when they are proposed and according to the Evidence so we are to believe and so only we can And yet we do not say as this Writer words it That Every one is only Bound to believe what is clear to him in Scripture For the Obligation to believe doth not depend upon his Understanding but the Authority of the Revelation his want of understanding may be taken as an excuse for his want of Faith but doth not diminish his obligation to believe 3. No man shall answer for what he had not a power to do and if he wants the Means or fails of the End in a due use of those Means it shall not be imputed to him John 15.22 If I had not come and spoken unto them they had not had sin I do not question but as he that is truly sincere would believe if he was able and could see into the strength of evidence for it so that this ingenuous disposition of mind will be a reason for Almighty God to give him that Faith which is necessary or to pardon the want of it and if I was to chuse I had rather be sincere and err in a Matter of Faith than believe upon the full Conviction of the Truth and yet not be sincere in the pâ—ofession of it being sensible that what is involuntary is a less sin than what is voluntary and that I shall suffer less for a fault in my Understanding which I could not help than for a fault in my Will which I might Therefore let a person first learn Sincerity and Humility and read the Scripture sincerely and with Humility and then he will be sure to find all Truths necessary to Salvation so clearly and sufficiently expressed therein that he will be thereby convinced of it or if he fail in it he may be sure his Sincerity and Humility will do more through the Grace and Mercy of God in Christ to save him than the want of a Belief of some things otherwise necessary can do to damn him Put the Case I have recourse as by these I have to Church Guides and they tell me I must believe those Mysteries Is it necessary I believe these Guides If it be then Scripture alone is not clear in Necessaries to Salvation for here I am obliged to believe what is not clear to me in Scripture Again am I bound to keep holy Sunday tho I find no Precept for it in Scripture and not Saturday tho I find an express Command for it no-where Abregated in Scripture because my Guides tell me I must do so If I must then Guides are necessary to Salvation and Scripture alone without them is not sufficient Be pleased to own this Proposition Scripture alone is not sufficient without Guides to Interpret it If notwithstanding my Guides I am not bound to believe either Trinity or Incarnation or observe Sunday then I must beg of you to warrant with your Authority these words I am not bound to keep holy the Lord's-Day or Sunday tho the Guides of the Church tell me I must if I cannnot find it clearly in Scripture But you tell me That Necessaries to Salvation are either clear in Scripture or evidently deduced out of Scripture Very well Assign then these Necessaries and deduce them out of Scripture shew the Verse and Chapter from whence is evidently deduced an Obligation to keep holy Sunday and not Saturday Again the Evidence of that Deduction is either had immediately from the meer reading of Scripture without help of Guides and then I desire to see the Places from whence these Necessaries are evidently inferr'd or it cannot be had but by the help of Guides and then the Scripture alone is not sufficient What he here saith concerning Church-Guides and Deductions from Scripture has been before in good part prevented and shall have a farther Reply But I cannot but observe before I proceed how our Author doth all along rather design to amuse his Reader than to come to the Point of which there is not a Paragraph but is an Evidence As for Instance 1. He thus argues If all things necessary to Salvation are contained in Scripture then they are either clearly contained in it so that there is no need of an Interpreter for the meaning of the words or not p. 1. Now he cannot but know that an Interpreter for the meaning of the words is no more denied by us than it is sufficient for them without he understands more by Meaning of the Words than he cared his Reader should at first perceive 2. He argues again Put the case I have recourse to Church-Guides and they tell me I must believe those Mysteries is it Necessary I believe those Guides Am I bound because my Guides tell me I must do so Now he knows that such Guides as it 's necessary to believe are the Guides they indeed would have but we deny 3. He proceeds The evidence of the Deduction is either had immediately from the mere reading of Scripture without help of Guides or c. Now who ever said that all Necessaries are to be learned by all persons by the mere reading of Scripture without the use of Means such as Attention Consideration Prayer Interpreters and Guides 4. He then infers