designedly written by a Romanist to strike our Author dead I read it over and found it fill'd up with Arguments of Universality Tradition and Infallibility of that Church Peter's Authority c. and all these larded with Zeal to persuade me into a Dependance and Reliance upon the Roman Church as the true one in which Treatise that Author boldly said my Reason ought to Acquiesce 't is well that side also makes Reason the Judge I was pleas'd with the sound of the Word more than with his reasons for they did not satisfie my Understanding yet had I known that Authors Genius inclin'd to Poetry I would have recommended him for Instruction to my old Friend the Parson of Pentlow And now I begin to think my self fortunate having hitherto sided with a noble Captain for so I account Humane Reason which 't is confest every side pretends to and which may possibly be beaten from it's Posts by the clatter of some Coffee-house but it will always recover and baffle its greatest Antagonists at the long run for Truth is strongest but Reason does assure it without whose gentle Mediation and Midwifry we had still remain'd in the State of War and consequently had been miserable THE END A RE-VIEW AND APPENDIX OUR Reply having been written now above two years I have re-consider'd it and from the past Circumstances of Affairs and present do think it necessary to add this Re-view and other Amplifications as either subservient to the Design or otherwise material insisting upon the Prospect of Reason and the ill consequence of neglecting its guidance viz. That from the Petulancy Heat and unseasonable Eagerness of some not very Discreet nor Learned and of others Learned Honest and generally Prudent but not infallible occasion is taken by the other side to answer upon such Provocations as they can alledging that their Sufferings are and have been all along for Conscience-sake and for well-doing though the Letters of the Laws are against them a Plea ever favour'd in all Ages That these Disputes about Externals onely for both Parties agree in Substance of Doctrine are mischievous to us at home and scandalous to the Protestant Churches abroad beyond the Seas That the Roman Church if it gets no Proselytes from these unseasonable Heats yet it has great reason to be pleas'd therewith for she thrives by our Divisions and can thrive by no other means here now That that Church was more Politick while she had as fair hopes as ever to prevail after the Queens death by complying outwardly with our Laws for till the 12th of Q. Eliz. all or most Romanists in England did and were permitted by the Pope to go to our Protestant Churches to hear the Service receive the Sacrament and take the Oath of Allegeance though since the Jesuits procur'd a Bull of Inhibition for their own profit yet 't was never accounted any Crime for a Romanist at that time not to go or to go to the Protestant Church whence our want of Charity to the Dissenters appears less than that of the Roman Church our Policy less and our uneasiness too visible thereby Neither are the Dissenters altogether excusable in their too stiff Separation and boggling at small things but I will be sparing in judging tender Consciences nevertheless it is obvious That from our pernicious Divisions so dangerous to our Religion and because tho the first Reformers went a good step yet no great progress has lately been made towards the Reason of our departure from Rome and reforming things amiss moderate men on both sides here do wish for some new Laws to consolidate the Conformists and Non-conformists in some measure or at least that some Ceremonies might be left and for the Explanation of some Laws now in force or limiting the force of others and particularly of that for imposing twenty pounds per Month for not coming to Church which Law I suppose no Lawyer doubts was originally intended against the Romanists and not against Protestant Dissenters who were few then and 't was the Roman Party at that time which confronted the Laws and begot the Statute The next Observation relates to Excommunications which how familiarly decreed and for what slight Causes and upon what gainful Designs and consequently how prejudicial to many of his Majestie 's good Subjects and how contrary to its Primitive and Grave Institution all Wise and Honest men of this Nation are and have been long very sensible of and of the ruine of some Families and the inriching of ill Officers by such Methods But may some say the Statute of Q. Mary against disturbers of Preachers is partly in force and of Use which was principally intended against Protestants for they were the Persons likely to disturb the Romanish Preachers then wherefore they say Why is not that of Eliz. also to be put in constant practise it being a general Law and provides for Peace Our Answer is The Case is alter'd for though equal Principles do lead to equal Ends 't is but when the matter about which we are conversant is equal And now the Papists are the most dangerous to our Peace and do plot to