to justifie themselves for not believing rashly or for fear of making them sure of their Salvation 4. I had alledg'd farther 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 and then disguise it in your own and laugh at it for being too plainly True For plain Truth it seems is a ridiculous thing with you and you are of opinion that the more plain it is that you ought to bring your Proofs the less you are oblig'd to bring them Thence you start aside to tell us that the vulgar Catholic has less certainty than the vulgar Protestant because the one has only the Word of his Priest the other has the Word of his Minister and the Word of God in Scripture besides Do you think Catholic Priests are at liberty to tell the vulgar what Faith they please as your Ministers may interpret Scripture as seems best to their Judgment of Discretion when you cannot but know they dare not teach them any Faith but what the Church holds nor does the Church hold any but upon Tradition Again You do well to say your People have it in Scripture or in a Book for they have it no where else And you know the vulgar Socinians and Presbyterians and all the rest have it as much there as your vulgar Protestants notwithstanding all you have said or can say and then I suppose you do not think they Truly have the Word of God on their side unless you think the Word of God says different things to different Hearers When you prove that you and your Ministers have any Certain means of making it out that the Sense which by their explaining and catechising they put upon the Written Characters is truly God's Meaning you will do something make many Converts and my self one among the rest Till then to possess your vulgar Protestants with a Conceit of having the Word of God is meerly to delude them Sure you wanted a Common-place to furnish out your Paragraph or else writ it in a Dream For to tell me that Truth can depend no more upon the Saying of a Romish Priest than of an English Minister when I tell you it depends not on any private man's Sayings is not a Reply of a man well awake In two words Bring you Proofs say I the Saying that is the No-proof of a Minister is as good as the No-proof of a Priest say you And the short and the long is No Proof I thank you 5. But two things say you follow from my Position which you fear I will not grant The First is That if we cannot with Reason hold a Truth till the Intrinsical Grounds of it be produc'd we cannot with reason hold any thing for a Truth namely because the Church of Rome hath determined it for her Determination is no Intrinsical Ground of the Truth but only an outward Testimony or Declaration of it and then what 's become either of her Infallibility or Authority to command our Faith As slips of honest Ignorance deserve compassion and instruction and I do not know this to be any more I will be so charitable as to set you right Authority amongst those who already admit it for True has Force to prove that to be Truth which depends on it and will conclude against those who allow its veracity if it be shewn to be engag'd against them But it has not this Effect upon Human Nature by its proper Power as 't is meer Authority but because Intrinsical Mediums justifie it to be worthy to be rely'd on Whence let that Authority come into dispute it will lose it's Credit unless it can be prov'd by such Mediums to deserve what it pretends to And hence you see we go about to demonstrate the Infallibility of the Church's Human Authority in deriving down Christian Faith. To clear this farther I advance this Fundamental Position viz. No Authority deserves any Assent farther than Reason gives it to deserve And therefore without abating any thing of our respect we may affirm that the Authority of the whole Catholick Church would be no greater than that of an old Woman or one of your sober Enquirers were there no more Reason to be given for believing the former than there is for believing the later And consonantly to this Doctrin we declare to you that When Dr. St. comes to argue either out of Authority of Writers or Instances depending on their Authority against Tradition he shall be prest to make out by Intrinsical Mediums they are Absolutely Certain or they shall deservedly be look'd upon and contemn'd as Inconclusive By this time I hope you see that All Truths are built on Intrinsical Mediums and 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 As also how it comes that the Church can oblige to Belief which is not by a dry commanding our Faith as you apprehend but by having its Human Authority so solidly grounded upon Reason that it self becomes a Motive able to beget according to the best Maxims of Rational Nature such an Assent in us to this matter of Fact that Christ and his Apostles taught such Doctrins But what a put off is this We say Truth is not therefore Truth because of mens bare Sayings or Authority and therefore demand your Proofs from Intrinsical Mediums for thither it must come e're it be known for Truth to make out what you pretend Your Answer in effect is You are afraid to do it lest you should destroy our Church's Infallibility and Authority How much is our Church in your Debt that the Care of Her makes you careless of those Souls in your own Church to whom you owe this satisfaction 6. The second thing you fear I will not grant is A Iudgment of Discretion to common People with which they may discern the Intrinsical Grounds of Truth You gave your self at first the Character of a scrupulous man and I see by this you have a mind to maintain it 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 and yet your scrupulosity can fear I will not allow the Common People to judge of the Intrinsical Grounds of Truth who take pains they may judge put it into their power to judge and out of my own and so cannot hinder them tho' I would 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 and upon such a Judgment I wish and labour People should not venture their Souls But I disallow no other Iudgment of Discretion full
Faith Does he think the Mysteries of Faith are the Way to Faith Or can he pretend that the State of the Question exprest so carefully before-hand in a Preface to signify my meaning throughout the whole Treatise following is totally to be set aside and neglected and that only single words pickt out where for brevity's sake I did not constantly repeat it are to give my true Sense What impertinent Brabbling is this Again p. 16.17 I no less punctually declare that I only treat of the Objects or Points of Faith as their Truth depends on those Motives or Rule of Faith. Yet all will not do to a man bent upon Cavill 9. My last Note towards the End let 's him see clearly when to whom and how Infallible Assent is requisite and not requisite And I had forestall'd this too before in an Elaborate Discourse from p. 131. to p. 158. in Error Nonplust where I shew'd that since Faith must be True and not possible to be a Lye therefore all who have true Faith must be out of capacity of being in an Error or must be in some manner Infallible That it was enough simply to have Faith that they be Materially Infallible or not capable of being in an Error by relying on a Ground that cannot deceive them such as is the Testimony of Gods Church tho' they see not how it must be so Nay that this is absolutely sufficient for All who are coming to Faith provided they do not happen to doubt that their Reasons for the Churches Infallibility are Inconclusive and so be apt to remain unsatisfy'd or are not bound to maintain the Truth of Faith against Opposers in which case they are to be able to see and prove the Conclusiveness of their Grounds from some Certain Principle which I call there to be Formally Infallible This and much more is laid out there at large which prevents most of his Objections here But no notice takes the good Dr. of it It was it seems too great a Mortification to him to peruse a Book which he was highly Concern'd to answer and knew he could not 10. His Fourth Contradiction is solv'd in three lines I treated of the Humane Authority of the Church the Rule of Faith which was Extrinsical to Faith as 't is a Theological Virtue or Divine Yet it being an Extrinsical Argument as all Testimony is I therefore went about to prove it's force from Intrinsical Mediums fetcht from the Natures of the Things viz. Man's Nature and the Nature of the Motives Nor can the Certainty of Witnessing Authority be prov'd otherwise 11. His Fifth is clear'd by my first four Notes which shew that I spoke of Faith which was by the Confession of both Parties Divine and Supernatural and for that reason called so by me but did not treat of it as thus qualified or go about to prove it Divine but prov'd it's Truth meerly as it depended on Humane Faith previous to it and so did only formally treat of that Humane Faith it self on which the Knowledge of Divine Faith leans and by which those coming to Divine Faith are rais'd up to it Yet what hideous Outcries the Dr. makes here that by my Doctrine we are to seek for the Certainty of Faith formally Divine That I make Divine and Supernatural Faith derive it's Certainty from Natural Infallibility c. Tho' he knows as well as that he lives that we make Faith as Formally Divine derive it's Certainty from the Divine Authority testify'd to us by Miracles That this Establishment of Divine Faith by Supernatural means is presuppos'd to our Question and granted by both sides and that our only Point is how we may know certainly what was this Divine Faith thus ascertain'd at first Whoever reads Third Catholick Letter p. 23.24 will admire with what face he could object these falshoods or counterfeit an Ignorance of what has been so often and so clearly told him and which he had seen so particularly answer'd in my Defences But this is his usual Sincerity 'T is pretty to observe into what a monstrous piece of Nonsense our Dr. has fall'n here and how because I argue from Supernatural Faith he thinks I am arguing for it or proving it Whereas common sense tells every man who has not laid it aside that he who argues from another thing supposes that other thing and so cannot possibly while he does so go about to prove it or treat of it But it seems For and From are the same with his great Reason and not possible to be distinguisht He might have seen other Arguments drawn from the Supernaturality of Faith to prove that the Rule which is to light intelligent men who are Unbelievers to Faith must be more then Morally Certain But he thought best to chuse the worst and while he objected that too mistook From for For that is the Premisses for the Conclusion and the Cart for the Horse 12. His Sixth Exception if pertinent amounts to this I.S. did not prove any point Divine and Supernatural therefore Dr. St. needs prove no point of Faith he holds to be truly deriv'd from Christ A fair riddance of his whole Task For the rest We do not desire him to prove by his Rule one determinate point more than another only since he talks of his Grounds which cannot be such unless they derive their solid Virtue of supporting to what 's built on them we instance now and then in some main and most necessary Articles of which if he can give us no account how they come to be absolutely ascertain'd by his Ground or Rule he can give it of none Each Point of Faith is of a determinate sense We shew that Tradition gives and ascertains to us this determinate sense and we shew why it must do so and how it does so this with Absolute Certainty Let him shew his Rule has the power to do this then pretend we are on equal Ground But alas He must not say this who is all for Moral Certainty and fancies nothing above it For he cannot say by such Grounds any Point is or is True while it may be False that they were taught by Christ and if he says they are or were taught by Christ while they may not be so he in plain terms affirms the same thing may at once be and not be For thither the Doctrine of Faith's possible falshood must be reduc't at last and the Greatest of Contradictions will be found to be his First Principle 13. His 7th Exception is answer'd in my last Note which shews that the Ground upon which the Truth of Faith depends must be more than Morally Certain tho' every Believer needs not penetrate the force of those Grounds or have even so much as Moral Certainty of their Conclusiveness But what means he when he Objects my saying that True Faith by reason of its Immoveable Grounds can bear an asserting the Impossibility of it's Falshood Can
must want the Accusative Case after it due to its Transitive Sense by the Laws of Grammar meerly to avoid his putting the Right one because it would have been unsutable to all his foregoing Discourses which never toucht it But since he speaks still what Causes of Errour he has shown tho' I have already manifested that all those Causes were accompany'd with Malice in the First Deserters of Tradition yet to enforce our Demonstration the more I discourse thus If Tradition could be deserted or Innovation in Faith made by the Generality of Christians for none ever said or doubted but Many Particulars might do so it must either proceed from some Defect in their Vnderstandings or in their Wills. A defect in the Will is call'd Badness or Malice whence if they willfully Innovated it must spring from some degree of Malice If in their Understanding then it must either be in that Power as Apprehending or Knowing Christ's Doctrin or as Retaining it It could not be in the Former for none doubts but the body of the Church particularly the Teachers who were to instruct the Rest did very well Comprehend Christ's Doctrin in the Beginning and the many Clear ways Tradition comprizes to deliver it down renders Faith Intelligible still to each succeeding Age. Wherefore since the Defect cannot be in their Understanding or their having Christ's Doctrin in their Hearts it must be if any where in that knowing Power as 't is Retentive that is in their Memory But it was absolutely impossible the Generality of the Church should be so weak as to forget in any little determinate part of Time by which Immediate steps Tradition proceeds what was Taught and Practis'd a little before or Considering the Motives to keep them firm to it so Wicked as to conspire to Alter it purposely Therefore whatever Contingency there must be in some Particulars it could not be that the Generality of the Church should have alter'd it or consequently Err'd in Faith. Wherefore this Conclusion stands yet Firm the Premisses remaining yet Untoucht Since he neither shows nor can show more Faculties in Mankind engag'd in the Perpetuating the Former Faith than these Two. Add that he does not even Attempt to show that the Causes he produces can have the Power to prevail or carry it against the force of Tradition and unless he does this all he alledges signifies nothing But his Especiall Reason why he gives no other Answer he should have said none at all to our Fourth Proposition is because he intends to shew in a particular Discourse how the Errours and Corruptions he Charges on the Church of Rome did come into it That is we cannot have an Answer to Two lines but by perusing a Large Book I would desire him to resume the Force of all his little Testimonies and Conjecturall Descants upon them with which that book abounds and to be sure they Conclude the Point which he shall never do And unless he does this he only shows he has taken a great deal of pains to no kind of purpose since he leaves a presum'd Demonstration in its full force without bringing so much as a pretended Conclusive Proof against it Indeed it is a great shame for him to pretend it for 't is to profess publickly to the world that he can produce Better Arguments against the Papists then he can for his own Faith and that he cannot Answer the Argument or say any thing to the Premisses yet he will revenge himself upon the naughty Conclusion when he catches it alone and unback't with any Proof for it 78. Next he will prove that our way of resolving Faith into Christ's and his Apostles Teaching by the Infallibility of the Church's Human Authority or Tradition is Pelagianism But never was such a Malicious and Silly Charge so impotently defended We were told says he that Divine Faith must have Infallible Grounds and when we come to examin them we find nothing but what is Naturall Here again our whole Controversy is lost and a new State of the Question is obtruded Faith as 't is formally Divine has for its Grounds the Divine Authority But are we in our Controversy Examining it as 't is Formally Divine Do either of us alledge Miracles or any Arguments that Proves it to be such Is it not Confest and Suppos'd by both Parties that the Faith Taught at first was Divine and are we to Examin what 's Confest and Granted Or that Supposition being agreed to have we any more to do but to prove what was the Doctrin taught at first by Assigning a Certain Method of Conveying it down to us He proceeds And now to avoid the Charge of Pelagianism this Divine Faith is declar'd to be meer Human Faith. Alas for him Does not Divine Faith stand yet on it's own bottom the Divine Authority because Human Authority gives those who yet know it not Assurance of its Derivation to us The Immediate effect then of our Tradition is Human Faith the Remote effect is to give us knowledge of a Doctrin of Faith which is Divine not prov'd to be such by Tradition but acknowledg'd to be so by our Mutuall Concession But how shamelesly insincere the Dr is to object that I Chang'd this purposely to avoid the Charge of Pelagianism whenas he knows I had told himself the same in Errour Nonplust some years before any Contest arose about my Writings Does he not cite my words here that this Human Faith had by Tradition leads us to what 's Divine Human Faith is the Way or Means to know Divine Faith And cannot we obtain the favour of him to intermit a while his constant Nonsence and allow the Means to be distinguisht from the End He goes on And so Human Faith must have Infallible Grounds but Divine Faith must shift for it Self Can any thing be more Trifling What Shifts is Faith put to for Grounds taken as 't is formally Divine in a Controversy which supposes it such in which case no Proof nor Grounds for it need be produc't Do those that holds the Infallibility of the Churches Humane Authority deriving it down to us deny but the Verity of the Mysteries thus deriv'd as in themselves depend on Divine Revelation as on their Formall Motives Do not these two consist well together May not Faith depend on the Divine Authority in it self and as it was made known at first and yet not be known to us who live now but by Humane Authority Can he be Certain of Christian Faith by his own Grounds but by the Book of Scripture and yet does not himself say that the Certainty he has of that Book depends on Tradition or Humane Authority and consequently that Humane Faith is the way to know Divine Faith What Quacking then and Mountebanking is this to make me a Pelagian for doing the same himself does and publickly avows omitting in the mean time my Answers which at large clear'd before-hand all that he has here so
