FAITH VINDICATED FROM Possibility of Falshood OR The Immovable Firmness and Certainty of the Motives to Christian Faith Asserted Against that Tenet which denying Infallibility of Authority subverts Its Foundation and renders It Uncertain Desistes adversus alios dicere caeterùm ita pro Veritate loquêris ut ea quae dicuntur argui refellique non possint Dionys. Areopag Epist. 6. LOVAIN A. D. MDCLXVII Introduction THough nothing be more natural than that all who deny the Certainty of the Rule of Faith should deny also the Certainty of Faith it self since the Certainty of this later depends on the Certainty of the former and it is impossible the Conclusion should be held Certain unless the Premisses be held so too yet the conceit which the Generality of those who call themselv's Faithful or Christian have of their Faith and consequently the nature of that kind of Assent is such that nothing can sound more horridly and blasphemously to their ears than bluntly and without disguise to say That all their Faith may possibly be a Ly for any thing any man living absolutely knows For a certain goodness of Rational Nature has fixt this apprehension in them that since the World is made for the Salvation of Mankind it is unsuitable to the Wisdom and Goodness of Providence which has furnisht us with means of Certainty for our inferiour concerns that the Principles on which Eternity depends should fall short of that Certainty and consequently of strength and efficacy to move carry us on to a steady pursuit of that greatest and in comparison onely Interest Notwithstanding so unresistible is the force of this evident truth that whoever has deserted the Catholick Church and her Rule of Faith Tradition can have no absolute Certainty of Faith that is indeed no true Faith for that truly is Faith which the Generality of those who use the Word mean by it that the more intelligent amongst them conscious of the manifest weakness of their Grounds are necessitated in their Controversies when they should defend their Faith in plain terms to disgrace and betray it chusing rather candidly to confess it to be all a possible Falshood than to undertake that impossible performance to maintain that it is an Absolute Truth I cannot resemble this Natural Conceit of the perfect Certainty of Faith inbred as it were in the Generality of those who have had even a glimmering of Christianity to any thing so well as to the apprehension the former World had of a Godhead For as natural Instinct forc't those who had not light to know the True God to affix the Notion of a Deity to some false one as some eminent Heroe the Sun Thunder Fire nay there was nothing so ridiculous but they would make a God of it rather than forgoe the tenet of a Soveraign Power so deeply rooted in them by Nature so our modern Misbelievers rather than they will relinquish their Opinion that Faith and the means to know the way to Heaven is absolutely-Certain springing naturally from the conceit they have that God has a Providence for the Salvation of Mankind chuse to misplace the notion of the Certain means to know God's will or Rule of Faith in the most unlikely things imaginable as in a ridiculous whimsy of Fancy little better than a Dream nay sometimes in a dream it self or in the motion of some hypocondriacal vapour as do the Fanaticks others in other things seemingly wiser as in their opinions of some men they esteem Good and Learned in meerly their being educated thus by Parents who confess they have relinquish'd what themselves had been educated to in Interpretations of words by Grammatical skill which were writ long ago and in dogmatical points where every word is capable of equivocalness nay which is indeed as mad as the most extatick of them all to affirm that such words are so plain to every Reader that none can miss the right sense of them All which though plainly confuted by this Principle which Nature teaches the rudest that That can never be a way which many follow to their power and yet the greater part are misled joyn'd to their plain Experience that many followers of these wayes exceedingly differ yet so prevalent is the force of the other Truth that they will wink at this later to embrace that insomuch that none of those I except Seekers by what name soever they are call'd as not being pretenders to Faith but were they ask'd whether they be not as Certain of their Faith as that they live would readily and heartily answer affirmatively I mean those of every sort who follow meerly the Guidance of uncorrupted nature in this affair Notwithstanding as in the Pa gan World There were found many Witty men who out of Unacquaintance with the True Godhead and the Unworthyness of the False Gods then in vogue or out of a conceit of many misgovernments in the world speculated themselves out of their natural notions and went about to deny absolutely there was any God at all so it happens that amongst those who have deserted the Catholick Church there are found diverse men of speculative and searching brains who out of Unacquaintance with or at least their sleightly penetrating the nature of the Catholick Rule of Faith the Living Voice and Practice of the Church or TRADITION and withal seeing the Vanity and manifest Inability of their own pretended Rules to ascertain them absolutely their Faith is True joyn'd with the experienc't Disagreement in Faith amongst diverse Pretenders to it would speculate themselves out of their Natural Christianity and deny any Absolute Certainty at all of Faith or the way to Salvation contenting themselves with a Probability in the Grounds 't is built on miscall'd by them Moral Certainty confessedly consistent with a Possibility of Falshood Which kind of Grounds permits that perhaps all may chance to be shown to morrow a meer Illusion and a bold Lye and all the Christian World hitherto to have been possibly led by the nose by a False Impostùre nay to have held that Imposture Most Sacred and preferr'd the adhering to it before all the Goods Life or Nature could bestow How near this wicked Tenet approaches to Atheism appears hence that 't is next to the Denial of a God-head to deny that in proper speech we know Him or the Way to Him Yet this is the very Position of those who put a Possibility of Falshood in Faith since none can truly be said to know that to be true which he sees and acknowledges may not be true at the same time This Seed of Infidelity sown when the Rule of Faith was renounc'd first dar'd to appear publickly above Ground in the writings of Mr. Chillingworth and the L. Falkland and though had it been propos'd barefac't in another occasion it could have hop'd for no welcome Reception even amongst the Generality of the Protestants themselves who were made believe ever since their Breaking from the Church their Faith
of the Mysteryes themselves exceedingly enhauncing the other 't is manifest there would be a high disadvantage on Faith's side Nay granting a pretty high Probability which is perhaps as much as they care for yet the not-onely Improbability but seeming-Impossibility of the Mysteries of Faith if taken not as standing under Authority but as Objects of our Humane Reason as in this counter-ballancing case they ought to be would quite overpoise the Probable motive and incline the Soul strongly towards Dissent unless Interest Custom or some other Affection come in to the Assistance of the weaker Motive Printing it in a bigger Letter and diminishing the difficulty in the Object by not letting it be considered or penetrated that is by hindring the working of Right Reason Now in this case if this Discourse holds a Protestant may with a safe Conscience lay odds and wager two to one at least his Faith is all a Fâ—lshood A strange Impiety but yet the natural Consequence of that impious Tenet Faith is possible to be False as this is the genuine Sequel of denying the right Rule of Faith § 10. The same is deduc'd from the very notion of a Martyr and the proper signification of that word which is to be a witness and this as appears by his Circumstances of all witnesses the most Solemn and serious and the perfectest under that Notion that can be imagin'd as engaging not onely his word but his Life and dearest Bloud for what he testifies Now all witnessing or Attestation being most evidently of what the Witnesser knows to be True and nothing sounding more unnaturally or being more disagreeable to the nature of that kinde of Action than to have a Likelyhood for its object or to witness what he knows not as will appear by the constant practice of it in all other occasions it follows that a Martyr or Witness of the Truth of Christs Faith must know it to be True that is he must know it to be more than likely to be True and consequently nothing being more Impossible than that one can know what is not Impossible not to be True or to be False § 11. No less unnaturally would it sound should we gather together and make use of all the Equivalent Speeches to this Proposition Faith is Possible to be False such as are There is no Certain way to Heaven No man knows there is a Heaven a Hell a Iesus Christ a Trinity c. No man sees any reason securing Faith from being a lye The Ground of all our Hope is unstable and may be overthrown Absolutely speaking it may be there is no such thing as that which Christians are to profess and ought to dye for It may be Points of Faith are so many lyes and false as so many old-Wives Tales The Light of Faith may be Spiritual Darkness and Errour What we hold to come from God the Author of all Truth may perhaps come from the Devil the Author of all Lyes All our Supernatural Truths may be Diabolical Falshoods Faith has no Principles The Points of Faith are not Truths but Likelihoods onely These and innumerable such others are all Equivalent Periphrases to this Proposition Faith is Possible to be False as in this Treatise has been manifested but how horrid and blasphemous needs no proof but thebare rehearsing of them § 12. From the Language and Practise of the Generality of the Faithful professing Faith we come next to the Practise of the Wits of Christianity not proceeding as Speculaters and Scholars a most trifling impertinent Topick when we are speaking of Faith yet most frequently us'd by our Adversaries especially Mr. Stillingfleet and Mr. Pool who are obstinately bent to practise that wilful mistake but as Christians or Faithful and this not only acting or speaking in Abstraction from Humane Knowledg but as in direct Opposition to it and as it were in defiance and despight of it Now with these intelligent Persons 't is very solemn after by penetrating the Grounds of Faith they have come to embrace Faith itself immediately to discard renounce all Tenets opposit to the said Faith how Certain soever they held them formerly Nay to stand with a mind prepared to disassent to anypiece of Humane Learning how Scientifical soever it look't which they saw evidently to thwart any of those Believed Truths Making account it was their duty captivare Intellectum in obsequium Fidei to captivate their Understandings to the Obedience of Faith or to yeild them totally up by an absolute and perfect Assent to the Truth of those Mysteries and not to heed or credit any objections or Proposals of Humane Reason to the contrary when once the stable and immovable Grounds or Motives of Divine Belief that is the Rule of Faith had subdu'd their Judgments to that invincible Assent but to rest well assur'd that all reasons were fallacious and all Positions False which went against those Sacred and Establish't Truths This was ever their unanimous and constant Profession particularly the Fathers are full of Expressions of that kind An Evident Argument that as Christians they ever held Faith and it's Grounds Impossible to be False for otherwise they had bin oblig'd by Honesty and their love of Truth not to have so readily rejected their formerly-conceited Truths nor to have stop'd their ears so obstinately to new Reasons against Faith but as long as Faith was possible to be False they ought in due candor to have still weigh'd the Opposit Thesis and the Objections perpetually alledg'd against the strength of Faith and it's Rule and consider'd which was more likely to be true and not have still concluded so partially on Faiths side and obstinately resolv'd to hear nothing against it bearing themselves as if all must needs be True which Faith's Rule teacheth us that is indeed as if Faith could not possibly be false § 13. Whence follows that all who hold Faith is possible to be false ought in Conscience and their natural duty or love to Truth remain Seekers all their Lives For however they may hope at present that what they adhere to is true yet since they hold 't is possible to be false for any thing they know they ought the affair and its concern being so weighty to be still examining it's Grounds and casting about to see whether this Possibility of Falshood which they already see be not indeed Actually such though as yet they see it not or at least whether some other Profession may not after long consideration appear less possible to be False and another still less than that that so they may go as near Truth as they can weighing discreetly and impartially what Deism Paganism Turcism and such others wisely represented without their Poetical Fancyes and Fooleries can say for themselves Or lastly if they come to such a Scepticism in Religion which I doubt is the true case as to judg such a quest lost labour because when all 's done the sullen Dame Truth
