either wholly or for the far greatest part of them take upan humour against propagating Mankind And yet both History and the experience of the present Age assures us that a great part of Asia and of Africk where the most flourishing Churches in the World once were are fallen off from Christianity and become either Mahometans or Heathens In Africk almost all those vast Regions which Christianity had gained from Heathenism Mahometanism hath regained from Christianity All the North-part of Afrique lying along the Mediterranean where Christianity flourish't once as much as ever it did at Rome is at this time utterly void of Christians excepting a few Towns in the hands of the European Princes And not to mention all particular places the large Region of Nubia which had as is thought from the Apostles time professed the Christian Faith hath within these 150 years for want of Ministers as Alvarez tells us quitted Christianity and is partly revolted to Heathenism partly fallen off to Mahometanism So that it seems that notwithstanding the Arguments of hope and fear the very Teachers of Tradition may fail in a largely extended Church As for Asia in the Easterly parts of it there is not now one Christian to four of what there were 500 years ago and in the more Southerly parts of it where Christianity had taken deepest root the Christians are far inferiour in number to the Idolaters and Mahometans and do daily decrease What thinks Mr. S. of all this Have those Christian Nations which are turn'd Mahometans and Pagans failed in their Faith or not If they have I expect from him clear Instances of more that have failed in propagating their kind § 7. But besides those who have totally Apostatized from Christianity hath not the whole Greek Church with the Jacobites and Nestorians and all those other Sects which agree with and depend upon these and which taken together are manifoldly greater than the Roman Church I say have not all these renounced Tradition for several Ages And here in Europe hath not a great part of Poland Hungary both Germany's France and Switzerland Have not the Kingdoms of great Brittain Denmark Sweden and a considerable part of Ireland in Mr. S's opinion deserted Tradition If I should once see a whole Nation fail because no body would marry and contribute to the propagation of Mankind and should find this sullen humour to prevail in several Nations and to overspread vast Parts of the World I should then in good earnest think it possible for Mankind to fail unless I could shew it impossible for other Nations to do that which I see some to have done who were every whit as unlikely to have done it So that whatever cause he assigns of Heresie as Pride Ambition Lust or any other vice or interest if these can take place in whole Nations and make them renounce Tradition then where 's the efficacy of the causes to preserve Faith indeficiently entire in any For the Demonstration holds as strongly for all Christians as for any § 8. Secondly From these grounds it would follow that no Christian can live wickedly because the end of Faith being a good life the arguments of hope and fear must in all Reason be as powerful and efficacious causes of a good life as of a true belief And that his Demonstration proves the one as much as the other will be evident from his own reasoning for he argues in this manner Good is the proper object of the will good propos'd makes the will to desire that good and consequently the known means to obtain it Now infinite goods and harms sufficiently proposed are of their own nature incomparably more powerful causes to carry the will than temporal ones Since then when two causes are counterpoised the lesser when it comes to execution is no cause as to the substance of that effect it follows that there is no cause to move the wills of a World of Believers to be willing to do that which they judge would lose themselves and their Posterity infinite goods and bring them infinite harms c. in case a sufficient Proposal or Application be not wanting which he tells us is not wanting because Christianity urged to execution gives its followers a new life and a new nature than which a nearer Application cannot be imagined Doth not this Argument extend to the lives of Christians as well as their Belief So that he may as well infer from these grounds that it is impossible that those who profess Christianity should live contrary to it as that they should fail to deliver down the Doctrine of Christ because whatever can be an inducement and temptation to any man to contradict this Doctrine by his practice may equally prevail upon him to falsifie it For why should men make any more scruple of damning themselves and their Posterity by teaching them false Doctrines than by living wicked Lives which are equally pernicious with Heretical Doctrines not only upon account of the bad influence which such examples of Fathers and Teachers are like to have upon their Scholars but likewise as they are one of the strongest arguments in the World to perswade them that their Teachers do not themselves believe that Religion which they teach for if they did they would live according to it Why should any man think that those arguments of hope and fear which will not prevail upon the generality of Christians to make them live holy Lives should be so necessarily efficacious to make them so much concerned for the preserving of a right Belief Nay we have great reason to believe that such persons will endeavour as much as may be to bend and accommodate their Belief to their Lives And this is the true source of those Innovations in Faith for which we challenge the Church of Rome which any man may easily discern who will but consider how all their new Doctrines are fitted to a secular Interest and the gratifying of that inordinate appetite after riches and dominion which reigns in the Court of Rome and in the upper part of the Clergy of that Church SECT IV. § 1. SEcondly The main grounds of his Demonstration are apparently false For First This Demonstration supposeth that the generality of Christian Parents in all Ages perfectly understood the Doctrine of Christ and did not mistake any part of it that they remembred it perfectly and that they were faithful and diligent to instruct their Children in it which is as contrary to experience as that the generality of Christians are knowing and honest It supposeth likewise that this Doctrine and every substantial part of it was received and remembred by the generality of Children as it was taught and was understood perfectly by them without the least material mistake So he tells us That the substance of Faith comes clad in such plain matters of Fact that the most stupid man living cannot possibly be ignorant of it But whether this be
