to beat down the wordish and dissatisfactory way of Writing and go about to Evidence the Ground of all our Faith knowing that as wounds are never connaturally and solidly cur'd by uniting the distant sides at the surface and leaving them disunited and unheal'd at the bottom but the cure must begin there first so the onely Way to heal the Wounds of the Church is to begin first to win some to acknowledge the most radical and bottom-Principle of all Faith as controverted between us without which all agreement in particular points must needs be unsound and hollow-hearted This is my onely aym in Sure-Footing That therefore you may not obstruct so good a work and withall perform the duty of a solid and candid Writer I offer to your self and all ingenuous Readers these few Reflexions not sprung from my Will for what Authority have I to prescribe you your method but from true Reason working upon the Thing which makes it just duty in you and so ought oblige you to follow it 3. In the first place fince the scope of my whole Book is about the First Principle in Controversy or the Ground of all Faith as to our Knowledge that is about a Point antecedent to all particular Points I conceive it reasonable you should let your Discourse stand firm to the matter in hand and not permit it to slide into Controversies about Particulars For so 't is evident we shall be apt to multiply many words little to our present purpose On what conditions you may have right to alledge Particulars as pretended Instances of Traditions failing shall be seen hereafter 4. Next I desire you would please to speak out Categorically and declare whether you hold Faith absolutely Certain to us or else Possible to be false for any thing we know To explicate my self better that so I may void some common and frivolous Distinctions my intent is to demand of you in behalf of the Christian Reader and his due satisfaction whether you hold Gods Providence has laid in the whole Creation any Certain means by way of Proper Causes to such an Effect to bring down Faith truly to us and whether we can arrive at Certain Knowledge of those means that is come to see or know the Connexion between such Causes and their Effect spoken of I make bold to press you earnestly to this declaration and my reason is because nothing will more conduce to the Conclusion of our present Debate For in case such Causes be laid and can be seen by us then they are Evident or Demonstrative Reasons for the Ground of our Faith's Certainty But if no such Causes be laid or being laid cannot be seen by us then all the Wit of man can never avoid the consequence but that we can have onely Probability for all our Faith that is for any thing we absolutely know 't is all as false as an old wife's tale since there are no degrees in Truths and Falshoods If you advance this Civil piece of Atheistry you must pardon me if I be smart with you in opposition to so damnable and Fundamental an Errour I love Christianity and Mankinde 〈◊〉 well to suffer that Position which destroyes effectually the Root of all their Eternal Happiness and the Substance of all their Hope to pass unstigmatiz'd as it deserves Nor think to avail your self by some Discoursers in our Schools It will be shown when prest that they are still preserv'd good Christians through the virtue of Tradition which they all hold to notwithstanding their private speculations but you not because of your want of Certain Grounds to make you rationally hold Christs Faith They onely mistook a Word whereas you will be found to erre in the whole Thing or the ordinary Means to true Christianity Again if such Causes be fitting to be laid by God's Providence 't is impossible to avoid the Doctrin propos'd in Sure-Footing because 't is absolutely Impossible to invent any thing that looks like such Causes but those which are deliver'd there nor did any other Way ever attempt to show any such Whence I foresee your Cause will force you to fly for refuge to the actual Uncertainty or possible Falshood of all our Faith for any thing any man living knows by ordinary means A sad consequence of an erroneous tenet But 't is connatural and so to be expected such Effects should follow the renouncing the Rule of Faith 5. Thirdly I conceive it very reasonable that you would please to declare whether Controversy onght to have any First Principle or no If none then to speak candidly out and confess that Controvertists are Certain of nothing they say since their discourse has no Ground or First Principle to rely on If any whether Tradition be It or if it be not what else is and then vouch as plain reason tells us you ought that what you assigne has truly in it the nature of a First Principle which common Reason gives to be self-evidence Or lastly to profess if you judge it your best play that what you substitute in stead of Tradition though it be a First Principle yet it need not be at all self-evident Any thing shall content me so you will but please to speak out and to the point 6. Again since it is evidently your task to argue against Tradition's Certainty 't is as Evident that while you argue against it you must bear your self as holding It uncertain I conceive then plain Reason obliges you not to produce any thing against Tradition which depends upon Tradition for its Certainty for in doing so you would invalidate and even nullify all your own proofs Since if Tradition be held by you uncertain and they have no certainty but by means of It they must be confest Uncertain too and so they would be incompetent to be produc't as proofs and your self very dis-ingenuous to produce them I add self-contradicting too and Unskilful Nature and Aristotle teaching us that a Discourser ought not sustain contrary to himself Hence plainest Reason excludes you from alledging any kind of Testimony either from Scripture Councils Fathers or History till you answer my Corollaries 12 15 16. which pretend to demonstrate the Certainty of all these dependent on Tradition's and the onely way to show my discourses there to be weak is to manifest my mistake by declaring into what other thing your Certainty of those Testimonies is finally resolvable which is not coincident with Tradition When you produce such a Principle and prove it such you have right to alledge the foresaid Testimonies for then you can make good their Authority Till then you can have no right in true reason to do it Not onely because till then you are to be held a Renouncer of that Thing 's Certainty upon which there are pretended demonstrations against you Theirs is built and those presum'd true ones because you let such strongest Attempts pass unanswer'd but very particularly for this Consideration that our present matter
himself often alledges that very thing which should clear the Church and and makes use of it to her farther disgrace First making the School and Church Private Opinions or Explications and Faith all one and at next that the difference amongst such Opiners and Explicaters argues our difference in Faith How strange a malice is this Was there ever any time since the Apostles in which there were not in the Church diverse persons and even some Governours bad in their lives and also Erroneous in their Opinions when the Abstractedness of Christian Faith restrain'd not their Understandings from descending to particulars nor secur'd them in such discourses depending much upon human Sciences Do not the best Champions of Protestants object to the Ancient Fathers themselves such Errors in Opinions Yet no ancient Heretick was ever so weak as to make that an Argument against the Church of those times Did not many Protestant Writers holdmany Roman-Catholick Tenets as may be seen at large in the Protestants Apology Yet no Catholick in his Wits thought therefore the Church of England her self was Roman-Catholick I have heard that one of their Chief Ecclesiastical Officers namely Bishop Bilson writ a book purposely to justify the Hollanders Rebellion against the King of Spain maintaining that Subjects might in some Cases rise against their Soveraigns and turn them out of their Government And yet Catholicks are far from that peevishness to esteem the Protestants disloyal in their Principles but honour them highly for the contrary Virtue even though they are pleased to permit us their Fellow-sufferers for the same loyal Cause to be abused and branded publickly for Traytors by every disloyal Scribbler And to come neerer home did not my L. himself formerly write some strange Opinions I need not name them yet no Catholick was ever so absurd as to charge his Church with those Tenets But which is yet far worse he imputes to the Catholick Church such licentious Cases which not onely Private Authours may and do freely contradict but even Mulritudes of Church-Officers namely almost all the Bishops in France in Diocesan Synods nay the Head of the Church himself has disapproov'd in condemning the Apology writ for them Yet for all this all must be our Churches fault whether she will or no and our Doctrin though she condemns it Was ever such a disingenuous Writer heard of But what aggravates most the Case is neither the Church of England nor the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury nor any Officer or Bishop of hers that we heard of did ever in any solemn Act blemish those Authours cited in the Protestants Apology by condemning their Books nor yet those writ by the Dissuader though they judg'd them amiss but on the contrary his person is advanc't and chosen for their Champion and yet our Writers are soberer more candid than to impute to their Church any of these not-yet-disavow'd Faults whereas my Ld. for want of better Proofs will needs clap upon our Church any misreasonings of private men though our chief Church Governour and many Inferiour ones have discountenanc't and blemish't them Nor is it onely every defect human nature is liable to in reasoning or acting which must be made our Churches Crimes but every unfavorable Circumstance Man's Nature can light into and their defective Effects are all made by the Dissuader's Logick to spring from meer Popery nay the very National Rudeness of his wild Irish is in his Preface confounded by his carriage with our Churches Doctrin and the Inability of their Teachers with much Rhetorick complained of and charactered to be Popery when himself enjoyes the revenue which should educate them better and encourage them Against this kind of unreasonable procedure in the Dissuader I levelled those Corollaries from Corol. 31. to 40. which I intreat my Reader to review and him to consider particularly In the mean time I would ask him on this occasion a few short Questions May not any one remain a Catholick and never hold or practice these Cases and Opinions Do not Catholicks impugn them as much as Protestants Does he find any of those Opinions or Cases in our Catechisms or any Command of our Church to hold or act them nay even in that most common point of extending Indulgences to the next world but they who will use them may who will not need not How then does he hope to dissuade from Catholick Religion by impugning that which touches not that Religion nor concerns any ones being of it And why does not he rather fear all sober men will see his aym by this declamatory kind of Opposition to endeavour to gain credit as a great Anti-papist and not to convince solidly his Readers whose experience if they know any thing enables them to give a ready and satisfactory answer in their own thoughts to all those Questions I have now ask't and so to confute neer three parts of His Book He saw it himself and though he carries it on all along as if he were willing all should be thought the Doctrin of our Church or Faith yet fearing the Calumny is too manifest to be cloak't he provides excuses and Evasions before hand in his Title p. 127. saying The Church of Rome AS IT IS AT THIS DAY DISORDER'D teaches doctrines and uses practices which are in themselves or in their immediate CONSEQUENCES direct Impieties c. So that he speaks of our Church precisely as having some disorders in her and that they lead to ill onely by Consequences drawn from such disorderly Tenets and who 's the drawer of these Consequences Himself But grant his position that there are Disorders in the Church I mean not in Faith held Universally and obligatorily but in unobligatory Opinions and Practices I ask does he think there was ever any time in which there were not some Disorders in the Church or ever will be while Original corruption lasts Does he 〈◊〉 the very time of the Apostles was exempt from such frailty or that S. Paul complain'd for nothing of the Pastors in those primitive and purest times Phil. 2. v. 21. that Omnes quae sua sunt quaerunt non quae sunt Jesu Christi Again thinks he it any wonder that a disorder'd Tenet or a Falshood in a point belonging to manners is apt to lead by consequence to ill actions none doubting but that as Virtue is the connatural Effect of Truth so is Vice of Falshood What hath he got then by this kind of Proceeding taking up better half his book Onely this he hath proov'd there is Original Sin in the world and so it's Effects Ignorance and Interest Again let him consider how disputative an Age this last Century has been and what infinit multitudes of Writers concerning Opinionative Points of all sorts have been in our Church how voluminous how descending to particulars or Cases and this both in School-divinity Morals and Canon-Law and then let him speak seriously whether he can conceive it possible in human Nature there should not
be much Contingency in such an Universality depending on their private Reasons whereas scarce two men debating the same point particularly can light into the self-same Consequences but differ in their deductions Thinks he it possible many should not be Ignorant and so miscarry casually many Passionate and incline to some Tenets because sutable to their humour many conceited of their new Inventions and thence judging their Consequence to be connected with the point of Faith cry it up to be de side in their opinion and alledge that denying this you by consequence deny Faith This being so nay impossible to be otherwise and every Reader that sees the Dissuader's unreasonableness against us easily judging he would pick out the worst Instances he could find in that Infinity of Authours and the very complexion of his style being wholly Invidious expose them to shame with all the most disgraceful Rhetorick so great a wit as his heighten'd by that bitterest of Passions could deliver he will easily be able to make an Estimate what he may judge of my Ld's performance in this kinde 18. But now whates all this to to our Church For his Title p. 127. tells us 't is the Church of Rome which teaches such Doctrins and uses such Practices c. The Notion of Church as one would conceive is terminated and bounded precisely within the limits of its Definition a Body of the Faithful and Logick tells every one who understands it that since we work by abstracted notions or conceive a thing now thus now otherwise we must not confound those notions but hold strictly to the formal meaning of the word which expresses the thing we undertake for We are then to expect in honesty that since the Dissuader charges all those Doctrins and Practices on our Church all his Testimonies to fasten them on her should be of our Churches words or Expressions of the Churches Faith we need not doubt then but they will all be Definitions of General Councils Let the Margent inform us The first Citation is of Navarr's Enchiridion a private Casuist The 2d. of Reginaldus another Casuist The 3d and 4th of Sotus and Medina two other School-Divines Then comes in Reginaldus again then Sotus again in this tenour he proceeds for 133 pages that is from p. 127 to p. 260. not quoting the Council of Trent past 3 or 4. times but once as I remember the words of that Council and as oft abusing it by his strange misconstructions 19. For instance take his first Quotation of that Council p. 135 which I the more insist on because on that occasion I shall lay open his crafty and voluntary defiling every point he touches with most abominable misrepresentations and â—hose vizarded with an