of our Faith viz. the Scripture although we have a larger and firmer Tradition for it viz. the Consent of all Christian Churches than you can have for the Points in Difference between us 2. That the Tradition from Father to Son is an infallible Conveyance in Matters of Faith notwithstanding the Greek Church is charged by you with Errour which adhered to Tradition Now upon this the Authour of the first Letter desires to be commended to me us a Man who loves to spare his own Pains For 't is as much as to say do you doe all the Work and I will sit by and tell you whether it be well done or no must Mr. G. prove that Protestants have no absolute Certainty I think you are bound to do it upon Mr. M's own Account of the Occasion of the Conference viz. that you affirmed that no Protestants could shew any Ground of Certainty for their Faith. And upon this the Conference was desired and since therein I undertake to shew what our Ground of Certainty was you ought to make it evident wherein it fails and you have not so much as offer'd at any thing to disprove it but would fairly have run into another dispute and because I would not yield to it you and Mr. M. call me a Trifler You see I have not been so sparing of my Pains now but I would commend that Gentleman to you who get other Men to do your Work for you But he goes on I thought it had concerned them to be satisfied that they have Yes so we are and are very well satisfied that we stand upon surer Grounds than those who go upon the baffled pretence of the Infallibility of Oral Tradition for which no one Church of the Christian World hath declared For the Infallibility of Tradition in the Church of Rome is another thing depending upon a Divine Promise and not a kind of meer natural Infallibility But he saith he takes no notice that the Question is veered from certainty of Protestant Doctrine to certainty of Scripture How strangely mistaken is this Gentleman in the whole Matter For the Question was wholly about the certainty of Faith in general as fully appears by what is said already When the Grounds of Faith are made clear we shall come easier to particular Points of Difference between us If we may have sufficient certainty without your pretence of Infallibility then we may have a true and sound Faith without coming into your Church and where there is such a Faith there is a Possibility of Salvation and consequently there can be no Necessity of Forsaking the Communion of a Church where we have such certain Grounds of Faith. Mr. M. in Answer to the first Particular speaks more home and close to the purpose and therefore what he saith deserves to be more strictly examined 1. It is not denied saith he p. 28. that there is in Faith an absolute certainty for that Scripture wherein we agree Thus far Mr. M. grants what you deny that we Protestants have absolute certainty for our Faith. But he will not allow us to be able to shew any such certainty on our Principles Now this is truly a hard case we are in there is an absolute Certainty and this certainty lies in Universal Tradition and we can shew this Universal Tradition and yet we cannot shew the true Ground of our certainty If this be our case we deserve to be either pitied or begg'd But surely Mr. M. hath some colour for such a strange Assertion This is all he pretends for it that in the time of the Reformation the Protestants charged all Christian Churches with Errours not only in other Articles of their Belief but even in the Tradition or Delivery of Scripture Therefore we can have no certainty now from the Universal Tradition of Christian Churches Suppose some Men were then to blame in charging some Churches with more Errours than they were guilty of must therefore no Argument be taken from their consent when things are more cleared and better understood This is just as if it had been said of the blind Man whom our Saviour cured You saw Men walking like Trees at first and therefore you have no right to judge them to be otherwise now Or like one newly escaped out of a dark Prison who fears and suspects every one he meets and takes all for Enemies till he be better acquainted with them must this man therefore never have any certain knowledge afterwards of Friends and Enemies But why doth not Mr. M. name the Churches which the Reformers charged with Errours in delivering the Canon of Scripture I am sure they plead the consent of the Eastern Churches against the Tridentine Canon as to the Old Testament and all Christian Churches are known to agree as to the New and why such an universal consent should not afford a ground of certainty to us is beyond my understanding 2. He saith Our Rule is Scripture not as interpreted or to be interpreted by the Church but as understood or to be understood without a necessity of submitting to the Interpretation of the Church by every sober Enquirer tho' of the