the Communion of the regular establish'd Church which yet he is far from contemning or censuring Suppose I say a Person to be of such Character and Circumstances shall we dare to say this Man's Faith is not sufficient to his Salvation because we our selves perhaps have more Faith and are justly perswaded more is necessary to our own Salvation In all Likelihood he endangers himself to be excluded from Heaven who takes upon him to exclude such I am far from denying that Men ought to grow up to Perfection in all Faith and Knowledg that is to endeavour to comprehend and believe as near as they are able all the Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven or all revealed Truths built upon that one Foundation Jesus Christ and him crucified But we know how vastly the Superstructure is increased the Compass of Scripture even of the New Testament is large the Difficulty of understanding it at this Distance great the Lights which we have by Fathers and Doctors various and by their Variety many times dazling and confounding one another nay even whole Churches in Doctrinals very contrary to one another and at least one and that the greatest of them all for the maintaining her Grandeur has designedly with all the Arts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ephes 4. 14. and Methods of Deceit new modell'd the whole Frame of Christian Doctrine and not stuck in a sort to corrupt even Scripture it self by imposing on the World her corrupt Translation and in many Points corrupter Sense of it for infallible Truth and the only sure way to Heaven in which Impositions of hers all Protestants agree many Points to be fallacious and destructive Now these being and having been the Circumstances of the present Age and indeed of many late Ages is it not the constant Doctrine of all Reformed Churches that every Person should with Prayer Humility and Study of the Truth proposing unto himself the Holy Scripture for his Rule judg for himself And must not every Man believe what is the Result of his Judgment or what in Conscience according to Scripture he judgeth Truth Now perhaps sundry Points which particular Doctors yea which Churches have differently determined and which some of them pretend to be of Faith an honest inquisitive Man cannot perceive the Holy Ghost to have determined at all nor does he find them in the Apostles Creed the old Standard or Leiger-Roll of Fundamentals Nay further examining them according to the Analogy or Proportion of Faith that is comparing them with undoubted Fundamentals he cannot resolve which Opinion bears most Proportion or is most certain In this Case what shall the Man do For my own part I can see nothing more proper and safe than to take the Matter in that Latitude wherein the Scripture delivered it Had not learned Men differently interpreted and imbroiled the Text perhaps I should never have perceived any more than one Sense of it even that in which I now take it But having seen their Glosses I am sensible the Text will admit several Interpretations and which of them was designed by the Holy Ghost I know not I disbelieve none of them nor will I as far as able in my Practice act contrary to what either or any of them enforces I submit intirely to the Authority of God in all Here 's my negative Belief I will not divide the Christian Church nor take Part with them that do divide it but hold the Vnity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace maintain Christian Charity with all Christian People and esteem all them to be Christians who are content to walk or who without the Contradiction of a disorderly Life profess to walk by that Rule which I own namely Holy Scripture This is the Latitude I plead for and from which I think I never shall be driven But there being but one Faith there can be no more Latitude in Faith §. 12. than there is in an Vnit This is a Subtilty indeed and no doubt a stabbing Argument against the People of the long Name as some are pleased to stile many conformable moderate Persons But are there not as many sorts of Vnits as there are of Vnities And did Mr. Dean never hear in Philosophy of an Vnity of Composition which is so far from excluding Parts that it supposes them Or in Arithmetick did he never hear of Integrals and what minute Parts thereof Artists can make No Latitude in an Unit Yes and in the one Faith too especially as by the one Faith we understand what Churches and Doctors have now made it Have we not whole Systems of Opinions now adays made up into Confessions of Faith Certainly all controverted Points in Christian Doctrine can no more be maturely determined and the stated Truth distinctly be believed by all Men than all Christian Perfection be by all equally attained There are those to whom it is given in an ampler and more peculiar measure to know the Mystery of the Kingdom Though all may have the same Scripture or Body of revealed Religion all have not the same natural Sagacity and Judgment the same Education and Advantages