which imbu'd you antecedently with those contrary Tenets not the Scripture's Letter was your true Rule of Faith in regard you frame It according to the Interest of those foreheld Tenets He pressingly therefore demands whence you had those Tenets or Points of Faith by which you guide your self in adhering or not adhering to the Scripture's Letter as it lies 5. If you say from other places of Scripture controlling plainly the others he replies this can onely make you acknowledge Scripture's Letter plainly contradicts it self and so leaves you doubtful which side to hold as far as the bare Letter carries you or if it invites you to any thing 't is to hold both sides of the contradiction What therefore he still demands is what it is which forelaid those Judgements in you by which you were byast beyond the power of the Letters Indifferency to hold one side rather than â—he other Here you are at a loss with your â—retence of the Letter's Authority being gone beyond it If then you recurr to Reason and Science teaching you that God is immutable a Spirit c. he straight replies Then that Science taught you that Point whether Scripture had been or no. It therefore was your Rule in this and the same may be said of what-ever you avail your self to interpret Scriptute by not the Letter If you say you rely on the Science or Skill of your Parents Forefathers and Pastours then their skill which ascertaind them of Gods sence not Scripture's Letter was their Rule and so is likewise yours for whoever relies on any precisely as skilful relies in very deed and properly on their skill and not on the Letter their skill works upon Besides oue not skilful himself is a bad Judge how far anothers skill extends If you say you rely not on their skill fallible perhaps in them and obscure to you but on their Senses enabling them to be knowing Witnesses of what was delivered them and free from the former exceptions you are driven for your last refuge to Tradition and still desert your Letter-Rule In a word he challenges the consciousness of your most inward thoughts whether however in Controversies against others you quote Scripture yet in reading the Letter for your own Faith you bring not along with you some thoughts to interpret it by which you are resolved to hold to and so the Scriptures Letter lies before you as matter to work on so as to preserve it significative of what you judge sound and not to frame your Judgements by that is you use it as a thing ruled not as a Bule Nay more if you look narrowly into the bottome of those Thoughts you shall discover the natural method of Tradition to have at unawares setled your Judgements concerning Faith and actually guiding you in the Interpretation however when your other Concerns awake design in you you protest against it and seem perhaps to your unreflecting self to embrace and hold to the meer guidance of the Letter 6. Again Waving the insufficiency of the Scriptures Letter to declare its own sence he asks this smart question how you are certain of the Truth of the Letter in this very Text and demands your certain proof or demonstration either either for the Thing or for the Certainty of the Authority upon which you hold that any particular Text you alledge is truly a part of the Scriptures Letter and not foisted in or some way altered in its significativeness or how you know by the diligence of the Letter-examiners if it be a negative Proposition that the particle not was not inserted if affirmative not left out You alledge Consent of all our Copies He replies first that this onely argues that those ancient Copies whence ours came were alike perhaps not so much but who knows or can undertake that they were not alike faulty or alike Unlike the true Original or that there were not some in those dayes which never came to our knowledge different from ours in the very point between us In a word that all depends on the Truth of the Copies immediately taken from the Original or the very next to them which what they were by whom taken where and how preserved from time to time how narrowly examined when they were first transcribed and such like is so buried in obscurity and oblivion and so far from Evidence apt to beget Certain Knowledge that we must have recourse to Charity to allow it our Hopes had we no other Rule of Faith than that bare Letter Again though human diligence did play its part yet it is acknowledg'd sayes your Deist that there are almost innumerable Variae Lectiones in it still controverted nay so many in the new Testament alone observed by one man my Lord Vsher that he durst not print them for fear of bringing the whole Book into doubt and why may not there have been such formerly and now blindly determined and swallowed in each Text that concerns our mainest Points of Faith If you reply as Nature will lead you that the Faith of Christ believed and taught from Father to Son was writ in the hearts of the Faithful and this made them both able and willing to that is actually did preserve the Letter from Errour in any passage that concerned the Body of Christian Doctrine he challenges you to fly your Colours to desert your own Rule and embrace Tradition the Rule of Roman-Catholikes and lastly that you make Scriptures Letter the thing Ruled not the Rule Yet without this recourse no satisfactory account can possibly be render'd to a strict Examiner why Errour might not creep into the Text in substantial points of Faith as well as in less concerning passages which devolves to this that the Scripture's Letter held forth as a Rule of Faith can never convince an obstinate and acute Adversary FOURTH DISCOURSE That the Two last Properties of the Rule of Faith are clearly incompetent to Scripture 1. THere remain the two last conditions Certainty in its self and Ascertainableness to us That the later is incompetent to Scripture alone or unassisted by another certain Rule that is incompetent to it as a Rule however it may agree to it as a thing regulated or ruled is the Subject in a manner of all our foregoing Discourse and it so depends upon the former Property of the two last named Certainty in it self that if it fails that later is impossible Now as for its Certainty in its self or its being establish't on secure Grounds we may consider Scripture's Letter either Materially as such and such Characters or Formally as Significative of a determinate sence suppos'd to be Christ's and both of these either in its single self or as dependent on other helps or Causes on foot now in the world according to the course of things 2. And as for the meer material Characters in Books 't is evident that they are of themselves as liable to be destroy'd as any thing else in Nature as burnt torn
SURE-FOOTING In Christianity Or Rational Discourses On The Rule of FAITH With Short Animadversions on Dr Pierce's Sermon Also on some passages in Mr Whitby and M Stillingfleet which concern That RULE Ecce nos ex Patribus ad Patres per manus traditam fuisse hanc sententiam demonstravimus Athanasius By I. S. LONDON Printed in the Year 1665. To the QUEEN Madam THough the Faith I write for be far more firmly establish't then Heaven and Earth themselves as the Worlds great Master has by his own word assur'd us and so needs no Support but its own Invincible Strength Yet I am told by my reason that nothing so clears and recommends Religion to the Generality as the vertuous Life and eminent Devotion of Them that profess it But where shall I seek those happiest Effects and noblest Arguments of Truth If I consider them in their abstracted Idea's they are Invisible as Angels too subtle and delicate for vulgar eyes Where then may I hope to meet those excellent Forms vested with Bodies if I consult the common Judgment I expect to be sent to some Hermit's Cell or the private Oratory of some holy Votaress where I may find them indeed embody'd but withal half-bury'd Incomparable Lights but shut up in a kind of dark Lanthorn where they burn safely I confess but shine to few while Those I seek must be high and conspicuous to send forth their Beams and Influences over all the VVorld and in that regard Courts are the properest Firmament for such Illustrious Stars and Courts are easily seen but where 's the Star In this perplexity Madam it pleas'd the Goodness of Heaven to relieve me for as the mention of Courts brought immediately into my memory the happiness our Nation is blest with by Your Majesty's Residence among us so the Contemplation of Your Exemplar Life fill'd my soul with joy to have found at last those sublime and heroick Virtues whose perfect Conformity to the Rules of Catholick Religion is alone capable to convince the Certainty of its Truth Such an unwearied Constancy in Devotion such a degree of Fervor in that Constancy cannot possibly proceed from a luke-warm Probability in Faith such frequent Retirements to intimate Conversations with Heaven such Mortifications and contempt of Court-Entertainments and which is yet harder such Innocence and Purity amidst the necessary Admittances of them as they all conspire to speak Your Soul Angelical so they clearly prove the vigorous Activity of the Faith that breeds them far beyond the drowsy Indifferency of a probable Opinion Thus Madam while Schollars but discourse YOV live Demonstrations Permit me then to use not Your bare Name but Your Vertues as a Patronage to my Endeavours since the Motive of this my Dedicatory meant These for its Substance and Your Temporal Supremeness onely for a Circumstance Others Complement while they dedicate I Argue all the while nor intend I this for a farther Display of Your Excellent Vertues which already are sufficiently manifest to all the VVorld but to breed a more serious reflexion on Them in the minds of those against