigh her self through the infinite abyss of of divine perfections and not suffer shipwrack 2. That infinite perfection may deliver such things of it self which are incomprehensible because it may deliver what in it self it is 3. That Reason cannot pretend to judge by her own maxims of the Truth or Falsehood of what she doth acknowledge to exceed her reach For sure she cannot reasonably pretend to know what thus exceeds her knowledge much less to judge of what she doth not know 4. That Reason cannot conclude that to be repugnant to her maxims which she acknowledgeth to be such of which her maxims cannot judge for this is to apply these maxims where they ought not to be applyed and to frame consequences upon terms whereby the things they signifie are not understood and in effect to reject the proportions of the Sun and Stars unto the Earth which Mathematicks gives us as repugnant to the sense 5. That notwithstanding this Reason doth force me to attribute to God all that is
as will appear from the distinctive Characters of them both as they are excellently given us in the Learned Baron Apoll p. 34. S. 6. First then A Rule is that Exemplar by which the minde is regulated and to which it ought to be conformable and so the Rule of Faith is that Exemplar which we ought to follow and conform unto in Matters of Faith Now such apparently is the mind of God revealed in general nor is the voice of Christ or of Tradition such but on presumption that they are the minde of God revealed Secondly The Rule doth limit and determine what is ruled by it even so the Rule of Faith must fix the Bounds of Faith instructing us what and how many are the material Objects of it Thirdly The effect of the Rule of Faith is that knowledge which preceeds the act of Faith for it informs the Intellect by proposing to it what is requisite to be believed but not evincing it to be such Fourthly The Rule of Faith is onely a comprehensive Systeme of all the Articles of Faith as the Rules of Grammer are a comprehensive Systeme of such things as are to be observed in composing Latine Greek c. Now all these things do visibly agree unto the minde of God revealed but are as visibly inconsistent with Tradition as it imports a delivery down from hand to hand of the sence and Faith of Fathers to their Children Sure footing p. 41. for not the Tradition but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 traditum or Faith delivered is the minde of God revealed and consequently the Rule of Faith But now the formal Object is that which causeth us to believe the Rule of Faith and in my Friends expression applys with certainty Divine Authority to my understanding p. 181. which sure is the pretended business of Tradition and the whole intendment of sure footing Cor 2. Hence evident it is That Scriptures Letter as abstracted from the sense included cannot possibly be the Rule of Faith because as such it cannot be the minde of God revealed and when my Friend concludes p. 13. We cannot own the sense or things contained in Scripture for the Rule of Faith because they are the very Points of Faith of which the Rule of Faith is to ascertain us He gives a pregnant Instance of that ignorance of the term I charge him with for evident it is from what we have discoursed That the Rule of Faith is onely a Collection of the Points of Faith and that its business is not to ascertain but propound what is ascertain'd by the formal Object nay may I not conclude with parity of Reason that the Churches voice abstracted from the signification or import of it is to the Catholick the Rule of Faith because the matters signified by that voice are the very Points of Faith of which the Churches voice is to ascertain us Corol 3. Hence we may rectifie these loose conceptions of the Rule of Faith so frequent in the Animadversions of Mr. S. thus when he asks p. 188. Is not that speaking formally and properly the Rule of Faith which gives us Christs sense Answ That is indeed the Rule of Faith which gives Christs sense subjectively so as to contain and be the minde of Christ revealed in Scripture not that which gives it onely by declaring the importance of the words in which this sence is cloathed for then each Pamphlet of this nature must be a Rule of Faith unto the Reader each Mass Priest to the illiterate Papist each Nomenclator Postiller and Comment to the Mass-Priest as oft as they explain unto him the sence and meaning of his Rule of Faith Thus when again we are intreated to consider That a Rule to such an effect is the immediate knowledge to the power as conversant about the effect p. 190. From what hath been delivered we conclude such knowledge cannot be the rule but the effect thereof even as my skil in making syllogisms is the effect of logick rules V.G. I doubt of such a truth put case the Divinity of Christ the effect is conviction the mind of God revealed in Scripture is my rule this rule informs my knowledge that knowledge produceth the assent Cor. 4. Hence evident it is that neither Reason nor skill in Arts or Sciences is made our Rule of Faith because we do not look upon them as the mind of God revealed or any part thereof 'T is true my Friend endeavours to fasten this upon us but by such mediums as shew too evidently he was not well acquainted with the terms he used And first That Reason and its Maxims are our Rule of Faith he thus endeavours to conclude p. 190. He that judgeth must have some principles in his head by which he is regulated in making such a judgement those principles then must be his Rule in that action and if that judgement be an adhaesion to the point of Faith that is if the cause be the effect for no man adhers to any point of Faith till he hath judg'd it to be such these principles are his Rule of Faith now do not Protestants oft conclude the sence of Scripture from maxims of their Humane Reason Ans Besides the blunder which my Parenthesis takes notice of we have a greater weakness in this Argument For it supposeth all by which my Judgment is assisted in