occasion for your pastime and merriment The next tast you give of mee is enough to give any Reader who loves sincerity a whole belly full of your manner of confuting 'T is found p. 65. where you make mee say that the Scripture cannot bee the Rule of Faith because those who are to bee rul'd and guided by the Scriptures Letter to Faith cannot bee Certain of the true Sence of it Upon this you descant thus Which is to say that unsenc't Letters and Characters cannot bee the Rule of Faith because the Rule of Faith must have a certain Sence that is must not bee unsenc't Letters and Characters which in plain English amounts to thus much Unsenc't Letters and Characters cannot bee the Rule of Faith that they cannot Here is not much rumbling of Rhetorick as you call it p. 63. but here is a strange jumbling of Sence Let 's see if I can set right what you have taken such pains to disorder I discourse then thus Points of Faith are determinate Sences and Faith is Certain therefore the Way or Means to Faith that is the Rule of Faith must bee a Certain Way of arriving at those determinate Sences These Sences say you Protestants are arriv'd at by the Scripture's Letter signifying it to you therefore you must bee Certain by it that those Determinate Sences were mean't by God Not that the Rule of Faith was those Sences but the Way to them and They the End of it of which that Rule must bee significative as I all over exprest so it was properly related to those Sences as the thing Signify'd Whence in proper Speech they are to bee called its Sence in the same manner as 't is call'd my Hand-writing which my Hand writ though neither my Hand is the writing nor involves writing in any part of it's Definition but is distinguisht from it as Cause from Effect nor yet does the Letter taken as the Way to Faith or God's Sence imply as any part of it self the Sence 't is to cause in my Knowing Power If by this time you bee awake you will see how you wilfully abuse mee and how far I am from tautologizing which for a blind to avoid a more pertinent Answer you pretend The pith of the Cavill lies in those words in your Descant The Rule of Faith must have a certain Sence that is as you put it upon mee it must not bee unsenc't Letters and Characters or it must bee senc't Letters c. Observe the words have and bee the former of which means no more than when wee say a Cause must have an Effect but wee do not therefore infer that the Cause taken as a Cause has in it self that very Effect which it produces in another for Example the Fire which causes or heats is not heated not the Cold that cools cooled nor for the same reason the Letters which are the Cause of Sence in us are not as such senc't that is have not that very Effect in themselves which they produce in another viz. in the understanding For Senc't means made to bee understood and they cannot bee made to bee understood taken as significative or as the way to bee understood I hope by this you see how the Rule of Faith being the Means Way or Cause of arriving at Faith or Sence may have a certain Sence caus'd by it as it's Effect and yet it self not bee or include the Effect it causes in another but for that very reason exclude it and so bee unsenc't but yet significative or apt to bee senc't After this follows the Triumph And thus I might trace him through all his Properties of the Rule of Faith Which I heartily yield too and I beleeve my Reader that examins these Passages will bee verily perswaded not onely that you may do it but that you will do it 't is so naturall to you and necessary to boot Now the greatest Favour you have done mee herein is that by a few unselected Passages you have so acquainted our Readers with your manner of writing and what may bee expected from it that it will render it needless for mee to spend time in laying you open any farther Besides I foresee your Reason such as it is begins to come into play Yet some few Favours scatter'd here and there will I fear not cease to sollicit my Gratitude You drop some of them upon my Friends Capt. Everard you say p. 75. or his Friend affirm there are plain contradictions in Scripture impossible to bee reconcil'd and therefore Protestants ought to submit to the Infallibility of the Church instancing in the third Series of Generations Mat. 1. said there to bee fourteen yet counted amount but to thirteen And has hee not good reason since neither can Scripture alone recommend it self to an Unbeleever to bee of God's enditing if it bee found by him to bee significative of irreconcileable Contradictions and so needs the Churches Authority to ascertain it to bee such nor can wee have any security such Contradictions might not bee found in the main points of Faith themselves did not the Churches Faith writ in her heart keep the Letter of it safe from such enormous Corruptions Yet you must have your jest and to bring it in you constantly mistake on set purpose asking p. 76. if the Infallibility of the Church can make Thirteen Fourteen notwithstanding you say p. 75. this difficulty has been sufficiently satisfy'd by Commentators I suppose therefore you judge those Commentators have sufficiently satisfy'd you that Thirteen are Fourteen Any body can sufficiently satisfy any difficulty with you provided the Church and her Infallibility have no hand in it On this occasion I beseech you Sir give mee leave to ask you what Commentator has reconcild that most Evident Contradiction in your Translation of the Scripture Look in your Psalms put in the Book of Common-Prayer and there Ps. 105 v. 28. wee have these words Hee sent darkness and it was dark and they were not obedient unto his word But in the same Psalm and verse put in the middle of the Bible these Hee sent darkness and made it dark and they rebelled not against his word the former place sayes they were not obedient the latter they were obedient I suppose you conceit mistaking the whole thing your Church without Infallibility can reconcile those things which ours even with Infallibility is at a horrible puzzle with Mr. Cressy's turn is next against whom you have many a fling but one especially p. 93. because hee sayes Schism is impossible in our Church Which you call absurd and ludicrous you tell him hee cannot deny but 't is possible for men to break from our Communion but that the Subtility of it lies here that therfore Schism is impossible in our Church because so soon as a man is a Schismatick hee is out of it This done you ask And is it not as impossible in the Church of England Sir I must tell you your whole Book in a
never are more powerfull than when you use your wit to make Authours fall out with one another and unnaturall mee with my self But to the point In the first Citation I say That the common course of humane Conversation makes it a madness not to beleeve great multitudes of Knowers c. But I add Sure-footing p. 49. what you omit that in the way of Tradition all Deliverers or immediate Forefathers are Knowers all the Knowledge requisit being of what they were taught and practic 't accordingly all their lives I beseech you Sir are those great multitudes of immediate Forefathers Knowers when they deliver down a Book for a right one that is do they all know the Translation is right made the Copy right printed or written and all the Perquisits which are needfull that they may bee truly said to know this Book is rightly qualify'd You see then how far I am from contradicting my self unless you show that I hold all Recommenders or Accepters of a Book to bee Knowers as they are of the practicall Doctrine they were bred and brought up to which I neither do nor can with any Sence profess The Reader also will see that the stratagem by virtue of which you made mee contradict my self was your omitting those words of mine which made the contrary clear The next place you cite p. 104. from mee to the same purpose is this that none but madmen can suspect deceit where such multitudes agree unanimously in a matter of Fact Now the words such multitudes mean all their immediate Fore-fathers qualifi'd as Knowers as I exprest myself a little before which will veryill sute your purpose in regard the matters of Fact employ'd about the delivering a right Book as in translating transcribing pointing right c. of which their Sences onely can make them Knowers are so inumerable and minute yet such that very great miscarriages may ensue upon a very little over-sight that to think all Forefathers can know no Fault in any of these interven'd is such an extravagant conceit that onely a most obstinate passion could make a rationall soul entertain it The point is at present that you affect to represent mee to the half part and by that art you take mee up perpetually before I bee down For it is not an agreement in any matter of Fact but in such a one as may bee known by all in which I place the force of being able to oblige others to assent to their proposalls You treat mee far worse p. 105. making mee say that the Providence of God is no security against those Contingencies the Scripture is liable to because wee cannot bee certain of the divine Providence or Assistance to his Church but by