Absolute Certainty you would assign for your that is Protestant Faith and you give him only a Generical Latitudinarian Rule common to all the Heresies in the World. The Project of the Comprehension-Bill was a trifle to this It brings into one Fold all the most enormous Straglers that have been since Christ's time nay Wolves and Sheep and all It blends into one Mass the most heterogeneous and hitherto irreconcilable Sects Nay it miraculously makes Light and Darkness very consistent and Christ and Belial very good Friends For your own Credit sake then distinguish your kind of Protestants if you be indeed one of that Church from that infamous Rabble of stigmatiz'd Hereticks and let us know what is the Proper Difference that restrains that Notion of a Common Rule to your particular as such a kind of Protestant and shew us that specifical Rule to be Absolutely Certain I say such a kind for even the word Protestant too is a Subaltern Genus and has divers Species and 't is doubted by many who are no Papists under which Species you are to be rankt But why should I vex you with putting you upon manifest Impossibilities For the Letter being the common Rule to them all and as daily experience shews us variously explicable that which particularizes it to belong specially to this or that Sect as its proper Rule can be only this According as my self and those of my Iudgment understand or interpret it The Difference then constituting your Protestant Rule as distinguisht from that of those most abominable Heresies can only be as my own Iudgment or others of my side thus or thus interpret Scripture's Letter and wriggle which way you please there it will and must end at last Go to work then distinguish your self by your Ground of Faith and then make out this your proper Rule to be Absolutely Certain or Infallible and then who will not laugh at you for attempting it and assuming that to your self which you deny to God's Church and preferring your self as to the Gift of Understanding Scripture right before the whole body of those many and Learned Churches in Communion with Rome Nay and before the Socinians too without so much as pretending to make out to the World that you have better Means either Natural or Supernatural to interpret those Sacred Oracles than had the others 25. My last Exception is that you pretend the Letter of Scripture is a Rule of Faith for your People which not one in a Million even of your own Protestants relies on or ever thinks of relying on in order to make choice of their Faith or determining what to hold This pretence of yours looks so like a meer Jest that I cannot perswade my self you are in earnest when you advance such a Paradox For 't is manifest that while your Protestants are under Age and not yet at years of Discretion to judge they simply believe their Fathers and Teachers that is they follow the way of Tradition however misplac'd And when they come to Maturity pray tell us truly how many of your Sober Enquirers have you met with in your life who endeavour to abstract from all the prejudices they have imbib'd in their Minority and reducing their inclin'd thoughts to an equal Balance of Indifferency do with a wise Jealousie lest this Popish way of believing immediate Fathers and Pastors should delude them as it has done the whole World formerly resolve to examin the Book of Scripture it self read it attentively pray daily and fervently that God's Spirit would discover to them whether what they have learn'd hither to be true or no and what is and in a word use all the Fallible means for you allow them no other which your Sober Enquirers are to make use of to find out their Faith I doubt if you would please to answer sincerely you would seriously confess you scarce ever met with such a one in your life that is never met with any one who rely'd upon Scripture's Letter practically for his Rule of Faith whatever you may have taught them to talk by rote Can any Man of Reason imagin that all the Reformed in Denmark or Sueden to omit others did light to be so unanimously of one Religion meerly by means of reading your Letter-Rule and your Sober Enquiry Or can any be so blind as not to see that 't is the following the natural way of Tradition or Childrens believing Fathers that is indeed of Education that such multitudes in several places continue still of the same perswasion and that you consequently owe to this way which you so decry in Catholics that any considerable number of you do voluntarily hang together at all And that those Principles of yours which you take up for a shew when you write against Catholics would if put in practice in a short time crumble to Atoms all the Churches in the World Perhaps indeed when your Protestants come at Age they may receive some Confirmation from their Fathers and Preachers quoting Scripture-places against what Catholics hold or what they shall please to say they hold and by the same means come to believe a Trinity the Godhead of Christ Christ's Body being absent in the Sacrament and such like but do the Hearers and Learners make it their business to use all careful disquisition for a slubbering superficial diligence will not serve the turn in matters of such high Concern whether the Catholics and those great Scripturists who deny those other Points do not give more congruous explications of those places than their own Preachers do unless they do this or something equivalent 't is manifest the Letter of Scripture is not their Rule but honest Tradition And that they do no such thing is hence very apparent that they rest easily satisfi'd and well appaid with their Parson's interpretation of Scripture they presently accept it for right and good and readily swallow that sense which some Learned Men of their own Judgment assign it without thinking themselves oblig'd to observe your Method of Sober Enquiry You may rail against the Council of Trent as you will for forbidding any to interpret Scripture against the Sense which the Church holds but 't is no more than what your Hearers perpetually practise and the Preachers too for all their fair words expect from them And I much doubt even your self tho' your Principles are the most pernicious for taking matters out of the Churche's and putting them into private Hands of any Protestant I ever yet read would not take it very well if some Parishioner of yours presuming upon his Prayers for Direction c. should tell you that you err'd in Interpreting Scripture and that the Sense he gave it was sound and right Faith yours wrong and Heretical and I would be glad to know what you would say to him according to your Principles if he should hap to stand out against you that he understands Scripture to be plainly against a Trinity and Christ's Divinity as
thing than the Credit of those two or three First Witnesses goes 'T is the First Source of a Testimony which gives the succeeding ones all their weight to prove the Thing that is witnest to be True 'T is that from which the Largeness and Firmness of a Testimony brought to evince the Truth of any thing is to be measured or calculated Since then the stream of Tradition for Doctrin had for its Source innumerable Multitudes of those Christians in the First Age in many places of the World who heard the Apostles preach it and saw them settle the Practice of it in the respective Churches but the Original Testifiers that such a Book was writ by such or such an Apostle or Evangelist were very few in comparison sometimes perhaps not past two or three It cannot with any shew of Sense be pretended that the Tradition for the several Books of Scripture is in any degree comparable in either regard to the Tradition for Doctrin Your next Answer is that This Vniversal Tradition is no more but Human Testimony and that can be no ground for Infallibility which excludes all possibility of Errour Pray why not If things were so order'd as indeed they are that the Testifiers could neither be deceiv'd in the Doctrin being bred and brought up to it nor conspire to deceive us in telling the World in any Age that the new Doctrin they had invented was immediately delivered then it was not possible any Errour could come in under the notion of a Doctrin delivered from the beginning But is not your Tradition for Scripture Human Testimony too And if that can be erroneous may not all Christian Faith by your Principles be perhaps a company of Lying Stories You must be forc'd by your own words here to confess it but I dare say your Parishioners should you openly avow it would hate you for the Blasphemy You would tell them I doubt not as you do us that Moral Certainty is enough to stand on such a Foundation that is such a Certainty as may deceive you and by a necessary consequence may haste to overturn the whole Fabrick of Christian Faith. In the mean time let 's see how manifestly you contradict Dr. St. when you should defend him He avow'd Absolute Certainty for the Book of Scripture and this upon the Foundation of Tradition and you tell us here Tradition can ground but Moral Certainty Now all the World till you writ counter distinguisht Absolute and Moral Certainty which you jumble in one But distinct they ever were are and shall be for the Word Moral signifies a Diminution or Imperfection of Certainty and Absolute plainly expresses the Perfection of it whence 't is Evident that either you contradict Dr. St. perhaps not without his private Order or he himself We shall have all words shortly lose their signification for no other reason but to give you room to shift this way and that when you are too close prest with Reason 35. Now since Dr. St. had granted that Tradition is Absolutely Certain for Scripture and I had prov'd that Absolute Certainty was the same with Infallibility what should hinder me from inferring that unless some special difficulty be found in other things that light into the same channel it must bring them down infallibly too Your Gifts of Interpretation expounds these Words of mine thus These other things are things unwritten in that Holy Book I do assure you Sir you are mightily mistaken I never told you yet that all Faith was not contain'd in Scripture explicitly or implicitly What I meant was that the whole Body of Christs Doctrin and not only that such a Book was Scripture nay the self-same Doctrin of Faith that is contain'd in Scripture comes down by Tradition or the Churche's Testimony But with this Difference as to the Manner of it among others that the Church that testifies it having the sense of it in her Breast can explain her meaning so as to put it out of all Question to Learners Doubters and Enquirers which the Scripture cannot Whence we need not fish for our Faith in the channel of Tyber as your great Wit tells us St. Peter's Ship the Church that caught so many Fishes at first the Body of Primitive Christians who were the first deliverers of Christ's Doctrin hath stor'd up provision enough for the succession of Faith to the Worlds end There we find it to our Hands 'T is your sober Enquirers who Fish for it among dead unsensed Characters and in the Lake of Geneva from whence to save the labour of going thither you and your Friends are deriving a great Channel to run into Thames over-swell it's Banks and drown all the Churches Lacus Lemanus is your Tyber Geneva your Rome and Iohn Calvin the Prime of your new Apostles your St. Peter 36. All this is but prelude But now comes Mr. G's Argument and therefore we are to expect now however you but trifled hitherto more pertinent close Discourse The first Proposition was this All Traditionary Christians believe the same to day they did yesterday so up to the time of our B. Saviour This you seem to deny in regard they may perhaps be so call'd from their adhereing to a Tradition which reaches not so high as our Saviours time but only pretends to it whither we only pretend to it or no will be seen hereafter when the Fourth Proposition comes to be examin'd In the mean time pray jumble not two Questions which are distinct and ought to be kept so The whole Business here is about the use or Sense of the word Traditionary how we both take it in our present Controversy Now that we both agree in the Notion of Tradition whence Traditionary is deriv'd is evident by this that we lay claim to such a Tradition as reaches to Christ and go about to prove it you deny our Claim and endeavour to disprove it But 't is evident you deny the same thing to us which we lay Claim to otherwise we should not talk of the same Thing and so should not understand one another nor could discourse together wherefore 't is manifest we both agree in the Notion or Meaning of that Word however we disagree in the Application of it to the Persons Nor do we pretend in the least what you would put upon us here to inferr hence that this body of Christians that now adheres to it did always so but only contend that if they did not ever adhere to it they must have deserted it and taken up another Rule and so cease to be true Claimers of a Tradition from Christ or Traditionary Christians Moreover we judge we have right to lay Claim to it till we be driven out of it by a former and better Title since we were in possession of this Rule at the time of the Reformation or held all our Faith upon that tenure 37. The second Proposition is this If they follow this Rule they can
Faith about which we are chiefly discoursing But do not your self incline to admit as much as we can expect from a man that affects not too much candour that very thing you so laugh at here I affirm'd that Not one in a million thinks of relying on your Rule of Faith in order to make choice of their Faith c. This you answer with hems and hahs Tho' I fear yet I hope he is out in his Account I am apt to think they are more attentive Yet be it as he would have it c. Now since they must either have their Faith by Reliance on their Pastours and Preachers delivering it to them and educating them in it that is by some kind of Tradition or else by relying on Scripture and your self seems to doubt or rather in a manner grants it That they have it not the later way you must at least doubt that they have it by the Way of Tradition But your Fancy was so big with your empty Jest that you had forgot what you had allow'd but a little before 58. Thus Sir I have trac'd you punctually step by step not as is your constant use pickt out a few words scatter'd here and there which you thought you might most commodiously pervert wherefore I have reason to expect the same exact measure from you The Sum of your Answer is manifestly this Shuffles and wilful Mistakes without number Evasions endless Falsifications frequent Godly Talk frivolous Jests groundless and all these brought in still to stop Gaps when your Reason was Nonplust Be pleas'd to leave off your Affected Insincerities otherwise I must be forc't to Expose them yet farther than which there can be no Task more Ungrateful imposed upon Your Servant J. S. ERRATA Page 3. l. 28. Read both of uâ— p. 10. l. ult find it in p. 11. l. 11 notice there p. 21. l. 24. go forwards p. 22. l. 27. Secret. Again p. 23. l. 9. as I had not p. 32. l. 30. Is it a Way Ibid. l. 32. upon it p. 39. l. 7. Your Reason is because p. 44. l. 17. may hap p. 45. l. 5. Gift Ibid. l. 32. Prince of p. 46. l. 7. it Whether p. 48. l. 27. a most p. 53. l. 12. Adherers p. 57. l. 14. to be at a loss Ibid. l. ult discover'd it p. 60. l. 8. Speculaters p. 62. l. 9. Yet not so explicitly or p. 63. l. 28. formally and. p. 73. l. 13. other then THE THIRD Catholick Letter IN ANSVVER To the Arguing Part of Doctor Stillingfleet's SECOND LETTER To Mr. G. By I. S. Published with Allowance LONDON Printed and sold by Matthew Turner at the Lamb in High-Holbourn 1687. THE THIRD Catholick Letter c. SIR 1. I Come now to take a view of your Second Letter with my Eye as in the former fixt only upon what I think you mean for Argument Whether you give us just your First Words at the Conference or second Thoughts since whether no troublesome Part of Mr. G's Discourse be left out in short whatever belongs to matter of Fact shall be out of my prospect which shall be bounded by what you think fit to open to it You acquaint us here Pag. 7. that you put two Questions 1. How does it appear that the Church of Rome is Infallible in the sense and meaning of Tradition 2. Is this Tradition a Rule of Faith distinct from Scripture And you complain of Mr. G. that his Copy makes you ask a very wise Question viz. How does it appear that the Church of Rome is Infallible in Tradition Why this Question should be ironically call'd a very wise one I cannot imagin I am sure it is very pertinent to the Intention of your Dispute and directly points at one of the Chief Subjects of the Conference But you shall have your Will tho' I beleive it will appear Mr. G's question made better Provision for your Credit in point of Wisdom than you have done for your self 2. For your Second was in truth a very needless Question because both your self and all your Auditours if they ever heard any thing of this kind of Controversy knew beforehand without needing to ask that the Tradition we lay claim to pretends to derive down the Intire Body of Christ's Doctrin and not only the Books of Scripture of which P. 9. you very learnedly seem to counterfeit your self ignorant And this is the first part of your distinguishing the plain Sense of this Word Tradition as held by Mr. G. By this Question you tell us p. 9. you intended to put a difference between the Tradition held by us Protestants and the Tradition disputed For the first meaning of the Word Tradition which you grant you put the Vniniversal Testimony of the Christian Church as to the Books of Scripture The second and deny'd meaning you contra distinguish from the former in these words But if by Tradition be understood either some necessary Articles of Faith not contain'd in Scripture or a Power in the Church to make unnecessary to become necessary this I deny'd c. Certainly Sir you have a Logick of your own so peculiarly fitted to your designes that no man living but your self ever us'd it I ever thought and apprehended I had all the World on my side for thinking so that all Differences or Distinctions were to be Opposites and to divide the Common Genus or the Notion that was to be distinguish't and therefore since the first sense of the Word Tradition was Tradition for Books of Scripture which is your Tenet I verily expected the opposit sense of it should have been Tradition for Doctrines which is Ours and that as the former was Tradition for Christ's Words so the latter should be Tradition for Christ's Sense But while I was vainly imagining the second sense of the Word would be Tradition for Faith instead of that I found nothing but such Articles and such a Power Did ever any mortal Man think or pretend that Tradition was an Article or a Power any more than that it was a Horse shoe Did your self when you granted the Latin and Greek Churches follow'd Tradition intend to signify that they follow'd Articles and Powers The summ then of your learned Distinction is in plain Terms this Tradition is two-fold One is a Tradition for Books the other is no Tradition at all but only Articles and Power Had it not been better then to have accepted of Mr. G's Civility and have answer'd to the purpose rather than out of a pique to his Copy and a desire to make it stand in need to be corrected thus to pervert common sense and out of a too zealous care not to forfeit your Wisdome to commit such an illogical Absurdity But Sense and Logick tho' they be plain and honest true Friends yet I must own that like the Queens Old Courtiers they may appear scandalous Companions to a man of your more polite and modish Education However I dare answer for you it was
tho' a private person can discover those Explicit Points and I suppose may declare them too to as many as he pleases for how can he in Charity do less But alas The silly insignificant Church can do nothing at all she must submit to the wondrous Gifts you have bestow'd upon the Rabble and her Governors and Pastors be accounted Tyrants if they shall dare to encroach upon their high Prerogatives or presume to share in their Priviledges of being able to unfold or know the Explicit Meaning of Scripture-Texts For in case they can know this and this Knowledge be good for the Faithful as it is being as you say necessary to Salvation 't is without question they may declare them or make them known to others nay and use their Authority too if you will vouchsafe to allow them any to edify the Faithful by making this Knowledge sink into them Nor can it prejudice their Reason that the Church obliges them to believe them for this is no more than obliging them to act according to Reason which tells them that since they must either trust themselves or their Pastours in such things and the Pastours must be incomparably better qualify'd than themselves are for the discovering of such mysterious Truths and withall appointed by God to teach them 't is far more Rational to submit to their Judgments in such things than to use their own But indeed you have reason to stand up for your Sober Enquirer for all Ring-leaders of any Heresy or Faction against the Church took this very Method in their proceedings The Spirit of Pride which possest them principled them with these Rational and Peaceable Maxims that they had Authority to judge their Judges teach their Teachers direct their Guides and that their own Wit excell'd that of all the World before them But when a Faction was form'd into a good lusty Body the Scripture-Rule was laid aside again so that 't is doubtful whether we have had ever a Sober Enquirer since as was shewn in my First Letter Sect. 25. 33. You desire to see this Power of the Church in Scripture in Express Terms and we tell you we need not let you see it in Scripture at all for Tradition even Common Sense tells us that the Church has Power to feed and instruct her Flock and enlighten them in what she knows and they are ignorant of If you demand how the Roman Church came by this knowledge of making Implicit Points Explicit I answer by Tradition giving her the Sense of Christ's whole Law and each Intire point of it and by the Light of Nature purify'd by supernatural knowledges antecedently as also by her Application when occasion required to reflect upon and penetrate deeply into that Sense which enables her to explicate her own thoughts or the Points of Faith more clearly now which she had indeed before but did not so distinctly look into them or set her self to explain them But pray what express Scripture has your Sober Enquirer for his Power to make the Implicit Points Explicit You reckon up diverse agreeablenesses p. 21. why this should be but not one word of express Scripture do you pretend to for it And if himself pretend to any such Power besides that it will look a little odd that God should take more care of private men than of his Church let him either shew us he has better means Natural or Supernatural to do this than the Church has or he discovers his Pride and Folly both to pretend to it You say p. 21. that the Church of Rome has no where declar'd in Council it has any such Power viz. to declare explicitly Points imply'd in Scripture But First you may please to know It has made such a declaration Sect. 4. where it defines that it belongs to the Church judicare de vero sensu et interpretatione Scripturarum to judge of the true sense and Interpretation of Scripture Next It accordingly proceeds upon this Power as I shall manifest by three several Instances One Sess. 13. cap. 4. where it explains those Texts Luc. 22. Io. 6. and 2 Cor. 11. to be meant of being truly Christ's Body and declares thence that the Church was ever perswaded of the Doctrin of Transubstantiation Another Sess. 14. cap. 7. Where it declares the Text 1 Cor. 1. Let a man examin himself c. to be understood by the Custome or Practice of the Church of Sacramental Confession necessary to be us'd before receiving the Sacrament by all those who are conscious to themselves of mortal sin The Third Sess. 14. cap. 1. where it interprets that Text of S. Iames cap. 5. to be by Apostolical Tradition understood of the Sacrament of Extreme Vnction Which places you do not judge so much as implicitly to contain that Sense but hold that they contain another thing How the Churches declaring explicitly Points descending by Tradition makes no new Articles of Faith is discours't above Sect. 4 5 6 7. By which you may see that Mr. G. and Mr. M. whom pag. 22. you will needs set at variance are notwithstanding very good Friends For if the Church knew the the sense which is contain'd in that place before the Doctrin is Old tho' the declaring it to be signifi'd by that particular Text be perhaps New. I say perhaps for in some signal passages much in use in the Churches Preaching Catechisms and Practise I doubt not but that not only the particular Doctrin but also that 't is signifi'd by such a Text comes down by Tradition in the Ecclesia docens Notwithstanding the agreeableness of these two Positions you triumph mightily here p. 23. that Thus Mr. M. has answer'd Mr. G 's Demonstration As much as to say I know not for my life what to say to it my self and therefore would gladly shift it off upon any Body so I could handsomely rid my Hands of it Thus you make for you can make any thing by your Method of mistaking every thing the Council of Trent clash with the Church of Rome a hard Task one would think by pretending to interpret Scripture according to the unanimous sense of the Fathers which you judge contradicts the making known and obliging Men to believe that explicitly now which they were not oblig'd to by any precedent Sense or Explication What mean the words Men and They If they signify all men and intend to signify that no man knew those imply'd Points before but all might hap to contradict them you mistake our Tenet for we judge it absolutely impossible that none of the Fathers should reflect more attentively on the full sense of the Points deliver'd or look into their own thoughts as Faithful and therefore it was much more impossible they should unanimously contradict those Points And unless they did so the Council of Trent and the Church of Rome may by the Grace of God very well correspond in their Doctrin for all your mistake For the Intention of the Fathers in
that Decree Sess. 4. was to repress the insolency of Hereticks wresting the Scripture to their own private sentiments contrary to the Sense of the Church or the unanimous Consent of the Fathers And how this is directly contrary to this power of obliging to believe somthing as in Scripture explicitly now which was not so known before is unconceivable unless you will prove that that Explicit Sense is directly contrary to the unanimous Consent of the Fathers or the Church which you will never do But t is a trivial Exploit to make Mr. M. clash with Mr. G. or the Church of Rome with the Council of Trent you can make that very Church clash with her self Suis et ipsa Roma and that openly and professedly too Nay which is most wonderful fall out with her self about her own Prerogatives For you tell us p. 23. that tho' it has assum'd this Power now spoken of yet it still disown'd it Now to assume a Power is to challenge it and to disown it is to renounce it which hang together much alter the rate of all your Discourse hitherto This Church of Rome is a most monstrous kind of Creature It goes backwards and forwards blows and sups declares for and against and all at once but we must imagin her to be such onely as she stands pourtray'd in Dr. St's Fancy 34. Your main Stratagem to elude all this discourse remains yet to be more fully detected tho' it has been occasionally toucht at diverse times formerly T is this that you are now upon the General Ground of Faith and not the particular Acts of it or the particular Certainty as to this or that Doctrine And you seem to have reason for it too because the main point in Dispute was whether Protestants could shew any Ground of Absolute Certainty for their Faith. And this you think justifies you for hovering in the ayr and onely talking of your Scripture-Rule in common without lighting on or applying it to any one particular point contain'd in that Rule But this will avail you nothing For first Neither does our Discourse pinch upon any one particular Point but upon the Uncertainty of your Faith in general or on all your Points of Faith at once as built on your Ground So that 't is the pretended Ground of your Faith we are disputing against all the while and not any one particular Tenet We bring indeed Instances now and then of some particular Articles but 't is to shew that if your Ground has not power to ascertain absolutely those most Fundamental Points it has power to ascertain none and so is no Ground of Faith at all Secondly A pretended Ground cannot be known or acknowledg'd to be a real and firm Ground till we see it grounds somthing It 's Notion plainly imports a Relation to the Superstructure and you may as well prove a man a Father without proving he has a Child as prove any thing to be a Ground without proving such and such Points to be grounded on it and this in our case with Absolute Certainty Pray take that along with you still otherwise you turn your back to the Question and run away from it in the open Field T is tedious and mortifying beyond measure to hear you still talking and pretending you have an Absolutely Certain Ground for Faith and yet never see you so much as once endeavouring to shew how it 's Ascertaining Virtue affects the Articles you build upon it and that this particular Sense of Scripture in each respective Point has such a close and necessary Connexion with the Letter on which 't is built as to give Absolute Certainty of it to all that are competent Judges of the Sense of Words Which the Experience of all Ages since Christ confutes and our own Eyes Witness to be false in the Socinians and others Thirdly Your self confest once upon a time that you are absolutely Certain you now hold all the same Doctrin that was taught by Christ and his Apostles Now this candid expression would make any honest well-meaning man verily believe that you meant you had been absolutely Certain of every particular Christian Doctrin by vertue of your Ground or Rule But your incomparable dexterity quite and clean over-reach't us For when you came to explain your self there it amounted to no more but that your Faith was resolv'd into Scripture that is that you pretended to Scripture which contains all or as you told us p. 17. that you were absolutely certain you hold all because you hold all not in your Soul or Mind where Points of Faith are to be held but in a kind of Purse as it were as one is said when he holds a Book in his hand to hold all that is in it being possest of which tho' you cannot come at it's sense which is little better than if it were lock't up in a Trunk you are in possession of all Christian Faith notwithstanding and hold very firmly in that Sense all that was taught by Christ and his Apostles Fourthly Hence you have not perform'd what you undertook viz. to shew that Protestants had any Absolutely Certain Ground of their Faith. For 't is not enough to point out a Book and cry out aloud T is your Ground but you must shew that 't is indeed such a Ground Now a Ground or Rule bears in it's notion Evidence to those who are to use it and to know other things by it's Direction Nay more Clear Evidence For as all Certainty must have some kind of Evidence to create it in us so this Effect of Absolute Certainty can have no less than Clear Evidence for it's Cause But you may as easily prove Mankind has no Eyes to see with as go about to shew that the Letter of Scripture is thus clear in order to the discovery of right Faith even in the highest and most concerning Points of our Christian Belief Fifthly T is pleasant to observe what a rare Resolution of your Faith you give us p. 24. Our Faith say you is resolv'd into the Scripture as the Word of God and whatever is built on the Word of God is absolutely Certain You must indeed having deserted the Tradition of the Church either pretend to Scripture or nothing unless you will confess your selves to be pure Phanaticks or Pagans and it looks mighty plausibly to say that whatever is built on the Word of God is absolutely Certain for 't is a great Truth But the only Point is still Are you absolutely-certain by your Grounds that your Faith is indeed built on the Word of God You say indeed Scripture is your Ground you pretend to it as your Ground perhaps you think it so too and 't is not about your saying pretending or thinking it to be such that we dispute with you for we should not scruple to grant you all this without any Dispute at all But does your saying pretending or thinking Prove it to be so really and indeed All
because Part of Christ's Doctrin is contain'd in it the other part descending by Tradition which acceptation of the Word Rule is yet less Proper because as has been prov'd it may be contain'd there and yet we be never the neerer knowing our Faith meerly by virtue of Scripture's containing it But no Catholick ever said that every sober Enquirer may find out all necessary Points of Faith in Scripture without the Churches Help A Doctrin which You declare p. 21. You are far from being asham'd of And yet let me tell You Sir You will never find this Position of yours as it lies without the Churches Help in the Universal Tradition of all Christian Churches and unless You find this You will never prove they held it a Rule in the genuin and proper signification in which we take that Word and tho' they shou'd call it a Rule in either of the former Senses lately mention'd they impugn not us at all who grant the same 41. You will needs run out of the way p. 30. to talk of a Iudge of Controversies but the best is You acknowledge you do go thus astray by acknowledging 't is another distinct Controversy and yet tho' you acknowledge this You still run on with it that is You still wander from the Point You triumph mightily p. 31. that it is impossible for us to bring such an unanimous Consent of all Christian Churches for our Infallible Iudge or our Infallibility as Protestants bring for their Rule As for the later where were your thoughts Sir while you thus bad adieu to the plainest Rules of Discourse Cannot we go about to demonstrate the Infallibility of a Human Testimony by Natural Mediums but instead of Answering it you must object against our Conclusion and bid us bring the Consent of all Churches to abett that which neither depends nor is pretended to depend on Authority but on meer Reason Cannot one say two and three make five but he must be presently bobb'd in the mouth that he cannot shew the Consent of all Christian Churches for it and that unless he does this let it be never so evident 't is not True T is very pleasant to reflect how brisk you are still with this Consent of all Churches I suppose because 't is a Topick very seldom heard of in your Controversies tho' as has been shewn over and over 't is not a jot to your purpose nor avails any thing to the evincing you have an Absolutely-Certain Ground of your Faith. And if we have an Infallible Rule or such a Rule as permits not those to be deceiv'd that follow it can there be any thing more Rational than to hold by consequence that there is an Infallible Iudge or that our Church can judge unerringly in matters belonging to Faith the word Iudge onely signifying that that Person or Persons are in Authority or are Authoritative Deciders to preserve the Integrity of Faith and the Peace of the Church So that supposing Church-Governours or Bishops and that those Sacred Concerns are to be provided for plain Reason demonstrates to us this too as well as the other without needing the Consent of all Christian Churches tho' you need not to be told this does not want neither unless you think that all the General Councils that defin'd against Hereticks imagin'd they might perhaps be in an Errour all the while and the Heretick whom they condemn'd in the right Your Appeal to all the Churches of the Christian World for your Rule has a plausible appearance but vanishes into air when one comes to grasp it How often must it be repeated that you have as yet produc't no Rule at all for your Faith For you have neither prov'd that Scripture's Letter as to every substantial word that concerns Faith is absolutely-Certain nor that it has in it the nature of a Rule nor that 't is your Rule more than 't is to all the Hereticks in the world nor that your Assent to any Point upon that Rule as made use of by you for want of Connexion between the Points to be believ'd and the Rule on which they are believ'd can have the nature of true Faith in it If talking big would do the deed you would indeed do wonders but let your Reasons be proportionable otherwise strong words and faint blows are but very ill-matcht Now I must declare plainly I cannot see the least semblance of so much as one solid Proof in this whole Treatise of yours If there be confute me by shewing it and maintaining it to be such You explain you own Tenet over and over till one is weary of readding it and half asham'd so often to answer it You talk much of God's Word that we are bound to believe it that it contains God's Will and all things necessary to Salvation and twenty such fine things which bear a Godly Sound and would do well in a Sermon where all goes down glib there being none to contradict you but are very dull and flat in Controversy On the contrary not one Argument have you even offer'd at to prove you have Absolute Certainty of the Rule or Ground of your Faith but have faln short in every one of those Considerations both as to the Notions of Certainty Ground Rule Faith and that 't is your Ground your Rule and your Faith. 42. A Rule to any thing if we take that word in a proper sense as we do in our modern Controversies is the Immediate Light to direct us in order to our knowing that thing For in case it be not Immediate but some other thing intervenes that is needful to direct us and by whose Rectitude we frame our thoughts as to that affair and that it renders the other capable to direct us that other becomes presently the Thing Ruled and not the Rule in regard it wanted the Rectitude of another thing to direct it that so it might be fit to direct us Wherefore the Interpretation of Scripture being more Immediate to the knowing the Sense of it's Words that is to the knowing our Faith than is the Letter for it is manifest that all who have the Letter have not right Faith unless they make a right Interpretation of it hence Mr. M. had reason to object that The Christian Church did not agree that every man is to interpret Scripture for himself or to build his Faith upon his own private Interpretation of it Nor ought you to be offended at his position in regard you told us before p. 7. 8. a Heretical Sense may ly under these General Words Christ is the Son of God and different Senses may be couch't under these Christ is really in the Eucharist and so even according to your self 't is the Interpretation or the assigning the Sense to those words which makes True Faith or Heresy Wherefore 't is plain that your own Interpretation of Scripture is in true speech your Rule for That is a more Immediate Direction to give you the Sense of
