of such things consists in a kind of Undulation So that now Corrupt Nature when shee finds her self a little more free follows her own tendency or propension and bears downwards and now again Supernatural and Gracious Assistances with which the Wisdome of the Eternal Father had furnish't his Church superabundantly being shock't and excited even by this contrary motion of Nature begin to put themselves forwards into an opposit motion and strive more vigorously to raise themselves upwards For example Disciplin which is to apply Christian motives by tract of time grows remiss in the Church hence decay of virtue dissoluteness of life addiction to material goods and consequently Ignorance creep in by insensible degrees into diverse parts so that it happens there are multitudes of corrupt Members in the Church and regardless of any duty who therefore want nothing but a fair occasion and one to lead them to break all ties of Virtue and Obedience and run into the utmost Extravagancies Nor can wee think but in the course of such a vast variety as is found in a World now and then there will bee found amongst those wicked men some notable fellow of a subtle wit a bold spirit and a plausible tongue so circumstanc't that hee can hope for Impunity by the friendship of some great person and so dares give way to his proud desire of having followers or his private spleen to renounce the Church's Faith and shake of the yoak of her disciplin Hereupon the rampires of Government and disciplin being forc't and violently broken down presently like a Torrent or Inundation all those whose hearts were corrupted with spiritual pride or other vices like brute beasts leap after one another out of the Fold of the Church and threaten to trample down all that 's Sacred Reviling the Church and laying to her charge all the faults found in particular persons as if they were Effects of her Doctrin though their own knowledge tells them otherwise and make use of failings in particular Governours to renounce and extirpate the Government it self On the contrary those good Catholikes who by this Trial are made manifest stir up their zeal both in behalf of their Faith and their Governours instituted by Christ and detest the vicious Lives and Pride of those Rebels the Parents of such a horrid Revolt The Governours alarm'd begin to look into the Cause of this distraction and to provide wholesome Remedies They call Councils Generall ones if need bee to straiten afresh Ecclesiasticall Disciplin enjoyning the Officers of the Church to stand every one to his Charge They take order to promote worthy Officers and to advance Ecclesiastical Learning they recommend afresh by their grave Authority the points of Faith to the Ecclesia Credens as the depositum preserv'd uninterruptedly in the Church from Christ and his Apostles and establish them in a particular beleef of them nay make these more intelligible and rational by Explicating them more at large or if the Heretical party involve and confound them in ambiguous words they define and declare them in language most properly suting to the sence writ in the hearts of the Faithfull and lastly anathematize the Revolters if they prudently judge their contumacy irreducible that so the remaining Body may concieve a just horror and aversion against that Rebellious party and bee preserv'd uninfected with their contagious Communion All which Advantages and much more are visibly found in the Change made in the Church by that neverenough-renowned Synod the Council of Trent occasion'd by Luthers fall Nor is this all for the Faithfull not onely grow more virtuous by the reformation of Church-disciplin but even by the Calumnies of their Adversaries Again the learned party in the Church are excited to far greater industry and consequently Knowledge by the insulting opposition of the Churches enemies whose disgracing points of Faith for absurd and contradictions stir up divines to show their conformity with acknowledg'd naturall Truths as does their calling into question the Ground and Certainty of Faith open the understandings of those who defend it to look into the Causes on which Gods sweet and strong Providence has founded it's infallible Perpetuity and so demonstrate it A task no Heretick durst ever attempt finding Principles failing him to begin with that is Causes laid by Gods Providence to build his Congregation on whence all they can do is to talk gaily and plausibly about the Conclusions themselves and laugh at Principles From which discourse is Evident that by occasion of a Heresy which purifies the Church of all her ill humors and rectifies and makes sound what remains Tradition renews as it were it's Youth and recovers it's vigor whence also it must needs Propagate and extend it self still unto more and more Subjects as is also daily Experienc't 'T is seen also that the abundance of corrupt Humors begets Heresy at First for multitudes fall away then wheras afterwards scarce two or three in any Age desert the Catholick Banner It