That belief or faith is to be understood of saving faith which is all I can perceive you drive at to the end of the Paraph is so far from it that I do not beleeve any violence will make a premise of it for be it as you desire that the Apostle writ that we might beleev in Christ the Son of God with a saving faith and I dare say no Arithmetick would comprehend the number of intermedial links necessary to fasten this Conclusion to it that what he writ is a sufficient rule to salvation ¶ 4. But what need I trouble my self or you with writing all I could I remember an ingenuous confession of yours when we were one night discoursing of this place that you thought the whole Book was not only sufficient for salvation but even some parts of it if a man had no more which is as much as I desire ¶ 4. The answer to this Paraph depends upon the memory of that person who made such a confession I conceive it true thus far that even some parts might be sufficient for the salvation of some single person extraordinarily dispoposed and circumstanced which in all likelihood was his meaning But this is nothing to our Question whether it be sufficient for the conduct of all dispositions found in mankind through all circumstances the Church will be in from the Resurrection to the day of Judgement ¶ 5. The second place I look upon as a sufficient proof of Scriptures sufficiency is the beginning of S. Lukes Gospel compared with the beginning of the Acts In Mr Whites Apology p. 165 166. where he affirms there is not a word that this Book should serve for a Catechism to teach him and all the world the entire body of Christianity I think there is that thou mayest know the certainty of those things thou hast been taught or as the Greek word is hast been Catechized in So then S. Lukes Gospel contains a perfect sum of all these Doctrines and duties which Theophilus a Christian already had learnt To me this proves S. Lukes Gospel to be a bodie of Divinitie or a Systeme of all necessary truths of Christianity so that S. Lukes Gospel is more then a naked Historie of Christs life containing his Doctrine too or else he had not given Theophilus a full account of all he had been instructed in To say as Mr White S. Luke speaketh but by the by of our Saviours Doctrine or as his words are some of his excellent sayings is quite contrary to those words of the first of the Acts out of which he gathers his saying for there he speaks thus of his Gospel The former Treatise have I made O Theophilus of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach which is more then as Mr White some of his excellent sayings I lay the stress upon these two words all and teach which Mr White passeth over as Commentators do hard places although it be the chief thing to be answered Another thing I observe in Mr Whites translation he omits the word perfectly or exactly in the third verse of the Gospel which is very pertinent By all things Jesus did and taught must be meant the substance of Christian Religion the chief Doctrines and duties which were necessary to salvation for if any material point were omitted by S. Luke he could not alledge his exact knowledge in all things which he promises nor say as he does in the Acts that he had delivered all Christ did or taught from whence I must conclude and you too unless you can shew sufficient cause to the contrary that S. Lukes Gospel much more the whole Bible hath sufficient truth in it and contains all points necessary to salvation and may be a sufficient means though we have no traditions The Covenant between God and man is cleerly enough laid down there and in other Books besides with all those things without which no salvation ¶ 5. The second place you insist upon is the beginning of Saint Lukes Gospel compar'd with the beginning of the Acts which with your favour I conceive you have not brought home to our question for admit all you say were true even the conclusion it self viz. that Saint Lukes Gospel hath sufficient truths in it and contains all points necessary to salvation and may be a sufficient means though we have no Traditions your cause is far from being evicted For our question is not so much whether sufficient truths be containd in scripture as whether they bee contained sufficiently that is with evidence enough to carry away a cleer victory from malicious and obstinate Criticism So that it consists very well that all necessary truths may be contained which is all you do say and yet not so contain'd as in necessary for that effect which is what you should have said Again since the same means may be sufficient for one person which are not for another or for all and sufficient at one time not so at another Your Conclusion that this Gospel may be a sufficient means without Tradition comes far short of what it should be that 't is sufficient to all persons in all circumstances Now I presume the Evangelist writing to Theophilus with design to instruct him particularly the sufficiency you speak of cannot fairly be stretched farther then his intent and be construed to belong to more then Theophilus himself And certainly since every body in the Church is not Theophilus to deserve a Gospel should be writ to him it cannot be expected what was sufficient for him should be sufficient for every body else You see then how strongly soever your Canon is charged I conceive the Conclusion safe as placed beyond its level But yet to try the force it has The first thing you say against Mr White is that you think the place shews the Book was intended for a Catechism to teach him and all the world the entire body of Christianity moved by these words that thou mayest know the certainty of these things thou hast been taught or catechized in I beseech you how does it appear that by those things must be understood a body of Christianity You see Mr White understands no more by them then reports he Theophilus had heard and tels you if you will urge another sense you must first justifie it against this Now evidently writing to let Theophilus know the certainty of those reports he had heard is far enough from writing a body of Christianity As for the word Catechized which you seem to rely upon its original signification if good Grecians have not mis-informed me being most properly rendred by insono or infundo imports no more then a delivery of somthing by word of mouth though since by Ecclesiastical custome it hath almost been appropriated to the delivery of Christian doctrine Now this being since S. Lukes time what it was that was so delivered to Theophilus cannot be gathered from the word But if that be true which you say of Theophilus that he
your mind been in the same temper it was in the first Sect. of this part would have been reason sufficient not only to doubt but to reject it that you had not evidence of its certainty For there a man must plainly deny assent to what even all Doctors determine though he have no-so much-as-probable Objection against them upon this onely ground That he has not evidence their determination is certain and here he must yeeld assent because he has not evidence the thing he assents to is not certain Which is want of evidence must at one time produce dissent at another assent as it suits with your inclinations to the case it is apply d to Besides if all parts of Scripture have been doubted of Vid. Hierom. de Scrip. Eccl. in Petro Jacobo Juda Paulo Spondan ad an 60. 98. Com. Laod. c. and denyed too nay some which you receive by several even of the Fathers Why should not you think you have reason to doubt as well as those who lived neerer the Primitive times and should know more who shall satisfie a Critical Soul that all their doubts were ever fairly answered and they not more oppress'd by strength then satisfi'd by reason and this also destroys your pretence to universal Tradition of time and place since that could not in your grounds be delivered with universality which by some has been denyed And for your Monuments of Antiquity I beseech you pretend not to prove it that way for I think I deal liberally if I allow you to have examined ten Authors of every age and what proof are ten of the sentiments of 1000000 Then what do you find in these Authors certain places of Scripture cited out of such books as we still have but whether those books contained then the same number of Chapters and Verses they do now you will find very few to speak to Nay I do not beleeve you will find ten in all Ages that give you a Catalogue of the Books themselves much less of the Chapters and Verses So that your conspiracy of all Monuments of Antiquity will not amount to ten men in fifteen Ages I must desire you not to mistake what I have said as if I also doubted of Scripture which I acknowledg to be the Word of God reverence it as such and know the denyers of it were for the most part Hereticks All I aim at is by an Argument ad hominem to shew the power of prejudice to which what is reason when of one side ceases to be reason when on the contrary If therefore you faithfully pursue your own Principles what ever you think the true ground why you receive Scripture is the present Churches Authority and you should as you rightly infer receive the sense as well as words from her And for your fear of the Alcoran you will need no other security then your own thoughts if you reflect that all which the testimony of the Mahumetan Church if that name be tolerable concludes is That what she says was delivered by Mahomet was truly delivered by Mahomet and to so much I think you will allow her testimony good beleeving you do not doubt but that Mahomet was truly Author of the Alcoran and so much if you allow her you cannot deny the Testimony of a Christian Church Viz. That what she affirms was delivered by Christ was truly delivered by Christ and farther Tradition reaches not Now the Minor necessary to a conclusion of Religion that what was delivered by Mahomet was inspired by God I am sure you hold as great impiety to grant as Blasphemy to deny that which we subsume viz. that what was delivered by Christ did truly proceed from God Tradition then of the Alcoâ—an and Tradition of Christian doctrine agree in this that they prove the one to have descended from Mahomet the other from Christ but Christianity endures not either that a delivery from Mahomet should or that a delivery from Christ shâ—uld not argue a necessity of obedience to what was so delivered as to sacred and heavenly truth ¶ 2. Secondly I say if you can prove or produce any Tradition for any revealed truth not contained in the Bible as cleerly universal for time and place as that Tradition which assures me the Bible is the Word of God I must imbrace it ¶ 2. Secondly I conceive there is no point of our faith but has not onely as clearly an universal Tradition but a much clearer both for time and place then the Scripture a truth which since you may find in the first Sections of Rushworths second Dialogue I shall only wonder here you see not that the very Arguments which you make against the universality of Tradition for some points as that they have been doubted of and rejected by some are every whit as forcible against Scripture whereof there is no paâ—â— which has not been both doubted of and rejected too by Hereticks indeed at least for the most part for some also of the Fathers have doubted even of some Books which your selves receive but so also were they who rejected the points in question whose opposition if it be not allowed against Scripture cannot be valid to any thing but prejudice against points of doctrine Be true therefore if you please to your own reason and embrace that principle and the Communion of those who own it which alone can with certainty convey to you these sacred Truths which are necessary for your happiness ¶ 3. Thirdly I cannot grant your Church was the onely one before Luthers time there 's the Greek Abyssen and others there may be in several parts of the world that I know not of ¶ 3. Thirdly What you mean here by our Church I cannot tell if onely that number of Orthodox Christians who live within the Precincts of the Roman either Diocess or Patriarchate I know no body maintains I 'm sure I do not beleeve the number of the faithful is confin'd to that Pale But to answer of every particular place where Christians live till it be agreed what they held and of what may be too as well as what is seems unreasonable eifor me to undertake or you to exact thus much is true in general that whatever company of men where-ever they live hold this only principle of unity both in faith and government so as to be a Church are not another but our Church and who hold it not are no Church at all ¶ 4. Fourthly I see no necessity that any one particular Church should continue uncorrupted or that it is necessary the greatest number of Professors of Christianity should have uncorrupted Religion In the days of Elijah the Prophet there were but 700 that had not bowed the knee to Baal which the Prophet that thought himself alone knew not of ¶ 4. That there is any necessity a particular Church should always remain uncorrupted or that the greatest number of professors of Christianity should have uncorrupted Religion are two Propositions which
