to any thing as reveal'd by God cannot be deceiv'd upon supposition that it is so reveal'd or else absolutely that whoever assents to any thing as reveal'd by God cannot be deceiv'd Now although I do not in the Passage forecited speak one syllable concerning Doctrines reveal'd by God yet I affirm and so will any man else that an assent to any Doctrine as revealed by God if it be reveal'd by him is impossible to be false But this is onely an infallibility upon supposition which amounts to no more than this That if a thing be true it is impossible to be false And yet the principal design of Mr. S's Book is to prove this which I believe no man in the world was ever so senseless as to deny But if he mean absolutely that whoever assents to any Doctrine as reveal'd by God cannot be deceiv'd that is that no man can be mistaken about matters of Faith as he must mean if he pretend to have any adversary and do not fight onely with his own shadow this I confess is a very comfortable assertion but I am much afraid it is not true Or else lastly By Faith he understands the Means and Motives of Faith And then the plain state of the controversie between us is this Whether it be necessary to a Christian belief to be infallibly secur'd of the means whereby the Christian Doctrine is convey'd to us and of the firmness of the Motives upon which our belief of it is grounded This indeed is something to the purpose for though in the passage before-cited I say not one word concerning the Motives of our Belief of the Christian Doctrine yet my discourse there was intended to be apply'd to the means whereby the knowledge of this Doctrine is convey'd to us However I am contented to joyn issue with Mr. S. upon both these Points 1. That it is not necessary to the true nature of Faith that the Motives upon which any man believes the Christian Doctrine should be absolutely conclusive and impossible to be false That it is necessary Mr. S. several times affirms in his Book but how unreasonably appears from certain and daily experience Very many Christians such as St. Austin speaks of as sav'd not by the quickness of their understandings but the simplicity of their belief do believe the Christian Doctrine upon incompetent grounds and their belief is true though the argument upon which they ground it be not as Mr. S. says absolutely conclusive of the thing And he that thus believes the Christian Doctrine if he adhere to it and live accordingly shall undoubtedly be sav'd and yet I hope Mr. S. will not say that any man shall be saved without true Faith I might add that in this Assertion Mr. S. is plainly contradicted by those of his own Church For they generally grant that General Councils though they be infallible in their Definitions and Conclusions yet are not always so in their Arguments and reasonings about them And the Guide of Controversies * P. 35. expresly says that it is not necessary that a Divine Faith should always have an external rationally infallible ground or motive thereto whether Church Authority or any other on his part that so believes Here is a man of their own Church avowing this Position that Faith is possible to be false I desire Mr. S. who is the very Rule of Controversie to do justice upon this false Guide I must acknowledge that Mr. S. attempts to prove this Assertion and that by a very pleasant and surprizing Argument which is this The profound Mysteries oâ— Faith he tells us †Faith vind p. 9â— must needs seem to some viz. those who have no light but their pure natural Reason †P. 89. as he said before impossible to be true which therefore notâ—ing but a Motive of its own nature seemingly impossible to be false can conquer so as to make them conceit them really true What Mr. S. here means by a Motive of its own nature seeming impossible to be false I cannot divine unless he means a real seeming impossibility But be that as it will does Mr. S. in good earnest believe that a Motive of its own nature seeming impossible to be false is sufficient to convince any man that has and uses the light of natural Reason of the truth of a thing which must needs seem to him impossible to be true In my opinion these two seeming impossibilities are so equally matched that it must needs be a drawn Battle between them Suppose the thing to be believed be Transubstantiation this indeed is a very profound Mystery and is to speak in Mr. S's phrase of its own nature so seemingly impossible that I know no argument in the world strong enough to cope with it And I challenge Mr. S. to instance in any Motive of Faith which is both to our understanding and our senses more plainly impossible to be false than their Doctrine of Transubstantiation is evidently impossible to be true And if he cannot how can he reasonably expect that any man in the World should believe it 2. That it is not necessary to the true nature of Faith that we should be infallibly secur'd of the means whereby the Christian Doctrine is convey'd to us particularly of the Antiquity and Authority of the Books of Scripture and that the expressions in it cannot possibly bear any other sense And these are the very things I instance in in the passage so often mention'd And to these Mr. S. ought to have spoken if he intended to have confuted that passage But he was resolv'd not to speak distinctly knowing his best play to be in the dark and that all his safety lay in the confusion and obscurity of his talk Now that to have an infallible security in these particulars is not necessary to the true nature of Faith is evident upon these two accounts because Faith may be without this infallible security and because in the particulars mention'd it is impossible to be had 1. Because Faith may be without this infallible security He that is so assur'd of the Antiquity and Authority of the Books of Scripture and of the sense of those Texts wherein the Doctrines of Christianity are plainly delivered as to see no just cause to doubt thereof may really assent to those Doctrines trines though he have no infallible security And an assent so grounded I affirm to have the true nature of Faith For what degree of assent and what security of the Means which convey to us the knowledge of Christianity are necessary to the true nature of Faith is to be estimated from the end of Faith which is the salvation of mens souls And whoever is so assur'd of the authority and sense of Scripture as to believe the Doctrine of it and to live accordingly shall be saved And surely such a belief as will save a man hath the true nature of Faith though it be not infallible And if God have sufficiently