appears also that Secular interest or desire of Liberty and Spirituall Pride not zeal of Truth begun and continu'd the breach I mean in the Leaders for afterwads they are content to remain where they are without troubling themselves to propagate the Truth to other Nations nay they have let the large region of Nubia run to wrack for as Mr. T. to make us smile tells us p. 174. Alvarez sayes it was for want of Ministers and never sent so much as one single Protestant Parson to assist them It shows also how unconcern'd the Catholik Churches Stability is in all the Heresies that have or shall fall since they onely tend to confirm and radicate more deeply in the hearts of the Faithfull the Points of Faith they renounc't to occasion reformation of disciplin and so to purify their virtue Lastly it shows how Tradition or the Delivery of Faith by the Living Voice and Practice of the Catholik Church is so immovably planted by the hand of the Almighty that it loses nothing by all the Actuall Deserters of it that ever have been but is by that means onely prun'd of it's saples branches to shoot out in due season livelier and farther But to return my Friend I hope Sir you will pardon mee if I have rather taken pains to open your understanding a little in acquainting it more fully with that part of my doctrin is totally mistook than to proceed with your Faults in lieu of which I here pardon you all the Injuries you have done my meaning or words in neer the other half your book that is from p. 176. to p. 300. though I see them many and some of them very gross ones The Testimony part I would not here neglect because as you shall see shortly they concern not my book as any proofs of the point and so are improper to bee allow'd room in my future Answer which designes nothing but against your reasons You are resolv'd to bee brief in them and I hope
them to do is to trust those Divines and to proceed accordingly to warn the Faithfull to beware of those Books in which they are inform'd there is such danger So that the motive those Governours proceed upon is their care of preserving the Faithfull untainted and the Judgment of Divines not Christian Tradition And what motive proceed those Divines upon in these Censures Upon their best skill as Divines that is their best skill in drawing Consequences in which neither themselves nor any else say they are Infallible Thus much for the Censurers Now come wee to the Person censur'd and his Books Of what nature are they Theologicall Discourses And what do such Discourses rely on formally On Tradition Nothing less On this hee rely'd as a Beleever or Christian not as a Divine but on his own humane skill in explicating Faith or it's Ground and his talent in deducing right Consequences in which also hee and every man Living is Fallible You see Sir by this time the ripe fruits of your performance in this point and that you have brought a worthy Instance of Difference amongst Reliers on Tradition in a passage wherein neither side rely on Tradition Oh but they contradict one another in the very point of Tradition 'T is your weak and unproud conjecture and besides you cannot I mean still will not distinguish between the Substance of Tradition that is the Infallibility of the Living Voice and Practice of the Church Essentiall in conveying down uninterruptedly Christ's Doctrine and the Explication of it show the Church of Rome condemns the former and you have my free Confession I am at a loss for my Faith But though you show shee condemns and censures all the later that is all the Explications whether made by that Authour my self or any other yet as long as she condemns not the former shee hath done nothing against Tradition and so your wise Instance is spoil'd as it was no other likely being the weakest you could have invented against Tradition and the least concerning it in regard there is not one learned Catholick in the Church that looks upon the Acts of the Roman Inquisition in Censuring Books as on Infallible Definitions of Faith 12. You 'l ask where lies the Fault in such cases I answer no where that I know not in the Head of the Church who acted the most prudently and carefully that could be in such an affair neither censuring any particular Proposition where there was no more Certainty to ground that Censure than the Judgment of some Divines and yet providing by the Caution his censure imported that the conceived harmfullness in those Books might work no ill Effects whence 't is but an invidious presumption of your own that perhaps the Pope is censur'd for it in England Nor were those Roman Divines Faulty in case they judg'd secundum ultimum potentiae but were bound in conscience to give in to the Court what they thought Again those Explications of Divinity-points looking new to them and it being the naturall Genius of the Followers of Tradition to bee jealous of any thing that is new and this not onely in Faith but also in Explications of Faith in regard these pretend a coherence and connexion with Faith it self