determining of what is Faith or finding out the sence of any Scripture to be my Rule of Faith and therefore is as effectual to perswade the Gallenist his skill in Greek is his Rule for Practise as inabling him to finde out certainly the rules of Galen whereas to be the Rule of Faith is a thing proper to these Principles which contain the material Objects of Faith Secondly I desire to know whether your continual Disputes managed by Maxims of your private Reason touching the sence of almost every Canon of the Trent and other Councels whose definitions you embrace as the Churches voice do not plainly manifest the Maxims of Reason to be as much your Rule as ours And thirdly Whether what was sufficient to produce Faith in me and upon which its certainty depends entirely may not sufficiently assure me of one particular Object of it Secondly That skill in Arts and Sciences Language and History are made our Rules of Faith is concluded from a double Argument Obj 1. That in Disputes against them we prove and defend our Faith by such skills as Language History and other Knowledge got by humane Learning and consequently hold it upon the Tenure of these Skills which therefore are our Rule of Faith p. 190. Answ This is a very formidable Argument and must force you to confess That in proving and defending of your Faith against us Protestants you never shew your skill in History or any other part of humane Learning or to acknowledge what you abhor so much p. 188. that these also are your Rules of Faith Should a Jew Socinian or Pagan use this
insmitely uncertain in matters of obedience to God For seeing 't is as evident as the Sun and lately manifested by Montalius a Catholick that the Doctrines of the Jesuited Papist touching Repentance Good intentions the Love of God c. do cut the sinews of all virtue and null the precepts of true pietie and equally certain that they are maintained by the gravest Doctors of their Church nay styled the common Doctrine of the Church is follows that they interfere not with their Rule of Faith and therefore cannot be reproved by it 4 They must be destitute of all the preservatives against the vilest of Rebellions it being frequently asserted in the Schools and held by most confiderable members of that Church that Catholicks may be absolved from their Oaths Vows and Covenants made to Princes and authorized by his Holiness to depose them From what hath been discoursed it must follow that if Tradition be the only Rule of Faith then 1. Should Catholicks act up to the most desperate consequences of such opinions which pass thus currant in the Church of Rome they could not possibly be condemned by or rationally be said to deviate from her Rule of Faith 2. That the vilest Christian and worst of Subjects may do all that Catholick Religion and his duty doth oblige him too because all that practical Tradition or the Churches living voice requires that what is strangely opposite and scandalous to Christianity and destructive unto Civil Government is yet assistent with their Rule of Faith and that 't is lawful to opine at pleasure in these matters 3. That these diseases must be all incurable and admit of no redress for to make them pass into Tradition and improve themselves into articles of Faith is to impower the Church to coyn new articles and pretend Tradition where it is not to be had 4. That what ever hath been said of some doth equally proceed against all other scandalous opinions of their Church of which nature 't were easie to collect sufficient to tire mine own and the Readers patience CAP. IV. Of the Authority of the Church in matters of Faith THAT the Church is a Society Prop. 1. the very name and notorelty of the thing the definition members discipline and constitutions of it do sufficiently declare Prop. 2. That this society must be invested with a Ruling power is certain both from the nature of all Civil union which implyes a compact and that a Governour whose business it is to see that they who enter into compact do not violate the lawes thereof as also from the ends of this Society viz. The union and due ordering of her Members and execution of her discipline to the correction or exclusion of such persons who cooperate towards her ruine Prop. 3. The Church is a Society of Believers or of men united in the belief of certain Articles as the Foundations of it hence styled fundamental Articles this is the joynt consent of Christians however in the notion and number of their fundamentals they differ much Corol. Hence it must follow that Church Governours must be impowred to require the belief of or positive assent unto these Fundamendal Articles as being otherwise unable to secure the Being and provide against the ruine of that Church of which they are a part When therefore M. S. so confidently gives out without all manner of exceptions that our Church is Shamefac'd of obliging others to believe her p. 194. and that she professeth her self very heartily content with external obedience let the interior assent go where it will p. 199. I cannot but admire that so ingenious a person should vent such things which every day confutes and tell our Church she expects not that her members should believe that Creed which she esteems her fundamentals inserts into her Catechisms requires us to Agnize in Baptisme rehearse in all her Sacred offices and that with a peculiar circumstance designed to signifie our assent unto and readiness to defend it Obj. But do you not in big words ask when did she challenge any power over our minds consciences p. 198. And doth not M. S. well infer that therefore you deny that she requires an interior assent Ans No these things are vastly different require interior assent he may who being authorized to guide me in matters of faith can evidence what he thus requires to be the will of God revealed yea such interior assent is due from Children to their Parents from Servants to their Masters much mere from People to their Pastors when evidencing their duty to them but challenge