and consequently the insufficiency of your rule of faith tradition hath been made appeare it will be fit to vindicate the sufficiency of that rule which we relie upon In which work the first hinderance that I meet with is this objection of yours That the particular books of Scripture were written for other particular ends and not to give us a compleat body of faith To which I answer that if by particular books of Scripture you understand each book a part severed from its relation to the whole I then agree with you that every particular book was no more intended for a compleat body of Faith then every particular Chapter for a compleat body of the book or then a Window or a Door to be a compleat body of a House but as the one was designed to give entrance the other light to some room or passage of the Edisice so the several books of Scripture were written some to give entrance to Christianity some to illustrate dark places of the whole some to inform us of matters of fact that we might understand in what chiefly to praise God some to discipline us in matters of practice that we might know how aptliest to serve and please him And others to instruct us in matter of belief that we might learn to relie upon him But on the other side if you remit the least of this abstract and Independent consideration of the particular books of Scripture I must then profess that I stedfastly beleeve that they were all designed to this chief and primary end of composing that compleat body of Faith whereon Christs perfect Church should be built as certainly as so many several parts of a building having each a particular end besides of their erection are yet in the general and main intention all destin'd to the making up of one compleat and intire Fabrick yea further without urging the comparison till it halt I am perswaded that as the Master Architect having an Idaea form'd of the whole directs many a part to the perfection of that when the subordinate workman that frames it thinks of nothing farther then of the peice he is in hand with So oftentimes the Almighty Architect when his Ministers perhaps never look'd further then that service in particular wherein they were imployed some perhaps in a Gospel in an Epistle some he by his infinite Wisdom directed each particular to the making up of the whole and compleat body and rule of Faith the written Word which by his admirable providence he hath and will I am consident ever preserve intire and uncorrupt in all parts necessary to its own perfection and harmony and to mans eternal safety and direction Insomuch that I cannot but think it at the best loss of time to be solicitous after any other rule and irreverence if not impiety to question the sufficiency of this But because my opinion is little considerable with one of so far a better Judgment take in this Point the Opinion of the Fathers which you so much relie upon To begin with Tertullian these are the last words of his 22. Chapter against Hermogines Scriptum esse doceat Hermogenis officina If it be not written saith he let him fear the Woe destin'd to such as shall adde or take away Can any thing be inferred more rightly then from this passage the sufficiency of Scripture and the superfluity of any other rule But take yet somewhat more direct from †Oratio ad Gentiles towards the beginning Athanasius The holy and from God inspired Scriptures saith he are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of themselves sufficient to the discovery of truth I appeal to St Basil himself of all the Fathers the greatest attributer to Tradition in all things wherein regard is justly due unto it Hear what he sayes handling a point wherein Scripture I think is as dark as in any necessary one whatsoever I mean that of the Trinity Believe what 's written saith * Hom. 29. advers Calum stan Trin. page 623. he what is not written seek not And in another place It is a manifest falling from the Faith sayes †De vera ac Pia side page 251. he and an argument of Arrogance either to reject any of those things that are written or to introduce any that are not of the written And lastly to sum up all that can be said by a Protestant in one sentence of a Father of greatest Learning and authority Listen but to St. Augustine De doctrina Christian lib. 2. cap. 9. In its quae appertè in Scriptura positasunt inveniuntur illa omnia quae continent fidem moresque vivendi He had need be a confident Sophister that would undertake to evade these Authorities but yet if they may not be admitted let Scripture be heard for it self It is a priviledge and preeminence solely peculiar to that sacred Volume to be Witness Advocate and Judge in its own cause Surely the Spirit spake in St. Paul when he told Timothy That holy Writ was able to make him wise unto salvation 2 Tim. 3. in fine And when numbring up almost all the particular parts that can be required to the compleat Institution of a Christian he concludes that in these by Scripture the man of God is made perfect and fitted to every good work And I am confident by the same Spirit he spake his own minde when he spake ours so directly to the Corinthians Vt dicsatis in nobis supra id quod scriptum est non sapere Epist 1. cap. 4. Where by the way it is to be noted that the Apostle applies this doctrine as an Antidote to that very inconvenience which I have heard some Papists object against the reliance on the search and use of Scripture namely that by it those of greater capacity were lkely to be blown up and to glory in their clearer discerning over weaker whereas the guidance of the Church and Tradition was equaller to all To this I say 't is worth observing what he delivers as it were by way of reason for the contrary Doctrine to wit of confining our selves to Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I profess Consin that these and many other passages of Scripture which for brevities sake I note only in the * Deut. cap. 4. cap. 12. Epist ad Gal. cap. 1. Margent prenounce to me in as clear a sense as may be the sufficiencie of Scripture and supersluity of relying on tradition for a rule of faith And yet I sweare I am none of those of whom St. Basil speaks p. 621. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How they may sound or what other sense they may bear to you I know not since now adayes Gods Word proves to men of divers opinions as the Apostles language when the devided tongues had sat upon them in Dr. * This was likewise the fantastique opinion of the Authour of the book de Spiritu sancto fathered upon Cyprian Alabasters conceit to severall Nations at one and the same
it be once admitted that by such tradition there can be had in all ages a compleat and true knowledg of what Christ taught it cannot be denied but that it is an easier and better rule to guide our understanding in the affairs of Religion then to resort for that end to the Scripture alone And that such tradition is infallible I have endeavoured to prove in another discourse which your Lordship hath so that I will not trouble you here with any repetitions upon that Subject Now when I wrote to your Lordship my opinion of the use to be made of reading the Fathers relying upon them more for what they were taught then for what they teach it was as taking them for faithful Collectors of the tradition that they found general through the Church in their times and sincere conveyers of them to us And this course you shall finde even among the ancientest of them When St. Austin will establish the doctrine of praying for the dead he telleth that it hath been the practise of the whole Church from the Apostles time The like he doth against the Pelagians and upon several other occasions and directeth us to enquire what faith is professed in the Churches established by the Apostles from whom he reckoneth on the uninterrupted succession of Pastors unto his time And by them he deriveth the present Doctrine from the first preachers who had it immediately from Christ Tertullian when he prescribeth against Heresie giveth you a Catalogue of the Bishops of several Churches from the several Apostles that planted them and with the successions of the persons urgeth the succession in those Churches of the Doctrine he seeketh to establish Irenaeus doth the like and generally all of them which they do not onely when they use those formal positive words that the whole Church hath received from the Apostles and holdeth generally such and such a Doctrine but at other times also when they do but intimate it in their discourses which intimation is such as is easily perceptible to whosoever of judgement shall read them impartially Therefore to summon up as short and as plainly as I can the use as I conceive is to be made of reading the Fathers I say that letting pass what they writ as Commentors upon the Scriptures and as Phliosophers and all which is but as Divines and Schollers we are generally to take hold of what they deliver us as Pastors of the Church which appeareth chiefly by what they writ against those they brand with Heresie which they could not do were not those points which they censure against the known and general tradition of the Church And next when they deliver us dogmatically and professedly any doctrine in such sort as we may reasonably conceive they intended we should take it as matter of faith not giving it as conceptions of their own which they bring onely learned arguments on texts of Scripture to maintain In all which a free good judgement will easily discern by reading them which way to incline which I knowing your Lordship to be do beseech you to apply it a little industriously to collect throughout their sense and by what they say to frame a model of the Government Beleif and practise of the Church wherein they lived and then tell me whether it be like yours or ours It is worth the while Criticks labour to get some knowledge of the manners and customes of Ages long since past by little fragments of antiquity that have hardly scaped into their hands And Lawyers get a knowledge of the Government and frame of the State in Kings raigns long agoe by broken and disjoynted Records that they meet with scattered in several Files And these maimed evidences by chance fallen into their Hands do serve to beget a fairer body of knowledge when they know how to make a right use of them and such as will convince an indifferent and equal hearer much more certainly the Fathers works that handle professedly and at large the affairs of the Church and Religion and whereof we have such plenty will fairly inform a rational and discoursing man of the true state of them in their times and what they conceived and had been taught imported Heaven or Hell in mans belief and practise which I am sure your Lordship will allow to carry a great stroke in ours and from which it is madness if not impiety to depart upon less grounds then a demonstration to convince the contrary Though I have already too much trespassed upon your Lordships patience by my tedious Letter yet I may not conclude it till I have said a word or two to the foure instances your Lordship giveth toward the latter end of yours First for the use of Images I doe not