commanded as agreeable to Truth and most conducible to his Honour and to the bond of Peace among men I hope this may convince any one who acknowledges Divine Revelation As to your subsequent Objection concerning the uncertainty in the interpretation of Scripture the Catholique Church declares that the Essentials of Faith and all things of necessary obedience are set down positively and plainly enough in the Scriptures for the understanding of all such who diligently observe them and make a right use of those aides which God hath prepared for that end Consistent with this also is our Divines asserting a literal and typical sence from a simple and a compound signification of the same Text This latter is applicable to the Types and Sacraments in the Old Testament which as they were of present use in the Worship of the Jews so it cannot be denyed but that they had a prospect and a reference to the coming of our Saviour And the same Text also may contain in it an Analogical Sence in relation to another and all this according to the intent of the Spirit of Unity that penned them which the same Divines will tell you hath ever been accounted the best medium to comprehend and preserve the harmony of Holy Writ Your next is such an Argument as was never heard of before I say that the Commands of God concerning Religion are equally obeyed and fulfilled by all the various kinds of obedience which the Consciences of men conceive themselves bound to pay unto them how erroneous or senceless soever for so your Assertion ought to be understood as if nonsence and error were as agreeable to his Divine Will and Pleasure as what is Right and the Truth Thus while your natural Guide bids defiance to all Authority of others it sets up its own and most stupidly out-faces God's own Declarations In the next place you would deduce from the Suns melting the Wax and hardning the Mud that Faith is properly one though according to the divers receptions of it it produceth not only divers but contrary effects That is that the same Faith may be the Cause of Godliness and Profaneness Piety and Irreligion of the true Worship and Idolatry the owning of one God and Polutheism and Atheism for all these lie couched under that futilous Sophism of contrary effects and your suitable similitude of a hard and soft temper but I hope I shall not need to Advertise any Reader that these inconsistent Notions are the effects of your new Humane Reason Page 40 41 42 43. you Phantastically accumulate inveighing Similitudes against too austere and uncharitable censuring of Members infirm or weak in matters of Faith but as they are altogether unapplicable to the Methods and Tenents of our Church as hath been made evident so neither are they in the least available for the defence of your Doctrine which by an extream on the other hand much more mischievous and destructive to all Order in Religion doth not admit of any Censures at all Page 44 45. How ever others as you guess with probability enough may accuse you of Pride and Vanity for attributing so much to your own reason yet I will not pretend to have so clear a sight into the whole Contexture of your Thoughts and Actions as to judge whether it was Pride and Vanity or humility and Charity most scandalously mistaken which induced you first to embrace and then to publish this Doctrine so absolutely new to the World but I hope I may without any tyrannical Assumption let you know that in my apprehension wise men will hardly be perswaded to allow that for a good natured or peaceable opinion which encourageth every one stubbornly and inhumanely to undertake to govern himself from within in opposition to all Authority and Example especially since the Creator hath instituted Subordination and Order for the prime and original Cement not only of all Societies Celestial and Terrestrial but also of the Fabrick of the material World As for your so often reiterated Accusation of such who claim an Infallibility for their Party by saying That who ever is not of my opinion is in the wrong and whoever is in the wrong is to perish eternally for his Error It cannot be at all applyed to the practice of the Protestant Church for which I am only concerned for that steers a rational and moderate Course betwixt the two Extreams of their Opinion and yours as hath been manifested before But let me remind you also that your Doctrine might more reasonably deserve the Encomium you give it in this Paragraph for allowing its Disciples to lay down an Opinion when Cause shall appear for so doing if it did also advise them to renounce the Guide that brought them into it which is all the reason in the World Page 46 47. As to your Quarrel with Mr. Hobbs I am not concerned to maintain his Opinions or to reconcile them with yours yet in my weak apprehension you will find it a Task too hard for your Natural Reason to make good that Position by which you design his Defeat That men ought not to think those Worships dishonourable to God that are not practised by themselves For whoever shall hold this Assertion must either want sincerity and deceive