of harms-way than to venture the infallibility of plain oral Tradition for the Doctrines he maintains against a practical Tradition which they have at Rome of killing Hereticks Methinks Mr. S. might have spared his brags that he hath evinced from clear reason that it is far more impossible to make a man not to be than not to know what is rivetted into his soul by so oft repeated sensations as the Christian Faith is by Oral and Practical Tradition and that it exceeds all the power of Nature abstracting from the cases of madness and violent disease to blot knowledg thus fixt out of the soul of one single Believer insomuch that sooner may all mankind perish than the regulative vertue of Tradition miscarry nay sooner may the sinews of entire nature by overstraining crack and she lose all her activity and motion that is her self than one single part of that innumerable multitude which integrate the vast testification which we call Tradition can possibly be violated when after he hath told us that the City of Rome was blest with more vigorous causes to imprint Christ's Doctrine at first and recommend it to the next Age than were found any where else and consequently that the stream of Tradition in its source and first putting into motion was more particularly vigorous there than in any other See and that the chief Pastor of that See hath a particular Title to Infallibility built upon Tradition above any other Pastor whatsoever not to dilate on the particular assistances to that Bishop springing out of his divinely constituted Office when I say after all this quaint Reason and rumbling Rhetorick about the infallibility of Oral Tradition and the particular infallibility of the Bishop of Rome built on Tradition we cannot but remember that this great Oracle of Oral Tradition the Pope and this great Master of it Mr. White who is so peculiarly skill'd in the Rule of Faith have so manifestly declar'd themselves to differ in points of Faith For that the Pope and his Congregation general at Rome have condemn'd all his Books for this reason because they contain several Propositions manifestly heretical is a sign that these two great Wits do not very well hit it in matters of Faith and either that they do not both agree in the same Rule of Faith or that one of them does not rightly understand it or not follow it And now why may not that which Mr. S. unjustly says concerning the use of Scripture be upon this account justly apply'd to the business of Oral Tradition If we see two such eminent Wits among the Papists the Pope and Mr. White making use of the self-same and as they conceive the best advantages their Rule of Faith gives them and availing themselves the best they can by acquired skills yet differ about matters of Faith what certainty can we undertakingly promise to weaker heads that is to the generality of the Papists in whom the Governors of the Church do professedly cherish ignorance for the increasing of their devotion § 6. Fourthly We have sufficient assurance that the Books of Scripture are conveyed down to us without any material corruption or alteration And he that denies this must either reject the authority of all Books because we cannot be certain whether they be the same now that they were at first or else give some probable reason why these should be more liable to corruption than others But any man that considers things will easily find that it is much more improbable that these Books should have been either wilfully or involuntarily corrupted in any thing material to Faith or a good Life than any other Books in the World whether we consider the peculiar Providence of God engaged for the preservation of them or the peculiar circumstances of these Books If they were wrirten by men divinely inspired and are of use to Christians as is acknowledged at least in words on all hands nothing is more credible than that the same Divine Providence which took care for the publishing of them would likewise be concerned to preserve them entire And if we consider the peculiar circumstances of these Books we shall find it morally impossible that they should have been materially corrupted because being of universal and mighty concernment and at first diffused into many hands and soon after translated into most Languages and most passages in them cited in Books now extant and all these now agreeing in all matters of importance we have as great assurance as can be had concerning any thing of this nature that they have not suffered any material alteration and far greater than any man can have concerning the incorruption of their oral Tradition as I shall shew when I come to answer the thing which he calls Demonstration § 7. Fifthly That de facto the Scripture hath been acknowledged by all Christians in former Ages to be the means whereby the doctrine of Christ hath with greatest certainty been conveyed to them One good evidence of this is That the Primitive Adversaries of Christian Religion did always look upon the Scripture as the standard and measure of the Christian Doctrine and in all their writing against Christianity took that for granted to be the Christian Faith which was contained in those Books there having not as yet any Philosopher risen up who had demonstrated to the World that a Doctrine could not with sufficient certainty and clearness be conveyed by writing from one Age to another But how absurd had this method of confuting Christian Religion been if it had been then the publick profession of Christians that the Scriptures were not the Rule of their Faith How easie had it been for the Fathers who apologized for and defended Christian Religion to have told them they took a wrong measure of their Doctrine for it was not the principle of Christians that their Faith was conveyed to them by the Scriptures and therefore it was a fond undertaking to attaque their Religion that way but if they would effectually argue against it they ought to enquire what that Doctrine was which was orally delivered from father to son without which the Scriptures could signifie no more to them than an unknown Cipher without a Key being of themselves without the light of Oral Tradition only an heap of unintelligible words unsensed Cha racters and Ink variously figured in a Book and therefore it was a gross mistake in them to think they could understand the Christian Religion like their own Philosophy by reading of those Books or confute it by confuting them Thus the Fathers might have defended their Religion nay they ought in all reason to have taken this course and to have appealed from those dead senseless Books to the true Rule of Faith the living voice of the Church Essential But doth Mr. S. find any thing to this purpose in the Apologies of the Fathers If he hath discover'd any such matter he might do well to acquaint the World