bind the Understanding to Assent not from their relation to other extrinsecall Proofs corresponding or discorresponding with them but from the Truth of the Premisses on which they intrinsecally depend and the Goodness of the Consequence and finally by virtue of their being built on first or self-evident Principles If then the Motives one man has at present be sufficient of their own nature to oblige him acting according to right reason to judg Faith True who ever has humane Reason ought to assent upon them and if Faith be still possible to be False that is False to us that is be possible to be shown False or possible that others may have just ground to hold it so put those Grounds also in the same man and since they must be convictive of humane understanding they ought to have their formal Effect where they are that is convince it of Faith's Falshood too which however absurd yet 't is the genuine and necessary sequel of this Source of Absurdities viz. That Faith and its Rule may possibly be False How the force of this Discourse is avoidable but by alledging that no man acting according to right reason has just grounds to hold his Faith True to us or can ever have just Grounds to hold it False to us which is to deny the Possibility of Faith's Falshood to us the Opposers own position I profess my self utterly unable to discern Now he that holds these Positions is a perfect Sceptick or a Pyrrhonian as to matters of Religion since he puts an absolute desperateness of knowing the Truth on either side in that matter or subject Objection VI. When 't is said that Faith and its Rule may be False the Arguer misunderstands it to mean that we assert it may actually and indeed be shown so whereas 't is only meant by those words that 't is Possible to be False for any thing we know or for any thing the Grounds of Faith as to our knowledg evince or force to the contrary Answer I know not what Possibility to any thing means if it be not a relation to its being actually and indeed nor a Possibility of being False to us but a Possibility of being actually and indeed such that is of being actually shown so to us And all this must be forcibly admitted by him who puts no proper or necessary Causes in the Thing nor consequently Conclusive Motives in mens Understandings why this Faith now profest should necessarily be the same Christ and his Apostles taught 'T is indeed a different thing to say it may be so and to say I do not know but it may be so But he who maintains that Faith may possibly be False if he be honest knows what he maintains to be True otherwise certainly he were very wicked who would thus disgrace or diminish Faith if he did not know his Position to be a Truth whence follows that such a man must not onely say I know not but it may be False but he must if he will speak out what he thinks be oblig'd to say I know it may be False however he be loath to declare Categorically and sincerely his Tenet in so odious a Point or hazard his credit with the Generality of Christians whose Sentiment he contradicts so expresly Objection VII 'T is enough that Faith be as Certain as that the Sun will rise to morrow that America will not be drown'd as that there was a Henry the Eighth c. which are onely Morally Certain and enough for humane action since they exclude Actual Doubt or leave no suspicion of doubt behind them which as Mr. Stilling fleet tells us App. p. 76. is the highest actual Certainty which the mind of any reasonable man can desire In the same manner as it is Certainty enough for me to use my house that I am morally certain it will not fall on my head though I have no Absolute Security but it may And this kind of Certainty seems more suitable to Mankind being more easily penetrable by the Generality than the other rigorous and over-straining Certainty which seems more fit and proper for the higher sort of Speculaters than for a world of men which comprehends capacities of all degrees and sorts and the greatest part of them perhaps of little Learning Answer The Objecter must prove that all those Instances are only-Morally-Certain or Possible to be False e're he alleadge them for such That of Henry the Eighth which does indeed oblige the understanding to belief I affirm to be Practically Self evident and demonstrable and so Impossible to be False As for the rest they are utterly unfit to parallel Faith's Certitude being all of material things whose very Essence is to be mutable whereas Points of Faith being Truths and in matters not subject to Contingency are essentially incapable of being otherwise than they are that is still Truths So that far easier is it that all material nature should undergo all the Changes imaginable than that any such Truth can not be it self or the Principles on which 'c is built in us desist to be True or Conclusive In particular I would askâ— whether it be enough for Faith to be as Certain to us Christians as it was to those immediately before the Flood that the whole world should not be drown'd which exceeds the case of America's possible destruction or as it was to those after the Flood that the Sun should never stand still or go back or lastly as it is that a house of whose Firmness none had actual doubt should fall If so then the Standing of the Sun in Ioshuah's time and it's Retrogradation in Ezekiah's show the unparallelness of these Instances You 'l say these were both miraculous But this alters not the case first because it was never heard nor can it be held by any sober man that even Miracle can make such Truths Falshoods or those Motives which are of their own nature able to conclude the Truth of any such Points Inconclusive or Invalid Next because if the Motives to Faith and so Faith it self are Possible to be false for any thing we know 't is Impossible to give a satisfactory Answer to a Deist demanding how in case they should prove indeed False we can be assur'd Gods Goodness to Mankind will not step in even miraculously to discover the vanity of so universal an Illusion and the Abuse of Falshoods so absurdly imposing upon the world as to obtain the highest repute of Sacred and Divine Truths Concerning the last Instance of the Moral Certainty of a houses standing which hath been objected to me by learned Protestants as sufficient to make me act as steadily and heartily as if I had a Demonstration that it would not possibly fall besides the General Answer that Points of Faith are Truths which renders the case unparallel I reply that the two houses the one in Holborn the other in Kings Street which of late years a third in Cock Lane which of late days fell when
is a crooked path and a False Light leading it into Errour What therefore they are to do in the circumstances they have brought themselves into is to show that they destroy not the Truth of Faith that is the Nature of Faith it self and the Nature of the Way to that Truth or the Rule of Faith by putting them both possible to be False I saw they did and therefore was oblig'd to begin my discourse higher and to Settle the Existence of Faith by removing the possibâ—lâ—ty of it's Falshood that so it might be shown able to bear the having a Rule which while it was in the tottering and uncertain condition to which Mr. T. and Mr. St. had reduc't it that is in a Possibility of being all a Ly and indeed is an Actuality of being as to us not-Truth but at most a great Likelihood it was utterly incapable of Since therefore in the right method of discoursing An est ought to antecede Quid ests they have lost their right to be discours't with about the Quid est of the Rule of Faith or what is that Rule till they can justify themselves not to have destroy'd the very An est or Existence of Rule and Faith both with which Mr. T. is now challeng'd from his own words and Mr. St. from his abetting him and espousing his Patronage Both Nature therefore and Art excuse me from replying to Mr T. and Mr. St. where the just Laws of severe and rigorous Reason exactly obseru'd and so 't is onely a voluntary Courtesy not an obligatory duty to afford them or any other Writers thus Principled any Answer at all or to admit them to a dispute about this Point What is the Rule of Faith Lastly hence is inferr'd that a Conclusive Method or short way of ending all Controversies between the Catho lik Church and all her relinquishers is settled by this Doctrin For if right Faith must be Impossible to be False to us or to the Generality of Christians that is if the Motives to embrace Christianity must be thus firm then 't is Evident that that Party whose Writers renounce the having any such Motives in case those writers speak the sense of that Party is not rightly Christian or truly Faithfull but a distinct Sect from the body of right Christians or it being most unjust that the discourses of private Speculaters should be pinn'd upon the whole party if they write things deniable by that party in case any such Party should think fit to disclaim such Writers as private discoursers and their Tenet of Christian Faith's not being Absolutely Certain which they are at liberty to do and set some other writers to maintain the opposit Thesis it will quickly be seen whether they are able to bring Infallible Grounds of Faith I mean any Authority conveying Christ's Faith down to us infallibly which they must bring if they will prove Faith Impossible to be False distinct from what the Catholik Church holds to and which themselves renounc't when they forsook her Communion But that there are any such Grounds as these that is Grounds Inerrably bringing down the Knowledg of Christs Faith to us that is a Rule of Faith Impossible to be False to us I could never yet discern by the carriage writings or Discourse of any Party that dissented from the Catholick Church to be their Tenet If then it be a most Certain Truth that Faith must be Impossible to be false as I hope I have abundantly concluded 't is also most Certain that those who deny they have such a Faith do by that very denyal confess they have no True Faith nor are truly Faithfull nor of the True Catholick Church Postscript THus Reader thou seest I still endeavour candidly to put Controversy home as far as my discourse can carry it and that I have resum'd here all the scatter'd ends of voluminous disputes into one point By which means the sincere Protestant and all others out of the Church may see at a short view what they are to do If they look into their own breasts as they are Professors of Christianity they will find it writ there in Capitals That CHRISTIAN FAITH CANNOT BE AN ILLUSION ' OR FALSHOOD Also that Faith is to be held by them True and that they ought to suffer all Persecutions and Death it self for the professing it to be such This found and duly reflected on the next thing to be done is that they press their Learned men by whom they are led to shew them by such Grounds as their separation from the Catholick Church permits them to hold that is by their Grounds that Christian Faith is Impossible to be False If they can as hitherto they have told us they cannot then their Adherents may in reason hope well of their own condition till they see those attempts evidently shown invalid But if they profess still they cannot and that Faith needs no such Certainty then not onely the natural dictamen of Christianity in their own breasts ought to make them distrust the Principles of their Party found to be so destructive to Christian Faith but also I shall hope there are some Proofs in this foregoing Treatise which they will judg require an Answer I expect my Answerer will sow together many thin Rhetorical fig-leaves to cover the Deformity of that abominable Thesis that Faith may be False which to propose undisguiz'd were too openly shameful But I hope thou wilt be able to discern their sense through their Rhetorick and heedfully to mark with a stedfast Eye that in how quaint and elegant phrases soever they cloak their Tenet yet the genuin downright and natural sense of the position they go about to defend will still be this The mysteries of Christian Faith may all be so many Lies for any thing any man living absolutely knows and the whole Body of Christian Doctrine a Bundle of Falshoods I expect also many plausible Instances and pretended Parallels of the sufficiencie of inferiour degrees of Certitude for such and such particular ends But what thou art to consider is whether those Ends be Parallel or equal to that highest End and Concern of Christian Faith These things I expect but I expect not that so much as one Principle that will be found to deserve that name will ever be thought prudent to be produc't to justify a Tenet every way so Irrational and unprincipled or rather destroying the Certainty and consequently the Essence and Nature of the Best Body of Principles that either Nature or the Author of Nature and Grace himself ever instill'd into Mankind Lastly I beseech thee to obtain for me if thou canst that if any think fit to reply to this Treatise they would be perswaded to set aside all WITTY PREVARICATION and ELEGANT DROLLERY the two chief and in a manner onely Sticklers in the pretended Answer to Sure-Footing and beginning with First Principles to draw thence Immediate Consequences as I have constantly endeavour'd in this Discourse By
