apart Now we assent unto all the Articles of our Faith by a Divine Faith and this Faith is firm and certain subjective But the Romanists pretend to give an infallible subjective Certainty of them and so by out-bidding us invite Men over into their Communion And it is to be considered whether our subjective Certainty be sufficient for saving Faith or an infallible subjective Certainty be required to it As for our parts we do not at all doubt but that God will infallibly in the event bring all his Elect unto true Faith and by it unto Salvation though he do not make them all infallibly perswaded of it in this Life A Subjective Certainty of what we believe is sufficient for adhering unto Jesus Christ and Obedience the Fruit thereof and for our own Comfort and therefore to bring us to Salvation without being infallibly certain Subjective of all the things which we do believe And one cannot readily give an account why any Men should so covet to be infallibly certain of their Belief and yet in the mean while take up and content themselves with a conjectural Certainty or certainty of Hope only concerning their own Salvation unless it were because it is the Interest of some Men to have others fully perswaded of their Doctrines of Purgatory Superogation Infallibility c. that so they may lead them by a blind Belief and Obedience to what they please but to keep them in the mean while uncertain of their Salvation that they may the more willingly take off their Masses Merits and Pardons and such like Commodities in barter for their Earthly Gold and Silver But let us come now to consider the first Proposition and how we are assured of it which is That the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God revealed by Him and committed to Writing by the infallible Guidance of the Holy-Ghost and contain the Doctrine of Christ and of his Holy Prophets and Apostles And that we may take our Rise a little backward That there is a God and he infallible in Knowledge and Veracity and that he Created Man after his own Image are Truths which the World hath been so long in quiet Possession of that I think I may take them for granted at least for the present and then it is a thing most agreeable to the Wisdom Goodness and Justice of God to believe that seeing God doth expect that Man should know worship and obey him according as Man's dependence on him and the Preparations which he hath laid in for it in the Fabrick and Furniture of his Nature do require and it seems necessary that he should have made some sufficient Promulgation of his Will and Pleasure unto Man as a perfect and certain Rule of his Faith and Practice according to which he may take an account of him hereafter For which purpose the natural Reason of Man in this corrupt Estate is not a sufficient Rule as woful Experience teacheth and therefore it was necessary that God should make some further Revelation of his Mind unto us to clear up and correct our natural Notions and to discover what further he doth require us to believe and do in order to Salvation And for the certainty of such Rule it is very consentaneous to the Wisdom of God in this shortness of Man's Life and multitude of the Persons concerned to commit such Rule to Writing rather than to intrust it to the conveyance of oral Tradition which all just and wise Law-givers have found it necessary to decline But however a revealed Rule there must be and there is nothing in the World which can with any Reason or Probability lay claim to it but only the Holy Scriptures and this they do accordingly For we often find them challenging to themselves this Prerogative Thus saith the Lord and I the Lord have spoken it Jesus answered and said and he taught the People saying and all Scripture is given by divine Inspiration Holy Men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost For tho' all the Books of Scripture were not then written when the Apostles wrote that yet all the necessary Articles of Faith were and many more Which claim had it not been a true one it would certainly have been the greatest Forgery Usurpation and Blasphemy against God himself that is Imaginable and then we might have rationally expected that the great and good God would have been so Jealous of his own Honour and Man's Salvation as in all this time by some signal Act of his Providence to disown it and discover the Imposture But since he hath not done any such thing but on the contrary hath made it his Work by his wonderful Providence to maintain and preserve it for so many Hundreds of Years and accompanied the Preaching of it for the Conversion of Souls unto himself and the Reformation of the World of Mankind What else can be thought but that he thereby owns it to be his Certainly such a Proof as this concerning any Man's Book would be a violent Presumption that he were the true Author of it and he would be thought a very unreasonable Man who should but call it into question But we have greater Certainty than this for the Matters contained in the Holy Scriptures I mean the Heavenliness of the Matter the Majesty of the Stile the Harmony of the Parts the Consent of the several Writers the design of the whole to lay Man low and to advance God's Glory in Man's Salvation These and such like Beams of divine Light are so agreeable to the Notion of God written in our Hearts that both of them do plainly appear to have been