so Wicked as to decline from it voluntarily or neglect to educate the others in it however it was to be expected there would be now and then a failure in some Particulars deserting the former Doctrin and drawing Proselytes after them 3 dly That the same reason holds for the Continuate Delivery of the same Doctrin by the Second Age to the Third and so still forwards the most powerful Motives God himself could propose being laid to oblige Christians not to deviate from it in the least or be careless to recommend it And those Motives too a thousand times more lively imprinted and apprehended by the heaven-instructed Faithful than they were by any in the former Ages of the World before Christ. 4thly That by Tradition then is meant The Testimony of the whole foregoing Age of Christians to the next Age of what had been deliver'd and explain'd to them by their Living Voice and Practice Or taking Tradition as it ought to be for Oral and Practical both 'T is A Continu'd Education of undergrowing Posterity in the Principles and Practice of their Immediate Predecessours 5 thly That hence 't is Evident beyond needing Proof that this Rule cannot on it's part deceive us For putting that it was still follow'd or that Posterity still believ d and practis'd as their Immediate Fore-Fathers did who at first believ'd and practis'd as the Apostles had instructed them 't is manifest the Last Age of the World must have the same Faith that the First Age of Christianity had Whence follows evidently that no Errour could possibly come in at any time unless this Rule of Tradition had been deserted 6 thly That Tradition thus understood and we never understood it otherwise being the Living Voice and Practice of the Church in the immediate Age before is applicable to all even of the lowest Capacity as we experience to some degree in the instructions by Pastours even now adays And since it delivers it's Sense which in those that have follow'd that Rule has been even now shewn to be Christ's Doctrin by Preaching Catechizing Explaining daily Practising and all the ways imaginable to make it understood 't is also an Absolutely-Clear Conveyer of Christ's Doctrin downwards Add that should it's sense be at any time misapprehended the Church and her Pastours can explain their own meaning pertinently to the Askers Doubter's or Mistaker's Exigencies which a Letter in a Book cannot 7 thly That the Chief Care of the Church was to inculcate to the Faithful and preserve inviolate the Chief Points of the Christian Faith and therefore that Tradition did most particularly exert it's self in Teaching and Transmitting Those 8 thly 'T is not to be deny'd but Scriptural Tradition went along with this other we have explain'd For the Church having the same sense in her breast which the First Writers had were consequently the best Interpreters of it which was one Reason why the Fathers and Councils often made use of it to confute Hereticks and comfort the Faithful by it's concurrence But when they were to convert any to Faith it was never heard they took such a Method as to put the Bible in his hand and bid him look for his Faith there telling him 't was Plain even in the highest points that were dubious or Controverted to every capacity 9 thly That hence Scripture without the Churches help was never held by them Anciently nor can with reason be held by us now to be the Rule of Faith in the sense we use that word that is to be a Means or Way for All who are coming to Faith to arrive unerringly at it Lastly we hold that the Sense of Scripture's Letter in those sublime Points surpasses the apprehensions of private men coming to Faith and so the Letter alone cannot be an assured Ground to build the Truth of Christian Faith upon whence follows that Tradition which is Plain and Easy and only It can be in Proper Speech the Rule of Faith. § 6. This then is the true State of the Question between us This is our true Tenet both concerning Scripture and Tradition and what are the Points to be ascertain'd by them Now let us see how the Sermon represents us and whether your admired Preacher does so much as touch any one of these particulars § 7. In the first place you may please to take notice that he never lets you know or so much as suspect that the main Contest between him and me is about the Absolute Certainty or Uncertainty of Christian Faith His wicked Doctrin in that Point oblig'd me to write a whole Treatise formerly in Vindication of Christianity from such an Intolerable Scandal which I apply'd in the cloze of it against himself and Dr. Tillotson Had he let you know this he prudently foresaw your Zeal for Christianity your best Concern would have given you a just prejudice against his Sermon and the Preacher too and the very Conceit all Christians have of the Truth of their Faith would have made you abhor a Discourse out of a Pulpit maintaining it might possibly be a Ly. As for particulars § 8. First he talks of a Stedfastness and a firm and well-settled resolution to adhere to that Faith which Christ himself deliver'd But ought you not to be assur'd first that he did indeed deliver it Or are you to adhere to it as his whether you are certain 't is his or no Or is a resolution to hold stedfastly to what you judge is the Faith of Christ well-settled if that Faith of yours the Basis of your Spiritual Building and Ground of that Resolution be not well-settled it self but may sink into False-hood This is the true Point you are to look after and till you have perfect satisfaction from him in this wisely to consider that Pious Talk without Solid Grounds to support their Truth is but painting the out-side of a Sepulcher The tinkling cymball of a little Rhetorick and shews of much Reading may go far with persons whom such flourishes can prevail upon to forgo their Reason but he had but a very small respect for you if he hop't you were so easy to be play'd upon with the wind of a little articulate ayr § 9. It was very possible he says for them to have mistaken or misremember'd what was at first deliver'd Whom does he mean by Them What by First Delivery Does he mean the Vniversality of Christians in the First Age or any succeeding one Or that those Great Bodies settled in their Faith form'd into Church-Government and kept up to their Christian Duties by Disciplin could thus mistake or misremember the former Teaching and Practice which was a plain matter of Fact This is the only Tradition we ever spoke of or went about to defend None doubts but that when some single Apostle was Preaching in some places at first the Thoughts of the Hearers were as yet raw and the things that were told them were so strange that they did not
immediately sink deep into the Conceptions of the Generality But it was otherwise when in tract of time that Doctrin was farther spread more often inculcated and more clearly explain'd and well-instructed Pastours constituted to Teach it more expressly and put them forwards to practise it He mistake◠then and misrepresents the whole nature of Our Tradition and by antedating it sights against it before it could have a Being And as this Errour runs through all his Discourses and weak Inferences out of Scripture so the laying it open once for all is a full confutation of them all at once Add that he never consider'd whether when those several Churches Err'd or were in hazard to Err they did so by following even that particular Tradition or Preaching of such or such an Apostle or whether they came to err by deserting it If the Later the Tradition was not faulty but They who Deserted it Yet how different soever these two Points are the one making for that particular Tradition the other against it he never thinks of distinguishing them or letting the Reader know when the Tradition was in fault and when the Persons but runs on in common words as if he had no Design or determinate prospect whither he was going I am sure it is not at all towards the true Question nor against Us. § 10. But tho' all his Reflexions from the several pieces of Scripture are quite besides the purpose yet his Candid and Solid way of managing his own Mistakes and how he wire-draws every thing to make it seem fit deserves our particular observation He tells us speaking of the Church of Corinth that They which signifies the whole Church had like to have lost All their Faith whereas the Text only sayes Some among you And is it such a wonder that some among many should hap to be imperfectly instructed fantastical or refractory to their Teachers But his Partiality is most remarkable When he was forc't to be beholding to the Churches Testimony of Doctrine which is our Tradition to abet the Scripture he could tell us then This is very different from the Case of particular Persons in some Churches who might mistake or forget what was taught but sayes he the Churches themselves could not agree to approve on Errour in the Gospel contrary to the Faith deliver'd to them So that there it was a very different Case but here it seems the Case is not different at all but the very same For Some among You are enlarg'd to signify that Church it self and whereas the only Point those Some deny'd was The Resurrection of the Dead to let you see how utterly insignificant a thing Tradition is that can do no good at all he extends it to signify All their Faith hoping I suppose any thing would pass upon you so 't were spoke out of a Pulpit 'T is told you there All 's Gods Word and he presumes you will be so Civil to God Almighty and so Kind to himself as to accept it for Such and swallow it for Pure Truth § 11. I am oblig'd to him for allowing That the Testimony of every Christian Church did shew the Concurrence of all the Apostles as to the Doctrine contain'd in the several Gospels For then I hope they may be able to shew to the next Age and so forwards the concurrent Doctrine of the First which establishes the Original of our Tradition to be Absolutely Certain He discourses well p. 11. and he ends better That the Memory of the Apostles Doctrin was so fresh in their Minds that it was in effect the Consent of all the Apostles who had taught them And yet better That the concurrent Testimony of all the Apostolical Churches could not let them agree to approve an Errour in the Gospels contrary to the Faith deliver'd to them This is very extraordinary kind and no less solid For 1. these Words could not agree to approve a contrary Doctrine makes their Testimony Infallible 2. This discourse makes the acceptation of the Truth of the Gospels that is of their Sense depend on Vnwritten Tradition 3. We cannot doubt but that Doctrine was Full as fresh in their Memories when they were grown Older and were to transmit it to the next Age after the Apostles decease as it was before unless they lost the Memory of it by discoursing of it more while they taught it to others by Practising it longer themselves 4. As little can it be doubted but the Doctrine and Practise of the First Age was as Fresh in the minds of the Second Age since they Led their Christian Lives by it for it was Equally Intelligible and of Equal Concern still to them to Learn and Teach it as it was to the First Lastly That this being so the Testimony of that Body even now adays that adheres to Tradition is in effect the Consent of all the Apostles that taught it at First Observe Gentlemen that this is the only time Dr. St. has so much as touch 't upon Our Tradition and that he is so far from impugning or confuting it that he in some part directly in others by necessary Consequence acknowledges it's force and strongly abets it But it was not out of good will he was intent in that place upon making good the Truth of the Gospels and assoon as he has made use of it to serve a present turn he immediately discards it as good for little or nothing or nothing to the particular purpose he had lately allow'd the Testifying Christs Doctrine § 12. For the very next page he reckons up three things for which The common Tradition of the Apostolical Churches were useful after the Decease of the Apostles But not a word of their Vsefulness to Testify to others what they had learnt from those Masters of Christianity No sooner were the Apostles dead and that first Age had by their concurrent Testimony of the Doctrine they had receiv'd from them given credit to the Truth of the Written Gospels but immediately the whole Christian World had lost their Memory of that Doctrine on a sudden and the Grace to preserve and propagate it One would think by this wild Discourse of his that both Common Natural parts and all degrees of Ordinary Honesty had been preserv'd to them miraculously thitherto meerly to recommend the Truth of the Gospels and that assoon as that was done and the Apostles were dead the Author of Nature and Grace suspended or rather subtracted for ever all his Influence left them a Tabula rasa without either Memory or Goodness to learn their Faith a new out of Scripture § 13. And hence it is that he rallies upon Universal Testimony or Tradition as if it were some sleight story of a few Tatling Gossips or of those who heard what some say that others told them who had it from such c. Whereas had he said as he ought to have said What the whole First Age of Christians witnest
She is to Edify Her Children and in contests with Hereticks as to all those Points contain'd there and I think the only difficulty in that particular is By what means She came to be Absolutely-Certain of it's Sense Let him add then but one word more and say that by the Letter of Scripture She so judg'd of Faith that She could not be in an Errour or mistaken all the while and then Christian Faith is Absolutely-Certain and my greatest care is over And if he does not That what is the future Church after the Apostles Deaths the better for Scripture's being an Infallible Rule if She and Her Children partake not the Benefit of that Infallibility some way or other by being perfectly secur'd from Erring in Faith Is it not all one as to the intent of knowing assuredly we have the Faith taught by Christ whether we have an Infallible Rule or no if when we have done our best we may still stray from Her Faith Or why is not a Rule that is not Absolutely-Certain so I have Absolute Certainty I am directed by it as good for that purpose as an Absolutely-Certain Rule with no Absolute Certainty that I do indeed go according to it To speak to his proposition Whether the Church and the Faithful in Contests with Hereticks avail'd Her self of Scripture's Letter to gain Absolute-Certainty of it's Sense in those main Tenets or brought the Sense which She had another way along with her shall be decided if he pleases by St. Austin whom he cites here p. 16. § 18. He will prove Scripture a Rule from the general Reason of it's Writing and prove this general Reason from a Testimony of Irenaeus which speaks of the Gospel as abstracted from being Preach't and Written and who doubts but as such it is infallibly true He seems to build much upon the Words That it might be a Foundation and Pillar of our Faith. Be it what it will in it self the Point is How does it Build Faith in us By it 's meer Letter descanted upon by private Iudgments or interpreted by the Church The Later he denies the Former all our most earnest Pressing and Intreating could never bring him nor his Reflecter to go about to make out and he wayes it totally through this whole Sermon Let him then but shew that he has Absolute-Certainty of Scripture's Sense in those Tenets of Christian-Faith by any Method his Principles will allow him and his Sermon should have past for me without Controul That 's the main Point whereas all here is quite besides it As for those Words from S. Irenaeus he could have quoted the very same words in a manner from a better Author even the Holy Scripture calling the Church the Pillar and Ground of Truth but that he lik't not the Application of them to the Church It seems he can neglect his Rule and make no more reckoning of it than he did of the Oral Tradition or Preaching of the Apostles when it stands in his way of comes cross to his purpose § 19. It has been manifested above that his Discourses from the writing of the Gospels and Epistles are all guilty of the same Fault and Antedate our Tradition and his Inferences thence as levell'd against our Tenet are weaker than Water He makes Tradition any thing what he pleases and will have it do every thing tho' it was never intended for it nor ever pretended by us it was able to do it One while it must bring down the Decrees of Councils Another while it must convey long Disputes about divers Points and the resolution of them and this Totidem Verbis otherwise the Apostles Sense might have been lost It must secure people from being remov'd from Christ's Gospel to another whereas no man ever held that the Galatians were remov'd from Christ's Gospel by following even the particular Tradition or Preaching of that Apostle nor that any particular Men nay Churches might not be remov'd from it even into Heathenism or Iudaism if they deserted it He expects too it should secure men from danger of being Deceiv'd whereas supposing them once well-Instructed in Faith and 't is suppos'd to our Tradition the Church was so 't is self-evident they can never be deceiv'd while they hold to that Certain Rule because that is to hold the same they were instructed in at first But if all were not well instructed at first as 't is impossible they should then they might be deceiv'd either by deserting Tradition or even by holding to such a Tradition if for want of perfect Instruction in that raw and unsettled state of Christianity that which they held at first was not perfectly Christ's Doctrine Nay he would have it keep even Hereticks from Defection Hypocrisie Lying and Deceiving which were a rare Tradition indeed to do such Kindnesses and work such good Effects upon those who had deserted it and would not make use of it at least he would have it keep People from Weakness and Folly which the Common Assistances of Nature and Grace will do after the Generality is well settled in that Doctrine For when all the Question is What the Apostles preach't 't is a Madness and Folly both to believe some few men before the Universal Testimony of the Christian Church But he will have Tradition still do all the Mischiefs imaginable and Writing do all the Good forgetting I suppose that there are some things in St. Paul's Writings which the Vnlearned and Vnstable wrest as they do also the other Scriptures to their own destruction All this while What is this to the Tradition we assert which begun afterwards § 20. From these impertinent Premises he infers as impertinent a Conclusion viz. That what was deliver'd in Scripture contains a compleat Rule of the true and genuin Faith as it was at first deliver'd to the Church Now that what 's signify'd by Scripture is the same the Apostles signify'd by their Preaching is plain Sense and never deny'd and so he needed not have made all this clutter to prove it But plain sense will do him no service whose best play 't is to blunder and confound every thing let us see then what it is that will. His first words What they have therein delivered can mean nothing but the Sense of Scripture for that is the thing signify'd or deliver'd by the Letter and both sides confess that the Sense of Scripture is Christ's Faith. If then we spell his Words together they plainly amount to this That Christ's Faith contains a compleat Rule of the true and genuin Faith as it was deliver'd at first to the Church that is Faith it self contains a compleat Rule to it's self Make sence of this who can The best I can make of it is That the Conclusion keeps decorum with the Premises and that he has mighty well imploy'd his Labour to keep such a huge Pother to infer such a worthy Point § 21. I have nothing
one to all Hereticks he is still deaf on that ear Lastly since Faith is Truth instead of a Rule containing All he should have assign'd a Rule ascertaining it All to be True and that none of the Tenets he holds to be in Scripture are Hereticall But he thanks you he 'll not burn his fingers with handling such hot Points He alledges that the Mosaicall and Mahometan Laws are resolv'd into the Book of Moses and the Alcoran But apply this to our Point 't is as wide from the purpose as what 's most Had there been such High and most Important Misteries contain'd in those Laws as there are in the Christian Doctrin deliver'd down and profest openly by those Bodies from which multitudes had taken the Liberty to recede by reason of the Obscurity of the Letter of those very Laws in that case there ought to have been some other Rule to secure them from mistaking that Letter and able to give them its true Sense and therefore the Certainty of that Sense being their respective Faiths would necessarily have been resolv'd into such a Rule in regard the Letter alone could not give and ascertain it And 't is to be remark't that all Dr St's Instances Parallells and Similitudes which show prettily and look fine and glossy when they come to be apply'd to the true Point do still miss of being sutable in those very particulars which are only to the purpose 35. And now we are come to the long expected performance of showing his Faith Absolutely Certain to which he promis'd a full Answer formerly He begins with telling us that The case is not the same as to Particular Points of Faith with that of the Generall Grounds of the Certainty of Faith. And what 's this to say but that since the General Grounds are held by him to be Absolutely Certain and so cannot be False the Particular Points of Faith viz. the Trinity Christ's Godhead c. are not in the same but a worse case and so may be False A fair or rather a very foul Concession Yet he not only says it but will prove it too from a Jew 's having Absolute Certainty of all contain'd in the Books of Moses and yet not having it as to such a particular point viz. the Resurrection I would gladly know if that point be contain'd in those Books And if it be how he can be absolutely Certain of All that is of every Point contain'd there and yet not be thus certain of That Point tho' contain'd there I ever thought that Omnis and Aliquis non had been Contradictories and had all the Logicians in the world on my side in thinking so and if the Dr. have not invented a new Scheme of Logick of his own fitted purposely to maintain Nonsence and can with his great Authority make that Logick good in despite of the whole World he speaks Flat downright Contradiction Perhaps he may mean his Jew or some other man who is not a Jew may have Absolute Certainty that those Books containing all his Faith were writ by men divinely inspir'd And this he may have by the Testimony for these Books tho' he can neither read nor understand nor ever heard read any one word in them And has not this Man an incomparable Certainty of his Faith that knows no Faith at all Is not this to make a man Absolutely Certain of he knows not what Yet this it seems is all the Resolution of Dr. St's Faith. But this is not the worst for not-knowing the Contents of a Book is a kind of Innocence in comparison of holding many wicked Heresies by Misunderstanding it Which tho' he should do as do it he may for the Drs. Principles give him no security from doing it his very Heresies tho' they be all the whole rabble of them that have pester'd the Church since Christ's time are resolved into the Self-same Grounds as the Drs Faith is For all those Hereticks believ'd the Scripture to be the Word of God and believ'd all that the Scripture contain'd to be of Faith whence they had all Faith in the lump as he expresses it and so had good Title to be parts of Dr St's motley all Comprehending Church If he denies it let him show a sollâ—â— reason by his Principles why they should not no shadow of which I could ever discern in him yet 36. He slides from this point which he had no mind to come near could he have avoided it to divers sorts of particular Points meerly that he might have a show of saying something For he knows well and it has been told him above twenty times we only speak of such Dogmatical Tenets as have been controverted between the Church and her Deserters and not to name All we use to instance in two Chief ones The Holy Trinity and the Divinity of our Saviour But here our rambling disputant is taking another vagary quite out of the road of the Question Lominus has set him so agog that he has quite forgot the thing we are about nay even that we are writing Controversy He is turn'd School-Divine on a sudden tho' he is so utterly Ignorant of it that he cannot distinguish between Controversy and It. He will needs fall to treat of Faith as 't is a Theological Virtue and not only so but moreover that he may show us how manifoldly he can mistake in one Single Point of that Virtue as 't is in the hearts of those who are truly Faithfull already and have besides well cultivated their Souls by the Practice of Christ's Law. Whenas all this while he knows we in our Controversy are only treating of Faith as 't is provable to those who are looking after Faith that 't is Christ's Doctrine taught at first Tell him of this five hundred times and make it out never so clearly he runs counter still and takes no notice of it He was to write a Book and without mistaking willfully all along he saw he could not do it in any degree plausibly After many fruitless attempts to hold him to the true State of our Controversy which is about the Rule or Ground of Faith as to our knowledge it occurr'd to me that nothing could fetter him to it more fast than to mind him how his Friend Dr. Tillotson whose Book he approves does himself State it * When wâ— enquire says he What is the Rule of Christian Faith the meaning of that Enquiry is By what Way and Means the Knowledge of Christ's Doctrin is convey'd certainly down to us who live at the distance of so many Ages from the time of it's first Delivery I intreat him then for Dr. T 's sake to remember that our Controversy presupposes Faith as 't is Divine and treats of it only as 't is Derivable down to us at this distance and therefore since the Knowledge of the Certain Means to do this is in our Controversy antecedent to the Knowledge of Christ's Doctrin or Faith it must be
that all the Main Points of Christian Doctrin may be false for any thing they know These and such like Discourses I hope would at first startle him and at length cure him if he were not too deeply tainted with Enthusiasm or a high opinion of his own Moral Qualifications and Divine Assistances For if he were he is got beyond the reach of Reason and Humane Discourse and is not to be helpt by any thing under a Miracle perhaps not by that neither 51. He seems to deny People the Liberty to interpret Scripture against the Teaching Church But his discourse sounds Hollow when he comes to show he does so Some sleight thing he says about the Sense of the Teaching Church in the best and purest Ages but not a word of what they owe to the present Church which is their Proper and Immediate Instructress and Governess by which discourse it should seem he holds the Church of England none of the best nor purest The main point is whether if after having consulted the Primitive Church and consider'd what Grounds she brought for her Doctrin and Decrees the Enquirer still likes his own Interpretation better he is in that case to submit his private Judgment to the Decrees of That or Any Church And how the Church is to look upon him in case his private Interpretation leads him into a flat Heresy These are the true Points and Tests of Dr. St's Principles and yet undiscover'd Consequences but these are slubber'd over or rather indeed never toucht Yet he complains of me for being Obscure when as 't is acknowledg'd he writes Clearly but 't is Clearly from the Point nor has any packing the Cards c. He says too that 't is aukward reasoning to say nothing but Infallibility will content him now Pray which is more aukward If the Judges acknowledge themselves Fallible in which case nothing can be said to be True that is held upon their Testimony then he allows them very much Authority but not upon other terms But he is high in choler against me for saying he has an aversion against the Churches intermeddling in matters of Faith and imputes it either to great Ignorance or a malicious Design to expose him to Church Governors But his comfort is he pities my Ignorance and despises my Malice This is Stately and Great I do assure him my only Design is to oppose such Principles as leave all to the Fanatick phrenzy of every private Interpreter and till he satisfies the World better that his Principles are not guilty of this Enormity I shall still oppose him let him huff never so high The Point is how does he clear himself Why he says he disputes not against Church-Authority in due proposing matters of Faith Certainly Church-Authority is mightily oblig'd to him A Genuin and Learned Son of the Church of England speaking of this very Doctrin of his tells him that Proposals of their own nature are so far from inferring an Authority to Command their reception that they rather imply a Power in those to whom they are propos'd at Discretion to Reiect them and so in the Issue gives the Authority to the People Which words contain the full sense of my Discourse here against the Dr and his beloved Sober Enquirer Why is he then so high against me for exposing him when those of the Church of England have already expos'd him more than I have done This is no great sign either of Ignorance or Malice when persons who are otherwise of different Judgments and Communions do center in the same opinion of his Doctrin as destructive of Church-Government But 't is yet more pleasant that he will not promise he will not dispute against Church-Authority even in this due proposing Matters of Faith but with a Proviso that every man is to judge for his own Salvation As much as to say If the Church will be so sawcy or so wicked as not to let my Sober Enquirers alone to interpret Scripture as they list or hold what seems to their Wise Worships to be the Sense of it which with him is judging for their own Salvation but will be censuring or Excommunicating them for Hereticks if they hap to err in Christ's Godhead for example or any other such Point then Church-Authority have at you for I tell you plainly if you do this I shall and will dispute against you It would be worth our knowing too what the pretty cautious words due proposing means There seems to lurk some hidden Mystery in that little monasyllable Due which may come to help the Sober Enquirers with an Evasion from submitting to Church-Authority or obeying it in case it misbehaves it self unduly or grows so malapert as to restrain them in their licentious Prerogative of interpreting Scripture as their Gifted Fancy inspires them It looks oddly and seems to have some ambidextrous meaning in it but we will hope the best till he comes to unfold it Now because Honourable Company is creditable to those who are highly obnoxious he names St. Chrysostom St. Austin St. Thomas of Aquin and Bellarmin as of his opnion but with the same sincerity as he pretended all Divines of both Churches and even my self to hold all Necessary Points may be found by every Sober Enquirer without the Churches Help as may be seen hereafter § 57. 'T is indeed the General Opinion of the Fathers that we are not always heard when we pray for Temporal Things or even Spiritual Goods for others but that our Request is always granted when we ask Spiritual Goods for our selves But then 't is ever understood with this restriction that we must not make our suit to have Knowledge or Virtue by Extraordinary ways and neglect the Ordinary Methods laid already by God's Providence to attain those good Gifts Our Question then being of understanding those difficult places of Scripture which contain the main Articles of our Christian Belief and whether they can better attain to the Sense of Scripture with unerring Certainty by their own Private Judgments without the Churches Help or by the Churches Means and Dr St's Principles asserting the former Method mine the Later I do affirm that none of those Authors hold with him but would condemn his Tenet for Heresy He Quotes none of the places except Bellarmin who speaks not of persons looking for Faith in Scripture's Letter as to those Points but of the Faithfull Praying for Wisdom to live well and he as the Dr relates it denies the Gift of Interpretation the Dr's way to come to Faith is to be had by Prayer which is our main Point However our Dr pretends himself wonderfully skillfull in our Authors because he can make a shew of Quoting them tho' it be quite from the purpose He should have kept an Eye to the State of the Question and brought his Citations home to it but this is not his way His main art through this whole Treatise is to keep that from the Readers