Copy nor that any Copy can be True unless conformable to the True Original And if there can be any failure in any of these nay if you have not Absolute Certainty of all these you cannot have by your Grounds any Absolute Certainty of your Faith For if the Letter be wrong all is wrong that is built on it and it may be wrong for ought you know notwithstanding the Testimony of all Christian Churches relying on this Way of attesting the Truth of the Letter For you can never shew that all those Churches consented to apply their utmost diligence to examine and attest all the several Translations made in their respective languages or witnest that they came from the true Original or took the most exquisit care that was possible to see that the Translaters and the Copiers did their duty Which had they held the Letter to be their onely Rule of Faith and consequently that All Faith that is the very Being of the present and future Church and their own Salvation too depended on the Scripture they were obliged in conscience and under the highest Sin above all things in the World to have done and this with the exactest care imaginable Your Grounds then notwithstanding all you have said or alledged hitherto to ensure the Letter make no Provision for the Absolute Certainty of the Written-Rule nor consequently of your Faith. 27. But what becomes then say you of the Vulgar Latin Translation I answer in our Grounds no harm at all For the Canon of the Books comes down by the Testimony of all Christian Churches that are truly Christian and the Doctrin of Christ transfus'd into the hearts of the succeeding Faithful ever since the beginning both taught them how and oblig'd them to correct the Copy in those particular Texts that concern'd Faith if any Errour through the carelesness unattentiveness or malice of the Translaters or Transcribers at any time had crept in By the same Means as you can now adays correct the Copy in those Texts that ought to express some Point of Morality in case it were corrupted and deviated from Christian Manners viz. by vertue of the Sense of that Practical Tenet you were imbu'd with formerly this even tho' you had no other Copy or Text to amend it by Insomuch that how good an opinion so ever you had of the Copy Translater Printer or Correcter of the Press yet for all that you would conclude they had err'd and the Letter was faulty rather than forgo the Doctrin so firmly rivetted in your heart by the constant Teaching and Practice of the Christian world As for other particular Texts of an Inferiour Concern they could be best corrected by multitudes of other ancient Copies the Churches Care still going along in which too the greatest care that was possible to rectify it's Errours was taken by the Council of Trent that so it might be as exact as Human Diligence could well render it A thing as far as my memory reaches never order'd or very much regarded by any Council formerly 28. But I foresee your method of confuting which is to muster up Extrinsecall objections not at all to the purpose will naturally lead you to discredit this way of correcting Scripture's Letter in passages belonging to Faith as singular or New This being the same your Friend G. B. objected to the Way of Tradition it self as may be seen above Sect. 10. Such piddling Exceptions drest up prettily in gay language go a great way and make a fine shew in your Controversies and which is a benefit of most advantage to you excuse you from bringing any Intrinsecal Arguments tho' these onely are such as conclude any thing and tho' you are bound by your precise Duty to produce such Wherefore to ward this blow I shall alledge the Judgment of that Learned and Excellent Personage Sir Thomas More our first Modern English Controvertist who writing not against you in defence of our Grounds but to another Catholick Divine expresses candidly his Sentiment in these words Ego certe hoc persuadeo mihi idque ut opinor vere quicquid ad fidem astruendam faciat non esse a quovis melius versum quam ab ipsis Apostolis perscriptum Ideoque fit ut quoties in Latinis codicibus occurrat quidquam quod aut contra Fidem aut mores facere videatur Scripturarum interpretes aut ex aliis alibi verbis quid illud sibi velit dubium expiscentur aut ad vivum Evangelium Fidei quod per universam Ecclesiam in corda Fidelium infusum est quod etiam priusquam scriberetur a quoquam Apostolis a Christo ab Apostolis Vniverso Mundo praedicatum est dubios ejusmodi sermones applicent atque ad inflexibilem veritatis Regulam examinent ad quam si non satis adaptare queant aut sese non intelligere aut mendosum esse codicem non dubitent This is my Iudgment and as I conceive a True one that whatever Text is useful to build Faith on was not better translated by any than it was writ by the Apostles themselves And therefore as oft as any thing occurs in the Latin-Books that seems to make against Faith or Good Manners the Interpreters of Scripture either gather from other Words in other places what that doubt should mean or they compare those doubtful sayings to the living Gospel of Faith which was infus'd into the Hearts of the Faithful throughout the Vniversal Church which before any man writ it was Preach't by Christ to the Apostles and by the Apostles to the whole World examine them by the inflexible Rule of Faith with which if they cannot make it square they conclude that either they do not understand it or the Book is faulty where he passes by the former way with a sleight word expiscentur fish out the sense but insists on the latter way of preserving the Copy sincere as Certain and Proper 29. I must not pretermit your Objection p. 19. that the Ancient Christian Church never knew any thing concerning this Method of resolving Faith into meer Oral Tradition I would desire you to add Practical to Oral at least to conceive it to be understood all the way that being our True and constantly-avow'd Tenet But did the Antient Church in reality never know any thing of this way T is wonderful you should not understand they meant the same as we do unless they speak the self-same Words and make the same Discourses we do now Did not they all hold that who taught any thing contrary to the Doctrin delivered down by the Church was a Heretick Did any of them say that the Churche's Tradition of a Doctrin as Christs was liable to Errour Did any of them hold that it was lawful for your Sober Enquirer to rely on his Private Interpretation of the Scripture and relinquish the sense of the Church which is the true Point Not one 'T is one thing to say they oft quoted Scripture
Heresies in the world do as much as this comes to and yet are no less Heresies than if they did none of this T is your Proving it to be your Ground and that an Absolutely Certain one too which we would be at but we justly complain you flinch from the onely thing in Dispute and perpetually balk us We tell you once more and we cannot repeat it too often there is a necessary Connexion between the Ground and the Building for 't is not a Building if it have no Ground nor the Ground of a Building if nothing be built on it You are then to shew us Absolute Certainty of this necessary Connexion between the Scripture and your Faith or you do nothing but talk at random But alas You have not the Confidence to make out this or produce your Reasons to conelude this Ground and this Building have such a necessary Relation and I must tell you plainly you can never do it For pray tell me May not the Socinians and indeed all Hereticks that ever arose in the Church say pretend and perhaps think the same that you do Nay do not they all alledge the same Do not they all profess to resolve theit Faith I mean their abominable Errours into the written Word Do not they pretend it for their Ground and that they build their prophane Tenets on it lastly avow as stoutly as you do for your heart that whatever is built on Gods Word is absolutely Certain Will you allow these Pleas Argumentative for them or that their wicked Errours are therefore true Faith and Absolutely Certain because they alledge all this And can you be so unreasonable as to expect we should pass that for a good Argument or a conclusive Reason to prove you have Absolute Certainty for your Faith which your self disallows when 't is alledg'd for them nay which you must disallow and declare against unless you will patronize all their Heresies Pray lay your hand on your Heart and consider I am sure 't is more your own Good than mine you should into what a Lamentable or rather Chimerical Condition God's Church is reduc't by your Resolution of your Faith here and the Account you give of it The Pillar and Ground of Truth is reduc't by you into a confused Chaos of incoherent Errours Christ's immaculate Spouse is associated with all the Adulterate Synagogues of Sathan lastly Faith as to it's Certainty is in no better a Condition than Heresy and Heresy is upon even Ground with Faith. I have a better opinion of the Church of England than to believe Her most learned and genuin Members will own such a Resolution of her Faith as will make the Socinians and all other Hereticks in the World their fellow-Christians and Brothers as they must be forced to do if they own no other Resolution of it than all those pestilent Sects unanimously profess I see Mr. G had good reason to ask you in his 5 th Question What Churches you accounted Christian Churches For I much fear by your Discourse and Principles you exclude None Nor ought you so they heartily hold the same Gound of Faith with you for then all their Vnchristian Tenets are to pass for Material Errours not Formal Heresies They hold all true Faith in the Purse still tho' they mistake the coyn and mettal and that 's enough in all conscience for such a Church as that you are about rearing or dawbing up You pass a complement indeed upon the four first General Councils and that you reject all such Doctrins as were condemn'd by them which use to be words of course in your Controversies as your humble servant and such like are in our common Conversation but when you are once got out of the circumstance of pretending to hold to some Antiquity that so you may set a better face on it when you oppose the Papists when that job is over they are but Fallible Congregations and so perhaps were deceiv'd in all they defin'd against the Arians Eutychians c. Especially if one of your sober Enquirers comes to fancy otherwise and no doubt there were many such even in those dayes And then comes the 21 st Article of Q. Elizabeth's Symbol and knocks them down all at once with a Declaration that their Decrees have neither Strength nor Authority unless it may be declar'd that they be taken out of Holy Scripture and so all is with a turn of ones hand brought back to the same Point again and farewell Councils Your self and any one of your sober Enquirers are at full liberty still to judge of them by your Scripture-Rule and the Resolution of your Faith is establish't by that Article at least as you make use of it to be the same with that which is made and profest by all the vile Hereticks in the world For as Dr. Burnet sayes very candidly in his Answer to the Method of oonverting Protestants p. 83. and no doubt upon your Principles If any man after his strictest Enquiries is still perswaded that a Council has decreed against the true meaning of the Scriptures in a point necessary to Salvation then he must prefer God to Man and follow the Sounder tho' it should prove to be the lesser party And if any Company or Synod of Protestants have decree'd any thing contrary to this in so far they have departed from the Protestant Principles Where we see he gives every sober Enquirer leave to judge of Councils even tho' General ones for he excepts None and himself shews them the way by Judging Censuring the Councils of his own Church 35. Another scruple yet remains incumbent on you to clear which is that by your putting it upon Mr. G. to prove you have not Absolute Certainty as to the Rule of your Faith and by your innate Antipathy against Infallibility 't is very dubious whether your self do indeed hold the Tradition of all Christian Churches Absolutely Certain even for the Scripture however to save your Credit you then pretended it fearing your denying it might disedify Mr. T. Since then you ly under a shrewd suspicion that you do not deal really with him and the rest of your Readers in this forc't Profession it would become you in your Reply both to shew why you allow that Testimony to be Absolutely Certain and yet are such an Enemy to Infallibility since common sense tells us no man can judge himself Absolutely Certain of a thing if he judges he may at the same time be deceiv'd in it and withal that you may give more satisfaction to your Readers herein than an empty and scarce credible acknowledgment of it when you were in untoward Circumstances pray go to work like a Schollar and demonstrate to us by way of solid Reason working upon the Nature of the Thing for no Argument meerly probable will suffice to prove a Testimony Absolutely Certain how and by what vertue this Tradition of all Christian Churches comes to be thus Absolutely Certain for the
so Wicked as to decline from it voluntarily or neglect to educate the others in it however it was to be expected there would be now and then a failure in some Particulars deserting the former Doctrin and drawing Proselytes after them 3 dly That the same reason holds for the Continuate Delivery of the same Doctrin by the Second Age to the Third and so still forwards the most powerful Motives God himself could propose being laid to oblige Christians not to deviate from it in the least or be careless to recommend it And those Motives too a thousand times more lively imprinted and apprehended by the heaven-instructed Faithful than they were by any in the former Ages of the World before Christ. 4thly That by Tradition then is meant The Testimony of the whole foregoing Age of Christians to the next Age of what had been deliver'd and explain'd to them by their Living Voice and Practice Or taking Tradition as it ought to be for Oral and Practical both 'T is A Continu'd Education of undergrowing Posterity in the Principles and Practice of their Immediate Predecessours 5 thly That hence 't is Evident beyond needing Proof that this Rule cannot on it's part deceive us For putting that it was still follow'd or that Posterity still believ d and practis'd as their Immediate Fore-Fathers did who at first believ'd and practis'd as the Apostles had instructed them 't is manifest the Last Age of the World must have the same Faith that the First Age of Christianity had Whence follows evidently that no Errour could possibly come in at any time unless this Rule of Tradition had been deserted 6 thly That Tradition thus understood and we never understood it otherwise being the Living Voice and Practice of the Church in the immediate Age before is applicable to all even of the lowest Capacity as we experience to some degree in the instructions by Pastours even now adays And since it delivers it's Sense which in those that have follow'd that Rule has been even now shewn to be Christ's Doctrin by Preaching Catechizing Explaining daily Practising and all the ways imaginable to make it understood 't is also an Absolutely-Clear Conveyer of Christ's Doctrin downwards Add that should it's sense be at any time misapprehended the Church and her Pastours can explain their own meaning pertinently to the Askers Doubter's or Mistaker's Exigencies which a Letter in a Book cannot 7 thly That the Chief Care of the Church was to inculcate to the Faithful and preserve inviolate the Chief Points of the Christian Faith and therefore that Tradition did most particularly exert it's self in Teaching and Transmitting Those 8 thly 'T is not to be deny'd but Scriptural Tradition went along with this other we have explain'd For the Church having the same sense in her breast which the First Writers had were consequently the best Interpreters of it which was one Reason why the Fathers and Councils often made use of it to confute Hereticks and comfort the Faithful by it's concurrence But when they were to convert any to Faith it was never heard they took such a Method as to put the Bible in his hand and bid him look for his Faith there telling him 't was Plain even in the highest points that were dubious or Controverted to every capacity 9 thly That hence Scripture without the Churches help was never held by them Anciently nor can with reason be held by us now to be the Rule of Faith in the sense we use that word that is to be a Means or Way for All who are coming to Faith to arrive unerringly at it Lastly we hold that the Sense of Scripture's Letter in those sublime Points surpasses the apprehensions of private men coming to Faith and so the Letter alone cannot be an assured Ground to build the Truth of Christian Faith upon whence follows that Tradition which is Plain and Easy and only It can be in Proper Speech the Rule of Faith. § 6. This then is the true State of the Question between us This is our true Tenet both concerning Scripture and Tradition and what are the Points to be ascertain'd by them Now let us see how the Sermon represents us and whether your admired Preacher does so much as touch any one of these particulars § 7. In the first place you may please to take notice that he never lets you know or so much as suspect that the main Contest between him and me is about the Absolute Certainty or Uncertainty of Christian Faith His wicked Doctrin in that Point oblig'd me to write a whole Treatise formerly in Vindication of Christianity from such an Intolerable Scandal which I apply'd in the cloze of it against himself and Dr. Tillotson Had he let you know this he prudently foresaw your Zeal for Christianity your best Concern would have given you a just prejudice against his Sermon and the Preacher too and the very Conceit all Christians have of the Truth of their Faith would have made you abhor a Discourse out of a Pulpit maintaining it might possibly be a Ly. As for particulars § 8. First he talks of a Stedfastness and a firm and well-settled resolution to adhere to that Faith which Christ himself deliver'd But ought you not to be assur'd first that he did indeed deliver it Or are you to adhere to it as his whether you are certain 't is his or no Or is a resolution to hold stedfastly to what you judge is the Faith of Christ well-settled if that Faith of yours the Basis of your Spiritual Building and Ground of that Resolution be not well-settled it self but may sink into False-hood This is the true Point you are to look after and till you have perfect satisfaction from him in this wisely to consider that Pious Talk without Solid Grounds to support their Truth is but painting the out-side of a Sepulcher The tinkling cymball of a little Rhetorick and shews of much Reading may go far with persons whom such flourishes can prevail upon to forgo their Reason but he had but a very small respect for you if he hop't you were so easy to be play'd upon with the wind of a little articulate ayr § 9. It was very possible he says for them to have mistaken or misremember'd what was at first deliver'd Whom does he mean by Them What by First Delivery Does he mean the Vniversality of Christians in the First Age or any succeeding one Or that those Great Bodies settled in their Faith form'd into Church-Government and kept up to their Christian Duties by Disciplin could thus mistake or misremember the former Teaching and Practice which was a plain matter of Fact This is the only Tradition we ever spoke of or went about to defend None doubts but that when some single Apostle was Preaching in some places at first the Thoughts of the Hearers were as yet raw and the things that were told them were so strange that they did not
that by Absolute Certainty you will mean such a Certainty as will permit those Grounds may be False and Faith built upon them much more for we are to know 't is a Maxim with him that the Absolute Certainty he allows his Grounds is possible to be False and he allows a less degree of Certainty to Particular Points than to his Grounds so that Faith may much more easily be False then his Grounds may though they may be False too And all this out of an Antipathy I suppose to Infallibility because the abominable Papists own it as if Mankind did not use to say they are Infallibly Certain of some things before the Papists were born What then is this Absolute Certainty Is it meerly built on his Apprehension or Thinking it so No but upon such an Evidence as the Thing is capable of Very good Is any thing in the world capable to be known 'T is a strange Paradox to deny it and yet if he grants it he cannot escape meeting with this bug-bear Infallibility For if the Knowledge as it is be as the Thing is and the Thing be Infallibly as it self is the Knowledge is Infallibly as the Thing is Here Gentlemen you may expect he will turn it off with some scornfull Irony for he never in his life answer'd any such pressing Reason any other way But the Argument will not be laught out of Countenance and therefore if Infallibility must be allow'd he is to shew us what harm would come to Faith if the Previous Grounds of it as to our Knowledge were thus Certain None at all But then alas his Credit and his Cause will go to wrack for no shew or shadow of any such Argument can his superficial Principles allow us and therefore no Absolute Certainty will he yield to the Grounds to know Christ's Faith but such a one as permits all Mankind may be deceiv'd in them and much more in knowing what is his Doctrin it self after we have those Grounds For Absolute Certainty shall not mean Infallibility let us say and prove what we will. However I 'le venture to ask him once more Since as he says the Thing notwithstanding the Absolute Certainty we have of its being True may yet be False let us suppose as 't is not impossible there being some degree of Contingency in it that it happens to be False Can he in that Case have Absolute Certainty that a Falshood is True Here it goes hard with him nor can all his old Heathen Philosophers he so oft recurrs to in the least help him out He has but one Refuge that I know of to sly to and that is to use some trick to shuffle away from Absolute Certainty and say that he meant by it Sufficient Certainty and That he 'l stick to when all his new notions fail him For Absolute Certainty he was unluckily forc't upon by Mr G. tho' he had no acquaintance with it or friendship for it but his Inclination and Heart was for Sufficient Certainty And good reason for in the Sanctuary of that Common Word he 's as safe as in an Enchanted Castle Those scurvy Particularizing Expressions are Tell-tales and by their Lavishness are apt to discover Sense or Nonsense but This keeps aloof and by signifying nothing at all determinately is past the reach of any Confute But if you tell him 't is a Relative word and put him upon proving that his possibly-False Certainty is Sufficient to conclude it to be True that any Point of his Faith is the same that our Divine Master taught the World he 'l no more hear or mind you than he did me when I alledg'd that a Rule and Ground were Relative words too and therefore must communicate their Certainty to all the Particular Points they relate to And if you continue to press him hard with such Cramp-questions he 'l tell you he 's not at leasure having his foot in the stirrup to take a long Iourney as far as Trent So being Bankrupt of Reason he withdraws his Effects thence to Trade more fortunately as he hopes in Citations and finding himself beaten at Tradition he gets Letters of Reprizall from his new Logick to revenge himself on us in combating the Tridentin Council To which he will receive an Answer when he first shews us that he stood firm in his own Principles at home ere he took such a leap beyond Sea and Satisfies the World how it is possible that a man who confesses he has no Absolute Certainty of Christian Faith can be sufficiently qualify'd either to prove any Tenet of his own or disprove any Tenet of others to be truly Christian. In a word his chief Art is to Cloak his Arts and he is a great Master at it His Aim is to make his Discourses run plausibly whatever it costs his Credit which he hopes is so great now with the Inferiour Clergy that let him be as Prodigall of it as he will it can never be exhausted The telling of his tale smoothly will take much with those Readers who dwell in the middle story But strip his Discourse of all those needfull Ornaments and Assistances and 't is plain impertinent Nonsense in cuerpo For not any thing like a solid Ground is found in his whole Book The Manufacture and Contrivance of it is all in all It may perhaps be thought by some that I am too downright with him in divers of my Expressions but I desire them to consider that I do not use him half so rudely as some of the Church of England have done and besides that in doing that little I did I do but write after his own Copy and fall very short too of imitating him as appears by his Angry Viper venomous froth Gall Spleen Folly Malice c. His Faults are Great and Many and must I not Name them when I am oblig'd to lay them open If I must the very Names we give to Great Faults will be Harsh words let me do what I can Yet I have moderated them as much as the sense of what I ow'd to Christian Faith would give me leave Besides as my Genius leads me to carry it friendly with unpretended Honesty tho' Erring so it inclines me to show less respect to a man who as I see plainly by a constant Experience has none at all for Truth but practices and pursues all over Study'd Insincerity I have one Request or rather a fair Offer to make the Dr. which is that since it is so mortifying to a man who as appears by all his former Writings aims to reduce Truth to Evidence and Principles to be still task't in laying open such multitudes of his Shifts and Prevarications For I do think in my Conscience I have not either in this Preface or my following Book even hinted a quarter of them he would condescend that we may each of us chuse two worthy Gentlemen who leaving out the Question of Right may examin only matter of Fact viz. which of us uses
