wise saying of yours If this one thing upon which all depends the nature of Tradition were well lookt into many Volumes might be saved surely truth may be cleared with few Arguments which is often invisible in a croud of words Mr. White excellently well resolves only to meddle with Arguments and not to confute Authors in all Punctilioes because of loss of time to no purpose I wish you were but as willing to urge any one of your strongest Arguments which might be don in a little Paper as I am desirous to follow you in the pursuit I should then hope of benefit which your ingenuity will not altogether suffer me to despair of you having yet as I remember your words never refused to dispute with any man ¶ 2. Though there be many things in the First Dialogue which I do not consent to yet I think it in vain to mention them till we be agreed on the second and third in which the main point lies on which they depend ¶ 3. In the Second Dialogue he proves Scripture alone cannot decide Controversies in Religion because of uncertainty of Copies Translations c. 1. I grant we cannot fully determine all things we might desire to know by what we have in Scripture neither do I think it was intended to make us omniscient 2. We might possibly have known more then we doe were it not for those several causes of uncertainty mentioned Part I. Sect. I. ¶ 1 2 3. SIR WHere I find so much civility I expect to feel far stronger Arguments than if Passion were the manager of your cause and even your courtesie alone had hazarded to conquer me had the concern of my cause and the evident truth on my side left me to my good nature But these engage me to use the best weapons my reason and knowledg affords with rigor too against the point you maintain and to exchange those personal complements into the solider respects of heartily endeavouring your satisfaction assuring you unfainedly that I more willingly attempt it because your best advantage the â—ight of Truth which not only your sincere expressions but your temper genius manifest to be your aim is included in my victory who your Friend is with whom you had those verbal Conferences I am not so happy as to learn nor yet which is a great misfortune your self But since 't is your soul that I speak to and that I have great acquaintance with it by those expressions it hath given of it self in your ingenuous Papers I can securely own so much knowledg of you as to take a right measure how to behave my self towards you that is with candor and civility What circumstances may have hinder'd your friends giving satisfaction by his own pen I know not But I am sure though the importunity of powerful Friends in the absence of that excellent Master of mine have even forc't me to this task yet I may with truth say 't was your temperate way of writing your clearness and apprehended sincerity which were my chief encouragers Entring the lists then with this protestation that you have an hearty servant for your Adversarie and one who combats you only to make you more my friend and your own I address to my Defence And ¶ 2. 3. Because I know not whether the state of the Question be not mistaken I conceive this place very fit to observe how it stands in the second Dialogue viz. We beleeve that by Scripture alone left without the guard of the Church nothing or at least not sufficient for the salvation of mankind can be sufficiently proved Where the words mankind and sufficiently being of special Energie ought particularly to be observed What is meant by sufficient proof the 15th Encounter of the Apologie p. 142. declares to be inavoidable and convincing Demonstration beyond any shadow of Reply ¶ 4. Yet thirdly notwithstanding all that hath been said I thinke we have sufficient certainty out of Scripture alone concerning those things which are absolutely necessary for Salvation and many things besides only profitable my Reasons are these ¶ 4. You put the contradictory to your Adversary which you assume to prove fairly meaning by Salvation the the salvation of mankinde as I presume you do But your reasons seem to come short of your intent For suppose all true which you urge to the tenth Paraph namely that the alterations mentioned to be possible whereof you deny not but that many have hapned yet have not all of them actually befallen Scripture Suppose I say this to be true what a Chaos is there betwixt that Premise and your Conclusion That Faith may with sufficient certainty be proved out of Scripture alone For though all have not hapned yet since some have and you are uncertain precisely where 't is manifest you can never be certain but that they have hapned in whatsoever Text you shall pitch upon to prove any thing by and consequently you can never be absolutely certain of any again since Demostration implyes a must be of the Conclusion and must be evidently excludes may be of the opposite 't is plain that to destroy Demonstration that is in this case sufficient certainty it suffices to prove the opposite may be so that though it be granted these alterations have not all hapned yet while there appears a possibility they may have done so there appears an impossibility of ever coming to a rigorous certainty by Scripture But to take particular notice of every Paragraph ¶ 5. 1. It seems to me more improbable that nothing of Scripture as you say should be contrary to your Faith supposing it the true notwithstanding those innumerable alterations of Scripture then that all those alterations of Scripture proved Metaphysically only possible should actually have befell the Scripture ¶ 5. 'T is very strange it should appear improbable to you but that Scripture and our Faith must needs contradict one another supposing the one to be Scripture and the other true as you do Must truths needs be opposed to themselves which have hitherto been esteem'd opposite only to falshood If you mean by Scripture the alterations of Scripture as the sequel makes me imagin how much wrong do you do the Word for if Scripture be altered or changed from what it was then 't is not what it was that is 't is not Scripture But of these Alterations 't is not our Tenet that none of them have been contrary to our Faith the alterations made by the Translations of the first Founders of Protestancy having been judged so contrary to it that it occasioned the prohibition to read the Scriptures in Vulgar Tongues But only that there is nothing in the Vulgar Edition according to that sence in which the Church understands it which is contrary to her faith And if you will allow the Church but to know the Faith she is appointed to teach and know what she means by what she reads and what a contradiction is three Requests which cannot
Tradition I am ready to embrace It is cleer how high he valued the Churches authority in that lib. 2. de util cred c. 14. This therefore I beleeved by fame strengthned by celebrity consent antiquity so that he did no more than we who notwithstanding are of a contrary mind to you ¶ 3. First we beleeve the things of Religion because they are published and held in that Church or place where we live yet not sufficiently for that not a sufficient ground of belief because of fame till the universal celebrity consent and antiquity do strengthen it He sees not Christ hath recommended the Church for an infallible decider of emergent controversies but for a credible witness of ancient Tradition whosoever therefore refuseth to follow the practice of the Church understand of all places and ages in things clearly descended from Christ let him be lookt upon to refuse Christ But if he be understood any where asserting only the present Churches authority sufficient to determine it must be in things that are not matters of faith that which he proves by tradition he does not affirm it necessary to salvation or things contained in Scripture for his Austins words are evident ¶ 4. In iis quae apertè posita sunt in sacris scripturis omnia ea reperiuntur quae continent fidem moresque vivendi Aug. de doct Christiana lib. 2. c. 9. Nemo mihi dicat O quid dexit Donatus aut quid dexit Parm. aut Pontus aut quilibet eorum quia non Catholicis Episcopis consentiendum est sic ubi sorte fallantur ut contra Canonicas Scripturas aliquid sentiant Aug. de unitate Eccl. c. 10. Again Ecclesiam suam demonstrarent si possunt non in sermonibus rumoribus Afrorum non in conciliis Episcoporum suorum non in literis quorumlibet disputatorum non in signis prodigiis fallacibus quia etiam contra ista verbo Domini cauti redditi sumus sed in scripto legis in prophetaruÌ„ praedictis in cantibus Psalmorum in ipsius Pastoris vocibus in Evangelistarum praedicationibus laboribus hoc est in omnibus Canonicis Sanctorum librorum authoritatibus Eodem lib. c. 16. Utrum ipsi Ecclesiam teneant non nisi divinarum Scripturarum Canonicis libris ostendant quia nec nos propterea dicimus credi debere quod in Ecclesia Christi sumus aut quia ipsam commendavit Optatus Ambrosius vel alii innumerabiles nostrae communionis Episcopi aut quia nostrorum colligarum conciliis predicata est aut quia per totum orbem tanta mirabilia Sanctorum fiunt c. Quaecunque talia in Catholicâ fiunt ideo approbantur quia in Catholica fiunt non ideo manifestatur Catholica quia haec in ea fiunt Ipse Dominus Jesus cum resurrexit a mortuis discipulorum oculis corpus suum offerret ne quid tamen fallaciae se pati arbitrarentur magis eos testimoniis legis Prophetarum Psalmorum conformandos esse judicavit Ibidem Non audiamus haec dico sed haec dixit Dominus Sunt certae libri Dominici quorum authoritati utrique consentimus ibi quaeramus Ecclesiam ibi discutiamus causam nostram Eod. lib. c. 23. Chrysost in Act. Hom. 33. Take from Hereticks the Opinions which thâ—â— maintain with the Heathen that they may defend their Questions by Scripture alone and they cannot stand Tertullian de Resurrectione carnis Hierom on Matth. 