whom I write and other well-meaning but mis-led persons This advantage Your Majesty and the Practical Provers of Catholick Faith have above us Speculaters that Your whole Life is a Continual Argument for It while we are bound to expect Seasons and wait Opportunities Nor should I at this time have offer'd to appear had not the Multitude of Books lately Printed against Catholick Religion made it my plain and necessary Duty with all my little power to defend It VVhat I have endeavour'd I most humbly lay at Your Majesties feet and remain MADAM Your Majesties most dutiful Subject and most obedient Servant I. S. PREFACE To the Intelligent READER 1. He is little acquainted with the paths which lead to Science who knows not that the settling the First Principle in any Affair is of mainest Import towards Satisfaction in that particular because if such a Principle be not first settled the whole Discourse as relying on that Principle for its Certainty must needs waver and stagger Reflecting on this plainest Truth and withal on the manner how very many I wish I might not say most Controversies are manag'd that is by debating much about diverse Conclusions but very little about the first Principle in Controversie I cannot wonder if Disputes come slowly to an End when few of them were ever rightly begun Another mischief and even despair of entire Satisfaction springs from hence that seeing all Dispute Supposes an Agreement between the Disputers in some acknowledg'd Principle I much fear while things are carry'd on this fashion this Requisit is wanting to the Catholick and Protestant Controvertists For neither doth the Protestant from his heart hold witness the Books of their most extold Champions and even the 39. Articles to the contrary the Testimonies of Fathers and Councils Certain and Convictive nor even Scripture alwayes as to its Letter and the Sence they give it for they pretend Infallible Certainty of none of these much less does the Catholick agree that private Interpretations of Scripture or Citations from Fathers not speaking as Witnesses of the Churches Belief are of sufficient Authority to settle the True or overthrow a False or pretended Faith Yet notwithstanding all this each Antagonist permits the other to frame his Discourses upon these Grounds as if he held the Method were good and allowable which not being heartily granted by either what satisfaction can we expect but endless and fruitless contests for want of Agreement in some acknowledg'd Principle while this Method is follow'd Nay more were it suppos'd that both sides had agreed not to reject in their Disputes such a Principle yet still however one side might happen to foil the other so far as to make him contradict himself yet never so as to convince his Tenet of falshood unless the process were grounded upon some First that is Self-evident Principle by virtue of whose undoubtable Certainty the Discourse built on it might gain an establishment Whence also the result of this way of Discourse can be onely the Credit or Discredit of the Authours and touches not at all the Thing Which without some Evident Principle to establish or overthrow it hovers in its pure neutral condition of being as to Assent or Dissent just a bare saying and no more 2. The reason why the First Principle of Controversie is not more lookt into and clear'd appears to me evidently this that our modern Dissenters from the Church and her Faith seeing which is common to Them with all other maintainers of Errours that to begin with First or self-Evident Principles is the direct road to Science and therefore absolutely destructive of their Interest avoid as much as in them lies the laying any such Principles and instead of this apply their whole endeavours to aiery Descants upon Words by such means and Arts as are never likely to give them any determinate Sence by which craft the way
of Science being to proceed from one piece of Sence to another they carry the war out of the bounds of Science where solid ground is to be found to fix ones fool upon so to overthrow or be overthrown and transfer it to a kind of Spatium Imaginarium of Fancy and unsignifying Sounds the proper sphere for Chimerical Discoursers to buz confusedly and make a noise in Where the Catholick must either let them alone and then they cry Victory or follow them thither and so hazard to prejudice his own cause by seeming to allow their method of discoursing Whereas indeed the Catholick is forc't by their Importunity exciting his Charity towards the unskilfull to show how weakly they discourse in their own shallow way 3. How little faulty the Catholick is in this will be quickly manifest if we consider that â—tis against his Principles and Involuntary in him to take this Method for he builds not upon those aiery Skirmishes for his Faith nor consequently esteems he it conquerable by such attempts he received his Faith from the present Church witnessing it's delivery from the former Age to this anchorage he sticks he stands on immemorial Possession nor doubts he that Christ ' s Doctrin is his true and proper inheritance while brought down by the testimony of so many Christian Nations As long as this foundation stands firm quirks hurt not him Shake this that is show the Church Essential is Mistress of falshood and he must doubt all his Faith but yet cannot hold the Protestants for he must hold nothing No Book can secure him when that Principle which onely can secure to us Books written long ago is insecure it self Now on the contrary the Protestant builds his Faith by thus hammering it out of unsenc't Characters and is quite overthrown would his will give his reason leave to follow his principles if another more dexterously fit the words to a sence inconsistent with his And his hopes of standing are not built as are the Catholicks on the self evidence of ony Thing or Principle but indeed on the Inevidence or Ambiguity of Words and his Way to manage them which is to let no Living Authority sence thew and so they will more easily change their shape as the ingenious contrivances of Fancy molds them and then if the discourse seem but a little plausible Education and Interest make the Vnderstanding content with very easiy satisfaction 4. I am far from blaming the Catholicks prudence for engaging on this manner I rather admire their Charity towards their weaker Brethren that at the expence of so much patience and pains such excellent Wits will condescend to so laborious a talk less sutable both to their own Genius as Catholick and to the nature of their Cause How easily might they rest secure upon Immovable Possession and demand Evidence and Demonstration from the Protestant who denies his right to Christs Doctrin How easily might he show their reasons inconclusive which method was observ'd by a late Learned Writer Mr. J. S. against that Pulpit-vapour of Dr. Pierce especially by discovering the unsatisfactoriness of the Method they take How most easily that they have never a Principle or self evident Ground to begin with That till they settle such a First Principle all their Discourse is frivolous That their rejecting the Churches Living Voice or Tradition brings all into doubt both Sayings of Fathers and Texts of Scripture And hence not to allow them the favour of disputing ad hominem from Scripture or Fathers by granting them any thing Certain but putting them to prove all For since they are to object and bring Evident Reason for changing it lies on them to make their reasons Evident nor has any Disputant right to have any thing allow'd him Certain who renounces that Principle which if renounctâ— all is Vncertain And lastly that he who denies the First Principle in any Science deserves not â—ay cannot in reason abstracted from circumstances be discourst with at all in that Science nor They in Controversy This will force them to lay some First or self-evident Principle which cannot fail to produce these two Advantages One to the World that it shall get into a method of concluding something with evidence The other to Catholick Religion For â—twill be found Impossible their Reason strain'd to its utmost can invent any other in this matter but that of Tradition 5. This will clearly shorten our debates and save the laborious transcribing and Printing Volumes of Testimonies by bringing Conrroversy to the way of Reason for the Certainty of First Authority must needs be manifested by pure Reason But who am I that I should attempt such a change in the method of Controversy or think my self a fit proposer or presser of it Far be it from me Yet if I mistake not Nature her self whom I second in this design is about doing that work For I hear Catholick Writers complain of the Protestant and justly too that he puts him to answer what hâ—â— been an hundred times said before and I am inform'd an Eminent Protestant now writing in behalf of Dr Pierce makes the same counter-complaint of the Catholick and the Dissuader begins his book with the same resentment Besides I am sure the Best Wits of our Nation are weary of this Method seeing t is no more but reciprocating a Saw or transcribing and re-printing what has been done before onely in another Frame or if any new production be made generally t is nothing but some note collected from some Historical book unobserved by others which what satisfactory Evidence t is like to bring with it is easy to be ghest 6. Now all this happens through not first settling and agreeing in some First Principle Not onely for the reasons given in the beginning of this Preface but also because as will be shown hereafter without thiâ— the validity of any Testimony from Father or Council cannot be weigh'd understood or prest with force upon the Adversary For if These be but parts of the Living Voice of the Church Essentiall of their time that is of Christian Tradition it will follow that till the force of Tradition be evidenc't Theirs will not be clearly known Again Tradition once evidenc't wil give principles to distinguish those Citations by and to secure as far as is needful and interpret Scriptures Letter Whence clear Victory will accrue to Truth and full Satisfaction to her ingenuous Seekers Not that I at all doubt but that many things in Catholick Writers of the Testimonial strain carry 4 strong force of Conviction with them but I see thâ—â—â— while the solid Testimonies are not distinguisht and solely insisted on but run mixt with others of less force by such a mixture they weaken their own I see also that they want their effect upon the Protestant by reason he is not first prest to admit that Evident Principle on which their strength is built and which once settled they are irresistable 7. The settling then the
