and certain knowledge of Gods Revelation and Will is necessary for believing the one and obeying the other Besides it is a prerogative due to Superiors not to be obliged to signifie their will and pleasure to their Subjects by themselves immediately but may and do appoint their subordinate Officers to publish and proclaim their commands either by word of mouth or writing And though Dr. Stillingfleet in his seventh Principle seems to grant God ought to enjoy this Prerogative yet if he proceeds consequently he must deny it seeing there can be no clear undeniable certainty of Gods revealing or commanding when he trusts his Revelations and Commands to the proposal and Ministry of others though confirmed by such Miracles as Christ himself and his Apostles wrought because such Miracles do not clearly demonstrate that themselves are supernatural as is manifest by the obstinate lews who artributed them to Beelzebub or that the Doctrin confirmeed by them is Divine or that the words uttered or written by men is the Word of God If therefore a clear certainty or Demonstrative Evidence of Gods Will and Revelation be requisite for Christian Obedience and belief we deprive God of that Prerogative which is inseparable from Soveraigns and consists in the Obligation of their Subjects to beleeve and obey them when they speak and command by subordinate Officers though these shew no clear or undeniable evidence for their office some signs Gods Ministers must shew as Seals of their Commission which may create even in the most serupulous a moral certainty of Divine Truth and Trust reposed in them but no such undeniable evidence of Gods revealing and commanding by them as D. Stillingfleet and all Protestants are forc't to exact by not contenting themselves with that moral certainty and evidence of supernatural signes which is visible in the Roman-Catholick Church And truly by exacting greater evidence of Gods Revelations then appears by the signes of the Roman-Catholick Church Dr. Stillingfleet destroys all Religion and the nature of Christian Faith which according to S. Paul Heb. 11. involves obscurity or the Not-appearance of the Truth of Mysteries believed And reason dictates that belief or faith being by its own nature and primitive notion but an imperfect sight whereby we make a shift to supply the want of clearer knowledge to make it compatible with a clearer certainty of the truth believed or with more then a moral evidence of Gods Revelation which is certainly and clearly connected with the truth believed because it cannot deceive nor be deceived is to maintain that we want and do not want that clearness of knowledge whereof Faith doth suppose us defective and supplyeth the defect These Premisses being thus proved there can be no difficulty in discovering the fraud and falshood of D. Stillingfleets Principles and Conclusions and therefore granting his sixth last and common Principle I will proceed to his particular Propositions mentioning only such as I do impugn Dr. Stillingfleets Faith of Protestants reduced to Principles is False The Roman-Catholick Faith Resolved into the Inconsistency of its Falshood with Gods Veracity Proposition IV. Nothing ought to be admitted for Divine Revelation which overthrows the certainty of those Principles which must be antecedently supposed to all Divine Râ—velation for that were to overthrow the mâ—ans whereby we are to judge concerning the truth of any Divine Revelation Proposition V. There can be no other means imagined whereby we are to judge of the truth of Divine Revelation but a faculty in us of discerning truth and falshood in matters proposed to our belief which if we do not exercise in judging the truth of Divine Revelation we must be imposed upon by every thing which pretends to be so Proposition VI. The pretence of Infallibility in any person or society of men must be judged in the same way that the truth of Divine Revelation is c. DR Stillingfleets first and second Proposition may pass and his third also if the word certain be rightly understood but his Fourth Proposition if therein he supposeth that every one is to be judge concerning the truth of Divine Revelation is false as also the Fifth wherein he makes our humane Understanding a sufficient faculty nay the only means of discerning the truth and falshood in matters proposed to our belief and of Divine Revelations For the Objects of Divine Revelation are frequently Mysteries so sublime that they far exceed all humane or natural capacity how therefore can their truth or falshood be judged of by natural reason above its own reach And as for the Divine Revelation it self all Divines grant its Existence and by consequence its truth cannot be known by natural reason and therefore say that albeit you may prove the Existence of God by natural reason yet you cannot by the same faculty prove the Existence of any one of his Revelations because these taking their denomination from the exercise of Gods liberty are no subject for humane demonstration or concluding discourses unlets you will consine Gods free choice to one of those many contrary Decrees he might have fixt upon ab aeterno But of this Subject more in the Confutation of his sixth Conclusion To make every mans private judgement the touchstone of what is Divine Revelation for fear forsooth of being imposed upon by every thing which pretends to be so is to take too much upon our selves and savours more of the private Spirit then of that pious affection