it seems to mee to sound a laudable zeal both in them and others to bee suspicious of and less a Friend at First to what 's new 'till it bee farther lookt into and appear innocent Nor can I say 't is a Fault in the person censur'd in case hee sincerely ment to write what he judg'd was truth and so most advantageous to the Church and submits to the Orders of his Chief Eccesiasticall Superiour You see Sir the whole case in which I am larger because you are kinder here than ordinary and your Instance falling pittifully short you peece it out with Falshoods p. 22. that wee in England censure perhaps the Pope for this Action that the person censur'd disobeyes the Summons of his Chief Pastour that p. 24. the Governours of the Church do professedly cherish Ignorance in the Generality of the Papists for the increasing their devotion These are grear favours indeed you are too liberall Sir and will undo your self unless you restrain your hand from this profuseness of kindness Your 4th Section is all Reason like the foregoing one in which you laid your grounds and fell to build so strong and firm that it needs more than an ordinary blast to blow it down Therefore I conceive 't is best to stay a while and gain more breath which is something short with mee at present 13. But your fifth even kills me with Kindness and acquaints the Reader with a dangerous oversight of mine enough to overthrow my whole Book 'T is this that I make Traditions Certainty a First and self-evident Principle and yet go about to demonstrate it which you soberly admonish mee to take heed how I take it upon me that Aristotle never demonstrated First Principles because they could not bee demonstrated that most prudent men are of Opinion that a self-evident principle of all things in the world should not bee demonstrated because it needs not you ask to what end should a man write a Book to proove that which every man must assent to without proof so soon as 't is propounded to him c. Now Sr in my mind you should onely have combated this and have given no other Answer to my whole Book but to this onely for nothing can bee so senceless nor so impertinent as to go about to proove that which that which can need no proof nor consequently less meriting an Answer I would then had I been in your case have thought it my best and most honourable play to omit all counterfeitings of my Adversaries defining all those multitudes of groundless Cavills voluntary mistaks Calumnies laughing at his First Principles Evidence demonstration c. together with all my wordish exceptions at his rumbling Rethorick perching upon the nature of things and other such expressions and have solely apply'd my self to this one Folly evacuating his whole Book and so excusing my Answer And this you might have done with far greater hopes of conquering than in any of the rest because that a First and self-evident Principle cannot bee evidenc't seems so clear that it even looks like a First Principle it self of which no other part of your confutation has the least Countenance or resemblance And be assur'd Sr since you would not use this advantage against mee as you might you shall never have mee upon the like lock again Caught in these streights by your entangling Logick I endeavour my escape on this manner Self-evidence is two-fold Speculative and Practicall Speculative self-evidence it that which cannot bee made Evident by any Speculation or Skill but is known meerly by the common light of understanding such is that which is found in those Principles I dicourst of before which were therefore Self-evident speculatively because their Subject and
manner is compounded of putting tricks upon your Adversaries that is putting their sayings upon such accounts they never intended then impugning your own fictions 'T is not on the impossibility of any going out of us nor meerly because whenany one is out of our Church hee is not in it wee ground the Necessity of our Churches Unity but in this that her nature and Constitution is so fram'd that shee can admit no division in her Bowells but keeps her self distinguisht from Aliens If any one recede from Faith it must bee by not hearing the present Churches living voice teaching him points which the Knowledge Practice and Expressions of the Teachers determins and make Evident what they are whence his disbeleef if exprest is an Evident matter of Fact which is most apt to make a plain distinction between the disbeleever and the Beleevers and an Evidence beyond Cavill for the Church Governours to proceed upon This done as likewise in the case of high disobedience against Church-Laws or Governours shee Excommunicates that is solemnly separates the Schismaticall Offender from the Obedient Faithfull Hence those Faithfull look upon him as a Rebell or Outlaw or as our Saviour expresses as a Heathen or Publican no Church-officer admits him to Sacraments but upon his pennance and Satisfaction nor any Son of the Church will communicate with him in Sacred duties Pray you Sir is this the