of Improvement the same Leisure and Opportunity for Search and Application of Mind Some and that far the greatest Numbers of Christians can only understand the common Christianity repent of their Sins and in Well-doing depend upon God's Mercy in Christ Jesus for Life everlasting Others leaving that is not stopping at those the Principles of the Doctrine of Christ the alone true Foundation go on unto Perfection So that there is a measure of Faith as well as of other Christian Perfections And God is doubly the Author of a Latitude in Faith 1 In revealing his Truth in such Terms as admit of a Latitude of Conception 2 In giving to Men as he sees fit such measures of Knowledg and Perswasion as leaves them in an higher or lower Degree of Faith and even of Holiness And accordingly in our Father's House there are many Mansions Nor can any Man with Reason gainsay these things Now though this be far from thinking it indifferent what Men believe Pag. 9. or whether they believe any thing or not yea faralso from believing what we please yet I confess it is believing as by Grace we are able I must conceive as I can and judg as I can and believe as I can too And neither I nor any Man alive who believes any thing can believe all that dictating Men will impose upon them The Authority of the Church it is true is of great Weight and will go very far to the determining any sober Man's Judgment in a case where Evidences on both sides are perfectly equal that is alike probable or alike uncertain But the Faith we owe to the Church and that we owe to God are very different All the Churches or Councils in the World can never make that an Article of Faith which God has not made so He who alone can bestow Salvation has alone
Substance distinct but not separate Now upon the whole have either of these Words fix'd the Sense of the Scripture so that Hereticks cannot pervert it and have a private Sense of their own touching it May not a Man 1 Own three Hypostases or three Persons that is profess Faith in or under the two most Orthodox Terms that have been found out and none but God and himself know what he means Nay may he not hold to the Words and yet hold Heresy yea Blasphemy and that in divers particular Senses which I have named and which I have declined to name for that the Subject is so tender Again 2 May not a Man use the Words quite contrary to the Forms in which the Fathers generally use them and yet speak Orthodox Truth Did not if Theodoret say Truth the Council of Sardis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theodor. Hist lib. 2. cap. 8. say This Catholick Tradition and Confession have we received and taught this do we hold that there is but one Hypostasis meaning thereby one Substance of the Deity Nay lastly must it not be acknowledged that at least one of these Words viz. Hypostasis has given occasion to the Tritheites Heresy as any Man may see who pleases to consult what Photius what Leontius the Byzantine Advocate and what Nicephorus Callistus report of Thiloponus too long here to be inserted Were it not better then to keep to Scripture-Words in which all agree than to take up new ones of humane Invention and contend and damn one another about them when yet it is apparent we may use these however artificial refined Terms and be as far from agreeing in Sense as ever we were nay much further than if we had kept to Scripture-Language Hereticks may here conceal themselves under a larger Latitude of Expression Pag. 8. and spread their Heresies with a traditionary Sense and Comment of their own more exactly and poisonously than the Purity and Simplicity of the Holy Text would have permitted But if any be still fond of the Litigious Ecclesiastical or Scholastical Terms in their Confessions and Articles let them stand for me In the Orthodox Sense and for Peace sake they may be subscribed to only in our Prayers at least wherein a most intire Assent and Consent without doubting or doubling is to be ingaged 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let us have Scripture and speak to God as he has revealed himself to us What then must we reform the Doctrine of the Trinity out of our Prayers as in his good-natured Fit Mr. Dean expresses it No but put it in there only as God has put it in our Bibles And my Hopes and Desires of seeing this done I take to be no foul Imputation nor at all Pag. 5. likely to cast an ill Reflection on any Design of excellent Persons whatsoever But I must return with my Apologist to the Latitude of Faith which §. 