and profound submission wherewith St. Paul bids us captivate our understandings to the obedience of faith But surely Dr. Stillingfleet doth not consider what ill use himself makes of his discerning faculty when he judges that the Protestant Reformation is Divine Revelation let him reflect upon the incredibility of Gods permitting his Church to lurk in desarts or to lie in Errours from the Primitive times until Martin Luther's appearance Anno 1517. he will finde there is very little judgement exercised in giving that man or any of his Comrades so much credit as to forsake the sence of Scripture which the Church Then and for many preceding Ages held for new fancies and inventions of Luther Zuinglius Calvin and other debaucht Priests and Fryars without any other warrant for so great an undertaking but their own word impudently pretending that they were sent and inspired by God to plant a Doctrine suitable enough to the lewdness of their own lives and confessedly * Luther tom 5. Witenb in Galat. c. 1. fol. 290. in Coll q. Mensal fol. 273. tom 7. Witenb An. 1558. in lic de missa privata fol. 443.228 saith Dost thou O sole man take upon thee so great matters What if thou being but one offendert If God permit so many and all to erre why may he not permit thee to erre Hitherto appertain those Arguments the Church the Church the Fathers the Fathers the Councils the Customes the multitudes and greatness of wise men whom do not those clouds and doubts yea
only Rule of Salvation and by consequence that it is not repugnant to the wisdome and goodness of God not to set down all his will in writing in the Law of grace or not agreeable to the same that God make men insallible in writing so much of his will as is contained in Scripture or even all that is necessary for Salvation though that writing be not clear to every sincere and sober person 't is sufficient it may be explained to every man by the Doctors and Pastors of the Church according to that of Deut. 17.8 Thou shalt go to the Priests to enquire and they shall shew thee Deut. 33.10 They shall teach thy Law Neh. 8.8 They caused the people to understand the Law And Mat. 23.2 They sat in Moses chair all things therefore c. which last Text doth not agree with the Proposition saying that for some ages before Christ there was no body infallible among the Jews to attest or explain to them the Writings of Moses or the Prophets As for the Testimonies of the New Testament see Mat. 7.24 and 13.19 and 24.14.16 and 28.19 and Mark 16.15 and Matth. 18.17 c. But Dr. Stillingfleet will demonstrate by his 16. Proposition That the Roman-Catholick Church is intolerable by its pretending to Gods infallible assistance in proposing matters of faith And why so Because forsooth every Preacher of that Church doth not work as great Miracles as Christ and his Apostles Doth every Protestant Preacher work such Miracles Did you Dr. Stillingfleet Did any of your Church or Reformation ever work a Miracle If not why do you expect or exact that any should beleeve your Reformation or that your Church is assisted by the holy Ghost If all rational persons must grant that Miracles are necessary to plant any new Doctrine pretended to be divine how much more necessary must they be to reverse the old and reject Doctrine held for many ages as Divine and confirmed as such by so many Prodigies against whose supernaturality our adversaries have no other Arguments then their own arbitrary Interpretations of Scripture and those things which the Jews objected against the Doctrine and Miracles of Christ and his Apostles This much we may at least exact and expect from Dr Stillingfleet that he will either confesse the truth of our Doctrine and Miracles or confute them by some better reason then by a bare supposition that they are against Scripture or by rashly averring they are but tricks of covetous Monks and crafty * Dr Field in his Treatise of the Church lib. 3. cap. 48. Jesuites Other Protestant Writers confesse ingeniously that our Massing Priests and Jesuites have wrought many true Miracles in the Indies Japan Congo and China converting those Nations to Popery And Mr. Hartwell ‖ M. Abraham Hartwell in his Report of the Kingdom of Congo edit An. 1597. in his Epistle to the Reader Symon Lythus in Respons altera ad alteram Gretseri Apol. pag. 331. Daneus contra Bellar. pag. 781. speaking of the Conversion of the Kingdom of Congo saith Shall this Action which tendeth to the Glory of God be concealed and not committed to memory because it was performed by Popish Priests and Popish means God forbid If Dr. Stillingfleet thinks that his Church or the Reformation by not pretending to Miracles or Infallibility in proposing matters of Faith be a more certain and safe Guide to Salvation then the Roman-Catholick Church that with undeniable moral evidence pretends to both few considering and consciencious persons will be of his opinion it being a clear principle in Moral Theology That in matters of Eternity we are bound to choose the surest way and no prudent man will deny but that it is a surer way to Heaven to be directed by a Guide that pretends to be certain of that way and produceth moral evidence for that certainty then to follow a guide that plainly confesseth his own uncertainty of the way and hath nothing to say against the moral evidence and assurance of the other but railing Raillery or turning to Ridicule such forged and incredible Miracles as we our selves discover and punish To conclude