none had the least actual doubt or suspicion of doubt of it else surely they would never have staid in them inform us sufficiently to what a changeable tottering and ruinous condition Christian Faith would be reduc'd by these Principles and Parallels No fewer than three Houses fell in the compass of a short time and none had the least suspicion of doubt beforehand of such an Event therefore may an Atheist say Down falls Christian Faith too whose Foundation was by this Doctrin but Parallel for strength to the other or if it fall not in so long time it has only something better luck not better grounds than had the three Houses As for the objected Unsuitableness of such a Certainty as I require 't is reply'd that nothing is more natural for the Generality of Mankind than to be led by Authority nothing more penetrable by those of all sorts than the Infallibleness and Veracity of exceedingly vast and grave Authorities relating matter of Fact as we experience in their beleef that there was a Q. Elizabeth and such like to comprehend and assent immovably to which costs them not the least over straining as the Obiecter imagins Which being so I make account that God both in his power and wisdom could in his Goodness would render the Authority of his Church the Ground and Pillar of Truth as evident to all her Children both as to its Inerrableness and Veracity as the other nay incomparably more it being in every regard so requisit Objection VI. If the Motives to Faith must be Impossible to be False to us they would necessarily conclude the Truth of Faith wherefore they would of themselves oblige the Understanding to assent and so there would need no precedent pious affection of the Will which yet both Councils Fathers and Catholick Divines with one consent require Nay more were not such a pious affection put Acts of Faith would not be Free Answer If Experience teaches us that even assent to Humane Sciences though Evident from Intrinsecal reasons Comprehensible by our Understanding and purely Speculative is not to be acquir'd without an affection to see Truth as is evident from the carriage of meer Scepticks who having entertain'd a conceit of it's hopelesness come thence to want Love or Affection for it and so never come to see it how Conclusive soever the reasons be Much more by far must some good affection be pre-requisit to assent to Divine and Supernatural Truths which are Obscure in themselves as depending upon Authority Incomprehensible to our natural reason and Practical that is obligingly-Efficacious to break out into Christian Action or Love of Heaven above all sublunary things as True Faith must be The First obstacle of the three mention'd has this difficulty that the beams of Truth which come directly from the things themselves are generally apt to strike our Understanding more naturally penetrate it more deeply and to stick in it more immovably than those which are reflected to us from the Knowledg of another such as are Points of Faith besides the new difficulty of seeing the Veracity of the Attester which how evident soever it be yet it puts the Understanding to double pains whereas Evidence had from the Thing is but a single labour and so less confounding and distracting the thought The Second Obstacle Incomprehensibleness is apt to stupify the Understanding and retard Assent nay even to deter it from considering them as Truths The Atheistical temper of the world which could not subsist were Metaphysicks duly advanc'd sufficiently informs us how difficult it is for men to apply and fix their thoughts upon those considerabilities in things and those natures which are abstracted from matter the reason whereof is because it being natural that our Fancy be in act while our Understanding is so and there being not Proper Phantasms the onely agreeable ones to material men who are not strong enough to guide their Judgments purely by Principles and Connexions of Terms which sute to such abstracted Conceptions but Metaphorical ones onely which the Understanding must in rigour deny to be right ones even while by necessity 't is forc't to make use of them Hence the life of a Christian as such being to serve God in Spirit and Truth and so the Objects and Principles of his new Life for the most part and principally Spiritual ones it comes to pass that for this very regard alone there will need a great love of Truth and Spiritual Goods to make the Understanding appliable to them or even admit a consideration of them I was told by a worthy Friend of mine that discoursing with an acute man but a great hater of Metaphysicks and mentioning a Spirit he in a disgust broke out into these words Let us talk of what we know By which expression 't is manifest that he mistook the Question An est for Quid est But what makes for my purpose is that the unknowableness of the Essence or nature of a Spirit to us in this State obstructed even his desire to consider whether there were any such thing or no consequently that there needs a contrary desire or affection to know Spiritual things to make us willing even to entertain a thought of their being much more to conceit it But incomparably more needful is such an Affection when to the Spirituality of those points there shall be added an Incomprehensibleness nay if onely those points be consider'd an Incredibleness when no Parallel can be found in Nature nor scarce any similitude weakly to shadow out the thing and