liberty from greater imployments how ready I am to give him all reasonable satisfaction And in the first place I return him thanks for the weapon he hath made choice of viz. that of reason there being no other I desire to make use of in managing this debate between us And I hope he will find as much civility towards him throughout this discourse as he expresses towards me in the entrance to his if that may be accounted any real civility which is intended meerly out of design with the greater advantage to disparage the cause I have undertaken and yet see no reason to repent of If in his cursory view of two Chapters of my Book he had as he saith quite lost me he had no cause to be troubled for it if he had found far more excellent persons such as Dr. Hammond and the Disswader and Dr. Pierce instead of me But to be sure he intends not this in honour to any of us but by way of a common reproach to us all as though we did not talk out of nature or things but words and imagination I could heartily have wished Mr. S. would have cropt so much of the victory due to anothers learning and industry as to have shewed me one proposition in those discourses which a rational understanding that would be true to it self could not settle or rely on But if such insinuations as these must pass for answers I must needs say I judg M. S. equally happy in confuting our grounds and in demonstrating his own in both which his greatest strength lies in the self-evidence of his bare affirmations But it seems he is willing to resign the glory of this Victory to the judicious Author of Labyrinthus Cantuariensis or to some others for him and when they have once obtained it I shall not envy them the honour of it And I suppose those persons whoever they are may be able by this time to tell Mr. S. it is an easier matter to talk of Victories than to get them But if they do no more in the whole than Mr. S. hath done for his share they will triumph no-where but where they conquer viz. in their own fancies and imaginations Therefore leaving them to their silent conquests and as yet unheard-of Victories we come to Mr. S. who so liberally proclaims his own in the point of oral tradition Which in a phrase scarce heard of in our language before is the Post he tells us he hath taken upon him to explicate further and defend What the explicating a Post means I as little understand as I do the force of his demonstrations but this and many other such uncouth forms of speech up and down in his Book which make his style so smooth and easie are I suppose intended for embellishments of our tongue and as helps to sure-speaking as his whole Book is designed for sure-footing But letting him enjoy the pleasure and felicity of his own expressions I come to consider the matter in debate between us And his first controversie with me is for opposing the infallibility of oral tradition to doctrinal infallibility in Pope and Councils A controversie fitter to be debated among themselves than between him and me For is any thing more notorious than that infallibility is by the far greatest part of Romanists attributed to the present Church in teaching and delivering matters of faith not by virtue of any oral tradition but the immediate assistance of the Holy Ghost and that this is made by them the only ground of divine faith For which Mr. S. may if he please consult his judicious Author of Labyrinthus Cantuariensis or any other of their present Writers except Mr. White and himself He need not therefore have been to seek for the meaning of this doctrinal infallibility as opposed to traditionary if he had not either been ignorant of the opinion of their own Writers or notoriously dissembled it For this infallibility is not attributed to the Rulers of the Church meerly as Doctors or Scholars but as the representative Church whose office it is to deliver all matters of faith by way of an infallible testimony to every age and thereby to afford a sufficient foundation for divine faith But Mr. S. attributes no such infallibility to the representative Church as teaching the rest but derives their infallibility from such grounds as are common to all parts of the essential Church Wherein he apparently opposes himself to the whole current of their own Authors who resolve all faith into the immediate assistance of the Holy Ghost without which they assert there could be no infallibility at all in tradition or any thing else and therefore these opinions are as opposite to each other as may be For such an infallibility is not attributed by them to the Teachers of the Church meerly on some signal occasions as Mr. S. seems to suppose when they are to explain new matters of saith but it is made by them to be as necessary as believing it self because thereby the only sure foundation of faith is laid and therefore it is very evident they make it proper to the Church in all ages Or else in some age of the Church men were destitute of suciffient grounds of faith For they by no means think it a sufficient foundation for faith that one age of the Church could not conspire to deceive another for this they will tell him at most is but a humane faith but that Christ by his promise hath assured the Church that there shall never be wanting in it the infallible assistance of his Holy Spirit whereby they shall infallibly teach and deliver all matters of saith And if this be not their opinion let them speak to the contrary which if they do I am sure they must retract their most elaborate discourses about the resolution of faith written by the greatest Artists among them Let Mr. S. then judg who it is that stumbles at the Threshold but of this difference among them more afterwards By this it appears it was not on any mistake that I remained unsatisfied in the Question I asked Whether am I bound to believe what the present Church delivers to be infallible To which Mr. S. answers I understand him not My reply shall be only that of a great Lawyers in a like case I cannot help that I am sure my words are intelligible enough for I take infallible there as he takes it himself for infallibly true although I deny not the word to be improperly used in reference to things and that for the reason given by him because fallibility infallibility belong to the knowing power or the persons that have it and not to the object But we are often put to the use of that word in a sense we acknowledg improper meerly in compliance with our Adversaries who otherwise are apt to charge us with having only uncertainties and probabilities for our faith if we do not use the term infallible as applied to
the truth of the thing I am content therefore wherever in what I have writ he meets that term so applied that he take it only in his own sense for that which is certainly true for I mean no more by it And in this sense Mr. S. answers affirmatively and gives this account of it not only because the present Church cannot be deceived in what the Church of the former age believed but because the Church in no age could conspire against her knowledg to deceive that age immediately following in matter of fact evident in a manner to the whole world The Question then is whether this be a sufficient account for me to believe that to be certainly true or to be the doctrine of Christ and his Apostles which the present Church delivers and consequently whether the resolution of faith be barely into oral tradition Thus we see the clear state of the Question between us I come therefore to the vindication of those things which I had objected against this way of resolving faith into oral tradition Three things I especially insisted on 1. That it is inconsistent with the pretensions of the present Roman Church 2. That it hath not been the way owned in all ages of the Christian Church 3. That it is repugnant to common sense and experience and that the Church of Rome hath apparently altered from what was the belief of former ages If these three be made good there will be no cause to glory in this last invention to support the sinking fabrick of that Church These three then I undertake to defend against what Mr. Serjeant hath objected against them 1. That it is contrary to the pretensions of the present Roman Church And if it be so there can be no reason for those who are of it to rely upon it For if so be that Church pretends that the obligation to faith arises from a quite different ground from this how can they who believe that Church infallible venture their faith upon any other principle than what is publickly owned by her And whosoever thinks himself bound to believe by virtue of an infallible assistance of the present Church doth thereby shew that his obligation doth not depend upon what was delivered by the former ages of the Church As those who believed the Apostles were infallible in their doctrine could not resolve their faith into the infallibility of oral tradition but into that immediate assistance by which the Apostles spake and where there is a belief of a like assistance the foundation of faith cannot ly in the indefectibility of tradition but in that infallible Spirit which they suppose the Church to be assisted by For supposing this oral tradition should fail and that men might believe that it had actually failed yet if the former supposition were true there was sufficient ground for faith remaining still And what assurance can any one have that the present Church delivers nothing for matter of faith but what hath been derived in every age from Christ and his Apostles if such an infallible Spirit be supposed in the present Church which was in the Apostles themselves For on the same reason that those who heard the Apostles were not bound to trouble themselves with the tradition of the former age no more ought they who believe the present Roman Church to have the same infallible assistance They need not then enquire whether this age knew the meaning of the former or whether one age could conspire to deceive another or whether notwithstanding both these errors might not come into the Church it is sufficient for them that the definitions of the present Church are infallible in all matters of faith Therefore my demand was built on very good reason How can you assure me the present Church obliges me to believe nothing but only what and so far as it received from the former Church And Mr. S's answer is far from being satisfactory That this appears by her manifest practice never refusing communion to any man that could approve himself to believe all the former age did For this may be resolved into a principle far different from this which is the belief of the infallibility of the present Church For supposing that they are not bound to enquire themselves into the reasons why the tradition could not fail in any age it is suffient for them to believe the Church infallible and if it be so in proposing matters of faith it must be so in declaring what the belief of the former age was But my demands go on What evidence can you bring to convince me both that the Church always observed this rule and could never be deceived in it Which question is built on these two Principles which the infallibility of oral tradition stands on 1. That the Church must always go upon this ground 2. That if it did so it is impossible she should be deceived Both which are so far from that self-evidence which M. Serjeant still pretends to in this way that the Jesuits principles seem much more rational and consistent than these do For granting them but that one Postulatum that there must be an inherent infallibility in the testimony of the present Church to afford sufficient foundation for divine faith all the rest of their doctrine follows naturally from it Whereas this new way of resolving faith is built on such suppositions which no man well in his wits will be ready to grant For unless it be self-evident that the Church did always proceed on this ground it cannot be self-evident that oral tradition is infallible because the self-evidence of this principle depends on this that in all ages of the Church the only rule and measure of faith was what was delivered by oral tradition from the age foregoing Now if it be possible that matters of faith might be conveyed in ways quite different from this what self-evidence can there be that the Church much always proceed upon this Mr. S. then must demonstrate it impossible for matters of faith to be conveyed to posterity in any other way than oral tradition and not only that the thing is impossible but that the Church in all ages judged it to be so or else he can never make it at all evident that the Church always made this her rule of faith But if either there may be a certain conveyance of the doctrine of faith another way viz. by writing or that the Church might judg that way more certain whether it were so or not either way it will appear far enough from self-evidence that she always judged of doctrines of faith meerly by the tradition of the preceding age If another way be granted possible there must be clear demonstration that the Church notwithstanding this did never make use of it for if it did make use of another way of resolving faith in any age of the Church then in that age of the Church oral tradition was not looked on as the ground of faith
