And here the Jesuite finds another Misrepresentation that by the Incarnation God is visibly represented to us in our nature but the Papists not contented with this contrary to the design of God made man make and adore other Images of God. Here he has concealed what my Argument was but the thing is true that though God gave us a visible Image of himself to cure the Idolatry of Image-Worship yet this is still retained and practised in the Church of Rome In summing up this Argument I said Since it was one main design of Christ's appearance to root out Idolatry is it credible that the Worship of Saints and Angels and the Virgin Mary the Worship of Images and Reliques as it is practised in the Church of Rome should be any part of the Christian Worship or allowed by the Gospel of our Saviour if Creature-Worship and Image-Worship were so offensive to God here is the Worship of Creatures and Images still and therefore all the visible Idolatry that ever was practised in the World before This is another of his Misrepresentations but very true No understanding Papist that has any modesty can deny that they worship Creatures and Images for that they should be worshipped is determined by their own Councils now if there be any salvo to deliver the Church of Rome from the guilt of Idolatry in worshipping Creatures and Images when the Heathens were Idolaters for doing it yet here is the visible Worship of Creatures and Images that is all that was visible in the Idolatry of the Heathens This was my Argument to shew how improbable it was that Christ who came to extirpate all Idolatry should still allow the external and visible Worship of Creatures which if it be not Idolatry yet is all that was visible in the Idolatry of the Heathens and it had better become him to have answered this Argument than to have called it a Misrepresentation I observed farther That the great difference the Papists can pretend between their Worship of Saints and Images and what the Heathens did whereby to excuse themselves from Idolatry notwithstanding they worship Creatures and Images as the Heathens did is that they have better Notions of the Worship of Saints and Angels and Images than the Heathens had but I said whether they had or no would be hard to prove The Pagan Philosophers made the same Apologies for their Worship of Angels and Daemons and Images which the learned Papists now make and whether unlearned Papists have not as gross Notions about the Worship of their Saints and Images as the unlearned Heathens had is very doubtful and has been very much suspected by learned Romanists themselves This he puts down for another Misrepresentation though all learned men know it to be true Had he ever read Origen against Celsus he would have known that that Philosopher had taught the Roman Doctors how to defend the Worship of Saints and Images and that the Father had confuted them long since and had he looked into Vives upon St. Aust. de Civitate Dei he would have found that learned Man make nâ— great difference between unlearned Christians and Heathens as to thâ—se mâ—tters to name no more at present I added Can we think that Christ who came to make a more perfect reformation should only change their Country-Gods into Saints and Angels and the Virgin Mary and give new Names to their Statues and Images This he calls a Misrepresentation too tho' it neither represents nor misrepresents any body that I know of but only argues what Christ was likely to do For had Christ only forbad the Worship of Pagan Gods and set up the Worship of Saints it had not been to extirpate Creature-Worship but only to change those particular Creatures who were to be Objects of Worship and instead of the Images of Iupiter and Bacchus to set up Images to Saints Thus I have considered the Misrepresentations charged upon the first Section of the Preservative as for his own representation of the Faith and Practice of the Catholicks as to their Worship I am not concerned with it There are a great many late Treatises wherein those Matters are fully debated Such as The Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome truly represented The Object of Religious Worship The Answer to Papists protesting against Protestant Popery The late Answers to M. de Meaux and his Vindicator and a Book which this Jesuite has some reason to know The Primitive Fathers no Papists And to these I refer my Reader who needs any farther satisfaction SECT II. Concerning the great Love of God to Mankind c. HE has found but six Misrepresentations and Calumnies in this Section which is pretty moderate and some few Arguments against Purgatory and our recourse to Saints for their Prayers which he says he has collected not one omitted but when I read them over I could not find any one of them I confess it is a very dull and troublesom task to answer him for he transcribes several Passages out of my Book without representing their connexion with what goes before or what follows or without telling what their fault is or offering one word to confute them that whoever will but take the pains to put every Sentence into its proper place will need no other answer And this I shall do as briefly as I can Having shewn what great assurance the Gospel of our Saviour gives us of the love of God to sinners I came to shew how irreconcilable the Doctrine of Purgatory and the Invocation of Saints and Angels as our Mediators with God is with the Gospel-Notion of God's Love and that Security it gives us of Pardon through the Merits and Intercession of Christ. 1. The Doctrine of Purgatory where the Punishments are as severe as in Hell itself only of a less continuance and yet they may last some thousand Years unless their Friends or the Priests be more merciful to them This I said was a barbarous Doctrine and so inconsistent with the Gospel-Account of God's Love that it is not reconcilable with any Notion of Love and Goodness you may call it Iustice you may call it Vengeance if you please but Love it is not These words he cites as an Argument against Purgatory without representing on what it is founded viz. that glorious discovery of God's love to sinners in the Gospel of Christ now if to damn men whose sins are pardoned for a thousand or two thousand Years for so long sure a man may lie in Purgatory or else the Pope is a great Cheat for selling Pardons for ten and twenty thousand Years if no man be in danger of lying one thousand Years in Purgatory I say if this be not reconcilable with the Gospel-Notion of God's Love then Purgatory can be no Gospel-Doctrine This Argument he never mentions and never pretends to answer in his Catholick Doctrine of Purgatory He says the Doctrine of Purgatory is God's Iustice tempered with Infinite Mercy but I
Worship that God must be worshipped as a meer Spirit but that the nature of the Christian Religion will not admit of such an external Worship And yet if he can tell me how this Stipulation or Covenant can be made betwixt God and us by interior Graces without some visible covenanting Rite how the Christian Church which is a visible Society distinguished from the rest of the World by a visible Covenant can be thus visibly incorporated by interior invisible Graces I will confess then that there had been no need had Christ so pleased of any visible Sacraments He adds upon whatever account that interior Covenant but we speak of an external visible Covenant which requires visible Pledges and Seals requires a visible sensible Mark and our actual Communion with Christ another all the Communications of God's Graces to us all our return of Worship and Adoration will equally admit of sensible Signs and Rites Let us apply this then to those Instances I gave of this external Worship and see whether there be the same reason for that as there is for some visible signs of a visible Covenant The same reason and necessity for instance of some external Rites to expiate sin now the Gospel declares there is no expiation of sin but the Blood of Christ that there is of Gospel-Sacraments to apply the expiation of Christ's Death to us The same necessity of external Washings and Purifications distinction of Meats c. Now the Gospel has put an end to all legal Uncleanness as there is of Baptism to wash away our Sins or of the Lord's Supper