meanest capacity for which Rule we are far from having the consent of all Christian Churches The main Question is Whether Scripture be a Rule of Faith to us or not And certainly all that believe it to be the Word of God must take it for a Rule of Faith. For since the reason of our believing is because God hath revealed whatever God hath revealed must be believed and a Book containing in it such Revelations must be the Rule of our Faith i. e. by it we are to judge what we are bound to believe as Divine Revelations The best of your Divines do all agree that our Faith is not to be resolved into any other Revelation than that which was made by Christ and his Apostles and that this Revelation is contained in the Books of the New Testament This being agreed on both sides every Christian how mean soever his capacity be must look on the Scripture as his Rule of Faith for he that is bound to believe at all must have some Rule or else he may believe any thing he finds all persons agreed that the Scripture is the Word of God and God's Word is an infallible Rule therefore he is bound to search the Scripture tor the matters of Faith. And is it possible to imagine that God himself should direct the making of this Rule for the benefit of all who are bound to believe and not to make it useful to its End viz. to be able to direct them in the necessary Points of Salvation The Founders of Monastie Orders made Rules for all those who were to live in them and obliged them to observe them under pain of Expulsion I desire to know whether this doth not suppose that those Rules are capable of being understood by all persons admitted into those Orders so far as they are concerned and
A SECOND LETTER To Mr. G. In ANSWER to TWO LETTERS Lately Published concerning The Conference At the D. of P. Imprimatur Guil. Needham Apr. 22. 1687. LONDON Printed for H. Mortlocke at the Phoenix in St. Paul's Church-yard 1687. A SECOND LETTER To Mr. G. SIR YOU may wonder that I continue my Application to your self when two Gentlemen have appeared in Print so lately for You but the Character they give of You is so extraordinary that I have no mind to change my man and therefore hope you will at last generously undertake the Defence of your own Cause The Authour of the first Letter saith Those that know you better think there is not an honester Man in the Nation and that if you have wronged me it is the first wrong you ever did in your Life I am afraid some will suspect your Friend was not in earnest when he wrote this and that it rather looks like libelling the Nation than commending You. But because it is so rare a thing to meet with a Person set forth with such Advantage you cannot blame me for desiring to hold a Correspondence with You in the way of Letters For all Mr. M's Arguments for Verbal Conferences have not prevailed upon 〈◊〉 and therefore I proceed in Writing another I 〈◊〉 to You looking on this Way as much freer 〈…〉 sudden heats and surprises more cautious and 〈…〉 erate and less liable to Cavils and Misrepresete 〈…〉 And methiâ—ks the Account Mr. M. gives of our Conâ—â—rence confutes all his Arguments unless they â—e â—etter managed in â—â—ffee-houses and other places i. e. with more Temper â—nd Fairness than he represents ours to have been The Truth is the Experience I have had of the Disingenuity both in and after them hath made me not very fond of them But it may be Verbal Conferences are most agreeable to Oral Tradition but we who prefer a Written Rule as far more certain rather chuse to publish in Writing the Sense of our Minds than leave it to the arbitrary Representing of others Words Which I had suffered so much by that I was forced for my own Vindication to betake my self to Writing a former Letter to you wherein I complained of the Injury done me by false and imperfect Copies of our Conference dispersed by you If that were the first wrong you ever did in your Life I am very sorry you should begin with me For after all that your Friends have said for you I am still of the same Opinion And in this Letter shall more fully give you my Reasons But I hope you are not now one hundred and fifty Miles off lest I be told again that I take advantage of your great Distance as though I durst not write to you at a less distance than between L. and Ch. But in case you were there still am I the less injured by your going so far or less obliged to vindicate my self among those who had been abused by false Reports and Copies of the Conference I now apply my self to what Mr. M. hath said for you in Answer to my former Letter Mr. M. saith p. 5. you were far from making great Boasts of a Victory after the Conference Must I rely on Mr. M.'s Authority against the Infallibility of Oral Tradition The matter of fact was deliver'd to me from several Persons who themselves heard you and in several Places What must I now believe