outward form of Holiness and such devout expressions as a Saint from Heaven would scarce 〈◊〉 lest prudent men should think it too much which I intended for a SIXTH Head of his disingenuities After then p. 133 and 134. he had made all the most odious Cases he could pick out the Roman Doctrin because the books of three or four Authours perused and allow'd by two or three others as not opposit to Faith See Coroll 33. that is the private Reasons of half a dozen Divines conceiv'd so which he amplifies beyond all bounds of moderation that one would judge a General Council or Provincial one at least that many Church Governours or Bishops had recommended those Cases to be held and follow'd at length he tells you sadly p. 134. that This though INFINITLY INTOLERABLE yet it is but the BEGINNING OF SORROWS Then follow the SUPER-INFINIT Sorrows themselves the first of which Sorrows is the Council of Trent's Doctrin and if it be Naught 't is certainly the Chief of them and so had I a word to express it so high which the Dissuader's Rhetorick would easily reach it should be phrased something above Super-infinit in regard by the Sacredness of it's Authority it would be a Ground and an Abetment to all the wicked Cases issuing from it Ere I come to examin it I premise this note that such Testimouies as This are onely to my Ld's purpose if he will argue against our Churcheâ— Doctrin In the success of these then lies the whole Trial of our Cause We have seen how he has sped formerly in his plain Demonstration and his onely efficacious Testimony of a Father let 's see how he thrives in this which we must acknowledge beyond all Evasion to express the sence of our Church 20. His last § then p. 134. begins with describing a true and Perfect Contrition and its Sacred Recommends as sufficient to blot out Sin All this is well nor is there as far as I know a Catholike in the world that was ever taught otherwise what follows Yet sayes he the Church of Rome does not allow it to be of any value unless it be joyn'd with a desire to confess their sins to a Priest saying that a man by Contrition is not reconcil'd to God without their Sacramental or Ritual Pennance actual or votive And this is decreed by the Council of Trent c. Then comes thundring in a Declamation fraught with such Invidious yet Holy Rhetorick that any honest unexamining Reader would almost lay his Salvation on 't he had all the Reason in the world Which things adds he besides that is against Scripture the promises of the Gospell and not onely teaches for Doctrins the Commandments of Men but evacuates the Goodness of God by their Traditions and weakens discourages the best repentance prefers repentance towards men before that which the Scripture calls Repentance towards God Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And there ends his paragraph in which his passion was in such hast that he forgot to add an Also to answer to the word Besides Now Ld have mercy upon usl What strangely wicked Doctrin is this which can occasion such a clutter of Devotion and Invectiveness jumbled together Attend Reader and from one Instance which I pick't not out purposely but took the first that my discourse led me to accidentally learn the nature of all the rest for scarce one passage in his whole book is free from this Fault The Council Sess. 14. as it is commonly reckon'd not 4th as perhaps his Printer mistook it c. 4. speaks of Contrition which it distinguishes into Perfect Contrition the same my Ld describes and declares that It reconciles a man to God before this Sacrament to wit of Pennance be actually received and Imperfect or Attrition springing from Consideration of the vileness of Sin or fear of Hell not from Love of God as its motive and to this it requires actually the Sacrament of Pennance this being properly efficacious to advance by Preparations to it beforehand which Attrition gives them will to make use of and the whole course of Exercises in it or belonging to it that Attrition into perfect or properly call d Contrition And speaking of the first sort or
he would deal candidly Himself confesses the Inquisition of Spain corrected one of those Books he names and I know no obligation any man has either to use or abet the others and then to what purpose were they brought against the Church 23. The last greatest and most notorious disingenuity is his most unworthy and most Intolerable Calumny against all Catholicks that they are Traytors and unfit for human Society He names not these words but that he endeavours to have the thing beleeved by his Readers appears thus The Title of his third Chapter p. 260. is this The Church of Rome teaches Doctrins which in many things are destructive of Christian society in General and of Monarchy in special We see here what he charges on our Church and since 't is known all Catholicks not onely are oblig'd to hold but to hold as Sacred and of Faith what the Church of Rome teaches nay to be ready to dy for that Faith 't is plain his Endeavours are to make us pass in the Opinion of his Readers for persons who hold Treason and Villany Lawful nay Sacred and that we are ready to dy and hope to be sav'd by such damnable points of Faith Nor will his false-hearted Pretence p. 462. exempt any while 't is known that nothing is more deeply rooted in our hearts than our obligation to beleeve as the Church beleeves and teaches In particular he assures his Reader p. 462. that No Contracts Leagues Societies Promises Vows or Oaths are sufficiēnt security to him that deals with one of the Church of Rome And p. 279. that the Doctrins of our Church are great Enemis to the Dignity and Security to the Powers and Lives of Princes 'T is not fit we should use here the Language proper to express what 's the due return and genuin brand for so malicious a Calumny But perhaps it were not unfit nor injuring the modesty of Subjects humbly to beg Protection for our Innocence against the virulent tongues and pens of our uncharitable accusers whom neither Reason nor Experience will restrain from going on still to stigmatize us all with the Faults of a few rash or sometimes misconstru'd Writers But when writes the Dissuader this After such fresh Testimonies of the unanimous Loyalty of Catholicks to His sacred Majesty and his Royal Father spending their lives and Fortunes in his service And against whom Against a Multitude in which are found very many Noble and Honourable Personages and many thousands of others very considerable and remarkable for their Fidelity How strange a Wickedness is it then to calumniate so highly and so publickly so many eminently deserving and Honourable Subjects of his Majesty Now the mischiefs naturally apt to flow from such a Calumny are these It breeds ill Correspondence between our Fellow-Subjects and us and makes us ill look't upon by them which violates Civil Unity so necessary for the Peace and strength of a Kingdome especially being between those two parties who have ever been so friendly and brotherly in their Affection and Allegiance to their Prince and Fellow-Acters and Sufferers for his Cause It discourages Loyalty to see that after such best Testimonies of it we are not even able to obtain a bare acknowledgment that we are Loyal but that it shall still be lawful for any one at pleasure to brand us for Traytors and this publickly in print in the face of all England And lastly were not our known Fidelity too strong an Antidote for his malice it tends to breed a conceit in our Governours that we are not to be endur'd in any State and onely fit to be ruin'd and extirpated not to mention the breach of Charity ensuing such unworthy Criminations which must needs breed very many Feuds and unneighbourliness between private persons all over England and Ireland Nor will there be ever any hearty Union in Church or State till thatwicked Uncharitableness of affixing upon a whole party the faults of some few be totally laid aside 24. Now on what does my Ld ground these horrid Charges against our Church or how proceeds he to make them good After the old fashion of quoting the private Opinions of a few Authours viz. Emonerius Father Barnes Emmanuel Sà Tolet Vasquez Navar c. Now my Ld supposes his Readers are to be credulous silly Asses and to believe that these private Casuists or Discoursers are the mouth of our Church that she by them declares what we are to believe that such private Discourses are so many definitions of our Churches Doctrin or Faith That these Discourses are held by our Church to be Constant and Certain for such all Catholicks hold her Doctrin or Faith to be whereas every Child knows these and such like Opinions are controllable changeable as the Moon that they were taught by Christ and his Apostles whereas any one may and himself does quote who first invented them that they who deny or impugn them are Hereticks whereas yet others do and any one may write against them at pleasure Lastly that these Points are all Divine Revelations whereas the very nature of the thing shows and himself confesses they are all Human deductions These Madnesses which are my Ld's First Principles in this whole Chapter and the Chapter foregoing that is in better half his book if his Reader will be such a Bedlam as to yield to then all his discourse is as sure as Gospel but if not then 't is Evident such Pretences are flat and most unconscionable Calumnies against our Church Little better is his quoting two or three particular Acts of some Popes does he think the words Church and Pope are Equivalent or that the word particular act signifies Doctrin or Faith that he should think three or four Acts all in several kinds that is one in each kind argue the Churches Doctrin or Faith in those points This in case he deals truly with those Popes but I know he is apt to deform all he meets with and I see he does that of Pope Clement p. 268. which makes me suspect the rest That Pope extinguish't the Templars and consest that de Jure he could not do it but that he did it ex plenitudine potestatis Here my Ld so interprets de Jure that he makes the Pope disown any Justice in doing it that is own an Injustice in doing it for that 's my Ld's Intention in wresting those words which being impossible to conceive the Pope should prosess of himself 't is clear he meant by de Jure the same we mean by the words by Law that is that there was no positive Law of the Church impowering him to dissolve them yet the Exigency requiring it his Office might give him a natural right to do it by which if Governours might not act in great Emergencies but must be ty'd to let all go wrong because it happens no provision is made against it in any written Law All Churches Kingdomes Cities nay Families would be at the same loss
Catholick which was greedily catcht at by such as leapt for joy to find any licks thing to bespatter the Church with and startling some unattentive and too credulous Catholikes drive them zealous of defending the Council to an unwarrantable position which Tenet and its practice my Ld. himself knows well the Generality of Catholikes hate and detest as much as himself Eighth Way 27. THe eighth and last Way is to pick out as well as I can those Propositions or Principles my Ld relies on and show their Weakness which is sufficiently performed by singling them out and then naming them PRINCIPLES they are so quite unlike what they 're call'd Now his Principles he layes in his first Section I mean his main and Fundamental Propositions which because he relies on yet never proves we are from his carriage to take for Principles and Self evident to him though he himself calls them not so for 't is dangerous to them who have not Truth on their side even to mention the word Principle Evidence or Demonstration His First concerning Scripture I shall speak to anon A second seems to be this p. 6. We all acknowledge that the whole Church of God kept the Faith entire and transmitted faithfully to the After-ages the whole Faith that is to the Ages next after the Apostles as he expresses a little before call'd by him p. 7. the first and best Antiquily and signify'd to mean the First three Ages Now the Positive part of this Principle is good and Assertive of Tradition but withall unapt to stead him The Negative part of it or that the third Age transmitted it not to the fourth and so forwards imply'd in his Discourse would onely stead him but 't is left unproov'd and so is a Voluntary Assertion and strangely ridiculous For if the first two Ages kept the Faith entire and transmitted it to the third 't is Evident the Third was able to transmit it to the fourth and so forwards wherefore it being Evident from the Concern of the Thing it was also willing to do so 't is demonstrable it did so This Principle then on which he so much builds is either not for him or else highly against him 28. Another main and Fundamental Proposition or Principle is found p. 7. and as the former concern'd the Tradition of the Church so this and the three following ones concern the Authorities of Fathers The present Roman Doctrins saith he which are in difference were Invisible and unbeard of in the first and best Antiquity That is no Heretick had arisen in those dayes or in the first three hundred years denying those points and so the Fathers set not themselves to write Expresly for them but occasionally onely and yet by his leave our Controvâ—â—â—â—â—â— are frequent in citing them for diverse points especially for the Ground of our Faith the Churches voice or Tradition to the utter overthrow of the Protestant Cause So far this improov'd and main position disannulling all use of the Fathers of the first 300 years in our Controversies is from not needing proof or being Self evident 29. It may be his respect and value for the Fathers of the next Ages will make amends for this rashness He tells us immediately after that in the Succeeding Ages secular Interest did more prevail and the Writings of the Fathers were vast and voluminous full of Controversy and ambiguous Sences fitted to their own times and questions full of proper Opinions and such variety of sayings that both sides eternally and Inconfutably shall bring sayings for themselves respectively Now if they be so qualify'd that both sides may eternally dispute out of them and neither be ever able to confute the other or conclude then let him speak out and say all the Fathers after the first 300 years are not worth a straw in order to decision or Controversy nor yet the Fathers of the first 300 years because they spoke not of our points in difference and so there is a fair end of all the Fathers and of his own Dissuasive too for that part which relies on them which looks like the most authoritative piece of it The Reader will easily judge now whether we as he charges us p. 18. have many gripes of Conscience concerning the Fathers that they are not right on our side or the Dissuader Our constant and avow'd Doctrin is that the Testimony of Fathers speaking of them properly as such is Iufallible that in two Cases they speak as Fathers that is when they declare it the doctrin of the present Church of their time or when they write against any man as an Heretick or his Tenet as Heresy Some complexions of Circumstances also may be found out by much reading and comparing several considerations which make it Evident they speak as Witnesses though it be more laborious and tedious to compass a Satisfaction this way Whereas as appears by our Dissuader the Protestants neither acknowledge them Infallible nor indeed Useful And this is my Ld's FOURTH PRINCIPLE which with the former destroyes the Efficaciousness of all the Fathers invalidates all that part of his own Book which should seem weightiest 30. Notwithstanding the two former Principles to invalidate the Fathers it may still be said by the Catholicks in behalf of their validity as was by me now that the Sayings of Fathers as Witnesses are Convictive and therefore it should seem sit my Ld did lay another Principle to provide against that He is not unmindful of it but hath taken order about it For though p. 9. he tells us the Fathers are good Testimony of the Doctrin deliver'd from their Forefathers down to them of what the Church esteem'd the way of Salvation yet that is to be understood according to the Rule premised p. 8. thus Things being thus it will be Impossible for them the Catholicks to conclude from the sayings of a number of Fathers that the Doctrin they would prove thence was the Catholick doctrin of the Church because any number that is less than all does not proove a Catholik Consent So that unless each single Father affirm each single point to be of Faith or the Doctrin of the Catholick Church which morally speaking is Impossible to happen it follows by his words that 't is Impossible to conclude thence the Catholick Doctrin of the Church which amounts to this that 't is Impossible to conclude any thing in Controversy from the Fathers even taken as Witnesses And this is his FIFTH PRINCIPLE A strange conceit that it should be Impossible to know the Consent of all England in a matter of Fact for example the late war without speaking with each single man in the whole Nation Yet this is his Discourse when he sayes that no number less than all can prove a Catholick consent 31. Yet some use certainly he allows of the Fathers for all this else why does he quote them Yes and the Principle which I reckon his SIXTH by virtue of which he enforces them is this
