Kindness for his Friend whom he suffers to Write on this manner If he were not they will suspect his Friends have as little Kindness for him and less Regard who manage his Cause without his Privity However it be the Answer affords no work for a Replier but the most ungrateful one in the World to be perpetually telling men of their Faults without the least hopes of doing them good or contributing to their amendment They being of such a nature that they are our Adversaries most necessary supports in their unlucky circumstances And indeed the whole Piece seems to have no other Design but to bring the Dispute into a Wrangle Yet this Profit may be hoped that every moderate Iudgment will see by the very methods we take which side desires and sincerely endeavours that Truth may appear It would be much a greater if Dr. St. or whom he pleases to employ would plainly shew the Absolute Certainty which he says they have or else plainly confess they have it not But this is not to be hoped Yet I entreat the Reader because I distrust my own Credit to sollicit him if he thinks it not too dangerous for him to do the one or the other and in doing it to use as much Reason as he will and as little Laughing as he can We are sufficiently satisfy'd of his faculty of Risibility and would be glad to see a touch or two of his Rationality REFLECTIONS ON Dr. St's Reflecters Defence Addrest to Himself 1. I Enquire not Sir since it concerns me not to know why you would needs become a Party or rather an Advocate in a Cause depending between Dr. St. and another If it were desir'd of you you are to be excus'd so you perform well what you undertook that is to defend the Dr. especially his Logick and his Absolute Certainty But if you had nothing to draw you in besides the Weight of what you had to say I think you might very well have kept out You begin like a man of Art with prepossessing your Reader against your Adversary and in favour of your self and so would have me pass for a pleasant artificial deluding Companion and your self for a man Godly even to scruple and who cannot barely repeat the Metaphor of holding ones Cards without asking Pardon The Reader will find by your writing to which of us your former Character is most like In the mean time I own the Confidence of talking of Self-evidence and Absolute Certainty and Infallibility and bless the Mercy of God for making me of a Communion in which that Language is Proper and humbly pray Him to preserve me from the Face if I must not say Confidence of setting up for a Guide without them For between a blind Guide and one who sees not his way I think the difference is not great Much good may your Modesty do you your Obscurity your Vncertainty and Fallibility If your Conscience perswade you these are the best qualifications of Christan Doctrin and best Security which God would provide for the Souls of men mine would sooner use Twenty Metaphors than perswade People to venture their Eternity upon them But at worst it is no greater fault in me sure than in Dr. St. to talk of Absolute Certainty Unless he perhaps repent and would be content an unfortunate Word inconsiderately blurted out should be retracted for him by another which 't is not so handsome to retract himself whereas I like a man of Confidence meant what I said and stand to it and can have no good opinion of those modest men that say and unsay as sutes with the occasion 2. To fall to our Business your Discourse has Three Parts The First reflects on what I said of turning Proof over from your Protestants to Catholicks The Second pretends to answer my Argument And the Third Mr. G's Some Gleanings in your Language there are besides but this is the main Crop. Upon the first Point since Proof does or does not belong to Protestants there is nothing more to be said to purpose but either to shew that Proof does not belong to them or to bring it if it does But let us see how you handle the matter 3. I had exprest my self to grieve and wonder there should be so little value for Souls among your Party as to send Men to the Tribunal of God without furnishing them with assurance that they can justifie their Accounts themselves But if say you they may be assured they can give up a good account may they not be assur'd that they have the Grace of God and of their Iustification and Salvation And then what becomes of the Council of Trent Of what Account do you speak I beseech you If as I did of an Account of Faith I hope you will not perswade us a man cannot know why he believes without knowing whether he be in the State of Grace or sure of his Salvation and therefore I hope you will not persist to think it hard to conceive how the bare assurance of the Truth of what is taught should enable a man to justifie his account without an Assurance of Grace too since his very Assurance of the Truth which he believes is a Iustification of his Account for believing it If you speak of an Account of our whole lives it becomes you huge well to talk of my Confidence who have your self the Confidence to turn things against the plain Scope of my Discourse against my plain Words and I much fear against your own Knowledge For where the only Question was of the Certainty of Protestant Faith or which is all one of Christian Faith upon your Protestant Grounds an Account why your Protestants believe who cannot tell whether Christ taught it was the only Account that belongs to that Question But what needs more Are not you I too fully perswaded while we are writing this very Controversie that we maintain the Truth of our Faith by such arguments as can justifie us not to have fail'd of that Duty and if we do so cannot both us justifie our selves in that particular and all who assent upon them to God as well as man And cannot either of us bring a solid Argument to prove that Christ Taught what we hold without being assur'd before-hand we are in the state of Grace and shall be sav'd Or Is this any thing to the Council of Trent as you pretend What paltring is this then to pretend that no Controvertist can bring a Proof that concludes Christ Taught such a Doctrin and so justifies them that adhere to the Truth it evinces for fear forsooth of making men sure of their Iustification and Salvation and of contradicting the Council of Trent A pretty fetch to excuse your selves from bringing any Arguments worth a Straw to justifie your Followers for believing upon them Alas you have store enough of them but out of pure Conscience we must think dare not produce them for fear of enabling your People
to justifie themselves for not believing rashly or for fear of making them sure of their Salvation 4. I had alledg'd farther that till Protestants produce the Grounds which prove their Faith to be True it cannot with Reason be held Truth You put my Discourse first in my Words only leaving out those which did not please you and then disguise it in your own and laugh at it for being too plainly True For plain Truth it seems is a ridiculous thing with you and you are of opinion that the more plain it is that you ought to bring your Proofs the less you are oblig'd to bring them Thence you start aside to tell us that the vulgar Catholic has less certainty than the vulgar Protestant because the one has only the Word of his Priest the other has the Word of his Minister and the Word of God in Scripture besides Do you think Catholic Priests are at liberty to tell the vulgar what Faith they please as your Ministers may interpret Scripture as seems best to their Judgment of Discretion when you cannot but know they dare not teach them any Faith but what the Church holds nor does the Church hold any but upon Tradition Again You do well to say your People have it in Scripture or in a Book for they have it no where else And you know the vulgar Socinians and Presbyterians and all the rest have it as much there as your vulgar Protestants notwithstanding all you have said or can say and then I suppose you do not think they Truly have the Word of God on their side unless you think the Word of God says different things to different Hearers When you prove that you and your Ministers have any Certain means of making it out that the Sense which