Obedience of Faith much less to his assertion That Christians walk by Faith and not by Sight seeing that without it we can do neither the one nor the other For I can neither submit to the truth of things to be believed nor live upon them or according unto them unless I understand the Propositions wherein they are expressed which is the work we assign to Reason For those who would resolve their Faith into Reason we confess that they overthrow not only Faith but Reason it self there being nothing more irrational than that belief should be the product of Reason being properly an assent resolved into Authority which if Divine is so also I shall then desire no more of our Author nor his Readers as to this Section but only this that they would believe that no Protestant is at all concerned in it and so I shall not further interpose as to any contentment they may find in its review or perusal CHAP. IX Jews Objections THe title of this Third Chapter is that No Religion or Sect or Way hath any advantage over another nor all of them over Popery To this we excepted before in general that that way which hath the truth with it hath in that wherein it hath the truth the advantage against all others Truth turns the scales in this business wherever and with whomsoever be found and if it lie in any way distant from Popery it gives all the advantage against it that need be desired And with this only enquiry With whom the Truth abides is this disquisition What wayes in Religion have advantage against others to be resolved But this course and procedure for some reasons which he knows and we may easily guess at our Author liked not and it it is now too late for us to walk in any path but what he has trodden before us though it seem rather a maze then a way for Travellers to walk in that would all pass on in their Journey His first Section is entituled Light and Spirit the pretence whereof he treats after his manner and cashiers from giving any such advantage as is inquired after But neither yet are we arrived to any concernment of Protestants That which they plead as their advantage is not the empty names of Light and Spirit but the truth of Christ revealed in the Scripture I know there are not a few who have impertinently used these good words and Scripture-expressions which yet ought no more to be scoffed at by others then abused by them But that any have made the plea here pretended as to their settlement in Religion I know not The truth is if they have it is no other upon the matter but what our Author cals them unto to a naked Credo he would reduce them and that differs only from what seems to be the mind of them that plead Light and Spirit that he would have them resolve their faith irrationally into the Authority of the Church they pretend to do it into the Scripture But what he aimes to bring men unto he justifies from the examples of Christians in antient times who had to deal with Jews and Pagans whose disputes were rational and weighty and pusled the wisest of the Clergy to answer So that after all their ratiocination ended whether it sufficed or no they still concluded with this one word Credo which in Logick and Philosophy was a weak answer but in Religion the best and only one to be made What could be spoken more untruely more contumeliously or more to the reproach of Christian Religion I cannot imagine It 's true indeed that as to the resolution satisfaction and settlement of their own souls Christians alwayes built their faith and resolved it into the Authority o◠God in his word but that they opposed their naked Credo to the disputes of Jews or Pagans or rested in that for a solution of their objections is heavenly-wide as far from truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I wonder any man who hath ever seen or almost heard of the Disputes and Discourses of Justin Martyr Clemens Alexandrinus Origen Theophilus Antiochenus Athenagoras Tertullian Lactantius Chrysostom Austin Theodoret and innumerable others proving the faith of the Christian Religion against the Jews from Scripture and the reasonableness of it against the Pagans with the folly and foppery of theirs could on any account be induced to cast out such a reproach against them But it seems Jacta est alea and we must go on and therefore to carry on the design of bringing us all to a naked Credo resolv'd into the Authority of the present Church a thing never heard of spoken of nor that it appears dreamed of by any of the ancient Christians The objections of the Jews against the Christian Religion are brought on the stage and an enquiry made how they can be satisfactorily answered His words are Pag. 142. In any age of the Christian-Church a Jew might say thus to the Christians then living Your Lord and Master was born a Jew and under the jurisdiction of the High Priests these he opposed and taught a Religion contrary to Moses otherwise how comes there to be a faction but how could he justly do it no humane Power is of force against God's who spak◠as you also grant by Moses and the Prophets and Divine Power it could not be for God is not contrary to himself And although your Lord might say as indeed he did that Moses spake of him as of a Prophet to come greater then himself yet Who shall judge that such a thing was meant of his person For suice that Prophet is neither specifyed by his name nor characteristical properties well said Jew who could say it was he more then any other to come And if there were a greater to come then