to any thing as reveal'd by God cannot be deceiv'd upon supposition that it is so reveal'd or else absolutely that whoever assents to any thing as reveal'd by God cannot be deceiv'd Now although I do not in the Passage forecited speak one syllable concerning Doctrines reveal'd by God yet I affirm and so will any man else that an assent to any Doctrine as revealed by God if it be reveal'd by him is impossible to be false But this is onely an infallibility upon supposition which amounts to no more than this That if a thing be true it is impossible to be false And yet the principal design of Mr. S's Book is to prove this which I believe no man in the world was ever so senseless as to deny But if he mean absolutely that whoever assents to any Doctrine as reveal'd by God cannot be deceiv'd that is that no man can be mistaken about matters of Faith as he must mean if he pretend to have any adversary and do not fight onely with his own shadow this I confess is a very comfortable assertion but I am much afraid it is not true Or else lastly By Faith he understands the Means and Motives of Faith And then the plain state of the controversie between us is this Whether it be necessary to a Christian belief to be infallibly secur'd of the means whereby the Christian Doctrine is convey'd to us and of the firmness of the Motives upon which our belief of it is grounded This indeed is something to the purpose for though in the passage before-cited I say not one word concerning the Motives of our Belief of the Christian Doctrine yet my discourse there was intended to be apply'd to the means whereby the knowledge of this Doctrine is convey'd to us However I am contented to joyn issue with Mr. S. upon both these Points 1. That it is not necessary to the true nature of Faith that the Motives upon which any man believes the Christian Doctrine should be absolutely conclusive and impossible to be false That it is necessary Mr. S. several times affirms in his Book but how unreasonably appears from certain and daily experience Very many Christians such as St. Austin speaks of as sav'd not by the quickness of their understandings but the simplicity of their belief do believe the Christian Doctrine upon incompetent grounds and their belief is true though the argument upon which they ground it be not as Mr. S. says absolutely conclusive of the thing And he that thus believes the Christian Doctrine if he adhere to it and live accordingly shall undoubtedly be sav'd and yet I hope Mr. S. will not say that any man shall be saved without true Faith I might add that in this Assertion Mr. S. is plainly contradicted by those of his own Church For they generally grant that General Councils though they be infallible in their Definitions and Conclusions yet are not always so in their Arguments and reasonings about them And the Guide of Controversies * P. 35. expresly says that it is not necessary that a Divine Faith should always have an external rationally infallible ground or motive thereto whether Church Authority or any other on his part that so believes Here is a man of their own Church avowing this Position that Faith is possible to be false I desire Mr. S. who is the very Rule of Controversie to do justice upon this false Guide I must acknowledge that Mr. S. attempts to prove this Assertion and that by a very pleasant and surprizing Argument which is this The profound Mysteries oâ— Faith he tells us †Faith vind p. 9â— must needs seem to some viz. those who have no light but their pure natural Reason †P. 89. as he said before impossible to be true which therefore notâ—ing but a Motive of its own nature seemingly impossible to be false can conquer so as to make them conceit them really true What Mr. S. here means by a Motive of its own nature seeming impossible to be false I cannot divine unless he means a real seeming impossibility But be that as it will does Mr. S. in good earnest believe that a Motive of its own nature seeming impossible to be false is sufficient to convince any man that has and uses the light of natural Reason of the truth of a thing which must needs seem to him impossible to be true In my opinion these two seeming impossibilities are so equally matched that it must needs be a drawn Battle between them Suppose the thing to be believed be Transubstantiation this indeed is a very profound Mystery and is to speak in Mr. S's phrase of its own nature so seemingly impossible that I know no argument in the world strong enough to cope with it And I challenge Mr. S. to instance in any Motive of Faith which is both to our understanding and our senses more plainly impossible to be false than their Doctrine of Transubstantiation is evidently impossible to be true And if he cannot how can he reasonably expect that any man in the World should believe it 2. That it is not necessary to the true nature of Faith that we should be infallibly secur'd of the means whereby the Christian Doctrine is convey'd to us particularly of the Antiquity and Authority of the Books of Scripture and that the expressions in it cannot possibly bear any other sense And these are the very things I instance in in the passage so often mention'd And to these Mr. S. ought to have spoken if he intended to have confuted that passage But he was resolv'd not to speak distinctly knowing his best play to be in the dark and that all his safety lay in the confusion and obscurity of his talk Now that to have an infallible security in these particulars is not necessary to the true nature of Faith is evident upon these two accounts because Faith may be without this infallible security and because in the particulars mention'd it is impossible to be had 1. Because Faith may be without this infallible security He that is so assur'd of the Antiquity and Authority of the Books of Scripture and of the sense of those Texts wherein the Doctrines of Christianity are plainly delivered as to see no just cause to doubt thereof may really assent to those Doctrines trines though he have no infallible security And an assent so grounded I affirm to have the true nature of Faith For what degree of assent and what security of the Means which convey to us the knowledge of Christianity are necessary to the true nature of Faith is to be estimated from the end of Faith which is the salvation of mens souls And whoever is so assur'd of the authority and sense of Scripture as to believe the Doctrine of it and to live accordingly shall be saved And surely such a belief as will save a man hath the true nature of Faith though it be not infallible And if God have sufficiently