by their explaining and catechising they put upon the Written Characters is truly God's Meaning you will do something make many Converts and my self one among the rest Till then to possess your vulgar Protestants with a Conceit of having the Word of God is meerly to delude them Sure you wanted a Common-place to furnish out your Paragraph or else writ it in a Dream For to tell me that Truth can depend no more upon the Saying of a Romish Priest than of an English Minister when I tell you it depends not on any private man's Sayings is not a Reply of a man well awake In two words Bring you Proofs say I the Saying that is the No-proof of a Minister is as good as the No-proof of a Priest say you And the short and the long is No Proof I thank you 5. But two things say you follow from my Position which you fear I will not grant The First is That if we cannot with Reason hold a Truth till the Intrinsical Grounds of it be produc'd we cannot with reason hold any thing for a Truth namely because the Church of Rome hath determined it for her Determination is no Intrinsical Ground of the Truth but only an outward Testimony or Declaration of it and then what 's become either of her Infallibility or Authority to command our Faith As slips of honest Ignorance deserve compassion and instruction and I do not know this to be any more I will be so charitable as to set you right Authority amongst those who already admit it for True has Force to prove that to be Truth which depends on it and will conclude against those who allow its veracity if it be shewn to be engag'd against them But it has not this Effect upon Human Nature by its proper Power as 't is meer Authority but because Intrinsical Mediums justifie it to be worthy to be rely'd on Whence let that Authority come into dispute it will lose it's Credit unless it can be prov'd by such Mediums to deserve what it pretends to And hence you see we go about to demonstrate the Infallibility of the Church's Human Authority in deriving down Christian Faith. To clear this farther I advance this Fundamental Position viz. No Authority deserves any Assent farther than Reason gives it to deserve And therefore without abating any thing of our respect we may affirm that the Authority of the whole Catholick Church would be no greater than that of an old Woman or one of your sober Enquirers were there no more Reason to be given for believing the former than there is for believing the later And consonantly to this Doctrin we declare to you that When Dr. St. comes to argue either out of Authority of Writers or Instances depending on their Authority against Tradition he shall be prest to make out by Intrinsical Mediums they are Absolutely Certain or they shall deservedly be look'd upon and contemn'd as Inconclusive By this time I hope you see that All Truths are built on Intrinsical Mediums and that whereas you apprehended they would overthrow our Church's Testimony or Authority such Mediums in case we produce them are the best means to establish it and give it force upon our selves and others As also how it comes that the Church can oblige to Belief which is not by a dry commanding our Faith as you apprehend but by having its Human Authority so solidly grounded upon Reason that it self becomes a Motive able to beget according to the best Maxims of Rational Nature such an Assent in us to this matter of Fact that Christ and his Apostles taught such Doctrins But what a put off is this We say Truth is not therefore Truth because of mens bare Sayings or Authority and therefore demand your Proofs from Intrinsical Mediums for thither it must come e're it be known for Truth to make out what you pretend Your Answer in effect is You are afraid to do it lest you should destroy our Church's Infallibility and Authority How much is our Church in your Debt that the Care of Her makes you careless of those Souls in your own Church to whom you owe this satisfaction 6. The second thing you fear I will not grant is A Iudgment of Discretion to common People with which they may discern the Intrinsical Grounds of Truth You gave your self at first the Character of a scrupulous man and I see by this you have a mind to maintain it You know that those who write and print can have no design their Books should not be read and you know those that read will and must judge of what they do read and yet your scrupulosity can fear I will not allow the Common People to judge of the Intrinsical Grounds of Truth who take pains they may judge put it into their power to judge and out of my own and so cannot hinder them tho' I would Indeed I think it no great sign of a Judgment of Discretion to pretend to discern the Truth of Faith by Lights that do not shew it to be True and upon such a Judgment I wish and labour People should not venture their Souls But I disallow no other Iudgment of Discretion full
never err in Faith. Whence follows the Third And therefore they are Infallible Your Answer Sir to this Can they adhere still to what was deliver'd and yet err in Faith if what was still deliver'd was Christ's Doctrin Your Answer is His Friend tells us this is palpably self-evident And does not his Adversary confess it too Do not your self acknowledge it in your 21 st and 22 d. Pages and say you must lay by your Reason turn Romanist and renounce your Private Iudgment if you did not grant it And can the Reader so well acquainted with your shuffles judge it less than palpably self-evident which your humour so restiff to grant any thing tho' never so clearly prov'd is forc't to yield to Lastly does his Friend only tell you 't is self-evident Does not he prove it to be as Evident as 't is that the same is the same with it self And is not such a thing Evident by its own light or out of the very Terms that is self-evident Pray Sir when I prove any thing let the Reader know I did so and do not thus constantly pretend still that I only said so or told you so A pretty Stratagem to avoid speaking to my Proofs but how honest let the Reader judge 38. But say you unless this Tradition be longer than it is yet prov'd to be they may follow it and err all along in following it No doubt of it if it fall short of reaching up to Christs we may follow it and Err by following it as all Hereticks do in following their novel Traditions That yet is a very pretty Word for it puts the Reader into a conceit that we have produc't nothing from the beginning of the World to the very time of your Writing to prove our Tradition reaches to our Saviours dayes and yet if we challenge you that we have prov'd it in the very next words of our Argument you can make your escape by saying that you are not yet come to speak to that point and that you meant no more Who would think there should be such Vertue in a petty Monosyllable as at once to disgrace us and save you harmless The second Answer to this Point is Let it the Tradition spoken of be never so long yet if they follow it not they may err Very good The Arguers Words are If they follow this Rule they cannot err in Faith which implies that if they do not they may err and you say the self-same over again with an ayr of Opposition and there 's an Answer for us now As if to conform to your Adversaries Words were to confute him any thing will serve rather than say nothing 39. The fourth Proposition brought to prove that this Tradition we lay Claim to does indeed reach to Christ and his Apostles is this They could not innovate in Faith unless they did forget what they held the day before or out of malice alter it And here lies the main Stress of the Controversy between us for you have granted here Page 21.22 that were this Rule follow'd they must still enjoy the same Faith Christ and his Apostles taught and this Discourse is brought to shew they did follow it We are to expect then that your choicest Engines must be set on work to baffle a Proof which if it holds brings such dangerous consequences after it and indeed concludes the whole Controversy Your first Attempt is in plain terms most Evident a most Unconscionable Falsification After you had P. 21. recited this fourth Proposition you immediately add Our Author undertakes to make this out more clearly