adds that the whole Body is under every little part in its full proportions for he says expresly That the Head and Foot of the Body of Christ are as far distant from one another in the sacrament as they are in Heaven as if one should say that a Body all whose parts lye within the compass of a small pins-head may yet within that little compass have parts two yards distant from one another And lastly how the sensible species of Bread e. g. quantity whiteness softness c. can exist without any subject to affirm the possibility of which as generally they do is to say that there may be quantities of white and soft nothings For this is the plain English of that assertion that sensible species may exist without a subject which being strip't of those terms of Art species and subject that do a little disguise it it appears to be plain Non-sense Now the proper and necessary consequence of this Doctrine is to take away all certainty and especially the certainty of sense For if that which my sight and taste and touch do all assure me to be a little piece of Wafer may notwithstanding this be Flesh and Blood even the whole Body of a man then notwithstanding the greatest assurance that Sense can give me that any thing is this or that it may be quite another thing from what Sense reported it to be If so then farewel the Infallibility of Tradition which depends upon the certainty of Sense And which is a worse consequence if this Doctrine be admitted we can have no sufficient assurance that the Christian Doctrine is a Divine Revelation For the assurance of that depending upon the assurance we have of the Miracles said to be wrought for the confirmation of it and all the assurance we can have of a Miracle depending upon the certainty of our senses it is very plain that that Doctrine which takes away the certainty of Sense does in so doing overthrow the certainty of Christian Religion And what can be more vain than to pretend that a man may be assured that such a Doctrine is revealed by God and consequently true which if it be true a man can have no assurance at all of any Divine Revelation Surely nothing is to be admitted by us as certain which being admitted we can be certain of nothing It is a wonder that any man who considers the natural consequences of this Doctrine can be a Papist unless he have attained to Mr. Cressy's pitch of Learning who speaking of the difficult Arguments wherewith this Doctrine was pressed says plainly I must answer freely and ingenuously that I have not learned to answer such Arguments but to despise them And if this be a good way when ever we have a mind to believe any thing to scorn those Objections against it which we cannot solve then Christian Religion hath no advantage above the vilest Enthusiasms and a Turk may maintain Mahomet and his Alcoran in opposition to Christ and his Doctrine against all that Grotius or any other hath said if he can but keep his countenance and gravely say I have not learned to answer such Arguments but to despise them § 10. I will add one Instance more in another kind to shew the uncertainty of Oral and Practical Traditions and that shall be the Tradition concerning Pope Jone than which scarce any was ever more generally received in the Historical kind Many and great Authors affirm it as Testifiers of the general Fame None ever denied it till the Reformers had made use of it to the disadvantage of Popery Since that time not only Papists deny it but several of our own Writers cease to believe it Phil. Bergomensis tells the story thus Anno 858. John the 7 th Pope c. The Tradition is that this person was a Woman c. Here 's an Oral Tradition He concludes thus In detestation of whose filthiness and to perpetuate the memory of her Name the Popes even to this day going on Procession with the People and the Clergy when they come to the place of her Travel c. in token of abomination they turn from it and go a by-way and being past that detestable place they return into the way and finish their Procession Here is one Practical Tradition And for avoiding of the like miscarriages it was decreed that no one should thereafter be admitted into St. Peter 's Chair priusquam per foratam sedem futuri Pontificis genitalia ab ultimo Dyacone Cardinale attractarentur Here is another with a Witness Sabellicus relates the same and moreover says that this Porphyry Chair was in his time to be seen in the Popes Palace He adds indeed that Platina thinks that this Tradition of Pope Jone was not faithfully delivered to Posterity But however says he such a Tradition there is Concerning the first Practical Tradition Platina says that he may not deny it For the second he thinks the Chair rather design'd for a Stool for another use c. He concludes These things which I have related are commonly reported yet from uncertain and obscure Authors Therefore I resolved says he briefly and nakedly to set them down lest I should seem too obstinately and pertinaciously to have omitted that which almost all affirm It is no wonder that he says the Authors of this Report were uncertain and obscure since so very few writ any thing in that Age. But suppose none had writ of it so long as he acknowledges it to have been a general Oral Tradition attested by a solemn and constant Practice it has according to Mr. S's Principles greater certainty than if it had been brought down to us by a hundred Books written in that very Age. So that here 's an Oral and Practical Tradition continued we are sure for some hundreds of years preserved and propagated by a solemn practice of the Popes Clergy and People of Rome in their Processions and by a notorious Custom at the Election of every Pope and in a matter of so great importance to their Religion the honour of the See of Rome and the uninterrupted Succession from St. Peter being so nearly concerned in it that had it been false they had been obliged under pain of Damnation not only not to have promoted it but to have used all means to have discovered the falsity of it Therefore Mr. S. is bound by his own Principles either to allow it for a Truth or else to give an account when and how it begun which may possibly be made out by We Metaphysitians as he styles himself and his Scientifical Brethren but I assure him it is past the skill of Note-book Learning SECT X. § 1. IT is not the present perswasion of the Church of Rome nor ever was that their Faith hath descended to them by Oral Tradition as the sole Rule of it And this being proved the Supposition upon which his Demonstration is built falls to the ground And for the