the Letter of Scripture which is to put upon mee a ridiculous Argument making mee infer there is no such Assistance from this that wee cannot bee Certain of it but such a way Whereas Common sence tells every one that our Certainty being an Effect of the Thing 's Existence must depend indeed on their Existence in regard we cannot bee Certain of what is not But the things can exist whether wee bee Certain of them or no I affirm then and charge upon you that I have no where either such words or sence in my whole book as you with a strange precipitancy to say no worse affirm p. 104. that I tell you Sure-footing p. 18. where my discourse onely pretends to show that who will argue orderly must first bee Certain of that on which hee builds his Conclusion ere hee asserts the Conclusion it self This was the tenour of my discourse there which I conceive to bee evident beyond Cavill If I err'd any where 't was in supposing you onely took from Scripture that God assisted his Church in preserving a right Copy of Scripture and therefore argu'd preposterously if you inferr'd God has a Providence over his Church in preserving right Scripture therefore 't is preserv'd right But this I spoke onely with an If and besides had good grounds for it For I conceiv'd there being but two wayes to know this by Revelation which you profess to have onely by way of Scripture and by naturall Reason whence you could not have it For however meer nature might teach it's exact Followers there was a God and that hee had Providence over his Creatures as it taught Socrates Seneca and such like yet I remember not that wee have any Ground to say meer nature inform'd any God had a Church much less that there was no way to Provide for her continuance in Faith or deriving his Doctrine down in her but by way of Books Hence I concluded and conclude still it must bee either by Scripture or no way you can know God has such a kind of Providence over his Church You are pleased to tell your Reader p. 119. that this Principle That in matters of Religion a man cannot bee reasonably satisfy'd with any thing less than that Infallible Assurance which is wrought by Demonstration is the main Pillar of Mr. S' s. Book whereas I assure you Sir the last part of the kind slur you put upon mee which is wrought by Demonstration was never either my words nor sence neither Pillar nor the least part of Sure-footing wherefore as you put those words in a different Letter for mine so you had done well to have put down the place too where those words were found which you wisely omitted If I had affirm'd that that Assurance which grounds Faith must bee wrought by Demonstration how should I pretend the Vulgar can bee sav'd who are manifestly incapable of Demonstration as I also frequently acknowledge Understand then my Tenet at length which you ought to have done e're you begun to write against it but that to use your own words you thought it an absurd and ridiculous study to bend your brains to read my Book as you would do Euclid p. 292. which yet is no more but to consider attentively my Principles and my Consequences My Tenet is that all the Faithfull have and those who seek after Faith may have and those who seek after Faith may have Assurance of their Faith wrought in them by Practicall Self-evidence in the same naturall manner but with far better Reason than they beleeve there was a Henry the 8th and that 't is onely Schollars that go about to Demonstrate what the Faithfull know but for want of Study or Reflexion on their own thoughts and on the Causes and Manners with which they were so assur'd are ignorant how to make it out I beseech you Sir repress this overflowing of Kindness in giving mee so many Advantages against you and take a little pains to understand what I say nor to borrow your elegant expression p. 292. suffer your self to bee so demurely discharged of a Study so necessary and so honorable I had affirm'd in my Letter to my Answerer p. 5th that it was a civill piece of Atheistry to say Faith is possible
you to magnifie so highly such petty trifles and so totally unconcerning the main of the business You laugh p. 305. that I who confest my self a bad Transcriber transcrib'd him how childish a Cavill is this As if every one who is to bring Testimonies whether hee like his task or no must not transcribe them from some place or other yet you tell mee ironically you will do mee the right to assure the Reader that I do it very punctually and exactly I wish to requite you Sir I could assure the Reader you had as punctually and exactly transcrib'd mee you had sav'd a great deal of precious credit by it and I a great deal of precious time and ungratefull pains in laying open your Insincerity But to our Testimonies The first is from the Synod of Lateran The force of which you say p. 306. lies in the word deliver'd which is indifferently us'd for conveyance by writings or word of mouth But Sir there are also in that Testimony the words preaching and teaching and I do not beleeve it is so Indifferent to you whether you preach by word of mouth or no that you should say the word Preaching sounds not conveyance of a thing orally The next Testimony has the same Exception and the same Answer But you say this Council particularly this part of the Epistle were excepted against by some What matter 's it so they did not except against it for this passage or this Doctrin which may serve for Answer also to the mistaking Exceptions against the 7th Generall Councill which follows next Thus Origen and Tertullian are both excepted against yet are both commonly alledg'd and allow'd where the Reasons of those Exceptions have no place Next follow your Answers to the Fathers I alledg'd But first p. 310. you must mistake Rushworth next mee For Rushworth speaks not I mean in the first Citation of Delivery but of a point delivered nor do I here intend to convince thence the Certainty of Delivery or Tradition which you proceed upon for making Fathers parts of Tradition it would make the same thing prove it self Understand then rightly Sir what I am about and then I shall accept your impugning it for a favour The Truth of the thing is one thing and the Iudgment of a person concerning it is another And 't is not to evince the Truth of the point I produce these Testimonies for in the order of Discoursing the Knowledge of Traditions or First Authority's Certainty antecedes and gives strength to all the other inferiour and dependent ones What I only aim at then is only to show that thus they judg'd not to convince the Truth of the Thing from their Judgment and thence to show my self not to be singular in thus judging Whence also 't is that I entitled this part Consent of Authority c. Retract then I beseech you Sir any such thoughts or expressions as that I would hence convince Tradition to be the whole Truth of Faith demonstrate prove it For I intend to prove no more by the rest then by those from the Council of Trent which onely aim to show that so and so that Council said and held The First Testimony of a Father is Pope Celestines the force of which you think quite spoild p. 310. by Binnius his other Reading of such a word And why I pray unless he could make it out his reading were true the other false which I see not attempted But you let it pass and answer that retain'd by Succession from the Apostles till this very time may mean by Scripture as well as by Orall Tradition I conceive not and I give you my reason because who make Scripture their Rule are unconcern'd whether their Faith was retaind to this very time from the Apostles by Succession or no For though all the world apostatiz'd and so interrupted that Succession yet as long as they have the Letter of Scripture it being plain to all their Faith is retain'd still What you quote this Father afterwards to say of Scripture wee heartily say Amen to so you mean by Scriptures that Book sen'ct by its proper Interpreter as to points of Faith the Church And you are to show he meant otherwise You choke with an c. better half of Irenaeus his Testimony p. 311. which spoils your answer to the first for it speaks of his present dayes when the Scripture was not onely left by the Apostles but spread and to bee had and yet that many nations of those Barbarians who beleeve in Christ had even then salvation writ in their hearts without Characters and Ink diligently keeping the ancient Tradition The Substance of your Answer to Origen 312. is onely this that unless I mean by Churches Tradition preserv'd by order of Succession mysticall interpretations of Scripture so deliver'd down you assure mee Origen is not for my turn And I assure you Sir 't is so learned an Answer that I dare not oppose it Tertullian is next to whom by offering to wave him you show your self 312. little a Friend and no kindness is lost for hee is as little a Friend to you driving such as you in his Prescriptions from any Title to dispute out of or even handle Scripture yet you say he saies no more but beleeve what is Traditum deliverd though as alledg'd by mee Sure-footing p. 133. hee sayes much more in a large intire Testimony which you not so much as mention You tell mee also hee meant deliver'd by the Scriptures but you strain hard to make it come in And Tertullian is the unlikeliest man in the world to provoke to the Scriptures who tells us de praescrip c. 16. Nihil proficit congressus Scripturarum nisi plane ut aut Stomachi quis ineat eversionem aut cerebri Scripture-disputes avail nothing but meerly either to make ones Stomack or his head turn But alas Sir how are you gravell'd with the two First Testimonies from Athanasius and how slightly you pass them over p. 313. The Protestants first maxim is Beleeve no men nor Ancestors nor Church but search the Scriptures that is seek for your Faith there Against which way his whole discourse is bent as may bee seen surefoot p. 133. 