therefore we will hear what he saith for our better Information P. 18. He asks did Christ teach any Errours and so you go on reciting that whole Argument which proves that if the first Fathers believ'd what Christ taught and the succeeding Sons all along believ'd what their Fathers did the last-born Son in the World believ'd the same that Christ taught Pray Sir play fair above-board You have directly falsify'd that whole Discourse by pretending here that the words you cite were to make out that Fourth Proposition clearly viz. That we could not innovate in Faith c. whereas the truth of that Fourth Proposition was made out by me nine pages before viz. p. 9. and the Discourse you mention here as intended to make it out is found p. 18 19. and levell'd at a quite different business viz. that a Church could not adhere to Tradition and at the same time erre as you pretended we must grant of the Greek Church Clear your Credit when you can I charge it upon you as a voluntary Insincerity but you shall never clear it unless by putting out your Reader 's eyes or perswading him not to use them So that it seems let us bring what Arguments we will you need do no more when they are too hard to answer but apply them to a wrong Point they were never mean't to prove and then 't is easy to shew manifestly they are frivolous and good for nothing In the mean time who sees not that your Cause as well as your Credit is run a ground and like to split when you are put to such shifts I wonder how this gross Fault could escape Dr. St's acute sight if he perus'd and review'd your Reflexions 40. Your Second Answer or rather Cavill is that you could make as fine sport with the word Notwithstanding as I did but that it seems it spoils your Gravity Yet you can dispence with that Formal humour very easily as oft as a hard Point presses you especially when you are put to Proving nor are we now to learn that you can laugh at a feather when you have nothing of more weight to say But where lies the Jest I never excepted against the Word but the misapplying it by Dr. St. Who when he was at a loss to give an Answer to Mr. G's Demonstration very learnedly and advisedly thought it best to deny the Conclusion Object an Argument of his own against it and then bid the Opponent prove his Thesis which he had prov'd already notwithstanding his Argument When you find me thus untowardly making use of That or any other Word you are at liberty to except against me In the mean time put this in the number of your Reflections that when a man pretends to make sport when there is no occasion he but discovers his own Folly. But the Point is Can you make good his Logick in this irregular Proceeding This is what we expected from a writer that undertakes to defend him But the Task is so insuperable that neither your wonderful Learning nor Dr. St. himself nor all the World to help him can ever be able to do it unless he can make the Schools renounce all Rules of Art and Mankind their Reason But what were my words that were so mirthful Why I deny'd that a Body of men could adhere to Tradition and notwithstanding erre Is here any occasion of
could have remembred their Yesterday's Faith had not Scripture been writ Now pray Sir be serious and tell us Do you think there is any danger or even possibility of this among the very Protestants in England tho' they had never a Bible to read to morrow How many of them read not so much as a Chapter in three or four days how many not in a much longer time nay how few of them read all their Faith there in a Year or even in their whole Life and yet they retain the memory not only of their Yesterdays but last Years Faith What a weakness is this to suppose Miracles must be done for no other end but that you may answer our Argument The Reasons why Scripture was writ you might have read in St. Paul to Timothy where there is no such thing as to make men remember their Yesterdays Faith nor that Scripture is of Necessity at all but only that 't is Profitable for many Uses there enumerated Your Second Argument to confute our Demonstration is a Text 2 Pet. 1.15 by which you will convince us Mens memories are not alwaies so faithful You must mean to remember their Yesterdays Faith for this Degree of Memory only the Argument insists on But what says that B. Apostle I will endeavour that you may be able after my Decease to have these things alwaies in remembrance Now there is not so much as one Word in the whole Chapter concerning the remembring or forgetting their Faith much less the Faith they held Yesterday or leaving their Faith in Writing for that purpose but only Faith suppos'd of remembring his particular Exhortations to Good Life and by thus inculcating them to stir them up as 't is said v. 13. to Christian Virtue and leaving such things in Writing to that end Now such Spiritual and Moral Instructions are both easily Intelligible especially since he had taught the same to them formerly and Man 's Natural Corruption making even good men apt to slide back from the high degree of Perfection in which they had been educated no doubt a Letter left by that Holy Apostle now near his death as he there tells them would strike them more feelingly and excite them more effectually to pursue that Course of Holy Life in which he had instructed them What miserable Stuff is this Would not Faith have an excellent Basis did it depend on Scripture interpreted by your Private Judgments When this one Instance manifests you have the boldness to quote Scripture for any thing tho' never so disparate and unconcerning and then blasphemously nick-name it God's Word when 't is nothing at all to the purpose But I beseech you Sir let 's have the Return of one Scholar to another If our Argument lye too open or the Connexion in it be too slack speak to it as you ought but think not your Private Interpretations a competent Solution to Demonstrations If such wretched Answers may serve the turn the Schools and Universities may shut up Shop and Reasoning bid adieu to the World Every Fop will find a Text he can hook in nor will he fail of interpreting it blindly to his own purpose when he is gravell'd with an Argument and of calling it God's Word when he has done Who will not see you are sinking when you catch at such Straws and weak Twigs to keep you above Water 45. By this time the Reader will be satisfy'd that Notwithstanding all you have answer'd Men had Memory enough not to forget their Yesterdays Faith Next you go about to prove Christians may be malicious enough to alter it May not Christians say you p. 23. through malice and wickedness be as careless of preserving the Faith as in maintaining Holiness in themselves or their Posterity when they know that Sin is as damnable as Errour Be Judge your self Do not many of your Congregation and the like may be said of all Sects sin often and yet few or none of them desert their Faith once The reasons why the Parallel holds not are these 1. Sins are generally private at least Men do for the most part endeavour and hope to conceal their Faults for fear of shame and discredit But the Change of Faith must be profest and open otherwise it alters not the case and Posterity will still believe on according as things appear outwardly 2. Sinners are seldome Malicious to that degree as to resolve firmly to persist so to the end of their Lives but generally fall out of frailty and intend and hope to repent And so this very thing will oblige them still to hold to their former Faith which as Experience tells them furnishes Sinners with means of Repentance 3. Man's Nature being inclin'd to Truth scarce one man tells a Lye but hopes to cloak it But here when they deliver another Faith for the same that was held Yesterday every man must know his Neighbour to be an abominable shameless Lyar and the Concern being so Sacred must hold himself and all his fellow-Alterers the wickedst men living Unless it be said they went conscientiously upon some other ground than Tradition for to pretend to be sav'd by Tenets held upon no ground at all is absolutely impossible to consist with Rational Nature But 't is impossible they should take up another Ground Because if they could not innovate