their own Souls by practising one sort of Worship and approving of others or else they must believe that all sorts of Worship are right which are practised among men or that the Deity equally approves of both the right and the wrong all which is not only contradictory to Divine Revelation but also repugnant to the Fundamentals and Systems of all the Religions in the World and consequently your Doctrine by broaching an universal Dissention amongst all mortal Votaries would introduce a variety in Divine Worship more unaccountably ridiculous than any that ever was heard of in this or former Ages however you abuse them In the next place you alledge That if ignorant or malicious Physicians in this violent Fever did not apply new Heats instead of Julips they might by Writing Disputing Preaching and Living Charitably which is all the former reduce the World in a short time to its ancient healthful and natural temper But what Coherence or Alliance hath the natural temper of the World with its ancient and healthful state in Religion Therefore to make better sense of this Clause we will rectifie it thus That we allow Writing Preaching Disputing and living Charitably to be the chief outward means as well to Confute Errors in Notion as to reclaim evil Doers and so reduce the Christian World to the Primitive Integrity of Life and Purity of Doctrine But let me remind you though that the Exercise and Effects of these Performances chiefly depend upon Example and Authority both which your Doctrine most irrationally disavows neither can we possibly agree with you that this ancient and healthful Temper of the World was a general Idolatry among the Sons of men which within six Lines after you
the Heathens And now it would be but trifling and delaying the Reader to quote the particular and so well known Instances both in prophane and sacred Story that opposition in Religion nay separations and Sects under the same general profession as well in the Wars betwixt the Gentiles and the Jews as either party among themselves have caused the most inveterate Feuds and Massacres and the greatest destructions to Cities and Common-wealths before the Nativity of our Saviour however you are pleased to scandalize Christians It plainly appears also that in the heat of your project for this Treatise you either forgot or slighted God's Precepts to his people although you allow of the Scripture to practice one Religion and to endeavour the extirpation of all prophaneness and false worship two unavoidable Consequences of your good nature and liberty I shall not undertake to determine what Church you design to defame in your 10.11 12 and 14th Pages as Author of all the miseries which have followed the variety of Opinions since the Reformation by tying Infallibility to what they think truth and Damnation to what ever they think error but if you intend this Accusation against the Catholick Church give me leave to tell you that it is most unworthily framed and it would be an injury to the Protestant Principles to deign it any other Answer than to refer the Reader to the Practice of our Government both Ecclesiastical and Civil in the several Condescentions to weak Consciences among us and this not only our Laws but the difference we have ever had with the Church of Rome in that Point makes apparent A famed Instance of which is that of H. the Fourth of France whom our Church lost upon the account of its Charity in that very Tenent Page 14. Another absurdity you say your Doctrine is accused of is That we shall not only every one differ from every body else but every one from himself The truth of this Objection is evident enough in the various delusions of the brain sick Phanaticks who by following a wrong Guide also their new Light as they call it are ordinarily brought into the grossest Absurdities and Contradictions as well of themselves as others both in opinion and practice Now to excuse the foregoing Absurdity and the inconstancy as you term it which will be consequential to your Doctrine you make as absurd and groundless a supposition that those who decline the scandal of your way must on the contrary be obliged to a blind and unalterable observance of those Laws and Opinions which either the fate of their Birth and Education or the fortune of other Accidents without any limitation shall engage them in which may be Ambition worldly Interest Debauchery or a pragmatick Fancy for a new fangled Treatise To enumerate no more of those unaccountable infirmities and accidents which too often influence the frailty of mens minds who resist Instruction and the Grace of the Holy Spirit both which are abandoned by your licentious design therefore this Accusation which you have framed against the Catholick Principles is more applicable to yours than to any other Doctrine in the world But on the other hand you could not have forged so vain a Supposition had you observed as you ought the just measures of Holy Church which proposes nothing to its Votaries but what is both capable and worthy of a rational Assent the best medium without doubt betwixt a