made capable of this their obligation But we are not now enquiring what the obligation to believe the main points of faith is nor whether tradition be a self-evident rule but how there should be a new obligation to believe something self-evidently connected with the former points is beyond my capacity to understand And they must be vulgar understandings indeed that can rationally and connaturally be made capable of such an obligation For if it be self-evidently connected with the main points no one can believe the one without believing the other for nothing is self-evident but what a man assents to at the first apprehension of it and if he doth so how comes there a new obligation to believe it Is it possible to believe that any thing consists of parts and not believe that that whole is greater than any of those parts for this is a thing self-evidently connected with the nature of the whole But these are self-evident riddles as the former were unintelligible demonstrations And yet though these be rare Theories the application of them to the case of the Roman Church exceeds all the rest Whence saith he the Government of our Church is still justified to be sweet and according to right nature and yet forcible and efficacious Although I admire many things in Mr. S's Book yet I cannot say I do any thing more than this passage that because men are obliged to believe no implied points but such as are self-evidently connected with the main ones therefore the Government of the Roman Church is sweet and according to right nature c. Alas then how much have we been mistaken all this while that have charged her with imposing hard and unsufferable conditions of communion with her No she is so gentle and sweet that she requires nothing but the main points on the account of a self-evident rule and implied points by reason of self-evident connexion with the former I see Mr. S. if he will make good his word is the only person who is ever like to reconcile me with the Church of Rome For I assure you I never desire any better terms of communion with a Church than to have no main points of faith required from me to assent to but what are built on a self-evident rule nor any implied points but such as are self-evidently connected with the former And no work can be more easie than to convince me upon these grounds for all endeavors of proof are taken away by the things being said to be self-evident For the very offer of proof that they are so self-evidently proves they are not so For what ever is proved by somthing beside it self can never be said without a contradiction to be self-evident But not to tye up Mr. S. from his excellent faculty of proving if Mr. S. will prove to me that any of the points in difference between us as Transubstantiation Purgatory Supremacy of the Roman Church c. have any self-evident connexion with any main point of faith in the Apostles Creed I solemnly promise him to retract all I have writ against that Church so far shall I be from needing a new obligation to believe them But if these be so remote from self-evidence that they are plainly repugnant to sense and reason witness that self-evident doctrine of Transubstantiation what then must we think of Mr. S. Surely the least is that since his being a Roman Catholick his mind is strangely inlightned so far that those things are self-evident to him which are contradictions to the rest of the world But withal M. S. acquaints us with another mysterie which is how these points descended by a kind of tradition and yet confesses they were never thought of or reflected on by the generality till the Church took occasion to explain them Such a silent tradition doth very sutably follow the former self-evident connexion For he that can believe Transubstantiation ro be self-evident no wonder if he believes that to have been delivered by a constant Tradition which was never heard of from the Apostles times to these Now Mr. S. is pleased to return to me and draws up a fresh charge against me which is that I act like a Politician and would conquer them by first dividing them and making odious comparisons between two parties of Divines But to shew us how little they differ he distinguishes them as faithful and as private discoursers in the former notion he saith they all hold the same divinely constituted Church-Government and the same self-evident rule of faith but as private discoursers he acknowledges they differ in the explication of their belief I meddle not here with the Government of their Church which I have elsewhere proved to be far enough from being divinely constituted but with the rule of faith and the question is whether the infallibility of oral tradition be that self-evident rule which that Church proceeds on Yes saith Mt. S. they are all as faithful agreed in it but as discourses they differ about it Which in short is that all in the Church of Rome who are not of his opinion know not what they say and that they oppose that which they do really believe Which in plain English is that they are egregious dissemblers and prevaricators in Religion that they do intolerably flatter the Pope and present Church with loud declamations for their infallibility but they do really believe no such thing but resolve all into oral tradition But is not this an excellent agreement among them when Mr. White and his party not only disown the common doctrine of the infallibility of Pope and Councils but dispute against it as pernicious and destructive to Christian faith on the other side the far greater part of Romanists say there can be no certainty of faith unless there be an infallible divine testimony in the present Church and this lodged in Pope and Councils that those who endeavour to overthrow this are dangerous seditious heretical persons Accordingly their Books are censured at Rome their opinions disputed against and their persons condemned And yet all this while we must believe that these stick together like two smooth Marbles as faithful though they are knocked one against another as discoursers and that they perfectly agree in the same self-evident rule of faith when all their quarrels and contentions are about it and those managed with so great heat that heresie is charged of one side and Arch-heresie and undermining Religion on the other Doth he think we never heard of Mr. White 's Sonus Succinae nor of that Chapter in it where he saith that the doctrine of Pope and Councils infallibility tends to overthrow the certainty of Christian faith and that the propagating such a doctrine is a greater crime than burning Temples ravishing the sacred Virgins on the Altars trampling on the body of Christ or the sending the Turk or Antichrist into Christian Countreys Or doth he think we can believe that the Pope and Cardinals the Jesuites