p. 8. The clear saying of one or two of those Fathers truely alledg'd by us to the Contrary will certainly prove that what many of them suppose it do affirm and which but two or three as good Catholicks do deny was not then a matter of Faith or a Doctrin of the Church I wish my Ld. had been so Ingenuous as to have made use of this Principle when he charg'd our Church it self with the mistakes of a few Writers contradicted not by one or two but sometimes by a whole Nation But this Principle shows 't was not Reason in him but Will and Interest which made him so hot As for his Principle it self it subsists not at all For is it not known that more than one or two that is S. Cyprian and the African Fathers deny'd the Baptism of Hereticks Valid yet the Contrary was notwithstanding found and defin'd to be Faith and the Sence of the Church Let him consider how perfectly he engages himself in the very Sphere of Contingency and recedes from Universality the Sphere of Certainty when he comes to rely on one or two unless he can show those one or two strangely supported and upheld by Universal Nature or concurring Circumstances 'T is possible even one or two Lawyers may hap to be ignorant of two or three Acts of Parliament But my Ld is still the best confuter of himself as appears lately by this present Principle apply'd to his former carriage against our Church To himself then let him answer I conceive that if one or two's not denying it to be of Faith or affirming expresly 't is not-of-Faith he engages not so far but bare denying a point argues what many do affirm to be not-of-Faith à fortiori one or two's affirming positively that to be of Faith and the Doctrin of the Catholick Church which many others barely deny argues 't is of Faith 'T was of Faith then what Gennadius cited by himself p. 59. affirms that After Christs Ascension the Souls of all Saints go from the body to Christ This being so let him reflect what himself asserts p. 49. that Justin Mariyr Tertullian Victorinus Martyr Prudentius S. Chrysostom Arethas Euthimius and S. Bernard affirm none go to Heaven till the last day Either then Gennadius his Testimony delivering the doctrin of the Catholick Church is Inefficacious and yet 't is incomparably the best nay the onely Efficacious one in my Lds. whole book or else according to him many Fathers and not one or two onely denying a point is no argument but that point may be of Faith Whether all those Fathers held so or no is another Question and requires a longer discussion 32. Fathers then are useless to the Dissuader as having according to him no virtue at all of setling the Understanding Yet he must make a show of them else all 's lost and so he tells his Readers p. 8. as if all were well two things both very remarkable The one that notwithstanding In the prime and purest Antiquity the Protestants are indubitably more than Conquerours in the Fathers A high Expression but compar'd with what he sayes p. 7. that in those times our present differences were unheard-of it signifies that they miraculously more then conquer where if his words be true no mortals else could either conquer or even attacque For how should one fight against such points in difference from those Fathers who never heard of those points The other is that even in the Fathers of the succeeding Ages the Protestants have the advantage both numero pondere mensurà in number weight and measure which joyn'd to his words at the bottome of p. 7. that each side may eternally and inconfutably bring sayings for themselves out of those Fathers which signifies that 't is to no end or purpose to alledge them amounts very fairly to this that he brags Protestants have a far greater number of Citations which are to no purpose than Catholicks have that those Citations which have no possible force of concluding or no weight at all do weigh more strongly for them than for us and lastly that they have a greater measure than we of proofs not worth a rush with which they can bubble up their books to a voluminous bigness And we willingly yield them the honour of having a very great advantage in all three in case they be such as his own words qualifie them to wit that each side may Eternally and Inconfutably alledge them 33. We come now to his main and most Fundamental and in comparison his onely Principle p. 9. laid out thus We do wholly rely upon Scriptures as the Foundation and final resort of all our Persuasions but we also admit the Fathers c. To finish our Discourse about the Fathers will make way to the Scripture What means admitting as contradistinguisht to relying on Not relying on that 's certain for 't is contradistinguisht to it And yet to alledge any thing for a Proof as they do Fathers and not to rely on it is to confess plainly for Truth will out that they alledge them meerly for a show He sayes they admit them as admirable Helps for the Understanding the Scriptures and good Testimony of the Doctrin deliver'd from their Forefathers Have a care my Ld. This supposes the Certainty of Tradition For if there be no Certainty of delivery there is no doctrin delivered nor consequently any thing for them to testify and so the words good Testimony unless our Ground of Continual Tradition stands mean directly that they are good for nothing as your former Discourses or Principles made them But I ask is their Interpretation of Scripture or Testimony Certain If not why should they even be admitted Or how can Vncertain Interpreters and Witnessers be admirable Helps to interpret right and good Testimony I fear my Ld. can onely mean they are Admirable Helps as Dictionaries and Books of Criticisms are to assist his Human Skill about the outward Letter which is a rare Office for a Father and not to give him the inward Sence of it or the deliver'd Doctrin of the Catholick Church for unless All conspire to speak to the same point if any one be silent concerning it it argues not according to my Ld. p. 8. a Catholick Consent and so is far beneath an admirable help And this is what we reprehend exceedingly in the Protestants that they love to talk gaily in common of any Sacred or Grave Authority for an affected form or show but not at all value the Virtue or Power of such an Authority not judge interiorly they have any worth valuing They would credit themselves by pretending Fathers yet at the same time lay wayes to elude them at pleasure or which is their very temper springing from their renouncing Living and determinate Sence and adhering to dead unsenc't words they study to speak Indeterminately and confusedly not particularly and closely 34. Do I wrong them Let my Ld. clear me His First Principle is by him
exprest to be the Scripture and on this Expression he so strongly builds that p. 10 11. he concludes thence and Certainly too thus The Religion of our Church sayes he is therefore certainly Primitive and Apostolick because it teaches us to believe the whole Scriptures of the old and New Testament and nothing else as matter of Faith What mean the word Scriptures Any determinate sence of it or the dead Characters Alas their Church is far from teaching them the first or from having grounds to own such a pretence but puts the Book in their hands and bids them find the sence of it or their Faith for there is their Rule 'T is the bare Letter then unsenc't he means by the word Scriptures and so he must say 't is the outward Cuaracters his Church teaches us to believe and nothing else as matter of Faith that is their whole Faith has for its object Ink thus figur'd in a Book A worthy Argument to proove their Church is certainly Primitive and Apostolick whereas itis known Faith was before those Characters and besides if this be to be Apostolical we owe nothing to the other Apostles for our faith but onely to those six who writ But we mistake him he means neither sence of the word Scripture and hates these distinctionswith all his heart which would oblige him to either He meant to talk of Scripture indeterminately and confusedly which might make a fine show and yet expose him to no Inconvenience by giving any particular account of his meaning His Inference from this his First Principle being an Immediate one will utterly overthrow the Papists without doubt Therefore saith he p. 11. unless there can be New Scriptures we can have no New matter of Belief no new Articles of Faith No my Ld Yes as long as by Scriptures you mean no determinate sence of Scriptures but the bare Letter onely whose sence is fetch 't out by Interpretations and these as we experience depend on menes private Judgments and Fancies if menes Fancies may vary every hour you may have diverse Interpretations every hour and so new Articles of Faith every hour Is not this a mad kind of arguing to conclude as absolute an unerrableness in Faith as if they had not onely a determinate Principle but even as self-evident and unmistakable as the First Principle in Metaphysicks to guid themselves by whereas our daily eysight and their own sad experience every day teaches us by the practice of this Principle and yet their differing in the Sence of Scripture in most high and most concerning Points that the Speenlation is naught and the Principle it self a false and mis-guiding Light Nay I doubt my Ld. himself has no hearty value for this his First Principle though he sayes he wholly relies on it For I never saw Protestant Book in my Life thinner and sleighter in Scripture-Citations than is his Dissuasive so that if that be his First Principle he makes little use of it 35. Many other Propositions or Supposals are imply'd in his book to give it force As that It matters not how a Citation is qualify'd so it be but alledg'd 'T is no matter whether the question be rightly stated or no. The Tenets of our Church are not to be taken from the use of definitions found in approved Councils speaking abstractedly but from the particular Explications of some Divines Every Foppery is a proper Effect of the Churches Doctrin Points of Faith ought to be comprehensible to Reason and Spiritual things sutable to Fancy The Act of an Inquisition Sayings of a few Divines or Casuists are all Catholik Faith and the Doctrin of the Church That is rationally dissuasive which is confessedly Uncertain No Answer was ever given to the Citations or Reasons produc't in the Dissuasive Talking soberly and piously about a point is oftentimes as good as prooving it That t is Self-evident Scripture's Letter can bear but one Interpretation as wrought upon by Human Skills These and multitudes of such like though not exprest yet run imply'd in his carriage all along this book and suppos'd true to give it any force yet so evidently false and weak that to pull them out thence and make them show their heads is enough to confute them I conclude and charge the Dissuader that he not onely hath never a Principle for his Dissuasive to subsist by but farther that 't is Impossible but himself should know in his own Conseience that he has none nay more that the Protestant Cause and the same I say of all out of the Church can have none The first part of my charge I have manifoldly prooved in this present Appendix The other part of it which charges him with Consciousness of having no Grounds hath two branches and for the former of those I alledge that the wayes he takes all along to manage his Dissuasive are so evidently studious so industrious so designed and perfectly artificial that though one who is guided on in a natural way is oftentimes not aware of his thoughts or their method till he comes to reflect yet 't is Impossible he should not be aware of his which he postures with such exquisit craft and such multitudes of preternatural sleights to render his Discourse plausible For the later of those Branches namely that he cannot but know the Protestant Cause can have no Principles to make it Evident I discourse thus ad hominem what I have prov'd in Sure-Footing out of the nature of the Thing 'T is their most constant and avow'd Profession and his p. 9. that they do wholly rely upon Scripture as the foundation and final resort of all their Persuasions This being so Fathers and Councils are not held at all by them but as far as they are agreeable to Scriptures that is their Testimony has no basis of Certainty from themselves or of their own but what they participate from Scripture Wherefore either they are No Principles or else Subordinate ones to their First Principle Scripture Unless then It be Certain or deserve the name of a Principle They can never be held by Protestants such nor consequently can merit the name of Principles even Subordinate ones because then pretended First Principle from which onely they can derive Title to that dignity is in that case none it self To Scripture then le ts come By which word if they agreed to mean any determinate Sence of it certainly known to be the true one their Discourse were well-built But since their Church can own no determinate Sence of the Scripture deriv'd down from Christ and his Apostles in antecedency to the Scripture's Letter but having renounc't that Way or Tradition must say she has it meerly from that Letter as yet unsenc't She must mean that 't is the Scripture Letter She relies on as the foundation and final resort of all her Persuasions nay for her Persuasion that this is the Sence of it Since then Principles are determinate Sences not characters or Sounds neither is
