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
to faith to arise from any thing but divine revelation and I do not yet believe any thing in Christian doctrine to be divinely revealed but what was delivered by Christ or his Apostles And my wonderment must needs be the greater because I suppose this inconsistent with Mr. S's principles For oral tradition doth necessarily imply that all points of faith were first taught by Christ and conveyed by tradition to us but if a thing may be de fide in this latter sense which was not before what becomes of resolving faith wholly into oral tradition For faith is resolved into that from whence the obligation to believe comes but here Mr. S. confesses that the obligation to believe doth arise from something quite different from oral tradition and therefore faith must be resolved into it Besides all the sense I can find in that distinction is that men are bound to believe something in one age which they were not in another and if so I shall desire Mr. S. to unperplex me in this how every age is bound to believe just as the precedent did and yet one age be bound to believe more than the precedent But however I am much obliged to him for his endeavour to unperplex me as he speaks for really I look on no civilities to be greater than those which are designed for clearing our understandings so great an adorer am I of true reason and an intelligible Religion And therefore I perfectly agree with him in his saying that Christianity aims not to make us beasts but more perfectly men and the perfection of our manhood consists in the use of our reasons From whence he infers that it is reasonable consequences should be drawn from principles of faith which he saith are of two sorts first such as need no more but common sense to deduce them the others are such as need the maxims of some science got by speculation to infer them and these are Theological conclusions The former sort he tell us the Church is necessitated to make use of upon occasion i. e. when any Heretick questions those and eadem opera the whole point of faith it self of which they were a part as in the case of the Monothelites about Christs having two wills But all this while I am far enough from being unperplexed nay by this discourse I see every one who offers to unperplex another is not very clear himself For since he makes no Theological conclusions to be de fide but only such consequences as common sence draws I would willingly understand how common sence receives a new obligation to faith For to my apprehension the deducing of consequences from principles by common sense is not an act of believing but of knowledg consequent upon a principle of faith And the meaning is no more than this that men when they say they believe things should not contradict themselves as certainly they would do if they deny those consequences which common sense draws from them As in the case of the Monothelites for men to assert that Christ had two natures and yet not two wills when the will is nothing else but the inclination of the nature to that good which belongs to it So that there can be no distinct obligation to believe such consequences as are drawn by common sense but every one that believes the principles from whence they are drawn is thereby bound to believe all the consequences which immediately follow from them Indeed the Church when people will be so unreasonable to deny such things may explain her sense of the article of faith in those terms which may best prevent dispute but this is only to discriminate the persons who truly believe this article from such as do not Not that any new obligation to faith results from this act of the Church but the better to prevent cavils she explains her sense of the article it self in more explicite terms Which as he saith is only to put the faith out of danger of being equivocated Which is quite another thing from causing a new obligation to believe As suppose the Church to prevent the growth of the Socinian doctrine should require from men the declaring their belief of the eternal existence of the Son of God Would this be to bind men to believe some thing which they were not bound to before No but only to express their assent to the Deity of Christ in the simplest terms because otherwise they might call him God by office and not by nature Now how can any one conceive that any should be first obliged to believe that Christ is God and yet receive a new obligation afterwards to believe his eternal existence Thus it is in all immediate consequences drawn by common sense in all which the primary obligation to believe the thing it self extends to the belief of it in the most clear and least controverted terms which are not intended to impose on mens faith but to promote the Churches peace For neither is there a new object of faith for how can that be which common sense draws from what is believed already neither is there any infallible proponent unless common sense hath usurped the Popes prerogative But Mr. S. offers at a reason for this which is that none can have an obligation to believe what they have not an obligation to think of and in some age the generality of the faithful have no occasion nor consequently obligation to mind reflect or think on those propositions involved in the main stock of faith From whence he saith it follows that a thing may be de fide or obligatory to be believed in one age and not in another But let Mr. S. shew how a man can be obliged to believe any thing as an article of faith who is not bound to think of all the immediate consequences of it Because faith is an act of a reasonable nature which ought to enquire into the reasons and consequences of things which it doth believe But Mr. S's mistake lies here in not distinguishing the obligation to believe from the obligation to an explicite declaration of that assent The former comes only from God and no new obligation can arise from any act of the Church but the latter being a thing tending to the Churches peace may be required by it on some occasions i. e. when the doctrine is assaulted by Hereticks as in the time of the four first General Councils but still a man is not at all the more obliged to assent but to express his assent in order to the Churches satisfaction But Mr. S. supposes me to enquire how the Church can have power to oblige the generality to belief of such a point To which his answer is she obliges them to believe the main point of faith by virtue of traditions being a self-evident rule and these implied points by virtue of their being self-evidently connected with those main and perpetually used points so that the vulgar can be rationally and connaturally
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
as it is a conclusion it can only beget a probable assent which is to say that considered barely as a conclusion and so far as in reason it can deserve assent it is only probable but considered as it serves an Hypothesis and is convenient to be believed with reason or without so it is infallible But to carry the supposition further put the case that the whole present Age assembled in a general Council should declare that such a Point was delivered to them yet according to Mr. S. we cannot safely rely upon this unless we knew certainly that those whom they relied on had secure grounds and not bare hear-say for what they delivered and that they were not contradicted within the space of 1500 years by any of those that are dead which it is impossible for any one now to know But to shew how inconsistent he is with himself in these matters I will present the Reader with a passage or two in another part of his Book where he endeavors to prove that men may safely rely on a general and uncontrolled Tradition He tells us That the common course of human Conversation makes it a madness not to believe great multitudes of knowers if no possible considerations can awaken in our reason a doubt that they conspire to deceive us And a little after Nor can any unless their brains rove wildly or be unsetled even to the degree of madness suspect deceit where such multitudes agree unanimously in a matter of Fact Now if men be but supposed to write as well as to speak what they know and to agree in their Writings about matter of Fact then it will be the same madness not to believe multitudes of Historians where no possible consideration can awaken in our reason a doubt that they have conspired to deceive us and mens brains must rove wildly and be unsetled even to the degree of phrenzy who suspect deceit where such multitudes unanimously agree in a matter of Fact And this seems to me to be the great unhappiness of Mr. S's Demonstrations that they proceed upon conrtadictory Principles so that in order to the demonstrating of thc uncertainty of Books and Writings he must supopse all those Principles to be uncertain which he takes to be self-evident and unquestionable when he is to demonstrate thc Infallibility of Oral Tradition § 13. Secondly He tells us the Providence of God is no security against those contingencies the Scriptures are subject to because we cannot be certain of the Divine Providence or assistance to his Church but by the Letter of Scripture therefore that must first be proved certain before we mention the Church or Gods assistance to her As if we pretended there were any promise in Scripture that God would preserve the Letter of it entire and uncorrupted or as if we could not otherwise be assured of it as if the light of natural Reason could not assure us of Gods Providence in general and of his more especial care of those things which are of greatest concernment to us such as this is That a Book containing the method and the terms of Salvation should be preserved from any material corruption He might as well have said That without the Letter of Scripture we cannot know that there is a God § 14 Thirdly Nor says he can Testimonies of Councils and Fathers be sufficient Interpreters of Scripture We do not say they are Our Principle is That the Scripture doth sufficiently interpret it self that is is plain to all capacities in things necessary to be believed and practised And the general consent of Fathers in this doctrine of the sufficient plainness of Scripture which I shall afterwards shew is a good evidence against them As for obscure and more doubtful Texts we acknowledge the Comments of the Fathers to be a good help but no certain Rule of interpretation And that the Papists think so as well as we is plain inasmuch as they acknowledge the Fathers to differ among themselves in the interpretation of several Texts And nothing is more familiar in all Popish Commentators than to differ from the ancient Fathers about the sense of Scripture And as for Councils Dr. Holden and Mr. Cressy as I said before do not think it necessary to believe that alwayes to be the true sense of Texts which Councils give of them when they bring them to confirm Points of Faith Nay if any Controversie arise about the sense of any Text of Scripture it is impossible according to Mr. Rushworth's Principles for a Council to decide either that or any other Controversie for he makes it his business to prove That Controversies cannot be decided by words and if this be so then they cannot be decided at all unless he can prove that they may be decided without words and consequently that Councils may do their work best in the Quakers way by silent Meetings § 15. Fourthly Nor can says he the clearness of Scripture as to Fundamentals be any help against these defects Why not First Because a certain Catalogue of Fundamentals was never given and agreed to by sufficient Authority and yet without this all goes to wrack I hope not so long as we are sure that God would make nothing necessary to be believed but what he hath made plain and so long as men do believe all things that are plainly revealed which is every ones fault if he do not men may do well enough without a precise Catalogue But suppose we say That the Articles of the Apostles Creed contain all necessary matters of simple belief what hath Mr. S. to say against this I am sure the Roman Catechism set forth by the Decree of the Council of Trent says as much as this comes to viz. That the Apostles having received a command to preach the Gospel to every creature thought fit to compose a form of Christian Faith namely to this end that they might all think and speak the same things and that there might be no Schisms among those whom they had called to the unity of Faith but that they might all be perfect in the same sense and the same opinion And this Profession of the Christian Faith and Hope so fram'd by them the Apostles called the Symbole or Creed Now how this end of bringing men to unity of Faith and making them perfectly of the same sense and opinion could probably be attained by means of the Creed if it did not contain all necessary Points of simple belief I can by no means understand Besides a certain catalogue of Fundamentals is as necessary for them as for us and when Mr. S gives in his ours is ready Mr. Chillingworth had a great desire to have seen Mr. Knott's catalogue of Fundamentals and challenged him to produce it and offered him very fairly that when ever he might with one hand receive his he would with the other deliver his own But Mr. Knott though he still persisted in the same demand
a guide appointed for any Christian which neither Christ nor his Apostles nor any of their Followers ever mentioned yea which formally destroys one of our twelve Articles of the Apostles Creed viz. I believe the Holy Catholick Church Thus he does by Reason clearly and infallibly evince that Reason cannot be otherwise than a most blind and fallible guide This it is to talk of things when a man looks only upon one side of them as if because Reason has a blind side and is uncertain in some things therefore we ought to conclude her universally blind and uncertain in every thing and as if because all men cannot think all things reasonable which any one man thinks to be so therefore it is to be doubted whether those common Principles of Reason be true which Mankind are generally agreed in And that Mr. Cressy speaks here of the use of our private Reason in the finding out of our Rule is clear from what he says in the next Section viz. That this hood-wink't guide enquiring into Scripture and searching after Tradition may possibly stumble upon the way to Vnity and Truth that is the true Catholick Church If this be true why does Mr. S. pretend that he can by Reason demonstrate the Infallibility of Tradition and by this hood-wink't guide lead men to the true Rule of Faith And what a pitiful encouragement would this be to an inquisitive Philosopher who knowing no other guide but his Reason whereby to find out whether Scripture or Tradition be the true Rule to tell him that by the help of this hood-wink't guide he might possibly stumble upon the right A man may justly stand amazed at the inconsistency of these mens Discourses and Principles In one mood they are all for Demonstration and for convincing men in the way of perfect Science which is the true Rule of Faith But then again when another fit takes them there 's no such thing as Science humane Reason grows all on the sudden dim-sighted and at the next word is struck stark blind and then the very utmost that it can do towards the bringing of an unprejudiced and inquisitive person to the true Rule of Faith is to leave him in a possibility of stumbling upon it but if he be a Heretick that makes use of private Reason for his guide then it is impossible but that he with his blind guide should fall into the Pit I cannot for my part imagine how they can reconcile the blindness of humane Reason with all that noise which they make about Science and Demonstration but this I must confess that these kind of Discourses which I meet with in Mr. S. and Mr. Cressy are very proper Arguments to perswade a man of the blindness of humane Reason And indeed there is one passage in Mr. Cressy which gives me very great satisfaction concerning these matters where he tells us That the Wit and Judgment of Catholicks is to renounce their own Judgment and depose their own Wit Now he that professes to have done this may write Contradictions and no body ought to challenge him for it However it is a very ingenuous acknowledgment that when he forsook our Church and turned Papist he laid aside his Judgment and Wit which is just such an heroick act of Judgment as if a man in a bravery to shew his liberty should sell himself for a slave I am glad to understand from