as it were the flower of Mankind which guide themselves by perfect reason could hold nothing or have no Faith That is the Church must onely be made up of ignorant and undiscerning persons which would make her little better than a Congregation of Phanaticks 15. Especially the Church having many Adversaries skild in natural Sciences who will not stick to oppose her all they can and conquer her too could they take any just advantage against her and no greater advantage being possible to be gained or more deadly wound to be given her than to prove her Faith uncertain which is done by showing the Ground of it as far as concerns our Knowledge that is the Rule and Means to come to Faith possible to be false For this at once enervates her Government vilifies her Sacraments weakens all the motives to the love of Heaven which she proposes and by consequence quite enfeebles the vigour of Christian Life or rather this made manifest by reason of temptations to the Love of Creatures perpetually and on all sides besieging us endangers to extinguish it utterly and lastly makes Christians the most ridiculous people in the world to believe such high mysteries above their reasons upon uncertain Grounds T is manifest therefore that the only safeguard and all the strength of the Church and Christian Religion is placed in the absolute Certainty of the Rule of Faith T is made therefore and ordained to ascertain Faith that it it has in it what is fit for this end that is it is of its own nature absolutely certain that is absolute Certainty is found in the nature and notion of the Rule of Faith or which is all one is signified or meant by those words thoroughly understood 16. And lastly Faith being a Virtue mainly conducing to Bliss as is seen § 8. and its Influence towards Bliss which we call its Merit consisting in this that it makes us submit our Understanding to the Divine Veracity and by that means adhere unwaveringly to such Truths as raise us to Heaven so that the Divine Authority apply'd is the Principal Cause or Motive of this submission assent or adhesion and every Cause producing its effect better and stronglier by how much the nearer and closer 't is apply'd and all the application of it to us consisting in the Rule of Faith whose office it is to derive down to us those doctrines Christ taught and to assure us that Christ said them and the application of a thing closely to a Judging Power being performed by Certifying it which makes it sink into it become an intimate Act of that Power whereas Uncertainty can only admit it to swim as it were upon the surface of the Soul much after the manner of a bare Proposal or simple apprehension or at best as a Probability not having weight enough of motive to settle deep into its solid substance which is Cognoscitive and so become there a fixt Judgement it follows that the Virtue of Faith and its Merit are incomparably advantaged by the absolute Certainty of the Rule of Faith and very feeble and inefficacious without it This Rule then must be absolutely-Certain of its own nature that is the notion of absolutely-Certain is involv'd in the Rule of Faith 17. Summing up then the full account of our Discourse hitherto it amounts to this that out of the genuine meaning of the word Rule which as used by us denotes an Intellectual Rule much more out of the meaning of the word Faith it is clearly evinced that the Rule of Faith must have these several conditions namely it must be plain and self-evident as to its Existence to all § 3 4 9 10. Evidenceable as to its Ruling Power to enquirers even the rude vulgar § 5. 11. apt to settle justify undoubting persons § 12. to satisfy fully the most Sceptical Dissenters § 13. and rational Doubters § 14. and to convince the most obstinate and acute Adversaries § 15. built upon unmoveable Grounds that is Certain in it self § 6. 15 16. and absolutely ascertainable to us § 5 11 13 14. SECOND DISCOURSE Showing the two first Properties of the Rule of Faith utterly incompetent to Scripture 1. HAving attained so clear a Description of the Rule of Faith and acquaintance with it by particular marks we may with reason conceive good hopes of knowing it when we meet it Especially not having a great croud from which we are to single it out the pretenders to that title being very few and indeed but two are owned namely Tradition and Scripture though if we look narrowly into it the Private Spirit Private Reason Testimonies of Fathers or whatsoever else is held the ascertainer of Scriptures sence ought to have a place among the pretenders to be the Rule of Faith since t is those which are thought to give the reliers on them all the security they have of Gods sence that is of Points of Faith and so are or ought to be to them a Rule of Faith 2. But to speak to them in their own Language who say Scripture is their Rule we must premise this Note that they cannot mean by Scripture the Sence of it that is the things to be known for those they confess are the very Points of Faith of which the Rule of Faith is to ascertain us When they say then that Scripture is the Rule of Faith they can onely mean by the word SCRIPTURE that Book not yet senc't or interpreted but as yet to be senc't that is such and such Characters in a Book with their Aptness to signifie to them assuredly Gods Mind or ascertain them of their Faith For abstracting from the sence or actual signification of those words there is nothing imaginable left but those Characters with their Aptness to signifie it This understood let us apply now the Properties of the Rule of Faith to Scriptures Letter that we may see how they will fit 3. And the first thing that occurrs is its Existence or An est that is whether those Books pretended to be Gods Word bee indeed Scripture that is written by men divinely inspired Of which 't is most manifest the very rudest sort cannot be Certain by Self-evidence nor can it be easily evidenceable to those Doubters that are the ordinary sort of the Vulgar by any skill they are capable of nor even to more curious and speculative Scarchers but by so deep an inspection into the sence of it as shall discover such secrets that Philosophy and Human Industry could never have arrived to Besides all the seeming Contradictions must be solved ere they can out of the bare nature of the Letter conclude the Scripture to be of Gods enditing and so worthy to be a Rule to solve which literally plainly and satisfactorily the memories 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 t is
blaz'd up and down to the commendation of themselves and perversion of others But a company which makes such a bustle cannot long want a Name Wherefore the Traditionary Christian having ever enjoyd the Appellation of Catholick and it being impossible their Adversaries should by any design or craft after the common Language of Mankind hopeless to attain the name of Catholick they are forced to content themselves though unwilling with some other new one which Nature working upon their own comportment determines to be either from their Authour as Lutherans Zuingliaus or their new Tenet as Tritheits Sacramentarians or some combination amongst themselves as Protestants or lastly some particular carriage as Quakers Dippers c. 3. These first Adherents to the upstart Novellist being clung into a Body after a while young understandings ripening to a capacity of Faith things are presently alterd The pretended Rule of Scripture's Letter's self-sufficiency is immediately thrown by as useless any farther Design hath got its end already and the natural way of of Tradition begins to take place again and recover its self nay the Reformers themselves are forc't to crave help of it to keep their company together Children are taught that they are to believe their Pastours and Fathers and though they are permitted to read the Scripture when they come at age yet they are told they are to guide themselves by the sence their Pastours and Fathers give it which is that they ought to guide themselves by the Faith of their Parents and Teachers in interpreting Scripture the very way Catholicks ever took in that particular And if any company of men though now mature to judge presume to follow their own Judgement in interpreting it and differ from those first Reformers these if they get the power in their hands will presently fall to oblige them by force to act that is if they would have them do it conscientiously which else were to force them to sin to hold as they do and persecute or punish them if they do not whereas they guide themselves to their best capacity by the Scripture's Letter which is the very Rule of Faith their Persecutors taught them and made use of themselves when they broke from the Church Which evidently shows that a new Rule is introduc't and that it is not indeed the