provided for the salvation of men of all capacities it is no such reflection upon the goodness and wisedom of providence as Mr. S. imagines that he hath not taken care that every man's Faith should arrive to the degree of infallibility nor does our blessed Saviour for not having made this provision deserve to be esteem'd by all the world not a wise Lawgiver but a mere Ignoramus and Impostor as * Labyvinthus Cantuariensis P. 77. one of his fellow Controvertists speaks with reverence Besides this assertion that infallibility is necessary to the true nature of that assent which we call Faith is plainly false upon another account also because Faith admits of degrees But Infallibility has none The Scripture speaks of a weak and a strong Faith and of the increase of Faith but I never heard of a weak and strong Infallibility Infallibility is the highest perfection of the knowing faculty and consequently the firmest degree of assent upon the firmest grounds and which are known to be so But will Mr. S. say that the highest degree of assent admits of degrees and is capable of increase Infallibility is an absolute impossibility of being deceived now I desire Mr. S. to shew me the degrees of absolute impossibility and if he could doe that and consequently there might be degrees of Infallibility yet I cannot believe that Mr. S. would think fit to call any degree of Infallibility a weak Faith or assent 2. Because an infallible security in the particulars mention'd is impossible to be had I mean in an ordinary way and without miracle and particular revelation because the nature of the thing is incapable of it The utmost security we have of the antiquity of any Book is humane Testimony and all humane Testimony is fallible for this plain reason because all men are fallible And though Mr. S. in defence of his beloved Tradition is pleas'd to say that humane Testimony in some cases is infallible yet I think no man before him was ever so hardy as to maintain that the Testimony of fallible men is infallible I grant it to be in many cases certain that is such as a considerate man may prudently rely and proceed upon and hath no just cause to doubt of and such as none but an obstinate man or a fool can deny And that thus the learned men of his own Church desine certainty Mr. S. if he would but vouchsafe to read such Books might have learnt from * De lo. Theol. lib. 11. c. 4. Certa apud homines ea sunt quae negari sine pervicacia stultitia non possunt Melchior Canus who speaking of the firmness of humane Testimony in some cases which yet he did not believe to be infallible defines it thus those things are certain among men which cannot be deny'd without obstinacy and folly I know Mr. S. is pleas'd to say that certainty and infallibility are all one And he is the first man that I know of that ever said it And yet perhaps some body may have been before him in it for I remember Tully says that there is nothing so foolish but some Philosopher or other has said it I am sure Mr. S's own Philosopher Mr. Wh. contradicts him in this most clearly in his Preface to Rushworth's Dialogues where explicating the term Moral certainty he tells us that some understood by it such a certainty as makes the cause always work the same effect though it take not away the absolute possibility of working other ways and this presently after he tells us ought absolutely to be reckon'd in the degree of true certainty and the Authors consider'd as mistaken in undervaluing it So that accordiâ—g to Mr. Wh. true certainty may consist with a possibility of the contrary and consequently Mr. S. is mistaken in thinking certainty and infallibility to be all one Nay I do not sind any two of them agreeing among themselves about the notions of infallibility and certainty Mr. Wh. says that what some call moral certainty is true certainty though it do not take away a possibility of the contrary Mr. S. asserts the direct contrary that Moral certainty is only probability because it does not take away the possibility of the contrary The Guide in Controversies * P. 135. differs from them both and makes moral certain and infallible all one I desire that they would agree these matters among themselves before they quarrel with us about them In brief then though moral certainty be sometimes taken for a high degree of probability which can onely produce a doubt full assent yet it is also frequently us'd for a firm and undoubted assent to a thing upon such grounds as are fit fully to satisfie a prudent man and in this sense I have always us'd this Term. But now insallibility is an absolute security of the understanding from all possibility of mistake in what it believes And there are but two ways for the understanding to be thus secur'd either by the perfection of its own nature or by supernatural assistance But no humane understanding being absolutely secur'd from possibility of mistake by the perfection of its own nature which I think all mankind except Mr. S. have hitherto granted it follows that no man can be infallible in any thing but by supernatural assistance Nor did ever the Church of Rome pretend to infallibility upon any other account as every one knows that hath been conversant in the Writings of their Learned men And Mr. Cressy in his * P. 88 89. Answer to Dr. Pierce hath not the face to contend for any other infallibility but this that the immutable God can actually preserve a mutable creature from actual mutation But I can by no means agrâ—e with him in what immediately follows concerning the Omniscience of a creature that God who is absolutely omniscient can teach a rational Creature all truths necessary or expedient to be known so that though a man may have much ignorance yet he may be in a sort omniscient within a determinate sphere Omniscient within a determinate sphere is an infinite within a finite sphere and is not that a very pretty sort of knowing all things which may consist with a ignorance of many things Of all the Controvertists I have met with except Mr. S. Mr. Cressy is the happiest at these smart and ingenious kind of reasonings As to the other Particular of the sense of Books it is likewise plainly impossible that any thing should be deliver'd in such clear and certain words as are absolutely incapable of any other sense and yet notwithstanding this the meaning of them may be so plain as that any unprejudic'd and reasonable man may certainly understand them How many Definitions and Axioms c. are there in Euclid in the sense of which men are universally agreed and think themselves undoubtedly certain of it and yet the words in which they are express'd may possibly bear another sense The same may be said concerning the