in Faith they could not innovate in that upon which they held all their Faith. Nor could they be certain but all their former Faith might be renounc'd if a new Rule of Faith were taken up To hear of which could not consist with the temper of Christians to bear a loss for all their Faith. Besides Men are more tenacious of their Principles especially if they have gain'd a vast Credit by their long Continuance than they are to relinquish all they have receiv'd upon those Principles Again Tradition is the Authority of the whole Ecclesia Docens the Chiefest part of I might say the Ecclesia Credens too witnessing the deliver'd Faith which is so vast a Body that it could never were there nothing but its own Interest permit it self to be thought to have attested a Lye hitherto Add That none could be competent Judges what was fit to be a Rule of Faith but They who were so concern'd both in Duty and Interest Tradition should not be set aside Which considerations clearly evince an Universal Change in the Rule of Faith and this over the whole Body of Believers is absolutely impracticable Lastly There must be some great time between their discarding Tradition and espousing a New Rule during which time we must imagin the whole Church except perhaps some few that discourse it first would be made up of Seekers some hovering one way some another in which case they would as yet have no Faith and consequently there could be no Church 'T is left then that if they could innovate in Faith they must pretend to Tradition still when they had evidently deserted it that is they must
against too by others Yet I shall not be so like some I know to turn a Dispute into a Wrangle but shall apply my self to shew how far the Doctrine of Tradition is from deserving to be charg'd with such injurious reflexions 10. But before I go farther I must take notice of your quoting F. Warner here p. 8. and your appealing to him where you put Haeresis Blacloana in the Margent By which you seem to hint that he is the Author of that Book and an Adversary to the Doctrin of Tradition even so far as to judg it not sound in Faith for no less aversion could make you very much question whether F. W. would absolve any man who professed to embrace Catholick Faith on Mr. G's Grounds But as that very Reverend Person declares he never saw that Book till some of them were presented him bound so himself has forestal'd your little policies aiming to set us at variance in our Tenets in his Anti-Haman p. 203. We Catholicks have Faith because we believe firmly those Truths that God has reveal'd because he reveal'd them to the Church Which as a faithful Witness gives hitherto and will give to the end of the World Testimony to that Revelation And we cannot be Hereticks because we never take the liberty to chuse our selves or admit what others chuse but we take bona fide what is deliver'd us reveal'd by the greatest Authority imaginable on Earth which is that of the Catholick Church He proceeds Here then is the Tenure of our Faith. The Father sent his only begotten Son consubstantial to himself into the world and what he heard of his Father he made known to us Io. 15.11 The Father and Son sent the H. Ghost and hee did not speak of himself but what he heard that he spoke Io. 16.13 The Holy Ghost sent the Apostles and they declared unto us what they had seen and heard 1 Io. 1.3 The Apostles sent the Highest and Lowest Prelates in the Church and the Rule by which they fram'd their Decrees was Let nothing be alter'd in the Depositum Let no Innovation be admitted in what 's deliver'd Quod Traditum est non innovetur But he more expresly yet declares himself no Adversary to this way ibid. p. 267. Your Friend Mr. G. B. had call'd this way of proving Doctrines that They had them from their Fathers they from theirs a New method of proving Popish Doctrines and receives for Answer these words You discover your Ignorance in saying that Method was New or that Arnaud invented it Mr. Thomas White had it before Arnaud Mr. Fisher a Iesuite before T. W. Bellarmin before him St. Austin St. Stephen Pope Tertullian before them all Where you see he both allows this very Method we take as practis'd by Modern Controvertists of note nay by some of his own Order too whom he is far from disapproving and by Antient Fathers also whom he highly venerates Your petty Project thus defeated I shall endeavour to open your Eyes if they be not which God grant they be not wilfully shut 11. The Asserters of Tradition observing that the Adversaries they had to deal with admitted Christ's Doctrin to be Divine held it the most compendious way to put a speedier End to all Controversies which Experience taught them were otherwise liable to be spun out into a voluminous length and the most efficacious Method to conclude all the Heterodox of what denomination soever to prove That the Doctrin held now by the Catholick Church was Christ's or the self-same that was taught at first by Himself and his Apostles It was bootless for them to attempt to prove this by Texts of Scripture manag'd by their Private Wits For the Truth of our Faith depending on Christ's Teaching it if it were not Absolutely Certain Christ taught it it could not be evinc't with Absolute Certainty to be True. Now the same Experience inform'd them that no Interpretation of Scripture made by Private Judgments of themselves or others could arrive to such a pitch of Certainty and consequently would leave Faith under the scandalous ignominy of being possibly and perhaps actually false It was to as little purpose to alledge against such Adversaries the Divine Assistance to the Church or Christs Promise of Infallibility to it as you very weakly object to Mr. G. p. 16. as not once asserted by him For tho' this was believ'd by the Faithful yet it was disown'd by all those Heterodox and being it self a point of Faith it seem'd improper to be produc't for a Rule of Faith. Besides how should they prove this Divine Assistance If by Scripture interpreted by their Private Judgments these not being Absolutely Certain it would have weaken'd the Establishment of that Grand Article which to the Faithful was a kind of Principle to all the rest in regard that upon the Certainty of it the Security they had of all the other Articles was to depend If by the Divine Authority of the Church it self it was not so easie to defend that method not to run round in a Circle whereas all Regular Discourse ought to proceed straight forwards These Considerations oblig'd them to set themselves to make out by Natural Mediums that the Human Authority of such a Great Body as was that of the Church was Absolutely Certain or Infallible in conveying down many visible and notorious Matters of Fact and among the rest or rather far above the rest the Subject being Practical and of infinite Concern that such and such a Doctrin was first taught to the Age contiguous to the Apostles and continued ever since By this means they resolv'd the Doctrin of the present Church into that of Christ and his Authority and consequently these being suppos'd by both Parties to be Divine into the Divine Authority granted by all to be the Formal Motive of Divine Faith. 12. This is the true state of that Affair And now I beseech you Learned Sir Where 's the Polagianism Where is the least Ground or shadow of Ground for all these bugbear words and false accusations which to make them sink deeper into the Reader 's Belief and create a more perfect abhorrence of our Tenet come mask't here under an affected shew of Godliness All hold their Faith relies on the Divine or Christs Authority into which they finally resolve it and all Catholicks hold Grace necessary to believe the Mysteries of Divine Faith tho' all perhaps do not judge Grace needful to believe upon Human Authority this Matter of Fact viz. That Christ taught it Yet my self in Faith vindicated seeing that the admitting this Truth would oblige the Heterodox to relinquish their ill-chosen Tenets and return to the Church against which they had a strong aversion did there declare my particular Sentiment That God's Grace and some Assistance of the Holy Ghost was requir'd to make them willing to see the force even of this Natural Demonstration so much against their Humour and Interest Is it