Letter of God's word which is now thought fit to guide the Readers of it to Faith but those men's Interpretations of it So that the breaking from Tradition and consequently the Church casts them most inevitably upon these self-contradictions First to reform npon pretence of the Scripture's Letter being the Rule of Faith yet afterwards in practice to desert that Rule in their carriage towards others Secondly to disallow to others those Grounds themselves proceed upon Thirdly to pretend first the Scripture's Letter clear of it self without needing the Church to interpret it so to avoid condemnation from the former Church yet afterwards to judge the Followers of it to their best power to go wrong that is to confess it obscure and to need their new Churches Interpretation 4ly To persecute others for taking that way which they held at least pretended meritorious in themselves 5ly To oblige others to relinquish the sole guidance of the Scriptures Letter and to rule themselves by their Tradition and yet at the same time when they write and dispute against Catholicks to impugn Tradition or the doctrin of Forefathers as unfitting to sence it and abet onely the self-sufficiency of Scriptures Letter And lastly to impute that carriage to our Church as a fault which themselves practice upon their own Subjects And which is most material our Church punishes none but such as desert the Rule she recommends whereas they punish those under them for following too close that Rule which themselves recommended and applauded as the whole and sole Bafis of their Reformation 4. Now what can follow hence but that their Ecclesiastical Subjects whom Common Sence cannot but make exceeding sensible of such their unreasonable carriage in persecuting them purely for following God's word or the Scripture's Letter to their best power which themselves had taught them might securely nay ought in conscience be follow'd let the Consent of Forefathers and the present Church made up of meeâ— men say what they would what follow 's I say but that exasperated beyond patience by this procedure which they will be apt to conceive to be a most senceless and self-condemning tyranny over their Consciences they will unless Governours be vigilant strive to wreak their malice against their Persecutors and if they be numerous and powerful endeavour to involve whole Nations in war and blood which God of his mercy avert from our distracted Country Of so main consequence it is both for Church and State that men's Minds be right set in the Fundamental Grounds of Christianity and that the Principle they build Religion on be Evident that is apt to unite their Understaâ—dings and by it their Affections not uncertain and vertible which must needs lead if pursu'd by an earnest zeal to nothing but diversities in Opinions about Faith thence to dissensions and Feuds in the Will which upon any great pressure will be apt to break forth into actions of highest enmity and by the irreconcileableness of such Interests neither side being able to yeeld to the other in what each of rhem holds Sacred Religious and Conscientious endless and fiercest bickerings are apt to succeed even to utter desolation as frequent Histories too lamentably record Not that I intend the Justification of those revolting Sects who having no certain Grounds of Controversy are both self-condemn'd by the common Light of Reason for disobeying a Certain and Known Legal Authority which God's Law and plain Reason commands them to submit to to maintain an Uncertainty that is for any thing they know an Error and were it a known Truth they held would be no less condemn'd by the Law of God and common Reason nay out the nature of Religion it self for making Rebellion and an unimpower'd Sword the Defence of Truth which stands firm on a surer Basis. I onely mind prudent Considerers on the by how much it conduces to State-Unity and Peace that the Principle of conveying Faith to us be built on Sensible Evidence acknowledgable by all Mankind when rightly understood and not left to giddy Interpretations of Private Fancies which are apt to run so eccentrically to one another that we can never expect they shall have any common point where to fix and unite men's Minds and Afflections 5. The usefulness of this Parergon serves to elucidate as it were ptactically and experimentally the Certainty of Tradition The particular use we make of it in this present Discourse whence we digrest into it is to conclude as well as we can of things at a common view which yet is no less certain that the number of the actual Deserters of the natural way of Tradition have been but few to wit the
be rendred interpretable that way Whence there are almost as many minds as men about the time when any change was made nay some of their best Champions Dr Whitaker and Mr Powel profess the time of the Romish Churches change cannot easily be told and that they cannot tell by whom or at what time the Enemy did sow the Papists Doctrin This I say being so 't is most Evident they decline the pretence of any Tradition against ours and the very way of deriving down orally and practically Sence writ in mens Hearts by matter of Fact working on their Senses and instead of that recurr to pittiful shreds and fragments oâ— words utterly unauthoriz'd if the Tradition for that Books Goodness can fail And if Catholick Tradition which in its source was so largely extended visible and practicable by all can faulter ten thousand times more easily may the Tradition for any particular Book which in comparison of the other can be but of a very obscure Original fail and deceive us Now that no Tradition is alledgeable against us by Protestants appears hence that their immediate Forefathers little more than an 100. Years ago being Catholicks that is holders of their Faith no Novelty but uninterruptedly descended could never conspire to deliver to them any such sence that the Roman Church had alter'd her Faith since they had the contrary sence writ in the Tables of their hearts Nor can they have recourse to the Greek Church for a Tradition opposit to ours for any points of Faith in which they differ from us for they will find none such Nor is the Greek Church Progenitours to them here in England nor by consequence can they derive traditionarily from them 18. No solid Argument from Reason or intrinsecal Principles is producible against Christian Tradition For since Arguments if solid are taken from Things or Nature and the Certainty of Christian Tradition is built on the best Nature that is Man 's not according to what is alterable in it but what is abstracting from disease absolutely unalterable that is on Knowledge imprinted by natural Sensations and this Knowledge strengthen'd and made most lively by the oft-repeatedness of those Sensations and the import of the Things known Also since most efficacious Causes actually appli'd that is impossible not to do the Effect and Effects impossible to be without such a Cause's Existence are engag'd for the ever-continuance or Uninterruptedness of Tradition as hath been shown Disc. 6. 8. and the force of those preserving Causes strengthen'd by the most powerful assistances of the Holy Ghost Disc. 9. or by best Graces superadded to best Nature 'T is impossible any solid Argument from Reason should be brought against Tradition 19. The arguing by way of some few Instances as the manner is can have no force against Tradition's Certainty and Indefectiveness For seeing a pretended Instance of Tradition's failing is a particular action presumed to be long ago past and particulars out of the very nature of being particulars are surrounded by a thousand individuating circumstances or rather constituted by them that is are plac't in the proper sphere of Contingency and that particular Action is put to be long ago past and â—o affects not our Senses by Experience in which is founded the force of Instances in regard Experimental Knowledge is a necessary Effect of the Things being such as it is known Nor have we or can we have without Tradition any certain knowledge Coroll 16. that the Points of Faith pretended to have miscarried or to have been alter'd then or else the manner of expressing them were not mistaken then or misrepresented to us now nor that Interest for example of one party passion between both ambiguity of words slightness or confusedness of report grounding the Historians narration rashness of belief in him corruption of his Books since they were writ and innumerable other chances apt to occasion mistake did not intervene any of which would render the Instance uncertain and the Argument from it Inconclusive Again seeing we can have certainty of our own meaning of our words when we demonstrate and also of our consequence it follows that the way for a solid man to answer Traditions pretended demonstrableness must be to show the incoherence of the Terms and not to bring some old story against it which were to produce Uncertainty known to be such against pretended Certainty and not yet known to be other than such nay whos 's Evidence we cannot in reason deny till we can solve the connexion of Terms drawn from intrinsecal Mediums on which 't is built 20. The denying Tradition is a proper and necessary disposition to Fanatickness For since no Argument taken from any dead or written Testimony Coroll 12. 14. 16. nor living Testimony of Tradition Coroll 13. 