134. Is Faiths coming down by Ancestours the same as coming down by a book or doe not the words from Christ by Fathers mean by words expressing the Sense in their hearts but by a book not to bee Senc't by them but plain of it self The third Testimony expresly saies 'T is to bee answer'd to those things which alone of it self suffices that those are not of the Orthodox Church and that our Ancestors never held so You tell mee it is a gross errour that hee thought this alone or without Scripture might bee sufficient I wonder what mean the words which alone of it self suffices if they bee not exclusive of any thing else as necessary words have lost their signification and I my reason I but hee quotes Scripture for it afterwards
or driving them home to any point my very sorting them under these Heads sounds a greater particularity in my Exceptions and Answer than you show'd any in alledging them Next you had refus'd to do mee the reason I begg'd in my Letter to my Answerer § 8. in vouching you Testimonies to bee Conclusive or Satisfactory which unless you did I had already told you there it was my resolution to give them no other Answer And I shall candidly make known my Intention why I do so and shall ever do so till you come to some good point in that particular I had observ'd what multitudes of voluminous Books had and might bee writ in the way of Citation without any possibility of satisfying that is to the extream loss of time and prejudice to rational souls while any Citation however qualify'd was admitted and no Principles laid to sort them and show which were Conclusive wherefore I judg'd it the best way to drive you from that insignificant and endless way of writing to tell in short my exceptions against each Testimony and to force you to vouch them Conclusive And I pray why should I or any be put to show each of those Citations to our excessive pains inefficacious whereas your self who is the Alledger will not take pains to show any one of them to bee efficacious But your way here is the weakest in that kind I ever read or heard of You huddle together a clutter of Citations never apply them particularly as I constantly did mine Overleap all considerations of their qualifications nakedly set them down as you say p. 332 and then tell us they are enough to satisfie any unpassionate Reader that dare trust himself with the use of his own Eyes and Reason Which is plausible indeed to flatter fools that are passionately self-conceited otherwise I conceive an unpassionate Reader will require much more if he ever knew what Controversy meant Hee would know the variety of Circumstances Antecedents Consequents c. Besides speaking Equivocally or Rhetorically not distinctly and literally may alter every Testimony there Above all hee would consider whether they were expressive onely of some persons Opinions and not rather of the solid and constant sense of the faithful in that Age vvithout which they want the nature of Testimonies Is it clear to every man's Eyes and Reason none of these or other faults render all yours Inefficacious Is it clear that when they say Scripture is plain they mean plain to all even Heathens that never heard of Faith such must bee the Plainness of the Rule of Faith or onely to those who have learn't Christian Doctrin already by the Church that is who bring their Rule with them I am sure St. Austin de Doctrinâ Christianâ your best Testimony speaks of such Readers as are timentes Deum ac pietate mansueti those which fear God and are meek with piety that is those which are not onely Faithful or Christians already but pious and good Christians which makes it nothing to your purpose Again some one passage may bee so plain as a learned man may in the opinion of learned men plainly confound an Adversary but will it bee clear and plain in all necessary points to the vulgar who hear a great many hard words brought on both sides and have no skill to judge who has the better in such contests yet the Rule of Faith must bee plain even to the vulgar and able to give them Satisfaction Again when the Fathers provoke to the Scripture is it not against those who deny the Church but accept the Scripture and so the necessity of disputing out of some commonly-acknowledg'd Principle may bee the onely reason they take that method 'T is evidently so in that you quote from St. Austin against Maximinus p. 329. and against the Donatists who deny'd the Judgment of the Catholik Church quae ubique terrarum diffunditur and so hee was to prove his point ubi sit Ecclesia out of Scripture or no way Again is it clear out of the Citations nakedly set down what went before and after Is it clear for example that when they speak highly of Scripture they mean not Scripture unsenc't but onely taken as Significative of God's sence as it must to bee the Rule of Faith or if of Scripture senc't they mean not senc't by the Church but by the human skill of private persons which is the true point between us St. Austin without doubt makes the Church the Interpreter of Scripture as is clearly seen by his Discourse at the end of his 17. Chap. Of the Profit of Beleeving which spoils your pretence to his Authority Nay do not they often mean by Scripture the very Sence of it that is Christs Doctrine or the Gospel As oft as you hear them speak of the Things that are written or call them Principles or The Rule of Truth and Opinions or speak of conforming other Doctrines to them and such like so oft they speak of the Doctrin it self contain'd in Scripture or the Truths found there Such is that of Clemens cited by you p. 316. 317. which speaks meerly of the Sence of it or the Truths in it which hee makes deservedly the Rule to other Truths and hence now hee names Scripture then the Tradition of the Church then Scripture again it being indifferent to his purpose the same Sense which hee onely intends being included in both Such is also evidently your best Testimony to wit that of Irenaeus which speaks of the Gospell it self preach't and writ that is clearly of the Sence indifferent to either way of Expression But what is this or indeed all that is said there to the Letter of Scripture taken as Significative of God's Sense that is not for that Sense nor as including it but as the Means and Way to it as it must bee taken when 't is meant for a Rule of Faith and the plainness and Certainty of that Way to all that are yet to come to Faith taking that Letter as interpretable by private Skill and Maxims of Language-learning which is the true point between you and us Bring Testimonies for this and you will do wonders To use your own words p. 318. I need not shew what I have discours't here of every of his Testimonies in particular for whosoever shall read them with this Key will find they are of no force to conclude what hee drives or ought to drive at I am loath to suggest any Jealousie of your Insincerity in all these Citations though you have seldome fail'd in that point Present my service to your Friend Mr. Stillingfleet and assure him hee shall not bee neglected though there were no other reason but your high commendations of him Your humble Servant J. S. A Postscript to the Reader READER THough I write to Mr. T. yet I publish to thee and so have a Title to salute thee with a line or two Tell mee then dost not find thy Expectation deluded which Sure-footing