was already a Christian I do not see the words can be brought to bear your sense since manifestly he could not have been so without already being certain of the body of Christianity So that your Exposition makes the Evangelist very wisely take a great deal of pains in writing a book to inform Theophilus certainly of what he certainly knew before Mr. Whites interpretation therefore seems much the more genuine and yet even admitting yours I cannot as I said before imagine any approach to our difference For St. Luke expresly confining his design to the instruction of Theophilus hee that extends it to more acts manifestly without any Warrant from him You urge afterwards the first of the Acts which you say Mr. White passeth over as Commentators do hard places Truly your severity is beyond what I have ever met with and you are the first example of expecting a man should answer more then is objected Mr. White is speaking to the Gospel and these words are in the Acts and yet you except against him for taking no notice of them As for the difficultie it self since those words cannot be taken in their proper natural signification St. John plainly telling us the world would not be able to contain the books which might be written I do not see any ground you have to understand by them the substance of Christian doctrine With submission to better judgments I apprehend that by All is meant all he thought fit to communicate to Theophilus that sense seeming to flow naturally from the places compared together But whether that interpretation be true or no I am sure nothing appears why a man should accept of yours For whereas you would prove it out of St. Lukes exact knowledge that is manifestly nothing to the purpose every bodie seeing it follows not because S. Luke knew all therefore he delivered all And for the quarrel against Mr. White for leaving out the word exactly besides that as I come from saying it is far from being very pertinent exact knowing being much a different thing from exact teaching all he knew Mr. White puts in stead of it that he was present almost at all things c. which in matters of fact is the most exact knowledg that can be And for the second proof that otherwise he could not say he had delivered All Christ did or taught I have already told you though that word cannot be taken properly to signifie truly All yo◠do it wrong to take it so improperly as you do the substance of Christian doctrine being a strange English of the Latin word Omne But be all this given to the respect of the person which suffers me not to pass by any thing you say without taking notice of it though otherwise your Conclusion which I am now come to does not any way prejudice the Tenet I am maintaining To contain sufficient truths and to be a sufficient means to salvation which may possibly be true in respect of some persons and circumstances being quite another thing then to decide all quarrels carried on by factiously litigious persons and this in all times and cases For a conclusion I beseech you to accept of this observation that a serious reflection on what you do your self would satisfie you whether partie Truth takes in this question for whatever force custom and a prepossest fancie has on your words to make them maintain St. Lukes Gospel alone sufficient nature contradicts them so powerfully that your actions speak the clean contrary and plainly prove 't is not sufficient for since you cannot hold that a sufficient means to you which you do not sufficiently know to be a means and this sufficiency of the Gospel you do not know without the Acts which nature forces you to rely upon even while you are maintaining you need them not you see plainly your words and actions agree not and that while you would by the former perswade the sufficiency of the Gospel alone the later unresistably convince somthing else viz. the Acts is necessary to its sufficiency that is that it alone is not sufficient SECT V. Answer to those Fathers who are brought for the sufficiencie of Scripture MY next Argument for Scriptures sufficiency shall be out of the Fathers which Mr White p. 175. thinks improper for us who will not relie on their Authority for any one point what though we receive not from them any authoritative testimonie yet we embrace a rational one from any not because they say it therefore it is true but because we see no reason to dis-beleeve or have sufficient reason to beleeve they testifie truths as a Judge collects a truth from Witnesses every one of which is a fallible man yet by beholding circumstances sees their concurrent Testimonies cannot be false here we have ground enough to beleeve that Scripture was a sufficient rule to them because they say and confess it was I am ready to beleeve any Tradition as well as the Bible provided we have as good ground to beleeve it came from the Apostles as I have of the Bible Suppose it be not a sufficient argument for us who besides have Scripture on our side yet it is a sufficient Argument against you who pretend to derive your Religion from them who went before you whom you include in your Church as Mr White If the Bible had once that authority we plead for in your Church it should have it still the contrary being a Novelty therefore I must count your Doctrine false till you have solved this Argument That which was the Rule must be but Scripture was the Rule Ergo c. ¶ 2. First I must take out of the way your Objections out of those Fathers I make use of that they were of your opinion which you gather out of several expressions of theirs as that of Austin whose and others their words I have of late read in your Authors pleading thus your cause I would not beleeve the Gospel unless the Authority c. In which and all other of their expressions we must understand unless we will say through heat of dispute they sometimes contradict their own sence plainly delivered at other times according to their intent and so I see not any thing that makes against us as that mentioned Either S. Austin means the Church of all ages or that present in which he lived If that precisely abstractly without consideration of the antiquity of it and its doctrinal succession from the Apostles his doctrine had been nothing available against the Manichees against whom he disputes for they might have alledg'd the authority of their Church with as good ground against him therefore when he alledgeth the authority of the Church or Tradition to be a sufficient proof of that which is not contained in Scripture he means the universal Tradition of all ages which was as evident as that of Scripture tradition or as cleerly derived from the Apostles by universal Tradition as the Scripture it self and such a
consideration of circumstances plainly refuse As for that part of your seventh Paraph where you deny the Council was forced to conclude out of Tradition the desire of serving you makes me wish my self a better Historian then I am But I think the Epistle of S. Athanasius to the Africans which you will find in Theoderet lib. 1. c. 8. will sufficiently clear that Truth to you since 't will inform you that whatever words the Fathers of the Council could chuse out of Scripture to express the Catholick Faith in the Arians knew how to elude by shewing the same words to have other sences in other places which at last forced the Fathers to invent a new word and gave occasion to the Arians of murmuring that they were condemned by unwritten words that is not by Scripture but by Tradition Since what has formerly been said will I hope be an ingenuous Answer to the question of your eighth Paraph and satisfie you that Tradition is not subject to the same inconveniences with words there remains no more but to vindicate Mr White from the inconstancy you charge him with to which there will I think no more be needful then barely to represent the case to your second thoughts Our faith you know must be both beleeved and expressed the expressions he conceives it sit should be uniform and that the best way in order to it is to make use as much as may be of those which the Holy Ghost in Scripture has before made use of But since expression supposes the knowledg of what it is we would express he holds there is some other way to come to this knowledg besides looking upon the expressions which are consequent to the knowledg whereas the way to it is before it and that the expressions naked of themselves and left unguarded of other helps are not sufficient to preserve and secure the truths they contain the Positions then are both true That the Scripture is the best Rule to govern our expressions by and yet not sufficient to regulate our Beleef and the contradictions you fancy between them proceeds not from his inconstancy but your inadvertence ¶ 9. Of late I have read over Iraeneus diligently endeavouring to see the Rule he takes for to confute the Errors he writes against and cannot see but you are out One or two places indeed I have found seeming to favour you which since I find your Writers make use of yet if I understand any thing he is your enemie He says indeed in his fifth Book cap. 4. What if the Apostles had not left us Scriptures ought we not to have followed the order of Tradition which they delivered c. But does not this imply we need not use crutches seeing we have legs some Nations he says had no written Word yet had the same Doctrine which was written What then As long as they have and retain the Doctrine purely whether in writing or in their hearts it is well but though the Apostles did leave some Nations the Gospel without Writing it does not follow that they would have always retained and kept it in succeeding ages purely where is there any particular Church under heaven that hath to this day kept the doctrines of salvation from the Apostles entirely without any writing He might challenge his Adversaries to shew their doctrine came from the Apostles by Tradition living presently after those times wherein some that conversed with the Apostles lived and when all Churches agreed as in Iraeneus his time in matters of Faith and that unity was then a good assurance they all came from one fountain but the case is altred those ancient Churches afterwards were divided and then whom must a man beleeve when each say they have the way to heaven ¶ 9. I am sorry your opinion and mine disagree so much about Irenaeus whom though I cannot profess to have read so exactly as you do yet I dare say I am not mistaken as I think you are in the sence of those places I have read And first the edge of those two you bring in our behalf seems not at all taken off by the Answers you give them For since in case no Scriptures had been left he refers us to the order of Tradition plainly supposing Tradition would have done our business and that we had not even in that case been left without a rule it had been non-sence to refer us to a rule which would not have been a rule when tryed and had he thought so he would certainly have told us there had been in that case no rule at all and if so then pray why is not Tradition as much a rule with Scriptures as without them They may add to its force by their testimony but take away nothing of its efficacy For that the truths which the Apostles taught were written sure makes them no whit the lesse truths and if it may be known what 't was they taught as you see Irenaeus is of the opinion it may by Tradition I hope the security is equal whether it were or were not commended to writing This place then which by the way is not in the fifth but third Book makes it very evident Irenaeus held another rule besides Scripture that is Scripture not the onely Rule which is your Tenet Again since some Nations had the Doctrine but had no Scriptures does it not follow undeniably that there was another means besides Scripture to preserve the Doctrine amongst them and further that the Apostles trusted not to writing the preservation of the Doctrine they taught them which had they intended for a means much more the only means of doing it they cannot be imagined to have omitted I learn therfore from this place both the efficacy of Tradition which actually did preserve the Apostles doctrine without writing and the judgment of the Apostles who left their doctrine in these Nations not to Scripture but Tradition to be preserved But it follows not say you they would have retained their doctrine pure in succeeding ages although they did so till Irenaeus's time And pray why does it not follow provided they would still make use of the means by which they retain'd pure doctrine till that time and what time shall be assigned in which the same cause shall leave off producing the same effect since confessedly tradition did preserve the Doctrine till then you should prove not barely affirm it could do so no longer But the truth is and your own clear thoughts will certainly shew it you that rule was so far from a likelihood of betraying the truths committed to her that it cannot be contrived into a possibility that it should betray them for since the Apostles left them the truth as long as they retained what they received from the Apostles and admitted nothing else which is the method of Tradition pray what door could Error find to creep in at 'T was not therefore possible for them to make shipwrack of their faith till they had first
be that the Gospel or doctrine of Christ which was to be the foundation of our faith was by the Will of God delivered to us by writing as well as preaching In which what branch there is that does so much as concern us truly I see not for no body doubts but the doctrine of Christ is the foundation of our faith that it was written as well as preached and this not by chance but by particular Providence and instinct of the Holy Ghost any of which positions when I contradict I will acknowledge Irenaeus is against me In the mean time I appeal to the very Rules of Syntax whether he be not against you and whether Scripturis fundamentum will agree that Scripture be the foundation which the construction plainly attributes to Evangelium that is the doctrine or points of faith that is the sense of the Letter not the letter to be senc'd which is the Tenet you maintain we oppose There follow two long citations out of lib. 2. cap. 46. 