it's possibility nay when some of those points directly thwart the course of natural Causes whence all our other Knowledges have their Stability Then I say if ever there is requisit an Affection for the Nobleness and Excellency of those high Spiritual Objects to make us willing to hearken to any Authority proposing them how evident soever the Motives be for the Credibleness of that Authority The third Obstacle follows taken from the End for which Faith is essentially ordain'd that is from what it essentially is viz. a mover of the Will to Virtue and Goodness or a Practical Principle Now nothing is more evident than this Truth that by-affections and contrary inclinations are apt to hinder the understanding from assenting or even attending candidly and calmly to these Reasons how clear soever they be which make against any beloved Interest whence there needs a contrary affection to these other to remove the mists those passions had rais'd and purge the Eye of the Mind that so it may become capable of discerning what it could not before though in it self most visible How much more not only requisite but even necessary must some pious affection be to permit the mind freely to embrace the doctrin of Christian Faith containing Principles which enjoyn a disregard and posthabition of all that is sweet to Flesh and Blood nay even of Livelihood and Life it self 'T is most manifest then that a Plous
natural and proper sense in which all mankind takes it for what in reality and indeed is so which I affirm to be sufficient for my purpose or to ground all those Arguments which I bring thence to evince the Impossibility of Faith's Falshood But I fear the Objecter confounds the First operation of our understanding with the Second that is our simple Apprehension or Meaning of the word Truth or True with the Propositions or Judgments made concerning it For not only weak people judg many things True which stand under no Certain Grounds but even solid men when the Concern of the Point is sleight and no circumstance awakes them into a heedfulness and as it were engages their Honesty to speak rigorous Truth oftentimes carelesly and unconcernedly admit Things for Truths which are far short of having Grounds elevating them to an Impossibility of Falshood and indeed are far from being judg'd Truths even by themselves while they seem to admit them for such nay more though they sometimes use them as Truths when the weight is not much whether they be so or no as when in a Rhetorical Discourse or even in a solid one for Illustration sake we make use of the Story of the Phoenix or such like or when in ordinary conversation we relate many passages abetted by no certain Authority but taken upon the account of rumour perhaps invented by witty humour the Truth of which it were in those circumstances Imprudent and Impertinent to discountenance but to let them go with a kind of Transeat or a valeant quantum valere possunt Yet in both cases what the solid man out of unconcernedness passes and what the vulgar man out of weakness judges as a Truth both the one passes the other judges to be in reality and indeed so whence both of them have the genuine simple Apprehension or meaning of the word Truth and the same all other men have however the one misapplies it the other permits it to be misapply'd in Propositions Nor will any distinction of Truths morally speaking probably Truths c. serve the turn for Truth as was said speaks the Conformity of the Judging Power to the Thing that is a Real disposition of the mind which therefore either is or is not in the same manner as the Wall is either white or not white not admitting for it's difference probably or not-probably any more than Being does But as it is impossible but the Wall if it be not white must necessarily be not-white or have some other disposition in it which is not-whiteness so 't is impossible but the minde if not Conformable to the Thing or True must be Un-conformable or not-True meaning not-True negatively not privatively so as to signify False and consequently in stead of that Conformity it must have some other Disposition in it whatever that Disposition be Objection II. In some places of this foregoing Treatise Objective Truth is confounded with that disposition of the understanding or Conformity of it to the Thing call'd Formal Truth or Truth in us Answer The clearing this requires the making an exacter discovery into the nature of Truth To do which we will begin our explication with noting that our understanding hath two Operations omitting the third Discourse as not pertinent to our present purpose viz. Simple Apprehension and Iudgment The result or Effect of the first is call'd a Notion Concerning which Philosophers discourse thus that when I apprehend what is meant by the word Man or have that Notion in me Mans nature is both in the Thing and in my Conception for 't is impossiole my Conception being an imminent Act I should conceive what is not in my Conception or that my Act of conceiving should be intrinsecally determin'd to be this but by what is intrinsecal or in it What is meant then by the word Man has two states one in the thing as existent out of me the other in the thing as existent in me as the self-same figure is in the Seal and the Wax Yet neither of these different States enters into the Notion I have of Man but meerly what is common to the Thing under either State which is what answers to the