Pelagianism to conclude that Human Motives which are Preliminaries to Faith and on which the assuredness of Faith it self depends as to us are Truly Certain And Might you not with as much reason say the same if one should maintain the Absolute Certainty of our Senses which is one of those Preliminaries How strangely do you misrepresent every thing you are to meddle with How constantly do you make your voluntary mistake of every Point serve for a Confutation of it 'T is confest ever was That the Human Authority of the Church or Tradition begets only Human Faith as its immediate Effect but by bringing it up to Christ it leads us to what 's Divine yet not by its own force but by Vertue of the Supposition agreed upon That Christ's Doctrin is such Is it Pelagianism to say we must use our Reason to come to Faith or do you pretend all the World must be the worst of Phanaticks and use none Or does it trouble you we offer to justifie that the Reasons we bring to make good that Preliminary which in our way of Discoursing is to introduce Faith are not such as may deceive us And that we do not confess they are Fallible or may deceive us as you grant of your Interpretations of Scripture which ground your Belief No surely we shall not quit the Certainty we have because you have none For if it be not Certain such Doctrines are indeed Christ's who is our Law-giver we cannot be sure they are True their Truth depending on his Authority and would you have us for fear of Pelagianism confess all our Faith may perhaps be but a story But into what an unadvisedness does your Anger transport you to run the Weapon through your own Side to do us a Mischief You bore us in hand First Letter p. 7. that you had a larger and firmer Tradition for Scripture than we have for what we pretend to Yet this Tradition could cause no more but Human Faith for I do not think you will say you had Divine Faith before you were got to your Rule of Divine Faith. By your Discourse then your self are an Arrant Pelagian too Perhaps worse than we because you pretend to a larger and firmer Human Tradition than you say we have nay you pretend it to be Absolutely Certain too which is a dangerous Point indeed Pray have a care what you do for you are upon the very brink of Pelagianism The knowing you have the true Books of Scripture is a most necessary Preliminary to your Faith for without knowing that you cannot pretend to have any Faith at all and if it be Pelagianism in us to hold such Preliminaries absolutely Certain I fear the danger may come to reach you too Yet you have one Way and but one to escape that damnable Heresy which is that you do not go about to demonstrate the Absolute Certainty of Your Tradition as we do of Ours That that is the very Venom of Pelagianism But take comfort Sir my life for yours you will never fall so abominably into the mire as to demonstrate or conclude any thing For what Idaea soever you may frame of it we mean no more by Demonstrating but plain honest Concluding Your way of Discoursing does not look as if it intended to conclude or demonstrate 'T is so wholly pass for as great a Man as you will made up of mistakes misrepresentations petty cavils witty shifts untoward explications of your own Words constant prevarications and many more such neat dexterities that whatever fault it may through human frailty provok't by powerful Necessity be liable to I dare pawn my life it will never be guilty of that hainous Crime of demonstrating or concluding any thing no not the Absolute Certainty of your firmer Tradition And yet unless you can prove or conclude 't is thus Certain 't is a Riddle to us how can you either hold or say 't is such 13 Pray be not offended if on this occasion I ask You a plain downright Question Is it not equally blamable to Falsify your Adversaries Tenet perpetually as 't is to falsify his Words Nay is it not worse being less liable to discovery and so more certainly and more perniciously Injurious And can any thing excuse You from being thus faulty but Ignorance of our Tenet I fear that Plea will utterly sail you too and leave you expos'd to the Censure of every sincere Reader when I shew him to his Eye that You could not but know all this before For in Error Non-plust p. 121. Sect. 8. You must needs have read the quite contrary Doctrine and how those who maintain Tradition do resolve their Faith. There is no necessity then of proving this Infallibility viz. Of the Church meerly by Scripture interpreted by Virtue of this Infallibility Nor do the Faithful or the Church commit a Circle in believing that the Church is Infallible upon Tradition For they believe onely the supernatural Infallibility built on the Assistance of the Holy Ghost that is on the Church's Sanctity and this is prov'd by the Human Authority of the Church to have been held ever from the Beginning and the force of the Human Testimony of the Church is prov'd by Maxims of meer Reason The same is more at large deliver'd in the foregoing Section and in divers other places Now this Book was Writ against your self and so 't is as hardly Conceiveable you should never have read it as 't is Unconceiveable how you should ever answer it And if you did read it what was become of your sincerity when you counterfeited your Ignorance of our Tenet All is resolv'd say you here p. 9. into meer Human Faith which is the unavoidable consequence of the Doctrin of Oral Tradition How shrewdly positive you are in your Sayings how modest and meek in your Proofs Nothing can be more manifest from our constantly avow'd Doctrin and your own opposing it too than 't is that Tradition resolves all into Christ's and the Apostles Teaching And pray do you hold that Christ is a meer man or that the Believing Him is a meer human Faith or that the Doctrin taught by Him and Them is meerly Human If this be indeed your Tenet I am sorry I knew it not before for then I should have thought fit to begin with other Principles to confute you And I pray God by your impugning known Truths you may never need e'm I see I had reason to alledge in Faith Vindicated that the Grace of God was requisit to make men assent to a Natural Conclusion when it came very cross to their Interest For it appears too plain 't is exceedingly needful to assist you here in a meer Point of Common Morality which is to enable you not to speak and represent things directly contrary to your own knowledge And I am sorry I must tell you and too evidently prove it that the greatest part of your Writings against Catholicks when the Point is to be manag'd by Reason
firm Ground of the things themselves without us in which Creative Wisdome has imprinted all Truths but on our own aiery Apprehensions or undoubting Perswasions which must necessarily be Unsteady when the Knowledge of those Things does not Fix them Particularly which more closely touches our present Controversy the Certainty he substitutes to that advanc't by us which excludes Deception is impossible to be manifested by Outward Arguments to others being only his own Interiour Satisfaction or Opinion which as it is Invisible so it may in Disputes be with just reason Rejected by any man at his pleasure Lastly Whereas he pretends to lay Grounds for the Absolute Câ—â—tainty of Faith he shall never be able to shew he has laid any one Ground thus Certain which is what he pretended worthy the Name of a Ground for the only Point in debate viz. That Christ and his Apostles taught thus or thus but instead thereof such feeble Foundations as leave Christian Faith whose Truth depends necessarily upon the Truth of Christ's Teaching It in the opprobrious and scandalous condition of being possibly or perhaps False In a word he was to shew the Absolute Certainty of his Grounds of Faith and he so handles the matter that one would think instead of shewing them he were shewing there was no such Certainty Requisit and so none needs to be shewn The rest of his Answer consists generally of impertinent Excursions disingenuous Cavils witty Avoidances of any Rub that should hinder his Discourse from sliding on smoothly His mistakes whether