see a necessary connexion with the deliver'd Faith if you say so you desert your vertue of prophesying and come over to our School which you so abominate as rational and faithless yet this experience teaches us is the way that Popes and Councils use to take If you say their consulting must not hold till they see it by reason then tell me what Oedipus or Geometrician can guess or fix the terminating line of counsell prerequisite These points a Scholar would have setled You distinguish nothing but jumble all your Bells together into a confused noise and deafen more then instruct your Hearers Now 't is to much purpose to talk of the force of the word Anathema whilest you have not settled a matter in which the Church hath a power to impose it What an inconsiderate manner of arguing is this You say Catholiks require no other assurance of their Faith then upon this firm foundation that our holy Mother the Church is their infallible directress The proposition is the very Tenet we mainly advance and stick to Go but consequently to this and we shall have no quarrell You add another ground that the Councils her mouth are the unerring deliverers of truth This also is very true and never deny'd by us But there rises a great question whether Councils be perpetually and in all cases the mouth of the Church look upon Cariolanus his abridgment of the Councils and read his division of General Councils into approbata and reprobata and ex parte approbata and ex parte improbata and see how ignorantly you go to work even in the grounds of your own eminent learned men who will oppose you peradventure more then I and yet you preach Christian Religion is a mockery if this be taken away I desire not to look into particulars unless you force me to it For I cannot discover even your Errours without discovering too the vanity of that School which you nickname the Church and confidently take upon you to be one of her Masters I doubt not if you attentively consider your eminent Scholars you will find many of them speak indeed gloriously of Councils but unless I be strangely deceiv'd they give them less of inward and reall Authority then I while they make them in effect but Cyphers to the Pope without whom they signify nothing though added perhaps to him they increase his signification yet surely not very much since in many of those Masters opinion he alone is infallible and I think in every ones opinion all together are not much more Whereas the Doctrin I follow gives them an absolute Inerrancy in testifying receiv'd truths which is clearly sufficient to conserve and propagate the Faith of the Church I beleeve you mistake the meaning of that grave and worthy Person whom without any ground at all for your conceit you call my Scholar since he seriously protests he never gave his mind that way nor ever read over any considerable part of my Books nor particularly this of the Middle State his true meaning I conceive is we may know when Councils and Consistory's apply themselves right by examining not Tradition it self for that's evident in the sence of the Faithfull but their proceedings by Tradition whether they be conformable to it Which is not onely a maintainable but excellent truth And by this method the Divines of those dayes examin'd the Doctrin of John 22. For Tradition is the Law of Christ planted in the hearts of all Christians not to be examin'd it being to be read fair written there by their externall words and conversations Now if a Pope or Council be supposed to delver Doctrin against this 't is past darkness and examining since all the Christian world cannot choose but resent it and know it to be against their Faith and Judgment So that you plainly misunderstand the meaning of Tradition which is no hidden thing but the publick and settled belief of the Christian world You will say 't is impossible a Pope or Council should proceed so grosly I wish there were no examples of it But the truth is if instead of a Pope consider'd onely personally you take him as presiding in his Church and Seat and joyn'd with it which is a kind of more then a Provinciall Council but much more if you take a General Council without extraordinary violence without or within both mainly visible this cannot happen and so they have infallibility in attesting the received Doctrins most absolutely sufficient to secure the Church against being mis-led by them By the same Errour you look to determin Faith by Inquest not knowing it cannot be unknown in a Catholick Country to them that live there See the story of Luther Were men doubtfull of their Faith before he and his fellows in iniquity set themselves to snarl at it Therefore Inquest may be made how to answer their Argumments but not to understand what the Church held before opposition rose How much mistaken is all your discourse about the proceeding to higher Tribunals after so great diligence of scrutiny There is no such thing as scrutiny necessary to find out Faith nor ever was the Church to seek her Faith Since she once receiv'd it from Jesus Christ she never lost it and so is to look into it not for it If any thing be to be look for it is not faith it may be some Theologicall Verity not faith Your discourse therefore is wholly out of the way No wonder then you find your self at a loss and cry out like a blind man for a hand to guide you since instead of Christs faith you look for a new faith One would have it an Article of our Christian faith that his Order is a true Religious Order Another that one hang'd for treason is a true Martyr others seek some private revelation that brings in profit to be canoniz'd for faith and other such fine questions to be put in the Creeds of the Church and