have neither told me what you mean by intrinsical Mediums only you seem to hint that they are Reasons why a thing is to be believed and so are extrinsical Mediums to neither have you said a word that I know of to shew how all Truth is built upon them I. S. You see also that whereas you apprehended they would overthrow our Church's Testimony or Authority such Mediums in case we produce them are the best means to establish it and give it force upon our selves and others Ib. C. This also I see just as much as I did before You suppose I apprehended why you know best for I am half confident you never apprehended I did so that the intrinfical Reasons of your Church's Authority when produced would overthrow it To whose roving Fancy owe we this pure and fine Invention Sir That which I apprehended was this That seeing all Truths depend on intrinfical grounds as you say and cannot be held Truths till those intrinsical grounds of them be produced Therefore they are not to be held Truths for the Authority of your Church because that Authority whatever it be and on what intrinsical grounds soever establish'd is no intrinsical ground of those Truths to be believed And have you yet said one word to contradict this Not a syllable but talk at random of another thing I. S. You also see how it comes that the Church can oblige to belief not by a dry commanding our Faith as you apprehend but by having its humane Authority solidly grounded upon Reason it self becomes a Motive able to beget assent Ib. C. Now Sir I thank you you have set me right just as I was before What I saw you have made me see and what I saw not I see not yet Such is the illuminating vertue of your compassionate Instructions I ask not you whether this great pains to tell me what I knew and had told you so was the business of a man well awake Yet lest you should say I was not attentive I will repeat to you the Lesson you have taught me Your Church's Authority is Humane Authority it has force to prove the Truths which depend upon it it has this force amongst those that admit it and it concludes against such as own its Veracity it deserves no Assent farther than Reason gives it to deserve nor is it greater than that of an Old Woman till better Reason be produced for it Hence I conclude Seeing we admit not your Church's Authority neither own its Veracity it proves nothing to us nor concludes any thing against us Seeing Articles of Faith depend not on Humane Authority your Church's Authority can have no effect on humane Nature to oblige to a belief of them Seeing all its Credit depends on its intrinsical Reasons produced till they be produced we are not bound to give any credit to it When these Reasons shall be produced its Testimony has but the nature of an external Motive not of an intrinsical Ground And therefore either your Position overthrows your Church's Authority or it your Position chuse you which I. S. What is the Second thing you fear I will not grant C. If your Position be true it will follow That the common People must be allow'd their Judgment of Discretion for how without the free use of that they shall discern the intrinsical grounds of Truth when produced and so with Reason hold it I fear you cannot easily demonstrate Will you grant us this I. S. You gave your self the Character of a Scrupulous man and I see by this you have a mind to maintain it R. p. 7. C. And if you will grant it you will gain the Character of a man much more liberal than your Neighbours If you grant it 't is I doubt but in mockery because you so often laugh at us for desiring it I. S. You know that those who write and print can have no design their Books should not be read and you know those that read will and must judge of what they do read R. p. 7. C. Yet if their Books contain nothing else but unsensed Characters which is the thing you say of the Scripture and he that reads or interprets gives the sense I see not to what end they would have their Books read and therefore neither why they write them nor indeed how any one can judge of them unless they would have them judg only of the fineness of the Characters Pray Sir let me ask you Can you think God writes to less purpose than men are wont to do If he have caused a Book to be written and that to all was it not his Will that his Book should also be read of all to whom it was written or did he not intend they should judge of what they read therein and examine Doctrines by it Do you now grant us this Judgment of Discretion as exercised about Divine Truths revealed in the Scripture If you do I thank you for it If not to what purpose is your talk of reading mens Books or their writing them that we may judge I. S. Indeed I think it no great sign of a Judgment of Discretion to pretend to discern the Truth of Faith by Lights that do not shew it to be true Ib. C. Nor I neither I. S. You conclude that I have set us all on even ground Yes for I set Absolute Certainty on the one side and Vncertainty on the other and this in your Language is even ground R. p. 8. C. What I conclude is thus proved The Church of Rome is to be believed only when she produceth the intrinsical grounds of Truth and just so far is the Church of England or any other Church to be believed and so all are of equal Authority to oblige in points of Faith. This in my Language is even ground for the one stands no higher in Authority than the other Now say what you please of your Certainty and Vncertainty to gain the higher ground again I. S. Suppose we could not prove that Protestants are not certain are they therefore certain L. p. 4. C. You imagine it should seem that all the certainty of our Faith is this that Papists cannot prove it to be uncertain A. p. 6. I. S. The meaning of my words is clearly this That the certainty of the Protestant Faith must depend on their own proofs for it not on any man's being able or not able to prove the contrary R. p. 8. C. You meant so you say and the thing is true I. S. To avoid proving you put upon me the direct contrary to what I affirm'd viz. That the certainty of Protestant Faith does depend upon our not proving they have none C. I put no such thing upon you nor needed I do it to avoid proving which I had never undertaken but only to reflect on some parts of your Letter who had undertaken to prove the Nullity of our Rule Allow me then to give my own meaning as you take the liberty to give yours
