no part of Religion can be repugnant to Reason whereunto you in particular subscribe unawares in saying From Truth no Man can by good Consequence infer Falshood which is to say in effect That Reason can never lead any Man to Errour And after you have done so you proclaim to all the World as you in this Pamphlet do very frequently That if Men follow their Reason and Discourse they will if they understand themselves be led to Socinianism And thus you see with what probable Matter I might furnish out and justifie my Accusation if I should charge you with leading Men to Socinianism Yet I do not conceive that I have ground enough for this odious Imputation And much less should you have charged Protestants with it whom you confess to abhor and detest it and who fight against it not with the broken Reeds and out of the Paper-Fortresses of an imaginary Infallibility which were only to make sport for their Adversaries but with the Sword of the Spirit the Word of God of which we may say most truly what David said of Goliah's Sword offered by Abimeleck Non est sicut iste There is none comparable to it Thirdly Though the Modern Arians and Socinians do speak of Tradition and not of Scripture only yet our Plea and theirs is not perfectly the same Touching the Holy Scripture we have a greater Veneration for it than many of them and for Tradition though we make it not the very Rule of our Faith nor place Infallibility in it yet in concurrence with Scripture it weigheth not so much with them as with us We have a greater Veneration for the Holy Scripture itself than the right Socinian For such a one makes Reason the Rule of that Rule and though he thinks a Doctrine is plain in Scripture yet if he believes it to be against his Reason he assents not to it Whereas a Man of this Church believes the Scriptures to be written by Inspiration from God And upon that account he assures himself that nothing contrary to true Reason can be contained in the Scriptures Therefore when he finds any thing in Holy Writ which to him is incomprehensible he does not say he believes it though it be impossible and irrational but he believes it to be rational though mysterious and he suspects not Reason itself but his own present Art of Reasoning whensoever it concludes against that which he reads and reads without doubting of the sense of the words And by Meditation he at last finds-his errour The Socinians challenge to themselves Petrus Abailardus as one of their Predecessors For this they cite St. Bernard and they strengthen their challenge with the Testimony of Baronius who says of Abailardus That he made Reason the Judge of Articles of Faith. It is true a Protestant judges whether his Faith be rational or whether it be founded on Divine Revelation but he will not allow his Reasonings to oppose any Principle in Holy Writ For that were either to deny it to be of God or with blasphemous irreverence to reproach the Almighty Wisdom with a Contradiction Yet after this manner Socinians argue though some of them use great caution and few make open profession of it Nay they sometimes tell us That the Scripture contains nothing contrary to manifest Reason However by their manner of objecting against the Doctrine of the blessed Trinity the Sagacious are convinc'd that they first think it to be against plain Reason and then rejecting it as an errour they colour their Aversion with forced Interpretations of Holy Writ The words of Ostorodius hint to us at what end they begin If Reason said he shews expresly that a Trinity of Persons in God is false how could it ever come into the Mind of an understanding Man to think it to be true and that it can be proved by the Word of God And further They own with us from the Principles of Reason that God is just and good but then with the Platonists they measure Justice and Goodness by particular Notions which are their Reasonings but not the Reason of Mankind And when any thing is said in the Scripture which is contrary to such measures they are ready to depart from it Upon this account it is that many of them deny the Doctrine of the Eternal Torments of the finally Impenitent not because it is not plain enough in Scripture but because it seems contrary to their Notions of Justice Goodness and Mercy though to the true Notions of them it may be reconcil'd Thus Ernestus Sonnerus lays it down as his Principle in the first place that the Eternal pains of the Wicked are contrary to Gods Justice and being prepossessed with this prejudice he can thenceforth find nothing in the Scripture which may over-rule his Opinion All this is not my private and as some Socinians may call it uncharitable conjecture there is a Romanist who has said the same thing and in very plain terms The Socinian saith he judgeth the Bible to be the wisest and most Authentical Book that ever was Written such a one as no other humane Writing can contest with it yet not such a one as no slip nor errour