if it be not yeelded there 's a power in the Church to impose such beliefs upon men presently the denying Doctrin is an Exterminating School and pulls up by the roots all the foundations of Christian Religion Nor will there want some to say that though these things be true they are not to be published but Catholicks are to be left in ignorance of such tender points But will not the mischief by degrees grow intolerable if once it should come to that height that the People by a preoccupated credence be apt to be stirr'd seditiously against their naturall and lawfull Governour by any surreptitious Rescript fetch't from beyond Sea freshly seal'd with the new stamp of faith and to believe all Christianity is rain'd if such a Rescript nay the Interpretation of the procurers be any way doubted of O strange unhappy times You press farther that according to me the Church hath de facto erred in the Bull and Council so long treated of What a strange boldness is this you bring an Interpretation
is a censure The holy Bible if printed I do not say in a vulgar language but even in an Heretical Country especially by an Heritick is prohibited and your way of speaking which makes a prohibition a Censure I and a sharp one too would make us beleeve that the Bible that is Gods word is sharply censured by the Pope Can you imagin a greater scandal considering the place where you live In Luthers time there was a Decree that whatever Book was printed by any book seller who had printed any of Luthers works should be prohibited Read the Rules of the Index expurgatorius in the Council of Trent and see how farr wide you have stray'd from the Catholike practice and opinion As for the special prohibition against my book though Doctor Holden hath learnedly declared the quality of it and that be sufficient yet I have these two notes to offer you one that I am now fortify'd in my plea which hitherto has been accused as a meer shift to cover my disaffection that a simple Condemnation of a Book at Rome without singling out any particular proposition leaves the whole Doctrin of the Book untouch't I am confirm'd I say now by a fresh Authority out of Stubrockius his new Notes upon Wendrockius his Commentaries on the Provinciall Letters where at the bottom of the page before the first you may see how unscrupulously those Children of Obedience take up the same undutifull pretence against Roman Condemnations with others when their case is the same with others This you may plainly see if you busy not your thoughts too much at the seeming contradiction of my words the page before the first for I observe your Art is excellent in descanting on a Bull But because the words prohibited condemn'd make a noyse a great deal lowder than their signification I shall so far comply with my Reader's either unexperience or indisposition as to cite that disguis'd Jesuit Stubrockius his words that the world may know how Religious men and those whose chief strictness consists in Obedience can put by the blow of a Superiour's command when they are concern'd in it how loudly soever they exclaim against others for a less matter Si nihil prorsus in eo Libro prohibito sigillatim configâ—tur sed prohibeatur generatim nemo sapiens neget eo duntaxat nomine prohibitum fuisse quod contra regulas a Concilio Tridentino praescriptas editus sit If nothing at all in particular be struck at in that Book but it be prohibited in generall terms no wise man can deny but that it was onely in this regard prohibited because it was set forth against the Rules prescrib'd by the Council of Trent as that the Authors name was not printed by which observe that this your Book according to the Council of Trent Sess. 4. is prohibited or Approbation of Superiours obtain'd or such like And the Book Stubrockius thus strives to defend is neither better nor worse than the intolerable Apology for the Casuists condemn'd and prohibited by the Pope the last August My other Note is that amongst all the two Books of mine for your diverse are no more prohibited in Rome this which you except at is none So that your Censure is the first how well grounded your following discourse will tell us The reason that Court would not proceed against it though the Doctrin it delivers might justly expect a stronger opposition than some others that have had worse luck from the Interest of its most zealous Adversaries is because they see my opinion supported by an Universality of Fathers of contrasting with whom they are cautious in Rome being persons of great prudence And the Ex-Jesuit who writ so bitterly against me here in England though sollicited to oppose that Book would not answering he knew diverse Fathers of that mind particularly S. Austin whom sayes he I have read over no less than fourteen times You promise me in the end of this Section to concern your self onely with this one Controversy of the State of Souls dying in grace not as yet fully purged and with the positions and grounds on which my explication of Purgatory stands unless some one Doctrin of mine or other having a neer alliance with the business in hand so offer it self that the Discourse and Subject would be illustrated by it You promise me a great favour for I naturally love to speak to one question at once and points connected with it that so it may be more fully illustrated and the Reader inform'd which when many are touch't sleightly and onely catch't at especially if disparate and not tending to the same difficulty the Reader's eye is distractedly drawn diverse wayes and no occasion offerd of clearing any thing fully But I must not be so happy as to hope performance from you in any thing You promist me formerly the sweet style of