17. nor from any thing in Nature Coroll 18. that is from any thing without us which is a second Cause is valid against Tradition It follows that Tradition cannot be denied but by pretending some Light or Knowledge within us deriv'd from the immediate Influence of the First Cause To which pretence helps its difficulty to be confuted in regard 't is easie to stand stiff in this Tenet that they see clearly such Truths by an inward Light and that therefore it were a madness to go about to confute their own manifest Experience whereas were Arguments produc-t openly they and their confutations might be publisht together and the Truth would lie expos'd to the scanning and decision of the Indifferent part of the world and be clear'd by a few Replies if a right method of discourse be taken Wherefore since Nature will easily teach the obstinate deniers of any Principle to avail themselves by the best plea they can to escape confuting 't is manifest that Nature will connaturally carry the deniers of Tradition to Fanatick Pranciples and that men are so long and no longer preserv'd from Fanatickness than they follow Tradition or the openly declar'd Sence of Forefathers either in our Church or some other Congregation Again Tradition being the way of coming to Faith by the open use of our Senses the denying it must drive the deniers to deny that way and to recurr to Knowledge had some other way Not to Knowledge acquir'd by human skill the Knowledge of such high mysteries being confessedly more than human therefore to infus'd Knowledge and this not infus'd by ordinary wayes as preaching teaching of Forefathers and such like as we experience such Knowledges to be infus'd into us for this again falls into the way of Tradition therefore they can onely have refuge to inward Light or Knowledge infus'd extraordinarily or without connatural means to make which the common road of receiving Heaven's Influences is the very definition of Fanatickness 21. Fanatick Principles can have no force against Tradition though unconfutable but by it For since they pretend for their ground a Light within imprinted on such a manner as manifests God the Authour that is an Effect
form of words This is the Faith of Blessed Peter this is the Faith of the Fathers this is the Faith of the Orthodox From which Testimonies note we 17. First That the Council in every Session not one excepted where Points of Faith are handled constantly professes to follow TRADITION Secondly It layes claim perpetually to Vninterruptedness of this Tradition as appears by the words ever alwayes from the Apostles times from the beginning from the Apostles have come down by hands to us The Church hath alwayes understood held openly profest taught hath ever kept and will ever keep perpetually commended by our Fathers hath learned by Tradition received down by hand hath ever observed and such like Plainly showing that this Persuasion of our Faith's descent uninterruptedly is deeply and unanimously rooted in the heart of the whole Catholick Church Which strengthens our Doctrin Disc. 8. § 2. and 3. 3ly It makes the Suggestion of the Holy Ghost or Sanctity in the hearts of the Faithful efficacious to perpetuate the delivery of received Doctrin See Sess. 6. Decreto de Iustificatione Sess. 13. de SS Euchar. Sacramento and many other places The very point I went about to explicate in my 9. Discourse 4ly 'T is observable that though it mentions the Holy Scriptures also with Tradition yet this is both very rarely and when it does so It onely expresses that Faith is contain'd in them but when it brings Places of Scripture to ground Definitions upon It perpetually professes to Interpret them by Tradition Which is most Evident both by its decreeing this in common Sess. 4. That none dare to interpret Holy Scriptures against the Sence which our Holy Mother the Church hath held and does hold meaning that Sence in the Hearts of the Faithful is the Rule to interpret Scripture by see Corol. 30. As also by several Instances Sess. 5. § 4. Sess. 14. Can. 3. Sess. 22. cap. 1. and to omit others in that most remarkable plaâ—e Sess. 14. In which after the Text of S. Iamesâ—lledg'd â—lledg'd for Extream Unction the Council subjoins In which words as the Church hath learn'd by Apostolical Tradition received down by hands be teaches c. Where Tradition is most evidently made the Rule which instructs and guides the Church in interpreting Scripture And 't is observable that the Council no where grounds any definition on Scripture but at the same time she grounds her Interpretation of Scripture on Tradition which devolves into this that the Council makes Tradition her onely Rule to know Certainly Christ's Sence or Points of Faith that is in proper speaking the onely Rule of Faith 18. But why then is the Holy Scripture made use of at all by the Council and that so solemnly nay and which is to be noted constantly put before Tradition To satisfy fully this difficulty 't is not the proper season at present yet being a good point and worth clearing I will not totally neglect it We may observe then that when we read any Book writ by an Authour we much esteem but yet such a Book as requires studying Aristotle's for Example or some other such whom we hold Scientifical we sometimes hope well as it were when we apply our own Industry to find out his meaning and have a kind of respect for what we conceive to be his Sence yet his Authority takes not full hold of our Understanding by reason the way we take is not evidently convictive that this is his Certain Sence But if the Point he writes on be first clear'd to us through a Scientifical discourse by word of mouth made by some Interpreter vers'd in his Doctrin and perfectly acquainted with his meaning we have as it were new Eyes given us to look deeply and thoroughly into his Sence and by this Security of arriving at it his Authority in case we highly esteem'd it has now its full force upon us to strengthen our Assent according to the degree of power it had upon our Understanding Now what a well-skill'd and insighted Interpreter or scientifical Explicater of the point is to such an Author the same is Tradition to Scripture For This bringing down Certainly Christ's Sence in every Point of Faith It easily and securely guides us to the true meaning of Scripture in those passages which concern such a point whereas the wordish way of Grammar and Criticism being evident by Principles to be ambiguous and by Experience to lead men into different Sences it can never satisfy us thoroughly that the Sence we arrive at by this method is infallibly the true one or Christs and so never engages certainly the Authority of GOD'S WORD And hence it is that Scripture thus interpreted is of sleight force and at best good onely for Ecclesiastical Rhetorick or Sermons where the concern is not much if the Preacher misses in this particular passage so the Substance of the Point he preaches on or his Text be truly Christ's doctrin nor is Scripture thus interpreted even a competent proof in the Science of School-Divinity as being Uncertain and so unapt to beget Science whence Intelligent Divines quoting and building on Scripture are to be suppos'd to judge the Sence they build on to be the Churches and so they are presum'd to go to work as Faithful or parts of Ecclesia docens or else they lay true Science first which is ever agreeable to Faith and so when any Text concerns a demonstrated point they know by Science what the true Sence of that Point must be Much less is Scripture wordishly interpreted apt to build Faith on the unwaveringness of which kind of Assent must be grounded and secure in the Principles which beget it and not meerly actually such as it were by accident whereas Interpretations thus made Faith's Principles in this case are liable to possible if not probable mistake This will be clearer by a parallel made by a learned Authour worth inserting because it strengthens our Discourse by a new Consideration Let a Critick and a skill'd Carpenter read Vitruvius his Book of Architecture the Critick has but a dim dry and uncertain conceit of what he reads as to the truth of the thing but the Carpenter or Architect by reason of some Principles and Practice he has already of those matters understands him more thoroughly and makes lively and firm conceits of the truth and excellency of what he writes Such is the Practical way of knowing Christs Sence or Tradition to the interpreting Scripture usâ—d by the Catholick Church in comparison of the Critical Method affected by others In a word Tradition gives us Christs Sence that is the Life of the Letter ascertaind to our hands which therefore must needs move the Letter its Body naturally The other way takes the dead Letter and endeavours to move it Artificially to counterfeit that Life which it truly wants 19. To apply this Discourse to our matter in hand Tradition securing to us the Scripture's Letter truly significative of Christ's Sence and also the