on as novelties therefore they speak much of tradition and the ancient faith but that was not by what their Parents taught them but what the Fathers of the Church delivered in their writings for by these they judged of traditions and not the oral way And therefore I see little reason to believe that this was either the sense of the Council of Trent or is the sense of any number of Roman Catholicks much less of the whole Church none excepted as Mr. S. in his confident way expresses it And if he will as he saith disavow the maintaining any point or affecting any way which is not assented to by all I hope to see Mr. S. retract this opinion and either fall in with the Court of Rome or return as reason leads him into the bosom of the Church of England But there seems to be somewhat more in what follows viz. that though schoolmen question the personal infallibility of the Pope or of the Roman Clergy nay of a General Council yet all affirm the infallibility of tradition or the living voice of the Church essential and this he saith is held by all held firmly and that it is absolutely infallible To this therefore I answer either Mr. S. means that none do affirm that the universal tradition of the Church essential can err or that the Church of Rome being the Church essential cannot err in her tradition But which way soever he takes it I shall easily shew how far it is from proving that he designs it for For if he take it in the first sense viz. that all the faithful in all ages could not concur in an error then he may as well prove Protestants of his mind as Papists for this is the foundation on which we believe the particular Books of Scripture If this therefore proves any thing it proves more then he intends viz. that while we thus oppose each other we do perfectly agree together and truly so we do as much as they do among themselves But if Mr. S's meaning be that all of their Religion own the Roman Church to be the Church essential and on that account that it cannot err setting aside the absurdity of the opinion it self I say from hence it doth not follow that they make oral tradition the rule of faith because it is most evident that the ground why they say their Church cannot err is not on Mr. S's principles but on the supposition of an infallible assistance which preserves that Church from error So that this falls far short of proving that they are all agreed in this rule of faith which is a thing so far from probability that he might by the same argument prove that Scripture is owned by them all to be the rule of faith For I hope it is held by all and held firmly that the living voice of God in Scripture as delivered to us is infallible and if so then there is as much ground for this as the other But if we enquire what it is men make a rule of faith we must know not only that they believe tradition infallible but on what account they do so For if tradition be believed infallible barely on the account of a promise of infallibility to the present Church then the resolution of faith is not into the tradition but into that infallible assistance and consequently the rule of faith is not what bare tradition delivers but what that Church which cannot err in judging tradition doth propose to us It is not therefore their being agreed in general that tradition is infallible doth make thâ—m agree in the same rule of faith but they must agree in the ground of that infallibility viz. that it depends on this that no age could conspire to deceive the next But all persons who understand any thing of the Roman Church know very well that the general reason why tradition is believed infallible is because they first believe the Church to be infallible whereas Mr. S. goes the contrary way and makes the infallibility of the the Church to depend on the infallibility of tradition And therefore for all that I can see we must still oppose private Opinators in this controversie the Church of Rome not having declared her self at all on Mr. S's behalf but the contrary and the generality believing on the account of the present Churches infallibility And it is strange Mr. S. should find no difference between mens resolving faith into common sense and into the immediate assistance of the Holy Ghost If this then be the first principle of controversie as Mr. S. pretends we see how unlikely they are to agree about other matters who are so much divided about the principle of resolving them And if this be the ground of faith then most Romanists build on a wrong Foundation But if the infallibility of oral tradition be the foundation on which that formidable structure is erecting which he speaks of wo then to the Court of Rome for that is known to build on quite a different foundation And if this as he saith rises apace and has advanced many stories in a small time it only lets us know how fast their divisions grow and that they are building so fast one against another that their Church will not stand between them By this discourse Mr. S. pretends to answer all those If 's which follow which are these In case the Church may determine things de fide which were not before whether the present Church doth then believe as the precedent did or no if it did how comes any thing to be de fide which was not before if it did not what assurance can I have that every age of the Church believes just as the precedent did and no otherwise when I see they profess the contrary And if a thing may be de fide in one age which was not in a foregoing then a Church may deliver that as a matter of faith at one time which was never accounted so before by which means the present Church may oblige me to believe that as a matter of faith which never was so in Christs or the Apostles times and so the infallibility on the account of tradition is destroyed To all which Mr. S. gives a very easie answer viz. that they do not hold any disparate or unimplied points of faith but such as are involved and implied in the main point This is no more easily said then understood for if these be implied in the former how can there come a new obligation to believe them For to take his own instance will any man in his senses say that he that believes homo est animal rationale doth not believe homo est animal and this he makes choice of as an example how one point of faith may be involved in another so as to receive a distinct obligation to believe it I grant that homo est animal is involved in the other but he that shall say that after he hath assented
the Church of Rome and the hazard of Salvation in the communion of it the first Part octavo A second Discourse in vindication of the Protestant grounds of Faith against the pretence of Infallibility in the Roman Church in Answer to the Guide in Controversie by R. H. Protestancy without Principles and Reason and Religion or the certain Rule of Faith by E. W. with a particular enquiry into the Miracles of the Roman Church octavo An Answer to Mr. Cresey's Epistle Apologetical to a person of Honour touching his Vindication of Dr. Stillingfleet octavo All written by Edw. Stillingfleet D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty Knowledg and Practice or a plain Discourse of the chief things necessary to be known believed and practiced in order to Salvation by S. Cradock quarto A Book very useful for Families The Remains of Sir Walter Rawleigh in twelves A Discourse of War and Peace by Sir Robert Cotton in octavo The Moral Philosophy of the Stoicks in octavo Hodders Arithmetick twelves The Triumphs of Rome over despised Protestancy octavo The Original of Romances octavo The Advice of Charles the Fifth Emperor of Germany and King of Spain to his Son Philip the Second upon resignation of his Crown to his said Son twelves Observations upon Military and Political affairs by the Right Honourable George Duke of Albemarle folio published by Authority A Fathers Testament by Phineahs Fletcher in octavo The Explication of the Terms of the Question P. 180. * P. 4. * P. 159◠Mr. S's Rule of Faith * p. 41. * P. 117. * P. 337. * Append. 4th p. 319. * P. 68. * p. 116. * p. 117. * Apology for tradition p. 165. The Protestant Doctrine concerning the Rule of Faith * P. 117. * P. 171. P. 38 39. * P. 54. * P. 116. * Mr. Wh. Exetasis P. 9. * P. 39. How much Protestants allow to Oral Tradition * Hebr. 8.7 * P. 40. * Rushw. Dial. 4. Sect. 9. * p. 93. How much Mr. S. attributes to his Rule of Faith more than Protestants to theirs * P. 11. * P. 11. * P 3. P. 12. * P. 12. * P. 11 12. * Analys Fid. L. 1. c. 3. * P. 12. * P 12. That the Properties of a Rule of Faith belong to Scriptute * P. 13. * P. 14. * P. 17. * Luke 1.3 4. * John 20.31 Mr. S's Exceptions against Scripture examined * P. 13. * P. 13. * P. 13 14. * P. 14. * L. 1. contr Marcion * P. 14. * Com. in Esai c. 6 c. 8. * P. 15. * Ep. 48. * P. 15. * P. 16 17. * P. 16. * P. 16. * P. 16. Preface * Answ. to the Lord Falkland P. 33. * P. 17. * P. 17. * P. 17. * Hom. 32 de Consubstant * Hom. 7 de Sanctc Phoca * P. 17. * Exomolog 2 d. Edit p. 554. * Exomolog c. 53. Sect. 2. * Dial. 2. Sect. 12. * De Doctr. Christ. L. 2. * Dial. 2. Sect. 6. * Analys Fidei L. 1. c. 9. * Append. c. 6. * Answ. to Chilling c 2. Sect. 6. * P. 17 18. * Answ. to Chilling c. 1. Sect. 33. * P. 49. * Ibid. * P. 18. * P 18 19. * Dial. 2. Sect. 8. * P. 20 21. * Praefat. * Analys Fid. L. 1. c. 4. * P. 21. * L. 4. * Haeret. Fabul l. 4. That Scripture is a sufficient Rule to the Unlearned and to the most Rational doubters * P. 24. * P. 25.26 27. * Dial. 2. Sect. 7. * De bonis malis Libris * P. 27. Sect. 3. 4. * Ibid. Sect. 6. * L. 1. c. 1. * C. 19. Sect. 5. * C. 32. Sect. 4. * Append. c. 5. * C 40. Sect. 3 c. * Append. Sect. 2. 3. * C. 5. Sect. 6. * P. 14 15. * P. 30. * P. 46. * Letter to his Answerer p. 5. That Scripture is sufficient to convince the most acute Adversaries and that it is sufficiently certain * P. 28. * P. 31. * P. 31. * P. 116. * P. 32. * P. 33. * P. 34. * P. 34. * P. 34. * P. 35. * P. 36. * Dial. 2. Sect. 7. * P. 38. * P. 38. * P. 38. * P. 38. * Dial. 2. Sect. 14. * P. 41. That the Properties of a Rule of Faith do not belong to Oral Tradition * Apolog. P. 81. Considerations touching his Demonstrations in general * P. 53. * Append 2 d. P. 183. * Append. c. 6. Sect. 8. * Ibid. Sect. 9. * Ibid. Sect. 11. * Append. c. 7. Sect. 8. * Ibid. * P. 253. 254. * Extasis P. 24. Mr. S's demonstration à priori * P. 59 60. The First answer to this Demonstration * P. 60. * P. 75. * P. 54. * P. 78. * P. 89. * P. 54. * Chron. ad Annum Christ. 352. * Ad An. 363. * Ad An. 364. * Advers Lucifer * Ibid. * Ibid. * In Epist. ad Galat. l. 3. * Orat. 20. 21. * Orat. 25. * Chron. ad Annum octavum Maurit * Caus. Dei * P. 65. * Hist. Aethiop * P. 67. * P. 62. * P. 6◠The second Answer to his Demonstration * P. 53. * Heb. 5.11 12. * Advers Luciferian * P. 75. * P. 60. * P. 53. * P. 53. * Apology for Tradition p. 51. * Phoc. Ep. 7. * De Fid. Theol. Tract 1. Sect. 4. * Ibid. Sect. 5. * P. 53. 54. * Ibid. * P. 78. * P. 86. * P. 89. * P. 90 91. * P. 93. Mr. S's Demonstration à posteriori * P. 76. * P. 77 78. The First Answer to his second Demonstration * Dial. 1. Sect. 4. * Dial. 3. Sect. 7. * Dial. 1. Sect. 4. * In Vit. Romani Papae 117. A. C. 900. * In Platin. * Anno 506. * Anno 9.8 * Ennead 9. L. 1. Anno. 900. * De Regn. Ital. L. 6. * Chron. L. 4. * Fascic Tempor * Epist. 40. * Bell. Sacr. L. 1. c. 8. * Elfric Serm. ad Sacerdot * C. 2. 3. * De Rom. Pontif. L. 4. c. 12. * Annal. Tom. 10. Anno 900. * In Convers. Sancti Pauli Serm. 1. * C. 3. * C. 5. * C. 6. * C. 9. * C. 11. * C. 13 * C. 14 * C. 16. * C. 20 21 23. * C. 25. * C. 27. * Exomolog C. 68. * Ibid. * Dial. 3. Sect. 3. * Dial. 3. Sect. 7. * Reply to K. James L. 4. C. 6. * Apology for Tradition p. 49. The second Answer to his second Demonstration The third Answer to Mr. S's second Demonstration * Antiq. Jud. l. 13. c. 18. * Ibid. l. 17. c. 3. de Bell. Jud. l. 1. c. 4. l. 2. c. 12. * Antiq. l. 18. c. 2. * De Fid. Theol. Tract 1. Sect. 6. * Rep. to K. James observ 3. c. 4. * Pugio Fid. p. 145. * P. 76. * Apol. 123 c. *
capable of convincing Demonstrations Again Do but consider says he how unequal and unjust a condition it is that the claim of the present Church shall not be heard unless she can confute all the Peradventures that Wit may invent and solve all the Arguments which the infinite variety of time place and occasions may have given way unto and then you will see how unreasonable an Adversary he is who will not be content with any satisfaction but such as mans nature scarcely affords And is it not equally unjust in Mr. S. not to let Scripture's claim be heard unless we can confute every Peradventure and might it not be otherwise that Wit may invent See then how unreasonable an Adversary Mr. S. is who will not be content with any satisfaction but such as according to Mr. Rushworth mans nature scarcely affords Dr. Holden I confess states the matter somewhat cautiously when he tells us That it shall suffice for present to determine that the Wisdom of the Creator hath afforded us such an assurance especially of Truths necessary to Salvation as is sutable to our nature and best fitted for the safe conduct of our lives in Moral and Religious Affairs But if we interpret these general expressions by the passages I before cited out of Mr. Rushworth as in reason we may since the Doctor is beholding to him for the best part of his Book then nothing can make more against Mr. S's Principle § 5. Mr. Cressy in his Exomologesis says That such Teachers as approached nearest to the fountain of Truth Christ and his Apostles had means of informing themselves in Apostolical Tradition incomparably beyond us Mr. S. may do well to shew what those means were which are so incomparably beyond his Infallibility and Demonstration The same Author does very much applaud Stapleton's determination of the question concerning the Churches Infallibility which is as follows That the Church does not expect to be taught by God immediately by new Revelations but makes use of several means c. as being govern'd not by Apostles c. but by ordinary Pastors and Teachers That these Pastors in making use of these several means of Decision proceed not as the Apostles did with a peculiar infallible direction of the Holy Spirit but with a prudential collection not always necessary That to the Apostles who were the first Masters of Evangelical Faith and founders of the Church such an infallible certitude of means was necessary not so now to the Church c. If this be true That an infallible certitude of means is not now necessary to the Church and