11. he again to use his own Term tragically complains of me for pleading for and demands whether there be any more than one true Christian Faith Pag. 8. and whether Christ and his Apostles intended to teach any more Or whether they did not intend that all Christians should be obliged to believe this one Faith Here are Questions enow and Fallacy enough in them I answer briefly and plainly Faith as Truth can be but one And every Truth which Christ and his Apostles taught ought if it can be without Scruple understood without Scruple to be believed All Christians are obliged to believe to the utmost of their Understandings each Truth by Christ and his Apostles taught But whether a determinate explicite Belief of all the Truths which Christ and his Apostles taught be absolutely necessary to the Salvation of every private Christian or even of every Christian Doctor I take to be a Question worthy of the Dean's Consideration For mine own part I dare not affirm it but judg a Latitude must be allowed and in such Determinations as exceed most Mens Understanding some such Temper as my Notion of a Negative Belief must be admitted Which Term by his good Favour has no more Impropriety or Contradiction in it than that more usual one amongst Divines of a Negative Righteousness whence I trans-sumed it thinking it for a Reason which he may guess at more palatable to some People than an implicite Faith and I having so fully and perspicuously defin'd it it was poor and pedantic in him to carp at the Term. In a word we are to reject nothing as false nor esteem any thing as mean superfluous or unprofitable which our Lord or his Apostles have taught We are to give Diligence to understand and as we can understand explicitely to believe all but there are many Points in Divinity that is in the whole Body of what our Lord and his Apostles have taught whereof perhaps we may not have so clear and determinate a Sense as that we can say this or that is it which our Lord and his Apostles intended to oblige us to believe And here we must either totally suspend our Faith till we can better satisfy our selves in the mean while not contradicting or else we must believe though not without some Tenderness what to us appears the more probable of the several Points in Scruple Now the Belief of the more probable Side cannot be stiled Faith but in a certain Latitude of the Name 'T is sure our Lord and his Apostles full well knew they both spoke and writ to People of very different Capacities and Circumstances and no doubt accordingly accommodated their Doctrine What was necessary to the Salvation of all is by them delivered very plain and I will add 't is short Certa semper sunt in paucis says Tertullian And all learned Protestant Divines have been ever very tender in defining the Number of Fundamentals or what things are necessary by all to be believed to their Salvation Here the Minumum quod sic as we commonly speak is a difficult Point to determine and Dr. Hammond in his Book of Fundamentals has amply shewn there must be as to the Number of them a Latitude allowed according to different States or Circumstances of Men. But his Authority is infinitely greater who said Vnto whomsoever much is given of him shall be much required Consequently of him who knew not or giving honest Diligence to know understood not what is revealed a less measure of Faith shall be expected So that even here I stand to it is a Latitude Suppose a Man to have been baptized to understand competently the Apostles Creed and the common Rules of Christian Duty to profess the Belief hereof to shew his Love to God and Christ by good Works and a Life savouring of Heaven to live in the Communion of such a Church or Society of Christians as will allow such a Person for a Member of Christ though perhaps he may not be admittted for want of great Knowledg and a Faith of deeper Mysteries into
am so far from espousing the Conversation much less Friendship of any such as that I say with the great Apostle If any Man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha And as for my own part I from my Heart receive every Tittle of the revealed Christian Religion particularly as to those two Magnalia the Trinity and Incarnation Touching the former I have once and again declared my Judgment and Faith and touching the latter this being the meetest Place wherein to profess my Faith of it I do profess sincerely to believe my Lord Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God the Word who was in the Beginning and who was with God and was and is God blessed for ever to have been in fulness of Time made of a Woman and so to have become Flesh or truly taken upon him Flesh and Blood to have been in the World as we are in the World subject to all Infirmities Sin only excepted and that as such having by himself purged our Sins he is sat down on the right Hand of the Majesty on high and as he lives for ever to make Intercession for us so he shall come to judg the World at the last Day Thus do I from my Heart adore and preach him and shall do I trust to my dying Hour I know indeed and have Converse with some who are not in all these Particulars of my Mind yet neither are they licentious Wits nor do they ridicule and scorn this Faith nor do I see how any sober Men dare ridicule it But some vertuous Rationalists having perhaps faln upon bad Books and by that Means lying under strong Prepossessions they misinterpret these Passages of Holy Scripture