them to do is to trust those Divines and to proceed accordingly to warn the Faithfull to beware of those Books in which they are inform'd there is such danger So that the motive those Governours proceed upon is their care of preserving the Faithfull untainted and the Judgment of Divines not Christian Tradition And what motive proceed those Divines upon in these Censures Upon their best skill as Divines that is their best skill in drawing Consequences in which neither themselves nor any else say they are Infallible Thus much for the Censurers Now come wee to the Person censur'd and his Books Of what nature are they Theologicall Discourses And what do such Discourses rely on formally On Tradition Nothing less On this hee rely'd as a Beleever or Christian not as a Divine but on his own humane skill in explicating Faith or it's Ground and his talent in deducing right Consequences in which also hee and every man Living is Fallible You see Sir by this time the ripe fruits of your performance in this point and that you have brought a worthy Instance of Difference amongst Reliers on Tradition in a passage wherein neither side rely on Tradition Oh but they contradict one another in the very point of Tradition 'T is your weak and unproud conjecture and besides you cannot I mean still will not distinguish between the Substance of Tradition that is the Infallibility of the Living Voice and Practice of the Church Essentiall in conveying down uninterruptedly Christ's Doctrine and the Explication of it show the Church of Rome condemns the former and you have my free Confession I am at a loss for my Faith But though you show shee condemns and censures all the later that is all the Explications whether made by that Authour my self or any other yet as long as she condemns not the former shee hath done nothing against Tradition and so your wise Instance is spoil'd as it was no other likely being the weakest you could have invented against Tradition and the least concerning it in regard there is not one learned Catholick in the Church that looks upon the Acts of the Roman Inquisition in Censuring Books as on Infallible Definitions of Faith 12. You 'l ask where lies the Fault in such cases I answer no where that I know not in the Head of the Church who acted the most prudently and carefully that could be in such an affair neither censuring any particular Proposition where there was no more Certainty to ground that Censure than the Judgment of some Divines and yet providing by the Caution his censure imported that the conceived harmfullness in those Books might work no ill Effects whence 't is but an invidious presumption of your own that perhaps the Pope is censur'd for it in England Nor were those Roman Divines Faulty in case they judg'd secundum ultimum potentiae but were bound in conscience to give in to the Court what they thought Again those Explications of Divinity-points looking new to them and it being the naturall Genius of the Followers of Tradition to bee jealous of any thing that is new and this not onely in Faith but also in Explications of Faith in regard these pretend a coherence and connexion with Faith it self it seems to mee to sound a laudable zeal both in them and others to bee suspicious of and less a Friend at First to what 's new 'till it bee farther lookt into and appear innocent Nor can I say 't is a Fault in the person censur'd in case hee sincerely ment to write what he judg'd was truth and so most advantageous to the Church and submits to the Orders of his Chief Eccesiasticall Superiour You see Sir the whole case in which I am larger because you are kinder here than ordinary and your Instance falling pittifully short you peece it out with Falshoods p. 22. that wee in England censure perhaps the Pope for this Action that the person censur'd disobeyes the Summons of his Chief Pastour that p. 24. the Governours of the Church do professedly cherish Ignorance in the Generality of the Papists for the increasing their devotion These are grear favours indeed you are too liberall Sir and will undo your self unless you restrain your hand from this profuseness of kindness Your 4th Section is all Reason like the foregoing one in which you laid your grounds and fell to build so strong and firm that it needs more than an ordinary blast to blow it down Therefore I conceive 't is best to stay a while and gain more breath which is something short with mee at present 13. But your fifth even kills me with Kindness and acquaints the Reader with a dangerous oversight of mine enough to overthrow my whole Book 'T is this that I make Traditions Certainty a First and self-evident Principle and yet go about to demonstrate it which you soberly admonish mee to take heed how I take it upon me that Aristotle never demonstrated First Principles because they could not bee demonstrated that most prudent men are of Opinion that a self-evident principle of all things in the world should not bee demonstrated because it needs not you ask to what end should a man write a Book to proove that which every man must assent to without proof so soon as 't is propounded to him c. Now Sr in my mind you should onely have combated this and have given no other Answer to my whole Book but to this onely for nothing can bee so senceless nor so impertinent as to go about to proove that which that which can need no proof nor consequently less meriting an Answer I would then had I been in your case have thought it my best and most honourable play to omit all counterfeitings of my Adversaries defining all those multitudes of groundless Cavills voluntary mistaks Calumnies laughing at his First Principles Evidence demonstration c. together with all my wordish exceptions at his rumbling Rethorick perching upon the nature of things and other such expressions and have solely apply'd my self to this one Folly evacuating his whole Book and so excusing my Answer And this you might have done with far greater hopes of conquering than in any of the rest because that a First and self-evident Principle cannot bee evidenc't seems so clear that it even looks like a First Principle it self of which no other part of your confutation has the least Countenance or resemblance And be assur'd Sr since you would not use this advantage against mee as you might you shall never have mee upon the like lock again Caught in these streights by your entangling Logick I endeavour my escape on this manner Self-evidence is two-fold Speculative and Practicall Speculative self-evidence it that which cannot bee made Evident by any Speculation or Skill but is known meerly by the common light of understanding such is that which is found in those Principles I dicourst of before which were therefore Self-evident speculatively because their Subject and
Faith being confessedly the means to arrive at the Points of Faith and the Sence or meaning of Scripture being the Points of Faith it follows unavoidably that the Protestants must say if they will speak sence that the Rule of Faith must bee the means to bring them to the Sence or meaning of Scripture for which according to them the Letter of Scripture as significative being sufficient 't is consequent they can onely mean by Rule of Faith the Letter of Scripture as significative of God's Sence or Points Faith I beseech you Sir what say you to this Discourse Do you answer it or show that if you take Scripture in any other Sence for Rule of Faith than as thus consider'd you do not confound the Rule of Faith with the Points of Faith Not a jot Nor is it your fashion to speak to my Reasons or Consequences Thus you answer'd my First Discourse the most solid and most Fundamentall part of my Book Deforming the plain sayings I built on for Definitions denying my conclusions in a following Section and saying something against them but not a word I can find any where against the Proofs which inferr'd them deduc't at large there for 14. § § together that is from § 2. to the end Your way of answering is generally when you are gravell'd with the Reason to bring some ridiculous Parallell then laugh heartily and mock at that and so discountenance the other But here to do you right you bring two very good ones but the comfort is you understood them not to bee such else wee should not have had them which you put a little oddly and then triumph and think your self victorious Pray Sir lend me your Parallells a while to manage The first of them is found p. 62. concerning which I thus discourse Taking the Statute-book for the means to convey to us the Sence of that Book or the Laws I must still say you cannot mean by Statute-book the Sence of that Book or the Laws that is that Book as conjoyn'd with it's Sence for so it would signify that the same Thing is a means to it self that is is before and after it self you must onely mean then by Statute-book thus consider'd the Letter of that book as yet unsenc't or contradistinguisht from the same book as conjoyn'd with its sence that is the Letter of that Book as Significative Thus I conceive it perfectly parallell to mine and withall very rationall But you make it amount to this p. 62. l. 13. That a Book cannot convey to a man the Knowledge of any matter because if it did it would convey to him the Thing to bee known The later part of which is true though I percieve you know it not for these words Knowledge of a matter involves in their signification the thing Known as if you reflect on your own words Matter and Thing you will quickly discover But the Sophistry lies in this that when you say a Book cannot convey c. you equivocate in the word Book which I contend must either be taken for the Letter of it in conjunction with the Sence which is the thing known and then it cannot thus accepted bee a means of arriving at the Knowledge of the Thing or the Thing as known for then it would signify as much as if one should say the Letter with the thing known is the means of arriving at the thing known or else it must bee taken for the Letter as Significative onely or without the Sence and so it may bee conceiv'd a way of arriving at that Sence 't is judg'd apt to signify But Sir your contending here against a thing so Evident has a great deal of reason for it you would have the