power over the mind and conscience he only can who is Lord of the conscience whose laws by an immediate virtue bind the conscience for what binds only mediately hath not this obligatory power from any virtue of the Legislator over the mind and conscience but only from that power which commands the conscience to obey such Legislators And if interiour assent may be required I wonder why it should be more irrational to go about to lay an obligation on the Cathol p. 199. by these two Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy then upon the Protestant as my Friend imagines That it should be rational to bind the loyal Subject by those Oaths but irrational to bind those whose Treacheries and conspiracies first made them necessary if difference of Religion be a just exemption then may the Quaker Anabaptist and other turbulent persons which renounce our Church plead for a share in this exemption and King and Parliament must be unjust and tyrannous in laying such a burthen on them Prop. 4. A particular Church cannot require this assent upon pretence of an infallible assistance for seeling all have the like title to it it would be imposisible for any of them to have erred and therefore she must do it because the thing determined is so evident in the Rule of Faith that all denyall of it must be wilful for seeing 't is already proved that she hath power to require this assent and that this power cannot derive from an infallible assistance what remains but that it bottom upon the evidence of the thing But then the query is Who must be judge what is so evident in Scripture as to render the dissertors guilty of flat wilfulness p. 195. Ans Faith being an assent and consequently the result of judgment each private person must be allowed his judgment of discretion much more those who are authorized to require our assent to fundamentals and to preserve the peace and union of the Church inviolable and sure 't would be a great impeachment to our Saviour to intrust persons with the preservation of this Depositum and to require them to give heed to it as they will answer it at the great day and yet afford no means to be assured of it But if each private person must have a judgment of discretion by which he must admit of or reject the laws of his superiors if it should be
the Peace and Union that is unto the Soveraign ends of Christian Government and is it not unreasonable that Men should be excluded by the Church from her Communion for what is very well consistent with our communion with the God of Heaven our union to the Churches Head yea for what is neither necessary to the Churches being peace or unity nor can be prejudicial to them whilest reserved to our selves Besides the conditions of Church communion must bottom upon what is clear and evident for else the Union of the Church and our duty to preserve it must both rest on what 's uncertain and obscure a thing repugnant both to the Wisdom and Goodness of the Churches Head now that in matters remote from the foundation we have mostly no such evidence is but too visible in the Disputes and Contests which are on both sides managed by many Learned and impartial Men. To conclude Let any Man consider the variety of Gifts Affections Prejudices and infinite other Circumstances that are incident to humane Nature and then tell me whether it be not irrational to hope That all the Members of a Church in matters of this nature should conspire and knit into one Faith and Judgement and must it not be more unreasonable to make this Union the condition of communion with the Church If therefore in these matters our Church contents her self with this submission and doth not binde us to declare our inward assent she acts both prudently and safely and as becometh an indulgent Mother Prop 6. The Church hath power to silence such Disputes as tend immediately to break her peace and unity This is so proper a result of civil Union as that without it all Government must shatter into Sects and Factions and therefore most of all may be expected in that Platform which our Savior laid and must be granted by all those who dare not think our Lord defective in his Designs and Contrivances for his Churches Peace and Unity In a word Each Church is bound to look to her own Peace and therefore is impowred to prevent what violates it Prop 7. All Men are bound whatever their private Sentiments may be to submit externally to the sentence of the Church in matters which entrench not on the Fundamentals of their Faith because the teaching of such Doctrines must be of lesser moment then the preservation of the Churches peace for should such Doctrines wholly perish from the Church her Peace Unity and Being might be sufficiently preserved notwithstanding whereas this cannot reasonably be hoped for under an eager violent abetment of them in despite of all Authority and certainly if Church-Governors stand bound unto the preservation of the Churches Peace and Unity they must be bound in many instances to still our mutual Contests and require the submission now intended and then the governed must be obliged to perform it Prop 8. No Church can justly require assent unto her Proposals or account of her infallibility for were this Priviledge vouchsafed to the Church is it not wonderful that a Doctrine so necessary to the attainment of salvation should either be conceased from the four Evangelifts or by them if not concealed yet so obscurely delivered to the Church Can we suppose these wise and holy Men and especially that good spirit which assisted them either so envious as wilfully to deprive the Church of such an happiness for whose prosperity they suffered so much and which they almost Christned with their Blood or so forgetful of the Work they took in hand viz. the writing of the Gospel of Christ as to neglect the clear rehersal of that Doctrine without which if the Papist may be credited all others are not creditable 't is evident they speak perspicuously of many things of small importance in comparison of this