of confirmation shall be by endeavouring to vindicate Religion from those common imputations which seem to charge it with ignorance or imprudence And they are chiefly these three 1. Credulity 2. Singularity 3. Making a Foolish Bargain First Credulity Say they the foundation of Religion is the belief of those things for which we have no sufficient reason and consequently of which we can have no good assurance as the belief of a God and of a future state after this life things which we never saw nor did experience nor ever spoke with any body that did Now it seems to argue too great a forwardness and easiness of belief to assent to any thing upon insufficient grounds To this I answer 1. That if there be such a Being as a God and such a thing as a future state after this life it cannot as I said before in reason be expected that we should have the evidence of sense for such things For he that believes a God believes such a Being as hath all perfections among which this is one that he is a spirit and consequently that he is invisible and cannot be seen He likewise that believes another life after this professeth to believe a state of which in this life we have no trial and experience Besides if this were a good objection that no man ever saw these things it strikes at the Atheist as well as us For no man ever saw the World to be from eternity nor Epicurus his Atoms of which notwithstanding he believes the World was made 2. We have the best evidence for these things which they are capable of at present supposing they were 3. Those who deny these principles must be much more credulous that is believe things upon incomparably less evidence of reason The Atheist looks upon all that are religious as a company of credulous fools But he for his part pretends to be wiser than to believe any thing for company he cannot entertain things upon those slight grounds which move other men if you would win his assent to any thing you must give him a clear demonstration for it Now there 's no way to deal with this man of reason this rigid exactor of strict demonstration for things which are not capable of it but by shewing him that he is an hundred times more credulous that he begs more principles takes more things for granted without offering to prove them and assents to more strange conclusions upon weaker grounds than those whom he so much accuseth of credulity And to evidence this I shall briefly give you an account of the Atheist's Creed and present you with a Catalogue of the fundamental Articles of his Faith He believes that there is no God nor possibly can be and consequently that the wise as well as unwise of all ages have been mistaken except himself and a few more He believes that either all the world have been frighted with an apparition of their own fancy or that they have most unnaturally conspired together to cozen themselves or that this notion of a God is a trick of policy though the greatest Princes and Politicians do not at this day know so much nor have done time out of a mind He believes either that the Heavens and the Earth and all things in them had no Original cause of their being or else that they were made by chance and happened he knows not how to be as they are and that in this last shuffling of matter all things have by great good fortune fallen out as happily and as regularly as if the greatest wisedom had contriv'd them but yet he is resolv'd to believe that there was no wisedom in the contrivance of them He believes that matter of it selâ— is utterly void of all sense understanding and liberty but for all that he is of opinion that the parts of matter may know and then happen to be so conveniently dispos'd as to have all these qualities and most dextrously to performe all those fine and free operations which the ignorant attribute to Spirits This is the sum of his belief And it is a wonder that there should be found any person pretending to reason or wit that can assent to such a heap of absurdities which are so gross and palpable that they may be felt So that if every man had his due it will certainly fall to the Atheist's share to be the most credulous person that is to believe things upon the slightest reasons For he does not pretend to prove any thing of all this only he finds himself he knows not why inclin'd to believe so and to laugh at those that do not II. The second imputation is singularity the affectation whereof is unbecoming a wise man To this charge I answer I. If by Religion be meant the belief of the principles of Religion that there is a God and a providence that our souls are immortal and that there are rewa ds to be expected after this life these are so far from being singular opinions that they are and always have been the general opinion of mankind even of the most barbarous Nations Insomuch that the Histories of ancient times do hardly furnish us with the names of above five or six persons who denied a God And Lucretius acknowledgeth that Epicurus was the first who did oppose those great foundations of Religion the providence of God and the immortality of the soul Primum Grajus homo c. meaning Epicurus 2. If by Religion be meant a living up to those principles that is to act conformably to our best reason and understanding and to live as it does become those who do believe a God and a future state this is acknowledged even by those who live otherwise to be the part of every wise man and the contrary to be the very madness of folly and height of distraction Nothing being more ordinary than for men who live wickedly to acknowledge that they ought to do otherwise 3. Though according to the common course and practice of the world it be somewhat singular for men truly and throughly to live up to the principles of their Religion yet singularity in this matter is so far from being a reflexion upon any man's prudence that it is a singular commendation of it In two cases singularity is very commendable 1. When there is a necessity of it in order to a man's greatest interest and happiness I think it to be a reasonable account for any man to give why he does not live as the greatest part of the World do that he has no mind to die as they do and to perish with them he is not disposed to be a fool and to be miserable for company he has no inclination to have his last end like theirs who know not God and obey not the Gospel of his Son and shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power 2. It is very commendable to be singular in