outward Letter of Scripture confounded with the Sense of it that those who hear you quote the Letter may thee fool'd to imagine you have still the Sense aoo whereas should these bee known to bear distinction it would bee very obvious to question whether you speak any thing of God's Word or no how much soever you have the outward Letter in your mouth and pen Which reflexion alone if it were considerately weigh'd would spoil all your writing and preaching too For thus go your First Principles The outward Letter lying in a book must first bee call'd God's Word and held so plain that it cannot bee misunderstood and then the Sence you give it must needs bee held God's Sence which politick Principles lay'd I see not what you are inferiour to those whom the Holy Ghost inspir'd and your sayings are to have the same force if the plot take as the words of a Prophet or Evangelist And who would not bee angry fume and take on against a Discourse which is likely to devest you of so considerable and beneficiall a Prerogative Your second Parallell applies my Distinction concerning Scripture to Orall Tradition for you have a speciall Faculty of your own in making men contradict themselves thus you us'd a whole cluster of our Authours p. 119 120. and as for poor mee if you take mee underhand I can scarce speak a word consonantly Now Sir wee are thus far agreed and better Friends than you took us to bee that I allow your Parallell to a tittle and stick not at all to grant what you would force upon mee p. 63. that When I say Orall Tradition is the Rule of Faith I can onely mean by Orall Tradition the Living Voice and Practice of the Church as apt to signify the Sence of Forefathers and not the Sence or those Points of Faith which they are apt to signify Also that those Words and Practices taken formally as the means to know Points of Faith are contradistinguish't from that Sence or those Points and oppos'd to it relatively as a means is oppos'd to an End and therefore taken as consider'd in this abstraction and contradistinction as a Means to cause their actuall Sence in us I say those Words and Practises are without Sence in the same manner as a Means taken formally for such is without the End and excludes it from it's notion All this I voluntarily grant and least you should conceit your strong Reason has brought mee to it I let you know I ever took them so formerly See Sure-footing p. 41. 2d Edition which I still intend to quote By Orall or Practicall Tradition wee mean a delivery down from hand to hand by Words and a constant course of frequent and visible Actions conformable to those Words of the Sence and Faith of Forefathers Where you see I make Sence or Faith the thing deliver'd and Words and Actions the Way of delivering which therefore must needs exclude one another formally Yet you think you have gotten a notable advantage against mee by this Parallell Discourse telling your Reader p. 63. When hee hath answer'd this Argument hee will have answer'd his own A shrewd Opponent who confutes mee by putting mee to answer an Argument thinking it would puzzle me grievously which is
manner is compounded of putting tricks upon your Adversaries that is putting their sayings upon such accounts they never intended then impugning your own fictions 'T is not on the impossibility of any going out of us nor meerly because whenany one is out of our Church hee is not in it wee ground the Necessity of our Churches Unity but in this that her nature and Constitution is so fram'd that shee can admit no division in her Bowells but keeps her self distinguisht from Aliens If any one recede from Faith it must bee by not hearing the present Churches living voice teaching him points which the Knowledge Practice and Expressions of the Teachers determins and make Evident what they are whence his disbeleef if exprest is an Evident matter of Fact which is most apt to make a plain distinction between the disbeleever and the Beleevers and an Evidence beyond Cavill for the Church Governours to proceed upon This done as likewise in the case of high disobedience against Church-Laws or Governours shee Excommunicates that is solemnly separates the Schismaticall Offender from the Obedient Faithfull Hence those Faithfull look upon him as a Rebell or Outlaw or as our Saviour expresses as a Heathen or Publican no Church-officer admits him to Sacraments but upon his pennance and Satisfaction nor any Son of the Church will communicate with him in Sacred duties Pray you Sir is this the Temper of your Church of England Your Rule is the Letter of Scripture as conceiv'd significative of Gods word and this to private understandings Again you say all necessary points of Faith are plain in it nay that nothing is fundamentally necessary but what is plain there Hence all that hold the Letter to bee plainly Expressive of Gods Sence and intend to hold to what they conceive plain there whether Socinians Anabaptists Independents or whatever other faction all hold to your Rule of Faith and so are all Protestants For if you would ty any of these to any determinable points you force them from the Rule of Faith Scripture as seeming plain to them and would instead thereof bring them to a reliance on your Judgement And if you would punish them for not doing it you cannot evidence their Fault by way of matter of Fact that so you may proceed upon it for as long as they profess their intention to hold to what seems plain to them in Scripture and that your Text seems less plain to them there than their own you ought not to proceed against them Ecclesiastically without disannulling your avowed Rule of Faith And your carriage executes accordingly neither using Church-discipline against them for Tenets nor yet for denying or disobeying your Goverment Episcopacy though held by you divinely instituted When did you put any distinction by any solemn Ecclesiastical declaration between an Anabaptist Presbyterian Socinian c. and your selves When did you excommunicate them warn the purer Protestants by any Publick Ecclesiasticall Act not to joyn with them in Sacred Offices but to look upon them as Aliens Might not any of them come to receive the Communion if hee would or has any discipline past upon him to debar him from being admitted None that wee see Your Party then in indeed no Ecclesiasticall body cohering by Unity of Tenets or Government but a Medly rather consisting of men of any tenet almost and so bears division disunion and Schism that is the Formal cause of non-Entity of a Church in it's very Bowells These two flams of yours are Sir the Favours you have done my Friends and I can onely tell you in a country complement I thank you as much for them as if you had done them to my self Seeing your Reason begin to play it's part bravely in the following part of your Book I thought I had done my duty of Thanking but I percieve one main Engin your Reason made use of was to make mee perpetually contradict my self And this you perform'd by singling a few words out of my Book from their fellows introducing them in other circumstances and so almost in every Citation falsifying my Intentions and this purposely as will bee seen by this that you practis'd designe and Artifice in bringing it about This obliges mee in stead of making an End to return back and to show how sincerly you have us'd mee in almost all your Citations I omit your false pretence that I mean't to define contrary to my express words You tell your Reader p. 11. That if any presume to say this Book Scripture depends not on Tradition for it's Sence then the most scurrilous language is not bad enough then are those Sacred writings but Ink variously figur'd in a Book quoting for those words App. 4th p. 319. But if wee look there not a word is there found of it's depending or not depending on Tradition for it's Sence nor of making that the Cause why I us'd those words you object cite for it but onely that whereas my Lord of Downs sayes his Faith has for its object the Scriptures I tell him that since he means not by the word Scripture any determinate Sence which is the formall parts of words hee must mean the Characters or Ink thus figur'd in a Book as is evident there being nothing imaginable in them besides the matter and the form which every Schollar knows compound the thing This being then the plain tenour of my discourse there and not the least word of Tradition sencing Scripture Whatever the Truth of the Thing is 't is evident you have abus'd my words as found in the place you cite My Citation p. 12. which abstracts from what security wee can have of those parts of Scripture which concern not Faith you will needs restrain to signifie no security at all either of Letter or Sence which is neither found in my words nor meaning How you have abus'd my words to avoid Calumny with the Vulgar cited by you p. 13. as also the former of those cited p. 14. I have already shown § 9 and 10. P. 17. You quote my words 'T is certain the Apostles taught the same Doctrine they writ whence you infer they writ the same Doctrine they taught Which your introducing Discourse would make to signifie an Equality of Extent in Writing and Tradition by saying I grant this Doctrine which signifies there the First deliver'd Doctrine was afterwards by the Apostles committed to writing Whereas whoever reads my 29th Cor. will see I can onely mean by the word same Doctrine a not-different Doctrine Whatever the truth of the point is this shows you have an habituall imperfection not to let the words you cite signifie as the Authour evidently meant them but you must bee scruing them to serve your own turn You quote mee p. 36. to say that Primitive Antiquity learn'd their Faith by another method a long time before many of those Books were universally spread amongst the Vulgar The summe of your Answer is that when the Apostles who did miracles