written by the same Finger of God and the one to confirm explain and perfect the other Which Heavenly Characters and claim have been owned and admitted and the certainty of the Holy Scriptures being the Word of God revealed by him and penned by the infallible direction of the Holy Ghost been thereupon believed and attested by all the Churches of Christ in all Ages notwithstanding other differences that were and are among them unanimoully by so many wise holy and learned Men in a matter which was of infinite concernment to them to be well assured of and wherein they could neither have any design nor opportunity of combining together for the deceiving of others Now this unanimous Testimony of the Church although it be but a humane Testimony and not infallible yet being corroborated by the aforesaid Considerations it is sufficient to give any reasonable Man a satisfaction and an assurance that the Holy Scriptures were revealed by God and penned by his infallible Guidance as great as any other matter of Fact and this is such can at this distance by humane testimony be capable of yea and a far greater For there is no Effect wrought by any Man that can verge forth so many Rays from the nature of the Act or thing done pointing at and singling out its Cause and owning its Original but that it
Imprimatur Feb. 13. 1689. Carolus Alston R. P. D. Hen. Episc Lond. Ã sacris Protestant Certainty Or A Short TREATISE Shewing how a PROTESTANT May be well Assured of the ARTICLES OF HIS FAITH Let every Man be fully Assured in his own Mind Rom. 14.5 LONDON Printed for Henry Mortlock at the Phoenix in St. Pauls Church-yard and at the White-Hart in Westminster-Hall 1689. Protestant Certainty Or a short TREATISE Shewing how a PROTESTANT May be assured of the Articles of his FAITH ALthough I doubt not but every real Christian is well perswaded in his own Mind of the Truth of that Evangelical Doctrine taught by our Blessed Saviour and his Holy Apostles which is indispensibly to be believed in order to his Salvation Yet seeing that in these times there is abroad so great a paroxism and fermentation of Dispute about the Certainty of Faith and the means whereby it my be attained and such endeavours used by some Men to unsettle us therein It will be our Wisdom to recollect and consider well of the Grounds which we have gone upon that we may be the better able to hold fast the form of sound of Words that which is good our Faith and Confidence and our Profession of it without wavering unto the End. According as we are Exhorted 1 Thess 5.21 2 Tim. 1.13 Heb. 3.6.10.23 By firmness of Assent and constancy of Profession notwithstanding all the force and fraud whereby we are or may be assaulted And this the rather because our Faith is Precious and a Treasure the keeping whereof is of infinite Concernment to our Souls and because we have been forewarned by Christ and his Apostles that there should come Wolves in Sheeps Cloathing false Prophets pretending infallible Revelation from God false Apostles pretending Mission and Commission from Christ False Teachers bringing in privily damnable Heresies Men of corrupt Minds resisting the Truth Reprobates concerning the Faith and of this sort are they that creep into Houses and lead Captive silly Women laden with Sins led away with divers Lusts ever learning and never able to come unto the knowledg of the Truth Matth. 7.15 Ch. 24.3.6 8. Against such Men we have seen many worthy and learned Champions of the Truth enter the Lists being raised up by God to be helpers of our Faith and to contend earnestly for that Faith which was once delivered unto the Saints And although their Antagonists have used all the slights of cunning Wrestlers stripping and oiling themselves by superficial and slippery Representations like false Arms that their Adversaries might not know where to have them where to assault them or where to fasten their hold upon them and Proteus like transforming themselves into all Shapes that if possible they might twist themselves out of their Gripe and Grasp yet have they been so effectually handled by them that one would think that were they capable of any impressions from truth or shame they would either have come over or at least have given over before this time Both sides in making their appeals to the Readers do seem to allow us a judgment of discerning both the cause and their defence at least for our own private Safety and Satisfaction But yet they will be understood with this difference The one will allow you to use your Eyes until you have chosen their Side but then you must resign them lest you should chance to see whither they lead you but the other exhort you to keep your Eyes still in your Heads and to make the best use of them you can for your own satisfaction and security that you are fairly dealt withal and not betrayed into Error and Perdition which is certainly the most ingenuous Method of the two and most becoming a good Cause and a good Conscience The Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles is that Faith which all Christians make Profession to believe and they question not but it is the Word of God and therefore infallibly true seeing God is Truth it self and cannot lye But it is much Controverted whether this Doctrine be all contained in the Holy Scriptures or some of it transmitted to these times by oral Tradition or by some other