Moses were surely born a Jew he would being come into the world rather exalt that Law to more ample glory then diminish it And if you will further contest that such a Prophet was to abrogate the first Law and bring in a new one Who shall judge in this case the whole Church of the Hebrews who never dreamed of any such thing or one member thereof who was born a subject to their judgments This saith he is the great Occumenical difficulty and he that in any age of Christianity could either answer it or find any bulwark to set against it so that it should do no harm would easily either salve or prevent all other difficulties c. The difficulty as is evident lay in this That the Authority and Judgment of the whole Church of the Hebrews lay against Christ and the Gospel That Church when Christ conversed on earth was a true Church of God the only Church on earth and had been so for 2000 years without interruption in its self without competition from any other It had its High Priest confessedly instituted by God himself in an orderly succession to those dayes The interpretation of Scripture it pretended was trusted with
by his example he commends unto them But it will be said He only shews the uncertainties that are about Scripture that men may not expect by or from them deliverance from the darkness and ignorance before spoken of Suppose then they come to be perswaded of such an uncertainty What course shall they take Apply themselves to the Roman-Church and they are safe But seeing the being of a Church much less the Roman-Church hath no foundation in the light of Nature and men can never know any thing of it especially of its Prerogative but by and from the Scripture whose Authority you have taught them to question and made doubtful to them What remains for rational men but to renounce both Scripture and Church and betake themselves to your commendable piece of witty Atheism This is the old lurry The Scripture cannot be known believed understood but by the Church the Church cannot be proved to have Being Constitution or Authority but by the Scripture and then if you doubt of the Authority of that proof of the Church you must return to the Church again and so on until all Faith and Reason vanish or men make shipwrack of their Faith and become brutish in their Understanding pretending to believe they know neither what nor why And this imployment of raising surmises and stirring up jealousies about the Word of God it's Pen-men and their Authority do men put themselves upon I will not say to gratifie the Roman-Court but I will say in obedience to their prejudices lusts and darkness and saddest drudgery that any of the sons of men can be exercised withal And if he would be believed he professeth himself an Anti-Scripturist and in that profession which he puts upon himself an Atheist For my part I am amazed to think how men are able to hold their Pens in their hands that an horrour of the work they have before them doth not make them shake them out when they are thus traducing the holy Word of Christ and exciting evil surmises about it Should they deal with a man of any Power and Authority they might not expect to escape his indignation even to publish to all the World that he is indeed an honourable person but yet if men will question his Honour Truth Honesty Authority and affirm him to be a Cheat Thief Murderer Adulterer they cannot see how they can be disproved at least he would have a difficult task in hand that should endeavour to free him from objections of that nature Yet thus men dare to deal with the Scripture that Word which God hath magnified above all his Name If this be the Spirit that breathed in the Apostles the holy Army of Martyrs of old and all the Fathers of the Primitive Church I am much mistaken nay I am greatly so if with one consent they would not denounce an Anathema against such a defence of any Religion whatever But you will say The same person defends also the Scripture just as he in the Poet did Pelilius Me Capitolinus convictore usus amicoque A puero est causaque mea permulta rogatus Fecit incolumnis laetor quod vivit in urbe Sed tamem admiror quo pacto Judicium illud Fugerit A defence worse and more bitter then a down-right accusation I am not now to observe what prejudice this excuse brings to the cause of our Author with all intelligent persons having noted it once and again before nor what contentment Protestants take to see that the Truth they profess cannot be shaken without inducing men to question the Fundamental Principles of Christian Religion and if this course be persisted in for ought that I can understand the whole Controversie between us and the Romanists must needs be at last reduced unto this head Whether the Scripture of the Old and New-Testament was given by Divine Inspiration For the present having in the consideration of the general suppositions of this Treatise spoken before to this head I shall not need to answer particular Exceptions given in against its Authority nor do I think it incumbent on me so to do unless our Author own them for his sense which if he be pleased to do I promise him if God give me life to give him a distinct answer to every one of them and all that is contained in them Moreover these things will again occurre in his 15. Section where he expresly takes the Scripture to task as to its pleas for judging of and setling Men in the Truth Proceed we to his next Section p. 126. CHAP. VIII Use of Reason Sect. 11. THis Section is set