23. writing of an Opinion that John Baptist was killed because he foretold the coming of Christ saith thus this because it hath no authority from Scripture may as easily be condemned as approved I might here add Aquinas his words 1ª quest 36. art 2. ad 1m. confessing what he had proved out of Dionisius We are to affirm nothing of the Holy Ghost but what we find in Scripture Thus you will have Scripture alone some of you as Mr White confesses to be the Rule for some truths though not for others which indeed are humane inventions but I shall not urge you to maintain all your Doctors affirm which notwithstanding you who build upon authority have more cause to do then we Only observe the Fathers were against you I proceed to give you more proofs of it ¶ 1 2 3 4. I come now to your Testimonies from the Fathers and beg leave before I enter upon them to pause a while upon the State of the Question betwixt us that our eye being strongly fixt upon it may not be diverted by that variety of Objects which the many notions found in Testimonies will present it You assert We deny Scripture to be the rule of Faith Every of which words deserves its particular reflexion For first by Scripture is meant either the words or sense that is the words containing a sense so as that another may be found in the same words or else a sense expressed accidentally by such words which might have been expressed by other By a Rule since 't is our belief must be regulated and our belief is of things not sounds is understood either a determinate sense or certain means to arrive at it We say then that Scripture taken the first way cannot be a Rule nothing being more evident then that words meerly as such without due qualifications which are not found in all words are neither sense nor means to arrive at a determinate one since the same words may comprehend many senses Take Scripture the second way and the question is quite changed none denies the sence of it to be the word of God by which all our belief and actions are to be regulated our Dispute then in that case is not whether it be a Rule but how 't is known whether by the bare words in which 't is couched which we deny because other sences are couched in the very same words or by the Churches authority interpreting it by Tradition which you conceived unnecessary To Scripture interpreted by Tradition or the sence of Scripture acknowledged by Tradition we submit all our thoughts and actions but deny the title of a Rule can belong to Scripture taken for the meer words unsenc't that is Characters and conceive the sence of Scripture cannot be sufficiently discovered by the bare scanning of the words which after all being capable of many sences leave it undetermined which is the true one Faith is to be considered either in respect of one or some few men or in respect of a multitude for since the same cause produces not the same effect upon different subjects 't is not possible that to every of those many who are comprehended in a Church the same knowledge should be necessary That there is a rewarder of good and punisher of evil may for ought I can tell be enough for some extraordinarily disposed creature to know but mankind requires the knowledge of much more Again outward circumstances extremely vary the disposition of the subject We live both in calms and storms and to day a
washing boul will ferry me over the Thames which Oars perhaps will hardly do to morrow Now since he that meets with no rubs seldom stumbles if the way be smooth and even every thing overcoms it if rugged or deep 't is not passed without much labour and difficulty And so the faithful who live in a deep peace need not that strength of certainty which is necessary for those who are assaulted by the outward wars of Heresie or intestine broils of Schism Observe then if you please what your witnesses to gain your cause should depose for you That Scripture taken for the words teaches the Church that is mankind the way to salvation so as not to need the assistance of Tradition or any other Interpreter to secure them against all possible assaults of all possible adversaries or taken for the sence that the sence of Scripture is so known by the bare words without the help of Tradition or other Interpreter that no subtlety or malice can weaken the certainty it gives of as much as is necessary for the salvation of mankind This is what they should say What they do let us now examine But first you tell us you receive not their Testimony as authoritative but embrace both their and any other as rational which is a peece of learning I should have been not sorry to have met in an Adversary I had desired to treat like one To you I can onely say your difference to those who mint such adulterate coin is much greater then the blind obedience with which we use to be reproached Of the two ways of moving assent Authority Reason the one is distinguished from the other in this that the first relies upon the credit of the Proposer whom if we be satisfied he is so wise as to know what he says and so good as not to say against what he knows 't is rational to beleeve and lay hold upon the truth he presents us which we see with his eyes not our own The second carries us by the evidence of truth it proposes barefaced and without any consideration of the Proposer in which way we rely upon our own eyes not another mans credit Wherefore if you will proceed the first way by Testimonies they are onely and so far valuable as their Author has authority and must be either authoritative or of no force at all If the second 't is impertinent to cite an Author for what is considerable onely in respect of what it is not in respect of him that said it for reasons have weight from their inward vertue and are neither greater in the mouth of Aristotle nor lesse in the mouth a Cobler Neither therefore can authoritative be separated from testimony nor rational joyned to it a rational Testimony in true English saying a Testimony which is not a Testimony but a reason Your 3 Paraph too has a very pretty distinction in these terms that the Church is is no infallible decider but a credible witness whereas these two are at least in our subject matter inseparable For since not infallible says fallible and fallible says that which may deceive and credible says what 't is rational to beleeve and nothing is more irrational then to beleeve what may deceive the beleever plainly if the Church be not infallible neither is she credible Besides her power of deciding in things of this nature is founded upon her power of witnessing she being therefore able to decide because she is able to witness what it was which Christ and his Apostles taught her and she has till now preserved in which if she can credibly that is infallibly witness she can also infallibly decide if her testimony be fallible she cannot be credible The rest of what you say till you come to the Testimonies themselvs although I do not allow yet I think not necessary to meddle with apprehending the concern of our dispute to be very independent of it But now St. Austin tells us non Catholicis Episcopis consentiendum est sicubi forte fallantur ut contra Canonicas Scripturas aliquid sentiant Very true and sure no body at least no Catholick Bishop ever pretended to be believed against Scripture that is its sence concerning which our contest is how t is known and to that the witness says nothing Again Ecclesiam suam demonstrent non in sermonibus c. sed in Canonicis librorum authoritatibus And utrum ipsi Ecclesiam teneant non nisi divinarum Scripturarum Canonicis libris ostendant Lastly non Audiamus haec dico sed haec dixit Dominus c. ibi quaeramus Ecclesiam c. In which three places he challenges his Adversaries to prove their cause by Scripture a course not onely commendable in him but practis'd dayly by us Several of our Books will witness for us we are so far from thinking our cause lost by Scripture that we know it infinitely superior even in that kind of tryal but what 's this to the purpose Because St. Austin then and we now know the advantage Scripture gives us above all our Adversaries does therefore either he or we think the bare words of it are our Rule of faith or that its sence needs no other means to be found out but the bare words These Sir are our onely Questions but not so much as thought on by the Judges you bring to decide them The place you bring from his Doct. Christ seems more to the purpose but yet comes not home it being violence to extend it farther then private Readers and these qualifi'd as he expresses with piety humility and fear of God pietate mansuetis as his words are de timentibus Deum piously meek and fearing God And of these t is also Mr. Whites opinion that the Scripture is plain enough to make them perfect beleeving Catholicks But that 't is able to contest with captious frowardness and those crooked dispositions which accompany Heresie or satisfie the nice sharpness of sincere but piercing wits or that the plainness he speaks of ought to bee understood with respect to the exigencies of the Church that is mankind which may be true in respect of such excellently dispos'd persons as he mentions are things however necessary yet not at all touched St. Hieroms authority is wider all it says being thus much that where there is but one authentick History extant of the Subject to be spoken of what is not found there has no sufficient ground to keep it from being unblamably rejected Which is his case for there is no authentick History of the actions of St. John Baptist but the Bible wherefore since they are no subject of Traditions they must either deny their ground from thence or have no ground at all Tertullians words are plainly changed for whereas you make him tye and as it were challenge Hereticks to defend their cause by Scripture his words are ut de Scripturis solis questiones suas sâ—stant That they may not defend but present or handle
