page but one to that you cite being employ'd in shewing the way of writing us'd by Aristotle has a great advantage towards being understood over that of the Bible But he denies not but both may be understood and that stuff you weave into this Conclusion That a Reader of Scripture may come to the truth and by it judge arising Errors Pray what 's this against Mr. White because he may arrive at truth shall he therefore be fixed there with that constancy that no subtlety can stagger him Shall his Humility and Charity which introduced him provide him too with Arms to maintain the place and defend it against the assaults of Wit and Malice leagued together I see no glimmering of such a consequence which neverthelesse should have been yours for till you are there your Journeys end is stil before you Besides your foundation that all things sufficient for Salvation are delivered in Scripture meaning the Salvation of mankind is not firm especially making as you do afterwards every one of the Gospels to contain a perfect sum of what is necessary to be believed and practised for some things and those necessary to Salvation are beleived meerly upon the account of Traditions as the Scripture it self c. Those strange opinions too which you say may spring up may perhaps concern things necessary to Salvation which if they can neither be proved nor disproved satisfactorily by Scripture plainly there is not by your method any satisfaction left us in things necessary to Salvation And for what you urge last that written truths may be as streight a Rule as unwritten ones 't is true provided they be agreed on to be truths But the question is not whether written truths will convince a rising error but whether written words will so convince the truths they contain to whoever rises up in error against them that no Artifice shall be able to pervert their fidelity and introduce another sence into the same sounds An instance may make the thing clearer Let the Church before Arius have had no better weapon to defend her faith of the Consubstantiality of the Father and Son then these and the like words Ego Pater unum sumus and you will make me much wiser then I am if you render it possible shee should preserve her self from being overcome by the craft of that Heretick who would have proved at least plausibly as Hereticks us'd to do by the Rule of conferring one place with another that those words ought not to be understood of an unity of Substance since our Sauiour elsewhere prays his Apostles may be one as his Father and he are one which evidently contradicting a substantial unity The former words ought to yield to these plain ones Pater major me est 'T was not then by those words but by the sence of them so firmly rooted in her practise that neither the wit nor power of Arius joyn'd with a perverse and lasting obstinacy could shake it that she decided the controversie and transmitted sound Doctrine to her posterity Shee saw his interpretation contradicted her sence delivered by Christ and his Apostles and continued by Tradition but no body could see it contradicted the words which his wit made as favourable to him as her By which very same Method to answer your Question in your own words I conceive the Church would at this day confute new errors viz by looking upon the truths first delivered by the Apostles and since preserved by her practise not the words in which they were delivered To sum up your Paraph therefore in short 't is true that Linea recta est judex sui obliqui 'T is true that truth is linea recta t◠'T is true also that the Reader duly qualified may by due reading Scripture come to truth but that this truth will be enough to serve all the exigencies of all mankind in all circumstances or that what satisfied his sincerity and diligence will be able to satisfie all manner of peevishness and obstinacy are two Positions which I see you have not and think you cannot prove There is no doubt but truth ought to judge which is the thing you do say But if there be a doubt which is truth I conceive bare words which were perhaps sufficient to discover hers to charity and humility will not be able to convince her against malicious craft and pride which is what you should but do not prove ¶ 4. If words would affright a man Mr. White doth it by search after evidence of Argument In the same page 137. he requires any one Book in the whole Bible whose Theam is now controverted he mentions S. Johns Gospel which was to shew the Godhead of Christ but that is not so directly saith he his Theam as the miraculous life of our Saviour from whence his Divinity was to be deduced And page 153. John intended only such particulars as prove that Christ was God in which later expression if he do not seem as to me he doth to contradict his former the former making S. Johns intent a History the latter a Discourse only as his word is of a controversal truth ¶ 4. The contradiction you glance at here will not even with your assistance so much as seem such to any diligence of mine and since I cannot overcome it I must beseech you to pardon that dulness which will let me see but one sence in these two expressions Viz. S. John wrote the miraculous life of our Saviour so as his Divinity might be deduced from it and S. John in his History specifies such particulars as prove the Divinity of our Saviour ¶ 5. Yet this he clearly says S. John made an Antidote against that error then beginning yet as he the design so unsuccessful that never any heresie was more powerful then that which opposed the truth intended by his Book whence he seems to infer Scripture no sufficient Rule to decide because the Arians were not silenced by it I demand why the Arians were not convinced by that Book written on purpose to oppose that error which they held by a very large discovering the contrary truth was it because there was not evidence enough of that truth which S. John onely intended in his whole Book surely you must say so and then I pray consider what you say whether it be not imputing weakness to S. John or to the Holy Ghost writing by him quod horrendum that he should set himself to write a whole Book in which as Mr Whites words are he intended only such particulars as prove that Christ was God and yet not prove it sufficiently If S. John did prove it sufficiently why were not the Arians convinced by it surely the fault was not in the want of evidence of those miraculous actions which our Saviour saith prove him to be the Son of God and one with the Father but in their wills I say it was their own fault so then notwithstanding all Mr White hath said I
sence of the Controversies between them Now if in this universal liberty of prophecying which this age affords us onely my interpretation do not yet passe for currant be pleas'd to reflect no necessity of answering your argument obliges me to rely upon it to which 't is enough to say that no such thing as you intend appears in the place you cite That the not being convinced will be an aggravation of punishment to the Jews in this sence that the pride and blindness caus'd by it which hinders them from coming by an humble reading to such a degree of truth as they might is a fault for which they shall be punished I readily grant but that their punishment shall be aggravated or they at all punished for not finding a rigorous evidence there where 't is not is a fancy in which I cannot perceive any colour of apparence ¶ 8. In the 16. Encounter pag. 151. Mr. White answers that 5th John brought to prove Scripture was sufficient to Salvation without Tradition why else did God command Moses to write those Laws he had given if that written word was not a perfect Rule which he commanded to be kept so carefully and to be read continually 31. Deut. 9 10 11. and to be copyed out for the King as Deut. 18.19 to read therein all the dayes of his life unto which God would have no addition because it was a perfect Rule and therefore when the Scribes and Pharisees would needs bring in their Traditions as you do to make void the Law of God you know what our Saviour denounced against them Now though we prove the sufficiency even of one Book of Scripture for to be a sufficient rule to salvation we are far from contradicting our selves as though by that reason all the rest every one of which is profitable might be burnt For thus I argue if one single Gospel be a sufficient rule to salvation much more are all the Books of the Bible sufficient without your Traditions ¶ 8. The places which here you cite out of Deuteronomy seem little to the purpose Your premises That God commanded his Laws to be written to be kept carefully and read continually to be copied out for the King c. being so vastly distant from the Conclusion Viz. That the written Word was a perfect Rule that my dulness cannot see any approach between them all this we see practis'd in our Laws in which notwithstanding we also see a manifest necessity of an Interpreter That God would therefore have no addition because it was a perfect Rule is a reason for which you are perfectly beholding to your own invention and which in things of this concern you would do well not to trust over-far at least you will pardon an Adversary if he do not As for the Scribes and Pharisees who you say brought in their Traditions to make void the Law of God when our cases are alike I shall think you do us no wrong to rank us with them But you will be pleased to stay till we do make void the Law of God for while we confess that the Word whether written or orally delivered is the Law only enquire after the meaning of the first which when understood we profess an intire submission to I conceive we go not about to make void but to fulfill the Law for certainly the wrong sense of the Law is not the Law and as certainly that cannot be the right sence which sets the two words whereof neither can vary from truth at variance one with another But to look into the thing their Traditions have nothing of common with ours but the Word which will inform you how dangerous a foundation words are when by the same sound are expressed things most different Tradition with us signifies a publike delivery to a multitude so as what was so delivered was setled in their understanding and rooted in their hearts by a constant visible practice Their Tradition was a close underhand conveyance from a few to a few neither so many nor so honest as to be secure from mistakes both accidental and wilful and yet the cheat if any hapned remaining by the secrecy undiscovered so that nothing more apt to make void the Law of God then such a Tradition as this Whereas since it cannot be denied but that what was orally delivered by Christ and his Apostles to their Disciples and by them practised was the Law of God you must either say we have violated their practise which since we affirm it to be our rule you cannot fairly do without evidencing what you say or you will have much ado your selves to avoid the imputation you lay upon us for evidently the Law is made void as much by contradicting the unwritten as the written word Now if we practise what the first Disciples and their Successors did and what they practised was the Law clearly he that contradicts our practice cannot refuse the company of the Scribes and Pharisees So that while by going no farther then the empty sound you fancie us neer the gulf they were swallowed up in your judgment fixed upon the thing and not diverted by the jugling noise will find your selves are deep in it I cannot leave this Subject without admonishing you of a piece of foul play in the Translation of the Bible I have heard objected to your side and which possibly may have had one effect upon your self 'T is that Traditions being sometimes commended sometimes reprehended in the Scripture though the Original word be the same in both cases yet the Translation varies it so as when it is taken in an ill sence to render it by the Word Tradition when in a good always to make use of some other An Artifice which if true argues much want of sincerity in the Translators and brings much hazard to the Reader The avoiding of which is the true reason the Church forbids the use of Scripture in Vulgar languages For the rest I cannot see but he that says This is sufficient to salvation says more then this is not necessary and by consequence Salvation would not be concerned if that more were not What you mean by Profitable I cannot tell if this that some persons find in some books what they would not in others then evidently those books are necessary to those persons if onely that their Faith is confirm'd or strengthned either this strength is necessary to Salvation at least for some and then again the books are necessary for them or unnecessary and then what prejudice to Salvation if they were burnt So that I doubt your fancy was too much possess'd with the sound to give your judgement leisure to examine the notions of the word Your consequence if one be sufficient all are more then sufficient is certainly good but you know we deny what you must next subsume conceiving that neither one nor all are sufficient ¶ 9. Our Saviour in that 5th of St. John does not Reprehend the Jews as Mr.