47. which you say shew clearly that plain Scripture may be judged the only way to decide all controversies and this I deny not for supposing Scripture to be plain enough for that effect I see not why it should not produce it But do the places say it is plain enough What you think I know not but I will assure you I am so far from thinking that question determin'd here that no part of either of them prompts me to suspect the Father did so much as think of it His businesse in these chapters as far as I apprehend is in the first to shew the absurdity of opposing a fancie drawn from an obscure Parable to an acknowledged doctrine and even in Scripture plain to religious Lovers of truth and in the second to teach the impossibility of attaining to all knowledge in this life and the necessitie of being content to know as much as God is pleas'd we should and be ignorant of the rest Now if by deciding those questions he hath given sentence in ours from which 't is impossible any two should be farther removed and that by teaching Parables are not to be reli'd on nor our thirst after knowledg satisfied in this life he has taught Scripture is plain enough to decide all controversies in all times and cases He has done both what he never thought to do and what I think impossible he ever should doe ¶ 11. In his third book cap. 14. Si autem Lucas quidem qui semper cum Paulo praedicavit dilectus ab eo dictus est cum eo evangelizavit creditus est referre nobis evangelium nihil aliud ab eo didicit sicut ex verbis ejus ostensum est quem admodum hi qui nunquam Paulo adjuncti fuerunt gloriantur abscondita inerrabilia didicisse Sacramenta Quoniam autem Paulus simpliciter quae sciebat haec docebat non solum eos qui cum eo erant verum omnes audientes seipsum fecit manifestum In Mileto convocatis Episcopis Preâ—byteriis repeats those words Acts. 20.17 and so on non subtraxi uti non annuntiarem vobis omnem sententiam Dei. Sic Apostoli simpliciter nemini invidentes quae didicerant ipsi à Domino haec omnibus tradebunt Sic igitur Lucas nemini invidens ea quae ab eis didicerat tradidit nobis sicut ipse testificatur dicens quemadmodum tradiderunt nobis qui ab initio contemplatores ministri fuerunt verbi Observe I pray you and impartially weigh the truth Irenaeus is professedly disputing against the Valentinians throughout his whole book confutes them all along by Scripture answers their objection which is the very same with yours against us the Scriptures do not contein all divine truths and mysteries and there fore they would not be judged nor confuted by it as you at this day Irenaeus first proves out of Scripture that the Apostles delivered freely plainly the whole mystery or doctrine of salvation to all envying the knowledg of it or any part of that knowledge to none great or small therefore not to S. Luke who was a continual companion of the Apostle Paul and a beloved fellow-labourer So that he S. Luke must needs know all and out of S. Lukes words the very same I have before made my Argument the beginning of his Gospel and the Acts shews he did faithfully relate all he had received and learnt of the Apostles not envying us any one truth what is the meaning of that expression he himself had learnt Besides what force could there have been in Irenaeus his Argument or indeed to what purpose would his whole Book have been proving from Scripture all along his Adversaries to be out and their Tenet to be false because the Scripture doth not teach them if the Scripture be not such a perfect Rule which contains the whole Mystery of salvation and doctrine of the Gospel Thus I think if I am not mightily mistaken I have proved the Minor Proposition which only can be questioned of that Syllogism which destroys Mr. Rushworths second Dialogue That which hath been the rule in the Primitive Church must still be But the Written word which we enjoy was the rule as appears by what hath been said Ergo The Scripture still is c. ¶ 11. The last is out of the fourteenth Chapter of the third Book which to make strong against us you assume two things and I conceive neither true First That he confutes them all along by Scriptures which I do not see how it would advantage you were it admitted for because he saw it convenient to dispute out of Scripture will it therefore follow no other way of disputing is either lawfull or possible We dispute with you every day out of Scripture yet hold another a surer nay the onely rule but I wonder the diligence you profess should so far deceive the candour you are master of as to offer it for true which cannot but have observed the first Chapters of this very Book are employed in confuting them by Tradition and that Scripture is made use of not for necessity I cannot speak more of the abundant efficacy of Tradition then he does but out of abundance ut undique resistatur illis si quos ex his retusione confundentes ad conversionem veritatis adducere possimus as he says in the 2d Chapter of this Book which you see is an expression not of necessity but charity And if I am not mistaken for I have not the means to studie it exactly his whole second Book is so fill'd with Arguments from reason That Scripture is hardly so much as mentioned unless sometimes by the by Secondly you assume with as much injustice as mistake that their Objection is the same with ours and the Answer given by him to them the same you give to us Our Tenet for objection while we are upon the defensive we make none is that Scripture is not the rule of Faith That of
business do not require they should be urged are yet manifest in our case the two last being visible almost to blindness and the first undeniable to Christianity since it cannot be doubted but that the Religion which Christ delivered was true and you may if you please perceive that the fall of Adam is so far from necessarily occasioning a fall from true Religion that mankind once possest of the truth and this method to preserve it must plainly fall from its nature and degenerate into beast or somthing worse if it be not as steady in the pure service of God and preservation of the truth as of it self the props which uphold the former being full as strong if not more then those which sustain the later ¶ 7. The Inclination you speak of to underprop your tottering infallibility is very steady to uphold corruptions and superstition as we accuse you of not so the pure Worship of God Again I pray tell me since you have only proved or rather shewn a possibility of your Doctrines succession Is it not more possible to deviate from the right line then to keep close to it This probability is stronger against you then any I cannot see they are any more then probabilities you bring for your selves that there could be no error universally spread over your Church Shall I give you an instance to prove the possibility The Jews Church when their Forefathers were brought out of Egypt had not the whole Nation every man of them sufficient Instruction in and confirmation of the true worship of God so many wonders and signes as they had yet did they not corrupt the worship I hope 40 yeers is sufficient Mr White thought three yeers enough for the Apostles to be in one place to teach the ways of God and all those miracles they had to confirm them after they were setled in the land of Canaan how could they lose any points of Doctrine received or their Traditions be corrupted if your Arguments hold Was it not possible seeing it has been they should afterward again bring in their Traditions for Truths by which they made void the Law of God as our Saviour speaks and those Traditions as Mr. White p. 124. went among the Jews for currant sound Law and afterward continued ask them in one of those after Ages whether it came from Moses suppose one of those false Traditions he may answer says Mr White p. 126. he received it from their Predecessors but they can yeeld no account why any Age may not have chang'd that but why may not the Jew ask in what age as you do us or year their Doctrine was corrupted but says Mr. White If I assign an age or yeer can they acquit themselves in point of proof and so I say of you clearly they cannot for since there was no Register nor visible effects of this Doctrine and so unless you can shew a Register or effects for every age and yeer you cannot prove there have been no corruptions among you and so all your infallibility depends upon uncertainty what if there be not Histories and Records of all passages of the Church as likely there are not how can I be sure there have been no such changes as are possible and where now is your certain proof ¶ 7. The nature of man then being reason see not why you should so confidently affirm he is naturally more steady in idolatry then the pure service of God unless you will make the disorder of reason more his nature then reason it self What follows is an odd perseverance of yours when by taking so much pains to shew he has not demonstrated you cannot but acknowledge he pretends to have done so Your question whether it be not more possible to deviate from then to keep close to the right line will find an answer in this reflexion that if a thing be made to keep us in a right line and to guide mankinde so powerfully by it that the line cannot be deviated from without a deviation from nature and this I have shewn to be our case 't will be harder to deviate from then to keep in it as it is very difficult to force a falling Port-cullis into a crooked line which by the nature of its weight and directions of Art is determined to a streight one The rest of this Paragraph and the whole following one presses the failing of the Iews an example against which there lie innumerable exceptions for first they were a particular Nation subject to be wrought upon by hopes and feare when any of their Princes went about to make his own wickedness National from which spring most of their failings were derived Again there wanted in their breasts that great fire of Pentecost which together with Christian Religion planted in their hearts that received it an unspeakable esteem of it and a certain perswasion that all things even life it self were to be neglected for it the advantage of future goods infinitely overvaluing all possible evils in this world Whereas as far as I can perceive the conceit which the Jewes had of the next world was very weak and slothful being led even to the keeping of the Law by hopes of temporal goods promised to the observers the mystical Land of Promise being generally apprehended but feebly But what most imports you say nothing and I think can say nothing to prove Tradition was their rule Their Law was delivered immediatly to Moses and by him left in writing whose Interpretation was reserved to the High Priest what has this proceeding to do with Tradition Or would you have it preserve them from failing who neither made use of it nor had it to make use of if Tradition were not their rule which that it was I do not see how it can be asserted pray what does their failing concern us If not that but the written Word was their Rule which I do not see how it can be deny'd pray what hinders your Discourse to be conclusive against your self and their failing an evidence that the written Word is no preservative against Errors This you would do well to reflect upon Mean while your Argument against the security we pretend to by Tradition stands thus the Jews had errors who followed it not therefore we who do cannot be without them A discourse which as I should never have expected from you so I know not whether your second thoughts will think fit to own But to descend to particulars Had not the whole Nation of the Jews every man sufficient instruction in and confirmation of the true Worship of God yet did they not corrupt the Worship How far the instruction of the Jews was derived to particular men I am not able to answer and I doubt you do but guess This I see that those things which were commended to the practice of the multitude as their Feasts Circumcision c. remained entire among all their failings though they were but a particular Nation and wanted that
since any body does I am sure no body is bound to maintain I am glad they impose upon me no necessity of contest with you in this Paragraph But least you should think it would follow thence that Tradition were uncertain I must affirm that not only a particular Church but scarcely a particular family that is well instructed can possibly err if they stick to Tradition and that the universality of the Church though ten thousand times more dispersed then it is cannot secure it from error if they desert it ¶ 5. Lastly I see no proof of your infallibility sure I am it is a safer way to preserve truths in writing then to be transmitted by the various apprehensions and mmories of multitudes and truly I beleeve you would not have retained so much truth as you have had it not been for the Bible and other writings and so I see not how you prove any thing has been intirely transmitted onely by Tradition Much lesse how it is proved there could creep no error into your Faith ¶ 5. Lastly I would fain flatter my self with hopes of success in the design I have had to serve you but however that proves must needs take the liberty to think if you do not yet see the proof you mention the fault is not in the object Only I presume there is no mistake in the word Infallibility which placed singly may speak an Attribute too much approaching to Divinity to belong to any thing of mortal but by extraordinary priviledge since it extends it self to all subjects whatsoever whereas with us 't is confined to matters of Faith and signifies but this that we can neither be deceived in what we hear nor deceive our posterity in what we relate concerning these matters Now it being the nature of man to speak truth and the number of men being in this case beyond all temptations whether of hopes fears or whatever else may be imagined should prevail with them to contradict their nature I cannot see but a little reflexion must needs make you acknowledge 't is beyond the power of imagination it self to put any deceit in their testimony since it will be to put an effect whose cause the putter sees neither is nor can be That Truths may be preserv'd in writing I doubt not nay even better then by the various apprehensions and memories of multitudes But if there be no variety in their apprehensions nor dependance on their memories continual practice overweighing the defects of nature I cannot see but 't is much easier to beat a man from a sence whereof he has no other hold then a word appliable to another sence then to beat a multitude from the judgements which they are in possession of and confirm'd by the daily actions of their whole lives Besides while the writings preserve the truth who shall preserve the writings from false copying and all the errors which both negligence and knavery threaten them withall and if the Vessel be tainted what shall keep the Wine pure For the rest I conceive that whatever you think of us your selves would not have the truths you have had not nature maintained that Tradition in your practice you deny in your words Your faith of the Blessed Trinity is right because no interest has yet moved you to follow your principles against it But give an Arian the same liberty against it you take against us and if you convince him you will as much deceive me as I think you do your selves to beleeve you can do it The same I say of Baptism of Prelacy and the rest of those truths you profess all which while you pretend Scripture it is Tradition which has truly conveyed to you and you have kept since because no body has opposed them but when they do have no more hold then of those you have deserted Neither is it possible for your principles to convince an Adversary that makes advantage of them neither just to condemn him for it will be to condemn your selves and that plea which if it justifie you must absolve him That faith has been so transmitted by Tradition that it has not been written is not Mr. Whites tenet but that writing at least the writings we have is not able so to transmit it as is necessary for the