Imprimatur GVIL NEEDHAM Iuly 18. 1687. A LETTER TO A FRIEND Reflecting on some Passages in A LETTER to the D. of P. IN ANSWER TO THE Arguing Part OF HIS FIRST LETTER To Mr. G. LONDON Printed for William Rogers at the Sun over-against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-street 1687. A LETTER TO A Friend c. SIR HAVING by your favour had a sight of the late Letter in Answer to the Arguing part of the D. of P ' s. first Letter to Mr. G. I now return you it with my thanks and some Reflections on so much of it as attempts to demonstrate the Infallibility of the Romish Faith and denies the certainty of ours For whatever becomes of the Conference which gave occasion to this Letter the Contents of it thus far are of as much Concernment to You and Me and indeed to all Protestants as to that worthy Person to whom he writes it The man is you see a great pretender to Logick but you find him making much more use of his Rhetorick and indeed it is to this if to any thing that he is beholding for so much as a pretence to the other and if we feel no harm from this we need not fear that the other can hurt us You may be sure he wants no Wit whom Mr. G. intrusts to hold his Cards and play his Game too with so well known a Gamester Pardon me for using his own Language in a matter so serious I say not as his Letter but as the Subject of it His Stile is pleasant and taking enough his way of Arguing meerly popular and his Art accommodate to the design he is upon of deluding the less thinking Lastly his Câ—nfidence is such as we ought to expect in men that talk of nothing lower than Self-evidence absolute Certainty and Infallibility I wish with all my heart that his value for Souls so precious to God be really as great as he would have us think theirs is little who as he deridingly speaks set up for Ministers of the Gospel If he find any of them so regardless of their Duty as he faith they are let him freely for me spend all his Rhetorick in Exclamations against them as he has begun to do Page 5. But when he talks of every Bodies speaking for himself one day and bringing in his own account and asks if the Happiness or Misery of their Souls will not depend on that account And then expostulates with our Ministers in this manner Can you suffer them to run that terrible Hazard without making them able to justifie their accounts themselves and furnishing them with Assurance that they can and with no more to say but that they hoped Dr. St. would make his party good with Mr. G. Ibid. I am apt to think him some Convert who knows not what to say either for the Church he hath chosen or against that he hath forsaken He has heard it may be something to this purpose said against the Priests of that Church whereof he now is and not knowing what else to say nor yet how to be silent he saith the same against the Ministers of ours Because our Ministers know that every one of us must give account of himself to God therefore they not only give us leave but earnestly exhort us to read and study the Gospel of Christ whereby we must be judged which is a Liberty very rarely granted in the Church of Rome And because they know also our Happiness or Misery depends on this account we shall be able to give of our selves therefore they will not have us depend upon their Word only who are not able to acquit us in the day of Judgment as the Romanists must do upon the word of their Priests or upon nothing at all that I know of but in preaching they explain the Scripture to us are importunate with us to search it they Catechize us exhort us to confer often with them commend good Books of Instruction to us use all ways they can to make us grow in Grace and Knowledg and to enable us to give our account with joyfulness But how comes this man if he be a Roman Catholick to talk of furnishing them with assurance that they can If they may be assured that they can give up a good account may they not be assured that they have the Grace of God and of their Iustitisfication and Salvation And if so then what 's become of that Decree of the Council of Trent We must not affirm that they who are truly justified ought to conclude with themselves without any doubting at all that they are justified seeing no man can know by a certainty of Faith under which there can be no falshood that he hath obtain'd the Grace of God If no man ought or can be assured that he hath the Grace of God how are our Ministers bound to furnish us with Assurance that we can justifie our Accounts our selves Can a man justifie his accounts that is not sure he hath the Grace of God Possibly his meaning may be no more but that our Ministers give us not sufficient Assurance of the Truth of our Faith and for want of that we cannot justifie our accounts But if this be his meaning it is very untowardly expressed and after all it will be a little 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 which the Council denies that any man can have He tells us next That Truth is Truth because 't is built on intrinsecal grounds and not on private mens Abilities or their saying this or that And hence infers that Till those grounds be produced it cannot be with reason