may fall into it even in matters of importance and concerning our Salvation And therefore that where reason is absolutely against it he may leave it though for Civility sake he will rather choose to put a wrong Gloss upon it than plainly refuse it It cannot be pretended that Scripture is his Rule for seeing he supposeth Scripture to be Fallible and that upon all occasions he correcteth it by his discourse it is not Scripture but his discourse and his reasoning that is his true and Supreme Rule Which is the cause that they or some of their party did denominate themselves Sanarations from right reason And as we have a greater Veneration for the Scriptures than most Arians and Socinians so have we a truer regard to real Tradition which they use not so much as a witness of any great value as a fit weapon for the encountring those who dispute out of Antiquity to the end that they may overcome them with their own Arms. Socinus had consulted some of the Antient Writers He was one of the first in his Age who suspected some of those Epistles to be spurious which went under the Venerable Name of Ignatius the Martyr But I have not observed in any of his Writings that he puts a value upon any such Authority nay he writes in Divinity in such manner as if no Church-Writers had so gone before him as to give any considerable light to him He promiseth a Tract for the satisfaction of those who were moved in his opinion more than was fit with the Authority of the Fathers And though in this one point of the Father as the one Creator he cites the Antients by way of Argument to the Men who esteem them yet in other Articles he confesses that he stands
would fail 3. This Article of the Divinity of the Son of God was originally in the Creed for that the Fathers meant when in the Apostolical Creed they confessed Christ to be Gods only Son. And this they grounded on the Gospel of S. Iohn who wrote his Gospel which begins with Christs Divinity with this intention that Men should beleive Jesus to be the Son of God. 4. Protestants admit of no Article of Faith which is not grounded on the Scripture which was never known before and never oblig'd before yet in the mean time they see no reason why an Article assaulted by Hereticks and Sophists may not be explained or why the form of Confession design'd for Baptism might not be enlarged for the benefit of the Church and made a Sum of the Necessaries to be believ'd It sufficed at the first Incorporation of Persons to be Baptiz'd that they profess'd to believe the Religion which owneth Father Son and Holy Ghost 5. A particular Church may put an Article of Faith into a Creed without pretending to Infallibility She has Ability to do it because she has an Infallible Rule by which she can go But she ought not to say it is impossible any Church should do otherwise because a Party of Men may do that which they ought not to do and to which they were not constrain'd Prejudice Mis-attention Corruption may so prevail as to clap a false Byass upon Makers of Creeds Else how came we by those of Sirmium and Rimini And for instance sake in the Infallible Science of the Mathematicks the perverseness of the Temper of the Leviathan would not permit him to agree with a Learned Professor of that Science even in the first Elements of Geometry and a Controversie was maintain'd not only about the squaring of the Circle but about the Dimensions of a Point and a Line The Force of the Third Conference may be set down on this manner A Protestant submits to the Decrees of a Council no further than he is convinc'd that the same Council is rightly constituted and that her Definitions are founded on the Word of God. He believes that it may err in things not Necessary and in Necessaries too if it be not a truly General Council He can scarce give to it the Obedience of silence in that which he believes contrary to the Scripture The Socinian says the same things and denies the Council of Nice to be constituted rightly Therefore the Protestant justifies the Socinian Our Author should have gone on and said for so a Romanist is by the Tenor of his Faith oblig'd to say That the Protestant with reference to the Council of Nice has the Reason on his side A Son of the Church of England reverenceth the Four General Councils of which Nice is the First He believes its Faith to be bottom'd on the Scriptures and so did the Council itself and so does the Church of Rome He receives it as a General Council rightly Constituted though no Pope call'd it or otherwise confirm'd it than the rest of the Patriarchs Metropolitans and Bishops He believes its Dâ—…ctrine to be in the Phrase of Vincentius 〈◊〉 well-founded Antiquity and he offers to prove it A Socinian therefore if he has retain'd him will as soon as he hears such a Plea as this desire him to return his Fee. But what if a Socinian be found perverse and being a Disputer of this World will have his own way of arguing May not the Protestant