conceive it to be a precept given by Christ but since introduced by the Governors of the Church as a thing convenient to raise devotion in the people Now things of that nature may be convenient at one time and unfit at another When I dolatry was fresh in the memory and practise of the world it was dangerous to admit it therefore in the primitive times Justin and Tertullian might have reason to cry it down But because there was no precept of Christ in that behalfe conserved in the Church you see they urge not the authority of Tradition of the Church to beat down their use but arguments of their own and Texts of Scripture produced by them whereas now in times secured from that danger and a great good appearing in them they being as a Father said the bookes of unlettered persons to beget knowledge and stirre up devotion in them as strong arguments and as pregnant Texts of Scripture are produced for their use and to justifie the Governours of the Church in recommending them to the people Your second instance is of Tertullians affirming Christs descent to free the Patriarkes which I conceive not onely he but all the Fathers that ever spake of that particular deliver it in a matter of faith and so it hath been ever held by the Church which word of Descent I take it is to be understood as we all doe the Article of the Creed He descended into Hell that is by his power and operation at least by which he confounded the damned comforted the soules in Purgatory and brought to the sight of God those in Abrahams bosome that is a place of rest where yet they enjoyed not the beatificall vision For to give other motion and place to a soule is a question in Philosophy and concernes not faith and such was the assertion of the Angels copulation with women for many or rather most of the Fathers were of opinion that they were not pure Spirits but had very subtile immortall bodies the contrary of which was never yet delivered as matter of faith howbeit by force of Argument now the corporiety of Angels is exploded out of the Schools and thus supposing that opinion the way is obvious enough in commenting
Faith that you doe not most intirely assent unto For my part I doe not know what you understand by an Article of Faith but I am sure I have cited out of St. Austin of the necessity of Childrens partaking of the Eucharist an Article in this discourse which 't is evident he held as an Article both of necessary faith and practice wherein I believe you will refuse to joyne with him As for Epiphanius his over-sights I referre you onely to the Jesuit Petavius and for Eusebius to Cardinall Perron who casts upon him a trifling aspersion but of Arrianism or if his authority suffice not let Jerome Ep. 65. ad Pamach Oc. be heard who gives him this good testimony Impietatis Arrii apertissimus propugnator est Now to your third and last ground That the traditions of the Church are infallible I say that in part we agree in this point for I am perswaded that no man in his right wits will ever deny the firmest assent he hath about him to traditions of the nature which you Character doctrines taught by Christ to his Apostles and by them preached through the world and then again delivered to the ensuing ages by them that had these points inculcated in their hearts by the Apostles in this manner with care and every where handed over from age to age which upon particular occasions the Fathers used to summe up and produce against innovators that would make breaches upon the ancient and generally received faith of the Church-Traditions of this nature Doctrines thus delivered I say we agree to be derived from infallible Authority as well as the Scriptures and it is indifferent unto me whether I receive the waters of life from the Springs themselves from the originall cisternes and conserves into which they did immediarly flow or else conveyed through Aquiducts at sixteen hundred yeares distance so I be certain of the stanchnesse and purity of the pipes That such traditions and so exactly conveyed there are in the Church and to which is due as to the Scripture from every prudent man how ever a Sophister may cavill the strongest assent of his soule we likewise both agree such are those fore-named grand fundamentals of Christianity we agree further that by tradition we are as you say plainly fully and practifically taught how to understand Scripture I mean in those Fundamentals And much more must I agree with you that the businesse and errand of tradition is to deliver it so unto us since for my part I hold that those dignifying circumstances by which tradition may rightly pretend to be infallible belong onely to such doctrines as are either plainly or by necessary consequences deducibly coucht in Scripture in regard of which deductions we agree further that it cannot be denied but that it is as you say an easier and better rule to guide our understandings in the affairs of religion to use the help of such traditions then to resort for that end unto Scriptures alone as to read a book wherein there are difficulties with a judicious comment is likely to be more profitable then onely to peruse the single Text. And this last I assent unto without admitting of the supposition upon which you inferre it to wit that there can by tradition be had a compleat knowledge of all that Christ taught All this we are of accord in but what can you infer from hence to the advantage of the Romish cause since I peremptorily deny that there is such a qualified tradition really belonging to any Tenent of the Church of Rome disapproved by us or that seale with those