to bee false for any thing wee know or that wee have onely Probability for our Faith And you kindly tell us p. 135. that what M. S. calls a civill piece of Atheistry is advanc't in most express terms by his best Friends Sir I account Rushworths Dialogues my best Friend and I perceive you abuse the Preface of it notoriously which was wholly design'd to evince the contrary positions citing the Author of it p. 132. to say that such a Certainty as makes the cause alwayes work the same Effect though it take not away the absolute possibility of working otherwise ought absolutely to bee reckon'd in the degree of true Certainty whereas hee only tells us there p. 7. that by Morall Certainty some understood such a Certainty as made your cause alwayes work the same Effect whom a little after hee reprehends for undervaluing this for morall Certainty which is true or Physicall Certainty putting an Instance of the Certainty hee has that hee shall not repeat in order the same words hee spoke this last year and yet sayes hee these men will say I am onely morally Certain of it Your injury then lyes here that by leaving out the words at the beginning of the Citation by morall Certainty some understood such a Certainty c. you make him say what hee evidently makes others say and condemns them for so saying for hee is far from abetting their tenet tha a reall possibility to bee otherwise makes a true Certainty but asserts that to bee truly Certain which they mistook for possible to bee otherwise or morally Certain which is the plain tenour of his discourse as it is the whole scope of that Preface to force the direct contrary Position to what you would so disingenuously impose upon him The two next Citations are onely mistaken for 't is one thing to say what men would doe did they love Heaven as they ought or had they no Interest in their Souls another to ask what means is most efficacious to beget a hearty love of Heaven in their Souls the prudentialness of their obligation in case of a higher probability onely joyn'd with their undervalue of Heaven was enough to make them miscarry but 't is a question whether 't was enough to elevate them sufficiently amidst the Temptations of our three Spirituall Enemies to heavenly love so as to save them or if they bee very speculative against the Temptations of Fancy and the seeming Impossibility of the mysteries Also 't is another thing to ask what men should do if there were no Infallibility or which is all one to them if they hold none and whether Infallibility or an absolute Impossibility Faith should bee otherwise bee not incomparably the best for mankind and so laid by God who ever does the best for his Creatures As I would not therefore have the Protestants renounce all practice of Religion because they have not an Infallible means of knowing their Faith to bee true so neither do I doubt but had they such Assurance their Faith would work through Charity with far more liveleness and steadiness than either it now does or can do You abuse what you cite from mee p. 140. by impugning half the Sentence onely the other half would have discoverd I spoke not of mans nature according to his morall part but according as 't is cognoscitive and this chiefly in naturall Knowledges imprinted directly by his Senses on his Soul Represent things truely and then dispute as much as you will otherwise you but injure your self and abuse your Reader while you go about with a preposterus Courtesy to oblige mee P. 145. According to your usuall sincerity you quote Rushworth's Nephew to say that a few good words are to bee cast in concerning Scripture for the satisfaction of indifferent men who have been brought up in this verball and apparent respect of the Scripture to which you add who it seems are not yet arriv'd to that degree of Catholick Piety and Fortitude as to endeavour patiently the word of God should bee reviled and slighted Wheras in the place you cite hee onely expresses it would bee a Satisfaction to indifferent men to see the positions one would induce them to embrace maintainable by Scripture Which is so different from the invidious meaning your malice puts upon it and so innocent and unoffensive in it self that one who were not well acquainted with you and knew not your temper and over good nature to bee such that you car'd not to undo your self to do your Friend a Kindnes would wonder with what Conscience you could so wrest and pervert it P. 146. You mention my explaining the notion of Tradition which you carp at as tedious and yet as wee have seen by frequent experience all was too little to make you understand it though I endeavourd there according to my utmost to render it unmistakable But you mistake it here again objecting that I instance in set forms the Creed and ten Commandments whereas the Apol. for Tradition sayes That cannot bee a Tradition which is deliver'd in set words It had been better you had put down that Authors own words Apol. p. 81. which are A Tradition as wee have explicated it being a Sence deliver'd c. for why was it not possible hee and I should explicate it diversly But to the point I speak of Tradition or delivery you and the Apology of a Tradition or the thing deliver'd which you confound Now a Tradition or point deliver'd being Sence and Sence abstracting from my particular manner of expressing it hee had good reason to say there that a Tradition is a Sence settled in the Auditor's hearts by hundreds of different Expressions explicating the same meaning nor do you any where find mee say but that though the Creed and Ten Commandments bee the shortest expressions of the main points of Speculative and Practicall Christianity and so most sutable to the young memories I speak of yet I no where say that Forefathers exprest the Sences contain'd in them no other way or that they did not deliver them in hundreds of different Expressions according as the manifold variety of occasions and circumstances accidentally lighting prompted the Fancies of the Teachers after a naturall kind of manner to declare themselves You see Sir how unfortunate you are still when you would make us contradict our selves or one another And the civillest Excuse for your perpetuall failings herein is to alledge that you are utterlyignorant of what you would impugn and I wish that were the worst You put upon mee p. 152. that unless a person to bee converted can demonstrate one pretended Rule certain and Infallible the other not hee hath not found out the Rule of Faith I wish you had told us where I say this for I must disavow it as directly opposit to my Doctrine which is that our Rule of Faith's Certainty is Practically-self-evident and known by virtue of an obvious familiar conversation with the nature of things and
therefore that persons to bee converted may come to Faith without demonstration at all I may perhaps say that in an Assent thus grounded there is found at the bottom what is demonstrable by a learned man or apt to yeeld matter for a demonstration but that those who come to Faith must demonstrate or frame demonstrations which 't is manifest onely Schollers and good ones too can do is fa from my Tenet however 't is your Kindness to put it upon mee right or wrong You shall take your choice whether the Reader shall think you understand not the Tenet you are confuting or that understanding it you wilfully injure it You proceed p. 153. that according to Mr. S. Reason can never demonstrate that the one is a Certain and Infallible Rule the other not That never is a hard word and it will seem wonderfull to some Readers I should say Reason can never demonstrate this and yet in that very Book contend to demonstrate it by Reason my self nay make that the main scope of my Book But Sir those Readers know not yet the power of your wit and sincerity which can make mee say any thing nay say and unsay as it pleases Yet you quote my express words for it Sure-footing p. 53. where you say I tell you Tradition hath for it's basis Man's Nature not according to his Intellectualls because they do but darkly grope in the pursuit of Science c. I deny them Sir to bee my words or sence you have alter'd the whole face and frame of them by putting in the word Because which makes mee discourse as if man's Intellectualls could never arrive at Evidence nor consequently Certainty and you keep the Reader from knowing the true sence of my words by curtailing the sentence with an c. my words are not according