had the Word of God for its Basis which they honestly understood to have the same Certainty as if God himself had spoke it yet being drest up by their plausible Rhetorick and advanc'd in a circumstance when they were confuting the Papists the middle sort of Protestant Readers at unawares let it pass as meritorious to their party and the wiser sort embrac'd it both as a real Truth and also as making best for the Interest of their Cause when they would oppugn us what disservice soever it did tot he Common Cause of Religionor Christianity For they were not at all sollicitous so strangely did faction transport them so they could in their conceit overthrow the Infallibility of the Catholick Church though they reduc'd all Faith into Incertainty and all the Grounds on which 't is built into a tottering Contingency It seem'd to threaten a Mischief considerable enough to Christianity that such a pernicious Tenet should be publickly own'd in Controversy to taint the wiser sort of Readers with Atheism in which it hath been too successful but it grew intolerable when it durst take the boldness to appear in Sermons pronounc'd in very Honourable Assemblies and afterwards publish'd in Print where under the Title of The Wisdom of being Religious and a great many seeming shows and I heartily think very real Intentions of impugning Atheism by an ill-principled and in that circumstance imprudent and unnecessary confession in equivalent Terms of the possible falshood of Faith nay even as to the chiefest and most Fundamental point the Tenet of a Deity Religion receives a deep wound and Atheism an especial Advantage as may perhaps more particularly be shown hereafter I envy not that Sermon and some other Productions of Mr. Tillotson their Authour their due commendations though he be my Adversary I acknowledge that in his clear Method or disposition of his matter and the cleanness of his style which fit him for an Excellency in Preaching he hath few Equals and that had he good Principles he would deliver them as intelligibly as any man I know onely I could wish he had right Principles to Ground his discourse without which he can never make a Controvertist but must needs undermine the solid Foundation of Christianity if he undertake to meddle with the Grounds of it even while he goes about to defend it What I am on this occasion chiefly to reflect on is my own obligation which is the boldness of owning and publishing the Incertainty of Christian Faith being come to the height to assert it's Absolute Firmness and Certainty in the best manner God shall enable me and his Providence seems to require it of me at present In regard 't is expected I should reply to Mr. Tillotson 's pretended Answer to Sure Footing whose first Principle in that Reply seems to be this that what he deems the Rule of Christian Faith and consequently that Faith it self is possible to be False for by virtue of this Position which he defends p. 118 and in diverse other places implies and builds on he more oppugns my discourse than by any other Thesis whatever The contrary to which if I evince then the Protestants own confession that they have no Absolutely-Certain Ground or Rule of Faith confutes them without more ado and concludes them to have relinquish'd its onely right because its onely truly certain Rule TRADITION Yet were it not my chief design to establish the Absolute Truth of Christian Faith in it self by all the Arguments I can imagin and not meerly to confute Protestant Controvertists I needed not take the pains thus to multiply Demonstrations or even alledg so much as one For since whatever they pretend seemingly to Antiquity or Authority of Fathers by their voluminous quotations yet they will finally and heartily stand to nothing in contests about Faith as Conclusive but their own Interpretations of Scripture Which being so weak a Ground that every dayes Experience shows it's Failings an ordinary Probability is abundantly enough to overthrow their Discourses whose very Principle is not onely Improbable but evidently a False one Whence the meanest Catholick writer cannot fail to have the advantage over their Best in a Prudential man's Esteem because he cannot possibly miss of a Medium more probable than is their main Ground I declare then that my Chief End in this Treatise is to settle Christian Faith or to demonstrate that it must be truly or Absolutely Certain and that my applying it now and then to my Opposers is onely a Secundary Intention and meerly Occasional Ere I fall close to my Proofs that Faith cannot possibly be False to avoid Equivocation in the words I declare that by the word Faith I am not sollicitous whether be meant our Act of Faith or the Points of Faith that is the Object of that Act but judg that distinction wholly Impertinent in this present discourse and the reason is because I cannot affirm a Point True or False but as it stands under Motives able to make me judge assent or beleeve 't is such or such which Motives if they be such as are able to convince that the Point cannot but be so then my Iudgment or Assent tothose Points thusconcluded that is my Act of Faith cannot but be True because it depends intirely on Grounds Impossible to be False viz. those Motives But if those Motives are not of such a nature as is absolutely Conclusive the thing is then both the Thing Object Point or Proposition of Faith as being onely Knowable by virtue of them may be otherwise and also my Act of Faith or Belief of those Points may be a wrong or erroneous Iudgment that is both of them may be False To ask then if Faith can possibly be False is to ask whether the Motives laid by God's Providence for Mankind or his Church to embrace Christian Faith must be such as of their own nature cannot fail to conclude those points True and to affirm that Faith is not possible to be False is equivalently to assert that those Motives or the Rule of Faith must be thus absolutely Conclusive Firm and Immovable Hence is seen that I concern not my self in this discourse with how perfectly or imperfectly diverse persons penetrate those motives or how they satisfy or dissatisfy some particular Persons since I onely speak of the Nature of those Motives in themselves and as laid in Second Causes by Gods Providence to light Mankind in their way to Faith to which the dimness of eye-sight neglect to look at all or looking the wrong way even in many particular men is Extrinsecal and Contingent Lastly to avoid Mistake and Confusion I declare that there being two sorts of Questions one concerning the Existence of a thing call'd An est viz. whether there be any Certainly-Conclusive Rule of Faith or no and the other about what is the Certain or truely-Conclusive Rule of Faith call'd Quid est I am not now discoursing about the later that was the work
of SURE FOOTING but the former onely Indeed in my first discourse there I endeavour'd to evince this Truth from par 1. to par 17. by diverse Arguments but because Mr. T. waves the speaking to those Premises as they tend to infer my Conclusion and onely discourses a little Mistakingly against the Conclusions themselves therefore being resolv'd to write a Treatise to establish Christian Faith I thought fit to apply it to his proceedure there that so I may both more forcibly invite him to that necessary though neglected Duty and withall that by settling the Existence Nature of Faith and it's Rule first I may clear the way methodically to discover what and onely what can be the right Rule of Faith And possibly in my next Treatise if Mr. T. and Mr. St. think fit to continue on this discourse forwards by answering this they may by denying that in true speech the Points of Faith are Truths or Faith is True oblige me to begin yet higher and make use of such Mediums as are more direct and immediately fit to confute Atheism The understanding Reader will easily pardon the Speculativeness of this Treatise in great part of it if he reflects that discourses built on Intrinsecal Mediums and manag'd in the way of Severe Reason do naturally nay must necessarily bear up to the First Principles yet by the Harmony and Connexion of Truths with one another there will be found also very many Proofs fairly Intelligible by the middle sort of Prudential men especially in those Arguments which are drawn from Practice and if I flatter not my self some Proofs and those Convincing ones too suitable to every Capacity This comfort my Readers may expect to reap by this Procedure that it must forcibly shorten Disputes and bring Controversies after a while to a period unless our Adversaries be still obstinately bent to play the Drolls instead of soberly and pertinently disputing For hardly can Errour hide her deformity when she is exposed naked to the view of Rational nature in the noon-day-light of FIRST-PRINCIPLES Faith Vindicated FROM Possibility of Falshood First Eviction § 1. I Lay for the Basis of my present Discourse these two Propositions 1. Christians are oblig'd to hold firmly profess and stand to it even with the loss of their Lives that Points of Faith are TRUTHS 2. None can be thus oblig'd to hold profess and maintain that to be TRUTH which they know not to be so The later of these is as certain as that God the Imposer of this Obligation is Good For how unworthy his Infinit Goodness were it to will that rational Nature or Mankind should act irrationally by holding firmly what it has no firm Grounds to hold that is what it knows not to be so Or to sacrifice its very Being to testifie the truth of those Points concerning which if it work according to right reason the nature God has given it and deviate not from that by a weak credulity it can never be perfectly satisfy'd that they are indeed Truths which it can never be if notwithstanding all it knows they yet may possibly be Falshoods No man in true morality ought to say what he knows not much less so asseverantly as to seal it with his blood As for the former Proposition which I account most fundamental to the ensuing Discourse I am to declare that by Holding c. a thing to be a Truth I understand the holding that the thing absolutely in reality or indeed is so as I judge Whence to this Holding a Thing to be Truth 't is not enough that a man hold it is so to the best of his judgment but 't is requir'd moreover that he hold he is not deceiv'd in making such a judgment and this because he holds his Thought conformable to the Thing For this settles Verity or Truth on its proper and firm Foundation the thing and not on the unstable motions of his Judgment as does the other My first and chief Postulatum thus understood I esteem to be self-evident to all that converse with Christianity taken in its largest sense as I declar'd in my Introduction setting aside that sort of Speculaters I mean those of our modern Adversaries against whom I dispute at present and of whom the Question is