Temper of your Church of England Your Rule is the Letter of Scripture as conceiv'd significative of Gods word and this to private understandings Again you say all necessary points of Faith are plain in it nay that nothing is fundamentally necessary but what is plain there Hence all that hold the Letter to bee plainly Expressive of Gods Sence and intend to hold to what they conceive plain there whether Socinians Anabaptists Independents or whatever other faction all hold to your Rule of Faith and so are all Protestants For if you would ty any of these to any determinable points you force them from the Rule of Faith Scripture as seeming plain to them and would instead thereof bring them to a reliance on your Judgement And if you would punish them for not doing it you cannot evidence their Fault by way of matter of Fact that so you may proceed upon it for as long as they profess their intention to hold to what seems plain to them in Scripture and that your Text seems less plain to them there than their own you ought not to proceed against them Ecclesiastically without disannulling your avowed Rule of Faith And your carriage executes accordingly neither using Church-discipline against them for Tenets nor yet for denying or disobeying your Goverment Episcopacy though held by you divinely instituted When did you put any distinction by any solemn Ecclesiastical declaration between an Anabaptist Presbyterian Socinian c. and your selves When did you excommunicate them warn the purer Protestants by any Publick Ecclesiasticall Act not to joyn with them in Sacred Offices but to look upon them as Aliens Might not any of them come to receive the Communion if hee would or has any discipline past upon him to debar him from being admitted None that wee see Your Party then in indeed no Ecclesiasticall body cohering by Unity of Tenets or Government but a Medly rather consisting of men of any tenet almost and so bears division disunion and Schism that is the Formal cause of non-Entity of a Church in it's very Bowells These two flams of yours are Sir the Favours you have done my Friends and I can onely tell you in a country complement I thank you as much for them as if you had done them to my self Seeing your Reason begin to play it's part bravely in the following part of your Book I thought I had done my duty of Thanking but I percieve one main Engin your Reason made use of was to make mee perpetually contradict my self And this you perform'd by singling a few words out of my Book from their fellows introducing them in other circumstances and so almost in every Citation falsifying my Intentions and this purposely as will bee seen by this that you practis'd designe and Artifice in bringing it about This obliges mee in stead of making an End to return back and to show how sincerly you have us'd mee in almost all your Citations I omit your false pretence that I mean't to define contrary to my express words You tell your Reader p. 11. That if any presume to say this Book Scripture depends not on Tradition for it's Sence then the most scurrilous language is not bad enough then are those Sacred writings but Ink variously figur'd in a Book quoting for those words App. 4th p. 319. But if wee look there not a word is there found of it's depending or not depending on Tradition for it's Sence nor of making that the Cause why I us'd those words you object cite for it but onely that whereas my Lord of Downs sayes his Faith has for its object the Scriptures I tell him that since he means not by the word Scripture any determinate Sence which is the formall parts of words hee must mean the Characters or Ink thus figur'd in a Book as is evident there being nothing imaginable in them besides the matter and the form which every Schollar knows compound the thing This being then the plain tenour of my discourse there and not the least word of Tradition sencing Scripture Whatever the Truth of the Thing is 't is evident you have abus'd my words as found in the place you cite My Citation p. 12. which abstracts from what security wee can have of those parts of Scripture which concern not Faith you will needs restrain to signifie no security at all either of Letter or Sence which is neither found in my words nor meaning How you have abus'd my words to avoid Calumny with the Vulgar cited by you p. 13. as also the former of those cited p. 14. I have already shown § 9 and 10. P. 17. You quote my words 'T is certain the Apostles taught the same Doctrine they writ whence you infer they writ the same Doctrine they taught Which your introducing Discourse would make to signifie an Equality of Extent in Writing and Tradition by saying I grant this Doctrine which signifies there the First deliver'd Doctrine was afterwards by the Apostles committed to writing Whereas whoever reads my 29th Cor. will see I can onely mean by the word same Doctrine a not-different Doctrine Whatever the truth of the point is this shows you have an habituall imperfection not to let the words you cite signifie as the Authour evidently meant them but you must bee scruing them to serve your own turn You quote mee p. 36. to say that Primitive Antiquity learn'd their Faith by another method a long time before many of those Books were universally spread amongst the Vulgar The summe of your Answer is that when the Apostles who did miracles