an experienced Person what charges a man must be at when he turns Roman-Catholique namely that whoever will embrace that Religion must forfeit his Reason § 3. Secondly The way of Demonstration is according to Mr. S. no certain way to find out the Rule of Faith In his 4th Appendix against my Lord of Down one of the Eight Mines as he calls them which he lays to blow up my Lords Dissuasive against Popery is this That the method he takes in dissuading cannot be held in reason to have power to dissuade unless it be proper to that effect that is not common to that effect and a contrary one Now that being most evidently no method or way to such an effect which many follow and take yet arrive not at that effect 't is plain to common sense that my Lord of Down miscalls his Book A Dissuasive and that it can have in it no power of moving the understanding one way or other unless he can first vouch some particularity in the method he takes above what 's in others in which we experience miscarriage c. If this be true then his method of Demonstration is no way to make men certain of what he pretends to demonstrate because that is most evidently no way to an effect which many follow and take yet arrive not at that effect so that 't is plain to common sense that Mr. S's Demonstrations can have in them no power of moving the understanding one way or other unless he can vouch some particularity in the Demonstrations he pretends to bring above what is in other pretended Demonstrations in which we experience miscarriage Do not Thomas and Scotus as Mr. White tells us all along pretend to demonstrate and yet it is generally believed that at least where they contradict one another one of them failed in his Demonstrations Did not Mr. Charles Thynne pretend to have demonstrated that a man at one jump might leap from London to Rome and yet I do not think any one was ever satisfy'd with his Demonstration And Mr. S. knows one in the World whom I will not name because he hath since ingenuously acknowledged his Errour who thought he had demonstrated the Quadrature of the Circle and was so confident of it as to venture the reputation of his Demonstrations in Divinity upon it and some of those Divinity Demonstrations were the very same with Mr. S's Since therefore the World hath experienced so much miscarriage in the way of Demonstration before Mr. S's Demonstrations can be allowed to signifie any thing he must according to his own Law vouch some particularity in his way and method of Demonstration above what is in other mens He hath not any where that I remember told us what that particularity is wherein his way of Demonstration is above other mens Nor can I upon the most diligent search find any peculiar advantage that his Way has more than theirs above mentioned unless this be one that he pretends to demonstrate a self-evident Principle and herein I think he hath plainly the advantage of Mr. Charles Thynne and unless this may be counted another advantage that he has so extraordinary a confidence and conceit of his own Demonstrations and in this particular I must acknowledge that he clearly excels all that have gone before him In all other things his way of Demonstration is but like his neighbours SECT II. § 1. I Come now to examine his Demonstrations of this Self-evident Principle as he often calls it that Oral Tradition is a certain and infallible way of
that can be imagined it might then have taken place for what Weeds would not have grown in so rank a Soyl Doth Mr. S. think it impossible that those that were born in the Church then should be ignorant of the Doctrine of Christ when scarce any one would take the pains to teach it them or that it could then have been altered when so few understood and fewer practised it When ptodigious Impiety and Wickedness did overspread the Church from the Pope down to the meanest of the Laity can any one believe that men generally made Conscience to instruct their Children in the true Faith of Christ Was it impossible there should be any neglect of this Duty when all others failed That there should be any mistake about the Doctrine of Christ when there was so much Ignorance unless he be of Mr. Rushworth's mind who reckons Ignorance among the Parents of Religion Where were then the Arguments of Hope and Fear Were they strongly applied or were they not Were they causes of actual will in Christians to believe well when they lived so ill Or is Christianity only fitted to form mens minds to a right belief but of no efficacy to govern their lives Hath Christ taken care to keep his Church from Error but not from Vice As the great Cardinal Perron stooping below his own Wit and Reason to serve a bad Cause tells us That the Church sings and will sing to the end of the World I am black but I am fair that is to say I am black in Manners but fair in Doctrine As if the meaning of the Prophesies and Promises of Scripture made to the Church were this that by the extraordinary care of Gods Providence and peculiar assistance of his Holy Spirit she should be wicked but Orthodox to the end of the World Where were then the vigorous causes imprinting Christ's Doctrine and continuing it more particularly at Rome than any where else and of securing that See and its supreme Pastor in the faith and practice of the Christian Doctrine above any other See or Pastor whatsoever Who is so little versed in History as not to understand the dismal state of Religion in the Romish Church in those times Who does not know what advantages the Bishops of Rome and their servile Clergy made of the ignorance and superstition of those and the succeeding Ages and by what Arts and steps they raised themselves to that power which they held in the Church for a long while after When they could tread upon the necks of Princes and make a great King walk bare-foot and yield himself to be scourged by a company of petulant Monks When they could send any man upon an Errand to visit the holy Sepulchre or the Shrine of such a Saint and command five or six Kings with great Armies upon a needless expedition into the Holy Land that so during their absence they might play their own Game the better When they could mint Miracles and impose upon the belief of the People without the authority of any ancient Books absurd and counterfeit Tales of ancient Saints and Martyrs as delivered down to them by Tradition and could bring that foppish Book the Legend almost into equal Authority and Veneration with the Bible and perswade the easy people that St. Denys carried his own head in his hand after it was cut off two miles and kiss'd it when he laid it down Any one that shall but reflect upon the monstrous practises of the Roman Bishops and Clergy in these Ages the strange Feats they played and what absurdities they imposed upon the superstitious credulity of Princes and People may readily imagine not only the possibility but the easiness of innovating new Doctrines as they pleased under the specious pretences of Antitiquity and constant and uninterrupted Tradition § 8. And this kind of Discourse concerning the possibility of Errors coming into the Church is not as Mr. White ridiculously compares it as if an Orator should go about to perswade people that George by the help of a long staff and a nimble cast of his body and such like advantages might leap over Paul 's Steeple never considering all the while the disproportion of all these advantages to the height of the Steeple so saith he he that discourseth at large how Errors use to slide into mans life without comparing the power of the causes of Error to the strength of resisting which consists in this Principle Nothing is to be admitted but what descends by Tradition c. says no more towards proving an Error 's over-running the Church than the Orator for George 's leaping over the Steeple How vain is this When it appears from this Instance that I have given of the state of the Roman Church in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries and afterwards that the causes of Error were infinitely stronger than the power of resistance The great causes of Error are Ignorance and Vice where Ignorance reigns there 's no Power where Vice no Will to resist it And how great the Ignorance and Viciousness of all orders of men in the Roman Church was is too too apparent from the Testimonies I have brought Where was the strength of resisting Error when for 150 years together the Popes were the vilest of men Bishops and Priests overwhelmed with Ignorance abandoned to all manner of vice and most supinely negligent in instructing the People In such a degenerate state of a Church what strength is there in this Principle Nothing is to be admitted but what descends by Tradition When those who ought to teach men what that Doctrine is which was derived to them by Tradition are generally careless of their Duty and ignorant themselves what that Doctrine is When they addict themselves wholly to the satisfying of their Ambition and other Lusts and carry on designs of Gain and getting Dominion over the People What can hinder men so disposed from corrupting the Doctrine of Christ and suiting it to their own Lusts and Interests And what shall hinder the People from embracing those Corruptions when by the negligence of their Pastors to instruct them and not only so but also by their being deprived of the Scriptures in a known Tongue they are become utterly incapable of knowing what the true Doctrine of Christ is So that in an Age of such profound Ignorance and Vice and general neglect of Instruction 't is so far from being impossible for Errors to over-run a Church that the contrary is morally impossible and George's long staff and advantagious cast of his Body are more powerful causes to enable him to leap over Paul's Steeple than this Principle That nothing is to be admitted but what descends by Tradition is to keep Errors out of a Church in an ignorant and vicious Age when few or none are either able or willing to instruct men in the Truth For suppose this always to have been the Principle of Christians viz. That nothing is to be admitted as the
entertained as matters of faith His words are It being evident that we have but two ways of ordinary knowledg by acts of our soul or operations on our body that is by reason and experience the former of which belongs to Speculators or Doctors the second to Deliverers of what was received or Testifiers And this distinction he frequently admits not only in the present age of the Church but in any for the same reason will hold in all From hence I propose several Queries further to Mr. S. 1. If every one in the Church looked on himself as bound to believe just as the precedent age did whence came any to have particular opinions of their own For either the Church had delivered her sense in that case or not if not then tradition is no certain conveyer of the doctrine of Christ if she had then those who vented private speculations were Hereticks in so doing because they opposed that doctrine which the Church received from Christ and his Apostles If Mr. S. replies that private speculations are in such cases where there is no matter of faith at all he can never be able to help himself by that distinction in the case of his own Church for I demand whether is it a matter of faith that men ought to believe oral tradition infallible If not how can men ground their faith upon it If it be then either some are meer speculators in matters of faith or all who believe on the account of the Popes infallibility are Hereticks for so doing 2. If there were speculators in former ages as well as this whether did those men believe their own speculations or no If not then the Fathers were great Impostors who vented those speculations in the Church which they did not believe themselves And it is plain Mr. S. speaks of such opinions which the asserters of do firmly believe to be true And if they did then they look on themselves as bound to believe something which was not founded on the tradition of the Church and consequently did not own oral tradition as the rule of faith So that as many speculators as we find in the Churh so many testifiers we have against the infallibility of oral tradition 3. Whether those persons who did themselves believe those opinions to be true did not think themselves obliged to tell others they ought to believe them and consequently to deliver these as matters of faith to their children Let Mr. S. shew me any inconsequence in this but that it unavoidably follows upon his principles that they were bound to teach their Children what themselves received as the doctrine of Christ and that the obligation is in all respects equal as if they had believed these things on the account of oral tradition 4. If Children be obliged to believe what their Parents teach them for matters of faith then upon Mr. S's own concessions is not posterity bound to believe something which originally came not from Christ or his Apostles For it appears in this case that the first rise was from a private opinion of some Doctors of the Church but they believing these opinions themselves think themselves obliged to propagate them to others and by reason of their learning and authority these opinions may by degrees gain a general acceptance in the ruling part of the Church and all who believe them true think they ought to teach them their Children and Children they are to believe what their Parents teach them Thus from Mr. S's own principles things that never were delivered by Christ or his Apostles may come to be received as matters of faith in the present Church Thus the intelligent Reader needs no bodies help but Mr. S. to let him understand how Invocation of Saints Purgatory Transubstantiation c. though never delivered either by Christ or his Apostles may yet now be looked on as articles of faith and yet no age of the Church conspire to deceive another Either then Mr. S. must say there never were any private opinators or speculators in the Church as distinct from testifiers and then he unavoidably contradicts himself or he must deny that posterity is bound to believe what their fore-fathers delivered them as matters of faith which destroys the force of his whole demonstration Perhaps he will answer that Children are not bound to believe what barely their Parents or any other number of persons might deliver as matters of faith but what the whole Church of every age delivers This though the only thing to be said in the case yet is most unreasonable because it runs men upon inextricable difficulties in the way of their resolving faith For suppose any Children taught by their Parents what they are to believe Mr. S. must say they are not bound to believe them presently but to enquire whether they agree with the whole Church of that age first before they can be obliged to assent Which being an impossible task either for Children or men of age to find out in the way of oral tradition this way of resolving faith doth but offer a fairer pretence for infidelity For we see how impossible it is for Mr. S. to make it appear that their Church is agreed about the rule of faith for by his own confession the far greater number as speculators oppose the way asserted by him how much more difficult then must it needs be to find out what the sense of the whole essential Church is in all matters which Parents may teach their Children for doctrines of faith So that if Children are not bound to believe what their Parents teach them till they know they teach nothing but what the whole Church teaches it is the most compendious way to teach them they are not bound to believe at all But if this distinction be admitted as Mr. S. makes much use of it then it appears how errors may come into the Church at first under the notion of speculations and by degrees to be delivered as points of faith by which means those things may be received in the Church for such which were never delivered by Christ or his Apostles and yet no age conspire to deceive the next which was the thing to be shewed This is one way of shewing how errors may come into the Church without one ages conspiring to deceive the next but besides this there are several others I might insist upon but I shall mention only two more 1. Misinterpreting the sence of Scripture 2. Supposing it in the power of some part of the Church to oblige the whole in matters of faith For the first we are to consider that no imaginable account can be given either of the writing or universal reception of the Books of the New Testament if they were not designed for the preservation of the doctrine of Christ. And although it should be granted possible for the main and fundamental articles of Christian faith such as the Apostles Creed gives a summary account of to have been preserved by