now agitated whether they are indeed to be held right Christians or no. And I conceive that he who should deny it must be bound to put the contradictory Position and to affirm that Christians are not bound firmly to hold profess and maintain with the loss of their lives the TRUTH of their Faith but its Likelihood onely He that affirms this if he would be held a Christian is to be confuted by the contrary sentiment of the generality of Christians from whom he dissents in so Fundamental a Point as is the rightly understanding the nature of Faith which they profess and which it so highly imports them to know that is indeed in rightly understanding the meaning of the word Faith If he be no Christian yet hold the Godhead 't is to be demonstrated partly from the proper effects of Faith and the nature of the great difficulties both intellectual and moral which 't is ordain'd to master partly out of the nature of God and his Attributes obliging him to lay means proportion'd to an intended end or to establish every thing according to the Concern that depends on it which Concern in our case is the highest imaginable to wit the Salvation of Mankind the End of creating those very Entities on which the Certitude of Science is built Or lastly if he be an Atheist the Deity and it's Attributes are first to be demonstrated as also what is Man's summum bonum and the immediate Disposition to it and then the nature and Certitude of Faith and consequently of it's Rule are to be demonstrated Supposing then my later Postulatum to be evident to all that know there is a wise and good Governour of the world and who understand the common Principles of Morality and my former Postulatum to be clear and undeniable matter of Fact to those who converse with Christianity and therefore to have unavoidable force upon all that would be held Professors thereof I shall be bold to proceed upon them And first Logick whose proper office 't is to look into the nature and actions of our Soul as Rational and as it were to anatomize her Thoughts takes up the discourse and proceeds thus § 2. Truths are found in Propositions a Proposition consists of two Notions called Subject and Predicate and a third whose office 't is to connect them whence to know a thing to be Truth or true is to see the Connâ—xion between the two Notions spoken of or to see that the third truly connects them Now there are but two wayes imaginable abstracting from Experience how this may be seen Either by seeing immediately that those two Notions are the same with one another out of the very Notions themselves or
are not reducible to these Grounds nay are made use of by Persons who declare against having any such Grounds for Faith signifie just as much as if they should say I beseech you Sir be so good natur'd as to believe me though to tell you true I acknowledg sincerely neither can I bring nor can there possibly be brought any Ground able to make good what I say or any undeniable Premisses to force my Conclusion Third Eviction § 1. THus far Logick Let 's see next what Nature and Metaphysicks say to the Point in which Quest yet we must not leave Logick's Assistance And first these Sciences assure us that as all Capacity of different Beings springs from First Matter so all Capacity of contrary Determinations arises from what we call Potentiality or Indifferency in the Subject Now the Subject in our present case is not so much our meer Faculty of Understanding as the Points of Faith it self in our Soul or the judging Power of our Soul consider'd precisely as affected with these Points for 't is these or our judging Power taken meerly as conversant about These that is our Judgments which our Opponents must affirm True yet Possible to be False Since therefore both the Points themselves and our Judgments consist formally in Affirmation and Negation that is in is and is not which are indivisible and constituted such by a Formality the most formal and actual that can be as hath been shown they can have as such no Indifferency or Potentiality in them to the contrary neither Natural nor Metaphysical nor consequently Possibility of Falshood § 2. The Position of our Adversaries is still render'd more absurd by this Consideration that even in Nature where there is the greatest Potentiality that is viz. First Matter the Subject is not yet capable of opposit Qualities at once but successively at least in the same part Whereas their Position is not that Faith which is now True is possible to be False afterwards upon the Alteration of some Contingent Matter but that 't is Possible now to be False or possible to be now False for any thing any man knows that is the understanding may have possibly Truth and Falshood in it at once and as to the same Part or Point § 3. But 't is still far more irrational in regard these seeming Contraries True and False apply'd to the Propositions we speak of have in them the perfect nature of Contradictories it being necessary that in those which speak de praesenti one should be exprest by is existent the other by is not existent as 't is in those which speak preteritly and futurely that one should be exprest by hath been or shall be the other by hath not been or shall not be To think then they can at once be True and False is to judg that Contradictories may be verified of the same or that both sides of the Contradiction may be true § 4. Again Truth being a Conformity of the mind to the Thing and Falshood a Disconformity to say a Proposition is True and yet possible to be False is to say that the mind consider'd as judgingly conversant about that Proposition may be at once Conformable and Disconformable to the same thing Too wild a Position to be introduc'd into a rational nature by any thing but such a wilful and blind passion as must first actually corrupt and in fine tend to destroy the very nature it self § 5. And to void this Thesis from all possible evasion here can be no different Respects according to which these Affirmations and Negations may be made so to avoid Contradiction but all such Respects are excluded both out of the nature of the Predicate in most of those Propositions as hath been shewn Evict 1. § 5. as also out of the nature of the Points of Faith which standing in the abstract descend nor to nor meddle with subsuming Respects but have their Notions compleated in the common words which express them And lastly because Truths and Falshoods are not capable of Distinctions and Respects For however a Proposition taken into Consideration and scanning whether it be true or no may admit Respects and Distinctions and so be affirm'd to be in this regard True in that False yet what is once accepted to be True cannot in any Respect afterwards be affirm'd possible to be not True or False For example this Proposition An Ethiopian is white is distinguish'd by Respects to several parts and in regard to his Teeth 't is true to his skin 't is false But after those Respects have distinguish'd the Ambiguity of it and so by dividing it into two Propositions settled one to be True the other to be False there can be no further use of Respects or Distinctions which are to antecede to Truth and Falshood by clearing the doubtfulness of Propositions and can have no place after the Truth is once acknowledg'd or supervene to it He then that once acknowledges Points of Faith to be Truths can have no Assistance from recourse to this and the other Respect to evade a Contradiction when he affirms they may be False § 6. Again 't is particularly opposite to the nature of a Soul to have such an Act in her as to judg a thing True yet possible to be False at the same time For our Soul as to her Judging Power is essentially a Capacity of Truth whence the First Principles which ground all Truths are so connatural to her that she cannot but embrace them and judg them true Nothing therefore being more opposit to Truth than a Contradiction it follows that nothing is more impossible to be receiv'd or subjected in the Soul according to her Judging Power than a Contradiction that is no implicatory or contradictory Act can settle there Now to judg a Proposition or Point to be true is to judg the thing to exist just as it affirms and to judg it Possible to be False is to judg it Possible not to exist as it affirms and this not in order to different times but the same that is to judg a Proposition or Point true yet possible to be false is the same as to judg the thing actually is and yet perhaps is not at the same time and this as appears by our former Discourse not to be avoided in our case by difference or diversity of Respects Wherefore since such an Act is not possible to be in the Judging Power of the Soul 't is most manifest that he who holds one side of the Contradiction cannot possibly hold the other that is he who holds Faith may be False cannot hold that 't is True and that if it be held and profest to be True it ought also to be held and profest Impossible to be false § 7. Moreover the Soul antecedently to its being inform'd by the Object was indifferent and undetermin'd to judg it True or False that is to be or not to be but when it
to the other immediately foregoing induces all the Absurdities mentioned in my former Discourse and pins them upon the Deity as on their first Cause So horrible and Diabolical a Tenet is this of the Possible Falshood of Faith that it calumniates Heaven it self nor can any thing but an Invincible Ignorance in the Maintainers of it excuse them from highest Blasphemy from making the unenvious Fountain of all Goodness like our own narrow and crooked Selves Fifth Eviction § 1. LEt us hear next what the Science of Divinity both Speculative and Moral will award concerning the Point in Question § 2. The Wisdom of the Eternal Father having been pleas'd to take our Nature upon him and amongst his other Offices he perform'd towards Mankind that of a Master being manifestly one we cannot doubt but that he both would and could that is did accomplish what belong'd to that Office Again true Dâ—vinity assigning one main if not the chiefest Reason why the Second Person was made Man to be this that it being requisite God should come and converse with us visibly to cause in us Knowledg of his heavenly Doctrine or be our Master and Knowledg or Wisdom being appropriated to the Second Person it was therefore most fit that Person should be Incarnate it follows that the Office of a Master in our Saviour Christ springs peculiarly out of the nature of his Divine Personality and not of his Humanity precisely as does his Suffering and Dying for us c. Wherefore the Proper Agent of Instructing and Teaching Mankind being as such Infinitely Perfect 't is evidently consequent Christ perform'd the Office of a Master or wrought the effects proper to a Teacher as such with all imaginable Perfection § 3. It being then the proper Office or Effect of a Master or Teacher to make his Schollers know his Doctrin is True we cannot think but that this Divine or Infinitely-perfect Master made them absolutely or perfectly know the Truth of his Doctrine § 4. And because the end of this Teaching was not terminated in those few himself convers'd with nor in the Christians of the First Age but was principally intended for the Body of Mankind which was future in respect of them it follows that this Enlightning and Instructing now spoken of was to be equally extended to the following World of Christians they being all Sectators or Followers of his Doctrin that is his Scholars and He their Master Unless then he had taken order that succeeding Ages also should have perfect Assurance or know his Doctrine was absolutely True he would have set up a School and laid no means to preserve the far greater part and in a manner the whole Body of his Scholars or Christians from Ignorance and Errour § 5. All Christians then both the Primitive and their Successors had and will have means to Know absolutely Christian Doctrine is True This means we call the Rule of Faith Both the Rule of Faith then must be known to be veracious and Faith which is built on it to be absolutely Tâ—ue and by consequence to be absolutely Impossible to be False § 6. Besides Man being an Intellectual Creature 't is evident the true Perfection of his Nature consists in Knowing and this whether we consider him as a Speculater or as an Acter For if the thing may Possibly be False for any thing he knows then he is most evidently Ignorant whether it be False or no that is whether it be True or no which speaks Imperfection in his Nature as 't is a Capacity of Knowledg And if he