apart for the cashiering of Reason from having any hand in the business we deal about and the truth is if our Author can perswade us first to throw away our Bibles and then to lay aside the use of our Reason I suppose there is no doubt but we shall become Roman-Catholicks This work it seems cannot be effected unless men are contented to part with Scripture and Reason all that whereby they are Christians and Men. But unless our Author have emptyed Circe's Box of Oyntment whereby she transformed Men into Swine he will confess it somewhat a difficult task that he hath undertaken Methinks one of these demands might suffice at once But he presumes he hath put his Countrey-men into a good humor and knowing them free and open-hearted he plyes them whilest they are warm We have indeed in this Section as fair a flourish of words as in any other but there can be but little reason in the words that men make use of to plead against Reason it self And yet I am perswaded most Readers think as well of this 〈◊〉 as any in the Book To whom the unâ—easonableness of this is evident that of the others is so also and those who willingly imbibe the other parts of his Discourse will little strain at this Nothing is to be trusted unto Prejudice Nor if we will learn are we to think strange of any thing Let us weigh then impartially what is of Reason in this Discourse against the use of Reason What ever he pretends he knows full well that he hath no difference with any sort of Protestants about finding out a Religion by Reason and adhereing only to its dictates in the Worship of God All the World of Protestants profess that they receive their Religion wholly by Revelation from God and no otherwise Nor is it about ascribing a Soveraignty to Reason to judge of the particulars of Religion so Revealed to accept or refuse them according as that shall judge them suitable or not to its principles and liking This is the Soveraign dictate of Reason That whatever God reveals to be believed is true and as such must be embraced though the bottom of it cannot be sounded by Reason's line and that because 〈◊〉 reason of a man is not absolutely reason but being the reason of a man is variously limitted bounded and made defective in its ratiocinations An objective
Truth our Reason supposes all that it hath to do is but to judge of what is proposed to it according to the best Principles that it hath which is all that God in that kind requires of us unless in that work wherein he intends to make us more then men that is Christians he would have us make our selves less then Men even as Brutes That in our whole obedience to God we are to use our Reason Protestants say indeed and moreover that what is not done reasonably is not Obedience The Scripture is the Rule of all our Obedience Grace the Principle enabling us to perform it but the manner of its performance must be Rational or it is not the supposition of Rule or Principle that will render any act of a man Obedience Religion say Protestants is revealed in the Scripture proposed to the minds and wills of men for its entertainment by the Ministry of the Church Grace to Believe and Obey is supernaturally from God but as to the Proposals of Religion from Scripture they averre that men ought to admit and receive them as men that is judge of the sense and meaning of them discover their truth and finding them revealed acquiesce in the Authority of him by whom they are first revealed So far as men in any things of their concernments that have a moral good or evil in them do refuse in the choice or refusal of them to exercise that judging and discerning which is the proper work of Reason they un-Man themselves and invert the order of Nature dethroning the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Soul and causing it to follow the faculties that have no light but what they receive by and from it It 's true all our carnal reasonings against Scripture-Mysteries are to be captivated to the Obedience of Faith and this is highly reasonable making only the less particular defective collections of reason give place to the more noble general and universal principles of it Nor is the denying of our reason any where required as to the sense and meaning of the words of the Scripture but as to the things and matter signified by them The former Reason must judge of if we are men the latter if in conjunction with unbelief and carnal lusts it tumultuate against it is to be subdued to the Obedience of Faith All that Protestants in the business of Religion ascribe unto men is but this that in the business of Religion they are and ought to be men that is judge of the sense and truth of what is spoken to them according to that Rule which they have received for the measure and guide of their Understandings in these things If this may not be allowed you may make a Herd of them but a Church never Let us now consider what is offered in this Section about Reason wherein the concernment of any Protestants may lye As the matter is stated about any one's setting up himself to be a new and extraordinary Director unto men in Religion upon the account of the irrefutable Reason he brings along with him which is the spring and sourse of that Religion which he tenders unto them I very much question Whether any instance can be given of any such thing from the foundation of the World Men have so set up indeed sometimes as that Good Catholick Vanine did not long since in France to draw men from all Religions but to give