Love-Letters but anon very furiously and unkindly call me Epicurean Pagan Heathen and what not You promist you would not censure me and yet proceed even in the same place and all over to censure me most sharply You promist p. 5. strength of sence in treating this Subject but have hitherto afforded me nothing but the contrary weakness and I mainly fear the like performance in the rest of your Book You promist civility towards my person and that you combated onely my Doctrin yet more than once quarrell with my very name which I assure you Sir is onely personall and not a jot doctrinall And now you promise me the treating onely one question and points neerly ally'd with it which is a procedure worthy a Schollar but yet afterwards you ramble to the Apocalypse the two wings of the woman the Eternall Generation of the second person my expression of my name and quality and diverse such discourses which are not onely not neerly but not at all ally'd to the present question Which shows that you are very regardless of your word and credit and unconstant to your own thoughts and that you aym more to cavill and make a noise against me by picking out of my works two or three Paragraphs here and there from their fellows by connexion with which they subsisted a method which should one attempt in God's Holy Word it self your own heart tels you nothing's so absurd but might be father'd upon it rather than to confute any piece end wayes as a Schollar should do Your fourth Section the substance of it being nothing but the copying another Book I am glad to have nothing to except against onely you insinuate a fault in the Translation which not having the Latine copy by me I cannot judge of Had you endeavour'd to mend it you should have oblig'd both the worthy Translatour and my self In your fifth Section by a malignant sleight you seek to bite Sir Kenelm Digby saying the book of the Immortality of the Soul was father'd upon him I know you would do me the honour to entitle me to it But as that
prudently foyl'd you in every encounter in this Question that he hath left nothing for me but to discover your falshood in such by-questions as you thrust in to stuff out your Volume FOURTH DIVISION Containing an Answer to his seventeenth Section The Authours Doctrin of Councils explicated This new opinion of Purgatory in likelihood later than Saint Gregory IN your seventeenth Section you first put upon me that I am arm'd against the Authority of Popes and Councils and then you run headlong on with declamatory invectives upon that supposition But as the world is curious I conceive some will light on my defence as well as on your calumny to whom I thus explicate the true state of the question It is known to all Christians that Christ and his Apostles taught the world the Christian faith It is known to all Catholicks that this same faith has continued in the Catholick Church now fifteen ages It is known to the same that the means of continuing this faith hath been by Pastours and Fathers teaching their Children what themselves had learn'd by the same way It is likewise known that in divers ages there arose up divers Hereticks who endeavour'd to bring in Doctrins contrary to the received Faith and that Bishops sometimes in particular especially the Bishop of Rome sometimes in Collections or Councils with-stood and confounded such Hereticks confirming the old belief and rejecting all new inventions It is evident that to do this it fuffices to have veracity enough to attest what the old Doctrin was and power enough to suppress all such as stir against it Thus far all goes well Of late Ages among our curious School-men some have been so subtle that the Old faith would not serve them but they thought it necessary to bring in new points of Faith and because what was not of Faith could not become of Faith without a new revelation they look't about for a new revelation and finding the two supreme Courts of Christian discipline seated in General Councils and the Pope they quickly resolv'd to attribute the power of encreasing Christian Faith to these two Springs of Christianity Now the first difference betwixt the two parties engag'd in the present controversy is whether the Faith deliver'd by the Apostles be sufficient to govern the Church by or there be necessary fresh Additions of such points as cannot be known without a new revelation In which they whom I follow hold the negative they whom I suppose you follow the affirmative Out of this question springs a second whether in the Councils and in the Pope is to be acknowledg'd a Prophetical kind of Spirit by which towards the ordinary government of the Church they have a gift to reveal some things not before revealed nor deducible out of things already revealed by the natural power of discourse which God has left to mankind to govern it self by In which point also I follow them that deny you and your eminent learned men stand up for the Affirmative I hope by this any ingenious Reader will perceive that if the Faith deliver'd by Jesus Christ joyn'd with the natural power of discoursing be sufficient to govern the Church of God then those who give power to Councils and Popes sufficient to govern by this way give them as much as is necessary for the Church But if new Articles be necessary to the government of the Church then and onely then they fall short So that no understanding person reading these lines can doubt but the true question is this whether the Faith deliver'd by Christ be sufficient for the government of the Church or that we must expect new additions to our Faith every age or when occasion presents it self Whence it will easily appear that all the great noyse you make and furious