to strengthen and refresh our Souls by a Spiritual feeding on the Body and Blood of Christ the same external holiness of Places to sanctifie our Worship now God has declared that he has no symbolical Presence on Earth the same necessity of material and inanimate receptacles and conveyances of Divine Graces and Vertues the same necessity of an external and ceremonial Righteousness which is such a contradiction to the whole design of the Gospel as there is of the Gospel-Sacraments to receive us into Covenant and to convey the Blessings of the Covenant to us As for external Acts and Circumstances of Worship and Adoration I allowed the necessity of them under the Gospel but these are very different things from external religious Rites and if he knows no reason why the conveyances of Grace should rather be confined to the two Gospel-Sacraments then to Holy Water or Agnus Dei's or the Reliques of Saints or such other Popish Inventions I will tell him one because the Spirit of Grace is the Spirit of Christ and derives his influences only to the mystical body of Christ all our Graces are the immediate influxes of the Divine Spirit and nothing can intitle us to the Graces of the Spirit but being Members of Christ's Body and there are no visible Sacraments of Union to Christ but Baptism and the Lord's Supper and therefore no visible Rites of conveying the Graces of the Divine Spirit to us but these Again As our Spiritual Life consists in our Union to Christ so this Union makes us New Creatures for he that is in Christ is a New Creature Now there are but two things necessary to a New Creature a new birth and a constant supply of nourishment for its increase and growth Baptism is our Regeneration or New Birth whereby we are incorporated into Christ's Mystical Body and receive the first Communications of a Divine Life from the Holy Spirit the Lord's Supper is the constant Food and Nourishment of our Souls wherein we receive fresh supplies of Grace as our Natural Bodies do new Spirits from the Meat we eat Now let any man tell me what more is necessary to a New Creature than to be born and to be nourished by fresh supplies of Grace till it grow up to a perfect man in Christ Jesus all this is done for us by Baptism and the Lord's Supper and if all Divine Grace must be derived to us from our Union to Christ as the Members of his Body nothing can be more congruous than that the Sacraments of our Union to Christ should be the only visible and external Rites of conveying all supernatural Grace to us so that unless Holy Water and Relicks c. be new Sacraments of our Union to Christ they can be no Gospel conveyances of Grace and by the way whoever well considers this will think it little less than a demonstration that there can be but two Gospel Sacraments because there are no other visible Rites of uniting us to Christ and consequently of conveying supernatural Grace to us which is the Notion of a Sacrament But to proceed I came to apply this Discourse to Popish Worship to see how consistent it is with that Reformation Christ had made of the Worship of God under the Gospel And I observed in general that whoever only considers the vast number of Rites and Ceremonies in the Church of Rome must conclude it as Ritual and Ceremonial a Religion as Judaism itself the Ceremonies are as many more obscure unintelligible and useless more severe and intolerable than the Iewish Yoke itself which St. Peter tells the Iews neither they nor their Fathers were able to bear The first part he has nothing to say to and by his silence confesses it to be true and that is proof enough that it is no Christian Worship But he will by no means allow that they are as severe and as intolerable as the Iewish Yoke this he calls a Mis-representation and looks about to see what it should be that is so intolerable he suspects I mean their Fasts in Lent or on Fridays and Saturdays but he is much mistaken I know all these are very easie and gentle things in the Church of Rome or that Prayer and Almsdeeds may be these terrible things And here he comes pretty near the matter for I look upon it very intolerable to say over so many Prayers and Masses every day without understanding one word they say which is the daily Task of many thousand Priests who understand no more what they say than the People do To part with their real Estates many times to the great damage of their Families out of a blind Devotion to deliver their Souls from the imaginary Flames of Purgatory which they call Almsdeeds to whip and macerate their Bodies if they be so blindly devout with severe Fasts for men may fast severely in the Church of Rome if they please with long Watchings hard Lodging tedious and expensive Pilgrimages not to cure but to expiate their sins He says If the Ceremonies used in the Liturgy he should have said in their Mass-Book and Rituals and Breviaries be a burden surely the Clergy or Religious must feel the weight of it yet I am sure not one ever owned it Is he sure of this Has he confessed all the Nuns and Monks but if they have not owned it Have they never felt it neither Will
He answers let it be so but what follows here but the necessity of an unerring Interpreter What follows why it follows that they cannot prove Transubstantiation from Scripture without the Authority of the Church and consequently that it is not Scripture but their Church they rely on for the proof of their Doctrines which is the thing the Footman intended to prove by it and has done it effectually but how an unerring Interpreter follows from hence I cannot see unless it be to prove that to be in Scripture which the most searching and inquisitive men cannot find there and this indeed is the true use of an unerring Interpreter in the Church of Rome to impose upon mens Faith to believe that to be in Scripture which no man can see there for what men can see there one would think they might believe to be there without an unerring Interpreter As for what he adds that the Arians gave as natural a sense of 1 Iohn 5.7 8. as the Catholicks did is to be answered at present only with abhorrence and detestation But to proceed In the next place to shew them how absurd it is to dispute even about an infallible Judge I direct our Protestant to ask them Whether the belief of an Infallible Iudge must be resolved into every man's private judgment Whether it be not necessary to believe this with a Divine Faith And whether there can be any Divine Faith without an Infallible Iudge To this the Jesuite answers Ans. p. ◠There can be no Divine Faith without a Divine Revelation nor a prudent one without a Moral Evidence in the Motives of Credibility on which may be grounded the evident obligation to accept it This he calls a Moral Infallibility and shews by what steps it may fasten on God's Veracity and with a submission not capable of any doubt embrace the revealed Truth Now all this amounts to no more than Protestant certainty void of all doubt which the Church of Rome would never yet allow to be a Divine and Infallible Faith. But what is this to my Question Which was not Whether a Divine Faith required a Divine Revelation but whether there can be any Divine Faith without an Infallible Iudge which it seems he durst not own nor say one word to And yet here lay the force of the Argument as I told him in the same place If we must believe the Infallibility of the Pope or Church of Rome with an infallible Faith there is an end of Disputing for no Reasons or Arguments not the Authority of the Scripture itself which I hope he means by his Divine Revelation without an infallible Iudge can beget an Infallible Faith according to the Roman Doctors For this Reason they charge the Protestant Faith with uncertainty and will not allow it to be a Divine but Humane Faith though it is built upon the firmest Reasons the best Authority and the most express Scripture that can be had for any thing but because we do not pretend to rely upon the authority of a living infallible judge forsooth our Faith is uncertain humane and fallible This he knew to be true and yet knew that he could not build the belief of an Infallible Judge upon the authority of an Infallible Judge unless he could find one Infallible Judge to give testimony to the Infallibility of another and a third to