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
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
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
is to shew that this way is repugnant to common sense and experience and that the Church of Rome hath apparently altered from what was the belief of former ages To which purpose my words are It is to no purpose to prove impossibility of motion when I see men move no more is it to prove that no age of the Church could vary from the preceding when we can evidently prove that they have done it And therefore this argument is intended only to catch easie minds that care not for a search into the history of the several ages of the Church but had rather sit down with a superficial subtilty than spend time in further enquiries But two things M. S. tells me are required ere I can see that their faith varies from the former first to see what their Church holds now and then to see what the former Church held before and he kindly tells me if he sees any thing I see neither well It seems I want Mr. S's spectacles of oral tradition to see with but as yet I have no cause to complain of the want of them but I see much better without them than with them He tells me I cannot see what their present Church holds and therefore I cannot assure any what was held before because if I renounce tradition I take away all means of knowing The reason why I cannot candidly see as he phrases it what their Church holds now is because I cannot distinguish between faith and its explication some Schoolmen and the Church By which it seems it is impossible for me to know what their Church holds concerning Invocation of Saints Worship of Images Communion in one kind for those are the points I there mention wherein it is evident that the Church of Rome hath receded from the doctrine and practise of the primitive Church Or are these only the opinions and practises of some Schoolmen among them and not the doctrine and practise of their Church But that we might come to some fuller state of these controversies I wish M. S. would settle some sure way whereby we might know distinctly what are the doctrines and practices of their Church If the Council of Trent and Roman Catechism be said to be the rule of doctrine I desire no other so that those may be interpreted by practices universally allowed among them As when that Council only defined that due honour be given to Saints the general practice of that Church may tell us what they mean by that due honour and if that be not fair I know not what is But I see all the shift Mr. S. hath is when he is pinched to say these are the opinions of Schoolmen and private speculators and not the doctrine of their Church And if such shifts as these are must serve the turn I should wonder if ever he be to seek for an answer But the shortest answer of all would be that none but those of their Church can know what she holds and therefore it is to no purpose for Protestants to write against her or it may be that none but Mr S. and one or two more can tell for many among them say those are the doctrines of their Church which they deny to be So that except Mr. White and Mr. S. and some very few demonstrators more all the rest are School-men private Opinators and not to be relied on But I cannot see what their Church held formerly neither No wonder at all of that for if I cannot see an object so near me as the present Church how can it be expected I should see one so much further off as the doctrine of former ages And his reason is so strong as may well perswade me out of one at least of my five senses For saith he if I question tradition I question whether there be any doctrine delivered and so any Fathers And is not this argued like a Demonstrator First he supposes there never was any way used in the world but oral tradition and then strongly infers if I deny that I can know nothing But I can yet hardly perswade my self that the Fathers only sate in Chimney-corners teaching their Children by word of mouth and charging them to be sure to do so to theirs but as they loved preserving the doctrine of faith they should have a great care never to write down a word of it But why I wonder should Mr. S. think that if I do not allow of oral tradition I must needs question whether there were any Fathers I had thought I might have known there had been Fathers by their Children I mean the Books they left behind them But if all Mr. S. pleads for be only this that no Books can be certainly conveyed without tradition he dispute's without an adversary but as I never opposed this so I am sure it doth him little service It is then from the Books of the Fathers that I find what the sense of the Church of their age was and from thence I have shewed how vastly different the opinions and practices of the Roman Church are from those of the primitive Although then I may not think my self obliged to believe all that the present Church delivers for matter of faith yet I hope I may find what the opinions and practice of the former Church were by the records that are left of it And the reason why I cannot think any one obliged to believe what every age of the Church delivers is because I think no man obliged to believe contradictions and I see the opinions and practices of several ages apparently contrary to each other Well but I call this way a superficial subtilty and so I think it still so little have Mr. S's demonstations wrought upon me But saith he is that which is wholly built on the nature of things superficial No but that which pretends to be so built may And of that nature I have shewed this way to be and not the former But that I may not think him superficial as well as his way he puts a profound Question to me What do I think Controversie is and that he may the better let me know what it is he answers himself I deal plainly with you saith he you may take it to be an art of talking and I think you do so though you will not profess it but I take it to be a noble science But to let him see that I will deal as plainly with him as he doth with me I will profess it that I not only think Controversie as usually managed but some mens way of demonstrating Mr. S. may easily know whom I mean to be a meer art of talking and nothing else But he takes it to be a noble science yes doubtless if Mr. S. manage it and he be the judg of it himself His meaning I suppose is by his following words that he goes upon certain principles and we do not We have already seen how certain his principles have
in reason he ought to have done before he had forsaken us I shall declare it more particularly in these following Proposiâ—ions § 2. 1. That the Doctrine of Christian Religion was by Christ delivered to the Apostles and by them first preached to the World and afterwards by them committed to Writing which Writings or Books have been transmitted from one age to another down to us So far I take to be granted by our present Adversaries That the Christian Doctrine was by Christ delivered to the Apostles and by them publish'd to the World is part of their own Hypothesis That this Doctrine was afterwards by the Apostles committed to writing he also grants Corol. 29. 'T is certain the Apostles taught the same Doctrine they writ and if so it must be as certain that they writ the same Doctrine which they taught I know it is the general Tenet of the Papists that the Scriptures do not contain the entire body of Christian Doctrine but that besides the Doctrines contained in Scripture there are also others brought down to us by oral or unwritten Tradition But Mr. S. who supposeth the whole Doctrine of Christian Religion to be certainly conveyed down to us solely by oral Tradition doth not any where that I remember deny that all the same Doctrine is contained in the Scriptures only he denies the Scriptures to be a means sufficient to convey this Doctrine to us with certainty so that we can by them be infallibly assured what is Christ's Doctrine and what not Nay he seems in that passage I last cited to grant this in saying that the Apostles did both teach and write the same Doctrine I am sure Mr. White whom he follows very closely throughout his whole Book does not deny this in his Apology for Tradition where he saith that it is not the Catholick position that all its Doctrines are not contained in the Scriptures And that those Writings or Books which we call the Holy Scriptures have been transmitted down to us is unquestionable matter of fact and granted universally by the Papists as to all those Books which are owned by Protestants for Canonical § 3. Secondly That the way of Writing is a sufficient means to convey a Doctrine to the knowledg of those who live in times very remote from the age of its first delivery According to his Hypothesis there is no possible way of conveying a Doctrine with certainty and security besides that of oral Tradition the falshood of which will sufficiently appear when I shall have shewn that the true properties of a Rule of Faith do agree to the Scriptures and not to oral Tradition In the mean time I shall only offer this to his consideration that whatever can be orally delivered in plain and intelligible words may be written in the same words and that a Writing or Book which is publick and in every ones hand may be conveyed down with at least as much certainty and security and with as little danger of alteration as an oral Tradition And if so I understand not what can render it impossible for a Book to convey down a Doctrine to the knowledg of after-ages Besides if he had looked well about him he could not but have apprehended some little inconvenience in making that an essential part of his Hypothesis which is contradicted by plain and constant experience For that any kind of Doctrine may be sufficiently conveyed by Books to the knowledg of after-ages provided those Books be but written intelligibly and preserved from change and corruption in the conveyance both which I shall be so bold as to suppose possible is as little doubted by the generality of mankind as that there are Books And surely we Christians cannot think it impossible to convey a Doctrine to posterity by Books when we consider that God himself pitched upon this way for conveyance of the Doctrine of the Jewish Religion to after-ages because it is not likely that so wise an Agent should pitch upon a means whereby it was impossible he should attain his end § 4. Thirdly That the Books of Scripture are sufficiently plain as to all things necessary to be believed and practised He that denies this ought in reason to instance in some necessary point of Faith or matter of Practice which is not in some place of Scripture or other plainly delivered For it is not a sufficient objection to say that the greatest wits among the Protestants differ about the sense of those Texts wherein the generality of them suppose the Divinity of Christ to be plainly and clearly expressed Because if nothing were to be accounted sufficiently plain but what it is impossible a great wit should be able to wrest to any other sense not only the Scriptures but all other Books and which is worst of all to him that makes this objection all oral Tradition would fall into uncertainty Doth the Traditionary Church pretend that the Doctrine of Christ's Divinity is conveyed down to her by oral Tradition more plainly than it is expressed in Scripture I would fain know what plainer words she ever used to express this point of Faith by than what the Scripture useth which expresly calls him God the true God God over all blessed for evermore If it be said that those who deny the Divinity of Christ have been able to evade these and all other Texts of Scripture but they could never elude the definitions of the Church in that matter it is easily answered that the same Arts would equally have eluded both but there was no reason why they should trouble themselves so much about the latter for why should they be solicitous to wrest the definitions of Councils and conform them to their own opinion who had no regard to the Churches Authority If those great Wits as he calls them had believed the sayings of Scripture to be of no greater authority than the definitions of Councils they would have answered texts of Scripture as they have done the definitions of Councils not by endeavouring to interpret them to another sense but by downright denying their Authority So that it seems that oral Tradition is liable to the same inconvenience with the written as to this particular § 5. And of this I shall give him a plain instance in two great Wits of their Church the present Pope and Mr. White the one the Head of the Traditionary Church as Mr. S. calls it the other the great Master of the Traditionary Doctrine These two great Wits notwithstanding the plainness of oral Tradition and the impossibility of being ignorant of it or mistaking it have yet been so unhappy as to differ about several points of Faith insomuch that Mr. White is unkindly censured for it at Rome and perhaps here in England the Pope speeds no better however the difference continues still so wide that Mr. White hath thought fit to disobey the summons of his chief Pastor and like a prudent man rather to write against him here out
know that these are the Books of Scripture yet these Books are the next and immediate means whereby we come to know what is Christs Doctrine and consequently what we are to believe § 8. Nor doth this Concession make Oral Tradition to be the Rule of Faith by a parity of Reason as if because we acknowledge that Oral Tradition can with sufficient certainty transmit a Book to After ages we must therefore grant that it can with as much certainty convey a doctrine consisting of several Articles of Faith nay very many as Mr. White acknowledges and many Laws and Precepts of Life So because Oral Tradition sufficiently assures us that this is Magna Charta and that the Statute-Book in which are contain'd those Laws which it concerns every man to be skilful in therefore by like parity of Reason it must follow that Tradition it self is better than a Book even the best way imaginable to convey down such Laws to us Mr. S. saith expresly it is but how truly I appeal to experience and the wisdom of our Law-givers who seem to think otherwise Tradition is already defin'd to us a delivery down from hand to hand of the sense and faith of Fore-fathers i. e. of the Gospel or message of Christ. Now suppose any Oral message consisting of an hundred particularities were to be delivered to an hundred several persons of different degrees of understanding and memory by them to be conveyed to an hundred more who were to convey it to others and so onwards to a hundred descents Is it probable this Message with all the particularities of it would be as truly conveyed through so many mouths as if it were written down in so many Letters concerning which every Bearer should need to say no more than this That it was delivered to him as a Letter written by him whose name was subscribed to it I think it not probable though the mens lives were concerned every one for the faithful delivery of his Errand or Letter For the Letter is a message which no man can mistake in unless he will but the Errand so difficult and perplexed with its multitude of particulars that it is an equal wager against every one of the Messengers that he either forgets or mistakes something in it it is ten thousand to one that the first Hundred do not all agree in it it is a Million to one that the next Succession do not all deliver it truly for if any one of the first Hundred mistook or forgot any thing it is then impossible that he that received it from him should deliver it right and so the farther it goes the greater change it is liable to Yet after all this I do not say but it may be demonstrated in Mr. S's way to have more of certainty in it than the Original Letter § 9. Thirdly We allow That the Doctrine of Christian Religion hath in all Ages been preached to the People by the Pastors of the Church and taught by Christian Parents to their Children but with great difference by some more plainly and truly and perfectly by others with less care and exactness according to the different degrees of ability and integrity in Pastors or Parents and likewise with very different success according to the different capacities and dispositions of the Learners We allow