to his Intellectualls darkly groping in the pursuit of Science by reflected thoughts or Speculations amidst the misty vapours exhal'd by his Passion predominant over his rationall will which discovers I speak of our Intellectualls plac't in such circumstances or employ'd about such a matter as our Passion or Affection is apt to blind and mislead us in it which wee experience too too often But do I therefore affirm our understanding can never arrive at Science at all or that our Passion exhales vapours to hinder us from seeing the Truth of the first Proposition in Euclid or was it ever heard that any man was transported so by his Passion as to deny there was a Henry the 8th Or can any one out of Passion bee ignorant of or forget what is inculcated into his Sences almost every day which naturall Knowledge I there make the Basis of Tradition Pray Sir reflect on my words once more and on the Tenour of my Discourse and you shall see it onely says that Tradition has for it's Basis man's Nature not according to his morall part which is of it self pervertible nor yet his Intellectualls as subject to his Moralls but on naturall Knowledges imprinted by direct Sensations not subject at all to his Will but necessary and inevitable and when you have done this you will easily see how you injure mee though I expect not from you any Acknowledgment of it You commit those Faults too often to concern your self in such a trifle as any handsome Satisfaction Your next Citation p. 153. layes on load 'T is taken out of my 2d Appendix p. 183. My whole Discourse there is to show how Reason behaves her self in finding out the Authority shee is to rely on that this is God's Sence or Faith and how in the points of Faith themselves Concerning the former I discourse there § 3. and have these Expressions that No Authority deserves assent farther than true Reason gives it to deserve that the Church's Authority is found by my Reason to bee Certain that 't is perfectly rationall to beleeve the Church assuring mee the Divine Authority is engag'd for such and such points that Gods and the Church's Authority as Objects imprinting a conceit of themselves in my mind as they are in themselves oblig'd my Reason to conclude and my Iudgment to hold them such as they were nor have I the least expression of diffidence of naturall Reason's certifying mee perfectly of the Ground of my Faith which can no wayes bee done by Acts of reflected Reason which I there speak of but by demonstrating it After this § 4. I come to discourse how differently Reason bears her self in order to the points of Faith or the mysteries themselves Hereupon I have these words p. 183. Reason acts now much differently than formerly Before I came at Faith shee acted about her own Objects Motives or Maxims by which shee scan'd the Autho rities wee spoke of but in Acts of Faith shee hath nothing to do with the Objects of those Acts or Points of Faith Then follow immediately the words you cite Shee is like a dim-sighted man who us'd his Reason to find a trusty Friend to lead him in the twy-light and then rely'd on his guidance rationally without using his own Reason at all about the Way it self Which most plainly signifies that as a dim-sighted man cannot use his Reason about the Way for that requir'd it should well affect his Senses and imprint it's right notion there which it did not but yet could use his Reason about chusing a trusty Friend to guide him for this depended not on his dim-sight but the converse and negotiation with his neighbours and relations which hee had been inur'd to and so was capable to wield and manage such a Discourse So our Reason dim-sighted in the Mysteries of Faith in which neither Senses nor Maxims of Human Science had given her light enough could not employ her talent of discoursing evidently and scientifically to conclude the Points of Faith themselves but yet was by Motives and Maxims within her own Sphere enabled to scan the nature of Authorities and find out on which as on a trusty Friend shee might safely rely This Sir is evidently my Discourse from whence you will needs force mee to say Reason is dim-sighted about the Authority wee come to Faith by or the Rule of Faith Now my whole Discourse in that very place aiming at the direct contrary and you leaving out the immediately foregoing words which clearly discover'd it I hope you will not take it ill Sir if I tell you I fear any sincere Examiner of it will judge that though you hold Plain-dealing a Jewell yet you would not bee willing to go to too much cost for it Especially when he reflects that you build better half your Confutation in your Book on such kind of willing mistakes and hope to blind it and make it take by Sophister-like quibbles flouts and jeers with which you use to sound your own triumph I expected sweet Sir some First Principles of your Discourse and I see now you intend those Artifices for such none else have I met with nor do you
afterwards which wee experience daily to have so strange a Power that the most evident Arguments are scarce able to wean persons otherwise very rationall from the most absurd and weakly grounded Prejudices and that to root out judgments thus planted from their Souls seems as violently to shock and strain nature in them as if one went about to tear a limb from their Body If it bee acknowledged then as it must that Education has such an incomparable force in preserving an unanimousness between Foregoers and Posterity and Education consists in making the descendents think act as did their Forefathers wee shall discover that Education hath in it the very nature of Tradition and consequently that 't is by virtue of Tradition any Sect continues the same which devolves into this that therefore as soon as any Sect is form'd it returns or slides back if it continues naturally into the way of Tradition I am afraid Sir by this time you are ready to object for 't is your way out of an over-zealous affection to find Absurdities in your Adversary to catch at any thing that seems so at first sight without maturely weighing it that by this means I make all Protestants Quakers nay Turks and Heathens too of our Religion by making them follow our Rule of Faith Tradition and you have a little to that purpose p. 147. and elsewhere much more if I remember right But Sir I shall undeceive you easily by distinguishing between Tradition taken at large or as I call it Sure-footing p. 74. the natural way of Tradition and Christian Tradition That has the abetment and Concern of many Natural ties to make it follow'd and in Publick and universally-concerning matters of fact it layes a kind of force upon man's Nature as in the Existence of William the Conquerour Mahomet Alexander c. This has besides Supernatural Assistances of the Holy Ghost to strengthen the greatest force of Nature But to omit other differences what concerns us most at present is that This pretends to bee an Uninterrupted Derivation from Christ whence 't is call'd Christian Tradition whereas any other for example yours in following your Fore-fathers can pretend uninterruptedness no farther than your first Reformer whose immediate Ancestors being Catholik your chain is broke or at an end whence for the same reason this short-lin'd Tradition ought to be called his for example the Lutheran and not Christian Tradition The more therefore you or any other adhere to any other Tradition so much farther you recede from and are more obstinate against Christian Tradition since doing so you hold more firmly to that which was a renouncing the other These rubs remov'd wee advance to our point which is to examin whether in likelihood more particulars have fail'd propagating their Kind than their Faith To do this the shorter and clearer wee will pitch upon one Instance which your self mention namely of the vast multitudes which since Luther in Germany Denmark Sueden England Scotland Ireland c. have renounc't the Roman-Catholik Faith And since by our former Discourse and indeed common Sense none in any of those Countries were Actual Deserters of Tradition by which I mean Catholik or Christian Tradition but those who once held it which their Descendents did not but either follow'd Tradition at large or their Tradition that is the Tradition of what these Deserters educated them to hence wee are to exclude all the innumerable Descendents from those Actuall Deserters as persons unconcern'd at all in my Discourse my express words ever excluding them And because those Deserters began not all with Luther but some fell 20. some 40. years after him I will put my self upon the disadvantage to put them all to be fal'n sooner to wit about 20. years after Luther it being all one to our Case for no more could fall but all those that actually then did fall in regard wee allow their Descendents to continue their Fathers steps though wee put them to fall all at once Imagin then that in the Year 1537. all were fall'n that did fall either then before I mean before that Year since Luther and after that time what proportion may wee conceive they might bear to all Catholikes then living whether in the Greek or Roman Church whether in