held Truth Ibid. He might as well have said more plainly What any thing is that it is whatever be the Reasons why it is so or whoever saith it is or it is not Yet can no man with Reason believe it till he have a Reason to believe it All this is true and I think every body knew it before he told us it nor is it the truer because he hath said it and therefore we have no more Reason to believe it than we had before But seeing Truth is Truth whatever private men say we think it can depend no more upon the saying of a Romish Priest than of an English Minister and therefore we think also that the Vulgar Papist at best hath less certainty of the Truth they hold than the Vulgar Protestant of the Truth we hold whilst besides the word of the Priest the former hath no grounds at all to build his Faith upon but the later hath besides the word of the Minister the Word of God in the Scripture which he may consult when he will. Moreover if we cannot with Reason hold a Truth till the intrinsecal grounds of it be produced then two things more must be true which I fear this Roman Catholick will not grant us First
That we cannot with Reason hold any thing for a Truth namely because the Church of Rome hath determined it for her determination is no intrinsecal ground of the Truth but onely an outward testimony or declaration of it and then what 's become either of her Infallibility or of her Authority to command our Faith Secondly That the Common People must be allow'd their Iudgment of Discretion for how without the free use of that they shall discern the Intrinsecal grounds of Truth when produced and so with Reason hold it I fear our Author cannot easily demonstrate which yet if he cannot do he must by his own Principles be forced to grant That the Church of Rome hath no more Infallibility or Authority than the Church of England hath she is to be believed onely when she produceth the Intrinsecal ground of Truth and not otherwise unless we must believe her without Reason and so far is the Church of England to be believed or any Church whatsoever And so this Author hath unawares I suppose set us all on even ground and I hope we may be able to maintain our ground against all that he saith hereafter for himself or against us to gain the advantage of us again First He falls upon the Certainty of the Protestant Faith which he hopes very easily to overthrow and it will be as easily done if it stand upon no surer ground than he would have it Suppose saith he Mr. G. could not prove Protestants are not certain are they therefore certain pag. 4. This he first imagines that all the certainty of our Faith is This that Papists cannot prove it to be uncertain and then 't is pretty to see what sport he makes with his own imagination But let him play on it seems time for us to be in earnest and more serious when the certainty of our Faith is struck at It is too weighty a matter to be play'd away at a game of Cards which is all he is commission'd to Yet will he make the World believe that we have thrown it away already nay he will needs make us believe it too You know well enough saith he that to prove Protestants have no Absolute certainty of their Faith is no hard task for a weak man. I say nothing yet of the word Absolute but ask how know we this Why we know any man may find it confessed to his hand by Protestants pag. 6. Who I pray are these Protestants Dr. Tillotson in his Rule of Faith pag. 117 118. I have so great a reverence for that very Excellent man that I am not unwilling though he be but one Protestant that he should pass for many and too many for all the Traditionary Catholicks to answer his Rule of Faith but his Confession that Protestants have no certainty of their Faith I must desire some good Catholick to shew me in those two Pages or in any other part of his Book when he can answer it for till then I despair of finding it We do not yet therefore see this Confession no nor he neither if he may be believed against himself some People have need of good Memories to save their Credit for pag. 23. he tells us We seem to grant we are thus Absolutely certain or Infallible by Virtue of Tradition How Confess we have no certainty and yet seem to grant we are Infallible and that too by Virtue of Tradition This is to make us right Traditionary Papists indeed whether we will or no such as Rushworth Dr. Holden Mr. Cressy and Mr. White all contending for the Infallilbility of Tradition and yet confessing that what the greatest part of Mankind must be satisfied with is Probability and Conjecture as he may find in the 120 th and following Pages of Dr. Tillotson's Rule of Faith where if he find them wrong'd he hath the liberty to vindicate them if he can Only I will here give him and his friends a seasonable warning That if any Protestant shall being now minded of it by him begin to plead Infallibility by virtue of Tradition it will behove them in time after their many shiftings from Post to Post to seek them out yet a new one for when both Parties pretend a like to Infallibility and Tradition neither of these can be any longer a sit Medium whereby to prove which is in the right It is agreed as he saith