to direct passengers in their Way and leaves Men much at like Liberty to regard either More is justly and prudently requir'd viz. A Power to make her Declarations Law and this as to Matters of Faith not only in things belonging to Order and Decency otherwise the Later without the Former makes as he argues very well some kind of Fence about the Church against Schismaticks but lays her open to all manner of Hereticks 57. This just Censure of mine upon the Drs. Principles was such a Choak-Pear to him that 't is no wonder he keck't at it so vehemently The Great Credit he had got whether for defending Christian Faith or no the Reader is to judge made him scorn to bring it up again and retract it But he uses all the Arts imaginable to Palliate and Excuse it and those such wretched ones that 't is a shame to mention them and certainly never was so Heavy a Charge so Miserably refuted He says confidently this Doctrine of his is own'd by all Men of Understanding in both Churches Whereas if he can show me any one Catholick who maintains that he can have any Faith at all or ground such a Firm sacred Assent upon his own private Interpretation of Scripture without the Churches Help in those most sublime and necessary Articles which have been dubious and contested between the Church and any Heretick of which only we speak he will do more than Miracle But I am mightily mistaken he will name one and who should that be but I. S. himself What a boldness is this to make me his Patron to defend him in that very Position which I am in this very place Impugning Well but what says I. S. Why he says that every man is to judge for his own Salvation and of the best way to his Salvation and of all the Controversies between them and us and especially of the true Grounds of Faith and all this without the Churches Help Now I. S. says indeed that a man coming to Faith does by his Reason find out the True Rule and True Church that thus he Iudges for his own Salvation by using his Reason to find out a Rule Ground or Way to right Faith which is to bring him to Salvation that by his Rule thus found out he Judges of all our Controversies in judging that to be Christ's true Doctrin which that Rule recommends as such but is this to judge of Points of Faith without the Churches Help when that very Rule by which he judges of them is avow'd by him to be the Churches Testimony Above all does he not all along declare his abhorrence of finding out Faith in Scripture's Letter by private Judgments which is the Drs Position And must I. S. still be of the Drs Sentiment tho' he in all occasions contradicts it disputes against it and baffles it What will not this nonplust man say when he is put to his Shifts Any Common words tho' when apply'd to particulars they be directly contrary to him must be presum'd to be for him in despite of a long and constant Tenour of all circumstances and whole discourses to the contrary whoever peruses my Third Catholick Letter from p. 99. to the End will see that my way of Iudging for our Salvation is as opposite to his as one Pole is to another and he has the incredible Confidence to make them the Same At length he hopes to come off by alledging that he spoke it only by way of Supposition that If one may without the Churches Help find out the Churche's Authority in Scripture then why not all necessary Points of Faith And was this All he said Indeed he craftily introduc't his Position Conditionally but did he not after the words Then every such Person viz. any sober Enquirer may without the Churche's Help find out all necessary Points of Faith Espouse the Position it self which had been thus introduc't and this most Peremptorily by immediately subjoyning these words which is a Doctrin I am so far from being asham'd of that I think it most agreeable to the Goodness of God the Nature of the Christian Faith and the Vnanimous Consent of the Christian Church for many Ages And will he now tell us after all this Positive asserting it that it only proceeds upon a Supposition a why not a Parity of Reason He objects I answer it not Why was it an Argument or must I stand answering every voluntary saying of his which are infinit every Supposition and every why not If I must needs speak to it the Imparity of Reason consists in this that the Church being constituted by God to instrust the Faithfull in their Faith it was but fitting Scripture should be Clearer in those Texts that concern the Churches Governing them in Faith and their Obligation to hear her than in the particular Points which they were to be assur'd of by her Teaching Besides the Former Point viz. the following the Churche's Instructions and being govern'd by her in their Faith is a kind of Morall Point whereas the other Points were many of them Sublime Mysteries and therefore not so easily Intelligible without a Master And St. Austin had beforehand confuted his pretended Parity of Reason by telling him that Proinde quamvis hujus rei c. Wherefore tho' no Example of this thing were produc't out of the Canonicall Scriptures yet the Truth of the same Scriptures is held by us even in this Matter when we do what seems good to the Universall Church which the Authority of the same Scripture Commends And because the Holy Scripture cannot deceive us whoever fears to be deceiv'd by the Obscurity of this Question let him consult the same Church concerning it which Church the Holy Scripture demonstrates without any Ambiguity Where he clearly intimates the infallibility of the Church that 't is to be consulted in dubious Points and all Controverted Points of which we speak have been call'd into Doubt which makes its Help very Needfull and which I chiefly insist on that its Authority is Clearly and without any Ambiguity demonstrated in Scripture whereas yet in his Second Book de Doctrinâ Christianâ he acknowledges the Obscurity of Scripture in divers places Obscurè quaedam dicta densissimam caliginem obducunt Some things spoken obscurely involve us in thickest Darkness And if any be Obscure then surely those necessary and High Mysteries of our Faith which are of such a Deep Sense must be such when they come to be scann'd by Eyes as yet unenlighten'd with Faith as the same Father cited in my Fourth Catholick Letter has also told him 58. After this he sums up his Performances and tells us in short how he has err'd at large Next he gives us a lame excuse for his Indirect Answer to the Fourth Question propos'd at the Conference and in effect only commits over again the same Faults he was charg'd with a little more formally as his fashion is and
themselves by it from Oliquity or Deviation that is in our case from Error After the Dr. had play'd the Droll a while upon particular words taken asunder from their fellows as is his usuall manner he grants There wants but one word to make it past Dispute viz. who effectually regulate themselves by it Now the word Regulate has clearly an Active Signification whence it being impossible an Action should be without an Effect it follows that Efficiency or Effectuallness is involv'd in it's Notion So that to do a thing Effectually does not signify any better degree of doing a Thing but only to do it really and indeed He pretends Regulating is an Ambiguous word and therefore he assigns it a double Signification One of them is what a Man doth in Conformity to his Rule And Common sense tells us that as far as a man acts Unconformably to his Rule he is not Regulated by that Rule whence to act conformably to a Rule is the self same as to be Regulated by the Rule to which he is to conform This then is one Signification of Regulating and 't is a right one for to regulate one's self by a Rule is nothing else but to Act conformably to it Le ts see the other sense of the word Regulating 'T is this To Profess Declare and Own to conform to a Rule but not conform to it that is not follow that Rule or Regulate themselves by it Now only to Profess declare and own to conform to a Rule and not conform is not to-follow it or Regulate themselves by it So that our Learned Dr. has given us here Two sorts of Regulating One which is Regulating the other which is not Regulating Let us put an Instance The Rule of Justice is to pay every man his own Now comes an unconscionable Debtor and maintains he has followed that Rule or Regulated himself by it in some Sense because he has profess'd declar'd and own'd he has follow'd that Rule tho' he has not Effectually and Indeed done so Is not this a special way of Regulating himself by the Rule of Justice and a most Cheap way for a Man to pay debts without disbursing a farthing Yet he may justify himself by Dr. St's Distinction and maintain that he has paid them Professingly owningly and declaringly tho' not Effectually Yet the Dr. is mighty fond of this choice Distinction and says All Mr S's Subtlety vanishes into nothing by plain and so easy a Distinction Notwithstanding as Nonsensicall as it is he will bring two Instances to make it good viz. That there is one sort of Regulating which is Not-Regulating The one is of a Ciceronian who Declares he orders his Speech by his Manner and yet for want of Sufficient skill and Care may use Phrases which are not Cicero's Now 't is plain that to Regulate himself by Cicero is to use his Phrases and can he then regulate himself by Cicero when he does not use his Phrases Can he be truly said to Regulate himself by him when he does not use his manner of speaking meerly because he Professes and Declares he does it Or can he be said to regulate himself by a Rule in that very thing in which he Deserts that Rule and regulates himself by some other Author or his own Fancy Did ever Common Sense go so to wrack If he says he intended to follow Cicero but mistook I understand him but intending to do a thing is not doing it intending to get Riches is not to get Riches otherwise none need be poor His Second Instance is that some may Profess that Christ's Commands are their Rule and yet through their own Fault may deviate from them or Sin. But can Sinners with any sense be said to regulate themselves by Christ's Commands when they Sin meerly because they profess to follow his Rule of Life Or can any man of a settled Brain Dr St. still excepted pretend a Sinner can be said to be regulated by that Holy Rule and deviate from it or Desert it at the same time So that his Instances as well as his Distinctions are pure Folly and Contradiction These Performances we must think qualify him to laugh at my Admirable Logick for not allowing his palpable Nonsence whereas himself is still caught stumbling in the plainest paths of that Common Road to True Learning I could wish some of Dr St's Friends would advise him soberly to fall to Quoting and Gleaning Notes then stitching them handsomly and Methodically together where he is in his own Element for in that Wilderness of words he may take his full vagary and scribble to the World's End without much danger of meeting with Conclusive Evidence which he so dreads and hates but certainly his Talent lies not in this crabbed way of close Reason The rest of his Discourse here is imposing upon me that I make men incapable of deserting the Rules of Christian Faith and Virtue tho' he knows in his Conscience I have told him the express contrary above twenty times All I pretend to in my Discourse from the Nature of a Rule is that If follow'd it will secure the Followers of it from Errour But I no where ever said but All Free Agents or all Mankind may desert those Rules and by deserting them fall into Errour and Sin too unless supported by God's Grace He asks if it be possible for men to misunderstand a Certain Rule and I tell him it is in case it be not Clear as well as Certain And I have already shewn him that the Living Voice and Practise of the Church our Rule has so many ways of delivering clearly her own Sense or Christ's Doctrin that the Generality cannot fail of understanding it right however divers Souls to whom this Rule is not so well apply'd remaining less cultivated by their own Carelesness or the Negligence of Pastours may hap to misunderstand some Points Nor can they run into Errour so as to fix in it while they think to follow the Rule For knowing they are to receive their Faith from the Church they take not upon themselves to judge of Faith as his Sober Enquirers do whom he allows to judge of Scriptures Sense without any Certain Teacher to preserve them from Errour and Heresy whence such men became fixt and unretractable by fancying they have Gods Word on their side while the others continue docil and capable of the Churches Instruction upon any occasion And when it comes to be discover'd as in likelihood it will be by their expressions that they have any Misconceit concerning Faith it obliges them to seek to be better inform'd by the Church their Mistress whom they are willing to hear and believe and the Church too becomes oblig'd to rectify their Mistakes and instruct their Ignorance 62. I have spoken formerly of his Necessary Points Only I am to observe here that he avoids very carefully with If 's the telling us whether any of
Equivocated in the Tenet of the Reall Presence and according to the Drs late Distinction making Not-Regulating to be one sort of Regulating would needs have the word Reall to mean Not-Reall whence it was judg'd expedient to put it past quibble by such a rigorously-express Definition And I much fear this vexes the Drs Sacramentarian Spirit far more then Transubstantiation it self I omit that he has forgot here the Common distinction of what Points are necessary Necessitate Medij and what Necessitate Praecepti I suppose because this Later did not sute with his Levelling Principles which set the Church and his Rabble on even Ground as to Matters of Faith. 64. I alledg'd that those Articles of the Trinity and Christ's Godhead were Fundamentall Points and therefore if his Rule could not Absolutely Ascertain People of all sorts coming to Faith of those Articles it could assure them of None and so is no Rule of Faith. He runs quite away from the Points and thinks he has done enough to say It is Absolutely Certain that God has reveal'd the Fundamentalls of our Faith. But the Question sticks still Are you Absolutely Certain by your Rule that the Trinity and Christ's Godhead are Christ's Doctrin or signify'd with Absolute Certainty by Scripture's Letter To this he says nothing but shifts it off most Shamelessly to another thing Let him set himself to do this which is his Task and we will undertake to examin the Nature of his Medium and show it Inconclusive I alledg'd that there is Experience by the Socinians taking the same way that his Medium or way to be Certain of this is not Certain He again turns off Experience that the way he takes is not Certain to Experience of his Inward Certainty or his Inward Persuasion And asks briskly whether he or I know best A pleasant Gentleman Why does he not confute all my Book by that Method Does he think 't is enough to show he is Absolutely Certain of the Sense of Scripture as to those Points with barely saying he knows he is thus Certain of it better than I What wretched Shifts are these In pursuance of this new Method of Proving and Confuting He asks again How comes Mr. S. to know we are not Certain when we say we are Because when you are most highly Concern'd and stood Engag'd by promise to show this Absolute Certainty and are Prest to it Vehemently and upon the brink of losing your Credit for not doing it you still decline the showing you have any such Certainty for the Sense of Scripture as to those Points Still he asks Are not we Certain because some that is the Socinians are not Certain No Sir not barely for that reason but because the Socinians proceeding upon the Same Rule are so far from being Certain of the Sense of Scripture as to those Points that they esteem themselves Certain by the same Scripture of Hereticall Tenets Point-blank Opposit to those Points Common Reason assures us no End can be compass'd without a Means and therefore you can never show us You are Certain till you show us you follow a better Way rely on a firmer Ground and Guide your selves by a Clearer Light to make you Certain of Scriptures Sense in those passages than They do which you can never show and as appears by your wriggling from that Point by the most untoward Shifts imaginable dare not Attempt But some are uncertain of Orall Tradition nay Censure it I do not know one man but holds and reverences it It lies upon his Credit to name those who Censure it For Lominus is a Chimaerical name and signifies no body that he knows But suppose Some did yet it being an object of Naturall Reason they and I in that case could not proceed on the Same Grounds or Reasons as his Protestants and the Socinians do upon the Same Rule of Faith. 65. I alledg'd that by his Principles he could be no more Certain of his Rule then he is of the Truth of the Letter of Scripture in regard the Truth of the Sense of Scripture depends on the Trueness of the Letter Does he deny this Or does he show that without the Care of the Church preserving the Letter Right all along he can have any Such Certainty of the Letter He not so much as Attempts either I alledg'd farther that he cannot be thus Certain of the Right Letter without having the same Certainty of the Right Translation or the True Copy nor that any Copy is True unless it be taken from the First Originall Does he deny this Or does he show that all these may not fail if the Churches's Care be set aside No neither What Shift has he then Why he says 1. That some of us are Concern'd to Answer this as well as He. Not at all for those who say that Part of Faith is Contain'd in Scripture do not for all that say that their Faith is built on Scripture's Letter interpreted by any but the Church nor do they say but the Church without Scripture could have ascertain'd them of their Faith. 2. He says This strikes at the Authentickness of the Vulgar Translation Not at all For we have other Grounds to go upon which they have Not. 3. He skips after bringing some words of mine for what they were never intended from the Translation to the Canon of Scripture which are a Mile wide from one another that so he may however he speeds in all the rest at least talk plausibly of the Concurrent Testimony for the Canon In order to which he stands up a Patron for those Christian Churches of his who thus concurr'd and will not condemn them as not truly Christian till their Cause be better heard and examin'd Yet 't is Evident from his Second Letter to Mr. G. p. 25. that some of those Churches were Arians Nestorians and Eutychians condemn'd for Hereticks by most Antient General Councils which he blames it seems for declaring so rashly against them and reprieves his Friends from their Censures till a fairer Hearing It had been happy for them had Dr. St. presided in those Councils for he would doubtless have dealt with them very kindly and have clapt them head and tail together with good Catholicks into one Latitudinarian Bill of Comprehension 5. I alledg'd that the same Sense in the heart of the Church enabled and oblig'd Her to correct the Copy when faulty in Texts containing Points of Faith which instead of shewing it Incompetent or Disagreeable to the Nature of things he confutes most Learnedly by pretending that Atheists and Unbelievers would be scandaliz'd at it Whereas they would be much more scandaliz'd to see no Certain Means assign'd to preserve the Letter right from the beginning the very first Originals being lost and all left the Churches Care set apart to so many contingences of Translating and Transcribing 6. We must prove it first to be impossible for the Sense of the Church to vary in any two
for New Questions to avoid the danger in keeping to the True one For he knew the Infallibility of the Church we are here defending is that of Tradition in delivering down the Doctrin of Christ and he does not sure judge it a Point of Christ's Doctrin that the Epistle to the Hebrews was writ by S. Paul. Add that when the Church of Rome did Decree any thing at all in that matter it was for the Reception of that Epistle in doing which he will not I hope say she Err'd So that our great Dr is out in every particular in which he shows such Confidence or rather he is to talk very Confidently whenever he is out that he may not seem not to be out 69. He puts my Objection against his Universall Consent of the Testimonies of Marcion Ebion Valentinus and Cerinthus who as he makes me say rejected the Canon of the New Testament and then asks Could any man but J. S. make such an Objection as this And I may I hope ask another Question Could any Man but Dr St. put such a Gull upon his Adversary and the Reader too Now if I us'd such words as who rejected the Canon of the New Testament I spoke Nonsense for those Hereticks were dead long before that Canon was settled But if I did not then he has abus'd me and our Readers too and done no great right to himself Let Eye-sight decide it In my Third Catholick Letter p. 59. the place he cites line 11.12 my express words are The Consent of all your Christian Churches for Scripture and he instead of Scripture puts down as my words The Canon of the New Testament I can compassionate Humane Oversight for it may hap possibly tho' it can never knowingly to be my own Case and not too severely impute a mistake in altering my Words and by them my Sense Yet I must needs say that to put those wrong words in the Italick Letter to breed a more perfect Conceit they were mine and quote the very page in the Margent where no such words were found to make me speak Nonsense looks a little Scurvily especially because when men have their Eyes upon the very Page as he had they have an easy and obvious direction to the words too But why do I make such a Spitefull Reflexion on him as to call them His Christian Churches Because he would needs allow other Sects as perfectly Hereticall as they were to be Christian Churches tho' he was put upon it to give them a distinct Character and here again he grants them to be parts of the Christian Church tho' they be cut off by Lawfull Authority from the body of Christianity Next that I may speak my conscience because I fear by many passages in his Books by his ill-laid Principles and the very grain of his Doctrin and discourses he judges all to be good Christians who profess to ground their Faith on Scripture let them hold as many Heresies as they will. And lastly for his fierce anger here against me for calling those Hereticks viz. The Arians Nestorians c. which have been Condemn'd by Generall Councils for I concern not my self with his Greeks or Abyssins or any others Excrementitious Outcasts and that I sling such dirt in the face of so many Christian Churches And is not this to cry Hail fellow well met But my Cause he says is desperate because I call such men Knights of the Post. Yet he knows the Fathers oft complain of Hereticks for corrupting the Scripture and the Testimony of the Churches Truly Christian was Absolutely Certain without calling in so needlessly Blasted Witnesses Moreover I told him that the Universall Testimony he produc't did attest the Books but it must attest the Chapter and Uerse too to be Right nay each Significant Word in the Verse otherwise the Scripture could not assure him Absolutely of his Faith. Can he deny this If the Chapter or Verse he cites be not True Scripture or if any materiall Word in the Verse be alter'd can he securely build his Faith on it What says he to this Does he deny it or show that His Grounds reach home to prove these particular Texts or Words to be right by Universall Testimony or any other Medium Neither of them is his Concern What does he then Why he complains how hardly we are satisfy'd about the Certainty of Scripture and that we are Incurable Scepticks Sure he dreams We are Satisfy'd well enough but his Vexation is that we are not satisfy'd of it by his Principles and how should we if when it was his Cue to satisfy us he will never be brought to go seriously about it And why must we be Scepticks when as we both hold the Rectitude of the Letter our selves in Texts relating to Faith and Assign a way to secure it Absolutely which he cannot Must all Men necessarily be Scepticks who allow not his No-way of doing this tho' they propose and Maintain a certain way that can do it This is a strange way of Confuting He says There are different Copies in all Parts to examin and Compare 'T is these very Copies that are in Question whether they give Absolute Certainty of every Verse or materiall Word in the Letter of Scripture and we expected he should have shown how they did so and not barely name them and say there are such things But the main Point is Must those who are looking for Faith run to all parts of the World and examin and Compare all the Copies e're they embrace any Faith This looks like a Jest Yet 't is a sad tho' a mad Truth by his Principles For without knowing this Scripture cannot be their Rule and hee 'll allow no way to come to Faith but by Scripture So that for any Assurance he can give them even of his Necessary Points they must e'n be content to stay at home and live and dye without any Faith at all He ends And Thus I have answer'd all the Objections I have Met with in J. S. against our Rule of Faith. Here are two Emphaticall words Thus and Met of which the word Thus has such a pregnant Signification and teems with so many indirect wiles and Stratagems that it would be an ingratefull task to recount them and the word Met is as Significant as the other For how should he Meet those that lay in the way while he perpetually runs out of the Way SECT IV. How solidly Dr. St. Answers our Arguments for the Infallibility of Tradition 70. BUt now he exerts his Reasoning Faculty which he does seldom will answer Mr G's Argument for the Infallibility of Oral and Practical Tradition With what success we shall see anon But first he will clear his bad Logick for letting the Argument stand yet in its full force and falling very manfully to Combat the Conclusion and tho' Common Sense tells every man this is not to Answer but to Argue yet he will have Arguing to
into Certainty of the Grounds on which we believe Scripture to contain the word of God. Why not a word of Reply to my Discourses there and in many other places shewing that Scripture's Containing Faith is nothing at all to our purpose but the Getting out from Scripture it 's true Meaning or Sense this only being our Faith and that his Faith is still Vncertain unless there be Certainty that such and such Articles Are Contain'd there Which Point tho' it be of the Highest Consequence yet he never sets himself to Solve our Arguments against it in his whole pretended Answer but he runs on still in the same Errour as if nothing had been alledg'd to shew his Discourses insignificant and frivolous Why no Answer to my Discourse proving that a Rule or Ground is none if it carry not thorough to the particular Points especially to those which are most Fundamentall unless granting it in effect p. 36. and allowing no Absolute Certainty to any particular Point of Faith may be called an Answer Why no Excuse for his Skewing Comment upon his own Answer which spoke of Absolute Certainty of all Christ's Doctrin which consists of such and such particular Tenets to the Writings of the Apostles whereas there was not a word of Writing in Mr. G's Question or in his own Answer either Nor any notice taken of my Argument manifesting that a Resolution of Faith speaks Connexion of the Motives that are to prove it Christ's Doctrin to the Points of Faith laid home to him in a Close Discourse demonstrating the Necessity it should be such Why no Account of his distinguishing between Christ's Doctrin and that of the Apostles that so he might mis-represent Tradition and alter the Question from a Publick to a Private Delivery Why no Reason given of his not Resolving his Faith into the Apostles Preaching but only into their Writing I mean no Answer to my Reasons why he ought to have resolv'd it into the former at least Equally Why no Answer to my Reasons shewing from his ill-laid Principles that Perfect Contradictories Points of Faith and wicked Heresies opposit to them are both Equally Certain Why no Excuse for his Shuffling from the New Testament's Containing all the Divine Revelations to the Church'es making men fix by degrees upon the Certain Canon of it which is there shewn and indeed appears of it self to be a quite disparate business Why not the least Excuse for his most abominable four-fold Prevarication in answering to one single Question expos'd there at large and why no Defence or particular Explication of his beloved Sufficient Certainty nor any Application of it to the Nature Ends and Uses of a firm Faith that any Point is Christ's true Doctrin shewing that his feeble Motives are sufficient for those particular purposes Why to make his odd Similitude of Scripture's being a Purse apposit does he not shew us some Certain Way how the Gold and Silver Points of Faith as he calls them may be got out of it without danger of extracting thence the impure Dross of Errour and Heresy instead of True Faith Again to make it square why does he not rather make the Heads and Hearts of the First Faithfull the Purses since as was shewn him Faith is more properly Contain'd there than in a Book Or if he will needs make use of an Improper Container of Faith too why does not he put two Purses viz. the Souls of the Faithfull and the Scripture And why not a word of Reply to my Plain Reasons why he ought to have done both these Why no Answer to my Reasons proving that All the Points of Faith are Necessary for the Salvation of Mankind and for the Church otherwise than by rambling to Transubstantiation p. 84. and that he sees no Necessity of it Which makes his often-alledg'd Distinction of Necessary Unnecessary Points brought to avoid the Question perfectly frivolous and why runs he still on with the same Distinction in this pretended Answer without taking off the Exceptions against it by only crying Alas for him when I askt him If Christ taught any unnecessary Articles and by saying they are not equally Necessary p. 33. Why nothing to justify that his Assent of Faith may not be False and so no Faith Why no Reply to my Reasons that notwithstanding his pretended Grounds He has no Absolute Certainty that even the Letter of Scripture is Right whereas if it be not he can have no Certainty but all is Wrong that is grounded upon it since in that case he may embrace a Grand Heresy for True Faith Why no Answer to my plainest Argument shewing how Christ's Doctrin continu'd all along in the Breast of the Church is the best Means to correct the Letter in Texts that contain Faith Why no Reply to my many Reasons shewing that the Ancient Church allow'd our way of Tradition and disallow'd his of Scripture privately Interpreted Why does he not confute my Discourses manifesting that he can have no Absolute Certainty by his Principles of the Number of Books or of each Chapter Verse and Material Word in each Verse that concerns any Point of Faith without doing which he cannot pretend to have Certainty of the Letter nor consequently of any one of those Points Why no Reply to that Important Objection that if Scripture were the Rule of Faith the Primitive Church had for some time but half or three-quarters of their Faith or less and so by his Principles were but three-quarters or half Christians according as the several pieces came by degrees to be spread accepted or universally acknowledg'd nay perhaps no Faith at all as was there shewn and why did he instead of replying turn it off to the single Epistle to the Hebrews and to an Insignificant If Why when it was objected that divers of his Christian Churches doubted of divers Books of Scripture and some late Brethren of his of some others does he again turn it off as to the former to the Canon of Scripture made afterwards and to the later says nothing Why not a word to my Clearest Proof that our Tradition or Testimony for Doctrin is incomparably more large in its source which gives it its chief force than his is for Scripture's Letter Why does he not clear himself of his preferring his Sober Enquirer before the Church the unreasonableness of which was urg'd home against him nor justify his weak discourses in some sleigter passages laid open p. 64.65 Why not a syllable of Answer to that most highly-concerning Discourse and which if it stands in its full force overthrows all the whole Fabrick of his Doctrin viz. that a Rule or Ground are Relative Words and therefore Scriptures Letter cannot be an Absolute Certain Rule or Ground unless its Ascertaining virtue affects the Articles known by it This Point has been prest upon him so vigorously
Babbling when they are exceeded Must you be minded that the Business must be stopt before it come to the Conclusion and that otherwise there is no speaking against it For you know that if the Premisses be right and the Inference good the Conclusion must be as necessarily True as it is that the same thing cannot be and not be at once that is must be more certain than that England for Example shall not crumble into Atoms or be swallow'd up in the Sea to morrow For this and a thousand such things may happen to all material Nature that a Contradiction should prove True cannot And 't is perfect Contradiction that Terms which cohere in the Premises by being the same with a Third should not cohere with one another in the Conclusion Must you be minded that an Arguer is to prove his Conclusion and an Answerer to shew he does not by assigning where and how he fails Do you do any such matter Do you so much as go about it And would you have what you say pass for an Answer Pray consider the Case The Church of Rome is Infallible says Mr. G. She is not say you He brings his Argument and you your Instance against it What are People the wiser now and which shall they be for the Argument or the Instance They have reason to think well of the Argument because you have no fault to find with it and they may think as they please of the Instance You would not I suppose have them believe you both and think the Church of Rome for your sake Fallible and for his Infallible at once Pray what assistance do you afford them to determin either way And what do you more than e'en leave them to draw Cuts and venture their Souls as handy-dandy shall decide for you or Mr. G. 'T is true when Zeno would needs be paradoxing against the possibility of Motion his Vanity was not ill ridicul'd by the walking of Diogenes before him For 't was palpably and ridiculously vain to talk against Motion with a Tongue that must needs move to talk against it And there may be vanity too in our Case for ought I know But where shall it be lodg'd Why more with Mr. G's Argument than your Instance Why is it more vain to pretend to prove Infallibility upon which depend the Hopes which Millions and Millions have of a blessed Eternity and which is prov'd by Arguments to which you think it your best way not to attempt to Answer than it is to except against a Conclusion against the Premises whereof there lies no Exception That is to find fault with a Sum Total and find none in the particulars or the casting up For a Conclusion is a kind of Sum Total of the Premises But it is infinitely more vain to talk against one Infallibility unless you will set up another For if there be no Means by which Men may be secur'd that the ways they take to arrive at their greatest and only Good will not deceive them it cannot be expected they will take all the pains that are necessary to compass that Good which for ought they can tell they may not compass with all their pains 'T is a pleasant thing in you to talk of the vanity of Mr. G's Demonstration when by seeking to take Infallibility out of the World you are making the whole Creation vain For all Material Nature was made for Rational Nature and Rational Nature requires Rational Satisfaction in all its proceedings and most of all in the pursuit of Happiness And what Rational Satisfaction can there be if there may be Deceit in whatever can be propos'd for Satisfaction In short the Result of your Instance whatever was the Aim it is to amuse and confound People and hinder them perhaps from seeing what otherwise would be clear but it shews them nothing nor can for that Argument of yours is not at all of a shewing Nature 13. 'T is at best but an Argument as they call it ad hominem which you know are of the worst sort of Arguments They serve for nothing but to stop an Adversaries mouth or shame him if he cannot answer without contradicting himself but are of no use towards the Discovery of Truth For a thing is not the more or less True because such a Man's Tongue is ty'd up for speaking against it But is it so much as an Argument ad hominem As all the little force of the Topic consists in the Obligation which a Man may have to grant or deny what it supposes he does it affords no Argument at all against the Man who has no such Obligation And pray where does it appear that Mr. G. is oblig'd not to deny that the Greek Church has err'd in matters of Faith And how can you of all Men suppose he is You who in your Rational Account p. 32. quote these words from Peter Lombard The Difference between the Greeks and Latins is in Words and not in Sense Name Thomas à Iesu and Azorius and tell us of other Roman Catholic Authors of the same judgment whom I suppose you could name Pray how comes Mr. G. to lye under an Obligation from which Men of Reputation in his own Communion are exempt And what a wise Argument ad hominem have you made against him whom your self have furnish'd with an Argument ad hominem to confute it when he pleases In fine he goes to work like a Scholar puts his Premises and infers his Conclusion which you know cannot but be True if there be no Fault in his Premises And 't is for you to find one when you can You put nothing to shew how the Inference you make should be True but barely assume without proof that he cannot deny it p. 5. As if Truth depended on his Denying or Affirming and that what People say or think made things True or False And even for so much you are at his Courtesie If he be not the better Natur'd and will crossly affirm or deny in the wrong place you and your Argument are left in the lurch In a word one may see he aim'd at Truth who takes at least the way to it what you aim'd at you best know but no body shall ever discover what is or is not True by your Method 14. But that you may not complain your Cock is not suffer'd to fight let us see what your Instance will do You put it thus p. 5. The Greek Church went upon Tradition from Father to Son as much as ever the Roman did And I desir'd to know of Mr. G. whether the Greek Church notwithstanding did not err in matters of Faith And if it did then a Church holding to Tradition was not Infallible How If it did Why then it is apparent if it did not your Argument holds not And will you assume that the Greek Church errs who believe she does not Will you take a Premise to infer a Conclusion upon which the Salvation of People depends