it is not necessary that every particular Doctor or Preacher of the Faith shew or work a Miracle 't is sufficient that any one of that Faith do it or did it to prove the Faith and Infallibility of the Roman Church If this be credibly reported to the dissenters they are bound to beleeve it and become Roman Catholicks Herod never did see any of Christ or the Apostles Miracles at least many of the Jews did not and yet they who heard them credibly reported were obliged under pain of damnation to beleeve the Christian doctrine because they were credibly informed that it was confirmed by Miracles So that it is a rash mistake to maintain that no Protestant is bound to submit to the Authority and Doctrine of the Roman-Catholick Church unless he be convinct first by seeing a Miracle Such things as are own'd to be Miracles by our Church are so well examined and so authentickly proved that any one may prudently beleeve them for though perhaps none now living did see them yet many credible persons that lived when they were wrought did see them and we may rely upon their sight and search with as much Reason and more Religion then upon our own according to Christs saying to S. Thomas Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believed Proposition XVII Nothing is more absurd then to pretend the necessity of such an infallible Commission and assistance to assure us of the truth of these Writings and to interpret them and at the same time to prove that Commission from those Writings from which we are told nothing can be certainly deduced such an assistance not being supposed or to pretend that Infallibility in a body of men is not as liable to doubts and disputes as in those Books from whence only they derive their Infallibility The 17. Proposition is a gross or wilful mistake of the Roman-Catholick Doctrine We do not ground the Infallibility of the Church upon the words of Scripture which assert it but upon an impossibility or incredibility that God would permit such a Church as the Roman-Catholick qualified with so many seeming supernatural signes of his favour and seals of his Divine Commission as our Miracles Sanctity Conversion of Nations to Christianity c. upon an Impossibility I say that God would permit a Church so apparently qualified with supernatural Marks of Divine * See Father Thomas Bartons Treatise of Religion and Government edit 1670. where he cleareth this point as also the obscurity of Christian faith Authority to leade men into any errour when it pretends to propose and declare Gods Revelation This we say is not compatible with Gods Veracity or with his infinite sincerity or inclination to truth and aversnesse from falshood whether in fundamental or not fundamental points of faith For even amongst men he that
is very sincere or much inclined to truth and averse from falshood will not permit any one if he can help it to abuse his name or authority by counterfeiting his Commissions or Seals much less can it be imagined by any sober person that God who is sincerity and truth it self would permit he being omnipotent the Roman-Catholick Church to abuse his sacred Name and assume his authority by counterfeit Seals or false Miracles and thereby to seduce the world for so many ages as that Church hath been prudently taken to be the sole true Church of God So that you must grant 1. The Roman-Catholick Miracles approved of in the Bulls of Canonization of Saints to be true and by consequence it self to be infallibly assisted by God independently of and antecedently to any words of Scripture and if the Miracles be true there can be no dispute of the Truth of its Doctrine or of the authenticknesse of its Commission 2. You must grant that if its Miracles were false there could be no proof or faith of Gods Veracity this being inconsistent with the permission of a cheat so apparently supernatural We resolve therefore Christian and Catholick Faith into this Assertion or Assent and Assurance Gods Veracity being Infinite I do most firmly and undoubtedly beleeve that God will never permit any falshood to be proposed as his Word or Revelation with such appearance of Miracles and such signs of his approbation as the Roman-Catholick Church proposeth its Doctrine and Infallibility And therefore whatsoever the same Church doth propose as Gods Word or Revelation I do most firmly and undoubtedly beleeve as the real Word and Revelation of God To this universal Assent or Assertion are reduced all the particular Assents or Articles of Catholick Faith without any kinde of that circle which Schoolmen so much dread in the resolution of faith Neither is there any circle in proving the evident credibility of the Roman-Catholick Church by its Miracles and the truth of its Miracles by the approbation of the same Church 1. Because we prove the Credibility of the Church by the sole moral appearance that our Miracles are Divine before they are believed to be Divine by supernatural faith 2. Because both the truth of our Miracles and the Infallibility of our Church are proved by the Infinitenesse of Gods Veracity which is not consistent with a permission of our Miracles being false or of our Church being fallible as hath been hitherto declared As to the Second part of the 17. Proposition it 's manifest to common sense that doubts and disputes are with more ease and clearness resolved by an infallible body of men then by an obscure though infallible Writing Men may hear and answer difficulties and doubts a Book