well on all hands Men are saved by believing and practising what Christ taught not barely by believing Scripture is Scripture Page 7. And 't is as true which he tells us Page 8. Where Churches differ in Faith infallible Faith in one cannot stand with certain Faith in the other Whence he may do well to take notice that when our certainty is once proved no more is needful to confute their Infallibility Now the Question is saith he Whether Protestants are absolutely certain that they hold now the same Tenets in Faith and all that our Saviour taught his Apostles Page 6. Which Question in that Challenge of his Page 22. is thus explained Make manifest that Protestants have absolute certainty not only of the Scripture which they call their Rule but of the Faith which they pretend to have from that Rule or else suffer another thing to be manifest viz. That you cannot do it and thither I am sure it will come The Proof he often tells us is our part and though he be so confident that we cannot make it good yet are we not afraid to undertake it even all that he here calls upon us to prove leaving out the word Absolutely till he tell us what is meant by it as he will do anon The certainty that we have of the Holy Scripture which we acknowledg to be our Rule of Faith we manifest after the same manner as they do theirs except only that we ground it not on the Infallibility of their Church and yet if that will do us any good we have it too confirming our certainty But so much certainty he yields us only he asks Did our Saviour teach and do Protestants believe no more than that the Book so call'd is Scripture Page 6. Yes tho I do not find that our Saviour ever taught that the Book so called is Scripture one great part whereof was not written when he taught yet do we believe that it is Scripture and Divine Scripture ' the Word of God containing in it all things necessary to Salvation and that all things therein contain'd are true Now this being granted us that our Scripture is God's Word we think that we do sufficiently prove the certainty of every Article of our Faith when we shew it to be solidly grounded on that Word and this being shewn our Faith is either certain or they who deny it to be so must affirm the Word of God on which it is wholly grounded to be no good ground of Certainty Neither indeed can these men deny the certainty of our Faith without denying that of their own too so
far as it is the same with ours as indeed it is in all our necessary Articles ours being no other but those in the Creeds which are as well theirs as ours Thus far then we have often proved the certainty of our Faith and if he require it will be ready to do it again But this he knows well enough and therefore would set us a harder task but it is by all Laws of Disputation in our choice whether we will accept of it or no. Two things more he will have us prove First That we are Absolutely certain of all this And Secondly Not only this but of all that more which our Saviour taught his Apostles But that we are not obliged to prove either of these things we are at least as sure as he is that we cannot and that I will confess to him is sure enough taking his words in his own sense For first he tells us Pag. 23. The profession of Absolute certainty makes a fair approach towards the Doctrine of Infallibility or rather 't is the self same with it And again in the same Page he makes Absolutely certain and Infallible all one thing When therefore he can meet with Protestants that Profess themselves absolutely certain in his sense that is Infallible 't is fit he should call upon them as we do on Roman Catholicks to prove all is their due which they as absurdly as presumptuously arrogate to themselves But whilst he has to do with Protestants of the Church of England who are of a modester disposition let him not put them to the Blush for him by telling them 't is their duty to prove themselves to be as much wiser than they know themselves to be as the Church of Rome thinks her self wiser than all other Churches And truly the next part of his demand is as unreasonable as this to bid us prove that we are absolutely certain of All that Christ taught his Apostles We are certain as was said of that which Christ and his Apostles have taught us in the Holy Scripture writ on purpose to inform us of what they taught and this we have reason to think enough and all that we are bound to be certain of because we cannot imagine if they writ not all that we are bound to know and believe why they were at the pains to write so much for if it be as these men tell us that to believe but a part is as damnable as to believe nothing they had as good have writ nothing as not the whole that we must believe A few lines more might have instructed us in that all more which 't is said we should certainly believe or a few words might have directed us to the Infallible Church to learn it Were those good men so scanted of time or sparing of pains that they could not afford us this all more especially whilst they spend so much of both in writing largely things supposed by all not Absolutely necessary And did the Primitive Church also grudge her