Salvation of mankind without Tradition This being the security of whatever writing faith is contained in if it be Scripture we know the sense by Tradition if a Father he is of authority in as much as what he writes is consonant to Tradition if any thing be found to disagree that not having any weight ¶ 6. First I ask whether an Error cannot overspread the face of the greatest Church visible It hath done so in the Arians time In our Saviours time Secondly whether an Error once spread cannot continue Arianism continued most universal for many years Mahomets Errors and Blasphemies for many Ages Jewish Suppositious Traditions longer yet then they What security then can a man have that Errors could not creep into the the Church while it is your Principle to embrace any thing your Councils shall determine ¶ 6. To your first Question I answer if that may be called a Church which wants the only principle which can make a Church I conceive an error may very easily overspread the face of the greatest visible There being no more to do then to desert this Rule and then truth will not only easily but almost certainly desert her without adhering to Tradition I know no security any number of men be it never so great can have of truths above the reach of natural reason such as are the Maxims of Religion But let the Church you speak of adhere to Tradition and be largely diffused and I conceive it as impossible that Error should overspread it as that it should be ignorant of what it does every day To the second since the supposal of an Erâ—â—â—s being spread supposes a destruction of that fence which only could keep it out viz. cleaving to Tradition I conceive an Error once spread not only may but will continue without extraordinary Providence of Almighty God Arianism which you exemplifie in was plainly brought in by preferring the interpretations which Arius made of Scripture as you do those of Luther c. before the Doctrine delivered by their Forefathers neither was there any cure for the disease till they purged themselves of novelty and rested in the ancient Doctrine Mahomet also took the same course and all those whom his impieties will bring to Hell will owe their damnation to the deserting of this principle which had his followers not first been cozened from it had not been possible for him to have undon so great a part of the world Jewish Traditions I have already spoken of and hope I need not again put you in mind they have nothing common with Tradition but the name This principle then and only this of adhering to Tradition gives a man all imaginable security
whose easiness if the Heretick have won any credit upon he must be the veriest Dunce in the world if he be not able to any crime whatsoever to frame some either to them plausible or at least confused Defence which they not understanding his craft will make use of his Authority to perswade them his innocence suffers not by desert but by want of capacity in them to see it ¶ 10. All that plausible discourse of the possibility of Scripture-corruption only teacheth me wariness and diligence to use all means withall confirming my Faith that it is the Word of God seeing so many contrary minds could never have combin'd to forge it nor those various Lections crept in had it not been universally in respect of time and place received ¶ 10. That something was commended to Writing by divine Authority you gather well but that the Books we have and as we have them are that somthing is if it be part of your Faith what you will not find any thing able to confirm Suppose an Atheist or wittie Infidel whose faithfulness to his nature requires severe demonstration reply to your discourse that although contrary mindes could not combine to a forgery yet they may be deceived by a forger who for any thing appears to the contrary may have adulterated the first Copie of the Original from which adulterated Copie all our Lections may have been derived What return could you make to this man Could all your wariness and diligence deny but that this case might happen which if it could what confidence could motion to him the receiving those Books as Infallible and Divine which he sees may have been corrupted and you are unable to shew but that they have been so Reflect therefore if you please what a pretty confirmation you have of your Faith which can neither satisfie another nor establish your self upon a foundation of any certainty and less then certainty and that absolute and rigorous cannot in these matters be a foundation I pass therefore to the next Section after I have observed that this neither proves there is so much as one corruption less in the Bible then your Adversary thinks may be and that although it had proved many less it would nothing have advanced your purpose since that Corruptions may be there that is for ought you know are there does as much destroy your pretence to certaintie as if you knew they actually were there SECT II. Incertainty of the Sence of Scripture from the bare letter ¶ 1 THe next material Question is how to understand these Scriptures which we may see sufficiently to agree because the Original Languages are not now commonly known equivocations incident to all writings and words c. ¶ 1 THat which you call the next material Question I do not comprehend how you come to state in the manner you do I presume you intend to oppose the 8th and following Sections of the 2d Dialogue where several incertainties necessarily springing out of the variety of Translations Copies c. being already handled is examined what must needs follow from this that the Scripture in the supposition there were but one authentical Copy extant is a Book written in words of men So that the Question there seems not to be of the method how to understand the Scripture but of this whether they may be understood with that certainty which in our businesse is requisite ¶ 2. Here I wonder at the excellent Mr. White not to have prevented this my difficulty that the same difficulty lies as heavy yea heavier upon Tradition for that came by the same way as you will confesse first delivered in those Original Tongues and must be Translated by word of Mouth and Expounded even into our Native Languages before we can be made sensible of them and is it not as hard for me to tell you that in English which another told me in Latin as for me or another better learnt than my self to Translate so much written to my hand in Latine into English surely this later is the exactest way ¶ 2. Here you must give me leave to wonder too but 't is that you raise such a difficulty and attribute so much heaviness to it upon so light ground Truly I am so far from confessing that Scripture and Tradition came by the same way that I conceive it impossible they should do so For Scripture contains a determinate number of words which are the same to whoever reads them Tradition is not at all confin'd but uses fewer and more obscure to ingenious persons more clearer to those who are duller and consequently is not subject to translation since certainly I cannot be said to have translated if what another hath told me in 500 words of French I tell you in 100 of English What you assume therefore that Christianity was first delivered in the Original tongues is in this sense true that it was first preached to those Nations whose Vulgar Languages were those which we call Original but that gives you no pretence to add 't was translated into ours it being delivered neither to them nor us in a set form of words which might be translated but so preached to both in our several Vulgar Languages that the people understood the meaning of what their Preachers delivered to them and were not left to guess at it by scanning the various and therefore doubtful signification of the words they express'd it in So that Tradition is not subject to any of the uncertainties which writing cannot be exempt from a truth which the next word expounded seems to confess For it being the business of Exposition to render the Text clear if the Gospel were by tradition expounded to the people there must have been a great fault in the Expositor if there remained any uncertainty or doubt in them ¶ 3. You will say perhaps not the words but the sense was delivered by Tradition at first in several expressions Answ Yet still by words liable to all those difficulties incident to Scripture yea greater when they again transmit it to others of another language Scripture too has the same truths essential to Christianity in divers expressions several places almost in every Book and whether this be not the surer way of transmitting truths let Papias his example witness who pretended to hear the Apostles themselves teach the Doctrine of Millenaries had he transmitted the very words in Writing others having judgement which he wanted as Eusebius would have seen his mistake by this appears in general Writing the surest way Litera scripta manet ¶ 3. 'T is true then that not a set form of words but a determinate sence came down to us by Tradition by the means of words indeed but not as you say liable to all those difficulties incident to Scripture For though words are necessary to both yet there is this difference that in Traditon where by the observation of the Master or notice of the Scholler any doubt is perceived 't is
presently explicated by other words till it be perfectly taken away and the thing understood Whereas Scripture is confin'd to those precise words it contains concerning which if either your self have any doubt or another raise it in you you have no means of satisfaction for how can you come to the knowledge of the thing signified while you are at a loss about the sign that sign which is all you have to trust to being to explicate another thing not it self Now if you reflect that the Gospel was preacht or dâ—livered by word of mouth with that care and time that it was not only well understood by the people but setled deeply in their souls by a constant practise and high esteem you will see that since they understood the doctrine delivered to them and could not forget it by reason of their constant practise nor lose it by reason of their multitude Tradition has not one of the difficulties made to Scripture This advantage too which orall delivery has above writing ought not be forgotten that the liveliness of the voice and aptness of the gesture and such companions of words fitly pronounced do infinitely contribute to make them be understood We see Ironical expressions differ no otherwise from serious ones then in the motion of a lip or eye and yet how vast is the difference Nay the actions of the speaker suited to and joyned with the circumstance in which he speaks is perhaps of all Interpreters the best and admits the least doubt of his meaning Writing therefore necessarily wanting these helps must of necessity want also a most effiacious means of making the words it presents to the eye intelligible which these enjoy that are convey'd to us by the ear That Scripture has couched in iâ— most if not all truths essential to Christianity in divers Expressions I conceive to be true but if you will compare it to Tradition you must add that these truths are indisputably acknowledged and practised both with constancy and high esteem by a multitude and I shal then not think it inferiour to Tradition with which perhaps 't will be the very same And for the example of Papias I am sure it is nothing against me it being evident there want the conditions necessary to Tradition Viz. Of being openly and constantly preached to such a multitude as can certainly witness of it that perfectly understand it and practise according to it And I think it makes for me since in all likelihood the error proceeded from this that the words used in discourse by the Apostle were mis-understood by some of the hearers and what hapned to them when they were spoken I know nothing can hinder them from being liable to after they are written So that even that example concludes that all error proceeds from the deceitfulness of set words which Tradition not being tied to is also freed from the inconveniences they are the occasion of ¶ 4. We may to our comfort remember this Age affords such as are as well skilled in the Originals yea letter then many Learned men that lived several hundreds of years before us I confess what they are forced to acknowledge some things we cannot yet know by reason of those difficulties No more could the Church for above 12 hundred years ago yet as then so now we have sufficient though not all light to salvation only out of Scripture Because we cannot understand all things some whereof of in Scripture S. Peter tells us are hard to be understood shall we say we can understand nothing certainly Why should we doubt our Saviour was born of the Virgin Mary more then that we understand any sentence we hear commonly from one another although there be no other way then Scripture to know it We make no doubt but we understand a place of Plato Aristotle Tully c. and cannot God write as intelligibly ¶ 4. What the learning is of men of this age I conceive very unnecessary to examine especially since all the use you make of it is to affirm confidently That we have sufficient light to salvation onely out of Scripture to which all I shall return is that so critical an Exceptor against Arguments should not himself use for one the Conclusion barely said over That we can understand nothing certainly is not Mr Whites Position but that we cannot understand enough for the salvation of mankind with certainty requisite to that effect and till you say something against him I have nothing to say against you Why we should doubt of our Saviours being born of the Virgin Mary I know not and were there no other Readers of Scripture but such as you and I perhaps none would but if any do as I think Helvidius did and you have no other means of convincing him but by words which a subtle Critick will shew are capable of other senses pray how will you hinder a multitude with whom an opinion of learning and holiness has gotten him credit from following him into damnation of the parity between Scripture and Aristotles writings you will give me occasion to speak more fully by and by ¶ 5. Surely God would be understood by all seeing he commands all not only to read his Law but to write it upon their posts and doors and Phylacteries and be continually talking of those things that are necessary for salvation Deut. 6.7 and by his Apostles tells us that he intends so to doe not always to speak in Parables John 16.25 26. and in 2 Cor. 4.2 3 4. not handling the Word of God deceitfully but by manifestation of the truth commending our selves to every mans conscience in the sight of God but if our Gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them that beleeve not lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ who is the image of God should shine unto them Prov. 8.9 They are all plain to him that understandeth and right to them that find knowledge but what more plain then that in Hab. 2.2 And the Lord answered me and said Write the vision and make it plain upon Tables that he may run that readeth ¶ 5. For the citations you fill the next Paraph with I profess I am at a loss to find any opposition in them to what I am maintaining The Dialogues say Equivocation the nature of the Original tongues their being ceased c. causes an uncertainty of the sense of Scripture and you reply that God commanded his Law to be written upon Posts Doors and Philacteries that he intended to speak to his Apostles without Parables that S. Paul did not handle the word of God deceitfully that the words of wisdom are plain to him that understandeth and that the Prophet was commanded to write a Vision plain Does any of this or all prove that equivocation c. brings in no incertainty or that it and the rest are not found in Scripture This is what I conceive