likewise That there hath been a constant course of visible actions conformable in some measure to the Principles of Christianity but then we say that those outward acts and circumstances of Religion may have undergone great variations and received great change by addition to them and defalcation from them in several Ages That this not only is possible but hath actually happened I shall shew when I come to answer his Demonstrations Now that several of the the main Doctrines of Faith contained in the Scriptute and actions therein commanded have been taught and practised by Christians in all Ages as the Articles summed up in the Apostles Creed the use of the two Sacraments is a good evidence so far that the Scriptures contain the Doctrine of Christian Religion But then if we consider how we come to know that such points of Faith have been taught and such external Actions practised in all Ages it is not enough to say there is a present multitude of Christians that profess to have received such Doctrines as ever believed and practised and from hence to infer that they were so the inconsequence of which Argument I shall have a better occasion to shew afterwards But he that will prove this to any mans satisfaction must make it evident from the best Monuments and Records of several Ages that is from the most Authentick Books of those times that such Doctrines have in all those Ages been constantly and universally taught and practised But then if from those Records of former times it appear that other Doctrines not contained in the Scriptures were not taught and practised universally in all Ages but have crept in by degrees some in one Age and some in another according as Ignorance and Superstition in the People Ambition and Interest in the chief Pastors of the Church have ministred occasion and opportunity and that the Innovators of these Doctrines and Practises have all along pretended to confirm them out of Scripture as the acknowledged Rule of Faith and have likewise acknowledged the Books of Scripture to have descended without any material corruption or alteration all which will sufficiently appear in the process of my Discourse then cannot the Oral and practical Tradition of the present Church concerning any Doctrine as ever believed and practised which hath no real foundation in Scripture be any argument against these Books as if they did not fully and clearly contain the Christian Doctrine And to say the Scripture is to be interpreted by Oral and Practical Tradition is no more reasonable than it would be to interpret the antient Books of the Law by the present practise of it which every one that compares things fairly together must acknowledg to be full of deviations from the antient Law SECT V. § 1. 2 dly HOw much more he attributes to his Rule of Faith than we think fit to attribute to ours 1. We do not say that it is impossible in the nature of the thing that this Rule should fail that is either that these Books should cease to descend or should be corrupted This we do not attribute to them because there is no need we should We believe the providence of God will take care of them and secure them from being either lost or materially corrupted yet we think it very possible that all the Books in the World may be burnt or otherwise destroyed All that we affirm concerning our Rule of Faith is that it is abundantly sufficient if men be not wanting to themselves to convey the Christian Doctrine to all successive Ages and we think him very unreasonable that expects that God should do more than what is abundantly
its end For if it be not plain and intelligible it cannot convey this Doctrine to our knowledg if it be not certain we cannot be assured that that Doctrine which it brings down to us for the Doctrine of Christ is really such § 3. I know he assigns more Properties of this Means which he calls the Rule of Faith but upon examination it will appear that they either fall in with these two or do not at all belong to it As First That it must be plain and self-evident to all as to its existence Nothing can be more frivolous than to make this a Property of any thing because whosoever enquires into the Properties of a thing is supposed to be already satisfied that the thing is Secondly That it be evidenceable as to its Ruling power that is as he explains himself that men be capable of knowing that it deserves to be relied on as a Rule By which he must either understand the certainty of it and then it falls in with the second Property I mentioned and is the same with the sixth which he lays down Or else he means more generally that it is the property of a Rule that men be capable of knowing that it hath the Properties of a Rule For I understand not how a man can know that any thing deserves to be relied on as a Rule otherwise than by knowing that it hath the properties of a Rule that is that it is sufficient for its end But at this rate a man may multiply the Properties of things without end if the evidence of a thing as to its existence be one Property and then that we be capable of knowing that it is such a thing be another § 4. Thirdly That it be apt to settle and justifie undoubting Persons What he means here by setling undoubting Persons I am not able on the sudden to comprehend because I understand not what unsettles a man besides doubting for if a man be but so well satisfied about any thing as to have no doubt concerning it I do not easily apprehend how he can be setled better that is how his mind can be more at rest than not to doubt But if by undoubting Persons he means those who do not doubt for the present but afterwards may doubt then I perceive what he means by apt to settle undoubting Persons viz. apt to settle Persons when they do doubt that is when they are not undoubting Persons As for justifying undoubting Persons if he means that whosoever securely relies on this Rule ought of right to be acquitted as acting rationally in so doing this is plainly consequent upon the two Properties I have laid down For if the means of conveying Christ's Doctrine be sufficiently plain and certain every man that relies upon it is justified in so doing because he trusts a means which is sufficient for its end § 5. Fourthly That it be apt to satisfie fully the most Sceptical Dissenters and Rational Doubters For it 's aptitude to satisfie Rational Doubters that plainly follows from the sufficient certainty of it But why it should be a necessary property of a Rule of Faith to be apt to satisfie the most Sceptical Dissenter I can no more divine than I can why he should call a Dissenter Sceptical which are repugnant terms For a Sceptick is one who neither assents to any thing nor dissents but is in a perpetual suspence because he looks upon every opinion as balanced by a contrary opinion of equal probability without any inclination of the Scales either way But if by the most Sceptical Dissenter he means only a Sceptick one that doth not believe the Doctrine of Christ nor any thing else then would I fain know what that is which in reason is apt fully to satisfie such a person If any thing will sure a Demonstration will but there is no aptitude at all in a Demonstration to satisfie him who doubts whether there be any such thing as a Demonstration and likewise questions the certainty of all those Principles from whence any conclusion can be demonstrated And those who are most Sceptical profess to doubt of all this § 6. Fifthly That it be apt to convince the most obstinate and acute Adversary If the Rule be plain and certain the most acute Adversary may be convinced by it if he will that is if he be not obstinate but if he be obstinate that is such a one as will not be convinced but will persist in his Error in despite of all evidence that can be offered him then I must profess that I do not know any kind of evidence that is apt to convince that man that will not be convinced by any reason that can be propounded to him And that he ought not to have expected this from any Rule of Faith though never so self-evident he might have learn't from the same Author in whom he may find his chief Properties of the Rule of Faith if he had but had the patience to have consider'd his Explication of them I mean Dr. Holden who layes down the second Property of the Rule of Faith or as he calls it the means whereby we come to the knowledge of Revealed Truth in these words Another viz. Condition of this Means c. is That it be apt of its own Nature to afford the greatest true and rational certainty to all men without exception to whom the knowledg of it shall come provided they be furnish'd with the faculty of Reason and have their minds purified from all Passion and Lust which do as he tells us Cap. 6. often hinder the most sagacious Persons from understanding the most evident and manifest Truths Now I suppose Obstinacy to be the effect of Passion and Lust. If Mr. S. mean that the Rule of Faith must be apt to conquer Obstinacy and make men lay it aside I cannot understand this neither unless he mean that the Rule of Faith must be a Cudgel which the Traditionary Church have been good at and may use it again when occasion serves for none but they have Title to it upon a Church-account as Mr. S. tells us Corol. 10. But setting aside this I do not know any thing else that is apt to conquer Obstinacy Not the clearest Reason or the strongest Demonstration for that I am sure is no ways fitted to combat a wilful and unreasonable humour with any probability of success And if any one doubt of this if he will but make trial he may easily be convinc'd by experience how unapt obstinate Persons are to be convinc'd by Reason I do not know any thing that ever carried greater evidence than the Doctrine of Christ preached by himself and his Apostles to the obstinate Jews and confirmed by multitudes of unquestionable miracles and yet we do not find by the success of it that it was so very apt to convince those that were obstinate And no man can judg of the aptitude of a means to an end
all with a great Secret of the Protestant Doctrine which it seems he hath hitherto been ignorant of for I am still more confirmed in my opinion that he forsook our Religion before he understood it that when they say the Scriptures are the Rule of Faith or the means whereby Christ's Doctrine is conveyed down to them they mean by the Scriptures Books written in such words as do sufficiently express the sense and meaning of Christ's Doctrine § 5. And to satisfy him that we are not absurd and unreasonable in supposing the Scriptures to be such a Book I would beg the favour of him to grant me these four things or shew reason to the contrary First That whatever can be spoken in plain and intelligible words and such as have a certain sense may be written in the same words Secondly That the same words are as intelligible when they are written as when they are spoken Thirdly That God if he please can endite a Book in as plain words as any of his creatures Fourthly That we have no reason to think that God affects obscurity and envies that men should understand him in those things which are necessary for them to know and which must have been written to no purpose if we cannot understand them St. Luke tells Theophilus that he wrote the History of Christ to him on purpose to give him a certain knowledg of those things which he writ But how a Book which hath no certain sense should give a man certain knowledg of things is beyond my capacity St. John saith that he purposely committed several of Christ's miracles to Writing that men might believe on Him But now had Mr. S. been at his elbow he would have advised him to spare his labour and would have given him this good reason for it because when he had written his Book no body would be able to find the certain sense of it without oral Tradition and that alone would securely and intelligibly convey both the Doctrine of Christ and the certain knowledg of those miracles which he wrought for the confirmation of it If these four things be but granted I see not why when we say that the Scriptures are the means of conveying to us Christ's Doctrine we may not be allow'd to understand by the Scriptures a Book which doth in plain and intelligible words express to us this Doctrine SECT III. 6 1. ANd now although this might have been a sufficient Answer to his Exceptions against the Scriptures as being incapable of the Properties of a Rule of Faith because all of them suppose that which is apparently false and absurd as granted by Protestants viz. That the Scriptures are only an heap of dead letters and insignificant characters without any sense under them and that oral Tradition is that only which gives them life and sense Yet because several of his Exceptions pretend to shew that the true Properties of a Rule of Faith do not at all appertain to the Scriptures therefore I shall give particular Answers to them and as I go along shew that Tradition is liable to all or most of those Exceptions and to far greater than those § 2. Whereas he says it cannot be evident to Protestants from their Principles that the Books of Scripture were originally written by men divinely inspired I will shew him that it may and then answer the reasons of this Exception It is evident from an universal constant and uncontrolled Tradition among Christians not only oral but written and from the acknowledgment of the greatest Adversaries of our Religion that these Books were originally written by the Apostles and Evangelists And this is not only a Protestant Principle but the Principle of all mankind That an undoubted Tradition is sufficient evidence of the Antiquity and Author of a Book and all the extrinsecal Argument that can ordinarily be had of a Book written long ago Next it is evident that the Apostles were men divinely inspired that is secured from error and mistake in the writing of this Doctrine from the miracles that were wrought for the confirmation of it Because it is unreasonable to imagine that the Divine power should immediately interpose for the confirmation of a Doctrine and give so eminent an attestation to the Apostles to convince the World that they were immediately appointed and commissioned by God and yet not secure them from error in the delivery of it And that such miracles were wrought is evident from as credible Histories as we have for any of those things which we do most firmly believe And this is better evidence that the Apostles were men divinely inspired than bare oral Tradition can furnish us withal For setting aside the authentick relation of these matters in Books it is most probable that oral Tradition of it self and without Books would scarce have preserved the memory of any of those particular miracles of our Saviour and his Apostles which are recorded in Scripture And for the probability of this I offer these two things to his consideration First No man can deny that memorable persons have lived and actions been done in the world innumerable whereof no History now extant makes any mention Secondly He himself will grant that our Saviour wrought innumerable more miracles than are recorded in Scripture And now I challenge him to shew the single vertue of oral Tradition by giving an account of any of those persons or their actions who lived 1500 or 2000 years ago besides those which are mentioned in Books or to give a catalogue but of ten of those innumerable miracles wrought by our Saviour which are nor recorded by the Evangelists with circumstances as punctual and particular as those are clothed withal If he can do this it will be a good evidence that oral Tradition singly and by it self can do something but if he cannot 't is as plain an evidence on the contrary that if those actions of former times and those miracles of our Saviour and his Apostles which are recorded in Books had never been written but entrusted solely to oral Tradition we should have heard as little of them at this day as we do of those that were not written § 3. Now to examine his Reasons for this Exception First He saith 't is most manifest that this cannot be made evident to the vulgar that Scripture was written by men divinely inspired This Reason is as easily answered by saying 't is most manifest that it can But besides saying so I have shewed how it may be made as evident to the vulgar as other things which they do most firmly and upon good grounds believe Even the rudest of the vulgar and those who cannot read do believe upon very good grounds that there was such a King as William the Conqueror and the miracles of Christ and his Apostles are capable of as good evidence as we have for this Secondly He says this cannot be evident to the curious and most speculative Searchers