fallaciously Or it cannot be had but by the help of Guides and then the Scripture alone is not sufficient For when the Scripture alone is said to be sufficient it 's meant so as to contain all things necessary to Salvation it 's sufficient as a Rule for all things belonging to Faith and Manners so as to exclude the Necessity of any other Rule of that kind But it 's not so alone sufficient as to exclude all Means by which it 's to be understood 5. He farther conceals himself when after he had applied the case to Church-Guides as if he would be understood of private and ordinary Teachers in the Church he at last lodges it in the bosom of some stated and universal Infallible and unerring Guide as in the next Question Secondly But if all Necssaries to Salvation be not clear enough in Scripture to be understood without an Interpreter then it will be necessary to know who and where the Interpreter is If you remit me to the Decision of the true Church it will be necessary to know whiâ—h is that Church If you tell me all Christian Churches joined together then it follows that I am bound to believe nothing but what all Christians agree in for what they disagree in cannot be the Sentiment or Decision of the whole Church but only of a part of it I am not then obliged to believe the Trinity for the Arians tho Christians deny it I am not obliged to believe the Incarnation for many Christians deny that Christ was God made Man by a strict Incarnation but only by a Moral Vnion that is he was a Man who had the Authority of God as his Plenipotentiary and the like Now then let me know on what
to have a real but a phantastic Body And the Ministers of the Church of England notwithstanding the denial of his learned Men do yet maintain the Incarnation of our blessed Saviour to be evidently delivered in the words The word was not is as he mistakes made Flesh. For who was the Word but he that is called God ver 1. that made all things ver 3. And what was his being made Flesh but his being made of the Seed of David Rom. 1.3 And how was he made Flesh but by being united to it and becoming Man Now if the Word that was God was the Word and not Man before he was made Flesh and when he was made Flesh did not cease to be the Word then there must be in him two Natures united which is the Incarnation His 3 d Instance is as he saith in order to Practice and the Query upon it is Then in order to Practice I desire to know whether it be necessary to Salvation to keep holy the Lord's-Day that is Sunday and not Saturday If it be I desire to know in what Chapter and Verse it is clearly contained in Scripture as also where the Abrogation of the Saturday is clearly expressed If it be not necessary for Salvation to keep holy the Lord's-Day I desire your warrant for it in these or the like terms It is not necessary to keep holy the Lord's-Day that is Sunday To this I answer That the obligation to observe the Lord's-Day is more or less necessary or unnecessary according to the Institution of it for such as the Institution is such is the Obligation If it be of mere Humane and Ecclesiastical institution it may by the same Authority be altered as it was established If of Divine Institution it 's not subject to humane arbitration And if it be of Divine Institution we must have it by the Revelation in Scripture or else it cannot be Divine And that it 's established upon such Authority I shall offer these considerations 1. There is as much in the Reason of the thing for this peculiar Day to be observed in the Christian Church as there was for the Sabbath in the Patriarchal and Jewish Church for what the Moral Sabbath was to Man upon his Creation and the Ceremonial Sabbath was to the Jews upon their Deliverance out of Egypt Deut. 5.15 that is the First Day of tâ—â— Week or the Lord's Day to Christians upon our Redemption by Christ which was accomplished and testified in his Resurrection on that Day 2. There is the Mark of Divine Institution set upon it when that which was otherwise called the first Day of the week was afterwards called the Lord's Day Rev. 1.10 It being usual in Scripture after that Times Places Things and Persons were set apart for the Service of God by Divine Institution to have his Name as a Mark of Propriety given to them Thus we read of the Lord 's Passover Exod. 12.11 The Sabbath of the Lord Exod. 20.10 The Temple of the Lord. The Lord's Sâ—pper 1 Cor. 11.20 Now I know not what Reason can be assigned that when the Things thus dignified by this Title are elsewhere of Divine Institution and so named because of that Institution that this Day should be called the Lord's Day and not be of Divine but Humane Institution 3. We may observe further That as the New World of Redemption began upon that Day so upon the same Day did Christ solemnly consecrate the Christian Church by the Descent of the Holy-Ghost upon