consideration of circumstances plainly refuse As for that part of your seventh Paraph where you deny the Council was forced to conclude out of Tradition the desire of serving you makes me wish my self a better Historian then I am But I think the Epistle of S. Athanasius to the Africans which you will find in Theoderet lib. 1. c. 8. will sufficiently clear that Truth to you since 't will inform you that whatever words the Fathers of the Council could chuse out of Scripture to express the Catholick Faith in the Arians knew how to elude by shewing the same words to have other sences in other places which at last forced the Fathers to invent a new word and gave occasion to the Arians of murmuring that they were condemned by unwritten words that is not by Scripture but by Tradition Since what has formerly been said will I hope be an ingenuous Answer to the question of your eighth Paraph and satisfie you that Tradition is not subject to the same inconveniences with words there remains no more but to vindicate Mr White from the inconstancy you charge him with to which there will I think no more be needful then barely to represent the case to your second thoughts Our faith you know must be both beleeved and expressed the expressions he conceives it sit should be uniform and that the best way in order to it is to make use as much as may be of those which the Holy Ghost in Scripture has before made use of But since expression supposes the knowledg of what it is we would express he holds there is some other way to come to this knowledg besides looking upon the expressions which are consequent to the knowledg whereas the way to it is before it and that the expressions naked of themselves and left unguarded of other helps are not sufficient to preserve and secure the truths they contain the Positions then are both true That the Scripture is the best Rule to govern our expressions by and yet not sufficient to regulate our Beleef and the contradictions you fancy between them proceeds not from his inconstancy but your inadvertence ¶ 9. Of late I have read over Iraeneus diligently endeavouring to see the Rule he takes for to confute the Errors he writes against and cannot see but you are out One or two places indeed I have found seeming to favour you which since I find your Writers make use of yet if I understand any thing he is your enemie He says indeed in his fifth Book cap. 4. What if the Apostles had not left us Scriptures ought we not to have followed the order of Tradition which they delivered c. But does not this imply we need not use crutches seeing we have legs some Nations he says had no written Word yet had the same Doctrine which was written What then As long as they have and retain the Doctrine purely whether in writing or in their hearts it is well but though the Apostles did leave some Nations the Gospel without Writing it does not follow that they would have always retained and kept it in succeeding ages purely where is there any particular Church under heaven that hath to this day kept the doctrines of salvation from the Apostles entirely without any writing He might challenge his Adversaries to shew their doctrine came from the Apostles by Tradition living presently after those times wherein some that conversed with the Apostles lived and when all Churches agreed as in Iraeneus his time in matters of Faith and that unity was then a good assurance they all came from one fountain but the case is altred those ancient Churches afterwards were divided and then whom must a man beleeve when each say they have the way to heaven ¶ 9. I am sorry your opinion and mine disagree so much about Irenaeus whom though I cannot profess to have read so exactly as you do yet I dare say I am not mistaken as I think you are in the sence of those places I have read And first the edge of those two you bring in our behalf seems not at all taken off by the Answers you give them For since in case no Scriptures had been left he refers us to the order of Tradition plainly supposing Tradition would have done our business and that we had not even in that case been left without a rule it had been non-sence to refer us to a rule which would not have been a rule when tryed and had he thought so he would certainly have told us there had been in that case no rule at all and if so then pray why is not Tradition as much a rule with Scriptures as without them They may add to its force by their testimony but take away nothing of its efficacy For that the truths which the Apostles taught were written sure makes them no whit the lesse truths and if it may be known what 't was they taught as you see Irenaeus is of the opinion it may by Tradition I hope the security is equal whether it were or were not commended to writing This place then which by the way is not in the fifth but third Book makes it very evident Irenaeus held another rule besides Scripture that is Scripture not the onely Rule which is your Tenet Again since some Nations had the Doctrine but had no Scriptures does it not follow undeniably that there was another means besides Scripture to preserve the Doctrine amongst them and further that the Apostles trusted not to writing the preservation of the Doctrine they taught them which had they intended for a means much more the only means of doing it they cannot be imagined to have omitted I learn therfore from this place both the efficacy of Tradition which actually did preserve the Apostles doctrine without writing and the judgment of the Apostles who left their doctrine in these Nations not to Scripture but Tradition to be preserved But it follows not say you they would have retained their doctrine pure in succeeding ages although they did so till Irenaeus's time And pray why does it not follow provided they would still make use of the means by which they retain'd pure doctrine till that time and what time shall be assigned in which the same cause shall leave off producing the same effect since confessedly tradition did preserve the Doctrine till then you should prove not barely affirm it could do so no longer But the truth is and your own clear thoughts will certainly shew it you that rule was so far from a likelihood of betraying the truths committed to her that it cannot be contrived into a possibility that it should betray them for since the Apostles left them the truth as long as they retained what they received from the Apostles and admitted nothing else which is the method of Tradition pray what door could Error find to creep in at 'T was not therefore possible for them to make shipwrack of their faith till they had first
Tradidi Vobis OR THE Traditionary Conveyance OF FAITH Cleer'd In the RATIONAL WAY Against The Exceptions of a Learned Opponent By J. B. Esquire 1 COR. 11.2 Laudo autem vos fratres quòd sicut Tradidi vobis praecepta mea tenetis LONDON Printed in the Year 1662. The PUBLISHER to the Reader IF I trespass against Civility in publishing this Controversie without the Authors consents I presume them as much righted in my good opinion of them which chiefly emboldened me to this attempt for I looked upon them both as hearty lovers of truth and aymers both at the same fair mark though their shafts were shot from opposite Camps and hence concluded a disposition in them to submit any private consideration to that most prevalent concern and to expose their candid thoughts to the open day however the Genius of modesty blushes to be made its own discoverer and rather permits it self to be guessed at by others affecting to leave not without some unnaturalness its hopeful productions to be fostered up and cherished by the care of providence or the charitable pitie of some accidental Passenger This Character I have of the worthy and learned Author of these Objections from acquaintance and his own sober Pen and the same I dare avow of my Friend the Replyer And that as the former intended only his own private satisfaction so the later had no further end in his eye than to satisfie so candid an Enquirers particular scruples or perhaps a grateful respect to that incomparable and much envied Master of his the great Explainer of Tradition to the defence of whose Doctrine he owes the imployment of that strength the same Doctrine had given him Yet why may I not add too as a likely motive of his pains at any fair hint of occasion his high zeal for the subject it self Tradition so onelily important so radically influential towards steddiness in faith That Rushworths Dialogues and the Apology for them can never be over importunely abeted and pressd Now though I am bound by my Reason to hold the victory on my friends side and to expect the Readers should judge the same yet I profess ingenuously I printed not this out of a conceit that the weak carriage of the Objector gave any advantage or incouragement but rather impute much to his excellent wit that using a cleer and unblundering expression a thing rare in such Adversaries could manage so well so infirm a cause and that having weighed Doctor Hammonds Discourse against Tradition with his I judged this far the more nervous manly and worthy my Friends thoughts then the former not only because that affects too much wordishness and confusedness but becaus the death of its Author might make it with som shew of reason objected that it was ignoble to seek to triumph over the ashes of one adversary and decline others yet alive of equal or greater force entring the lists upon the same quarrel S. W. ERRATA PAge 11. line 15. read inviolate p. 15. l. ult r. there may p. 26. l. 6. r. critically evince and l. 15. r. comes now p. 19. l. 4. r. of your p. 21. l. 6. r. they not understanding his craft will and l. 14. r. which all p. 28. l. 13. for made r. incident p. 41. l. 21. for their r. your p. 52. l. 20. for that r. your p. 61. l. 18. r. her p. 73. l. 7. r. in it p. 74. l. 12. r. as in p. 80. l. 7 8. r. gingling and l. 14. for one r. an p. 81. l. 19. r. notion p. 88. l. 6. r. news p. 96. l. 20. r. to another p. 99. l. 8. r. there are p. 114. l. 15. r. confirmandos p. 119. l. 7. r. deference p. 122. l. 22. r. de et p. 123 l. 20. r. derive their p. 125. l. 20. r. Books is p. 142. l. 5. r. could not not p. 164. l. 14. dele yet p. 176. l. 18. r. evince them p. 181. l. 7 8. r. has provided even against the defects of nature p. 182. l. 27. r by design p. 188. l. 12. r. I see p. 192. dele and. l. 26. r. another and spread among the vulgar upon the authority of private men as Doctors are p. 197. l 6. r. descent p. 218. l. 27. r. wonder at what you say first p. 126. l. 21. before it be consecrated pr 227. l. 22. r into it p. 232. l. 6. r. furem p. 241. l. 4. r they not yet being admitted p. 246. l. 21. r. non-admission 't is false p. 252. l. ult r. do not p. 265. l. 18. r. reverenc'd and l. 25. for prays r. prayers p. 270. l. 27. r. places p. 271. l. 15. r. hold true p. 283. l. 7. r. is evidenc'd p. 293. l. 19. r. if any p. 279 l. 26. r. upon p. 287. l 14. r 't would have CONTENTS PART I. Scripture not the Rule of Faith Incertaintie of the Letter of Scripture in order to that effect Sect. 1. pag. 1. Incertainty of the sense of Scripture from the bare Letter Sect. 2. p. 23. Scripture critically managed not sufficient to decide Controversies Sect. 3. p. 45. The two Places Iohn 20. and Luke 1. no proof that the written Word is a sufficient means for the salvation of mankind Sect. 4. p 86. Answer to those Fathers who are brought for the sufficiency of Scripture Sect. 5 p. 109. PART II. Tradition the Rule of Faith Certainty of Tradition Sect. 1. p. 160. Authority of Fathers Transubstantiation Sect. 2. p. 205. Prayer to Saints Sect. 3. p. 238. Images Sect. 4. p. 274. The Conclusion Sect. 5. p. 285. PART I. SCRIPTURE not the Rule of FAITH SECT I. Incertainty of the Letter of Scripture in Order to that Effect SIR I Have often bemoaned my loss of your ingenuous society and think my self unhappy that my hopes are gon of having those verbal conferences in which I much delighted and for which I am exceedingly obliged unto you for many civilities that which I have learnt from you hath put me upon further enquiries then ever I should as I believ had you not been the occasion of them my resolution still remains to proceed by all possible means to make up my present deficiency If I know any thing of my self I am an impartial lover of truth therefore ready to embrace any I am capable of that concerns me to know I have perused those two Pieces of Mr. Whites with diligence to find that Demonstration promised but stil remain in my first wonder that so many excellent able men should imbrace that for clear truth which to me is falshood I think I have not willingly shut my eyes against light but opened them both to see what I cannot discern and lest I should be thought to stifle truth and smother conviction in my breast I have here endeavoured to give you a brief account of my apprehensions of the Discourse in hope of that candid answer and satisfaction your ingenuity hath been pleased to promise me I remember a
whose easiness if the Heretick have won any credit upon he must be the veriest Dunce in the world if he be not able to any crime whatsoever to frame some either to them plausible or at least confused Defence which they not understanding his craft will make use of his Authority to perswade them his innocence suffers not by desert but by want of capacity in them to see it ¶ 10. All that plausible discourse of the possibility of Scripture-corruption only teacheth me wariness and diligence to use all means withall confirming my Faith that it is the Word of God seeing so many contrary minds could never have combin'd to forge it nor those various Lections crept in had it not been universally in respect of time and place received ¶ 10. That something was commended to Writing by divine Authority you gather well but that the Books we have and as we have them are that somthing is if it be part of your Faith what you will not find any thing able to confirm Suppose an Atheist or wittie Infidel whose faithfulness to his nature requires severe demonstration reply to your discourse that although contrary mindes could not combine to a forgery yet they may be deceived by a forger who for any thing appears to the contrary may have adulterated the first Copie of the Original from which adulterated Copie all our Lections may have been derived What return could you make to this man Could all your wariness and diligence deny but that this case might happen which if it could what confidence could motion to him the receiving those Books as Infallible and Divine which he sees may have been corrupted and you are unable to shew but that they have been so Reflect therefore if you please what a pretty confirmation you have of your Faith which can neither satisfie another nor establish your self upon a foundation of any certainty and less then certainty and that absolute and rigorous cannot in these matters be a foundation I pass therefore to the next Section after I have observed that this neither proves there is so much as one corruption less in the Bible then your Adversary thinks may be and that although it had proved many less it would nothing have advanced your purpose since that Corruptions may be there that is for ought you know are there does as much destroy your pretence to certaintie as if you knew they actually were there SECT II. Incertainty of the Sence of Scripture from the bare letter ¶ 1 THe next material Question is how to understand these Scriptures which we may see sufficiently to agree because the Original Languages are not now commonly known equivocations incident to all writings and words c. ¶ 1 THat which you call the next material Question I do not comprehend how you come to state in the manner you do I presume you intend to oppose the 8th and following Sections of the 2d Dialogue where several incertainties necessarily springing out of the variety of Translations Copies c. being already handled is examined what must needs follow from this that the Scripture in the supposition there were but one authentical Copy extant is a Book written in words of men So that the Question there seems not to be of the method how to understand the Scripture but of this whether they may be understood with that certainty which in our businesse is requisite ¶ 2. Here I wonder at the excellent Mr. White not to have prevented this my difficulty that the same difficulty lies as heavy yea heavier upon Tradition for that came by the same way as you will confesse first delivered in those Original Tongues and must be Translated by word of Mouth and Expounded even into our Native Languages before we can be made sensible of them and is it not as hard for me to tell you that in English which another told me in Latin as for me or another better learnt than my self to Translate so much written to my hand in Latine into English surely this later is the exactest way ¶ 2. Here you must give me leave to wonder too but 't is that you raise such a difficulty and attribute so much heaviness to it upon so light ground Truly I am so far from confessing that Scripture and Tradition came by the same way that I conceive it impossible they should do so For Scripture contains a determinate number of words which are the same to whoever reads them Tradition is not at all confin'd but uses fewer and more obscure to ingenious persons more clearer to those who are duller and consequently is not subject to translation since certainly I cannot be said to have translated if what another hath told me in 500 words of French I tell you in 100 of English What you assume therefore that Christianity was first delivered in the Original tongues is in this sense true that it was first preached to those Nations whose Vulgar Languages were those which we call Original but that gives you no pretence to add 't was translated into ours it being delivered neither to them nor us in a set form of words which might be translated but so preached to both in our several Vulgar Languages that the people understood the meaning of what their Preachers delivered to them and were not left to guess at it by scanning the various and therefore doubtful signification of the words they express'd it in So that Tradition is not subject to any of the uncertainties which writing cannot be exempt from a truth which the next word expounded seems to confess For it being the business of Exposition to render the Text clear if the Gospel were by tradition expounded to the people there must have been a great fault in the Expositor if there remained any uncertainty or doubt in them ¶ 3. You will say perhaps not the words but the sense was delivered by Tradition at first in several expressions Answ Yet still by words liable to all those difficulties incident to Scripture yea greater when they again transmit it to others of another language Scripture too has the same truths essential to Christianity in divers expressions several places almost in every Book and whether this be not the surer way of transmitting truths let Papias his example witness who pretended to hear the Apostles themselves teach the Doctrine of Millenaries had he transmitted the very words in Writing others having judgement which he wanted as Eusebius would have seen his mistake by this appears in general Writing the surest way Litera scripta manet ¶ 3. 'T is true then that not a set form of words but a determinate sence came down to us by Tradition by the means of words indeed but not as you say liable to all those difficulties incident to Scripture For though words are necessary to both yet there is this difference that in Traditon where by the observation of the Master or notice of the Scholler any doubt is perceived 't is