never are more powerfull than when you use your wit to make Authours fall out with one another and unnaturall mee with my self But to the point In the first Citation I say That the common course of humane Conversation makes it a madness not to beleeve great multitudes of Knowers c. But I add Sure-footing p. 49. what you omit that in the way of Tradition all Deliverers or immediate Forefathers are Knowers all the Knowledge requisit being of what they were taught and practic 't accordingly all their lives I beseech you Sir are those great multitudes of immediate Forefathers Knowers when they deliver down a Book for a right one that is do they all know the Translation is right made the Copy right printed or written and all the Perquisits which are needfull that they may bee truly said to know this Book is rightly qualify'd You see then how far I am from contradicting my self unless you show that I hold all Recommenders or Accepters of a Book to bee Knowers as they are of the practicall Doctrine they were bred and brought up to which I neither do nor can with any Sence profess The Reader also will see that the stratagem by virtue of which you made mee contradict my self was your omitting those words of mine which made the contrary clear The next place you cite p. 104. from mee to the same purpose is this that none but madmen can suspect deceit where such multitudes agree unanimously in a matter of Fact Now the words such multitudes mean all their immediate Fore-fathers qualifi'd as Knowers as I exprest myself a little before which will veryill sute your purpose in regard the matters of Fact employ'd about the delivering a right Book as in translating transcribing pointing right c. of which their Sences onely can make them Knowers are so inumerable and minute yet such that very great miscarriages may ensue upon a very little over-sight that to think all Forefathers can know no Fault in any of these interven'd is such an extravagant conceit that onely a most obstinate passion could make a rationall soul entertain it The point is at present that you affect to represent mee to the half part and by that art you take mee up perpetually before I bee down For it is not an agreement in any matter of Fact but in such a one as may bee known by all in which I place the force of being able to oblige others to assent to their proposalls You treat mee far worse p. 105. making mee say that the Providence of God is no security against those Contingencies the Scripture is liable to because wee cannot bee certain of the divine Providence or Assistance to his Church but by the Letter of Scripture which is to put upon mee a ridiculous Argument making mee infer there is no such Assistance from this that wee cannot bee Certain of it but such a way Whereas Common sence tells every one that our Certainty being an Effect of the Thing 's Existence must depend indeed on their Existence in regard we cannot bee Certain of what is not But the things can exist whether wee bee Certain of them or no I affirm then and charge upon you that I have no where either such words or sence in my whole book as you with a strange precipitancy to say no worse affirm p. 104. that I tell you Sure-footing p. 18. where my discourse onely pretends to show that who will argue orderly must first bee Certain of that on which hee builds his Conclusion ere hee asserts the Conclusion it self This was the tenour of my discourse there which I conceive to bee evident beyond Cavill If I err'd any where 't was in supposing you onely took from Scripture that God assisted his Church in preserving a right Copy of Scripture and therefore argu'd preposterously if you inferr'd God has a Providence over his Church in preserving right Scripture therefore 't is preserv'd right But this I spoke onely with an If and besides had good grounds for it For I conceiv'd there being but two wayes to know this by Revelation which you profess to have onely by way of Scripture and by naturall Reason whence you could not have it For however meer nature might teach it's exact Followers there was a God and that hee had Providence over his Creatures as it taught Socrates Seneca and such like yet I remember not that wee have any Ground to say meer nature inform'd any God had a Church much less that there was no way to Provide for her continuance in Faith or deriving his Doctrine down in her but by way of Books Hence I concluded and conclude still it must bee either by Scripture or no way you can know God has such a kind of Providence over his Church You are pleased to tell your Reader p. 119. that this Principle That in matters of Religion a man cannot bee reasonably satisfy'd with any thing