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
thrown their rule overboard and they would not only have preserved their doctrine pure to succeeding Ages by the same means they had preserv'd it till then but they could not preserve it pure while they retain'd the same means which had preserv'd it till then To the following question I answer the Church of which by Gods mercie I am a member has preserved the doctrines of salvation entire not without writings indeed but without making them her Rule to preserve them by neither had she or could she have preserved them had there been no other means left her then words For what you say next I refer you to the third Dialogue to see since 't is the same thing in point of certaintie to receive a truth immediately through two hands or through twentie provided we be sure there be no deceit in the intermediate Conveyers all possibilitie of deceit removed from them and consequently our certaintie equal with that of those who lived nearer the Apostles times As for the unity of the Churches in the time of Irenaeus 't is true there was an unity and stil is amongst all those that stuck to Tradition but then as now some were divided and by the same means as now viz. by preferring their private Interpretations of Scripture before the doctrine they had been taught This divided the Valentinians in the time of Irenaeus the Arians in the time of St. Athanasius the Donatists in Saint Austins in all Ages some and divides you now And the way to know whom a man must beleeve when each say they have the way to Heaven was then as now to keep fast to what had been taught to follow those Churches that do so and those that build upon private Interpretations to reject so that the case is not at all altered the method of arriving to the knowledge of saving truths being the same anciently and now ¶ 10. That Irenaeus apprehended all those truths necessary for salvation were contained in Scripture which some places for a while have had without writing is clear by what follows and that the Scripture is a sufficient rule to salvation and was to him and the Church in his dayes which enjoyed it he tells us the Apostles left the same in writing in lib. 3. cap. 1. edit Basil His words are Non enim per alios depositionem salutis nostrae cognovimus quam per eos per quos Evangelium pervenit ad nos Quod quidem tunc praeconiaverunt postea verò per Dei voluntatem in Scripturis nobis tradiderunt fundamentum columnam fidei nostrae futurum Is not this clear against you The Scripture then was not written by chance but by the Will of God for this end that it might be a standing rule and pillar or foundation of our faith And lib. 2. cap. 46. shews this is a clear certain way for every one Cum itaque universae Scripturae propheticae Evangelicae in aperto sine ambiguitate similiter ab omnibus audiri possunt He was blaming Hereticks drawing errors from obscure Places and Parables when they might have seen the light in clear places by which the darker are to be understood God says he has given power to honest religious mindes that are desirous of truth to see it Haec promptè meditabitur in ipsis proficiat diuturno studio facilem sententiam efficiens Sunt autem haec quae ante oculos nostros occurrunt quaecunque apertè sine ambiguo ipsis dictionibus posita sunt in Scripturis ideo Parabolae debent ambiguis adaptari sic enim qui absolvit sine periculo absolvit parabolae ab omnibus similiter absolutionem accipient a veritate corpus integrum simili adaptatione membrorum sine concussione perseverat Sed quae non apertè dicta sunt neque ante oculos posita copulare absolutionibus parabolarum quas unusquisque prout vult adinvenit sic enim apud nullum erit regula veritatis And so says he there If we do not with sober unbiast minds take the plain Scripture for our guide a man shall be always seeking but never come to the truth yet the Scripture doth clear it though all do not beleeve one God c. sicut demonstravimus ex ipsis Scripturarum dictionibus Quia enim de cogitatione eorum qui contraria opinantur de patre nihil apertè neque ipsa dictione neque sine controversiâ in nullâ omnino dictum sit Scripturâ ipsi testantur dicentes in absconso haec eadem Salvatorem docuisse non omnes sed aliquos discipulorum qui possunt capere c. Quia autem Parabolae possunt recipere multas absolutiones ex ipsis de inquisitione Dei affirmare derelinquentes quod certum indubitatum verum est valde praecipitantium se in periculum irrationabilium esse quis non amantium veritatem confitebitur And in the next Chapter Habentes itaque regulam ipsam veritatem in apertum positum de Deo testimonium non debemus quaestionum declinantes in alias atque alias absolutiones ejicere firmam veram de Deo scientiam c. Si autem omnium quae in scripturis requiruntur absolutiones non possumus invenire alterum tamen Deum praeter eum qui est non requiramus impietas enim haec maxima est Credere autem haec talia debemus Deo qui nos fecit rectissime scientes quia scripturae quidem perfectae sunt quippe à verbo Dei Spiritu ejus dictae Si autem in rebus creaturae quaedam quidem eorum adjacent Deo quaedam autem in nostram venerunt scientiam quod mali est si eorum quae in scripturis requiruntur universis scripturis spiritualibus existentibus quaedam quidem absolvamus secundum gratiam Dei quaedam autem commendemus Deo non solum in hoc seculo sed in futuro ut semper quidem Deus doceat homo autem semper discat Si ergo secundum hunc mundum quem diximus quaedam quidem quaestionem Deo comiserimus fidem nostram servabimus omnis Scriptura à Deo nobis data consonans nobis invenietur parabolae his quae manifestè dicta sunt consonabunt manifestè dicta absolvent Parabolas per dictionum multas voces unam consonantem melodiam sentiet By which you see clearly what may be judged the way and held the only way to decide all controversies plain Scripture and thinks it no absurditie for us to be ignorant of what God is not pleased to teach us in Scripture and that you may see yet more clearly he held Scripture as his word was perfect containing the whole doctrine of the Gospel which is our question ¶ 10. After these exceptions taken to what he says in our favour you examine Irenaeus for your self and first produce these words Non enim per alios c. the sense of which I take to
and any finite thing to worship or represent God in a shape infinitely below him then there would be for a subject to go and fall down to a Toad under him for to worship and honour his King in it That reason of the Apostle in Acts 17. is the very same with that Isai 40.18 where God speaks against his being worshipped under shapes First in many expressions describes his own greatness and Majestie the Nations of the Earth all are but as the drop of a Bucket to him c. concludes from all To whom then will you liken God or what likeness will you compare to him The workman melteth c. What Mr. White says p. 110. of the marks of the Church as apparent enough out of Scripture I say of this point If there want not will in the seeker to acknowledge them Lactantius saith Just l. 2. c. 19. where Images are for Religions sake there is no Religion The Council of Elibera Can. 36. decreed that nothing should be painted on the walls of Churches which is adored of the people Origen cont Cels l. 7. We suffer not any to worship Jesus at Altars Images and Temples because it is written Thou shalt have none other Gods c. Epiphanius epist ad Joh. Hierus saith It is against the Authority of the Scriptures to see the Images of Christ or of any Saints hanging in the Church In the seventh Council of Constantinople those words of Epiphanius are cited against the Encraticae be mindful beloved children not to bring Images into the Church nor set them in the places where the Saints are buried but always carry God in your hearts neither let them be suffered in any common house for it is not meet that a Christian should be occupied by the eyes but by the meditation of the mind ¶ 1. You reply to Mr. Whites answer to the usual Objection from the Decalogue that you cannot see that prohibition is a Ceremony but what 's this to the purpose There is no distinction in Mr. White of Ceremonial or not Ceremonial but a plain Consequence authorized by the Apostle that who receives as of obligation any part of the Law in vertue of the Law be it Ceremony or what else it can be is bound in pursuance of that action to receive the whole Law If you derive your Tenet from the Law of Nature as your mentioning Ceremonies seems to suppose what do you cite the Decalogue for prove the Prohibition contrary to the Law of Nature and you have done your business But cease to object the Jews Law in vertue of which you either receive it not and then cannot press it or else are obliged to receive the whole Law with it This Consequence too that if it be not repeated in the new Law it binds not you do not see I cannot tell what dimness has of a sudden overcast as clear a sight as I have met with but me thinks nothing can be plainer then that if the whole Law be abolished no part of it can be binding but in vertue of some other Law in which it is inserted For the examples you alledge of Precepts unrepeated and yet binding The first is cleerly against the Law of nature and in vertue of that not the old precept to be avoided The second how do you prove obliging farther then the municipal Laws we live under exact it But what makes you demand a repetition of the tenth Commandment in so many words