that her Pastors do now in deciding matters of Faith proceed only with a prudent collection not always necessary then it should seem that a searching Wit may maintain his ground of suspence even against their Church also with A Might it not be otherwise Again Mr. Cressy tells us That truth and our obligation to believe it is in an higher degree in Scripture than in the Decisions of the Church as Bellarmine acknowledges which is to say that we may have greater assurance of the truth of Doctrines contained in the Scriptures than we can have of any Doctrine from the determination of the Church But if we have the greatest assurance that can be of Truths deliver'd to us by the Church as Mr. S. affirms then I would fain learn of him what that greater degree of assurance is which Stapleton speaks of and whether it be greater than the greatest Not to insist upon that which yet I cannot but by the way take notice of that Mr. Cressy by his approbation of this determination of Bellarmine's doth advance the Scripture above the Church as to one of the most essential Properties of the Rule of Faith viz. the certainty of it But the most eminent Testimony to my purpose in Mr. Cressy is that famous passage which hath given so much offence to several of his own Church wherein he acknowledges the unfortunateness to him of the word Infallibility and tells us That he could find no such word in any Council That no necessity appear'd to him that either he or any other Protestant should ever have heard that word nam'd and much less press'd with so much earnestness as of late it has generally been in Disputations and Books of Controversie and that Mr. Chillingworth combats this word with too to great success insomuch that if this word were once forgotten or but laid by Mr. Chillingworth's Arguments would lose the greatest part of their strength and that if this word were confin'd to the Schools where it was bred there would be still no inconvenience And that since by manifest experience the English Protetestants think themselves so secure when they have leave to stand or fall by that word and in very deed have so much to say for themselves when they are pressed unnecessarily with it Since likewise it is a word capable of so high a sense that we cannot devise one more full and proper to attribute to God himself c. Since all this is so he thinks he cannot be blamed if such Reasons move him to wish that the Protestants may never be invited to combat the Authority of the Church under that Notion A very ingenuous acknowledgment and as cross to Mr. S's Principle as any thing can be But the word Infallibility was not so unfortunate to Mr. Cressy as is his untoward Explication of the fore-cited passage in his Appendix which he afterwards published chiefly by way of Vindication of himself against the Learned Author of the Preface to my Lord Falkland's Discourse of Infallibility There he tells us That there are several degrees of Infallibility And that we may know what degree of Infallibility he thinks necessary to be attributed to the Church this following passage will inform us Methinks says he if God have furnished his divine and supernatural Truth with evidence equal to this that the Sun will shine to morrow or that there will be a Spring and Harvest next year we are infinitely obliged to bless his Providence and justly condemned if we refuse to believe the least of such Truths as shewing less affection to save our souls than the dull Plow-men to sow their Corn who certainly have far less evidence for their Harvest than Catholiques for their Faith and yet they insist not peevishly upon every capricious Objection nor exact an infallible security of a plentiful reaping next Summer but notwithstanding all difficulties and contingencies proceed chearfully in their painful Husbandry So that according to this Discourse whatever degree of assurance the Church hath or can give to those who rely upon her it is plain that no further degree is necessary than what the Husbandman when he sows hath of a plentiful Harvest and that men are justly condemned if they refuse to believe the least truth upon such security which yet by his own acknowledgment is liable to Contingencies Nay further that men are
adds that the whole Body is under every little part in its full proportions for he says expresly That the Head and Foot of the Body of Christ are as far distant from one another in the sacrament as they are in Heaven as if one should say that a Body all whose parts lye within the compass of a small pins-head may yet within that little compass have parts two yards distant from one another And lastly how the sensible species of Bread e. g. quantity whiteness softness c. can exist without any subject to affirm the possibility of which as generally they do is to say that there may be quantities of white and soft nothings For this is the plain English of that assertion that sensible species may exist without a subject which being strip't of those terms of Art species and subject that do a little disguise it it appears to be plain Non-sense Now the proper and necessary consequence of this Doctrine is to take away all certainty and especially the certainty of sense For if that which my sight and taste and touch do all assure me to be a little piece of Wafer may notwithstanding this be Flesh and Blood even the whole Body of a man then notwithstanding the greatest assurance that Sense can give me that any thing is this or that it may be quite another thing from what Sense reported it to be If so then farewel the Infallibility of Tradition which depends upon the certainty of Sense And which is a worse consequence if this Doctrine be admitted we can have no sufficient assurance that the Christian Doctrine is a Divine Revelation For the assurance of that depending upon the assurance we have of the Miracles said to be wrought for the confirmation of it and all the assurance we can have of a Miracle depending upon the certainty of our senses it is very plain that that Doctrine which takes away the certainty of Sense does in so doing overthrow the certainty of Christian Religion And what can be more vain than to pretend that a man may be assured that such a Doctrine is revealed by God and consequently true which if it be true a man can have no assurance at all of any Divine Revelation Surely nothing is to be admitted by us as certain which being admitted we can be certain of nothing It is a wonder that any man who considers the natural consequences of this Doctrine can be a Papist unless he have attained to Mr. Cressy's pitch of Learning who speaking of the difficult Arguments wherewith this Doctrine was pressed says plainly I must answer freely and ingenuously that I have not learned to answer such Arguments but to despise them And if this be a good way when ever we have a mind to believe any thing to scorn those Objections against it which we cannot solve then Christian Religion hath no advantage above the vilest Enthusiasms and a Turk may maintain Mahomet and his Alcoran in opposition to Christ and his Doctrine against all that Grotius or any other hath said if he can but keep his countenance and gravely say I have not learned to answer such Arguments but to despise them § 10. I will add one Instance more in another kind to shew the uncertainty of Oral and Practical Traditions and that shall be the Tradition concerning Pope Jone than which scarce any was ever more generally received in the Historical kind Many and great Authors affirm it as Testifiers of the general Fame None ever denied it till the Reformers had made use of it to the disadvantage of Popery Since that time not only Papists deny it but several of our own Writers cease to believe it Phil. Bergomensis tells the story thus Anno 858. John the 7 th Pope c. The Tradition is that this person was a Woman c. Here 's an Oral Tradition He concludes thus In detestation of whose filthiness and to perpetuate the memory of her Name the Popes even to this day going on Procession with the People and the Clergy when they come to the place of her Travel c. in token of abomination they turn from it and go a by-way and being past that detestable place they return into the way and finish their Procession Here is one Practical Tradition And for avoiding of the like miscarriages it was decreed that no one should thereafter be admitted into St. Peter 's Chair priusquam per foratam sedem futuri Pontificis genitalia ab ultimo Dyacone Cardinale attractarentur Here is another with a Witness Sabellicus relates the same and moreover says that this Porphyry Chair was in his time to be seen in the Popes Palace He adds indeed that Platina thinks that this Tradition of Pope Jone was not faithfully delivered to Posterity But however says he such a Tradition there is Concerning the first Practical Tradition Platina says that he may not deny it For the second he thinks the Chair rather design'd for a Stool for another use c. He concludes These things which I have related are commonly reported yet from uncertain and obscure Authors Therefore I resolved says he briefly and nakedly to set them down lest I should seem too obstinately and pertinaciously to have omitted that which almost all affirm It is no wonder that he says the Authors of this Report were uncertain and obscure since so very few writ any thing in that Age. But suppose none had writ of it so long as he acknowledges it to have been a general Oral Tradition attested by a solemn and constant Practice it has according to Mr. S's Principles greater certainty than if it had been brought down to us by a hundred Books written in that very Age. So that here 's an Oral and Practical Tradition continued we are sure for some hundreds of years preserved and propagated by a solemn practice of the Popes Clergy and People of Rome in their Processions and by a notorious Custom at the Election of every Pope and in a matter of so great importance to their Religion the honour of the See of Rome and the uninterrupted Succession from St. Peter being so nearly concerned in it that had it been false they had been obliged under pain of Damnation not only not to have promoted it but to have used all means to have discovered the falsity of it Therefore Mr. S. is bound by his own Principles either to allow it for a Truth or else to give an account when and how it begun which may possibly be made out by We Metaphysitians as he styles himself and his Scientifical Brethren but I assure him it is past the skill of Note-book Learning SECT X. § 1. IT is not the present perswasion of the Church of Rome nor ever was that their Faith hath descended to them by Oral Tradition as the sole Rule of it And this being proved the Supposition upon which his Demonstration is built falls to the ground And for the
proof of this I appeal to that Decree of the Council of Trent in which they declare That because the Christian Faith and Discipline are contained in written Books and unwritten Traditions c. therefore they do receive and honour the Books of Scripture and also Traditions pari pietatis affectu ac reverentiâ with equal pious affection and reverence which I understand not how those do who set aside the Scripture and make Tradition the sole Rule of their Faith And consonantly to this Decree the general Doctrine of the Romish Church is that Scripture and Tradition make up the Rule of Faith So the Roman Catechism set forth by order of the Council of Trent says that the sum of the Doctrine delivered to the Faithful is contained in the Word of God which is distributed into Scripture and Tradition Bellarmine speaks to the same purpose That the Scripture is a Rule of Faith not an entire but partial one The entire Rule is the Word of God which is divided into two partial Rules Scripture and Tradition According to this the adequate Rule of Faith is the Word of God which is contained partly in Scripture and partly in the Tradition of the Church And that Scripture is look't upon by them as the principal Rule and primary foundation of their Faith and Tradition as only supplying the defects of Scripture as to some Doctrines and Rites not contained in Scripture must be evident to any one that hath been conversant in the chief of their controversial Divines Bellarmine where he gives the marks of a Divine Tradition speaks to this purpose That that which they call a Divine Tradition is such a Doctrine or Rite as is not found in Scripture but embraced by the whole Church and for that reason believed to have descended from the Apostles And he tells us further That the Apostles committed all to Writing which was commonly and publickly Preached and that all things are in Scripture which men are bound to know and believe explicitely But then he says that there were other things which the Apostles did not commonly and publickly teach and these they did not commit to Writing but delivered them only by word of mouth to the Prelates and Priests and perfect men of the Church And these are the Apostolical Traditions he speaks of Cardinal Perron says That the Scripture is the foundation of the Christian Doctrine either mediately or immediately And that the Authority of unwritten Tradition is founded in general on these sentences of the Apostle Hold the Traditions c. Again The things which thou hast heard of me among many Witnesses commit to faithful men c. And that the Authority of the Church to preserve and especially to declare these is founded in this Proposition viz. That the Church is the pillar and ground of Truth So that according to him the primary Rule of Faith is the Scripture in which the Authority of Tradition is founded Mr. Knott says expresly We acknowledg the H. Scripture to be a most perfect Rule for as much as a Writing can be a Rule we only deny that it excludes either Divine Tradition though it be unwritten or an external Judg to keep to propose to interpret it c. So that according to