a new Religion unto men that this pretension was ever solely made use of I much question As true Religion came by Inspiration from God so all Authors of that which is false have pretended to Revelation Such were the pretensions of Minos Lycurgus and Nunia of old of Mahomet of late and generally of the first Founders of Religious Orders in the Roman-Church all in imitation of real Divine Revelation and in answer to indelible impressions on the minds of all men that Religion must come from God To what purpose then the first part of his Discourse about the coyning of Religion from Reason or the framing of Religion by Reason is I know not unless it be to cast a Blind before his unwary Reader whilest he steals away from him his Treasure that is his Reason as to its use in its proper place Though therefore there be many things spoken unduly and because it must be said untruly also in this first part of his Discourse until toward the end of Pag. 131. which deserve to be animadverted on yet because they are such as no sort of Protestants hath any concernment in I shall pass them over That wherein he seems to reflect any thing upon our Principles is in a supposed reply to what he had before delivered whereunto indeed it hath no respect or relation being the assertion of a Principle utterly distant from that imaginary one which he had timely set up and stoutly cast down before It is this That we must take the words from Christ and his Gospel but the proper sense which the words of themselves cannot carry with them our own reason must make out If it be the Doctrine of Protestants which he intendeth in these words it 's most disadvantagiously and uncandidly represented which becomes not an ingenious and learned person This is that which Protestants affirm Religion is Revealed in the Scripture that Revelation is delivered and contained in Propositions of Truth Of the sense of those words that carry their sense with them Reason judgeth and must do so or we are Brutes and that every ones Reason so farr as his concernment lies in what is proposed to him Neither doth this at all exclude the Ministry or Authority of the Church both which are entrusted with it by Christ to propose the Rules contained in his Word unto Rational Creatures that they may understand believe love and obey them To cast out this use of Reason with pretence of an antient sense of the words which yet we know they have not about them is as vain as any thing in this Section and that is vain enough If any such antient sense can be made out or produced that is a meaning of any Text that was known to be so from their Explication who gave that Text it is by reason to acquiesced in Neither is this to be make a man a Bishop much less a chief Bishop to himself I never heard that it was the office of a Bishop to know believe or understand for any man but for himself It is his Office indeed to instruct and teach men but they are to learn and understand for themselves and so to use their Reason in their Learning Nor doth the variableness of mens thoughts and reasonings inferr any variableness in Religion to follow whose stability and sameness depends on its first Revelation not our manner of Reception Nor doth any thing asserted by Protestants about the use of Reason in the business of Religion interfere with the rule of the Apostle about captivating our Understandings to the
will follow Was it the Popes Religion they taught and preached Did the Pope first find it out and declare it Did they baptize men into the name of the Pope or Declare that the Pope was crucified for them You know whose arguings these are to prove men should not lay weight upon or contend about the first ministerial Revealers of the Gospel but rest all in Him who is the Author of it Christ Jesus Did any come here and preach in the Popes name declare a Religion of his Revealing or resting in him as the fountain and sourse of the whole business they had to do If you say so you say something which is near to your purpose but certainly very wide from the Truth But because it is most certain that God had not promised originally to send the rod of Christs strength out of Rome I shall take leave to ask Whence the Gospel came thither or to use the words made use of once and again by our Author Came the Gospell from them or came it to them only I suppose they will not say so because they speak to men that have seen the Bible If it came to them from others what Priviledge had they at Rome that they should not have the same respect for them from whom the Gospel came to them as they claim from those unto whom they plead that it came from themselves The case is clear St. Peter coming to Rome brought his Chair along with him after which time that was made the head spring and fountain of all Religion and no such thing could befall those places where the Planters of the Gospel had no Chaires to settle I think I have read this Story in an hundred writers but they were all men of yesterday in comparison who what ever they pretend know no more of this business than my self St. Peter speaks not one word of it in his writings nor yet St. Luke nor St. Paul nor any one who by Divine inspiration committed any thing to remembrance of the state of the Church after the Resurrection of Christ. And not only are they utterly silent of this matter but so also are Clemens and Ignatius and Justin Martyr and Tertullian with the rest of knowing men in those dayes I confess in after-ages when some began to think