even the Bible cannot because we prove it is obscure even after all conferences of texts and Examinations of the able Scripturists by reason of the differences in opinion concerning the true sence thereof The 18. Proposition is grounded upon the falshood of the 17. and therefore needeth no other confutation but as to what it says God had promiâ—ed to particular men who endeavour to understand Scripture that either they shall not err or if they shall they shall not be damn'd for it is but a fancy of Dr. Stillingfleet without any proof or colour of truth and contrary to Christs commands of hearing and obeying the Church The 19. Proposition contains only a false supposition confuted in the 17. and an inclination in D. Stillingfleet to the private spirit against the publick Testimony of the Church Proposition XX. No mans faith can therefore be infallible meerly because the Proponent is said to be infallible because the nature of Assent doth not depend upon the objective infallibility of any thing without us but is agreeable to the evidence we have of it in our mindes for Assent is not built on the nature of things but their evidence to us The 20. Proposition wants explanation There are two sorts of Assent one is grounded upon clear evidence of the truth assented unto and is an intellectual sight thereof the other is grounded upon authority that is upon the Author or Speakers Veracity or Inclination to truth The first kinde of assent is agreeable and bears proportion with the evidence we have of it in our mindes and is infallible if the evidence be clear as it is in some undeniable principles and in their immediate Conclusions But the assent built upon authority which is Faith dependeth in its Infallibility upon the infallibility of the Infallible Authour or Proponent apprehended to be so by us and this independently of any Evidence we have of the truth or nature of things without us and therefore this 20. Proposition is absolutely false Proposition XXI It is therefore necessary in order to an Infallible Assent that every particular person be infallibly assisted in judging of the matter proposed to him to be believed so that the ground on which a necessity of some external infallible Proponent is asserted must rather make every particular Person infallible if no divine faith can be without an infallible Assent and so renders any other infallible useless The 21. Proposition is also false it being only a consequence from the former A fallible person may give an infallible assent in matters of faith because the truth and assurance of such an Assent is not to be measured by any inward evidence the Assenter hath of the matter of Mystery believed but supposing the outward appearance of the supernatural signes of the Church by the grace that God gives to assure us that himself is the Authour of the Doctrine so proposed And though the appearance of the signes of the Church exceeds not a moral certainty of God being the Authour of the Churches Doctrine yet our assurance of that same truth is more then moral because we build not the assurance and certainty of our Catholick faith or of the Infallibility of the Church upon those motives of eredibility and the outward appearance of their connexion with the Truth but upon Gods Veracity Goodness and his aversness from any falshood which is so great that we do as firmly beleeve he will no more permit a Church so likely to be his as the Roman-Catholick Church is to erre and leade us into any falshood then he would own himself Authour or Countenancer of that falshood and fraud Proposition XXII If no particular person be infallible in the assent he gives to matters proposed by others to him then no man can be infallibly sure that the Church is infallible and so the Churches Infallibility can signifie nothing to our infallible assurance without an equal Infallibility in our selves in the belief of it The 22. Proposition signifies nothing if you will reflect upon what hath been now said every faithful is infallible inasmuch as he agreeth with the Doctrine of the Church and the Churches Infallibility is one point of that Doctrine The 23. Proposition is composed of absurd
following a guide that owns not to be fully assured whether his own Doctrine be the right way to Heaven The 5. Conclusion makes it lawful for every man to reject the authority of the Church of England and to make himself sole Judge of the Scriptures and all this out of love to his soul and out of reverence to Gods Veracity which is in equivalent terms to make Dr. Stilling fleets Religion inseparable from Heresie and Rebellion and inconsistent with the safety of any State or Soveraign Conclusion VI. Though nothing were to be delivered as the Will of God but what is by the Catholick Church declared to be so yet this doth not at all concern the Church of Rome which neither is the Catholick Church nor any sound part or member thereof From all which it follows that it can be nothing but wilful Ignorance weakness of judgment strength of prejudice or some sinful passion which makes any one forsake the Communion of the Church of England to embrace that of the Church of Rome This 6. Conclusion I shall endeavour to confute by proving that the Roman-Catholick Church alone is the whole Catholick Church In order whereunto I will set down these few Propositions 1. That there is and always hath been upon earth a visible Catholick Church otherwise Christ would not have commanded us to repair to it in our