what he saith to a Syllogistical form it comes to this Where there is no possibility of error there is an absolute obligation to faith but there is no possibility of error in the tradition of any age of the Church ergo in every age there is an absolute obligation to believe the tradition of the present Church The minor he thus proves If no age of the Church can be ignorant of what the precedent taught or conspire to deceive the next then there is no possibility of error coming into the tradition of the Church in any age but the antecedent is true and therefore the consequent Now who sees not that the force of all this lies not in proving the minor proposition or that no age could conspire to deceive another but the consequence viz. that no error can come into a Church but by a general mistake in one whole age or the general imposture of it which we utterly deny and have shewed him already the falseness of it from his own concessions And I might more largely shew it from those Doctrines or opinions which they themselves acknowledg to have come into their Church without any such general mistake or imposture as the doctrines of Papal infallibility and the common belief of Purgatory The very same way that Mr. White and Mr. S. will shew us how these came in we will shew him how many others came in as erroneous and scandalous as those are For whether they account these matters of faith or no it is certain many among them do and that the far greatest number who assert and believe them to be the doctrine of their Church too If therefore these might come in without one age mistaking or deceiving the next why might not all those come in the same way which we charge upon them as the errors of their Church And in the same manner that corrupt doctrines come in may corrupt practises too since these as he saith spring from the other He might therefore have saved himself the trouble of finding out how an acute Wit or great Scholar would discover the weakness of this way For without pretending to be either of these I have found out another way of attaquing it than Mr. S. looked for viz. from his own principles and concessions shewing how errors might come into a Church without a total deception or conspiracy in any one age Which if it be true he cannot bind me to believe what ever he tells me the present Church delivers unless he can prove that this never came into the Church as a speculation or private opinion and from thence by degrees hath come to be accounted a point of faith Therefore his way of proof is now quite altered and he cannot say we are bound to believe whatever the present Church delivers for that which he calls the present Church may have admitted speculations and private opinions into doctrines of faith but he must first prove such doctrines delivered by Christ or his Apostles and that from his time down to our age they have been received by the whole Church for matters of faith and when he hath done this as to any of the points in controversie between us I will promise him to be his Proselyte But he ought still to remember that he is not to prove it impossible for one whole age to conspire to deceive the next but that supposing that it is impossible for any errors to come into the tradition of the Church Let us now see what Mr. S. objects against those words I then used against the demonstrating this way It is hard to conceive what reason should inforce it but such as proves the impossibility of the contrary and they have understandings of another mould from others who can conceive it impossible men should not think themselves obliged to believe and do all just as their predecessors And whatever Mr. S. says to the contrary I cannot yet see but that therein I argued from the very nature and constitution of the thing For that which I looked for was a demonstration which I supposed could not be unless the impossibility of the contrary were demonstrated But if it be possible for Men Christians nay Romanists to believe on other accounts than tradition of the precedent age I pray what demonstration can there be that men must think themselves obliged to believe and do all just as their predecessors did Surely if Mr. S's fancy had not been very extravagant he could never have thought here of mens being obliged to cut their Beards or wear such Garters and Hat-bands as their forefathers did For do I not mention believing first and then doing by which it were easie to apprehend that I meant matters of faith and such practices as flow from them Neither was there any such crafty and sophistical dealing as he charges me with for I am content his doctrine be taken in his own terms and I have now given a larger and fuller account why I am far from being convinced by the way he hath used for resolving faith Passing by therefore his challenge which I accept of as long as he holds to the weapon of reason and civility I come to consider his last enquiry why I should come to doubt of such an obligation in posterity to believe their ancestors in matters of faith and he judiciously resolves it into a strange distortion of human nature but such as it seems is the proper effect of the Protestants temper which is saith he to chuse every one his faith by his private judgement or wit working upon disputable words Which as far as we own it is not to believe what we see no ground for and if this be such a distortion of human nature I envy not Mr. S's uprightness and perfection If he means that we build our faith on our private judgments in opposition to Scripture or the universal tradition of the Church in all ages let him prove it evidently in one particular and I engage for my self and all true Protestants we will renounce the belief of it If he hath any thing further to object against the grounds of our Religion he knows where to attaque me let him undertake the whole or else acknowledg it a most unreasonable thing thus to charge falsities upon us and then say we have nothing else to say for our selves We pretend not to chuse our faith but heartily embrace whatever appears to have been delivered by Christ or his Apostles but we know the Church of Rome too well to believe all which she would impose upon us and are loth to have her chuse our Religion for us since we know she hath chosen so ill for her self But if Mr. S. will not believe me in saying thus what reason have I to believe him in saying otherwise Such general charges then signifie nothing but every one must judg according to the reason on both sides I now come to the last part of my task which