Scripture as they take the word a Principle nor consequently Fathers or Councils whose Certainty is resolvable into It. They 'l say that Letter is a Certain Way to arrive at a determinate Sence and consequently that they have determinate Sence by means of it I ask is the Letter alone such Then in case it alone be absolutely sufficient to such an Effect it will perform it in every one as if Fire be alone sufficient to burn all the world and so overpower all the resistence of the matter do but apply it 't will do that effect or burn it Is there requisit some Schollership in the Subject Scripture's Letter is to work upon or desire to see Truth in their Will Then if this be the onely requisit it will work its Certifying or determining Effect upon all Schollers and well-meaners and so no Schollers and well meaners can disagree in the Sence of it The contrary to which all sober men acknowledge daily Experience teaches us as much as we can be sure of any Human Action The like Discourse holds whatever requisits they desire for still it will follow they must say that in whomsoever they place that requisit they cannot differ in the since of Scripture which Common Experience will confute Nor will it avail them to run to Fundamentals unless it be said the Trinity is no Fundamental which the Dissuader makes the onely one p. 12. for the Socinians deny this amongst whom 't is a strange Immodesty in the Protestants to say there is nonc well-meaning Learned or unapply'd to Scripture Adding then to this most Evident Proposition that a Cause proper to produce such an Effect if we put the Patient dispos'd and the Application alwayes produces its Effect on the Truth of which all Nature depends adding this I say to the obvious and common Experience of Differers about Scriptures sence in all whom 't is Impossible to judge either Disposition of the Patient or Application is wanting for all read it and strive with all the wit and skill they have to find the sence of it it will follow most Evidently that the Fault is in the Agent or Cause that is that Scriptures Letter is unsit to Certify or bring us to a determinate sence of it and therefore since till we know the Sence of that Letter 't is to us but meer Words I am forc't by my reason to judge they have no Principles Those being Sence but that their whole way is wordish and not out of disrespect to them for this touches not them more than it does all others who have lest off the way of conveying down determinate Sence by Living voice and Practise or Tradition but I am oblig'd by Conscience and my duty to my Cause to declare that their whole Ground of their Faith is thus hollow and empty Whence I contest out of the nature of the thing that their Cause can bear no way of Sence or Principles but must forcibly be upheld by Wordishness as by quoting Texts without any Certain Interpreter Citations of Fathers not brought to Grounds not held by themselves Certain fine Scripture phras'd flourishes of piety and such like In which the Dissuader is Excellent Or else if the Objecter be very witty and have taken a great deal of pains in the way of Scepticism to be too hard for himself by bringing all into Uncertainty which is the acutest way of Wordishness and most proper to oppose any Discourse that tends to Establish and Settle because most opposit to it and so I am to expect Necessity will force them to take this way when any replies to SURE-FOOTING I know some will expect I should have answer'd the Dissuasive particularly but I know no reason why I should be sollicitous to stand cutting of each single Branch of Errour or be careful to hinder their growth after I have once pluck't the Tree that bore them up by the Roots POSTSCRIPT IF my Ld. please to reply which I fear will be too troublesome a task because of the illnaturedness and Inflexibleness of Principles or if he resolve to write hereaster against our Church his LP is intreated he would please to go to work like a Man that is orderly not confounding and jumbling all together Let him first define then what makes a Thing obligatory to be held by Catholiks a Doctrin of our Church or point of Faith then put down the very words of the Council in case it be difin'd next acquaint us with the nature of his objections vouch them Conclusive and let his Reader know in what their virtue or force of Concluding is plae't for this will strengthen them exceedingly and then let him fall to work when he will Above all I beg of him not to go about to forestall the sincere verdict of Reason by corrupting first the Will of weak people by pious Talk but first speak smart and home to their understandings with solid Reasons and then at the end of the Book preach as much as he pleases against the wickedness of a Point when he hath once demonstrated its Falshood Otherwise the Sermon so expands and ratifies the Proof and his Godly Rhetorick so evaporates his Reasons that it reflects no light at all and so no mortal eye though straining its optick nerves is able to discern it A Letter To Dr. Casaubon Honoured Sir AFter I had printed Sure-Footing I heard accidentally that you had been pleas'd to take notice of my Way and some signal Passages in Schisms Dispatcht I was glad to hear that so ancient a Friend of mine had offer'd me a fair occasion to renew our acquaintance resolving to take an account of his Exceptions and requite them with a due Satisfaction assoon as I could find a season proper Wherefore when the last sheet of my Appendix against the Dissuader was under the press finding both leasure and Opportunity to second my Intentions I took your Book perus'd diverse chief passages in it and particularly what concern'd my self p. 87. The first glance of it put me in some Wonderment at the difference I found between you in your Book and the character of you in my Thoughts long ago imprinted there For in these I found you a solid sober man a good Schollar as also ingenuous and candid but in your Book particularly in those passages I saw plainly and was troubled to see it you had either none of those Qualities I imagin'd in you or to a very small degree But I began straight to reflect with my self that as when I was a child I fancy'd rooms very spacious and streets very long which coming to the state of a Man I found very strangely diminisht so my riper and more Judicious Thoughts saw now the measure of your virtues in their true demensions which my younger and unexperienc't years had so strangely magnify'd and enhanc't I doubt not but your outward appearance will make it thought by those that know you I have said too much let 's see how
right to alledge either Scriptures Fathers or Councils I add Reason History or Instances See Corol. 12. 15 16 18 19. And it is done thus All discourse supposes that Certain on which it builds But if Tradition or the way of conveying down matters of Fact by the former Ages testifying can fail none of these are Certain therefore a Protestant or Renouncer of Tradition cannot with Reason pretend to discourse out of any of these that is Reason being Man's Nature he has lost his natural right to alledge any of these in way of proof Now that none of these are Certain if Tradition be renounc't is shown thus Scripture's Letter as to its Incorruptedness nay its very Being is Uncertain alone or without Tradition as is confest by Protestants and proov'd Sure-Footing Disc. 3d and 4th So are Fathers and Councils too For Fathers being Eminent Witnessers to Immediate Posterity or Children of the Churches Doctrin received and Councils Representatives of the Church their strength as Proofs nay their very Existence is not known till the notion of Church be known which is part of their very Definition and to which they relate Nor is the Being or Nature of Church known till it be Certainly known who are truly Faithful or have true Faith who not which must be manifested by their having or not having the true Rule of Faith Wherefore since the Properties of the Rule of Faith do all agree to Tradition our Rule and none of them to theirs as was evidently and at large shown there in my five first Discourses it follows the Protestant or Renouncer of Tradition knows not what is either right Scripture Father or Council and so ought not to meddle with them nor alledge them Again since pretended Instances of Traditions Failing depend on History Historical Certainty cannot be built on dead Characters but on Living Sence in men's hearts deliver'd from age to age that those passages are true that is on Tradition it follows that if the way of Tradition can fail all History is Uncertain and consequently all Instances as being matters of Fact depending on History And lastly since Reasons are fetch 't from the nature of things and the best Nature in what it is abstracting from disease or madness Unalterable is the Ground of the human part of Christian Tradition and most incomparable strength is superadded to it as it is Christian by the supernatural Assistances of the Holy Ghost Disc. 9. 't is a wild conceit to think any piece of Nature or Discourse built on it can be held Certain if Tradition especially Christian Tradition may be held Uncertain Third Way 5. THe Third Way is to examin the Method he takes in dissuading For common sence telling us 't is not to be expected any should be able to perform any thing unless he takes the right way to perform it 't is Evidert he cannot be held in reason to have power to dissuade unless the Method he takes be proper to that Effect that is not common to that Effect and a contrary one Now to dissuade is to unfix the Understanding from what is held before which includes to make it hold or assent that what it held before Certain is False or at least Uncertain The Way then he takes must be evidently able to oblige to some kind of Assent nay as he handles it for I suppose he aims to make them hold as Protestants to Assent to the contrary which therefore must needs require the Evidentest Method imaginable obliging their Reason to conclude that a man who takes this way of Discourse cannot but make good what he sayes at least that it may be strongly hop't from his method he will do it This reflected on let us weigh the Method my Ld. takes in his Dissuasive and if it be Evident to every ordinary capacity that as to the Godly part of it the Quakers out-do him and as to its quoting part the Smectymnuans us'd the same against the Protestants to confute Episcopacy for They too quoted and gloss'd Scriptures and Fathers both and indeed every Sect that has not yet shaken of the shame to disrespect all Antiquity then it is also Evident that this Method is Common to those Discourses which have in them power to satisfy the Understanding and those who have no such power Now that being most evidently no Method or Way to such an Effect which many follow and take yet arrive not at that Effect 't is plain to Common Sence that my Ld. of Downs miscalls his Book a Dissuasive and that it can have in it no power of moving the Understanding one way or other unless he can first vouch some Particularity in the Method he takes above what 's in others in which we experience miscarriage and himself professes we though taking it miscarry in it Let us then search after this Particularity in his way of writing Is it that he brings some stronger or more unavoidable sort of Testimonies then were ever yet produc't by others No Every Scholler sees they are so common that they have been hundreds of times produc't and himself p. 1. 2. acknowledges their vulgarness But perhaps he invalidates all the Answers our Controvertists have given to those Testimonies and presses them farther against us beyond what any has done yet Quite contrary He barely and rawly puts them down as if this were the very first time they had seen light nor takes the least notice of any Answer at all given to them formerly But it may be he layes Grounds to distinguish and press home his Testimonies and so gives them their full weight which others have not done Alas no I fear he never thinks of that but judges if we may conclude from his carriage the deed done so he but quote nor can I see one Principle laid in his whole Book strengthening any one Testimony by bringing it to its Ground Experimental Knowledge in the Authour he cites that the Churches constant Voice and Practice manifested this her Sence but as they are put down carelesly so they are past over slubberingly without the least enforeing them by way of laying Principles Is he at least Particular in his Sincerity and Ingenuity I know not how they will be satisfied with it who read his late Adversary Impeaching him for the contrary Vices and some passages in this present Appendix Where lies then this Particularity in his Method without which his Dissuasive can never in reason be held Creditable I speak ingenuously and from my heart All the Particularity I can observe in it lies in these two things First that he huddles together multitudes of his own sayings without any pretence of proof for the most part and when he brings any they are such as we have spoken of Next that instead of enforcing his Proofs by way of Reason he overflowes strangely with godly language and Scripture-phrases with which plaufible manner of Expression most unreasonably and unnaturally he strives to combat the Wills of his
so qualify'd as is apt to convince to answer it and not at all by Protestant Grounds which yield them all Fallible yet I have that regard for any thing that tends though remotely to Solidity that I will even remit something of my own advantage to give it a respectful Consideration The Testimony is of Gennadius cited by my L. p. 58 59. thus For after Christ's Ascension into Heaven the Souls of all Saints are with Christ and going from the body they go to Christ expecting the resurrection of their body with it to pass into the perfection of perpetual bliss To which my Ld. subjoyns and this he delivers as the Doctrin of the Catholick Church I take this excellent Testimony as put down by himself to do which the usage of St. Greg. Nazianzen's immediately foregoing gives me small encouragement In answer then I affirm that this Testimony so insisted and rely'd on as against us is as plain a declaration of the Faith of our Church at present as any now-adayes Catholick could pronounce For since no Catholick holds that any goes to Purgatory but they who die Sinners to some degree and that all who are Saints are with Christ in Heaven as is evident by the Churches common language affirming constantly the Saints are in Heaven and never that the Saints are in Purgatory but the Souls onely it is manifest that the words are as expresly for us as we our selves could invent or wish I hope it will not wrogMethod if on this occasion I show how Protestant Writers speed when they bring against us any Testimony of a Father speaking as a Father that is declaring that he delivers the sence of the Catholick Church however in other Testimonies which speak not narratively or matter of Fact the very nature of words joyn'd with the variety of their Circumstances must needs afford room for ambiguity and several Glosses I affirm then that this Testimony not onely is not in the least opposit to us but is directly opposit to the Protestants in another point of Faith in which we differ To discover this let us reflect on the words After Christes Ascension into Heaven the Souls of all Saints are with Christ and ask what mean these words After Christs Ascension And first 't is Evident it puts a distinction between the Souls of Saints before Christs Ascension and After it in some Respect and what is this Respect most expresly this that the Souls of the Saints After Christes Ascension go from the body to Christ that is that before the Ascension none did The avowed Doctrin of the Catholick Church prosessing that those who die Saints in the Law of Grace go straight to Heaven but that the best Saints before our Saviours dying for them and Ascending with them did not Whence also we hold that Christes descending into Hell was to free them from that State of Suspence and Want of their strongly desired and hopet for Bliss According to that Hymn of S. Ambrose and S. Augustin in the Common-prayer-book so oft said over by rote but never reflected on When thou hadst overcome the Sharpness of death thou didst open the Kingdome of Heaven to all Believers Signifying plainly that no Believers sound Heaven open for them till after Christ's death By the Success of this one Testimony is seen how utterly the Protestant Cause would be overthrown by way of Testimony as well as Reason were Citations distinguish't brought to Grounds and those onely admitted from the Fathers in which 't is manifest they speak as Fathers or Witnessers of what is the present Churches doctrin To close up this Discourse about the Dissuader's Citations He is to show us first that they fall not under the Faulty Heads to which they are respectively assign'd or under diverse others of those Heads Next that they have in them the nature of Testimonies And lastly which is yet harder that though they have in them the nature of Testimonies their Authority is Certain and their language unambiguous so that they may be safely rely'd on for Principles or Grounds of a solid Discourse This if he shows of any one citation which strikes at our Faith I promise him very heartily to subscribe to the validity of all the rest 13. Thus much for his Authorities Next should follow a Refutation of his Reasons produc't against our Faith for as for those against our School-Divines or Casuists they concern not me as a Controvertist Let him and them fight it out Now Reasons that strike at our Faith must either be against the Ground of Faith and those shall be consider'd in my Answer to his First Section or against points of Faith And these may proceed two wayes First by showing those points Incomprehensible to our Natural Reason or unsutable to our Faney and this way he frequently takes making a great deal of game upon such subjects as any Atheist may do by the same way in points common to him and us But this hurts us not in the least in regard we hold not Mysteries of Faith Objects of Human Reason nor Spiritual Things the Objects of Fancy and so these Reasons need no farther Answer The other way Reasons against Points of Faith may proceed is to show those Points contradictory to some Evident Principles at least to some other known or else acknowledg'd Truth And these were worth answering But such as these I find none in his whole Book rather that he builds his sleight Descants or Discourses on some controvertible Text or Citation relying on them as firmly as if they were First Principles Indeed p. 65. the Dissuader tells us of a Demonstration of his for the Novelty of Transubstantion and that a plain one too But I shal manifest shortly from the very words of the Author Peter Lombard on which his Plain Demonstration relies that 't is either a plain mistake or plain Abuse of him nay argues the direct contrary to what the Dissuader product it for Some Consequences also he deduces ad hominem against diverse points of our Faith built on our own Concessions or Allow'd Truths taken from the Fathers by which he attempts to overthrow it But these Consequences are so strangely Inconsequent and those tenets he would counterpose so far from Contradictory that 't is hard to imagin whence his Reason took its rise to leap into such remote conclusions I 'le instance in two found p. 49 and 50. That the Conflagration of the last day and the Opinion of some Fathers that the Souls were detain'd in secret receptacles till the day of Judgment do both destroy intermediate Purgatory Which Consequences if he will make good I will vield his whole Book to be Demonstrative and Unanswerable In a word all the good Reasons he brings are taken from some of our Divines writing against others and he hath done himself the right to chuse the best which levelled against the opinion of a less able Divine in stead of a point of Faith must needs bear a