and is it possible they should conspire to the deepest silence or obscurity in this most necessary thing this fundamental of all that is so Is it imaginable that S. Luke intending purposely to satisfie Theophilus in these things wherein he had been Catechised and which most surely were believed amongst Christians should neglect this great Foundation of them all without which Faith must necessarily suffer Shipwrack and all his labor be in vain That the beloved Apostle having writ so many signs that we might believe that Jesus is the Son of God should neglect that without which nothing that he said could be available to produce Faith in us or secure us from mistaking in it It is possible that our Saviour who foresaw whatever might disturb his Church yea had experience of Mens unwillingness to submit to others and readiness to advance themselves in his own Disciples should yet deliver this Doctrine if at all delivered so obscurely that now it is become the greatest Controversie whether he intended any thing of this nature and the testimonies of Scripture so strangely baffled that Papists dare not go about to vindicate them from our Exceptions That he should constitute that to be the onely means of deciding Controversies which he foresaw would be so determinable without the certain knowledge of some hundreds of Particulars in which whole thousands of Men excellent for Parts and Piety do clash perpetually That under the Old Testament the Judge of matters between blood and blood plea and plea and such Political Transactions should be so punctually set down And in the New Testament this Judge of Faith and the eternal Concernments of our Souls should be passed over in silence or delivered in such terms as are equally adapted to all pretenders to be the Church and altogether unserviceable when 't is doubtful Is it not strange that so great a part of the New Testament should be employed about Antichrist and all the methods he should use to draw Men from the Faith and yet just nothing be delivered of that Guide to which all faithful Christians were to have recourse against him That the Spirit should speak expresly of some great departure from the Faith in these latter times and not admonish us of the sure and onely means to secure our falling That St. Paul amongst all his vehement Exhortations unto Unity all his endeavors against Schism in the Corinthians and elsewhere should not once deliver this unto them as a means infallibly to preserve them from it but spend his time in other matters which without this are not at all available to our souls welfare That having assembled the Elders of Ephesus and told them That after his departure grievous Wolves should enter in among them he should not once direct hem to the onely means for preservation That the Apostles in the compiling of the Creed should give no intimation of that without which nothing can hang firm That Irenaeus Tertullian Cyprians and others purposely delivering the Fundamentals of their Faith should be deficient in the like kinde That never any of the Primitive Fathers in their Comments on this Symbol should inform us of this one thing necessary
That they should talk so much of the Catholick Church and not one title of its infallibility That in their descants on these Passages which are so often pleaded by the Romanist they should never intimate unto us that in the Judgement of the Catholick Church or at least their own they taught infallibility That the Nicene Fathers albeit they had so great occasion from the multiplying of Heresies to have insisted upon this so Fundamental Doctrine that each Mans Soul must bottom on it or be built upon the Sand should not onely wave the stating clearing confirming or the trying of it but compose a Creed and never mention it That the Catechumeni should never be taught this foundation of their Faith That it should never be required at Baptism That none of the Treatises ad Calechumenos Institutiones Mystagogice Enchiridia Doctrina Christianae None of the Treatises of the Church her self should once make mention of this great and principal Funamental is as if a Man should write of the chief Cities in England and leave out York and London or of the degrees of Hierarchy in the Church of Rome and leave out Pope and Cardinal lastly That whereas since the Usurpation of this Prerogative by the Church of Rome there have been hundreds of Disputes touching the subject of its infallibility whether Christ were here or there without determining of which to affirme in gross the Churches infallibility is to leave us perfectly in a maze say just nothing that not any of those disputes should ever be started nor any thing resolved upon These are things morally impossible and consequently this pretended infallibility must be so this being so 't is superfluous to refute the pretence of a General Council to it for besides what already hath been said can it be that what 's so necessary to the welfare to the Church should by an all-wise God be left at infinite uncertainties A general Council is infallible say they provided that it be legitimately called that the members of it be legitimate that they be legally elected and in due number from every part and portion of the Church that being thus convened they vote freely and without constraint and packing after due Means of Study Prayer and fasting used provided lastly that the decree conciliarly have these decrees confirmed by the Pope and accepted by the Church diffused if one of these conditions be wanting to the greatest Councils they take liberty to reject them yet who knows not what animosities and feuds there are in the now present Church of Rome and much more in the Church of God touching the greater part of Councils styled Oeconomical whether all these conditions have been punctually observed by them in the whole and each particular Decree how more then probable it is that like uncertainties should arise touching the definitions of future Councils how impossible it is for any but especially