definition for both Man taken as in himself is a rational Creature and also what I conceive or mean by the word Man is rational Creature though the words rational Creature express neither the being in my Minde nor out of it but abstract from either By this means my Mind concieving Man gains an Unity of form with the Thing out of it or a Conformity to it which Disposition wants nothing to be call'd Truth but that 't is incapable of grounding Affirmation or Negation the bare meaning of the word Man neither implying is nor is not Whence Truth and Falshood are usuall said to be incompetent to the first Operation of our Understanding We will make way to the Second Operation of our Understanding by another Instance of the first Imagin then there is propos'd to my Eye a Round Pillar which it affects and by it my Brain and so my Understanding it cannot fail to beget there a simple Apprehension and consequently a Notion of what is directly imprinted which is that Thing with as many of its qualifications as were apt to be convey'd in by means of that sense confusedly blended together as also by my Experience that it affects or is affecting me of it's Existence Moreover as Occasion or indeed Nature guides me I may have distinct or abstracted notions of Pillar Roundness and Existence nay more of Pillar and Roundness as exercising or actually having the same existence or which is all one of what is meant by this Proposition the Pillar is round that is of what corresponds to those three distinct notions put now in a frame of a Proposition and so immediately apt to express Truth or Falshood and yet not proceed to behave my self affirmingly or denyingly or judg any thing concerning them but meerly to conceive what is meant by those words Way being thus orderly made towards the Second Operation of the Understanding by disposing the separate notions in a fitting posture by the First nature seems to require It should supervene and so the Understanding sets it self to judg whether those Extream or distant notions exhibited by the First in the posture of Connexion be indeed connected or no the standard or measure of which is to be taken from the Thing Now in self-evident Propositions and First Principles the Understanding guides it self by that imbred or nature-taught Principium Intellectûs The same is the same with it's self In deduc't Propositions by the same Principle fundamentally or originally and immediately by this Those notions which are the same with a Third are the same with one another But in our present Instance Experience alone suffices to inform the understanding supposing the obvious knowledg of what Pillar and Roundness are and that a Pillar is a Thing whereas Roundness without Pillar is
wronging that Notion or Nature Faith then in common as distinguisht from Science and Opinion being an Assent upon Authority and Firmness being evidently a Perfection in an Assent Divine Faith ought to have a far greater degree of firmness in it than any Humane Faith whatsoever Wherefore since Humane Faith can rise to that Degree of Stability that Mankind would think him mad that is a Renouncer of evident Reason who can think seriously it can be an Errour or possible to be False for example the Belief of this present Age concerning the Existence of France or K. Iames Divine Faith being Supernatural ought to be more firmly grounded and consequently more highly Impossible to be False § 11. Again we find that the more we are ascertain ' that a Convictive Authority is engag'd for the Truth of any thing the more strongly that Authority is apply'd to our Understanding and consequently more forcibly works its effects there or subducs it to Assent whence this Certitude is so far from being against the nature of Belief that 't is most manifest it strengthens and perfects it under that Notion Divine Faith then being Supernatural has a peculiar right to have such an Application of the Divine Authority to the understanding as may be truly Certain or Impossible to be False since by such an Application 't is most evident that not less but more Belief is given to the said Authority and the understanding becomes more humbled and subjected to it that is by such an Application how scientifically evident soever it be the Act of Faith is never the nearer being an Act of Science but is perfecter under the very Notion of an Act of Faith being still a steadier heartier and firmer Assent for the Authority's sake which is thus strongly and closely apply'd and a greater Reliance on it § 12. Moreover Faith being to work through Charity and to guide our actions as we are Christians and rational actions being so much more perfect by how much more knowingly they proceed from the Agent unless Faith were truly Certain that is Impossible to be false Christian action would fall short of the Perfection found in most ordinary Humane Actions of an inferiour and in comparison trifling concern and a Christian would go to work with less assuredness and steadiness than a Carpenter and Cobler and this not out of the Impediments of Original Sin which is Contingent and Extrinsecal to Faith or Religion but meerly out of a defect of Certainty in the Intrinsecals of Faith it self and it's Grounds which beyond all evasion affixes the Imperfection upon Christianity it self § 13. I may add that Arts and Sciences ev'n the most slight and inconsiderable ones and which are most lyable to Contingency in their