according to your Infallible Rule of Oral Tradition Here are several Witnesses of unquestionable Credit who had it not by a long series from Father to Son but immediately from your own Mouth who could not easily forget what they heard you say and would not out of malice alter it and yet your own Advocate declares expresly contrary to them and thinks I am bound to believe his Testimony against them all I pray Sir consider what a reflexion this is upon your Rule and what little security we can have for our Faith then by Oral Tradition If so many Persons who were competent Judges of what they heard themselves and whose Testimony I had no reason to suspect could so strangely deceive me at so little a distance what Infallibility can you pretend in bare Tradition of matters of Faith when the things themselves are so much harder to conceive and deliver entire and the distance so very much greater Either therefore you must renounce your Advocate if you hold to the Infallibility of Oral Tradition or if you hold to Mr. M. you must renounce your Rule of Faith. Mr. M. seems to deny the charge of your giving out false and imperfect Copies of the Conference But that which I charged you chiefly with was from one that was received from your own hands and the rest I saw afterwards agreed with it And yet Mr. M. cannot deny that the Copies given out contained lame and unfinished Discourses p. 5. that the Noise and Wrangling might hinder the Writers from being so exact p. 15. that we parted in so great a hurry that those things which were spoken were not written nor some perhaps of what was written so nicely exact c. p. 19. that in the latter part of this Dispute things were not set down so exactly as they ought to have been ibid. that the Disputations of the Conference are lame and imperfect p. 25. These being the words of your own Advocane had I not just cause to complain that such Copies should be dispersed abroad as a true Account of the Conference between us whereas himself confesses them to have been so lame and imperfect And yet these were given about with great industry and care as though an entire Account of what passed at the Conference were contained in them and few days passed but I heard great Boasts were made of this Conference and some said that they had it under my hand that I was baffled I think therefore I had reason to complain of imperfect Copies since Mr. M. confesses they were no better But this is not all for I had said the Copies I had seen were false as well as imperfect To make out this charge I must insist on some particulars as they are in that Copy which was given by your self When Mr. T. declared himself satisfied as to the Grounds of Faith without the Roman Churches Infallibility which was the true state of the Question debated in the first part of which more by and by He desired to know for his own satisfaction How you would prove the Church of Rome to be infallible This in your Copy is said to be put by me And lest this might be thought a mere casual mistake I am certainly informed that Mr. M. told a Gentleman to whom he gave a Copy that I proposed the Question about the Church of Romes Infallibility as though I did it on purpose to divert the Discourse whereas Mr. T. declaring himself satisfied with the Answers given about the Grounds of our Certainty desired that he might propose a Question to
provoking Which all who have been present at your Conferences will set their hands to Alas Sir How much are you wronged by being charged with Disingenuity in the Conference You are onely forced sometimes to overcome your Natural Repugnance to it as Mr. M. saith he was in writing his Letter to me There is one thing Mr. M. frequently insists upon which I must give an Answer to viz. That I was glad to put an end to the first Dispute That the Issue of it was such that you could have no Temptation for forgery in the Account of it which is not greatly for my Credit p. 9. That I was beholding to Mr. T. for breaking it off p. 20. That I was as little pleased with the true Copies as with the false ones p. 23. That the Conference it self was as little to my Satisfaction as the worst account of it p. 25. These are very fine Insinuations I must not say Artificial for Mr. M. will no more like a word taken from Arts than the word it self If he means that I was very little pleased with the Manner of your Conference I do freely confess it and none who have been present at your other Conferences will blame me for it But if he thinks that I was unsatisfied with the Grounds of Certainty which I gave I utterly deny it For I still assert the same thing and abide by the Answer I then gave and do still hold that the universal Testimony of all Christian Churches is a sufficient Ground of absolute certainty to us as to the Rule of Faith. And this is an Answer I am so fully satisfied in that neither