quarterings and dignifyings wherewith you blazon it set by any of the primitive Fathers which yet were no sufficient warrant to any doctrine that doth so much as border upon our disputes since then I am sure you directed that part of your Letter to the same purpose that the rest I must answer what I conceive it tends to as well as what directly your words beare And as I have profest wherein we agree so now I must set down in what and why we differ concerning these particulars of Tradition and Scripture There are two principall poynts wherein I dissent from you First that in the generall you conceive all Traditions of the Church whatsoever infallible Secondly that you hold the Scripture to be no compleat body of Faith and therefore that we are to give tradition much the preheminency in governing the tenour of ours For the first namely that all the traditions of the Church are infallible I could by one demand of which is that Church whose traditions are infallible either bring you to our confession that the true Church is to be known meerly by its conformity to Scripture in belief and practice or else into a circle whilst you are forc'd to prove the truth and infallibility of the Church by her constant reception of those true and infallible traditions whose truth and infallibility you are at the same time proving by the Churches constant receiving them But I passe it by because I would not seeme to argue in any wise captiously and also for that Mr. Chillingworth hath already excellently laid open all the intricasies of this labyrinth And therefore taking the present Romish Church for that you mean I proceed to answer your Arguments wherby in your Letter to the Vicountesse of P. to which you referre me you endeavour to prove all doctrines of the Church received or delivered by way of tradition infallible the chiefe that I finde are in the 12 and 13. conclusions as you call them of that treatise where first for proof of your assertions that no false doctrine of Faith whatsoever can be admitted or creep into the Catholick Church you say that whatsoever the present Church beleeveth as a proposition of faith is upon this ground that Christ taught it as such unto the Church he planted himself a special good ground and that will soon end all controversies in this matter if the ground appear to be well grounded and that the Church of Rome which you suppose the present Catholick do never admit any doctrine of Faith but upon that ground But first the ground can never be made good that whatsoever of Faith the Church of Rome teacheth was ab initio so taught by Christ himself And secondly I beleeve that the Church of Rome her self doth not alwayes in all that she teaches for a tradition of Faith suppose that Christ himself did teach the same for this latter part I am better perswaded of the modesty of the Church of Rome then to think that she will so much as pretend it for all her doctrines as for example that of communicating onely in the bread is a tradition for you will not I suppose vouch Scripture for it unless you mean to apply to it Christ's prayer that the Cup might be removed it is a tradition of Faith yea and I think I may say of necessary faith for unless the Communicants
the soule perspicatious and considerate of what is profitable Lastly to conclude this point let me set before you Macarius Homil. 17. and Theophylact more remote from one another in this article of faith then in the times wherein they lived Macarius telling us that we offer bread and wine the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of his flesh and blood and they which are partakers of the visible bread do eat the flesh of the Lord spiritually And Theophylact teaching the directly contrary doctrin upon the 6. of Saint John Note here saies he that the bread which we eat in the mysteries is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Lords flesh but the very flesh of the Lord and let no body be troubled that the bread should be believed flesh since the bread which he did eate when he walked here was altered into his body and made the same with his holy flesh so would the wafer be turned into his flesh if Christ as man did eat it will the veryest Sacramentary say I have insisted the longer upon this particular as conceiving it the highest point of all our controversies and wherein the Fathers should have most obliged us had they left to posteritie a right and unanimous intelligence of that great mysterie of the Eucharist But the certainest conclusion I can draw from them in this and the rest is of the uncertainty of concluding any thing in our differences from those that differ so much amongst themselves Justin Martyr in Orat. cohort ad Gent. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He should have my vote for a rare Musitian that could contrive those their discords into a Harmony fit to be the measure either of our practise or belief My next Reason is the Fathers variance from themselves a quality of much more prejudice to them then the other for upon contradiction of testimonies how point-blank soever a Judg may fall to examine the fame and reputed integrity of the witnesses in which if he find a difference he will not stick many times to pronounce a sentence according to the intire credit of the men but who will ever give judgement upon ones evidence who in the same businesse is found in contrary tales And here I could run over most of the materialest points wherein I made my former instances and produce almost out of every Father pro con examples not onely of variance but almost of as eminent