those parts of the world or America whose Conversion was then well begun I conjecture wee should be very liberall to grant they equall'd one third that is were the fourth part of those who were found living in the Year assign'd and adhering to Tradition This lai'd let us consider next how many wee may conceive to have fail'd in that Year and ever since that is for 128. Years in propagating their kind And first wee will take a view of those who die by naturall Deaths or Casualties before they enter into the ordinary Circumstance of Propagation Marriage and yet conduc't in their proportion to the instilling Faith into those they converst with For assoon as any arrive to that pitch of age as to express themselves Christianly in their Language and Behaviour 't is evident they connaturally insinuate into others of an inferiour pitch they converse with to their slender Degree the same things they hold and practise and so are truly parts of the Church Essential as delivering or parts of Tradition and though wee might begin much sooner to reckon them such yet wee will to avoid dispute take them from the age of 14. to 24. before which time if any marry there are as many that marry later and if this be not enough to ballance it to an Equality wee will allow all lay-people that live unmarry'd and all that marry and yet die before they have children or never have any into the bargain Those then between the age of 14. and 24. reckoning the whole time of man's life 90. Years are the 9th part of mankind that were found living in our Age. Putting then all the present Livers in that Age to die in the Year wee pitch't upon that so wee may for clearness reduce our Discourse to the same determinate compass of time wee may well put the 9th part of mankind living in that Year to die between 14. and 24. that is to die without conducing to propagate their kind though they contribute to propagate their Faith and if this number bee thought too great because of the healthfulness of that Age wee will account it but a tenth part though in truth it deserves to bee held rather an 8th or 7th because of the numerousness of that Decad in comparison of the persons found Living in those Decads beginning from the 60th 70th and the 80th Year which are very few Certain then 't is according to our best morall Estimation a tenth part of mankind within that prefixt Year die I mean a tenth part of those who do then die who have had a hand in propagating Faith and not their Kind Next let us multiply that tenths part by the number of the Years elaps't since
to bee briefer in which I thank you you have helpt mee much by your manner of handling them I will pass by divers of your little quirks upon my whether real or pretended mistakes in things unconcerning and onely touch upon what is more pertinent And first I am sorry I must begin with the old complaint that you mistake quite whether purposely or no let others judge what was my intent in producing those Testimonies Can you really and in your heart think they were intended against the Protestants that you set your selves so formally to answer them or can you judge mee so weak a Disputant as to quote against you the 2d Council of Nice or the Council of Trent so elaborately whereas I know you would laugh at their Authority as heartily as you did at my First Principles Sure if I meant it I am the First Catholick Controvertist that ever fell into such an errour My intent manifest in the Title and the whole course of my writing there was this that having deduc't many particulars concerning the Rule of Faith which manner of Explication might seem new to Catholik Controvertists I would endeavour to show to them rather than to you that both others of old and the Catholik Church at present favourd my Explication This was my main scope however as divers Testimonies gave mee occasion I apply'd them by the way against Protestants Your second mistake is found p. 304. where you accuse mee to have committed as shamefull a circle c. and why because according to mee Scripture depends upon Tradition for it's Sense and yet I bring Scripture for Tradition Sir my Tenet is that nothing can sence Scripture with the Certainty requisit to build Faith upon but Tradition which yet well consists with this that both you and I may use our private wits to discourse topically what sence the words seem most favourably to bear And you may see I could mean no more by the many deductions I make thence alluding to my Tenet which yet I am far from your humour of thinking all to bee pure God's Word or Faith nor yet Demonstration as you put it upon mee in other Testimonies p. 308. Though I make account I use never a Citation thence but to my judgment I durst venture to defend in the way of human skill proceeding on such Maxims as are us'd in word-skirmishes to sound far more favourably for mee than for you But let 's see what work you make with my Authorities After you have unworthily abus'd Rushworth in alledging him rawly to say Scripture is no more fit to convince than a Beetle is to cut withall whereas his Discourse runs thus that as hee who maintains a Beetle can cut must cut with it but cannot in reason oblige others to do so so they who hold Scripture is the true Iudge of Controversies and fit and able to decide all quarrells and dissentions against the Christian Faith bind themselves c. After this prank I say of the old stamp you put down p. 303. three of my Testimonies from Scripture and immediately give a very full and ample Answer to them all in these words From which Texts if Mr. S. can prove Tradition to bee the onely Rule of Faith any more than the Philosopher Stone or the Longitude may bee prov'd from the 1 Cap. of Genesis I am content they should pass for valid Testimonies To which my parallell Answer is this From which Reply and our constant experience of the like formerly if it bee not evident that Mr. T. will never with his good will deal sincerely with his Adversary but in stead of confuting him impose on him still a False meaning and impugn that in stead of him I will yeeld all his frothy Book to be solid Reason I beseech you Sir where do you find mee say or make show of producing those Testimonies to prove Tradition the onely Rule of Faith For Truth 's sake use your Eyes and read Do not I express my self Sure-footing p. 126. to produce the first Citation to show how Scripture seconds or abets my foregoing Discourse meerly as to the Self-evidence of the Rule of Faith Does not the second contend for the Orality of the Rule of Faith it 's Uninterruptedness and perpetuall Assistance of God's Spirit and the third of imprinting it by the way of living Sense in men's hearts And though I say those places speak not of Books but deliver themselves in words not competent to another Rule yet I contend not they exclude another Rule or say there is but one Rule and no more There was indeed p. 12. another Testimony from St. Paul contradistinguishing the Law of Grace from Moses his Law which sounded exclusively but you were pleas'd to omit it and so I shall let it stand where it did You advance to my Testimonies from Fathers and Councils and never was young gentleman so fond and glad that hee had found a hare sitting as you are to have discovered whence I had those Citations Presently 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all is mirth and triumph and Jubilee You are a Seer Sir and will find out the Truth by Revelation and so I had as good ingenuously confess it 'T was thus then When my book was nere printed some Friends who had read my discourses dealt with mee to add some Authorities alledging that in regard I follow'd a way of Explication which was unusuall it would give it a greater currency to show it consonant though not in the whole Body of it yet in the most concerning particulars to the Sentiments both of the former and present Church I foresaw the disadvantage my little time would necessarily cause me yet willing to defer to the Judgment of my Betters I resolv'd it Casting about in what Common-place-book I might best look for I had not time to rummage Libraries nor am I so rich as to have a plentifull one of my own it came into my mind there were diverse of that nature in that book where you made so fortunate a Set and caught such a covy of Citations in one net together I ask't first the Authour's leave who answer'd that when a Book was once made publick it was any one 's that would use it nor knew I till you came to teach mee more manners I ow'd any account to any man else neither do I think your self in your Sermons stand quoting all the Common-place-books or private Authours where you meet a Testimony or Sentence transcrib'd you make use of Hereupon I took the book with mee to a Friend's Chamber near the Press where Proofs already expected my correcting hand and there having no other book by mee fell to work This hast made mee examin nothing being very secure of the perfect sincerity of the Authour I rely'd on but put them down in his words and order This Sir is candidly the true History of that affair which will spoil much of your discourteous vapour showing a great deal of empty vanity in