give testimony to the second and thus to dance round in a circle of Infallibility without finding any beginning or end and therefore he slips this pretence of an Infallible Judge and would found a Divine Faith upon revelation or prudential motives of credibility which indeed is to quit Infallibility and to take up with a Protestant moral certainty or moral infallibility as he calls it that he may retain the name at least when the thing is lost Nay he gives a substantial Reason against an Infallible Faith of the Churches Infallibility For if the Infallibility of the Church were more than Morally Evident it were impossible that any Heresie should be the wisest word that he has said yet but I shall make him repent of saying it before I have done for this is an evident demonstration against Infallibility He says we can have no more than a Moral Evidence for the Infallibility of the Church and if this be true and our Faith be founded upon the Authority of the Church then we can have no more than a Moral Evidence for the Truth of the Christian Religion or any Article of it for as I argued in that very place Though the Iudge be Infallible if I be not infallibly assured of this if I have only a Moral Evidence of his Infallibility I can never arrive to Infallibility in any thing or can never get higher than a Moral Certainty for I can never be more certain that his Determinations are Infallible then I am that he himself is Infallible and if I have but à moral assurance of this I can be but morally assured of the rest for the Building cannot be more firm than the Foundation is and thus there is an end to all the Roman Pretences to Infallibility Though he slipt this at first Reading I hope he may judge it worth Answering upon second Thoughts But how he will get rid of his own Reason I cannot guess if the Infallibility of the Church were more than Morally Evident it were impossible that any Heresies should be by which he either means that de facto the Being of Heresies in the World is a sensible Argument that there is no Infallible assurance of the Infallibility of the Church for an Infallible Proof cannot be resisted and then all the World must believe the Churches Infallibility and give up themselves to the Directions of the Church and then there could be no Heresies or else his meaning is that since there must be Heresies in the World as the Apostle tells us therefore God has given us no more than a Moral Evidence of the Infallibility of the Church because an Infallible assurance of this would have prevented all Heresies which God it seems for very wise Reasons did not intend thus irresistibly to prevent Now rightly to understand this Matter I would desire to know why they say God has bestowed Infallibility on the Church Was it not to prevent Heresies and Schisms Is not this the Popish Objection against the Protestant Resolution of Faith that for want of an Infallible Guide men fall into Errors and Heresies and divide and disturb the Peace of the Church with Schisms Is not this the great Reason they urge for the necessity of an Infallible Guide to prevent all Heresies and Schisms and yet now it seems there must be no more than a Moral Evidence for the Infallibility of the Church that there may be Heresies How often have they been told by Protestant Divines that if God intend an Infallible Judge to prevent all Heresies the Being of an Infallible Judge ought to be as evident and demonstrable as
he can be infallible in nothing Protestants believe Christ to be an infallible Teacher and the Christian Faith to be infallibly true and this they believe with all the firmness and certainty of assent but this is not what the Church of Rome used to call Infallibility though the Jesuite if it be not meer want of understanding in him seems to be hammering out a new notion of Infallibility but it is but a rude and imperfect Embryo yet we shall see what they will make of it in time And here I find my self obliged to look a little backwards to see how he states the Churches Infallibility for he mightily complains of Protestant Misrepresentations about it Our Guide then he tells us is the Catholick Church either diffusive in its whole extent that is as it contains or signifies the whole number of Christians all the World over or representative in its Head and Bishops the Pope and a General Council The Church diffusive or the whole number of Christians on Earth is most certainly the true notion of the Catholick Church on Earth is that Church to which most of the Promises made to The Church in Scripture are made but how this Church diffusive should be our Guide wants to be explained if the Church diffusive or the whole number of Christians is the Guide who is to be guided unless the Guide is to be a Guide only to himself However I hope then every particular Christian will be allowed a private judgment of his own for the Church diffusive will be a very strange Guide if it cannot use its own reason and judgment and how the whole which consists of all particular Christians should judge for itself when no particular Christian must judge is somewhat mysterious that is that all Christians must judge and yet none must judge But I will not dispute with him about this but whenever he will collect the Votes of the Church diffusive or of all the Christians in the World I promise to subscribe to their Definitions The Representative Church is the Head and Bishops the Pope and a General Council I thought the Pope in Jesuits Divinity had been the Church virtual and a General Council the Church representative But I have in a late Discourse proved that the Pope is not the Head of the Catholick Church nor a Council of Bishops the representative of it and he may try his skill upon it when he pleases Now it seems the Church diffusive has the keeping of the general faith of Christians first received from Christ and his Apostles and preserved by all Bishops in their respective Diocesses and in the minds and actions of each faithful Believer in the whole Catholick Church Strange that our Jesuite should now at last turn a meer Blackloist or Traditionary Divine This general Faith of Christians he compares to the common Laws of the Land to shew I suppose his skill in the Law and make the learned Gentlemen of the Temple to pity or scorn The Master's ignorance well let that be as it will for I pretend to no skill in Laws but as for this general Faith of Christians whatever it be like I would gladly learn from the Church diffusive what it is for I matter nothing else but the General Faith of Christians but how to learn this he has not told us it is preserved he says by all Bishops in their respective Diocesses and in the minds and actions of each faithful Believer in the whole Catholick Church Well then must we examine all Bishops and every particular Believer about this this is impossible to be done will any one Bishop or any one particular Believer since every Bishop and every particular Believer has it suffice to tell us what this general Faith of Christians is is this an infallible Conveyance of the Faith to depend upon the Tradition of Bishops and Christian People is there no faithful and authentick Record of this Faith from whence we may learn what Christ and his Apostles delivered to the Church So one would think by this Jesuit's account who takes no notice of the Holy Scriptures as if the common Faith of Christians could not be learnt from them but from the tradition of the Church diffusive Thus much for Common Law but the Church has her Statute Laws too and they are the Decisions or Canons of General Councils declaring and applying to particular Instances the Common Law and Belief of the Church but how does the Pope and a General Council or the Church representative as he calls it come to have the power of declaring and applying the common Faith of Christians which is in the keeping of the Church diffusive and therefore one would think could be declared by none else do the Pope and a General Council infallibly know the Sentiments and Opinions of all the Christian Bishops and People in the World This they must do or else they cannot declare the common Faith of Christians unless they can infallibly declare what they do not know If their Authority be only to declare the common