differences nor the Apostles have made it an Article of our Creed 2. The Catholick Church must have some visible and supernatural signes far exceeding all others in the appearance of being such whereby it may be discerned from all â—agan and Heretical Congregations pretending to be a part or the whole Catholick Church If this be not granted no man is obliged to be of any Church nay rather all men are obliged to be of no Church because not having any signes to prefer one Church before the other none could know which is the true one and therefore it 's a hundred to one at least they would fall into some Heretical Congregation there being so many and the true Church or Congregation but one 3. That no supernatural signs or Miracles can be visible and wrought for conrfimation of doctrine in any Congregation but in that one which is the true Church because the signes or Miracles which Christ said would follow the Beleevers Mark 16. or the true Church are of the same nature of Christs Miracles and in order to gain credit for the testimony it gives of it self and his doctrine and God being the Author of truth and concord cannot give supernatural signes of his trust or truth to any two or more dissenting Churches for if he did the wisest course as I said learned and pious men could take would be to turn Scepticks and not believe in God Hence also it followeth 4. That the Catholick Church cannot be composed of any two Congregations dissenting in any one point which eithâ—r holds to be an Article of Faith fundamental or not fundamental the reason is because if they be of equal authority men ought rather to suspend then submit their judgments to either of those Congregations and though both should agree in fundamental Articles yet because God being truth it self is as contrary to small as great unâ—ruâ—hs or errors he can no more permit the Testimony of his Church and his Miracles to confirm a little then a great untruth and so it must be infallible as well in not fundamentals as in fundamentals 5. Gods being of infinite Veracity as hath been proved in my confutation of Dr. Stillingfleets 6 16 17. Propositions cannot permit any false Church to have or shew so credible an appearance of true Miracles as hath been alwaies and now is pretended to be in the Roman-Catholick Church They are so convincing that our adversaries can as little prove the fraud as deny the fact They are so frequent that there is scarce a Countrey in Christendom wherein they have not been wrought They are so authentick I speak only of such as are approved by the Bishops of Rome in order to the canonization of Saints that there cannot be a more narrow scrutiny into the nature and cure of the disease nor into the sincerity and sufficiency of the Witnesses and the severity of our judgments against such as we finde to be cheats and Impostors is notorious even in Ireland where our Ecclesiastical discipline is restrained by the Laws we have ventured to silence James Finanghty a simple ignorant Priest because himself and he who caused them to be printed were so weak as to fancy they were true Miracles I know Dr. Stillingfleet may object against this Proposition the Miracles of Antichrist but his Miracles will not be of the same nature with the Miracles of Christ and ours he will not convert Nations to Christianity by imitating the Apostles humility poverty and chastity as the Apostolical men of our Church have done in all former ages and even in this Witnesse both the Indies Brasile Ethiopia Persia Japan and China Besides though Antichrist's Miracles could be in appearance as palpable and as plausible as ours yet besides the precedency and prediction of ours as true the particular circumstances wherewith Scripture hath described that man of sin and the warning it hath given us not to beleeve his Miracles do so discredit him and them that no man who will reflect upon the Scriptures words and recurr to God for help will be deceiv'd by Antichrist's Impostures and lying Prodigies True it is that according to * See D. Stilling fleets Answ pag. 469. D. Stillingfleets Principles making every particular person Judge of Divine Revelation and admitting nothing as such that he thinks doth contradict sense in its proper object Antichrist's Miracles must be judged true Miracles and by consequence his Doctrine must be embraced as Divine Revelation For upon this account alone doth Dr. Stillingfleet deny the Miracle and Mystery of Transubstantiation notwithstanding the clearness of Scripture for it being impossible to express that Truth or any other in more clear terms then by Christs saying This is my body so likewise it must be concluded from Dr. Stillingfleet Principles that though Christ tels you clearly Antichrist's Miracles will not be true Miracles yet if your eyes tels you that is if you see a man lie like dead and afterwards see him stand and move by Antichrist's command you must prefer this evidence of sence in its proper object before Christs clear words and Revelation For the proper object of sense goes no further then to the outward appearance or accidents it doth not penetrate to the substance of bread or wine much less to the life or soul of a seeming dead man and by consequence men may be mistaken in the substance of both though they rely upon senses evidence in its proper object which is only the species or outward appearances or if you will follow the modern opinion certain impressions made upon the Organs of our senses and this may be