Tradition I am ready to embrace It is cleer how high he valued the Churches authority in that lib. 2. de util cred c. 14. This therefore I beleeved by fame strengthned by celebrity consent antiquity so that he did no more than we who notwithstanding are of a contrary mind to you ¶ 3. First we beleeve the things of Religion because they are published and held in that Church or place where we live yet not sufficiently for that not a sufficient ground of belief because of fame till the universal celebrity consent and antiquity do strengthen it He sees not Christ hath recommended the Church for an infallible decider of emergent controversies but for a credible witness of ancient Tradition whosoever therefore refuseth to follow the practice of the Church understand of all places and ages in things clearly descended from Christ let him be lookt upon to refuse Christ But if he be understood any where asserting only the present Churches authority sufficient to determine it must be in things that are not matters of faith that which he proves by tradition he does not affirm it necessary to salvation or things contained in Scripture for his Austins words are evident ¶ 4. In iis quae apertè posita sunt in sacris scripturis omnia ea reperiuntur quae continent fidem moresque vivendi Aug. de doct Christiana lib. 2. c. 9. Nemo mihi dicat O quid dexit Donatus aut quid dexit Parm. aut Pontus aut quilibet eorum quia non Catholicis Episcopis consentiendum est sic ubi sorte fallantur ut contra Canonicas Scripturas aliquid sentiant Aug. de unitate Eccl. c. 10. Again Ecclesiam suam demonstrarent si possunt non in sermonibus rumoribus Afrorum non in conciliis Episcoporum suorum non in literis quorumlibet disputatorum non in signis prodigiis fallacibus quia etiam contra ista verbo Domini cauti redditi sumus sed in scripto legis in prophetaruÌ„ praedictis in cantibus Psalmorum in ipsius Pastoris vocibus in Evangelistarum praedicationibus laboribus hoc est in omnibus Canonicis Sanctorum librorum authoritatibus Eodem lib. c. 16. Utrum ipsi Ecclesiam teneant non nisi divinarum Scripturarum Canonicis libris ostendant quia nec nos propterea dicimus credi debere quod in Ecclesia Christi sumus aut quia ipsam commendavit Optatus Ambrosius vel alii innumerabiles nostrae communionis Episcopi aut quia nostrorum colligarum conciliis predicata est aut quia per totum orbem tanta mirabilia Sanctorum fiunt c. Quaecunque talia in Catholicâ fiunt ideo approbantur quia in Catholica fiunt non ideo manifestatur Catholica quia haec in ea fiunt Ipse Dominus Jesus cum resurrexit a mortuis discipulorum oculis corpus suum offerret ne quid tamen fallaciae se pati arbitrarentur magis eos testimoniis legis Prophetarum Psalmorum conformandos esse judicavit Ibidem Non audiamus haec dico sed haec dixit Dominus Sunt certae libri Dominici quorum authoritati utrique consentimus ibi quaeramus Ecclesiam ibi discutiamus causam nostram Eod. lib. c. 23. Chrysost in Act. Hom. 33. Take from Hereticks the Opinions which thâ—â— maintain with the Heathen that they may defend their Questions by Scripture alone and they cannot stand Tertullian de Resurrectione carnis Hierom on Matth. 23. writing of an Opinion that John Baptist was killed because he foretold the coming of Christ saith thus this because it hath no authority from Scripture may as easily be condemned as approved I might here add Aquinas his words 1ª quest 36. art 2. ad 1m. confessing what he had proved out of Dionisius We are to affirm nothing of the Holy Ghost but what we find in Scripture Thus you will have Scripture alone some of you as Mr White confesses to be the Rule for some truths though not for others which indeed are humane inventions but I shall not urge you to maintain all your Doctors affirm which notwithstanding you who build upon authority have more cause to do then we Only observe the Fathers were against you I proceed to give you more proofs of it ¶ 1 2 3 4. I come now to your Testimonies from the Fathers and beg leave before I enter upon them to pause a while upon the State of the Question betwixt us that our eye being strongly fixt upon it may not be diverted by that variety of Objects which the many notions found in Testimonies will present it You assert We deny Scripture to be the rule of Faith Every of which words deserves its particular reflexion For first by Scripture is meant either the words or sense that is the words containing a sense so as that another may be found in the same words or else a sense expressed accidentally by such words which might have been expressed by other By a Rule since 't is our belief must be regulated and our belief is of things not sounds is understood either a determinate sense or certain means to arrive at it We say then that Scripture taken the first way cannot be a Rule nothing being more evident then that words meerly as such without due qualifications which are not found in all words are neither sense nor means to arrive at a determinate one since the same words may comprehend many senses Take Scripture the second way and the question is quite changed none denies the sence of it to be the word of God by which all our belief and actions are to be regulated our Dispute then in that case is not whether it be a Rule but how 't is known whether by the bare words in which 't is couched which we deny because other sences are couched in the very same words or by the Churches authority interpreting it by Tradition which you conceived unnecessary To Scripture interpreted by Tradition or the sence of Scripture acknowledged by Tradition we submit all our thoughts and actions but deny the title of a Rule can belong to Scripture taken for the meer words unsenc't that is Characters and conceive the sence of Scripture cannot be sufficiently discovered by the bare scanning of the words which after all being capable of many sences leave it undetermined which is the true one Faith is to be considered either in respect of one or some few men or in respect of a multitude for since the same cause produces not the same effect upon different subjects 't is not possible that to every of those many who are comprehended in a Church the same knowledge should be necessary That there is a rewarder of good and punisher of evil may for ought I can tell be enough for some extraordinarily disposed creature to know but mankind requires the knowledge of much more Again outward circumstances extremely vary the disposition of the subject We live both in calms and storms and to day a
washing boul will ferry me over the Thames which Oars perhaps will hardly do to morrow Now since he that meets with no rubs seldom stumbles if the way be smooth and even every thing overcoms it if rugged or deep 't is not passed without much labour and difficulty And so the faithful who live in a deep peace need not that strength of certainty which is necessary for those who are assaulted by the outward wars of Heresie or intestine broils of Schism Observe then if you please what your witnesses to gain your cause should depose for you That Scripture taken for the words teaches the Church that is mankind the way to salvation so as not to need the assistance of Tradition or any other Interpreter to secure them against all possible assaults of all possible adversaries or taken for the sence that the sence of Scripture is so known by the bare words without the help of Tradition or other Interpreter that no subtlety or malice can weaken the certainty it gives of as much as is necessary for the salvation of mankind This is what they should say What they do let us now examine But first you tell us you receive not their Testimony as authoritative but embrace both their and any other as rational which is a peece of learning I should have been not sorry to have met in an Adversary I had desired to treat like one To you I can onely say your difference to those who mint such adulterate coin is much greater then the blind obedience with which we use to be reproached Of the two ways of moving assent Authority Reason the one is distinguished from the other in this that the first relies upon the credit of the Proposer whom if we be satisfied he is so wise as to know what he says and so good as not to say against what he knows 't is rational to beleeve and lay hold upon the truth he presents us which we see with his eyes not our own The second carries us by the evidence of truth it proposes barefaced and without any consideration of the Proposer in which way we rely upon our own eyes not another mans credit Wherefore if you will proceed the first way by Testimonies they are onely and so far valuable as their Author has authority and must be either authoritative or of no force at all If the second 't is impertinent to cite an Author for what is considerable onely in respect of what it is not in respect of him that said it for reasons have weight from their inward vertue and are neither greater in the mouth of Aristotle nor lesse in the mouth a Cobler Neither therefore can authoritative be separated from testimony nor rational joyned to it a rational Testimony in true English saying a Testimony which is not a Testimony but a reason Your 3 Paraph too has a very pretty distinction in these terms that the Church is is no infallible decider but a credible witness whereas these two are at least in our subject matter inseparable For since not infallible says fallible and fallible says that which may deceive and credible says what 't is rational to beleeve and nothing is more irrational then to beleeve what may deceive the beleever plainly if the Church be not infallible neither is she credible Besides her power of deciding in things of this nature is founded upon her power of witnessing she being therefore able to decide because she is able to witness what it was which Christ and his Apostles taught her and she has till now preserved in which if she can credibly that is infallibly witness she can also infallibly decide if her testimony be fallible she cannot be credible The rest of what you say till you come to the Testimonies themselvs although I do not allow yet I think not necessary to meddle with apprehending the concern of our dispute to be very independent of it But now St. Austin tells us non Catholicis Episcopis consentiendum est sicubi forte fallantur ut contra Canonicas Scripturas aliquid sentiant Very true and sure no body at least no Catholick Bishop ever pretended to be believed against Scripture that is its sence concerning which our contest is how t is known and to that the witness says nothing Again Ecclesiam suam demonstrent non in sermonibus c. sed in Canonicis librorum authoritatibus And utrum ipsi Ecclesiam teneant non nisi divinarum Scripturarum Canonicis libris ostendant Lastly non Audiamus haec dico sed haec dixit Dominus c. ibi quaeramus Ecclesiam c. In which three places he challenges his Adversaries to prove their cause by Scripture a course not onely commendable in him but practis'd dayly by us Several of our Books will witness for us we are so far from thinking our cause lost by Scripture that we know it infinitely superior even in that kind of tryal but what 's this to the purpose Because St. Austin then and we now know the advantage Scripture gives us above all our Adversaries does therefore either he or we think the bare words of it are our Rule of faith or that its sence needs no other means to be found out but the bare words These Sir are our onely Questions but not so much as thought on by the Judges you bring to decide them The place you bring from his Doct. Christ seems more to the purpose but yet comes not home it being violence to extend it farther then private Readers and these qualifi'd as he expresses with piety humility and fear of God pietate mansuetis as his words are de timentibus Deum piously meek and fearing God And of these t is also Mr. Whites opinion that the Scripture is plain enough to make them perfect beleeving Catholicks But that 't is able to contest with captious frowardness and those crooked dispositions which accompany Heresie or satisfie the nice sharpness of sincere but piercing wits or that the plainness he speaks of ought to bee understood with respect to the exigencies of the Church that is mankind which may be true in respect of such excellently dispos'd persons as he mentions are things however necessary yet not at all touched St. Hieroms authority is wider all it says being thus much that where there is but one authentick History extant of the Subject to be spoken of what is not found there has no sufficient ground to keep it from being unblamably rejected Which is his case for there is no authentick History of the actions of St. John Baptist but the Bible wherefore since they are no subject of Traditions they must either deny their ground from thence or have no ground at all Tertullians words are plainly changed for whereas you make him tye and as it were challenge Hereticks to defend their cause by Scripture his words are ut de Scripturis solis questiones suas sâ—stant That they may not defend but present or handle
ejus verbis obtemperavit I cannot gather one sillable hence nor from any other place for Mr White Vnless there be a proof it is but Sophistry and a sign of a desperate cause It is likely is it not that grave wise Assembly that came to confute an obstinate adversarie would make use of a Lesbian rule if they did not count it sufficient and the chief which their Adversary would make nothing of as long as one place can explicate a hundred opposed so Mr. White speaks ¶ 7. Yet it is plain they did make use of this Rule and did conclude by it that same truth which they had before that learnt out of it as Eusebius in his Epistle to his own people confesses Socr. l. 1. c. 5. yea stick and keep to Scripture-expressions in the forme of their determinations as much as they could which Mr. White himself calls a good way to govern their expressions by and therefore I cannot imagine the possibility of the truth of his words p. 98. that the Council at last was forced to conclude out of Tradition he brings Theodoret to prove it but names not the place where I have read all I can imagine should shew it but finde not one word a necessity sayes he which the Rules of Saint Irenaeus c. justifies I have not the other be mentions without citing the place as for Irenaeus I am sure it is false he has no such Rule in his whole book the only place in him that glanceth at it is not a proof I speak of it elsewhere if it were it would prove Irenaeus an egregious fool to spend above 600 pages to no purpose in Scripture-Argument and then in one page do all the work by your imaginarie only Argument I expect a better Solution or a deserved consent to the contrary truth ¶ 8. Mr. White p. 95. seems to make the Bishops to set upon this Resolution of their own accord if that be true also then both Bishops and People were of the same minde his words are But the same Bishops consented to excommunicate the Contradicters to hinder men from unwritten words and was not that a proper and prudent remedy to prevent the inconveniences that easily arise from confusion and incertaintie of language when every one phrases the mysterie according to his private fancie and are not all your Traditions which you say depend not upon words subject to these inconveniences pray tell me ingenuously and governs not his terms by some constant and steadie Rule and the Writings of the Apostles or ancient Fathers What now does Mr. White turn his tale and call Scripture a constant steadie rule which before he made a nose of wax ¶ 5 6 7 8. There follows a Citation from a Council out of Socrates which to a Person disposed to make use of it affords a fair advantage But as my aim is your service not victory I shall only desire you to reflect they were Hereticks who by the Artifice of that pretence sought to draw the Council of Ariminum to subscribe a new form of Faith in prejudice of what had formerly been establisht