but by so deep an inspection into the sense of Scripture as shall discover such secrets that Philosophy and human Industry could never have arrived to As if we could not be assured that any thing were written by men divinely inspired unless it were above the reach of human understanding and as if no man could know that this was our Saviours Doctrine Whatever ye would that men should do unto you that do ye likewise unto them because every one can understand it But if there were more mysteries in the Scriptures than there are I hope a man might be satisfied that they were written by men divinely inspired without a clear comprehension of all those mysteries The evidence of the inspiration of any person doth not depend upon the plaineness or sublimity of the things revealed to him but upon the goodness of the arguments which tend to perswade us that the person is so inspired And the Argument that is most fit to satisfy us of that is if he work miracles Now I would gladly know why a learned man cannot be assured of a miracle that is a plain sensible matter of Fact done long ago but by so deep an inspection into the sense of Scripture as shall discover such secrets that Philosophy and human Industry could never have arrived to § 4. Thirdly Because all the seeming contradictions of Scripture must be solved before we can out of the bare letter conclude the Scripture to be of God's enditing to solve which literally plainly and satisfactorily he tells us the memory of so many particulars which made them clearer to those of the Age in which they were written and the matter known must needs be so worn out by tract of time that it is one of the most difficult tasks in the World As if we could not believe a Book to be of God's enditing because there seem now to be some contradictions in it which we have reason to believe could easily have been solved by those who lived in the Age in which it was written Or as if oral Tradition could help a man to solve these contradictions when the memory of particulars necessary for the clear solution of them is as himself confesses worn out by tract of time If Mr. S. can in order to the solution of the seeming contradictions of Scripture demonstrate that oral Tradition hath to this day preserv'd the memory of those particulars necessary for that purpose the memory of which must needs be long since worn out by tract of time then I will readily yield that his Rule of Faith hath in this particular the advantage of ours But if he cannot do this why does he make that an Argument against our Rule which is as strong against his own This is just like Capt. Everard's Friend's way of arguing against the Protestants That they cannot rely upon Scripture because it is full of plain contradictions impossible to be reconciled and therefore they ought in all reason to submit to the infallibility of the Church And for an instance of such a contradiction he pitched upon the three fourteen Generations mentioned in the first of St. Matthew because the third Series of Generations if they be counted will be found to be but thirteen Not to mention now how this difficulty hath been sufficiently satisfied both by Protestant and Popish Commentators without any recourse to oral Tradition that which I take notice of is the unreasonableness of making this an Exception against the Protestants when it comes with every whit as much force upon themselves Suppose this Contradiction not capable of any solution by Protestants as he affirms and I should submit to the infallibility of the Church can he assure me that infallibility can make thirteen fourteen If it cannot how am I nearer satisfaction in this point by acknowledging the infallibility of the Church The case is the very same as to Mr S's Exception if I owned oral Tradition I should be never the nearer solving the seeming contradictions of Scripture and consequently I could not in Reason conclude it to be of God's enditing So that in truth these Exceptions if they were true would not strike at Protestancy but at Christian Religion which is the general unhappiness of most of the Popish Arguments than which there is no greater evidence that the Church of Rome is not the true Mother because she had rather Christianity should be destroyed than it should appear that any other Church hath a claim to it It was a work very proper for the Heretick Marcion to assault Religion this way who as Tertullian tells us writ a whole Book which he call'd Antitheses wherein he reckoned up all the Contradictions as he thought between the Old and New Testament But methinks it is very improper for the Papists who pretend to be the only true Christians in the World to strain their wits to discover as many contradictions as they can in the Scripture and to prove that there is no way of reconciling them The natural consequence of which is the exposing of this sacred Instrument of our Religion and even Christianity it self to the scorn of Atheists Therefore to be very plain with Mr. S. and Captain Everard I am heartily sorry to see that one of the chief fruits of their Conversion is to abuse the Bible § 5. Secondly He says that Protestants cannot know how many the Books of Scripture ought to be and which of the many controverted ones may be securely put in that Catalogue which not This he proves by saying 't is most palpable that few or at least the rude vulgar can never be assured of it And if this be a good Argument this again is a good Answer to say it is not most palpable But I shall deal more liberally and tell him that we know that just so many ought to be received as uncontroverted Books concerning which it cannot be shewn there was ever any Controversy and so many as controverted concerning which it appears that Question hath been made And if those which have been controverted have been since received by those Churches which once doubted of them there is now no further doubt concerning them because the Controversy about them is at an end And now I would fain know what greater certainty oral Tradition can give us of the true Catalogue of the Books of Scripture For it must either acknowledg some Books have been controverted or not if not why doth he make a supposition of controverted Books If oral Tradition acknowledg some to have been controverted then it cannot assure us that they have not been controverted nor consequently that they ought to be received as never having been controverted but only as such concerning which those Churches who did once raise a Controversy about them have been since satisfied that they are Canonical The Traditionary Church now receives the Epistle to the Hebrews as Canonical I ask Do they receive it as ever delivered for such That they must