less than that Infallible Assurance which is wrought by Demonstration is the main Pillar of Mr. S' s. Book whereas I assure you Sir the last part of the kind slur you put upon mee which is wrought by Demonstration was never either my words nor sence neither Pillar nor the least part of Sure-footing wherefore as you put those words in a different Letter for mine so you had done well to have put down the place too where those words were found which you wisely omitted If I had affirm'd that that Assurance which grounds Faith must bee wrought by Demonstration how should I pretend the Vulgar can bee sav'd who are manifestly incapable of Demonstration as I also frequently acknowledge Understand then my Tenet at length which you ought to have done e're you begun to write against it but that to use your own words you thought it an absurd and ridiculous study to bend your brains to read my Book as you would do Euclid p. 292. which yet is no more but to consider attentively my Principles and my Consequences My Tenet is that all the Faithfull have and those who seek after Faith may have and those who seek after Faith may have Assurance of their Faith wrought in them by Practicall Self-evidence in the same naturall manner but with far better Reason than they beleeve there was a Henry the 8th and that 't is onely Schollars that go about to Demonstrate what the Faithfull know but for want of Study or Reflexion on their own thoughts and on the Causes and Manners with which they were so assur'd are ignorant how to make it out I beseech you Sir repress this overflowing of Kindness in giving mee so many Advantages against you and take a little pains to understand what I say nor to borrow your elegant expression p. 292. suffer your self to bee so demurely discharged of a Study so necessary and so honorable I had affirm'd in my Letter to my Answerer p. 5th that it was a civill piece of Atheistry to say Faith is possible
therefore that persons to bee converted may come to Faith without demonstration at all I may perhaps say that in an Assent thus grounded there is found at the bottom what is demonstrable by a learned man or apt to yeeld matter for a demonstration but that those who come to Faith must demonstrate or frame demonstrations which 't is manifest onely Schollers and good ones too can do is fa from my Tenet however 't is your Kindness to put it upon mee right or wrong You shall take your choice whether the Reader shall think you understand not the Tenet you are confuting or that understanding it you wilfully injure it You proceed p. 153. that according to Mr. S. Reason can never demonstrate that the one is a Certain and Infallible Rule the other not That never is a hard word and it will seem wonderfull to some Readers I should say Reason can never demonstrate this and yet in that very Book contend to demonstrate it by Reason my self nay make that the main scope of my Book But Sir those Readers know not yet the power of your wit and sincerity which can make mee say any thing nay say and unsay as it pleases Yet you quote my express words for it Sure-footing p. 53. where you say I tell you Tradition hath for it's basis Man's Nature not according to his Intellectualls because they do but darkly grope in the pursuit of Science c. I deny them Sir to bee my words or sence you have alter'd the whole face and frame of them by putting in the word Because which makes mee discourse as if man's Intellectualls could never arrive at Evidence nor consequently Certainty and you keep the Reader from knowing the true sence of my words by curtailing the sentence with an c. my words are not according to his Intellectualls darkly groping in the pursuit of Science by reflected thoughts or Speculations amidst the misty vapours exhal'd by his Passion predominant over his rationall will which discovers I speak of our Intellectualls plac't in such circumstances or employ'd about such a matter as our Passion or Affection is apt to blind and mislead us in it which wee experience too too often But do I therefore affirm our understanding can never arrive at Science at all or that our Passion exhales vapours to hinder us from seeing the Truth of the first Proposition in Euclid or was it ever heard that any man was transported so by his Passion as to deny there was a Henry the 8th Or can any one out of Passion bee ignorant of or forget what is inculcated into his Sences almost every day which naturall Knowledge I there make the Basis of Tradition Pray Sir reflect on my words once more and on the Tenour of my Discourse and you shall see it onely says that Tradition has for it's Basis man's Nature not according to his morall part which is of it self pervertible nor yet his Intellectualls as subject to his Moralls but on naturall Knowledges imprinted by direct Sensations not subject at all to his Will but necessary and inevitable and when you have done this you will easily see how you injure mee though I expect not from you any Acknowledgment of it You commit those Faults