but by so deep an inspection into the sense of Scripture as shall discover such secrets that Philosophy and human Industry could never have arrived to As if we could not be assured that any thing were written by men divinely inspired unless it were above the reach of human understanding and as if no man could know that this was our Saviours Doctrine Whatever ye would that men should do unto you that do ye likewise unto them because every one can understand it But if there were more mysteries in the Scriptures than there are I hope a man might be satisfied that they were written by men divinely inspired without a clear comprehension of all those mysteries The evidence of the inspiration of any person doth not depend upon the plaineness or sublimity of the things revealed to him but upon the goodness of the arguments which tend to perswade us that the person is so inspired And the Argument that is most fit to satisfy us of that is if he work miracles Now I would gladly know why a learned man cannot be assured of a miracle that is a plain sensible matter of Fact done long ago but by so deep an inspection into the sense of Scripture as shall discover such secrets that Philosophy and human Industry could never have arrived to § 4. Thirdly Because all the seeming contradictions of Scripture must be solved before we can out of the bare letter conclude the Scripture to be of God's enditing to solve which literally plainly and satisfactorily he tells us the memory of so many particulars which made them clearer to those of the Age in which they were written and the matter known must needs be so worn out by tract of time that it is one of the most difficult tasks in the World As if we could not believe a Book to be of God's enditing because there seem now to be some contradictions in it which we have reason to believe could easily have been solved by those who lived in the Age in which it was written Or as if oral Tradition could help a man to solve these contradictions when the memory of particulars necessary for the clear solution of them is as himself confesses worn out by tract of time If Mr. S. can in order to the solution of the seeming contradictions of Scripture demonstrate that oral Tradition hath to this day preserv'd the memory of those particulars necessary for that purpose the memory of which must needs be long since worn out by tract of time then I will readily yield that his Rule of Faith hath in this particular the advantage of ours But if he cannot do this why does he make that an Argument against our Rule which is as strong against his own This is just like Capt. Everard's Friend's way of arguing against the Protestants That they cannot rely upon Scripture because it is full of plain contradictions impossible to be reconciled and therefore they ought in all reason to submit to the infallibility of the Church And for an instance of such a contradiction he pitched upon the three fourteen Generations mentioned in the first of St. Matthew because the third Series of Generations if they be counted will be found to be but thirteen Not to mention now how this difficulty hath been sufficiently satisfied both by Protestant and Popish Commentators without any recourse to oral Tradition that which I take notice of is the unreasonableness of making this an Exception against the Protestants when it comes with every whit as much force upon themselves Suppose this Contradiction not capable of any solution by Protestants as he affirms and I should submit to the infallibility of the Church can he assure me that infallibility can make thirteen fourteen If it cannot how am I nearer satisfaction in this point by acknowledging the infallibility of the Church The case is the very same as to Mr S's Exception if I owned oral Tradition I should be never the nearer solving the seeming contradictions of Scripture and consequently I could not in Reason conclude it to be of God's enditing So that in truth these Exceptions if they were true would not strike at Protestancy but at Christian Religion which is the general unhappiness of most of the Popish Arguments than which there is no greater evidence that the Church of Rome is not the true Mother because she had rather Christianity should be destroyed than it should appear that any other Church hath a claim to it It was a work very proper for the Heretick Marcion to assault Religion this way who as Tertullian tells us writ a whole Book which he call'd Antitheses wherein he reckoned up all the Contradictions as he thought between the Old and New Testament But methinks it is very improper for the Papists who pretend to be the only true Christians in the World to strain their wits to discover as many contradictions as they can in the Scripture and to prove that there is no way of reconciling them The natural consequence of which is the exposing of this sacred Instrument of our Religion and even Christianity it self to the scorn of Atheists Therefore to be very plain with Mr. S. and Captain Everard I am heartily sorry to see that one of the chief fruits of their Conversion is to abuse the Bible § 5. Secondly He says that Protestants cannot know how many the Books of Scripture ought to be and which of the many controverted ones may be securely put in that Catalogue which not This he proves by saying 't is most palpable that few or at least the rude vulgar can never be assured of it And if this be a good Argument this again is a good Answer to say it is not most palpable But I shall deal more liberally and tell him that we know that just so many ought to be received as uncontroverted Books concerning which it cannot be shewn there was ever any Controversy and so many as controverted concerning which it appears that Question hath been made And if those which have been controverted have been since received by those Churches which once doubted of them there is now no further doubt concerning them because the Controversy about them is at an end And now I would fain know what greater certainty oral Tradition can give us of the true Catalogue of the Books of Scripture For it must either acknowledg some Books have been controverted or not if not why doth he make a supposition of controverted Books If oral Tradition acknowledg some to have been controverted then it cannot assure us that they have not been controverted nor consequently that they ought to be received as never having been controverted but only as such concerning which those Churches who did once raise a Controversy about them have been since satisfied that they are Canonical The Traditionary Church now receives the Epistle to the Hebrews as Canonical I ask Do they receive it as ever delivered for such That they must
a Hundred years to a Hundred but from Month to Month and even less If this be all that Tradition doth this is nothing but what is done among Protestants and that with greater advantage because we always teach Children to say their Prayers in a known Tongue so as they may understand them And we also teach them the Creed and Ten Commandments and the Sacraments so many as Christ hath instituted and no more So that if this be so infallible a way of conveying the Doctrine of Christianity we have it among us And we do over and besides instruct them in the Scriptures which are the authentick Instrument whereby Christ's Doctrine is conveyed to us But then we do not suppose as his Hypothesis necessarily enforceth him to do that the Christian Doctrine is equally taught and learned by all but by some more by others less perfectly according to the different abilities and diligence of Parents and Teachers and the various capacities and dispositions of Children whereas his Hypothesis falls if all or at least the generality of Parents do not instruct their Children with the like exactness and if the generality of Children do not receive this Doctrine in the same perfection that it is delivered For if it be taught or received with any variation it must necessarily be so conveyed and these variations will grow daily I had thought he would have told us how all Parents do teach their Children the whole Body of Christ's Doctrine and explain to them every part of it in a Hundred or a Thousand several expressions signifying the same sense and not have instanced in two Set-forms such as the Creed and Ten Commandments for according to Mr. White That cannot be a Tradition which is delivered in set-words § 2. Having thus explained Oral Tradition he comes to shew that the Properties of a Rule of Faith agree to it I have already shewed that the true Properties of a Rule of Faith are but two viz. That it be plain and intelligible and that it be sufficiently certain The first of these that Oral Tradition may deliver a Doctrine plainly and intelligibly I grant him All the difficulty is about the second Property whether we have sufficient assurance that the Doctrine delivered down by Oral Tradition hath received no coruption or change in its conveyance And all that he pretends to prove in this Discourse is That if this Rule hath been followed and kept to all along the Christian Doctrine neither hath nor can have received any change that is if the next Age after the Apostles did truly and without any alteration deliver the Christian Doctrine to their immediate Successors and they to theirs and so on then upon this supposition the Doctrine of the present Traditionary Church must be the very same with that which was delivered to the Apostles All this is readily granted to him But that this Rule hath always been followed nay that it is impossible there should have been any deviation from it as he pretends this we deny not only as untrue but as one of the most absurd Propositions that ever yet pretended to demonstrative evidence THE RULE of FAITH PART III. In which Mr. S's Demonstrations and Corollaries are examined SECT I. § 1. BEfore I come to speak particularly to his Demonstrations I shall premise these two Considerations First That according to the Principles of the Patrons of Tradition no man can by his private Reason certainly find out the true Rule of Faith Secondly That according to Mr. S. the way of Demonstration is no certain way to find out the Rule of Faith If either of these be made out his Demonstrations lose all their force If the first be made good then he cannot demonstrate the Infallibility of Tradition nor consequently that that is the Rule of Faith If the second then the way of Demonstration which he pretends to take signifies nothing § 2. First No man can according to the principles of the Patrons of Tradition by his private Reason certainly find out what is the Rule of Faith Suppose a Heathen to be desirous to inform himself of the Christian Faith in order to which he is inquisitive after some Rule by which he may take a measure of it and come certainly to know what it is He enquires of Christians what their Rule is and finds them divided about it some saying that the Scriptures others that Oral Tradition is the Rule In this case it is not possible without a Revelation for this man to find out the Rule of Faith but by his own private Reason examining and weighing the arguments and pretences of both sides And when he hath done this unless he can by his Reason demonstrate that the one is a certain and infallible Rule and the other not so he hath not according to Mr. S. found out the Rule of Faith But Reason can never do this according to Mr. S. For speaking of demonstrating the certainty of Tradition he tells us That Tradition hath for its Basis mans nature not according to his Intellectuals which do but darkly grope in the pursuit of Science c. And again speaking how Reason brings men to the Rule of Faith he uses this comparison She is like a dim-sighted man who used his Reason to find a trusty Friend to lead him in the twilight and then relied on his guidance rationally without using his own Reason at all about the Way it self So that according to him the certainty of Tradition cannot be founded on Demonstration because it is not founded in the intellectual part of man which only can demonstrate Besides if it were founded in the intellectual part yet that can never be able to demonstrate the certainty of Tradition because that faculty which is dim-sighted and does but grope darkly in the pursuit of Science is uncapable of framing Demonstrations Nor can any man understand how dim-sighted reason should see clearly to choose its guide any more than its way especially if it be considered what a pretty Contradiction it is to say that Reason as it is dim-sighted can see clearly But Mr. Cressy is not contented to call every mans Reason dim-sighted he ventures a step further and calls it hood-winkt and blind For he tells us That private Reason is apparently a most fallible guide and he pities my Lord Falkland's case because in the search of the true Religion he did betake himself to the casual conduct of blind humane natural Reason which afterwards he calls a guide that two persons cannot possibly follow together because no two persons that ever followed any other guide beside Authority did or could think all things to be reasonable that all others thought so and by consequence such a guide that as long as he continues in that office there cannot possibly be any Church any where which says he is an infallible eviction that this is an imaginary seducing guide since it is impossible that that should be
reasonable to be supposed or no may easily be determined not only from every man 's own experience of the World but from a more advantagious Instance of the experience of the first Age of Christianity Was there ever a more knowing and diligent Teacher of this Doctrine than our Saviour and yet his Disciples fell into many mistakes concerning it So that in order to the certain propagating of it the wisdom of God thought it requisite to endue even those who had learned this Doctrine from himself with an infallible spirit by which they might be led into all Truth and secured from error and mistake which had been unnecessary had it been impossible for them to mistake this Doctrine The Apostles who taught the World by an infallible Spirit and with infinitely more advantage than ordinary Parents can teach their Children yet in all the Churches which they planted they found Christians very apt to mistake and pervert their Doctrine as appears by their frequent complaints in most of their Epistles Nay the Apostle chargeth the Generality of the Hebrews with such a degree of dulness and stupidity that after fitting time and means of instruction they were still ignorant of the very Principles of Christianity So he tells them That when for the time they ought to be Teachers of others they had need that one should teach them again which be the first Principles of the Oracles of God And St. Hierom tells us That the Primitive Churches were tainted with many gross Errors whil'st the Apostles were alive and the blood of Christ yet warm in Judea But it may be there have been better Teachers since and Children are more apt to learn now than Men were then Who knows how the World may be changed § 2. Secondly This Demonstration supposeth the hopes and fears which Christian Religion applies to Mens minds to be certain and necessary causes of actual will in Men to adhere to the Doctrine of Christ and consequently that they must necessarily adhere to it That he supposeth them to be necessary I have his own word for it for he tells us That he hath endeavoured to demonstrate the indefectibleness of Tradition as the proper and necessary effect of those causes which preserve and continue Tradition on foot and what those causes are he told us before That they are Hopes and Fears strongly applied But I hope that the indefectibleness of Tradition cannot be a necessary effect of the strong application of those Hopes and Fears unless those Hopes and Fears be a necessary cause of that effect And indeed this is sufficiently implied in his saying that they are the causes of actual will in Christians to adhere to Tradition For if these causes of actual will be constant as he must suppose then they are certain and necessary and infallible causes of adhering to this Doctrine For whatever is in act is necessary while it is so and if it be constantly in act the effect is always necessary But what a wild Supposition is this That Moral Motives and Arguments working upon a free Principle the Will of Man do necessarily produce their Effect Is it necessary