which I have reported and others like and endeavour to evade their Evidence when applied to that Sense to which we of the Church of England alledg them Now I do not think Stiffness and an immoderate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a winding up the State of each Question still higher and higher and then disputing scornfully and defending all in new Methods or by new Hypotheses to be the way to reclaim these Men but what I conceive to be most serviceable I shall before I have done speak out and submit As to Men that ridicule and scoff at any thing in Religion yea though it be erroneous as long as it is consistent with Holiness and Charity has a fair Claim to Scripture and seems deducible thence I think such Scoffers highly prophane and both these and all such who treat those that are not of their Opinions with Scorn and Haughtiness I judg them to be next door to David's Scorners Psal 1. namely in the highest Class of the Wicked and very near being incorrigible which is all I will say as to this Imputation of my having entertained a Friendship with such Men. Mr. Dean goes on and says I have found out such a Reason to prove §. 20. Pag. 20. the present Danger of disputing the Controversy of the Holy Trinity as he believes was never dream'd of and that is that it is one of the Fundamentals of Christian Religion Now to litigate touching a Fundamental is to turn it into Controversy c. Here I must again complain of soul dealing my Words were The Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity in whose Names we and all Christians are or ought to have been baptized is esteemed as it is if duly stated one of the Fundamentals of Christian Religion It is apparent I did affirm the Doctrine of the Trinity a Fundamental with this Restriction if duly stated He charges it upon me as affirm'd simply and at large I deny it to be a Fundamental or so much a Truth as Dr. Sherlock states it in his Vindication of it viz. that there is a Trinity of infinite Minds c. though with Reverence I acknowledg and believe it to be both a Truth and a Fundamental as the Scripture states it Now for Men to take the Name of a fundamental and revered Truth the Holy Trinity and affix it to a novel and gross Pack of Errors and to go on to dispute for those Errors under the sacred Title of a Fundamental of the Catholick and Apostolick Faith which was plainly enough my Sense this I say and stand to it is of dreadful Danger and may prove of as mischievous Consequence as most Practices assignable For in case the Adversary disprove and expose that Error it is not with the Generality of People the Error that suffers but that great Truth the sacred Name whereof was abused And whereas he demands Is it dangerous to preserve and defend Foundations when Hereticks unsettle them I answer he has truly done neither neither secured nor defended them but very surely has he done a third thing he has to his Power changed them Wherefore to all that dreadful aggravative Discourse which takes up a whole Page and an half spent to render me ridiculous and my Assertion Pag. 20 21. extravagant as if according to what I urge Men might not argue against Atheism I will give no other Answer than that I pray God to forgive him the making this Parallel and grant unto him hereafter better to employ his Time and Parts than in such open and unartificial Exaggerations In the next Page follows a Piece of News which I am truly to thank him for touching a Treatise in the Press from our excellent Primate Pag. 22. Now though this Intimation was intended against the Design of my Paper as an Argument from Authority and the Authority too of such a Person whom should I offer to except against I should most justly expose my Judgment if no more yet so welcome is the Tidings he tells me that here also I forgive both this his ill Intent and the sly Scoff with which he concludes that Paragraph not doubting but when I see that Piece I shall find in it both plain and perspicuous Scripture-Notions clear Reason and genuine Antiquity Besides I must tell the Apologist I look upon his Grace both by his publick Station and personal Qualifications far otherwise capacitated to write on this Subject than a private Doctor such as I suppose Mr. Dean was when he writ what he stiled the Vindication of the Holy and ever Blessed Trinity I now come to what he has to say against my last Argument for a temporary §. 21. Forbearance of these Disputes which he thus reports that I say All Controversies are now unseasonable in such a Juncture wherein nothing but an Vnity of Counsels and joining Hands and Hearts can preserve the Reformation and scarce any thing more credit it than an Vnion in Doctrinals This Report of my Argument is according to his wonted Candour and Veracity But my Argument by his Favour stood not so in my Paper it was more carefully express'd had more Parts and those pressing closer I desire it may be considered I was to say as much as I could in a little and however Mr.