at Nice A sleight which the Catholicks rejected with this Answer We came not hither as though we wanted Faith and beleef for we retain that Faith which we have learned from the beginning but we are come to withstand Novelties if those things which you have now read neither savour nor tend to the establishing of Novelty accurse and renounce the Heresie of Arius in such wise as the old and ancient Canon of the Church hath banished all Heretical and Blasphemous Doctrine Now consider if you please who they were that pretended Scripture who they that rejected it and adhered constantly to what they had learned from the beginning and observe which party your Position takes and which mine Next is an expression of Constantines in his Oration to the Council of Nice insisted upon to my no small wonder through 4. Paragraphs For how comes it that a man bred up wholly to the Arts of War and Government and so lately become a Christian that he wanted even time had his other employments been no Obstacle to advance beyond the degree of a Learner should yet be look'd upon by you as so great a Doctor that an expression of his which according to the custom of such persons too has more of oratory then severe discourse in it should wholly sway you in a point of Religion whose judgment I dare say in a point of Politicks in which he was much better vers'd would not be of half that credit with you what if he did not so much as understand the thing and if he did what if he spoke rather according to his occasions then his judgment For Princes you know do and ought to govern their actions by other rules then private men and speak sometimes more what 't is fit they should be heard speak then what they truly think In either of these cases both which I take to be not only possible but so far probable that I think them true how weak a support is this Testimony you so much rely upon And yet I think these advantages so unnecessary that the place it self faithfully consulted needs no assistance to conclude plainly against you For since you make Constantine satified of the truth of the Question before the calling of the Council it cannot with any colour be imagined he meant to put that to tryal which before the tryall appointed was already known and resolv'd on The Question therefore in Issue could not be which was Faith which Heresie neither does that use to be or indeed can be a Question among those that know their own Faith but how the oppositions made against the known Faith might be answered And this besides that after a man is satisfied of the truth of one part of the Question there can be no more dispute concerning the same Question but how to answer the Objections of the opposite is clear from the very words For dissolvere does not signifie to give sentence in a Question he that should English it so would wrest it strangely but to solve an Argument its natural signification to loose or untie being applied by Schollers to the knots of Sophistry That Phrase therefore imports the answering an Objection not the determining a controversie and the sence of the place is this Let us by Scripture shew the Arguments of Arius brought out of Scripture fallacious and unconcluding I beseech you then to accept of this short Answer to your long Discourse First that whatever were Constantines opinion 't is of no extraordinary importance either way he being a man wholly bred up to other Arts then Divinity and by the course of his life disabled from attaining a mastery in such abstruse points Secondly that yours is so far from appearing to be his Opinion that you cannot force it upon the words you cite without manifest violence and which their own genuine signification and the
inward fire of charity infused by the Holy Ghost together with Christianity into the hearts of the first beleevers And you speak of the corruption of their Traditions that is private Interpretations of their Law so far from being understood practis'd by the multitude that being delivered with the seal of secrecie they were not so much as known to them To answer your Argument then what do you mean by sufficient instruction that particular men were instructed by the Law sufficiently to go to Heaven I conceive true but that the instruction of particular men was sufficient to preserve the Law from being corrupted I cannot grant since I think there is not in a particular Nation force enough to defend it self from the numerous and violent aâ—saults which the corruption of nature you just now insisted on will be sure to make upon it But how could they lose any point of doctrine if Mr. Whites Argument hold Pray does his Argument secure those who neither make use of Tradition for their Rule nor have it to make use of I but was it not possible they should bring in their Traditions to make void the Law of God See how weak a thing 't is to dispute out of words The Traditions you speak of are no more Traditions then Jews are Christians These private Cabalistical interpretations of Scripture made by unknown Authors and handed privately from one confident to another as Doctors among the Vulgar upon the authority of private men are what their word signifies and our Saviour reprehends And because these made void the Law of God shall therefore the thoughts and actions of an universality of people in which there can be no juggle nothing concealed and which have nothing at all common with the former undergo the same condemnation After this you retort Mr Whites answer to the Jew upon himself and urge that unless we can shew a register and visible effects for every age and year we cannot prove there has been no corruption among us If this will content you 't will not be very difficult to give you satisfaction for I beseech you are not the actions of mankind visible effects of the perswasion from whence they flow if you find people going to Mass adoring the holy Sacrifice assisting at Dirges reverencing Images c. will you doubt of their faith concerning these particulars Behold then the visible effects of Religion which if you assign any Age in which they were introduced we thus acquit our selves without the help of History or Records in point of proof It being much more impossible things of that notorious publikeness could be introduced without notice being taken that they were so then for a Tumbler to shew tricks from Pauls to Westminster and no body regard him the age you assign could not but know they were then brought in But the principle of that Age being to receive nothing but what was delivered by her Forefathers she could not admit of these things which 't is manifest she was conscious were then first begun and by the same evidence they could be begun in no Age but that of their author Christ by whom since they are now received 't is very clear they were delivered See now how this will fit the Jew whose Traditions there being no such principle to keep them out may for ought he can tell be brought in in any Age and whom in so suspicious and fallacious a secrecie as accompanied them 't is impossible ever to satisfie that the Masters he relies upon either have not deceived him or are not deceived themselves ¶ 8. Those Traditions which went among the Jewish people for sound Law as Mr White p. 124. which the Pharisees taught them have continued since with them in their several Countries where they have been scattered although they have no Sanhedrims seeing they agree among themselves in them May they not prove with your Argument such Traditions came from Moses they have been handed still to them from father to son and that in divers places so that they could not meet together to compose this forgerie so that it is no such impossible thing as to leap over Pauls steeple though Mr White c. as for your false Traditions to have first spread themselves very largely and by degrees and then being so spread to continue long and yet to be false there 's example of its possibility in the Jews and likewise in the Turks c. ¶ 8. Here you argue in this manner The Jews now in the time of their dispersion into several Countries agree in those false Traditions which had formerly been taught them by the Pharisees and which passed among them for sound Law therefore our discourse proves they came from Moses Of which argument I doubt your Antecedent has more of confidence then ground for where or how does this agreement of the scattered Jews to these Traditions appear By as much as I can learn from the small commerce I have had my self and intelligence I could get from others they are far enough from an uniformity in their opinions Neither do I know their agreement is general in any thing but what the natural force there is in Tradition preserves in them as the times and manners of celebrating their Feasts their circumcision the ornaments for their Synagogues and whatever else the obstinacy of perpetual practice suffers them not to disagree in Now this seems so far from weakning that it strongly confirms the force of Tradition which if it have even unawares such an effect upon them I do not see why it should be denied its efficacy upon us You may perhaps think these things are preserved by writing But I conceive it follows not that if a thing be written it does not owe its preservation to Tradition and that both these things and writing and all have been preserved by it Nay I beleeve that when you have examined the business well you will find little agreement in any thing whether written or not that does not proceed from this method Though were your Antecedent admitted I do not see how it justifies your consequence For though such an agreement may argue the dissent of what they agree in from the time of their dispersion it will not reach one jot farther nor afford any shew of reason why some one of the Rabbins in the intermedial Ages betwixt Moses and the dispersion may not have begun and dispersed the doctrine pretended to descend from Moses ¶ 9. One thing more I shall take notice of p. 29. where he defends your additions in Religion an evident way both how error came into your Church and spread it self over the whole face of it by your authoritative determinations of new points not formalie as you must confess received at first that which you determine once must stand as an infallible truth and what wonder such spread themselves over that great part of Christendom which you had set your selves ouer seeing all that were under you must
such a peece of ground contained so many Acres your heart could not chuse but think it true what ever opposition the strength of your wit might make against it So that Mr White had reason to say he that refuses to beleeve the Church if his thoughts be thoroughly sifted will find in them a proud preference of his own private fancie before the wisdom of the Christian world Nevertheless to comply with the wayward humours of her children I beleeve she will exact no more in things of this nature then a quiet submission which your self cannot but see absolutely necessary for government and a not opposition without evidence leaving you the freedome of your inward thoughts to assent no farther then you see reason which yet if you be learned you may have by looking into the reason her self goes upon if you be unlearned you have no reason for any principle that governs the most important of your actions of comparable weight to her authority nay perhaps even to dissent if a case contrivable onely as I conceive by a wild roving fancie should be put actually to have been Viz. That evidence be producible against her so it be proposed with the moderation and submission necessary to the quiet and peace of all governments since I hope this Explication of these points will rectifie the mistakes interwoven through your solid Discourses in these Paragraphs I shall without a more particular examination pass on to the next Section SECT II. Authority of Fathers Transubstantiation ¶ 1. LEt us come to Particulars Transubstantiation there cannot be a more absurd Tenet imagined that could be fuller of Contradictions as plain as any contradiction in the world that the Sun should shine and not shine at the same time that Christ should begin to be and not to be at the same time broken and yet not broken at the same time in one place and yet in hundred thousands so many that you your selves are fain to look off and confess you are not able to solve yet for this what ground have you the Word of God No your own Authors confess you have no more cause to understand Hoc est corpus meum literally then those the Lamb is the Passeover Christ is a door a rock a way ¶ 1. Which opposes the point of Transubstantiation but so gently that the difficulties which you would have impossible to Omnipotency are almost as familiar and ordinary events as any we converse with But for the first That Christ should begin to be and not to be how do you verifie either part or infer from our doctrine there is a time when Christ is not Which is necessary to the truth of your Proposition T is true that this half hour he is not upon the Altar the next he is but sure it could not escape you that not to be upon the Altar and not to be are two very different things Now I am sure you do not wonder to see a Wart or Pimple to grow and perish which nevertheless while they live have no distinct being from the being of the man they grow upon that is are that man and yet cease to be without causing the man to do so And for those that follow that Christ is broken and not broken in one place and in ten thousand pray consider that the multiplicity of forms our Saviour vouchsafes to put his sacred Body under is to his body as quantity or extension to substance A man is but one thing and no more his hands his feet and whatever else go to the making up of man being not several things but entring all into the unity of this truly one man and this man by one of his feet is in one place by another not in that but another place Cut his hair or nail he is truly divided that is according to that part which is truly he and truly remains one Now raise your thoughts and consider how very little more faith this great mystery requires of you no more then that you will permit the Author of nature to do that by the multitude of forms with which he is pleased to cloth his body which nature does every day by means of quantity and see whether it be not very unjust to say no more to deny that to omnipotence which the ordinary course of causes does so perpetually bring forth that it never concerns your wonder and seldom your notice You will find some disparity in these similitudes and so you must for nullum simile est idem but if I mistake not you will find the very knot of the difficulty the same in both though the manner of tying be different and however it be a little reverence and submission to that power which extends to all things should easily prevail with us to beleeve he is able to do more then we to comprehend For the rest in what you say we confess viz. innumerable contradictions unsolvable and which we are fain to look off from certainly you must either mistake our Authors or they themselves none that understood what he said ever granting a true contradiction in this mystery neither do I beleeve they meant any more then that the depth of it is not to be fathom'd by the shortness of our understanding a conceit even to a moderate sense of that vast Abyss of power as well as wisdom and goodness so far from unreasonable that I know not how the contrary can be excused from impious And for what you make our Authors say that we have no more cause to understand the words of Consecration literally then other expressions acknowledged to be metaphorical those who truly say so if there be any such which truly I much doubt are then pitiful Authors none even among those that are far from the desert of being Authors being ignorant That Tradition is the best Interpreter of Scripture and that it teaches us to follow the letter in one place and not in another ¶ 2. Have you derived this Interpretation all along from the Apostles No your Scotus and Bellarmine confesse that Ante concilium Lateranse transubstantiatio non fui dogma fidei And as plain it is the first Ages of the Church though they highly reverenced the Eucharist and possibly by some hyperbolical expressions gave way to your Error yet were cleerly against you Irenaeus l. 4. c. 34. Panis terrenus accepta vocatione à verbo Dei non amplius est communis panis yet bread still sed efficitur eucharistica quae constat ex duabus terrena therefore it is bread still celesti Tertullian l. 4. contra Man Acceptum panem distribuentem discipulis suis corpus suum illum fecit how hoc est corpus meum dicendo id est figura corporis mei Basilius in Liturg. Greg. Nazianz in orat de pas both call the Bread and Wine antitypa corporis Christi Ambros de Sacram. l. 4. c. 5. haec oblatio est figura corporis sanguinis domini August contr