blind obedience to Governours and an absolute renouncing all Authority and Example in Affairs of Religion Nay so wild and unaccountable are your Positions in this Paragraph that it cannot be denied but that even a blind Obedience to qualified Guides and Superiours who are persons more concerned to Communicate and abler to find out the true Religion than every private man is much more safe and agreeable to Peace and Society than to set up Panaticism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by licensing every one in matters of Religion to gad whether they list like Brutes in Summer stung by the various insects of their own fancies But in your 16 and 17 Pages you would seem something to regulate your foregoing Exorbitancy by enjoyning your Disciples to make a long and serious inquiry whether they I suppose you mean the former Obligations agree most with that light of their Vnderstanding which God hath infused into them for that end according to the best extent of those means which are allowed by him to their understandings for this examination Now according to your style this may pass for an imbezel'd description of a compliance with the infusion of Grace and plainly shews that it is a task too hard for the Natural Capacity of man upon its own account to make such a disquisition which both contradicts and confutes the whole design of your Treatise It seems by your Instance of Chance-medley in this Paragraph likewise that you are subject to mistakes in the Law as well as in making of Comparisons for to state any Fact Chance-medley there must be a wilful and rash or sudden fury or purpose for the incitation to commit it which is altogether omitted as you have described the Crime and makes your Instance but Homicide per infortunium Your words are these And if in this Permutation after all Industry and Humility therein it shall be our ill fortune to give away a Truth for a Falsehood it will be as killing a man against our will is no murder at the worst but an Error by Chance-medley and I will both find I had almost said Claim mercy from God and Pity from men But not to insist upon this mistake we shall examine your Argument as you have stated your Allegory Homicide by misadventure then is when any person kills a man without malice prepense foresight or any act of his Will as he is performing some lawful Employment but the difference is great when one man shall kill another after he hath put himself into any unwarrantable Condition as an immoderate Fury Drunkenness and the like or is exercised in any thing that is not allowable by Law for such previous qualifications state the subsequent Fact voluntary and criminal which Case is parallel to that of your natural Reason when it is employed in matters too high both for its Capacity and Station What ground have you then both these Instances considered to be so confident of finding or claiming mercy from God and of deserving pity from men Your next Argument or Reinforcement of your last I know not well which is another incompetent Comparison betwixt Physical Notions and those in Theology which is regulated and answered thus That although in unscholastick and common Parleance a man is said from his birth to his death to be the same person because his body all along is informed by the same soul yet it is with an allowance during the flux of that time for his nutrimental mutation so that we do not Physically affirm that every particle of man's body continues
numerically the same through all the successions of his natural Constitution although he hath the same Appellation But when we see the body of a man left uninformed and lifeless by the departure of his Soul from that time we declare the being of that Compositum and peculiar denomination to be determined and cease and if we could perceive the departed Soul according to Pythagoras his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 undertake the Information of another body we should as readily pronounce that to be a new Compositum or another person this is the case of your Disciples Conscience which you call the Soul of his Faith in its transmigration from the System or Body of the Protestant Faith to that of the Papists which from its dissonant Articles and Essentials to those of our Church hath been ever distinguished by a different Appellation so that these two neither in Name nor Essence are the same Faith and consequently if one is true the other is false therefore I shall leave your Disciple to be informed by your self after what manner with both these Faiths he shall behold his Saviour and thus you may observe how easie it is for you to mistake an equal Sincerity of Conscience for an Identity of Faith in your Allegorical Arguments From Page 20 to Page 26. you employ your confident Guide to assert its own Sufficiency by recriminating ours as not totally exempt from mistakes as well as its self but of the validity of that sort of arguing I shall leave the Reader to judge and proceed to the Merits of the Cause Thus much then we acknowledge that we do not think our selves obliged to believe the