not reasonable but peevish in exacting infallible security and insisting upon every capricious Objection such as is Mr. S's Might it not be otherwise Now as to this degree of Assurance or as he calls it Infallibility I cannot but grant what he says of it to be most true viz. That in a severe acception of the word it is not rigorously infallible that is as he explains it it is not absolutely impossible nor does it imply a flat contradiction that the thing whereof we are so assured may be otherwise But then I utterly deny that according to any true acception of this word such a degree of Assurance as he speaks of can be called Infallibility and withall I affirm That none of those several degrees of Infallibility which he mentions excepting that only which imports an absolute impossibility can with any tolerable propriety of speech or regard to the true meaning and use of the word have the name of Infallibility given to them For Infallibility can signifie nothing else but an utter impossibility that one should be deceived in that matter as to which he is supposed to be infallible and to say such a thing is impossible is to say that the existence of it implies a flat contradiction So that whosoever asserts degrees of Infallibility is obliged to shew that there are degrees of absolute impossibilities and of perfect contradictions and he had need of a very sharp and piercing wit that is to find out degrees where there neither are nor can be any Indeed in respect of the objects of knowledge it is easie to conceive how Infallibility may be extended to more objects or fewer but in respect of the degree of assurance of which Mr. Cressy speaks it is altogether unimaginable how any one can be more or less out of all possibility of being deceived in those things wherein he is supposed to be infallible for no one can be more removed from the possibility of being deceived than he that is out of all possibility of being deceived and whosoever is less than this is not infallible because he only is so who is out of all possibility of being deceived in those matters wherein he is supposed to be infallible So that Mr. Cressy's lower degrees of Infallibility are no degrees of that assurance which may properly be called infallible for that can have no degrees but of that assurance which is less than infallible And he needed not have raised all this dust about the degrees of Infallibility had it not been that by the means of such a cloud he might make the more convenient escape out of that strait he was in between the clamours of his own Church and the advantage which his Adversaries made of his free and open discourse against Infallibility For any one that carefully reads his Book will find that he understands nothing by the Infallibility of the Church but an Authority of obliging all Christians to submit to her Decisions which is no more but what every Supreme Civil Judg hath in Civil matters viz. a power to determine those Controversies that lie before him as well as he can or will and when that is done every one is bound to submit to such determinations but yet for all this no man ever dream't a Supreme Civil Judg to be infallible more than another man I do not now dispute the extent of the Churches Authority but if she have no other Infallibility but what a full Authority of decision does suppose I am sure she hath none at all Before I leave Mr. Cressy I cannot but take notice how unfortunate and disingenuous he is in explaining the meaning of these words of his own viz. Against this word of Infallibility Mr. Chillingworth 's Book especially combats and this with too too great success which in his Appendix he interprets thus Success I mean not against the Church but against his own Soul and the Souls of his Fellow-English Protestants c. As if one that had wished well to Caesar should have said That Pompey had fought against him with too too great success and being afterwards challenged by Caesar's Party as having said that Pompey had Conquered Caesar he should explain himself thus Success I mean not against Caesar but against his own life and the lives of his followers Can any thing be finer than for a man to say that by Pompey's success in fighting against Caesar he means that Caesar had beaten Pompey which is no more than if one should take the liberty to interpret white by black § 6. Lastly Mr. White doth most expresly contradict this Principle of Mr. S's in these following passages In his Preface to Mr. Rushworth he says That such a certainty as makes the cause always work the same effect though it take not away the absolute possibility of working otherwise ought absolutely to be reckoned in the degree of true certainty and that those Authors are mistaken who undervalue it So that it seems Mr. S. is mistaken in affirming that a man cannot be certain of any thing so long as there is any possibility that it may be otherwise In his Answer to my Lord Falkland he says That in Moral matters and such as are subject to humane action we must expect such assurance as humane actions bear If for the government of your spiritual life you have as much as for the management of your natural and civil life what can you expect more Two or three witnesses of men beyond exception will cast a man out of not only his lands but life and all He that among Merchants will not adventure where there is a Hundred to one of gaining will be accounted a silly Factor And among Souldiers he that will fear danger where but one of a Hundred is slain shall not escape the stain of Cowardize What then shall we expect in Religion but to see a main advantage on the one side which we may rest our selves on and for the rest remember we are men subject to chance and mutability and thank God he hath given us that assurance in a supernatural way which we are contented withall in our civil ventures and possessions which nevertheless God knoweth we often love better and would hazard less than the unknown good of the life to come Again If God Almighty hath in all sorts and manners provided his Church that she may enlighten every man in his way that goeth the way of a man then let every man consider which is the sit way for himself and what in other matters of that way he accounteth evidence And if there be no interest in his Soul to make him loth to believe what in another matter of the like nature he doth not stick at or heavy to practise what he sees clearly enough I fear not his choice Once more directing a man in his search after rational satisfaction in matters of Religion he hath this passage Besides this he must have this care that he seek what