your mind been in the same temper it was in the first Sect. of this part would have been reason sufficient not only to doubt but to reject it that you had not evidence of its certainty For there a man must plainly deny assent to what even all Doctors determine though he have no-so much-as-probable Objection against them upon this onely ground That he has not evidence their determination is certain and here he must yeeld assent because he has not evidence the thing he assents to is not certain Which is want of evidence must at one time produce dissent at another assent as it suits with your inclinations to the case it is apply d to Besides if all parts of Scripture have been doubted of Vid. Hierom. de Scrip. Eccl. in Petro Jacobo Juda Paulo Spondan ad an 60. 98. Com. Laod. c. and denyed too nay some which you receive by several even of the Fathers Why should not you think you have reason to doubt as well as those who lived neerer the Primitive times and should know more who shall satisfie a Critical Soul that all their doubts were ever fairly answered and they not more oppress'd by strength then satisfi'd by reason and this also destroys your pretence to universal Tradition of time and place since that could not in your grounds be delivered with universality which by some has been denyed And for your Monuments of Antiquity I beseech you pretend not to prove it that way for I think I deal liberally if I allow you to have examined ten Authors of every age and what proof are ten of the sentiments of 1000000 Then what do you find in these Authors certain places of Scripture cited out of such books as we still have but whether those books contained then the same number of Chapters and Verses they do now you will find very few to speak to Nay I do not beleeve you will find ten in all Ages that give you a Catalogue of the Books themselves much less of the Chapters and Verses So that your conspiracy of all Monuments of Antiquity will not amount to ten men in fifteen Ages I must desire you not to mistake what I have said as if I also doubted of Scripture which I acknowledg to be the Word of God reverence it as such and know the denyers of it were for the most part Hereticks All I aim at is by an Argument ad hominem to shew the power of prejudice to which what is reason when of one side ceases to be reason when on the contrary If therefore you faithfully pursue your own Principles what ever you think the true ground why you receive Scripture is the present Churches Authority and you should as you rightly infer receive the sense as well as words from her And for your fear of the Alcoran you will need no other security then your own thoughts if you reflect that all which the testimony of the Mahumetan Church if that name be tolerable concludes is That what she says was delivered by Mahomet was truly delivered by Mahomet and to so much I think you will allow her testimony good beleeving you do not doubt but that Mahomet was truly Author of the Alcoran and so much if you allow her you cannot deny the Testimony of a Christian Church Viz. That what she affirms was delivered by Christ was truly delivered by Christ and farther Tradition reaches not Now the Minor necessary to a conclusion of Religion that what was delivered by Mahomet was inspired by God I am sure you hold as great impiety to grant as Blasphemy to deny that which we subsume viz. that what was delivered by Christ did truly proceed from God Tradition then of the Alcoâ—an and Tradition of Christian doctrine agree in this that they prove the one to have descended from Mahomet the other from Christ but Christianity endures not either that a delivery from Mahomet should or that a delivery from Christ shâ—uld not argue a necessity of obedience to what was so delivered as to sacred and heavenly truth ¶ 2. Secondly I say if you can prove or produce any Tradition for any revealed truth not contained in the Bible as cleerly universal for time and place as that Tradition which assures me the Bible is the Word of God I must imbrace it ¶ 2. Secondly I conceive there is no point of our faith but has not onely as clearly an universal Tradition but a much clearer both for time and place then the Scripture a truth which since you may find in the first Sections of Rushworths second Dialogue I shall only wonder here you see not that the very Arguments which you make against the universality of Tradition for some points as that they have been doubted of and rejected by some are every whit as forcible against Scripture whereof there is no paâ—â— which has not been both doubted of and rejected too by Hereticks indeed at least for the most part for some also of the Fathers have doubted even of some Books which your selves receive but so also were they who rejected the points in question whose opposition if it be not allowed against Scripture cannot be valid to any thing but prejudice against points of doctrine Be true therefore if you please to your own reason and embrace that principle and the Communion of those who own it which alone can with certainty convey to you these sacred Truths which are necessary for your happiness ¶ 3. Thirdly I cannot grant your Church was the onely one before Luthers time there 's the Greek Abyssen and others there may be in several parts of the world that I know not of ¶ 3. Thirdly What you mean here by our Church I cannot tell if onely that number of Orthodox Christians who live within the Precincts of the Roman either Diocess or Patriarchate I know no body maintains I 'm sure I do not beleeve the number of the faithful is confin'd to that Pale But to answer of every particular place where Christians live till it be agreed what they held and of what may be too as well as what is seems unreasonable eifor me to undertake or you to exact thus much is true in general that whatever company of men where-ever they live hold this only principle of unity both in faith and government so as to be a Church are not another but our Church and who hold it not are no Church at all ¶ 4. Fourthly I see no necessity that any one particular Church should continue uncorrupted or that it is necessary the greatest number of Professors of Christianity should have uncorrupted Religion In the days of Elijah the Prophet there were but 700 that had not bowed the knee to Baal which the Prophet that thought himself alone knew not of ¶ 4. That there is any necessity a particular Church should always remain uncorrupted or that the greatest number of professors of Christianity should have uncorrupted Religion are two Propositions which
presently explicated by other words till it be perfectly taken away and the thing understood Whereas Scripture is confin'd to those precise words it contains concerning which if either your self have any doubt or another raise it in you you have no means of satisfaction for how can you come to the knowledge of the thing signified while you are at a loss about the sign that sign which is all you have to trust to being to explicate another thing not it self Now if you reflect that the Gospel was preacht or dâ—livered by word of mouth with that care and time that it was not only well understood by the people but setled deeply in their souls by a constant practise and high esteem you will see that since they understood the doctrine delivered to them and could not forget it by reason of their constant practise nor lose it by reason of their multitude Tradition has not one of the difficulties made to Scripture This advantage too which orall delivery has above writing ought not be forgotten that the liveliness of the voice and aptness of the gesture and such companions of words fitly pronounced do infinitely contribute to make them be understood We see Ironical expressions differ no otherwise from serious ones then in the motion of a lip or eye and yet how vast is the difference Nay the actions of the speaker suited to and joyned with the circumstance in which he speaks is perhaps of all Interpreters the best and admits the least doubt of his meaning Writing therefore necessarily wanting these helps must of necessity want also a most effiacious means of making the words it presents to the eye intelligible which these enjoy that are convey'd to us by the ear That Scripture has couched in iâ— most if not all truths essential to Christianity in divers Expressions I conceive to be true but if you will compare it to Tradition you must add that these truths are indisputably acknowledged and practised both with constancy and high esteem by a multitude and I shal then not think it inferiour to Tradition with which perhaps 't will be the very same And for the example of Papias I am sure it is nothing against me it being evident there want the conditions necessary to Tradition Viz. Of being openly and constantly preached to such a multitude as can certainly witness of it that perfectly understand it and practise according to it And I think it makes for me since in all likelihood the error proceeded from this that the words used in discourse by the Apostle were mis-understood by some of the hearers and what hapned to them when they were spoken I know nothing can hinder them from being liable to after they are written So that even that example concludes that all error proceeds from the deceitfulness of set words which Tradition not being tied to is also freed from the inconveniences they are the occasion of ¶ 4. We may to our comfort remember this Age affords such as are as well skilled in the Originals yea letter then many Learned men that lived several hundreds of years before us I confess what they are forced to acknowledge some things we cannot yet know by reason of those difficulties No more could the Church for above 12 hundred years ago yet as then so now we have sufficient though not all light to salvation only out of Scripture Because we cannot understand all things some whereof of in Scripture S. Peter tells us are hard to be understood shall we say we can understand nothing certainly Why should we doubt our Saviour was born of the Virgin Mary more then that we understand any sentence we hear commonly from one another although there be no other way then Scripture to know it We make no doubt but we understand a place of Plato Aristotle Tully c. and cannot God write as intelligibly ¶ 4. What the learning is of men of this age I conceive very unnecessary to examine especially since all the use you make of it is to affirm confidently That we have sufficient light to salvation onely out of Scripture to which all I shall return is that so critical an Exceptor against Arguments should not himself use for one the Conclusion barely said over That we can understand nothing certainly is not Mr Whites Position but that we cannot understand enough for the salvation of mankind with certainty requisite to that effect and till you say something against him I have nothing to say against you Why we should doubt of our Saviours being born of the Virgin Mary I know not and were there no other Readers of Scripture but such as you and I perhaps none would but if any do as I think Helvidius did and you have no other means of convincing him but by words which a subtle Critick will shew are capable of other senses pray how will you hinder a multitude with whom an opinion of learning and holiness has gotten him credit from following him into damnation of the parity between Scripture and Aristotles writings you will give me occasion to speak more fully by and by ¶ 5. Surely God would be understood by all seeing he commands all not only to read his Law but to write it upon their posts and doors and Phylacteries and be continually talking of those things that are necessary for salvation Deut. 6.7 and by his Apostles tells us that he intends so to doe not always to speak in Parables John 16.25 26. and in 2 Cor. 4.2 3 4. not handling the Word of God deceitfully but by manifestation of the truth commending our selves to every mans conscience in the sight of God but if our Gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them that beleeve not lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ who is the image of God should shine unto them Prov. 8.9 They are all plain to him that understandeth and right to them that find knowledge but what more plain then that in Hab. 2.2 And the Lord answered me and said Write the vision and make it plain upon Tables that he may run that readeth ¶ 5. For the citations you fill the next Paraph with I profess I am at a loss to find any opposition in them to what I am maintaining The Dialogues say Equivocation the nature of the Original tongues their being ceased c. causes an uncertainty of the sense of Scripture and you reply that God commanded his Law to be written upon Posts Doors and Philacteries that he intended to speak to his Apostles without Parables that S. Paul did not handle the word of God deceitfully that the words of wisdom are plain to him that understandeth and that the Prophet was commanded to write a Vision plain Does any of this or all prove that equivocation c. brings in no incertainty or that it and the rest are not found in Scripture This is what I conceive
and fancie to work on and determine which side they please SECT III. Scripture critically managed not sufficient to decide Controversies ¶ 1. THe 3d. Question whether Scripture can determine Controversies 1. We affirm not all possible Controversies of Religion can satisfactorily be determined by Scripture neither do I think you dare say they can by your Traditions but 2ly all necessary to Salvation may In the 15th Encounter of the Apol. pag 136. Mr. White makes use of an old Objection to disprove Scriptures sufficiency in general which truly I should not have thought worth the taking notice of did it not come from Mr. White whom I much honour and find more Rational than many others of your Controversie writers I have since Read it is this Scripture hath not these 1600 years ended Controversies therefore it is not a sufficient Rule 1. He speaks more then he proves of 1600 years As to the experience since Luthers time it 's plainly false that not one point has been resolved by it that Christ is the Messias promised that through Faith in his name Salvation is to be had and many others have been and are resolved and agreed unto by Protestants who own not your Traditions but what Wonder Scripture does not end the feud between you and us seeing you will not be ruled by Scripture as the Supreme Rule to decide by he might as well have concluded against traditions because they have not yet ended the Controversies since Luthers time between you and us who doth not acknowledge your Traditions as a supream Rule to judge by ¶ 1. The next Reason begins with a Question which as you state it has no opposition to the Dialogues for after they have shewn how points of Religion may be decided and controversies determined by Scripture me thinks it should not be questioned whether that may be done which they shew how 't is done The difference betwixt you though you say nothing of it is of the certainty of determining Controversies their Position being That a discreet and diligent perusal of Scripture will make a man a perfect Catholick but not with that steady firmness as to be able to evince his Religion before a Critical Judge against a wrangling and craftie Adversary and this is your task to oppose if you will oppose the Dialogues To the experience Master White glances at in his fifteenth Encounter you answer he proves not what he says of sixteen hundred years which is true but sure to your second thoughts that place which professes not to treat the Question and onely mentions it by the by will not seem proper for a large proof Yet if you desire to see one his Tabulae Suffragiales will serve you where he handles that question largely And for what you say since Luthers time that many points have been resolv'd by Scripture though he speak of Points controverted betwixt Catholicks and Protestants and so your Position does not directly thwart him yet I conceive you are in the wrong and doubt whether any one point ever have been resolv'd amongst the adversaries of the Roman Church meerly by Scripture 'T is true there are several in which they all agree and Catholikes with them as those you instance in but not because Scripture has reconciled their differences concerning them but because they never owned any differences to reconcile Consult Historie faithfully and impartially and if you find one side ever plainly convinced another or generally any other agreement then this that the Point controverted belonged not to salvation and so either part permitted to keep their own opinion I shall learn somthing of you which yet I am yet ignorant of Mean while the points yon say are agreed I conceive are so onely because they have not been questioned whereof I take the reason to be the nature of man which being accustomed to any one thing cannot be brought to the opposite but by degrees and time a quality which grounds that Maxime Nemo repente fit pessionus So I conceive that Luther being brought up long inured to Religion though Passion obliged him to renounce some points of it yet was withheld by the course of nature from following his Principles whether they would at last have brought him into infidelity His successors still went farther and I do not see that where they exceeded him either himself in his life-time or Schollers after him were able to correct and bound them by Scripture but that every one had as fair a plea for deserting him as he for deserting the Church Whether the Clew would have brought him had he pursued it far enough the fifth Monarchy and Quakerism will inform you which though perhaps you may look on but as Bastards and think it strange they should be laid to his charge yet I cannot tell any thing should hinder you from acknowledging them his issue but their deformity for they profess Scripture as much as he and have by his principles and example as great a liberty to interpret it You will say they err in their Interpretation True but so did he and as long as they follow what seems the truth to them they do all that he did and if that seeming be a Plea for him against possession and authoty I see not how you can deny it them Against some of these and perhaps this Labyrinth has many more windings we are yet unacquainted with 't is possible you may have occasion to dispute some of the points you conceive agreed of and till experience satisfie you of the success you would do well not to be too confident of the favour of Scripture In the mean time pray do not take that for resolved which was never disputed As to what you say that we refuse to be ruled by Scripture you do us wrong for by acknowledging it the Word of God we bind our selves to accept whatsoever can be proved it teaches so that if it be true as you say that your Religion may be convinced out of Scripture your victory over us is certain Nay we have one Copie too which to us is authentical and which in Disputation we refuse not whereas when you are pressed you â—lie from one to another And how you that pretend to rely on Scripture can have fairer play shewn you then a Book brought which your Adversary acknowledges to be Scripture and professes an absolute obedience and submission to whatever it says indeed I cannot imagin Since then nothing more can be required on our sides pray charge us not with such injurious scandals and take it not amiss if I tell you with that plainness which in concerns of the soul being a duty of Charitie should never be look'd upon as a breach of civility that what you so loudly call the Word of God and with the Majestie of so great a Name endeavour to dazle your adversaries eyes while in truth you blind your own proves when faithfully and severely scan'd no other thing but your own meer fancy to which