be to Act about it 't is evidently a less Perfection and worse for mankind to go to work unassuredly than assuredly Faith then being Gods Ordinance and God doing what is best for Mankind it follows Faith is perfectly secure to him that is he must know it to be such and consequently 't is not subject to the Contingency of being False § 7. But leaving Man the Subject of Faith and reflecting upon Faith it self in us the first thing that offers it self to our Consideration is that it's Habit is a Virtue and consequently Rational Also that it's Act is an Assent upon Authority since then 't is demonstrated formerly that there can be in reason no Assent without Certain Grounds and that what is Certain is Impossible to be False it follows that the Grounds of Faith and consequently Faith it self is not possible to be False § 8. Next Faith is an Intellectual Virtue that is apt to perfect mans understanding as such that is 't is to him a Knowledg and so informs his mind with Truths The Nature of Faith then forces that Points of Faith must be Truths and so as is manifoldly demonstrated Faith it self is not possible to be False § 9. Again this Intellectual Virtue call'd Faith is also a Supernatural one and therefore as such proceeds from an Agent infinitely more perfect than any can be found in Nature therefore the immediate effect aim'd at by Faith that is the informing the Understanding would be perform'd with infinite advantage as far as concerns that Supernatural Agent 's or God's part and if it be not so exquisitely perform'd it must spring from some Incapacity in the Subject There being then in this Effect of informing the Understanding two Considerations viz. Evidence which is had either by Experience of our Senses of which Spiritual Natures the chief Objects of Faith are incapable or by intrinsecal Mediums that is Demonstration of those Spiritual things of which taking the Generality of mankind the Subject of Faith very few are capable And that other of Certainty attainable both by those Intrinsecal and also Extrinsecal Mediums or Authority which Authority by means of the Practicableness of it's Nature all are to a great degree able to understand it follows that here being no violence or unsuitableness to Humane Nature consider'd in it's Generality the â—upernatural Agent or Cause of Faith will effect here a greater Certainty than meer natural Impressions could produce that is all Extrinsecal Arguments being finally resolv'd into Intrinsecal ones the Best and Chief Nature in the world will be made use of and most strongly supported to make up the greatest Authority that is possible and so to establish this Certainty of Faith and it's Principles beyond that of any Humane Sciences But divers pieces of Humane Science nay the least particle of true Science is acknowledg'd impossible to be False Faith therefore à fortiori must be such also § 10. This Supernaturality of Faith by which word we mean Divine Faith convinces that it ought to exceed all other Faith 's according to the Notion of Faith in common that is it ought to partake whatever Perfection truly belongs to Faith or Belief as such in an especial manner and far above what is found in Humane Faiths in a word it ought to have as much in it as can elevate it under the Notion of Faith without
of the word Knowledg to mean Scientifical Knowledg 't is neither my Tenet nor Interest but will leave it at large for any that are concern'd to explicate how this Knowledg is bred provided they leave the true Nature of Knowledg and do not abusively call that Knowledg which in reality is when look'd into no Knowledg Hence I argue Since 't is impossible any one should know what is not to be known and what is not is not to be known it follows that the Object of Faith is and so here being no contingency in the Matter Impossible not to be and consequently Faith or the Belief of it impossible to be False § 3. Nor am I affraid of those canting Distinctions without sense that 't is Morally a Knowledg or that they know it to be True morally speaking For if it be expended what is meant by these words Morally a Knowledg it will quickly appear that as True Knowledg can onely be an Effect of the Thing 's Being so this Counterfeit Knowledg call'd Moral falling short of the other can onely be the Product of the Thing 's Likelihood to be and so can onely have for its Object the Thing 's Likelihood which whether it be enough to specifie and terminate an Act of Christian Faith I appeal to the constant Expressions of all who are generally call'd and reputed Christians and challenge my Adversaries to produce one Expression of theirs which sounds thus dwindlingly and feebly as if it meant onely some high likelihood or their apprehension of it as no more but such Observe but the Life and Energie of their words in such occasions as that of Iob Scio quod Redemptor meus vivit and that of S. Paul Scio cui credidi certus sum c. and we shall find their Understandings so perfectly possest of the Object 's Existence not deeming onely its Likelihood that they seem rather to want words to express their Absolute Certainty of it Oftentimes indeed they deny Faith to be Evidence or Science and affirm it to be Obscure but what 's this to the purpose while all Relyance on Authority is obscure and Certain Knowledg can be had by means of Authority as appears in diverse Instances of Humane Faith § 4. Particularly waving the former we will reflect on some places more expresly assertive of our Position as that of the Prince of the Apostles Acts 2. 36. Certissimè sciat ergo omnis Domus Israel c. Where about to bring them to Faith he exprest it to be A most certain Knowledg and this Attainable by the whole House of Israel which must mean the Generality at least § 5. I add omitting many others two of his Fellow-Apostle Paul The first Col. 1. 23. Si tamen permanetis in Fide fundati stabiles et immobiles à spe Evangelii Now how any one can be founded or grounded in Faith if Faith be Possible to be False that is Eviction 2. § 14. have no Foundation Principles or Grounds it self how any one can be Stable and Immoveable in a Persuasion which very Persuasion and its Grounds may not only be moved but overthrown subverted as must inevitably follow if it be possible to be False I expect to be inform'd by Mr. Tilletson and Mr. Stillingfleet Do these words sound onely an Exclusion of Actual Doubt or Suspicion of it at present which Protestant Writers make sufficient to an Act of Faith or rather does it not mean that which of its own nature is such as can admit no Possible Cause of Doubt at any time for the future Let them dispense a while with pursuing their affected Gaynesses in the Out-sides of words and take the pains to look into their Meanings and then if they can make out that Groundedness Stability and Immobility can consist with Possibility of falshood I shall promise them my utmost endeavour to hold Contradictions with them for in that case those would be the onely Truths § 6. The second shall be that most emphatical one of the same Apostle Licèt nos aut Angelus de coelo annuntiaverit vobis praeter id quod accepistis Anathema sit Though we or an Angel from heaven should preach to you otherwise than you have receiv'd let him be Accursed Which were a very rude and unreasonable carriage especially for us Christians now adays were Faith Possible to be False and so short of the credit due to so Incomparable Authorities For since 't is known that many things which have seem'd that I may use Mr. T 's words morally impossible to be False have prov'd to be actually and indeed False and 't is granted that 't is always possible to be so but it was never heard that an Apostle of Iesus Christ or an Angel from heaven could or at least did at any time preach False 't is most manifest that nothing which was Possible to be false can with any reason sustain it self against the force of their Authority and that Faith which ought to do so must be Impossible to be False § 7. From the Language and Sense of the Saints and Christians of former times let us come nearer home and see how unsuitable 't is to the Notions and Expressions of present Christianity to say Faith is possible to be False Now the Possibility of Faith's Falshood is built on the Contingency of the Motives which are to ground it for were there no Contingency in them but that their Causes were so laid that 't were impossible they should not be Conclusive they could not possibly fail of being able to conclude and so Faith would of its own nature be Impossible to be False Considering then the Nature of Contingency whether Speculatively in it self or Practically in Instances wherein 't is found we may observe that it implies a certain kind of Proportion between the frequency of Effects on the one side and the Seldomness on the other which we usually express by Ten to one a Thousand to one c. If then Faith be Possible to be False its Nature will bear nay oblige us to express the probable degree of its Likelihood in such kind of Language and that we assert it to be likely in such a proportion but not-likely in a higher for example it would be perhaps wise and agreeable to the Nature of the Thing as thus propos'd to say v. g. 'T is a hundred to one there is a Trinity a Heaven or a Hell but 't is not a Thousand to one that there are any such things Or if any contend I have assign'd too-small an over-proportion to Faiths Likelihood yet at least he must grant that in a greater it would inevitably follow that such language ought in True speaking be used when we are to express the degree of Faith's Firmness Wherefore it being experientially manifest that nothing sounds more ugly to a Christian ear than to say that 't is so many to one Faith is True but not so many more 't is evident that
will never the sooner discover her face nothing being to be found but what will still appear Possible to be False the Practical Conclusion naturally following hence will be this to fix there where it lights most advantageous to their temporal Interest in the same manner as men addict themselves to this or that Trade cry it up and maintain it stoutly to be Truth because 't is Creditable to the Profession though they judg all the while it may be a falshood and because they see their Faith can have no Certain or Firm Grounds undertake to make it good that Faith it self needs have none by the best assistances plausible Rhetorick seemingly-probable reasons weak or mis-us'd Testimonies and voluntary Cavils and Mistakes can lend them And in a word since they are not in circumstances to settle any thing to laugh heartily at those who go about it and to endeavour very politickly to pull down every thing which any Intelligent Reader will manifestly see by this establishing Treatise compar'd to their performances to have been the Effects of my Adversaries labours § 14. The Unnaturalness of this Tenet will perhaps be brought nearer home and so be better penetrated even by our Opposers themselves if we reflect how wickedly it would sound from the mouth of Preachers if after a Sermon exhorting and pressing the Faithful to the Love of Heaven or particularly to stand stedfast in their Faith they should in the close to prevent in their Auditors the misunderstanding some overstraining Expressions add an ingenuous caution That they should not for all that adhere to Faith as if it could not be False nor work for Heaven as if there were any absolute Certainty of the being of any such a Thing Is it not manifest this in our case honest-dealing Profession would enervate the force of all the Motives they had proposed and prest And if so is it not as evident that all the efficacy of Christian Preaching springs naturally from the Impossibility that Faith should be False For 't is not only the Unseasonableness of this Profession but the Impiousness of it which would so scandalize the Hearers and either avert them from the Preacher or make them cold in Virtue 'T is clear then that all the forceable Application of Christian Motives to the hearts of the Generality of the Faithful is grounded on the Impossibility of Faith's Falshood and that therefore he who holds the opposite Tenet and would be honest should either leave off Preaching for which this Tenet makes him unfit or else use much caution while he preaches least by implying the perfect Certainty of Faith while he practises Assentation to That he becomes Injurious to Truth and consequently to It too if it be True § 15. But to conclude it has bin no less the Practice of the Governours of the Church or