him Scripture is a perfect Rule only it does not exclude unwritten Tradition c. By which that he does not understand as Mr. S. does a concurrent Oral Tradition of all the same Doctrines which are contained in Scripture but other Doctrines not therein contained is plain from what he says elsewhere We do not distinguish Tradition from the written Word because Tradition is not written by any or in any Book or Writing but because it is not written in the Srripture or Bible Bellarmine also says the same And as for the interpreting of Scripture he tells us that this is not the office of a Rule but of a Judg. There is says he a great and plain distinction between a Judg and a Rule For as in a Kingdom the Judg hath his Rule to follow which are the received Laws and Customs which are not fit or able to declare and be Judges to themselves but that Office must belong to a living Judg So the Holy Scripture is and may be a Rule but cannot be a Judg. Here he makes the Scripture as much a Rule for matters of Faith as the Laws of the Land are for Civil matters And in his Reply to Mr. Chillingworth he hath a Chapter of above 150 Pages the Title whereof is Scripture is not the only Rule of Faith which had he with Mr. S. believed Oral Tradition to be the sole Rule of Faith had been as absurd as it would be to write a Book to prove that Turks are not the only Christians in the World Mr. Cressy likewise not very consistently to himself lays down this Conclusion The entire Rule of faith is contained not only in Scripture but likewise in unwritten Tradition § 2. Now all this is as contrary as can be to Mr. Rushworth's new Rule of Faith Therefore Mr. White says They speak ill who teach that some things are known in the Church from Scripture some by Tradition And Dr. Holden in opposition to those who make Scripture any part of the Rule of Faith advances one of the most wild and uncharitable Positions that ever I yet met withall viz. That if one should believe all the Articles of the Catholick Faith c. for this reason because he thought they were all expresly revealed in Scripture or implicitely contained so as they might be deduced from thence and would not have believed them had he not judged that they might be evinced from Scripture yet this man could be no true Catholick Because as he tells us afterwards we must receive the Christian Doctrine as coming to us by Tradition for only by this means excluding the Scriptures Christ hath appointed revealed Truths to be received and communicated In the mean time Cardinal Perron unless he altered his mind is in a sad case who believed the Authority of Tradition it self for this reason because it was founded in Scripture § 3. And this fundamental difference about the Rule of Faith between the generality of their Divines and Mr S's small party is fully acknowledged by the Traditionists themselves Dr. Holden says That their Divines who resolve Faith according to the common Opinion do inevitably fall into that shameful Circle of proving the Divine Authority of the Scripture by the Church and the Infallibility of the Church back again by the Scripture because they dare not build their Faith upon the natural evidence and certainty of Tradition So that Dr. Holden's way of resolving Faith is different from the common Opinion of their Divines which he says does not differ from the Opinion of those who resolve their Faith into the private Spirit and this according to Mr. White
Religion to their posterity Whereas in truth we find in the early ages of the Christian Church several differences about matters of faith and these differences continued to posterity but all parties still pleading that their doctrine came from the Apostles it fell out unhappily for Mr. S. that those were commonly most grosly deceived who pretended the most to oral tradition from the Apostles still we find the grand debate was what came from the Apostles and what not whereas had tradition been so infallible a way of conveying how could this ever have come into debate among them What did not they know what their Parents taught them It seems they did not or their Parents were no more agreed than themselves for their differences could never be ended this way Afterwards came in for many ages such a succession of ignorance and barbarism that Christian Religion was little minded either by Parents or Children as it ought to have been instead of that some fopperies and superstitions were hugely in request and the men who fomented these things were cried up as great Saints and workers of miracles So that the miracles of S. Francis and S. Dominick were as much if not more carefully conveyed from Parents to Children in that age than those of Christ and his Apostles and on this account posterity must be equally bound to believe them and have their persons in equal veneration If men at last were grown wiser it was because they did not believe Mr. S's principles that they ought to receive what was delivered by their Parents but they began to search and enquire into the writings of former ages and to examine the opinions and practices of the present with those of the primitive Church and by this means there came a restauration of Learning and Religion together But though matters of fact be plain and evident in this case yet M. S. will prove it impossible there should any errors come into the Christian Church and his main argument is this because no age of the Church could conspire against her knowledg to deceive that age immediately following in matter of fact evident in a manner to the whole world But before I come more particularly to shew the weakness of this argument by manifesting how errors might come into the Church without such a conspiracy as this is I shall propound some Queries to him 1. What age of the Church he will instance in wherein all persons who were not cast out of the Church had the same apprehensions concerning all points of faith i. e. that none among them did believe more things delivered by Christ or the Apostles than others did I am sure he can neither instance in the age of the Apostles themselves nor in those immediately succeeding them unless Mr. S. the better to defend his hypothesis will question all written records because they consist of dead letters and unsenc't characters and wordish testimonies Never considering that while he utters this he writes himself unless he imagins there is more of life sense and certainty in his Books than in the Scriptures or any other writing whatsoever 2. Where there were different apprehensions in one age of the Church whether there must not be different traditions in the next For as he looks on all Parents as bound to teach their Children so on Children as bound to believe what their Parents teach them On which supposition different traditions in the succeeding age must needs follow different apprehensions in the precedent 3. Whether persons agreeing in the substance of doctrines may not differ in their apprehensions of the necessity of them As for instance all may agree in the article of Christs descent into Hell but yet may differ in the explication of it and in the apprehension of the necessity of it in order to salvation So that we must not only in tradition about matters of faith enquire what was delivered but under what notion it was delivered whether as an allowable opinion or a necessary point of faith But if several persons nay multitudes in the Church may have different notions as to the necessity of the same points by what means shall we discern what was delivered as an opinion in the Church and what as an article of faith But Mr. S. throughout his discourse takes it for granted that there is the same necessity of believing and delivering all things which concern the Christian doctrine and still supposes the same sacredness concern necessity in delivering all the points in controversie between the Romanists and Us as there was in those main articles of faith which they and we are agreed in Which is so extravagant a supposition that it is hard to conceive it should ever enter into the head of a person pretending to reason but as extravagant as it is it is that without which his whole fabrick falls to the ground For suppose we should grant him that the infinite concerns which depend on the belief of the Christian doctrine should be of so prevalent nature with the world that it is impossible to conceive any one age should neglect the knowing them or conspire to deceive the next age about them yet what is all this to the matters in difference between us Will Mr. S. prove the same sacredness necessity concern and miraculously attestedness as he phrases it in the Invocation of Saints Purgatory Transubstantiation Supremacy c. as in the believing the death and resurrection of the Son of God If he doth not prove this he doth nothing for his arguments may hold for doctrines judged universally necessary but for no other Therefore Mr. S. hath a new task which he thought not of which is to manifest that these could not be looked on as opinions but were embraced as necessary articles of faith For unless he proves them such he can neither prove any obligation in Parents to teach them their Children nor in Children to believe what their Parents taught but only to hold them in the same degree which they did themselves When Mr. S. will undertake to prove that the whole Church from the time of Christ did agree in the points in difference between us as necessary articles of faith I may more easily believe that no age could be ignorant of them or offer to deceive the next about them But when Mr. S. reflects on his frequent concession that there are private opinions in the Church distinct from matters of faith he must remember before he can bring home his grounds to the case between their Church and ours that he must prove none of the things in debate were ever entertained as private opinions and that it is impossible for that which was a private opinion in one age to become a matter of faith in the next But because this distinction of his ruins his whole demonstration I shall first propound it in his own terms and then shew how from thence it follows that errors may come into the Church and be
made capable of this their obligation But we are not now enquiring what the obligation to believe the main points of faith is nor whether tradition be a self-evident rule but how there should be a new obligation to believe something self-evidently connected with the former points is beyond my capacity to understand And they must be vulgar understandings indeed that can rationally and connaturally be made capable of such an obligation For if it be self-evidently connected with the main points no one can believe the one without believing the other for nothing is self-evident but what a man assents to at the first apprehension of it and if he doth so how comes there a new obligation to believe it Is it possible to believe that any thing consists of parts and not believe that that whole is greater than any of those parts for this is a thing self-evidently connected with the nature of the whole But these are self-evident riddles as the former were unintelligible demonstrations And yet though these be rare Theories the application of them to the case of the Roman Church exceeds all the rest Whence saith he the Government of our Church is still justified to be sweet and according to right nature and yet forcible and efficacious Although I admire many things in Mr. S's Book yet I cannot say I do any thing more than this passage that because men are obliged to believe no implied points but such as are self-evidently connected with the main ones therefore the Government of the Roman Church is sweet and according to right nature c. Alas then how much have we been mistaken all this while that have charged her with imposing hard and unsufferable conditions of communion with her No she is so gentle and sweet that she requires nothing but the main points on the account of a self-evident rule and implied points by reason of self-evident connexion with the former I see Mr. S. if he will make good his word is the only person who is ever like to reconcile me with the Church of Rome For I assure you I never desire any better terms of communion with a Church than to have no main points of faith required from me to assent to but what are built on a self-evident rule nor any implied points but such as are self-evidently connected with the former And no work can be more easie than to convince me upon these grounds for all endeavors of proof are taken away by the things being said to be self-evident For the very offer of proof that they are so self-evidently proves they are not so For what ever is proved by somthing beside it self can never be said without a contradiction to be self-evident But not to tye up Mr. S. from his excellent faculty of proving if Mr. S. will prove to me that any of the points in difference between us as Transubstantiation Purgatory Supremacy of the Roman Church c. have any self-evident connexion with any main point of faith in the Apostles Creed I solemnly promise him to retract all I have writ against that Church so far shall I be from needing a new obligation to believe them But if these be so remote from self-evidence that they are plainly repugnant to sense and reason witness that self-evident doctrine of Transubstantiation what then must we think of Mr. S. Surely the least is that since his being a Roman Catholick his mind is strangely inlightned so far that those things are self-evident to him which are contradictions to the rest of the world But withal M. S. acquaints us with another mysterie which is how these points descended by a kind of tradition and yet confesses they were never thought of or reflected on by the generality till the Church took occasion to explain them Such a silent tradition doth very sutably follow the former self-evident