Again for God's love who ever deny'd they ought to have reason to believe the Churches Authority Is any thing more frequent in our Controvertists and Divines treating of the Ground of Faith than large Discourses concerning Motives of Credibility 9. Thirdly he saies that disputing with Romanists whether Scripture be the sole Rule he means t is so limitedly that is between Christians who have already acknowledged Scripture a Rule of Faith By which I see Mr Whitby guides him self by sounds though he must need know if he knows any thing of Catholick Tenâ—â—â— our sence is quite different I beseech you Sir deal fairly with us Is not that speaking formally and properly the Rule of Faith which gives us Christs sence and does not that give us the Sence of Scripture which regulates us in the Interpretation of it Did ever Catholick then hold that Scripture interpreted on any fashion much less on your fashion by private Judgments or reasons regulated by Grammatical skill Criticisms and such like verbal knowledges is a Rule of Faith nay do not we constantly abhor this way as the Source of Heresy Take us right then we hold not Scripture's Letter alone a Rule but Scripture interpreted by the Church that is indeed the Church formally speaking and so you see you mistake our Principle Yet upon our joint-agreement in this your Discourse against us proceeds Retrive it then you see your Errour Again you tell us Scripture is your new Rule but forget quite in your discourse to tell us that your Reason assures you Scripture is to be the onely Rule or why it should be so since besides what I have demonstrated to the Contrary in my former Discourses 't is evident Christian Religion had descended many steps ere the Scripture's parts were much scatter'd much less the Whole collected and no less clear that that can never be a Rule or Way to Faith which many follow yet their thoughts straggle into many several Judgments not in indifferent points but in that of the Trinity amongst the rest as your self profess of the Socinian that he rejects not the Trinity in the first place because it seems a contradiction but because 't is not clearly discover'd in Scripture by which you see he adheres firm to your Rule and so ought to be acknowledg'd one of your Church since though he hap to differ in some points yet he holds fast the Rule common to both which is the substantiallest Principle of a Church as such being the Ground of all Faith And indeed your Kindness to him here and your tender care not to displease him shows you have a true brotherly affection for him Though I fear he he will con you small thanks for making his Principle run thus That which is not clearly revealâ—d in Scripture and is coniradictory ti reason is not to be believ'd which seems to imply that were it clear in Scripture yet contradictory to Reason then he would notwithstanding belive it An over-strain of Piety no Socinian was ever guilty of and I can assure you no learned Catholick Divine I ever heard of ever made such an Act of Faith But 't is another case if it onely seems contradictory and is not judg'd by him to be evidently such for then there is room left in his mind for the contrary Assent of Faith to settle there 10. You say you prescribe not the doctrin imputed to the Socinians because it makes Reason the Iudge of Faith but the Rule of Faith Pray take pains to consider what you say He that judges must have some Principles in his head by which he is regulated in making such a Judgment those Principles then must be his Rule in that Action and if that Judgment be an adhesion to a point of Faith those Principles are his RULE OF FAITH Examin now well your own thoughts whether your Principles by which you find out certainly by interpreting Scripture this is God's sence or a point of Faith be not Maxims of your human Reason I am sure in disputes against us you prove and defend your Faith by such skills as Languages History and other Knowledges got by Human Learning and consequently hold It your selves upon the tenour of those skills which therefore are your Rule of Faith and not upon the bare Letter You I know will deny it But I beg your second thoughts to reflect that a Rule to such an Effect is the immediate Knowledge to the Power as conversant about that Effect and that if another intervene it regulates the former which thereupon becomes the thing ruled not the Rule Do then these skills clear the Letter of Scripture that is make known Gods Sence to you If so since their Immediate effect is to clear it 't is impossible to deny but they are at least part of the Revelation for revealing is clearing and God's Sence was not clearly revealed but by those means that is by human maxims and so they are at least the more formal part of your Rule of Faith Again I ask might you not have mistaken the true Sence without those Human Maxims If so then They and not Scripture's Letter were your Rule If not then onely common Sence is requisit to understand clearly what 's reveal'd in Scripture and then either your Brother Socinian or you want Common Sence which I think you 'l scarce say 11. But will you see you still hold Reason your Rule notwithstanding you cry up the Written word Find you not there expresly that God has hands feet nostrils and passions like ours and this in clear terms Why is it not then a point of Faith You will not answer sure it is against Maxims of Reason you renounc't them formerly p. 94. when you had found out your new Rule and onely allow'd your Reason power to judge if a point were sufficientlie reveal'd that it is most rational to 〈◊〉 it self though it seem to contradict or thwâ—â—â— Reason Now this is sufficiently reveal'd being plainly writ in your Rule of Faith and the direct Letter of Scripture why will you not then captivate your Reason and believe it I see you do but complement with God's incomprehensible Knowledge in speaking so highly of it and so humbly of your own shallow Intellâ—ct Will you deny a point of Faith so plainly reveald for your own capricho or conceit Perhaps you 'l say 't is not clearly reveal'd because the contrary is plain in Scripture too I ask is it as plain if not it cannot overthrow the title of This to be a point of Faith If as plain why should you not believe both Be valiant Sir and believe a contradiction it being clearly reveal'd Perhaps it seems but such and then your own profession p. 94. obliges you to admit it You that can acknowledge an Infinit extension of space when you say all the world besides does so too sure you thought all the World was in your Fancy may also hold Materia ab aeterno and that it is onely a part
of Gods Nature as if I mistake not Iacob Bemen does and then secundum hanc partum of illam will do the work and gives a true sence to both sides of the contradiction You should do any thing which could by any means make it seem possible rather than question a plain Divine Revelation Nay perhaps you do not think you can demonstrate the contrary to the solution I have helpt you out with at least that your Demonstration is but a seeming one and then I challenge your candour to own your sayings and demand why you are not bound to use this shift and a thousand others rather than violate your avow'd Rule of Faith and deny and hold against the clear Letter of Scripture If you alledge you have perfect Science of the contrary by Metaphysicks then though I expect not this from you your Science rules your Rule of Faith glossing or rather violently wresting the plain Letter and so is so absolutely your Rule of Faith that it controls and even baffles the other though clearly revealing Or if to be in express terms in Scripture be not to be clearly revealed I would fain know what those words clearly revealed in Scripture signifie 12. Perhaps you I say that notwithstanding your new Rule Reason must be your GVID still even in Faith though not your Rule But I ask if your Reason must guide you sometimes so as to deny the clear Letter of Scripture since a Guid in any thing must be regulated by some Knowledges in that Affair by what Principles or Knowledges Reason is to regulate it self while it guides you in that particular now in question By Principles of Faith How can that be in your Grounds antecedently to the known Sence of the Scripture By Principles of Human Science Then those Principles of Human Science give you the certain Sence of the Written Word when it self is insufficient and therefore are still truly your Rule of Faith and so you are forc't to fly back for refuge to the old Rule Human Reason which you seemingly renounc't when you had found your new Rule of the Scripture 'T is Evident then that some Maxims of your Reason are your Rule and not Scripture's Letter And this is what we reprehend in the Socinian and you too that chusing a wrong Rule of Faith so to avoid the Church you both gloss it as seems best to your Reason regulating her self by her own and those fallible Maxims They by certain acute and ingenious Sophistries proper to themselves you by the more school-boy way of Grammar and Dictionary Learning and so both of you make your Rule the thing Ruled Nor think to retort any part of this Discourse upon our Rule of Faith For this being the living voice of the Church delivers us a Determinate Sence of the Points we are to profess whereas Yours needs skils and helps of studious Reason to tell you what it would say Ours is alive and in the Breast and Actions of the Faithful yours is dead characters waxen-natur'd and pliable to the Dedalean fancies of the ingenious molders of new Opinions and so alone can satisfie no man as you handle it 13. No wonder now if having no certainer a Ground or Rule of Faith for her self your Church is shamefast of obliging others to believe her Man's nature could scarce own or permit so irrational a tyrannie Yet whether she does or does not we must not know from your words which run so backwards and forwards that none can tell which is the true face of the Ianus First p. 99. you seem to deny it stoutly from the carriage of your Convocations and Bishops and from your own Tenets Yet afterwards you seem to grant they do require a positive assent somtimes and justifie them as not doing it upon pretence of any Infallibility but because the thing determin'd is so Evident in Scripture that all denying it must be wilful A rare Discourse and worthy a deep consideration Pray who must be Judge it is so Evident in Scripture as to render the Dissenters guilty of flat Wilfulness The Bishops or your Church Nothing less In the beginning of this Discourse p. 93. you plainly deny'd them to be Judges of Faith Now in your sence to be clearly reveal'd or evident in Scripture and to be of Faith is all one so that they must not be Judges of what is evident in Scripture lest by necessary consequence they become Judges of Faith and yet without having power to judge what is evident in Scripture