Ecclesia docens to oblige the Faithfull to beleeve what they recommended to them as the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles Nay Mr. whitby in his late Treatise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 page 53 54. asserts the same of the Church of England as to their Creed or Fundamentals Which had Faith been held by the Governors and the Governed Possible to be False had signify'd just thus much as if the Governours should say You shall believe it though we know it may be false or You shall believe us telling you the Apostles taught it though both we and the Authority we trusted for it may be deceiv'd for any thing we know And as if the persons governed should answer We will believe you though we know you may be in the wrong and the Point it self false which is in effect the same as if they should profess they are resolv'd to believe them let it prove what it will right or wrong True or False So strange a Tyranny in the Imposers or Commanders and Slavery in the Believers or Obeyers as is impossible in either to consist with Humane Nature had not both of them the Obeyers at least been verily perswaded those Commanders had such Motives to propose as should have been able to oblige Assent without which all Command of an Interiour Act of the Soul is Nonsence and Folly Oh but will a witty Atheist say Humane Policy might have made the Governours conceal the Cheat by which means the ignorant govern'd were frighted into a belief of any thing Very likely indeed that amongst so many millions and of those many Saints by our Adversaries own Confession all should persist and be true Conspirators in so unnatural a Confederacy or that in so free an admission of all sorts of prudent people to any kind of knowledg as is practic'd in Christendom insomuch that there are found many thousands of the Governed equal in Parts and Learning to divers of the chief Governours and superiour to very many of them all should so camely permit themselves and the world to be abus'd in a Point no less important than their very Manhood 'T is then above Policy and Force and only atchievable by the Natural strength of the Motives to oblige such Multitudes and so qualify'd to Christian Faith and these Motives must have been Impossible to be False none else being able to subdue the Understandings of such a great portion of Mankind to hold their Proposals true or justifie all the Church-Governours in all Ages from a most unjust and most unnatural Tyranny Divers Principal Objections Answer'd TO mistake every passage voluntarily is so in fashion and so continually pursu'd as the best method to answer Discourses which proceed by the way of Principles that perhaps it were not imprudent to forestall such Blinds and prevent such mis-representers from raising their light and aiery dust by acting our selves if we can the part of an Opponent after a solider manner than we are to expect from those prevaricating Discoursers besides nothing more clears a Point than to manifest that such Objections which aim at the Root of it quite lose their force while levell'd against it I recommended this foregoing Discourse when I had finisht it to the perusal of divers of the most judicious and impartial Friends I could pick out courting their severest candour to acquaint me with its defects Their most pertinent and most fundamental Exceptions I present the Reader with which I have strengthen'd as well as I could and added divers of mine own protesting that did I know my self or knew where to learn of others more forcible and efficacious ones I should not have declin'd the proposing them nor have fear'd to oppose the Invincibleness of the Truth I here defend against the strongest Assaults of the most Ingenious most rational and most acute Discoursers Objection I. The word Truth is both in the Postulata and all over this Treatise taken in too Metaphysical a Rigour in which sense it may perhaps be deny'd that Faith is True or that the Generality of Christians do so esteem it Answer I take that word in the plain
natural and proper sense in which all mankind takes it for what in reality and indeed is so which I affirm to be sufficient for my purpose or to ground all those Arguments which I bring thence to evince the Impossibility of Faith's Falshood But I fear the Objecter confounds the First operation of our understanding with the Second that is our simple Apprehension or Meaning of the word Truth or True with the Propositions or Judgments made concerning it For not only weak people judg many things True which stand under no Certain Grounds but even solid men when the Concern of the Point is sleight and no circumstance awakes them into a heedfulness and as it were engages their Honesty to speak rigorous Truth oftentimes carelesly and unconcernedly admit Things for Truths which are far short of having Grounds elevating them to an Impossibility of Falshood and indeed are far from being judg'd Truths even by themselves while they seem to admit them for such nay more though they sometimes use them as Truths when the weight is not much whether they be so or no as when in a Rhetorical Discourse or even in a solid one for Illustration sake we make use of the Story of the Phoenix or such like or when in ordinary conversation we relate many passages abetted by no certain Authority but taken upon the account of rumour perhaps invented by witty humour the Truth of which it were in those circumstances Imprudent and Impertinent to discountenance but to let them go with a kind of Transeat or a valeant quantum valere possunt Yet in both cases what the solid man out of unconcernedness passes and what the vulgar man out of weakness judges as a Truth both the one passes the other judges to be in reality and indeed so whence both of them have the genuine simple Apprehension or meaning of the word Truth and the same all other men have however the one misapplies it the other permits it to be misapply'd in Propositions Nor will any distinction of Truths morally speaking probably Truths c. serve the turn for Truth as was said speaks the Conformity of the Judging Power to the Thing that is a Real disposition of the mind which therefore either is or is not in the same manner as the Wall is either white or not white not admitting for it's difference probably or not-probably any more than Being does But as it is impossible but the Wall if it be not white must necessarily be not-white or have some other disposition in it which is not-whiteness so 't is impossible but the minde if not Conformable to the Thing or True must be Un-conformable or not-True meaning not-True negatively not privatively so as to signify False and consequently in stead of that Conformity it must have some other Disposition in it whatever that Disposition be Objection II. In some places of this foregoing Treatise Objective Truth is confounded with that disposition of the understanding or Conformity of it to the Thing call'd Formal Truth or Truth in us Answer The clearing this requires the making an exacter discovery into the nature of Truth To do which we will begin our explication with noting that our understanding hath two Operations omitting the third Discourse as not pertinent to our present purpose viz. Simple Apprehension and Iudgment The result or Effect of the first is call'd a Notion Concerning which Philosophers discourse thus that when I apprehend what is meant by the word Man or have that Notion in me Mans nature is both in the Thing and in my Conception for 't is impossiole my Conception being an imminent Act I should conceive what is not in my Conception or that my Act of conceiving should be intrinsecally determin'd to be this but by what is intrinsecal or in it What is meant then by the word Man has two states one in the thing as existent out of me the other in the thing as existent in me as the self-same figure is in the Seal and the Wax Yet neither of these different States enters into the Notion I have of Man but meerly what is common to the Thing under either State which is what answers to the definition for both Man taken as in himself is a rational Creature and also what I conceive or mean by the word Man is rational Creature though the words rational Creature express neither the being in my Minde nor out of it but abstract from either By this means my Mind concieving Man gains an Unity of form with the Thing out of it or a Conformity to it which Disposition wants nothing to be call'd Truth but that 't is incapable of grounding Affirmation or Negation the bare meaning of the word Man neither implying is nor is not Whence Truth and Falshood are usuall said to be incompetent to the first Operation of our Understanding We will make way to the Second Operation of our Understanding by another Instance of the first Imagin then there is propos'd to my Eye a Round Pillar which it affects and by it my Brain and so my Understanding it cannot fail to beget there a simple Apprehension and consequently a Notion of what is directly imprinted which is that Thing with as many of its qualifications as were apt to be convey'd in by means of that sense confusedly blended together as also by my Experience that it affects or is affecting me of it's Existence Moreover as Occasion or indeed Nature guides me I may have distinct or abstracted notions of Pillar Roundness and Existence nay more of Pillar and Roundness as exercising or actually having the same existence or which is all one of what is meant by this Proposition the Pillar is round that is of what corresponds to those three distinct notions put now in a frame of a Proposition and so immediately apt to express Truth or Falshood and yet not proceed to behave my self affirmingly or denyingly or judg any thing concerning them but meerly to conceive what is meant by those words Way being thus orderly made towards the Second Operation of the Understanding by disposing the separate notions in a fitting posture by the First nature seems to require It should supervene and so the Understanding sets it self to judg whether those Extream or distant notions exhibited by the First in the posture of Connexion be indeed connected or no the standard or measure of which is to be taken from the Thing Now in self-evident Propositions and First Principles the Understanding guides it self by that imbred or nature-taught Principium Intellectûs The same is the same with it's self In deduc't Propositions by the same Principle fundamentally or originally and immediately by this Those notions which are the same with a Third are the same with one another But in our present Instance Experience alone suffices to inform the understanding supposing the obvious knowledg of what Pillar and Roundness are and that a Pillar is a Thing whereas Roundness without Pillar is