Make use therefore of what form of Subscription you please I replied Then I will declare that I do Subscribe not retracting my Doctrine but persisting in it which he allow'd and I did it in the self-same terms adding that I persisted in it as being free from Censure and approv'd by very Eminent Personages Which done the Censurers were order'd nay commanded to make me Satisfaction by an Instrument Sign'd by them both declaring that no Proposition in any Book of mine was toucht by their Censure Could there be a greater and more Authentick Clearing my Books and Doctrine from being Censur'd than that was or might not Dr St. by parity of reason as well have pretended that the Scripture teaches Atheism or that King David deserv'd to be Censur'd for saying There is no God as that any Proposition as found in my Books was there Censur'd or Declar'd Heretical 15. And now to lay open some of the Doctor 's Falshoods upon this occasion They are these 1. That the main Design of my Catholick Letters are there declar'd to be no Catholick Doctrine Well bowl'd Doctor Have I a word there pretending to shew the Mysteries of Faith or the Authority of the Church that is believ'd by Faith that is it's Supernatural Infallibility by Assistance of the Holy Ghost to be Demonstrable Is it not shewn you in most express words Third Cath. Letter p. 22.23 and in many other places that we speak only of the Humane Authority of the Church which is to be prov'd by Natural Mediums and not of the other which is believ'd by the Faithfull This then is a meer forg'd pretence against your own Conscience and perfect Knowledge 2. That I was Censur'd and retracted whereas 't is manifest not any thing as it lay in my Books that is indeed nothing of mine was Censur'd nor did I subscribe otherwise than as not Retracting my Doctrine but persisting in it as being free from Censure This the Arch-Bishop of Paris allow'd and the Censurers themselves judged to be Iust and True and upon those terms acquitted me and made me Satisfaction 3. He says that if this the Sense Condemn'd be not Catholick Doctrine he is Infallibly Certain my Letters are far from being Catholick in their Sense Now not one word is there in those Letters which is the Sense Condemn'd as I shew'd lately however I am glad he who has still been so high against all Infallibility in his Writings and deny'd it to the Catholick or any Church owns it at least in Himself I see now what Grounds he went upon when he would not make a Candid Retractation of his Irenicum Certainly this man would persuade us to take his word for our Rule of Faith. But the ill luck is his Infallibility is evidently prov'd already to be willfull Forgery against plain and Authentick matter of Fact. He say the A. B. of D. averrs many fine things already answer'd and that my Plea was ridiculous Which is false for any thing he or I know For that Illustrious Personage deny'd that Book of Lominus to be his or did any man own it but it came out surreptitiously without the Approbation of any man under an unknown name nay without so much as the Printers name to it which was punishable by the Laws there Whence we may judge of our Drs. sincerity In his Second Letter to Mr. G. p. 8. by putting Heresis Blacloana in the Margent over against his Appeal to F. W. He hinted that that Venerable Person was Author of that Book Beat off from that False and Ungrounded pretence he has found us another Author for it and I expect in his next piece we shall have a Third or Fourth according as his fancy so heated now that it has shaken off all regard to Civility shall prompt him Again he shews us how wonderfully ingenuous he is by his quoting against me the railing Book of an unknown Adversary which had besides all the Marks of a Libel in it and over-flipping the Attestation of Eight Worthy Divines of great repute who openly and owning their names did witness that those places in my Books did not bear the Sense in which those words pick't out thence were censur'd Add that Dr. St. knew all these particulars were clear'd satisfactorily since it appears by his quoting them he had read my Defences in which they are printed at large Which Common Sense may assure him I durst not have done in the Life-time of all the Persons mention'd and concern'd without quite losing my Cause Nay I should have expos'd my self to new Accusations as a Falsifier had I not dealt sincerely to a tittle and preserv'd all the Authentick Originals in my own hands for the Justification of my Defences which I yet have I charge the Dr. then to have publisht against me Willfull and Notorious Falshoods which he had reason to know to be such Yet we are still to think he did all this out of his pure Love to Moral Honesty of which he makes such a Saintly Profession I Challenge him moreover to shew me any one Catholique Writer of any Eminency I do profess I do not know so much as one of any degree whatever whoever Censur'd this Position that the Infallibility of the Churches Humane Authority antecedent to Faith and deriving down Christ's Doctrine might be demonstrated which is all I require in my Catholick Letters Whereas the Right Reverend F. W. has named him divers both Ancient and Modern who follow that Method in general and I have quoted divers Eminent Controvertists as occasion serv'd and particularly insisted on two beyond all Exception F. Fisher here in England and Dominicus de Sta Trinitate who writ and printed his Book at Rome and had it approv'd by the Magister Sacri Palatii who take the same way I do almost to a tittle I may add to the Drs. greater confusion the Authority of the Arch-Bishop of D. himself and of all those Eminent Persons who have approv'd my Doctrine as shall be seen hereafter 16. Not a man then has Dr St. on his side but one unknown and altogether unapprov'd Author Lominus and a bitter Adversary to me besides out of whose Falshoods interlarded with his own and by his Concealing my Replyes to all he objects and those such as fully satisfy'd my Judges and Superiours he makes a shift to patch up his Calumnies We will see next whether to his further shame my Books or Doctrin have not had Testimonials of greater weight to approve and authenticate them than that of Lominus was to Condemn them 17. In the first place that Blessed and Glorious Martyr the Illustrious and Eminently Learned Oliver Plunket Arch-Bishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland assoon as he heard my Books were oppos'd out of his meer Justice love of Truth and the Esteem he had of my Doctrin unsought to nay unthought of sent me out of Ireland an Approbation of it writ
to direct passengers in their Way and leaves Men much at like Liberty to regard either More is justly and prudently requir'd viz. A Power to make her Declarations Law and this as to Matters of Faith not only in things belonging to Order and Decency otherwise the Later without the Former makes as he argues very well some kind of Fence about the Church against Schismaticks but lays her open to all manner of Hereticks 57. This just Censure of mine upon the Drs. Principles was such a Choak-Pear to him that 't is no wonder he keck't at it so vehemently The Great Credit he had got whether for defending Christian Faith or no the Reader is to judge made him scorn to bring it up again and retract it But he uses all the Arts imaginable to Palliate and Excuse it and those such wretched ones that 't is a shame to mention them and certainly never was so Heavy a Charge so Miserably refuted He says confidently this Doctrine of his is own'd by all Men of Understanding in both Churches Whereas if he can show me any one Catholick who maintains that he can have any Faith at all or ground such a Firm sacred Assent upon his own private Interpretation of Scripture without the Churches Help in those most sublime and necessary Articles which have been dubious and contested between the Church and any Heretick of which only we speak he will do more than Miracle But I am mightily mistaken he will name one and who should that be but I. S. himself What a boldness is this to make me his Patron to defend him in that very Position which I am in this very place Impugning Well but what says I. S. Why he says that every man is to judge for his own Salvation and of the best way to his Salvation and of all the Controversies between them and us and especially of the true Grounds of Faith and all this without the Churches Help Now I. S. says indeed that a man coming to Faith does by his Reason find out the True Rule and True Church that thus he Iudges for his own Salvation by using his Reason to find out a Rule Ground or Way to right Faith which is to bring him to Salvation that by his Rule thus found out he Judges of all our Controversies in judging that to be Christ's true Doctrin which that Rule recommends as such but is this to judge of Points of Faith without the Churches Help when that very Rule by which he judges of them is avow'd by him to be the Churches Testimony Above all does he not all along declare his abhorrence of finding out Faith in Scripture's Letter by private Judgments which is the Drs Position And must I. S. still be of the Drs Sentiment tho' he in all occasions contradicts it disputes against it and baffles it What will not this nonplust man say when he is put to his Shifts Any Common words tho' when apply'd to particulars they be directly contrary to him must be presum'd to be for him in despite of a long and constant Tenour of all circumstances and whole discourses to the contrary whoever peruses my Third Catholick Letter from p. 99. to the End will see that my way of Iudging for our Salvation is as opposite to his as one Pole is to another and he has the incredible Confidence to make them the Same At length he hopes to come off by alledging that he spoke it only by way of Supposition that If one may without the Churches Help find out the Churche's Authority in Scripture then why not all necessary Points of Faith And was this All he said Indeed he craftily introduc't his Position Conditionally but did he not after the words Then every such Person viz. any sober Enquirer may without the Churche's Help find out all necessary Points of Faith Espouse the Position it self which had been thus introduc't and this most Peremptorily by immediately subjoyning these words which is a Doctrin I am so far from being asham'd of that I think it most agreeable to the Goodness of God the Nature of the Christian Faith and the Vnanimous Consent of the Christian Church for many Ages And will he now tell us after all this Positive asserting it that it only proceeds upon a Supposition a why not a Parity of Reason He objects I answer it not Why was it an Argument or must I stand answering every voluntary saying of his which are infinit every Supposition and every why not If I must needs speak to it the Imparity of Reason consists in this that the Church being constituted by God to instrust the Faithfull in their Faith it was but fitting Scripture should be Clearer in those Texts that concern the Churches Governing them in Faith and their Obligation to hear her than in the particular Points which they were to be assur'd of by her Teaching Besides the Former Point viz. the following the Churche's Instructions and being govern'd by her in their Faith is a kind of Morall Point whereas the other Points were many of them Sublime Mysteries and therefore not so easily Intelligible without a Master And St. Austin had beforehand confuted his pretended Parity of Reason by telling him that Proinde quamvis hujus rei c. Wherefore tho' no Example of this thing were produc't out of the Canonicall Scriptures yet the Truth of the same Scriptures is held by us even in this Matter when we do what seems good to the Universall Church which the Authority of the same Scripture Commends And because the Holy Scripture cannot deceive us whoever fears to be deceiv'd by the Obscurity of this Question let him consult the same Church concerning it which Church the Holy Scripture demonstrates without any Ambiguity Where he clearly intimates the infallibility of the Church that 't is to be consulted in dubious Points and all Controverted Points of which we speak have been call'd into Doubt which makes its Help very Needfull and which I chiefly insist on that its Authority is Clearly and without any Ambiguity demonstrated in Scripture whereas yet in his Second Book de Doctrinâ Christianâ he acknowledges the Obscurity of Scripture in divers places Obscurè quaedam dicta densissimam caliginem obducunt Some things spoken obscurely involve us in thickest Darkness And if any be Obscure then surely those necessary and High Mysteries of our Faith which are of such a Deep Sense must be such when they come to be scann'd by Eyes as yet unenlighten'd with Faith as the same Father cited in my Fourth Catholick Letter has also told him 58. After this he sums up his Performances and tells us in short how he has err'd at large Next he gives us a lame excuse for his Indirect Answer to the Fourth Question propos'd at the Conference and in effect only commits over again the same Faults he was charg'd with a little more formally as his fashion is and
Equivocated in the Tenet of the Reall Presence and according to the Drs late Distinction making Not-Regulating to be one sort of Regulating would needs have the word Reall to mean Not-Reall whence it was judg'd expedient to put it past quibble by such a rigorously-express Definition And I much fear this vexes the Drs Sacramentarian Spirit far more then Transubstantiation it self I omit that he has forgot here the Common distinction of what Points are necessary Necessitate Medij and what Necessitate Praecepti I suppose because this Later did not sute with his Levelling Principles which set the Church and his Rabble on even Ground as to Matters of Faith. 64. I alledg'd that those Articles of the Trinity and Christ's Godhead were Fundamentall Points and therefore if his Rule could not Absolutely Ascertain People of all sorts coming to Faith of those Articles it could assure them of None and so is no Rule of Faith. He runs quite away from the Points and thinks he has done enough to say It is Absolutely Certain that God has reveal'd the Fundamentalls of our Faith. But the Question sticks still Are you Absolutely Certain by your Rule that the Trinity and Christ's Godhead are Christ's Doctrin or signify'd with Absolute Certainty by Scripture's Letter To this he says nothing but shifts it off most Shamelessly to another thing Let him set himself to do this which is his Task and we will undertake to examin the Nature of his Medium and show it Inconclusive I alledg'd that there is Experience by the Socinians taking the same way that his Medium or way to be Certain of this is not Certain He again turns off Experience that the way he takes is not Certain to Experience of his Inward Certainty or his Inward Persuasion And asks briskly whether he or I know best A pleasant Gentleman Why does he not confute all my Book by that Method Does he think 't is enough to show he is Absolutely Certain of the Sense of Scripture as to those Points with barely saying he knows he is thus Certain of it better than I What wretched Shifts are these In pursuance of this new Method of Proving and Confuting He asks again How comes Mr. S. to know we are not Certain when we say we are Because when you are most highly Concern'd and stood Engag'd by promise to show this Absolute Certainty and are Prest to it Vehemently and upon the brink of losing your Credit for not doing it you still decline the showing you have any such Certainty for the Sense of Scripture as to those Points Still he asks Are not we Certain because some that is the Socinians are not Certain No Sir not barely for that reason but because the Socinians proceeding upon the Same Rule are so far from being Certain of the Sense of Scripture as to those Points that they esteem themselves Certain by the same Scripture of Hereticall Tenets Point-blank Opposit to those Points Common Reason assures us no End can be compass'd without a Means and therefore you can never show us You are Certain till you show us you follow a better Way rely on a firmer Ground and Guide your selves by a Clearer Light to make you Certain of Scriptures Sense in those passages than They do which you can never show and as appears by your wriggling from that Point by the most untoward Shifts imaginable dare not Attempt But some are uncertain of Orall Tradition nay Censure it I do not know one man but holds and reverences it It lies upon his Credit to name those who Censure it For Lominus is a Chimaerical name and signifies no body that he knows But suppose Some did yet it being an object of Naturall Reason they and I in that case could not proceed on the Same Grounds or Reasons as his Protestants and the Socinians do upon the Same Rule of Faith. 65. I alledg'd that by his Principles he could be no more Certain of his Rule then he is of the Truth of the Letter of Scripture in regard the Truth of the Sense of Scripture depends on the Trueness of the Letter Does he deny this Or does he show that without the Care of the Church preserving the Letter Right all along he can have any Such Certainty of the Letter He not so much as Attempts either I alledg'd farther that he cannot be thus Certain of the Right Letter without having the same Certainty of the Right Translation or the True Copy nor that any Copy is True unless it be taken from the First Originall Does he deny this Or does he show that all these may not fail if the Churches's Care be set aside No neither What Shift has he then Why he says 1. That some of us are Concern'd to Answer this as well as He. Not at all for those who say that Part of Faith is Contain'd in Scripture do not for all that say that their Faith is built on Scripture's Letter interpreted by any but the Church nor do they say but the Church without Scripture could have ascertain'd them of their Faith. 2. He says This strikes at the Authentickness of the Vulgar Translation Not at all For we have other Grounds to go upon which they have Not. 3. He skips after bringing some words of mine for what they were never intended from the Translation to the Canon of Scripture which are a Mile wide from one another that so he may however he speeds in all the rest at least talk plausibly of the Concurrent Testimony for the Canon In order to which he stands up a Patron for those Christian Churches of his who thus concurr'd and will not condemn them as not truly Christian till their Cause be better heard and examin'd Yet 't is Evident from his Second Letter to Mr. G. p. 25. that some of those Churches were Arians Nestorians and Eutychians condemn'd for Hereticks by most Antient General Councils which he blames it seems for declaring so rashly against them and reprieves his Friends from their Censures till a fairer Hearing It had been happy for them had Dr. St. presided in those Councils for he would doubtless have dealt with them very kindly and have clapt them head and tail together with good Catholicks into one Latitudinarian Bill of Comprehension 5. I alledg'd that the same Sense in the heart of the Church enabled and oblig'd Her to correct the Copy when faulty in Texts containing Points of Faith which instead of shewing it Incompetent or Disagreeable to the Nature of things he confutes most Learnedly by pretending that Atheists and Unbelievers would be scandaliz'd at it Whereas they would be much more scandaliz'd to see no Certain Means assign'd to preserve the Letter right from the beginning the very first Originals being lost and all left the Churches Care set apart to so many contingences of Translating and Transcribing 6. We must prove it first to be impossible for the Sense of the Church to vary in any two