Pastors of Holy Church upon the bare account of Humanity to be absolutely infallible neither do we attribute to them so high Illuminations and Gifts as the first planting of the Gospel did require and Christ's Conversation afforded his Apostles who likewise was not altogether exempt from mistakes but yet we rely upon the Spirit of Truth which our Saviour promised to send to the Apostles and their Successors after his Ascension to preserve them from teaching such Errors as are inconsistent with the Divine Oeconomy in Affairs of Religion and the harmony of the Scriptures And this in one of your lucid Intervals Page 24. you in effect affirm in these very syllables And I verily believe if God had not stirred up some persons of excellent Abilities and worthy Spirits for such surely they were though not exempt from humane weakness to examine by the Rules of their own Reasons those Follies and dangerous Errors in Religion which c. Now in my poor Opinion it will neither blemish your style nor injure your Notion to Pen it plainly thus If God had not by the assistance of his Grace stirred up c. For that is the means according to the Promise of our Saviour and the Tenor of the Scripture by which God stirs up and enables the Minds of men to all religious Performances whether private or publick I choose to answer your Recrimination after this manner rather than to rake into Antiquity by reviving the exceptions to the Constitutions of those Counsels you quote in this Paragraph and therefore shall say no more to this Point but that our Saviour's not promising the same measure of his Spirit to every private man as to his Apostles and their Successors states the right Guides of Holy Church above the scandal of your Comparison Page 25 26. You again tell us that we are in much more danger of being drawn from the Christian Faith by building our Belief wholly upon the Authority of past or present Ages then to remit the Judgment of those things to our own Reasons in this Assertion the term wholly altogether excludes a Rational Satisfaction on the Believers part and therefore doth not assault the Protestant Principles for which only I am concerned You reinforce this Argument against the Authority of the Church with another absurd Allegation much of the same Class with the former that the Christian was neither the most ancient nor universal Religion in the world As to the last I doubt not but you will agree with us that immense Dominions or vast numbers of Votaries are not the inseparable Characteristicks of the true Religion for the greatest part of the World was inslaved to Idolatry and Gentilism as you observed in the time of the Law as well as of the Gospel and you who own the Scriptures must acknowledge with us that the first was dictated by God the Father and the other by his Son the Supream Testimony for the truth of both 2ly As to the Antiquity of the Christian Faith you cannot but know that the Contents of the Scriptures and the Consent of learned men assert the foundation of the Gospel to be laid in the Eternal Decree of a Messias before the Creation of the World and that the first notice of it here below was immediately after the Fall of our first Parents when God promised a great Redeemer for the Relief of man who should vanquish and be avenged of the subtilty of the Serpent and after this the Substance of the Christian Principles were existent in the Primitive Integrity of Abel and his Successors until the time of Abraham to whom it was revealed that the Messias should descend from his own Loins and afterward more particularly to Jacob of what Tribe he should be born After this manner the Christian Faith was preserved and conveyed down to the Penning of the Scriptures and then the Types and Predictions under the Law were the Harbingers of its manifestation in the Incarnation Doctrine and Miracles of our Saviour until he sealed it with his Passion Upon this account you may very well conclude as you do although against your foregoing Allegation in the same Page that there is more and greater reason to be found for the Belief of a Christian than for any other whatsoever In your 27 28 Pages I find such a medley of vile Contradictions as never before was vented by man for here in your Allegorical Style you take it for granted that there may be a thousand right Religions or ways of true Worship although you have acknowledged the truth of the Scriptures which admit but of one And secondly That your infallible Guide by wandring up and down in this multiplicity of Paths will by a long troublesom and tedious Voyage bring you to happiness at last Now for the applying this Allegory you should have made a new Demonstration That there are so many right ways to Eternal Salvation otherwise if you will measure your Metaphor by the Rules of Holy Writ it is a thousand to one but your Guide will deceive you As to the Contents of your 29 30 31 32 Page I acknowledge that it is not only an Act of Charity but the absolute duty of Christians to allow the Gate of Heaven to be as broad as the Scriptures have stated it And on the other