Children the full knowledge of this all that Christ and his Apostles taught as the necessary Faith of Christians We do not find in any of the ancient Creeds one branch of this all more which the Trent Council so lately taught and commanded by vertue of Tradition To say no more we have certainty of all that is taught us in Scripture and we know of no more that Christ and his Apostles taught us The Papists say there is more and we are bound to believe it cannot now this Gentleman see by his own Rules of Disputation that he and his Brethren ought to bear their own burden the proof of all this more that he would have us say we are certain of You see I hope by this time that we decline no proof that is incumbent upon us We prove the Scripture to be the Word of God we prove every Article of our Faith by the Scripture and thus we prove we have sufficient certainty of our whole Faith. Our Rule being certain the Faith which agrees with it is certain too If there be any thing more that it is supposed Christ taught and Christians must believe he that affirms it is obliged to prove it or no longer to quarrel with those who know nothing of it Well I perceive this Author has a mind to shew what he can do to prove we have no certainty of our Faith in kindness to us I suppose that he may ease us of the mpossible task as he accunts it of proving that we have And he has done it unanswerably it we will believe him I declare openly saith he that you cannot answer this Discourse However we will try and we have some reason for it seeing he tells us it nearly toucheth our Copyhold which he may well believe we have no mind to part with We have it thus Pag. 30 31. I. God hath left us some Way to know surely what Christ and his Apostles taught This is a certain truth what is then the inference from it II. Therefore this Way must be such that they who take it shall arrive by it at the end it was intended for that is to know surely what Christ and his Apostles taught Alas what dallying is here Who is the wiser for this inference Or who knows one jot the more by it than he did by the Antecedent If God hath left us a Way to know then by that Way we may know If such be his Inferences that he here engageth to make good he needs not fear to make good his engagement tho' his Inference be good for nothing But his next may be better Let us hear it III. Scripture's Letter interpretable by Private Iudgments is not that Way Who doth the man here dispute against Our Doctrine is that The Scripture only is the Rule of Faith or The Scripture contains all things necessary to Salvatiâ—n I suppose it is against us that he would be thought to dispute in this unanswerable Discourse and why doth he not in terms contradict our Doctrine saying The Scripture only is not the Rule of Faith or the Scripture contains not all things necessary to Salvation If because he had in his Proposition used Way for Rule which is very indifferent to us he ought in his Assumption also to use the same word yet why saith he not Scripture only but Scripture's Letter And why more yet Scripture's Letter interpreted by private Iudgments All this packing of the Cards is not for nothing However let us deal fairly and above-board If then by Scripture's Letter he mean as some of his Friends do unsensed Characters I confess Scripture's Letter cannot be the Rule or Way to know But such insignificant things we are unacquainted with in the Holy Scripture which we own if there be any such in his it will lose nothing by throwing them out Yet if he can think it reasonable to allow as much to the Scripture which is a Letter from the infallible God to Men as he expects
unless they did forget what they held the day before or out of malice alter it Our Authour undertakes to make this out more clearly and therefore we will hear what he saith for our better information page 18. He asks Did Christ teach any error and he may be confident we will say He did not Then it follows When a Father believ'd what Christ taught him and the Son what the Father believ'd did not the Son too believe what Christ taught No doubt of it but he did Run it on then saith he to the last Son that shall be born in the World must not every one believe what Christ taught if every one believe what his Father believed It is certain he must And will you then saith he go about to perswade us that there actually is a company of men in the World who adhered to this Rule all Sons believing always as their Fathers did whereof the first believed as Christ taught and who notwithstanding erred in matters of Faith No he may be sure on 't we will never be so unreasonable except he can first perswade us to enter into the Roman Communion where we must lay by our Reason and renounce our Private Iudgments and then I know not what absurd things we may be brought to do Were it not very easie here for a man of less rediculing Wit than he triumphs in to make as fine Sport with his Non obstante here as he doth with another page 33 and could do I doubt not with two more which he knows of in the Councils of Constance and Trent But I leave him to sport alone We will grant him it is impossible to prove That men