Rhetorick you use of my denying the Authority of Councils my being arm'd against them and such like angry stuff are but uncharitable uncivil and highly injurious clamours without any true cause or ground at all But we shall hear more of these hereafter Now any prudent Christian that shall with moderate attention have read but so far will judge the question already decided For who dare maintain Christ's Doctrin was imperfect And indeed all that have any little modesty on your side will not say new Articles of Faith are necessary but that whatsoever the Church defines was before revealed though when they come to declare themselves they demand really new Articles onely calling them Explications of the former or Deductions from them And if they would justify that they were but such Deductions as natural reason can deduce there would remain no controversy which in very deed the Churches practise shews to be the truth In the first Council it being recorded that there was Conquisitio magna and all Councils and Popes ever since proceeding in the same style But here I must remember you what you said in the beginning concerning Pargatory that the reason why you write against my opinion was because it was translated into English And so I now protest that you are the cause why I write of this subject in English My books generally are to debate what I think in the points I write of with learned men whose care it is to divulge truths to the people dispensing to every one the quantity he is capable of not to raise any new thoughts in ignorant heads Your crying out against me forces me to a necessary defence before the people wherefore if any disputings concerning this matter displease any person of Judgment let it light upon your head who are the provoker and compeller of me into this new task which both age and other thoughts make me slowly and unwillingly undertake But I must not be mine own chuser but follow God As to what you say against this Doctrin first you desire your Reader to consider that if these grounds to wit that the Pope and the Council can err without distinguishing in what either matter or manner of proceeding Christian Faith is a meer mockery I confess the proposition grave in words but in sence not worthy a School-boy For first I ask you whether you mean in necessary points or unnecessary ones If you say in both I doubt your whole School will desert you For who is there that hath an ounce of brains who will give authority to the Church to determin all the subtle quirks of the School But if you say onely necessary ones then before you went farther against me you should have prov'd that the verities come by inheritance from Jesus Christ are not all that are necessary which question you never think on and so brandish your Logick against the apparitions in the clouds Secondly I ask you whether without counsel or with it If you say without it again your School will desert you If you say with it I ask you how much counsell and to what period In all which you will be at a loss Must it hold till by reason they
against Grammar against Logick and against Divinity and if this be not accepted of you cry the Church has err'd Your Interpretation is against Grammar by your own confession complaining of your Adversary for demanding an Is or Is not which is a plain acknowledgment that your sence is not formally in the words It is against Logick because you put the subject to be part of the predicate Against Divinity because you would make the grace of God and heavenly benefits be bought like Salads in the market by him that has most mony Besides other inconveniences whereof I have explicated some in my Book of the Middle State and may have occasion to say more hereafter And yet forsooth if this sweet Interpretation be not gratis admitted of the Church has err'd the Church has err'd and all 's undone well a day well a day You go farther and press that my rule of faith failes me in this very point And first you appeal to the consciences of all illiterate Persons whether this be not their present faith Yau have found out a Tribunal very fit to gain your cause in But I wonder you are so little skill'd in spirituall direction that you do not know most illiterate men never reflect upon their inward acts or farther then what belongs to the fancy not one amongst ten thousand And you deceive me if you hold faith to be an act of the fancy Yet I dare not be too bold for I have heard of one that wore a plush cloak and could neither read nor write Wherefore it is enough for me to deny it whether it be your opinion or no Besides do you not know that even literate Persons unless Divines are not to mince the doctrin taught them by their Pastours so far as to distinguish what is deliver'd for faith what as necessary to the explication of it or to the Practise of Christian life Further you may know that many even of your own eminent Divines differ not only in what points are of faith what not but in what makes them to be of faith what not Though I think they all agree that an explication against Grammar and Logick does not rayse a position into an Article of faith though the explication be of a Popes Bull Next you tell your adversary that Master White him self says Saint Gregory the great was the first founder of that faith I know well you accompt Master White a kind of a mad man that dares advance such propositions as he cannot but foresee what strong opposition they were like to stir up against him But I did not think he was so mad as holding no doctrin to belong to faith which began since the Apostles daies who are the last revealers of publik faith that he knows of and besides professing this doctrin so far from faith