the Apostles Acts 2.1 2. as of old the Jewish Church was by a Cloud or Divine Appearance Exod. 40.34 1 Kings 8.10 11. which they had the Promise of and until which they were not to depart from Jerusalem and to enter upon the work of gathering a Church Acts 1.4 4. It was the Day which the Primitive Christians in the Apostolical times held their stated Assemblies upon for Divine Worship as appears Acts 20.7 1 Cor. 16.2 This may suffice for the first branch of his Query I desire to know in what Chapter and Verse it is clearly contained in Scripture His next is Where the Abrogation of the Saturday he means the Sabbath is clearly expressed I may answer him it 's in the same Chapter and Verse where the Abrogation of Circumcision is clearly expressed And when he can find out Chapter and Verse for the one I will undertake to shew him Chapter and Verse for the other Indeed there was no need of an express Abrogation of either For Baptism being instituted by Christ as a means of Initiation into his Church Circumcision that was the old way of admission must fall in course because the one was inconsistent with the other So the Lord's Day being set a-part for the publick and solemn Worship of God in the Christian Church the Sabbath that was before appointed for it must in reason surrender to it So the Apostle Col. 2.16 17. Let no man judge you in meat or drink or in respect of an holy-day or of new-moons or of thâ— sabbath days which are a shadow of things to come but the body is of Christ. Where the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tho in the plural signifies the Seventh day or Jewish Sabbath as it doth Matt. 25.10 12. and for the most part in the New-Testament And which being a shadow as well as Meats and Drinks Holy-days and New-Moons was with those and for the same reasons to cease by the coming of Christ. Now as the Institution of Baptism abrogated Circumcision and the Lord's Day abrogated the Sabbath so we may certainly infer that if the Sabbath was a shadow and abrogated as such which the Apostle here asserts that there was some other day instituted in the place of it these things mutually inferring each other and what that day is I may leave to our Author's guess without again going to Chapter and Verse If you say that everyone is only bound to believe what is clear to him in Scripture reading it with Sincerity and Humility then I must desire to know What if I reading Scripture Sincerely and with Humility cannot find clearly expressed either the Trinity or Incarnation will it not be necessary for the Salvation of my Soul to believe these two Mysteries I Answer 1. Sincerity and Humility do imply the due use of all the means a person hath in possession for the finding out the Truth such as diligent reading the Word of God Prayers and Consultation with such as are most able and fit to assist him And where this temper is and this course is taken there will never be wanting what is necessary John 7.17 If any man will do his will he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God or whether I speak of my self 2. No man can believe but according to the motives of credibility and the reasons he hath for his Faith. An obligation lies upon all to believe all things necessary to Salvation but that is
all Christians agree and let me have your Warrant that I am bound to believe neither the Trinity nor Incarnation nor any thing wherein all Christians do not agree Now if you tell me I am obliged to stand to the Determination of one particular Church or some and not all tell me which and why that or those more than others What Church for Example were particular Persons bound to follow Two hundred years ago before the Reformation Our Author at first put the Question Whether all things necessary to Salvation are contained in Scripture And upon this he argues If they be then they are either clearly contained in it so that there is no need of an Interpreter for the meaning of them or not If the Addresser could have gained the first Point That all necessaries are not contained in Scripture then the Case lay fair before him and it would follow as he supposes that there must be some external and speaking Authority from whence those Necessaries not contained in Scripture are to be received and where they are to be fought This is a Case he puts to the Question If not where must I seek them But there he leaves it Indeed it was a tender Point because of late they would have us believe that they have Scripture for what they differ from us in and then to talk of Necessaries not to be found in Scripture and to instance in those Necessaries would be to give up that Cause which they have so much laboured to support in that way and to tell the World that the Church of Rome is the Treasurer of all those Necessaries is a Doctrine not so suitable to the Genius of the present Age as