that the hopes of Heaven and the fears of Hell should keep Christians constant to the Doctrine of Christ and is it not as necessary that these arguments should prevail upon them to the practice of it It is in vain to go about to demonstrate that all men must be good who have sufficient arguments propounded to them when experience tells us the contrary Nay it is in reason impossible that Moral arguments should be of a necessary and infallible efficacy because they are always propounded to a free Agent who may choose whether he will yield to them or not Indeed it is always reasonable that men should yield to them and if they be reasonable they will but so long as they are free it can never be infallibly certain that they will And if men be not free it is no vertue at all in them to be wrought upon by these arguments For what vertue can it be in any man to entertain the Christian doctrine and adhere to it and live accordingly if he does all this necessarily that is whether he will or no and can no more choose whether he will do so or not than whether he will see the light when the Sun shines upon his open eyes or whether he will hear a sound when all the Bells in the Town are Ringing in his ears or to use Mr. S's own similitudes whether he will feel heat cold pain pleasure or any other material quality that affects his senses We see then how unreasonable his Suppositions are and yet without these Grounds his Demonstration falls For if it be possible that Christians may mistake or forget the Doctrine of Christ or any part of it or be defective in diligence to instruct others in it or if it be possible that the Will of man which is free may not be necessarily and infallibly swayed by the arguments of hope and fear then it is possible that Tradition may fail And is not this a good Demonstration which supports it self upon such Principles as do directly affront the constant experience and the clearest reason of Mankind § 3. And here I cannot but take notice how inconsistent he is to himself in laying the Grounds of Tradition's certainty In one Part of his Book he tells us That Tradition hath for its Basis the best Nature in the Vniverse that is Mans Not according to his Moral part defectible by reason of Original Corruption nor yet his Intellectuals darkly groping in the pursuit of Science c. But according to those Faculties in him perfectly and necessarily subject to the operations and strokes of Nature that is his Eyes Ears Handling and the direct impressions of knowledg as naturally and necessarily issuing from the affecting those senses as it is to feel heat cold pain pleasure or any other material quality So that according to this Discourse the Basis of Tradition is not Mans Nature considered as Moral and capable of Intellectual Reflection for in this consideration it is dark and defectible But Mans Nature considered only as capable of direct sensitive knowledg and as acting naturally and necessarily Which is to say That Tradition is foundded in the Nature of Man considered not as a Man but a Brute under which consideration I see no reason why he should call it the best Nature in the Vniverse But now how will he reconcile this Discourse with the Grounds of his Demonstration where he tells us That the stability of Tradition is founded in the Arguments of Hope and Fear the Objects of which being future and at a distance cannot work upon a man immediately by direct Impressions upon his senses but must work upon him by way of Intellectual Reflection and Consideration For I hope he will not deny but that the Arguments of Hope and Fear work upon man according to his
innovated have made the same pretence to uninterrupted Tradition Fourthly That it is not the present perswasion of the Church of Rome whom he calls the Traditionary Christians nor ever was that their Faith hath descended to them solely by Oral Tradition If I can now make good these four things I hope his Demonstration is at an end SECT VII § 1. THat these Principles wholly rely upon the truth of the Grounds of his Demonstration a Priori For if the Doctrine of Christ was either imperfectly taught in any Age or mistaken by the Learners or any part of it forgotten as it seems the whole Greek Church have forgot that fundamental Point of the Procession of the Holy Ghost as the Roman Church accounts it or if the Arguments of hope and fear be not necessary causes of actual will to adhere to Tradition then there may have been changes and innovations in any Age and yet men may pretend to have followed Tradition But I have shewn that Ignorance and Negligence and Mistake and Pride and Lust and Ambition and any other Vice or Interest may hinder those causes from being effectual to preserve Tradition entire and uncorrupted And when they do so it is not to be expected that those Persons who innovate and change the Doctrine should acknowledg that their new Doctrines are contrary to the Doctrine of Christ but that they should at first advance them as Pious and after they have prevailed and gained general entertainment then impudently affirm that they were the very Doctrines which Christ delivered which they may very securely do when they have it in their power to burn all that shall deny it § 2. I will give a clear Instance of the possibility of this in the Doctrine of Transubstantiation by shewing how this might easily come in in the Ninth or Tenth Age after Christ. We will suppose then that about this time when universal Ignorance and the genuine Daughter of it call her Devotion or Superstition had overspread the World and the generality of People were strongly enclined to believe strange things and even the greatest Contradictions were recommended to them under the notion of Mysteries being told by their Priests and Guides that the more contradictions any thing is to Reason the greater merit there is in believing it I say let us suppose that in this state of things one or more of the most eminent then in the Church either out of design or out of superstitious ignorance and mistake of the sense of our Saviour's words used in the Consecration of the Sacrament should advance this new Doctrine That the words of Consecration This is my Body are not to be understood by any kind of Trope as the like forms in Scripture are as I am the Vine I am the Door which are plain Tropes but being used about this great Mystery of the Sacrament ought in all reason to be supposed to contain in them some notable Mystery which they will do if they be understood of a real change of the substance of Bread and Wine made by vertue of these words into the real Body and Blood of our Saviour And in all this I suppose nothing but what is so far from being impossible that it is too usual for men either out of Ignorance or Interest to advance new Opinions in Religion And such a Doctrine as this was very likely to be advanced by the ambitious Clergy of that time as a probable means to draw in the People to a greater veneration of them which advantage Mr. Rushworth seems to be very sensible of when he tells us That the power of the Priest in this particular is such a priviledg as if all the learned Clerks that ever lived since the beginning of the World should have studied to raise advance and magnifie some one state of men to the highest pitch of Reverence and Eminency they could never without special light from Heaven have thought of any thing comparable to this I am of his mind that it was a very notable device but I am apt to think invented without any special light from Heaven Nor was such a Doctrine less likely to take and prevail among the People in an Age prodigiously ignorant and strongly enclined to Superstition and thereby well prepared to receive the grossest Absurdities under the notion of Mysteries especially if they were such as might seem to conciliate a greater honour and reverence to the Sacrament Now supposing such a Doctrine as this so fitted to the humor and temper of the Age to be once asserted either by chance or out of design it would take like wild-fire especially if by some one or more who bore sway in the Church it were but recommended with convenient gravity and solemnity And although Mr. Rushworth says It is impossible that the Authority of one man should sway so much in the World because sayes he surely the Devil himself would rather help the Church than permit so little pride among men yet I am not so thoroughly satisfied with this cunning reason For though he delivers it confidently and with a surely yet I make some doubt whether the Devil would be so forward to help the Church nay on the contrary I am enclined to think that he would rather choose to connive at this humble and obsequious temper in men in order to the overthrow of Religion than cross a design so dear to him by unseasonable temptations to pride So that notwithstanding Mr. Rushworth's reason it seems very likely that such a Doctrine in such an Age might easily be propagated by the influence and authority of one or a few great Persons in the Church For nothing can be more suitable to the easie and passive temper of superstitious Ignorance than to entertain such a Doctrine with all imaginable greediness and to maintain it with a proportionable zeal And if there be any wiser than the rest who make Objections against it as if this Doctrine were new and full of contradictions they may easily be born down by the stream and by the eminency and authority and pretended sanctity of those who are the heads of this Innovation And when this Doctrine is generally swallowed and all that oppose it are looked upon and punished as Hereticks then it is seasonable to maintain that this Doctrine was the doctrine of forefathers to which end it will be sufficient to those who are willing to have it true to bend two or three sayings of the Ancients to that purpose And as for the contradictions contained in this Doctrine it was but telling the People then as they do in effect now that contradictions ought to be no scruple in the way of Faith that the more impossible any thing is 't is the fitter to be believed that it is not praise-worthy to believe plain possibilities but that this is the gallantry and heroical power of Faith this is the way to oblige God Almighty for ever to us to believe flat and down-right
of the true and pure Doctrine c. viz. My self and many others again my self and as many Christians as are thoroughly of the right perswasion Secondly Who deny the Millennium Many Christians saith Justin but what Christians Of a right perswasion That saith he I have signified before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For I have shewed thee of them who are called Christians but are indeed Atheists and impious Hereticks that they teach blasphemous and atheistical and absurd things And true it is he did shew before that those who deny'd the Millennium were many in number and were called Christians c. but were Teachers of blasphemous and atheistical things c. and known to be Atheists and Impious c. But he shewed it of none other besides these So that if this Doctrine were likewise denied by many Christians of the pure and pious perswasion than Justin Martyr had foulely forgot himself But if not then it is plain that the Transcribers have wronged Justin by leaving out a Negative which ought to have been inserted It is worth observing by the way how Mr. White pleases himself with false and frivolous Criticisms upon the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 False they are as Mr. White shall know if he desires to hear any more of them and frivolous they are rendered by my preceding Discourse for which reason I say no more of them But I think he may do well hereafter as Mr. S. warily suggests not to engage himself nor be hook't by others out of his own infallible way but leave it wholly to the Bird-witted Hereticks as Mr. S. calls them to perch upon the specifical natures of Words as he does of Things § 9. Besides these Instances I have given of Doctrines and Practises which Mr. S. cannot deny to have been innovated I might instance likewise in the chief Points of Popery and shew that for all their pretence to Tradition they are really Innovations But because this would engage me in tedious Disputes about particular Points I will only single out one of their most fundamental Doctrines viz. that of Transubstantiation concerning which I shall shew that notwithstanding it is the universal perswasion of the present Roman Church yet they have not nor can have any assurance that it was the Doctrine of Christ and that it is descended to them by an uninterrupted Tradition I shall not at all contend against the word Transubstantiation which is generally acknowledged to be new but only the thing signified by it a substantial change of the Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. And this I might shew at large not to have been the Doctrine of the ancient Fathers But because Mr. White and Dr. Holden and Mr. Cressy do so frequently and confidently tell us that nothing is to be reputed a Traditionary Doctrine the contrary whereof hath been publickly held by any Catholick who continued afterwards uncensured and in the Communion of the Church Therefore I shall content my self at present with one clear Testimony and that of a very eminent Person in the Church St. Theodoret concerning whom Pope Leo in an Epistle to him at the end of Theodoret's Works gives this Testimony That in the judgment of the Apostolick See he was free from all stain of Heresie The passage I intend is in his Dialogues between a Catholick under the name of Orthodoxus and Eranistes who susteined the person of an Heretick Eranistes maintaining that the Body of Christ was changed into the substance of the Divinity he illustrates it by this similitude As says he the Symbols of the Lords Body and Blood are one thing before the invocation of the Priest but after the invocation are changed and do become another thing So the Body of our Lord after his Ascension is changed into the Divine substance To which Orthodoxus returns this answer Thou art caught in thine own Net Because the mystical Symbols after Consecration do not pass out of their own Nature for they remain in their former substance figure and appearance and may be seen and handled even as before He does not only in express words deny the substance of the Symbols to be changed but the occasion upon which these words are brought in and the scope of them if they be of any force against the Hereticks illustration renders them uncapable of any other sense When Mr. S. hath answered this Testimony I have more for him That which I mainly urge against this Doctrine is the monstrous Absurdities and Contradictions contained in it together with the necessary consequence of them Several of the Absurdities of it are well brought together by Scotus who tells us That to prove the possibility of Christs Body being contained under the species of Bread and Wine many things must be proved which seem to involve a Contradiction as 1. That one quantum or extended Body may be together in the very same place with another 2. That a less quantum may be together in the same place with a greater i. e. a Body of less extension may occupy not only the same but as much room as a Body of greater extension does which is to say no more but this that a Body less than another may be as great as that other even whil'st it is less than it 3. That a greater quantum may be together with every part of a less quantum i. e. a Body that is greater than another may be as little as the least part of that other Body which is less than it 4. That a subject may be without quantity i. e. there may be a Body which hath no kind of Magnitude 5. That a Body may be somewhere where it was not before without changing its place i· e. a Body may be removed to another place whil'st it remains still in the same place 6. That a quantum may be without any quantitative Mode i. e. a Body may be extended without any manner of extension The possibility of all which he saith and I am very much of his mind it would be too tedious a work to prove and therefore he only attempts to prove the two last which in all reason is work enough for one man All these seeming Contradictions as he modestly calls them are by his own acknowledgment involved in this Doctrine To these I might add many more as How a thing can be said to be changed into another thing which did exist before How a Body can be present in a place after the manner of a spirit and yet this they affirm concerning the presence of Christs Body in the Sacrament one might as well say that Snow is black but not after the manner of blackness but in the way of whiteness which is to talk non-sense after the manner of sense How the whole Body of Christ can be contained under the least sensible part of the species of Bread as is generally affirmed nay and Scotus