that it is not true yet should tell you that Saint Gregory founded this faith As far as I remember what I sayd was that Saint Gregory reported this novelty first broke out in his dayes by the means of certain revelations And this I sayd upon the authority of Venerable Bede who attributes the book of Dialogues to Saint Gregory But now I must tell you that upon fuller consideration I rather believe Venerable Bede's information was defective then to attribute so unworthy a book to so grave and learned a Pope nothing like such winter tales as are told in that book being found in his most worthy and learned works And I will make your self whom I know a great admirer of that learned and pious Doctour Judg of the controversy Do you think there is in the next world Excommunications and restorings to communion as is exprest in one of those Revelations Do you think that one who dy'd obstinate in schism was sent to Purgatory because he did many Alms as is reported in another Revelation do you think it is not the fancy of an Idle brain to imagin Souls are sent to bathes to scrub and rub men there to be acquitted of their sins Other things there are in the same book worth the noting but these are enough to shew it unworthy of St. Gregory as indeed it is for so great a Doctour and Prelate to spend his time in gathering together private storyes of obscure and petty Relaters This will set this Doctrin an hundred years later and into an age one of the least cultivated since the beginning of the Church of God Nor is it true that this carries after it a practise testified by Foundations Prayers Masses Almes c. For all these were in the Church before this Doctrin as may appear in Antiquity The Church of Afrik made a Canon to force the laity to contribute to Prayers for the dead about Saint Austins time who yet testifies that the question whether Souls were deliver'd out of Purgatory before the day of Judgment had not yet been moved Now Foundations contradict this Doctrin rather then promote it For he that makes a Foundation intends it without limit of time and so must imagin the Soul needs the assistance of that charity so long which would much cool the devotion you pretend and we see practis'd before our eyes to get Masses enow in a morning to send a Soul to Heaven to dinner Shew me but one ancient Instance where two or three thousand Masses have been by Legacy procur'd to be said the very next morning after the Testator's departure and little or nothing after that morning and I will ingenuously confess it the best argument you have produc'd in the whole managing of your cause After the Author of the Dialogue there was no more news of this opinion till Odilo a Monk of Cluny's time who being a kind of a Generall of many Monasteries dilated this Doctrin in them upon a goodly ground to build a matter of Faith on to wit the report of a French Pilgrim who sayd he had met with an Hermite I think a French man who perswaded himself he had Visions of Souls being deliver'd out of Purgatory by the Prayers of the Monks of Cluny Upon this ground the good Saint recommended the devotion for the dead warmly to his subjects and they to the people who frequented their Monasteries and hence this Doctrin came to be common where his order was in esteem And so being a pious credulity stay'd about one hundred years till the School began Which finding it very common easily favour'd it with such reasons and explications as they thought fit though not universally for some are found to have contradicted it and so it was exalted to a probable opinion In which state the Council of Florence found it and practis'd it giving communion 'to the Greeks who as is before declar'd left it out of their confession after the Latins had put it in theirs And in this quality it persever'd till my book de medio statu was turn'd into English Then it began first to be a matter of faith by the power of the great letters
you put in the Edition of the Bull of Benedictus and the Council of Florence For before that even the consorts of your Tenet held it no otherwise then for the common opinion of Divines LAST DIVISION Containing an Answer from Section the eighteenth to Section the two and twentieth The Catholick Rule of Faith defended The Vindicators weakness in making the unlearned Judges of Controversy His frequently mis-representing my Doctrin and manifold failings in his new attempts from the Bull and Council YOur eighteenth Section you begin with saying my Doctrin which is a close adhering to Tradition is the way to make fools stray You follow still the same truantly humour of using words without looking into the sence For if Tradition signify the delivery of the Doctrin preach't and taught by our forefathers your proposition signifies that to follow what we are taught by our forefathers is the way to make fools go astray Neither do I deny but that you speak consequently if first you make the Popes veracity the veracity of the whole Church and that all the Church but he can err and consequently he may correct the Doctrin which was believ'd by the Church in the age immediatly going before him then 't is true that to prefer the Belief of the former age before the Popes word will lead fools astray But for my part I desire to be one of those fools and to go so astray You run on in a full careere and tell us of the Authority of the Church and Councils in common and that things settled by them must not be brought in question not seeing because you will not that what the Church believ'd in the last Age is more the Church's decree then what she speaks either by Pope or Council unless she speaks the same that she believed the last Age and so you continue your