connexion For he that can believe Transubstantiation ro be self-evident no wonder if he believes that to have been delivered by a constant Tradition which was never heard of from the Apostles times to these Now Mr. S. is pleased to return to me and draws up a fresh charge against me which is that I act like a Politician and would conquer them by first dividing them and making odious comparisons between two parties of Divines But to shew us how little they differ he distinguishes them as faithful and as private discoursers in the former notion he saith they all hold the same divinely constituted Church-Government and the same self-evident rule of faith but as private discoursers he acknowledges they differ in the explication of their belief I meddle not here with the Government of their Church which I have elsewhere proved to be far enough from being divinely constituted but with the rule of faith and the question is whether the infallibility of oral tradition be that self-evident rule which that Church proceeds on Yes saith Mt. S. they are all as faithful agreed in it but as discourses they differ about it Which in short is that all in the Church of Rome who are not of his opinion know not what they say and that they oppose that which they do really believe Which in plain English is that they are egregious dissemblers and prevaricators in Religion that they do intolerably flatter the Pope and present Church with loud declamations for their infallibility but they do really believe no such thing but resolve all into oral tradition But is not this an excellent agreement among them when Mr. White and his party not only disown the common doctrine of the infallibility of Pope and Councils but dispute against it as pernicious and destructive to Christian faith on the other side the far greater part of Romanists say there can be no certainty of faith unless there be an infallible divine testimony in the present Church and this lodged in Pope and Councils that those who endeavour to overthrow this are dangerous seditious heretical persons Accordingly their Books are censured at Rome their opinions disputed against and their persons condemned And yet all this while we must believe that these stick together like two smooth Marbles as faithful though they are knocked one against another as discoursers and that they perfectly agree in the same self-evident rule of faith when all their quarrels and contentions are about it and those managed with so great heat that heresie is charged of one side and Arch-heresie and undermining Religion on the other Doth he think we never heard of Mr. White 's Sonus Succinae nor of that Chapter in it where he saith that the doctrine of Pope and Councils infallibility tends to overthrow the certainty of Christian faith and that the propagating such a doctrine is a greater crime than burning Temples ravishing the sacred Virgins on the Altars trampling on the body of Christ or the sending the Turk or Antichrist into Christian Countreys Or doth he think we can believe that the Pope and Cardinals the Jesuites
and all the Papists of forreign Countreys do as faithful agree with Mr. White in this It seems not so by the proceedings in the Court of Rome against him in which as appears by the censure of the Inquisition against him dated 17. November 1661. his doctrine is condemned not only as false seditious and scandalous but as heretical and erroneous in faith And if it were not for this very doctrine he was there censured why doth Mr. White set himself purposely to defend it in his Tabulae suffragiales If these then do agree as faithful who cannot but envy the excellent harmony of the Roman Church in which men condemn each other for hereticks and yet all believe the same things still Well Sir I am in hopes upon the same grounds Mr. S. will yield us the same charity too and tell us that we agree with him as faithful only we differ a little from him as discoursers for I assure you there is as great reason the only difference is we give them not such ill words as they do each other For let Mr. S. shew us wherein we differ more from him about the Rule of Faith than they do among themselves For Mr. White when he hath said that all kind of heresie doth arise from hence that men make the holy Scripture or a private spirit the rule of faith he presently adds it is all one if one make Councils or Pope any other way than as witnesses to be the authors of faith For saith he this is to subject the whole Church to that slavery to receive any errour for an article of faith which they shall define or propose modo illegitimo i. e. any other way then as witnesses of tradition Either then we differ from Mr. S. only as discoursers or he and his Brethren differ from each other more then as such And so any one would think who reads the oppositions and arguments against each other on this subject particularly Mr. Whites Tabulae suffragiales But let Mr. White say what he will Mr. S. tells me I am not aware how little they differ even as Divines The more shame for them to have such furious heats and oppositions where there is so little difference But as little as they differ Mr. White thinks it safer to talk of their unity in England than to try whether they be of his mind at Rome by going thither to clear himself for he justly fears he should find them differ from him some other way than as bare discoursers Yet let us hear Mr. S's reason for saith he though some speculators attribute to the Church a power of defining things not held before yet few will say she hath new revelations or new articles of faith But we know the temper of these men better than to rely on what they barely say For they say what they think is most for their purpose and one of Mr. White 's adversaries if himself may be credited plainly told him if the doctrine of the Popes infallibility were not true yet it ought to be defended because it was for the interest of the Church of Rome for which he is sufficiently rebuked by him It is one thing then what they say and another what necessarily follows from the Doctrine which they assert But for plain dealing commend me to the Canonists who say expresly the Church by which they mean the Pope may make new articles of faith and this is the sense of the rest though they are loth to speak out Else Mr. White was much too blame in spending so much time in proving the contrary But what man of common sense can imagine that these men can mean otherwise who assert such an infallibility in Pope and Councils as to oblige men under pain of eternal damnation to believe those things which they were not obliged to before such a definition And what can this be else but to make new articles of faith For an article of faith supposes a necessary obligation to believe it now if some doctrine may become thus obligatory by virtue of the Churches definition which was not so before that becomes thereby an article of faith which it was not before But these subtil men have not yet learnt to distinguish a new doctrine from a new article of faith they do not indeed pretend that their doctrine is new because they deny any such thing as new revelation in the Church but yet they must needs say if they understand themselves that old implicit doctrines may become new articles of faith by vertue of the Churches definition So little are they relieved by that silly distinction of explicit and implicit delivery of them which Mr. S. for a great novelty accquaints us with For what is only implicitly delivered is no article of faith at all for that can be no article of faith which men are not bound to believe now there are none will say that men are bound to believe under pain of damnation if they do not the things which are only implicitly delivered but this they say with great confidence of all things defined by the Church And let now any intelligent person judg whether those who assert such things do not differ wide enough from those who resolve all into oral tradition and make the obligation to faith wholly dependent upon the constant tradition of any doctrine from age to age ever since the Apostles times But Mr. S. is yet further displeased with me for saying that Pope and Councils challenge a power to make things de fide in one age which were not in another For 1. he sayes I speak it in common and prove it not 2. He adds That take them right this is both perfectly innocent and unavoidably necessary to a Church And is it not strange he should expect any particular proofs of so innocent and necessary a thing to the being of a Church But he will tell me it is in his own sense of de fide which I have already shewn to signifie nothing to his purpose Let him therefore speak out whether he doth believe any such thing as inherent infallibility in the definitions of Pope and Councils if not I am sure at Rome they will never believe that Mr. S. agrees with them as faithful if he doth whether doth not such an infallible definition bind men by vertue of it to the belief of what is then defined if it doth then things may become as much de fide by it as if they were delivered dy Christ or his Apostles For thereby is supposed an equal obligation to faith because there is a proposition equally infallible But will he say the Pope doth not challenge this Why then is the contrary doctrine censured and condemned at Rome Why is the other so eagerly contended for by the most zealous sons of that Church and that not as a school-opinion but as the only certain foundation of faith Mr. S. is yet pleased to inform me further that nothing will avail me
what he saith to a Syllogistical form it comes to this Where there is no possibility of error there is an absolute obligation to faith but there is no possibility of error in the tradition of any age of the Church ergo in every age there is an absolute obligation to believe the tradition of the present Church The minor he thus proves If no age of the Church can be ignorant of what the precedent taught or conspire to deceive the next then there is no possibility of error coming into the tradition of the Church in any age but the antecedent is true and therefore the consequent Now who sees not that the force of all this lies not in proving the minor proposition or that no age could conspire to deceive another but the consequence viz. that no error can come into a Church but by a general mistake in one whole age or the general imposture of it which we utterly deny and have shewed him already the falseness of it from his own concessions And I might more largely shew it from those Doctrines or opinions which they themselves acknowledg to have come into their Church without any such general mistake or imposture as the doctrines of Papal infallibility and the common belief of Purgatory The very same way that Mr. White and Mr. S. will shew us how these came in we will shew him how many others came in as erroneous and scandalous as those are For whether they account these matters of faith or no it is certain many among them do and that the far greatest number who assert and believe them to be the doctrine of their Church too If therefore these might come in without one age mistaking or deceiving the next why might not all those come in the same way which we charge upon them as the errors of their Church And in the same manner that corrupt doctrines come in may corrupt practises too since these as he saith spring from the other He might therefore have saved himself the trouble of finding out how an acute Wit or great Scholar would discover the weakness of this way For without pretending to be either of these I have found out another way of attaquing it than Mr. S. looked for viz. from his own principles and concessions shewing how errors might come into a Church without a total deception or conspiracy in any one age Which if it be true he cannot bind me to believe what ever he tells me the present Church delivers unless he can prove that this never came into the Church as a speculation or private opinion and from thence by degrees hath come to be accounted a point of faith Therefore his way of proof is now quite altered and he cannot say we are bound to believe whatever the present Church delivers for that which he calls the present Church may have admitted speculations and private opinions into doctrines of faith but he must first prove such doctrines delivered by Christ or his Apostles and that from his time down to our age they have been received by the whole Church for matters of faith and when he hath done this as to any of the points in controversie between us I will promise him to be his Proselyte But he ought still to remember that he is not to prove it impossible for one whole age to conspire to deceive the next but that supposing that it is impossible for any errors to come into the tradition of the Church Let us now see what Mr. S. objects against those words I then used against the demonstrating this way It is hard to conceive what reason should inforce it but such as proves the impossibility of the contrary and they have understandings of another mould from others who can conceive it impossible men should not think themselves obliged to believe and do all just as their predecessors And whatever Mr. S. says to the contrary I cannot yet see but that therein I argued from the very nature and constitution of the thing For that which I looked for was a demonstration which I supposed could not be unless the impossibility of the contrary were demonstrated But if it be possible for Men Christians nay Romanists to believe on other accounts than tradition of the precedent age I pray what demonstration can there be that men must think themselves obliged to believe and do all just as their predecessors did Surely if Mr. S's fancy had not been very extravagant he could never have thought here of mens being obliged to cut their Beards or wear such Garters and Hat-bands as their