Sincere or Affected the Reader is to judge are numberless his scornful jests frequent and either meer Trifles or built upon Chimaeraes of his own Invention All which deliver'd in Poignant and Smart Language give a pretty tang of Gayity and Briskness to his Discourses and counterfeit a kind of liveliness of Reason when as I dare avouch and shall make it good he has not one Single Argument that is Pertinent and Sincere in the whole Course of his Answer I pass by his Omissions which are both very many and most important as likewise how he does not take his Adversaries Discourse End-wayes as I did His nor gives the due force to his Arguments but Skips up and down here and there Skimming off the Superficial part of them by Playing upon his Words without regarding the full Sense that so he might make a more plausible mock-shew of an Answer Lastly his Evasions as is the natural Progress of Non-plust Errour are still worse and worse and are Confuted by being Detected 'T is easy to discern by his Expressions he is much Piqu'd and out of Humour nor can I blame him for 't is too severe a Tryal of Patience for a Man of his great Abilities and Authority to be so closely prest to shew his Grounds why he Holds it True or which is the same Impossible to be False That the Faith he pretends to was indeed Christs Doctrine and to find himself utterly unfurnish't with any means to perform it But I have reason to hope there will need no more to let the Reader see that all that Glisters in the Drs. Writtings is not Gold but his carriage in this Sermon of his which I now come to examine and to make him judge that if he hath dealt so delusively with his Auditors when he spoke out of the Pulpit in God's Name he will scarce behave himself more sincerely towards me when he speaks in his own THE FOURTH Catholick Letter Gentlemen § 1. WHen Controversies are Preach't out of Pulpits every Well-meaning Hearer is apt to conceit that what sounds thence is to be receiv'd as a Voice from Heaven Too great a Disadvantage to be admitted by a Person concern'd who judges he is able to shew 't is but a false Eccho especially when he sees this forestalling the World by a Sermon is a meer preparation to turn the Question quite off the Hinges and withal as the Preface intimates to bring it from the handling one single Point which bears all the rest along with it to the debating of many none of which can be decided till That be first clear'd Hence I esteem'd it not only a Justice to my self but a Christian Duty to others to Address my Defence to You his Auditory who I fear were led into Errours by many particulars in that Sermon relating to our Controversy I have reason to hope this Discourse will keep your Thoughts Impartial which done I will desire no other Umpire of our Contest at present but your selves § 2. It being the Chief and most Precise Duty of a Controvertist to secure the Truth of Christian Faith and this not being possible to be done without proving it True That Christ or his Apostles taught it hence it has ever been my Endeavour to establish that Fundamental Verity in the first place by settling some Method that might secure it with a perfect or Absolute Certainty Nature tells us an End cannot be compassed without a a Means enabling us to attain it whence the first thing to be examin'd is what that Means is that is to give us this Certainty Your common Reason assures you that what 's True cannot possibly be False and the common Sentiment of all Christians and the very Notion of Faith it self has I doubt not imbu'd you with this apprehension that your Faith cannot but be True nor does any thing sound more harsh to a Christian Ear than to affirm that All Christian Faith may perhaps be but a Lying Story which yet 't is unavoidable it may be if it may not be True that 't is Christ's Doctrine § 3. You will wonder perhaps when I acquaint you this is my greatest quarrel with Dr. St. and others of his Principles that they make all Christian Faith possible to be False Dr. Tillotson with whom he agrees and whose Rule of Faith he approves maintains there that there is no Absolute Security to be had from our being Deciev'd in judging we have the right Letter or right Sense of the Holy Scripture or that they were Writ by those Divinely-inspired Persons but that notwithstanding all the certainty we can have of those particulars It is possible all this may be otherwise This I say as appears by my Preface to the Second Catholick Letter and by my Discourses quite through all the Three is our Grand Contest under which all our other differences subsume But this Dr. St. was so prudent as to conceal from you lest it should shock all his well-meaning Hearers and I do assure you and shall shew it that in those matters which he thought it expedient to let you know he so misrepresents every thing that he has both deluded You injur'd the Truth and quite dropt the Question Whether he is to make satisfaction to Truth and to You or I to Him is to be determin'd by the Evidence I bring to make good my Charge To State the Question then § 4. As to the Holy Scriptures my
Minds of Intellectuall Beings whereas it was only in Words Written as in a Sign that is no more properly than Wine was in a Bush and that therefore the former had incomparably Better Title to be the Purse if no Metaphor else would serve his turn but such an odd one at least it ought not to have been quite set aside But the Dr. without troubling himself much to mind what any body says but himself by which Method of Answering he has left above forty parts for one of my several Discourses unanswer'd will needs have Scripture to be the only Purse Containing Faith shall be enough for His purpose Ay that it shall tho' it be to No purpose And so he tells us that If all the Doctrin of Christ be there we must be Certain we have all if we have the Scripture that contains all And I tell him what common Sense tells all Mankind that a man may have all Aristotles works which contain all his Doctrin and yet not know or have one Tittle of his Doctrin Nor by consequence has the Dr. one jot of Christ's Doctrin by having meerly the Book that contains it Shall we never have done with this ridiculous and palpable Nonsense How often has it been prov'd against him in my Catholick Letters that the having a Book which contains All Faith as in a Sign for words are no more argues not his having any Faith at all unless he knows the Signification of that Sign Let 's examin then the meaning of the word have A Trunk has the Book of Scripture when that Book is laid up in it and that Book contains all Faith and so that Trunk may by his Logick have all Faith. Dr. St has the same Book and by having it has according to him all Faith too I ask Has he all Faith by having the Book any other way then the senseless Trunk has it If he Has then he has it in his Intellectuall Faculty as a Knowing Creature should have it and if so he knows it that is he knows the Sense of it as to determinate Points in it for All Christ's Faith consists of those determinate Points But he still waves his having Knowledge of determinate Points and talks still of Faith only as contain'd in Scripture in the lump and 't is in the lump in the Book too lying in the Trunk whence abstracting from his Knowledge of the particulars of Faith the wooden Trunk has all Faith as much as He. He 'l say he believes implicitly all that 's contain'd in Scripture whether he knows the Particular Points or no But is not this to profess he believes he knows not what Or is Implicit Belief of all in the Book Saving Faith when 't is the vertue of the Particular Points apply'd to the Soul 's Knowing Power and thence affecting and moving her which is the Means of Salvation He tells us indeed for he must still cast in some good words that he pretends not 't is enough for Persons to say their Faith is in such a Book but Now did I verily think that the Adversative Particular But would have been follow'd with they must be sure 't is in it But this would have made too good Sense and have been too much to the Point His but only brings in a few of his Customary lukewarm Words which are to no purpose viz. that they ought to read and