they must have power to require assent to Points as evident in Scripture nay and punish the dissenters too For 't is a madness for Governours to require any thing of their Subjects without having Rewards and Punishments in their hands to make what they require to be duely observâ—d Nay p. 93. you absolutely refus'd to admit them as Guides of your Faith A moderate word and less than to be a Iudge Which signifies they may have power to require our Assents in matters in which they have no power to guide us that is they may have power to require us to go wrong for any thing we or they know An excellent honour for the Church of England that her Champions profess in Print her Supreme Pastors have no power at all to guide their Flock in their Faith or to it when they are out of it Again I would ask whether the Trinity be not Evident in Scripture and the Socinians wilful for denying it Why are they then so kindly dealt with Or what could be reply'd to a Socinian answering when his Assent to the Trinity were required that he humbly submitted to Scripture that he us'd all the means he could but discover'd it not so evident there and thereupon complain'd that you obtruded upon his equally-learned party your own conceit or opinion for Scripture-Evidences What therefore you alledge here as in your Churches behalf that she requires not a positive assent upon pretence of any Infallibility more condemns Her seeing t is most absurd and irrational that one should require any man to assent to any point or proposition whatever as evident in Scripture without Infallible Certainty at least imagin'd and pretended that it is thus evident there for should it happen to be otherwise how ridiculous were his Authority how damnable and diabolical his Tyrannie to oblige men to the hazard of falshoods in matters of Faith that is in matters belonging to his eternal Salvation and in the mean time profess himself Ignorant whether they be false or no. 14. Now our Church goes another way which ere I declare I would let your party see that Interiour Assent may be required by Governours lawfully and rationally which your Principles can never make sence of Suppose a thousand witnesses from several places each of them held alwayes men of good consciences should swear in open Court that they had seen such and such actions done by such a man or that they had seen spoken or converst
First Principle in Controversy being so supremely important I have attempted it Putting this Dilemma to the Protestant Either Controversy or the skill which enables us to conclude certainly what 's Faith is a Science or not if not why do we meddle with it since without Science or Knowledge all is meer beating the ayr and empty ignorant talking If it be common seuse tells us it must be grounded on some first and self-evident Principle Let 's to work then and settle this Principle that so we may have something to agree in and proceed upon that is be able to discourse together I have endeavoured to show the First Principle we Catholicks proceed on establisht on rational Grounds and self-evident Let the Protestant either agree with us in it or settle some other able to render his Citations certain without which they ought alledge nothing Nor is it enough for them to catch at single words or little parcels of my Discourse as their way is but it being connected they must overthrow the main of it nor that but they must lay some First Principle of their own else they ought affirm nothing nor speak for why should any one say what he knows not or how can he know without Principles Especially the Protestant is oblig'd to do this who cannot stand on Possession but on his Reasons why he mov'd what he found settled This Principle then they are ty'd by all honest Considerations to produce and till they do so I must frankly declare what reason tells ever intelligent man that those many flashy books of late against Catholicks by whomsoever written deserve not a word in Answer FIRST DISCOURSE Showing from the nature of Rule and Faith what Properties belong to the Rule of Faith 1. As common Reason gives it evident that no satisfaction at all can be had in any point whatever without knowing first the Meaning of those Words which express the Thing under debate since without this the discoursers must talk of they know not what so the Art of Logick assures us that the Meaning of those Words exactly known a ready way is open'd to a clear decision of the most perplexing difficulties For seeing the Meaning of a Word includes in it self the Nature of the Thing as signified by that Word in regard it could not mean That Thing unless it also meant it of such a Nature which constitutes that Thing so t is plain that the Meaning of the Word once known perfectly the Nature of the Thing as signify'd by that word must be known likewise Wherefore since the Nature of the Thing bears along with it all those Considerations and Attributes which intrinsecally belong to such a Nature and excludes all those which are incompetent to the same Nature it acquaints us with what can be both said and deny'd of the Thing as far as exprest by that word The perfect knowledge then of the Meaning of the Words affords us the certain solution of all questions whether Affirmative or Negative and is the most compendious way to settle all Controversies Let us therefore apply this method to our present purpose and examin well what is meant by those Words which express the thing we are discussing namely THE RULE OF FAITH and we may with good grounds expect a solid clear and brief satisfaction both of what is not that Rule and what is It. 2. To begin then with what is most evident Seeing a Rule signifies a thing which is able to regulate or guide him who uses it it must consequently have in it all those Qualities by which it is able to do that it 's proper Effect otherwise 't is no Rule that is 't is not apt or able to do what a Rule should do 3. It must then in the first place be Evident as to its Existence unto the Sense if it be to guide it or to the Vnderstanding if it be an Intellectual Rule For how should either of these be guided by what they neither see nor know 4. Whence follows that it must be Evident to all those who are to be regulated by it that there is such a Thing otherwise it can be to them no Rule since being unknown it reaches not or affects not those persons who are to be ruled by it that is reaches not those things upon which it is to do its Effect and so cannot rule them or be a Rule to them 5. Moreover to those who can raise doubts or can have doubts raisd in them that is in a manner all Mankind even the Rudest Vulgar it must be knowable that the Intellectual Rule they are to be regulated by has in it self a virtue to rule or guid their understandings right That is they must be capable to know that it deserves to be reli'd on as a Rule Wherefore this must either be evident by its own light or at least easily evidenceable by other knowledges or skills presupposed in those users of Reason who are to be guided by that Rule Otherwise 't is against Sense and Reason to yield over ones understanding to be guided by that which he can never come to understand that it has in it any ability or power to guide him 6. And because nothing can be evident to be what in reality it is not it follows that this Thing pretending to be a Rule must also be certain in it's self or establisht on secure Grounds For otherwise 't is not possible that can in true sence be call'd a Rule which one may follow and yet go wrong or be missed The Directive Power then which it has must not be wavering Wherefore also the causes which conserve it so constantly able to perform that Effect must be established too to that degree as to keep it fitting to do the effect proper to its Nature which is to be certain in its self 7. Thus much is evidently gathered out of the common Notion or Nature of a Rule That is out of the genuin and proper meaning of that single word We are next to consider the meaning of the word FAITH By which we intend not to give rigorous School-definitions of either this or the former word but only to reflect on and make use of some Attributes Predicates or Properties which in the sence of such who intelligently use those words are apprehended to be involved in or truly appertaining to their signification This caution given to avoid mistake or cavil let 's enquire of what kind of Nature that thing is which is meant by this word FAITH and then reflect what further qualifications it requires in it's Rule that is in the Certain Means which is to guide us to that Knowledge called Faith 8. FAITH then in the common sence of Mankind is the same with Believing and Divine Faith in the sence of the generality of Christians from whom as being the intelligent users of that word the true sence of it is taken the Believing God in reveal'd Truths which necessarily imports some kind of Knowledge of