forefathers did For do I not mention believing first and then doing by which it were easie to apprehend that I meant matters of faith and such practices as flow from them Neither was there any such crafty and sophistical dealing as he charges me with for I am content his doctrine be taken in his own terms and I have now given a larger and fuller account why I am far from being convinced by the way he hath used for resolving faith Passing by therefore his challenge which I accept of as long as he holds to the weapon of reason and civility I come to consider his last enquiry why I should come to doubt of such an obligation in posterity to believe their ancestors in matters of faith and he judiciously resolves it into a strange distortion of human nature but such as it seems is the proper effect of the Protestants temper which is saith he to chuse every one his faith by his private judgement or wit working upon disputable words Which as far as we own it is not to believe what we see no ground for and if this be such a distortion of human nature I envy not Mr. S's uprightness and perfection If he means that we build our faith on our private judgments in opposition to Scripture or the universal tradition of the Church in all ages let him prove it evidently in one particular and I engage for my self and all true Protestants we will renounce the belief of it If he hath any thing further to object against the grounds of our Religion he knows where to attaque me let him undertake the whole or else acknowledg it a most unreasonable thing thus to charge falsities upon us and then say we have nothing else to say for our selves We pretend not to chuse our faith but heartily embrace whatever appears to have been delivered by Christ or his Apostles but we know the Church of Rome too well to believe all which she would impose upon us and are loth to have her chuse our Religion for us since we know she hath chosen so ill for her self But if Mr. S. will not believe me in saying thus what reason have I to believe him in saying otherwise Such general charges then signifie nothing but every one must judg according to the reason on both sides I now come to the last part of my task which
could never be prevailed with to bring forth his own but kept it for a secret to his dying day But to put a final stop to this Canting demand of a Catalogue of Fundamentals which yet I perceive I shall never be able to do because it is one of those expletive Topicks which Popish Writers especialy those of the lowest Form do generally make use of to help out a Book however to do what I can towards the stopping of it I desire Mr. S. to answer the reasons whereby his Friend Dr. Holden shews the unreasonableness of this demand and likewise endeavours to prove that such a Catalogue would not only be useless and pernicious if it could be given but that it is manifestly impossible to give such a precise Catalogue Secondly He asks Is it a Fundamental that Christ is God If so Whether this be clearer in Scripture than that Gad hath hands feet c To which I answer by another question Is it clear that there are Figures in Scripture and that many things are spoken after the manner of men and by way of condescension and accomodation to our capacities and that custom and common sense teacheth men to distinguish between things figuratively and properly spoken If so why cannot every one easily understand that when the Scripture saith God hath hands and feet and that Christ is the Vine and the Door these are not to be taken properly as we take this Proposition that Christ is God in which no man hath any reason to suspect a Figure When Mr. S. tells us That he percheth upon the specifical nature of things would it not offend him if any one should be so silly as to conclude from hence that Mr. S. believed himself to be a Bird and nature a Perch And yet not only the Sciptures but all sober Writers are free from such forc't and phantastical Metaphors I remember that Origen taxeth Celsus his wilful Ignorance in finding fault with the Scriptures for attributing to God humane affections as anger c. and tells him that any one who had a mind to understand the Scriptures might easily see that such expressions were accomodated to us and accordingly to be understood and that no man that will but compare these expressions with other passages of Scripture need to fail of the true sense of them But according to Mr. S. Origen was to blame to find fault with Celsus for thinking that the Scripture did really attribute humane affections to God for how could he think otherwise when the most fundamental Point is not clearer in Scripture than that God hath hands feet c How could Origen in reason expect from Celsus though never so great a Philosopher that he should be able without the help of Oral Tradition to distinguish between what is spoken literally and what by a certain Scheme of speech Theodoret tells us of one Audaeus who held that God had a humane shape and bodily members but he does not say that the reason of this Error was because he made Scripture the Rule of his Faith but expresly because he was a fool and did foolishly understand those things which the Divine Scriptures speak by way of Condescension So that although Mr. S. is pleas'd to make this wise Objection yet it seems according to Theodoret that men do not mistake such Texts either for want of oral Tradition or of sufficient clearness in the Scriptures but for want of common reason and sense And if Mr. S. know of any Rule of Faith that is secure from all possibility of being mistaken by foolish and perverse men I would be glad to be acquainted with it SECT IV. § 1. IN his next Discourse he endeavours to shew that unlearned Persons cannot be justified as acting rationally in receiving the Scripture for the Word of God and relying upon it as a certain Rule because they are not capable of satisfaction concerning these matters But I have already shewn that they are and shall not repeat the same over again And whereas he says That several Professions all pretend to Scripture and yet differ and damn and persecute one another about these differences the answer is easie That they all pretend to Scripture is an argument that they all acknowledg it to be the Word of God and the Rule of Faith and that they are generally agreed about the sense of those plain Texts which contain the fundamental Points of Faith is evident in that those several Professions acknowledg the Articles contained in the Apostles Creed to be sufficiently delivered in Scripture And if any Professions differ about the meaning of plain Texts that is not an argument that plain Texts are obsure but that some men are perverse And if those Professions damn and persecute one another about the meaning of obscure Texts the Scripture is not in fault but those that do so § 2. And whereas he pretends That the Scripture is not able to satisfie Sceptical dissenters and Rational doubters because nothing under a demonstration can satisfie such persons so well concerning the incorruptedness of Originals the faithfulness of Translations c. but that searching and sincere Wits may still maintain their ground of suspence with A Might it not be otherwise This hath been answered already partly by shewing that the Scripture was not intended to satisfie Scepticks and that a Demonstration is not sufficient to give satisfaction to them and partly by shewing that Rational doubters may have as much satisfaction concerning those matters as the nature of the things will bear and he is not a Rational doubter that desires more But that he may see the unreasonableness of this Discourse I shall briefly shew him That all Mankind do in matters of this nature accept of such evidence as falls short of Demonstration and that his great Friends and Masters from whom he hath taken the main grounds of his Book though he manageth them to less advantage do frequently acknowledg that it is reasonable for men to acquiesce in such assurance as falls short of Infallibility and such evidence as is less than Demonstration Do not mankind think themselves sufficiently assured of the Antiquity and Authors of several Books for which they have not Demonstrative evidence Doth not Aristotle say that things of a moral and civil nature and matters of Fact done long ago are incapable of Demonstration and that it is madness to expect it for things of this Nature Are there no passages in Books so plain that a man may be sufficiently satisfied that this and no other is the certain sense of them If there be none can any thing be spoken in plainer words than it may be written If it cannot how can we be satisfied of the certain sense of any Doctrine Orally delivered And if we cannot be so satisfi'd where 's the certainty of Oral Tradition But if Books may be written so plainly as that we may be abundantly satisfied that this is the certain
the nature of the subject can yield and not as those Physitians who when they have promised no less than Immortality can at last only reach to some conservation of health or youth in some small degree So I could wish the Author to well assure himself first that there is possible an Infallibility before he be too earnest to be contented with nothing less for what if humane nature should not be capable of so great a good Would he therefore think it fitting to live without any Religion because he could not get such a one as himself desired though with more than a mans wish Were it not rational to see whether among Religions some one have not such notable advantages over the rest as in reason it might seem humane nature might be contented withall Let him cast his account with the dearest things he hath his own or friends lives his estate his hope of posterity and see upon what terms of advantage he is ready to venture all these and then return to Religion and see whether if he do not venture his soul upon the like it be truly reason or some other not confessed motive which withdraws him For my own part as I doubt not of an Infallibility so I doubt not but setting that aside there be those Excellencies found on the Catholick party which may force a man to prefer it and to venture all he hath upon it before all other Religions and Sects in the World Why then may not one who after long searching findeth no Infallibility rest himself on the like supposing mans nature affords no better Are not these fair Concessions which the evidence and force of Truth have extorted from these Authors So that it seems that that which Mr. S. calls a civil piece of Atheistry is advanced in most express words by his best Friends and therefore I hope he will as he threatens me be smart with them in opposition to so damnable and fundamental an Error And whenever he attempts this I would entreat him to remember that he hath these two things to prove First That no evidence but demonstration can give a man sufficient assurance of any thing Secondly That a bare possibility that a thing may be otherwise is a rational cause of doubting and a wise ground of suspense which when he hath proved I shall not grudge him his Infallibility SECT V. § 1. THE last part of this Third Discourse endeavours to shew that the Scripture is not convictive of the most obstinate and acute Adversaries As for the obstinate he knows my mind already Let us see why the most acute Adversary may not be convinced by Scripture Because as he objects First We cannot be certain that this Book is Gods Word because of the many strange Absurdities and Heresies in the open letter as it lies as that God hath hands and feet c. and because of the contradictions in it To which I have already returned an answer Secondly Because as he saith we cannot be certain of the Truth of the letter in any particular Text that it was not foisted in or some way altered in its significativeness and if it be a negative proposition that the particle not was not inserted if affirmative not left out And if we pretend to be certain of this he demands our demonstration for it But how unreasonable this demand is I hope I have sufficiently shewn And to shew it yet further I ask him How their Church knows that the particle not was not left out of any Text in which it is now found in their Copies I know he hath a ready answer viz. by Oral Tradition But this according to him only reaches to Scriptures letter so far as it is coincident with the main body of Christian Doctrine concerning the rest of Scripture it is impossible according to his own principles that they should have any security that the particle not was not unduly inserted or left out by the Transcribers Nay as to those Texts of Scripture which fall in with the main body of Christian Doctrine I demand his demonstration that the particle not was not unduly inserted or left out not only in those Texts but also in the Oral Tradition of the Doctrines coincident with the sense of those Texts If he say It was impossible any Age should conspire to leave out or insert the particle not in the Oral Tradition so say I it was that they should conspire to leave it out of the written Text But then I differ from him thus far That I do not think this naturally impossible so as that it can rigorously be demonstrated but only morally impossible so that no body hath any reason to doubt of it which to a prudent man is as good as a demonstration Pyrrho himself never advanced any Principle of Scepticism beyond this viz. That men ought to question the credit of all Books concerning which they cannot demonstrate as to every sentence in them that the particle not was not inserted if it be affirmative or left out if it be negative If so much be required to free a man from reasonable doubting concerning a Book how happy are they that have attained to Infallibility What he saith concerning the Variae Lectiones of Scripture hath already had a sufficient answer § 2. In his Fourth Discourse he endeavours to shew That the Scripture is not certain in it self and consequently not ascertained to us First Not certain materially considered as consisting of such and such Characters because Books are liable to be burnt torn blotted worn out We grant it is not impossible but that any or all the Books in the World may be burnt But then we say likewise That a Book so universally dispersed may easily be preserved though we have no assurance that God will preserve it in case all men should be so foolish or so careless as to endeavour or suffer the abolition of it But it seems the Scriptures cannot be a Rule of Faith if they be liable to any external accidents And this he tells us Though it may seem a remote and impertinent Exception yet to one who considers the wise dispositions of Divine Providence it will deserve a deep consideration because the salvation of Mankind being the end of Gods making nature the means to it should be more setled strong and unalterable than any other piece of nature whatever But notwithstanding this wise reason this Exception still seems to me both remote and impertinent For if this which he calls a Reason be a Truth it will from thence necessarily follow not only that the Doctrine of Christ must be conveyed by such a means as is more unalterable than the course of nature but also by a clear parity of Reason that all the means of our salvation do operate towards the accomplishing of their end with greater certainty than the fire burns or the Sun shines which they can never do unless they operate