for persons illiterate far removed from the place of their Convention to attain to any tolerable satisfaction in all these particulars This objection is by the wiser sort of Papists handsomely passed over as knowing it to be unanswerable but Fiat Lux hath ignorance enough to warrant his attempts upon it which are these 1. That we may as well except against the obliging power of the decrees and Acts of King and Parliament and say is that power in the King alone or in the Parliament what if they run counter what if they should not be rightly Chosen p. 190. Ans But dares he say that one of these particulars are undetermined by our Law Dares he avouch that the obliging power of our Acts of Parliaments depends on such a multitude of things of which no tolerable assurance can be had If so he evidently stands guilty not only of Rebellion but justifies the late Phanatick assuring him that he may safely question and oppose the power both of King and Parliament as depending on some hundreds of uncertainties as hotly contested and as unresolved by the Lawyers of the Land as the forementioned Decrees of Councils are in the Church of Rome If not how gross most his impertinence and folly be in bringing such comparisons which both his conscience and his reason tell him are vastly different from what his adversary produceth And yet secondly who knows not that a less degree of certainty may suffice in civil then in sacred matters But secondly he takes Sanctuary in Titulus colovatus and moral evidence and tels us that if this suffice not we can be sure of no Authority either Spiritual or Civil in this world ibid. Ans And is this that Fiat Lux who writ a pamphlet of infallibility Made it so necessary for the Churches welfare that without it nothing can hang firm nor Christ be just p. 5 6. had he not provided such assurance for our faith to build upon is he now content to sit down with Titulus Coloratus moral evidence And to confess that Catholick Faith and the Authority of the Church depends upon so many and such various conditions for which they do pretend but moral evidence Is not this moral evidence the very thing at which the Romanist doth so much quarrel in the resolution of our Faith And must it now become the refuge of those very men who do so vehemently cry out against it in the Protestant See here the triumph and the Victory of Truth which forceth her professed adversaries to agnize and own her though to the ruine of their cause and credit and yet manifest it is that few of the particulars objected will admit of moral evidence or any tollerable degree of probability Corol. 1. Hence see the excellency of our Churches method for peace and unity beyond what Rome can boast of seeing then only she require our assent when the revelation is so clear and palpable that he who runs may read it and when the thing is such as hath the testimony and approbation of the whole Christian World handed down from the Apostles to this present age and acknowledged to be such by Catholicks themselves And in other things rests contented with that submission which is consistent with mens liberty of conscience and each mans duty to afford her whereas Rome doth not only bind the conscience to what 's unnecessary unheard of in the Churches Creeds till now of late and so obscure as to be matter of contest through the Christian world but doth all this upon pretence of that infallibility woh were it only questionable must subject us to the peril of embracing the most destructive errors for divinest truths without all hopes of a redress dispose us unto Atheisme and irreligion by making all our Faith and piety depend on what is disputable and lay us open to continnal fears and jealousies doubts and uncertainties Schisms and dissentions about the rule and foundation of our Faith but being evidently false must be most certainly productive of these fatal consequences and yet we must be
the Divine Wisdome in that delivery and is not this attested by the Miracles they wrought the Prophecies they delivered the Doctrine they taught And that by sence Should any of them be questioned must we not recur unto the senses of the Primitive Christians to confirm them And must they not then be the ultimate Foundation of our Faith and your tradition must we not be surer of the proof then the thing proved And consequently of the evidence of sence then that of Faith which deriveth from it If not why secondly doth our Lord pronounce them rather blessed who believe and have not seen then Thomas who first Saw and Felt and then Believed Is it not because they do it upon lesser though sufficient evidence And so their Faith is more illustrious and prayse worthy 'T would be more Generous and Noble to die in the defence of him whom we did only probably believe to be our Prince or Parent then to do it only upon iufallible assurance of his being such because an evidence of greater love even so is it more virtuous and prayse worthy to venture all upon an highly probable hopes of the truth of Christianity it being such a pregnant indication of our true love to Pietie and Vertue that even a probable assurance of it can prevail against all worldly temptations to the contrary Yea this it is which rendreth Faith rewardable that 't is an act of the believers choise and not irrefragably induced however it be abundantly confirmed with arguments extreamly probable and such as render it perversness and obstinacy to resist Thirdly should it be otherwise how cometh it to pass that men are equally assured of what equally they see but have not the like fulness of perswasion in what they believe That being once assured of the objects of sence they can admit of no greater certainty whereas after all our boasts af a plerophory of Faith we have still need to strive and labour to increase it Since then the certainty of Faith is proved inferiour to that of Sense and Science to pretend infallibility which is the highest certainty is to pretend such evidence as is not competible to Faith But that