Cannot the same thing be commanded in several words or would you determine the command to the words not what is meant by them But you have found this command repeated in the New Testament in these words of S. Paul We ought not to think the Godhead is like to gold or silver graven by art and mens device and if you can make these two Proposition God is not like an Image and Thou shalt not make an Image to adore it to be the same I shall think that though Images are not your power in reasoning is in somthing very like the Godhead for 't will be omnipotent Then you discourse in this manner God is not like unto any similitude the art of man can devise therefore ought not to be worshipt by similitudes If nothing can be like him and consequently nothing be a similitude sure you need not fear that worship which can never be since it supposes a thing which can never be But I suppose you mean by similitudes Images whether like or unlike and then pray how does it follow no Image can be like him therefore no honor can redound to him that is no benefit to us by Images To worship these Images so as to beleeve them either him or like him which are the things I conceive the Apostle speaks against we do abhor with the height of detestation but if they induce us to worship him oftner and more ardently then we should without them how can it be but that to oppose them is to oppose his worship Therefore no Pictures or Representations of him are to be made Beseech you Sir what Law is there against making Pictures which are not like Sure you would be very severe to ill Painters But the truth is the Pictures which are made of God are indeed no more then signs which present him to our memory and called pictures of him with no more justice then a Bush would be called the Picture of Wine For the nature of a Picture consisting in representing to the eye the same proportion colour and figure of parts up-a piece of cloth or wood which we see in the Original I refer my self to your own candor to judge whether we be guilty of the impiety of believing parts or colour or any thing which the art of painting is able to reach to be in God for painting is only of bodies and those grosse ones too to expresse wind or those smaller parts which affect the Smell Tast c. is beyond her Sphere So that none who is in his sences can imagin us so damnably sencelesse as to believe 't is in its power to frame any representation of God which with any propriety can be called a Picture of him These which we have by custom warranted and perhaps begun by authority of Scripture bring by the shapes they represent the Divinity into our memories and adoration of it not of the pictures into our hearts and except it be unlawful to remember and adore the Deity I cannot imagine it should be unlawful to use means which conduce to that end By this I presume you already see the disparity of the Comparison of pictures to a Toad but first what mean you by worshipping God in a shape if you mean that we hold either that shape to be his or he to be in it more then his ubiquity makes him present to all things you either mistake or wrong us and what else that expression should signifie I see not Next what is there of common betwixt these
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
page but one to that you cite being employ'd in shewing the way of writing us'd by Aristotle has a great advantage towards being understood over that of the Bible But he denies not but both may be understood and that stuff you weave into this Conclusion That a Reader of Scripture may come to the truth and by it judge arising Errors Pray what 's this against Mr. White because he may arrive at truth shall he therefore be fixed there with that constancy that no subtlety can stagger him Shall his Humility and Charity which introduced him provide him too with Arms to maintain the place and defend it against the assaults of Wit and Malice leagued together I see no glimmering of such a consequence which neverthelesse should have been yours for till you are there your Journeys end is stil before you Besides your foundation that all things sufficient for Salvation are delivered in Scripture meaning the Salvation of mankind is not firm especially making as you do afterwards every one of the Gospels to contain a perfect sum of what is necessary to be believed and practised for some things and those necessary to Salvation are beleived meerly upon the account of Traditions as the Scripture it self c. Those strange opinions too which you say may spring up may perhaps concern things necessary to Salvation which if they can neither be proved nor disproved satisfactorily by Scripture plainly there is not by your method any satisfaction left us in things necessary to Salvation And for what you urge last that written truths may be as streight a Rule as unwritten ones 't is true provided they be agreed on to be truths But the question is not whether written truths will convince a rising error but whether written words will so convince the truths they contain to whoever rises up in error against them that no Artifice shall be able to pervert their fidelity and introduce another sence into the same sounds An instance may make the thing clearer Let the Church before Arius have had no better weapon to defend her faith of the Consubstantiality of the Father and Son then these and the like words Ego Pater unum sumus and you will make me much wiser then I am if you render it possible shee should preserve her self from being overcome by the craft of that Heretick who would have proved at least plausibly as Hereticks us'd to do by the Rule of conferring one place with another that those words ought not to be understood of an unity of Substance since our Sauiour elsewhere prays his Apostles may be one as his Father and he are one which evidently contradicting a substantial unity The former words ought to yield to these plain ones Pater major me est 'T was not then by those words but by the sence of them so firmly rooted in her practise that neither the wit nor power of Arius joyn'd with a perverse and lasting obstinacy could shake it that she decided the controversie and transmitted sound Doctrine to her posterity Shee saw his interpretation contradicted her sence delivered by Christ and his Apostles and continued by Tradition but no body could see it contradicted the words which his wit made as favourable to him as her By which very same Method to answer your Question in your own words I conceive the Church would at this day confute new errors viz by looking upon the truths first delivered by the Apostles and since preserved by her practise not the words in which they were delivered To sum up your Paraph therefore in short 't is true that Linea recta est judex sui obliqui 'T is true that truth is linea recta t◠'T is true also that the Reader duly qualified may by due reading Scripture come to truth but that this truth will be enough to serve all the exigencies of all mankind in all circumstances or that what satisfied his sincerity and diligence will be able to satisfie all manner of peevishness and obstinacy are two Positions which I see you have not and think you cannot prove There is no doubt but truth ought to judge which is the thing you do say But if there be a doubt which is truth I conceive bare words which were perhaps sufficient to discover hers to charity and humility will not be able to convince her against malicious craft and pride which is what you should but do not prove ¶ 4. If words would affright a man Mr. White doth it by search after evidence of Argument In the same page 137. he requires any one Book in the whole Bible whose Theam is now controverted he mentions S. Johns Gospel which was to shew the Godhead of Christ but that is not so directly saith he his Theam as the miraculous life of our Saviour from whence his Divinity was to be deduced And page 153. John intended only such particulars as prove that Christ was God in which later expression if he do not seem as to me he doth to contradict his former the former making S. Johns intent a History the latter a Discourse only as his word is of a controversal truth ¶ 4. The contradiction you glance at here will not even with your assistance so much as seem such to any diligence of mine and since I cannot overcome it I must beseech you to pardon that dulness which will let me see but one sence in these two expressions Viz. S. John wrote the miraculous life of our Saviour so as his Divinity might be deduced from it and S. John in his History specifies such particulars as prove the Divinity of our Saviour ¶ 5. Yet this he clearly says S. John made an Antidote against that error then beginning yet as he the design so unsuccessful that never any heresie was more powerful then that which opposed the truth intended by his Book whence he seems to infer Scripture no sufficient Rule to decide because the Arians were not silenced by it I demand why the Arians were not convinced by that Book written on purpose to oppose that error which they held by a very large discovering the contrary truth was it because there was not evidence enough of that truth which S. John onely intended in his whole Book surely you must say so and then I pray consider what you say whether it be not imputing weakness to S. John or to the Holy Ghost writing by him quod horrendum that he should set himself to write a whole Book in which as Mr Whites words are he intended only such particulars as prove that Christ was God and yet not prove it sufficiently If S. John did prove it sufficiently why were not the Arians convinced by it surely the fault was not in the want of evidence of those miraculous actions which our Saviour saith prove him to be the Son of God and one with the Father but in their wills I say it was their own fault so then notwithstanding all Mr White hath said I