either wholly or for the far greatest part of them take upan humour against propagating Mankind And yet both History and the experience of the present Age assures us that a great part of Asia and of Africk where the most flourishing Churches in the World once were are fallen off from Christianity and become either Mahometans or Heathens In Africk almost all those vast Regions which Christianity had gained from Heathenism Mahometanism hath regained from Christianity All the North-part of Afrique lying along the Mediterranean where Christianity flourish't once as much as ever it did at Rome is at this time utterly void of Christians excepting a few Towns in the hands of the European Princes And not to mention all particular places the large Region of Nubia which had as is thought from the Apostles time professed the Christian Faith hath within these 150 years for want of Ministers as Alvarez tells us quitted Christianity and is partly revolted to Heathenism partly fallen off to Mahometanism So that it seems that notwithstanding the Arguments of hope and fear the very Teachers of Tradition may fail in a largely extended Church As for Asia in the Easterly parts of it there is not now one Christian to four of what there were 500 years ago and in the more Southerly parts of it where Christianity had taken deepest root the Christians are far inferiour in number to the Idolaters and Mahometans and do daily decrease What thinks Mr. S. of all this Have those Christian Nations which are turn'd Mahometans and Pagans failed in their Faith or not If they have I expect from him clear Instances of more that have failed in propagating their kind § 7. But besides those who have totally Apostatized from Christianity hath not the whole Greek Church with the Jacobites and Nestorians and all those other Sects which agree with and depend upon these and which taken together are manifoldly greater than the Roman Church I say have not all these renounced Tradition for several Ages And here in Europe hath not a great part of Poland Hungary both Germany's France and Switzerland Have not the Kingdoms of great Brittain Denmark Sweden and a considerable part of Ireland in Mr. S's opinion deserted Tradition If I should once see a whole Nation fail because no body would marry and contribute to the propagation of Mankind and should find this sullen humour to prevail in several Nations and to overspread vast Parts of the World I should then in good earnest think it possible for Mankind to fail unless I could shew it impossible for other Nations to do that which I see some to have done who were every whit as unlikely to have done it So that whatever cause he assigns of Heresie as Pride Ambition Lust or any other vice or interest if these can take place in whole Nations and make them renounce Tradition then where 's the efficacy of the causes to preserve Faith indeficiently entire in any For the Demonstration holds as strongly for all Christians as for any § 8. Secondly From these grounds it would follow that no Christian can live wickedly because the end of Faith being a good life the arguments of hope and fear must in all Reason be as powerful and efficacious causes of a good life as of a true belief And that his Demonstration proves the one as much as the other will be evident from his own reasoning for he argues in this manner Good is the proper object of the will good propos'd makes the will to desire that good and consequently the known means to obtain it Now infinite goods and harms sufficiently proposed are of their own nature incomparably more powerful causes to carry the will than temporal ones Since then when two causes are counterpoised the lesser when it comes to execution is no cause as to the substance of that effect it follows that there is no cause to move the wills of a World of Believers to be willing to do that which they judge would lose themselves and their Posterity infinite goods and bring them infinite harms c. in case a sufficient Proposal or Application be not wanting which he tells us is not wanting because Christianity urged to execution gives its followers a new life and a new nature than which a nearer Application cannot be imagined Doth not this Argument extend to the lives of Christians as well as their Belief So that he may as well infer from these grounds that it is impossible that those who profess Christianity should live contrary to it as that they should fail to deliver down the Doctrine of Christ because whatever can be an inducement and temptation to any man to contradict this Doctrine by his practice may equally prevail upon him to falsifie it For why should men make any more scruple of damning themselves and their Posterity by teaching them false Doctrines than by living wicked Lives which are equally pernicious with Heretical Doctrines not only upon account of the bad influence which such examples of Fathers and Teachers are like to have upon their Scholars but likewise as they are one of the strongest arguments in the World to perswade them that their Teachers do not themselves believe that Religion which they teach for if they did they would live according to it Why should any man think that those arguments of hope and fear which will not prevail upon the generality of Christians to make them live holy Lives should be so necessarily efficacious to make them so much concerned for the preserving of a right Belief Nay we have great reason to believe that such persons will endeavour as much as may be to bend and accommodate their Belief to their Lives And this is the true source of those Innovations in Faith for which we challenge the Church of Rome which any man may easily discern who will but consider how all their new Doctrines are fitted to a secular Interest and the gratifying of that inordinate appetite after riches and dominion which reigns in the Court of Rome and in the upper part of the Clergy of that Church SECT IV. § 1. SEcondly The main grounds of his Demonstration are apparently false For First This Demonstration supposeth that the generality of Christian Parents in all Ages perfectly understood the Doctrine of Christ and did not mistake any part of it that they remembred it perfectly and that they were faithful and diligent to instruct their Children in it which is as contrary to experience as that the generality of Christians are knowing and honest It supposeth likewise that this Doctrine and every substantial part of it was received and remembred by the generality of Children as it was taught and was understood perfectly by them without the least material mistake So he tells us That the substance of Faith comes clad in such plain matters of Fact that the most stupid man living cannot possibly be ignorant of it But whether this be
but this if a Pope and Council should define a new thing and declare they ground themselves on new lights as did their first reformers in England but I shall find he saith no such fopperies in faith-definitions made by the Catholick Church Is this the man who made choice of reason for his weapon could there be a greater calumny cast on our Church than to say her reformers grounded themselves on new lights when our great charge against the Church of Rome is for introducing Novelties and receding from pure and primitive antiquity Whether the charge be true or no yet sure it follows they did not declare they ground themselves on new lights but expresly the contrary Well but Pope and Councils neither define new things nor ground themselves on them but what means the man of reason that they make no new definitions surely not for then what did they meet for and what mean their decrees but he intends that they deliver no new doctrine but how must that be tried or hath Mr. S. gained the opinion of infallibility both from Pope and Councils that we must believe his bare word but we not only say but prove that even their last Council hath defined many things which never were delivered by Christ or his Apostles And it is to no purpose whether they say they ground themselves on new lights or pretend to an infallible assistance for it comes all to the same at last For if the assistance be infallible what matter is it whether the doctrine hath been revealed or no for on this supposition it is impossible that Pope and Council should miscarry Therefore if any Church be guilty of fopperies in faith-definitions it must be that which you miscall the Catholick but is more truly known by the name of the Roman Church There is yet one piece of Mr. S's sagacity to be taken notice of as to this particular which is that I am at an end of my argument because I say the opinion of the Pope and Councils infallibility is the common doctrin maintained in which I confound the Church with the schools or some private opinaters and then carp at those mens tenets And this is the force of all that Paragraph He tells me I want not wit to know that no sober Catholick holds humane deductions the rule of their faith schoolmen definers of it nor the schools the Tribunal whence to propose it authoritatively and obligingly to the generality of the faithful Neither doth Mr. S. want the wit to know that our present enquiry is concerning the sense of their present Church about the rule of faith Since then Mr. S. must confess it necessary to faith to know what the certain rule of it is let me enquire further whether any particular person can know certainly what it is unless he knows what the Church owns for her rule of faith and whether that may be owned as the Churches judgement which is stifly opposed by the most interessed persons in the Roman Church and the most zealous contenders for it Especially when the Pope who is said to be Head of the Church condemns the doctrine asserted and that only by a small number of such who are as much opposed by themselves as by any of us Is it then possible to know the Churches judgement or not if not 't is to no purpose to search for a rule of faith if it be which way can we come to know it either by most voices or the sense of the Governours of the Church either of the ways I dare put it to a fair tryal whether oral tradition or the infallibility of Pope and Councils be the Doctrine most owned in the Church of Rome But Mr. S. still tells us these are only private opinators and schoolmen who assert the contrary doctrine to his But wiill not they much more say on the other side that this way of oral trodition is a novel fancy of some few half-Catholicks in England and tends to subvert the Roman Church But is the present Pope with Mr. S. a private opinator or was the last a meer schoolman I am sure what ever Mr. S. thinks of him he thought not so of himself when he said he was no Divine in the controversie of Jansenius Doth the Court of Rome signifie no more with Mr. S. than a company of scholastick Pedants that know not what the sense of the Church is concerning the rule of faith I meddle not with the Schools but with the authority of the present Church and him whom Mr. S. owns for the head of it and is it consistent with his headship to condemn that doctrine which contains in it the only certain rule of faith Mr. S. may then see they were no such impertinent Topicks which I insisted on and as stout as Mr. S. seems to be I an apt to believe he would not look on the censure of the Inquisition as an impertinent Topick But at last Mr. S. offers at something whereby he would satisfie me of the sense of the Church as to this particular and therefore asks whether I never heard of such a thing as the Council of Trent I must ingenuously confess I have and seen more a great deal of it than I am satisfied with But what of that there he tells me I may find a clear solution of my doubt by the constant procedure of that most grave Synod in its definitions That is I hope to find that oral tradition was acknowledged there as the only self-evident rule of faith If I do this I confess my self satisfied in this enquiry But how much to the contrary is there very obvious in the proceedings of it For in the 4 th Session the Decree is That Scripture and tradition should be embraced with equal piety and reverence and the reason is because the doctrine of faith is contain'd partly in Scripture partly in tradition but what arts must Mr. S. use to infer from hence that oral tradition in contradistinction to Scripture was looked on as the only rule of faith I cannot but say that the ruling men of that Council were men wise enough in their generation and they were too wise wholly to exclude Scripture but because they knew that of it self could not serve their purposes they therefore help it out with tradition and make both together the compleat rule of faith Where I pray in all the proceedings of that Council doth Mr. S. find them define any thing on the account of oral tradition instead of which we find continual bandyings about the sense of Scripture and Fathers which might have been all spared if they had been so wise as to consider they could not but know the sense of the present Church nor that of the precedent and so up to the time of Christ. But they were either so ignorant as not to light on this happy invention or so wise and knowing as to despise it It is true they would not have their doctrines looked