very plausible show 14. Next follows the Manner how he manages this Matter which in the civillest Expressions I use I must call so many sleights to delude his Reader and those so craftily coucht that none but a Scholler can discern the snare The first and Fundamental one is his wilfully mis-stating the Question all over As p. 16. when he confounds the making new Symbols or Creeds which signifies the putting together into a Profession of Faith Articles formerly-held as did S. Athanasius and the Nicene Council with making new Articles All his whole Section 3d. of Indulgences which he makes to signify meerly those which pardons sins or pains after this life whereas yet himself confesses p. 40. that those were not defind by our Church So also his next Section of Purgatory by which we mean a Penal State for those who die imperfectly contrite and from which they are deliverable by the prayers of the Church Militant Instead of which he impugns sometimes material Fire sometimes the duration of it It were tedious to reckon all his Faults in this kind scarce one point escapes this voluntary misprision that is he scarce discourses steadily though perhaps he may glance at it accidentally against one point of our Faith rightly stated or as taken in the declarative words of our Church Now common Honesty telling us that if one be to impugn any mans Tenet the first thing natural method leads him to is to put down that man's very words profest by him to express his Tenet and not what others deem conceit or talk about the same matter my Ld. ought in due candour have first produc't the words of the Council of Trent and then have leveld his opposition against them and not have told us what School divines say about the point or having thus conceald the point it self argu'd against some Circumstance or Manner of it instead of the Substance Now this kind of carriage so evidently preternatural and so constantly us'd forces me to judge it sprung from voluntary Insincerity and not from Accident or Inadvertency 15. His second Disingenuity at once Evidences and aggravates the former 'T is this that when by such a management he hath made the point odious he uses to bring in our Churches Tenet in the rear and whereas Her speaking abstractedly frees her absolutely from the invidious particularities he would fasten on her Faith he as if he had resolv'd to abuse her right or wrong makes that very thing which should clear her tend to disgrace her more As is seen p. 40. where he is forc't to confess our Church defin'd Indulgences onely in general terms that is none of his former Discourses so particularizing toucht her or her Faith and then cries out the Council durst not do this nor the other That is she durst not do and consequently did not do what all his former discourse would persuade the world our Church had done Worse then this is his Instance p. 60. where after he had pretended in the whole 4th Section to impugn Purgatory which he had confounded with School-opinions to p. 45. with the time of delivery p. 48. 51. 56. with a state of merit or demerit p. 57. 58. with his own Parenthesisses p. 59. and told us some stories of Revelations and Apparitions which seem'd to him most ridiculous Lastly confounded it with Simon Magus his Opinion Plato's or Cicero's conceit and Virgils Fiction After all this he adds this doctrin which in all the parts of it is uncertain and in the late Additions to it in Rome is certainly false is yet with all the Faults of it past into an Article of Faith by the Council of Trent Now these big words All the parts of it the late Additions All the Faults of it and all these said to be past into an Article of Faith by the Council of Trent would make one think that Council had defin'd all that medley he had huddled together for Christian Faith but looking in the Council not a Syllable of any of these is to be found but barely these few words that There is a Purgatory and that the Souls there detain'd are help't by the prayers of the Faithful Where we see but two parts at most for there are but two Propositions in the whole definition Again the late Additions which he sayes are defin'd by the Council can be but one at most that is the second Proposition that those Souls are helpt by the Faithfull's prayers And lastly when he sayes this Doctrin of Purgatory with all its Faults is past by the Council into an Article of Faith the large word All its Faults can mean onely the same second Proposition there being nothing defin'd besides the very doctrin of Purgatory it self but this Which kind of carriage of his so sinisterly descanting on the point all along not pretending to put down our Tenet at all till towards the End then deforming it to be a bundle of God knows how many Faults defin'd for Faith putting all these upon the Council of Trent and yet avoiding to put down the words of the Council at all though so few lest they should discover he had lavish't out at randome show evidently the Dissuader stands not much upon Conscience or Sincerity so he can colour and hide his disingenuities and he is the greatest master of that craft I ever yet met with Now to avoid this Calumny it being frequent in his book I discourse thus Points of Faith are Supreme Truth which stand in the abstract and it is the work of Divines not of the Church-Representative to draw long trains of Consequences from them and dive particularly into the Manners how they are to be explicated or into their Extents if it be some Power Nor is this particular in the point of Indulgences or Purgatory but is found in all the other points of Faith as every learned Divine knows very well Again 't is against the Principles of Universal Supream Government for a Church Representative defining Faith to descend out of its highest Sphere and engage in particularities especially if they belong not to them as School-opinions do not but onely to order in common and leave the Application of their Common Orders to those who are to execute or to Inferiour Officers and should they engage in particulars which are both below their highest office and oft-times contingent and uncertain they would commit the greatest imprudence in the world Since then my Ld acknowledges here p. 40. that the Council orders all hard and Subtil questions concerning Purgatory all that is suspected to be false and all that is uncertain and whatever is curious and superstitious and for filthy lucre be laid aside he should have shown that it befitted a Council's Gravity to descend to particulars or to define negatively to the School-opinion concerning the Churches Treasure and not rather order in Common and leave it to Inferior Officers to execute as circumstances should work upon their Prudence which is that in
Opinions which pretend a Subordination to and Coherence with Faith Divines should first clear their Incoherence with it ere They engage their Authority against them and then to do it efficaciously being back't with the Majesty of the Council's Orders My Lds words that the Fathers of the Council set their Doctors as well as they can to defend all the new curious and scandalous Questions and to uphold the gainful trade is indeed to the purpose but withal by his leave an unhandsome and most false Calumny against so many Persons of Honour and Quality and so Invidious a Charge that could he have proov'd it he had not slubber'd it over so carelesly without offering any proof for it but his bare word nor with a sleight proper to himself immediately after he had directly charged it have half recanted it with However it be with them that is whether they did any such thing or no as he had so lately and so pressingly challeng'd them to have done And this I note as a Third Head of his disingenuity frequent in his Book that he brings very good proofs for diverse particulars which concern not our Church but when it comes to the very point and which directly strikes at her his own bare word We know or it is Certain p. 54. l. 22. p. 62. p. 63. p. 67. c. is the best Argument he produces 16. A fourth disingenuity is his Perverting wilfully the Intention of Catholick Authours How he hath dealt with the Council of Trent in the two late mention'd points of Indulgences and Purgatory is already shown In like manner has he treated the Expurgatory Indies For whereas by the word Purgari emaculari in a Citation of his own p. 21 it is manisest they meant but to amend Corruptions of the late by the Antient Copies he makes as though out of gripes of Conscience forsooth that the Fathers were not right on our side they had therefore purposely gone about to corrupt the Fathers themselves p. 18. and 19. so to make them on our side because we could not find them so An Attempt impossible to fall into head of any man not stark mad For this altering the Fathers could not have serv'd our turn unless we had made it known and publish't it and if made Publick could not be imagin'd to do the deed neither for the Fraud must needs be made as Publick as the Book So that an Action thus intended must be a Human Action without a Motive or Reason which is a Contradiction Worse is what follows p. 21 22. but withal the malice of it is more easily discoverable For 't is evident by the particulars he mentions in those Indexes or Tables that the Printer or Correcter who made them was an Heretick and put in those Tables what his perversness imagin'd was found in the Fathers Whence it was but fit his whole Index should be expung'd Not that we fear the Fathers but that we disallow the wicked intentions of the Index-maker who abuses the Fathers to injure us So p. 62. he would make Catholikes themselves dissatisfy'd of the Ground of Transubstantiation because they say 't is not express'd in Scripture as if Catholiks held that nothing could be of Faith but what 's expresly found there whereas he well knows they universally teach and hold the contrary But his abuse of Peter Lombard p. 64. 65. is very remarkable though perhaps it might spring out of his little Experience in School-divinity To make Transubstantiation seem a Novelty he would persuade his Reader Lombard sayes he could not tell whether there was any Substantial change or no Whereas that Authour Dist. 10. brings Testimonies of the Fathers to prove it and concludes thence that 'T is evident that the Substance of Bread is converted into Christ's Body and the Substance of Wine into his Blood which is what the Council of Trent calls Transubstantiation And there ends that Distinction After which immediately succeeds the 11th De modis Conversionis of the Manners of this Conversion and of these he sayes he cannot sufficiently define whether this Conversion be Formal or Substantial or of another kind So that Substantial here supposes the Conversion of the Substance of Bread into Christes Body and is put by him onely to signify one of the manners of this Conversion which he explicates to be Sic Substantiam converti in Substantiam ut haec essentialiter fiat illa that one Substance is so converted into another Substance that the one is made essentially the other Whereas others who also hold Transubstantiation do yet explicate that Conversion by putting the body of Christ to succeed under the same Accidents in place of the Substance of Bread annihilated Now this Manner of Conversion calld by him a Substantial Manner in opposition to Formal which he makes to be a Conversion both of Substance and Accidents and not in Opposition to the change of one Substance into another he leaves Undefin'd but the Conversion it self of the Substance of Bread into the body of Christ which is our point he both defines hold proves out of Fathers Disc. 10. and calls them Hereticks that deny it How unfortunate is my L. to quote an Authour as not holding Transubstantiation then to call that Citation a plain Demonstration that it was not known in his dayes whereas he both professes to hold it and by alledging Fathers for it evidences he holds it was held anciently and lastly gives my L. such hard language for not holding it himself Whether it be likely my L. should light by some accident in reading Peter Lombard onely on the 11th Dist. and never read or light on the end of the 10th let Indifferent men judge I onely desire the Reader to observe how ill my L. comes of with his plain Demonstration and to remark that he ever succeeds worst when he most ayms at a good and solid proof the reason of which is because Truth being Invincible the neerer one closes to grapple with her the worse still he is foil'd Those few Instances may suffice for the 4th Kind of the Dissuaders disingenuities which is to pervert the Intentions of his Authours of which sort were it worth the pains I would undertake to show neer an hundred in my Lds. Dissuasive This piece of Art being now so customary to him that 't is even grown into a second Nature 17. His fifth kind of disingenuity is a most wilful one and most frequent too for it takes up far the better half his book 'T is this that he rakes up together all the less solid or ill Opinions and Cases and sometimes deforms the good ones of some private Writers in the Church which he will needs lay upon the Church her self as Mistress of our Faith Nay so strangely unjust he is in this Particular that whereas it evidently clears our Faith disengages the Church and shows it but Opinion when other Catholick Doctors uncontrolledly write against such an Opinion or Explication