too often to concern your self in such a trifle as any handsome Satisfaction Your next Citation p. 153. layes on load 'T is taken out of my 2d Appendix p. 183. My whole Discourse there is to show how Reason behaves her self in finding out the Authority shee is to rely on that this is God's Sence or Faith and how in the points of Faith themselves Concerning the former I discourse there § 3. and have these Expressions that No Authority deserves assent farther than true Reason gives it to deserve that the Church's Authority is found by my Reason to bee Certain that 't is perfectly rationall to beleeve the Church assuring mee the Divine Authority is engag'd for such and such points that Gods and the Church's Authority as Objects imprinting a conceit of themselves in my mind as they are in themselves oblig'd my Reason to conclude and my Iudgment to hold them such as they were nor have I the least expression of diffidence of naturall Reason's certifying mee perfectly of the Ground of my Faith which can no wayes bee done by Acts of reflected Reason which I there speak of but by demonstrating it After this § 4. I come to discourse how differently Reason bears her self in order to the points of Faith or the mysteries themselves Hereupon I have these words p. 183. Reason acts now much differently than formerly Before I came at Faith shee acted about her own Objects Motives or Maxims by which shee scan'd the Autho rities wee spoke of but in Acts of Faith shee hath nothing to do with the Objects of those Acts or Points of Faith Then follow immediately the words you cite Shee is like a dim-sighted man who us'd his Reason to find a trusty Friend to lead him in the twy-light and then rely'd on his guidance rationally without using his own Reason at all about the Way it self Which most plainly signifies that as a dim-sighted man cannot use his Reason about the Way for that requir'd it should well affect his Senses and imprint it's right notion there which it did not but yet could use his Reason about chusing a trusty Friend to guide him for this depended not on his dim-sight but the converse and negotiation with his neighbours and relations which hee had been inur'd to and so was capable to wield and manage such a Discourse So our Reason dim-sighted in the Mysteries of Faith in which neither Senses nor Maxims of Human Science had given her light enough could not employ her talent of discoursing evidently and scientifically to conclude the Points of Faith themselves but yet was by Motives and Maxims within her own Sphere enabled to scan the nature of Authorities and find out on which as on a trusty Friend shee might safely rely This Sir is evidently my Discourse from whence you will needs force mee to say Reason is dim-sighted about the Authority wee come to Faith by or the Rule of Faith Now my whole Discourse in that very place aiming at the direct contrary and you leaving out the immediately foregoing words which clearly discover'd it I hope you will not take it ill Sir if I tell you I fear any sincere Examiner of it will judge that though you hold Plain-dealing a Jewell yet you would not bee willing to go to too much cost for it Especially when he reflects that you build better half your Confutation in your Book on such kind of willing mistakes and hope to blind it and make it take by Sophister-like quibbles flouts and jeers with which you use to sound your own triumph I expected sweet Sir some First Principles of your Discourse and I see now you intend those Artifices for such none else have I met with nor do you
build on any thing so much as these but one of these laid for a Ground you run on with such a Carreer as if you would overthrow all the Sence and Reason that ever comes in your way You tell mee p. 158. by a parallell Discourse to mine against my Lord of Downs that my demonstrations are none unless I vouch some particularity in my Method above what 's in others which p. 160. you say you remember not I have done any where It seems you read my Transition not with any sober intent to understand it and speak solidly to it but onely to carp at it and break jests upon it Have you so soon forgot the pleasant mood it put you into p. 3 and 4. I contest then that the Method I there declare my self to pursue is particular above what I ever observ'd in any of your Controvertists not that they want better Parts to lay it but because they want a good Cause to bear it and give them leave to follow it I declare also that I hold that Method sufficient to demonstrate by though I pretend it not the exactest than can bee made As for those great men whom you alledge to differ in demonstrations Charles Thynn I leave to bear you company you are both such merry Blades I doubt not but were the business well examin'd their differences spring from not attending heedfully to the Method of concluding and that no miscarriage could ensue in any Discourse were the way of Discoursing perfectly laid agreed to and exactly follow'd nay that those few Differences amongst