you accommodate the outward Word in which the true Word of God is contained and because you can do so break communion with us because we prefer another sense which the words also agree withall suitable to our constant and universal practise and which to leave upon no better inducement I must confess I know not how to excuse from downright madness Moreover some of our Controvertists laying down in condescendence to you their own assured Arms Tradition have engaged with you at your own weapon critical handling of Scripture of whose endeavours I am content almost even partiality it self should be Judge being very confident no Byas can be great enough to draw a reasonable nature so far wide of Truth as to pronounce us in that kind of war overcome When you say Tradition has not ended controversies you express where the fault lies Viz. in that not acknowledging them it being unpossible that Judge should end a difference whose sentence is refused by either of the parties But then this is not for want of necessary qualities in him but submission in them We refuse not to make Scripture sole Judge out of fear it should give sentence against us we know its sence much better then you and know 't is for us and if you think you can convince us by it do it we both must and will submit but out of fear by it s not giving sentence at all our dissentions should never come to an end We earnestly long to see all the sheep of Christ quietly seeding again in one fold and that unhappy wall of division which so long has separated them battered down and because we do so cannot but testifie Scripture is no fit Engine to do it 'T was to us she was given not to you and we know her efficacy is more in times of peace then War that she is more proper to increase charity then beget faith and that being principally intended to sanctifie the faithful she does ordinarily require they should first be faithful that they may afterwards be sanctified Had you the same disposition to peace you would either effectually shew the Scripture a sit Judge to decide controversies critically and frowardly handled or appeal to some other for he that pretends a desire of an end in order to which he will obstinately beleeve those to be means which both from reason and experience he may learn to be none and will not be brought to use other is convinced to do no more then barely pretend it ¶ 2. Reason in things that depend upon it is often a sufficient rule yet many cannot be brought to an agreement by it even in things which are evident by others demonstrated shall we then think it sufficient to disprove it a rule because some yea many are not made to accord with it Mr. White p. 153. grants the Jews might have been though they were not led to Christ and salvation by Scripture if they had interpreted it with charity and humility And p. 110. However the marks of the Church are apparant enough in Scripture if there want not will in the seeker to acknowledg them If this be not to contradict himself I know not what is To ill-disposed or undisposed refractory minds nothing is sufficient I see a monstrous difficultie for you to understand Scripture aright who are resolved to make no other sence then what agrees with your supposed Traditions ¶ 2. That which I conceive to be the drift of this Paragraph Viz. That 't is perhaps more often the fault of the parties then of the Judge that differences are kept alive is certainly true But you apply it not neither as we think can you do it with any appearance to conclude we are in fault that bind our selves even in this kind of tryall to much stricter conditions then you will be brought to do For besides the reverence we bear the Scripture even to an absolute submission to whatever it says then which you neither do nor can do more we also bring you a Book which we so acknowledg to be Scripture that in disputation we refuse it not would you do so much perhaps more good might be done then is mean time this is certain that more cannot be required of us Next you pretend a contradiction from two places which you cite and I cannot tell whether you mean those places contradict one another which nevertheless seem to say the same thing or that both those places contradict the former Doctrine Now that asserts two things 1. That Scripture does not speak plain enough to convince a wrangling Critick 2. That it does speak plain enough to satisfie an humble and charitable Reader in which if you see any contradiction you see not onely what I cannot but what I conceive is not there to be seen ¶ 3. Page 137. Mr. White seems to grant what I cannot tell how he can deny that the Scripture is as well able to make us understand its meaning as Plato or Aristotle theirs but the supposition where all the venom lies is concealed as he is pleased to phrase it so the Scripture was written of those controversies which since are risen I see no danger in this poison rightly understood God delivering those things in Scripture which are sufficient for salvation speaks so that he may be as well understood as Plato Aristotle c. in their Writings then the Reader of holy Writ that comes to it as page 153. the Iewes should have done with charitie and humilitie which would actually have brought them to the truth may have the true meaning of Gods Word as to the points of faith and practice Now having the truth cannot he see that error which shall aftâ—rwards arise to be falshood because it is contrary to the truth which he has out of Scripture linea recta est Judex sui obliqui But strange opinions may spring up which can neither be proved nor disproved satisfactorily by Scripture nor is it necessary all possible controversies should be determinable I do not think you pretend to this kind of Omniscience by your Traditions I pray tell me how does your Church confute new errors which were not started in the Apostles time by thinking only that they are false or by looking upon those truths which it pretends the Apostles at first delivered before those errors came up which it sees are contrary to those received truths unless you pretend to new Revelations to discover new errors by and what poyson is there in making written truths the streight Rule to measure future inormities by more then to make unwritten truth serve for that end ¶ 3. The next Paragraph insists upon the Parity betwixt Scripture and the writings of Plato or Aristotle touching which what you say Mr. White seems to grant that the one is as well able to make us understand its meaning as the other I must tell you does but seem so and 't is a wonder to me you observed it not the very next
conclude the Scripture may be a sufficient means to decide controversies by although refractory minds be not silenced by it Neither has God promised that obstinate opposers of truth shall have any means of truth made effectual to them ¶ 5. To the difficulty of the following Paragraph because you propose it by demands I shall answer by Replys and to the first Why the Arians were not convinced by that Book I answer because 't was a Book that is a multitude of words which having no Interpreter to protect them could not preserve themselves from being wrested into senses different from what was meant by the Author Was there not then say you Evidence enough of that truth Yes to humble Seekers but to convince it to the Arians no Evidence and Conviction taking them severely are things above the reach of meer words But this imputes weakness to S. John or rather the Holy Ghost why so put a Reed into a Giants hand and because with it he cannot cleave an Oak is he therefore weak a feeble instrument is no argument of the feebleness of him that uses it Now words I take to be very weak and they cease not to be words whoever he be that employs them not but that S. John or rather the Holy Ghost by him which I think you will not deny might have managed them much better and made a much nearer approach to evidence had he so pleased or that been his aym I see men write plainer every day and God forbid I should think they understand the use of words better than he that gave them the power to understand Neither dare I attribute the contrivance of the Book to chance or imagine the works of God to be directed by any thing but his own infinite wisdom and providence Whence then the obscurity of that book Truly I am not of Council with the Divinity but believe I may safely assert thus much that since the Holy Ghost knew what you would object and yet chose that manner of writing he meant you should see that book was not intended for a Judge of differences in Religion to which he refus'd to give all the qualities necessary for a Judge and which even a book is capable of To this I foresee you will object that at least S. John cannot be excused from the weaknesse of making choice of a means by which he knew his end was not to be arriv'd at and that to write against Corinthus when he was conscious his writing could not prove his intent was not only unnecessary but hurtful To which I reply he writ so as abundantly to prove his intent in that manner as he design'd to prove it but his intent was not that his writing should be a proof contentiously and frowardly scann'd but humbly and diligently studied In the former way he had left them a much better weapon both to defend themselves and overcome their Adversaries then words can be namely that which S. Paul commands us to desert upon no inducements no nor even of an Angel from Heaven but besides this for the superabundant comfort and strength of the faithful he added also a confirmation of their faith by writing intelligible enough at the time and to the persons he writ when every body knew what it was which Cerinthus objected and his followers insisted on and consequently knew how to apply the Phisick to the disease and plainly see his pretences overborn by the Apostles authority But now the case is quite different To say nothing of the alteration of words and the great change which so much time must needs make in the Phrases and manner of speech our Intelligence of that Heresie is faint and dim and to expect we should comprehend what was written against it equally with those ages which flourish'd with it is to make him that has hardly any knowledg of the disease as cunning in the cure as that Doctor whose charge the Patient is The Apostles Gospel therefore was in those circumstances plain enough by the letter to those to whom he writ but to us so dark that except we look upon it with the spectacles of Tradition or other helps we have no security of penetrating its sence though even to them it was not so clear but that it was wrestible and much more in the time of Arius to malicious subtlety and wit which Hereticks never want But then those Hereticks not the Scripture were in fault say you and no body doubts but that Heresie and fault are inseparable But whether they be in fault or no the Church ought to be furnisht with Arms to defend her self against all sorts of Enemies and not till they cease to be in fault when they will also cease to be her enemies be left ungarded she must be provided as well to confound the proud as confirm the humble And this first quality is that which we deny to Scripture and if you onely attribute to it the second you oppose not us neither do I know why we should oppose you But God has not promis'd that obstinate opposers of truth shall have any means of truth made effectual to them Very true but he has promis'd the gates of Hell in which I doubt these obstinate men cannot be denied to stand shall not prevail against his Church and I understand not how they can be denied to have prevailed if that which you would make her only guard uncertain words being by their craft seduced into a compliance with them they may as plausibly object obstinacy to the Church as she to them For that and constancy are distinguished only by their alliance or enmity with truth and if truth cannot be made appear as you say to obstinate men God has not promis'd it shall neither can it whether be the obstinate opposers they or the Church Besides to bate those inseparable companions of Heresie Pride Obstinacy consider what will in your principles become of sincere but sharp understandings people that are not yet faithful nor ever were obstinate but always wittie who look upon disputes in Religion without concern of any thing but truth but look that what themselves accept for truth be truly such and will not be put off with counterfeit ware and take in stead of truth the partial construction of either side Neither will they be denied neither can justice deny them but that they should first see the truth before they be prest to imbrace it Now that Truth be seen to be truth 't is plainly necessary that there be no possibility of falshood there being no contradiction in the world more manifest then that the same thing should at the same time be possible to be false and evidently true that is impossible to be false 'T is equally plain that where there is nothing to make out the truth but words if those words be made agree to two senses neither can be made out to be truth for you put but one cause that producible of both effects That
That belief or faith is to be understood of saving faith which is all I can perceive you drive at to the end of the Paraph is so far from it that I do not beleeve any violence will make a premise of it for be it as you desire that the Apostle writ that we might beleev in Christ the Son of God with a saving faith and I dare say no Arithmetick would comprehend the number of intermedial links necessary to fasten this Conclusion to it that what he writ is a sufficient rule to salvation ¶ 4. But what need I trouble my self or you with writing all I could I remember an ingenuous confession of yours when we were one night discoursing of this place that you thought the whole Book was not only sufficient for salvation but even some parts of it if a man had no more which is as much as I desire ¶ 4. The answer to this Paraph depends upon the memory of that person who made such a confession I conceive it true thus far that even some parts might be sufficient for the salvation of some single person extraordinarily dispoposed and circumstanced which in all likelihood was his meaning But this is nothing to our Question whether it be sufficient for the conduct of all dispositions found in mankind through all circumstances the Church will be in from the Resurrection to the day of Judgement ¶ 5. The second place I look upon as a sufficient proof of Scriptures sufficiency is the beginning of S. Lukes Gospel compared with the beginning of the Acts In Mr Whites Apology p. 165 166. where he affirms there is not a word that this Book should serve for a Catechism to teach him and all the world the entire body of Christianity I think there is that thou mayest know the certainty of those things thou hast been taught or as the Greek word is hast been Catechized in So then S. Lukes Gospel contains a perfect sum of all these Doctrines and duties which Theophilus a Christian already had learnt To me this proves S. Lukes Gospel to be a bodie of Divinitie or a Systeme of all necessary truths of Christianity so that S. Lukes Gospel is more then a naked Historie of Christs life containing his Doctrine too or else he had not given Theophilus a full account of all he had been instructed in To say as Mr White S. Luke speaketh but by the by of our Saviours Doctrine or as his words are some of his excellent sayings is quite contrary to those words of the first of the Acts out of which he gathers his saying for there he speaks thus of his Gospel The former Treatise have I made O Theophilus of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach which is more then as Mr White some of his excellent sayings I lay the stress upon these two words all and teach which Mr White passeth over as Commentators do hard places although it be the chief thing to be answered Another thing I observe in Mr Whites translation he omits the word perfectly or exactly in the third verse of the Gospel which is very pertinent By all things Jesus did and taught must be meant the substance of Christian Religion the chief Doctrines and duties which were necessary to salvation for if any material point were omitted by S. Luke he could not alledge his exact knowledge in all things which he promises nor say as he does in the Acts that he had delivered all Christ did or taught from whence I must conclude and you too unless you can shew sufficient cause to the contrary that S. Lukes Gospel much more the whole Bible hath sufficient truth in it and contains all points necessary to salvation and may be a sufficient means though we have no traditions The Covenant between God and man is cleerly enough laid down there and in other Books besides with all those