the Folly of this pretence may appeare more signally I shall farther manifest 1. That Humane nature is not capable of infallible assurance in matters of Faith Secondly that to require such assurance unto Faith is contrary to Scripture Thirdly That our Saviour required Faith upon lower motives Fourthly That the Romanists can have no such assurance Fifthly That it is no prejudice to the certainty or reasonableness of Faith that it is built upon foundations not absolutely infallible And Lastly Answer Mr Serjeants Exceptions to the contrary And 1. If Humane Nature abstracted from Divinity be capable of this assurance its certainty must be equal to that of Vision of Angels of Christs Humanity yea of God himself for even their assurance cannot reach beyond infallibility And secondly Reason must give as great assurance of a thing revealed to others 1600. years agon and in it self inevident as it is possible for present sence or revelation to afford all which are monstrous absurdities Secondly each Text of Scripture which mentions any that were weak or strong in Faith any that were of little or of great Faith any that were rich that did abound encrease or grow in Faith any that were grounded established rooted and consirmed in Faith that speakes of having Faith as a grain of musterd-seed and of having all Faith is a demonstrative refutation of this pretence it being certain that infallibility admits of no degrees Such secondly must be every Prayer which the Apostles made to encrease their own and others Faith or in the language of the Catholick to advance it some degrees above infallibility Such thirdly are all those places which tell of Hereticks who overthrew the Faith of some of others that were unstable and wavering in the Faith And lastly Prophecy that men should Erre and be seduced from the Faith or depart from it giving heed to seducing spirits it being as impossible for such who are infallibly assured or guided by what is self-evident even to the un-reflecting person to Waver Erre or be Seduced as to Doubt and Disbelieve that twice 2 is 4 or that if you take equally from equals they will still be equal Thirdly Our Blessed Saviour required this assent from his Disciples without Infallible assurance for doth he not call them Fools and slow of heart Luke 24.26 for not believing all the Prophets had delivered touching his Resurrection and Ascention into Glory Had they infallible assurance that these Prophecyes concerned him yea or no If not then did he look upon them as Fools and slow of heart for not believing upon motives confessedly fallible if their assurance might have been infallible then either as bottomed upon Reason infallibly concluding his Ascention and Resurection from the Prophets or secondly upon Tradition and the Churches living voice if the first why may not we also who have greater assistence of the Spirit of Wisdome be able from the same Principle of Reason working on our Rule of Faith to conclude infallibly the Fundamentals of Christianity For is it not unreasonable to assert that the Resurrection and Ascention of our Lord is more clearly revealed in those places of the Old Testament which are few obscure by reason of the Language more ambiguous then the New and lastly acknowledged by the greatest part of learned Men to refer primarily to other things or persons then the Articles of our Creed are in those numerous and admirably prespicuous places of the New Testament which give in Testimony thereunto Must they be looked upon as Fools for not infallibly concluding the Ascention of our Lord from the obscure items of the Prophets by the help of Reason And must we be damned for holding Reason sufficient from Scripture to conclude our Creed Nay secondly is not this to admit Reason as a competent yea infallible judge of the Sense of Scripture and consequently to approve of in the Jew what you condemn and rail at in the Christian If secondly you flye unto Tradition It is not ridiculous to assert that the Jewish Church should not only Crucifie this Jesus and endeavour with their utmost powerto prevent the Fame of his Resurrection albeit she had infallible assurance of it But that she should at the same time interpret Scripture so as infallibly to attest it and be condemned from her own mouth Nay had they not a contrary Tradition viz. That the Kingdome of their Messias should be Glorious upon Earth sufficient to confront all evidence Tradition could afford them in this case and void her Testimony because repugnant to it self Secondly I desire to know whether that voice from Heaven which testifyed that Jesus was the true Messiah and the Son of God did not oblige the hearers to believe it And to what other end it was sent Whether our Saviour doth not plead
very Argument against your Church I wonder how you would avoid the blow Secondly Your next Assault runs thus Do not these Skills clear the letter of Scripture that is make known Gods sence to you if so since their immediate effect is to clear it 't is impossible to deny but they are at least part of the Revelation as if it were impossible to deny the Comment to be a part of that Text it cleareth for revealing is clearing and Gods sense was not clearly revealed but by these means that is by humane Maxims and so they are at least the more formal part of your Rule of Faith Answ I remember when I learn'd my Grammer that I had a Construing Book the immediate effect of which was to clear to me the sence of my Rules cōtain'd in Propria quae maribus Quae Genus c. but never was I so happy as to know that my Construing book was part of them or to which special Rule it did belong I knew indeed that revealing was clearing and that the sence of these special Rules was not clearly revealed to me but by means of my Construing Book but was not so inured to Science and versed in true Logick as to be able to infer thence That it was at least the most formal part of the Rules forementioned but must thank my Friend for his Instruction in so deep a Mystery and confess