that end if we may credit King and Parliament or our own Eyes therefore that Law of Elizabeth against Recusancy stands in force yet it seems to want some Discrimination and that of Mary being in part repeal'd is continu'd as to the disturbing of Preachers the true Definition of Law being the Will of the Legislator There are many other antiquated and as things are inconvenient Laws Civil and Ecclesiastical which I have not room to remark here and as to the brangling practick part of both Courts the Judges may at least they ought to correct it tho one said wittily yet truly that no body but themselves meaning the Civil Practisers understands their Practise I had almost said Laws nor themselves neither The like may be said of the Practise at Common Law depending upon great Officers as some say if so 't is all dark This however since we are upon Discourse of Reason I 'll venture to say 't is evident that too often the Clients are tortur'd betwixt Prohibitions and Consultations so dangerous and troublesome it is where Courts do strive for Jurisdiction so also where the Judge's Power increases and the Jury's decreases or is over-aw'd for where Judges as has been our Case in Richard the Second's time presume to determine or delay by discretion or border upon the thing call'd perversion upon misapply'd Maxims which I hope will not be our Case Those Nations are more at ease where their Laws are unwritten supposing the Eternity of the Laws of Reason and which minds me of the familiar and exorbitant Practise of some as a wise Lord lately call'd them Trading Justices by their granting Warrants upon easie or unprov'd Suggestions above 10000 having been made out in one year by one of them lately which I can prove insomuch as few honest modest men can be free from their discretional
trouble it self with humane Affairs but if Providence had been exploded out of the minds of men it had been impossible to have persuaded us that God was ever displeas'd at the Fall of Aâ—an and consequently there would have appear'd no need at all of Restauration by Christ But the Gent. flyeth yet higher in the very same page by charging the Author that he hath busied himself to prove Humane Reason may with Safety to eternal Happiness tolerate Atheism it self and consequently all kind of Lusts and Wickedness whatsoever Really a most irrational and degenerous Objection such an Objection as no man who pretendeth to be a Gentleman but would blush to make to cancel which I need do no more than repeat the Author 's own Words pag. 31. which are these I believe first that Reason it self will declare to every man in the World that he ought to adhere to the Christian rather than to any other Religion in the World Now if Christian Religion ought to be adhered to it followeth necessarily that Vertue ought to be embrac'd and Vice detested because that Religion doth engage men to Holiness without the Practise whereof none can be happy according to the very Elements of that Religion The next things quarrell'd at are those Positive and undeniable Arguments which the Author propoundeth to establish the Excellency of Humane Reason taking it with it's due Helps that is by comparing it with other Guides standing in Competition with it in the Prosecution whereof how learnedly accurately and judiciously the Author hath particularly demonstrated the Uncertainty of many other pretended Guides and the Improbability of their being able to satisfie a solid Inquisition after Truth and which we are commanded to make and for which the Bereans were called noble appeareth so clearly from the 62 pag. of his book to pag. 64. that I dare say no unprejudiced Reader having considered them will suppose less than this that his Arguments need not any other Proof but the bare Prolation But however to give the Gent. fair Play I will go back a little to the Author's page 63. where he proveth Authority less safe than humane Reason out of which the Gent. would very fain squeeze something like a Face of Contradiction to which I answer He that believeth any thing because enjoyned by Authority is not nor cannot in his own Conscience be so fase as he that believeth and obeyeth Authority because he is rationally convinc'd he ought to obey it having commanded a rational thing As to the Gentleman's Instance of the Judges passing Sentence Secundum allegata probata he is mistaken for our Judges do not so judge nor will our municipal Law bear it nor is it any thing pertinent to the Business in hand for it is the Jury that groundeth the Sentence here the Judge only pronouncing it And touching the Gentleman's Instance about Adam's Fall from want of following of the Dictates of his own Reason asserted by the Author and which the Gent. would elude by saying that Adam's Crime was for believing Eve rather than his own Reason insisting that the Inhibition was not a Law of Nature or Reason but a mere positive Law I answer if the Law were merely positive Adam had the greater Reason to observe it and therefore it was irrationally