things without which no salvation ¶ 5. The second place you insist upon is the beginning of Saint Lukes Gospel compar'd with the beginning of the Acts which with your favour I conceive you have not brought home to our question for admit all you say were true even the conclusion it self viz. that Saint Lukes Gospel hath sufficient truths in it and contains all points necessary to salvation and may be a sufficient means though we have no Traditions your cause is far from being evicted For our question is not so much whether sufficient truths be containd in scripture as whether they bee contained sufficiently that is with evidence enough to carry away a cleer victory from malicious and obstinate Criticism So that it consists very well that all necessary truths may be contained which is all you do say and yet not so contain'd as in necessary for that effect which is what you should have said Again since the same means may be sufficient for one person which are not for another or for all and sufficient at one time not so at another Your Conclusion that this Gospel may be a sufficient means without Tradition comes far short of what it should be that 't is sufficient to all persons in all circumstances Now I presume the Evangelist writing to Theophilus with design to instruct him particularly the sufficiency you speak of cannot fairly be stretched farther then his intent and be construed to belong to more then Theophilus himself And certainly since every body in the Church is not Theophilus to deserve a Gospel should be writ to him it cannot be expected what was sufficient for him should be sufficient for every body else You see then how strongly soever your Canon is charged I conceive the Conclusion safe as placed beyond its level But yet to try the force it has The first thing you say against Mr White is that you think the place shews the Book was intended for a Catechism to teach him and all the world the entire body of Christianity moved by these words that thou mayest know the certainty of these things thou hast been taught or catechized in I beseech you how does it appear that by those things must be understood a body of Christianity You see Mr White understands no more by them then reports he Theophilus had heard and tels you if you will urge another sense you must first justifie it against this Now evidently writing to let Theophilus know the certainty of those reports he had heard is far enough from writing a body of Christianity As for the word Catechized which you seem to rely upon its original signification if good Grecians have not mis-informed me being most properly rendred by insono or infundo imports no more then a delivery of somthing by word of mouth though since by Ecclesiastical custome it hath almost been appropriated to the delivery of Christian doctrine Now this being since S. Lukes time what it was that was so delivered to Theophilus cannot be gathered from the word But if that be true which you say of Theophilus that he
was already a Christian I do not see the words can be brought to bear your sense since manifestly he could not have been so without already being certain of the body of Christianity So that your Exposition makes the Evangelist very wisely take a great deal of pains in writing a book to inform Theophilus certainly of what he certainly knew before Mr. Whites interpretation therefore seems much the more genuine and yet even admitting yours I cannot as I said before imagine any approach to our difference For St. Luke expresly confining his design to the instruction of Theophilus hee that extends it to more acts manifestly without any Warrant from him You urge afterwards the first of the Acts which you say Mr. White passeth over as Commentators do hard places Truly your severity is beyond what I have ever met with and you are the first example of expecting a man should answer more then is objected Mr. White is speaking to the Gospel and these words are in the Acts and yet you except against him for taking no notice of them As for the difficultie it self since those words cannot be taken in their proper natural signification St. John plainly telling us the world would not be able to contain the books which might be written I do not see any ground you have to understand by them the substance of Christian doctrine With submission to better judgments I apprehend that by All is meant all he thought fit to communicate to Theophilus that sense seeming to flow naturally from the places compared together But whether that interpretation be true or no I am sure nothing appears why a man should accept of yours For whereas you would prove it out of St. Lukes exact knowledge that is manifestly nothing to the purpose every bodie seeing it follows not because S. Luke knew all therefore he delivered all And for the quarrel against Mr. White for leaving out the word exactly besides that as I come from saying it is far from being very pertinent exact knowing being much a different thing from exact teaching all he knew Mr. White puts in stead of it that he was present almost at all things c. which in matters of fact is the most exact knowledg that can be And for the second proof that otherwise he could not say he had delivered All Christ did or taught I have already told you though that word cannot be taken properly to signifie truly All yo◠do it wrong to take it so improperly as you do the substance of Christian doctrine being a strange English of the Latin word Omne But be all this given to the respect of the person which suffers me not to pass by any thing you say without taking notice of it though otherwise your Conclusion which I am now come to does not any way prejudice the Tenet I am maintaining To contain sufficient truths and to be a sufficient means to salvation which may possibly be true in respect of some persons and circumstances being quite another thing then to decide all quarrels carried on by factiously litigious persons and this in all times and cases For a conclusion I beseech you to accept of this observation that a serious reflection on what you do your self would satisfie you whether partie Truth takes in this question for whatever force custom and a prepossest fancie has on your words to make them maintain St. Lukes Gospel alone sufficient nature contradicts them so powerfully that your actions speak the clean contrary and plainly prove 't is not sufficient for since you cannot hold that a sufficient means to you which you do not sufficiently know to be a means and this sufficiency of the Gospel you do not know without the Acts which nature forces you to rely upon even while you are maintaining you need them not you see plainly your words and actions agree not and that while you would by the former perswade the sufficiency of the Gospel alone the later unresistably convince somthing else viz. the Acts is necessary to its sufficiency that is that it alone is not sufficient SECT V. Answer to those Fathers who are brought for the sufficiencie of Scripture MY next Argument for Scriptures sufficiency shall be out of the Fathers which Mr White p. 175. thinks improper for us who will not relie on their Authority for any one point what though we receive not from them any authoritative testimonie yet we embrace a rational one from any not because they say it therefore it is true but because we see no reason to dis-beleeve or have sufficient reason to beleeve they testifie truths as a Judge collects a truth from Witnesses every one of which is a fallible man yet by beholding circumstances sees their concurrent Testimonies cannot be false here we have ground enough to beleeve that Scripture was a sufficient rule to them because they say and confess it was I am ready to beleeve any Tradition as well as the Bible provided we have as good ground to beleeve it came from the Apostles as I have of the Bible Suppose it be not a sufficient argument for us who besides have Scripture on our side yet it is a sufficient Argument against you who pretend to derive your Religion from them who went before you whom you include in your Church as Mr White If the Bible had once that authority we plead for in your Church it should have it still the contrary being a Novelty therefore I must count your Doctrine false till you have solved this Argument That which was the Rule must be but Scripture was the Rule Ergo c. ¶ 2. First I must take out of the way your Objections out of those Fathers I make use of that they were of your opinion which you gather out of several expressions of theirs as that of Austin whose and others their words I have of late read in your Authors pleading thus your cause I would not beleeve the Gospel unless the Authority c. In which and all other of their expressions we must understand unless we will say through heat of dispute they sometimes contradict their own sence plainly delivered at other times according to their intent and so I see not any thing that makes against us as that mentioned Either S. Austin means the Church of all ages or that present in which he lived If that precisely abstractly without consideration of the antiquity of it and its doctrinal succession from the Apostles his doctrine had been nothing available against the Manichees against whom he disputes for they might have alledg'd the authority of their Church with as good ground against him therefore when he alledgeth the authority of the Church or Tradition to be a sufficient proof of that which is not contained in Scripture he means the universal Tradition of all ages which was as evident as that of Scripture tradition or as cleerly derived from the Apostles by universal Tradition as the Scripture it self and such a
thrown their rule overboard and they would not only have preserved their doctrine pure to succeeding Ages by the same means they had preserv'd it till then but they could not preserve it pure while they retain'd the same means which had preserv'd it till then To the following question I answer the Church of which by Gods mercie I am a member has preserved the doctrines of salvation entire not without writings indeed but without making them her Rule to preserve them by neither had she or could she have preserved them had there been no other means left her then words For what you say next I refer you to the third Dialogue to see since 't is the same thing in point of certaintie to receive a truth immediately through two hands or through twentie provided we be sure there be no deceit in the intermediate Conveyers all possibilitie of deceit removed from them and consequently our certaintie equal with that of those who lived nearer the Apostles times As for the unity of the Churches in the time of Irenaeus 't is true there was an unity and stil is amongst all those that stuck to Tradition but then as now some were divided and by the same means as now viz. by preferring their private Interpretations of Scripture before the doctrine they had been taught This divided the Valentinians in the time of Irenaeus the Arians in the time of St. Athanasius the Donatists in Saint Austins in all Ages some and divides you now And the way to know whom a man must beleeve when each say they have the way to Heaven was then as now to keep fast to what had been taught to follow those Churches that do so and those that build upon private Interpretations to reject so that the case is not at all altered the method of arriving to the knowledge of saving truths being the same anciently and now ¶ 10. That Irenaeus apprehended all those truths necessary for salvation were contained in Scripture which some places for a while have had without writing is clear by what follows and that the Scripture is a sufficient rule to salvation and was to him and the Church in his dayes which enjoyed it he tells us the Apostles left the same in writing in lib. 3. cap. 1. edit Basil His words are Non enim per alios depositionem salutis nostrae cognovimus quam per eos per quos Evangelium pervenit ad nos Quod quidem tunc praeconiaverunt postea verò per Dei voluntatem in Scripturis nobis tradiderunt fundamentum columnam fidei nostrae futurum Is not this clear against you The Scripture then was not written by chance but by the Will of God for this end that it might be a standing rule and pillar or foundation of our faith And lib. 2. cap. 46. shews this is a clear certain way for every one Cum itaque universae Scripturae propheticae Evangelicae in aperto sine ambiguitate similiter ab omnibus audiri possunt He was blaming Hereticks drawing errors from obscure Places and Parables when they might have seen the light in clear places by which the darker are to be understood God says he has given power to honest religious mindes that are desirous of truth to see it Haec promptè meditabitur in ipsis proficiat diuturno studio facilem sententiam efficiens Sunt autem haec quae ante oculos nostros occurrunt quaecunque apertè sine ambiguo ipsis dictionibus posita sunt in Scripturis ideo Parabolae debent ambiguis adaptari sic enim qui absolvit sine periculo absolvit parabolae ab omnibus similiter absolutionem accipient a veritate corpus integrum simili adaptatione membrorum sine concussione perseverat Sed quae non apertè dicta sunt neque ante oculos posita copulare absolutionibus parabolarum quas unusquisque prout vult adinvenit sic enim apud nullum erit regula veritatis And so says he there If we do not with sober unbiast minds take the plain Scripture for our guide a man shall be always seeking but never come to the truth yet the Scripture doth clear it though all do not beleeve one God c. sicut demonstravimus ex ipsis Scripturarum dictionibus Quia enim de cogitatione eorum qui contraria opinantur de patre nihil apertè neque ipsa dictione neque sine controversiâ in nullâ omnino dictum sit Scripturâ ipsi testantur dicentes in absconso haec eadem Salvatorem docuisse non omnes sed aliquos discipulorum qui possunt capere c. Quia autem Parabolae possunt recipere multas absolutiones ex ipsis de inquisitione Dei affirmare derelinquentes quod certum indubitatum verum est valde praecipitantium se in periculum irrationabilium esse quis non amantium veritatem confitebitur And in the next Chapter Habentes itaque regulam ipsam veritatem in apertum positum de Deo testimonium non debemus quaestionum declinantes in alias atque alias absolutiones ejicere firmam veram de Deo scientiam c. Si autem omnium quae in scripturis requiruntur absolutiones non possumus invenire alterum tamen Deum praeter eum qui est non requiramus impietas enim haec maxima est Credere autem haec talia debemus Deo qui nos fecit rectissime scientes quia scripturae quidem perfectae sunt quippe à verbo Dei Spiritu ejus dictae Si autem in rebus creaturae quaedam quidem eorum adjacent Deo quaedam autem in nostram venerunt scientiam quod mali est si eorum quae in scripturis requiruntur universis scripturis spiritualibus existentibus quaedam quidem absolvamus secundum gratiam Dei quaedam autem commendemus Deo non solum in hoc seculo sed in futuro ut semper quidem Deus doceat homo autem semper discat Si ergo secundum hunc mundum quem diximus quaedam quidem quaestionem Deo comiserimus fidem nostram servabimus omnis Scriptura à Deo nobis data consonans nobis invenietur parabolae his quae manifestè dicta sunt consonabunt manifestè dicta absolvent Parabolas per dictionum multas voces unam consonantem melodiam sentiet By which you see clearly what may be judged the way and held the only way to decide all controversies plain Scripture and thinks it no absurditie for us to be ignorant of what God is not pleased to teach us in Scripture and that you may see yet more clearly he held Scripture as his word was perfect containing the whole doctrine of the Gospel which is our question ¶ 10. After these exceptions taken to what he says in our favour you examine Irenaeus for your self and first produce these words Non enim per alios c. the sense of which I take to