discoursing with words not taking their meaning along with you In your nineteenth Section you come so home as to judge and condemn me by mine own Doctrin a great shame to me I confess if you make it good You argue therefore what have we seen but Masses Dirges Almes c. so far is almost true but why did you not put in by which in express terms we pray'd for the welfare of the Souls at the day of the General Judgment but you had reason to leave that out for it would have set a shrewd puzzell in your Argument We have heard constantly say you that Souls are deliver'd out of Purgatory by these powerfull helps before the day of Judgment In this part you have mended your former fault for there you sayd too little to serve your purpose if you had prov'd all you said and here you say more then can be prov'd to serve your purpose do you mean that your way was preach't constantly that is as a certain and establisht Doctrin of faith or that for a long time they preacht it as a probable truth or without engaging at all into the degree of its assuredness but perhaps you proceed more nicely since you onely said you heard it constantly not that it was preach'd constantly For to say a thing constantly imports that the speaker teaches it to be certain and it is not enough if for a long time he tells you it is likely to be so Now so far as concerns the delivery of Souls from Purgatory by the potent means you speak of was ever constantly taught but that the delivery should be made before the day of Judgment was taught but as a pious opinion if the Preacher understood the sence of the Doctours of the Schools themselves who add no such qualification because their principles being either Authority or Reason they find in Authority neither Fathers nor Councils nor Popes express in the point and Reasons much less favourable and to say the truth though they are apt enough to dispute whether there be a God a Trinity an Incarnation c. Yet I do not remember to have heard of any one who hath treated of his proposition so directly as to dispute it pro and con Which being so what certainty can we expect a Preacher should fix upon this Doctrin But to declare what I think those whom you appeal to will answer I beleeve it is that they never reflected to make any difference of the things the Preachers deliver'd them and much less upon the degrees of assent they gave to this or that point and as far as they can tell they gave the same assent to any place of Scripture the Preacher explicated as they did to this point unless some particular occasion put them in mind to qualify one and not the other But as they found by experience in other things that if any rub came to make them doubt of any thing a Preacher sayd then first they began to consider on what grounds they were bound to believe the point proposed so they have done in this and of those who have spent any competent time in examining both sides many have discover'd your grounds unsafe to build any certainty on and some confest them too weak to sustain even so much as a probability What the Gentleman whose letter you cite and with some imprudent circumstances will say why he was carryed away with your Arguments I know not but had he read my Books as much as I esteem his learning and vertue he would surely have met with full answers to your very objections which they who read yours cannot do nor so much as hear of the Arguments I use to maintain my opinion you on set purpose concealing them and proposing in their stead as my whole grounds a discourse made to a meer Philosopher or Heathen where the method of a regular writer oblig'd me to abstract from Revelation But that this answer I set down is for the greatest part of those that follow this opinion a true one is not onely manifest to all that reflect upon what passeth within them on the like occasions but experience hath taught me it in every country where I have conversed since the publishing this Doctrin In all which I have found divers who upon hearing of it acknowledg'd that before they had in their hearts a certain dislike of your opinion but they knew not why it having a kind of an uncouth semblance yet they could not pitch upon any thing to say solidly against it One passage I will intreat your patience to let me tell you Before I printed it I communicated this point to one of the greatest Divines of Christendome and confest to be so He presently reply'd it was against the Council of Florence and went immediately to his Chamber and fetcht down the Council when we had a little debated the text and he saw it did not reach home he shut up the Book with these words Look to it you will draw all the Regulars upon your back meaning all such of them as found great profit by perswading the people they should procure a sudden
which the Latines position was abstracted from as you may plainly see in the Council and is before more fully declar'd Now as to your argument every one can see 't is weakly done to talk of actions proceeding out of knowledg or apprehension not according to the apprehension but according as things really are He that thinks two opinions probable takes both as possible whether they be or no For howsoever they are in themselves to him they appear so Now to argue out of the nature of things which he professes not to know to the actions that must flow from his apprehension is a clear inconsequence Yet all your great clamours have no other ground and therefore I think I may leave out your petty quarrells with your Adversary about his examples as superfluous and nothing conducing to the main point in controversy SECOND PART Refuting the Vindicator's other scatter'd Objections chiefly those which oppose several Doctrins