you accommodate the outward Word in which the true Word of God is contained and because you can do so break communion with us because we prefer another sense which the words also agree withall suitable to our constant and universal practise and which to leave upon no better inducement I must confess I know not how to excuse from downright madness Moreover some of our Controvertists laying down in condescendence to you their own assured Arms Tradition have engaged with you at your own weapon critical handling of Scripture of whose endeavours I am content almost even partiality it self should be Judge being very confident no Byas can be great enough to draw a reasonable nature so far wide of Truth as to pronounce us in that kind of war overcome When you say Tradition has not ended controversies you express where the fault lies Viz. in that not acknowledging them it being unpossible that Judge should end a difference whose sentence is refused by either of the parties But then this is not for want of necessary qualities in him but submission in them We refuse not to make Scripture sole Judge out of fear it should give sentence against us we know its sence much better then you and know 't is for us and if you think you can convince us by it do it we both must and will submit but out of fear by it s not giving sentence at all our dissentions should never come to an end We earnestly long to see all the sheep of Christ quietly seeding again in one fold and that unhappy wall of division which so long has separated them battered down and because we do so cannot but testifie Scripture is no fit Engine to do it 'T was to us she was given not to you and we know her efficacy is more in times of peace then War that she is more proper to increase charity then beget faith and that being principally intended to sanctifie the faithful she does ordinarily require they should first be faithful that they may afterwards be sanctified Had you the same disposition to peace you would either effectually shew the Scripture a sit Judge to decide controversies critically and frowardly handled or appeal to some other for he that pretends a desire of an end in order to which he will obstinately beleeve those to be means which both from reason and experience he may learn to be none and will not be brought to use other is convinced to do no more then barely pretend it ¶ 2. Reason in things that depend upon it is often a sufficient rule yet many cannot be brought to an agreement by it even in things which are evident by others demonstrated shall we then think it sufficient to disprove it a rule because some yea many are not made to accord with it Mr. White p. 153. grants the Jews might have been though they were not led to Christ and salvation by Scripture if they had interpreted it with charity and humility And p. 110. However the marks of the Church are apparant enough in Scripture if there want not will in the seeker to acknowledg them If this be not to contradict himself I know not what is To ill-disposed or undisposed refractory minds nothing is sufficient I see a monstrous difficultie for you to understand Scripture aright who are resolved to make no other sence then what agrees with your supposed Traditions ¶ 2. That which I conceive to be the drift of this Paragraph Viz. That 't is perhaps more often the fault of the parties then of the Judge that differences are kept alive is certainly true But you apply it not neither as we think can you do it with any appearance to conclude we are in fault that bind our selves even in this kind of tryall to much stricter conditions then you will be brought to do For besides the reverence we bear the Scripture even to an absolute submission to whatever it says then which you neither do nor can do more we also bring you a Book which we so acknowledg to be Scripture that in disputation we refuse it not would you do so much perhaps more good might be done then is mean time this is certain that more cannot be required of us Next you pretend a contradiction from two places which you cite and I cannot tell whether you mean those places contradict one another which nevertheless seem to say the same thing or that both those places contradict the former Doctrine Now that asserts two things 1. That Scripture does not speak plain enough to convince a wrangling Critick 2. That it does speak plain enough to satisfie an humble and charitable Reader in which if you see any contradiction you see not onely what I cannot but what I conceive is not there to be seen ¶ 3. Page 137. Mr. White seems to grant what I cannot tell how he can deny that the Scripture is as well able to make us understand its meaning as Plato or Aristotle theirs but the supposition where all the venom lies is concealed as he is pleased to phrase it so the Scripture was written of those controversies which since are risen I see no danger in this poison rightly understood God delivering those things in Scripture which are sufficient for salvation speaks so that he may be as well understood as Plato Aristotle c. in their Writings then the Reader of holy Writ that comes to it as page 153. the Iewes should have done with charitie and humilitie which would actually have brought them to the truth may have the true meaning of Gods Word as to the points of faith and practice Now having the truth cannot he see that error which shall aftâ—rwards arise to be falshood because it is contrary to the truth which he has out of Scripture linea recta est Judex sui obliqui But strange opinions may spring up which can neither be proved nor disproved satisfactorily by Scripture nor is it necessary all possible controversies should be determinable I do not think you pretend to this kind of Omniscience by your Traditions I pray tell me how does your Church confute new errors which were not started in the Apostles time by thinking only that they are false or by looking upon those truths which it pretends the Apostles at first delivered before those errors came up which it sees are contrary to those received truths unless you pretend to new Revelations to discover new errors by and what poyson is there in making written truths the streight Rule to measure future inormities by more then to make unwritten truth serve for that end ¶ 3. The next Paragraph insists upon the Parity betwixt Scripture and the writings of Plato or Aristotle touching which what you say Mr. White seems to grant that the one is as well able to make us understand its meaning as the other I must tell you does but seem so and 't is a wonder to me you observed it not the very next
sence of the Controversies between them Now if in this universal liberty of prophecying which this age affords us onely my interpretation do not yet passe for currant be pleas'd to reflect no necessity of answering your argument obliges me to rely upon it to which 't is enough to say that no such thing as you intend appears in the place you cite That the not being convinced will be an aggravation of punishment to the Jews in this sence that the pride and blindness caus'd by it which hinders them from coming by an humble reading to such a degree of truth as they might is a fault for which they shall be punished I readily grant but that their punishment shall be aggravated or they at all punished for not finding a rigorous evidence there where 't is not is a fancy in which I cannot perceive any colour of apparence ¶ 8. In the 16. Encounter pag. 151. Mr. White answers that 5th John brought to prove Scripture was sufficient to Salvation without Tradition why else did God command Moses to write those Laws he had given if that written word was not a perfect Rule which he commanded to be kept so carefully and to be read continually 31. Deut. 9 10 11. and to be copyed out for the King as Deut. 18.19 to read therein all the dayes of his life unto which God would have no addition because it was a perfect Rule and therefore when the Scribes and Pharisees would needs bring in their Traditions as you do to make void the Law of God you know what our Saviour denounced against them Now though we prove the sufficiency even of one Book of Scripture for to be a sufficient rule to salvation we are far from contradicting our selves as though by that reason all the rest every one of which is profitable might be burnt For thus I argue if one single Gospel be a sufficient rule to salvation much more are all the Books of the Bible sufficient without your Traditions ¶ 8. The places which here you cite out of Deuteronomy seem little to the purpose Your premises That God commanded his Laws to be written to be kept carefully and read continually to be copied out for the King c. being so vastly distant from the Conclusion Viz. That the written Word was a perfect Rule that my dulness cannot see any approach between them all this we see practis'd in our Laws in which notwithstanding we also see a manifest necessity of an Interpreter That God would therefore have no addition because it was a perfect Rule is a reason for which you are perfectly beholding to your own invention and which in things of this concern you would do well not to trust over-far at least you will pardon an Adversary if he do not As for the Scribes and Pharisees who you say brought in their Traditions to make void the Law of God when our cases are alike I shall think you do us no wrong to rank us with them But you will be pleased to stay till we do make void the Law of God for while we confess that the Word whether written or orally delivered is the Law only enquire after the meaning of the first which when understood we profess an intire submission to I conceive we go not about to make void but to fulfill the Law for certainly the wrong sense of the Law is not the Law and as certainly that cannot be the right sence which sets the two words whereof neither can vary from truth at variance one with another But to look into the thing their Traditions have nothing of common with ours but the Word which will inform you how dangerous a foundation words are when by the same sound are expressed things most different Tradition with us signifies a publike delivery to a multitude so as what was so delivered was setled in their understanding and rooted in their hearts by a constant visible practice Their Tradition was a close underhand conveyance from a few to a few neither so many nor so honest as to be secure from mistakes both accidental and wilful and yet the cheat if any hapned remaining by the secrecy undiscovered so that nothing more apt to make void the Law of God then such a Tradition as this Whereas since it cannot be denied but that what was orally delivered by Christ and his Apostles to their Disciples and by them practised was the Law of God you must either say we have violated their practise which since we affirm it to be our rule you cannot fairly do without evidencing what you say or you will have much ado your selves to avoid the imputation you lay upon us for evidently the Law is made void as much by contradicting the unwritten as the written word Now if we practise what the first Disciples and their Successors did and what they practised was the Law clearly he that contradicts our practice cannot refuse the company of the Scribes and Pharisees So that while by going no farther then the empty sound you fancie us neer the gulf they were swallowed up in your judgment fixed upon the thing and not diverted by the jugling noise will find your selves are deep in it I cannot leave this Subject without admonishing you of a piece of foul play in the Translation of the Bible I have heard objected to your side and which possibly may have had one effect upon your self 'T is that Traditions being sometimes commended sometimes reprehended in the Scripture though the Original word be the same in both cases yet the Translation varies it so as when it is taken in an ill sence to render it by the Word Tradition when in a good always to make use of some other An Artifice which if true argues much want of sincerity in the Translators and brings much hazard to the Reader The avoiding of which is the true reason the Church forbids the use of Scripture in Vulgar languages For the rest I cannot see but he that says This is sufficient to salvation says more then this is not necessary and by consequence Salvation would not be concerned if that more were not What you mean by Profitable I cannot tell if this that some persons find in some books what they would not in others then evidently those books are necessary to those persons if onely that their Faith is confirm'd or strengthned either this strength is necessary to Salvation at least for some and then again the books are necessary for them or unnecessary and then what prejudice to Salvation if they were burnt So that I doubt your fancy was too much possess'd with the sound to give your judgement leisure to examine the notions of the word Your consequence if one be sufficient all are more then sufficient is certainly good but you know we deny what you must next subsume conceiving that neither one nor all are sufficient ¶ 9. Our Saviour in that 5th of St. John does not Reprehend the Jews as Mr.