pretend to be infallible Fourthly That Mr. S. by his Principles does plainly exclude from salvation the generality of his own Church that is all that do not believe upon his Grounds And this is the necessary consequence of his reasoning in a late Treatise intituled The method to arrive at satisfaction in Religion The principles whereof are these That the Church is a Congregation of Faithfull The Faithfull are those who have true Faith That till it be known which is the true Faith it cannot be known which is the true Church That which is the true Faith can onely be known by the true Rule of Faith which is Oral Tradition And that the infallibility of this Rule is evident to common sense And from these principles he concludes * Sec. 21. that those who follow not this Rule and so are out of this Church can have no true Faith And that though many of the Points to which they assent are true yet their assent is not Faith for Faith speaking of Christian Faith is an assent which cannot possibly be false So that the Foundation of this Method is the self-evident infallibility of Oral Tradition which hath been sufficiently consider'd in the Answer to Sure footing which yet remains unanswer'd That which I am now concern'd to take notice of is the consequence of this Method which does at one blow excommunicate and un-Christian the far greatest part of his own Church For if all who do not follow Oral Tradition as their onely Rule of Faith are out of the Church and can have no true Faith then all who follow the Council of Trent are ipso facto no Christians For nothing is plainer than that that Council did not make Oral Tradition the sole Rule of their Faith nor rely upon it as such which hath been prov'd at large in the Answer to Sure footing But why is Mr. S. so zealous in this matter of infallibility There is a plain reason for it He finds that confidence how weakly soever it be grounde hath some effect upon the common and ignorant People who are apt to think there is something more than ordinary in a swaggering man that talks of nothing but Principles and Demonstration And so we see it in some other Professions There are a sort of People very well known who find that the most effectual way to cheat the People is always to pretend to infallible Cures I have now done with his Infallibility But I must not forget this Letter of Thanks I shall wholly pass by the passion and ill language of it which a man may plainly see to have proceeded from a gall'd and uneasie mind He would fain put on some pleasantness but was not able to conceal his vexation Nor shall I insist upon his palpable shussling about the explication of the Terms Rule and Faith He was convinc'd that he had explain'd them very untowardly and therefore would gladly come off by saying that he did not intend explication p. 7. but onely to praedicate or affirm something of them And yet the whole design of the first page of Sure-footing is to shew the necessity of beginning with the meaning of those words which express the thing under debate And this method he tells us he will apply to his present purpose and will examine well what is meant by those words which express the thing he was to discuss namely The RVLE of FAITH Now if to examine well what is meant by words be not to go about to explain them I must confess my self to be in a great errour Of the same kind in his Apology for his Testimonies as if they were * P. 105. not intended against the Protestants whereas his Book was writ against the Protestants and when he comes to his Testimonies he †Sure-footing P. 126. declares the design of them to be to second by Authority what he had before establish'd by Reason So that if the Rational part of his Book was intended against the Protestants and the Testimonies were design'd to second it I cannot understand why he should say one was less intended against them than the other But it seems he is so conscious of the weakness of those Testimonies that he does not think them sit to satisfie any but those who believe him already As to his charge of false citations it is but the common artifice of the Roman Controvertists when they have nothing else to say However that the world may see how little he is to be trusted I shall instance in two or three about which he makes the loudest clamour and leave it to the Reader to judge by these of his sincerity in the rest He says P. 62. I notoriously abuse the Preface to Rushworths Dialogues in citing the Author of it to say that such certainty as makes the cause always to work the same effect though it take not away the absolute possibility of working otherwise ought absolutely to be reckon'd in the degree of true certainty whereas says Mr. S. he onely tells us there p. 7. that by moral certainty some understood such a certainty as makes the cause c. To vindicate my self in this I shall onely set the Author's words before the Reader 's eyes They are these This term Moral certainty every one explicated not like but some understood by it such a certainty as makes the cause always work the same effect though it take not away the absolute possibility of working other ways Others call'd that a moral certainty which proceeds from c. A third explication of this word is c. Of these three the first ought absolutely to be reckon'd in the degree of true certainty and the Authors consider'd as mistaken in undervaluing it Is this onely to tell us that by moral certainty some understood c. Does not the Prefacer also expresly affirm that what these some understood by moral certainty ought absolutely to be reckon'd in the degree of true certainty which is the very thing I cited him for Another heavy charge is P. 65. that according to my usual sincerity I quote Rushworth's Nephew to say that a few good words are to be cast in concerning Scripture for the satisfaction of indifferent men who have been brought up in this verbal and apparent respect of the Scripture whereas says Mr. S. in the place you cite he onely expresses it would be a satisfaction to indifferent men to see the positions one would induce them to embrace maintainable by Scripture Does he onely say so let the Reader judge The words in Mr. Rushworth are these Yet this I must tell ye that it were a great satisfaction for indifferent men that have been brought up in this verbal and apparent respect of the Scripture to see that the Positions you would induce them unto can be and are maintain'd by Scripture and that they are grounded therein Certainly one would think that either this man has no eyes or no forehead But the greatest