the Spanish Master was at who hiring a proud Servant and agreeing with him that he should do nothing but what was concluded between them and writ down a while after falling in the dirt under his horse and calling to his man to help him out he told him he would first consult his written Paper whether that were put down there or no where not finding it he let his Master ly But the case of Pope Clement is far from the Envy he would asperse it with for why may not the Pope dissolve the Templars by his Power without Law whereas Christian Princes and the Church universally complain'd of them and mov'd him to it and so their Consent went accompany'd with this action of their Chief Governour 25. He hath onely two passages in that whole Chapter which even seem to concern our Church One of the Council of Trent concerning a point of Practice put down by him thus p. 266 267. That if a man have promist to a woman to marry her and is betroth'd to her and hath sworn it yet if he will before the Consunimation enter into a Monastery his Oath shall not bind him his promise is null but his second promise that shall stand and he that denies this is accurst by the Council of Trent Thus my Ld. where he tautologizes and layes it out at large to amplify it the more adds the words hath sworn it not found in the Council but put in by himself because he was resolvd we should be Perjur'd and avoids as was his frequent custome to put down the Councils own words in a distinct Letter so that his additions may be safer and in more hope to escape too open shame But to the point I ask my Ld. as a Divine Does not he hold Heaven our last End consequently that all our Actions are to be steps towards it consequently that there can be no ty to embrace any state of life in case it appear upon mature consideration of circumstances highly unapt and dangerous to the attainment of Bliss I ask again would not my Ld. himself renounce actually living with a wife if he in his conscience judg'd so but keep his promise let his Salvation go whether it would If he sees this plainly then the difficulty consists not in breaking a promise made to a Temporal end subordinate to our spiritual Last End for our Last Ends sake but in this whether such a Case can be put I propose him one may not a man come to see by better knowledge of his Spouses humour her newly-discover'd dishonesty the Inconveniences he shall incur by her ill-condition'd Friends and many such like that such a Cohabitation tends to make his whole Life a hell upon Earth which case is very possible and sometimes happens to the eternal and temporal ruin of both parties and the Infinit Scandal to the World In this case does he not think in his conscience it had been better in all respects they had been parted ere Matrimony had been consummated If then the man or woman to redeem their rashness in so lightly promising chose to debar themselves from all future hopes of marriage and quite forsake the world to serve God in a Religious Life it at once clears the reality of the Inconvenience and the persons Intentions and satisfies Temporal expectations nay ennobles in the conceit of good Christians the Attempt by the knowledge as far as any human Action can give of any Intention that the person had no base End in his Action but that which is infinitly Best Oh but this will break all Contracts Leagues Vows c. Let not my Ld. fear there is too much Original sin in the world for very many to run rather to a severe Life in a Monastery and there to make vows of Chastity than to go to bed with their Brides By this may be judg'd how my Ld. jumbles some good Cases with other bad ones and makes all equally naught did my designe of an Appendix give me leave to trace him through them all 26. His next passage seeming to touch our Church is alledg'd p. 265. Thus it is affirm'd and was practic 't by a whole Council of Bishops at Constance that Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks c. This is something now being the Affirmation I suppose he means or would be thought to mean definition and Practice of an approv'd General Council Attend now Reader for here the Dissuader once or twice at least in a whole Chapter ayms to speak to the purpose But first what a favour is this of my Lds. not to put down the words of the Council where it affirms this For this had made the case plain and the fault unavoidable Next which is yet a greater kindness he not so much as cites the place in which this Affirmation is found and to disabuse the Reader I assure him faithfully there is no such place or words found in the Council To say that Safe Conduct given by Lay men absolv'd from the Secular Court but not from the Ecclesiastical is quite another thing from his Invidious Proposition and withal very Rational For why should it since both their Cauies and Laws are distinct Whereas to violate Faith given and upon this score because the party to whom I gave it is an Heretick which my Ld. falsely charges is most unmanly nay Diabolical Yet though it lay in the Churches power to proceed Juridically her way yet it lay in the Emperours to hinder or differ the Execution if any publick Concern made it prudent But what I stand upon with leave of others is that no safe Conduct was promist them to return but onely to appear and have a fair trial My reason is because in the Safe Conduct given by the Council to Hierom and we may with reason conceive it was equivalently given to both we find it given with this conditional clause Justice being still preserv'd Also Appear according to the tenor of thy foresaid writing to answer to those things which one or more will object to thee in the cause of Faith that thou mayst receive and perform in all things the accomplishment of Justice Which implies that he was to expect Justice from the Council if he clear'd not himself Again a disciple of Husse's who writ his tryal and death and professes himself as much verst in the particulars as his senses could make him complaines indeed of safe conduct given by Sigismund in Writing of coming and returning yet putting down the very form of Safe Conduct no such thing as returning is found in it Nor did Hus in all his defence complain of Safe Conduct violated except when he was first bound which was upon occasion of his flying and being brought back Nay the Emperour alwayes threatned Hus that he had rather burn an obstinate Heretick than defend him In a word all this clamour is built on the Testimony of the Hussites and an imperfect relation writ in Dutch by an unlearned
I can justifie my self I complain then that your carriage in this one page discovers you at once an absolute stranger to Science and withal very uncivilly Injurious to me all along without any imaginable need Ground or the least occasion given You begin with a mistake of the reason why the Rational Way explained in Rushworth's Dialogues was follow'd by me in Schism Dispatcht or rather why that way was devised and conceive 't is because we despair of maintaining the Popes Personal Infallibility and think all your own if you disprove this So that you strongly apprehend this the basis of all our Faith By which I see Opinion and Faith is all one with you Deceive not your self nor your Readers Sir our D râ— came and do dispute against personal Infallibilities far more strongly than you are even likely and if you please to look into our Councils you find no news of building Faith on any such ground but onely on Tradition The Way I take is the old-and-ever-Way of the Church the farther Explication of it is indeed new not occasion'd by our relinquishing Personal Infallibility of the Pope you shall never show the Church ever built her Faith on a disputable Ground but by this occasion Had you look't into Things and consider'd the progress of the Rational part of the world as well as you pore on Books you would have discern'd that the Wits of this last half Century have been strangely curious and Inquisitive and straining towards a Satisfaction apt to bring all into doubt which they conceiv'd to hinder their way to it Had you reflected on those Heroes of such Attempts the Noble and Learned Sr. Kenelm Digby des Caries Gassendus Harvey and now the Royal Society those living Libraries of Learning in their several wayes you would have found that parallel to them in the matter of Controversy were the Ld. Faukland and Mr. Chillingworth whose acute wits sinding no Establishment nor Satisfaction in the Resolution of our Faith as made by some particular Divines nor yet in the Grounds of the Protestant Beleef endeavour'd to shake the whole Fabrick of our Faith and allow but a handsome Probability to their own Whence Doubt and Inquisitiveness being the Parents of Satisfaction and Evidence Catholick Controvertists began to apply themselves more closely and regardfully to look into the Groundâ— of their Faith Tradition or Universal delivery seâ—tled from the beginning of the Church proceeded upon by Councils and all the Faithful insisted on and stuck to by the Fathers especially those who were most Controversial as Athanasius S. Augustin Tertullian S. Hierome c. and at large by Vincentius Lirinensis and to consider how Proper Causes lay'd in Things by the Course of God's Providence had the virtue to produce the Effect of deriving down with Infallible Certainty Christ's doctrin to us Hence sprung our farther Explication of this way which so much bewonders you This is your mistake now to your Injuries I quoted Rushworth's Dialogues and call'd it The rich Store-house of motives fortifying Tradition Upon this your Reason works thus This I do not understand I never heard of such an Authour and it is possible the better to cry himself up he might borrow another name What means This I do not understand I 'le acquaint the Reader It means you are so wedded to talk by the book that you are utterly at a loss if an Authour be quoted you have not heard of The reason of which is because as I see by your Discourses which look like so many dreams your Genius inclines you not much to trade in Books which pretend to the way of Reason and if Schism Dispatch't so amaz'd you 't is to be fear'd that Sure-Footing and its Corollaries may put you out of your wirts But with what Civility should you hint I so extoll'd my self under another name it being as you say but possible Should I put upon you all things that were possible what a Monster might I make you But it abundantly manifests your short reach of reason that 't is highly Improbable For either I must have discover'd my self to the world to be Authour of both books and then I had sham'd my self with so high self-praises or not have manifested it and then where 's the credit I had got by the other book I had so extoll'd Your next Injury is that I make nothing of and disclaim the Testimonies of Popes and Prelates calling them the words of a few particular men and cite for it Schism Dispatch't p. 98. where there is not one word of either Pope or Prelate nor of disclaiming any Testimony nor of calling those the bare words of a few particular men Now if this be so every word you charge against me is an injurious Calumny and your whole charge a direct Falsisication My words are these By this is shown in what we place the Infallbility of the CHURCH not in the bare words of few particular men but in the manifest and ample Attestation of such a Multitude c. Where though you cannot or will not yet the Reader if he understands plain English will see I meddle not with who is or is not Infallible besides the Church nor sean the validity of Testimonies of Popes or Prelates but treat in what the Infallibility of the CHURCH consists Now the word CHURCH denothing in its First Signification an Universality I place her Infallibility in Universal Attestation from Age to Age. Notwithstanding which my Corollaries in Sure-Footing if your Wonderment at my new Way or your own habituation to words will let you understand them will let you see I also place Infallibility in lesser Councils even in particular Sees but most in the Popes or the Roman not by way of an Afflatus of which I for my part an able to give no account but by a course of Things Natural and Supernatural laid by Gods sweetly-and-strongly ordering Providence in second Causes But what aggravates your Falsification is that whereas I there counterpose bare words and Attestation rejecting the first and making use of the later you make me affirm Testimonies to be bare words To which how much I attribute every such passage of mine will tell you for on them the way I follow entirely builds So that this whole Charge is either quite opposit or else disparate to what I say in the place whence you cite my words Your third Injury and 't is a strange one is that I sleight Scriptures Fathers and Councils as much in this business and call them in scorn Wordish Testimonies for which you cite Schism Dispatch't p. 42. But not such a word is found there nor I will undertake any where else in my Writings 'T is likely indeed that speaking of such things as you use to call Testimonies for you name every sleight Citation such whether it have the nature of Witnessing in it that is be built on Sensations or no I may say they are wordish in regard you have no
Certain means to arrive at their Sence and till then I beseech you what are they else but meer WORDS or rather meer Characters and Sounds What high deference I give to Scripture see § 18 19. beginning p. 146. in Sure-Footing To Councils see Corol. 27. To Fathers taking them properly you may be inform'd by the whole Body of my Discourse concerning Tradition of which they are a part and the Eminentest Members of it in Proportion to their number Your 4th Injury is that the onely thing I place Infallibility in is Oral Tradition and the Testimonies of Fathers of Families whereas I place Infallibilities also in other things though I make this the greatest But your discourse makes me disesteem and exclude all others both Popes Prelates Fathers and Councils by establishing this Whereas by settling this I establish all others nor find you any such Expressions in my Book on the contrary 't is evident by those words I include them unless you think Popes and Prelates are not Fathers of Families but take lodgings or hire rooms in other mens houses by the week Truth is being to express the obligatory descent of Faith from Age to Age I cast about for a common word fit to express such Deliverers and conceiv'd this of Fathers of Families the aptest because the Church consisting of Families this was most General and every Master of a Family by being such has an Obligation to see all under him taught their Catechism or Faith This in common which was enough for my purpose then But were I to distinguish the strength of those Testimonies I should show that a Priest hath an Incomparable advantage above a Layman a Bishop above him and the Head of the Church above a Bishop Your 5th Injury is lighter because it speaks but your own Apprehensions and I am to expect no better from you My many chimerical suppositions and my Impertinencies in which I so please my self must needs begets wonder say you in case the man as probably be of any account and reputation in the world Now my Suppositions in the way I take are chiefly these that men in all Ages had Eyes and Ears the wit and if they were good Christians the Grace not to tell an open and damnable ly to no purpose and for these I should much wonder my self if you did not wonder at such odd Grounds and esteem them Chimerical because you have read them in no ancient book for you use not to look into Things By this extravagant kind of dealing you say you cannot but suspect me to be one of the Fraternity of the new-pretended Lights I believe you heartily For to begin with Self-evident principles and thence to deduce Immediate Consequences is such a new Light to you as I dare undertake scarce one beam of it ever enter'd into the Eye of your Understanding I conceive 't is the difference between your way ours which breeds all this mis-intelligence Ours ayms to bring all Citations to Grounds by way of Cause and Effect yours to admit them confusedly especially if writ by some old Authors provided they speak not for the Interest of Papists for then they are questionable Ours is to be backwards in assenting to any thing writ long ago till our Reason be satisfy'd no Passion or mistake could invalidate its Authority yours to believe them hand over head if the book be but said to be Authentick which is to a degree the same Weakness as that of the rude Country people who think all true they see in Print and that their having a ballad of it is sufficient to authenticate it Our Principle is that no Authority deserves any Assent farther than Reason gives it to deserve and hence we lay Principles to assure us of Knowledge and Veracity in the Authour ere we yeeld over our Assent to his sayings Yours is kinder-hearted than