done to follow the Persuasions of his Wife you may call it Authority if you please considering our Wives now in England before the Command of his Maker and indeed a thing altogether unbecoming his masculine Superiority and by the Gentleman's Favour Eve did not plead the Authority but Fraud of the Serpent which beguiled her nor did the Serpent pretend to any Dominion over her But I see the Gent. groweth angry by his Excursions in the upper part of his 96. pag. being nothing civil at all to the Author nor indeed pertinent to the Controversie which for the Gentleman 's own sake because possibly 't was but the effect of mere Passion I shall forbear to mention here particularly and now I must look backwards To what is objected against the Author's Words which are That they who commit themselves to the Guidance of their own Reason if they do commit themselves wholly to it are as safe on the Left band as on the Right as secure of Happiness in their Errors as others are who are otherwise guided ev'n in the Truths which they happ'n to fall into I suppose it is no more than if he had said that Councils Doctors Fathers Schoolmen Churches c. have erred both ways and therefore I am in as great Danger in submitting to such fallible and blind Guides every whit nay greater than if I happ'n to err after having searcht with all the imaginable Strength of my Reason for Truth for saith the Author There is no danger of perishing but for Disobedience to what to God's Commands and I am commanded to offer a reasonable Service I am to give a reason of my Faith and that Hope which is in me and doth it look like a good Plea to say that I did search and pray'd to God to direct me in that Search by his Spirit or is it better to say and more tolerable that I believ'd as the Church believ'd and rested there as safe I thought as a Thief in a Mill but this last Plea can never hold for me to pretend I did so with other men's Eyes when God hath giv'n me Eyes of mine own and this made Luther stir and H. 8. too who being King of a Kingdom independent of Rome properly though many ways usurpt by the Pope was not à parte rei obliged to refer himself to the Decision of any foreign Potentate about that which he alledg'd troubl'd his Conscience or if it were from any other Motive yet it was generously done upon the main and God can bring Good out of Evil whence the Author's Assumption that there is in man a natural Ability of searching for spiritual Truths and that it can be nothing else but the Vnderstanding neither to any thing else can the Command of searching be directed c. cannot be shaken by what is objected besides that the Author has the Suffrage of the best learned in all Ages to back him As to what fell in betwixt the Author and Master Hobbs it doth not much concern me to meddle with in this place T. H. will shift for himself but I will tell the Gent. he is the first Christian that ever interpreted the fifth of Matthew Let your Light so shine before men that they may see your good works to warrant the Necessity of Obedience to external Worship nor will the Scope of that Chapter bear it the Apostle intending to explain thereby the blessed State of Christianity in Suffering for Christ c. And that it is impossible Humane Reason so guided as the Author hath told us should lead men into those Sins of Theft Murder c. and all other Villanies appeareth from this that nothing else besides it
can preserve us from the Commission of them for no man while he used his own Reason rightly ever committed any of them it being impossible to suppose it could be the Effect of Reason to be impious but it may be the effect of the enslaving of our Reason to the brutish part of a man which is his sensual Appetite or the like which indeed is too familiar while Youth lasteth It is true which the Gent. affirmeth that whoever faileth by the willfull neglect of finding out of Truth which was in his Power to help is therefore inexcusable but he that persecutes those who have searcht according to their best means and yet cannot satisfie their own Consciences is more inexcusable by doing that to others which he would for no man would be persecuted not have done to himself But the Gentleman excepts against the Author's asserting That we ought not to believe Errors of Faith to be damnable it being unreasonable to teach men that Errors overthrow our Hopes of Salvation unless we could likewise give them a Catalogue of those Errors which are so Paul indeed saith there are damnable Heresies and Peter but names none in particular but denying of the Lord that bought us thereby bringing swift Destruction c. it is very plain thereby Peter defin'd or rather determin'd the denying of the Lord that bought them to be the only damnable Heresie which indeed I take to be Apostacy However the Gent. adventureth to give us another manner of Catalogue of damnable Heresies which he saith are all such as are continued in in Opposition to the Authority of the Church perversely and obstinately I grant it true But