Faith of Christians how shall we know that they declare nothing but the common Faith of Christians for if they do their Decrees are not valid for they declare that which is false This Jesuit has greatly intangled and perplexed the Cause by laying the whole stress upon the declarative and applying Power Had he said that the Pope and a General Council had Authority to declare what is the Christian Faith and though they declared that to be the true Faith which the Church diffusive never heard of before yet after their decision it must be received as the common Faith of Christians though it had not been so formerly there had been some sense in this though no truth but when he says the Church can only declare what is and always has been the common Faith of Christians if I can find by ancient Records that what the Council declares to be the common Faith of Christians now was either not known or condemned in former Ages if I certainly know that she declares that to be the Faith which at the very time of the Council was so far from being the common Faith of Christians that it was not the common Faith of the Council but was contradicted by the wisest and best part of it then I certainly know that the Council has not declared the common Faith of Christians and therefore that its Decrees are of no Authority But he proceeds We hold that this general Faith received from the Apostles and preserved in all the Members of the Catholick Church explained upon occasion by the Church representative is infallibly true and this is all the Infallibility the Catholick Church pretends to And there is no Protestant but will own this Infallibility That the Faith at first received from the Apostles the same Faith which was delivered by the Apostles preserved in all the Members of the Catholick Church and the same Faith explained upon occasion
by the Church representative so that it is evident after the explanation that it is the same Faith still I say every Protestant will acknowledge that this Faith is infallibly true for we believe the Faith delivered by the Apostles to be infallibly true and if it appears that the same Faith is still taught by the Church whether in or out of Council it matters not it must be infallibly true still But yet there is a little difference between us and the Jesuit He believes and would have us believe that the present Faith of the Church of Rome viz. the Doctrine of the Council of Trent is that Faith which was received from the Apostles preserved in all the Members of the Catholick Church and only explained upon occasion by the Council of Trent which was the Church representative this we deny this we know this we can and often have proved to be false And I beseech you what greater infallibility can any Church pretend to than to have the World receive all her Decrees as infallibly true But they do not pretend that either thâ— whole Church or any person or persons in it are held to possess any intrinsick Infallibility which they own to be proper to God alone Thank 'em for nothing they do not believe that the Church or Pope or Council are by nature infallible for all the World would laugh at them if they did We do not say as he adds that they cannot of themselves deceive us but that God according to his Promise directing them by his infallible Spirit it cannot possibly happen that they should deceive us The Modesty of a Jesuit who claims no more Infallibility for the Pope and General Council than the Apostles had and wonders any man should grudge them this since they do not pretend to an intrinsick Infallibility not to be infallible by Nature but only by Grace Thus he adds that they do not preâ—end to new Revelations and Lights nor admit any new Article of Faith though where a doubt arises the Church-hath infallibly power to declare what hath been revealed by Christ to the Apostles and preached by them which perhaps some part of the Church might have had a less clear understanding thereof but this is done not by making any new Article of Faith but more clearly delivering what was ever believed by the Apostles and all Catholicks from their time to this That is to say what ever the Church determines though the Christian Church in former ages knew nothing of it yet it must not be called a new Article of Faith but a declaring what had been revealed by Christ to his Apostles and preached by them though the world had long since forgot it whatever the Church determines to day we must believe to have been the Faith of the Apostolick Age though there are no other evidences nor symptomes of it but because the Church which is infallible says so And this is all the Infallibility the Church pretends too a very small matter to be denied her by Christians it is only to believe whatever she says without disputing or examining her Faith nay to believe that to be the old Faith which the most authentick Records of the Church prove to be new I have thus stept out of my way to see what fine thing he had to say of the Churches Infallibility which he promised a very favourable representation of but it is all the old cant still a little disguised by some ignorant blunders or artificial Non-sense as for his proofs of this Infallibility I am not concerned with them at present and after so many discourses on that Argument they need no answer Another Argument whereby I proved that no man can be disputed into Popery which denies us the use of our own Reason and Judgment in matters of Religion was this Because it is impossible by Reason to prove that men must not use their own Reason and Iudgment in matters of Religion For to dispute is to appeal to Reason and to dispute against the use of Reason in Religion is to appeal to Reason against the use of Reason in Answer to this he tells us That men must use their Reason to come to this knowledge that God hath revealed what they believe Now I would desire no more but this to prove that we must use our Reason in matters of Religion for no man at this day can know what is revealed without it I do assert and let him disprove me when he can that since God has given us reason to judge of the truth or falshood of such things as are knowable by the light of Nature and a standing Rule of Faith and Manners in the writings of the Old and New Testament for matters of Revelation we must believe no Mans or Churches pretences to Infallibility who either teaches any Doctrine which plainly contradicts the light of Reason or a standing revelation and therefore we must judge of mens pretences to the Spirit by the Doctrines they teach and therefore must particularly judge of their Doctrines too This is the fair state of the Controversie between us and here I leave it and let him take it up again when he pleases And here he returns back to the Conference between a sturdy Protestant and a new Convert which belonged to the former head the design of which is to shew the new Convert that by going over to the Church of Rome he has gained no more Infallibility than a Protestant has nay has lost some degrees of certainty which he might have had before for thus the Protestant tells him You rely on your own reason and judgment for the Infallibility of your Church and consequently of all the Doctrines of it and therefore your infallible Faith is as much resolved into your own fallible Iudgment as the Protestant Faith is So that the difference between us is not that your Faith is infallible and ours fallible for they are both alike call it what you will fallible or infallible We have more rational certainty than you have and you have no more infallible certainty than we You think you are reasonably assured your Church is infallible and then you take up your Religion upon trust from your Church without and many times against Sense and Reason according as it happens So that you have only a general assurance of the Infallibity of your Church and that no greater than Protestants pretend to in other cases viz. the certainty of Reason and Argument but have not so much as a rational assurance of the truth of your particular Doctrines that if you are mistaken about the Infallibility of your Church you must be miserably mistaken about every thing else which you have no other evidence for But now we are in general assured that the Scriptures are the Word of God and in particular assured that the Faith which we profess is agreeable to Scripture or expresly contained in it and does not contradict either Sense or Reason nor any