I owe that Light I have received in this Point to his noon-day Sun of self-evidence For a close you ask Might I not have mistaken the true sense of Scripture without these humane Maxims if so then they not Scriptures-letter are my Rule of Faith p. 191. Answ And must that necessarily be my Rule of Faith without which I might possibly have mistaken any portion of it then good Eyes and Ears and diligence in using of them good Dispositions Judgement Instruction c. must be my Rule of Faith for without these 't is very probable I may be frequently mistaken in the sense thereof Prop. 2. That notwithstanding any thing M. S. hath pleaded to the contrary Scripture may be a Rule of Faith for to object That Christian Religion had descended many steps ere the Scriptures parts were much scattered much less the whole collected is effect to argue thus Scripture was not a Rule to those that wanted and therefore cannot be such unto those that have it 't was not the onely Rule to those who were assisted by the infallible guidance of the Authors and Propounders of it graced with the extraordinary assistance of the same Spirit who drank even from the Fountain and Spring-head of Tradition and therefore it cannot be so to us who are removed from it 16 Centuries and destitute of all those Priviledges and Advantages which they enjoyed And yet remarkable it is That amidst all these Enjoyments the new-born Christian is sent unto his Scripture Rule his word of Prophesie bid to give heed unto it as a thing more certain then a voice from Heaven writ designedly for his instruction able to make his wise unto salvation perfect both in Faith and Manners and make him throughly furnished unto all good Works and after all the Apostles are inspired to indite and to deliver the New Testament unto them to be the pillar and the ground of Faith and can it be imagined that Scriptures so comparatively obscure so purposely designed for and accommodated to the Jewish Paedagogy should be thus commended and enjoyned by the Spirit of God as a Rule unto the Christian when graced with all the helps fore-mentioned and yet that Scripture which was indited by the same unerring Spirit in a more familiar way with great plainness of speech 2 Cor. 3.12 13. and not obscured by a vail as was that of Moses which is exceedingly more full of moral Precepts and Rules of Faith and Manners of gracious Promises to comfort and Exhortations to perswade to Patience and every other Vertue which lastly was Indited not in a Tongue peculiar to the Land of Jury but such as was most generally spoken throwout all the World should never be intended as a Rule unto them when destitute of those assistances Obj 2. 'T is objected secondly That that can never be a Rule which many follow and yet their thoughts straggle into many several Judgements in Points of so great moment as the Trinity ibid. Answ If you imagine that these straglers do indeed keep close unto the minde of God revealed in Scripture you blaspheme the Holy Ghost and make the Word of God the very sourse of Heresie if you affirm that cannot be a Rule which such pretend to follow you in effect assert the Law of Nature and right Reason could not be the Gentiles rule and that he had no Pharaoh's to guide him to the knowledge of the Being and Attributes of God because they generally took up with such uncouth notions and gross absurdities in matters which are evident from the light of Reason That neither Scripture nor Tradition could be a Rule unto the Jew who branched into such Sects as either did evacuate the Law of God by their Traditions or denyed the Resurrection That Tradition is no Rule of Faith or otherwise That no pretender to it was ever guilty of an Heresie And lastly That the denyal of Tradition must be the onely Heresie all which are monstrous Absurdities and yet the natural Results of your Assertion To conclude this Section I must crave leave to minde my Friend of an early brood of Carpocratian Hereticks who being confounded by the Scriptures to be revenged of them gave it out Cum ex Scripturis arguuntur in accusationem convertantur ipsarum Scripturarum quasi non rectè habeant neque sint ex authoritate dy quia varie sunt dictae quia non possit ex his inveniri veritas ab his qui nesciunt traditionem non enim per literas traditam illam sed per vivam vocem Iren. lib. 3. cap. 2. 1. That they were not as they should be viz. the Original copies being not preserved entire Disc 2. S. 5. 7. had not authority sufficient there being no means to convince the Sceptick the acute Adversary yea the rational doubter of their trath no certainty of Scripture in it self and no ascertableness of it unto as Disc 4. S. 1. c. And 3 That they were spoken variously or so as to admit of diverse sences Disc 2. S. 6.8 And lastly That in them the truth could not be found by such a were ignorant of Tradition it being not delivered by writing but by oral Tradition Good Sir I do not in the least suspect that you have Carpocratians Manuscript or that this passage of the Father did supply you with the heads of your Discourse however it will let you see that he adheres firm to your Rule p. 589. If then your inference stand good the Carpocratian must be owned for your Brother Catholick if bad then blush hereafter to