Ages As if this had not been prov'd already and never yet answer'd but by Shuffles and Evasions 7. He frames a Plea for the Arians against the Nicene Councill from my Principles but very untowardly for the Arians allow'd the Copies and quoted Scripture as fast as Catholicks did and yet Err'd most abominably which makes against himself Lastly he tells us that 't is a pernicious Principle a miserable Account c. At which I wonder not For every thing is miserable and pernicious with him that makes the Church good for any thing Yet he could grant the Churches Testimony was needfull at first to abett the Truth of the Gospells and she enjoy'd that Priviledge in St. Austins time and I wonder how she came to lose her Title to God's Gracious Providence and Assistance or how she came to be disabled in the following ages to preserve the Letter uncorrupted in those Texts that contain'd known Points of Faith. It seems Translaters and Transcribers for the most part Mercenary are Sacred with him and admirable Preservers of the Letter but alas the Miserable Church is good for nothing I have already told him why I hold Scriptures Letter no Rule how 't is sometimes call'd a Rule in an improper Sense and why that Sense is improper and his Friend Dr. Tillotson has told him what a Rule of Faith means in our Controversies but he never heeds either but runs on here with frivolous descants upon an ambiguous word and will needs take Rule in a Sense never meant nor possible to be meant in our circumstances He 's not satisfy'd with the Care of the Council of Trent in correcting the Copy But let him remember I spoke there of Texts of Inferiour Concern not of those that concern'd Faith. And why is he not satisfy'd Did she not do her best in the present Circumstances How will he prove it Because Clemens the 8 th recall'd and corrected the Bibles put out by Sixtus the 5 th for an exact Edition But if both did their best according to the Observations were made in their time and the Light they had then neither of them were to blame But all this Humane Diligence amounts not to Absolute Certainty as I. S. requires of us And is it not more reason I should require it of him than he of me since he makes it Scriptures Letter the Proper Rule of Faith which he knows I do not and yet which is pleasant he calls upon me aloud to declare as much and then he knows how to answer And now I know the true Reason why he has answer'd nothing hitherto viz. because I had not declar'd what I had own'd in all my Books near a thousand times over But we have lost our point by answering a multitude of Impertinent Cavills 'T is this The Sense of Scripture cannot be Absolutely Certain unless there be Absolute Certainty the Letter is right Nor can there be Absolute Certainty the Letter is right even in Texts relating to Faith by his Principles which deny this was perform'd by the Churches Knowledge of the Points of Faith but by making out with Absolute Certainty how the Letter was by some other Means secur'd from being wrong This he never attempts even in this very occasion when it lay upon him to do it and therefore for all his empty flourishes he has said just nothing Nor has shewn or defended that even the Ground of his Faith Scriptures Letter is Absolutely Certain Besides his Discourse still beats upon this mistake that We do not hold the Letter Absolutely Certain in such concerning Texts whereas we only say He cannot prove it to be such by his Principles and he makes our words good with not performing it or so much as attempting it Only he tells us for our comfort that as to Books Copies and Translations he has as high a Certainty as the thing is capable of and then 't is Madness to expect and require more So that tho' it happen that the Certainty be but a very sleight one his kind of Faithfull and Converts may take their choice whether they will be Fools if they will believe it or Madmen if they will not He tells us indeed faintly the Faith previous to Divine Faith may have Absolute Certainty but if it only may have it it may not have it In the mean time what is all this voluntary Saying to his Proving that he has really and indeed Absolute Certainty of those Books Copies and Translations 'T is his Proofs we lookt for and not bare Narrations of his own weak Tenets with which he thus puts us off continually 66. But how strangely Insincere if any such carriage could after so frequent use of it be strange in him is the Dr to pretend we hold it is in any Churches Power to correct Original Texts because they contradict the Sense of the present Church These words he puts into Italick Letter as if they were mine but he cites no place and I do assure the Reader I have neither such Words nor Sense The first Originals are not extant so cannot be corrected those call'd Originals which are already acknowledg'd ought as little to be corrected as the other in Texts belonging to Faith. All the Power we give the Church is to correct succeeding Copies upon occasion in Texts relating to the Articles of our Faith when they deviate from the Faith of the Church or which is the same from former Copies allow'd by her universally 67. I desir'd the Dr to satisfy us concerning the Number of Books requisit to a Rule of Faith and how many will just serve the turn as also whether some Book for any thing his Principles can assure us were not lost This lay upon him to prove and this with Absolute Certainty if he would have Scripture an Intire Rule of his Faith How proves he it Why he makes me mightily concern'd to lessen the Authority of the New Testament and that I charge the Christian Church with a Gross Neglect For all this Noise he knows well enough that I agree with him that 't is not in the least probable the Churches should suffer any such Book disperst among them to be last nor do I so much as suppose they did What I say is that he who holds all Humane Authority Fallible can never prove it True they deliver'd down All unless he can convince the World that a Fallible Medium can prove a thing True which he cannot do without proving that What may be False is True. Nor can he do This without proving the same thing may be and not be at once I wish then he would set himself to work and prove this abominable First Principle to be False For otherwise This alone will confute all the substantial parts of his Book and convince every man of Common Sense that his Grounds confest by himself to be Fallible can never make out that 't is True that he has either Right
way how Errour might come in is too great a Veneration to some particular Teachers which made their Disciples despise Tradition in comparison of their Notions And were those men Followers of Tradition who despis'd it His 6th is By Compliance with some Gentil Superstitions c. But did Tradition or the Church's Testimony deliver down to them these Heathenish Superstitions for Christs Doctrin Or rather would it not have preserv'd men from them had nothing else been attended to but that Rule His 7th and last is by Implicit Faith that is that when a man had found a Faithfull Guide to direct him he should submit himself to be Guided by him in things in which he could not guide himself A very dangerous case indeed But the Antidote to this malicious suggestion is that the same Church that they believ'd condemn'd all New Revelations and adher'd only to what was deliver'd He could have added an Eighth way how Errours in Faith come in had he pleas'd and That too such a one as had done a thousand times greater mischief than all the rest put together viz. Private Interpretations of Scripture which every man knows has been the source of all the Heresies since Christ's time But this being the sole Ground of his Faith it was not his Interest to let his Readers know it had been the Ground of all Heresy 76. But what 's all this to the Point Or how is the Demonstration lost if many men err'd upon divers other accounts so none err'd while they follow'd Tradition Unless he proves this he establishes our Demonstrations by his shewing how multitudes err'd who were led by other Motives and by his not being able to produce so much as one Instance of any that err'd by adhering to It. What Noise and Triumph should we have had could he have alledg'd so many Hereticks sprung up by grounding their opinions on mistaken Tradition as 't is known have arisen by grounding their wicked Tenets on misunderstood Scripture But alas tho' that were exceedingly to his purpose not one such Instance could he bring He talks a little faintly of the Arians Pelagians Nestorians c. not disowning Tradition But does he hope to perswade any man of Sense those Upstarts durst ever go about to put out the eyes of the World by pretending their Heresies were deliver'd down as Christs Doctrin by the Publick Testimony of the Church in their days or out-face the present Church that she her self had taught them what she knew themselves had newly invented Or would she have condemn'd them had they spoke her thoughts or follow'd her Doctrin With what Sense can any of this be imagin'd The Tradition then which they went upon was Citations of some former Authors which they misunderstood the very Method Dr St. and his fellow-Quoters take now a-days or else the Judgment of a few Foregoers of whom some might speak ambiguously others perhaps hanker'd after their Heresy 'T is very hard to guess what Dr St. would be at in alledging so many ways how Errour might be introduc't That it might come in and by Various ways no man doubts That it came in meerly by following Tradition or the Churches Testimony he says not That particular Multitudes might be seduc't by deserting Tradition is equally granted and needs no Proof And that it came in tho' Men Adher'd to Tradition which was the true Point he goes not about to prove nor seems so much as to think of Besides most of the Ways he assigns if not all are so many Desertions of Tradition which highly conduces to Strengthen our Argument while he impugns it Yet surely that could not be his Intention neither I cannot imagin then what all these seven Formall Heads are brought for but to make a Show of none knows what Sometimes I incline to think he is combating the Fourth Proposition proving the Body of Traditionary Christians could not innovate in Faith but either through forgetfulness or Malice And yet I cannot fix upon this neither both because he names not these two defects before he shows us his other ways of Erring as also because we are not come as yet to the Fourth Proposition where all the Stress lay but have spent all our time in confuting the First and Second which were Self-Evident But if that be his meaning as he intimates p. 112. to escape replying to the Fourth Proposition then let him know that whatever his unsound Principles say whoever deserts the Testimony of God's Church whether by the Authority or rather No-Authority of False Teachers or by Enthusiasm the root of which is Spirituall Pride or by following Secret Traditions against the Publick Authority of the Church or by adhering to a Sense of Scripture contrary to what Tradition allows or by too great a Veneration to some particular Teachers or by Compliance with Heathenish Superstitions or by whatever other Motive is Guilty before God of a Heinous Sin and it must spring from some degree of Malicious or Bad disposition in his heart For he cannot but See that himself or his Leader breaks the Order of the World by disobeying rising against and preferring himself before those whom God had set over him to feed direct instruct and Govern him Of which Order and of the Goods coming by it and the Mischiefs which attend the Violating it none of Common Sense whom some by-affection has not blinded can possibly be Ignorant 77. He concludes with these words If then Errours might come into the Church all these Ways What a vain thing it is to pretend that Orall Tradition will keep from any possibility of Errour Ah Dr. Dr Where 's your Love of Moral Honesty Where 's your Sincerity Where your Conscience Did ever any man pretend that Tradition will keep men from any Possibility of Errour whether they follow it or no Were not our most express words put down by your self p. 108. l. 27.28 If they follow this Rule they can never Err in Faith. And must those most important words be still Omitted and no notice taken of them but only in an absurd Distinction making Adhering to Tradition or Following it to be Not-Following it Is this Solid Answering or plain Prevaricating Again what Nonsense does he make us speak by omitting these words Is it not a Madness to say a Rule will direct them Right that do not Follow it That a Means will bring a man to his End who does not use it That a Way will keep a man from Straying in his Journey who does not walk in it Yet all these Contradictions we must be Guilty of by his leaving out the words If follow'd 'T is pretty too upon review of his words to reflect on his Craft 'T is vain to pretend that Orall Tradition will keep whom was it pretended to keep from any Possibility of Errour He should have added the followers of it but because he had Slipt this all along he leaves the Sense Imperfect and the word keep
thing than the Credit of those two or three First Witnesses goes 'T is the First Source of a Testimony which gives the succeeding ones all their weight to prove the Thing that is witnest to be True 'T is that from which the Largeness and Firmness of a Testimony brought to evince the Truth of any thing is to be measured or calculated Since then the stream of Tradition for Doctrin had for its Source innumerable Multitudes of those Christians in the First Age in many places of the World who heard the Apostles preach it and saw them settle the Practice of it in the respective Churches but the Original Testifiers that such a Book was writ by such or such an Apostle or Evangelist were very few in comparison sometimes perhaps not past two or three It cannot with any shew of Sense be pretended that the Tradition for the several Books of Scripture is in any degree comparable in either regard to the Tradition for Doctrin Your next Answer is that This Vniversal Tradition is no more but Human Testimony and that can be no ground for Infallibility which excludes all possibility of Errour Pray why not If things were so order'd as indeed they are that the Testifiers could neither be deceiv'd in the Doctrin being bred and brought up to it nor conspire to deceive us in telling the World in any Age that the new Doctrin they had invented was immediately delivered then it was not possible any Errour could come in under the notion of a Doctrin delivered from the beginning But is not your Tradition for Scripture Human Testimony too And if that can be erroneous may not all Christian Faith by your Principles be perhaps a company of Lying Stories You must be forc'd by your own words here to confess it but I dare say your Parishioners should you openly avow it would hate you for the Blasphemy You would tell them I doubt not as you do us that Moral Certainty is enough to stand on such a Foundation that is such a Certainty as may deceive you and by a necessary consequence may haste to overturn the whole Fabrick of Christian Faith. In the mean time let 's see how manifestly you contradict Dr. St. when you should defend him He avow'd Absolute Certainty for the Book of Scripture and this upon the Foundation of Tradition and you tell us here Tradition can ground but Moral Certainty Now all the World till you writ counter distinguisht Absolute and Moral Certainty which you jumble in one But distinct they ever were are and shall be for the Word Moral signifies a Diminution or Imperfection of Certainty and Absolute plainly expresses the Perfection of it whence 't is Evident that either you contradict Dr. St. perhaps not without his private Order or he himself We shall have all words shortly lose their signification for no other reason but to give you room to shift this way and that when you are too close prest with Reason 35. Now since Dr. St. had granted that Tradition is Absolutely Certain for Scripture and I had prov'd that Absolute Certainty was the same with Infallibility what should hinder me from inferring that unless some special difficulty be found in other things that light into the same channel it must bring them down infallibly too Your Gifts of Interpretation expounds these Words of mine thus These other things are things unwritten in that Holy Book I do assure you Sir you are mightily mistaken I never told you yet that all Faith was not contain'd in Scripture explicitly or implicitly What I meant was that the whole Body of Christs Doctrin and not only that such a Book was Scripture nay the self-same Doctrin of Faith that is contain'd in Scripture comes down by Tradition or the Churche's Testimony But with this Difference as to the Manner of it among others that the Church that testifies it having the sense of it in her Breast can explain her meaning so as to put it out of all Question to Learners Doubters and Enquirers which the Scripture cannot Whence we need not fish for our Faith in the channel of Tyber as your great Wit tells us St. Peter's Ship the Church that caught so many Fishes at first the Body of Primitive Christians who were the first deliverers of Christ's Doctrin hath stor'd up provision enough for the succession of Faith to the Worlds end There we find it to our Hands 'T is your sober Enquirers who Fish for it among dead unsensed Characters and in the Lake of Geneva from whence to save the labour of going thither you and your Friends are deriving a great Channel to run into Thames over-swell it's Banks and drown all the Churches Lacus Lemanus is your Tyber Geneva your Rome and Iohn Calvin the Prime of your new Apostles your St. Peter 36. All this is but prelude But now comes Mr. G's Argument and therefore we are to expect now however you but trifled hitherto more pertinent close Discourse The first Proposition was this All Traditionary Christians believe the same to day they did yesterday so up to the time of our B. Saviour This you seem to deny in regard they may perhaps be so call'd from their adhereing to a Tradition which reaches not so high as our Saviours time but only pretends to it whither we only pretend to it or no will be seen hereafter when the Fourth Proposition comes to be examin'd In the mean time pray jumble not two Questions which are distinct and ought to be kept so The whole Business here is about the use or Sense of the word Traditionary how we both take it in our present Controversy Now that we both agree in the Notion of Tradition whence Traditionary is deriv'd is evident by this that we lay claim to such a Tradition as reaches to Christ and go about to prove it you deny our Claim and endeavour to disprove it But 't is evident you deny the same thing to us which we lay Claim to otherwise we should not talk of the same Thing and so should not understand one another nor could discourse together wherefore 't is manifest we both agree in the Notion or Meaning of that Word however we disagree in the Application of it to the Persons Nor do we pretend in the least what you would put upon us here to inferr hence that this body of Christians that now adheres to it did always so but only contend that if they did not ever adhere to it they must have deserted it and taken up another Rule and so cease to be true Claimers of a Tradition from Christ or Traditionary Christians Moreover we judge we have right to lay Claim to it till we be driven out of it by a former and better Title since we were in possession of this Rule at the time of the Reformation or held all our Faith upon that tenure 37. The second Proposition is this If they follow this Rule they can
intrinsick and full Meaning In which case the Preacher sticks not to assure his Auditory that what he has Preach't to them all the while is Gods Word and to press them to regard it as such as far as his small Authority over them can reach And had he more in case he did verily judge his Explication of that Text was genuin and consequently Christ's true Sense he would questionless esteem himself bound to make use of that Authority to his utmost to edify them with the Explicit Belief of each Particular contain'd in so Excellent a Truth This being so why should not the same Priviledge be granted to the Church and her Pastours to explicate upon due occasion the Sense of Christ's Faith in many particular Propositions involv'd in the main Tenet even tho' we should suppose them to be not heard of perhaps not distinctly thought of before which is allow'd to every private man and any ordinary Preacher And if those Governours of the Church be by their Office Conservers of Christs Law and see that these Propositions newly singled out are included in any Point of Faith receiv'd upon their Rule why ought they not out of their Duty and Zeal to preserve Christ's Faith Intire both define these Points and also use their Authority to oblige the Faithful to accept them as such or if they disaccept them and express themselves against them to exclude them from their Communion 7. But still say you these particular Points came not down by Tradition nor were deliver'd as held yesterday and so upwards till Christ's Time for they were not held at all before they were defin'd or declar'd I distinguish These Propositions were held ever and descended ever as they were involv'd in the Intire Point in the bowels of which the Sense of those others were found But as singled out in such and such particularizing manners of Expression they were perhaps not held ever I say not held ever formerly at least not universally Which is the true reason why some Private Writers nay possibly some Great Men might out of a dutiful fear not to add to Faith have doubted of them or disaccepted them perhaps oppos'd them till the Collective Church or some Great Body of them who are able to look more intelligently into those Points declar'd and unfolded the Sense of the main Article in which they were hitherto enwrapt For besides that it is their peculiar Office and as it were Trade to look deeper into the Sense of the several Points of Faith then others do 't is very Rational to conceive that those Tenets were found more particularly explicated in some parts of the Body of the Church than in others which makes it difficult to affirm any particular Point defin'd since Christ's time was not in many places of the Church held ever tho' it was not in All nor made as yet any great Noise being as yet neither oppos'd which alarum'd the Church to reflect heedfully upon it nor so powerfully recommended which oblig'd the Faithful more briskly and manifestly to own it What difficulty or disagreeableness to the connatural course of things there is in all this I cannot imagin Nor I am confident your self unless your thoughts startling at the unwelcom Conclusion should recoil back to your former mistake that only Words came down by Tradition or that Christ's Sense was never in the Breast of the Diffusive Church his Spouse and the Pillar and Ground of Truth and in the Understandings of her Pastours which takes all Faith out of the world and destroys the very Essence of a Church Or lastly that many particular or rather partial Propositions are not included in the Total Sense of every main Tenet and disclos'd by a full explication of it whence it comes to be discover'd to be a Part of It that is in part It. 8. I am sorry you will needs give me occasion to interrupt such Discourses as tend to the clearing some Truth to defend Tradition against your reproachful mistakes with which in defiance to all Sense I had almost said against your own Conscience too you have loaded it But these are some of your Extrinsecal Arguments which for want of better jealousy of your cause and reputation prevails with you still to make use of and so you will triumph mightily if they be past over unconfuted You attempt p. 8. to play your Politick Game and to conquer us by dividing us in our Rule of Faith tho' it cost your Credit very dear to effect it To this end running on in your former mistake of the plain word Tradition and that it means Points and Articles you tell us sadly that this denying to the Church of Rome Power to explain Tradition takes off from its Power Authority That it resolves all into meer Humane Faith meer Natural Reason That the utmost it can amount to is resolving Faith into a Logical Demonstration Then follows the Holy Cant. And is this the Faith Christians are to be sav'd by what Grace of God what Assistance of the Holy Spirit are necessary to such a Faith as this But for this I refer you to the Haeresis Blacloana You should have added where Dr. Tillotson and my self have the honour to be brought in for writing so Catholickly Truly Sir you have given us a very pretty Period in which many of your modish qualifications vy for the precedency and 't is hard to determin which has most Title to it Nay p. 13. you tell Mr. G. that our Grounds overthrow the Church's Authority in matters of Faith and proceed upon Pelagian Principles Your Charge Sir is very grievous and heavy and therefore unless the Evidence you bring to prove it be answerable you will manifest your self to proceed upon a new Christian in truth an old Unchristian Principle but which suits it seems with your humour and is requisite to your Cause Calumniare fortiter I need not tell you whose it was 9. To stop your mouth therefore once for all concerning Haeresis Blacloana know that that Book tho' Printed in a Catholick Country could not be licenc't but came out surreptitiously without any Printers name at it or any other then a fictitious name of the Author Know that it was sent to Rome and was compar'd there with the Doctrin of Tradition which it impugn'd And yet it was not found that this Doctrine either overthrew the Churches Authority in matters of Faith nor that there was any Pelagianism in it Otherwise those Books which were accus'd of it and defended Tradition to the height had not escap't their Censure This shews how shallow this Exception of yours is and to what mean shifts you are reduc't since you can quote a squabbling Book of one Roman-Catholick against another about Tradition in stead of answering the Argument for it An ill-natur'd man might you know very well name Authors of another Communion not too well thought and spoken of by Eminent Persons of their own side and written