which Premise your self in your own heart think is not true Can you deal thus with their Souls who pin them upon you perswade them of what you are not perswaded your self and offer them a Securiy for their Eternity in which your own judgment tells you there is a flaw For you have declar'd your self upon this Matter in your Rational Account and taken great pains to clear the Greek Church at least upon the Article of the Holy Ghost in which consists their main difference with the Latins and to which the other two you mention were added I suppose for fashion sake I know you there propose to free that Church from the charge of Heresie But pray what difference betwixt Heresie and Error in matter of Faith unless you will trifle about Obstinacy and such collateral considerations which neither concern us here nor were any part of your Defence there I see too that you word it here conditionally and with reference to Mr. G's Answer As if his Answer made or marr'd and the Greek Church did or did not err as he says I or No. Whatever Mr. G. may say or you have said unless the Greek Church actually does Err your Instance is no Instance of a Church that goes upon Tradition and Errs and your Inference that then a Church holding to Tradition was not Infallible is wondrous pertinently inferr'd from the Example of a Church that errs not Pray take it well that I intreat you by all the care you have of your own Soul and should have of others to manage Disputes about Faith a little otherwise and not propose Arguments in which you must needs think your self there is no force For there is plainly none in this if the Greek Church does not err and you at least think she does not I am sure 't is what I would not do my self for all the World. 15. But to proceed to Mr. G's Answer p. 5. It was say you that the Greek Church follow'd Tradition till the Arians left that Rule and took up a new one c. And why has he not answer'd well You assum'd that the Greek Church err'd while it went upon Tradition If you did not you said nothing for that a Church may follow Tradition at one time and leave it at another is no news 'T is the case of all erring Churches which ever follow'd Tradition at all Mr. G's Reply then that Tradition was follow'd till another Rule was taken up denies that Tradition and Error were found together as you contended in the Greek Church And pray what more direct or more full Answer can there be to an Argument than to deny the Premises As slightly as you would seem to think of him he understood disputing better than to start aside into an Exception against your Conclusion but answers fair and home by denying the Assumption from which you infer it which now he has done you know it rests with you to prove it and yet you never think on 't as far as I see but as if you had no more to do fall a complaining against Mr. G. for speaking of the Arians and not of the present Greek Church and against his Copy for leaving out the Inference which you drew In doing which if he did so he did you no small kindness there being no Premises to draw the Inference from as has been shewn above or if any such as put you to contradict your own Doctrin ere any thing could follow from them 16. As for the omission of the Inference I know not how it happen'd nor mean to meddle with matter of Fact. But I see they had reason who observ'd before me that 't is a thing of no manner of Consequence I verily think in your own Judgment Unless you think the Age we live in so dull that without much hammering it into their Heads it cannot be perceiv'd that if a Church has err'd which held to Tradition a Church may err which holds to Tradition Or unless you think it of mighty Consequence to have an Inference stand in the Relation which fell with the Premises at the Conference Mr. G. took them away by his denial and you must begin again and bring something from whence you may draw an Inference if you will needs have an Inference for an Inference cannot be drawn from nothing Pray divert us not perpetually from minding what we are about but remember the Question now is Whether the Greek Church held to Tradition and err'd at once and bethink your self if you please of a Medium which will infer that Point for you for Mr. G. you see denies it 17. From his mentioning the Arians you take occasi-to speak big and bear us in hand he was hard put to it and sought an occasion and affirm p. 6. you could get no Answer at all to the Case of the present Greek Church As if his Answer pincht on the Arians and were not as full to the present as past Greek Church It goes on this That those who err in Faith let them be who they will and the Error what it will and in what Time and Place you will all leave Tradition Whether the Case of the present Greek Church be the same with the Arians is matter of Fact with which Mr. G. did well not to meddle it is for you to make it out if you will make good your Argument Modern or Ancient Heresie is all one to his Answer which is applicable to all Heresie And you complain of the want of an Answer when you have one Pray if a Man should put an Objection to you about an Animal for Example and you answer it of all Animals would you think it just in him to quarrel with you for not mentioning the Rational or Irrational in particular And yet this is your Quarrel to Mr. G. All your magnificent Talk p. 6. of undeniably true granted by Mr. G. known to every one c. as apt as I see it is to make a Reader believe your Instance is notoriously true and against which Mr. G. has nothing to say cannot make me or any Man of Reason who examins the Point believe he has any Reason to say more till you do He has answer'd directly and positively deny'd that Error and Tradition can be found together in the Greek Church or any other modern or ancient There it sticks and you may drive it on farther it being your own Argument if you please Only when you tell us p. 6. that the present Greek Church in all its Differences with the Roman still pleaded Tradition and adher'd to it I wish you had told us whether you speak of Differences in matter of Faith or no. For Differences may be occasion'd by matters of Faith which are not Differences in Faith. If you do not you support your Instance very strongly and prove the consistence of Tradition with Error in Faith very Learnedly from Differences which belong not to Faith. If you do as Nature itches after strange
Sights I long to see by what Differences or any thing else it can be made out That an erring Church can still plead Tradition and adhere to it Not but that for Pleading much may be there are such confident doings in the World. As certain as it is that the Religion in England now is not the same which it was before Henry the Eighth I think there is confidence enough in England to plead Tradition for it 'T is but finding some Expression in an ancient Writer not couch'd with Prophetical foresight enough to avoid being understood as some will desire it should and it will serve turn to pretend to Antiquity and bear the Name of Tradition So I suspect you take it your self when you say the Arians insisted on Tradition For sure you do not think in earnest that Doctrin contrary to Consubstantiality was taught by Christ and believ'd from Father to Son till the Council of Nice This or some such thing may perhaps have been pleaded but for adhering to Tradition Your Servant For pray did Christ teach any Error When a Father believ'd what Christ taught him and the Son what the Father believ'd did not the Son too believe what Christ taught Run it on to the last Son that shall be born in the World must not every one believe what Christ taught if every one believ'd what his Father believ'd And will you go about to persuade us that there actually is a company of Men in the World who adher'd to this Method all Sons believing always as their Fathers did whereof the First believ'd as Christ taught and who notwithstanding err'd in matters of Faith They would thank you for making this out who would be glad that Christ taught Error and were not God. But it is not plainer that Two and Three make Five than it is that this cannot be And yet you would top it upon us and bear us in hand it is not only true but apparent in the Greek Church and known to every body who knows any thing of it The comfort is there is nothing for all these Assertions but your Word in which where you stick not to pass it for an arrant Impossibility I for my part do not think there is Absolute Certainty 18. I see not what there remains more but to bear in mind where we are At the Conference instead of answering Mr. G's Argument you would needs make one of your own which was in short The Greek Church goes upon Tradition and errs therefore another Church may err which goes upon Tradition There was no need to trouble the Greek Church for the matter It had been altogether as methodical and as much to purpose to have instanc'd in the Latin Church it self and never gon further and shorter to have spar'd Instancing too and have said without more ado Mr. G 's Conclusion is not true For you do no more till you make it appear that the Church you pitch upon for an Instance do's indeed adhere to Tradition and err But because this had been too open and People would have sooner perceiv'd that it had been to say I know not how to answer Mr. G 's Argument but will notwithstanding stand to it that his Conclusion is false you thought the best way to divert the Reader 's attention from what 's before him was to travel into Greece and yet when you come there do no more than if you had stay'd at home For you barely say there is both Tradition and Error in the Greek Church and you might have said as much of the Latin or without mentioning either have said Tho' Mr. G. has prov'd a Traditionary Church cannot err I say it can and has All is but Saying till you come to Proving Only to make a formal shew with an Antecedent and a Conclusion you say it with the Ceremony of an Argument of which since Mr. G. deny'd the Antecedent he had no more to do till you prov'd it 19. So it stood at the Conference and so it stands still and for ought I see is like to stand For tho' you have writ two Letters since there appears no word of Proof in either or sign that you do so much as think on it You only say your Instance over again and would have the Face you set upon it and great Words you give it make it pass for plain and undeniable when all the while it is plainly impossible and actually deny'd Mr. G. I hope will bide by his Answer because it is a good one true in it self and direct to the Point For it denies just what you assum'd That the Greek Church stood upon Tradition and fell at the same time into Error And speaking as you do or should do of Error in matter of Faith Euclid never made any thing plainer than it is That where ever Error comes in Tradition goes out Of necessity therefore if the present Greek Church have adher'd to Tradition it has not err'd If it have err'd it has not adher'd to Tradition Which of the two is the Case neither concerns Mr. G. nor can he dispute it without following bad Example that is falling to Argue now it is his Part to Answer You would pass it upon us that the Greek Church has err'd without swerving from Tradition and you must either make it out or acknowledge you have made much ado about nothing For your Instance is no Instance till it appears to be true Till you do it there is no Work for Mr. G. 20 At the close p. 7. you desire Mr. G. to make good two things and tell us why you desire it and what will follow if he accept or decline your Motion I neither understand how your Proposals follow from your Reasons nor your Consequences from your Proposals But think it no more worth losing time upon them than you thought it worth boasting of the Victory The First is That we Protestants have no Absolute Certainty as to the Rule of our Faith viz. the Scripture altho' we have a larger and firmer Tradition for it viz. the Consent of all Christian Churches than you Catholics can have for the Points of Faith in difference between us 21. I can tell you a better Reason for this Proposal than any you give There was no avoiding to own Absolute Certainty to a Man who talk'd of quitting your Communion without it But you knew well enough that your Absolute Certainty would be thwittled into Sufficient Certainty and Sufficient Certainty into no Certainty at last and had your Wits about you when you thought of this Proposal For it is in effect to say This Certainty of Faith is a troublesom matter and not for my turn Let us go to something else leave Faith and pass to Scripture of which you Mr. G. shall prove we have no Absolute Certainty For if I should go about to prove we have I foresee that while I am seeking harbor in my larger and firmer Tradition I shall venture to split upon
possibly remain not the same Will it shew us that a Cause can be without its Effect or an Effect without its Cause Will it shew us that a thing can be and not be at once Unless it can do such Feats as these you may keep your Notwithstanding to your self for any Service it will do you here For all the Notwithstandings in the world cannot hinder a thing which is true from being true nor the Proof which proves it to be true from being a Proof Mr. G 's Proof shews that Tradition from Father to Son is an Infallible Conveyance of Faith as plainly as that Men are Men And would you persuade us with the Rhetorick of your Notwithstanding that we do not see what we see Tho' you had brought twenty of them instead of one we could see nothing by them but that you had a good Fancy for they shew us nothing of the Object nor offer at it You shew us not how the Operations of Human Nature should be suspended in our present Case nor any thing which should or could suspend them but would have us believe Men were prodigiously forgetful or malicious purely for the sake of an Imagination of yours I pray rub up afresh your old Logical Notions and reflect whether it were ever heard of in University Disputes that when an Argument is advanc'd the Defendant is allow'd to make Objections against it and instead of Answering bid the Arguer prove his Conclusions to be true Notwithstanding all his Objections Consider how perfectly this confounds the Offices of the Disputant and Defendent and makes all Regular Discourse impossible Consider how this new Method of yours destroys the very possibility of ever concluding any thing that is the very Faculty of Reasoning For Objections being generally multipliable without end if all of them must be Solv'd e're any Argument concludes nothing will be concluded nor any Conclusion admitted And so a long so Farewel to Rational Nature Consider that Truth is built on its own Intrinsecal Grounds and not on the Solving Objections For your own Credits sake then with Learned Men and Logicians do not seek to evade with Notwithstandings but Answer fairly and squarely to the Argument as it lies Consider that who has found the Cause has found the Effect Mr. G. has found us a Cause of Infallible Conveyance and therefore has shew'd us an Infallible Conveyance You pretend that tho' there was the Cause there was not the Effect and this 't is known beforehand cannot be and you knew it as well as any body But you knew likewise there was no saving your Stakes without playing a new Game and therefore give you your due did all that could be done in trying to divert our sight from a Matter plain before us and amuse us us with a Matter of Fact which you are sure will be obscure enough by that time it is handled long enough The Terms you put viz. Tradition Error and the Greek Church must needs bring into Dispute whether such and so many Quotations or some one or two Men disclaiming their Tenet to be a Novelty be a Proof of Tradition from Father to Son whether the Error be any Error and whether and for how much an Error in Faith and how much of it belongs to Divinity whether the Greek Church be ingag'd by a Citation from a Greek Author of two that be cited one against another which shall be preferr'd and thought to speak the sense of his Church and which is a Latiniz'd which a frank Grecian And who shall see through the Mists which these Disputes will raise More too will fall in in process of time There will be wrangling about the sense of Words the propriety of Phrases the preference of Readings and twenty such important quarrels which will tire out every body and satisfie no body In short you saw that if you could perswade People not to think the Church of Rome Infallible till all be said which will occur to be said of the Greek Church you are safe enough For Doomsday will come before that day Till then you may carry it with a shew of Erudition because there must be abundance of Greek cited And this is all which can come of your Instance and I wish it were not all you had in your Eye 31. In the mean time you have not answer'd Mr. G. because you have found no fault in any Proposition or in the Inference of his Argument and therefore it rests with you to answer it He has answer'd you because he has found this fault with your Instance which you make your Antecedent that it is not true and that the Greek Church did not at once err in Faith and adhere to Tradition and therefore it rests again with you to prove it and yet while you are Debtor both ways you call upon him to pay Ere we part Take this along with you that the Debt which you are precisely bound to satisfie first is to answer his Argument and till you do this you can claim no right to Object or Argue I am SIR Your humble Servant The Second Catholick Letter OR REFLECTIONS ON THE Reflecters Defence OF Dr. Stillingfleet's First Letter to Mr. G. Against the ANSWER To the Arguing Part of it Published with Allowance LONDON Printed and sold by Matthew Turner at the Lamb in High-Holbourn 1687. TO THE READER PErhaps it has scarce been seen hitherto that all our Polemical Contests were reduc'd within so narrow a compass My First Letter insisted chiefly on Two short Discourses Whereof the one undertook to shew the Nullity of the Rule of Faith claim'd by Dr. St. and his Protestants The other the Absolute Certainty of the Catholic Rule and the whole Controversie was in short about the Certainty or Uncertainty of Christian Faith. Both of those Discourses were presum'd by us to be Conclusive and so we offer'd a fair Advantage to our Adversary if he could shew clearly any of our Propositions was false or their Connexion slack Hence I had good hopes that Reply of mine would have brought our Controversie very near an end had Dr. St's Return been suitable to our Attempts Especially it had brought the Business to a Crisis had he been pleas'd to shew the Absolute Certainty of his Rule or of his Faith as grounded on that Rule which was justly expected But Error Nonplust has already convinc'd the World That the bringing any Dispute to Principles or Grounds agrees not with their Constitution who have none While our Expectations were thus rais'd no News could we hear of Dr. St. An Answer comes out from another hand not very obliging to him in my opinion whether he were or were not preacquainted with it For if he were and 't is hard to imagine that a Piece writ in his Defence had not both his Direction Inspection and Approbation People will suspect he foresaw what would come of it and was glad the Shame should fall on another and that he has but little
set Solid Meat on the Board and all this done send them hungry away Pray when will that When of yours be When will the day come in which you will shew your Faith to be solidly-grounded on the Word of God Every Article as you word it to bring it I suppose to your solid Endless way of Quoting and Criticizing is too much at present We are not got so far yet It will be time to talk of This or That Article when This or That Article is in Question At present you are to shew if you can that you have any Means unless you take Ours to ground any Article solidly on the Word of God. You are to shew your interpretation of it is Absolutely Certain and that God's Word means as you teach it does Otherwise your Confident Talking will not hinder us from seeing that you wretchedly delude your Followers while you are your selves truly Vncertain whether any thing you teach them be True and Conscious that you are so 13. And yet tho' you have served us thus you have a fetch to lay the blame upon me for being harder to you than the Laws of Disputation are I will have them he says prove two things more First that they are absolutely certain of All This. By the way I take for granted that by All This you mean All which Dr. St. affirm'd which was All of which I desir'd Proof And Secondly Not only this but of All that more which Our Saviour taught his Apostles Of this Charge I own the first half I did demand proof of Absolute Certainty and that for All This and shall persist to demand it till you shew me the Disputation-Law-Book which allows a Disputant to say what he pleases and chuse whether he will prove it or no when he has done Dr. Stillingfleet did affirm that You are Absolutely Certain and absolutely Certain that you now hold All the same Doctrin that was Taught by Christ his Apostles And of All this all the Laws of Disputation that I ever read or heard of warrant me to demand proof And you shall permit me to believe there was something in the Wind besides those Laws which makes you decline to give it I had been Logician good enough if you had known how to have prov'd Yes but I make Absolutely-Certain and Infallible all one I make them all one Why all Mankind made them so before I was born Take all the Men who pretend to Absolute Certainty and all the ways by which they pretend Authority Demonstration Sense Experience or what you will and see whether all Mankind agree not that when there is room for Deceit there is no Absolute Certainty and let a man pretend to be Absolutely Certain as much as he will if he be or may be deceiv'd he will be but laught at for his pains and not thought Absolutely Certain by any man in the World no not by your Reflecting self And yet you would perswade us I break the Laws of Disputation by understanding that Word as every body else does Certainly you would make a pleasant Law-maker for Disputation For when you have forbid us to understand words as others do we could dispute no longer nor so much as converse for there would be no knowing one anothers meaning 14. But if I take that word ill how must I do to take it well Not to mistake a second time I would be glad to know how your self take it who to be sure take it right But this you keep to your self and you have reason if by Absolutely Certain you mean not Absolutely Certain which I suspect is the true case and must be unless you would have it mean nothing Otherwise why might not we know what you will let it mean if you will not let it mean what I and every body else think it does Since you leave me to my self I shall at the hazard of incurring again the Penalties of your Laws of Disputation venture to think that He who will not suffer those who are Absolutely Certain to be Infallible will have them Fallible that is Deceivable in that whereof they are Absolutely Certain and for ought they can tell actually deceiv'd And then he will have Protestants believe that their Religion is the same that is taught by Christ stand firm and draw over to it as many as they can and vex and persecute their Neighbours whom they cannot prefer it before the Unity of the Church and keep up differences in Religion with as much jealous Concern as if the Wall of Division in the Church were the only safe Fence of the Nation in a word stake their Souls and Eternity upon it When all the while he cannot Absolutely tell whether it be True or No nay knows he cannot Let him honestly tell Protestants so and if they will venture Persecution and Schism and Salvation on those terms the Fault is their own and he has wash'd his Hands Otherwise he deludes them shamefully If they waver and stand upon Security they are told they are Absolutely Certain and this confirms them for it is as good Security as Heart can wish But when it comes to be sifted it appears they may be deceiv'd for all their Security and their Absolutely-Certain Religion proves to be such as perhaps is arrantly False In short they have a bare Sound to rely upon for their Souls Call their Security Absolutely Certain and 't is good Protestant Doctrin but call it Infallible which is the same and 't is rank Popery and your Protestants will none of it And so they may if they will and must if they will continue to be of your principles be content with Sounds But if they will stand upon Security from Deceit they must look for it where it is to be had With all they can get here it remains They may be Deceiv'd 15. The second-half of your Charge is purely your own Invention and as pleasant an Invention as ever roving Fancy suggested Absolute Certainty of Protestant Faith was turn'd by Dr. St. to Absolute Certainty of Scripture Since then Protestants believe more than that Scripture is Scripture I said they were to prove their Absolute Certainty of the more which they believ'd besides You have taken such extraordinary pains to mistake me as plainly as I exprest my self that you fancy I would have them say they are thus certain of those Points which they deny to be in Scripture and think them to be added by the Council of Trent and which therefore they believe not And these Points you understand to be the more of which I demanded Proof and so by your power in Reflection to desire Proof of what they do believe is to desire Proof of what they do not believe Absolute Certainty of what is their Faith is Absolute Certainty of what is not their Faith and their not-Faith is their more-Faith Ridiculous Folly To pretend we expected Protestants should prove to us such Points as they deny'd and our selves
held whence they could need no Proof to us and if they needed any to others it was certainly our proper Duty not theirs to produce them Many when they are hard put to it have wav'd the consideration of Shame but 't is a sad thing utterly to renounce Common Sence too Yet what is it you will not do What absurd pretences not lay hold of rather than be brought to this odious and dangerous thing call'd Proving You reflect out your Paragraph with the H. Scripture the good men who penn'd it with the Primitive Church and Primitive Creeds and the Council of Trent and this you call Reflecting on my Letter 16. Yet you set a good face on 't at pâ—râ—ing and tell us You decline no Proof that is incumbent on you as if it were not incumbent on you to prove what you say You add That we see by this time as if there were any thing to be seen in all your Reflections but that they decline all Proof and that with the most aukward shifts in the World as Because the Council of Trent had made a Declaration concerning Grace p. 3. Because a Minister is as good a man as a Priest p. 4. Because the Infallibility and Authority of the Church of Rome might run a risque p. 5. Because Catholicks and Protestants hit it not about Judgment of Discretion Ibid. Because Dr. Tillotson is an Excellent man p. 6. Because we will not dispense with the word Absolute which was Dr. St's but will needs take it in its natural sense and not admit of your no-sense of it Ibid. These and many other such weighty Reflections have been our chief entertainment and yet your scrupulous Modesty has the Confidence to say you decline no Proof that is incumbent on you when you have incumb'd all the while if that be the word on nothing but throwing out Baits to draw us from your incumbent Proof to other matters You talk indeed of Proof at last and that which you say of it is That you prove when you prove Moreover you blame me for desiring Proof of two things more whereof One is the very thing your selves have made the point to be prov'd and the other I never desir'd you to prove at all With this stuff you face it out that You prove Scripture to be the Word of God which if one should put you to it you cannot and every Article of your Faith by the Scripture common words which every Heretick may and does use when I have been all this while solliciting with all the earnestness I can to know which way you can prove any Article with Absolute Certainty by Scripture and you will not tell me and I am sure cannot Though you have the Confidence to say you do it yet every body may perceive you know you cannot For your very next words are Thus we prove we have sufficient Certainty of our whole Faith which is to say You decline Dr. St's Absolute Certainty nor know of any way to prove more than sufficient Certainty And this sufficient Certainty of yours may be no-Certainty For there goes no more to make a thing sufficient than to make a man content with it A Yard of Cloth will make a sufficient Garment for him who is content to go half naked and a Table without Meat is a sufficient Meal for him who is contented to fast And so as long as you can prevail with your Protestants to be content without Certainty you can prove they have Certainty abundantly Sufficient because no-Certainty will suffice Marry if they will insist upon having at least this Sufficient Certainty which you promise I know not how you will do without Weights and Scales to weigh out your Certainty according to several mens Exigencies and make down-weight Sufficient except they will take your word for you have no more to give them even for so much But for Absolute True Certainty the only Certainty of which Dr. Stillingfleet spake and I demanded Proof They must absolutely excuse you Poor Protestants to be thus us'd That Empty Words and solemn Outsides and Confident Noise should be offer'd to them for Truth and which is more deplorable pass upon them That they should not yet perceive they are but the Stratagems of those no-principled men who impose on them and secretly laugh at them for their Easiness and yet reflect not that they must answer one day with their souls for suffering themselves to be so impos'd upon 17. From your Proving Talent you pass to your Answering Talent and will try to answer a Discourse of mine in which there are but Five Propositions The First God has left us some way to know surely what Christ and his Apostles taught This you grant to be a Certain Truth and so there is one step of our Journey made I think you grant the second too not that you positively say I or No for that is too precise dull a Method for a Man of your parts But as Plain Truth seems always ridiculous to you you laugh at it for a foolish Inference because 't is so visibly in the Antecedent You are not aware I perceive that your Raillery is Complement To be contain'd in the Antecedent which you make the Fault is the Praise of an Inference without which it would indeed be good for nothing or rather not be at all For which way can an Inference be drawn from an Antecedent in which it was not to be drawn Would you have us draw Wine out of an empty Cask or Beer out of a Jarr of Oyl Again the more we know the thing is where we would draw it the surer our Draught But you seem to be so little acquainted with Antecedents Inferences that 't is no wonder by making them your sport you make your self the sport of those who do understand them In the mean time your laughing is owning that the Inference is contain'd in the Antecedent and therefore Certain as you before own'd the Antecedent was And so we are another step onwards and might so forwards without stopping longer if you could have let my Proposition alone But you must needs be wording on 't your own way to shew that either you did not understand it or that you had a mind to inform us how neatly and dexterously you could change and pervert words as well as Answer My Words were Therefore this way must be such that they who take it shall arrive by it at the End it was intended for that is know surely what Christ and his Apostles taught Your Words which you pretend equivalent to mine are these If God has left us a Way to know then by that Way we may know Pray Sir do You take my sence or say what I do Is shall know and may know all one I say that they who take the Way left by God shall that is cannot chuse but know as he cannot chuse but draw a straight Line who draws it by a straight
beyond the power of any Logick to make it conclude For the force of that Maxim on which the Conclusiveness of any Argument is built is far beyond any Moral Certainty Nor let Dr. St. think to stand arguing still ad hominem but let him be sure his Instance infers the Truth of his Conclusion when it comes to be put to the Test of a Syllogism This we will expect from him since it is the Right of the Respondent to deny any thing that is not driven up to Evidence and by that Test we will judge of your Instance and other Arguments if you have any that you will vouch to be Demonstrative that is Conclusive 51. You seem so kind as not to undertake to prove that an erring Church adheres to Tradition if it be True Apostolical Tradition and that it adheres to it wholly and solely I a little wonder at this for if you mean not by Tradition such a one as is built on Living voice and Practice you ran quite away from the Point If such a one you quit your own Rule by requiring men should adhere to the other wholly and Solely and admit that a Church adhering to such a Tradition is not an Erring Church I inferr Therefore till you answer our Argument which proves that our Tradition could not be interrupted by any Innovation you cannot with reason deny but ours is such You think Infallibility a kind of barr against our mutual Agreement as if there were any hopes or even possibility men's Minds should center unless it be in something that is Absolutely Certain or Evident Shew us something else endu'd with such an Evidence as is able to oblige Human Nature to an Universal Acceptation and Conviction and then blame us for maintaining Infallibility Till then pray excuse us for making such Provision for Faith as sets it beyond Possibility of Falsehood You drop some insignificant Exceptions after the Shower of your shrewd invisible Reasons As that our Argument must prove that no man that hath been taught the Faith can ever err from it and yet still withall confess that a Church following Tradition now may leave it afterwards This were an Incoherence with a witness But how do you shew our Argument must prove this absurd position Onely with saying it here over and over again without the least attempt to shew from our words or Doctrine this pretended necessity that we must both contradict our selves so grossely and besides go against our daily experience I do assure the Reader we have no where either such words or sense and that 't is meerly a false sham or some weak deduction of yours for want of some better thing to say Our Tenet is that tho' not one single man can erre while he adheres to our Rule yet even some particular Churches may leave off adhering to Tradition and so err in Faith. Onely we say that the main Body of the Church consisting of all particular Churches that compound Christianity being supported by Motives of adhering to the former Faith so Prevalent and Universal and apply'd to a very vast multitude of them cannot conspire to relinquish this Rule go against and disgrace their own Testimony nor consequently err in Faith. The word All indeed and They in each Proposition are distributive and appliable to each single man but do you find the least word in any of them that sayes that single men or great multitudes may not out of malice alter Faith Where find you that Or that they cannot desert the Rule and by Consequence their Faith. Pray be not so liberal of our Concessions without shewing somthing under our hands for it 52. But you sum up your Solution of our Demonstration with an admirable grace or rather you give us the very Quintessence of your Answer to it in these few words The Church of Rome says all have broke the Rule of Tradition but she onely and proves it by saying that she holds the same to day she did yesterday and so up to our B. Saviours time You proceed We call again for a Proof of this She tells us If she follow'd this Rule she could never err in Faith. But did she follow this Rule She says she did and if you will not believe her there 's an end How smart and victorious this looks But the best is 't is wholly built on some few of your own wilfull Falsifications Pray where did we ever bring these Words If she followed this Rule c. For a Proof that she holds the same to day which she did yesterday Or where did we prove we follow'd this Rule only with iffs But why are you so shy to quote the Pages or Paragraphs where we bring these absurd Proofs because you would be at Liberty to say any thing and yet not expose your Credit And 't is worth noting that you point out the Page in other occasions very diligently but when you have a mind to falsify 't is still supprest 'T is observable too that this insincerity of yours here is of such advantage to you that it gains the whole Cause For if we prove this main Point no better but with Iffs that our Argument has no force but by standing to your Kindness in Believing what Our Church says then there 's an End indeed for nothing can be more Evident than 't is that in that Supposition we are utterly routed our whole Cause quite defeated Now I would entreat the Reader for You are resolv'd neither to use your Eyes nor Honesty lest they should too openly accuse you that he will once more review our Argument as 't is put down by Dr. St. himself First Letter p. 4. and 5. and made good by me p. 8. and 9. and he will see clearly the first half of it was to prove that If they follow'd this Rule viz. of believing the same to day they did yesterday they could never err in Faith or were Infallible And the other part And they could not innovate in Faith unless they did forget what they held the day before or out of malice alter it was brought to prove they did ever follow that Rule For since nothing but Innovation can break the Chain of Tradition whoever proves they could not innovate proves directly they could not recede from Tradition Nay 't was confest by Dr. St. himself when he was as yet in better circumstances First Letter p. 5. l. 4. that we prov'd our Church could not innovate by the Medium now mention'd Yet you have the Confidence to tell the Reader she only says she follows this Rule and if you will not believe her there 's an end Whereas you ought in candour to have said They prov'd she follow'd and could not but follow this Rule but I cannot answer their Argument and there 's an End. See what you have brought upon your self and how fatal it is to your pretended Answer that as you began your Reply to this 4th Proposition with a