it meet that the chiefest Apostle should go to the then chiefest City in the world divers began to speak of his going thither and of his Martyrdom there though they agree not in their Tales about it But be it so as for my part I will not contend in a matter so dark uncertain of no moment in Religion this I know that being the Apostle of the Circumcision if he did go to Rome it was to convert the Jews that were there and not to found that Gentile-Church which in a short space got the start of the other But yet neither do these Writers talk of bringing his Chair thither much less is there in them one dust of that rope of Sand which men of latter dayes have endeavoured to twist with inconsistent consequences and groundless presumptions to draw out from thence the Popes Prerogative The case then is absolutely the same as to those in respect of the Romans who received the Gospel from them or by their means and of the Romans themselves in respect of those from whom they received it If they would win worship to themselves from others by pretending that the Gospel came forth from them unto them let them teach them by the example of their devotion towards those from whom they received it I suppose they will not plead that they are not now in rerum naturâ knowing what will ensue to their disadvantage on that plea. For if that Church is utterly failed and gone from whence they first received the Gospel that which others received it from may possibly be not in a much better condition But I find my self before I was aware faln into the borders of the second Principle or Presumption mentioned I shall therefore shut up my consideration of this first Pretence with this only that neither is it true that these Nations first received Christianity from Rome much less by any mission of the Pope nor if they had done so in the Exercise of a Ministerial work and authority would this make any thing to what is pretended from it Nor will it ever be of any use to the present Romanists unless they can prove that the Pope was the first Author of Christian Religion which as yet they have not attempted to do and thence it is evident what is to be thought of the second Principle before-mentioned Namely II. That whence and from whom we first receive our Religion there and with them we must abide therein to them we must repair for Guidance and return to their Rule and Conduct if we have departed from them I have shewed already that there is no privity of Interests between us and the Romanists in this matter But suppose we had been originally instructed in Christianity by men sent from Rome to that purpose for unless we suppose this for the pâ—â—sent our talk is at an end I see not as yet the verity of this Proposition With the Truth where-ever it be or with whomsoever it is most certainly our duty to abide And if those from whom we first received our Christianity ministerially abide in the Truth we must abide with them not because they or their Predecessors were the Instruments of our Conversion but because they abide in the Truth Setting aside this Consideration of Truth which is the Bond of all Union and that which fixeth the Center and limits the bounds of it one Peoples or one Churches abiding with another in any Profession of Religion is a thing meerly indifferent When we have received the Truth from any the formal reason of our continuance with them in that union which our reception of the Truth from them gives unto us is their abiding in the Truth and no other Suppose some Persons or some Church or Churches do propagate Christianity to another and in progress of time themselves fall off from some of those Truths which they or their Predecessors had formerly delivered unto these instructed by them If our Author shall deny that such a Supposition can well be made because it never did nor can fall out I shall remove his Exception by scores of Instances out of Antiquity needless in so evident a matter to be here mentioned What in this case would be their duty who received the Gospel from them Must they abide with them follow after them and imbrace the errors they are fallen into because they first received the Gospel from them I trow not It will be found their duty to abide in the Truth and not to pin their Faith upon the sleeves of them by whom ministerially it was at first communicated unto them But this case you will say concerns not the Roman-Church and Protestants for as these
is a fair way to question another which came by the same hand and this a third till the very Authority of the first Revealer be at stake which can no more defend himself then he can his Law For the same Axe and Instrument that cut down the branches can cut up the root too and if his reverence for which all the rest was believed defend not their truth it must needs at length utterly fail in his own for all the Authority they had was purely from him and he fails in them before he falls in himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Papists or Roman-Catholicks first brought Christ and his Christianity into this Land is most untrue and I wonder how any one that hath read any story of the Times that are past should so often averre what he cannot but know to be untrue The Gospel might have been brought into England by Romans and yet not by Papists for I cannot find nor can this Gentleman shew that the Romans St. Paul wrote unto were any one of them in any one poynt Papists But neither was it brought hither by Romans but came immediately