contradiction as that of St. Augustine concerning Purgatory in Serm. 232. de Tempore where he flatly denies that there is any third place besides Heaven and Hell calling them deceivers that teach it And likewise in his 21. Book de Civitate Dei cap. 16. where he absolutely rejects the opinion of any Purgatory flames before the day of Judgement to another passage in Cap. 24. of Lib. 21. de Civitate Dei where he seemes positively to affirm i◠himselfe but I forbear in regard it would be tedious and likewise for that I am unwilling to presse a point of derogation from those holy Fathers whom I reverence further then I needs must it being sufficient for what I intend to inferre that they appeare oftentimes to vary from their owne positions in divers Articles that we dispute of and others fully as important in which I may be well excused from the trouble to us both of alledging examples since Genebrard and Pamelius thought it their best course to purge the one Origen the other Tertullian from grosse and impious errour in many places by shewing how they teach the cleane contrary in others though by the way I must needs say that Pamelius his manner appeares to be very extravagant for as to some poysonous doctrines of Tertullian a Montanist he rightly applies a cure from some other passage of Tertullian a Catholick so at other times to what hee thought venemous in Tertullian a Catholick he preposterously prescribes an Antitidote out of Tertullian an Heretick as you may see in the eighth of his Paradoxes where he confutes an errour in his Apologetique and de Testimonio Animae Bookes which that Father wrote being a Catholicke with a passage of his Book de Anima composed when he was turned Cataphrygian and yet who so forward as Pamelius when any passage in such bookes makes for us to cry out away with it 't was a saying of Tertullian a Montanist I may well help my cause the best I can by this unsetlednesse of the Fathers since the noblest pillar of the Roman Church Cardinall Peron so often wrests their variance from themselves so much to the advantage of his See how in his reply to King James p. 374. he makes bold with Gregory the Great with Ruffinus with Jerome touching the Maccabees reception into the Canon wherein I doe not think him more in the wrong in the particular then I believe him right in the generall to wit that the Fathers did often vary their opinions according to their severall greenness or maturity of studies from whence Vincentius Lyrenensis his directions will follow cont haeres c. 39. That the Fathers depositions are onely to be taken who living in the Catholick Faith and Communion holily and wisely did constantly teach and persist even untill their death in Christ and further such only as did receive preserve and deliver their doctrines all or the greatest part manifestly and in one and the same sense wherein what use soever some Papists make of that passage I professe I thinke we are somewhat lesse beholding to him for the certainty of a rule and evidence to guide our faith by then to Archimedes for his Engine to remove the World For the Mathematitian disabuses us and declares that there is not a solid place to be found wheron to fix his instrument but th' other leaves us to that vain search of an impossibility for truly as the case stands I cannot think it less then an impossibility to know with any competent assurance what in all or almost any of our debated questions the Fathers hold with all those solid circumstances whereon Vincentius his rule is grounded of holiness wisdom catholickness immutability of the teachers and perpetual identitie of the doctrins sense if with years they all improved I might be comforted a little by relying on their last dictamens but as I find a S. Augustin that with age retracted his errors so on the other side I meet with a Tertullian that going forward in years and experience went less in his judgement how happie should we both be in one that could assure us in the Legion of Fathers when was the verticle point of each their erudition whether at their summer or winter solstice if I give you the notes of it and tell you then only you have it certain when they are in a perfect and palpable conjunction with Scripture you will think it but an imperfect indication if you say that then they were ariv'd to the high point of their perfection when they were once exactly instructed in the full
sence of the Church I must not admit of that marke whilst you are proving the Churches receptions by theirs and therefore if you please let us both agree that for either of us there is no resolving evidence to be taken from the Fathers that are so irresolute themselves when you meet with a passage in any of them that stands not with your belief conceive their judgement not ripe or rotten when they writ it or that their recantations are lost the same liberty shall I take in mine for truly had Saint Austins admirable monument of humble ingenuity as well as high erudition his Retractations perished as Origens which as Saint Ierome saith he had made in an Epistle to Fabian Bishop of Rome Epist 65. ad Pamach et Occan. did before him Saint Austin might perhaps have had a place in some others Catalogue of heretiques as well as Saint Origen in his And truly who can secure us that the like mishap hath not befallen others of the Fathers now taxable with erronious doctrins by the loss perhaps of some after-survey of their own works My Third consideration is of the Fathers variousness and repugnancies to the Government practise and belief of both the Romish Church and ours In