have erred notwithstanding they never erred and let him if he please note it in his Almanack amongst his Self-evidents But notwithstanding I would not have him want this word to play with I say notwithstanding all he hath here said one little thing is yet to be proved viz. That these Traditionary Christians adhere undecliningly to an unquestionable Tradition descending really and unvariably from Christ and his Apostles and could not possibly do otherwise that is That they never either did or could err from the Faith first taught for this is but supposed hitherto and from this self-evident supposition for it is as evident saith he as that Traditionary Christians are Traditionary Christians he necessarily concludes thus Suppose Traditionary Christians neither did nor could err it is certain they neither did nor could err Make what you can more of it There be two things which if they be incident to men may as is already confessed cause an innovation or alteration in Faith Forgetfulness and Malice But our Authour hopes we can have no advantage by pleading either of these in barre to the Infallibility of Tradition You do not I suppose desire saith he that we should prove that men had always Memories or that Christians were never malicious enough to damn themselves and their posterity wittingly and yet it can stick no where else page 32. Yet were there no danger of men's forgetting what had been taught it is hard to say why the Penmen of the Scripture should have been at the needless pains to write it Nay St. Peter himself if men's Memories be always so faithful seem'd to be too forgetful of this with so much diligence as he expresseth to Endeavour that they might be able after his decease to have these things always in remembrance 2 Pet. 1.15 And that by giving them unto them in Writing And if such Malice as he talks of can never possibly be found amongst Christians or men professing themselves so to damn themselves and Posterity wittingly I would fain have him tell us how it comes to pass that we find at this day among such Christians so many thousands by wickedness of all sorts hastning to damnation themselves and taking as little care to provide any better for their Children May not Christians through Malice and Wickedness be as careless of preserving the Faith as of maintaining Holiness in themselves or their Posterity when they know that Sin is as damnable as Error Again supposing neither Forgetfulness nor Malice enough to spoil the Rule of Tradition What if all Sons did not understand aright all that Fathers had taught them Is not this as possible as for some not to understand aright what Christ and his Apostles taught them And such there were amongst their hearers What if some Sons were so negligent as to take no care either to remember or teach what they had been taught by their Fathers Have we not daily experience of such careless persons who yet want neither understanding nor Memory What if some through Ambition Vain-glory and Popularity set abroach new Doctrines and taught them for Apostolical Traditions What if others to save themselves from Persecution concealed part and corrupted more of the Doctrine of Christ by their own Traditions taken not from Christ but from their forefathers Iews or Gentiles And to say no more What if some through a blind zeal ignorant devotion superstitious rigour and vain credulity added many things to the doctrine of Christ which by degrees grew into more general esteem till at last they were own'd and imposed as necessary to be believed and practiced What iâ— Error any of these ways brought forth grew multiplied spread obtain'd most power and drove out all that held the naked truth out of all those Countries where it came Because Instances brought by us are unwelcome to this Gentleman I will leave him to furnish himself with them out of all Histories But now he will I suppose betake himself again to his only Refuge That when any of these fell into Error they left their Rule Tradition I long saith he to hear it made out That an erring Church can still plead Tradition and adhere to it p. 18. For that a Church may follow Tradition at one time and leave it at another is no news p. 15. If this be no news then though we should grant Tradition to be an Infallible conveyance of the Truth yet would it not make even that Church which now adheres to it to be Infallible and therefore the Church of Rome though we should confess her at present to adhere to Infallible Tradition could not prove her self thereby to be Infallible That Church onely is Infallible which cannot err The Church that at one time follows Tradition may leave it at another and so doing errs Therefore if the Church of Rome be Infallible she must prove not only that she follows Tradition for so she proves only that she doth not err but also that she cannot leave it for Infallibility excludes all possibility of erring by leaving Tradition She must therefore seek out a new Medium to prove her self Infallible For hitherto according to his own way of reasoning she has but the same priviledge that all Churches have not to err so long as she holds to Tradition and doth not leave it Yet