for then that Book had been the Delivery of its self and yet that Book had as good Title to be it's own Tradition as you had to make the Points delivered by our Tradition to be the Tradition or Delivery of those Points You granted too in the same place that the Latin and Greek Churches proceeded upon it and by granting this confest there were as many Attesters went to make it up as there were Men at least Intelligent men in the compass of the many vast Nations which those two Churches included How come you then so much to forget your self as to parallel it here to the pittiful Attestation of three or four possibly prejudic't Relaters But the reason of this self-contradicting and extravagant representation of Tradition is clear it was your Interest to take it right there and the same reason prevail'd with you to take it wrong here 5. But I am weary of fencing with Shadows when I can take any occasion that leads me to treat of what 's Substantial Mistake me not 't is not your Discourse that obliges me to it it had been a sufficient Answer to That to let the Reader see you purposely mistook the Nature of Tradition to divert and perplex his Thoughts and there let it rest Yet Because your taking Tradition wrong for the Doctrines deliver'd good use may be drawn from it I shall for the benefit of the Reader not decline speaking to what you object You make account p. 7. 8. the Tradition of the Church deliver'd the Point of the ` Reall Presence of Christ's being the Son of God in General Words onely Which waving what has been alledg'd in my 2 d. and 3 d. Sect. I judg for divers other Reasons to be Impossible For besides that if the Forefathers deliver'd onely the Words they taught their Children against the supposition no Faith in these Points for Faith has sense in it and is not Faith if it have none being in that case no true Iudgment or Truth who knows not that Words were instituted and intended by Mankind to signify something and therefore 't is inconsistent with the nature of the same Mankind when at Age especially the Wiser sort not to hold some Sense or other to be signify'd by those Words and with the nature of Christians not to instruct those whom they are to educate in Faith with that Sense as also with the nature of those who are to be Instructed not to desire to know the Sense of the Tenets they are to believe But that Sense cannot be a General one that is Common to all the several Tenets now sound among us for it will not be General if it exclude any one it must therefore abstract from all particulars and be applicable to every one Now there is no such Generical Notion or Sense which can be abstracted from Christ's Body which is Living and a piece of Bread unless this that they are both Quantitative or Mixt Bodies to believe which would make a very extravagant Point of Faith much less can such an Abstraction be made from Christ's Reall Living Body and some supernatural Gifts or Qualities either in the Bread or wrought in our Souls by Means of our receiving the Eucharist For a Substance and a Quality differ toto genere as the Logicians express it that is belong to different Commonest Heads which have no Genus above them or that can abstract from them Least of all can any such Common Notion be abstracted from the Natural or True Son of God and a meer Man no more than there can from God and a Creature Whence follows most evidently that since the Faithful must necessarily have always had some Meaning of those words in their hearts and a general Sense of them is impossible they must have ever had Particular Notions of those Words determining their Sense to the one signification or the other that is either to mean Christ's Real Body or not his Real Body a True and Essential Godhead or a meer Creature My second Reason is because Faith is Ordain'd to work through Charity or to stir up devour Affections in us whence as the distance is Infinite in both cases between one of those Senses and the other there being God on one side on the other a Creature so the Affections of the Soul wrought in us by our Faith must either oblige us to pay an Infinite Veneration to a Creature if Christ's Real Body and consequently God be not there or if Christ be not God which is the greatest deviation from true Religion that is possible or else to be highly Irreverent and to want the most efficacious Motive that can be imagin'd to excite and elevate our Devotion if he be there or Christ be indeed God. Nor can any middle disposition be invented that can make the Acts of the Soul hover between it's tendency towards an Infinite and Finite Being or between an Infinite and Finite Reverence I dare confidently conclude then and dare avow it to be Demonstrable out of the Nature of Mankind that either the one or the other Determinate Sense of those Words must have been held in all Ages ever since the Apostles time by the Generality of the foregoing Faithful more or less expresly as those respective Points broke out more or less into Christian Action which their Duty could not but prompt and oblige them to deliver to their Children as occasion served and consequently that that Particular sense and not onely as you fancy the General Words must have descended by Tradition 6. Next my Position is that taking the word Tradition for Points descending by Tradition as you will needs have it the Church has Power and Authority to explain the Sense and Meaning of them and to oblige others to believe Her and yet that this hinders not the Infallibility of Tradition from consisting in holding the same to day that was deliver'd yesterday c. This is the difficulty I conceive that so much troubles you To clear which you may please to reflect on what you know already by experience that let any man advance a single Tenet and afterwards upon occasion set himself to Explicate at large the Sense of that Proposition 't is plain there will be found in that large Explication many particular Propositions not adequately the same but in part different from that which he went about thus elaborately and distinctly to explain of which perhaps even himself was not aware while he did not reflect not being yet invited to make it clearer or dilate on it And yet he held even at first the Sense and not only the Words nay the whole Sense of that main Tenet or Sentence tho' he saw not distinctly every single Proposition contain'd in it till he became oblig'd to Scan and Study his own undistinguisht but true thoughts concerning it The same may be said of every Sermon and it's Text supposing it be rigorously held to and no more be attended to but to explain it's
of Errour for the pure Gold of Truth and Soul-poysoning Heresies for means of Salvation Had I a mind to set up a similitude-mender and that you will needs have it a Purse I should beg your leave to put it thus Suppose that Purse's Mouth were tyed up with a knot of such a mysterious contrivance that none could open it I mean still as to the understanding the Mysteries of our Faith but those who knew the Mind of the Bequeather and that the Church to which it was left as a Legacy had knowledge of his Mind and so could open it while others tortur'd their Wits with little tricks and inventions turning and winding the ambiguous folds of it some one way some another and yet entangled their own thoughts more and more while they went about to unty the Knots that so perplex't them 22. This is the true case You make account containing does all the business whereas 't is nothing at all to our purpose which is in the final Intention of it about the Absolute Certainty of your Faith unless we have equal assurance that you can get out thence what 's contain'd there as you pretend to have that 't is contain'd Now it cannot be deny'd but the Primitive Church was imbu'd with Christ's sense by the Preaching of the Apostles and their immediate Successours and so had a sure and proper Way to interpret Scripture and while this sense was still deliver'd down they could not fail of an absolutely Certain Rule to understand it right But there steps up now one Heretick then another opposing himself to the sense of the Church and relying on the dextery of his own wit will needs find out contrivances how to open the Scripture's Meaning by wayes of his private Skill But falls into multitudes of Errours finding no way to unfold the deeply-mysterious Book having refus'd to make use of the right means viz. Christ's sense descending in the Church by Tradition Whence notwithstanding all his little Arts and boasting presumption like the Fox in the Fable Vas lambit Pultem non attingit 23. Mistake me not I do not mean Scriptures Letter is not clear in such passages as concern Common Morality or the Ten Commandments with the Sense of which every one is imbu'd by the Light of Nature Nor in matters of Fact such as were most of those Marks or Signs to know the Messias by foretold us by the Prophets our Saviour's doing such and such Miracles his going beyond Iordan c. Nor in Parables explain'd by himself and such like But in Dogmatical Points or Tenets which are Spiritual and oftentimes profound Mysteries and of these by the way I desire still to be understood when I speak of the Certainty of the Letter or Sense of Scripture for with other Passages I meddle not as the Tenet of a Trinity Christ's God-head the Real Presence of his Body in the Sacrament and such like which have a vast Influence upon Christian Life either immediately or else in a higher Nature being as it were Principles to many other Articles of Faith which depend on their Truth One would verily think I say that such as these should be some of your Golden Points or else there were none at all contain'd in your Purse Yet we experience That even in such as these your Rule is not intelligible enough to keep the Followers of it from erring So that let your Purse have never so Golden and Silver a lining you are never the richer unless you can come at it or can certainly distinguish the pure Gold of Truth from the impure Dross of Errour Your Similitude then comes not home to your purpose nor shews that you have therefore all your Faith or all Divine Revelations because you have a Book which you judge contains them Let 's see now if it does not make against you You put the Doctrin or Points of Faith to be the Gold and Silver contain'd in the Purse and consequently that must be the Purse into which that Doctrin of Faith was put by Christ our Saviour and this was evidently the Heads and Hearts of the Faithful For the Points of Faith being so many Divine Truths are onely contain'd in Men's Minds properly and Words being by their very Definition but Signes of what is in our Minds Truths are no more really in a Book than Wine is really in a Bush which signifies it Since then those Truths were onely in the Breast of Christ Originally and after him in that of the Apostles and their Thoughts could not be communicated nor consequently the Gold and Silver deliver'd to the Legatees otherwise than by signifying it which can onely be done by one of these ways by Living Voice and Practice or by Writing that is by Tradition or Scripture neither of these can with any Sense be liken'd to the Purse it self into which the money is to be put or answer comparatively to It but they are both of them Wayes Means or Methods of putting these heavenly Riches into it's Proper Purse the Souls of the Faithful Of these two Ways our Saviour chose the First which was Teaching his Doctrin orally for he writ nothing and by doing thus told us it was the better For it had been against his Infinit Wisdom to chuse the worser way for Himself to make use of and leave the better to his Servants Nor did his servants the Apostles affect the Way of Writing so as to use it onely but on the contrary they made use of this Oral Way of Preaching constantly and that of Writing for the most part at least if not altogether occasionally They converted the present Church by their Preaching they comforted the future Church by leaving many most edifying Words and Actions of our Blessed Saviour Written which being Particulars and not breaking out openly into Christian Practice might otherwise in likelihood at least to a great degree have been lost to succeeding generations besides the abetment their Writings give to Faith it self when certainly interpreted and rightly understood So that according to this discourse of yours we should either have never a Purse to put Points of Faith in for you take no notice of the Souls of the Faithful into which they are properly put and in which onely they are in reality contain'd Or if you will needs call that a Purse which contains them meerly as a Sign does the thing signify'd or as that which may signify to us our Faith you must put two Purses Tradition and Scripture And then the onely Question is out of which Purse we can with more Certainty get it That is whether a Living Container which can give us perfect light of it's Sense by all the best ways imaginable or the Dead Letter which as Experience demonstrates can neither clear it's Sense to Private Understandings nor if we doubt of it's Meaning and had a mind to ask it could either hear or reply much less pertinently and appositely speak to the Asker as oft as he
Copy nor that any Copy can be True unless conformable to the True Original And if there can be any failure in any of these nay if you have not Absolute Certainty of all these you cannot have by your Grounds any Absolute Certainty of your Faith For if the Letter be wrong all is wrong that is built on it and it may be wrong for ought you know notwithstanding the Testimony of all Christian Churches relying on this Way of attesting the Truth of the Letter For you can never shew that all those Churches consented to apply their utmost diligence to examine and attest all the several Translations made in their respective languages or witnest that they came from the true Original or took the most exquisit care that was possible to see that the Translaters and the Copiers did their duty Which had they held the Letter to be their onely Rule of Faith and consequently that All Faith that is the very Being of the present and future Church and their own Salvation too depended on the Scripture they were obliged in conscience and under the highest Sin above all things in the World to have done and this with the exactest care imaginable Your Grounds then notwithstanding all you have said or alledged hitherto to ensure the Letter make no Provision for the Absolute Certainty of the Written-Rule nor consequently of your Faith. 27. But what becomes then say you of the Vulgar Latin Translation I answer in our Grounds no harm at all For the Canon of the Books comes down by the Testimony of all Christian Churches that are truly Christian and the Doctrin of Christ transfus'd into the hearts of the succeeding Faithful ever since the beginning both taught them how and oblig'd them to correct the Copy in those particular Texts that concern'd Faith if any Errour through the carelesness unattentiveness or malice of the Translaters or Transcribers at any time had crept in By the same Means as you can now adays correct the Copy in those Texts that ought to express some Point of Morality in case it were corrupted and deviated from Christian Manners viz. by vertue of the Sense of that Practical Tenet you were imbu'd with formerly this even tho' you had no other Copy or Text to amend it by Insomuch that how good an opinion so ever you had of the Copy Translater Printer or Correcter of the Press yet for all that you would conclude they had err'd and the Letter was faulty rather than forgo the Doctrin so firmly rivetted in your heart by the constant Teaching and Practice of the Christian world As for other particular Texts of an Inferiour Concern they could be best corrected by multitudes of other ancient Copies the Churches Care still going along in which too the greatest care that was possible to rectify it's Errours was taken by the Council of Trent that so it might be as exact as Human Diligence could well render it A thing as far as my memory reaches never order'd or very much regarded by any Council formerly 28. But I foresee your method of confuting which is to muster up Extrinsecall objections not at all to the purpose will naturally lead you to discredit this way of correcting Scripture's Letter in passages belonging to Faith as singular or New This being the same your Friend G. B. objected to the Way of Tradition it self as may be seen above Sect. 10. Such piddling Exceptions drest up prettily in gay language go a great way and make a fine shew in your Controversies and which is a benefit of most advantage to you excuse you from bringing any Intrinsecal Arguments tho' these onely are such as conclude any thing and tho' you are bound by your precise Duty to produce such Wherefore to ward this blow I shall alledge the Judgment of that Learned and Excellent Personage Sir Thomas More our first Modern English Controvertist who writing not against you in defence of our Grounds but to another Catholick Divine expresses candidly his Sentiment in these words Ego certe hoc persuadeo mihi idque ut opinor vere quicquid ad fidem astruendam faciat non esse a quovis melius versum quam ab ipsis Apostolis perscriptum Ideoque fit ut quoties in Latinis codicibus occurrat quidquam quod aut contra Fidem aut mores facere videatur Scripturarum interpretes aut ex aliis alibi verbis quid illud sibi velit dubium expiscentur aut ad vivum Evangelium Fidei quod per universam Ecclesiam in corda Fidelium infusum est quod etiam priusquam scriberetur a quoquam Apostolis a Christo ab Apostolis Vniverso Mundo praedicatum est dubios ejusmodi sermones applicent atque ad inflexibilem veritatis Regulam examinent ad quam si non satis adaptare queant aut sese non intelligere aut mendosum esse codicem non dubitent This is my Iudgment and as I conceive a True one that whatever Text is useful to build Faith on was not better translated by any than it was writ by the Apostles themselves And therefore as oft as any thing occurs in the Latin-Books that seems to make against Faith or Good Manners the Interpreters of Scripture either gather from other Words in other places what that doubt should mean or they compare those doubtful sayings to the living Gospel of Faith which was infus'd into the Hearts of the Faithful throughout the Vniversal Church which before any man writ it was Preach't by Christ to the Apostles and by the Apostles to the whole World examine them by the inflexible Rule of Faith with which if they cannot make it square they conclude that either they do not understand it or the Book is faulty where he passes by the former way with a sleight word expiscentur fish out the sense but insists on the latter way of preserving the Copy sincere as Certain and Proper 29. I must not pretermit your Objection p. 19. that the Ancient Christian Church never knew any thing concerning this Method of resolving Faith into meer Oral Tradition I would desire you to add Practical to Oral at least to conceive it to be understood all the way that being our True and constantly-avow'd Tenet But did the Antient Church in reality never know any thing of this way T is wonderful you should not understand they meant the same as we do unless they speak the self-same Words and make the same Discourses we do now Did not they all hold that who taught any thing contrary to the Doctrin delivered down by the Church was a Heretick Did any of them say that the Churche's Tradition of a Doctrin as Christs was liable to Errour Did any of them hold that it was lawful for your Sober Enquirer to rely on his Private Interpretation of the Scripture and relinquish the sense of the Church which is the true Point Not one 'T is one thing to say they oft quoted Scripture
Heresies in the world do as much as this comes to and yet are no less Heresies than if they did none of this T is your Proving it to be your Ground and that an Absolutely Certain one too which we would be at but we justly complain you flinch from the onely thing in Dispute and perpetually balk us We tell you once more and we cannot repeat it too often there is a necessary Connexion between the Ground and the Building for 't is not a Building if it have no Ground nor the Ground of a Building if nothing be built on it You are then to shew us Absolute Certainty of this necessary Connexion between the Scripture and your Faith or you do nothing but talk at random But alas You have not the Confidence to make out this or produce your Reasons to conelude this Ground and this Building have such a necessary Relation and I must tell you plainly you can never do it For pray tell me May not the Socinians and indeed all Hereticks that ever arose in the Church say pretend and perhaps think the same that you do Nay do not they all alledge the same Do not they all profess to resolve theit Faith I mean their abominable Errours into the written Word Do not they pretend it for their Ground and that they build their prophane Tenets on it lastly avow as stoutly as you do for your heart that whatever is built on Gods Word is absolutely Certain Will you allow these Pleas Argumentative for them or that their wicked Errours are therefore true Faith and Absolutely Certain because they alledge all this And can you be so unreasonable as to expect we should pass that for a good Argument or a conclusive Reason to prove you have Absolute Certainty for your Faith which your self disallows when 't is alledg'd for them nay which you must disallow and declare against unless you will patronize all their Heresies Pray lay your hand on your Heart and consider I am sure 't is more your own Good than mine you should into what a Lamentable or rather Chimerical Condition God's Church is reduc't by your Resolution of your Faith here and the Account you give of it The Pillar and Ground of Truth is reduc't by you into a confused Chaos of incoherent Errours Christ's immaculate Spouse is associated with all the Adulterate Synagogues of Sathan lastly Faith as to it's Certainty is in no better a Condition than Heresy and Heresy is upon even Ground with Faith. I have a better opinion of the Church of England than to believe Her most learned and genuin Members will own such a Resolution of her Faith as will make the Socinians and all other Hereticks in the World their fellow-Christians and Brothers as they must be forced to do if they own no other Resolution of it than all those pestilent Sects unanimously profess I see Mr. G had good reason to ask you in his 5 th Question What Churches you accounted Christian Churches For I much fear by your Discourse and Principles you exclude None Nor ought you so they heartily hold the same Gound of Faith with you for then all their Vnchristian Tenets are to pass for Material Errours not Formal Heresies They hold all true Faith in the Purse still tho' they mistake the coyn and mettal and that 's enough in all conscience for such a Church as that you are about rearing or dawbing up You pass a complement indeed upon the four first General Councils and that you reject all such Doctrins as were condemn'd by them which use to be words of course in your Controversies as your humble servant and such like are in our common Conversation but when you are once got out of the circumstance of pretending to hold to some Antiquity that so you may set a better face on it when you oppose the Papists when that job is over they are but Fallible Congregations and so perhaps were deceiv'd in all they defin'd against the Arians Eutychians c. Especially if one of your sober Enquirers comes to fancy otherwise and no doubt there were many such even in those dayes And then comes the 21 st Article of Q. Elizabeth's Symbol and knocks them down all at once with a Declaration that their Decrees have neither Strength nor Authority unless it may be declar'd that they be taken out of Holy Scripture and so all is with a turn of ones hand brought back to the same Point again and farewell Councils Your self and any one of your sober Enquirers are at full liberty still to judge of them by your Scripture-Rule and the Resolution of your Faith is establish't by that Article at least as you make use of it to be the same with that which is made and profest by all the vile Hereticks in the world For as Dr. Burnet sayes very candidly in his Answer to the Method of oonverting Protestants p. 83. and no doubt upon your Principles If any man after his strictest Enquiries is still perswaded that a Council has decreed against the true meaning of the Scriptures in a point necessary to Salvation then he must prefer God to Man and follow the Sounder tho' it should prove to be the lesser party And if any Company or Synod of Protestants have decree'd any thing contrary to this in so far they have departed from the Protestant Principles Where we see he gives every sober Enquirer leave to judge of Councils even tho' General ones for he excepts None and himself shews them the way by Judging Censuring the Councils of his own Church 35. Another scruple yet remains incumbent on you to clear which is that by your putting it upon Mr. G. to prove you have not Absolute Certainty as to the Rule of your Faith and by your innate Antipathy against Infallibility 't is very dubious whether your self do indeed hold the Tradition of all Christian Churches Absolutely Certain even for the Scripture however to save your Credit you then pretended it fearing your denying it might disedify Mr. T. Since then you ly under a shrewd suspicion that you do not deal really with him and the rest of your Readers in this forc't Profession it would become you in your Reply both to shew why you allow that Testimony to be Absolutely Certain and yet are such an Enemy to Infallibility since common sense tells us no man can judge himself Absolutely Certain of a thing if he judges he may at the same time be deceiv'd in it and withal that you may give more satisfaction to your Readers herein than an empty and scarce credible acknowledgment of it when you were in untoward Circumstances pray go to work like a Schollar and demonstrate to us by way of solid Reason working upon the Nature of the Thing for no Argument meerly probable will suffice to prove a Testimony Absolutely Certain how and by what vertue this Tradition of all Christian Churches comes to be thus Absolutely Certain for the
Letter of the Scripture as you see we endeavour to demonstrate the Absolute Cettainty of our Tradition for Doctrin There cannot be a worthier Point to exert your self in nor a greater service done to your Rule nor a better way to clear your self to the incredulous part of the World than to perform this for one knows not whence meer Words and outward Professions may proceed but solid and convincing Reasons can come onely from a Heart possest wiih the Truth of what is Profest Go to work then and bless us with the sight of this truly Learned and Iudicious Performance And while your hand is in please to shew us too that the Absolute Certainty of this Universal Testimony reaches to prove your Rule Intire that is reaches to prove no part of the Written Word was lost nay that it reaches to the particular Verses and the most substantial Words in those Verses as well as to the main Books and lastly to Translations also and Transcriptions as you ought to do in case they be as indeed they are of equal Concern in our circumstances as the Books themselves Or if you deny they are equally important and maintain that this Absolute Certainty may be had of your Rule without the same Certainty for these then please to give us your Reasons for it and shew how Faith can be Absolutely Certain tho' the Letter on which it depends may perhaps have been maim'd or corrupted by any of these miscarriages Or if you think fit to say you have Absolute Certainty of your Faith tho' you have not Absolute Certainty for it's Rule then confess candidly and ingenuously your Faith is Absolutely-speaking Vncertain and to make good that rare Christian Tenet fall to work and confute utterly that Positive Book Faith Vindicated which undertakes to produce a multitude of Demonstrations to prove that Faith cannot possibly be false and withal please to inform us to what end you maintain your Rule of Faith to be Absolutely Certain if it do not make your Faith thus Certain too or what that Certainty serves for Any thing would content us so you would once leave fluttering and hovering in common Words Either tell us plainly all Faith is Uncertain or come at length to some firm bottom on which we may with Absolute Certainty ground the Truth of it and raise it above some plausible Likelihood But we remonstrate against your putting us off with the Old Sham Sufficient Certainty unless you particularize to us what kind of Certainty you hold and make out 't is sufficient for the Nature the Ends and Vses of Faith and the Obligations issuing from it and incumbent on the Prosessours of it If you refuse to condescend to these fair Proposals all the World must think you onely temporiz'd with Mr. T. and the occasion and that you have not that Zeal for your Rule of Faith whose grand Interest 't is these things should be made out as you pretend Once more I tell you that if all this will not move you to this every way necessary undertaking I must then plainly challenge you that it is your necessary and precise Duty in this very circumstance as you are a Controvertist and as I am concern'd with you under that notion I must demand it of you 36. I know not well whether it be worth the while to justify Mr. M. for calling your Answer to Mr. G's 5 th Question Trifling or whether it be necessary after so ample a Discovery that all the rest of them taking them in the sense you explicated them deserv'd no better Character You were ask't onely the meaning of your Words Christian Church but you had a mind to be liberal and give more than was ask't the meaning of Vniversal Testimony too and to tell us that by Vniversal Testimony you mean Vniversal Consent That is to say by Vniversal Testimony you mean Vniversal Testimony For all agree or consent in the Testimony if it be Vniversal Then to the precise Question you Answer that by the Christian Church you mean all Christian Churches which is to say that by the Christian Church you mean the Christian Church for All the Parts make the Whole so that instead of an Explication you give us the same thing over again and almost in the same Words And pray who 's the wiser for such an Answer Yet tho' it be impertinent and nothing to the purpose 't is at least True and Evident by its self without needing to make it a Question If you would please to afford us such Evidences when 't is to purpose you would highly oblige us Certainly a Considering Reader cannot but think you are very unhappy in explicating your self for either your Explications run quite away from your Answer which you are to explicate and are a mile wide of them or they come too close to them and are the self-same said over again and almost in the same Words But can any one think so excellent a Wit as Yours is justly reputed should expose himself so manifestly without some latent Design T is incredible Let us take a view then of Mr. G's 5 th Question Being the Words Christian Church may be taken in several Latitudes by Persons of different Religions I desire to know what that Christian Church is c. Here we see plainly that the main of the Question was what Churches were accounted by You Christian or how that Word Christian was to be explicated and You give him for explication the self-same word again and in effect tell him that by Christian is meant Christian and that 's all he can get from You. And You did prudently for had You come to distinguish which Congregation was Christian which not You must have secluded all Hereticks which your Principles could not do for your Ground of Faith here is most manifestly Common to all of them and so You would have lain open to the Disrepute of having and professing a Brotherhead with all those Excrementitious Out-casts and your pretended Rule notwithstanding it s other many Divine Excellencies had appear'd to be utterly unqualifi'd with Clearness and Firmness enough to be call'd a Rule or Ground To avoid this and in Consonancy to your Principles You take all their Testimonies in for Scripture and pretend it strengthens it So it may perhaps as to the Books But You know how the Church complain'd of the Hereticks for corrupting the Letter of Scripture to make it Favourable for them and therefore for any thing You know they cry'd up the Books because they had fitted them for their own purpose Whence tho' the Testimony for the Books should be stronger by their concurrence yet the Credit of the Letter in the respective places that oppose those Hereticks is weaker for their allowing them because they admitted them as consistent with their Tenets otherwise they would have rejected them as they did others upon that score And what advantage can you gain by the former towards the proving your Ground of Faith
Scripture than is the Letter which is Antecedent and presuppos'd to the Interpretation as it 's Matter or Object Nor had you your Faith tho' you had the Letter till you had interpreted it And besides the proper and Immediate Effect of Interpretation is to give the Sense of Words and 't is the Sense of Scripture which is your Faith and so your own Private Interpretation is unavoidably your Rule If then you will vouch as you do all over that the Universal Consent of all Christian Churches gave you your Rule it must attest your way of interpreting Scripture too by private judgments Nay it must moreover attest that way to be absolutely Certain otherwise you can never shew how your kind of Protestant Faith no better grounded can be absolutely Certain and this as to all the Doctrin that was taught by Christ and his Apostles for both which you very unadvisedly undertook when you were at a pinch hoping I suppose to shift it off again with one of your transferring Expedients or some squinting Id est To what purpose is it then to tell us here p. 31. how a man one of your Sober Enquirers I suppose is to behave himself where the Texts or places are doubtful For unless the Consent of all Christian Churches bring us down by their Universal Testimony that those methods are to be taken and that they are absolutely Certain Means for all that use them to interpret Scripture right or come at the true Sense of it you are still as incapable as ever of shewing us absolute Certainty for your Faith or that you have any Faith at all by those Means Nay I much mistake you if your Principles will allow these Means no not even the Testimony which brings down to us the Sense of the Primitive Church upon which you here pass a complement to be more than Fallible If you do you admit our Rule If you do not I would advise you to prepare your Reasons to convince the World how a Fallible Authority can prove that what is built on it is absolutely Certain However you set the best Colour upon these Fallible Means you can telling us your Sober Enquirer is to make use of the best helps the best and most reasonable means c. tho' they are such that in likelihood it will take up his whole life time ere he can use and peruse them all so as to compass sincerely this satisfaction nay 't is ten to one he will dy a Seeker and then he will have enquir'd very soberly to go to the next world to ask the way to heaven I wonder how many of the Church of England or even of Geneva made use of all these Means ere they finally pitch't upon their Faith I much doubt Vel duo vel nemo Few or none And we would know of you whether any of those means or all together are absolutely Certain If none you are still where you were If you say any or all you will fight against Experience for many who use all these Means do notwithstanding differ You would insinuate by the words doubtful places that the Points your Sober Enquirers doubt of are but unnecessary sleight or disputable but alas they are the highest Mysteries of our Christian Faith and if they must take such pains as to compare Scripture and Expositors and the Sense of the Primitive Church which will require perusing attentively a pretty Library ere they can accept these for Points of Faith what satisfaction is to be expected in all that Christ and his Apostles taught by your Rule which asks such laborious study to understand it's Sense in these or by your method which is both Endless when all is done Vncertain 43. Of how different a Judgment the Primitive Church was let a Chief Pillar of it St. Athanasius inform us Lib. de Synodis Arimini Seleuciae where he blames some Clergy-men of his time for going about enquiring what they were to believe in these words Si credidissent nunquam quasi Fidem non haberent de Fide quaesivissent Sese Infideles esse declaraverunt cum id quaerant quod non habent If they had believ'd they had never enquir'd as if they did want Faith. They have declar'd themselves to be Vnbelievers by their enquiring after what they have not So that it seems all your Sober Enquirers are according to this Fathers Judgment Infidels or Vnbelievers Observe here the vast distance between your Principles and those of this Holy Father and most learned Controvertist Nothing but seeking and enquiry with the Epithet of sober to grace it a little will serve your turn but he tells us on the quite contrary that if Wee seek or enquire we have no Faith at all Which in plain English signifies thus much you judge that to be the onely way to Faith which he judges a plain Argument of having none You are all for seeking for your Faith in Scripture He for taking what is already found to our hand some other Way w ch must be by Tradition One thing I should much wonder at did not I know your private-spirited Principles 't is this why amongst other means you assign for your sober Enquirer to make use of you do not put the Iudgment of the Present Church let it be your own if you please for one I should think the Faith of the Church had more weight in it than all the rest put together if you do indeed hold it a True Church and 't is far more easy to know its sense where it has thought fit to explicate it's self clearly The finding the sense of Commentatours and the Places compar'd and of Primitive Antiquity costs infinit trouble whereas there is no difficulty to know the sense of the Present Church speaking to you by Living Voice and consonant Practise I should think too 't is most agreeable to the Order of the World the Unity of the Church and the Maxims of Government if you will allow any such to a Church that People should follow the Doctrin of their Teachers be led by their Pastours and obey their Superiours rather than be left to their own private Fancies in matters of such Concern that if they clash with them in their Judgment it hazards to break all those sacred Orders by which the World subsists Let me ask you one thing ere we leave this Point Is your sober Enquirer Bound to use these means for his satisfaction in doubtful Points or not You say expresly here that he is bound to do this and so I suppose you will be disatisfi'd with him if he falls short of this Duty I ask next did Mr. T. use all these means in a doubtful Point to compass a rational satisfaction How should he when he was satisfi'd and confirm'd and resolv'd in so little time Yet for all your contrary Doctrin here you are well satisfi'd with him nay you undertake p. 13. to satisfy the World that Mr. T. had sufficient Grounds for what