attested and blame the Attestation and Tradition as it may be found to deserve but still when you would put your own Tenet as distinguish 't from ours be so kind as to put ours too and do not stand talking to us and fooling your Readers with the Rabbies pretended Tradition from Moses his mouth no more like ours than an Apple is like an Oyster Again this Resolution of your Faith gives every one Absolute Certainty of his Faith who believes he has Absolute Certainty of Scripture's letter and that it contains the Word of God. And yet Experience tells us that whole Bodys of Learned men believe all this and yet differ that is one side errs in the highest Mysteries of Christian Faith. Whence follows that both sides by this Doctrin are Absolutely Certain of their Faith one side for example is Absolutely Certain there is a Trinity and that Christ is God the other that there is no Trinity and that Christ is not God. This seems but a very odd account of the Certainty of Protestant Faith. 17. But you refine upon your self in your Answer to the 3 d Question p. 15. It was ask't there By what Certain Rule do you know that the New Testament which we now have does contain all the Divine Revelations of Christ and his Apostles This Question evidently aims at two things viz. First whether some Books writ by the Apostles were not lost as appears by those words which we now have For if they were then being penn'd by men divinely inspir'd they must necessarily contain some Divine Revelations in them too as well as did the other and then how does it appear there were not more or other Revelations contain'd in them than were contain'd in the books now extant The other is that you know well very many hold that diverse Divine Revelations were deliver'd down by Tradition and not all by Writing Let 's see now how your Answer sutes with this Question By the Vniversal Testimony say you of the Christian Church from the Apostles times downwards This Reply if pertinent to that Question must mean that this Vniversal Testimony ascertains us that the Scriptures we have now contains all the Divine Revelations But when you come to explain your self it comes to no more but that The Testimony of the Apostolical and the succeeding Churches did by degrees make men fix upon the Certain Canon of the New Testament What a flight have you taken on a sudden Where will you pitch when you light I am sure not on the place where you took wing and where you ought to have stay'd For What is their Testimony for the Books we now have to the Books which have or may have prerish't and to their containing some other Divine Revelations Or what is the fixing upon the Certain Canon of the Books to the difficulty whether some Divine Revelations did not descend by Tradition without Writing Do the Apostolical or succeeding Churches testify either of these Or do you so much as pretend they do Not a syllable of this do you say or take notice of and so not a syllable have you Answer'd to his Question Which was not about the Canon of Scripture or how you would resolve your Faith with which you keep such a pother over and over but whether the New Testament we have now contain'd all the Divine Revelations If you explicate Scripture no better for your Faith than you do your own words here you will questionless make a very extraordinary piece of work of it Your Answers come now and then pretty home the smartness of the Questions obliging you to it but your Explications of them immediately after seem purposely fram'd that we should not take you at your Word in your Answers 18. That Answer then prevaricating from the whole Question Mr. G. endeavour'd to press for a pertinent return to what was demanded and therefore puts his fourth Question thus Was that Vniversal Testimony an Infallible Rule to assure us certainly down to our time that the New Testament contain'd all the Divine Revelations of Christ and his Apostles Your Answer was The Vniversal Testimony of the Christian Church concerning the Book of Scripture and the Doctrin contain'd therein is a sufficient Ground to make us certain of all matters necessary to our Salvation 19. Here are many things worth our Admiration In the First Letter p. 7. this Universal Testimony was onely to ascertain the Scripture In the Answer to the Third Question here 't is onely to assure us that the New Testament contains all the Divine Revelations But here it is to certify us of the Doctrine too contain'd in it which if you mean as your Words seem to sound is all we require in our Tradition-Rule There may be some other subtle meaning lying yet coucht in those Words which Time may discover tho' we cannot yet till he that made the Lock bring the Key Again 't is ask't if it be an Infallible Rule T is answered T is a sufficient Ground T is ask't whether this Testimony assures us certainly the New Testament contains all the Divine Revelations T is answer'd it makes us certain of all Matters necessary to our Salvation which is clearly intended for a diminishing expression and argues some fear of undertaking for All the Divine Revelations being contain'd there or All the Doctrin that was taught by Christ and his Apostles as was pretended p. 14. One would verily imagin by this unsutable Answer that Dr. St. and Mr. G. were playing at Cross-purposes the Answer is so wide from the Question at least that there is some indirect design lies lurking it being so opposite to the wayes of honest Nature When one asks a positive Question all Mankind expects a Positive Answer to the very words as they ly I or No Or if the words be ambiguous 't is the duty of the Answerer to desire to be satisfied of the meaning of the Asker if present ere he answers without which in that case 't is impossible to reply pertinently But it is not your temper nor interest to use such clear and open candour For you saw that great multitudes had the Letter thus secur'd to them yet had not Absolute Certainty that all the Divine Revelations are contain'd in it therefore by adding and the Doctrin contain'd therein you had some faint hopes you might be safe Again you saw well that should you grant Universal Testimony to be an Infallible Rule you would hazard to grant too much to Tradition and all the learned Jests you have broke upon us for asserting Infallibility would fly back upon your self therefore grant it you durst not Nor yet durst you deny it to be an Infallible Rule for then since one of the two it must forcibly be you must affirm it to be a Fallible Rule And then the common sence of all Mankind Mr. T. amongst the rest would be justly scandaliz'd at the non sense For an intellectual Ground that may perhaps let sink
had occasion to press still for satisfaction Again the Written Instrument or Means of putting this heaven-stampt coyn in our Souls is an Ignoble Instrument in comparison being in reality as to it 's Material part or taken as abstracted from the Sacred Sense which is signify'd by it nothing but Ink thus figur'd on Paper Whereas the material part of the other is the most Noble that can be found under Heaven it self viz. the Church which all Christians must acknowledge to be the Spouse of Christ the Pillar and Ground of Truth and consisting of the Living Temples of the Holy Ghost That for whose edification the Scripture was writ and so holds proportion with it as the Means does with the End which is in a manner Infinit Nay That for which all the Material World was created and the Oeconomy of it still carry'd on from the first beginning of Time to it's last Period Lastly That for whose sake God himself was made Man and dy'd a most cruel Death on a Cross. So that 't is unconceivable that it can enter into the thoughts of any intelligent man who believes this to be the due Character of the Church there should be any competition betwixt the Letter of Scripture and it or that it can possibly be doubted to which of them all things consider'd we ought to attribute most in looking after Faith. But to return to your similitude The sum of it is this That the Gold and Silver you speak of being the Doctrin of Faith not the Scripture but the Heads and Hearts of the Faithful that is of the Church does really and indeed contain it and consequently this onely can with any propriety be compar'd to a Purse That both Tradition and Scripture are to be liken'd to the several Ways of putting the Heavenly Treasure of Faith into this Purse or Faith into the Souls of the Faithful Lastly that taking them as containing them as signes do the things signify'd it is not their containing this Treasure does us any good but the delivering it out to us no more than a man is better for having a Trunk full of Money so circumstanc't that he could never come at it and that between these two ways of coming at this Treasure or their delivering it out to us there is no comparison whether we regard the Intelligibleness or Providential Establishment of those respective Instruments in order to such an End. So that your similitude how prettily soever it look't at first hath one misfortune very common to such fine useless toys that is to be good for nothing for it neither comes up to the Question nor sutes with your own Tenet 24. But ere we part from this Point it were not amiss to examin a little that cautious expression of yours all things necessary for salvation into which you change that bold assertion that you are absolutely certain you now hold all the same Doctrin that was taught by Christ and his Apostles I ask you then what do you mean by those words necessary for Salvation which mince the matter so warily Do you think Christ taught any unnecessary Points or did a needless action Sure you will not say it And yet my self will grant too and agree with you that fewer Means than the Knowledge of all Christ taught may suffice for the Salvation of some particular persons What follows then but that since they are all necessary for some body and yet not all necessary for every particular person more of them are necessary for one man than for another and all of them necessary for the body of the Church whose Pastours are to instruct their Children in them and apply the Efficacy of them to their Souls as their capacities admit and exigencies require For tho' some few may be saved without the knowledge of such such Points slender Motives being enough for their circumstances yet multitudes of others may require incomparably more effectual Means to buoy them up from the World and raise them to heaven and so they would certainly miscarry for want of them Particularly the points now mention'd are of such a high and general Influence that without these the Devotion of a very great portion of the Church would be enfeebled many of the Souls that want them be lost eternally and others be but dim Stars in the Glorious Firmament of Heaven in comparison of what they might have been had their Minds been cultivated with such elevating considerations And can the Church which God has entrusted with those Souls think that 't is agreeable to his Will his Flock should either dy or fall short of the full growth they might have had in the plentiful Pastorage he had provided for them It rests then for you either to shew those Points not necessary for the Generality and that your Grounds are sufficient to give men both as able and as willing for ought appears to understand Scripture right as your self is Absolute Certainty of Them which is to confute Experience and dispute against your own Knowledge or else to confess ingenuously you have no Absolute Certainty of even the highest Fundamentals and most necessary Points for the Salvation of Mankind 25. Thus much to shew that your Rule gives you no Absolute Certainty of all such matters as are necessary for your Salvation with reference to the Points of Faith to certify which Experience assures us it does not reach Now should we speak of the Assent of Faith the Short Discourse p. 30 31. of my former Letter demonstrates clearly you can have no Absolute Certainty of any one and so cannot with reason affirm your Faith is True since wanting Absolute Certainty that Christ taught it it may be False The same point has been prest upon you in Faith vindicated Reason against Raillery Errour non-plust and diverse other Books yet tho' it was the most important objection that is or can be imagin'd as plucking up by the roots all your Faith and destroying it from it's very Foundation no return could ever yet be obtain'd nor candid Reason produc't but onely a put-off with sufficient Certainty and such dow-bak't words without being able or even endeavouring to shew that Grounds less than Absolutely Certain can possibly be thus sufficient for the Nature the Ends and Vses of Faith. But 't is high time to return to our Disputants 26. Against this pretended Answer of yours you introduce Mr. M. suggesting several things First As to difference of Translations To which you reply Doth Mr. M. think our Faith is to be resolv'd into the Original Texts What he thinks you know better than you would seem to do He cannot but think if he may believe you that you resolve your Faith into the Letter of Scripture He cannot but think that by these words you mean the Right Letter for otherwise it would not be Scripture Nor can he think or you either it can be the Right Letter unless it have a Right Translation and this from a True
against Hereticks who had rejected the Authority of the Church even the Council of Trent does so another to say they had no firmer Ground for their Faith but their own private Iudgments of it's sense T is one thing to give it high Commendations for it's Excellency Divine Doctrin Usefulness and Sufficiency for the Ends for which it was Ordained by God 'T is another to say that in those places which relate to Spiritual Points and high Mysteries of our Faith it is so clear that private Fancies can with Absolute Certainty fix upon it's true sense and on that Ground their Faith. T is one thing to say sometimes 't is Plain and Evident when they are Arguing against Hereticks this is a thing not unusual even among us when we are disputing and have an opinion that what we alledge is manifest and those Fathers or Councils which insisted on it had good reason to have that opinion of what they alledg'd having the Doctrin of Faith Scripture's best Interpreter in their hearts Besides when there is full assurance of it's sense who doubts but it is of a vast Authority too being in that case the same as if the Apostle or Christ himself were there and spoke his Mind in the Point under debate Whence they confuted Hereticks with defining from Scripture upon the assurance that they had the true sense of it another Way than the Heretick had by his private Interpretations But 't is another thing to say that as manag'd by Private Judgments working on the bare Letter or relying on Fallible Interpreters it is so unavoidably convictive beyond all possibility of giving it another plausible sense that all Mankind must think him a Renouncer of the clear Light of Reason or stark blind with Passion and Interest and abhorr him as such who shall interpret it after another manner And such the Rule of Faith must be otherwise none could with Conscience think or say any Heretick is obstinate nor any man no not the Church it self condemn him much less abhorr him for being such as was ever her Custome All the former Perfections we as heartily fully and constantly ascribe to Scripture as any Protestant in the world nay we say moreover that this want of Clearness which unqualifies it for being a Rule springs from a very high perfection in it viz. It 's deep Sense onely this one of giving every particular man who by his private Judgment Interprets it such assurance of its sense as is competent to Ground his Faith on we cannot grant this being no less contrary to common Reason than 't is even to Experience also To return then to your Objection You see Sect. 10. that the Antient Fathers were not such Strangers to this Method of Tradition we follow and explicate And you might have observ'd many others both nam'd and cited Surefooting p. 131. to 137. What matters it that they did not express That our Tenet or Dilate upon it in such Terms as we do now so they taught others to hold to what was deliver'd and not to rely on their own private Interpretations of Scripture against the present Churches Doctrin Since in doing this they held the substance of that which we have since more diffusely explain'd and reduc't our Discourses to more Methodical and Formal Resolutions of Faith which were not so much in fashion in former Ages Besides you are not to be told we both have could alledge Fathers enow for our Tenet and the Obligation to hold to the Doctrin deliver'd from Fathers that is to Tradition and how smartly and unanswerably they prest it against Hereticks as a certain Determiner of the Controversies between the Catholicks and Them. On the other side how often they complain'd of the Vncertainty of the Scripture interpreted by private Men as Grounding all Heresies by reason of the mysterious Obscurity of the Letter and its liableness to be misinterpreted and misunderstood Whereas it was never heard that the Rule of Tradition taken in the sense in which we hold it viz. for a Delivery of a Practical Doctrin publickly preach't to great multitudes at first practised by them and held and recommended as Divine and the way to Salvation did ever give rise to any Heresy and impossible it should Which one Reflexion to a Considerate Man is sufficient to conclude the whole present Controversy about the Rule of Faith. 30. From the Qualities requisit to make Scripture's Letter a Rule of your Faith we come to consider the Quantity it ought to have or the Number of Books which you tell us p. 19. Mr. M. suggested In order to which I have onely two things to ask you 1. Whether as I said formerly you have any unanimous Consent of the Christian Church that there was never a Book lost that was writ by some who were Divinely inspir'd and consequently did contain some Divine Revelations Or if you cannot prove but there was how do you know but those Divine Revelations which that Book or Books contain'd were not different from or to be superadded to those contain'd in the Canon we have now If you cannot prove these two Points then 't is manifest you cannot prove with Absolute Certainty that the Books Wee have now contain'd all the Divine Revelations 2. You insist onely on this Universal Testimony for the Canonical Books of the New Testament but I would know whether this Testimony reaches to each Chapter and every Verse of those Chapters nay each material Word in those Verses If it does not as you neither say nor with any Reason can say for 't is hard to prove the former impossible to prove the later but by our Rule then you are as far from your Faith as ever unless you bring some other Testimony that is Absolutely Certain to assure you that such and such a Verse which you would quote and rely on for such and such a Point of Faith nay the main and most significant Word in that Verse is true Scripture which I am sure you cannot For what Testimony else can be invented to do this if the other which was of the whole Christian Church cannot reach it Is there any possible way to ascertain this but by our Doctrin-Rule Upon this occasion pray inform me with what reason you could reflect so severely pag. 15. on the Church of Rome for not receiving the Epistle to the Hebrews in St. Hierom's Time assoon as other Churches and not on the Greek Churches which you use to prefer before the Latin who in the same Father's time refus'd to admit the Apocalypse The accepting or not accepting such Books even according to your own Doctrin depended on their being satisfied of the Evidence produced for their Apostolical Authority and so was an Act of Prudence antecedent to the Judgment or Determination of any Church whether Greek or Latin. But so unreasonable is your pique against the Church of Rome that she cannot act prudently without forfeiting her Infallibility Tho' another man would have