conclude the Scripture may be a sufficient means to decide controversies by although refractory minds be not silenced by it Neither has God promised that obstinate opposers of truth shall have any means of truth made effectual to them ¶ 5. To the difficulty of the following Paragraph because you propose it by demands I shall answer by Replys and to the first Why the Arians were not convinced by that Book I answer because 't was a Book that is a multitude of words which having no Interpreter to protect them could not preserve themselves from being wrested into senses different from what was meant by the Author Was there not then say you Evidence enough of that truth Yes to humble Seekers but to convince it to the Arians no Evidence and Conviction taking them severely are things above the reach of meer words But this imputes weakness to S. John or rather the Holy Ghost why so put a Reed into a Giants hand and because with it he cannot cleave an Oak is he therefore weak a feeble instrument is no argument of the feebleness of him that uses it Now words I take to be very weak and they cease not to be words whoever he be that employs them not but that S. John or rather the Holy Ghost by him which I think you will not deny might have managed them much better and made a much nearer approach to evidence had he so pleased or that been his aym I see men write plainer every day and God forbid I should think they understand the use of words better than he that gave them the power to understand Neither dare I attribute the contrivance of the Book to chance or imagine the works of God to be directed by any thing but his own infinite wisdom and providence Whence then the obscurity of that book Truly I am not of Council with the Divinity but believe I may safely assert thus much that since the Holy Ghost knew what you would object and yet chose that manner of writing he meant you should see that book was not intended for a Judge of differences in Religion to which he refus'd to give all the qualities necessary for a Judge and which even a book is capable of To this I foresee you will object that at least S. John cannot be excused from the weaknesse of making choice of a means by which he knew his end was not to be arriv'd at and that to write against Corinthus when he was conscious his writing could not prove his intent was not only unnecessary but hurtful To which I reply he writ so as abundantly to prove his intent in that manner as he design'd to prove it but his intent was not that his writing should be a proof contentiously and frowardly scann'd but humbly and diligently studied In the former way he had left them a much better weapon both to defend themselves and overcome their Adversaries then words can be namely that which S. Paul commands us to desert upon no inducements no nor even of an Angel from Heaven but besides this for the superabundant comfort and strength of the faithful he added also a confirmation of their faith by writing intelligible enough at the time and to the persons he writ when every body knew what it was which Cerinthus objected and his followers insisted on and consequently knew how to apply the Phisick to the disease and plainly see his pretences overborn by the Apostles authority But now the case is quite different To say nothing of the alteration of words and the great change which so much time must needs make in the Phrases and manner of speech our Intelligence of that Heresie is faint and dim and to expect we should comprehend what was written against it equally with those ages which flourish'd with it is to make him that has hardly any knowledg of the disease as cunning in the cure as that Doctor whose charge the Patient is The Apostles Gospel therefore was in those circumstances plain enough by the letter to those to whom he writ but to us so dark that except we look upon it with the spectacles of Tradition or other helps we have no security of penetrating its sence though even to them it was not so clear but that it was wrestible and much more in the time of Arius to malicious subtlety and wit which Hereticks never want But then those Hereticks not the Scripture were in fault say you and no body doubts but that Heresie and fault are inseparable But whether they be in fault or no the Church ought to be furnisht with Arms to defend her self against all sorts of Enemies and not till they cease to be in fault when they will also cease to be her enemies be left ungarded she must be provided as well to confound the proud as confirm the humble And this first quality is that which we deny to Scripture and if you onely attribute to it the second you oppose not us neither do I know why we should oppose you But God has not promis'd that obstinate opposers of truth shall have any means of truth made effectual to them Very true but he has promis'd the gates of Hell in which I doubt these obstinate men cannot be denied to stand shall not prevail against his Church and I understand not how they can be denied to have prevailed if that which you would make her only guard uncertain words being by their craft seduced into a compliance with them they may as plausibly object obstinacy to the Church as she to them For that and constancy are distinguished only by their alliance or enmity with truth and if truth cannot be made appear as you say to obstinate men God has not promis'd it shall neither can it whether be the obstinate opposers they or the Church Besides to bate those inseparable companions of Heresie Pride Obstinacy consider what will in your principles become of sincere but sharp understandings people that are not yet faithful nor ever were obstinate but always wittie who look upon disputes in Religion without concern of any thing but truth but look that what themselves accept for truth be truly such and will not be put off with counterfeit ware and take in stead of truth the partial construction of either side Neither will they be denied neither can justice deny them but that they should first see the truth before they be prest to imbrace it Now that Truth be seen to be truth 't is plainly necessary that there be no possibility of falshood there being no contradiction in the world more manifest then that the same thing should at the same time be possible to be false and evidently true that is impossible to be false 'T is equally plain that where there is nothing to make out the truth but words if those words be made agree to two senses neither can be made out to be truth for you put but one cause that producible of both effects That
their Questions not by but of Scriptures alone in which though by the odness of the Phrase the sence be a little dark yet this is clear that the expression is common to proving and defending and therefore to restrain it to defendin◠is in the mildest language manifest injustice For my part I conceive the sence no more but this That Hereticks cannot prove their cause by Scripture But I must wonder at the proceedings of your men and by what charm they get the credit of misleading people when 't is manifest they chuse to grope in the dark when they might walk in the open light To hook in the authority of Tertullian to their party they take advantage here of a place whose obscurity renders the sence hard to be determined and easie to be wrested but not enough to their purpose neither without plainly changing the words when they cannot be ignorant he has delivered his judgement directly against them in as express terms as words can frame in his prescription against Heresies I shall only transcribe two short places and recommend the whole excellent Work to your serious perusal He tells us we are not to dispute with Hereticks out of Scripture which they have nothing to do withal it being forbid by the Apostle amongst other Reasons Quoniam nihil proficiat congressio scripturarum nisi plane ut aut stomachi quis ineat eversionem aut cerebri because bandying of Scriptures is good for nothing at all but to turn either the stomack or the brain And a little further Ergo non ad Scripturas provocandum est in quibus aut nulla aut incerta victoria est aut parum certa Wherefore we are not to appeal to Scriptures in which the victorie is either none at all or uncertain at least not certain Now I beseech you where is the sincerity of those men who would make us beleeve Tertullian held Scripture the only rule of Faith Or because there is a wrestible place to be found in one of his Books 't is his judgement of the point in question either doubtful or possible to be unknown to whoever desires to know it and much lesse to any that lays claim to the title of learned S. Thomas of Aquine says indeed that nothing is to be affirmed of God which is not expressed in Scripture but how either according to the words or according to the sence which is to say that some things as in particular the question in hand of the Holy Ghost are so in Scripture as not to be efficaciously discovered by the words and so he brings a place to prove the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son very far from unavoidable But I forbear to urge his authority against you imagining by your nice wariness in mentioning him you are sufficiently satisfied he is far from your opinion in this point and proceed to the rest of the proofs you give a promise of ¶ 5. It appears Christian people lookt upon the Bible as the rule of Faith by these words of the Council in Socrates his Ecclesiastical History 2. l. c. 29. Nomen substantiae quoniam a patribus simpliciter positum a populo autem ignoratum offensionem propterea multis concitat mark quod Scripturis minimè sit comprehensum