he then said which was that he was much more confirm'd in the Communion of our the Protestant Church and resolv'd to continue in it Pray Sir was he a sober Enquirer or no If he was did he in two hours time that Mr. G. and you were Disputing use the means you say your sober Enquirer is bound to make use of in doubtful cases as his was if he dealt sincerely with Mr. G. and did not play booty Did he in two or three hours time pray meditate compare Scripture and Expositours upon it use the help of spiritual Guides the sense of the Primitive Church which are but some of the Means you prescribe p. 31. He made prodigious hast if he did use those means How comes he then to be so satisfi'd nay so resolv'd without using those means and so worthy of your Patronage if he did not what you say here he was bound to do These are Mysteries which must be veil'd from the eyes of the Vulgar Prophane Nor is there any way to reconcile these Contradictions but to understand you with this Clavis that you say any thing that seems to serve your turn when you are disputing against us and disclaim it again when the circumstance is alter'd and that as you pretended that for your Rule of Faith which not one in a thousand follow so you pretend those methods must be taken to understand your Rule right to the end we may not be deceiv'd by it which neither are taken by any nay need not be taken at all tho' you told us here men were bound to take them the believing your word that your Answer was competent which was indeed none acquitted his Obligation and atton'd for his rashness This this alone was so meritorious that it was equivalent to Prayer Meditation comparing Scripture and Expositours upon it the help of spiritual Guides and the sense of the Primitive Church which you declare here such as he were bound to consult for their satisfaction in Faith. By which I guess your Test to distinguish a Sober from a Rash Enquirer is whether he will rely on your Word or Skill for his security of Heaven If he will he is of your sober sort without more ado and need not trouble himself with those painfull Methods If he will not he must go through them all or be Rash. The Truth is you play sure and may safely defy any man living ever to enquire himself soberly out of your Communion For whoever begins shall be sure to dy before he have enquir'd half way 44. At length to my great Comfort for 't is tedious to find no Reasons to speak to but still to be employ'd in confuting Mistakes I am come to the last Task that as far as I can discern will belong to my Province Towards the end of pag. 31. your Discourse ayms to establish your kind of Iudgment of Discretion which makes such a noise in your Books and of late rings out of the Pulpit too You make way to it thus If we have the Consent of all Christian Churches against the onely pretended Infallible Iudge we have their Consent likewise that every man is to judge for his own Salvation Your Argument such as it is stands thus By the Consent of all Christian Churches there is no Infallible Iudge therefore every man must judge for himself It seems then nothing will content you now but Infallibility and if that be not to be had every one may set up for himself in the Iudging Profession Why suppose the Governours of Our Church when you left Her or of your Own Church either were Fallible are you grown so nice on a sudden and your Conscience so tender in embracing any thing less than Infallibly-Certain for Faith that Fallibility will not serve your turn which hitherto you so contentedly hugg'd and ador'd and so wittily derided any Certainty above it Suppose they had but your Sufficient Certainty or great Likelyhoods fair Probabilities or such like for their Interpretations of Scripture must they therefore lose their Power of Iudging in that particular because they are Bishops Or forfeit the Dignity of Pastours and Leaders because they are not Infallible You have such an a king tooth at the Churches intermeddling in Faith-matters no not so much as to help her Children in the most necessary Points p. 21. so they be doubtful that neither profes't Infallibility nor acknowledg'd Fallibility will put you in good humour with Church-Governours but out they must and your sober Enquirer starts up in their stead For he must judge whether they tell him right or no when all 's done I suppose by the light Scripture gives him as he is to judge of the veracity of General Councils and so we are got into the giddy whirl-pool of a Circle He must learn the Sense of Scripture by them and yet trust himself interpreting Scripture not them for the Sense of it 'T is pitty but he had a blew Apron on and a Tub to hold forth in what heavenly light he had gain'd by interpreting Scripture after the Method you have shewn him T is true if there were no Absolute Certainty in the way to Faith and I believe you hold none in your Church every man must shift for himself as well as he may yet still even in that case he is bound to do that which shall appear best and come up as neer to Certainty as he can And can he in any reason think his own Enquiry will bring him to more Certainty than the Pastors of his Church who had been sober Enquirers too themselves and understood the Means you assign to make that Enquiry perhaps a thousand times better than himself If he thinks them better qualify'd than himself for interpreting Scripture he sins against the Light of Reason not to trust them rather than himself For they have in that Supposition more knowledge than he T is left then that he is to judge himself to be better qualify'd than his Church her Bishops and all his Pastors are for that work and upon this brisk self-conceit the Book of Scripture flies open on a sudden discloses it's Sense and discovers to him his Faith. Certainly such a man is likely to have a very Reverend esteem of his Church her Bishops and Pastors and yet your Principles would have all men such Indeed you would have your sober Enquirers pray and meditate But it should seem they are to pray amongst other things God would give them the Grace not to obey or believe their Pastors so much as themselves in necessary Points I hope you hold the Tenet of a Trinity Christ's God-head and such other Points such which otherwise their honest Natural Reason conscious to it self of it's own Ignorance will very much tempt them to do and to meditate on God's great Mercy in giving them greater Abilities and better Assistance than he does to his Church for they are very ungrateful if they forget so signal and extravagant
a Favour But let us see what is to be meant by an Infallible Iudge for you do not particularize your acception of those words nor let your Reader see what Judge how or for what reason we hold him Infallible 45. If you mean by Iudge an Authoritative Decider of Controversies about Faith as was said above and that which is what we hold his verdict is Infallible by proceeding upon an Infallible Rule you must either pretend the Christian Church never permitted Church-Governours to exercise their Authority in deciding matters of Faith or else that it never held they had an Infallible Rule to go by And I believe your utmost attempts will fall so far short of producing any such Consent of Universal Tradition for either that it will be directly against you in both and you must have a strange opinion of the Decrees of General Councils in such cases if you apprehend they held either of those self-condemning Tenets And yet I cannot tell but I have made my self too large a Promise concerning this Universal Consent of all Christian Churches being for us or not against us in this particular For I remember now that when you were to state the Notion of Tradition you took in the Consent of all former Hereticks to make your Tradition for Scripture larger and firmer than ours is against you and to make your Argument stronger by their concurrent Testimony and I see a glimmering light already which will grow very clear ere long you take in the same infamous Gang to bear witness against our Infallibility And what a case is the Catholick Church in then We can never expect those obstinate Revolters from that Church or those Churches which were then in Communion with Rome will ever acknowledge the Governours had a just Authority to declare against them as Hereticks for they were all of them to a man true-blew Sober Enquirers or that those Governours proceeded upon an Infallible Rule for this were to cut their own throats and acknowledge themselves Hereticks a mortification not to be submitted to by much contumacious spirits Now all these by your Principles are to be accounted Christian Churches and are call'd so very currently and very frequently by you p. 24. 25. 26. and in many other places without any distinction at all And so we are reduc'd to a very pretty condition according to the admirable mould in which you have new-cast the Church For unless all those Hereticks of old any Lutherans Calvinists and all the inferiour Subdivisions of Faith Reformers vouchsafe to give their concurrent Testimony to the Infallibility of the Roman Catholick Church which condemn'd them all and as appears by the Council of Trent throughout by the same Rule of Tradition she is to have no Infallibility at all allow'd her her old Rule too is condemn'd by them for a False Light because it condemn'd them and their New-Light nor consequently can she be an Infallible Iudge in Faith-Controversies This is a very hard Law Yet your severe Discourses allow us no better quarter You alledge that the Eastern Churches utterly deny the Roman Churche's Infalliblely tho' they be of very different denominations You mean I suppose amongst the rest the Nestorians Eutychians and such kind of good folks And can you without blushing avail your self of such concurrent Testimonies against the Body communicating with the Roman and her Infallible Rule whose Ancestors were condemn'd by that very Body to which the present Roman-Catholick Church uninterruptedly succeeds and were cast out of the Church for receding from the Christian Doctrine held even then upon that very Rule 46. But what have we to do with any of your pretended Christian Churches whether Eastern or not-Eastern Modern or Antient many or few Or what have you to do with them either if you would as becomes a Controvertist speak home to us You know already we place the Infallibility of our Church in delivering defining and Iudging of Faith-Controversies in the Absolutely Certain Rule of Tradition All therefore that have adher'd to Tradition as their Rule must allow to Her this Inerrableness while she adheres to it else they must condemn themselves And those pretended Churches which have deserted Tradition can never for many reasons be of any competent Authority against the Roman-Catholick For having no Certain Rule they can have no sure Ground of what they believe or alledge against her And besides being her Enemies and condemn'd by her and that by vertue of this very Rule they carp at common Equity tells every man 't is not a pin matter what such men say of that Rule or that Church either whether those men live East West North or South I perceive by your far-stretcht words here p. 31. All the Churches of the Christian World All the Eastern Churches tho' of very different denominations that you imagin the force of an Authority depends meerly on the Number of the Witnesses whereas we make account it depends much more on their Weight that is on their Knowledge and on their Sincerity or Indifferency of their Wills as to the Person or Affair concerning which they are to witness And Fallible Congregations which are both Out-casts and Enemies have for each of those regards no weight at all 47. You have another Fetch yet left to prejudice the Reader against our Tenet For you often make mention of our Infallibility the Roman or the Roman Churches Infallibility and as appears p. 15. and 16 of the Infallibility of the Particular Church of Rome whereas the Question and our true Tenet is of those many particular Churches communicating with the Roman so that you seem desirous to convince us you are resolv'd never to speak to any point sincerely or represent it ingenuously For this sleight tho' it seems trivial insinuates into your Readers that we hold the very Spot of Rome is the precise and adequate mold in which Infallibility is cast Please then to remember and pray let it be the last time we tell you of it that it is her following the self-evidently certain Rule of Tradition in which as a Controvertist I do in this Dispute place her Infallibility That being thus absolutely Certain of her Faith we can prove she is qualify'd to be an Infallible Iudge of Faith. That every Bishop is a Iudge of Faith-Controversies in proportion to his Sphere and the Highest Bishop above them all but still the last resort or Test of their final obliging to Belief for any one may oblige his Diocesans to Silence for Peace's sake is with reference to the Body of the Church and the Infallibility of the Church is refunded into the Certainty of her Rule and there it rests Hence conscious to your selves of the want of such an Infallible Rule you dare pretend to no Infallible Iudge but are forc't to leave every particular man to his private Iudgment of Discretion tho' you experience it shatters your Church no better principled into thousands of Sects In a word
to the next Age that They had heard seen and practic 't and the whole next Age to the Third and so forwards with an Obligation still to transmit it Equal to that the First Age had to believe it there had been no place left for his ridiculous Raillery But his constant Method is this he endeavours to put you out of conceit with Tradition by concealing every thing that might give you a true Conceit what Tradition is and what we mean by it § 14. The Argument or Instance he brings to prove that the Authority of Tradition was mightily sunk in the Second Century is if possible ten thousand times worse One would verily think from those big words he would prove that All the Christians of the First Age had conspir'd to tell a Ly to the Second concerning Christ's Doctrin But this mountainous Expectation came off with a poor little mouse the relation of one single man Papias of what an Apostle had told him which he being a good honest Soul gain'd credit with diverse Tho' as for his wit Dr. St's Author Eusebius tells us he was a man of a mean capacity and scarce understood the meaning of what was spoken I wonder the Dr. blush't not to put such a Slur upon his Auditory as to compare the Publick Authority of the whole Christian World and the Universal Testimony of God's Church to the private story of one weak man or to pretend hence that if he were mistaken the Authority of Tradition mightily sinks and fails whereas 't is only his own Credit that falls into that disaster by making such a senseless Argument Yet this is the best and as far as I can find the only one he has brought to prove directly the First Age of Christians had bely'd Christ's Doctrin to the Second and that because one man of a mean Capacity mistook we may stand in doubt of our Assurance whether all the Learneder Faithfull nay all the Pastours and Bishops in the Church had Capacity enough to know an open matter of Fact viz. what had been taught and practis'd publickly every day by a World of Fore-fathers or the Integrity not to deceive us § 15. Of the same stamp is his alledging that St. Luke's reason why he writ his Gospel was to give Theophilus Certainty of those things wherein he had been instructed The Subject of our Enquiry is about the High Points of Christian Belief Does the Dr. think then that Theophilus was not a Christian or had no Certain Knowledg of his Faith ere St. Luke writ Or that the Apostles did not instruct people in those Main Articles Or that St. Luke's Writing those Points in short for those Points we speak of take up a very inconsiderable part of his Gospel could make him know it better and with more Certainty than their Preaching it at large With what Sense can any of this be pretended The Apostles did Miracles to attest their Doctrin Did St. Luke do any to attest the True Sense of all he writ in those Points Again what did his Gospel contain Only those Dogmatical Points controverted from time to time between the Sons of the Church and her Deserters of which and none but which we speak Alas these are the least part of his Gospel and make but a small appearance in it He relates our Saviour's Genealogy Temptation Fasting Miracles Parables his sending his Apostles and Disciples his Exhortations to Repentance and good Life the Manner of his Entring into Ierusalem his Instituting the Last Supper the particulars of his being apprehended accus'd condemn'd and Crucify'd Lastly his Burial Resurrection Apparitions and Ascension These are laid out in that Gospel at large together with many excellent sayings of our Blessed Saviour related verbatim And These as they were never pretended by us to be the Object of Tradition so tho' spoken of frequently and perhaps variously amongst Christians were Impossible ever to be perfectly remember'd by the Generality unless put in a Book and therefore St. Luke gives Theophilus and others the Certain and particular knowledge of all these Passages by Writing And Dr. St. confesses the same p. 17. and that his aym and Intention was to give an Account of the Life and Actions of Christ but not a word that his Writing was to give Theophilus Certainty or a Clearer Knowledge of those Main Articles to ascertain which Tradition is pretended by us to be the most proper Means § 16. Now let 's see how many notorious prevarications and faults he has fallen into in this one Instance 1. Our whole Controversy is about the Certainty of those sublime Points of Christian Faith which he conceals and confounds them with a multitude of particular Passages 2. He intimates our Tradition is to ascertain all that 's contain'd in St. Luke's Gospel Whereas he knows well we rely upon no Tradition but what 's in some degree Practical which those Particulars are not unless it be those of which we keep Anniversary Solemnities 3. He is so angry at Tradition that he pretends the very Oral Tradition or Preaching of the Gospel by the Apostles needed something to strengthen and confirm it Lastly he makes our Tradition to begin with the first Preaching of the Apostles whereas it dates it 's Original from the first Age of Christianity already perfectly instructed by them during all their Lives and settled into Ecclesiastical Order and Discipline at their Decease § 17. He seems at length to come neerer the Point and affirms That the Writings of the Apostles when Matters of Doctrin came to be contested were the Infallible Rule whereby they were to judge which was the true and genuin Doctrin of Christ and which is yet better that They were intended by the Holy Ghost to be a standing Rule whereby the Church was to judge which was the true and genuin Doctrine of Christ. I am glad with all my heart to hear him speak of the Church being a Judge of Controversies or that he allows Her any hand in ascertaining and proposing Faith. I ever understood him hitherto That every sober Enquirer was to judge of the sense of Scripture for himself That it was plain to him even in the highest Points and that if in any contested or dubious Articles the Letter of Scripture did not declare it explicitly his sober Enquirer could by parity of Reason render any Implicit Point Explicit without the Church's Help tho' this was the most difficult Task as to the penetrating the Sense of Scripture that is possible and far beyond the understanding what 's there Explicitly He told us too in his second Letter p. 31 32. that because there is no Infallible Iudge every man is to Iudge for himself and this by Scripture his Rule But here the case is alter'd and the Church is to judge of Christ's Doctrin by Scripture I can allow honest Retractions without upbraiding them and am contented that the Church should judge by Scripture both when
to do with his Objecting some of our Writers but shall come to his Second Reason drawn from the notorious Vncertainty of meer Tradition and that never was any trial made of it but it fail'd even when it had the greatest Advantages Expect Gentlemen by those high and mighty Words he will bring most Convincing Arguments to prove that the Universal Testimony of the Church in delivering down those high Points of Faith is notoriously Vncertain and fail'd in every Age nay the very First for then it had the Greatest Advantages the Christians having then fresh Memories and being then Infallible since they could not agree to approve false Doctrin as himself told us p. 11 12. For my part I am of his mind and never knew any other Tradition have Advantages comparable to what Christian Tradition had for transmitting the Doctrine of Faith and if he lets you know what those Advantages of Christian Tradition were and shews them unable to oblige the Church to convey Christ's Doctrin down he will gain his Point But if he prevaricates from this necessary Duty he abuses you with fine Luke-warm Words to no purpose I do assure you before hand tho' he talks here of Advantages he has not in his whole Sermon mention'd much less ingenuously inform'd you of any one Advantage Christian Tradition has but industriously conceal'd every particular that gives it force Yet who sees not that without doing this 't is impossible to impugn it or deal fairly with his Auditory for how should you judge of the Comparison without a clear sight of the things Compar'd § 22. He did very prudently not to insist on the falling of Tradition in the Law of Nature For 1. He must have shewn It fail'd them and not They fail'd It by deserting it which could only be done by proving that had they continu'd to follow it they could have stray'd into Polytheism which he can never do it being evidently Impossible 2. That to make good the Parallel he must have prov'd it had as Ample an Original which gives a vast force to Testifying Authority as Christian Tradition had which is equally impossible for it had for its Source but one single man Adam 3. That there were not more powerful Motives nor greater Assistances of Grace to continue the Christian Doctrine under the Law of Grace than there were under that most imperfect Law of Nature nor more exact Discipline in the Church of Christ than there was in that loose State which had been hard Points and altogether impossible even to attempt with any shew of Reason He did very wisely too to Wave the Opinion of the Millenaries the time of Easter and the Communicating of Infants For he both knows that every Apostolical Tradition had this last been suppos'd such is not necessarily an Article of Faith as also that none of these nor yet their contrary was a Point of Christian Doctrine Preach't and Settled unanimously over the World by the Apostles He made account he had a better game to play by shewing how Tradition fail'd in delivering down the Apostles Creed But he might had he pleas'd as well have left out That as the Others for none of the Explainers of Tradition ever held or said it was to bring down Set Form of Words which requir'd application of Memory and Repetition of them in Order but only the Sense of the First Age which was Christ's true Faith instill'd after a connatural way by Education and apt to be exprest in different Words according to different Circumces § 23. Were it granted him That things Written supposing the Letter could be prov'd to be still continu'd Absolutely Certain had the Advantage as to the Certainty of Conveyance above things meerly committed to Memory and Tradition yet he is where he was The Point between us still sticks that is Whether meer Words expressing in short such sublime spiritual Tenets as are most of the chief Articles of Christian Religion are so Clear to private Judgments nay to All even the Vulgar that are looking for Faith that they can have that perfect Assurance of their true Sense as to build that Never-to-be-Alter'd Assent call'd Faith upon their understanding them This is the summ of our difficulty this is what we most insist upon and are perpetually pressing him to shew the security of the Method he takes to give us this Certainty I do not mean the Certainty of the Letter about which he keeps such ado but of the sense of it in such Points if he thinks any one of them so necessary that the Generality cannot be sav'd without the knowledge of it This is it which most imports you to know if you value the having such Grounds for your Faith as ought in true reason to perswade you 't is true that it was Taught by Christ or that you are not perhaps dociend and in an Errour all this while But not one word of this in the whole Sermon He argues from God's making choice of Writing when he deliver'd the Ten Commandments What means he or how can he apply this to our Question Are the Ten Commandments which are plain honest Nature of as Deep and Mysterious a Sense as the high Points we speak of Are they so hard to be understood that Writing is not a clear Conveyer of God's Sense in such Matters Does he hear a great part of the World at variance about the Meaning of the Ten Commandments as multitudes of Hereticks have been Wrangling with the Church ever since Christ's time about the Sense of Scripture in those Dogmatical Points Were the Texts which contain those Points as plain to all Mankind as the Ten Commandments are or as are generally the Historical and Moral parts of Scripture I should frankly declare that Scripture might in that Supposition be a Rule of Faith as to the Points contained in it and that there would be no need of the Church for our simply believing but only to confirm our Faith explain it more throughly when any part of it imply'd in some main Point is deny'd apply it to our Consciences by her Preaching and keep us up to the Doctrin it delivers by her Government and Discipline So that our Controversy-Preacher who has never hit the Point hitherto doubly misses it here in his representing Tradition as held by us needful to supply the defect of Clearness in Moral passages that are plain enough of themselves and that 't is to bring down Set-Forms of Words which is not its business whatever it be those Words express And this shews his Mistake in his Second Proof viz. the restoring the Knowledge of the Law Written by a Written Book which was a Way most Proper for that End. Whence for the same Reason if there were any deviation from the Christian Doctrin which as contradistinguish't to that other was writ in the Living Tables of the Hearts of the Faithful the best Way of preserving or restoring That was by
to it Daily propagate it to others must be in a manner infinitely stronger For sure he will not say that the Hatred against the Papists which I fear is the main Motive to continue the other is a more powerfull Cause to effect this than all the Motives laid by God and the Care of the Salvation of themselves and their Posterity was for the Body of the Church to perpetuate a Doctrine that came from Heaven In a word this one Instance is enough to shew evidently that he either grossly mistakes or wilfully perverts in that Appendix the whole Subject about which we are there discoursing And is such a slight piece or such a man worth answering were it not for the Repute he has got not for writing for the Church of England but for his Hatred and Scribbling against the Papists Since this one Errour is so Fundamentall that it must needs influence all that Discourse of his as far as 't is Serious or pretends to Solidity and so leaves nothing to be replied to but wilely Shuffles and aiery Trifles which are Frivolous in themselves and in his Writings Endless SECT I. The Author of the Catholique Letters clear'd from Dr. St.'s borrow'd Calumnies 5. HAving behav'd himself thus unfortunately to himself and his Friends ever since he came upon the Stage Dr. St. comes to settle his Method which he says he thinks is most Natural and Effectual to proceed in in handling the main Subject of our Debate about the Nature and Grounds of the Certainty of Faith. It consists of Four Heads and I shall follow my Leader he being such a Master of Method and take them as they lie The First is To shew how unfit J. S. is of all men to undertake this Cause who contradicts himself as occasion serves Certainly this man has a Method as well as a Logick peculiar to himself Does it follow so Naturally that Faith needs no Higher Grounds of Certainty because J. S. writes unconstantly Or does he prove so Effectually he has shewn his Grounds do allow Faith as 't is controverted between us the Certainty due to it's Nature because I write weakly But the truth is his Method is to avoid all Method and to wriggle in twenty Impertinent and Invidious things to make a shew of having said a great deal tho' to no purpose and to raise as much Dust as he can that he may run away from the business we are about and hide himself in the Mist. But is he sure that I. S. contradicts himself Impartial men will doubt it when they shall know that both those few pretended contradictions he has borrow'd out of Lominus and many more were objected and earnestly press'd against me in a far-distant Tribunal where my self was unknown and had few or rather no Friends but what my Cause Defences gave me That they were discust by those strictest Judges and compar'd with my Answers and yet not so much as the least check given me or any Correction of my Books even in the least tittle was order'd though this be a thing not unusual in such cases That the business already transiit in rem judicatam and that the Satisfaction I gave then to Superiours who could have no imaginable reason to be favourable to me to the prejudice of Catholick Doctrine is an abundant clearing of the Soundness of my Writings and the Sincerity of my Defences It would I say be enough to do this and then leave the Doctor 's malice to the Censure of all Ingenuous Persons for objecting anew things of which I was about Eleven years ago so authentiquely acquitted But alas his Method which oblig'd him to speak to the true Point as little as he could for shame and to fill up an empty figure of an Answer with as many Impertinencies as he could well hook in led him so directly to it that he could not for his heart avoid it Should he object Murther or any other heinous Crime to a pretended Malefactor already clear'd of it by his Proper Judges and the Court every honest man would admire at his folly but all 's meritorious with his Party against the Papists Tho' I say this be sufficient for my Vindication yet because those Defences of mine were in Latin and the clearing this Point conduces very much to the shortening and illustrating my future Answer I shall repeat here some few particulars of many which are found there at large And First I shall put some notes to give a clear Light of this business Next I shall show his Shallowness and Insincerity in what he objects Thirdly I will put down the most Authentick Approbations of my Books by the Testimony of Learned Men of all sorts and beyond all Exception and then reflect on his Imprudence in making such an objection 6. For the First I lay these Notes 1. That School-Divines discourse of Faith under another Notion or Consideration than Controvertists do The former treat of it as 't is a Theological Virtue and the Material Objects of it as reveal'd by a Testimony formally Divine And they prove it to be such by alledging the Miracles done to attest it the wonderfull Conversion of the World by it and the admirable Effects issuing from it as the Sanctity of it's Professors that live up to it the Heroick Sufferings of Martyrs c. And because 't is a Supernatural Virtue and so depends on God's Supernatural Influence as much as Natural Effects do on His Power as Author of Nature hence they consider it as introduc't by Supernatural Dispositions inclining men to it and God's Heavenly Grace making them embrace it and adhere to it constantly On the other side Controvertists particularly We in our Modern Controversies being to argue against those who admit whatever was taught by Christ to be Divine cannot possibly have the least occasion to treat of it as 't is such or use any of the former Arguments that are apt to prove it such but accommodate our Discourses precisely to make out what those men deny that is the Grounds by which we come to know assuredly that these or those Points were taught by Christ. Much less do we consider Faith as it depends on the Workings of God's Holy Spirit illuminating Interiourly the Souls of the Faithfull and fixing them in their Faith these being Invisible and so Impossible to be brought into Arguments or produc't against an Adversary in our Controversial Disputes 2. That 't is evident that in all my Books I am writing Controversies and consequently writing of Faith precisely as 't is controverted between me and my Opposers Which manifestly evinces that I treat of it under none of those Considerations School-Divines do in regard none of my Adversaries at least professedly deny it to be Divine or that God's Grace is requisite to it Nor can any man shew so much as One Argument in all my Books that looks that way 3. That since 't is manifest beyond all Cavill that we are writing
this man do himself a greater prejudice than by thus confessing that he holds not Christian Faith absolutely speaking True Or can he lay a greater scandal on Christian Faith it self than to quarrel at a Position that can give him no displeasure but by asserting it's perfect Truth If this do not like his new-fashion'd Christian Principles I suppose he will own the contrary Position and affirm that True Faith by reason of it's Moveable or Uncertain Grounds Cannot bear an asserting the Absolute Impossibility of it's Falshood And this is in plain terms to assert that absolutely speaking True Faith may all be False which is both Unchristian and strong Nonsense to boot He should have Preach't this to his Auditory at Guildhall and then he should have seen how every honest Hearer would have abhorr'd his Doctrine have lookt upon Him as scarce half a Christian and on such a Faith as absurd praeternatural and Irrational as well as I did 14. These are the greatest Contradictions the Dr. could pick even out of an Adversaries Book concerning which he keeps such a mighty noise blusters and triumphs He tells the Reader I affirm that Moral Certainty destroys the Essence of Faith. And I affirm it does taking Faith without some absolutely certain Principle as Demonstration is to ground it on For Faith is essentially True and it cannot be True to those who see that notwithstanding it's Grounds which are to prove it Christ's Doctrine it may yet be none of his Doctrine Again he says I make Moral Certainty Sufficient and Insufficient for Faith. Distinguish good Doctor 'T is not Sufficient for the Ground of Faith as we treat of it for if there may be Deceit in that Ground the Truth of Faith as to us sinks And yet Moral Certainty and even less of the force of that Ground is Sufficient to many nay All so they adhere to a Ground that is really Infallible and Salvation is attainable by those Persons Oh but Salvation is to be had by such a Faith no better grounded and that 's the main business What If for want of a firm Ground Faith hap to be False Who ever said it or that in case any Point embrac't upon such a Ground happen to be Vntrue it could be a Point of Faith or that any man could be sav'd by vertue of a Heretical Tenet or a pernicious Falshood Yet for want of Dr. St's understanding plain sense and his applying my words to a wrong subject I must forfeit my Sincerity and Moral Honesty whereas himself forfeits both by confounding every thing which I had so carefully distinguisht There is not a tittle objected by himself or Lominus but I distinctly and clearly answer'd in my Clypeus Septemplex and Vindiciae to the satisfaction of all my Superiours and Judges Yet this man of Moral Honesty has the Ingenuity to object them afresh without taking notice of my Answers or letting the Reader so much as know any such Satisfactory Answers or any answer at all had been already given 14. As for the three Propositions pickt out of my Books apart from the Context and which as taken in the precise words in which they were exhibited were censur'd I desire the Reader to reflect that these words There is no God tho' found in the Holy Scripture it self yet as separated from the words adjoyning and exprest in those precise terms are perfect Atheism and deserve the highest Censure and yet the same words as they lie in the Sacred Book it self with these foregoing words The Fool hath said in his heart joyn'd with them the direct contrary is signify'd by that place This was my very case The words or passages taken alone without the Prefaces declaring the sole Intent of the Author without the State of the Question and other Paragraphs or words in the same Paragraph giving light by the Tenour of the Discourse to my true meaning bore a shew as if I had affirm'd that it was requisite to Faith to demonstrate the Mysteries of Faith and among them the Supernatural Infallibility of the Church which is a Point of Faith. Especially since there was inserted by the Exhibiter a Parenthesis in the middle of the second Proposition he speaks of Propositions of Faith whereas there was not a word of any such thing but about fifteen times the contrary in the self-same Paragraph viz. That I spoke of Motives Premisses and Grounds of Faith. Now the Censurers knew not that those Propositions were in any Book or had any Antecedents or Consequents as they publickly declar'd and I have it under their hands and consequently Censur'd them as my self should have done had I been in their Circumstances and circumvented as they were As soon as I saw the Censure I offer'd voluntarily to Subscribe to it knowing that those Propositions thus singled out were no more my Doctrine than There is no God was the Sense of the Sacred Writer nay quite contrary to it The Censurers declar'd they were surpriz'd and complain'd they were by indirect wiles impos'd upon So at the Arch-Bishop of Paris his Command I writ my Vindiciae to manifest the true Sense of those passages as they lay in my Books which I shew'd very clearly and particularly to be that I only spoke of Faith as standing under a Rule ascertaining it's Descent from Christ. My Books being in English it was order'd that some Persons of great Learning and Repute who understood English should examine and testify whether taking those Propositions as they lay in my Books the Orthodox Sense I assign'd to them were indeed my genuine meaning in those places My Adversary too allow'd of them to attest it for indeed their known Probity and Learning was such that it was impossible to except against them and that Venerable and Pious Personage Abbot Montagu to whom they were known it being requir'd gave Testimony to both those Qualifications in them They all unanimously attested by their Subscriptions that the Orthodox Sense I assign'd was indeed the true meaning of those Places and that the Sense condemn'd was not in those Books but the direct contrary whence follows that when I Subscrib'd the Censure I subscrib'd only to what had ever been my own Doctrine Those Reverend and Judicious Persons were Mr Francis Gage Dr. of Sorbon Mr Thomas Godden Dr. of Divinity Mr Robert Barclay Principal of the Scotch Colledge in Paris Mr Bonaventure Giffard and Mr Iohn Betham then Batchelours of Divinity in Sorbon both of them since Doctors of the same Faculty and the former of them now Bishop of Madaura Mr Edward Cary Mr Edward Lutton and Mr G. K. The Arch-Bishop of Paris being perfectly satisfy'd hoping it might end future Disputes desired me to Subscribe to the Censure I refus'd at first alledging that such a Subscription might be improv'd into a pretence that I had retracted He replied Uteris itaque quâ Subscriptionis formulâ tibi placuerit