wave the Council of Nice and enter the Lists with Reason and Scripture He that will not have him do it is not of the same mind either with the Fathers of Nice on with the Celebrated Latin Doctor S. Austin The Council of Nice disputed with the Arians out of the Scripture and confuted them by it The Bishops of it by Eusebius cite against them the words of St. Iohn In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. They argue from the words themselves as words clear and plain in their signification They take notice of the Word was as contrary to was not and was God as contrary to was not God. S. Austin observing the perverseness of Maximine lays aside Councils not as useless but as of lesser Authority than the Holy Scripture the force of which his Adversary could not with the same ease and readiness have avoided Neither ought I saith S. Austin to alledge the Council of Nice nor you that of Ariminum for neither am I bound to the Authority of the one nor you to that of the other Let us both dispute with the Authorities of Scripture which are Witnesses common to us both Our Author puts this Citation into the Socinians Mouth and takes it from Dr. Taylor 's Dissâ—…asive from Popery but seeing it is the Method of S. Austin why does he not justifie a Protestant in using of it The Sum of the Fourth Conference is this A Protestant excuseth himself from Heresie by saying A Heretick is what he himself is not an Obstinate Maintainer of a Fundamental Error None can be such Hereticks to whom the Truth is not sufficiently proposed Councils may not always rightly distinguish betwixt Fundamentals and not Fundamentals He is not oblig'd to receive their Definitions till he is convinc'd of the truth of them He himself is Judge whether the Article be sufficiently propos'd and whether he is convinc'd by that which is offer'd to him The Socinian says the same thing for himself Our Author should have added that he says it with equal Reason if he would have made the one plead for the other But the Protestant in this point of the Divinity of the Son of Gon which is the Authors Instance does acknowledge that the Doctrine is sufficiently propos'd does receive the Council of Nice does own that he is convinc'd And the Romanist confesseth that thus far he is in the right and the Socinian in the wrong This comes to the same thing which was said before and the Answer is repeated because the Objection is brought again And indeed there is but one Argument strictly so call'd in all the Five Conferences which turn upon the same Hinge and one Answer suffices viz. That when Two say the same things concerning contrary Doctrines one of them only can have Truth on his side And that if both be equally confident the Confidence of the Persons does not make the Contradiction true The Plea is his not who barely offers it but who can make it good In this Point of the Divinity the Protestant makes his Plea good by the Scripture and the Council of Nice as a true General Council And if his Plea be true surely it does not cease to be so because he has not had it allow'd before a Roman Judge A Man is sure that all the Articles in the New Covenant are genuine though they be not confirm'd under the Lead of the Fisher. I come
not by forcing of Assent destroy the Nature and Virtue of it and he hath declar'd that he will permit Heresies that those who are approved and excellent Christians may be distinguished from those who are not This Expedient of the Romanists is like that of the Atheist Spinoza who has left the following Maxim to the World as his Legacy for Peace viz. That the Object of Faith is not Truth but Obedience and the quiet of human Society And they say in effect Shut all your Eyes and agree in one who shall lead you all and you will all go one way But the difficulty lies in getting them to agree It is not difficult to say a great deal more upon this Subject but in stead of that which might be here offer'd from myself I will refer the Reader to a Book lately publish'd and call'd A Discourse concerning a Iudge in Controversies if he be not satisfi'd with that which Mr. Chillingworth hath said long ago and to which this Author has here said nothing You say again confidently That if this Infallibility be once impeach'd every Man is given over to his own Wit and Discourse By which if you mean Discourse not guiding itself by Scripture but only by Principles of Nature or perhaps by Prejudices and popular Errors and drawing Consequences not by Rule but by Chance is by no means true If you mean by Discourse Right Reason grounded on Divine Revelation and common Notions written by God in the Hearts of all Men and deducing according to the never-failing Rules of Logick consequent Deductions from them If this be it which you mean by Discourse it is very meet and reasonable and necessary that Men as in all their Actions so especially in that of greatest importance the choice of their way to Happiness should