they would not have been offended if the Scripture had not been their Rule visum est ipsum tollere omnino nullam mentionem hujus verbi substantia eum de Deo loquimur de reliquo fieri quia literae sacrae omnino substantiae vel Filii Spiritus Sancti neutiquam meminerint filium tamen Patri per omnia similem dicimus quippe cum sacrae Scripturae illud asserant doceant And that expression of Constantine to which all the Bishops except those friends of Arius did consent when he came first into the Council of Nice after the Bishops had taken their places exhorting them to concord A quo Eustachia cum esset peroratum Imperator omni genere laudis illustrissimus verba facere de concordia consensu animorum in memoriam eos redigere tum crudelitatis tyrannorum tum praeclarissimae pacis suis temporibus divinitus Ecclesiae decretae Ostendere etiam quam grave esset imo vero quam acerbum hostibus jam profligatis nemine ex adverso se opponere audente ut ipsi se oppugnarent mutuo laetitiam inimicis atque adeo risum praebereat praesertim cum de rebus divinis disputarent haberentque doctrinam sacratissimi spiritus literarum monumentis proditam Nam libri inquit Evangelistarum Apostolorum quin etian veterum prophetarum oracula nos evidenter docent quid de divino numin◠sentiendum sit◠Omni igitur seditio◠contentione depulsa literarum divinitus inspiratarum testimoniis res in questionem adductas dissolvamus Theodoret Eccles History l. 1. cap. 7. Many more expressions I might bring but I do not see what can be clearer then these words or what sence possibly you can put upon them the Emperor seems to exaggerate it as a most unreasonable and strange thing that they should dissent in matters of Faith while they have them evidently laid down in Scripture which he bids them take for their rule to decide the controversie by and accordingly the Author tells us they did and in their leters and forms of Faith I find all along Scripture Arguments I think this deserves your serious consideratition ¶ 6. I think your own Reason if you will impartially give it leave to act and declare it self will tell you this clear Argument deserves a clear answer not a conjecture without ground as Mr. Whites p. 93. c. will appear to any unbiassed man We have ground says he and yet does not give any ground which therefore is as easily denied as asserted to beleeve that some learned men in the Court were prevented by Arius and sollicited into a secret favour of this error from whom 't is likely it is not likely proceeded that motion of Constantine to the Council for determining the point out of Scripture Did not Constantine know the truth before Mr White proves he did by his own Argument 97. unless a man be so perverse as to affirm Christians did not use the form of Baptism prescribed by Christ there can be no doubt of the blessed Trinity the very words of Baptism carrying the truth I say in themselves and is that likely the Emperor would betray the truth or favour an Heretick to whom he writes sharply and of whom he speaks bitterly in his letter to the Church of Alexandria against whom chiefly he had even called the Council Mr White confesseth the Council followed the Emperors words and there was magna conquisitio turning of Scriptures c. though not to that end to which the Emperor propos'd it so then he grants the Emperor propos'd it as I make use of his words But the Council did not follow his words for that end the historian says Maxima pars
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
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
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
principles not to be rely'd on because fallible engaged by interest or affection into a partiality which should be more suspicious to you then the bare fallibility of such men as the Fathers and whoever they be I may safely say not comparable either in learning or virtue to those great ornaments of the Church of God If ever you think fit to look into them take my counsel and look with your own not other mens eyes 'T is your self are concerned and I conceive it injustice to yield a submission to any body else which you deny the Fathers Next do not only read them by starts I mean as an occasional citation invites you but study them and persevere with diligence from the beginning to the end of that piece you desire to be Master of and then if you be truly unprejudic'd and bring a willingnesse to embrace what you find I am as confident you will find the truth this way as I think it extreamly difficult not to say impossible you should come to it by any other It would perhaps not have been improper to consider a little in this place the nature of Arguments drawn from Fathers for neither do we hold this consequence necessary A father affirms this therefore this is true But having been already lonlonger then I intended give me leave to refer you for that point to Mr Whites Controversie Logick and only propose you this short reflexion that since a Father is a Father in as much as he propagates that kind in which he is a Father that is in our case the Church and the Church is a company of faithful and who are faithful is to be known by the rule of faith that point must first be setled before any claim can be made either to father or Church since without it you can neither affirm of any man that he is a Father nor of any company of men that 't is a Church Farther since a Father as such is not a Doctor or deducer of Consequences for so every Doctor of Divinity would be a Father nor a Homilist nor Commentator for the same reason you will find the word strictly look'd into imports a propagator of Christian faith by witnessing what the Church held in the time for which he witnesseth but so as that the witness by reason either of his eminency in learning dignity of place or both or by being an avowed Champion of the Churches Doctrine against her enemies cannot be conceived ignorant of the Churches sence in his days To go therefore properly to work your Testimonies from Fathers should be from men thus qualified speaking as witnesses the words though of the same men if under other capacities being not properly the words of Fathers but of Schollers Preachers or what other capacity they speak in And to these just bounds would you as you ought confine your quotations alas how small a shew would Antiquity afford you perhaps not four in her whole extent Your present appearance will I doubt by this reflexion be discovered to be made out of false Musters nevertheless in condescendence to you let us now examine what you say and let me wonder what you say first viz. That the first Ages were clearly against us Pray what have you or can you have to justifie an Assertion of that sound perhaps you will say the writings of these times But I should think that those who do not write are infinitely more considerable in number and no lesse in value then those who do and do not believe you can assign a reason why the Title and credit of so glorious a title as an Age should be taken from them who certainly best deserve it but of whose sense you have no account at all to be given to those few who have given an account of their sence but do not at al deserv the title Again even of those few who have written how many are lost and never descended down to us who for any thing we know to the contrary may not have been of the same opinion with those whose writings we have If I should write now and you write against me but so as my Book have the fortune to be preserved yours not Will you not think the Age wrong'd if a thousand years hence they conclude that to be the sence of it which they find in my Book Cast up your accounts therefore faithfully and you will find the sum total of your Age to be two or three Writers in every hundred years who are so far from making the sence of the first Ages to be against us for they are of our side too that they do not so much as make it appear what it was Yet since you seem to put a confidence in them let us see to whom they will be more favourable Your first from Irenaeus we look upon as so far from being clearly against us that we use to produce it on our behalf conceiving it expresses very clearly that what was common Bread before consecration does by vertue thereof accepta vocatione cease to be what it was and becomes Eucharist in which are both earthly qualities colour taste c. and heavenly substance the body of Christ A second view will I am confident shew you this to be the sence of the place and cause you to agree in this particular with Luther who in his Defens verb. Coen is of opinion that the vocare Dei did make the things to be vvhat they vvere called and that Irenaeus used the word in that sence The next from Tertullian is accompanied with as great though a more easie mistake his obscurity being very often not penetrable but to laborious and obstinate industry but if you please to look upon the place and throughly consider it you will find his meaning was not that this which he says our Saviour made his body was only a figure of his body but that what anciently was a figure of his body he then made his body for his whole design being to prove that our Saviour fulfilled the figures of the Old Testament the place objected provs particularly the fulfilling that of Bread which being by the Prophet conjiciamus lignum in panem ejus used for a Figure of his body he says is the reason why he took rather Bread then any other thing to change into his sacred body The following ones all but Theodorets have the same difficulty all witnessing the Blessed Eucharist to be an Antitype a figure a sign c. of the body and blood of Christ and that it is so and usually and well called so we agree but that the Fathers ever meant it so a Figure or sign as to exclude the thing signified we deny and conceive it impossible you should prove In what sense they called it so you may if you please learn from the last words of your Testimony attributed by you to S. Austin contra Didim who never wrote any such Book that I know of but found in the Canon Hoc