none but onely an Affection or determination of a Thing both known by plain Nature whatever som Schoolmen speculate For these put meer Experience teaches us that that thing which is call'd Pillar is the same thing which is call'd Round or which is all one that in this Proposition The Pillar is round the two extream notions are indeed that is with a Conformity to the Thing identifi'd or that that Proposition is True But to return home to our purpose 'T is clear that Pillar and Roundness Existing by the same existence or in the same Thing are found in the thing after it's manner and in my Judgment or Soul as apt to judg after it 's that is judgingly But Truth hath nothing to do with either of these manners of Being as was discourst formerly in the parallel case of Notions but purely and adequately consists in the Unity or Community of Form which my Judgment has with the Thing by having which in her the Soul gains a Conformity to it In this Common Form consider'd as in the Thing consists it's Metaphysical Verity or it 's Being what it is and this Verity consider'd as apt to stamp or imprint it self on my Iudging Power is call'd Objective Truth as receiv'd in me and fashioning or conforming my said Power to the Thing as in it self and so making my Judgment True 't is call'd Formal Truth This declar'd I deny that I any where confound Objective Truth with Formal or what 's in the Thing with what 's in me as in me for that were to identifie those two most vastly and most evidently different States A Supineness too gross for any attentive Discourser to fall into I conceive then what the Objecter would alledge is that I confound those Truths spoken of with Truth to us or quoad nos as the Schools speak For though what 's Truth to us must needs be Truth in it self and in us in regard we cannot know that to be which is not yet what 's Truth in it self or Truth in us is not therefore Truth to us in regard one may upon probable nay improbable or even False Grounds light upon a right judgment in which case his mind as judging is conformable to the thing or True yet still that thing is not true to him in regard he hath no reason able to conclude it such or to make him see it to be true Truth then to us is the same with our Sight of it that is with Certainty or Determination of our Understanding by force of Intellectual Motives and this indeed I often seem to confound with Truth in the two former Acceptions but I therefore seem to do it because I am loath to transcribe and apply so often my Postulata and suppose my Judicious Reader bears them in mind Which if he pleases to understand as subjoyn'd to those Discourses it will follow that what is so in the thing it self or perhaps in us if it be so severely obligatory to be thus constantly profest and held so and consequently by my later Postulatum necessary to be known to be so all my mistaken proofs will be brought to conclude it True to us that is Certain You will say why is it not enough for God to provide that our Acts of Faith be indeed True in us since so they would perfect our Understandings by conforming them to the thing and guide us right but they must also be True to us or be known to be True I answer for two Reasons One because God's Government of Mankind would by this means be preternatural obliging him to hold profess and dye for professing the Truth of those Points which he knows not to be such The other Reason is because every Act of Faith as exercis'd would perpetually involve an Errour in case the Motives to those Assents were not conclusive of the Truth of those Points For however one may light by hap-hazard or through weakness on a Truth from an Inclusive Motive yet since 't is impossible a rational Creature should assent but upon some Motive good or bad hence every Assent practically implies 'T is true for this reason Wherefore if the Reason grounding such Assents be unapt to conclude the Truth of the thing that Judgment necessarily involves a Falshood or Errour however it be otherwise conformable to the thing abstractedly consider'd Truths then being bastard illegitimate and monstrous both the Intellectualness and Supernaturalness of that Virtue call'd Faith make it scorn to own such defective Prâ—ductions Objection III. The Meanings of Words are indeed to be taken from the Vulgar but the Truth of Propositions is to be taken onely from the Judgments of Learned Men though then that be indeed the meaning of the word Faith which the Generality of Christians mean by it yet the Truth of this Proposition Faith is possible to be False must be judg'd of by the Sentiments of the most Learned Divines the Generality at least the Best of which and Catholicks amongst the rest grant the Grounds of Faith as to our Knowledg and consequently Faith it self to be Possible to be False Answer That Maxim is to be understood of those Propositions which require some Speculation to infer them in which case also even the Unlearned are not bound to Assent upon the Authority of Learned men taken precisely as men of Skill because generally 't is Practically-self-evident to them that such Speculative men differ oft times in their Sentiments and they are unfurnisht of due means to discern which is in the right yet if they are to act in such affairs they are bound in Prudence to proceed upon the Judgments of that part which is generally reputed most and ablest and then their proceedure is laudable because they do the best secundum ultimum potentiae or that lies in the power Whence Learned men who have ability to judg of the Reasons those Speculaters give behave themselves imprudently and blameably if they even proceed to outward action meerly upon their Judgments without examining the Reasons they alleadge in case they have leasure and opportunity to do so But now the Maxim holds not all for those Propositions in which 't is either self-evident or evident to common and uncultivated Reason that the Predicate is to be connected with the Subject as 't is for example in this Man is a rational Creature or this which is palpably consequent from the former Man is capable of gaining Knowledg for in such as these the natural Sentiments of the Vulgar are full as Certain as those of Speculaters perhaps Certainer And with the same Evidence the Predicate Possible to be False must necessarily be seen to be connected with Faith by all those who esteem themselves oblig'd by Gods Command to profess and dye for the Truth of those Points they believe Besides they hold that Faith makes them know God and his Will that their Assent of Faith is to be Immoveable or adher'd to all their lives that is such as cannot be
stand to it and deliver himself in some rude saying or other in behalf of it For example tell him he believes there was a K. Iames because those who pretended to live then have told us so but what if they were mistaken His answer would in likelihood be to this purpose what a God's name were they blind in those dayes that they could not see who was King then Which expresses naturally his conceit of their Inerrableness in such a point in case they had eyes which nature taught him men generally have Insist farther Perhaps they were not mistaken but had a mind to cozen all England that came after them Nature will lead him to this or some such kind of Reply To what purpose should they all make fools of every body Which words though rudely exprest yet couch in themselves the full reason given in Sure Footing as far as 't is built on Nature For first it implies that man's nature with which he hath a fair acquaintance in common is to do a thing for a purpose end or reason Next his Interrogatory way is in his rude style equivalent to a Negative and so it signifies there could be no reason for it and lastly his standing to his former Tenet implies virtually a Conclusion from the reason given that the thing could not be done which involves necessarily a knowledg of that First Principle on which all force of consequence is grounded and also of that Principle no Effect can be without a due Cause both perfectly suppos'd and held by him though not exprest in his rude Enthymeme From this discourse is collected what this Practical Self-evidence is and that 't is distinguish'd from Experience in this that Experience is onely found of what uses to make the Minor in this virtual discourse but Practical Self-evidence is of Conclusions deduc't as it were from a common maxim naturally known as the Major and a Minor for the most part experientially or else Practically known which joyn'd with the Self-evident Principle in which the force of Consequence consists make up that virtual discourse Again it differs from Science in that a man of Science reflectingly sees a Medium identifying the two Extreames and is aware of the virtue of those Causes which beget Evidence whereas the other is rather Passive from Natural Impressions than Active by any Self-industry in these Knowledges and rather feels the force of those Causes in his own Adhesion than sees it Secondly 'T is collected that this Practical Self-evidence is notwithstanding True Knowledge though perhaps it be the sleightest kind of it in which 't is differenc't from Opinion built on probabilities For seeing such Assenters have both by Experience or by Common Conversation true Knowledg of the natures of diverse things in common which make the Minor as also by Nature of all the Principles of our Understanding which countervail the major and force the Consequence it comes to pass that this Practical Self-evidence is intirely and adequately grounded on true Knowledges both as to Premises and Consequence and cossequently 't is it self a True Knowledg likewise Which consideration will help to explain my later Postulatum and shew by what means 't is possible all Christians may know their Faith to be True or the same the Apostles taught by the Churches Testimonie because they know the Inerrableness and Veracity of vast and grave multitudes in open matters of Fact which are practiceable daily And lastly 't is collected that what is Practically Self-evident to the Unlearned is Demonstrable to the Learned in regard These are capable of seeing by what virtue the causes of this Self-evidence bred that Knowledg which the other 's incultivated Reason would give no account of Objection V. That first Principle Every thing while it is is necessarily what it is seems to be often times misapply'd particularly Evict 2. § 11. 13. to Truth at present whence the Arguer would conclude that 't is Impossible that a thing should be also at present False Which is true if it be meant of Objective Truth but then it seems to miss the Question But the consequence holds not in case the Discourse be of Formal Truth that is of Truth in us or of Truth to us that is of Certainty for none pretends that his Judgment can at the same time be Conformable and Disconformable to the thing which speaks those inrintsecall Dispositions call'd Truth and Falshood in us or that himself can be Cetrain or Uncertain of it at once which expresses Truth and Falshood to us this being put those Motives which only he had at present in his Understanding able to prove the Point true and false both or at once whereas what is pretended by the Objecter is only this that though upon present Motives he now judges it True and Certain yet afterwards upon other Motives he may come to see it False Answer I mean in those places Truth to us or Certainty But the Objection proceeds as if there were but one man in the world or as if True False Certain and Uncertain could be relative to one person only First then my Position is that whoever puts a thing True to himself yet possible to be False to another puts no less a capacity of the thing 's being at once thus True and False though in several Subjects than as if it were in one Subject onely Next he supposes each of those different Judgers to have possibly just Grounds for so judging since he puts in one Motives sufficient to evince the Truth of the thing in the other possible ones to conclude it's Falsehood For our Question is not to what degree weak Souls can miscarry in assenting but what degree of strength is found in the Motives to Faith which the Objecter as a Christian that is as a Holder that Points of Faith are Truths must affirm to be sufficient to conclude it True and yet as himself contends leaves it still Possible to be False that is proveable by other Grounds to be so for else the word False cannot mean False to us or in the Subject as is pretended that is he must make it possible to be justly or in right reason held by one True by the other False Now 't is the Impossibility of such opposite Grounds I constantly maintain or that the Grounds of Faith are Impossible to be False Thirdly hence I go farther and urge that if those different Motives can oblige justly one man to hold Faith True the other to hold it False then putting them in the same man it ought to oblige him to hold both sides of the Contradiction and this enforces my proofs of this nature in my Third Eviction I know it will be readily answe'rd that this will not follow because the Motives being disparate the more probable one would when in the same subject over-power the other and so hinder the opposite Assent But I desire it may be consider'd that Intellectual Motives or Reasons have their power to