Effects or the Actions springing from them have yet all of them Certainty in their Principles Religion then being the Art of carrying or guiding Souls to Bliss and the Points of Faith its Principles in virtue of which 't is to perform this Effect and the Ground of Faith the main and supream Principle whose Firmness is to establish the rest and so render them efficacious unless Faith it self and its Grounds were truly Certain the Principles of all Religion would be exceedingly more defective and inefficacious than those of any petty Mechanical Trade and indeed no Principles Sixth Eviction § 1. THe foregoing Considerations are more enforc'd by this that Faith is the Light which discovers to us our Last End and the Way to it that is which is to guide us in that to which all our other Concerns are subservient and all our Actions directed Unless therefore this Knowledg or Light of Faith be steady and firm all our whole Life as Christians would be feeble tott'ring and uneven as wanting Certainty of the First Practical Principles which are to ground our Christian Behaviour nay Certainty of the End we should aim at without which the whole Course of our Life must needs be staggering and inconstant and it self but a blind groping in the dark § 2. Moreover since all Mankind even the Heathens themselves had perfect Evidence and Certainty of the Practical Principles of Natural Morality which grounded their Moral seeming Virtues as is confest which Virtues yet for want of the Light of Faith teaching them to know their true last End and so perform the Acts of those Virtues for it's sake or order them to Heaven fell short of elevating them towards it and bringing them thither It follows that had there not been provision made that Points of Faith the Principles of Christian Morality should be as Certain as were the other things would have been perversly order'd that is greater care would have been taken to create those imperfect Dispositions of the Soul which alone were not able to secure one man from the State of Eternal Misery than for those Sublime Perfections call'd Christian Virtues which are the direct steps for man to arrive at Eternal Bliss and the Immediate means to attain the End he was created for the Sight of God § 3. Especially since this Last End and Chief Good of Mankind is not attainable by External Actions or Local Motions but Intellectually or by Interiour Acts of the Soul by which he is promoted forwards even to the very assecution of it that is by force of Knowledg or Truth exciting him to act and guiding him in those actions 'T is manifest the Points of Faith must be Truths and so as has been manifoldly prov'd above Impissible to be false § 4. Again Virtues spring connaturally from Truths and Vice from Falsehoods If Faith then be Possibly False the Practises springing thence are Possibly no Virtues but Vices and so they and consequently Faith whence they proceed possibly would not dispose but indispose us towards our last End which destroyes perfectly the Notion of Faith and Virtues too Faith therefore would be no Faith were it possible to be False § 5. You 'l object a Reason merely Probable or Morally-Certain is sufficient to make Us act for a Temporal Good much more then for an Eternal and Infinite one since the greater Goodness is in the Object the less is the hazard and consequently the more the Reasonableness to act for it I answer though if all other things corresponded the Objection would be Valid and the reason given for it speaking abstractedly be really Conclusive Yet in our present case there are so many things which make it Unparallel that no Shadow of Consequence can be made from the one to the other First for the reason lately given Viz. because our Last End being in it self Spiritual and most Perfect is not attainable but by Means of Best Spiritual Perfections or Virtues and the more knowingly these proceed from Us the better they are according to that saying None is cordially and solidly good who knows not why he ought to be good whence they cannot be Best in their kinde nor consequently Means fit to
Affection pre-requisit to Faith derogates nothing from it's Certainty but is perfectly consistent with the Evidence of those Motives which are to generate it and that the Governours and Officers of the Church though proposing the most convincing reasons in the world for the Authority conveying down Faith to us can prevail nothing unless the Great Governour of the world and Giver of every good gift by his peculiar Power plant antecedently in their hearts this good disposition and prepare terram bonam that their endeavours may take effect and the Sowers Seed take root no more than Paul though miraculous could convert all that saw his Miracles or heard his Preaching but only such whose hearts God open'd as he did Lydia's It appears also by the same discourse how the Acts of Faith are free that is as depending on this pious disposition of the Will which sets the Understanding on work to consider the Motives and so produce them The whole Humane Action is free because the Will orders it though she do not produce it all or though freedom be not formally in the Body so the Act of Faith is free because it is order'd by the Will which is free though no freedom be found in the Understanding which is incapable of such a qualification but pure necessity of assenting when the Motives are seen to be Conclusive No need then is there upon