happiness now I beseech you cannot a man tell news except he teâ—l all he know Or is not that to be called new which leaves untold any thing belonging to the same subject To argue therefore that because S. Johns Book contains news concerning the way to Heaven therefore it contains all that concerns our way to Heaven seems very unreasonable but what is more 't is also nothing to the purpose For were it granted that all things necessary to salvation were contained in every of the Gospels it would not follow they were so contained as is necessary that is accompanied with evidence enough to guide mankind securely through all vicissitudes to happiness and yet no less is requisite to make Scripture the onely rule of faith To the Question you make in the last place whether the Evangelists can be imagined to have written half a Gospel I conceive your very next words are an answer for I beseech you had S. John written those many things which their multitude made him omit had they not all been Gospel So that whatever proportion they bear of ½ or â…“ or â…› to the things written this is certain he did not write all the Gospel he knew Yes but he writ say you all necessary to salvation you say so but will not take it amiss if your bare Assertion have not the force to oblige every one to think so against the plain signification of the word you ground it upon For necessary to salvation is not as I said before that which the word Gospel imports ¶ 2. Mr White answers to the place first S. Johns writing was not to make a compleat History of our Saviours acts and doctrine but only to specifie such particulars as prove that Christ was the true consubstantial Son of God to assert is not to prove S. John intended only c. It may be as easily denied as affirmed that 's like an obstinate Sophister that intends not truth but to say somwhat only to stop his adversaries mouth a sign of a bad cause It is a sufficient confutation of any new Assertion to prove it has no ground I see none imaginable Mr White builds his Assertion on unless he has some he does not express which would be strange in this weighty matter but possibly that Assertion of S. Johns sole intent to prove Christs Diety without which back door he cannot evade the force of the Argument is built upon the 31 verse of that 20 Chapter but these things are written by me for this intent that ye might beleeve that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God but if you will give me leave I will prove the contrary with as much probability and I think certainty out of the same Text not dis-jointed as Mr White makes use of it to force a false confession but taken wholly those things are written by me for this end to bring you to salvation by your beleeving or entertainining the Gospel that Christ is the Messias for which end I have given you here those things that are requisite to beget such a saving faith in you although I might have written more I have not contenting my self with those which are sufficient for what end â— To shew you only in a speculative way that Christ is God No that would not save but that you may beleeve Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that beleeving you might have life through his name their having life seems rather to be his chief end because it is in the last place quod est ultimum in executione est primum in intentione or if you will begin at the other end the words do not shew it St. Johns chief design to prove Christ the Consubstantial Son of God for thus they run that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ or Messias the Son of God that is the Saviour of the World who was to come that you may be saved by him ¶ 2. You next except against the answer Mr. White gives to the 20th of John and first that he asserts but proves not which you say is a sign of a bad cause a trick of an obstinate Sophister c. But pray recollect your self and remember an Answerer that goes about to prove goes beyond his bounds To affirm deny or distinguish is the whole Sphere of his activity And when you say 't is a sufficient confutation of a new assertion to shew it has no ground you say very true but pray take along with you that your assertion of Scriptures sufficiency to the effect we speak of is the new assertion unheard of in the world before Luther and an interpretation of this place in favour of it every jot as new no such sence having ever been thought of till the necessity of justifying an unreasonable Tenet forced as unreasonable an explication If you please prove your ground and do not take it for granted till it be disproved When you have done so shew this which you call a new assertion of Mr. Whites has no ground for before sure you ought not to think it sufficiently confuted Till then I cannot see why it should be a sign of a bad cause to believe the Apostle and take his word when he tels us the design of his writing was that we might believe the Divinity of the Son But you can prove the contrary with as much probabilities out of the same Text if you do no more Mr. White has done as much as he should do for if both explications be probable his Adversary has concluded nothing against him But you think you can prove it with certainty let us see whether it be rational for me to think so and first after you have quarrelled with Mr. White for dis-jointing the Text as I conceive very ungroundedly when except this word Christ which is not any way material he cites the verse truly your self instead of setting it together again deliver not the Text out of which you undertake to conclude but a large Paraphrase upon it and this without telling us whether it be your own or recommended by any authority or in fine any ground why we should accept it and of which nothing is certain but that it is not the Text and This you call certainty Pray Sir Remember to assert is not to prove Remember it may be as easily deny'd as affirm'd Remember obstinate Sophistry and signs of a bad cause Next all the use you make of your Paraphrase is to establish this conclusion whose certainty too is by this time relented into seeming that their having life seems to be his chief end Be it so as I conceive the end of all the Apostles not only in their writings but both their and their Masters end in all his actions was the life of Christians Sure it will not follow their life needed no other either sustenance or Phisick then this Gospel Be it granted it is a principal means to this end that it is the only or whole means
ejus verbis obtemperavit I cannot gather one sillable hence nor from any other place for Mr White Vnless there be a proof it is but Sophistry and a sign of a desperate cause It is likely is it not that grave wise Assembly that came to confute an obstinate adversarie would make use of a Lesbian rule if they did not count it sufficient and the chief which their Adversary would make nothing of as long as one place can explicate a hundred opposed so Mr. White speaks ¶ 7. Yet it is plain they did make use of this Rule and did conclude by it that same truth which they had before that learnt out of it as Eusebius in his Epistle to his own people confesses Socr. l. 1. c. 5. yea stick and keep to Scripture-expressions in the forme of their determinations as much as they could which Mr. White himself calls a good way to govern their expressions by and therefore I cannot imagine the possibility of the truth of his words p. 98. that the Council at last was forced to conclude out of Tradition he brings Theodoret to prove it but names not the place where I have read all I can imagine should shew it but finde not one word a necessity sayes he which the Rules of Saint Irenaeus c. justifies I have not the other be mentions without citing the place as for Irenaeus I am sure it is false he has no such Rule in his whole book the only place in him that glanceth at it is not a proof I speak of it elsewhere if it were it would prove Irenaeus an egregious fool to spend above 600 pages to no purpose in Scripture-Argument and then in one page do all the work by your imaginarie only Argument I expect a better Solution or a deserved consent to the contrary truth ¶ 8. Mr. White p. 95. seems to make the Bishops to set upon this Resolution of their own accord if that be true also then both Bishops and People were of the same minde his words are But the same Bishops consented to excommunicate the Contradicters to hinder men from unwritten words and was not that a proper and prudent remedy to prevent the inconveniences that easily arise from confusion and incertaintie of language when every one phrases the mysterie according to his private fancie and are not all your Traditions which you say depend not upon words subject to these inconveniences pray tell me ingenuously and governs not his terms by some constant and steadie Rule and the Writings of the Apostles or ancient Fathers What now does Mr. White turn his tale and call Scripture a constant steadie rule which before he made a nose of wax ¶ 5 6 7 8. There follows a Citation from a Council out of Socrates which to a Person disposed to make use of it affords a fair advantage But as my aim is your service not victory I shall only desire you to reflect they were Hereticks who by the Artifice of that pretence sought to draw the Council of Ariminum to subscribe a new form of Faith in prejudice of what had formerly been establisht at Nice A sleight which the Catholicks rejected with this Answer We came not hither as though we wanted Faith and beleef for we retain that Faith which we have learned from the beginning but we are come to withstand Novelties if those things which you have now read neither savour nor tend to the establishing of Novelty accurse and renounce the Heresie of Arius in such wise as the old and ancient Canon of the Church hath banished all Heretical and Blasphemous Doctrine Now consider if you please who they were that pretended Scripture who they that rejected it and adhered constantly to what they had learned from the beginning and observe which party your Position takes and which mine Next is an expression of Constantines in his Oration to the Council of Nice insisted upon to my no small wonder through 4. Paragraphs For how comes it that a man bred up wholly to the Arts of War and Government and so lately become a Christian that he wanted even time had his other employments been no Obstacle to advance beyond the degree of a Learner should yet be look'd upon by you as so great a Doctor that an expression of his which according to the custom of such persons too has more of oratory then severe discourse in it should wholly sway you in a point of Religion whose judgment I dare say in a point of Politicks in which he was much better vers'd would not be of half that credit with you what if he did not so much as understand the thing and if he did what if he spoke rather according to his occasions then his judgment For Princes you know do and ought to govern their actions by other rules then private men and speak sometimes more what 't is fit they should be heard speak then what they truly think In either of these cases both which I take to be not only possible but so far probable that I think them true how weak a support is this Testimony you so much rely upon And yet I think these advantages so unnecessary that the place it self faithfully consulted needs no assistance to conclude plainly against you For since you make Constantine satified of the truth of the Question before the calling of the Council it cannot with any colour be imagined he meant to put that to tryal which before the tryall appointed was already known and resolv'd on The Question therefore in Issue could not be which was Faith which Heresie neither does that use to be or indeed can be a Question among those that know their own Faith but how the oppositions made against the known Faith might be answered And this besides that after a man is satisfied of the truth of one part of the Question there can be no more dispute concerning the same Question but how to answer the Objections of the opposite is clear from the very words For dissolvere does not signifie to give sentence in a Question he that should English it so would wrest it strangely but to solve an Argument its natural signification to loose or untie being applied by Schollers to the knots of Sophistry That Phrase therefore imports the answering an Objection not the determining a controversie and the sence of the place is this Let us by Scripture shew the Arguments of Arius brought out of Scripture fallacious and unconcluding I beseech you then to accept of this short Answer to your long Discourse First that whatever were Constantines opinion 't is of no extraordinary importance either way he being a man wholly bred up to other Arts then Divinity and by the course of his life disabled from attaining a mastery in such abstruse points Secondly that yours is so far from appearing to be his Opinion that you cannot force it upon the words you cite without manifest violence and which their own genuine signification and the