only way we know of to be uncertain the consequence is that there is no certain way of expounding Scripture not that the Church of Rome is the infallible Interpreter of Scripture and therefore any Protestant who is perswaded to own the Infallibility of the Church of Rome because he is told that the Protestant Faith is uncertain is a very foolish Convert and has so little sense and reason that it were fit he had an infallible Guide if he were to be found So that he is a little too forward when he says that all the Methods of coming to the knowledge of Scripture are reduced to these two heads for we know but of one way of expounding Scripture till he proves another and when he can prove his infallible Guide we will give up Protestant certainty as I told him before but till he has in another way proved the infallible Authority of his Church in expounding Scripture though he could prove our Faith uncertain this cannot prove his own to be infallible In the next place I directed our Protestant to ask these Popish Disputants what they meant by the uncertainty of the Protestant Faith. For this may signifie two things either 1. That the Objects of our Faith are in themselves uncertain and cannot be proved by certain reasons Or 2ly That our perswasion about these matters is uncertain and wavering The Jesuite answers that this is not a true diâ—ision for there is a third thing also to wit that whatever Reasons there may be for a thing he who believes it hath for the motive of his belief those certain Reasons For he that believes in Christ only because his Mother hath taught him so hath a very uncertain and no Divine Faith. But suppose this Mother be the Church and he believes it only because the Church hath taught him so Has this man a divine and certain Faith No doubt must our Jesuite say because the Church is Infallible But suppose this man can no more prove the Church to be infallible than that his natural Mother is infallible What difference is there between those who believe upon the Authority of the Church and of their Mother I can assign none and shall be glad to learn the difference from our Jesuite He who believes the true Christian Faith and lives in conformity to it shall certainly be saved or else I fear we must at least damn half the Christians in the World whether Protestants or Papists for want of understanding the reasons of their Faith. Nay I am afraid all Traditionary Christians must be damned who believe this is the true Faith to day because their Fathers and Mothers were taught so and believed so yesterday So that I guess upon second thoughts our Jesuite will compound this matter with me and let fall the third part of the division and I am contented at present till I hear farther from him But he might have observed that I said not only that the Objects of our Faith are in themselves certain but that they may be proved by certain Reasons And therefore for him to say that they are indeed in themselves certain but not to any Protestant whose Rule of Faith cannot make him certain of any one Article without offering to shew that the Reasons why we believe are uncertain is to drop half of the first branch of the division and then to complain of the want of it When the Footman had minded him that our Rule of Faith is the Scripture and therefore if what he says be true the Scripture cannot make us certain of any one Article of Faith instead of answering this Blunder his Superiors only correct his Words in a Parenthesis Preserv Consid. p. 40. The Protestant Rule of Faith considering the Method he applies it by cannot make him certain c. which is a plain confession that the Footman was too hard for the Jesuite but then he should have shewn us how we had misapplied and what the uncertainties of our Reasons are but I suppose he will take time to consider that As for what he calls my Rule of Faith which he says justifies Turk Iew and Gentile We believe all that God hath revealed and nothing else is not all that he hath revealed certain Though I grant a Divine Revelation is the only Rule of my Faith yet here I spoke not of the Rule but of the Objects of my Faith and challenge him to shew that we do reject any thing that God has revealed in the Gospel of his Son or believe any thing else and dare him as I well might all professed Christians to deny the truth or certainty of what is revealed in the Gospel but Turks and Iews believe what they think in their judgments God hath revealed that is their Rule and 't is yours And is there any fault to be found with this so far Do Papists believe what they think in their judgments God has not revealed or what they think he has revealed If they believe what they think God has revealed then they justifie Jews and Turks too as much as Protestants No says the Jesuite Your own private judgments are on both hands your Guides and not any authority established by Almighty God. Now I confess I am not ashamed to own that Turk and Jew and Gentile that is all Mankind except Papists agree with Protestants in this that all men must believe with their own judgments and that there is no other faculty to believe with and much good may it do Papists that they have found out a way to believe without judgment wherein they differ from the rest of Mankind As for their Authority appointed by God on which they must rely without using their own Judgment when they can prove any such Authority we will submit to it I proved that the Articles of the Christian Faith which Protestants believe are certain and founded on certain Reasons as they themselves must grant unless they renounce the Christian Religion for here Infallibility itself cannot help them out For Infallibility cannot make that certain which is in its self uncertain an infallible man must know things as they are or else he is mistaken and ceases to be infallible and therefore what is certain he infallibly knows to be certain and what is uncertain he infallibly knows to be uncertain for the most certain and infallible Knowledge does not change its Object but sees it just as it is Now this he says is notoriously false since she the Church is not infallible by any light of her own but by the guidance of the Spirit of Truth Now this is nothing to the purpose by what light the Church sees the Question is Whether an infallible Church can know that to be certain which is uncertain if she can then she infallibly knows that which is not true But were not the Apostles certain of what Christ told them when they acknowledged him the Son of God before he gave them certain Reason for it But was
recites but what he has to say to it he does not tell us I there shewed at large that God does not want Entreaties to do good though his Wisdom and Justice may require a Sacrifice and a High-Priest to make atonement for sin To prevent that obvious Objection that God commands us to Pray for one another on Earth I observed that this is not by way of Interest and Merit as the Church of Rome pretends the Saints in Heaven Pray for us but by Humble Supplications which I shewed was very reconcilable with the Wisdom and Goodness of God from those excellent ends it serves in this World this he calls a Misrepresentation p. 68. but I pray why do not they Pray to God in the Name and Merits of the Saints are not all their Offices full of such Prayers do they think the Saints in Heaven Pray only as humble Supplicants when the very reason the Council of Trent gives why they should fly to their Aid and Succors is that they Reign with Christ do they not as he adds take the Virgin Mary Angels and Saints for Mediators to incline God to be good to peculiar persons which he calls another Misrepresentation why then do they Pray so frequently and devoutly to them why do they tell of so many miraculous Deliverances wrought by the Virgin Mary in favour of her Clients and of other Saints in favour of their Devotoes English Protestants know these things too well to be imposed on at this time of day by the bawling and confidence of an ignorant Jesuite 2. I observed That it is not less injurious to the Love of our Saviour to fly to the Prayers