because Part of Christ's Doctrin is contain'd in it the other part descending by Tradition which acceptation of the Word Rule is yet less Proper because as has been prov'd it may be contain'd there and yet we be never the neerer knowing our Faith meerly by virtue of Scripture's containing it But no Catholick ever said that every sober Enquirer may find out all necessary Points of Faith in Scripture without the Churches Help A Doctrin which You declare p. 21. You are far from being asham'd of And yet let me tell You Sir You will never find this Position of yours as it lies without the Churches Help in the Universal Tradition of all Christian Churches and unless You find this You will never prove they held it a Rule in the genuin and proper signification in which we take that Word and tho' they shou'd call it a Rule in either of the former Senses lately mention'd they impugn not us at all who grant the same 41. You will needs run out of the way p. 30. to talk of a Iudge of Controversies but the best is You acknowledge you do go thus astray by acknowledging 't is another distinct Controversy and yet tho' you acknowledge this You still run on with it that is You still wander from the Point You triumph mightily p. 31. that it is impossible for us to bring such an unanimous Consent of all Christian Churches for our Infallible Iudge or our Infallibility as Protestants bring for their Rule As for the later where were your thoughts Sir while you thus bad adieu to the plainest Rules of Discourse Cannot we go about to demonstrate the Infallibility of a Human Testimony by Natural Mediums but instead of Answering it you must object against our Conclusion and bid us bring the Consent of all Churches to abett that which neither depends nor is pretended to depend on Authority but on meer Reason Cannot one say two and three make five but he must be presently bobb'd in the mouth that he cannot shew the Consent of all Christian Churches for it and that unless he does this let it be never so evident 't is not True T is very pleasant to reflect how brisk you are still with this Consent of all Churches I suppose because 't is a Topick very seldom heard of in your Controversies tho' as has been shewn over and over 't is not a jot to your purpose nor avails any thing to the evincing you have an Absolutely-Certain Ground of your Faith. And if we have an Infallible Rule or such a Rule as permits not those to be deceiv'd that follow it can there be any thing more Rational than to hold by consequence that there is an Infallible Iudge or that our Church can judge unerringly in matters belonging to Faith the word Iudge onely signifying that that Person or Persons are in Authority or are Authoritative Deciders to preserve the Integrity of Faith and the Peace of the Church So that supposing Church-Governours or Bishops and that those Sacred Concerns are to be provided for plain Reason demonstrates to us this too as well as the other without needing the Consent of all Christian Churches tho' you need not to be told this does not want neither unless you think that all the General Councils that defin'd against Hereticks imagin'd they might perhaps be in an Errour all the while and the Heretick whom they condemn'd in the right Your Appeal to all the Churches of the Christian World for your Rule has a plausible appearance but vanishes into air when one comes to grasp it How often must it be repeated that you have as yet produc't no Rule at all for your Faith For you have neither prov'd that Scripture's Letter as to every substantial word that concerns Faith is absolutely-Certain nor that it has in it the nature of a Rule nor that 't is your Rule more than 't is to all the Hereticks in the world nor that your Assent to any Point upon that Rule as made use of by you for want of Connexion between the Points to be believ'd and the Rule on which they are believ'd can have the nature of true Faith in it If talking big would do the deed you would indeed do wonders but let your Reasons be proportionable otherwise strong words and faint blows are but very ill-matcht Now I must declare plainly I cannot see the least semblance of so much as one solid Proof in this whole Treatise of yours If there be confute me by shewing it and maintaining it to be such You explain you own Tenet over and over till one is weary of readding it and half asham'd so often to answer it You talk much of God's Word that we are bound to believe it that it contains God's Will and all things necessary to Salvation and twenty such fine things which bear a Godly Sound and would do well in a Sermon where all goes down glib there being none to contradict you but are very dull and flat in Controversy On the contrary not one Argument have you even offer'd at to prove you have Absolute Certainty of the Rule or Ground of your Faith but have faln short in every one of those Considerations both as to the Notions of Certainty Ground Rule Faith and that 't is your Ground your Rule and your Faith. 42. A Rule to any thing if we take that word in a proper sense as we do in our modern Controversies is the Immediate Light to direct us in order to our knowing that thing For in case it be not Immediate but some other thing intervenes that is needful to direct us and by whose Rectitude we frame our thoughts as to that affair and that it renders the other capable to direct us that other becomes presently the Thing Ruled and not the Rule in regard it wanted the Rectitude of another thing to direct it that so it might be fit to direct us Wherefore the Interpretation of Scripture being more Immediate to the knowing the Sense of it's Words that is to the knowing our Faith than is the Letter for it is manifest that all who have the Letter have not right Faith unless they make a right Interpretation of it hence Mr. M. had reason to object that The Christian Church did not agree that every man is to interpret Scripture for himself or to build his Faith upon his own private Interpretation of it Nor ought you to be offended at his position in regard you told us before p. 7. 8. a Heretical Sense may ly under these General Words Christ is the Son of God and different Senses may be couch't under these Christ is really in the Eucharist and so even according to your self 't is the Interpretation or the assigning the Sense to those words which makes True Faith or Heresy Wherefore 't is plain that your own Interpretation of Scripture is in true speech your Rule for That is a more Immediate Direction to give you the Sense of
a Favour But let us see what is to be meant by an Infallible Iudge for you do not particularize your acception of those words nor let your Reader see what Judge how or for what reason we hold him Infallible 45. If you mean by Iudge an Authoritative Decider of Controversies about Faith as was said above and that which is what we hold his verdict is Infallible by proceeding upon an Infallible Rule you must either pretend the Christian Church never permitted Church-Governours to exercise their Authority in deciding matters of Faith or else that it never held they had an Infallible Rule to go by And I believe your utmost attempts will fall so far short of producing any such Consent of Universal Tradition for either that it will be directly against you in both and you must have a strange opinion of the Decrees of General Councils in such cases if you apprehend they held either of those self-condemning Tenets And yet I cannot tell but I have made my self too large a Promise concerning this Universal Consent of all Christian Churches being for us or not against us in this particular For I remember now that when you were to state the Notion of Tradition you took in the Consent of all former Hereticks to make your Tradition for Scripture larger and firmer than ours is against you and to make your Argument stronger by their concurrent Testimony and I see a glimmering light already which will grow very clear ere long you take in the same infamous Gang to bear witness against our Infallibility And what a case is the Catholick Church in then We can never expect those obstinate Revolters from that Church or those Churches which were then in Communion with Rome will ever acknowledge the Governours had a just Authority to declare against them as Hereticks for they were all of them to a man true-blew Sober Enquirers or that those Governours proceeded upon an Infallible Rule for this were to cut their own throats and acknowledge themselves Hereticks a mortification not to be submitted to by much contumacious spirits Now all these by your Principles are to be accounted Christian Churches and are call'd so very currently and very frequently by you p. 24. 25. 26. and in many other places without any distinction at all And so we are reduc'd to a very pretty condition according to the admirable mould in which you have new-cast the Church For unless all those Hereticks of old any Lutherans Calvinists and all the inferiour Subdivisions of Faith Reformers vouchsafe to give their concurrent Testimony to the Infallibility of the Roman Catholick Church which condemn'd them all and as appears by the Council of Trent throughout by the same Rule of Tradition she is to have no Infallibility at all allow'd her her old Rule too is condemn'd by them for a False Light because it condemn'd them and their New-Light nor consequently can she be an Infallible Iudge in Faith-Controversies This is a very hard Law Yet your severe Discourses allow us no better quarter You alledge that the Eastern Churches utterly deny the Roman Churche's Infalliblely tho' they be of very different denominations You mean I suppose amongst the rest the Nestorians Eutychians and such kind of good folks And can you without blushing avail your self of such concurrent Testimonies against the Body communicating with the Roman and her Infallible Rule whose Ancestors were condemn'd by that very Body to which the present Roman-Catholick Church uninterruptedly succeeds and were cast out of the Church for receding from the Christian Doctrine held even then upon that very Rule 46. But what have we to do with any of your pretended Christian Churches whether Eastern or not-Eastern Modern or Antient many or few Or what have you to do with them either if you would as becomes a Controvertist speak home to us You know already we place the Infallibility of our Church in delivering defining and Iudging of Faith-Controversies in the Absolutely Certain Rule of Tradition All therefore that have adher'd to Tradition as their Rule must allow to Her this Inerrableness while she adheres to it else they must condemn themselves And those pretended Churches which have deserted Tradition can never for many reasons be of any competent Authority against the Roman-Catholick For having no Certain Rule they can have no sure Ground of what they believe or alledge against her And besides being her Enemies and condemn'd by her and that by vertue of this very Rule they carp at common Equity tells every man 't is not a pin matter what such men say of that Rule or that Church either whether those men live East West North or South I perceive by your far-stretcht words here p. 31. All the Churches of the Christian World All the Eastern Churches tho' of very different denominations that you imagin the force of an Authority depends meerly on the Number of the Witnesses whereas we make account it depends much more on their Weight that is on their Knowledge and on their Sincerity or Indifferency of their Wills as to the Person or Affair concerning which they are to witness And Fallible Congregations which are both Out-casts and Enemies have for each of those regards no weight at all 47. You have another Fetch yet left to prejudice the Reader against our Tenet For you often make mention of our Infallibility the Roman or the Roman Churches Infallibility and as appears p. 15. and 16 of the Infallibility of the Particular Church of Rome whereas the Question and our true Tenet is of those many particular Churches communicating with the Roman so that you seem desirous to convince us you are resolv'd never to speak to any point sincerely or represent it ingenuously For this sleight tho' it seems trivial insinuates into your Readers that we hold the very Spot of Rome is the precise and adequate mold in which Infallibility is cast Please then to remember and pray let it be the last time we tell you of it that it is her following the self-evidently certain Rule of Tradition in which as a Controvertist I do in this Dispute place her Infallibility That being thus absolutely Certain of her Faith we can prove she is qualify'd to be an Infallible Iudge of Faith. That every Bishop is a Iudge of Faith-Controversies in proportion to his Sphere and the Highest Bishop above them all but still the last resort or Test of their final obliging to Belief for any one may oblige his Diocesans to Silence for Peace's sake is with reference to the Body of the Church and the Infallibility of the Church is refunded into the Certainty of her Rule and there it rests Hence conscious to your selves of the want of such an Infallible Rule you dare pretend to no Infallible Iudge but are forc't to leave every particular man to his private Iudgment of Discretion tho' you experience it shatters your Church no better principled into thousands of Sects In a word
Rule of Tradition is an absolutely or infallibly-Certain Conveyer of Christ's Faith down to Our Dayes Whence I deny that he can with the least grain of Discretion refuse to communicate with those who proceed on such an evidently Certain Rule and are found in Possession of their Faith upon that secure Tenure and adhere to those others who declare against any Infallible Rule that is who confess the means they have to know any one particular Point of Faith or which is all one any Faith at all is Fallible that their Guides may perhaps all mislead them and their Rule permit the Followers of it to Err. You see now how we allow them the Use of their Reason and Judgment of Discretion till it brings them to find a Certain Authority and when they have once found That the same Iudgment of Discretion which shew'd them that Authority was Absolutely Certain obliges them to trust it when it tells them what is Christ's Faith without using their private Judgment any longer about the particular Points themselves thus ascertain'd to them but submitting to It. In doing which yet they do not at all relinquish their Reason but follow and exercise it For nothing is more Rational than to submit to an Authority which my Reason has told me is Absolutely Certain in things which the same Reason assures me can no other wayes be known certainly but by that Authority 49. Now let us consider the Iudgment of Discretion as understood by you of which your sober Enquirer makes use to find out his Faith. 'T is onely employ'd about searching out the sense of Scripture's Letter by Fallible means which he can never hope will preserve him Certainly from Errour let him do his very best since he is told even by your selves that Great Bodies of very Learned Men and acute Scripturists do follow the same Rule and yet erre in the highest Articles of our Belief nay he sees himself by daily experience how many Sects follow that for their Rule yet vastly differ Whence instead of judging discreetly he commits the most absurd Indiscretion in the world to hazard his salvation upon his own Interpretation of Scripture when at the same time he is told by those very Men who propose to him this Rule that there is no Absolute security neither by his own Industry nor his Churche's veracity from erring in that Interpretation And not onely this but he sees or may see if he will soberly enquire what Certain Grounds are propos'd by others and yet suffers his Reason and the Truth to be run down with the noisy hubbubs against Popery and either out of a blameable Weakness or perhaps out of an inexcusable obstinacy rejects those Grounds or disregards the looking into them I say again Inexcusable For the very Nature of Faith tells him that 't is an Vnalterable Assent and that it cannot possibly be a Ly whence common sense will tell him 't is not to be hoped for amongst those who confess that all the Knowledge they have of each particular Point of Faith that is of any Faith is Fallible and onely likely to be had amongst those who own and maintain their Grounds cannot deceive them so that such a man if he ever came to a due Reflexion upon what most concerns him sins against the Light of Reason in many regards and what you call Iudgment of Discretion is convinc't to be the most Vnjudicious Indiscretion imaginable And your sober Enquirer who builds all his hopes of salvation upon such a Iudgment proves himself the weight of the Concern being duly consider'd to be the most rash and hair-brain'd Opiniastre and the most credulously blind that ever submitted and prostituted his Rational Faculty with which God has endow'd him and will require a strict account of him how he has us'd it to a most Groundless and Improbable Conjecture Disregarding all Authority out of his presumption on his own Skill or that he is more in GOD's Favour than the whole Church and I much fear out of a spiritual Pride and self-conceit that he can find out all necessary Faith well enough of himself without being beholding to any Church at all or as you instruct him here p. 21. and declare openly and avowedly you are not asham'd of it without the Churches Help Which is the very First Principle nay the Quintessence of all Heresy Fanaticism in the Egg perfect Enthusiasm when hatch't and downright Atheism when fledge FINIS THE FOURTH Catholick Letter IN ANSWER TO Dr. Stillingfleet's SERMON Preach't at GUILD-HALL November 27 th 1687. Entituled Scripture Tradition Compared Addrest to His AUDITORY By Iohn Sergeant Published with Allowance London Printed and sold by Matthew Turner at the Lamb in High-Holbourn 1688. TO THE READER PErhaps the smart Expressions and plausible Methods that Dr. St. so affects in his late Discourse concerning the Nature and Grounds of the Certainty of Faith in which he pretends to Answer the Catholick Letters may have rais'd Expectation in many indifferent men and Triumph in some of his Partial Admirers wherefore to stay the Appetites of the former and give some check to the over-weening of the later I thought it fitting to say somthing here by way of Preface to give our Readers a short Account of his main Performances in that Discourse till I come to publish a Compleat Answer to the whole What I affirm of it and undertake to make good is 1. That he so strangely prevaricates from the whole business we are about that he even forgets we are Writing Controversy and would turn the Polemical Contest in which we are engag'd into a Dispute of School-Divinity bearing the Reader in hand That we are Treating of Faith as formally Divine and of all the Intrinsical Requisites to it as it is such tho' none of them be Controverted between us and some of them are perhaps onely Knowable by GOD himself The meanest Reflecter may discern how impossible 't is for the Dr My self or any man living to put such Particulars as these into our Proofs or Arguments and how unpardonable an Absurdity 't is to alledge them in our Circumstances The very nature I say of Controversy obliges and restrains us both to speak of Faith precisely according to what is Controverted between the Contending Parties and the nature of our present Contest which is about an Absolutely-Certain Rule to know this matter of Fact that Christ and his Apostles did Teach the Doctrines we Profess determines us both to speak of Divine Faith precisely as it stands under such a Rule recommending our Faith to us as deliver'd by Christ and proving it to be his genuin Doctrin 2. That whatever the Big Letters in his Title pretend he neither shews from the Nature of Faith as it lies under our Consideration that it does not need the Perfect Certainty we require nor that the Certainty he assignes to make us adhere to it as True is not Perfect Uncertainty since he does not bottom it on the