way And seeing we Protestants do profess that all the Articles of our present Faith are contained in the Holy Scriptures as the Doctrine taught by Christ and his Holy Apostles let us sit down and calmly consider with our selves what assurance we have of these and then come to take into consideration those other Articles which are offered to us some other way In both which Inquiries we may receive much Assistance from what hath been publickly offered to us by the Writings of excellent and Learned Men. And I think if we can make out to our selves but these two things we shall have a good Certainty of the Truth of what we believe as all may who have the use of Reason I and will make use of it as they ought 1. That the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God revealed by him and committed to Writing by the infallible Guidance of the Holy-Ghost and contain the Doctrine of Christ his Holy Prophets and Apostles 2. That all the Articles of Faith which we Protestants do believe and profess are recorded in the Holy Scriptures as taught by Christ his Holy Prophets and Apostles and there contained either in express Words or in Principle from which they may be firmly deduced and concluded But before we come to consider these Particulars I shall observe two or three things for our more clear Proceeding and distinguish 1. Between the kinds of Certainty There is a certainty of the thing or Object which is here in the Doctrine believed or the Fides qua creditur and consists in its immutable Truth founded on God's Immutable Verity There is also a Certainty of the Person or Subject which is the firmness of the assent given unto that certain Doctrine of Faith on cogent Arguments and exists in the Person of him that Believes As for Instance That Jesus Christ came into the World to save Sinners is a Truth certain in it self even before we hear of it But it is not certain unto us till we do know it certainly to be true This last is called Subjective Certainty and this it is which we are now chiefly inquiring after 2. Distinguish between this subjective Certainty or the Certainty of the Assent and the Kind of the Assent given The Assent for its kind may be an Assent of divine Faith caused by a divine Testimony and yet this Faith will have more or less Certainty in it according to the greater or less Certainty which we have of the Divine Testimony that the matter of it is true and that God doth testifie it 3. We must distinguish also between the Certainty or assurance given to another rational Man by discoursive Argument and that further Certainty which every faithful Soul hath particularly within it self For the Arguments causing them are differing and shall be considered
might have been done by some other Man So that I might fold up what hath been said into this form of Argument That which pretending to be revealed by God and penned by his Assistance hath been owned by his special Providence and which having manifest Characters of of Divinity shining in it hath been owned believed and attested by all the Churches of Christ in all Ages as the Word of God revealed by him and penned by the infallible guidance of the Holy Ghost and containing the Doctrine of Christ and his Holy Prophets and Apostles That is the Word of God revealed by him and penned by the infallible Guidance of the Holy Ghost and doth contain the Doctrine of Christ and his Holy Prophets and Apostles But the Holy Scripture pretending to be revealed by God and penned by his Assistance hath been owned by his special Providence and having manifest Characters of Divinity shining in it hath been owned believed and attested by all the Churches of Christ in all Ages as the Word of God revealed by him penned by the infallible Guidance of the Holy Ghost and containing in it the Doctrine of Christ and his Holy Prophets and Apostles Therefore the Holy Scripture is the Word of God revealed by him and penned by the infaillible guidance of the Holy-Ghost and doth contain in it the Doctrine of Christ and his Holy Prophets and Apostles And if all Men would be brought to have such a certainty as these Arguments are in themselves apt to produce in well disposed Minds they must needs think themselves under the highest obligations to provide for the Salvation of their Souls by following the Directions prescribed in the Holy Scriptures in order thereunto And for the number of Canonical Books in Scripture we have the like uniform Testimony of the Churches of Christ in all Ages ever since the Epistle to the Hebrews was received by the Latin Church and the Apocalypse by the Greek Church Which two Books do not add any Article of Faith necessary to Salvation which was not contained in those other Books which were before that time universally received But every faithful Soul hath a far greater Certainty of the Holy Scriptures being the word of God than hath been hitherto mentioned which I shall shew when I have considered the second Proposition which is this That all the Articles of Faith which we Protestants do believe and profess are recorded in the Holy Scriptures as taught by Christ and his Holy Prophets and Apostles and there contained either in express Words or in Principle from which they may be firmly deduced and concluded Now having such an assurance as I have shewn above that the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God we have