and Aids of Saints and the Virgin Mary as if Christ either wants interest with God or wants kindness to us and either will not intercede for us at all or will not do it unless he be prevailed with by the Intercession of Saints or the Entreaties or Commands of his Mother And having shewed what assurance we have of the Love and Compassion of our Saviour I added This one would have thought should have given the greatest security to sinners of his readiness to help them But it seems Christ is not merciful and pitiful enough his Virgin Mother has softer and tenderer Passions and such an interest in him or authority over him in the right of a Mother as some of them have not without blasphemy represented it that she can have any thing of him and thus they suppose the other Saints to be much more pitiful than Christ is and to have interest enough to protect their Supplicants or else it is not imaginable why they should need or desire any other Advocates This he calls another Misrepresentation and makes me â—ay that the Church of Rome professes to believe all this but I say no such thing but only this is the natural interpretation of their seeking other Advocates and Mediators besides Christ when he can give a better account of this Practice I will acknowledge I was mistaken in my Argument but am no Misrepresenter for to Argue ill and to Misrepresent are two things as the Representer himself I suppose has learnt by this time SECT III. An Answer to the Thirty Misrepresentations and Calumnies and some Fanatical Principles said to be offered in the Third and Fourth Sections HEre our Jesuite foams and rages and I will make him rage a little more before I have done with him For bad Spirits are apt to rage most the more they feel the power of Exorcism and then there is no way to make them quiet but to cast them out The third Section of the Preservative concerned the Nature of Christian Worship what Christ has reformed in the Worship of God and what Worship he has prescribed 1. As for the first I said that Christ has taken away every thing that was meerly external in Religion not external Acts nor the necessary external Circumstances of Worship but such exernal Rites as either by the Institution of God or Superstition of Men were made Acts of Religion to render us more acceptable to God. This I shewed was agreeable to the nature of Christian Religion which has none of those ends to serve for which these external Rites were instituted by God under the Jewish Law or invented by Men. For 1. There is no Expiation or Satisfaction for Sins under the Gospel but only the Blood of Christ and therefore there is no place now for any Expiatory Rites and Ceremonies 2. The Gospel makes no difference between Legal Cleanness and Uncleanness and therefore distinctions of Meats and External Washings and Purifications are now out of date 3. Nor is there any Symbolical Presence of God under the Gospel which puts an end to the Legal Holiness of Places and Things 4. Nor are Material and Inanimate Things made the Receptacles of Divine Graces and Vertues to convey them to us meerly by Contact and External Applications like some Amulets or Charms to wear in our Pockets or hang about our Necks 5. The Christian Religion admits of no External or Ceremonial Righteousness Now this cuts off every thing which is External in Religion at a blow because it cuts off all hopes and relyances on an External Righteousness 6. Hence it appears that the Christian Religion can admit nothing that is External but only some Faederal Rites such as the two Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper are And such Rites as these are necessary in all instituted Religions which depend upon free and voluntaâ—â—â—â—venants For since Mankind has by sin forfeited their natural rigâ—t to God's favour they can challenge nothing from him now but by Promise and Covenant and since such Covenants require a mutual stipulation on both sides they must be transacted by some visible and sensible Rites whereby God obliges himself to us and we to him This he calls a Fanatical Principle but why I know not And says that this is destroyed by my former Principle of taking away all Rites that are Acts of Religion This is a severe Man who will not allow me to make one Exâ—eption from a General Rule which no man yet was ever denied especially when I give such a peculiar reason for the Exception as is applicable to nothing else that an instituted Religion is and must be founded on a Covenant that a Covenant must be transacted by visible and sensible Rites for there cannot be a visible Covenant nor a visible Church founded on this Covenant without visible and sensible Rites And this I suppose he will think a sufficient Answer to what he says That on this Principle I ought to teach that the mutual stipulation betwixt God and us must be made by his interior Graces and our interior Worship because God must be worshipped as a meer Spirit That God must be worshipped as a meer Spirit and therefore without any external Acts of Worship I never said much less did I assign it as my reason here against a meer external
absurdity of Praying to God in an Unknown Tongue when neither our Understandings nor Affections can joyn in our Prayers For I suppose no man will say that to pray to God or praise him in words which we do not understand is to worship God in Spirit unless he thinks that a Parrot may be taught to pray in the Spirit This he calls a Calumny He would insinuate that Catholicks when they assist to present he should have said at Prayers which they do not understand are not commanded to pray in Spirit by devout Thoughts and pious Affections Now I insinuate no such thing when they are present at Prayers which they do not understand they may have other devout thoughts for ought I know but I say they cannot offer those Prayers to God with their understanding which they do not understand and in such Prayers they do not pray with the Mind and Spirit and therefore all such Prayers are absurd and contrary to the nature of Christian Worship which is to worship God in Spirit But my work is not at an end yet there are some other Misrepresentations and Calumnies which he has picked out of the fourth Section of the Preservative which must be considered The fourth Section concerns the reformation and improvement of Humane Nature which I shewed to be the great design of the Gospel and that particularly with respect to Knowledge and Holiness and I examined how far the Principles and Practices of the Church of Rome did comply with this great Gospel Design 1. As for Knowledge I supposed neither the Church of Rome nor any one for her would pretend that she is any great Friend to Knowledge which is so apt to make men Hereticks That knowing Papists are not beholden to their Church for their Knowledge which deprives them of all the means of Knowledge will not allow them to believe their senses but commands them to believe Transubstantiation which is contrary to the evidence of sense forbids men the use of Reason in matters of Religion suffers them not to judge for themselves nor examine the Reasons of their Faith and denies them the use of the Bible which is the only means to know the revealed Will of God and when men must neither believe their Senses nor use their Reason nor read the Scripture it is easie to guess what knowing and understanding Christians they must needs be Against this it may be objected that the Church of Rome does instruct her Children in the true Christian Faith though she will not allow them to read the Scriptures nor judge for themselves which is the safer way to teach them the pure Catholick Faith without danger of Error or Heresie To this I answered This were something did the Church of Rome take care to instruct them in all necessary Doctrines and to teach nothing but what is true and could such men who thus tamely receive the dictates of the Church be said to know and to understand their Religion so that here were two Inquiries 1. Whether the Church of Rome instructs her Children in all necessary truth and nothing but the truth 2. Whether she so instructs them that they may be said to know and understand How far the Church of Rome is from doing the first I said all Christians in the World are sensible but themselves