be that the Gospel or doctrine of Christ which was to be the foundation of our faith was by the Will of God delivered to us by writing as well as preaching In which what branch there is that does so much as concern us truly I see not for no body doubts but the doctrine of Christ is the foundation of our faith that it was written as well as preached and this not by chance but by particular Providence and instinct of the Holy Ghost any of which positions when I contradict I will acknowledge Irenaeus is against me In the mean time I appeal to the very Rules of Syntax whether he be not against you and whether Scripturis fundamentum will agree that Scripture be the foundation which the construction plainly attributes to Evangelium that is the doctrine or points of faith that is the sense of the Letter not the letter to be senc'd which is the Tenet you maintain we oppose There follow two long citations out of lib. 2. cap. 46. 47. which you say shew clearly that plain Scripture may be judged the only way to decide all controversies and this I deny not for supposing Scripture to be plain enough for that effect I see not why it should not produce it But do the places say it is plain enough What you think I know not but I will assure you I am so far from thinking that question determin'd here that no part of either of them prompts me to suspect the Father did so much as think of it His businesse in these chapters as far as I apprehend is in the first to shew the absurdity of opposing a fancie drawn from an obscure Parable to an acknowledged doctrine and even in Scripture plain to religious Lovers of truth and in the second to teach the impossibility of attaining to all knowledge in this life and the necessitie of being content to know as much as God is pleas'd we should and be ignorant of the rest Now if by deciding those questions he hath given sentence in ours from which 't is impossible any two should be farther removed and that by teaching Parables are not to be reli'd on nor our thirst after knowledg satisfied in this life he has taught Scripture is plain enough to decide all controversies in all times and cases He has done both what he never thought to do and what I think impossible he ever should doe ¶ 11. In his third book cap. 14. Si autem Lucas quidem qui semper cum Paulo praedicavit dilectus ab eo dictus est cum eo evangelizavit creditus est referre nobis evangelium nihil aliud ab eo didicit sicut ex verbis ejus ostensum est quem admodum hi qui nunquam Paulo adjuncti fuerunt gloriantur abscondita inerrabilia didicisse Sacramenta Quoniam autem Paulus simpliciter quae sciebat haec docebat non solum eos qui cum eo erant verum omnes audientes seipsum fecit manifestum In Mileto convocatis Episcopis Preâ—byteriis repeats those words Acts. 20.17 and so on non subtraxi uti non annuntiarem vobis omnem sententiam Dei. Sic Apostoli simpliciter nemini invidentes quae didicerant ipsi à Domino haec omnibus tradebunt Sic igitur Lucas nemini invidens ea quae ab eis didicerat tradidit nobis sicut ipse testificatur dicens quemadmodum tradiderunt nobis qui ab initio contemplatores ministri fuerunt verbi Observe I pray you and impartially weigh the truth Irenaeus is professedly disputing against the Valentinians throughout his whole book confutes them all along by Scripture answers their objection which is the very same with yours against us the Scriptures do not contein all divine truths and mysteries and there fore they would not be judged nor confuted by it as you at this day Irenaeus first proves out of Scripture that the Apostles delivered freely plainly the whole mystery or doctrine of salvation to all envying the knowledg of it or any part of that knowledge to none great or small therefore not to S. Luke who was a continual companion of the Apostle Paul and a beloved fellow-labourer So that he S. Luke must needs know all and out of S. Lukes words the very same I have before made my Argument the beginning of his Gospel and the Acts shews he did faithfully relate all he had received and learnt of the Apostles not envying us any one truth what is the meaning of that expression he himself had learnt Besides what force could there have been in Irenaeus his Argument or indeed to what purpose would his whole Book have been proving from Scripture all along his Adversaries to be out and their Tenet to be false because the Scripture doth not teach them if the Scripture be not such a perfect Rule which contains the whole Mystery of salvation and doctrine of the Gospel Thus I think if I am not mightily mistaken I have proved the Minor Proposition which only can be questioned of that Syllogism which destroys Mr. Rushworths second Dialogue That which hath been the rule in the Primitive Church must still be But the Written word which we enjoy was the rule as appears by what hath been said Ergo The Scripture still is c. ¶ 11. The last is out of the fourteenth Chapter of the third Book which to make strong against us you assume two things and I conceive neither true First That he confutes them all along by Scriptures which I do not see how it would advantage you were it admitted for because he saw it convenient to dispute out of Scripture will it therefore follow no other way of disputing is either lawfull or possible We dispute with you every day out of Scripture yet hold another a surer nay the onely rule but I wonder the diligence you profess should so far deceive the candour you are master of as to offer it for true which cannot but have observed the first Chapters of this very Book are employed in confuting them by Tradition and that Scripture is made use of not for necessity I cannot speak more of the abundant efficacy of Tradition then he does but out of abundance ut undique resistatur illis si quos ex his retusione confundentes ad conversionem veritatis adducere possimus as he says in the 2d Chapter of this Book which you see is an expression not of necessity but charity And if I am not mistaken for I have not the means to studie it exactly his whole second Book is so fill'd with Arguments from reason That Scripture is hardly so much as mentioned unless sometimes by the by Secondly you assume with as much injustice as mistake that their Objection is the same with ours and the Answer given by him to them the same you give to us Our Tenet for objection while we are upon the defensive we make none is that Scripture is not the rule of Faith That of
the Valentinians that I mean which Irenaeus speaks to in this place was as you may see in the beginning of the thirteenth Chapter that none but S. Paul was acquainted with the truth as having only received it by revelation whereby all his Arguments in the precedent Chapter from the authorities of S. Peter S. Stephen S. Philip c. had been overthrown to strengthen them he proves in the thirteenth chapter that not only S. Paul but the rest of the Disciples also understood the Mystery of Salvation and in the 14 particularly S. Luke and these two Viz. Scripture is not the sole rule of Faith S. Paul alone was acquainted with the Mysteries of Salvation an exact studier of Irenaeus and impartial lover of truth would have to be the same As to the place it self this I conceive to be your Argument S. Paul delivered all he knew to S. Luke S. Luke writ all was delivered him therefore S. Paul knew all that was necessary to salvation S. Luke writ all was necessary to salvation To which I have already answered that though I should admit the Conclusion little would be advanced in order to our Question since we deny not but all may be containd in Scripture some way or other particularly or under general heads but that all is so contain'd as is necessary for the salvation of mankind to which effect we conceive certainty and to that evidence requisite neither of which are within the compass of naked words left without any guard to the violent and contrary storms of Criticism But I conceive you do the Saint wrong and understand the word all in a sence far different from what he did for having learnt from S. John so little a Book as S. Lukes could not hold truly all till you can prove he meant his Book for a rule of Faith and intended to deliver in it all things necessary to salvation I must beleeve 't is no ordinary violence that can force such a sence upon it as has neither a likely nor any ground but since your own profession and large citations shew both a confidence and esteem of Irenaeus give me leave with that serious earnestness which the concern of eternity for no less is in Question requires to presse your own words upon you and desire you to observe and impartially weigh the Truth while I represent the proceedings of Irenaeus to you and make you judge whether of us take part with the Father whether with his Adversaries The Error of the Valentinians was built upon certain obscure places of Scripture or rather indeed upon certain deceitful reasonings in Philosophy as your denial of Transubstantiation for example is and a denial even of the B. Trinity if you pleas'd might be but perceiving the Rules of Christianity did not allow that for a foundation of Faith they endeavoured to support the edifice by Scripture bragging no doubt among their followers it was clearly on their side but being press'd to a Tryal giving in evidence the obscure places mentioned Against this Irenaeus contends that Parables because capable of many Solutions are not to be relyed upon and consequently since only the true sense of Scripture is Scripture that Scripture is vainly pretended where the many sences leave us uncertain which is the true one Then examining the places for his side and shewing them both in clearness and number to over-ballance the other he overthrows their pretence and preserves the majesty of Scripture to his party The same do we to you who building most of your mistakes in Faith upon mistakes in Philosophy pretend plain Scripture and when it comes to tryal bring places capable of as many sences as the Valentinian parables were of solutions We answer as he did that there is no relying upon such places And examining those we conceive to be of our side and comparing them with yours both in clearness and number conclude your sences not true and Scripture not only not for you but against you Yet all this while neither he nor we think Scripture for this disputing out of it the only rule of Faith whether it be or no being not in these cases our question But since as the Valentinians did then you will now undertake to prove Scripture is against us and as Irenaeus then so we now acknowledge nothing is to be held against Scripture we do as he did shew you cannot make good your undertaking Next The Valentinians by the priviledg of their neerness to the Primitive times better acquainted with the grounds of faith then you would have justified their Interpretations by Tradition an evident proof what it was which those first Ages held the Interpreter of Scripture and that so undeniably that even Hereticks pretended to it What says Irenaeus to this Does he answer as you do that Tradition is not to be regarded but the cause to be decided by Scripture and that the only Rule by no means but carefully and diligently proves Tradition to be against them Which he also declares to be not what they pretended by abuse of those words Sapientiam loquimur inter perfectos whispering corner conveyances of one to another such as the Cabala you object to us but the open plain profession of those Churches to whom the Apostles left their doctrine and its practice and among which he conceives that of the Roman Church alone sufficient This publike Testimony as he so we lay claim to and profess with him would be sufficient even though there were no Scriptures at all which nevertheless since Gods infinite goodness has provided for us we do not understand the force of the former impaired by the addition of a new force But that belonging to another question give me leave to end the present one with this confidence that you cannot but see we follow the Fathers steps and you those who follow the Valentinians and that it appears by what hath been said your Minor neither is nor since you have failed in likelihood ever will be proved PART II. Tradition the Rule of Faith SECT I. ¶ 1 Certainty of Tradition ¶ 1. IN the third Dialogue the certainty of your Traditions having endeavoured to take away the certainty of Scripture I think in vain is endeavoured I was glad of the promise to do the work only by reason and common sence without any quotations of Authors because I want that vast knowledge in Antiquity which is requisite for the deciding of this Question by it but I see my hopes are frustrated for your cause neither is here nor can be proved by reason alone without that reading which yet I want The Reasons here or any other that may be managed without quotations of Authors I am ready to see and examine and as ready to subscribe unto if they convince me but I thinke it unreasonable for you to pretend to prove your Religion infallible and yet bring no positive Arguments that are of themselues sufficient to convince but only to stand upon your guard
since any body does I am sure no body is bound to maintain I am glad they impose upon me no necessity of contest with you in this Paragraph But least you should think it would follow thence that Tradition were uncertain I must affirm that not only a particular Church but scarcely a particular family that is well instructed can possibly err if they stick to Tradition and that the universality of the Church though ten thousand times more dispersed then it is cannot secure it from error if they desert it ¶ 5. Lastly I see no proof of your infallibility sure I am it is a safer way to preserve truths in writing then to be transmitted by the various apprehensions and mmories of multitudes and truly I beleeve you would not have retained so much truth as you have had it not been for the Bible and other writings and so I see not how you prove any thing has been intirely transmitted onely by Tradition Much lesse how it is proved there could creep no error into your Faith ¶ 5. Lastly I would fain flatter my self with hopes of success in the design I have had to serve you but however that proves must needs take the liberty to think if you do not yet see the proof you mention the fault is not in the object Only I presume there is no mistake in the word Infallibility which placed singly may speak an Attribute too much approaching to Divinity to belong to any thing of mortal but by extraordinary priviledge since it extends it self to all subjects whatsoever whereas with us 't is confined to matters of Faith and signifies but this that we can neither be deceived in what we hear nor deceive our posterity in what we relate concerning these matters Now it being the nature of man to speak truth and the number of men being in this case beyond all temptations whether of hopes fears or whatever else may be imagined should prevail with them to contradict their nature I cannot see but a little reflexion must needs make you acknowledge 't is beyond the power of imagination it self to put any deceit in their testimony since it will be to put an effect whose cause the putter sees neither is nor can be That Truths may be preserv'd in writing I doubt not nay even better then by the various apprehensions and memories of multitudes But if there be no variety in their apprehensions nor dependance on their memories continual practice overweighing the defects of nature I cannot see but 't is much easier to beat a man from a sence whereof he has no other hold then a word appliable to another sence then to beat a multitude from the judgements which they are in possession of and confirm'd by the daily actions of their whole lives Besides while the writings preserve the truth who shall preserve the writings from false copying and all the errors which both negligence and knavery threaten them withall and if the Vessel be tainted what shall keep the Wine pure For the rest I conceive that whatever you think of us your selves would not have the truths you have had not nature maintained that Tradition in your practice you deny in your words Your faith of the Blessed Trinity is right because no interest has yet moved you to follow your principles against it But give an Arian the same liberty against it you take against us and if you convince him you will as much deceive me as I think you do your selves to beleeve you can do it The same I say of Baptism of Prelacy and the rest of those truths you profess all which while you pretend Scripture it is Tradition which has truly conveyed to you and you have kept since because no body has opposed them but when they do have no more hold then of those you have deserted Neither is it possible for your principles to convince an Adversary that makes advantage of them neither just to condemn him for it will be to condemn your selves and that plea which if it justifie you must absolve him That faith has been so transmitted by Tradition that it has not been written is not Mr. Whites tenet but that writing at least the writings we have is not able so to transmit it as is necessary for the Salvation of mankind without Tradition This being the security of whatever writing faith is contained in if it be Scripture we know the sense by Tradition if a Father he is of authority in as much as what he writes is consonant to Tradition if any thing be found to disagree that not having any weight ¶ 6. First I ask whether an Error cannot overspread the face of the greatest Church visible It hath done so in the Arians time In our Saviours time Secondly whether an Error once spread cannot continue Arianism continued most universal for many years Mahomets Errors and Blasphemies for many Ages Jewish Suppositious Traditions longer yet then they What security then can a man have that Errors could not creep into the the Church while it is your Principle to embrace any thing your Councils shall determine ¶ 6. To your first Question I answer if that may be called a Church which wants the only principle which can make a Church I conceive an error may very easily overspread the face of the greatest visible There being no more to do then to desert this Rule and then truth will not only easily but almost certainly desert her without adhering to Tradition I know no security any number of men be it never so great can have of truths above the reach of natural reason such as are the Maxims of Religion But let the Church you speak of adhere to Tradition and be largely diffused and I conceive it as impossible that Error should overspread it as that it should be ignorant of what it does every day To the second since the supposal of an Erâ—â—â—s being spread supposes a destruction of that fence which only could keep it out viz. cleaving to Tradition I conceive an Error once spread not only may but will continue without extraordinary Providence of Almighty God Arianism which you exemplifie in was plainly brought in by preferring the interpretations which Arius made of Scripture as you do those of Luther c. before the Doctrine delivered by their Forefathers neither was there any cure for the disease till they purged themselves of novelty and rested in the ancient Doctrine Mahomet also took the same course and all those whom his impieties will bring to Hell will owe their damnation to the deserting of this principle which had his followers not first been cozened from it had not been possible for him to have undon so great a part of the world Jewish Traditions I have already spoken of and hope I need not again put you in mind they have nothing common with Tradition but the name This principle then and only this of adhering to Tradition gives a man all imaginable security