be left unto it And he that follows this in all Opinions and Actions and does not only seem to do so follows always God whereas he that followeth a Company of Men may oft-times follow a Company of Beasts And in saying this I say no more than S. Iohn to all Christians in these words Dearly Beloved believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they be of God or no And the Rule he gives them to make this tryal by is to consider whether they Confess IESUS to be Christ that is the Guide of their Faith and Lord of their Action not Whether they acknowledge the Pope to be his Vicar I say no more than S. Paul in exhorting all Christians To try all things and hold fast that which is good Than S. Peter in commanding all Christians To be ready to give a reason of the hope that is in them Then our Saviour himself in forewarning all his Followers that if they blindly followed blind Guides both Leaders and Followers should fall into the Ditch And again in saying even to the People Yea and why of your selves judge ye not what is right And though by Passion or Precipitation or Prejudice by want of Reason or not using what they have Men may be and are oftentimes lead into Error and Mischief yet that they cannot be misguided by Discourse truly so called such as I have described you yourself have given them security For what is Discourse but drawing Conclusions out of Premises by good Consequence Now the Principles which we have setled to wit the Scriptures are on all sides agreed to be Infallibly true And you have told us in the Fourth Chapter of this Pamphlet That from Truth no Men can by good Consequence infer Falshood Therefore by Discourse no Man can possibly be led to error but if he erre in his Conclusions he must of Necessity either err in his Principles which here cannot have place or commit some error in his Discourse that is indeed not Discourse but seem to do so 13. You say Thirdly with sufficient confidence That if the true Church may err in defining what Scriptures be Canonical or in delivering the sense thereof then we must follow either the private Spirit or else natural Wit and Iudgment and by them examine what Scriptures contain true or false Doctrine and in that respect ought to be received or rejected All which is apparently untrue neither can any proof of it be pretended For though the present Church may possibly err in her Judgment touching this matter yet have we other directions in it besides the private Spirit and the Examination of the Contents which latter way may conclude the Negative very strongly to wit that such or such a Book cannot come from God because it contains irreconcileable Contradictions but the Affirmative it cannot conclude because the Contents of a Book may be all true and yet the Book not Written by Divine inspiration other direction therefore I say we have besides either of these three and that is the Testimony of the Primitive Christians 14. You say Fourthly with convenient boldness that this Infallible Authority of the Church being denied no Man can be assured that any parcel of the Scripture was Written by Divine Inspiration Which is an untruth for which no proof is pretended and besides void of Modesty and full of Iniquity The First because the Experience of Innumerable Christians is against it who are sufficiently assured that the Scripture is Divinely inspired and yet deny the Infallible Authority of your Church or any other The Second because if I have not ground to be assured of the Divine Authority of Scripture unless I first believe your Church Infallible then can I have no ground at all to believe it Because there is no ground nor can any be pretended why I should believe the Church Infallible unless I first believe the Scripture Divine 15. Fifthly and lastly You say with confidence in abundance that none can deny the Infallible Authority of your Church but he must abandon all infused Faith and True Religion if he do but understand himself Which is to say agreeable to what you had said before and what out of the abundance of the Heart you speak very often that all Christians besides you are open Fools or concealed Atheists All this you say with notable Confidence as the manner of Sophisters is to place their Confidence of Prevailing in their Confident manner of Speaking but then for the Evidence you promis'd to maintain this Confidence that is quite vanished and become invisible Hitherto I have been arguing against our Author but now in the close I cannot but joyn with him in his Protestants Exhortation to Humility It is an Admirable Virtue and may God grant to me and to all Men a greater Measure of it It is a Virtue proper even for Guides in Religion that they may humbly help the Faith of others and not exercise Dominion over it And because a late Writer has been pleas'd to suffer this severe censure to drop from his Pen it is the less to be admir'd that our Author is such a stranger to that Spirit of