Make use therefore of what form of Subscription you please I replied Then I will declare that I do Subscribe not retracting my Doctrine but persisting in it which he allow'd and I did it in the self-same terms adding that I persisted in it as being free from Censure and approv'd by very Eminent Personages Which done the Censurers were order'd nay commanded to make me Satisfaction by an Instrument Sign'd by them both declaring that no Proposition in any Book of mine was toucht by their Censure Could there be a greater and more Authentick Clearing my Books and Doctrine from being Censur'd than that was or might not Dr St. by parity of reason as well have pretended that the Scripture teaches Atheism or that King David deserv'd to be Censur'd for saying There is no God as that any Proposition as found in my Books was there Censur'd or Declar'd Heretical 15. And now to lay open some of the Doctor 's Falshoods upon this occasion They are these 1. That the main Design of my Catholick Letters are there declar'd to be no Catholick Doctrine Well bowl'd Doctor Have I a word there pretending to shew the Mysteries of Faith or the Authority of the Church that is believ'd by Faith that is it's Supernatural Infallibility by Assistance of the Holy Ghost to be Demonstrable Is it not shewn you in most express words Third Cath. Letter p. 22.23 and in many other places that we speak only of the Humane Authority of the Church which is to be prov'd by Natural Mediums and not of the other which is believ'd by the Faithfull This then is a meer forg'd pretence against your own Conscience and perfect Knowledge 2. That I was Censur'd and retracted whereas 't is manifest not any thing as it lay in my Books that is indeed nothing of mine was Censur'd nor did I subscribe otherwise than as not Retracting my Doctrine but persisting in it as being free from Censure This the Arch-Bishop of Paris allow'd and the Censurers themselves judged to be Iust and True and upon those terms acquitted me and made me Satisfaction 3. He says that if this the Sense Condemn'd be not Catholick Doctrine he is Infallibly Certain my Letters are far from being Catholick in their Sense Now not one word is there in those Letters which is the Sense Condemn'd as I shew'd lately however I am glad he who has still been so high against all Infallibility in his Writings and deny'd it to the Catholick or any Church owns it at least in Himself I see now what Grounds he went upon when he would not make a Candid Retractation of his Irenicum Certainly this man would persuade us to take his word for our Rule of Faith. But the ill luck is his Infallibility is evidently prov'd already to be willfull Forgery against plain and Authentick matter of Fact. He say the A. B. of D. averrs many fine things already answer'd and that my Plea was ridiculous Which is false for any thing he or I know For that Illustrious Personage deny'd that Book of Lominus to be his or did any man own it but it came out surreptitiously without the Approbation of any man under an unknown name nay without so much as the Printers name to it which was punishable by the Laws there Whence we may judge of our Drs. sincerity In his Second Letter to Mr. G. p. 8. by putting Heresis Blacloana in the Margent over against his Appeal to F. W. He hinted that that Venerable Person was Author of that Book Beat off from that False and Ungrounded pretence he has found us another Author for it and I expect in his next piece we shall have a Third or Fourth according as his fancy so heated now that it has shaken off all regard to Civility shall prompt him Again he shews us how wonderfully ingenuous he is by his quoting against me the railing Book of an unknown Adversary which had besides all the Marks of a Libel in it and over-flipping the Attestation of Eight Worthy Divines of great repute who openly and owning their names did witness that those places in my Books did not bear the Sense in which those words pick't out thence were censur'd Add that Dr. St. knew all these particulars were clear'd satisfactorily since it appears by his quoting them he had read my Defences in which they are printed at large Which Common Sense may assure him I durst not have done in the Life-time of all the Persons mention'd and concern'd without quite losing my Cause Nay I should have expos'd my self to new Accusations as a Falsifier had I not dealt sincerely to a tittle and preserv'd all the Authentick Originals in my own hands for the Justification of my Defences which I yet have I charge the Dr. then to have publisht against me Willfull and Notorious Falshoods which he had reason to know to be such Yet we are still to think he did all this out of his pure Love to Moral Honesty of which he makes such a Saintly Profession I Challenge him moreover to shew me any one Catholique Writer of any Eminency I do profess I do not know so much as one of any degree whatever whoever Censur'd this Position that the Infallibility of the Churches Humane Authority antecedent to Faith and deriving down Christ's Doctrine might be demonstrated which is all I require in my Catholick Letters Whereas the Right Reverend F. W. has named him divers both Ancient and Modern who follow that Method in general and I have quoted divers Eminent Controvertists as occasion serv'd and particularly insisted on two beyond all Exception F. Fisher here in England and Dominicus de Sta Trinitate who writ and printed his Book at Rome and had it approv'd by the Magister Sacri Palatii who take the same way I do almost to a tittle I may add to the Drs. greater confusion the Authority of the Arch-Bishop of D. himself and of all those Eminent Persons who have approv'd my Doctrine as shall be seen hereafter 16. Not a man then has Dr St. on his side but one unknown and altogether unapprov'd Author Lominus and a bitter Adversary to me besides out of whose Falshoods interlarded with his own and by his Concealing my Replyes to all he objects and those such as fully satisfy'd my Judges and Superiours he makes a shift to patch up his Calumnies We will see next whether to his further shame my Books or Doctrin have not had Testimonials of greater weight to approve and authenticate them than that of Lominus was to Condemn them 17. In the first place that Blessed and Glorious Martyr the Illustrious and Eminently Learned Oliver Plunket Arch-Bishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland assoon as he heard my Books were oppos'd out of his meer Justice love of Truth and the Esteem he had of my Doctrin unsought to nay unthought of sent me out of Ireland an Approbation of it writ
Mankind but by Immediate Divine Assistance Yet he had the boldness or Forgetfulness to say p. 5. that If this be not Catholick Doctrin then I am Infallibly Certain I. S's Letters are far from being Catholick in their Sense It seems than either some men are Infallible for seriously I take Dr St. to be a Man or he fancies himself to be something above the Herd of Mankind or else sticks not at the Blasphemy to entitle the Blessed Spirit of Peace to have inspir'd him with such a quarrelsome Falshood 45. He discourses against Tradition as 't is Practical but has he said any thing against it as 't is Oral the force of which to clear Christ's Sense delivered down in the Church consists in Catechizing Preaching dilating upon the Points and explicating themselves at large replying to difficulties and accommodating their Discourse to all the Learners Exigences All which is found in the Living Voice of the Church and her Pastours as I shew'd him at large and none of it in the Letter in a Book What answers he to common Sense and to his own Experience too when he instructs others why he puts us off still with this frigid Cuckoo Answer that he is of another Opinion that writing is as plain as speaking and that words written have as much he ought to have said as Clear Sense in them as words spoken Which apply'd to our case is most palpable Nonsense and makes all Explications frivolous and all Catechizers and Commentators upon Scripture ridiculous The force I put in the Practicalness of Tradition is that supervening to the Oral delivery or being consonant to it it confirms it and makes it more Visible But he Combats the Practicalness of it consider'd alone and so impugns his own willfull Mistake But what says he to my discourse He alledg'd that Tradition might come down in Common Equivocal Words and so deliver no determinate Sense I reply'd that 't is inconsistent with the Nature of Mankind to mean nothing by the words they use especially in Tenets they were to be sav'd by therefore the Body of the Church had some Meaning or other of those Words Christ is the Son of God and Christ's Body is really in the Sacrament But this Meaning or Notion could not be a Common or General one in regard no Notion can be common to God a Creature to the Substance of Christs Body to the Substance of Bread much less to that Sacred Substance and some Accidents or Qualities Therefore there could not come down any such Common Notion by means of those Words wherefore there must have descended some particular Notion of each Point determining the signification of the Words to one sense or the other This was the true force of my Discourse I do still pretend it Demonstrable and let him answer it when he can for did he know the Consequences it will draw after it he would think it worth his while He 's at his old Logick again which is to bring an Instance against the Conclusion and is very brisk that it overthrows my Demonstration And what says his Instance It says the Corinthians and Artemonites understood by those words that Christ was only an Adoptive Son that is a Creature which is as much as to say they understood them in a Particular Sense which is all I there pretended And so his Instance is as he says truly Unlucky but 't is to himself not to mee for it makes good my words and instead of overthrowing confirms my Discourse that Men must have understood some Particular Sense by those words and our Learned Dr is so weak as to think that when what he brings for an Answer is so evidently for me it makes against me As for their pleading Tradition for their Sense surely he means a private Tradition from some former Hereticks and not the Publick Tradition of the Christian Church or that their Heretical Tenets were immediately deliver'd by that United Body of Christians for the manifest Falshood of this would have been confuted by Experience and have sham'd the Alledgers Nor could the Church in that case have condemn'd them since they spoke her sense But the good Dr mistook the Pretence of two or three quibbling Hereticks for the Vniversal Tradition of the Church as wicked an Error as it was possibly to stumble upon then triumphs how rarely his Instance has answer'd my Demonstration And thus ends his Reply to my short Discourse which having done he assures the Reader he has fully answer'd my main Argument against his Rule of Faith. Whereas he has not so much as touch't any single Proposition in it trifled or done worse even in the ridiculous odd way he has taken to answer it Which confirms me more then ever 't is past his skill to hurt it and even beyond his Courage to grapple with it 46. His contradicting himself is still urg'd upon him unless he can shew that true or Absolute Certainty does not secure those who have it in any thing from being deceived in that thing Again in his 15th Principle he said there needed no Infallible Society of men either to attest or explain the Scripture I reply'd that if it be Fallible we cannot by it be more than Fallibly Certain and we can have no Absolute Certainty from a Fallible Testimony This seems very plain for how should a man be absolutely or perfectly Certain of a thing by that very Testimony which not being perfectly Certain may perhaps deceive him in that very Thing His first Answer is that he understands no such thing as Infallibility in Mankind but by immediate Divine Assistance He understands Is that an Answer Does he understand how to answer our many Arguments to prove it By his not taking notice of them we are to understand and conclude he does Not. Again he declares that in that Principle of his he meant there needed no Infallibility by Divine Assistance and he utterly denies Natural Infallibility whence 't is manifest he allows no Certainty at all but Fallibility His Faith is in a fine case in the mean time He must shew I say that Fallibility in the Testimony can ground Absolute Certainty of the thing attested and this tho' a man sees that the Testimony and himself who relies on it may be in an Error before he can make either the Letter or the Book of Scripture Absolutely Certain by Tradition or Human Testimony which he maintains here is Fallible Can a man think or say interiourly I am Absolutely or perfectly Certain of a thing peradventure When that very Peradventure hinders his Certainty from being Absolute or Perfect What answers he to this plain Evidence Or how shews he that a seen Fallibility is able to beget Absolute Certainty Why First he says If by Fallible Certainty I mean this and that c. I mean Why I mean nothing by it but that 't is a wicked Contradiction I mean the same by
keep us from erring especially in matters only Knowable by Authority But our Dr has a Judgment or Discretion of another mold than Reason has fram'd for him In the mean time what Answer gives he to my Reason for the contrary position and that the relying on a Certain Authority is to keep our Eyes in our Head still In doing this we do not at all relinquish our Reason but follow and exercise it For nothing is more Rational than to submit to an Authority which my Reason has told me is Abso lutely Certain in things which the same Reason assures me can no other ways be known Certainly but by that Authority This seems plain sense and comprizes the whole Point and for that very reason he thought it not safe to meddle with it but instead of doing so to amuse the Reader with Seven impertinent Discourses of his own and thus it is he Answers my Catholick Letters 56. Hitherto he contented himself to impugn me with False Suggestions nimble Avoidances pretended Ignorance of our known and oft-repeated Tenet and with merry Conceits but now he thunders out his dreadfull Indignation against me with Angry Viper Venemous Froth Spleen Gall c. By which he gives us to understand that the place I prest upon was very raw and sore At the end of my Discourse I repeated his avow'd Position that Every Sober Enquirer may without the Churches Help find out all necessary Points of Faith in Scripture This being a Paradox so pestilential in its self and so Pernicious to Church-Government and to all the Dearest and most Sacred Concerns of Christianity I could do no less out my Zeal for those Best Goods than brand it with these just Censures viz. that it was the very First Principle nay the Quintessence of all Heresy Fanaticism in the Egg perfect Enthusiasm when hatcht and downright Atheism when fledg'd This I said and thus I justify my Charge To make private men competent Interpreters of Scripture as to all necessary Points of Christian Faith without the Churches Help and yet not to furnish them with any Certain Means of not erring or mistaking its Sense is the very First Principle of all Heresy For Non enim natae sunt Haereses nisi dum Scripturae bonae intelliguntur non bene No Heresy has any other source but when the Scriptures good in themselves are understood in an ill Sense Next let this wild licentious Principle that they need not the Churches Help to find out all Necessary Points in Scripture settle in the Heads of the Mobile 't is perfectly consequent that they must judge that whatever the Church holds contrary to what they conceive is the sense of Scripture is either False or Unnecessary and in case the Church judges that what They hold is a Grand Heresy and therefore that the contrary Tenet is a Necessary Point and therefore subjects them to Her Censures they must hate the Churches Government as the worst of Tyrannies that would oblige them to forgo their Rule renounce their Faith and obey Man rather than God. In a word this Principle naturally leads them to contemn the Church and her Pastours as neither able to help them in their Way to Faith nor to Govern them in it Unless the Dr means by Governing that the Church-Officers are to see that each of them follows their own Fancies and decline not from such Tenets let them be never so Heretical as their wise Judgment of Discretion has thought fit to embrace which is Fanaticism in the height Again the Conceit of this self-sufficiency codling as I may say in the hot Brains of many of those Fanaticks enfranchized thus blessedly from the Churches Government Dr St. still assuring them they cannot miss of knowing Gods Will in such Points so they but pray for Wisdom and Common Sense telling them they are no Scholars nor have this Knowledge by Humane Means it follows necessarily that they must think their Prayer is heard and that they have it by Divine Inspiration Whence they will imagin the Holy Ghost buzzes Truths in their Ears like a Bee in a Box which is perfect Enthusiasm And. it will come pat to their purpose and help forward very well that Dr St. when he stood engag'd to shew or produce his Proofs that his Faithfull have Absolute Certainty of their Faith that is of the true Sense of Scripture confesses plainly no such Proofs are producible and recurrs to Moral Qualifications and many other Invisible Requisites to give men assurance of it which are impossible to be known by Human Reason being only Knowable by God Himself Whence Nature obliging all men to guide themselves by some sure Light in things of Infinite Concern and all Motives that should appear outwardly to Reason being according to him Cloudy and Dark it directs them necessarily to seek for this sure Light within and so become Enthusiasts In the mean time not to speak of Atheists who are By-standers and confirm'd in their Atheism by seeing such Bedlam-doings amongst Professors of Christianity imbu'd with no better Principles than what he gives them the more refin'd ingenious sort of Mankind who are too wise to be led in the dark strain their best endeavours to search after solid Grounds by which they may be perfectly assur'd of Christs Faith or the sense of Scripture in such Points find that none such could be brought by the famous Dr St. but that when he was most highly engag'd to produce his Proofs for that most important Point he recurrs still to holes as dark as the private Spirit What can they do other were there no better Grounds than his producible but conclude that there is No Certainty of Christian Faith at all and that the Greatest Professors and Writers do by their Carriage confess as much and thence come to apprehend that Religion is a meer Cheat to keep up the Interest and Ambition of those who look for rich Livings and affect to have many Followers which will bring them to a Mepris of Religion it self and so dwindle into Atheism This is the Natural Progress of Dr St's Principles From which ill Consequences he shall never clear himself till he shews us the Light and Method giving him and his No Church men Certainty of the Sense of Scripture and this such an Absolute one as can in True Reason beget and justify a most Firm and Vnalterable Assent that the Tenets they hold are indeed Christs True Doctrin and till he restores to the Church and her Government that necessary Authority of which his ill-contriv'd Principles have robb'd her Let him not think to acquit himself by telling us here of his allowing the Church a Power of Proposing and directing in Faith. A Learned Son of the Church of England has told him A Private Person may do the Former and that the Later is such a Liberall Grant as was given to the Statues of Mercury which of old were set up
Ages As if this had not been prov'd already and never yet answer'd but by Shuffles and Evasions 7. He frames a Plea for the Arians against the Nicene Councill from my Principles but very untowardly for the Arians allow'd the Copies and quoted Scripture as fast as Catholicks did and yet Err'd most abominably which makes against himself Lastly he tells us that 't is a pernicious Principle a miserable Account c. At which I wonder not For every thing is miserable and pernicious with him that makes the Church good for any thing Yet he could grant the Churches Testimony was needfull at first to abett the Truth of the Gospells and she enjoy'd that Priviledge in St. Austins time and I wonder how she came to lose her Title to God's Gracious Providence and Assistance or how she came to be disabled in the following ages to preserve the Letter uncorrupted in those Texts that contain'd known Points of Faith. It seems Translaters and Transcribers for the most part Mercenary are Sacred with him and admirable Preservers of the Letter but alas the Miserable Church is good for nothing I have already told him why I hold Scriptures Letter no Rule how 't is sometimes call'd a Rule in an improper Sense and why that Sense is improper and his Friend Dr. Tillotson has told him what a Rule of Faith means in our Controversies but he never heeds either but runs on here with frivolous descants upon an ambiguous word and will needs take Rule in a Sense never meant nor possible to be meant in our circumstances He 's not satisfy'd with the Care of the Council of Trent in correcting the Copy But let him remember I spoke there of Texts of Inferiour Concern not of those that concern'd Faith. And why is he not satisfy'd Did she not do her best in the present Circumstances How will he prove it Because Clemens the 8 th recall'd and corrected the Bibles put out by Sixtus the 5 th for an exact Edition But if both did their best according to the Observations were made in their time and the Light they had then neither of them were to blame But all this Humane Diligence amounts not to Absolute Certainty as I. S. requires of us And is it not more reason I should require it of him than he of me since he makes it Scriptures Letter the Proper Rule of Faith which he knows I do not and yet which is pleasant he calls upon me aloud to declare as much and then he knows how to answer And now I know the true Reason why he has answer'd nothing hitherto viz. because I had not declar'd what I had own'd in all my Books near a thousand times over But we have lost our point by answering a multitude of Impertinent Cavills 'T is this The Sense of Scripture cannot be Absolutely Certain unless there be Absolute Certainty the Letter is right Nor can there be Absolute Certainty the Letter is right even in Texts relating to Faith by his Principles which deny this was perform'd by the Churches Knowledge of the Points of Faith but by making out with Absolute Certainty how the Letter was by some other Means secur'd from being wrong This he never attempts even in this very occasion when it lay upon him to do it and therefore for all his empty flourishes he has said just nothing Nor has shewn or defended that even the Ground of his Faith Scriptures Letter is Absolutely Certain Besides his Discourse still beats upon this mistake that We do not hold the Letter Absolutely Certain in such concerning Texts whereas we only say He cannot prove it to be such by his Principles and he makes our words good with not performing it or so much as attempting it Only he tells us for our comfort that as to Books Copies and Translations he has as high a Certainty as the thing is capable of and then 't is Madness to expect and require more So that tho' it happen that the Certainty be but a very sleight one his kind of Faithfull and Converts may take their choice whether they will be Fools if they will believe it or Madmen if they will not He tells us indeed faintly the Faith previous to Divine Faith may have Absolute Certainty but if it only may have it it may not have it In the mean time what is all this voluntary Saying to his Proving that he has really and indeed Absolute Certainty of those Books Copies and Translations 'T is his Proofs we lookt for and not bare Narrations of his own weak Tenets with which he thus puts us off continually 66. But how strangely Insincere if any such carriage could after so frequent use of it be strange in him is the Dr to pretend we hold it is in any Churches Power to correct Original Texts because they contradict the Sense of the present Church These words he puts into Italick Letter as if they were mine but he cites no place and I do assure the Reader I have neither such Words nor Sense The first Originals are not extant so cannot be corrected those call'd Originals which are already acknowledg'd ought as little to be corrected as the other in Texts belonging to Faith. All the Power we give the Church is to correct succeeding Copies upon occasion in Texts relating to the Articles of our Faith when they deviate from the Faith of the Church or which is the same from former Copies allow'd by her universally 67. I desir'd the Dr to satisfy us concerning the Number of Books requisit to a Rule of Faith and how many will just serve the turn as also whether some Book for any thing his Principles can assure us were not lost This lay upon him to prove and this with Absolute Certainty if he would have Scripture an Intire Rule of his Faith How proves he it Why he makes me mightily concern'd to lessen the Authority of the New Testament and that I charge the Christian Church with a Gross Neglect For all this Noise he knows well enough that I agree with him that 't is not in the least probable the Churches should suffer any such Book disperst among them to be last nor do I so much as suppose they did What I say is that he who holds all Humane Authority Fallible can never prove it True they deliver'd down All unless he can convince the World that a Fallible Medium can prove a thing True which he cannot do without proving that What may be False is True. Nor can he do This without proving the same thing may be and not be at once I wish then he would set himself to work and prove this abominable First Principle to be False For otherwise This alone will confute all the substantial parts of his Book and convince every man of Common Sense that his Grounds confest by himself to be Fallible can never make out that 't is True that he has either Right
Letter or Right Sense of Scripture or that no Book is lost c. and so there 's an End of his Problematical Faith. I must confess that to prove First Principles False is something difficult but I have reduc't the business to as narrow a compass as I can that he may make short work of it He recurrs at present for want of some Clear Proof to Gods Providence concern'd in preserving Books written by Divine Inspiration Of which none doubts But why should not God's Providence be as much concern'd in preserving his Church from Erring in Faith that so both all those Books their Letters and Sense might be kept right as far as was Necessary Or why was God's Providence the Less for making the Churches Care and Help the Means to preserve both the Books and Letter of Scripture from suffering detriment Lastly why must his Providence be confin'd to only Translaters and Transcribers 68. Dr St. in his second Letter to Mr. G. p. 32. made the Canon of the New Testament the Rule of his Faith. To show the Inconsistency of his Tenets and utterly overthrow his Pretence of that Rule I alledg'd that If the whole Canon be his Rule then his Rule was deficient for some hundreds of years till the whole Canon was Collected and Acknowledg'd I prest farther that since it must take up some time e're those severall Books were Spread and accepted sometimes the Primitive Church had according to his Principles but Three quarters of their Faith Half of their Faith or less and so were but Three-quarters or Half-Christians according as the several pieces came by degrees to be Vniversally accepted For no man of Sense can doubt but that it cost some time e're the Churches so diffus'd heard of all those Books and much more e're they could be perfectly satisfy'd of the Universal Testimony of the Church Ascertaining them to have been writ by men Divinely inspir'd in regard it was of most Dangerous Consequence to accept that for Gods Word which was not beyond all doubt such So that we may with reason imagin that some Churches had at first but Two or Three Books of Scripture others but Four or Five that were well attested or could be rely'd on in such a High Concern Add that there were divers false Gospells and Spacious Books given out under the names of having the Apostles or Apostolical Men for their Authors which must have redoubled their care and made them backward to receive any that were not Authentick which would take up still more time to examin thoroughly To press my Argument still more home I urg'd that perhaps according to him they had no Faith at all during that long Interval because wanting other Books or sufficient warrant to rely on them they by consequence wanted a Multitude of other Texts with which they might Compare those they already had which is one part of his Method to find true Faith in Scripture To show more the Inconsonancy of his Doctrine I noted that notwithstanding all this he declar'd that he lookt upon the Primitive Church tho' so ill furnish't with his Rule as on the Best Arbitrator between us in all our Controversies about the Sense of the doubtfull that is Controverted places of Scripture Now one would verily think this pressing Discourse following the Point in Question so Close and pursuing it so Home were exceedingly worth his while to Answer if he could since it toucht his Rule and his Cause to the quick Now le ts see what he says in their Defence The Substance of his Answer for all the rest is impertinent is a most doughty and most weighty word If If God says he hath so Abundantly provided for his Church that there may be a full Revelation of all Points of Faith in the rest then the disputing the Authority of such an Epistle meaning that to the Hebrews doth not derogate from the Compleatness of the Rule of Faith. What 's become of his Sincerity and Morall Honesty which he so profest to Love Did I speak of the Epistle to the Hebrews Did not I not only speak of but most Expressly discourse all along of those many or most Books of Scripture not Universally known and accepted at the very first but by degrees spreading and gaining in Process of Time the Credit of being Authentick Does not my Discourse that by his Principles The Primitive Church had but Three quarters of her Faith half her Faith or less barr this Shamming Pretence that I speak only of that Epistle Or does he think I meant that that single Epistle was half or three quarters of the Canon of Scripture And now Reader I beg thy leave to insist here upon this Prevarication as an instance of one great Part of his Method in Confuting He picks out a word or two which may best serve him to slip away from the Point and turn it to quite another business but leaves the whole Stress and full import of the Argument Unanswer'd It were tedious still to reflect how oft he has done thus in this pretended Reply to my Catholique Letters But whoever compares his severall Answers to the respective places he pretends to speak to will see how dull and insignificant they are tho' if he be read alone especially with an Implicit Belief of his dealing fairly they look very jolly and brisk However to divert the Readers Eye he is even with me in another Point I said the accepting or not accepting Books whether in the Latin or Greek Churches was an Act of Prudence Antecedent to the Iudgment or Determination of any Church and so could not make or marr the Latin Churche's Infallibility in her Iudgment or Decrees He falls into a gross mistake of the word Antecedent and erects a Trophy of Victory upon his own Errour To clear which 't is to be observed that our Divines admit Prudentiall Considerations in any Church even tho' held Infallible Previous to her Decrees yet do not hold that Church is Infallible in those Acts of Prudence which are thus Antecedent Now tho' the whole Series of my Discourse there shows clearly that I spoke of an Antecedency in the Course of Humane Actions or of a Prudentiall Deliberation Antecedent to an Absolute Decision he turns it to an Antecedency in Chronology or of more Antient Writers and when he has apply'd that word to a wrong matter he has the Vanity to insult But he says I say not a Syllable to his proving hence the Roman Church was not then believ'd Infallible Surely he never consider'd what he pretends to Answer for by saying it was not only an Act of Prudence Antecedent to any Degree I show there was no occasion to show what was then believ'd of her Infallibility or not believ'd Again since the Certainty of that Epistles being writ by St. Paul depended on Testimony other Churches might perhaps know that better for some time than She. But the worst is he was preparing