to hold them to such strict terms and is well appay'd if some Authour you have a conceit of praise the other for a good Writer or his work for a good Book Ours is to lay Self-evident Principles and deduce immediate consequences and by this means to cultivate our Reason that noblest Faculty in us which constitutes us Men yours to lay up multitudes of Notes gleand from several Authours and if you better any Spiritual Faculty you have 't is your Memory not your Reason Hence we carry for the main of our Doctrin and as far as 't is antecedent to written Authority our Library in our Heads and can as well study in a Garden as sitting in a Library stufit with books whereas your way of Learning ties you to turn over leaves of Authours as children do their Dictionaries for every step of your discourse and as an ingenious man said of those Poets who spun not their Poems out of their own Invention but made them up of scraps of wit transcrib'd from other Authours Lord how they 'd look If they should chance to lose their paper Book So we may say of you that if your Notes you have with much pains collected hap to miscarry you are utterly at a loss so that little of your Learning is Spiritual and plac't in your Soul as true Learning should be but in material and perishable paper and characters In a word your whole performance ends here that you are able to declare what other men say whereas ours aims at enabling us to manifest what our selves KNOW No wonder then if our wayes being so different we cannot hit it but that as you think ours Chimerical so I assure my self yours and consequently all you write in that way is as far as you go about to conclude or cause Assent by it exceedingly ridiculous This I doubt not will confirm you in what you said before that I am no Friend to Ancient Books or Learning To Note-book Learning indeed not much to true Learning or Knowledge very much and even to the other as far as it conduces to This. To Books I am so much a Friend that I desire not a few should be selected of each sort by a General Council of Schollers and the rest burn'd as did an ingenious person but I would onely have the riff-raff burn'd 't is no great matter if that tedious Legend of Dr. Dee's Sprights accompany them and the Generality preserv'd but so that their Contents should be gather'd in Heads or Common-place books for Schollers to look in occasionally not for rational Creatures to spend their whole lives in poring on them and noting them with a foolish expectation to find true Knowledge by stuffing their Heads with such a gallimawfry and after 40. years thus spent never the wiser for indeed this is little better than for one to hope to frame himself a good sute of Apparel by picking thrums ends out of a multitude of old and overworn Garments But to the point I distinguish Books And as for the Scriptures ascertaining their Letter and Sence which is done by Tradition 't is clear they
are of Incomparable value not onely for the Divine Doctrin contain'd in them but also for many particular passages whose Source or first Attestation not being universal nor their nature much Practical might possibly have been lost in their conveyance down by Tradition Next follows those of Councils and Fathers and supposing Christ a perfect Law-giver 't is clear all they have to do with Faith is to witness the Churches beleef and the former of them to declare or explain Faith or the Churches Sence against obstinate Hereticks As such then their Books are to be valu'd that is exceedingly Next follow such as Euclid's or Archimedes his which express Science and those are of very great worth in regard they acquaint us with and manifest to our hands the Knowledge of the former world which being Speculative little of it could have come down by Tradition except when that Speculation became Practical and exprest it self in Matter by many useful or rather needful Arts Trades or Manufactures After these succeed Opinionative Books of which this last Age has produc't multitudes and these also are very useful if the Reader go not too credulously to work but have right Principles laid already in his head for then the variety of mens Conceits and their Reasons for them will hint to a Considerer diverse Consequences which otherwise the slowness and distractedness of our Reason would not have light of nay even the miscairiages of such Reasoners avail a wise man as Aristotle out of the contrary Opinions of Philosophers whom he saw failing in their Grounds gathered very happily the middle Truth These Books therefore are worth preserving Human Histories come next and These second Tradition in her object matter of Fact after she hath authenticated them and the Circumstances of their Writers There are others fit for Explications or Rational Declarations of a point by Similitudes allusions Examples such like as Pliny's Natural History Emblems Fictions others of an Ornamental Nature which being useful for Sermons and Discourses sutable to the middle size of the world 't is plain they are preservable With this caution that these and chiefly Opinionative books be either kept from the weak and credulous vulgar or else in the Preface to them some learned Authority declare in common how far they are to be credited lest by imposing on the reasons of the Generality they hinder the world's improvement Prayer-books and Recreation-books 't is almost as Evident they are to be preserv'd as 't is that Prayers and Recreations are to be used Onely caution is to be had the former be examin'd well and approov'd by Ecclesiastical Authority and that the later be chast and unabusive You have here my sentiment concerning Books against which you shall find nothing in Schism Dispatch't or any of my Writings In a word I would have every thing distinguish't examin'd by Grounds allow'd as far as 't is reasonable Nor wonder I much at your mistake of me in this point for you are not the onely man that thinks all Books and even Authority to be absolutely deny'd when they are sorted and rank't in their just degree of merit that is indeed settled and establish't for we Metaphysicians think nothing to stand firm but by being or being held-to-be truly what it is You denounce Wo to Colledges and Libraries if these men should prevail Yet you see now I leave you Libraries enow and permit you your onely darlings Books and onely desire you would love them wisely Neither will Colledges forfeit their Libraries to my Discourse Onely whereas you would have Schollers educated there onely pore on books Note and when they come to write quote I would have them take Principles along with them by which to judge and consider of what they read Without which 't is to be fear'd their much reading will do them more harm then good and even pervert honest natural Reason in them by filling their heads with a multitude of unconnected and unconnectible Ends of Sayings impossible to be ever postur'd in the frame of Reason and themselves unfurnish't of means to know which rather to adhere to which may sit them to talk indeed of many things like Parrats yet all the while for want of Principles know nothing of what they say If you would have Colledges consist of such I conceive I am a far better Friend to Colledges than your self are and that no great cause of Woe will come to them by my means But as our way in your conceit brings Woe to Colledges and Libraries so you affirm that Atheism and Mahometism will get by it By which I understand what a Disputant you are I beleeve you would quote Scriptures and Books to confute an Atheist or Mahometan whereas I conceive since all Discourse supposes an Agreement between the Discoursers in some Common Principle and they denie or undervalue your written proofs you must begin to confute them by Maxims of common Reason antecedent to all Authority For these Human Nature obliges all men to hold to unless they have quite irrationaliz'd themselves into perfect Scepticism whereas they reject or sleight the other which to render Efficacious you must go to work first with Principles of plain reason Your last Injury which I account the worst of all the rest is deliver'd thus Others of approved worth and abilities have met with this man who I think have done him more credit than he deserved This argues you are so set to abuse me that no Testimony though never so valid and confest to be such can stave you of And the Judgment or Veracity of my Friends who speak by Experience shall be question'd rather than you will be brought to entertain any conceit of me that 's handsome You leap voluntarily into Falsifications and ill-languag'd misconceits without any motive but are so restif and backward to think or speak in the lest civilly of me that witnesses of approved worth and abilities cannot win you to favourable apprehensions nor keep you from pursuing your resolute Censoriousness Had you found half that Testimony for the Authentickness of an old Writer in some mouse-eaten rag of Antiquity it had gone down currently with your Genius and bin next to Gospel I value not your Judgment of me but highly and equally dislike your humour as void of all Ingenuity whether it had been us'd to my self or another When you review Schism Dispatcht and see your mistakes I hope you will have a good conceit of my Friends at least for whom in this passage I apologize But that I may re-acquaint my self with you I am to tell you that you also have met me formerly and knew me very well Nay that I am exceedingly bound to you for the best favour in the world which is that accidentally you contributed to make me a Catholick But because 't is long ago I am forc't to remind you of it by two Tokens One is that in Durham-house where you at that time lodg'd when you came to
over-bear me with the conceiv'd Authority of other Divines resolving Faith in their Speculative Thoughts after another manner than I do since this can onely tend to stir up Invidiousness against my person which yet their charity secures me from and not any wayes to invalidate mv discourse For every one knows t is no news Divines should differ in their way of explicating their Tenet which they both notwithstanding hold never the less firmly and every learned man understands that the word Divine importing a man of Skill or Knowledge in such a matter no Divine has any Authority but from the Goodness of the Proofs or Reasons he brings and on which he builds that Skill Please then to bring not the empty pretence of a Divines Authority or Name to oppose me with and I shall freely give you leave to make use of the Virtue of their Authorities that is their Reasons against me as much as you will I easily yeeld to those great discoursers whoever they be a precedency in other Speculations and Knowledges to which they have been more addicted and for which they have been better circumstanc't In this one of the Ground of Faith both my much Practice my particular Application my Discourses with our nations best Wits of all sorts my perusing our late acute Adversaries and the Answers to them with other Circumstances and lastly my serious and industrious studying the Point join'd with the clearing Method God's Providence has led me to have left me as far as I know in no disadvantage What would avail you against me and our Church too for my Interest as defending Tradition is indissolubly linkt with Hers is to show that our Church proceeds not on Tradition or that in Her Definitions She professes to resolve Faith another way rather than mine or which is equivalent to rely on somthing else more firmly and fundamentally than on Tradition But the most express and manifold Profession of the Council of Trent to rely constantly on Tradition has so put this beyond all possible Cavil on my side that I neither fear your Skill can show my Grounds in the least subcontrary to hers nor the Goodness of any Learned and considering Catholik however some may conceive the Infallibility of the Church plac't ad abundantiam in somthing else will or can ever dislike it I expect you may go about to disgrace my Way as new But I must ask whether you mean the substance of it is new or onely that 't is now deeper look't into and farther explicated than formerly If you say the former my Consent of Authorities p. 126 127 c. has clearly shown the contrary and common sense tells us no other way was or could be possibly taken for the Generality of the Church at least in Primitive times till Scripture was publisht universally and collected If the later please to reflect that every farther Explication or Declaration as far as 't is farther must needs be new and so instead of disgracing us you most highly commend our reasons for drawing consequences farther than others had done before us Again if it be onely a farther Explication it is for that very reason not-new since the Sence of the Explication is the same with the thing explicated As 't is onely an Explication then 't is not-new as farther 't is indeed new but withal innocent nay commendable But there are three things more to be said on occasion of this objecting Catholik Divines One is that taking Tradition for the living voice of the present Church as I constantly declare my self to do not one Catholick does or can deny it for he would eo ipso become no-Catholick but an Arch-heretick and this all acknowledge In the thing explicated then that is in the notion of Tradition all agree with me and consequently in the Substance of my Explication nor can any do otherwise except they be equivocated in the Word Tradition and mistake my meaning which I conceive none will do wilfully after they have read here my declaration of it so unmistakably laid down The second thing is that an Alledger of those Divines will onely quote their Words as Speculaters not those in which they deliver themselves naturally as Christians or Believers which Sayings were they collected we should finde them unanimously sounding to my advantage and not one of them oppositely And lastly speaking of our Explication as to its manner Divines contradict one another in other kinds of Explications but not one Author can be alledged that expresly contradicts this which I follow 10. My sixth request is that you would speak to the main of my Book and not catch at some odd words on the by as it were Otherwise understanding Readers will see this is not to answer but to cavil 11. And because we are I hope both of us endeavouring to clear Truth I am sure we ought to be so therefore to acquit your self to your Readers that you ingenuously aim at it I conceive you will do your self a great deal of right and me but reason nay which is yet weightier do the common Cause best service if you will joyn with me to retrench our Controversie as much as we can Let us then avoid all Rhetorical Digressions and Affectations of Witty and fine Language which I have declin'd in my whole Book and chosen a plain downright manner of Expression as most sutable and connatutural to express Truth Likewise all Repetitions of what particulars others have said or answer'd before us such as are the Objections made by that ingenious person the L. Faukland and the Answers given them in the Apology for Tradition unless it be conceiv'd those Solutions are insufficient and Reasons be offer'd why they are judg'd so For I conceive it an endless folly to transcribe and reprint any thing others have done before us except it be Grounds which ought to be oft inculcated and stuck to and those particulars which we show to be not yet invalidated but to preserve still their strength Much less do I suspect it can fall under the thought of one who aims to discourse rationally such my Answerer ought to be to rake together all the filth and froth of the unwarrantable Actions or Opinions of some in the Church or to run on endlesly with multitudes of invective invidious sayings on his own head without proof then apply them to the Church as does the Disswader It would also very much conduce to the bringing our differences to a narrower compass if you would candidly take my Book endwayes and declare what in it is evident and so to be allowed what not What Principles are well laid or Consequences right drawn and what are otherwise To requite which favours I promise the same Carriage in my Reply to you By this means it will be quickly discover'd whether or no you have overthrown my Discourse by showing it ill coherent and how far 't is faulty that if I cannot clear it to be connected I may confess