take notice of what I have elsewhere said I am resolved to let him see I am not at all concerned about it I begin to understand him so well by this Appendix that I can give my self a reasonable account why he thought it not fit to meddle with any other part of my Book But if Mr. S. be resolved not to answer any of the testimonies I there produce unless I single them out and print them at the end of this Answer i. e. remove them from that evidence which attends them in the series of the discourse I can only say he is the most imperious answerer I have met with who is resolved never to deal with an adversary but on his own unreasonable terms Thus heartily wishing Mr. S's Science as great as his opinion of it and a good effect of our endeavours to promote the one by removing the other I am Sir Your affectionate friend and servant Edward Stillingfleet London June 28. 1665. FINIS Postscript SIR SInce the dispatch of the former Papers I have met with another Treatise wherein I find my self concerned written by the Author of Fiat Lux the Title whereof is Diaphanta I am afraid the Title affrights you for I assure you it is the most formidable thing in his whole Book But the man is a very modest man and hugely different from Mr. S's humor for he is so far from offering to demonstrate the grounds of faith that all he pretends to in the title of his Book is to excuse Catholick Religion against the opposition of several Adversaries What fault I pray hath the Catholick Religion committed that it must now come to be excused instead of being defended But when I look into that part which concerns my self I presently understand the meaning of it which is not to excuse Catholick Religion but themselves for not being able to defend it For he very ingeniously tells us that faith is firm and constant though all his talk for it be miserably weak i. e. he is sure they have an excellent Religion though he knows not what to say for it and their faith is a very good faith but it hath not yet had the good fortune to be understood by them For he acknowledges that as often as they dispute they are beyond the business so may any one believe who reads their late Books which is in effect to say there is no way left of disputing any longer with adversaries about their faith only they must believe it stoutly themselves but it is to no purpose to offer to defend it Nay it doth their faith a great deal of mischief for saith he in reading controversies we see not so much the nature of the faith as the wit of him who opposes or defends it From whence we may easily gather what unspeakable mischief they do their cause by writing for it By which expressions we may guess at what a low ebb the defence of their faith is among them for the way now taken to defend it is by disowning the defenders of it and by saying that they only vent their own opinions and though we confute them never so much yet their faith holds good still Was ever a good cause driven to such miserable shifts as these are especially among those who pretend to wit and learning One he saith T. C. vents a private opinion of his own and it is not a pin matter whether it stand or fall another he saith the same of I. S. a third of J.V.C. and yet for all this their religion is very firm and sure and they are all at perfect agreement about it Is this the victory over me Mr. S. mentions to be so easie a thing I see that by the same figure M. S. calls his way of arguing demonstration running out of the field shall be accounted conquering For I never saw any person do it more openly than this Author does For he plainly confesses that his Catholick Gentleman went quite besides his business that he built upon indefensible principles that his theological ratiocination was indeed pretty but too weak to hold And are not we hugely too blame if we do not cry up such mighty Conquerors as these are Truly Sir I expect the very same answer should be returned to your Book that Mr. S's argument is a pretty theological ratiocination and that your answer is not unwitty but though that way will not hold another will Thus when they are beaten off Infallibility they run to Tradition and when they are again beaten off Tradition then back again to Infallibility So that the short of all their answers is though such a one cannot defend our faith yet I can though I cannot yet the faith is firm and constant still I wonder what their Superiors think of this way of proceeding among them we should imagine if they be so weak as they say themselves they had much better keep them from appearing abroad and exposing their cause so ridiculously to contempt But it may be they think their faith is the better as well as their devotion for their ignorance and that it would be a mighty disparagement to their cause for such silly people to be able to defend it It is enough for them to admire it themselves and to say as their common people use to do though they cannot defend it yet there are some that can And although it may be no particulat person can do it yet their cause is able to defend it self But for all that I can see by such kind of answers the intention of them is to intreat us not to triumph over the weakness of their present Writers but to wait till the Cause it self thinks fit to write And when it doth so they may expect a further answer but it were a great piece of cruelty for us to hasten their ruine who fall so fast before us by each others Pens FINIS Books Printed for and Sold by Henry Mortlock at the Phoenix in St. Pauls Church-yard and at the white Heart in VVestminster-hall A Rational account of the grounds of Protestant Religion being a Vindication of the Lord-Archbishop of Canterbury's Relation of a Conference c. from the pretended Answer of T.C. folio Sermons preached upon several occasions with a discourse annexed concerning the true reasons of the sufferings of Christ wherein Crellius's Answer to Grotius is considered fol. Irenicum A Weapon-Salve for the Churches wounds in quarto Origines Sacrae or a Rational Account of the Grounds of Christian Faith as to the Truth and Divine Authority of the Scriptures and matters therein contained quarto A Discourse concerning the Idolatry practised in the Church of Rome and the hazard of Salvation in the Communion of it in Answer to some Papers of a revolted Protestant wherein a particular account is given of the Fanaticisms and Divisions of that Church octavo An Answer to several late Treatises occasioned by a Book entituled A Discourse concerning the Idolatry practised in