She is to Edify Her Children and in contests with Hereticks as to all those Points contain'd there and I think the only difficulty in that particular is By what means She came to be Absolutely-Certain of it's Sense Let him add then but one word more and say that by the Letter of Scripture She so judg'd of Faith that She could not be in an Errour or mistaken all the while and then Christian Faith is Absolutely-Certain and my greatest care is over And if he does not That what is the future Church after the Apostles Deaths the better for Scripture's being an Infallible Rule if She and Her Children partake not the Benefit of that Infallibility some way or other by being perfectly secur'd from Erring in Faith Is it not all one as to the intent of knowing assuredly we have the Faith taught by Christ whether we have an Infallible Rule or no if when we have done our best we may still stray from Her Faith Or why is not a Rule that is not Absolutely-Certain so I have Absolute Certainty I am directed by it as good for that purpose as an Absolutely-Certain Rule with no Absolute Certainty that I do indeed go according to it To speak to his proposition Whether the Church and the Faithful in Contests with Hereticks avail'd Her self of Scripture's Letter to gain Absolute-Certainty of it's Sense in those main Tenets or brought the Sense which She had another way along with her shall be decided if he pleases by St. Austin whom he cites here p. 16. § 18. He will prove Scripture a Rule from the general Reason of it's Writing and prove this general Reason from a Testimony of Irenaeus which speaks of the Gospel as abstracted from being Preach't and Written and who doubts but as such it is infallibly true He seems to build much upon the Words That it might be a Foundation and Pillar of our Faith. Be it what it will in it self the Point is How does it Build Faith in us By it 's meer Letter descanted upon by private Iudgments or interpreted by the Church The Later he denies the Former all our most earnest Pressing and Intreating could never bring him nor his Reflecter to go about to make out and he wayes it totally through this whole Sermon Let him then but shew that he has Absolute-Certainty of Scripture's Sense in those Tenets of Christian-Faith by any Method his Principles will allow him and his Sermon should have past for me without Controul That 's the main Point whereas all here is quite besides it As for those Words from S. Irenaeus he could have quoted the very same words in a manner from a better Author even the Holy Scripture calling the Church the Pillar and Ground of Truth but that he lik't not the Application of them to the Church It seems he can neglect his Rule and make no more reckoning of it than he did of the Oral Tradition or Preaching of the Apostles when it stands in his way of comes cross to his purpose § 19. It has been manifested above that his Discourses from the writing of the Gospels and Epistles are all guilty of the same Fault and Antedate our Tradition and his Inferences thence as levell'd against our Tenet are weaker than Water He makes Tradition any thing what he pleases and will have it do every thing tho' it was never intended for it nor ever pretended by us it was able to do it One while it must bring down the Decrees of Councils Another while it must convey long Disputes about divers Points and the resolution of them and this Totidem Verbis otherwise the Apostles Sense might have been lost It must secure people from being remov'd from Christ's Gospel to another whereas no man ever held that the Galatians were remov'd from Christ's Gospel by following even the particular Tradition or Preaching of that Apostle nor that any particular Men nay Churches might not be remov'd from it even into Heathenism or Iudaism if they deserted it He expects too it should secure men from danger of being Deceiv'd whereas supposing them once well-Instructed in Faith and 't is suppos'd to our Tradition the Church was so 't is self-evident they can never be deceiv'd while they hold to that Certain Rule because that is to hold the same they were instructed in at first But if all were not well instructed at first as 't is impossible they should then they might be deceiv'd either by deserting Tradition or even by holding to such a Tradition if for want of perfect Instruction in that raw and unsettled state of Christianity that which they held at first was not perfectly Christ's Doctrine Nay he would have it keep even Hereticks from Defection Hypocrisie Lying and Deceiving which were a rare Tradition indeed to do such Kindnesses and work such good Effects upon those who had deserted it and would not make use of it at least he would have it keep People from Weakness and Folly which the Common Assistances of Nature and Grace will do after the Generality is well settled in that Doctrine For when all the Question is What the Apostles preach't 't is a Madness and Folly both to believe some few men before the Universal Testimony of the Christian Church But he will have Tradition still do all the Mischiefs imaginable and Writing do all the Good forgetting I suppose that there are some things in St. Paul's Writings which the Vnlearned and Vnstable wrest as they do also the other Scriptures to their own destruction All this while What is this to the Tradition we assert which begun afterwards § 20. From these impertinent Premises he infers as impertinent a Conclusion viz. That what was deliver'd in Scripture contains a compleat Rule of the true and genuin Faith as it was at first deliver'd to the Church Now that what 's signify'd by Scripture is the same the Apostles signify'd by their Preaching is plain Sense and never deny'd and so he needed not have made all this clutter to prove it But plain sense will do him no service whose best play 't is to blunder and confound every thing let us see then what it is that will. His first words What they have therein delivered can mean nothing but the Sense of Scripture for that is the thing signify'd or deliver'd by the Letter and both sides confess that the Sense of Scripture is Christ's Faith. If then we spell his Words together they plainly amount to this That Christ's Faith contains a compleat Rule of the true and genuin Faith as it was deliver'd at first to the Church that is Faith it self contains a compleat Rule to it's self Make sence of this who can The best I can make of it is That the Conclusion keeps decorum with the Premises and that he has mighty well imploy'd his Labour to keep such a huge Pother to infer such a worthy Point § 21. I have nothing
with his own hand and Seal'd with his Archiepiscopall Seal in these words Infrascripti testamur c. Wee underwritten do attest that we have read thorough diligently and accurately and that with both Profit and Pleasure three Books writ in the English Dialect Publish'd by that Learned Person Mr. Iohn Sergeant whose Titles and Arguments are these Surefooting in Christianity Faith vindicated and Reason against Raillery In which I have not only found nothing against the Integrity of the True Faith and of good manners but moreover Clear and Solid Principles which admirably conspire to the Estabishing and confirming the Catholick Doctrin For both by Reasons and Authorities they excellently impugn the Protestants affirming the Holy Scripture is the only Rule of Faith and vigorously maintain that the genuin Doctrin of Christ and his Apostles has descended by the force of Tradition from Century to Century nay from year to year incorruptedly to our time and still remains inviolably in the Orthodox Church In Testimony whereof we have Subscrib'd and have caus'd our portatil Seal to be assixt this 15 th of March 1674. at Armagh Oliversus Armachanus totius Hiberniae Primas Can any man imagin that this Grave and Learned Personage who had for twelve years profest Divinity in the Sacra Congregatio at Rome and had been advanc'd by them to this high Dignity would have hazarded his Credit there in approving so highly the Writings of one who was a Stranger to him and no ways capable to oblige him had he not been perfectly assur'd there was nothing Censurable in them Yet this tho' known to our ingenuous Dr. is nothing with him He crys still Lominus for my money let him be what he will and assures the Reader upon his Morall Honesty he is Infallibly Certain my Doctrin in my Letters is not Catholik 18. The next in Dignity is that Illustrious and Right Reverend Personage Mr. Peter Talbot Arch Bishop of Dublin who dy'd a Confessor of the Catholik Faith in Dublin Castle in the time of that truly Hellish tho' not Popish Plot. This Eminent Person more than once has approv'd and highly commended my Doctrin The Author of Surefooting says he has with great zeal writ divers Treatises of this matter viz. the force of Tradition and has overwhelm'd those who defend only Morall Certainty in Faith with so great Confusion that they can no way clear themselves from the blemish of Atheism to which their Principles and meer Probability of Faith lead of which crime the foresaid Author proves them Guilty beyond all possibility of Reply And a little after he acknowledges that the Rule of Faith viz. in our Controversies is the Humane Authority of the Church and that it must be an Infallible Directress otherwise it might lead us out of the way Unfortunate Dr. St. to quote an Authority against me which so highly approves my Doctrine and condemns his as leading to Atheism The Reader may hence discern how likely 't is the Archbishop of Dublin should be the Author of Lominus his Book where he and Dr. Tillotson are praised for Writing so Catholickly against mee whereas that Right Reverend Prelate so highly extolls my Books as writing so unanswerably against Them. Lastly in his Appendix to that Book of his cited above he has this solid Discourse Altho' Tradition does not demonstrate or conclude evidently the Divinity of Christ nor consequently can demonstrate or conclude evidently that the Revelation of our Faith was Divine yet 't is a Conclusive Argument ad hominem against Protestants and all those who acknowledge the Divinity of Christ that God reveal'd all the Articles which the Roman Catholick Church professes in regard they acknowledge Christ to be God. And thus the Author of Sure-footing Faith Vindicated c. argues invincibly against his Adversaries for the Conclusive Evidence by the force of Tradition that God reveal'd all the Articles of the Roman Catholick Faith out of the Supposition that Christ is God. Note that this Appendix was write purposely to clear me after the Conference in Abbot Montague's Chamber where tho' I would not then answer to propositions taken out of books when no Books were there to clear them by the Context Yet after I had the Objections in writing I did answer them and this to the Satisfaction of the Arch-Bishop himself and of Dr. Gough who was present and prejudic'd formerly against my Writings 19. I had compriz'd the Sum of my Doctrine into a short Treatise Entituled A Method to arrive at Satisfaction in Religion which when I was at Paris I translated into Latin and shew'd it to that Excellent Prelate the Bishop of Condom my singular Friend and Patron desiring his Judgment of it He read it and at my request made his Exceptions which being clear'd by me he askt me why I did not Print it I reply'd I would so his Grandeur would please to give me leave to Dedicate it to himself Which obtain'd it was propos'd to the Sorbon for their Approbation of it the former of them Monsieur Pirot testifying it contain'd nothing against Faith or good manners the later of them Dr Gage added that the most certain Rule of Faith was in that Treatise exactly settled and invincibly defended But still obscure Lominus is worth twenty Sorbons in Dr. St's Learned Judgment Tho' 't is here to be observed that the Bishop of Condoms Approbation was antecedent to theirs not only as allowing and owning the Book but as inviting me to Print it 20. I alledge in the Fourth place the Testimony of my Superiour here in England Mr. Humphry Ellice an Ancient Dr. and Professor of Divinity and late Dean of our Catholick Chapter whose Sanctity of Life and solid Judgment gave him a high Esteem with all that knew him This Grave and Venerable Person besides the Ordinary and Customary Approbation of my Books added that They do clearly demonstrate out of the very nature of Ecclesiastical Tradition that the Doctrin delivered by Christ and his Apostles was inviolably eonserv'd in the Roman-Catholick and Apostolick Church even to this Age in which we now live and by Irrefragable force of Reason did evidently convince the Grounds of the Hereticks meaning Dr. St. and Dr. Till against whom I had writ to be meer Tricks and vain Fallacies But still Lominus that is the Lord knows who is Dr. St's only Saint and Infallible Oracle 21. It were not amiss to add next the Testimony or rather Judgment of that deservedly Esteemed and Learned man Mr. R. H. Author of The Guide of Controversy This Excellent Writer though he inclines rather to the School-opinion of the sufficiency of Moral Certainty yet like a truly ingenuous and Charitable man preferring the Common Good of Christianity before his own private Sentiment after having discourst according to his own Grounds he in allusion to my way of proceeding subjoyns these words But then if any after all this can make good any farther
one to all Hereticks he is still deaf on that ear Lastly since Faith is Truth instead of a Rule containing All he should have assign'd a Rule ascertaining it All to be True and that none of the Tenets he holds to be in Scripture are Hereticall But he thanks you he 'll not burn his fingers with handling such hot Points He alledges that the Mosaicall and Mahometan Laws are resolv'd into the Book of Moses and the Alcoran But apply this to our Point 't is as wide from the purpose as what 's most Had there been such High and most Important Misteries contain'd in those Laws as there are in the Christian Doctrin deliver'd down and profest openly by those Bodies from which multitudes had taken the Liberty to recede by reason of the Obscurity of the Letter of those very Laws in that case there ought to have been some other Rule to secure them from mistaking that Letter and able to give them its true Sense and therefore the Certainty of that Sense being their respective Faiths would necessarily have been resolv'd into such a Rule in regard the Letter alone could not give and ascertain it And 't is to be remark't that all Dr St's Instances Parallells and Similitudes which show prettily and look fine and glossy when they come to be apply'd to the true Point do still miss of being sutable in those very particulars which are only to the purpose 35. And now we are come to the long expected performance of showing his Faith Absolutely Certain to which he promis'd a full Answer formerly He begins with telling us that The case is not the same as to Particular Points of Faith with that of the Generall Grounds of the Certainty of Faith. And what 's this to say but that since the General Grounds are held by him to be Absolutely Certain and so cannot be False the Particular Points of Faith viz. the Trinity Christ's Godhead c. are not in the same but a worse case and so may be False A fair or rather a very foul Concession Yet he not only says it but will prove it too from a Jew 's having Absolute Certainty of all contain'd in the Books of Moses and yet not having it as to such a particular point viz. the Resurrection I would gladly know if that point be contain'd in those Books And if it be how he can be absolutely Certain of All that is of every Point contain'd there and yet not be thus certain of That Point tho' contain'd there I ever thought that Omnis and Aliquis non had been Contradictories and had all the Logicians in the world on my side in thinking so and if the Dr. have not invented a new Scheme of Logick of his own fitted purposely to maintain Nonsence and can with his great Authority make that Logick good in despite of the whole World he speaks Flat downright Contradiction Perhaps he may mean his Jew or some other man who is not a Jew may have Absolute Certainty that those Books containing all his Faith were writ by men divinely inspir'd And this he may have by the Testimony for these Books tho' he can neither read nor understand nor ever heard read any one word in them And has not this Man an incomparable Certainty of his Faith that knows no Faith at all Is not this to make a man Absolutely Certain of he knows not what Yet this it seems is all the Resolution of Dr. St's Faith. But this is not the worst for not-knowing the Contents of a Book is a kind of Innocence in comparison of holding many wicked Heresies by Misunderstanding it Which tho' he should do as do it he may for the Drs. Principles give him no security from doing it his very Heresies tho' they be all the whole rabble of them that have pester'd the Church since Christ's time are resolved into the Self-same Grounds as the Drs Faith is For all those Hereticks believ'd the Scripture to be the Word of God and believ'd all that the Scripture contain'd to be of Faith whence they had all Faith in the lump as he expresses it and so had good Title to be parts of Dr St's motley all Comprehending Church If he denies it let him show a sollâ—â— reason by his Principles why they should not no shadow of which I could ever discern in him yet 36. He slides from this point which he had no mind to come near could he have avoided it to divers sorts of particular Points meerly that he might have a show of saying something For he knows well and it has been told him above twenty times we only speak of such Dogmatical Tenets as have been controverted between the Church and her Deserters and not to name All we use to instance in two Chief ones The Holy Trinity and the Divinity of our Saviour But here our rambling disputant is taking another vagary quite out of the road of the Question Lominus has set him so agog that he has quite forgot the thing we are about nay even that we are writing Controversy He is turn'd School-Divine on a sudden tho' he is so utterly Ignorant of it that he cannot distinguish between Controversy and It. He will needs fall to treat of Faith as 't is a Theological Virtue and not only so but moreover that he may show us how manifoldly he can mistake in one Single Point of that Virtue as 't is in the hearts of those who are truly Faithfull already and have besides well cultivated their Souls by the Practice of Christ's Law. Whenas all this while he knows we in our Controversy are only treating of Faith as 't is provable to those who are looking after Faith that 't is Christ's Doctrine taught at first Tell him of this five hundred times and make it out never so clearly he runs counter still and takes no notice of it He was to write a Book and without mistaking willfully all along he saw he could not do it in any degree plausibly After many fruitless attempts to hold him to the true State of our Controversy which is about the Rule or Ground of Faith as to our knowledge it occurr'd to me that nothing could fetter him to it more fast than to mind him how his Friend Dr. Tillotson whose Book he approves does himself State it * When wâ— enquire says he What is the Rule of Christian Faith the meaning of that Enquiry is By what Way and Means the Knowledge of Christ's Doctrin is convey'd certainly down to us who live at the distance of so many Ages from the time of it's first Delivery I intreat him then for Dr. T 's sake to remember that our Controversy presupposes Faith as 't is Divine and treats of it only as 't is Derivable down to us at this distance and therefore since the Knowledge of the Certain Means to do this is in our Controversy antecedent to the Knowledge of Christ's Doctrin or Faith it must be
in it The Lady having a high opinion of Dr. St's parts judg'd it impossible a man of his Learning should not be able to give an Answer to a few Lines in so long a time not reflecting how connected Truth hampers an Adversary and is perfectly Unanswerable So she prest vehemently for a Second a Distinct Answer After some tedious expectation he sends another more insignificant if possible than the former Which seen and the Lady now satisfied that he upon whom she most rely'd had done his utmost she alter'd her Judgment upon no other inducement than the seeing plainly that his Principles resolv'd all Certainty of Faith finally into the Private Spirit The Drs Reflecter was set on like an unexperienc't Perdu Souldier to combat it with a distinct Answer but alas he was shown to falter or falsify in every particular This ill success made the Dr. grow wary in speaking to any particular part of it but thought it safest here to stand aloof and throw stones at distance instead of grappling with it neerer hand His answer is that it proceeds upon two False Suppositions and Overthrows the Possibility of any Rule of Faith. My first False Supposition is that there is no Certainty without Infallibility No True or Absolute Certainty good Dr. For as for your Morall Certainty it may be Fallible enough I must confess I hate such nonsense as to say I am perfectly Certain of a thing yet peradventure I am deciev'd The word Absolute signifies Perfect and Certainty if True is taken from the Natures of the Objects or Things without us and if they stand perfectly engag'd by a True Knowledge of them they would not be what they are if when we truly conceive them as they are our Conception or Iudgment of them can be False that is if it be not in that particular Infallible This is plain Sense and told him long ago It has been demonstrated also in Faith Vindicated that True Certainty Infallibility were all one What answers he Why he makes as if he had never known or heard of our Arguments for it but falls to talk of the Stoicks Marke Epicurus his fooleries He learnedly mistakes the Definition Man is a Rational Creature for a Demonstration and dislikes it at the same time Lastly he tells us many other things the Antients held or said which are nothing to me who judge I know what belongs to Certainty and resolving of Truths into their Principles as well as they did and do think them very weak to stand disputing with the perfect Scepticks or convincing them by Criterions because all Discourse supposes something Certain to build upon otherwise it might go on endlessly that is would be to no End and the Scepticks admitted no Certainty of any thing at all 40. His Application of those Preparatives is that we are to expect no Absolute Certainty in proving the present Faith to be Christ's Doctrin And so he hopes to save his own Credit for producing none let the Credit of Christian Faith and the repute of its being an Absolutely Certain Truth go where it will for him However to avoid the shame justly due to such a Position he must cast in some good words to fool his Readers and so he grants that they who use due Care and diligence may attain to a true Certainty and satisfaction of Mind as to the sence of Scripture But he never attempts to show that possibly they may not do so but may hap to fall into damnable Heresies as the Socinians do who for ought he or I know us'd as much Care and Diligence as he and his Party use Again what means Satisfaction of Mind Is Faith ever a jot more Certain or True because some may be Satisfy'd it is Are not the Socinians as well satisfy'd in mind that Christ is not God as the Dr. is that he is God Moreover if the Argument he brings to prove his Faith to be Christ's true Doctrin does not conclude 't is a thousand to one that Acute and Intelligent men will find the flaw in it And what can those men do in that case so they be true to their Reason the only Light they can yet guide themselves by Must they Assent that his Faith came from Christ when they see that notwithstanding all the Proof he brings for it it may not be Christ's and hazard to Embrace that Doctrin for his Faith which may for any thing they know have the Father of Lyes for its Author They must Suspend then in that case and justify themselves by alledging that the best Arguments the most Learned Christians bring to prove it conclude nothing Nay 't is to be fear'd they will disgrace the Faithfull as a company of Fops for believing upon weak Grounds and by showing them such lay a just Scandall upon the Christian Church for pretending to hold what Christ taught when as yet none in it are able to prove it was his Doctrin And how would they laugh Christians out of Countenance if proceeding on Dr St's short Grounds they should only show them a Well-Attested Book containing those Doctrines without ascertaining absolutely the true Sense of it when as only that Sense was the Doctrine of Faith and which is worse when they saw multitudes of numerous Sects at perpetuall and irreconcileable variance about that Sense The true Rule of Faith then must be such as sets Faith above any Peradventure of not being Christ's true Doctrin and so secure all who rely on it how weak soever from being deceiv'd or in an Error and withall it must be such as Intelligent men seeking for assurance of Christ's Faith may be satisfy'd it is able to conclude it to be such and the more Learned Faithfull Evince to Doubters and Convince Opposers that the Faith held now by themselves and the Church is the Self-same that Christ and his Apostles taught at First But Dr St. dares not affirm any of this of his Rule of Faith therefore his pretended Rule is none His Instance of True Certainty attainable without Infallibility in that point of Faith viz. That Iesus was the True Messias is partly answer'd in my Fourth Catholique Letter and his alledging it has one strange inadvertence in it which I wonder he was not aware of which is that the Proof of it depended on the Interpretation of Scripture He had it seems forgot that to manifest himself to be the true Messias foretold by the Prophets was the main Point of our Saviours Doctrin and that he did Miracles to attest that Doctrin and make himself known to be that Person which Miracles were Infallible Marks that that Doctrine of his in that point was True. And when the Dr. produces Miracles to abet his Private Interpretations of Scripture then he may have a fair pretence to lay aside the Publick Interpretation of the Church Again he is quite out as to the Subject of his discourse For tho' it was a Point of