search and actually believe whatever they find in that Book He means whatever they fancy they have found in it for he gives neither his Reader nor them any Security but that after their Reading and Searching they may still believe wrong He skips over that Consideration as not worthy or else as too hard to be made out and runs to talk of things Necessary and not Necessary I wish he would once in his life speak out and tell us how many Points are Necessary for the Generality of the Faithfull and whether God's dying for their Sins be one and then satisfy the World that the Socinians who deny that Point do not read search and actually believe what their Judgment of Discretion tells them is the Sense of Scripture and yet notwithstanding all this do actually believe a most damnable Heresy But still he says if a man reads and considers Scripture as he ought and pray for Wisdom he shall not miss of knowing all things necessary for his Salvation So that unless we know that he and his Party do pray for Wisdom and not pray amiss and consider Scripture as they ought none can be Certain by his own Grounds that He and his good Folks have any Faith at all or that their Rule directs them right He would make a rare Converter of Unbelievers to Christ's Doctrin who instead of bringing any Argument to prove that what his Church believes is truly such tells them very sadly and soberly He has right Knowledge of it and is sure of it because he has consider'd Scripture as he ought and begg'd Wisdom of God. But if this sincere Seeker hap to reflect that these pretences are things he can never come to know and that Socinians and all other Sects equally profess to consider Scripture as they ought and to pray for Wisdom too and yet all contradict one another he must if he have Wit in him and light upon no better Controvertists think Christians a company of Fops who can shew him no assured Ground of Faith but such a blind one as 't is impossible for him to see and would have him believe that That is a Certain Means for him to arrive at Christ's Faith which every side as far as he can discern do equally make use of and yet are in perpetual variance and Contention with one another about it So that our Doctor got deep into his old Fanaticism again and which is yet something worse would have pure Nonsense pass for a Principle to secure men of the Truth of the Points of Faith we believe and be taken for a good Argument in Controversy Certainly never was weaker Writer or else a Weaker Cause 60. I am glad he confesses that a Rule of Faith must be Plain and Easy and that otherwise it could not be a Rule of Faith for all Persons Let him then apply this to the Dogmatical Points which are only in Question and shew it thus Easy to all Persons in those Texts that contain those Articles and his Work is at an End. But alas that Work tho' 't is his only Task is not yet begun nor for any thing appears ever Will. For 't is a desperate Undertaking to go about to confute daily experience What new Stratagem must be invented then to avoid it Why he must slip the true Point again and alter it to an Enquiry Whether the Scriptures were left only to the Church to interpret it to the People in all Points or whether it were intended for the General Good of the Church so as to direct themselves in their Way
Faith about which we are chiefly discoursing But do not your self incline to admit as much as we can expect from a man that affects not too much candour that very thing you so laugh at here I affirm'd that Not one in a million thinks of relying on your Rule of Faith in order to make choice of their Faith c. This you answer with hems and hahs Tho' I fear yet I hope he is out in his Account I am apt to think they are more attentive Yet be it as he would have it c. Now since they must either have their Faith by Reliance on their Pastours and Preachers delivering it to them and educating them in it that is by some kind of Tradition or else by relying on Scripture and your self seems to doubt or rather in a manner grants it That they have it not the later way you must at least doubt that they have it by the Way of Tradition But your Fancy was so big with your empty Jest that you had forgot what you had allow'd but a little before 58. Thus Sir I have trac'd you punctually step by step not as is your constant use pickt out a few words scatter'd here and there which you thought you might most commodiously pervert wherefore I have reason to expect the same exact measure from you The Sum of your Answer is manifestly this Shuffles and wilful Mistakes without number Evasions endless Falsifications frequent Godly Talk frivolous Jests groundless and all these brought in still to stop Gaps when your Reason was Nonplust Be pleas'd to leave off your Affected Insincerities otherwise I must be forc't to Expose them yet farther than which there can be no Task more Ungrateful imposed upon Your Servant J. S. ERRATA Page 3. l. 28. Read both of uâ— p. 10. l. ult find it in p. 11. l. 11 notice there p. 21. l. 24. go forwards p. 22. l. 27. Secret. Again p. 23. l. 9. as I had not p. 32. l. 30. Is it a Way Ibid. l. 32. upon it p. 39. l. 7. Your Reason is because p. 44. l. 17. may hap p. 45. l. 5. Gift Ibid. l. 32. Prince of p. 46. l. 7. it Whether p. 48. l. 27. a most p. 53. l. 12. Adherers p. 57. l. 14. to be at a loss Ibid. l. ult discover'd it p. 60. l. 8. Speculaters p. 62. l. 9. Yet not so explicitly or p. 63. l. 28. formally and. p. 73. l. 13. other then THE THIRD Catholick Letter IN ANSVVER To the Arguing Part of Doctor Stillingfleet's SECOND LETTER To Mr. G. By I. S. Published with Allowance LONDON Printed and sold by Matthew Turner at the Lamb in High-Holbourn 1687. THE THIRD Catholick Letter c. SIR 1. I Come now to take a view of your Second Letter with my Eye as in the former fixt only upon what I think you mean for Argument Whether you give us just your First Words at the Conference or second Thoughts since whether no troublesome Part of Mr. G's Discourse be left out in short whatever belongs to matter of Fact shall be out of my prospect which shall be bounded by what you think fit to open to it You acquaint us here Pag. 7. that you put two Questions 1. How does it appear that the Church of Rome is Infallible in the sense and meaning of Tradition 2. Is this Tradition a Rule of Faith distinct from Scripture And you complain of Mr. G. that his Copy makes you ask a very wise Question viz. How does it appear that the Church of Rome is Infallible in Tradition Why this Question should be ironically call'd a very wise one I cannot imagin I am sure it is very pertinent to the Intention of your Dispute and directly points at one of the Chief Subjects of the Conference But you shall have your Will tho' I beleive it will appear Mr. G's question made better Provision for your Credit in point of Wisdom than you have done for your self 2. For your Second was in truth a very needless Question because both your self and all your Auditours if they ever heard any thing of this kind of Controversy knew beforehand without needing to ask that the Tradition we lay claim to pretends to derive down the Intire Body of Christ's Doctrin and not only the Books of Scripture of which P. 9. you very learnedly seem to counterfeit your self ignorant And this is the first part of your distinguishing the plain Sense of this Word Tradition as held by Mr. G. By this Question you tell us p. 9. you intended to put a difference between the Tradition held by us Protestants and the Tradition disputed For the first meaning of the Word Tradition which you grant you put the Vniniversal Testimony of the Christian Church as to the Books of Scripture The second and deny'd meaning you contra distinguish from the former in these words But if by Tradition be understood either some necessary Articles of Faith not contain'd in Scripture or a Power in the Church to make unnecessary to become necessary this I deny'd c. Certainly Sir you have a Logick of your own so peculiarly fitted to your designes that no man living but your self ever us'd it I ever thought and apprehended I had all the World on my side for thinking so that all Differences or Distinctions were