oddly expressed but I am willing to make the best on 't and to think that you mean no more than what you said but now that it was about the Nullity of our Rule and the Absolute Certainty of yours I. S. Both of those Discourses were supposed by us to be Conclusive Ib. C. I doubt it not but you thought them Absolute Demonstrations yet I was bold to tell my Friend in a Letter I thought you were mistaken I. S. Your whole Letter seems to have no other design but to bring the Dispute into a Wrangle Ib. C. And you I thank you took care it should not lose its design if that was it and have return'd me nothing else but a Wrongle for a Reply But let 's fall to our Business I. S. I grieve and wonder there should be so little value for Souls among your Party as to send men to the Tribunal of God without furnishing them with Assurance that they can justifie their Accounts themselves R. p. 2. C. Speak you this in good earnest as considering how you shall justifie your Accounts your self at that Tribunal What better course our Party takes to furnish men with such Assurance than yours doth I told you A. p. 3. whereof you are not pleased to take any notice though you were so punctual in tracing me step by step Now I must needs continue my wonder seeing no man can be assured that he can justifie his Accounts unless he know that he hath the Grace of God and seeing you being a Roman Catholick believe the Council of Trent saying No man can know that he hath obtain'd the Grace of God how you can be so unreasonably exacting as to require that of our Party which your self believe no man can do I. S. If you speak as I did of an Account of Faith I hope you will not perswade us a man cannot know why he believes without knowing whether he be in a state of Grace R. p. 3. C. And I hope you will not endeavour to perswade us that a mans bare knowing why he believes will enable him to justifie his Account even of his Faith it self We know why we believe the Christian Faith think you we are therefore able to justifie our Account of Faith Then our Dispute is ended Suppose another may know why he believes the Pope to be Antichrist as I am sure he may whether it be true or false and his Reasons good or bad I hope you will not grant he can thereby justifie his Account of Faith. I. S. The bare Assurance of the Truth which a man believes is a Justification of his believing it Ib. C. You spake of an Account that will pass as it is in it self L. p. 5. but this Account of Faith will not pass as it is in it self without Grace Such a bare Assurance will only be such a Justification of a man's believing as will add to his condemnation for holding the Truth in Vnrighteousness and knowing his Master's will without doing it I. S. If you speak of an Account of our whole lives you turn things against the plain scope of my Discourse against my plain words and I much fear against your own knowledge Ib. C. Your scope in this part of your Discourse was evidently this to make our Party appear careless of mens Souls I. S. The only Question was of the Certainty of Protestant Faith An Account why you Protestants believe was the only Account that belongs to that Question Ib. C. That Question and the shifting off the Proof to another you wave in the beginning of your third Section L. p. 4. saying Of this Proposal there will be occasion to say more by and by At present consider say you how you deal with Souls who rely on you And all through the Section your business is to charge us with carelesness of mens Souls I suppose you mean especially in our not giving them Assurance of their Faith. This being the Fault you charge our Party with you thus proceed to aggravate it Must not every body one day bring in his own Account c. And will not the happiness or misery of their Souls depend on that Account Can you suffer them to run that terrible hazard without making them able to justifie their Accounts themselves and furnishing them with Assurance that they can c. These are your plain words and if I mistook them it was no wilful mistake but occasioned merely hence that I thought you had discoursed with more shew of Reason than indeed you did For no better Reason could be given why we must fail in Duty if we furnish not men with Assurance that they can account for their Faith than this because it is our Duty to furnish them with Assurance that they can justifie their Accounts as you set it in the plural of which the Account of Faith is one However because I saw you are one that love to walk in the dark so that he who traces you most diligently may possibly miss you and when you are hit have a trick of crying out You mistake it is not I. I aim'd again and hit right My Fault then if it was one was no sooner spied than amended and if it may be forgiven I am content that you and your Council of Trent shall be good friends as long as you can agree on 't I. S. I had alledged further that till Protestants produce the Grounds which prove their Faith to be true it cannot with Reason be held Truth You put my Discourse first in my words only leaving out those which did not please you R. p. 4. C. Your words are these Truth is therefore Truth because 't is built on intrinfical grounds which prove it to be such and not on private mens abilities or their saying this or that wherefore till those grounds be produced it cannot be with Reason held Truth I left out indeed the words therefore and which prove it to be such not because I disliked them but because I thought them superfluous as being implied in the rest Well now you have them what will they avail you or hurt me All I desire of you is that you will stick as close to your own words as you would tye me to do which I suspect you will hardly do because you begin to vary more than I did already especially in leaving out the word intrinfical I. S. Then you disguise it in your own and laugh at it for being too plain Ib. C. These are my words You might as well have said more plainly What any thing is that it is whatever be the reason why it is so or whosoever saith it is or it is not yet can no man with reason believe it till he have a reason to believe it This I still take to be all that you meant by Truth 's being built on intrinsical Grounds c. And you seem to confess it by your saying nothing to the contrary for you are not he that useth not to