it was to others heretofore But if that would not be yielded That all Necessaries are not contained in Scripture he then puts in with a Second That they are not so Clearly contained in it as not to need an Interpreter and if this be yielded he would in his own opinion save his Cause for then he concludes there must be some Guide and Interpreter and it will be necessary to know who and where the Interpreter is Now if we may guess what kind of Interpreter or Guide it is that he would have it 's one that is necessary for all to believe and whose Interpretation all are obliged to receive a Guide that is a Judg and whose Judgment is absolute final and conclusive into which all is to be resolved and from which there is no appeal that is to teach all Necessaries to Salvation not contained in Scripture and to interpret the meaning of those that are without which we cannot know whether there be a Trinity or our Saviour was Incarnate and upon whose determination all the Articles of our Faith do depend for their declaration Here the Case is immutably fixed says our Author I must believe it 's necessary to believe I am obliged to believe and am bound to follow as he puts the Case But now we that are for Ministerial Guides and Interpreters that are appointed by God for the teaching his Church and whose Office it is to teach them so as they may understand and judg for themselves know nothing of such a Guide as he would introduce upon us and we have reason to be cautious when we find both the Apostle declaring against it 2 Cor. 1.24 Not for that we have dominion over your Faith but are helpers and our Saviour warning us against such an Imposition Matth. 23.8 9 10. Call no man master on earth for one is your master It 's his Prerogative alone to challenge such an absolute submission from us and it 's a gross Usurpation in any other to claim and assume it So that we may leave our Author to find out Who and where the Interpreter is for we own no such Guide or Interpreter as he would impose upon us whether he means by it any particular Church or any part or Society of that Church or indeed any humane Authority whatsoever And when he or his Partizans think it worth the while to undertake the proof of it and shall as clearly prove it as the Trinity and Incarnation are from Scripture we that profess the latter and are as sincerely desirous of finding out the Truth as he can be do promise him to own the former and for this Reason and that they may have a fair occasion offered to try their skill upon it I shall put the Case a little forward I am sensible our Author would take it in good part to have it granted that all things necessary to Salvation are not contained in Scripture and to have it brought to his first Question If so where must I seek them Or that They are not clear enough in Scripture without an Interpreter that at least the next Question may be brought on Who and where the Interpreter is And therefore to gratifie him as much as I can I shall for the present suppose that all things necessary are not in Scripture and then in his order and words I ask What those necessaries to Salvation are that are not contained in Scripture and where each of them may be found Now he that supposes this must proceed upon the Principles of the Church of Rome since no Church besides that I know of is of this mind And whither may we expect to be directed so soon as to the Creed of Pope Pius IV. which contains the chief of those Doctrines they differ from other Churches in and which are made as necessary to be received and believed as the Articles of the Nicene Creed being by that Pope's Authority in consequence of the Order of the Council of Trent incorporated into one and the same Profession of Faith. By which means they are forced upon one of these two Difficulties either to prove their new-coined Articles by Scripture as well as those of the Nicene Creed or to show that the Articles of the Nicene Creed are no more to be proved from Scripture without Tradition and the Churches Explication than those of Pope Pius The former they are never able to do and all their attempts that way have proved vain and unsuccessful and therefore they have taken several ways for the latter sometimes detracting from the Sufficiency or Perspicuity of Scripture at other times exalting Tradition and Church-Authority to an equality with it For since all these Points are made by this means equally necessary to Salvation and since it 's as necessary to believe on pain of Damnation That the Church of Rome is the Mother and Mistress of all Churches and that the Body and Blood of Christ are truly really and substantially together with his Soul and Divinity in the Sacrament and the whole Substance of the Bread is turned into the Body and the whole Substance of the Wine into his Blood c. Since it 's as necessary to believe this as the Being of a God the Trinity and Incarnation of our Blessed Saviour and that they