his meaning suppose only I grant the Conclusion me thinks he does not conclude what he was to prove which should be this therefore that Age was not the first that held her Doctrine upon that Maxim But to the other part of the Dilemma more fully ¶ 3. You chuse to fall upon the second horn of the Dilemma whose sharpnesse we shall presently try after I have assur'd you that by assurance he means absolute certaintie which there is no denying but that she either had or had not In the first Case his Discourse runs thus she had assurance in the eighth Age before she took up the Maxime said to be new therefore she had the Maxime by which she had assurance before this Maxime could be no other then Tradition nothing else being able to give her assurance therefore she had the Maxime of Tradition before therefore that Age was not the first she took it up in which is what you desire should be the Conclusion ¶ 4. If not says he then she wilfully belied her self c. I wholly deny this wilfulness will follow thus the 8th Age entertained that principle first of all suppose she might think it true when it was not and so no wilfulness might not the Church think all she held descended to her through the interjacent Ages by the Bible which is handed still to her and yet not think all she received descended lineally in your sence I pray Sir make my dull capacitie see this absurdity which I profess I cannot I think if your Argument prove any thing it proves against all Errors in general any where that they could not have come into the world and then I wish exceedingly your Argument were true The Heretick held no Error because he held nothing was to be embraced but truth Is not this the very same Argument Mr White says some of yours maintain Tenets in other termes that are condemned might I not prove the contrary by his own Argument the Error could not enter into them because they held nothing was to be entertaind as of Faith except what was delivered to them by the former this is the very Argument To say the case is not the same in respect of universality is not to the purpose for there is no universality mentioned in the Argument the stress is not yet put in that If the argument be true in one I see not why it should not be in another ¶ 4. But you take the second Part in which case he presses you deny an unadmittable wilfulness Let us see The Supposition puts the Church not assured whether her Doctrine were lineally descended or no The Maxime makes her oblige her Posterity under pain of damnation too to beleeve it was so descended that is to beleeve what she knew not to be true that is what for ought she knew was false yet you discover no wilfulness Pray can reason justifie a command to accept that for true which the Commander knows may be false and for ought he knows is so and is there any other principle of action besides reason but will I but she might think her Principle true when it was not but what if no greater wilfulness can be imagined then to think so for you must mean it true either in respect it had conveied the true faith to her or would convey the true Faith to her posterity The first is Nonsence for that Age being supposed the first in which she took up the Principle the faith she had must of necessity have been conveid to her by some other The second is as bad or worse for if that principle be the Test of true Faith her own not being received by it must needs be thought not to be true that being the Faith she commended to the principle to be conveid could even wilfulness make her think that principle would convey a true Faith to her posterity which had received a false one to convey But she might say you think her Doctrine true as taught by the Bible which Bible was handed down to her though her Doctrine were not If she did but think so she did not know it to be true therefore it was not certain to her therefore but probable therefore to recommend it as true and certain which to her was not so was to do what she had no ground for that is to act wilfully Again if she thought her self to have received the true faith from the Bible she must needs think the Bible a means to convey the true faith to her that is a true rule then to desert that which she thought a true one and impose another as the onely true one besides which she thought even when she impos'd the second the first also to be true pray what name can it own but wilfulness Thus which way soever we turn nothing appears but impossibility which also a little reflected on would be discovered much greater and far deeper plunged into contradiction For were it possible a Council for example should be so maliciously wilfull as to consent to the damnation of all posterity mankind has rooted in it a greater desire of its own good then to be so cheated into everlasting misery especially so openly that it could not be ignorant of the juggle But neither is it proper for me to dilate that am an Answerer neither is it necessary to one that sees day so soon as you do To go on then you think the Argument proves against all Errors if any thing but why you think so you do not say and indeed I cannot guess One only supposition seems able to give the fancie any colour Viz. That our Saviour besides those necessary to Salvation taught also all manner of other truths whatsoever in all Arts and Sciences c. All which being equally recommended to Tradition flow down in the same great channel to us but this me thinks is too wild a fancie to suspect you of Next you parallel our Argument with one you frame in behalf of an Heretick in this manner He holds nothing is to be embraced but truth therefore what he imbraces is truth put your Heretick to have a right method of arriving at truth and faithfully to pursue it and there is no doubt but your Conclusion is strong and so strong that it quite overthrows the Supposition for he cannot in that case be an Heretick but that he has any such method or makes any use of it we must seek elsewhere then in your Argument which out of this that the thing should be done concludes it is done By the sincerity you profess and ow to the concern of eternity do we argue in that manner Do not we prove both that our method cannot fail us and that we never failed to make use of our method The first under penalty of this evident contradiction that the same thing must be beleeved before and not before the same time the second by the impossibility that mankind should conspire notoriously and unconcealably
such a peece of ground contained so many Acres your heart could not chuse but think it true what ever opposition the strength of your wit might make against it So that Mr White had reason to say he that refuses to beleeve the Church if his thoughts be thoroughly sifted will find in them a proud preference of his own private fancie before the wisdom of the Christian world Nevertheless to comply with the wayward humours of her children I beleeve she will exact no more in things of this nature then a quiet submission which your self cannot but see absolutely necessary for government and a not opposition without evidence leaving you the freedome of your inward thoughts to assent no farther then you see reason which yet if you be learned you may have by looking into the reason her self goes upon if you be unlearned you have no reason for any principle that governs the most important of your actions of comparable weight to her authority nay perhaps even to dissent if a case contrivable onely as I conceive by a wild roving fancie should be put actually to have been Viz. That evidence be producible against her so it be proposed with the moderation and submission necessary to the quiet and peace of all governments since I hope this Explication of these points will rectifie the mistakes interwoven through your solid Discourses in these Paragraphs I shall without a more particular examination pass on to the next Section SECT II. Authority of Fathers Transubstantiation ¶ 1. LEt us come to Particulars Transubstantiation there cannot be a more absurd Tenet imagined that could be fuller of Contradictions as plain as any contradiction in the world that the Sun should shine and not shine at the same time that Christ should begin to be and not to be at the same time broken and yet not broken at the same time in one place and yet in hundred thousands so many that you your selves are fain to look off and confess you are not able to solve yet for this what ground have you the Word of God No your own Authors confess you have no more cause to understand Hoc est corpus meum literally then those the Lamb is the Passeover Christ is a door a rock a way ¶ 1. Which opposes the point of Transubstantiation but so gently that the difficulties which you would have impossible to Omnipotency are almost as familiar and ordinary events as any we converse with But for the first That Christ should begin to be and not to be how do you verifie either part or infer from our doctrine there is a time when Christ is not Which is necessary to the truth of your Proposition T is true that this half hour he is not upon the Altar the next he is but sure it could not escape you that not to be upon the Altar and not to be are two very different things Now I am sure you do not wonder to see a Wart or Pimple to grow and perish which nevertheless while they live have no distinct being from the being of the man they grow upon that is are that man and yet cease to be without causing the man to do so And for those that follow that Christ is broken and not broken in one place and in ten thousand pray consider that the multiplicity of forms our Saviour vouchsafes to put his sacred Body under is to his body as quantity or extension to substance A man is but one thing and no more his hands his feet and whatever else go to the making up of man being not several things but entring all into the unity of this truly one man and this man by one of his feet is in one place by another not in that but another place Cut his hair or nail he is truly divided that is according to that part which is truly he and truly remains one Now raise your thoughts and consider how very little more faith this great mystery requires of you no more then that you will permit the Author of nature to do that by the multitude of forms with which he is pleased to cloth his body which nature does every day by means of quantity and see whether it be not very unjust to say no more to deny that to omnipotence which the ordinary course of causes does so perpetually bring forth that it never concerns your wonder and seldom your notice You will find some disparity in these similitudes and so you must for nullum simile est idem but if I mistake not you will find the very knot of the difficulty the same in both though the manner of tying be different and however it be a little reverence and submission to that power which extends to all things should easily prevail with us to beleeve he is able to do more then we to comprehend For the rest in what you say we confess viz. innumerable contradictions unsolvable and which we are fain to look off from certainly you must either mistake our Authors or they themselves none that understood what he said ever granting a true contradiction in this mystery neither do I beleeve they meant any more then that the depth of it is not to be fathom'd by the shortness of our understanding a conceit even to a moderate sense of that vast Abyss of power as well as wisdom and goodness so far from unreasonable that I know not how the contrary can be excused from impious And for what you make our Authors say that we have no more cause to understand the words of Consecration literally then other expressions acknowledged to be metaphorical those who truly say so if there be any such which truly I much doubt are then pitiful Authors none even among those that are far from the desert of being Authors being ignorant That Tradition is the best Interpreter of Scripture and that it teaches us to follow the letter in one place and not in another ¶ 2. Have you derived this Interpretation all along from the Apostles No your Scotus and Bellarmine confesse that Ante concilium Lateranse transubstantiatio non fui dogma fidei And as plain it is the first Ages of the Church though they highly reverenced the Eucharist and possibly by some hyperbolical expressions gave way to your Error yet were cleerly against you Irenaeus l. 4. c. 34. Panis terrenus accepta vocatione à verbo Dei non amplius est communis panis yet bread still sed efficitur eucharistica quae constat ex duabus terrena therefore it is bread still celesti Tertullian l. 4. contra Man Acceptum panem distribuentem discipulis suis corpus suum illum fecit how hoc est corpus meum dicendo id est figura corporis mei Basilius in Liturg. Greg. Nazianz in orat de pas both call the Bread and Wine antitypa corporis Christi Ambros de Sacram. l. 4. c. 5. haec oblatio est figura corporis sanguinis domini August contr