of confirmation shall be by endeavouring to vindicate Religion from those common imputations which seem to charge it with ignorance or imprudence And they are chiefly these three 1. Credulity 2. Singularity 3. Making a Foolish Bargain First Credulity Say they the foundation of Religion is the belief of those things for which we have no sufficient reason and consequently of which we can have no good assurance as the belief of a God and of a future state after this life things which we never saw nor did experience nor ever spoke with any body that did Now it seems to argue too great a forwardness and easiness of belief to assent to any thing upon insufficient grounds To this I answer 1. That if there be such a Being as a God and such a thing as a future state after this life it cannot as I said before in reason be expected that we should have the evidence of sense for such things For he that believes a God believes such a Being as hath all perfections among which this is one that he is a spirit and consequently that he is invisible and cannot be seen He likewise that believes another life after this professeth to believe a state of which in this life we have no trial and experience Besides if this were a good objection that no man ever saw these things it strikes at the Atheist as well as us For no man ever saw the World to be from eternity nor Epicurus his Atoms of which notwithstanding he believes the World was made 2. We have the best evidence for these things which they are capable of at present supposing they were 3. Those who deny these principles must be much more credulous that is believe things upon incomparably less evidence of reason The Atheist looks upon all that are religious as a company of credulous fools But he for his part pretends to be wiser than to believe any thing for company he cannot entertain things upon those slight grounds which move other men if you would win his assent to any thing you must give him a clear demonstration for it Now there 's no way to deal with this man of reason this rigid exactor of strict demonstration for things which are not capable of it but by shewing him that he is an hundred times more credulous that he begs more principles takes more things for granted without offering to prove them and assents to more strange conclusions upon weaker grounds than those whom he so much accuseth of credulity And to evidence this I shall briefly give you an account of the Atheist's Creed and present you with a Catalogue of the fundamental Articles of his Faith He believes that there is no God nor possibly can be and consequently that the wise as well as unwise of all ages have been mistaken except himself and a few more He believes that either all the world have been frighted with an apparition of their own fancy or that they have most unnaturally conspired together to cozen themselves or that this notion of a God is a trick of policy though the greatest Princes and Politicians do not at this day know so much nor have done time out of a mind He believes either that the Heavens and the Earth and all things in them had no Original cause of their being or else that they were made by chance and happened he knows not how to be as they are and that in this last shuffling of matter all things have by great good fortune fallen out as happily and as regularly as if the greatest wisedom had contriv'd them but yet he is resolv'd to believe that there was no wisedom in the contrivance of them He believes that matter of it selâ— is utterly void of all sense understanding and liberty but for all that he is of opinion that the parts of matter may know and then happen to be so conveniently dispos'd as to have all these qualities and most dextrously to performe all those fine and free operations which the ignorant attribute to Spirits This is the sum of his belief And it is a wonder that there should be found any person pretending to reason or wit that can assent to such a heap of absurdities which are so gross and palpable that they may be felt So that if every man had his due it will certainly fall to the Atheist's share to be the most credulous person that is to believe things upon the slightest reasons For he does not pretend to prove any thing of all this only he finds himself he knows not why inclin'd to believe so and to laugh at those that do not II. The second imputation is singularity the affectation whereof is unbecoming a wise man To this charge I answer I. If by Religion be meant the belief of the principles of Religion that there is a God and a providence that our souls are immortal and that there are rewa ds to be expected after this life these are so far from being singular opinions that they are and always have been the general opinion of mankind even of the most barbarous Nations Insomuch that the Histories of ancient times do hardly furnish us with the names of above five or six persons who denied a God And Lucretius acknowledgeth that Epicurus was the first who did oppose those great foundations of Religion the providence of God and the immortality of the soul Primum Grajus homo c. meaning Epicurus 2. If by Religion be meant a living up to those principles that is to act conformably to our best reason and understanding and to live as it does become those who do believe a God and a future state this is acknowledged even by those who live otherwise to be the part of every wise man and the contrary to be the very madness of folly and height of distraction Nothing being more ordinary than for men who live wickedly to acknowledge that they ought to do otherwise 3. Though according to the common course and practice of the world it be somewhat singular for men truly and throughly to live up to the principles of their Religion yet singularity in this matter is so far from being a reflexion upon any man's prudence that it is a singular commendation of it In two cases singularity is very commendable 1. When there is a necessity of it in order to a man's greatest interest and happiness I think it to be a reasonable account for any man to give why he does not live as the greatest part of the World do that he has no mind to die as they do and to perish with them he is not disposed to be a fool and to be miserable for company he has no inclination to have his last end like theirs who know not God and obey not the Gospel of his Son and shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power 2. It is very commendable to be singular in