of the Author in other points FIRST DIVISION Containing an Answer from Sect. 22. to Sect. 27. The Vindicators unskilfulness in the nature of a Metaphor The Triall of his Tenet and mine by Fathers and Liturgies His Drollish Calumnies shown groundless by the Authours Explication of his tenets about the Church's future proficiency in science a dispossest Governour and the uncertainty of the Scripture's Letter by meer transcribing His manifold abuses of the Authour in his citing him about Councils and Hell His miscalling God's doing what 's wisest and best Pagan Fatality DEar Sir that I may following your Directions though not your Example begin like a Love-Letter by chance I had turn'd over a leaf too much and so lighted on the beginning of your 22 Section in which you design'd to give a clearer view of my Doctrin and so I hop'd to have been quit of the former controversy and could willingly upon that condition have endur'd the bitter dissemblings wherewith you end this Chapter But finding you fall back to the same quarrel again I perceive you had condemn'd me to the Oar for another Caravan And therefore I must repeat to you that you talk so unskilfully of faith as if there were none but in Popes Bulls and Definitions of Councils As if the Apostles had gone about preaching that such a Council had defin'd such an Article and such a Pope the other And so you ask a monstrous question How if some Imp of Hell should arise and admit onely a Metaphorical and not a real Son in Divinis how could this blasphemy be repress'd by Consubstantialem Patri A shrewd question I confess for it so confounds the termes that it is very hard to make sence of them First I would know what you mean by that terme in Divinis Whether in the substance of God or in Theâ—logy or speaking of God For if you speak of the Essence the Arrians never held a Metaphorical son in the Essence of God but in the Essence of Christ Nor do I think any who understand a Modicum of Divinity can put so foolish a Position that to be a Son should be to be God or the very Essence of God and yet should be so solely Metaphorical that it should be no reality But if you mean that there was no Son in God but some creature was call'd Son as the Arrians held then what signifies this word in Divinis rub over your old School-notions again a little before you put your self in print Now against these was made the Nicen creed and not against the former But I must advertise you that by your high skill in Divinity you should have fram'd a new nature of Metaphors to have come home to your position For I doubt not you can as well square Grammar as Philosophy to Divinity Then in our way who look into nature to know what a Metaphor is it appear's to be the use of a word in a second sence derived from a former And so how you jumble together onely a metaphorical and not a reall Son I do not understand For they have no more connexion then green and dâ—lâ—ful or what disparate terms you please to compound into strong non-sence Reality speaks nature metaphorical a manner of speech yet both these must be joyn'd to condemn some Trinobant to be an Imp of Hell And why such fierce unchristian words Miscreant and Imp of Hell I remember indeed the furious zeal of a Pharisee let fly at our blessed Saviour language far worse then this but whether my Chider be Pharisee or Publican or both or neither I know not God knows and God forgive him and bless me with grace to take patiently all his injuries and I hope he will give me strength to refute his arguments But let us look into the thing it self and seek how a Son is spoken of God And let our first question be what those people who first brought the words of Father and Son into use mean't to explicate by them And I know nothing but that they mean't by Father a man who by means of a Woman produc't a creature like to himself by Son a creature thus produc't This then must be evidently the first signification of the words and if another be attributed to them by design not pure hazard they must be acknowledg'd to be translated from this first signification to that next as when he that converts one to faith or good life is call'd his Father the person converted his Son Now because translations are made upon divers kinds of connexions of the things signify'd not all but such a one onely as is translated for a proportion or likeness is called a Metaphor as a Governour or Gubernator in Latin first signifies the Master or Pilot which governs a Ship thence it s translated by reason of similitude or proportion to him that in a City or Common-wealth behaves himself as the Master or Pilot doth in a Ship Now let us affirm something of God by this word Father Will you say the word was not translated to him from a former signification but given him by pure hazard without any respect to a fore-used sense Sure either you or the Readers will not be so senceless It remains then to see by what connexion it was translated Certainly not that it was a cause or effect or a concomitant for all these are more improper but because there is a similitude or proportion seeing that in God another Person proceeds in likeness to him from him Therefore a Father is spoken of God metaphorically And if you but consider the language you use by custom and not by understanding you would know it were onely metaphorically spoken of God that is to say in no other signification of the Word not by a Metonymie Synecdoche or Catachresis nor in the first signification For these are the termes which are excluded when onely is added to Metaphorically and not the terme really which is a manner of being not of speaking and so cannot be oppos'd to metaphorically by one who understands