here is a different use of the same Word and if in our Author's way of Arguing a different use of the same word will render us uncapable of attaining the sense contained in these words it would be to little purpose to read the word without an Infallible Assistant always at hand to explain it clearly and certainly to us So that if there be no better way to end the many Controversies of this Age than what he calls the only and surest way they are likely to continue for his time And if their Church has no surer way to bring the Case to an issue than this of exposing Christianity to save themselves they will as soon make men to quit all Religion as that which they have to be of theirs of which they cannot be but by subverting those Principles upon which the best Religion in the World the Christian is supported Here I might have concluded but our Author may take it ill if after I have traced him from Paragraph to Paragraph I should leave out his pathetical Conclusion which is as follows I conceive an Answer to these Doubts absolutely necessary for the Salvation of my Soul. For how can I be saved if I know not what is necessary thereunto I need not say a satisfactory one for no other can flow from your Learned and virtuous Pens I only fear that some Pin-feather'd Divine out of an itch to appear in Print may prevent yours and put me off with a Flim-flam or an uncharitable Jeer or Railing against some particular Church he may fancy me to be of which is nothing to my purpose who seek where I may find securely Necessaries to Salvation not where I cannot find them This would be also prejudicial to the Church of England for when Men see Doubts so sincerely and submissively Proposed Answered only with Jeers Railing and Invectives or omitted and let pass as not deserving an Answer they must needs doubt of the Learning ae well as of the Virtue and Charity of their Leaders Now were the Satisfaction I here desire intended for myself alone it might have seemed more proper to have made my Address in particular to some one of your Reverend and Learned Body but forasmuch as it concerns so many others and as I perswade my self will prove extremely beneficial to Religion it being the surest nay only way to end the many Controversies of this Age I am forced to desire of you whose high Character obliges you to a Zeal of Souls a publick and withal a speedy Answer by which you will highly oblige SIRS Yours ever LONDON Printed for Randall Taylor 1688. Our Author has too plainly discovered himself and had reason to suppose his Reader might well fancy him to be of some particular Church and he may as well expect to receive a due Correction for this his Dissimulation that pretends to be in doubt and yet to be in a Church as he supposes Infallible that pretends the Answer to these Doubts absolutely necessary for the Salvation of his Soul and yet is of a Church in which he is judged to hazard his Soul if he doth but doubt that Presents An Address to the Ministers of the Church of England to resolve his Doubts and yet has a Guide of his own whom it's necessary to believe and whom he is bound to follow that pretends to be sincerely desirous of finding out the Truth and doth all he can to involve it Lastly that brings these very Doubts to the Ministers of the Church of England that have been of late so frequently answered by them to the Confutation tho it seems not altogether to the Silencing of their Adversaries I will direct him to the Books and I hope by way of Courtesie he will in his next direct us to the Answers that have been since returned to them The Peoples Right to Read the Holy Scripture in Answer to the Representer A Discourse concerning a Guide A Vindication of the Answer to some late Papers Page 40 c. An Answer to a late Dialogue between a New Catholick Convert and a Protestant to prove the Mystery of the Trinity c. The Doctrine of the Trinity and Transubstantiation compared c. in 2 parts An Answer to the Request to Protestants to produce plain Scriptures c. With the Vindication of it called A Short Summary of the principal Controversies An Answer to a Book Entituled Reason and Authority Page 1 2 c. The Difference betwixt the Protestant and Socinian Methods in Answer to the Potestant's Plea for a Socinian All these Books with several others to the same purpurpose were Printed the last year and if our Author had consulted them as he ought and had as sincerely read them as he pretends to propose his doubts whatever his Confidence might I am apt to think his Conscience would not have found any just occasion to have made this Address nor needed Another to Answer it But it seems nothing less will satisfy our Author than an Answer from the Ministers of the Church of England It 's not a particular person that