from the Faith first taught for this is but supposed hitherto A. p. 22. I. S. Was it not proved in the Fourth Proposition and by me p. 9 R. p. 51. C. At your rate it may be And from this self-evident Supposition you necessarily conclude thus Suppose Traditionary Christians neither did nor could err it is certain they neither did nor could err Make what more you can of it A. p. 22. I. S. You falsifie our words who ever said a Supposition is self-evident R. p. 52. C. Who ever said you did May I not use an Irony without the guilt of falsifying I. S. You falsifie again in affirming that from this self-evident Supposition I necessarily conclude c. Ib. C. Just as before in saying you necessarily conclude from a self-evident Supposition I say all you conclude amounts to no more And make you what more you can of it I. S. Our entire Discourse runs thus if we must needs put it into form for you Those who adhere to Tradition all along from the beginning neither did nor could err in Faith. R. p. 53. C. No not if it was true Apostolical Tradition and they adhered wholly and solely to it doing so they did not could not err I. S. The Roman Catholick Church does now and did from time to time adhere to Tradition Ib. C. To Apostolical Tradition wholly and only I deny that I. S. They could not innovate in Faith unless they did forget what they held the day before or out of malice alter it Ib. C. You hope then we can have no advantage by pleading either of these in barr to the Infallibility of Tradition A. 22. I. S. You do not I suppose desire we should prove that Men had always memories or that Christians were never so malicious as to damn themselves and their posterity wittingly and yet it can stick no where else L p. 32. C. Were there no danger of Mens forgetting what had been taught 't is hard to say why the Pen-men of the Scripture should have been at the needless pains to write it A. p. 23. I. S. Your Discourse is this 'T is hard to say That Christians should have remembred their Testerday's Faith had not the Scripture been written R. p. 54. C. As thô to remember it from Night to Morning were enough I say 't is hard to say why the Scripture was written if men might in no Age forget what had been taught I. S. The Reasons why Scripture was written you might have read in St. Paul 2 Tim. 3.16 17. Where there is no such thing as to make men remember their Yesterday's Faith nor that Scripture is of necessity at all but only that it is profitable for many uses there enumerated Ib. C. I know how unwilling some of you are that Scripture should be thought necessary at all and also how much ashamed they are to say it is unnecessary altogether Let it be as you say only Profitable for Doctrine Reproof Correction Instruction For my part if men once taught the Faith can never forget it If Oral Tradition can do all this without Scripture and Scripture nothing of all this without Tradition I think it is wholly useless and unprofitable and therefore see no reason it should be written And yet if mens memories be so very faithful St. Peter seems to me to have been too forgetful of it when with so much earnestness he endeavour'd that men might be able after his decease to have these things always in remembrance 2 Pet. 1 15. and that by leaving them in writing A. p. 23. I. S. There is not so much as one word in the whole Chapter concerning the remembring or forgetting their Faith but of remembring his particular exhortations to good life R. p. 55. C. Neither said I there was it was enough for me to prove hence that men might forget what they had been taught and if an exhortation to good life why not an Article of Faith I. S. Notwithstanding all you have answer'd men had memory enough not to forget their yesterday's Faith. R. p. 56. C. Well at present suppose it Why might they not have Malice enough to alter or corrupt it I. S. Were Christians so malicious as to damn themselves and their posterity wittingly C. May they not be as careless of preserving the Faith as of maintaining Holiness in themselves and their posterity when they know that Sin is as damnable as Error A. p. 23. I. S. Be Judge your self Do not many of your Congregation sin often and yet few or none of them desert their Faith once Ib. C. I grant men may often sin yet be neither Apostates not Hereticks I. S. The Reasons why the Parallel holds not are these Ib. C. The Word of an Infallible Instructer shall pass with me for a thousand Reasons Tell me only what these Reasons prove it will suffice If it be this that men may sin often and yet not desert their Faith 't is already granted Is it any thing else you would prove by them I. S. My Reasons thwart the universal alteration of Faith while Christians proceeded on the former Rule of Tradition R. p. 59. C. 'T is granted also that Christians adhering to Apostolical Tradition there could be no universal alteration of Faith. I. S. They clearly evince an universal change in the Rule of Faith over the whole Body of Believers is absolutely impracticable R. p. 57. C. Whatever your Reasons evince we grant such an universal change will never be because Christ will always have a Church of true Believers But why might not a considerable part of the Whole Body alter the Faith first taught I. S. The change must be professed and open otherwise it alters not the case and posterity will believe still on according as things appear outwardly R p. 56. C. Men may change the Faith and at first privately teach it to a few not professing at all that they change it but that they retrieve it after a change had been made in it and they who are taught it may believe it and spread it and it may at last be openly profess'd without professing a change from what it was at first which is not the wont of Hereticks I. S. Not unless it be said they went conscienciously upon some other ground than Tradition R. p. 57. C. And why might they not do so I. S. 'T is impossible they should take up another ground Ib. C. Your reason I pray I. S. Because if they could not innovate in Faith they could not innovate in that upon which they held all their Faith. Ib. C. Very good You were proving they cannot innovate in Faith because they adhere to Tradition now you prove they must adhere to Tradition because they cannot innovate in Faith. I. S. Men are more tenacious of their Principles than they are to relinquish all they have receiv'd upon those Principles Ib. C. That which they hold upon the Principle of Tradition is all their Faith and you said but