conclude our union with Socinus because we both acknowledge the same Rule of Faith Prop. 3. That the Churches voice or practical Tradition is not necessary to acquaint us with the sence of Scripture as my Friend would have it for if so 1. Scripture must be in vain delivered to us for where I have the suffrage of infallible Tradition I cannot want it where I want that I cannot have it 2. In vain are all the Comments of the Church of Rome for where Tradition is silent they want a certain Rule to go by and therefore must be silent to or speak at all adventures and where she speaks her evidence is such as rendreth all their pains superfluous 3. All Arguments from Scripture must be vain whether intended to convince the Heretick or your brother Catholick if you contend against your Brother Heretick from Scripture he presently demands whence have you your assurance of that sence of Scripture which you plead for if you reply from the tradition of your Church he laughs to hear you beg the Question if from any other Medium he presently returns upon you is it certain yea or no If not then may it haply deceive him if so then do you act the Protestant and own some other certain Guide unto the sence of Scripture then that of practical Tradition 't is vain also to dispute from Scripture with your Brother Chatholick for if you have no practical Tradition to assure you of the sence of Scripture you have no Medium to convince him by if you have practical Tradition 't is self-evident and consequently cannot be matter of dispute or question'd by your Brother Traditors whilest such whence it must necessarily follow that all the School Disputes all endeavours of your brother Catholick to decide a controversy from Scripture must be in vain all their arguments from Scripture precarious and all their pretensions to Tradition in these matters wilful cheats if this be not sufficient let me farther ask whether all moral duties comprised in Scripture may be interpreted by Tradition if not whether they be not useless to us if so whether the Jesuits and Italian Papists hold no Doctrines inconsistent with them or whether that can be esteemed the Tradition of the Church which is supposed by so great and powerful Members of it Whether these were the only means and measures of interpretation to the Jewish Church if not how came they to be needful to the Christian whose Rule is much the clearer and whose assistance from that Spirit which leadeth unto truth far greater If so then let us brand our Saviour for a Malefactor and pronounce with them that by their Law he ought to dye let us reject his Kingdom as being wholy Spiritual and therefore opposite to what Tradition taught them to expect let us reject his Law as cancelling and dissolving that of Moses which they pronounced eternal yea lastly let us impeach the Arguments of Christ and his Apostles as not only wanting this Authentick medium to arrive at the sence of Scripture but being manifestly repugnant thereunto or at least admire at the stupidity of the Scribes and Pharisees who albeit they sate in Moses Chair should neither plead this in their own behalf nor accuse our Saviour or his Apostles for their pragmatical opposition to it but this argument is so copious and the dream so entirely Beamenistical that I shall not upbraid the Readers understanding by its farther refutation Prop. 4. Tradition is not the only Rule of Faith for if so the Church must lye exposed to the greatest perils and want a rule of Faith in matters of the highest moment For if Tradition be the sole Rule of Faith First certain it is that where we want Tradition we must want the Rule of Faith and consequently must waver and be undetermined in all these instances and cases in which Tradition proves silent 2. 'T is manifest that what is eagerly maintained and practised by many thousand Romish Proselites asserted by whole Sects and Orders of their Gravest men what passeth daily uncontrouled both from Press and Pulpit as having nothing contrary to the Churches Doctrine and the Rule of Faith nay is acknowledged to be such by those who violently oppose it what lastly doth not render the Abettors of it how numerous soever guilty of an Heresie nor subject them to the censure of the Church cannot interfere with the Tradition of the Church or be condemned by it or if so Tradition cannot be self-evident as my Friend would have it Thirdly evident it is that many positions of this nature are stifly canvased in the Schools many such practises used in the Church of Rome which if espoused and practised must expose the Soul to the greatest peril in matters of the highest moment For instance 1. Therefore they lye open to the peril of a defective or excessive Rule of Faith for what assurance can they have whether the definition of the Pope alone or in conjunction with his Cardinals be the infallible guide of Faith or whether this be the peculiar business of a Council and whether this infallibility respect substantials only or circumstances Faith or Fact the conclusion only or the premises whether it rest upon the due proceedings of the Council the Confirmation of the Pope the consequent approbation of the Church or be wholly independant on them whether the Tradition of the present Church be indeed a Rule or only such Traditions which can extrinsically be proved Apostolicall whether this Tradition be a total or a partial Rule and what are the infallible Criterions of it these things are hotly contested in the Church of Rome and therefore cannot be defined by her Tradition what remains then but that each soul lye open to the peril of a false defective or excessive yea contradictory Rule of Faith 2. They lie exposed to the peril either of Superstition and Idolatry on the one hand or Sacriledge on the other for to omit their infinite divisions about the Worship due to Saints Angels and the Blessed Virgin the Veneration due to Reliques the sacrament and its appendages and touch only upon that of Images they are altogether uncertain whether they ought to pay their homage to the image or before it only which is asserted by some few though censured by their expurgatory Indexes whether this Homage must be dulia or latria and if so whether absolute and simple or only Analogically so called whether all or any part of this pretended worship be due unto the image absolutely considered or only relatively as it refers to that of which t is an Image in these matters to be deficient is presently to be Sacrilegious by robbing the Image of that honour which is due unto it to exceed is to be guilty of Superstition or Idolary by giving it that Homage which belongs not to it and how to fleer my course so as not dash on either of these rocks Tradition cannot possibly assist me 3. They must be