Faith in the Jewish Law that a Messias was to come yet that this very Person Iesus Christ was to be that Messias was no Point of Faith among them and God's Providence we see took a far better way to make it out than Private Interpretations of the Scripture unless he thinks Miracles no more Effectual nor more Certain than private Interpretations are What insignificant nothings this Man brings for his choice Arguments and what pains he takes in the worst cause in the world viz. To maintain that Christian Faith needs not to be Absolutely Certain And this for no other reason for 't is every Christian's Interest it should be so but because his bad Principles can afford him no Argument to prove it to be such 41. His Pretence of my Second False Supposition viz. that a Rule of Faith according to me must be a Mechanical Rule and not a Rational is weak beyond expression Every Schollar knows his Friend Dr. T. particularly who took the same way and us'd the same expressions Rule of Faith. p. 4. that Metaphors are translated from Materiall to Intellectual things in regard we have no Genuin Conceptions of these Later and indeed most of the Language of Christianity is made up of such expressions whence we can argue by Analogy from the one to the other The word Rule is one of those Metaphoricall words and hence we say that as a Material Rule is that by which if we draw our Pen it directs us to make a Right Line so the Rule of Faith being intended by God to direct us to Truth will lead those Right who follow it and regulate themselves by it Does not this Metaphor look a little more Proper and the Discourse upon it hang better together than his likening Scripture to a Purse yet he utterly dislikes it and tells the Reader I falsly suppose the Rule of Faith must be a Mechanicall or Carpenters Rule with all its Dimensions fixt and denies that himself supposes it to be such a Materiall or Mechanicall Rule Nor any man sure that were not stark Mad. Again do we here meddle with its Dimensions or how much is of Faith as he did when he spoke of his Rule The Straightness of the draught preserving us from the Obliquity of Errour is the only point we aim at Next he denies there is any such Intellectuall Rule because there may be Mistakes in the Vnderstanding and Applying it and therefore Care and Diligence and Impartiality are requir'd else men may miss How Miss tho' they follow it Then it self was not Straight and so no Rule For the very notion of a Rule is to be a Thing that has a Power to regulate or direct us right or keep the Understanding that follows it from missing and to follow it is all the Application it can need to do its Effect Whence all the Care and Diligence and Impartiality he speaks of must be employ'd in seeing they do indeed follow it for none of these can help or hinder the Rule in its Power of directing since it had this of it Self independently of the Persons But his Rule tho' all these as far as we Mortalls can discern be us'd by the Socinians in the following it still suffers those Carefull and Diligent and Impartiall followers of it to err in Faith Therefore 't is no Rule of Faith. But 't is mighty pretty to observe that when he is pincht with plain Sense he ever and anon runs to the old Philosophers who he says would have laugh'd at me for applying a Materiall Rule to Intellectuall things Sure he 's not well awake I draw a Metaphor indeed from a Materiall Rule to an Intellectuall one and then apply that Intellectual Rule to Intellectuall things but I know none so mad as to apply a Materiall Rule to Intellectuall things unless he thinks I am measuring Faith by a Taylors Yard or finding out the right Sense of Scripture by a Ruler and a Ruling pen. 42. But why Presbyterians and Socinians This insinuation says he has as much folly as Malice in it and makes as tho' Wee of the Church of England were Socinians in those points viz. The Trinity and Godhead of Christ. God forbid I should be so injurious to them I do assure him and them faithfully I intended it as a piece of Justice to them and put in Presbyterians instead of Protestants because I had reason to hope those private-spirited Principles were none of theirs and that divers of their Eminent Writers had own'd the Universall Tradition and Practice of the Church for their Rule of interpreting Scripture And I have some Ground to think they might in time have profest it publickly had not Dr. St's Irenicum-Doctrines fill'd that Church with men of no steady Principles and made luke warm Persons flock into it corrupting it's Body by which means there have been in the Church of England so few Church-of-England Men. But why so Cholerick Why such wincing and kicking I do assure him I did not think I had in the least toucht him If he be so over-apprehensive and angry withal I fear he has done himself more wrong in taking it to himself than I ever intended him Again what means he by Wee of the Church of England I am told by a hearty Member of it and one who owns his Name too how true it is let the Dr's Conscience look to it that he is contented to sit and sing in the bearing Branches of that Church so long as he fills his Pockets but when the gathering time is over it is to be cut down as that which cumbereth the Ground By which he sees that he must either clear himself by a candid and full Retractation of his ill Principles or he will have no Title to the word Wee But we are come forwards to his farther Defence of his Rule or rather to his overthrowing the Absolute Certainty of Christian Faith in order to which he asks How can Reason be Certain in any thing if men following their Reason can mistake Very easily Because Reason is a Faculty or a Power apt to be actuated by True or False Principles and accordingly 't is Determinable to Truth or Falshood But if Reason follow any Maxim taking it to be a Principle to such a thing and yet errs in that thing then that pretended Principle is no true Principle Yet says he Men following the Rules of Arithmetick may mistake in casting up a Summ. And can he seriously think that a man who casts it up False does not decline while he thus mistakes from Arithmetical Rules May he not with as good Sense say that Two and Three do not make Five for all Rules of Computation hang together by the same necessity In a word his Instance falters in the Third Proposition viz. That Two who have made use of the same way differ at least a hundred in casting up the Sum. Which is False and by altering the Terms
that all the Main Points of Christian Doctrin may be false for any thing they know These and such like Discourses I hope would at first startle him and at length cure him if he were not too deeply tainted with Enthusiasm or a high opinion of his own Moral Qualifications and Divine Assistances For if he were he is got beyond the reach of Reason and Humane Discourse and is not to be helpt by any thing under a Miracle perhaps not by that neither 51. He seems to deny People the Liberty to interpret Scripture against the Teaching Church But his discourse sounds Hollow when he comes to show he does so Some sleight thing he says about the Sense of the Teaching Church in the best and purest Ages but not a word of what they owe to the present Church which is their Proper and Immediate Instructress and Governess by which discourse it should seem he holds the Church of England none of the best nor purest The main point is whether if after having consulted the Primitive Church and consider'd what Grounds she brought for her Doctrin and Decrees the Enquirer still likes his own Interpretation better he is in that case to submit his private Judgment to the Decrees of That or Any Church And how the Church is to look upon him in case his private Interpretation leads him into a flat Heresy These are the true Points and Tests of Dr. St's Principles and yet undiscover'd Consequences but these are slubber'd over or rather indeed never toucht Yet he complains of me for being Obscure when as 't is acknowledg'd he writes Clearly but 't is Clearly from the Point nor has any packing the Cards c. He says too that 't is aukward reasoning to say nothing but Infallibility will content him now Pray which is more aukward If the Judges acknowledge themselves Fallible in which case nothing can be said to be True that is held upon their Testimony then he allows them very much Authority but not upon other terms But he is high in choler against me for saying he has an aversion against the Churches intermeddling in matters of Faith and imputes it either to great Ignorance or a malicious Design to expose him to Church Governors But his comfort is he pities my Ignorance and despises my Malice This is Stately and Great I do assure him my only Design is to oppose such Principles as leave all to the Fanatick phrenzy of every private Interpreter and till he satisfies the World better that his Principles are not guilty of this Enormity I shall still oppose him let him huff never so high The Point is how does he clear himself Why he says he disputes not against Church-Authority in due proposing matters of Faith Certainly Church-Authority is mightily oblig'd to him A Genuin and Learned Son of the Church of England speaking of this very Doctrin of his tells him that Proposals of their own nature are so far from inferring an Authority to Command their reception that they rather imply a Power in those to whom they are propos'd at Discretion to Reiect them and so in the Issue gives the Authority to the People Which words contain the full sense of my Discourse here against the Dr and his beloved Sober Enquirer Why is he then so high against me for exposing him when those of the Church of England have already expos'd him more than I have done This is no great sign either of Ignorance or Malice when persons who are otherwise of different Judgments and Communions do center in the same opinion of his Doctrin as destructive of Church-Government But 't is yet more pleasant that he will not promise he will not dispute against Church-Authority even in this due proposing Matters of Faith but with a Proviso that every man is to judge for his own Salvation As much as to say If the Church will be so sawcy or so wicked as not to let my Sober Enquirers alone to interpret Scripture as they list or hold what seems to their Wise Worships to be the Sense of it which with him is judging for their own Salvation but will be censuring or Excommunicating them for Hereticks if they hap to err in Christ's Godhead for example or any other such Point then Church-Authority have at you for I tell you plainly if you do this I shall and will dispute against you It would be worth our knowing too what the pretty cautious words due proposing means There seems to lurk some hidden Mystery in that little monasyllable Due which may come to help the Sober Enquirers with an Evasion from submitting to Church-Authority or obeying it in case it misbehaves it self unduly or grows so malapert as to restrain them in their licentious Prerogative of interpreting Scripture as their Gifted Fancy inspires them It looks oddly and seems to have some ambidextrous meaning in it but we will hope the best till he comes to unfold it Now because Honourable Company is creditable to those who are highly obnoxious he names St. Chrysostom St. Austin St. Thomas of Aquin and Bellarmin as of his opnion but with the same sincerity as he pretended all Divines of both Churches and even my self to hold all Necessary Points may be found by every Sober Enquirer without the Churches Help as may be seen hereafter § 57. 'T is indeed the General Opinion of the Fathers that we are not always heard when we pray for Temporal Things or even Spiritual Goods for others but that our Request is always granted when we ask Spiritual Goods for our selves But then 't is ever understood with this restriction that we must not make our suit to have Knowledge or Virtue by Extraordinary ways and neglect the Ordinary Methods laid already by God's Providence to attain those good Gifts Our Question then being of understanding those difficult places of Scripture which contain the main Articles of our Christian Belief and whether they can better attain to the Sense of Scripture with unerring Certainty by their own Private Judgments without the Churches Help or by the Churches Means and Dr St's Principles asserting the former Method mine the Later I do affirm that none of those Authors hold with him but would condemn his Tenet for Heresy He Quotes none of the places except Bellarmin who speaks not of persons looking for Faith in Scripture's Letter as to those Points but of the Faithfull Praying for Wisdom to live well and he as the Dr relates it denies the Gift of Interpretation the Dr's way to come to Faith is to be had by Prayer which is our main Point However our Dr pretends himself wonderfully skillfull in our Authors because he can make a shew of Quoting them tho' it be quite from the purpose He should have kept an Eye to the State of the Question and brought his Citations home to it but this is not his way His main art through this whole Treatise is to keep that from the Readers
then calls it an easy Answer and if it be an answer at all I must confess 't is an easy one for any man may with ease answer a thousand Objections in a trice at that rate nothing is easier than to omit all that is objected But I dare undertake that whoever reads my Third Catholick Letter p. 37.38.39.40 where four several prevarications were charg'd upon him in giving one single Answer to Mr. G's Question will judge it so far from easy that 't is Impossible for him to answer even with any degree of plausibility But with this sleightness he slips over most of my Objections in my Letters and supplies the defect with confident Talk or a Scornfull Iest. But because his main shuffle is his altering those words of the Question All the Divine Revelations of Christ and his Apostles into All matters necessary to Salvation and this is his constant evasion we will examin it more particularly in order to the sole End of the Conference to which all the particular Questions were to be directed viz. his showing Grounds of Asbolute Certainty for his Faith. 1. I ask with the good leave of his Jest Does he think Christ and his Apostles taught any unnecessary Points If not why did he use such cautious diminishing expressions and instead of All their Doctrin put All matters necessary to our Salvation 2. Christians are wrought up to the Love of Heaven the Immediate Disposition to it by Motives and Some may need more than Others nay the variety of Peoples Tempers and Circumstances is so Infinite that scarce two persons will precisely need the same He is to acquaint us then how he knows or how he can make out that every man shall by reading the Scripture be sure to find his own Quota of Motives adjusted and serving for his particular Exigencies 3. Is he Sure they cannot err as to what 's necessary to their Salvation If provided they do their best they cannot then every man is so far Infallible which the Doctor has deny'd hitherto to all Mankind but to himself If they can err in matters necessary to Salvation then doubtless many will err and how can errour Save them 4. Tho' all cannot err in all Moral Points yet can he shew us any thing securing them from Erring in all those Articles of Faith held by the Church and renounc't by her Heretical Dissenters ever since Christ's time If he cannot and he declines shewing us they can nay he by his Doctrin confesses they may then they may be Sav'd tho' holding all the Heresies that ever were in which case I doubt he will scarce find them competent Assurance of their Salvation Again how knows he but the mixture of many of those gross Errours may not as much deprave their Souls as their understanding plainer places will edify them especially if the Church interposes and Excommunicates them for Hereticks For his Grounds forbid them to meddle with those high Points but leave the whole Scripture to their scanning and his approved Friend Dr. T. says they are Plain and so are subject to their profound Judgment of Discretion 5. He must tell us how must Church-Disciplin be exerciz'd upon such a Miscellany of Heterogeneous Members of which many obstinately deny what others pertinaciously affirm 6. Is the holding the Godhead of Christ and that God dy'd to save and redeem Mankind a Matter Necessary to Salvation Or is it enough to hold it was only a Man to whom they owe that highest Obligation to Love him Let him speak to this at least For I am not to expect but his aiery wordish Divinity makes him look upon the Mystery of the most Blessed Trinity as on a kind of dry Speculation Tho' were it seasonable to dilate on that Article I could shew him that besides it's exceeding Usefulness to the sublime Contemplatives the most Sacred and most Influential Points of Christian Faith and the main Body of Christian Language and the Truth of it depend on it's Verity Lastly Who told him that all sorts of People who are yet Unbelievers and looking after Christ's true Doctrin shall by reading Scripture come to all-saving Faith Has he it by Divine Revelation or by Reason Or will he recurr to Divine Assistances to keep Particular Persons from Errour and yet deny them to the Church If so how proves he This at least I wish he would speak out fairly and candidly to these Points and make something cohere For I profess with all sincerity I cannot for my heart make any Idea or Sense of this Motly Church which his Principles would patch up The several Members of it hang more loosely together than if they were ty'd to one another with Points Nay they agree worse than Fire and Water and all the several Contrarieties in in Nature for they are distanced by direct Contradiction of one to the other Whence they are utterly incapable of any kind of Coalition there being no imaginable means left to refract the irreconcileably-opposit Qualities of his Affirmative and Negative Faithfull or reduce so many Independent private-spirited Members into one Compound He is to shew us then how the parts of this Rope of Sand as it may more fitly be called must hang together I much fear it will be Invisibly by vertue of their being of the Elect and at the same rate as the Terms coher'd in the Invisible Proofs he alledg'd to shew us he and his Followers had Christ's true Doctrin 59. We shall never have done with this Purse of his He is so fond of the pretty Similitude that he puts it here over again at large and spends incomparably more time and pains in defending it than he does in making out the Absolute Certainty of his Faith tho' he both stood engag'd to do it and any good Christian too would think it were far more worth his while Had he done this the rest might have been more fairly compounded and his Purse have remain'd unransack't However he thinks it sutes well with the Conceit he had of Scripture but I am sure it sutes not at all with our purpose his shewing the Absolute Certainty of his Faith. Hence I told him that Scripture's containing Faith was impertinent to the whole drift of the Conference That the only business was how to get the Gold and Silver of Faith out thence with Absolute Certainty and how to secure those that aim'd to enrich themselves by it that instead of extracting the Pure Gold of Truth by understanding right those high and most Inestimable Articles the ransackers of it did not draw out thence the Impure Dross of Errour and Heresy Lastly that he ought to have put two Purses One the Heads and Hearts of the Faithfull into which the Apostles put this Heavenly Treasure of Faith by their Preaching the Other the Book of Scripture into which they put it by Writing and that Faith was properly in the Former only in regard Truth is no where Formally but in the