but that is not our present Dispute But our Jesuite it seems will make it the Dispâ—te or it shall pass for a perfect Slander for thus he repeats it they take no care to instruct mâ—n in all necâ—ssary Doctrines Which I did not positively affirm bâ—t since he will have it so I do now affirm That they do not instruct men in all necessary Doctrines and that thâ—y teach them a great many false Doctrines But then he must remember what I mean by instructing it is not meerly to teach them to repeat the Articles of their Creed but to give them the true sense and meaning of them and I do affirm and am ready to prove it and possibly may do so when leisure permits that they do not rightly instruct men in the great and necessary Doctrine of forgiveness of Sins in the Name of Christ nor in the nature of Christ's Mediation and Intercession for us nor in the nature of Justification or of Gospel and Obedience but teach such Errors as overthrow the true Gospel notion of these great and necessary Doctrines Then as for their manner of Teaching to require men to believe what they say meerly upon the Authority of the Church without suffering them to examine whether such Doctrines are taught in Scripture or to exercise their own reason and judgment about it can make no man a knowing and understanding Christian. For no man understands his Religion who does not in some measure know the reasons of his Faith and judge whether they be sufficient or not who knows not how to distinguish between Truth and Error who has no Rule to go by but must take all upon trust and the credit of his Teachers who believes whatever he is told and learns his Creed as School-boys do their Grammar without understanding it this is not an active but a kind of passive knowledge Such men receive the impression that is made on them as Wax does and understand no more of the matter These Sayings that are marked out are more of his Misrepresentations which need no other Vindication but to be shewn in their own light and proper places And yet I did not deny but some men might be so dull and stupid as to be capable of little more than to be taught their Religion as Children but certainly this is not the utmost perfection of knowledge that any Christian must aim at which he thus represents With them this is the utmost perfection of Knowledge that any Christian must aim at This I did not say but this I say that it is the utmost perfection of Knowledge which any man can attain to who will be contented with the Methods of the Church of Rome not to examine his Religion but to take all upon the credit of the Church Well How does our Jesuite confute this heavy Charge and perfect Slander Does he shew that they teach all necessary Truths and nothing but Truth Does he prove that men may be very knowing Christians without understanding the Reasons of their Faith Not one word of this which alone was to his purpose but he says hundreds of thousands of Religious men are employed in instructing the Ignorant and teaching Children and whoever denied this that they do teach Men and Children after their fashion But does this prove that they teach them all necessary Truths and nothing but truth Or that they make them ever the wiser for their teaching As for those ignorant Protestants he has had to deal with if he made Converts of them I believe they were very ignorant otherwise if there were Ignorance between them it was as likely to lie on the Jesuite's side Having laid down
of his Sacrifice extends no farther than the Gospel-Covenant that is no man can be saved by the Bloud of Christ but those who obey the Gospel This I observed the Church of Rome seems very sensible of that the Sacrifice of the Cross will avail none but penitent and reformed Sinners But then the Sacrifice of the Mass is a Propitiatory Sacrifice for the living and the dead to expiate those sins which are not expiated by the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross and that by the bare opus operatum by the offering this Sacrifice of the Mass it self without any good motion in the person for whom it is offered These are some more of his Mis-representations to which he adds That when Christ was sacrificed upon the Cross he expiated only for the eternal punishment of sin when sacrificed in the Mass only for the temporal What has he to say to this only three loud Calumnies We teach that Christ on the Cross gave himself a full Redemption for all the guilt and debt of sinners who apply to themselves that precious Bloud by the means appointed by Christ. Very tender this But did Christ expiate the sins only of true penitent and reformed sinners Is that the only means of applying his precious Bloud to us That by the Sacrifice of the Mass as also by any good Christian Prayers for obdurate sinners such Graces may be obtained as shall work in them their salvation but that no sin is remitted to an impenitent sinner Very artificial and trickish still Does the Sacrifice of the Mass expiate sins or not Do other good Christian Prayers expiate sin Why then does he joyn the Sacrifice of the Mass and other good Christian Prayers as if they attribute no more expiation to the Mass than to Christian Prayers Is the Sacrifice of the Mass to obtain Grace for sinners or to expiate sin Pray what Grace is obtained by the Sacrifice of the Mass for those who are dead or is the Sacrifice of the Mass available for obdurate sinners or for those only who are in a state of Grace But pray why not one word to â—he main case that the Mass expiates those sins for which the Sacrifice of the Cross made no Expiation What he adds That no sin is remitted to an impenitent sinner is nothing to the purpose the question is Whether no man shall be pardoned who does not reform his sin and live a holy life These are two things in the Church of Rome where men receive Absolution upon their Contrition as is pretended who never reform their lives But as for the Opus Operatum he tells us It hath no reference to him who receives the Sacraments but to those who administer the Sacraments from whose Piety they take not their force This I know Cassander and some other moderate Romanists would have to be the sense but in contradiction to the Doctrine of their Church I shall not enter into that Dispute now our present case is very plain For the Mass is offered for the living and the dead for those who are absent and know nothing of it and therefore cannot joyn in the Oblation of this Sacrifice that if it have any vertue it must be its own the bare Opus Operatum without any good motion of him for whom it is offered A Fourth Gospel Motive to Holiness is the Intercession of Christ for us at the right hand of God. Because he mediates and interceeds only for true penitent Sinners which obliges us as we hope for any benefit from the Intercession of Christ heartily to repent of our sins and live a new life but the Church of Rome has found out a great many other Advocates and Mediators who by their great Interest in Christ or favour with God may obtain that pardon which otherwise they could not hope for and that this must be the meaning of their Addresses to Saints and the Virgin Mary I proved because there is no other account to be given of it for will they say that Christ wants Will or Power to undertake our Cause if we be such as according to the terms of the Gospel it is his Office to interceed for I confess'd it was hard to think that they should imagine that the Intercession of the Virgin Mary or the most powerful Saints can prevail with our Saviour to do that which according to the Laws of his own Mediation they know he cannot and will not do But yet so it is that is thus they do and there is no other account to be given of it but this This he says is a bare-faced Calumny But what is the Calumny that they do pray to Saints and the Virgin or that such vile Wretches hope to be heaâ—d by them who could not reasonably expect that Christ would hear them upon their own account Let him have a care of calling this a Calumny there are many fine Stories how gracious the Blessed Virgin has been to the most profligate Villains which I suppose are related for this purpose to make such Wretches great Devotoes of the Virgin. What he says That the blessed Saints only joyn their Prayers to ours to