non possumus sensus vero noster deceptui facillimus est illa falsa esse non possunt hic sepius atque saepius fallitur Quoniam ergo ille dixit hoc est corpus meum nulla teneamur ambiguitate sed credamus oculis intellectus id perspiciamus O quot modo dicunt vellem formam speciem ejus vellem vestimenta ipsa vellem calceamenta videre ipsum igitur vides ipsum tangis ipsum comedis Veniat tibi in mentem quo sis honore honoratus qua mensa fruaris ea namque re nos alimur quam Angeli videntes tremunt nec absque pavoâ—e propter fulgo em qui inde resilit aspicere â—essunt Let us therefore beleeve God and not withstand him although what he says seem absurd to our sence and understanding let his words surmount both our sense and our reason this let us do in all things and principally in the mysteries not looking only upon those things which lie before us but minding also his words for by them we cannot be deceived 't is very easie to impose upon our sence 'T is not possible they should be false this is deceived over over again since therefore he has said This is my body let us not doubt at all but beleeve and look upon it with the eies of our understanding O how many are there now who say I would fain see his shape and beauty nay but his cloths his shooes why thou seest his own self touchest himself eatest himself Consider what an honour it is which is done thee at what a Table thou art fed for we are nourished with that very thing which the Angels tremble in beholding and are not able to look upon without dread for the glory which issues from it And Hom. 24. on 1 Cor. Id quod est in calice est id quod fluxit è latere illius sumus participes Hoc â—â—â—â—us etiam jacenâ— in praesepi reveriti sunt magi And cum multo metu tremore adorarunt Tu autem non in praesipi vides sed in altari non foeminam eum tenentem sed sacerdotem astantem Nos ergo ipsos excitemus formidemus longe majorem quam illi Barbari ostendamus reverentiam That which is in the Chalice is that which did flow from the side and of that we are partakers The wise men did reverence to this body lying even in a Crib with much fear and trembling adored it But thou seest it not in the Crib but on the Altar thou seest not a woman holding him but a Priest assisting Let us therefore stir up our selves and fear and shew much more reverence then those barbarous men Again Hom. 17. ad Heb. Eundem enim semper offerimus non nunc quidem alium sed semper eundem Quoniam multis in locis offertur multine sunt Christi nequaquam sed unus ubique Christus qui hic est plenus illic plenus unum corpus Pontifex noster ille est qui illam obtulit hostiam quae nos mundat Illam nunc quoque offerimus quae tunc fuit oblata quae non potest consumi For we always offer up the same not another even at this time but the same because he is offered or sacrificed in many places are there therefore many Christs by no means but one Christ every where who is entire here entire there one bodie He is our Bishop who offered that Host which cleanseth us We also do now offer that Host which then was offered which cannot be consumed And lib. 3. de Sacerd. c. 4. O miraculum O Dei benignitatem qui cum patre sursum sedet in illo ipso temporis articulo omnium manibus pertractatur ac se ipse tradit volentibus ipsum excipere ac complecti O miracle O goodness of God! He who sits with his Father above is in the same instant of time hand led by us all and himself gives himself to those who are willing to receive and imbrace him I shall conclude with two but those so evidently express in the point of Adoration that they seem of themselves enough to conclude the Controversie The First is from S. Ambrose l. 3. de spir sanct c. 12. Itaque per scabellum terra intelligatur per terram autem caro Christi quam hodie quoque in mysteriis adoramus quam Apostoli in Domino Jesu ut supra diximus adorarunt By a footstool therefore let earth be understood by earth the flesh of Christ which even at this day we adore in the mysteries and which the Apostles as I said before adored in our Lord Jesus The next from S. Austin explicating the same words in Psal 98. Suscepit enim de terra terram quia caro de terra est de carne Mariae carnem accepit quia in ipsa carne hic ambulavit ipsam carnem nobis manducandam ad salutem dedit nemo autem illam carnem manducaverit nisi prius adoraverit Juventum est quomodo adoretur tale scabellum pedum Domini non solum non peccemus adorando sed peccemus non adorando For of earth he took earth because flesh is of earth and of the flesh of Mary he took flesh and because he walked here in that flesh and gave us that flesh to be eaten unto salvation and none eats that flesh without having first adored it We have found how such a footstool of the feet of our Lord may be adored and how we do not only not sin in adoring it but sin in not adoring it These few I have chosen out of many enough I hope to satisfie you that 't is very far from plain that the first Ages were cleerly against us And that those whose forward confidence has perswaded you to think so have very much wronged the confidence you put in them it being not possible for our selves at this day to express more plainly then those great lights of the Church have done before us That our senses are not in this matter to be trusted that they may but the Word of God cannot deceive us that what we see in the blessed Eucharist is not what nature framed not Bread and Wine though to our senses it seem so but the body and blood of Christ that blood which redeemed the people that very thing which did flow from his side which the Sages saw and adored in the manger that at which the Angels in beholding tremble nor are able to look upon without fear that which no man received without first adoring and which in fine 't is sin not to adore SECT III. Prayer to Saints BVt to proceed page 103. Mr. White strives to answer the Objection of Prayer to Saints alleged as an Innovation so a proof of the uncertainty of Traditions and their corruptions the first Argument from the opinion of the Fathers who held that the souls of Saints were not admitted into heaven before the day of Judgment
though Mr. White could not you saw was good if the Fathers held non-admission they held no prayer because say you they knew not before admission every mans condition This you see I have denied but put case I had not I am afraid you would come short of your account S. Austin and other Fathers are alledged by Veron an excellent French Controvertist to maintain prayer to Saints even while they doubted whether these Saints heard the prayers made to them And you may reflect that prayer to Saints is a part of Tradition rivetted into our hearts by an universal and undeniable practise but whether souls freed from the commerce of bodies receive intelligence of what passes among bodies and this again either from the nature of their state or divine revelation Whether the return of our prayers to Saints be from their mediation or only from the goodness of God making use of our affection to creatures like our selves to give us those benefits which otherwise we had never demanded and so never received and the like are School questions in which speculative wits according to the difference of their learning and studie have met with either truth or error but acting all the while as Schollers and never doubting the lawfulness of the practice which occasioned all these disputes and which they saw firmly setled upon a more solid foundation then all their School-learning for had they done so they had disputed it as well as the rest To take then all parts of your Argument t is false the Fathers held non-admission is false that non-admission imports ignorance of our condition lastly 't is false that non admission and ignorance both of them exclude prayers to Saints that is in the Fathers judgement for the Question is not what is true or false but what they held to be so since they prayed to them even then when they doubted whether they were heard or no. Now I beseech you reflect if to reject such arguments be a sign of a rotten cause what it is to be perswaded by them and perswaded in matters of no less concern then eternity ¶ 2. Suppose that be Mr. Whites meaning the Saints know what we pray to them before they are admitted into heaven is that your Tenet To what purpose else does he bring Jeremies praying in the Macchabees to say that he prays in general as we do for the whole Church though we know not its particular state is nothing to the purpose the Question is Whether we may pray to the Saints and in order to our praying to them whether they can know every particular mans prayer if you say they do you and your Apocriphal Book contradict the undoubted Word of God by his Prophet Isai 63.16 Abraham knows us not and Isaac is ignorant of us which your S. Thomas can no otherwise solve then by imagining the Saints before Christ were not yet admitted to Heaven ¶ 3. Here comes your convincing as you think Argument against the knowledg of Saints from the Prophet Isaiah Araham knows us not and Israel is ignorant of us but I would beg of you not to put so much confidence in words without a full mastery of their sense for 't is the sense of Scripture is truly Scripture You have found indeed the word ignorant and knows us not but what is meant by that word and what that is is the whole difficulty you settle not You know that word Luke 13.25 27. is applied to the Master of the House Mat. 25.12 to