built the Articles of our Faith upon this Rock and shall be ready to receive any more which we can be convinced to be contained in it but no other till we have good assurance that they have been revealed from God some other way For divine Faith must be founded on a divine Testimony But for the better clarifying of our Thoughts and Apprehensions in this our second Inquiry it will not be amiss for us to distinguish 1. Of the Assent given to those Articles which must be alway an Assent of divine Faith but a divine Faith is sometimes Explicit and express when we do actually apprehend and conceive of the Proposition which we assent unto whether it be expresly laid down in Scripture or we plainly see it to be deduced from what is there laid down But sometimes it is implicite and vertual only as when we assent unto some general Proposition actually apprehended though we do not distinctly consider the particulars included in it and in like manner when we assent unto some Principle laid down in Holy Scriptures though we do not actually apprehend those other Truths which have a necessary consequential Dependance on it we are said to believe these latter also implicitly and as it were in semine because we do expresly believe that which implies or infers them For instance when I assent unto this General God knows the Hearts of all Men I do implicitly assent unto this God knows my Heart though perhaps I may not have as yet particularly assented unto it And so when I assent unto this that Christ was true Man I do vertually assent unto this that Christ had a reasonable Soul because it may be firmly inferred from the former though I have not yet actually inferred it or assented to it 2. Of the necessity of such assent which is diverse according to the diverse Nature and import of the matters to be believed Some are necessary to be believed and done necessitate medii or else we shall never be Saved Some things are necessary necessitate Praecepti only that is without the Belief and doing whereof we sin For the first sort they are such things without the believing and doing whereof God has determined never to save a Man for both our Salvation and also the means and terms of it depend wholly upon God's Good-will and Pleasure and therefore we must take our Measures of such Necessity from God's revealed Will only And from that we learn that God has afforded greater Discoveries of things to be believed in some Ages than in others and given greater abilities and advantages to some Men than to others and acordingly doth require more things to be believed and more explicit Faith of them from some Men than from others unto which by his Providence he will bring them and not save them without such a belief of such Truths And as for the latter sort if they be necessary to be expresly and explicitly believed though we sin if we do not so believe them being sufficiently propounded unto us and we having abilities to apprehend them yet upon a sincere Repentance the Non-belief of them shall not prejudice our Salvation But in many things if we do but use our best endeavours to attain the knowledge of them having a readiness to believe and obey whatsoever we can get a particular Knowledge of to be the Will of God such an implicit Faith and readiness will be accepted for the Deed as if we had expresly believed them Now for such things are necessary to be explicitly believed by all Men with a Divine Faith or else they cannot be saved They are not many and are all contained in the Scriptures and may be clearly learned from thence by any ordinary Capacity The Ancients made account they were all comprised in the Apostles Creed the Lords Prayer and the ten Commandments and Bellarmine himself confesses that they are all contained in the Scriptures omnia sunt scripta quae sunt omnibus necessaria Lib. 4. De verbo Dei non scripto cap. 11. And that they are so will be evident to any one that will examine the Particulars And therefore they may be clearly learnt from thence and we may be as much assured of them as of any thing which we
in the general what Certainty we have or may have of all the Articles of our Christian Faith which we do hold to be all contained in the Holy Scriptures or else may by good Inference be deduced from it both what Certainty a Professor may have within himself and also what Certainty he may give of it unto others or receive of them in dispute or by way of Perswasion And as for such Articles in Particular it is neither consistent with the designed brevity of this Paper nor indeed needful to shew where every one of them is contained in the Scriptures or how deduced thence this being already done to every ones Hand in the many excellent Writings and particularly in the Catechisms and Systems of the Christian Faith written both formerly and of later times by learned Men of both Communions whereunto private Persons may have recourse if they have not yet attained sufficient Knowledge and Satisfaction therein by hearing the Word Preached and Reading the Holy Scriptures PART II. BUT besides the Articles of Faith which we in common have received from the Holy Scriptures there are divers other Matters and Articles offered by the Church of Rome as necessarily to be believed by us which she tells us were also delivered and taught by Christ and his Holy Apostles and ought to be received and believed by us equally with