if all are guilty of damnable Errors or damnable Heresie who do not obey what the Church enjoyneth that is the Law in England and Scotland considering the Indifferency of some and the dissenting of others there will be but a few compar'd to the guilty in any Possibility of Salvation in those two Kingdoms and it must needs invite all lukewarm Protestants to the Roman Religion rather than to stick to the Religion of that people so generally infected with damnable Errors the Papists have reason to thank him for it Yet again the Gent. quarrelleth at the Author for saying Where we do not know our Fault we have no means of Repenting of it and consequently cannot expect Pardon for it there being no Forgiveness without Repentance and Repentance is impossible without knowledge of our Fault To which the Gentleman's answer is if this be true it would damn all Mankind and my Reply is If it be not true it must damn most of Mankind for confident I am there 's not one in a thousand that thinketh himself obliged to repent of Sins he never knew of it being enough and more than most men do to repent of known sins Pardon implyeth a Guilt Guilt is a Breach of the Law The old Testament condemneth none but for actual Sins the new maketh few new Sins more than the old for Thoughts if transient and not reduc'd into Act are not Sins and what David saith Who can understand his Errors there is not any more meant by it than that it is difficult to understand them and when he prayeth to be pardon'd his secret Sins he intended not any other than such Sins as were only known to God and himself so against presumptuous Sins which are intended against Light against Reason no man having ever had greater Reason to be thankful to God than he who had been preferr'd and preserved in so admirable a manner more than once from his Enemies c. And the Gent. cannot forget who prayed to be deliver'd from unreasonable men nor who fought with Beasts at Ephesus Again the Author having said the great Probability of Truth on all sides ev'n in the erring ones ought to make us believe that God will pardon those Errors the Gentleman answers thus If our Errors be such as are not the Effects or Causes of any Sin we have no Reason to think but God will pardon them and I say If our Sins be the Causes of our Errors we have no Reason to think that God will pardon them and that Sin is for the most part the Cause of Errors is plain to any man who shall observe the Effects of Debauchery for how is it possible any man can act rationally who drowneth his Reason or believe as convinc'd by Reason when he will offer Violence to it and brutifie himself But saith the Gent. if our Errors are the Effect of willfull Ignorance Pride or Idleness if they have lead us into Schism and Heresie and thereby into Contempt of Authority then we can have no Hopes of Pardon without Amendment wherefore Sin being most commonly the Cause or the Effect of Errors or both it proveth there is no small Danger in them I must mind the Reader here how the Gentleman runneth the Wild-goose Chase one while putting an erroneous person in hope of Pardon in which he implieth Guilt or else why Pardon Another while no Pardon without Amendment as if Amendment were not the tacite Condition of every pardon which if it were not true men might presume to sin daily upon Assurance of daily Pardon or at least upon Presumption of it I suppose he should rather have said no Pardon was to be had without Repentance in any Case which he was afraid or unwilling to say least he should have admitted the Truth of the Author's Assertion which was that true Repentance could not be without fore-knowledge of the Fault and I think as concerning Errors to mend is no more than to repent of them But for that the Gent. makes Wilful Ignorance a damnable sin I do not well understand what he meaneth by the term Wilful there it being as absurd to my apprehension to call Ignorance Wilful as to talk of Free Will the Will alwayes following and being acted by the last Dictate of the Understanding so that it not only seemeth to be but is necessitated being no Faculty in it self men cannot therefore believe what they please nor think what they please that such or such an Opinion or thing is true or false Indeed a man may act contrary to his Understanding which is Hypocrisie and which if the Gent. pleaseth he may call Wilful Hypocrisie nor do I know a fitter man to make Hypocrites than himself who is so fierce nay fiercer than our Laws are themselves to have all men compelled to Conformity whether it be with or against their Reasons after the way Carters use by the Whip to teach their poor Horses obedience Now again the Author having said and truly that there is no such great danger from Errors since there is but one true way for a thousand false ones and that there 's no mark set upon that true way to distinguish it from others Reason being the Judge the Gent. argueth that where the difficulty surpasseth the Faculty that God hath given us Reason still for we have no