Geometricians arise from the same defect as were it seasonable I could show particularly with the help of a Friend you must think in that famous one about angulus contingentiae But to our present purpose meethinks Sir you may remember a thing call'd a Letter to my Answerer where I endeavour'd at least at some means to settle some particularity in our Method above what has been practic 't in other Controversies formerly begging you would agree to it that so wee might both follow it but you would have none you thank't mee Since then you would not accept it when offer'd you should not ask for it again when your Book is writ and the Circumstances of using it past But perhaps there lies the policy of it You end with a Glance or two at my Self-confidence But are you Propheticall in this too Sir that 't is some proud and vain humour in mee and not rather my Assuredness of the Truth of my Cause and of the Conclusiveness of my Method which makes mee deliver my self undauntedly See my Letter to my Answerer where I have these words p. 18. By this means it will bee quickly discover'd whether or no you have overthrown my Discourse by showing it ill-coherent and how far 't is faulty that if I cannot clear it to bee connected I may confess my fault and endeavour to amend it For however I see my Grounds evident yet I am far from judging my self Infallible in drawing my Consequences though I see withall the Method I take will not let me err much or if I do my Errour will bee easily discoverable because I go not about to cloud my self in Words but to speak out as plain as I can from the nature of the Thing Had you a desire to practice the due candour towards mee I should have done to you you would not have sought occasions to put in upon a personall priding my self in my performances which I so frequently disown and place all my advantage in my Cause and my Method But you are angry I deliver my self so boldly in what I take to bee Truth I beseech you Sir is it not naturall for any one who judges hee speaks what 's Evident to express himself fear lesly when hee disputes against an Adversary of the Truth whose Cause hee has espoused as 't is on the contrary for one who judges hee has onely Probability for what hee sayes to speak dis-confidently and condescendingly and when hee indeed sneaks not daring to speak out then to praise himself and his party for modest and moderate men You know by experience Sir ' t is Has there in our late age come out a Book more brisk than this of yours not in asserting but in scorn and proud petulancy and which is to bee pittied proud of an aiery jest or some gay conceit Shall I bee bold to tell you Sir what is Self confidence To undertake to write a Discourse about the Ground of Faith without so much as one Principle that deserves to bee call'd such to bless himself with to lay for Grounds all along Falsifications of his Adversaries meaning and words and then quibbling taunting and vapouring as if all the world were his own Lastly to tell his Auditours soberly and sadly out the Pulpit all is God's Word hee preaches and press they should beleeve him and yet when hee writes against us confess all hee preaches concerning Salvation and the Way to it may possibly bee false that is for any thing hee absolutely knows hee has not told them one true word all the while This Sir I must needs confess is such a Heroick strain of self-confidence that however it bee familiar and naturall to others yet I dispair for my part ever to attain it To bear ones self as holding a thing a demonstration which he judges hee has Evidence that 't is such is a puling and trifling kind of self-conceit but to carry it out with the greatest Formality in the world as if it were most Certain and yet hold at the same time and profess 't is possible to bee false that is may for any thing any man knows bee shown false to morrow is a noble and gallant Self confidence and such a one as fears not the face of any man living P. 161. You come to examin my demonstrations à priori and in order to it my four Grounds which you affirm you will set down in my own words Which intimates you did not do so formerly though it bee your duty to do it alwayes However 't is a Kindness which I am bound to thank you for and as far as I discern you have not faltred in it of which I here make my hearty Acknowledgment But Sir may I not fear this particular Resolution of yours here to bee Sincere springs hence because in this Sect. 2. where you put down my words you do not yet go about to apply them to your Discourse and attempt to confute which in your next Section p. 163. you endeavour I foresee you will bee shrew'dly tempted there for want of other Answer to break your resolution till wee come there then I leave you with my hearty wishes of strength constancy against that habituall Infirmity which so often overcoms all your resolutions of that nature And wee are now come to your third Sect p. 163. the place of the triall of your perseverance where you begin your confute and