then nor now do I fear any Objections against it But I would not be drawn off from the main Point to another Debate and because I resolved to stick there I thought it most reasonable that Mr. T. should be yielded to for breaking it off at the Point in question which was not about the true Parts of the Catholick Church but about the true Ground of Certainty we had for our Faith. And when Mr. T. declared he had full satisfaction as to that what Reason had I to go any farther As to the truest Copies of the Conference I was not forward to disperse them not out of any Mistrust of the Answers I gave but because they contained onely short Heads and General Answers for those who desire to see an Account of a Conference expect to see a Relation of all that passed or at least of all material Passages relating to it and therefore onely a general Representation of it would seem dry and jejune and not answer the expectation they had of the Relation of a Conference But as to the Matter it self so far as it is truly set down of which I have now given a fuller Account I do abide by it And if my Credit suffer by it I do assure you it is not by reason of any Objection Mr. M. hath made against it or any that I foresee can be made Mr. M. chargeth me with disingenuous and unchristian proceeding toward you p. 23. This is a home Charge and not much indeed for my Credit if he can in the least make it good But if not I leave him to judge where the disingenuous and unchristian proceeding lies and to remember his Application of the Mote and the BEAM p. 15. Whereon is the heavy Charge grounded Why forsooth When I heard of false and imperfect Copies I ought to have sent to you to know whether they were given out by you What! When they came to my hands from those very Persons to whom you gave them But I ought to have shewn you the Errours of them and desired their Amendment It was indeed a very likely and hopefull way of vindicating my self When I knew from the very Persons to whom you spake what Boasts you had made of your victory and what Publick Places you had read the Copies in it was a very probable thing that if I had shewed you the Falsity of them You would have gone to those very Places and Persons and told them Gentlemen I must beg all your Pardons for I communicated false Copies to you and told you idle and lying stories about the Conference for I have been since with Dr. St. and he hath demonstrated to me that my Copy was not true although it were my own Copy and that which I delivered to you for very true Do you think Sir You could have overcome your Natural Repugnance so much as to have yielded to this Method of Satisfaction If not when I was assured so many Copies were dispersed in Town and Countrey which you could not recall if you intended it when I was called upon time after time by my Friends and it was told me something must be done towards my vindication What could I doe more proper or effectual than to publish that Letter which hath so much provoked Mr. M. as to make him overcome his Natural Repugnance and to appear in Print But yet there are other Circumstances which make my proceeding neither Ingenuous nor Christian. As that The Letter was published so long after That shews how unwilling I was to be brought to it and nothing but mere Necessity could have overcome my Natural Repugnance in such a Case For as the Authour of the former Letter well observes I love to spare my own Pains But I took the opportunity of your Absence Therein Mr. M. did me Injury For truly Sir it was perfectly the same thing to me whether you were at Lond. or West-Chest Nay the Argument would hold the other way if it were true For I heard of your talking of going to Ch. soon after the Conference and that you told Persons you were just going and I did believe you to be there till I heard of some other Conferences of yours I do not think my self bound to enquire after your Stays or Removes but I know how you had done me wrong and therefore Mr. M. can have no Reason to blame me for doing what was necessary for my own vindication Mr. M. charges me p. 35. with having too mean an Opinion of you If I be to blame in this I hope you will take Care to rectifie it but Mr. M. hath not done much towards it However he takes a notable Advantage as he thinks from hence We saith he will be contented to pass for Weak and Ignorant and I shall be obliged to shew by whom you may be protected from Errour A very well compounded business But what if it be not in my Power or any ones else to make you infallible Did I ever promise or undertake any such thing Or set up Infallible Bills When I doe so then come to me for such Directions We never pretend to make any Persons Infallible but to put them into a certain way to be saved which we think is much better And if men be honest and sincere in their Endeavours to know and doe the Will of God