inward fire of charity infused by the Holy Ghost together with Christianity into the hearts of the first beleevers And you speak of the corruption of their Traditions that is private Interpretations of their Law so far from being understood practis'd by the multitude that being delivered with the seal of secrecie they were not so much as known to them To answer your Argument then what do you mean by sufficient instruction that particular men were instructed by the Law sufficiently to go to Heaven I conceive true but that the instruction of particular men was sufficient to preserve the Law from being corrupted I cannot grant since I think there is not in a particular Nation force enough to defend it self from the numerous and violent aâ—saults which the corruption of nature you just now insisted on will be sure to make upon it But how could they lose any point of doctrine if Mr. Whites Argument hold Pray does his Argument secure those who neither make use of Tradition for their Rule nor have it to make use of I but was it not possible they should bring in their Traditions to make void the Law of God See how weak a thing 't is to dispute out of words The Traditions you speak of are no more Traditions then Jews are Christians These private Cabalistical interpretations of Scripture made by unknown Authors and handed privately from one confident to another as Doctors among the Vulgar upon the authority of private men are what their word signifies and our Saviour reprehends And because these made void the Law of God shall therefore the thoughts and actions of an universality of people in which there can be no juggle nothing concealed and which have nothing at all common with the former undergo the same condemnation After this you retort Mr Whites answer to the Jew upon himself and urge that unless we can shew a register and visible effects for every age and year we cannot prove there has been no corruption among us If this will content you 't will not be very difficult to give you satisfaction for I beseech you are not the actions of mankind visible effects of the perswasion from whence they flow if you find people going to Mass adoring the holy Sacrifice assisting at Dirges reverencing Images c. will you doubt of their faith concerning these particulars Behold then the visible effects of Religion which if you assign any Age in which they were introduced we thus acquit our selves without the help of History or Records in point of proof It being much more impossible things of that notorious publikeness could be introduced without notice being taken that they were so then for a Tumbler to shew tricks from Pauls to Westminster and no body regard him the age you assign could not but know they were then brought in But the principle of that Age being to receive nothing but what was delivered by her Forefathers she could not admit of these things which 't is manifest she was conscious were then first begun and by the same evidence they could be begun in no Age but that of their author Christ by whom since they are now received 't is very clear they were delivered See now how this will fit the Jew whose Traditions there being no such principle to keep them out may for ought he can tell be brought in in any Age and whom in so suspicious and fallacious a secrecie as accompanied them 't is impossible ever to satisfie that the Masters he relies upon either have not deceived him or are not deceived themselves ¶ 8. Those Traditions which went among the Jewish people for sound Law as Mr White p. 124. which the Pharisees taught them have continued since with them in their several Countries where they have been scattered although they have no Sanhedrims seeing they agree among themselves in them May they not prove with your Argument such Traditions came from Moses they have been handed still to them from father to son and that in divers places so that they could not meet together to compose this forgerie so that it is no such impossible thing as to leap over Pauls steeple though Mr White c. as for your false Traditions to have first spread themselves very largely and by degrees and then being so spread to continue long and yet to be false there 's example of its possibility in the Jews and likewise in the Turks c. ¶ 8. Here you argue in this manner The Jews now in the time of their dispersion into several Countries agree in those false Traditions which had formerly been taught them by the Pharisees and which passed among them for sound Law therefore our discourse proves they came from Moses Of which argument I doubt your Antecedent has more of confidence then ground for where or how does this agreement of the scattered Jews to these Traditions appear By as much as I can learn from the small commerce I have had my self and intelligence I could get from others they are far enough from an uniformity in their opinions Neither do I know their agreement is general in any thing but what the natural force there is in Tradition preserves in them as the times and manners of celebrating their Feasts their circumcision the ornaments for their Synagogues and whatever else the obstinacy of perpetual practice suffers them not to disagree in Now this seems so far from weakning that it strongly confirms the force of Tradition which if it have even unawares such an effect upon them I do not see why it should be denied its efficacy upon us You may perhaps think these things are preserved by writing But I conceive it follows not that if a thing be written it does not owe its preservation to Tradition and that both these things and writing and all have been preserved by it Nay I beleeve that when you have examined the business well you will find little agreement in any thing whether written or not that does not proceed from this method Though were your Antecedent admitted I do not see how it justifies your consequence For though such an agreement may argue the dissent of what they agree in from the time of their dispersion it will not reach one jot farther nor afford any shew of reason why some one of the Rabbins in the intermedial Ages betwixt Moses and the dispersion may not have begun and dispersed the doctrine pretended to descend from Moses ¶ 9. One thing more I shall take notice of p. 29. where he defends your additions in Religion an evident way both how error came into your Church and spread it self over the whole face of it by your authoritative determinations of new points not formalie as you must confess received at first that which you determine once must stand as an infallible truth and what wonder such spread themselves over that great part of Christendom which you had set your selves ouer seeing all that were under you must
receive all decisions from you for certainties and these shall be derived to following Ages and so Traditions of later date go for Apostolike God forbids not the Doctors out of two truths delivered to gather a third nor those that are no Doctors to do the same if they can but who gives the Doctors of your Church power to command their people to beleeve all their decisions certainly true without any more adoe Whether they be true or no it matters not as long as they are uncertain to any one he is not bound to beleeve them certainly true p. 31. Mr White demands whether the refuser have a demonstration against those truths he refuseth to give absolute assent unto no what then must he therefore assent Is it not a sufficient ground not to assent because he has no sufficient to assent I think it is and I pray do you shew the contrary if I mistake ¶ 10. A hundred Mathematicians only tell me there is another world besides this just such another they are satisfied but give me no ground to know the same must I needs swear it is so and assent to that I know not as a certain truth thus you suffer your selves to be led by the noses into a thousand absurdities though the man by his probabilities is not to conclude rashly all the Doctors determinations to be false yet though he had no probability against their decision he must deny assent only upon this ground that he has not sufficient evidence to conclude their determinations certain I ask of you when a Council of yours meet and from two truths received arrive at the discovery of a third Tenet can the Council erre in this Deduction or no I see no reason to say they cannot there 's no promise for it they are all every one of them singly taken one by one fallible men as well as others Nay Mr White p. 227. says they may when he denies any Fathers saying a sufficient proof of a point no says he not the chiefest of them no not 300 of them together for so many Bishops in a Council have erred well then it is possible they should err though I will suppose it less probable then that one man should erre well but still it is possible they should err and with what candor can Mr White call it an obstinate and malepert pride not to subscribe to a fallible judgement as infallible or certain I call it blind folly to do it must I beleeve that true which I have no sufficient ground for I have it not because their bare Assertions or judgement who may be mistaken are fallible so then I should beleeve a lie morally if not logically to me though not in it self because it is uncertain ¶ 11. Now consider is this a trifle uno absurdo concesso mille sequuntur though the first uncertainty which they concluded a certain truth be but a smal falshood as it is possible afterwards more must needs follow being built upon the former and so what wonder that Church swarms with Errors where such a principle is admitted Yet this way must be taken the certain word of the eternal God shall be thrown aside and fallible men that are parties too in the cause shall ascend the throne and make their word a Law ther 's difference between keeping quiet and not contradicting and between being forced to subscribe to what a man knows not certainly this is wickedness in them that force it it is forcing often to sin what is not of faith is sin But besides though Mr White say one single man cannot have a demonstration against that which is determined true though we suppose it rare it is possible for one man to find out what all the world besides is ignorant of as many have Mr Whites own instance of Des Cartes is sufficient who found out more then many learned Clerks with twice the poring and will you force all to subscribe notwithstanding ¶ 9 10 11. The Discourse in your following Paragraphs is strong and worthy your self and though by mistake of our Tenets not concluding against us yet full of excellently deduced truth And first to defend Mr White who only maintains the addition of Truths why do you so confidently call that an evident way how Error might enter and spread it self in the Church Is Truth and Error all one or does it follow that because men are content to admit of what they see to be true they will not check at what they either see is false or do not see is true Will it ever follow out of Mr Whites Position that there is no harm in adding of truths that the mischeif of adding errors cannot be avoided Now because I conceive the mistake your whole Discourse runs upon is occasioned by a wrong apprehension of the infallibility of Councils I find it necessary to observe that though some of our Doctors speak of Councils so indistinctly that they beget such an opinion of their infallibility and authority as I perceive you fancie yet the best Divines with whom Mr White agrees do not allow any power in the Church of making new Articles of Faith that is of making that to be faith to day which was not faith yesterday and the day before and always which it could not be without being taught by Christ and his Apostles whence 't is evidently consequent that if they cannot make any new thing to be faith neither can they oblige any to receive and beleeve it as faith Their power therefore of imposing Faith upon us whatever fancies the confusion of some Discourses hath raised extends no farther then to such things as both were and were known to be faith before their Imposition And sure no danger can be suspected from an Authority of commanding that which the whole world sees whether they have authority to do or no. And so much for faith As for truths collected from Premises First it appears they have no power to introduce them into the Catalogue of faith I except such as appear plainly at first sight and need no skill at all to their deduction which though in rigour they be not properly faith are yet in a moral estimation accounted the same and so by the world which in such plain things cannot be deceived are indifferently beleeved Secondly A Council being an Assembly of the learnedst men in the Church cannot be denied to see into consequences far enough to know whether they be truly deduced or no so that if they ingage for the truth of any one as it cannot be exalted into faith so neither can it be imagined falls without some prejudice crossing the disposition of nature which moves us to beleeve every one in his trade Neither do I think whatever you say of your hundred Mathematicians in which science being your self a Master to trust is improper but that if half a hundred Carpenters should agree such a peice of timber would fit such a house or as many Surveyers that