obtain mercy of Christ is nothing to our present purpose the Question is Why those who have so mercifuland compassionate an High-Priest should make such frequent Addresses to other Advocates if they did not hope to find them more pitiful and compassionate to obtain that for them of their Saviour by their Interest and Intercession which good men know they may have of Christ for asking without applying to other Advocates A Fifth Gospel Motive to a Holy Life is the hope of Heaven and the fear of Hell but then the terror of Hell is mightily abated by the Doctrine of Purgatory for though Purgatory be a terrible place yet it is not eternal especially considering how many easie ways there are for men to get out of Purgatory those who can buy Indulgencies while they live or Masses for their Souls when they die need not lie long there if the Priests are not out in their reckoning Here he finds three Calumnies The first That Catholicks exempt Sinners from Hell who in the Protestant Doctrine would be condemned to it No unrepented mortal sin is lodged in Purgatory or escapes Hell. Now I confess though I did not say so yet I think they do and I grant it is a true consequence of my Argument That all impenitent Sinners shall go to Hell we both agree but then we make the reformation of our lives essential to repentance and how sorrowful soever men are for their sins if they live after such sorrow and do not reform their lives they shall go to Hell. In the Church of Rome at most contrition or sorrow for sin is all that is necessary to Absolution and that keeps them out of Hell and such men must expiate their sins by Penance in this World or in Purgatory in the next but though they do not reform their sins if
they be contâ—ite and absolved again they are restored to a state of Grace again and so toties quoties Now such Penitents as are sorry for their sins but do not reform them are condemned to Hell 〈◊〉 the Protestant Church and only to Purgatory in the Church of Rome and therefore the First is no Calumny The Second is That Indulgencies may be bought for Money this is no Calumny as I have already shewn or avail a Soul undisposed to receive the benefit of them through want of contrition the guilt of sin not being before remitted This I never said and therefore is no Calumny of mine The third That Masses said for any Soul in Purgatory avail such as during life have not deserved and merited that mercy This I take to be nonsense according to the Doctrines of their own Church For certainly those Souls who have merited to get into Purgatory have merit enough to receive the benefit of Masses Another Gospel-Motive to Holiness are the Examples of Good Men but in the Church of Rome the extraordinary Vertues of great and meritorious Saints are not so much for imitation as for a stock of Merits The more Saints they have the less need is there for other men to be Saints unless they have a mind to it because there is a greater treasure of Merits to relieve those who have none of their own and if one man can merit for twenty there is no need there should be above one in twenty good Here he quibbles upon the different acceptation of Merit as it relates to a reward or as it expiates the punishment of sin In the first sense he says Merit is personal not communicative but if it be communicative in the second sense that one man may be delivered from punishments by the Merits of another and if it be not there is an end of the gainful trade of Indulgencies that is sufficient to my Argument and will satisfie most sinners who are not concerned about degrees of glory if they can escape punishment Lastly I shewed that the Gospel-Means and Instruments of Holiness do not escape much better in the Church of Rome among others I instanced in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper which besides those supernatural conveyances of Grace which are annexed to it by our Saviour's Institution is a great Moral Instrument of Holiness but in the Church of Rome this admirable Sacrament is turned into a dumb shew which no body can be edified with or into a sacrifice for the living and the dead which expiates sin and serves instead of a holy life Here he says there are three crying Calumnies 1. That the Sacrament among them is nothing but a shew or a sacrifice whereas they very often receive it and did I say the Sacrament was never received in the Church of Rome 2. That they require the practice of no Vertue to the receiving the Sacrament whereas they require the Sacrament of Penance to prepare for the Eucharist But I spoke of those Vertues which were to be exercised in receiving which there are not such advantages for in the Church of Rome where the Office is not understood and the mind diverted with a thousand insignificant Ceremonies 3. That our exposing the blessed Sacrament is a dumb shew and so we assist at holy Mass. And whether it be or no let those judge who have seen the Ceremony How much the Sacrifice of the Mass encourages Vertue we have already seen I doubt not but our Jesuite can give as good an Answer to this Vindication as he did to the Preservative and I as little doubt but he will unless Mr. Needham's Name to the License may be my security for he has threatned it shall be to him a sufficient Note and Character of a Book not worth the Reading much less the Censuring where-ever he sees that Reverend Person has opened it the Press and I commend him for it for he has had very ill success with such Books of late but though I never grudge my pains in answering an Adversary who gives occasion for any useful and material Discourse for I desire whatever I say should be sifted to the very bottom and am as ready to own any Error I am convinced of as to vindicate the Truth yet it is very irksom to be forced to write a great Book meerly to rescue my words from the injuries of a perverse Comment which has been my present Task Thus any Book may be answered by a man who has wit or ignorance enough to pervert it and such Answers may be easily answered again by men who have nothing else to do but if this trade grow too common they must be very idle people indeed who will find time to read them And therefore to prevent such an impertinent trouble for the future before I take leave of my Adversary I will venture to give him a little good Advice which may stand him in stead against the next time 1. That he would be more modest and sparing in his Title-page not to paint it so formidable as to make it ridiculous it is a little too much to talk of Principles which destroy all right use of Reason Scripture Fathers Councils undermine Divine Faith and abuse Moral Honesty Or Forty malicious Culumnies and forged untruths besides several Fanatical Principles which destroy all Church Discipline and oppose Christ's Divine Authority If such things be proved against any Book I assure you it is very terrible though there be nothing of it in the Title but the World has been so long deceived with Titles that commonly the more the Title promises the less they expect in the Book Some cry it is a Mountebank's Bill otheâ—s the Man raves and if curiosity tempts any to look any farther the disappointment they meet with provokes their scorn or indignation The bare name of an Answer to a Book which is commonly known and approved is a sufficient invitation to all men to read it but it is a very impolitick thing to prejudice the Readers by a frightful Title 2. That he would not think he has confuted a Book by picking out some sayings which he thinks very inconvenient and obnoxious but in which the main Arguâ—ent of the Book is not concerned this is the case in many passages he has objected against the Preservative for though there is never a one but what is very defensible and what I have defended yet there are many that if they could not be defended the main Argument of the Book is never the worse This is as vain as to think to kill a man by launâ—hing a Sore while all his Vitals are sound and untoucht 3. That he would not boast of confuting a Book without bearing up fairly to any one Argument in it I know in his Postscript he says that he omitted nothing in Answer to the First part of the Preservative that even pretended to the appearance of an Argument that all the rest which he did not answer in his