to that proposition homo est animal rationale he may be capable of a new obligation to believe the former which is involved in this it may be justly questioned whether such an one as to himself can truly say homo est animal rationale or no. But after such rare subtilties he doth very well to tell me that I ought to consider what Logick tells us that the conclusion is in the premises which reflection in his his court-like expression he saith will much unblunder my thoughts But let the conclusion be as long as it will in the premises will any man in his wits say that he that believes the truth of the premises is not hereby bound to believe the conclusion and the more the one is involved in the other the less is it possible to make the obligation to believe them distinct And it is hard for me to believe that this is a way to unblunder my thoughts when I see what horrible confusion such expressions argue in his own Let the Church then clear her thoughts never so much yet all this cannot amount to a distinct obligation to believe those things which were involved before but to a more explicit declaring them for the Churches peace and satisfaction The only conclusion then involved in these premises is that if some things may be de fide in one age which were not in another then the present age may believe otherwise than the precedent did And if this doctrine be held in the Church of Rome nothing can be more evident than that Mr. S's first principle of controversie is far from being the doctrin of the Roman Church which was the thing to be proved My second chief argument against this way of oral tradition was that it had not been owned in all ages of the Christian Church to manifest which I enquired into the reason of the obligation in any age of the Church to believe and practise just as the precedent did Mr. S. rejoices in that confession of mine that the only thing to be proved in this case is that every age of the Church and all persons in it look'd on themselves as obliged not to vary in any thing from the doctrine and practise of the precedent age And I there offer the choice of three ways to prove it reason testimony or tradition he tells me he excepts the way of reason yet quarrels with me for pressing for a demonstrative medium to prove it when yet Mr. S. seldom speaks under the rate of demonstrations But he thereby notes the unconsonancy of my carriage Wherein I wonder That I should desire them to perform this promise viz. to give us demonstrations for the grounds of faith But saith withal he will yeild me the honour of professing I have no demonstration but probability for the ground of mine and he makes this serious protestation for himself that he should esteem himself very dishonest did he assert and press on others any argument for the ground of his faith which he judged not evident that is demonstrative What is it these men mean when they cry up their own way for demonstrative and say that we build our faith meerly on probabilities Do they say that Religion is capable of strict and rigorous demonstration If so let them demonstrate the being of God and immortality of the soul with as much evidence as that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles And it is strange if they think particular problems in religion are more capable of demonstration than those Theorems on which they are built But by all the enquiry I can make all the difference between us is that Mr. S. will have that called a demonstration which is scarce a probability and we call that sufficient reason which any wise man may safely rely on in matters of Religion In the mean time how much do we suffer by our modesty that because we speak not as big as Mr. S. does we must be censured presently to have nothing but probabilities fot our faith Are those bare probabilities which leave no suspition of doubt behind them And such we freely assert the grounds of our Religion to do i. e. I assert that we have the highest actual certainty of the truth of our Religion which the mind of any reasonable man can desire and if Mr. S's demonstrations can do any more than this let him tell us what it is For my part I know nothing higher in the mind of man than a certain assent and if I did not think there was the greatest ground in Religion for that I abhor dissimulation so much that I should leave off perswading men to embrace it And if any men have made us shy of the word demonstration and infallibility they are such men as Mr. S. have done it who talk of these things when their arguments fall beneath some of the remotest probabilities we insist on Nay if there be any force in his demonstration as to matters of fact it hath been used by us long before his Book saw the light But we love to give the true names to things and not to lose our credit with all intelligent persons by playing Mountebanks in Religion crying up those things for infallible cures which an ordinary capacity may discern the insufficiency of But was it any thing but justice and reason in me to expect and call for a demonstration from them who talk of nothing under it And therefore I said that it was impossible to demonstrate this way of oral tradition unless it were proved impossible for men not to think themselves obliged to believe and do all just as their predecessors did For where the contrary is not only possible but easily supposable as that men may believe those things as new articles of faith which are defined by Pope and Council I wonder how Mr. S. will demonstrate that men must look on themselves as obliged to believe just as their predecessors did For I had thought demonstrations had never place in contingent propositions but it seems Mr. S. who tells me Logick will unblunder my thoughts intends to make a new one for me And I assure you so he had need before I shall ever call his arguments demonstrations and although he thinks himself very honest in calling them so yet I should think him much wiser if he did not But before I come to the particular debate of these things I freely tell him that I grant all he requests I shall take along with me the nature of the matter in hand the doctrines and practices spoken of the manner of delivering them the necessary circumstances which give weight to both yet for all these I cannot look on his way as demonstrative And that both our meanings may be better understood it is very necessary the Reader should have a true account of the state of the Question between us And if he will believe me I never intended to dispute with him
take notice of what I have elsewhere said I am resolved to let him see I am not at all concerned about it I begin to understand him so well by this Appendix that I can give my self a reasonable account why he thought it not fit to meddle with any other part of my Book But if Mr. S. be resolved not to answer any of the testimonies I there produce unless I single them out and print them at the end of this Answer i. e. remove them from that evidence which attends them in the series of the discourse I can only say he is the most imperious answerer I have met with who is resolved never to deal with an adversary but on his own unreasonable terms Thus heartily wishing Mr. S's Science as great as his opinion of it and a good effect of our endeavours to promote the one by removing the other I am Sir Your affectionate friend and servant Edward Stillingfleet London June 28. 1665. FINIS Postscript SIR SInce the dispatch of the former Papers I have met with another Treatise wherein I find my self concerned written by the Author of Fiat Lux the Title whereof is Diaphanta I am afraid the Title affrights you for I assure you it is the most formidable thing in his whole Book But the man is a very modest man and hugely different from Mr. S's humor for he is so far from offering to demonstrate the grounds of faith that all he pretends to in the title of his Book is to excuse Catholick Religion against the opposition of several Adversaries What fault I pray hath the Catholick Religion committed that it must now come to be excused instead of being defended But when I look into that part which concerns my self I presently understand the meaning of it which is not to excuse Catholick Religion but themselves for not being able to defend it For he very ingeniously tells us that faith is firm and constant though all his talk for it be miserably weak i. e. he is sure they have an excellent Religion though he knows not what to say for it and their faith is a very good faith but it hath not yet had the good fortune to be understood by them For he acknowledges that as often as they dispute they are beyond the business so may any one believe who reads their late Books which is in effect to say there is no way left of disputing any longer with adversaries about their faith only they must believe it stoutly themselves but it is to no purpose to offer to defend it Nay it doth their faith a great deal of mischief for saith he in reading controversies we see not so much the nature of the faith as the wit of him who opposes or defends it From whence we may easily gather what unspeakable mischief they do their cause by writing for it By which expressions we may guess at what a low ebb the defence of their faith is among them for the way now taken to defend it is by disowning the defenders of it and by saying that they only vent their own opinions and though we confute them never so much yet their faith holds good still Was ever a good cause driven to such miserable shifts as these are especially among those who pretend to wit and learning One he saith T. C. vents a private opinion of his own and it is not a pin matter whether it stand or fall another he saith the same of I. S. a third of J.V.C. and yet for all this their religion is very firm and sure and they are all at perfect agreement about it Is this the victory over me Mr. S. mentions to be so easie a thing I see that by the same figure M. S. calls his way of arguing demonstration running out of the field shall be accounted conquering For I never saw any person do it more openly than this Author does For he plainly confesses that his Catholick Gentleman went quite besides his business that he built upon indefensible principles that his theological ratiocination was indeed pretty but too weak to hold And are not we hugely too blame if we do not cry up such mighty Conquerors as these are Truly Sir I expect the very same answer should be returned to your Book that Mr. S's argument is a pretty theological ratiocination and that your answer is not unwitty but though that way will not hold another will Thus when they are beaten off Infallibility they run to Tradition and when they are again beaten off Tradition then back again to Infallibility So that the short of all their answers is though such a one cannot defend our faith yet I can though I cannot yet the faith is firm and constant still I wonder what their Superiors think of this way of proceeding among them we should imagine if they be so weak as they say themselves they had much better keep them from appearing abroad and exposing their cause so ridiculously to contempt But it may be they think their faith is the better as well as their devotion for their ignorance and that it would be a mighty disparagement to their cause for such silly people to be able to defend it It is enough for them to admire it themselves and to say as their common people use to do though they cannot defend it yet there are some that can And although it may be no particulat person can do it yet their cause is able to defend it self But for all that I can see by such kind of answers the intention of them is to intreat us not to triumph over the weakness of their present Writers but to wait till the Cause it self thinks fit to write And when it doth so they may expect a further answer but it were a great piece of cruelty for us to hasten their ruine who fall so fast before us by each others Pens FINIS Books Printed for and Sold by Henry Mortlock at the Phoenix in St. Pauls Church-yard and at the white Heart in VVestminster-hall A Rational account of the grounds of Protestant Religion being a Vindication of the Lord-Archbishop of Canterbury's Relation of a Conference c. from the pretended Answer of T.C. folio Sermons preached upon several occasions with a discourse annexed concerning the true reasons of the sufferings of Christ wherein Crellius's Answer to Grotius is considered fol. Irenicum A Weapon-Salve for the Churches wounds in quarto Origines Sacrae or a Rational Account of the Grounds of Christian Faith as to the Truth and Divine Authority of the Scriptures and matters therein contained quarto A Discourse concerning the Idolatry practised in the Church of Rome and the hazard of Salvation in the Communion of it in Answer to some Papers of a revolted Protestant wherein a particular account is given of the Fanaticisms and Divisions of that Church octavo An Answer to several late Treatises occasioned by a Book entituled A Discourse concerning the Idolatry practised in