those contained in the Holy Scriptures which are not expresly contained in them but have been delivered and conveyed down from Hand to Hand to those very times by word of Mouth or some other way Which are therefore called Traditions or traditional Doctrines from this particular way of conveyance distinct from the Holy Scriptures which is also called Tradition in an active Sense And for the Doctrines themselves which they offer to us if they were really taught by Christ and his Apostles we grant they must needs be infallibly true and the Word of God and attested so to be by the self same Miracles which they wrought to confirm their other Doctrines But we must have good assurance that these were taught by them which we can never have if they contradict those recorded in the Holy Scriptures to have been taught by them whereof we are so well assured already which yet many of them manifestly do Therefore let us see what Grounds or Arguments are offered to us for the Proof that these Doctrines were indeed taught by Christ and his Apostles And these Proofs must at least be equal to those by which we are ascertained that the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God else we cannot be obliged to receive these out-lying Doctrines with equal Faith and Certainty which they tell us is due unto them as those recorded in Holy Scriptures For our Satisfaction herein we are offered Infallible Tradition as is pretended that is that some Men have in all Ages to this present day been infallibly guided by the Holy Ghost to deliver these Doctrines to their Successors and infallibly to testifie that they were taught by Christ and his Apostles which is indeed a very great and liberal offer if they can but make it good and too great an offer not to be suspected and therefore we had need to consider it well lest so great a matter if rashly rejected should involve us in Infidelity or if blindly swallowed should prove a Sluce to let in upon us an Inundation of Men's Dreams and Fictions pretending Commission from our Blessed Saviour and his Holy Apostles And that we may the better judge of this Matter let us distinctly consider first the Tradition and then the Infallibility And here it is something surprizing and entertaining to find that some Men after they have to shew the necessity of Tradition told us that without it such and such particular points of Faith cannot be proved from Scripture should yet attempt to prove the same when they come to treat of them in Retail from several Texts of Scripture For instance Bellarmine de verbo Dei non Scripto Lib. 4. cap. 4. Quarto necesse est nosse extare libros aliquos vere Divinos Quod certe ex Scripturis nullo modo haberi potost i. e. That it cannot be known from Scriptures that there are any Books extant in being which are truly Divine and yet the some Man Lib. 1. De verbo Dei cap. 2. can argue in this manner Scripturas certissimas autem atque verissimas esse nec humana inventa sed oracula Divina continere 40. Testis est ipsa Scriptura cujus vera praedictiones Verum igitur est quod dicitur omnis Scriptura divinitus inspirata 2 Tim. 3. Verum quod dicunt omnes Prophetae haec dicit Dominus That the Scriptures are most certain and most true and contain not any human Inventions but the Divine Oracles Fourthly The Scripture it self is Witness-whose Predictions are true therefore that is true which it says All Scripture is of divine Inspiration and that is true which all the Prophets say Thus saith the Lord. Nor can it be pretended to be an Argument ad homines since they are never like to convince us of any thing from Scripture which they themselves have told us cannot be proved from Scripture But it seems such a Disputant as Bellarmine can prove that which cannot be proved or rather it shews how little they dare rely upon their own Traditions and how gladly they would beg a little Credit for some others of them by rubbing their Copper Coin against the Gold of Scripture and how little they matter it if they may but advance the reputation of their Traditions though they contradict both the Scripture and themselves also But they offer us Tradition for Proof and why may we not allow Tradition for good Proof that such Points of Doctrine were taught by Christ and his Apostles as well as we have done for the Scriptures being the Word of God But till they can bring us as good Tradition for these as that for the Scripture was they ought not to blame us as unfair and partial if we do not receive them Let them shew us the unanimous Comsent of all the Churches of Christ ever since the Apostles time attesting Matters which they judged to be of universal concernment for our Salvation and let this Testimony and Tradition concerning these things be collaterally corroborated by as evident Beams of Divinity resulting from the things themselves and then we shall be ready to pay a like Assent unto these Doctrines as we do unto those which are contained in the Holy Scriptures But if the Tradition for these exotick or exoterick Doctrines be not to be found in the first and purest Ages of the Church but they have been kept under ground by the Disciplina Arcani as we are told for so many hundred years together and if they have since been rejected by many Churches and are apparently the private Interest of one particular Church and that none of the best which teaches them What reason