any account of a pious disposition of the Will to peece out the defect of the Reasons why we believe and to oblige the Understanding to assent beyond the Motive that is assent to a degree beyond what it had reason to do An Impossibility in Humane Nature rightly and connaturally govern'd and I much fear no small disgrace to Christian Faith considering the obstinate bent of the Church's Adversaries to confound the Speculative Thoughts of Divines explaining Faith and its Grounds less carefully with their Sentiments issuing naturally from them as Christians nay with the Doctrin of the Catholick Church it self What can revincingly be reply'd to an Atheist objecting on this occasion that Christians make the Evidence of Faith's grounds stand need to be pecc'd out by Obscurity our Knowledg of them by Ignorance and the Rationality of them by Will without Reason that is Willfulness Wherefore I carnestly obtest and beseech even per viscera Christi all who shall read this Treatise and yet have Speculatively held and maintain'd this Opinion I here impugn for practically and as Christians they hold the contrary Conclusion seriously to weigh the Point once more and not to obstruct the Resolving Christian Faith into immoveable Principles or absolutely Certain Grounds by an Opinion onely sprung from the conceited difficulty in making out those Grounds to be Impossible to be False which yet themselves to a man profess and hold as they are Christians I humbly beg leave to propose to them these few Considerations First 'T is Certain Faith is no less Faith or an Assent upon Authority though that Authority be demonstrated to be Infallible but on the contrary that 't is both firmer and more rational even for that very regard Secondly 'T is Certain that the Generality of Christians hold their Faith to be True or Impossible to be False that is 't is True to us and withall perfectly Rational and consequently that its Grounds or Principles are so able to ascertain it that they place it beyond Possibility of Falshood Thirdly 'T is no less evident that an inclination or motion of the Will being of such a nature that it can have neither Truth nor Falshood in it can be no Rational Principle or Ground of our Assents or Acts of Faith that is apt to ascertain them or indeed apt to establish the Truth of any Tenet Fourthly That 't is most evident from my foregoing Discourse that an antecedent pious disposition of the Will is still requisite to Faith notwithstanding the perfect Conclusiveness of the Grounds on which 't is built and that all Acts of Faith depend on this quoad exercitium at least as the Schools speak which in the Judgment of many Divines is sufficient Fifthly That 't is the common Opinion of the solidest Divines that Faith consists with Evidence in the Attester Sixthly That Faith or a firm and immoveable Assent upon Authority is not thoroughly rational and by consequence partly faulty if the Motives be not alone able to convince an Understanding rightly dispos'd without the Will 's Assistance for what can be said for that degree of Assent which is beyond the Motive or Reason Is it not evident from the very Terms that 't is Irrational or without any Reason But the worst is that whereas all good Christians hold their Faith Impossible to be False or judge their Acts of Faith Immoveable Assents these Authors as Speculaters put all the Reasons for Faith to leave it still Possible to be False and make this pious Affection the onely thing which elevates it to Impossibility of Falshood which is vastly higher in point of Certainty as if a rational Creature not deviating totally from its nature but acting according to right Reason ought therefore to hold a Point Impossible to be False because it self has an Affection or as we say a great mind it should be so Seventhly This Assertion renders the Impossibility of Faith's Falshood not only unmaintainable as hath been now shown but also unperswadable to others for how shall I be able to give account to others that my Affection which works this Perswasion in me is rational and not apt to mislead me when as the very Position obliges me to profess the contrary and to grant that this Affection pushes forward my Understanding to assent beyond the reason it has that is as to this degree in my Assent which is no small one since it raises it from judging Faith possible to be false to judge it Impossible to be such without reason Or will not this Speculative Tenet seem to force this Inference that the Grounds of Faith as to its most intrinsecal consideration viz. the Impossibility of its Falshood is made by this Doctrin full as dark a hole as 't is to alledge the private Spirit Nor can the Reverence due to the Divine Authority suffice for such an Effect both because 't is Impossible God should will that Mankind for his sake should act irrationally as also because there is no poison in the world so pestilent as an Errour abetted by the most Sacred Patronage of God's Authority as the Histories of the Fanaticks in all ages and our home-bred experience testifies Whence that very Reverence to the Divine Authority obliges us to be so sure 't is engag'd for a Truth e're we admit it for such that we may securely though with an humble truth say with Richardus de Sancto Victore Domine si error est quod credimus à te decepti sumus so that there is indeed no greater injury and abuse to the Divine Name imaginable than to hazard the making it