my fault and endeavour to amend it For however I see my Grounds Evident yet I am far from judging my self Infallible in drawing my Consequences though I see withal the method I take will not let me err much Or if I do my Errour will be easily discoverable because I go not about to cloud my self in words but to speak out as plain as I can from the nature of the Thing 12. In the next place I earnestly request you as you love Truth not to shuffle of the giving me a full Answer nor to desist from your Enterprise as I hear a Certain person of great esteem for his learning and prudence has already done though you find some difficulty where to fasten upon the Substantial part of my discourse There are perhaps many difficult passages which my Shortness forc't me to leave Obscure These will naturally occasion mistake and Mistake will breed Objections to impugn me with Please if others fail to make use of those at least 'T is no discredit in you to mistake what 's obscure rather it argues a fault in me did not my circumstance of writing Grounds onely to Schollers excuse me that I left it so To make amends for which I promise you to render it clear when I see where it pinches you or others And on this score I owe very particular thanks to Mr Stillingfleet that by speaking clearly out his thoughts he gave me a fair occasion to open that point he impugn'd I think upon mistake of our Tenet 13. If you think fit somtimes to argue ad hominem be sure what you build on be either our Churches Tenet or mine for I am bound to defend nothing else If then you quote Fathers first see they speak as Fathers that is as Believers and Witnessers for so 't is evident our Church means them by her Expressions in the Council of Trent as also did Antiquity For both of them constantly alledge and stand upon Traditio Patrum not Opinio Patrum Next see you bring Consensus Patrum or an agreement at least of very many of them speaking as Witnesses otherwise you will not touch me nor our Church for she never abetted them further In case you bring Councils it would be very efficacious you would chuse such Testimonies if you can finde them as I brought from the Council of Trent that is such in which they declare themselves or the Circumstances give it they proceed upon their Rule of Faith For otherwise every one knows that Bishops in a Council have in them besides the Quality of Faith-Definers those also of Governours and of the most Eminent and solid Divines in God's Church If Scripture you must make Evident the Certainty of your way of arguing from it ere I or our Church shall allow it argumenative Thus much for Authority If you oppose me by my own Principles or Discourses of my Reason I must defend my self as well as I can One thing on this occasion I must mind you of 't is this that though you should conquer in this way of arguing ad hominem you onely conquer me as a Discourser by showing that I contradict my self not my Tenet for to prove that false you must fix your foot and build your discourse on some Certain Ground which barely my holding it on which your discourse ad hominem relies cannot make it You must build then on some Grounded Truth if you will go about to overthrow a pretended one Indeed if you can show Tradition contradicts her self you will do more than miracle and so must conquer But I fear not the Gates of Hell much less Man's wit can prevail against that impregnable Rock Onely I beseech you bring not as Parallels against our Tradition in hand which is a vast and strong stream other little petty rivulets sprung originally from the Sensations of two or three For then as one side was liable in a thing not known publikly to bely their Senses so the conveyance down of such sleight built Attestations may easily be self-contradictory In a word if you will argue take first into your Thoughts the nature of the Thing you argue against and then fall to work assoon as you will Now if you should chance to say you hold the Sayings of Fathers and Councils some at least to be Certain my Reason tells me from Principles that having renounc't Tradition which onely could ascertain them rational nature in you will not let you have any hearty conceit of their Convictiveness whatever you pretend but that you rawly alledge them and so let them go with a valeant quantum valere possunt That therefore we may have some security more than your bare word which Experience tells us is now affirmative now negative in this point as it best sutes your Interest or after a pretty Indifferent manner half-one-half-tother that your profession of holding to such Authorities is not hollow-hearted but rooted in your Reason 't is just your Readers should expect you would declare in what the virtue of Certifying consists and that They have this virtue This if you do you acquit your self to go to work solidly and you offer us fair play in giving us some hold of your Reason whereas a common Expression gives none This Procedure also will show when apply'd whether you are Justisiable or no for admitting some Authorities of that nature and rejecting others 14. My last request is that if in the course of your Answer you think fit to complain of me for bringing History and other Proofs heretofore commonly without more ado admitted into Incertainty please to amend the fault you finde and settle their Certainty on some better Principles than I have endeavour'd In the mean time 't is Evident my whole Book ayms at settling the Certainty of all Authority by evidencing the Certainty of First Authority upon which the Assuredness of History Fathers Councils Church Faith nay Virtue or Christian Life must all be built This is my way if you judge it incompetent to do the Effect spoken of be pleas'd to manifest it Unfit and show us a Better 15. Perhaps I may have demanded more of you in some particulars than is due from the strict duty of meerly answering in the Schools a bare denial or distinction is enough for a Respondent But I conceive we are not on these terms in regard we are not met face to face where the returns of the one to the other can be quick on every occasion This obliges us for the Readers satisfaction to enlarge our selves and bring reason for everything we affirm or deny lest we should be thought to do it gratis And your case here is particularly disadvantageous For if you go about to overthrow that on which I aym to show the Certainty of all Authority built and yet declare not on what your self hold them built and by your faithful promise to show it shortly give them strong hopes you will perform it you send them away very much dissatisfy'd either with you or with all the Authority in the world though built on Sensitive Knowledge Of which it being impossible Rational Nature should permit them to doubt they must needs dislike your attempt and have an ill conceit of your performance SIR I understand to my exceeding Satisfaction that multitudes of the most Eminent Solid and Ingenuous Wits of our Nation have been diligent perusers of my Book Consider their eyes are upon you while you Answer I am confident they will judge I have requested no more of you in this Letter but what 's reasonably due to their and my satisfaction and so will look your Answer should be correspondent They are weary of endless Contests about Faith and seeing we are not now controverting the signification of some ambiguous Testimony but penetrating deep into the very bowels of a point which is of the greatest concern in the whole world and pursuing in a method likely to decide the clearing of it their expectations are very much erected and attentively observing what will be the issue of this rational combat Frustrate not their desires to see Truth manifested by bringing the Question back from the plain open field of Evidence-in-our-method to a Logomachy or word-skirmish in a Wilderness of Talk out of which the Thread of Grounds or Principles had disent angled it To them therefore as well as your self I address this requesting those of them who are acquainted with my Answerer to press him to do himself me the world his Cause too if it can bear it the right due in Reason and here demanded This Sir if you will perform I shall lay aside the remembrance of the Justice I have to it and look upon it purely as a Favour and most obliging Civility to him who is next to Truth 's Feb. 6th 1665. Your Friend and well-wisher J. S. POSTSCRIPT IF you complain of this Fore-stalling as Unusual as long as it is rational you can have no reason to do so and it will appear such to him that considers it was an unusual Circumstance occasion'd it IT is this I had endeavour'd to bring Controversie from an Endless to a Conclusive Way and both my Reason and Experience made me apprehend my Protestant Answerer would have such strong Inclinations to bring it back into the way of quoting and glossing Testimonies that is into a wordish scanning a great part of all the Libraries in the World that a slender touch at it in my Book was not forcible and express enough to oblige him to take notice of it Having communicated therefore my thoughts with intelligent and ingenuous persons both Catholiks and Protestants and receiv'd their approbation I resolv'd and pursued it as you see And I hope the manifold Usefulness of it as shall be seen what way soever now you take upon you of answering will sufficiently justify my Action FINIS
London and in your chamber there upon occasion of reading a book writ by a certain Protestant Bishop against the Real presence I observ'd and acquainted you with my observation that to my Judgment the Fathers spoke more favourably for the Papists tenet than the Protestants Hereupon you took me by the hand and told me they were mad who read the Ancient Fathers and saw not they meant Christ was as really in the Sacrament as in Heaven The other was yet more remarkable and this that either your Grandfather or Father I know not which but I think your Grandfather was intimate with Mr. Calvin and when he had put out his Explication of Christ's presencein the Sacrament which dodg'd and shuffled between really and notreally that is between is and is-not he challeng'd Mr. Calvin with it and laid open to him the non-Sence and indefensibleness of it asking him why he put out so strange an Opinion which he was never able to make good at which Mr. Calvin took hold of his own finger and said See you this I would willingly cut it off on condition I had never put it out so To which your Grandfather reply'd You should then explain it some other way Mr. Calvin answer'd My Institutions are so spread all over France that 't is now too late Thus you letting me see by a Testimony very immediate that the late Authour of this Tenet which now so reigns all over England wish't his finger cut off when he writ it How you will reconcile this with the late new piece of the Rubrick in the Common-Prayer-book absolutely renouncing all real presence in which point the Church of of England formerly exprest her self abstractedly do you consider Sir I beseech you let this be a fair warning to you how you deal disingenuously for the future and pardon some of my expressions to my high provocation and exceeding great hast I am sure the worst of them is a Civility compar'd to the harsh carriage you have us'd towards your self in openly falsifying both my words and sence and causlesly wresting to an ill construction every passage you touch't yet not doing me the right to go about to answer any one in the least that so I might see by your Reasons you had Grounds to think as you writ Had you argu'd against me I know too well the right of a Writer to take it ill if you laid open and nam'd my conceived Faults though the names of them had been harsh Words but not even to attempt to confute them yet to flie into such Expressions is the very definition of railing I was extreme sorry to lay open the Fault of a Friend though my own Concern made it Fitting and your demerit Just and do assure you that onely the Injury to my Cause which went along in that action oblig'd me to this Vindication Setting aside the duty I owe to That I am still as ever Your true Friend and humble Servant J. S. A LETTER from The Authour of Sure-footing to his Answerer SIR I Am certainly inform'd there is an Answer to my Book intended and a Person chosen out for that Employment whose Name I am unconcern'd to know it being only his Quality as a Writer I have to do with I receive the Alarum with great chearfulness knowing that if my Adversary behaves himself well it will exceedingly conduce to the clearing and settling the main point there controverted But because there is difference between being call'd an Answer and being an Answer and that 't is extremely opposit to my Genius to be task't in laying open mens Faults even as Writers though it has been my unhappiness formerly to meet with Adversaries whose way of winning made that carriage my only duty wherefore to prevent as much as I am able all occasion of such unsavory oppositions and to make way to the clearing the point that so our Discourse may redound to the profit and satisfaction of our Readers I make bold to offer you these few Reflexions which in effect contain no more but a Request you would speak to the point and in such a way as is apt to bring the matter nearer a clearing This if you please to do you will very much credit your self and your endeavours in the opinion of all ingenuous persons If you refuse and rather chuse to run into Rhetorical Excursions and such Discourses as are apt to breed new Controversies not pertinent to the present one under hand you will extreamly disparage both your self your party and your Cause and give me an exceeding advantage against them all I shall also have the Satisfaction to have manifested before-hand by means of this Letter that I have contributed as much as in me lies to make you avoid those Faults which I must then be forc't to lay open and severely press upon you little to your Credit nor your Causes neither You being as I am informd and Reason gives it signally chosen out as held most able to maintain it 2. That there may be no more distance between us than what our Cause enforces I heartily assure you that though I highly dislike your Tenets negatively opposit to what we hold Faith and the Way of Writing I foresee you must take unless you resolve to love Candour better than your Cause as being Inconclusive and so apt to continue not finish debates yet I have not the least pique against yours or any mans Person Nor have I any particular aversion against the Protestant party rather I look upon it with a better eye than on any other Company whatever which has broke Communion with the Catholick Church It preserves still unrenounc't the form of Episcopacy the Church-Government instituted by Christ and many grave Solemnities and Ceremonies which make our Union less difficult Many of their soberest Writers acknowledge divers of the renounc't Tenets to be Truths some of them also profess to hold Tradition especially for Scripture's Letter and even for those Points or Faith-Tenets in which they and we agree that is where their Interest is not touch't I wish they would as heartily hold to it in all other Points which descended by it and look into the Virtue it has of ascertaining and declare in what that Virtue consists I am confident a little candour of confessing truly what they finde joyn'd with an endeavour of looking into Things rather than Words would easily make way to a fair Correspondence I esteem and even honour the Protestants from my heart for their firm Allegiance to his Sacred Majesty and his Royal Father This uniting them already with all sober Catholiks under that excellent notion of good Subjects and in the same point of Faith the Indispensableness of the duty of Allegiance we owe our Prince by Divine Law Lastly I declare that for this as well as for Charitable Considerations I have a very particular zeal for their reconcilement to their mother-Mother-Church and that 't is out of this love of Union I endeavour so earnestly