to be Opposites and to divide the Common Genus or the Notion that was to be distinguish't and therefore since the first sense of the Word Tradition was Tradition for Books of Scripture which is your Tenet I verily expected the opposit sense of it should have been Tradition for Doctrines which is Ours and that as the former was Tradition for Christ's Words so the latter should be Tradition for Christ's Sense But while I was vainly imagining the second sense of the Word would be Tradition for Faith instead of that I found nothing but such Articles and such a Power Did ever any mortal Man think or pretend that Tradition was an Article or a Power any more than that it was a Horse shoe Did your self when you granted the Latin and Greek Churches follow'd Tradition intend to signify that they follow'd Articles and Powers The summ then of your learned Distinction is in plain Terms this Tradition is two-fold One is a Tradition for Books the other is no Tradition at all but only Articles and Power Had it not been better then to have accepted of Mr. G's Civility and have answer'd to the purpose rather than out of a pique to his Copy and a desire to make it stand in need to be corrected thus to pervert common sense and out of a too zealous care not to forfeit your Wisdome to commit such an illogical Absurdity But Sense and Logick tho' they be plain and honest true Friends yet I must own that like the Queens Old Courtiers they may appear scandalous Companions to a man of your more polite and modish Education However I dare answer for you it was
tho' a private person can discover those Explicit Points and I suppose may declare them too to as many as he pleases for how can he in Charity do less But alas The silly insignificant Church can do nothing at all she must submit to the wondrous Gifts you have bestow'd upon the Rabble and her Governors and Pastors be accounted Tyrants if they shall dare to encroach upon their high Prerogatives or presume to share in their Priviledges of being able to unfold or know the Explicit Meaning of Scripture-Texts For in case they can know this and this Knowledge be good for the Faithful as it is being as you say necessary to Salvation 't is without question they may declare them or make them known to others nay and use their Authority too if you will vouchsafe to allow them any to edify the Faithful by making this Knowledge sink into them Nor can it prejudice their Reason that the Church obliges them to believe them for this is no more than obliging them to act according to Reason which tells them that since they must either trust themselves or their Pastours in such things and the Pastours must be incomparably better qualify'd than themselves are for the discovering of such mysterious Truths and withall appointed by God to teach them 't is far more Rational to submit to their Judgments in such things than to use their own But indeed you have reason to stand up for your Sober Enquirer for all Ring-leaders of any Heresy or Faction against the Church took this very Method in their proceedings The Spirit of Pride which possest them principled them with these Rational and Peaceable Maxims that they had Authority to judge their Judges teach their Teachers direct their Guides and that their own Wit excell'd that of all the World before them But when a Faction was form'd into a good lusty Body the Scripture-Rule was laid aside again so that 't is doubtful whether we have had ever a Sober Enquirer since as was shewn in my First Letter Sect. 25. 33. You desire to see this Power of the Church in Scripture in Express Terms and we tell you we need not let you see it in Scripture at all for Tradition even Common Sense tells us that the Church has Power to feed and instruct her Flock and enlighten them in what she knows and they are ignorant of If you demand how the Roman Church came by this knowledge of making Implicit Points Explicit I answer by Tradition giving her the Sense of Christ's whole Law and each Intire point of it and by the Light of Nature purify'd by supernatural knowledges antecedently as also by her Application when occasion required to reflect upon and penetrate deeply into that Sense which enables her to explicate her own thoughts or the Points of Faith more clearly now which she had indeed before but did not so distinctly look into them or set her self to explain them But pray what express Scripture has your Sober Enquirer for his Power to make the Implicit Points Explicit You reckon up diverse agreeablenesses p. 21. why this should be but not one word of express Scripture do you pretend to for it And if himself pretend to any such Power besides that it will look a little odd that God should take more care of private men than of his Church let him either shew us he has better means Natural or Supernatural to do this than the Church has or he discovers his Pride and Folly both to pretend to it You say p. 21. that the Church of Rome has no where declar'd in Council it has any such Power viz. to declare explicitly Points imply'd in Scripture But First you may please to know It has made such a declaration Sect. 4. where it defines that it belongs to the Church judicare de vero sensu et interpretatione Scripturarum to judge of the true sense and Interpretation of Scripture Next It accordingly proceeds upon this Power as I shall manifest by three several Instances One Sess. 13. cap. 4. where it explains those Texts Luc. 22. Io. 6. and 2 Cor. 11. to be meant of being truly Christ's Body and declares thence that the Church was ever perswaded of the Doctrin of Transubstantiation Another Sess. 14. cap. 7. Where it declares the Text 1 Cor. 1. Let a man examin himself c. to be understood by the Custome or Practice of the Church of Sacramental Confession necessary to be us'd before receiving the Sacrament by all those who are conscious to themselves of mortal sin The Third Sess. 14. cap. 1. where it interprets that Text of S. Iames cap. 5. to be by Apostolical Tradition understood of the Sacrament of Extreme Vnction Which places you do not judge so much as implicitly to contain that Sense but hold that they contain another thing How the Churches declaring explicitly Points descending by Tradition makes no new Articles of Faith is discours't above Sect. 4 5 6 7. By which you may see that Mr. G. and Mr. M. whom pag. 22. you will needs set at variance are notwithstanding very good Friends For if the Church knew the the sense which is contain'd in that place before the Doctrin is Old tho' the declaring it to be signifi'd by that particular Text be perhaps New. I say perhaps for in some signal passages much in use in the Churches Preaching Catechisms and Practise I doubt not but that not only the particular Doctrin but also that 't is signifi'd by such a Text comes down by Tradition in the Ecclesia docens Notwithstanding the agreeableness of these two Positions you triumph mightily here p. 23. that Thus Mr. M. has answer'd Mr. G 's Demonstration As much as to say I know not for my life what to say to it my self and therefore would gladly shift it off upon any Body so I could handsomely rid my Hands of it Thus you make for you can make any thing by your Method of mistaking every thing the Council of Trent clash with the Church of Rome a hard Task one would think by pretending to interpret Scripture according to the unanimous sense of the Fathers which you judge contradicts the making known and obliging Men to believe that explicitly now which they were not oblig'd to by any precedent Sense or Explication What mean the words Men and They If they signify all men and intend to signify that no man knew those imply'd Points before but all might hap to contradict them you mistake our Tenet for we judge it absolutely impossible that none of the Fathers should reflect more attentively on the full sense of the Points deliver'd or look into their own thoughts as Faithful and therefore it was much more impossible they should unanimously contradict those Points And unless they did so the Council of Trent and the Church of Rome may by the Grace of God very well correspond in their Doctrin for all your mistake For the Intention of the Fathers in