be Answering for all that 'T is his Interest to do it solidly for he has all the World who in their Disputes follow the contrary Method to confute His main reason to prove that Arguing is a good way to Answer is because the Argument attempts to prove a thing Impossible and that 't is contrary to Sense and Experience to say the Latin and Greek Churches do not differ in what they receive upon Tradition and so the same Answer that Diogenes gave to Zeno's Argument against Motion by Walking will serve the turn Let 's examin this parallel in which consists the substance of his Defence of his bad Logick Does all the World see that the Generality of the Greek Church proceed upon Tradition in what they differ from the Latin as certainly and evidently as they see there is Motion Have not I produc't in my First Catholick Letter p. 35. reasons enow to shew him how disputable this point is none of which he so much as mentions Did not I there p. 13. quote him out of his own book Peter Lombard saying that the Difference between the Greeks and Latins is in Words and not in Sense Nay Thomas a Iesu Azorius c. who were of the same Judgment And could not these Learned men see a thing manifest to Sense and Experience Our point then is nothing like that of denying Motion nor is it contrary to Sense and Experience but such as bears a Dispute amongst intelligent Men and Great Schollars and therefore even by the Drs own Discourse an Argument or Instance brought against the Conclusion was no Answer to the Premises of the Argument brought by Mr. G. and so all the Division he runs upon it here is perfectly frivolous Nor was Mr G. oblig'd either to grant or deny the Greek Church had Err'd but was to insist on an Answer to his Argument because the Dr had playd foul play in attacking his Conclusion when he was to answer his Proof which if admitted no Discourse could possibly proceed For let us suppose Dr. St. had been to argue and had brought this Instance of the Greek Church would he have thought it fair that Mr G. when he was to answer it should have brought the Argument he made use of in the Conference and have bid him prove that two Churches following Tradition differ'd in Faith notwithstanding his Demonstration that they could not Or would it be held a competent Answer to his late Book against the Council of Trent to bid him prove it had not follow'd Tradition notwithstanding all that a multitude of Learned Catholick Authors had writ to the contrary I took heart then indeed as he says seeing the Dr so Nonplust but 't is his own fiction that I resolv'd to grapple with his Instance it being impertinent to do it in those circumstances and so he may thank himself if he were disappointed I was ty'd to the known Laws of Dispute and not bound to dance after his Pipe when he strays from all the Clearest Methods of Reasoning I objected that himself had defended the Greek Church from Erring in his Rational Account which spoils his own Instance of a Church going upon Tradition and Erring He calls this Trifling and says the Dispute was about Mr G 's Argument Yes but these words were not brought to abet his Agreement but expressly to shew the Drs Inconsonancy to himself and his Unconscienciousness in arguing from the Greek Churches Erring whereas it was his Opinion it did not Err. And tho' Mr G's Answer may be pretended not to be so pat to the particular Demand yet it was apposit to the main Point that no Church did at once adhere to Tradition and Err at the same time For which I gave my reason because if each Successive Generation follow'd their Fathers Tradition from the beginning the last Son must believe as the first did This was too hot to handle and so 't is answer'd with Good Night to the Greek Church which is Learned beyond expression Lastly upon my saying He might as well have instanc't in the Latin Church it self without running so far as Greece he takes hence an occasion to accept of the Challenge tho' it did not look like one being only spoke occasionally and threatens us not with a bare instance but a whole Book against us He may use his pleasure tho' I must tell him it looks but cowardly to threaten when he 's running away from his business undertaken and not yet perform'd and leaving the Absolute Certainty of his poor destitute Faith in the suds One would think it had been the more Compendious Way to overthrow our Cause to answer five or six lines if he could have done it But he had a mind to be at another Work more suitable to his Quoting Genius and hop'd to draw us after him from a Conclusive and short way of Discoursing to an Endless one of answering every frivolous misunderstood or misapply'd Citation 71. But now he will shew us how 't is Possible to adhere to Tradition yet err A hard Task if apply'd to our business For since to adhere to Tradition is still to believe what was deliver'd to shew that those who adhere to Tradition do err is to shew that they who still believ'd the same Christ taught did not believe the same Christ taught A Point so Evident that his Reflecter could not but grant it Yet let the Dr alone I dare hold a good wager on his side that he can by his confuting Method his Logick prove direct Contradictions to be True without any difficulty or as he calls it here with an Easy Distinction He begins with two Senses of Adhering to Tradition One of adhering to it as the Rule and Means of conveying matters of Faith. The other for adhering to the very Doctrin taught at first and truely convey'd down since by Tradition That is there are two sorts of Tradition or Delivery One is Tradition the Other is not Tradition or Delivery but the Points deliver'd Parallel to this is his Distinction of Traditionary Christians To what purpose is it to talk Sense to a man who is resolv'd to run still so wildly into Nonsense Do but see good Reader with what care I had forestall'd this very Absurd Distinction in my Third Catholick Letter p. 4.5.9.12 and shew'd how he had deform'd Tradition into all the untoward Senses man's wit could invent by making it now signify Articles now Power now Points deliver'd yet to convince the World that he cannot or rather must not speak Sense he 's at the same work again as briskly as ever And good reason Contradictions are better Friends to him than Principles for nothing more confounds the Reader which is all he looks after and to confound him with a shew of Distinguishing which Nature intended for a way to clear things does it with a better grace The same work he makes with the word Traditionary and tho' he were told what
weakly and insincerely objected Lastly he tells us that if Divine Faith fixes not on the Infallibility of Tradition then we may have Divine Faith without it Yes by his Enthusiastick Principles but not by Connatural ways since himself must acknowledge that neither the Letter nor Sense of Scripture is Absolutely Certain without it 79. It would be very pleasant to see how this Gallant Caviller would prove St. Paul a Pelagian Heretick That Blessed Apostle affirm'd that Fides per auditum Faith comes to our knowledge by Hearing For the Certainty of the Primitive Faith was resolv'd into the Certainty of the Senses as the Means to come to the first knowledge of the Doctrin and of That Sense more particularly because Preaching was the Way of instilling Faith then Now comes Dr St. and having pray'd I suppose for Wisdom before-hand tells that Holy Apostle that Divine Faith must have Infallible Grounds but that the Certainty of the Senses is meerly Natural That he runs from Divine Motives to Humane ones He asks him smartly what Infallible Ground is there for this Divine Faith and where it fixes If not on the Certainty of the Senses then we may have Divine Faith without them If it does fix on their Certainty then Divine Faith is to be resolv'd into Naturall Means And what is this but Pelagianism Thus the stupendiously Learned and more then supernaturally Enlighten'd Dean of St. Pauls has clearly prov'd St. Paul himself an arrant Pelagian But if St. Paul should answer as I do that he spoke not of Divine Faith or the Doctrin of it as in it self or as 't is formally supernatural but only of Divine Faith as standing under Natural Means for us to come to know it then it would follow that it would require higher Grounds to be resolv'd into as 't is Divine yet for all that that he could have no Faith at all nor certainty of it unless by Miracle but by virtue of these Natural Means to give him knowledge of it But our Verball Controvertist never reflects that there may be divers Resolutions made of Faith as 't is controverted according to the nature or exigency of the Dispute Against a Deist that holds it not Divine it is to be resolv'd into the Divine Authority and this must be shewn to be engag'd for it by those Motives of Credibility which prove it to be such But this is quite besides our present Dispute since both parties grant it and consequently all his Discourse here is quite besides the purpose 80. I doubt not but the Dr would have had another fling at St. Paul for Pelagianism in case he would not allow that a Pious Disposition of the Will did make the verdict of the Sense of Hearing Certain and piece out the Deafishness of the Auditours when that Sense had some Imperfection as he does here by making me a Pelagian for saying the Will 's Assistance cannot make an Argument if it be defective Especially should we both say that Dr St's Moral Qualifications Purity of Heart Humility of Mind and Prayer for Wisdom would not make a deaf Ear hear well or a bad Argument conclude For both our cases are perfectly Parallel since we both speak of the Way to come at the Knowledge of Divine Faith. But his Logick I see would have his Readers when an Argument drawn from meer Nature is propos'd which is short of Concluding let it be in Physicks Metaphysicks or what he will for it alters not our case shake their heads very piously and answer Truly Sir tho' I see your Reason does not conclude or satisfy my Understanding that the thing you would prove is True yet out of a Pious Inclination to the Cause I will call in my Wills Assistance and out of pure Goodness think it does conclude and that the Thing is for all that really True. I would wish him by all means to maintain still that 't is Pelagianism to deny that the Inconclusiveness of an Argument is supply'd by the kind-heartedness of the Will. Nothing in the World but this can justify all his Insignificant Proofs make them pass for valid good ones 'T is ridiculous he says to alledge that I resolve all into Christ's and the Apostles Teaching Why Is it not agreed on between us that Christ is God and his Doctrine Divine And is not this to bring us to Divine Faith if we prove it to be His Doctrine Or is it not enough for our purpose when 't is confess'd on both sides that Christ's Doctrine is Divine Why is it then ridiculous to profess we do this Because Caelestius Pelagius did the very same And so I must be a Pelagian still that 's resolv'd on Those Hereticks did indeed pretend their Heresies were Christ's Doctrin But this is no particularity in Them for every Heretick since Christ's time did the same else they had not been Hereticks but Pagans Iews Turks or Deists But we go no further upon this Principle than they did Why Did they ever alledge that the Tradition or Immediate Testimony of the Body of the Church deliver'd down their Doctrin for Christ's Or durst they disgrace themselves by going about to avail themselves of such an open and Notorious Lye This he should have prov'd solidly and clearly But instead of proving it he barely says it and who will at this time of day believe his word And yet if he does not this every sincere Reader must see that he has sacrific'd his sincerity to his spite against Catholicks and judges Slander and Calumny no Sin. Observe here by the way his consistency with himself In his Second Letter to Mr G. p. 9. he affirm'd that we resolv'd All into meer Humane Faith and here he confesses we resolve all into Christ's and his Apostles Teaching Had not I then good reason to ask him if Christ was a meer Man it falling in so Naturally Yet he is mighty angry at those words and says he gave no occasion for them and imputes it to Malice I do assure him that I us'd those words to shew that by resolving All into Christ's Teaching I resolv'd Faith finally into what is confessedly Divine Why he should take it so to heart or apply it to himself when it was not in the least intended his conscience best knows However it puts him to make a Profession of his Faith in that point which I heartily pray may be sincere 82. The last point which he thinks fit to take notice of omitting by his favour many which were more concerning is that the Council of Trent disowns a power of making Implicit Articles of Faith contain'd in Scripture to become Explicit by its Explaining the Sense of them He proves this Because the Church of Rome doth not pretend to make New Articles of Faith whereas to make Implicit Doctrines to become Explicit is really so to do This a little varies from what he said in his Second Letter nor can I find a
word of making New Articles of Faith pretended there and I am sure there are none such in that place Yet still he would put it upon the Council to introduce some Articles by new Explications of Scripture but he only says it not proves it and so till Proof comes let it rest upon his bare Word which signifies little Other Answers I have given to this Point Third Cath. Letter p. 64.65 which since he has taken no notice of I shall presume they stand good in their full force 83. He concludes with these words But because the Council of Trent doth pretend to Apostolical Tradition for the Points there determin'd and the shewing that it had not Catholick and Apostolick Tradition is the most Effectual Confutation of the present Pretence of Oral Tradition I shall reserve that to another Discourse part whereof I hope will suddenly be publish't Now who sees not that since a Demonstration for the Infallibility of Tradition is the most Effectual and most Compendious Proof that is Imaginable and unless it be answer'd most necessarily concludes the Descent of that Faith from Christ which is held upon it and that the Evidence of such a Proof consisting in the Necessary Connexion of the Terms which are us'd in it has the Self-same force whether the Council of Trent or any Council had ever been held or not who sees not I say that this is a meer plausible Shift to avoid the shock of our Arguments and to run the Field by the still-necessary and Still Friendly Assistance of his former bad Logick viz. of Arguing against the Conclusion instead of Answering the Premisses And therefore that his proper Conclusion had he spoken out Candidly should have been this But because I was neither able to shew the Absolute Certainty of Christian Faith by my Principles nor to make out that the Rule I have Assign'd does influence any Point of Faith so as to prove it to be Absolutely Certain that 't is Christs Doctrin nor yet able to Answer their close Arguments against the Absolute Certainty of Mine or for the Absolute Certainty of the Catholique Faith therefore to come off handsomely before I utterly lose my Credit I think it the safest and wisest Expedient to let the Premisses alone or pass over them with some sleight touches and to Combat the Conclusion by Quoting of Authors and tacking the Two disperate Matters together as well as I can so to make a kind of Transition from the One to the Other I will set my self to write against the Council of Trent A business which will take mightily in this Iuncture Nor will many Readers much concern themselves in case they should observe it how I have dropt the Question or shrunk away from my Adversary And so a good Journey to the Drs Rambling Pen till I meet him next in the Field where we fought Last Whither in the behalf of Christian Faith whose Certainty he has here Vndermin'd I do recall and Challenge him The Concluding SECTION 84 HItherto of Doctor St's Sins of Commission viz. of his Groundless and Impertinent Calumnies his manifest Falshoods against his own Knowledge his constant prevarication from the Question in every respect and this quite thorough his whole Answer his bad Logick laid open in many Instances his Shifts and Evasions his Paralogisms Cavils and Contradictions Now follow his Sins of Omission By which I do not mean his Failing to give a good Answer to those Arguments he thought fit to take notice of for this as has been shewn in every Particular would spread one Universal Blot over his whole Book but his not so much as Attempting to give the Reasons I alledg'd to prove them or other particular Omissions charg'd upon him any Answer at all or taking the least notice of them 85. To begin with my First Catholick Letter or the Answer to Dr. St's First Letter to Mr. G. Why might we not know the particular Reason how Mr. T came to be satisfy'd this being of such special Concern and laying so precise an Obligation upon us to clear that Point but changing his making a Secret of Mr. T 's convincing Reason which was requir'd of him p. 3.4 into his making a Secret of the Ground of his Certainty p. 16. Why did he turn it off to Mr. G. to shew that the Doctor 's Protestants have not Absolute Certainty of their Faith when as he had taken it upon himself to shew they had but instead of giving a Reason for that carriage of his to deny his own express words First Letter p. 7. which put the Proof upon Mr. G. and then to turn Absolute Certainty of his Protestant Faith which consists of a determinate Number of Points into Certainty of Scripture which perhaps may not signify so much as one Point of Faith unless he shew Absolute Certainty that the Letter of it is rightly understood in those Texts that contain those Points which he is so far from shewing that he not so much as goes about it Why no Reply to our Proof that Mr. G. has by doing his own work at the same time perform'd what the Doctor would needs have put him upon viz. prov'd that Doctor St's Church has no Certainty of its Faith Why conceal'd he the true Meaning of the word Traditionary given by us but took it purposely in another Sense and then rally'd upon it Why no notice taken of our Explication of those words If they follow'd this Rule declar'd by us to mean the Believing still the same which had forestall'd his ill-grounded Descant upon them p. 108.109 and why no regard to that most Important Conditional Proposition but starting aside to ways how Errours might come in by not following it which instead of Answering asserts and makes good our Tenet Why no Reply to our several Reasons brought against his intollerably bad Logick shewing at large from many heads the absurdity of it and that the Subject of our Argument as impugn'd by his Instance was not at all like Zeno's denying of Motion which Reasons had prevented and utterly defeated his pittifull Defence of it here Why nothing to the unavoidable force of our Argument manifesting it to be Self-evident that Tradition is a Certain Rule Why does he not justify his palpable Prevarication from the whole Question laid out at large prov'd against him p. 21.22 Why not a word of Answer to my Discourse shewing Absolute Certainty Infallibility to be the same Why does he no where distinguish himself his Protestants from all sorts of Hereticks owning the same Common Rule by shewing us by what Particular Means he is more Certain of the True Sense of Scripture then they were and thence differenc't from them by his having some particular Rule or Way to arrive at True Faith which they had not This being a Point of the Highest Importance in our Controversy and most Earnestly prest upon him over and over And
his 12th Page he will needs repeat our Tenet or as he with much Formality is pleas'd to call it the Lesson I have taught him which put into distinct Sentences he makes to be this 1. Your Churches Authority is Human Authority Answ. Our Church'es Authority is also Divine and as such 't is the Rule of Faith to those who are already Faithfull But in our Controversy which is about the Way for men to come to Faith 't is not proper to alledge any other than her Natural or Humane Authority consisting of a vast Body of Men both able and oblig'd to testify such open matters of Fact as is the Delivery of a Doctrin so Qualify'd by those that educated us And the Reason is because 'till men come at Christ's Faith they can only guide themselves by their Reason whence the Credibility of that Authority must be provable by Reason against those who shall deny it 2. He says It has force to prove the Truths which depend upon it Yes it has force to prove to us this matter of Fact that those Truths descended from Christ but not the Intrinsical Truth of any one Article in it self To do this is the work of Divine Revelation not of Humane Authority 3. It has this force and concludes against such as own its Veracity but it deserves no Assent further than Reason gives it to deserve Well then since we bid him guide himself by his Reason e're he admits it will he at least admit it and yield assent to it when Reason shews him it deserves it This is all we desire of him and 't is a very reasonable request in us for it only desires he would not renounce his Reason and forfeit his Manhood Now come his Conclusions from mistaken Premisses Hence I conclude Seeing We admit not your Church'es Authority nor own its Veracity it proves nothing to us nor concludes any thing against us From what Antecedent is this Conclusion drawn Did we ever press him to admit it blindly the Point is will he renounce his Reason when it tells him this Authority ought to be believ'd This is our Tenet and should have been taken in e're he had inferr'd any thing at all but then it would have marr'd his Conclusion and his admirable Method of taking every Discourse of mine to pieces and never putting it together again and so it was thought expedient to neglect it His next Conclusion is Seeing Articles of Faith depend not on Humane Authority your Church'es Authority can have no effect on Humane Nature to oblige to a Belief of them Where we have near as many Faults as Words For First Articles of Faith in themselves or as to their Intrinsicall Verity depend only on the Divine Authority as their Formall Motive but as to us or as to our knowledge of those Articles Now which were taught by Christ long since which is our only business a successive Human Authority the most strongly supported of any that ever was in the World to convey down a matter of Fact of Infinit Concern is the properest way to Attest them whence all those Articles in that regard do depend on that Human Authority after the same manner as even himself also holds the Book of Scripture does Secondly What an Incredible Folly is it not to distinguish between those Articles which were Taught at First and so are Divine as in Themselves and the same Articles as Knowable by us Now to have been Taught Long ago nor to reflect that our Controversy only treats of them under this latter Consideration Nor to know that as thus Consider'd All Articles of Faith not only May but Must necessarily depend on Human or Naturall Means since without Such they cannot be introduc't into our understandings connaturally nor by any way but by Immediate Inspiration which is perfect Enthusiasm Nor Lastly not to advert that even the Divinity of Faith depends in some sort on Naturall Means St. Paul tells us Faith comes by Hearing and if so then Faith depended on Hearing as to its coming to be Known by us Nay as Christian Faith was Formally from God it depended thus on Miracles which could not be known to be such but by their being above the Course of Nature nor could they be known to be above the Course of Nature unless the course of Nature it self had been fore-known the Knowledge of which is only Naturall or Human. Thirdly His following words in this Ridiculous Conclusion shew him utterly ignorant of our whole Question otherwise he could not with any degree of sincerity have put it upon us that we hold the Human Authority of our Church obliges to a Belief of the Articles themselves whereas what we hold is that it only obliges us to Assent they came from Christ or were inerrably deliver'd down by the Churche's Testimony Fourthly By leaving out all mention of what 's most particularly our Tenet in this Point he puts it upon us to hold that Human Authority has effect upon Human Nature of it self whereas we never presum'd or affirm'd it either had or ought to have any but by Vertue of the Reasons which vouch't for its Veracity nay I both Affirm'd and Prov'd the direct Contrary His Third Conclusion is Seeing all its Credit depends on its Intrinsicall Reasons produc't till they be produc't we are not bound to give any Credit to it No nor bound to mind them much it seems nor Answer them fully when produc't as appears by his omitting the most forcible Reasons for the Certainty of Tradition's Continuance as was Lately shown But why is this made a distinct Conclusion or disjoynted from the rest whereas it was the most necessary and Essentiall part of our true Tenet Because the Method he so Religiously observ'd throughout his Dialogue-Answer which is to shatter asunder the intire Sense of every passage would not allow it His Fourth Conclusion is When these Reasons shall be produc't its Testimony has but the Nature of an Externall Motive not of an Intrinsicall Ground Answ. Intrinsicall Ground To what To Christian Faith as 't is Divine 'T was never pretended nor can it belong in any regard to our Question since 't is not disputed between us but Acknowledg'd by us both that Christ's Doctrin is Such Means he then 't is not a Proper Medium to prove Christ's Faith deriv'd to us who live now How can he even pretend to shew that so vast a Testimony is not proper to Attest a Notorious Matter of Fact viz. what Doctrin was Deliver'd immediately before and this throughout every Age Year or Day Again what means he when he says Testimony is not an Intrinsicall Ground What man in his senses ever said or thought it We spoke indeed of Intrinsicall Grounds to prove the Credibleness of that Testimony but not a word have we even hinting that Testimony it self is an Intrinsical Ground to any thing If he will needs be talking Nonsense let him take it to himself and not put it upon me
Lastly why is not an Extrinsicall Ground or Testimony prov'd to be such by Intrinsicall Reasons sufficient in our case This should have been shewn but for this very reason 't is not so much as taken notice of either by him or his Master In a word he uses some of our words taken asunder from the Context of our intire Sense then blends them confusedly together on any fashion without any kind of order or respect to the true Question he gives us Relative words without telling us what they relate to he puts upon us Tenets we never advanc't or held but the direct Contrary And the witty Gentleman would still persuade his Reader he is Repeating his Lesson I have Taught him when as all the while he deserves more then a Ferula for his rehearsing it wrong or rather saying it Backwards Then follows his Grand Conclusion as the Flower of all the foregoing ones which we may be sure hits the Point Exactly And therefore says he either your Position overthrows your Churche's Authority or It your Position Most Excellent My Position is about Tradition which is the Self-same thing with the Churche's Authority and this precious Scribbler will needs have the same thing to destroy it self A fit Upshot for a Discourse without sence 89. We see by this one Instance there is scarce one Line nor many Significant Words in this half-page of his but runs upon Enormous Mistakes And does he think I have nothing else to do but to stand Rectifying still what he all along takes such Care and Pains to put into Disorder Especially since those few things that are pertinent are abundantly spoke to in my Third Catholick Letter and this present Reply I must intreat the Dr to excuse me if I have no mind to break his Young Controvertists and teach them how to Manage Mr G. did him I hope no disparagement in making me his Substitute but 't is not so gentile in him to set such a Fresh Man upon my back I 'le have nothing to do with his little Iourney-Men or Apprentices till the World be satisfy'd that their Master himself is a better Artist And if it shall appear that even the Learned Dr St. is able to make nothing of so bad a Cause 't is neither Discreditable to me nor any Disadvantage to the Truth I am defending if I neglect such a Sixth-rate Writer who confesses himself unworthy to carry his Books after him 90. The Omissions in answering my Second Catholick Letter are as many as that Letter it self contains since his untoward Method renders all his Talk Twitching and Girding at little sayings of mine utterly insignificant Whence that whole Treatise as 't is in it self stands yet Intire unless the Dr can shew by his new Logick that to mince half a Book into Fragments is to Answer the Whole 91. Thus the Dr has trickt off the answering my Second Cath. Letter But his Omissions in Answering the Third are both numerous and most highly Important and he is to render an Account of all this long Roll of his Neglects Why did he not clear himself of his altering there the Notion of Tradition into Articles and Powers of doing this or that shewn at large p. 4.5 Why answers he not the several Reasons proving against him that Tradition brings down the Sense of Christ's Doctrin and not only Common Words in the Clear Delivery of which Sense consists one of the main Properties of a Rule viz. its Plainness to People of all sorts who are to be regulated by it And why instead of performing this necessary Duty does he p. 43. after having vapour'd that 'T is bravely said if it could be made out does he not so much as mention the Reasons by which it was made out but ramble into such Nonsense p. 43. that He and his Party who are Deserters of Tradition cannot mistake it that Tradition or the Church'es Human Testimony being the Rule of Faith is a part of Christ's Doctrin c. Why no Excuse for his deforming the meaning of that plain word Tradition into many unsutable Significations and putting it in all shapes but its own Why no Defence of his most ridiculous Drollery in paralleling Tradition or the Testimony of God's Church to the Relation of two or three partial Witnesses of his own side in favour of their fellows Or for his Inconsonancy to himself his Insincerity in thus perverting it still when he was to impugn it whenas he took it very right when it made for himself Why not a word to my Clearest Demonstration that 't is impossible but Tradition must bring down a Determinate Sense of the Tenets it delivers which he answers not at all but only brings against Conclusion an Instance of the Corinthians and Arlemonites p. 45.46 which as far as it pretends they pleaded Tradition for their Heresy taking Tradition as we do for the Immediate Testimony of the Church is both False and Senseless Why no Answer at all to that most Concerning Point prov'd against him that the Church has Power to declare diverse Propositions to be of Faith not held distinctly before without any prejudice at all to Tradition And why no notice taken of my most Evident Proof that we make Christian Faith as 't is Formally Divine rely on the Divine Authority notwithstanding our Tenet that the Church'es Humane Authority is the Means to bring us to the knowledge of Christ's Doctrin and that the asserting this Later is not to overthrow the Church'es Authority in matters of Faith as he objected As also that the Venerable F. W. was not an Adversary to our way and that Lominus his Book the Dr rely'd on was no Argument that my Doctrin was faulty even in the opinion of my Judges Why gave he no reply to any of these but still run on with his former Calumnies as if nothing had been produc't to shew his manifest and Wilfull Mistakes Why no Answer to my Reasons proving at large the impotency of his malice in charging Pelagianism more than to repeat a few of words for a shew that this Humane Authority leads us to what 's Divine and there stopping whereas the very next words Yet not by its own force but by vertue of the Supposition agreed upon that Christ's Doctrin is such had spoil'd all his pretence Why no notice taken of my Citation out of Errour Nonplust writ against himself fifteen years ago which forestall'd all his rambling Mistakes and by consequence shew'd him strangely Insincere in dissembling his knowledge of my Tenet so expressly declar'd 92. Why no Plea alledg'd to justify his shuffle from the Grounds of his Protestant Faith in particular to the Grounds of Christian Faith in Common nor to excuse his next Shuffle and Nonsense to boot in making Faith by vertue of an id est to signify the Grounds for his Ground of Faith and turning Certainty of Scripture into a long ramble viz.
and pursu'd with so many forcible Arguments that there can be no plainer Confession that his Cause is lost than not to attempt to answer them especially since the hinge of the whole Controversy depends upon it It was his Concern too to avow or disavow his dear Friend Dr. Burnet's Position making his Sober Enquirer judge of Councils but he would not be so candid Why declines he the giving us satisfaction that he does indeed hold the Testimony for Scripture Absolutely Certain by making out from the Nature of the Things why it must be so See Reader how it was there demanded of him and urg'd upon him to do himself and his Faith that Honour and Credit Yet he is perfectly deaf to all sollicitations of that kind And the Reason is because should should he do this as he ought to do he must necessarily make the Church Infallible and rely upon her Infallibility for the Certainty of Scriptures Letter and should it come to be prov'd that 't is easier to transmit down the same Doctrin than an Exact Copy this would oblige his Sober Enquirer to be led by her in matters of Faith. A condescendence not to be submitted to by his Fanatick Friends both because their First Principle is to think themselves wiser than the Church as also because to prove this would make the Knowledge of Christ's Doctrin too strong by Proofs and Outward Means which their Gifted and Inspir'd Genius impossible ever to be prov'd but by doing Miracles cannot away with To proceed Why clears he not himself from being oblig'd by his Principles to own a Brotherhood with all Hereticks who profess to follow Scripture as much as he does by shewing some Absolutely Certain Means to distinguish his Faith from theirs Did not the doing this mainly concern his Credit when it was severely objected and shewn that he had given just occasion for this Suspition of all comprehending Principles Why no Account given of the Absolute Certainty of Particular Texts and the most significant Words in each of them as well as of the Canon or Number of Books without which let the Canon be as Certain as it will 't is impossible for him to know assuredly whether what he holds be True Faith or Heresy Why no Answer to my Objection that to be the Word of God is not sufficient to make Scripture a Rule unless it has withall Perspicuity or Clearness to give those who read it and rely on it Absolute Certainty of its true Sense or Faith in those high Mysteries and Spiritual Points controverted between the Church and her Deserters Why no Reply to my Confutation of his smartest or rather Only Argument to prove Scripture a Rule given by me particularly to every Branch of it Is not a business of such high Consequence worth his Defence his whole Cause as far as 't is manag'd by him standing or falling by his maintaining or deserting that main Proof for it Why does he give us no Grounds that elevate Faith as it depends on the Rule ascertaining us it came from Christ above Opinion whenas it was charg'd upon him that he had no such Grounds and he was loudly call'd upon to produce them but to aggravate the fault to call here p. 41. all the Points of Christian Faith there spoken of Particular Opinions Why takes he no notice of the several Senses of the word Rule and in which of those Senses it is taken properly and why it must necessarily be taken in such a Sense in our Controversy but instead of doing this run on wilfully mistaking it still Why not a word in Confutation of an Infallible Iudge as that Point is stated by me Why did he not accept my Challenge that he could not shew me any one Solid Proof in his whole Treatise that he could maintain since the doing this had been a great Blurr to me and a high Credit to himself nay the very offering at it might have kept our Readers in some Suspence whether he were perfectly baffled or no whenas his total declining it is a plain Confession he does not think fit to stand to any one Proof he has produc't Why no Reply to my Discourse demonstrating that a Rule must be the Immediate Light to know the Thing in order to which 't is to regulate us and therefore that however he pretends to Scripture yet his own Interpretation or the Means he uses to Interpret it is unavoidably his Rule As also that the Testimony of all Christian Churches did not recommend to him such a Rule of Faith and that a Testimony for the Letter confess'd by himself to be Fallible stood in great need of his Logick to make what 's built on it to be Absolutely Certain Why not a word to the Testimony of that Antient and Holy Father and most Solid Controvertist St. Athanasius which quite overthrows the whole Scheme of his Doctrin and makes all his Sober Enquirers Unbelievers or Infidels And why no Excuse for his not putting amongst his Helps the Iudgment of the present Church at least of the Church of England this being both an easier Help than 't is to use his other painfull Methods to understand Scripture right more agreeable to the Order of the world especially since he stands impeacht of destroying Church-Government as to any thing belonging to Faith Why does not he shew us how Mr T. could be a Sober Enquirer whom he defends for so suddenly settling his Enquiry and Resolving tho' he did not use those Means which the Dr himself affirm'd his Sober Enquirers were bound to use especially since this carriage of the Dr's shews him very willing to contradict at pleasure even his own Principles and to dispense with those Obligations he himself had impos'd when it suits with his Interest Whence every considering man must necessarily conclude he holds not heartily and steadily to any Principle at all Why should not his Sober Enquirers trust the Church rather than themselves and why no Answer to the Reasons why they should Why does not he confute my Discourse proving that a Judge proceeding upon an Inerrable Rule is Infallible and that 't is no prejudice to the Church that those whom she has cast out or are her Enemies deny her to be such Why answers he not my Particular Reasons against his kind of Judgment of Discretion or the Reasons given for ours but makes impertinent Discourses of his own at random without regarding either our Objections or our Proofs nay when he had occasion without acknowledging their Distinction but most unconscionably pretending them to be the same whereas their Difference and perfect Opposition to one another is laid out there very largely and particularly And now Gentlemen I request even those who are the most Partial of his Friends to count over the Pages cited in the Margent and if you find by an exact Review that I have neither misreckon'd