he conceives sufficiently qualified to undertake his Case and to rescue his Soul which he is so solicitous to save out of this danger and to instruct him in this weighty Affair But it is their Reverend and Learned Body as he fleeringly stiles them that he presents his Address to from whom he expects a Publick and withal a Speedy Answer He writes as if they were now in Convocation or that they were all obliged through the Two Provinces forthwith to assemble about this important Case and by one Solemn Act of theirs to return an Answer to these Doubts which is absolutely necessary for the Salvation of his Soul. But because it 's now not a season for this purpose and 't will be too long to stay till the days grow longer and the ways better I thought I might as well presume to try what might be done by a private hand and he might as well accept of it as he might Present an Address to the Ministers of the Church of England in behalf of himself and others and at last subscribe in his own name with a Sirs Yours ever FINIS Books lately Printed for Richard Chiswell A Discourse of the Holy Eucharist in the two great Points of the Real Presence and the Adoration of the Host in Answer to the Two Discourses lately Printed at Oxford on this Subject To which is prefixed a large Historical Preface relating to the same Argument Two Discourses Of Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead The Fifteen Notes of the Church as laid down by Cardinal Bellarmin examined and confuted 4 0. With a Table to the Whole Preparation for Death Being a Letter sent to a young Gentlewoman in France in a dangerous Distemper of which she died By W. Wake M. A 120. The Difference between the Church of England and the Church of Rome in opposition to a late Book Intituled An Agreement between the Church of England and Church of Rome A Private Prayer to be used in difficult Times A True Account of a Conference held about Religion at London Sept. 29. 1687. between A. Pulton Jesuit and Th. Tenison D. D. as also of that which led to it and followed after it 4 0. The Vindication of A Cressener Schoolmaster in Long-Acre from the Aspersions of A. Pulton Jesuit Schoolmaster in the Savoy together with some Account of his Discourse with Mr. Meredith A Discourse shewing that Protestants are on the safer Side notwithstanding the uncharitable Judgment of thier Adversaries and that Their Religion is the surest Way to Heaven 4 0. Six Conferences concerning the Eucharist wherein is shewed that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation overthrows the Proofs of Christian Religion A Discourse concerning the pretended Sacrament of Extreme Vnction with an Account of the Occasions and Beginnings of it in the Western Church In Three Parts With a Letter to the Vindicator of the Bishop of Condom The Pamphlet entituled Speculum Ecclesiasticum or an Ecclesiastical Prospective-Glass considered in its False Reasonings and Quotations There are added by way of Preface two further Answers the First to the Defender of the Speculum the Second to the Half-sheet against the Six Conferences A Second Defence of the Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England against the new Exceptions of Mons. de Meaux late Bishop of Condom and his Vindicator The FIRST PART In which the Account that has been given of the Bishop of Meaux's Exposition is fully Vindicated the Distinction of Old and New Popery Historically asserted and the Doctrine of the Church of Rome in Point of Image-worship more particularly considered 4 0. A Second Defence of the Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England against the New Exceptions of Mons. de Meaux late Bishop of Condom and his Vindicator The SECOND PART The Incurable Scepticism of the Church of Rome By the Author of the Six Conferences concerning the Eucharist 4 0. Mr. Pulton Considered in his Sincerity Reasonings Authorities Or a Just Answer to what he hath hitherto published in his True Account his True and Full Account of a Conference c. His Remarks and in them his pretended Confutation of what he calls Dr. T 's Rule of Faith. By Th. Tenison D. D. A Full View of the Doctrines and Practices of the Ancient Church relating to the Eucharist wholly different from those of the Present Roman Church and inconsistent with the belief of Transubstantiation Being a sufficient Confutation of Consensus Veterum Nubes Testium and other late Collections of the Fathers pretendâ—ng to the Contrary 40 An Answer to the Representer's Reflections upon the State and View of the Address Answer Address Answer De Doctr. Christ. l. 2. c. 9. Sum. Part 3. Tit. 18. c. 3. ff 3. White 's Way to the true Church Sect. 8. N. 2. Enarrat in ps 8. In John 1.1 c. 4. Homil. 1. in Math Hom. 3 de Laz. Address Answer Address Answer Address Answer Q. 4. Address Answer Address Answer Address Answer Address