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
them with so much as a videtur quod non But it may be he means no more by this Corollary than what he said in the 18 th viz. That no solid Argument from Reason can be brought against Tradition If so then the sense of his 23 d Corollary must be this That there is no possibility of arguing at all against Tradition with any solid shew or substantial shadow of Reason which would be a little inconvenient I will instance but in one more his 40 th which is this The knowledg of Traditions Certainty is the first knowledg or Principle in Controversial Divinity i. e. without which nothing is known or knowable in that Science Which is to infer that because he hath with much pains proved the certainty of Tradition therefore it is self evident i. e. needed no proof Nay it is to conclude the present matter in Controversie and that which is the main debate of his Book to be the first Principle in Controversial Divinity i. e. such a Proposition as every one ought to grant before he can have any right to dispute about it This is a very prudent course to make begging the question the first Principle in Controversie which would it but be granted I am very much of his mind that the method he takes would be the best way to make Controversie a Science because he that should have the luck or boldness to beg first would have it in his power to make what he pleased certain § 2. Were it worth while I might further pursue the Absurdities of his Corollaries For they are not so terrible as he makes shew of by his telling Dr. Casaubon That Sure-footing and its Corollaries may put him out of his Wits Which though intended for an Affront to the Doctor yet it may be mollified with a good interpretation for if the reading of wild and phantastical stuff be apt to disorder a very learned head then so far Mr. S's saying may have truth in it It remains only that I requite his 41 Corol. not with an equal number but with two or three natural Consectaries from the Doctrine of his Book First No man can certainly understand the meaning of any Book whatsoever any farther than the Contents of it are made known to us by a concurrent Oral Tradition For the Arguments whereby he and Mr. Rushworth endeavour to prove it impossible without Tradition to attain to the certain sense of Scripture do equally extend to all other Books Secondly The memory of matters of Fact done long ago may be better preserved by general Rumor than by publick Records For this is the plain English of that Assertion That Oral Tradition is a better and more secure way of Conveyance than Writing Thirdly That the Generality of Papists are no Christians For if as he affirms Tradition be the sole Rule of Faith and those who disown this Rule be * ipso facto cut off from the Root of Faith i. e. unchristian'd And if as I have shewn the Generality of Papists do disown this Rule Then it is plain that they are no Christians THE RULE of FAITH PART IV. Testimonies concerning the Rule of Faith SECT I. § 1. THus far in the way of Reason and Principles The rest is Note-book Learning which he tells us he is not much a Friend to and there is no kindness lost for it is as little a Friend to him and his Cause as he can be to it I shall first examine the Authorities he brings for Tradition and then produce express Testimonies in behalf of Scripture In both which I shall be very brief in the one because his Testimonies require no long Answer in the other because it would be to little purpose to trouble Mr. S. with many Fathers who for ought appears by his Book is acquainted with none but Father White as I shall shew hereafter By the way I cannot much blame him for the course he uses to take with other mens Testimonies because it is the only way that a man in his circumstances can take otherwise nothing can be in it self more unreasonable than to pretend to answer Testimonies by ranking them under so many faulty Heads and having so done magisterially to require his Adversary to vindicate them by shewing that they do not fall under some of those Heads though he have not said one word against any of them particularly nay though he have not so much as recited any one of them for then the Trick would be spoiled and his Catholick Reader who perhaps may believe him in the general might see Reason not to do so if he should descend to particulars which as he well observes would make his Discourse to look with a contingent Face § 2. I begin with his three Authorities from Scripture which when I consider I see no reason why he of all men should find fault with my Lord Bishop of Down's Dissuasive for being so thin and sleight in Scripture-Citations Nor do I see how he will answer it to Mr. Rushworth for transgressing that prudent Rule of his viz. That the Catholick should never undertake to convince his Adversary out of Scripture c. For which he gives this substantial Reason because this were to strengthen his Opponent in his own Ground and Principle viz. That all is to be proved out of Scripture which he tells us presently after is no more fit to convince than a Beetle is to cut withall meaning it perhaps of Texts so applied as these are which follow This shall be to you a direct way so that Fools cannot err in it This is my Covenant with them saith the Lord my Spirit which is in thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart from thy mouth and from the mouth of thy Seed and from the mouth of thy Seeds seed from henceforth for ever I will give my Law in their bowels and in their hearts will I write it From which Texts if Mr. S. can prove Tradition to be the only Rule of Faith any better than the Philosophers Stone or the Longitude may be proved from the 1 Cap. of Genesis I am content they should pass for valid Testimonies Though I might require of him by his own Law before these Texts can signifie any thing to his purpose to demonstrate that this is the Traditionary sense of these Texts and that it hath been universally in all Ages received by the Church under that Notion and then to shew how it comes to pass that so many of the Fathers and of their own Commentators have interpreted them to another sense And lastly to shew how Scripture which has no certain sense but from Tradition and of the sense whereof Tradition cannot assure us unless it be the Rule of Faith I say how Scripture can prove Tradition to be the Rule of Faith which can prove nothing at all unless Tradition be first proved to be the Rule of Faith This
sayes Neither ought I now to alledg the Nicene Council nor thou that of Arminium for neither am I bound to the Authority of the one nor thou of the other Let us both contest with the Authorities of Scripture which are Wtinesses common to us both And also against the Donatists in these words Let them if they can demonstrate their Church not by the Talk and Rumors or oral Tradition of the Africans not by the Councils of their own Bishops not by the Books of their Disputers not by deceitful Miracles c but by the prescript of the Law Prophets c. i. e. by all the Canonical Authorities of the Holy Books Hierom saith Of those things which without the Authorities and Testimonies of the Scripture men invent of their own heads as from Apostolical Tradition they are smitten with the Sword of God Theophilus Alexandr whom Hierom hath Translated calls Scripture more than once the Rule and the Testimonies of it the firm foundations of Doctrine And again saith It comes from a Demonical spirit that men follow the Sophisms of humane minds and think any thing Divine that wants the Authority of Scripture Theodoret charges all Heresies upon the not following of Scripture which he calls the inflexible Rule of Truth Again We have have learned the Rule of Opinions from the Divine Scripture After the Fathers I shall produce the Testimonies of two Eminent Persons of latter Times Gerson and Lyra. Gerson in his Book of the Tryal of Doctrines hath this remarkable passage In the Tryal of Doctrines that which is first and principally to be considered is Whether a Doctrine be conformable to the H. Scripture c. The reason of this is because the Scripture is deliver'd to us as a SVFFICIENT and INFALLIBLE RVLE for the Goverment of the whole Ecclesiastical Body and its Members to the end of the world So that it is such an Art such a Rule or Exemplar that any other Doctrine which is not conformable to it is to be renounc'd as Heretical or to be accounted suspicious or not at all appertaining to Religion Again It is evident how pernicious the rejection of the H. Scripture is and how certain a preparatory for the reception of Antichrist Once more What mischief what danger what confusion hath happen'd thorough contempt of the H. Scripture which sure is sufficient for the Government of the Church else Christ must have been an imperfect Law-giver let us ask Experience c. Lyra also writes thus As in Philosophy truth is discovered by reducing things to their first and self-evident Principles so in the Writings deliver'd by the H. Doctors Truth is discover'd as to matters of Faith by reducing them to the Canonical Scriptures Sir You know how easy it were to swell up a large Volume with Testimonies to this purpose especially if I should take the course that Mr. Wh. does to hale in quotations though never so impertinent or use the wretched importunity which Mr. S. does to perswade them to be pertinent But these Testimonies which I have nakedly set down leaving them to speak for themselves are enough to satisfie an unpassionate Reader such an one as dares trust himself with the use of his own eyes and reason As for that sort of men which chuses to follow noise rather than light we must be content to leave them to the blind conduct of those Guides who having no better means to keep their Followers to them go halloing in the dark and fill their ears with the insignificant sounds of Infallibility Indefectibility Self-evidence and Demonstration Concerning the Appendix wherein you are particularly challeng'd I hope for an Account very shortly and so take leave SIR Your Affectionate Friend JOHN TILLOTSON Lincolns-Inn Febr. 20. 1665. FINIS A REPLY TO M r. J. S. his 3 d APPENDIX Containing some Animadversions ON THE BOOK ENTITULED A RATIONAL ACCOUNT of the Grounds of Protestant Religion By Ed. Stillingfleet B. D. London Printed by H.C. for Henry Mortlock at the Sign of the Phoenix in St. Paul's Church-yard near the little North-door 1675. An Appendix to the Rule of Faith To his honoured Friend Mr. John Tillotson SIR AS soon as I understood your intentions to answer Mr. Serjeant I could not but rejoice on his behalf as well as on the truths and your own For I have that real kindness for him that I heartily wish him that reason and science he pretends to which I could not but despair of his attaining unless he were undeceived in that monstrous opinion he hath of himself and his undertakings And I knew no person more fit than you to let him understand the truth and himself together In which your performances have been so clear and satisfactory that I hope Mr. Sergeant in stead of another Letter of directions to his Answerer will write you one of thanks for the reason and kindness you have shewed him throughout your Book Unless it fares with you as it hath done with some other Adversaries of theirs that their civility hath been interpreted as an argument of their uncertainty and their own confidence cried up for a demonstration In which sense only I shall grant our Protestant Writers to build on uncertainties and Mr. White and Mr. Serjeant to be the great Demonstrators of this age If their own reason had been as severe as the censures at Rome against them they had saved us the labour of any answer and would have found out their own sophistry without a confutation But the least thing we can imagine by their excessive confidence is that they are deceived themselves and therefore it is a part of charity to them as well as justice to the truth to let the world see that big words are quite another thing from science and a strong presumption from a regular demonstration As to which no more need to have been said than what you have already done if Mr. Serjeant had not thought it an accession to the glory of his atchievements to lead two Pages of my Book in triumph after him I confess I was somewhat surprized to see a person who would be noted for his valour in assaulting Protestant Writers steal so behind the main bulk and design of my Book and when he had gotten two single Pages by themselves fall upon them with as much pomp and ostentation as if he had attack'd the whole And this must be noised abroad as an Answer to me by the same figure that his arguments are called demonstrations which is by an hyperbole unfit for any but such who never flag below the sphere of Science in their own judgments though they seem not to come near it in others Yet since Mr. Serjeant is not only pleased to concern himself so far as to answer that part of my Book relating to oral tradition but in most express terms to challenge me to reply to him he may now see assoon as I could get any
and if so notwithstanding whatever Mr. S. can demonstrate to the contrary that age might have believed otherwise than the immediately preceding did For let us but suppose that all necessary doctrines of faith were betimes recorded in the Church in Books universally received by the Christians of the first ages is it not possible that age which first embraced these Books might deliver them to posterity as the rule of their faith and so down from one age to another and doth it not hence follow that the rule of faith is quite different from a meer oral tradition Let Mr. S. then either shew it impossible that the doctrines of faith should be written or that being written they should be universally received or that being universally received in one age they should not be delivered to the next or being delivered to the next those Books should not be looked on as containing the rule of faith in them or though they were so yet that still oral tradition was wholly relied on as the rule of faith and then I shall freely grant that Mr. S. hath attempted something towards the proof of this new hypothesis But as things now stand it is so far from being self-evident that the Church hath always gone upon this principle that we find it looked on as a great novelty among them in their own Church and it would be a rare thing for a new invention to have been the sense of the Church in all ages which if it hath been the strength of it is thereby taken away But let us suppose that the Church did proceed upon this principle that nothing was to be embraced but what was derived by tradition from the Apostles how doth it thence follow that nothing could be admitted into the Church but what was really so derived from them Do we not see in the world at this day that among those who own this principle contradictory propositions are believed and both sides tell us it is on this account because their doctrine was delivered by the Apostles doth not the Greek Church profess to believe on the account of tradition from the Apostles as well as the Latin If that tradition failed in the Greek Church which was preserved in the Latin either Mr. S. must instance on his own principles in that age which conspired to deceive the next or he must acknowledg that while men own tradition they may be deceived in what the foregoing age taught them and consequently those things may be admitted as doctrines coming from the Apostles which were not so and some which did may be lost and yet the pretence of tradition remain still What self-evidence then can there be in this principle when two parts of the Church may both own it and yet believe contradictions on the account of it It is then worth our enquiring what self-evidence this is which Mr. S. speaks so much of which is neither more nor less but that men in all ages had eyes ears and other senses also common reason and as much memory as to remember their own names and frequently inculcated actions Which is so very reasonable a postulatum that I suppose none who enjoy any of these will deny it Let us therefore see how he proceeds upon it If you disprove this I doubt we have lost mankind the subject we speak of and till you disprove it neither I nor any