which I have prevented the need of examples by many of the instances both of my former Letter and this as that of the equalitie of Bishops Presbyters that of rebaptizing that of Angels that of the Millenaries c. to which I will lonly adde that which so many and most particularly S. Austin delivers of the necessity of childrens partaking of the Eucharist and his rigor against infants unbaptized some of which I take to be beames all more then motes fit to be removed out of their eyes before we can with reason resigne up our own sences to their guidance and manuduction My Fourth concluding reason is the want of ability in many of the Fathers in most of will to determine the points of controversie and this I hope I may safely affirm without wrong either to their abilities or good wills A general and potential ability to resolve difficulties every strong reason includes if in the particulars wherein it should be brought forth unto act there concur upon proposal meanes of informing ones self and a will to use it Such an ability those learned Fathers rich in all the choyce endowments of soule had in most singular eminence and as it were madness to rob them of those so I think it is neither Logicall nor prudential because they were knowing in the general to attribute to them an actual ability to discern such particular questions wherein it is so farr from appearing that they had the means of informing themselves or the will to use them that I see no signes that in their ages they were ever in proposal such and so farr from agitation or controversie the parents that give life and act to particular abilities were as I am perswaded in the primitive times the doctrins of infallibility annexed to a Church of any one denomination of adoring the Eucharist for God of Purgatory with its complements of Indulgences and many other choice points of our controversies All which I profess appear to me as unthought of for the first 500. years after Christ as the Antipodes or the Antartique pole to Lactantius or Justin Martyr that tooke the heavens to be to the earth but as the flat cover of a box In these I take it to be of no more derogation from them to deny their deciding abilities then to say that they were not able to leave to posterity an exact Mapp of America which was not discovered in so many hundred years after so far is it from an injurious detraction that to imagin them studious definitive or active in questions hardly ever moved that had neither profest maintainers or impugners were to imagine them idle and Ayre-beaters No marvail that to decide such they should want wills having neither means nor occasion to actuate their abilities or that they should want abilities having no provocations that might stimulate their wills Those primitive Champions of the Gospel the Fathers of the first 400. years who in this business are most to be consulted with had their time their industry their pens so incessantly exercised against the common enemie of Christ the Jews and Gentiles or else against those heynous heretiques that pretended the name of Christianity but tended to the utter subversion of it as the Ebionites the Samosaterians Gnostiques the Marcionists and divers other blasphemous or Chimerical innovators that they had little leasure to raise to themselves imaginarie enemies to combate with in such slight and trivial points as these we dispute of or if perchance any such were presented little care to subdue them But that I may not be thought to frame a discourse upon two false suppositions The one that our controverted points are of articles of Religion little material the other that in the primitive times there were few of them in agitation or neglected if they were let me tell you what induceth me to think so For the first that they were in themselves little material or at least thought so by the Fathers which is all one for our purpose though now I confess grown highly important by being injoyned many of them under the paine of Anathema's to be believed as essential to salvation I collect out of a survey of all those Antient yea and more modern rolls where it is likely all necessary points of faith or practice would be recorded where finding no newes at all of them I think I may safely conclude them but slight in comparison of what I finde there registred The first and prime inducement to me is that I meet with them no where in Scripture but this is none to you who do not allow that to be the perfect reconditory of all necessary Doctrines The next is that in the Fathers several Catalogues of Hereticks as that of Philastrius Epiphanius and S. Austin I finde none branded with Heresie for not holding those Articles imposed on mens beliefs by the Church of Rome and rejected by ours whose note it is not likely such would have escaped as had impugned any doctrines believed by them necessary to savlation But to this perhaps you will say that the denomination of Heretick was not incurred by the opinions that men held but by their obstinate persisting in such after the Churches manifests against them and that upon this reason divers who beleeved not all things necessary might well miss a place in their denumeration of Hereticks wherefore setting these two aside because though of much force with me yet likely to be invalide with you I onely press upon your consideration my last and I think undeniable reason taken from the non-appearance of such articles in those several pieces wherein the Fathers of set purpose and designe professedly do set down all the essential doctrines of Christianity agreed upon throughout