the Bridegroom and I hope you will not from it argue any ignorance in that Master and that Bridegroom Mark 13.32 The knowledge of the day of judgment is denied to that Son who being so man that he is also God cannot sure at any time be imagined to want his omniscience Since therefore 't is manifest those words have in Scripture many senses what possibility is there by the bare sound without further inquirie to conclude any one The Context and your own later Translations which for ignorant put acknowledg not perswade me they have here the same sense as when God is said not to know impious persons But 't is not for me to prove but to shew you have not done so and in the mean time to wonder so excellent a wit should make such a bravado with a Bulrush which nevertheless I impute to the weakness of your cause whose armory affords no better weapons ¶ 3. That which Mr. White proves out of the parable of Dives praying to Abraham is as ridiculous for if it be a proof it is either nothing to the Question or contrary to that Scripture named But the principal answer for the former are but trifles signs of a rotten cause Saints are admitted to Heaven before the day of Judgment therefore seeing God and so all things know our prayers and so sit to be prayed unto But seeing this naked groundless not proved Assertion is the principal answer how chance not a word to the Argument that prevented and utterly destroyed it the Fathers did hold the contrary Is this a satisfaction to the Argument only to say I do not beleeve it Be Judge your self and give a better ¶ 3. You call Mr. Whites touch upon the Parable of Dives ridiculous and say 't is either nothing to the Question or contrary to the Scripture named but since you do no more then say so you will pardon me if I have not that captivation of my understanding to your words which you refuse the Church and give me leave to put you in mind you cannot affirm it contrary to that Scripture till you be assured what that Scripture is and farther since Scripture cannot be contrary to it self 't is lawful for me to beleeve you may as soon miss the sence of it as Mr. White whose principal Answer you in the next place call a naked groundless not proved Assertion and for naked I think you mean want of either proof or ground for sure you will not except against the want of Rhetorick and then 't is the same with one of the other expressions To the first of which I reply he has exprest the ground of it Viz. Tradition and to the second that being the Defendant it was not his part to prove But how chance no word to the Argument According to the small insight I have in Logick no argument either requires or can have a fuller answer then a plain denial of its premises which I take to be done here The Argument is this Divers Fathers you say the Fathers held non-admission before the day of judgment wherefore they must also hold no prayer to Saints Now if I aver the admission of Saints before the day of Judgment is taught by Tradition I think I say also that it was taught by the Fathers and consequently deny they taught the contrary and must beleeve till I am better instructed in the Laws of Disputations when thus much is said to an Argument more ought not
Pictures and the Toad whether you look upon the end or means The end of our Pictures is the Adoration of God a duty which since you cannot deny to be often necessary and never unfit you should deny us no occasion that prompts us to perform it And for the means We conceave that as no notion can be attributed to God but with much impropriety so we cannot chuse a better than what the Scripture attributes to him in the vision of the Prophet Daniel viz. antiquus Dierum We use therefore to put us in mind of God a Picture which presents to our eyes the reverence of Age which if you have any quarrel to blame the Scripture in which we find it and which by an universal custom was without memory of its beginning and therefore if St. Austins rule hold like to descend from the Apostles presently conveys to our Soul an apprehension first and then an adoration of God For the Toad what has it either from nature or custom to do with the King that he that falls down to it should be thought to honour him and what can hinder it from being judged even by the King himself pretended to be honoured by it a most ridiculous and unworthy action What you say next of the conformity of the reasons brought in the Acts to those in Isay I shall not examine since the conclusion you make being no more then that nothing like to God can be made I hold it as great impiety to deny it as I conceive there is impossibility of deducing from that truth any thing to the prejudice of this other which I am maintaining The rest are Quotations so carelesly gathered to say no more that I know not whether I should more blame your Credulity for I am sure they owe not their birth to the Candor you professe in giving your self up to the conduct of others who are so able to guide your self or pitty your misfortune that those you honour with so much confidence should so little deserve it The words of Lactantius are these Quare non est dubium quin Religio nulla est ubicunque Simulacrum est where by Simulacrum is plainly meant an Idol as by the whole intent of the book which is contra Gentiles by his subsequent proof and by these words almost immediately preceding Non sub pedibus quarat Deum nec a vestigiis suis eruat quod adoret evidence past dispute And had you seen the place you could not have doubted but his Simulacrum is a figure believed to be God and so adored which till we maintain lawful Lactantius is very unjustly brought to oppose us The 36 Can. of the Councel of Elibera runs thus Placuit picturas in Ecclesia esse non debere ne quod colitur aut adoratur in parietibus depingatur A decree which may as well be made now as then did Circumstances require it from the wisdom of our Governours For we say not that 'T is unlawful not to have Pictures in Churches but that 't is not unlawful to have them Now because the prudence of those Fathers judged them inconvenient in those times of persecution and that place for this Councel of no more then 19 Bishops concerns only Spain Can any Candour infer they judged them absolutely unlawful and unpermittable to any Place Time or Circumstance Besides as far as probability may be allow'd to interpret this Prohibition it proceeded from the reverence had of Sacred Images which it therefore forbad lest they should run the hazard of being disgracefully or unhandsomly defaced in those unsetled times either by the moysture of the wall on which they were painted or the malice of their Persecutors impossible to be avoyded while they were fix'd to the Fabrick For what else can Ne in parietibus quod colitur depingatur signifie for so it is and not as you cite it That nothing be painted which is adored Which if true as 't is much the likelyest to be so of any thing hitherto suggested to my thoughts It will be very fine that their care to preserve Images should be turn'd into an Argument to overthrow them I cannot find any such words as you mention in Origen nor do believe any else will having read the place you cite with some diligence That piece of the Epistle of Epiphanius is looked upon as a foul and manifest forgery The reasons you may see in Bellarmin de Imag. lib 2. c. 9. And for the last passage attributed by you to the 7th Council of Constantinople it happened in the 7th general Council viz. the 2d of Nice and the words are imposed upon Epiphanius by Gregorius who disputed for the Hereticks but plainly deny'd to be his by Epiphanius Diaconus who argued for the Catholicks Pray take care what credit you give to persons who cloath a manifest forgery openly detected in a general Council with the authority of such a man as Epiphanius and so openly detected that 't is impossible your Author who ever he be should be ignorant of it SECT V. The Conclusion ¶ 1. FRom all I have said I cannot but conclude 1st that Scripture is a sufficient Rule to Salvation If you ask me how I know Scripture to be the word of God I answer I have no cause to doubt it no more than whether Tullyâ—◠〈◊〉 Aristotles works be theirs yea lesse I see 〈◊〉 evident by universal tradition in respect of place and time All Monuments of Antiquity sufficiently prove it by comparing passages and circumstances of all times since those books were first written If the only Argument to move me to this Assent were only your present Churches assertion I confesse what you use to urge I must receive all she says But then I think I must as well receive the Alcoran to be the word of God because the Mahumetan Church sayes so ¶ 1. FRom what has been said I cannot but conclude that Scripture is so far from being a sufficient Rule to Salvation meaning by Rule such a one as we have all this while been talking of that to rely upon it with no better an Interpreter of the Letter then the Letter it self is the way to destroy all means first and then all hopes of Salvation That principle being the true gate through which all the Sects which with their numerous swarms over-burden and afflict Christianity have entred For what the Protestant Prelacy alleages to justiâ—â—e their Schism from their Catholic â—uperiors the very same is a plea for Presbytery against Prelacy for Anabaptism against Presbytery for Independency against all and how far the Chain may be stretched which already reaches to the 5th Monarchy and Quakerism none knows But this I am sure of that every linck is as strong as the first For the reason you give why you beleeve Scripture to be Scripture viz. because you have no reason to doubt it 't is an invincible demonstration of the force of prejudice and more of reason I see nothing in it Had