patronize Falshoods against this deceit our Saviour hath fore-arm'd us by his fore-warning us with a Nolite credere when any one pretends Loe here is Christ or there is Christ. Lastly 't is visible to any indifferent understanding that those Divines who defend this influence of the pious Affection upon the settling of Faith's Certainty though in other Points very rational and acute yet when they come to this they are at an utter loss and can make nothing cohere Philippus de Sancta Trinitate contradicts himself twice or thrice in one leaf while he attempts to defend it But I instance in one for all that is Father Vincentius Baronius a Doctour of Tholouse and of the Holy Order of S. Dominick a Person of as much Eminency Gravity and Learning as any of late dayes This Great Writer in his Manuductio ad Moralem Theologiam p. 130 131. falls upon Caramuel in these words Distinguit Caramuel duplicem honestatis Certitudinem seu veritatem formalem unam vocat alteram objectivam istam negat cuilibet opinioni probabili ill am concedit c. Sed hoc nobis ignorantiae prodiglum est aut temeritatis dari veritatem aut falsitatem certitudinemque cui nulla Objectiva correspondeat Hoc ne deo quidem concessum est ut Scientiam habeat rei non scibilis i. e. veritatem formalem rei quae objectivâ careat Yet the same Authour p. 271 is forc't by the defence of this ill grounded Tenet which he had espous'd into the same paralogysm which he had so gravely severely and learnedly reprehended in another Where putting the Objection very home he asks Si praevium illud ad Fidem Iudicium sit intra probabilitatis fines quâ ratione poterit mens assurgere in assensum illo seu opinione firmiorem ergo fidei Certitudo nutlat si ab illo Iudicio quod prudenter probabile dixi pendeat nec aliunde repetatur This done acknowledging that tota Controversia fidei summa is contain'd as indeed it is in this argument he addresses himself to answer it First sleightly by an example that this precedent Judgment is to Faith as Accidental Alteration to the Substantial Form and so being onely a disposition to it may be less noble or Certain than Faith is it self whereas if our Assent of faith ought to be thoroughly rational this previous Judgment being that on which this Assent is built as to us or as to our knowledg must at least be Firm and Immovable it self since the Assent of Faith built on it ought to be such and consequently beyond Probability whence the example is most unsuitable signifying that as Nature disposes matter by imperfect degrees towards a perfect and ultimate Effect so infirm Principles may rationally beget a firm Assent After this he alledges that the Certainty of Faith is to be fetch 't from God the Authour of it who infuses Light and gives most efficacious strength to beleeve But the question is whether God ordinarily and abstracting from Miracle infuses Light into rational Creatures but by means of motives or reasons and whether it requires such strength or rather be not an unwise Credulousness that is a great weakness to beleeve beyond what we have reason to do and so unworthy God the giver of every good and perfect gift Lastly he affirms that the Certainty of Faith is to be fetch 't from the pious Affection of the will qui mentem rebus credendis indubitato immoto assensu alligat quasi nodo indissolubili Which as it were by an indissoluble Knot ties the mind to the things to be believ'd with an undoubted and unmov'd Assent But the question is how this knot is indissoluble in case the probable reason prove false unless the Soul be wilfully blind or why a resolvedness in the will can rationally establish a true Intellectual Certainty What I chiefly conclude from these answers of his is that he perpetually waves Certainty had from the Object and so unavoidably is forc't to put a formal Certainty in as to which no Objective Certainty corresponds which his excellent wit in another circumstance saw to be prodigiously faulty and a Certainty that is a perfection not competent even to God himself So Impossible 't is that Errours prejudicing the Rule of Faith should not either by Opposition to First Principles be discover'd to be Falshoods or by self-contradictions in their maintainers confess it themselves Objection VII 'T is manifest that diverse weak people assent upon very Inconclusive nay silly or less than probable Motives whom yet no sober man will deny have saving Faith the true nature of Faith then requires not necessarily motives Impossible to be False or that Faith be True to us but may be without any such qualification Answer When we say Faith is Impossible to be False we take the word Faith in its proper and primary signification now that being the proper signification of a word that is most usual and that most usual which is found in the Generality of the users of it the proper signification that is the true nature of Faith is that which is found in the generality of Christians which being evidently an Assent to be adher'd to all one's life to be dy'd in and dy'd for and the Object or Form of that Assent being Truths and so it self True 't is most manifestly in each of those regards imply'd that it must be Impossible to be False to us or to the Generality of Christians that is it must have Grounds able to show it nay actually showing it so to them whatever Contingency may happen in a few particulars for want of applying to them the right Rule of Faith Besides Faith must be a Knowledg of Divine things a virtuous Act and so ratâ—onal and a most efficacious Cause of working for Heaven Also its Grounds must be apt to establish the most Speculative Faithful to convert or confound the most acute Witts denying or opposing it c. all which and much more is prov'd in the First discourse of Sure Footing by arguments as yet not attempted to be invalidated by any however something hath been offer'd against those Conclusions Which Attributes it cannot possibly justify nor yet perform those Offices without being True to us or having Grounds Impossible to be False The word Faith then apply'd to those weak persons now spoken of signifies not the same as when 't is found in the Generality of Assenters but meerly a simple credulity of any thing told them by a person that looks seriously when he speaks it and is conceited by the Beleever to be wiser or to have heard more than himself Which kind of Assent if it be seconded by favourable circumstances laid by God's Providence especially by such means as are found in the Discipline of the Church so as it begets a love of Heaven above all things may suffice to save those weak and well meaning Catholicks But how incompetent an Assent no better grounded were
or the clearness of the Proposal of it which only can oblige connaturally the Understanding to conceit it as it ought and consequently the Will to love it accordingly in which conceiting and heartily loving not onely the Intending and Commanding part of the Action is plac'd in our case as it happens in our acting for material Goods but also the Executive and Assecutive Parts of it Not the same sleightness of Motive therefore or Moral Certainty will here serve the turn but true Certainty or Impossibility of Falshood is requir'd this being the best and properest to beget a hearty lively steady and all-over-powering Affection for Heav'n and such as may as it ought make Christians practically repute all other things as Dung in comparison of That § 9. But the main consideration which forces the Certainty of Faith and the Motives which are to beget it that is of the Rule of Faith above those which ground our Action of pursuing Temporary Goods is the unconceivable Mysteriousness of the Points of Faith Truths exalted above the ordinary Course of Nature as far as Heav'n is above the Earth Many of them looking so odd and uncouth to our course Humane Reason unrefin'd by Faith that as they seem'd of old to the Greeks Foolishness so still they are acknowledgedly most unsuitable to the grossness of Fancy by which the Generality of the world especially those who are yet unelevated by Christian Principles are led and confessedly above Reason insomuch as it costs the best Wits of Christianity no small pains to maintain them not to be Contradictory or Impossible to be True Putting then the Motives of Faith and consequently Faith it self Possible to be False the only seeming Certainty I might say the confest want of Certainty of the Motives to believe would be so counterballanc'd by the Incredibleness and seeming Contradictâ—riness of the Thing or Object or rather indeed overballanc'd in the Conceit of all those who are yet to embrace Faith that there would be no over-plus of weight left to incline them to hold those Points True rather than False much less to make them absolutely hold they are Certain Truths And he that shâ—uld assert the contrary I wonder how he would go about to prove it or by what Standard he would measure whether is the greater of the two counterpos'd Unlikelihoods viz. that the possibly false Motive of Faith should hap to be actually such or that the seeming-Impossibility in the Objects should chance to be a real one For 't is not enough to say here that we are in reason to expect the Divine Nature should be exceedingly exalted above its Creatures and incomprehensible and therefore we are not to measure his Perfections by the ordinary Rules found in Creatures but think it reasonable he should infinitely exceed them For however this has weight in Points of Faith which concern the Divine Nature and its Perfections as in it self yet here it will not serve the turn in regard Faith teaches us many other Points seemingly repugnant to the Divine Nature it self and most strangely debasing and vilifying it as that God infinitely happy in himself should be expos'd to injurious Bufferings Scourgings and an ignominious Death for a Creatures sake that in comparison of him is a meer Nothing and that Omniscience and Omnipotence could not invent and practice some easier and more honorable way to work the End they intended and lastly that it should beseem Infinite Goodness that a Person superlatively innocent should be so severely punisht to do an undue favour to those who were enormously wicked This consideration then necessitates plainly the Impossibility of Faith's being false for else 't would be irrational to believe it And lastly it shews the case of Christian Interiour Acts utterly unparallel to that of Acting Exteriourly for sensible and material Goods which one may apprehend to be attainable and also comprehend the Way to attain them without puzz'ling his Understanding with any unconceivable mysteriousness in the business to check his Assent E're I leave this Point I must desire the Reader to reflect well on the condition those persons are in who are yet to embrace Faith They have no Light but their pure Natural Reason and to this are propos'd for Objects to the one side the Motives to Faith or the Authority in our case that God has spoke it on the other the strangeness of the Mysteries Let then those persons understandings no better elevated go about to scan the profound Mysteries of Faith 't is clear and I think confest by all they must needs seem to them Impossible to be True which therefore nothing but a Motive of its own nature seemingly Impossible to be false can conquer so as to make them conceit them really True But this Motive or this Rule of Faith is confest by our Adversaries Possible to be false nor it being a fit and proportion'd Object for Humane Reason is there any thing to make it seem better than it is or Impossible to be false 't is then against all reason to believe were Faith and its Grounds Possible to be false the Motives of Dissent being in that case evidently greater than are the Motives of Assent § 10. Again since 't is incomparably more easie to throw down than to build or less difficult for the Understanding to comprehend an Objection than 't is to lay orderly in the Soul a severely-connected frame of Discourse forcing the Truth of a Point particularly when those Points are utterly unsuitable to Fancy and even exalted above Reason and so lie open to very plausible and easily penetrable Objections on which disadvantage or disproportion to weak Judgments that is indeed a high excellency on the Object 's side Atheists ground their drollery against the Mysteries of our Faith It follows that were not the chief motives to Faith or Rule of Faith practically self-evident and so Impossible to be False there would be considering the rudeness and unelevatedness of the Generality of those who are to come to Christian Faith and the unsuitableness of the Mysteries to their fancyled Understandings greater Temptations and more plausible that is to them stronger motives laid to make them dissent to those Mysteries than to make them assent The motives to Faith then must be Practically self-evident and so Faith it self must be Impossible to be False Seventh Eviction § 1. PErhaps the Language and Practise of Christianity expressing most manifestly their sentiments may give to some a more natural and penetrable satisfaction that 't is Impossible Faith should be false than all the Speculative and Scientifical Proofs hitherto deduc'd § 2. For their Language then I onely hint to the memory of my prudential Readers for to transcribe them were endless all those Expressions so frequent in Scriptures Fathers Councils and the mouths of the Faithful to these very days viz. That Faith is the Knowledg of God his Will and of revealed Truths Nor will I streighten the signification