out of the East from whence also about the same time it came to Rome Nor is it any jot truer That we no sooner heard news of Christianity than Popery with its Crucifixes Monasteries Reliques Sacrifice that is the Mass and the like Apage nugas What do we talk of tother-day things when we speak of the first news of Christianity The first planting and watering of these things was in after-Ages and their growing up to that consistency wherein they may justly be called Popery a work of many Centuries And yet I shall grant that most of them got the start in the World of that Papal Soveraignty whence Popery is peculiarly denominated But the first news we hear of Christianity is in the Gospel where there is not the least tidings of these trifles nor was there in some Ages that next succeeded the publication of it If this Gentleman give any further occasion the particulars shall be evinced to him For my part I know not how nor to whom a Papist is become odious which nextly he complains of I can and do love their persons pitty them in their mistakes hate only their vices But yet certain it is a Papist may be odious that is men may not love those parts of his Religion from whence he is so denominated without the least impeachment of that faith that extirpated Gentilism in the World It is for that faith which ruined Gentilism that we contend against Papists Let us have that and no more and there is an end of all our Contests The things we strive about sprang up since Gentilism was buryed the most of them out of its grave some from a deeper place if there be a deeper place For the practical Truths of the Papists which he complains to be abolished I was in good hope he would not have mentioned them their speculations are better then their practises whether he intends their moral Divinity or their agenda in Worshâ—p I would desire this Gentleman to mention them no more lest he hear that of them which I know he is not willing to do As for the Practical Truths of the Gospel they are maintained and asserted in the Church of England and by all Protestants and about others we are not solicitous What tendency then the Rejection of Popery which had no hand in supplanting Gentilism and which is no part of the Religion of Christ hath to the leading of men into Atheism is as hard to discover as the quadrature of a Circle or a Subterranean passage into the Indies But he gives his reasons If one truth be denyed a fair way is made to question another which came by the same hand and this a third till the very Authority of the first Revealer be at stake which can no more defend himself then he can his Law This first Revealer I take to be the Lord Christ he that grants a thing or doctrine to be taught and delivered by him yet denyes it to be true doth indeed deny his Authority However he will defend himself and his Law let men do what they please But he that denyes such a thing to be truth because it is not revealed by him nor consistent with what is revealed by him doing this out of subjection of soul and conscience to his Authority is in no danger of questioning or opposing that Authority Nay be it that it be indeed a truth which he denyes being only denyed by him because he is perswaded that it is not of Christ the first Revealer and therefore not true there is no fear of the danger threatned But the matter is That all that is brought from Christ by the same hand must be equally received It is true If it be brought from Christ by the same hand it must be so not because by the same hand but because from Christ They that preached Christ and withall that men must be circumcised had put men into a sad condition if in good sooth they had been necessitated to embrace all that they taught the same men teaching Christ to be the Messias and Circumcision to be necessary to life eternal Amongst those that were converted to the Gospel by the Jews that were zealous of the Law how easie had it been for their Teachers to have utterly frustrated St. Paul's Doctrine of Christian liberty by telling them that they could not forgo Circumcision but they must forgo Christ also for all those things they received by the same hand If indeed a man comes and delivers a Systeme of Religion upon his own Authority and Reputation only he that denyes any one point of what he delivers is in a fair way of everting all that he asserts But if he come as sent from another and affirm that this other commanded him to declare that which he delivers for Truth in his Name and produce for that end his Commission wherein all the Truths that he is to deliver are written if he deliver what he hath not received in Commission that may honestly be rejected without the least impeachment of any one Truth that was really committed unto him by him that sent him And this was the way this the condition of them who planted the Gospel in the Name of Christ not being themselves divinely inspired So that if in the second Edition of Christianity in some parts of this Nation by Austine and his Associates any thing was taught or practised that was not according to the Rule and Commission given by Christ it may be rejected without the least impeachment to the Authority of the first Revealer nay his Authority being once received cannot be preserved entire without such rejection I confess I do almost mistrust that by this Revealer of Christianity and his Authority which he discourses about our Authour intends the Pope which if so what we have discoursed of Christ is I confess to