man in his wits can doubt that this rule depending on testifying that is sense or experience can possibly permit men to be deceivable Big words indeed but such as evidence that all men who are in their wits do not constantly use them For I pray Sir what doth Mr S. think of the Greek Church Had not those in it eyes ears and other senses as well as in the Latin Do not they pretend and appeal to what they received from their Fore-fathers as well as the Latins It seems then a deception is possible in the case of testifying and therefore this doth more than permit men to be deceivable for here hath been an actual deception on one side or other But we need not fear losing mankind in this for the possibility of error supposeth mankind to continue still and if we take away that we may sooner lose it than by the contrary But what repugnancy can we imagine to humane nature that men supposing doctrines of faith to come down from Christ or his Apostles should yet mistake in judging what those doctrines are Had not men eyes and ears and common sense in Christ and the Apostles times And yet we see even then the doctrine of Christ was mistaken and is it such a wonder it should be in succeeding ages Did not the Nazarenes mistake in point of circumcision the Corinthians as to the resurrection and yet the mean time agree in this that Christs doctrine was the rule of faith or that they ought to believe nothing but what came from him Did not the Disciples themselves err even while they were with Christ and certainly had eyes and ears and common sense as other men have concerning some great articles of Christian faith viz. Christs passion resurrection and the nature of his Kingdom If then such who had the greatest opportunities imaginable and the highest apprehensions of Christ might so easily mistake in points of such moment what ground have we to believe that succeeding ages should not be liable to such misapprehensions And it was not meerly the want of clear divine revelation which was the cause of their mistakes for these things were plain enough to persons not possessed with prejudices but those were so strong as to make them apprehend things quite another way than they ought to do So it was then and so it was in succeeding ages for let Parents teach what they pleased for matters of faith yet prejudice and liableness to mistake in Children might easily make them misapprehend either the nature or weight of the doctrines delivered to them So that setting aside a certain way of recording the matters of faith in the Books of Scripture and these preserved entire in every age it is an easie matter to conceive how in a short time Christian Religion would have been corrupted as much as ever any was in the world For when we consider how much notwithstanding Scripture the pride passion and interests of men have endeavoured to deface Christian Religion in the world what would not these have done if there had been no such certain rule to judg of it by Mr. S. imagins himself in repub Platonis but it appears he is still in faece Romuli he fancies there never were nor could be any differences among Christians and that all Christians made it their whole business to teach their posterity matters of faith and that they minded nothing in the world but the imprinting that on their minds that they might have it ready for their Children and that all Parents had equal skill and fidelity in delivering matters of
the help of tradition yet unless we be extreamly ungratful we cannot but acknowledg that God hath infinitely better provided for us in not leaving the grounds of our Religion to the meer breath of the people or the care of Mothers instructing their Children but hath given us the certain records of all the doctrines and motives of faith preserved inviolably from the first ages of the Church And when the Church saw with what care God had provided for the means of faith oral tradition was little minded thence the memory of those other things not recorded in Scripture is wholly lost all the care was imployed in searching preserving and delivering these sacred Books to posterity To these the primitive Church still appeals these they plead for against all adversaries defending their authority explaining their sense vindicating them from all corruptions Tradition they rely not on any further than as a testimony of the truth of these records or to clear the sense of them from the perverse interpretation of those Hereticks who pretended another kind of tradition than what was in Scripture And when these were silenced all the disputes that arose in the Church concerning matters of faith was about the sense of these Books as is evident by the proceedings in the case of Arius and Pelagius Wherein tradition was only used as a means to clear the sense of the Scriptures but not at all as that which the faith of all was to be resolved into But when any thing was pleaded from tradition for which there was no ground in Scripture it was rejected with the same ease it was offered and such persons were plainly told this was not the Churches way if they had plain Scripture with the concurrent sense of Antiquity they might produce it and rely upon it So that the whole use of tradition in the primitive Church besides attesting the Books was to shew the unreasonableness of imposing senses on Scripture against the universal sense of the Church from the Apostles times But as long as men were men it was not avoidable but they must fall into different apprehensions of the meaning of the Scripture according to their different judgments prejudices learning and education And since they had all this apprehension that the Scripture contained all doctrines of faith thence as men judged of the sense of it they differed in their apprehension concerning matters of faith And thence errors and mistakes might easily come into the Church without one age conspiring to deceive the next Nay if it be possible for men to rely on tradition without Scripture this may easily be done for by that means they make a new rule of faith not known to the primitive Church and consequently that very assertion is an error in which the former age did not conspire to deceive the next And if these things be possible M. S's demonstration fails him for hereby a reasonable account is given how errors may come into a Church without one age conspiring to deceive another Again let me enquire of Mr. S. whether men may not believe it in the power of the ruling part of the Church to oblige the whole to an assent to the definitions of it To speak plainer is it not possible for men to believe the Pope and Council infallible in their decrees And I hope the Jesuits as little as Mr. S. loves them or they him may be a sufficient evidence of more than the bare possibility of this If they may believe this doth it not necessarily follow that they are bound to believe whatever they declare to be matter of faith Supposing then that Transubstantiation Supremacy Invocation of Saints were but pâ—ivate opinions before but are now defined by Pope and Council these men cannot but look on themselves as much obliged to believe them as if they had been delivered as matters of faith in every age since the Apostles times Is it now repugnant to common sense that this opinion should be believed or entertained in the Church if not why may not this opinion be generally received if it be so doth it not unavoidably follow that the faith of men must alter according to the Churches definitions And thus private opinions may be believed as articles of faith and corrupt practices be established as laudable pieces of devotion and yet no one age of the Church conspire to deceive another Thus I hope Mr. S. may see how far it is from being a self-evident principle that no error can come into the Church unless one age conspire to deceive the next in a matter of fact evident in a manner to the whole world Which is so wild an apprehension that I believe the Jesuits cannot entertain themselves without smiles to see their domestick adversaries expose themselves to contempt with so much confidence Thus I come to the reason I gave why there is no reason to believe that this is the present sense of the Roman Church My words are For I see the Roman Church asserts that things may be de fide in one age which were not in another at least Popes and Councils challenge this and this is the common doctrine maintained there and others are looked on as no members of their Church who assert the contrary but as persons at least meritoriously if not actually excommunicate Where then shall I satisfie my self what the sense of your Church is as to this particular Must I believe a very few persons whom the rest disown as heretical and seditious or ought I not rather to take the judgment of the greatest and most approved persons of that Church And these disown any such doctrine but assert that the Church may determine things de fide which were not before In answer to this Mr. S. begs leave to distinguish the words de fide which may either mean Christian faith or points of faith taught by Christ and then he grants 't is non-sense to say they can be in one age and not in another Or de fide may mean obligatory to be believed In this latter sense none I think saith he denies things may be de fide in one age and not in another in the former sense none holds it Upon which very triumphantly he concludes What 's now become of your difficulty I believe you are in some wonderment and think I elude it rather then answer it I shall endeavour to unperplex you I must confess it a fault of humane nature to admire things which men understand not on which account I cannot free my self from some temptation to that he calls wonderment but I am presently cured of it when I endeavour to reduce his distinction to reason For instead of explaining his terms he should have shewed how any thing can be obligatory to be believed in any age of the Church which was no point of faith taught by Christ which notwithstanding his endeavour to unperplex me is a thing as yet I apprehend not because I understand no obligation
been and I should be somewhat ashamed of my Religion if I had no better But what our rule of faith is hath been amply discoursed already by you and that in Mr. S's clearing method that nothing is left for me to do but to touch at what remains and concludes this answer I had the better to illustrate the weakness of that argument from oral tradition brought an instance in that case parallel viz. that if one ages delivering to another would prove that the faith of Christ was in every age unalterable because no age did testifie any such alteration to be in it by the same argument the world might be proved eternal because no age did ever testifie to another that the world was ever otherwise than it is So that if oral tradition were only to be relied on there could be no evidence given of the worlds being ever otherwise than it is and consequently the world must be believed to have been always what we see it is This as far as I can apprehend is a clear and distinct ratiocination and purposely designed to prove that we must admit of other rules to judg of alterations in the Church by besides oral tradition But Mr. S. in his own expression strangely roving from the mark I aimed at professes there is not a tittle in it parallel to his medium nay that he never saw in his life more absurdities couched in fewer words But I must take all patiently from a man who still perches on the specifical nature of things and never flags below the sphere of science Yet by his good leave he either apprehends not or wilfully mistakes my meaning for my argument doth not proceed upon the belief of the worlds eternity which in his answer he runs wholly upon as far as eighthly and lastly but upon the evidence of oral traditias to no discernable alteration in any age of it For the Question between us is whether in matters of alteration in the faith or practice of the Church we are bound to rely only on the testimony of oral tradition so that if no age can be instanced in wherein any alteration was made and this delivered by that age then we are bound to believe there hath been no alteration since Christ and the Apostles times now I say if this hold good I will prove the world eternal by the same argument taking this for our principle that we are bound to rely only on oral tradition in the case originally derived from the matter of fact seen by those of the first age for that which never was otherwise then it is is eternal but we cannot know by oral tradition that the world ever was otherwise then it is for no age of the world can be instanced in wherein we have any testimony of any alteration that was in it Either then we must believe that the world ever was what it is i. e. eternal or else we must say that we are not to rely barely on oral tradition in this case but we must judg whether the world were made or no by other mediums of Scripture and reason And this was all which I aimed at viz. to shew that where there is no evidence from oral tradition yet if there be Scripture and reason there is sufficient ground for our faith to stand upon And so I apply it to the present case though we could not prove barely from the tradition of any one age that there had been any alteration in the faith or practice of the Church yet if I can prove that there hath been such from Scripture and reason this is sufficient for me to believe it And now I dare appeal to the indifferent Reader whether this be so full of absurdities or it be such a rambling Chimerical argument as he calls it no two pieces of which hang together with themselves or any thing else Which being expressions of as great modesty as science I am content Mr S. should bear away the hoour of them and his demonstrations together The last thing he quarrels with me for is that I say if we can evidently prove that there have been alterations in the Church then it is to no purpose to prove that impossible which we see actually done And this appears not only because the Scripture supposes a degeneracy in the Christian Church which could never be if every age of the Church did infallibly believe and practise as the precedent up to Christs time did but because we can produce clear evidence that some things are delivered by the present Church which must be brought in by some age since the time of Christ for which I refer the Reader to what I had said about communion in one kind invocation of Saints and worship of Images In all which I say I had proved evidently that they were not in use in some ages of the Christian Church and it is as evident that these are delivered by the present Church and therefore this principle must needs be false In answer to this Mr. S. wishes I would tell him first what evidence means whether a strong fancy or a demonstration I mean that which is enough to perswade a wise man who judges according to the clearest reason which I am sure is more than ever his demonstrations will do But it is a pleasant spectacle to see how Mr. S layes about him at my saying that the Scripture supposes a degeneracy in the Christian Church Incomparably argued saith he why see we not the place does it evidently speak of faith or manners the Vniversal Church or particular persons but be it in faith be it universal does it suppose this degeneracy already past which is only proper to your purpose or yet to come That is does it say there must be a total Apostacy in faith before the year 1664 Alas he had forgot this Most incomparably answered For if the degeneracy be in 1665. or any years after what becomes of M. S's demonstration then that no errors could come into the Church but it seems his demonstration holds but till 1664. and I easily believe another year will never believe the truth of it But if such a thing as a degeneracy be possible how then stands the infallibility of tradition when there can be no degeneracy without falling from the doctrine and practices of Christ and his Apostles But that such a degeneracy hath already been in that which calls it self the Catholick Church and that both in faith and manners I shall refer Mr. S to the learned Author of the late Idea of Antichristianism and Synopsis Prophetica where he may find enough to perswade him that his demonstration was far from holding so long as 1664. And now I leave the Reader to judg whether the foregoing evidences against the infallibility of oral tradition or Mr. S's demonstrations have the greater force of reason in them And if he will not stoop so far from the height of his perch as to