of Faith but those who are read in Councils and Fathers nor yet unless those Authorities be held Infallible in such an office which none but Catholiks will say for if they can erre in such a performance how shall we be certain they do not erre in each particular Interpretation without some other Guide to establish them and secure us which Guide must be infallible in such an affair else the same question and doubt returns concerning It And if there be some other infallible Guide whose constant direction secures them from erring in every particular Interpretation and ascertains us of the same let them name It not Fathers and Councils to interpret Scripture by But the third and most Fundamental fault is that a Father as the word is commonly usâ—d and now taken by us signifies not a Doctor or learned Deducer of Consequences by human learning nor a Commentator upon Scripture nor a Preacher or Homilymaker for so every Doctor Commentator and Preacher would be a Father but an Eminent and Knowing Witnesser to Posterity of the sence and Faith of the Church which he received The notion then of CHURCH is presupposd to the knowledge of what is meant by the word Father or to the notion of a Father Again a Council signifies a Representative of the Church whence 't is Relative to what it represents and so its meaning cannot be known unless that others to which it relates be first understood nor can it be a true and right Council unless what it represents be a true Church Both Council therefore and Father presuppose the notion of Church Church presupposes the notion of Faithful Faithful the notion of Faith Faith of the Rule of Faith 'T is most evident then that in the way of generating Faith the knowledge of the Rule of Faith is antecedent to the knowledge of all these and so none of these cau help one who discourses orderly and rationally to the Knowledge of the Rule of Faith unless accidentally as it may happen a Father may be a Doctor or great Schollar and so by a rational discours opening the meanings of the words or which is all one the notion or nature of the Things give us insight to know what it is which has the properties of such a Rule In vain therefore do they strive to piece out the sufficiency of Scripture's Letter to be the Rule of Faith by those helps since the being of that Rule is presuppos'd entire in it self before their existence and indeed is that which gives them all the Being they have 12. Some may reply that Fundamentals are clear in Scripture But first a certain Catalogue of Fundamentals was never given and agreed to by sufficient Authority and yet without this all goes to wrack since the neglecting or not-knowing which be Fundamental hazards to ruine all For the discourse grows ticklish when we talk of Fundamentals this very word importing that any one left out or mistaken overthrows the whole End of Faith to those which miscarry in it Secondly is it a Fundamental that Christ is God If so I ask whether this be clearer in Scripture than that God has hands feet nostrils and passions like ours Seeing then the appearing clearness of the Scripture's letter in this later point is certain to lead vulgar heads into exceeding great Errours and that Heresies are as seemingly clear in the outward face of it as Fundamental Truths how mistaken a Principle do they relie upon for the main hinge of their salvation who say that Fundamentals are so clear in Scripture's Letter to every capacity THIRD DISCOURSE That the Three next Properties of the Rule of Faith are utterly Incompetent to Scripture 1. THus much to show that the Letter of Scripture wants the two first and most Fundamental Conditions of a Rule of Faith being neither Evident as to it 's Existence to all nor Evidenceable as to its Ruling Power to unlearned Enquirers Let us proceed to the third Property namely its Aptness to settle and justify those unlearned persons who rely undoubtingly upon it such as are the meaner sort of the Vulgar who take things by course as they fall in a natural kind of way without reflecting upon them and their reasons 2. Since then no Man or rational Creature can be justifiable either for Assent or Practice but by proceeding upon some Principles and such as to his best judgment he takes to be true ones and those Principles can be but of two sorts viz. either inbred in him by the ordinary Light of Nature call'd Common Sence or got by some reflexion and that the persons we speak of are such as proceed undoubtingly that is without occasion to reflect 't is left that what can justify them must be Principles of Common Sence Seeing then 't is both against all Principles of Common Sence to judge that themselves have any self-assurance of the Scripture's Letter knowing themselves utterly ignorant when 't was writ by whom how brought down c. and equally senceless to believe a multitude which sayes it may possibly erre in what it tells them it follows that they are left unjustifyâ—d nay condemn'd by Common Sence in absolutely believing such a Rule That is condemn'd by the best judgments they are Masters and capable of This I say follows in case this multitude be truly dealt with and that the Teachers give them a sincere account of their own Tenet Nay should these men say they cannot erre in such a matter by reason of their great Schollership as skill in History Languages reading of Fathers Councils and such like yet even then they could not afford them credit to such a degree as to build their hopes of salvation on their word in regard those learned mens Profession is not of plain Sensations by their Eyes and Ears which the vulgars experience capacitates them to judge of but of such high skills as unlearned men know not what to make of and even understand not what the very words which express them mean The best then they can do is to hope that perhaps those men may have some such strange skill in the same manner as they trust to other Tradesmen and Artistâ—s they have heard well of or seen some of their work or rather not near so much seeing their Senses give them a far better knowledge of these Handycraftsmen's skill by the Effects and their fitness for the use intended than their uncultivated Reason can give them of the goodness of Christian Doctrin and its proportion to Bliss But the main is when they shall hear and see many several Professions all pretending to Scripture yet all differ damn and condemn one another perhaps persecute one another and fight about Religion and themselves unable to judge which is most to be trusted what can common Sense dictate to them but an inextricable blunder and onely clear to them thus much that that can never be the way which many follow and yet many must needs be misled Their most
vulgar reason easily telling them that there can be but one Truth that is that all the other Professors to follow Scripture do notwithstanding believe and speak false Now these honest Scholars of plain down right Nature that of her lowest form too being unable to judge which truly follow the Scripture's Letter and onely capable to know they all profess it with Words and Actions expressing the greatest seriousness in the world are to think that all equally mean to follow it to their power Whence their common reason will tell them though they cannot express it in our terms or defend it that meerly for want of Light that is Evidence in the Directive Power of that Rule they all but one party and perhaps that too as well as the rest go most miserably astray This third Property then of the Rule of Faith namely to justify the undoubting vulgar is wanting to Scriptures Letter 3. There follows the fourth Property of the Rule of Faith which is that it must be able of its own nature to satisfy the most Sceptical dissenters and rational doubters that the Doctrin it holds forth came from Christ. To make a true conceit of what may be judg'd sufficient for this End let us reflect on the nature and temper of such Dissenters and Doubters and we shall quickly discover that they are men given to stir their thoughts by much reflexion and to call them to a strict account ere they yield them over to Assent Wherefore if we suppose them true to their own thoughts and not to betray the Light of their Reason to some Passion in which case their Faith it self were in them a Vice we cannot imagin that any thing under Demonstration can bind and restrain those active and volatil Souls from fluttering still in Objections and hovering in doubts when their Eternal Good is concern'd Especially when an Authority is about scanning upon whose word they are bound after they have approv'd it to believe unconcievable and unheard of things above the reach of human Reason Apprehension Let now any man go about to demonstrate to those great wits these points That the Scripture's Letter was writ by men divinely inspir'd That there is never a real one however there may be many seeming Contradictions in it and this to be shown out of the very Letter it self That just this Catalogue or number of Books is enough for the Rule of Faith and no one Necessary that was lost none be abated or if so how many That the Originals out of which the Translations were made were entire and uncorrupted That the first Translations were skilfully rightly made and afterwards deriv'd down sincere notwithstanding the errableness of thousands of Transcribers Printers Correcters c. and the malice of antient Hereticks and Jews who had it in their hands And lastly That this and this onely is the true sence of it to which is requisite great skill in Languages to understand the meaning of words in Grammar to know what meaning they should generally beat according to its Rules as thus construed or put together Criticism to know what a word doe most commonly or may possibly signify by rules 〈◊〉 nicer Etymologies or acception of Authours ancient or modern by dialects of several Countries c. History to make known the true scope of the Authour the best Interpreter of his meaning Logick to draw consequenceâ— aright and so find out the thread of the discourse to avoid equivocation in words by discovering which are to be taken properly which Metaphorically And to apply this right fome skill in the things themselves that is in Nature and Metaphysicks especially that which treats of the nature of Spirits as the Soul Angels God and his Attributes but especially in Divinity both Speculative and Moral which by the way supposes Faith and comes after it and so cannot be presuppos'd to the Rule of Faith which precedes it Let any man I say go about to demonstrate all these difficult Points ro those acute men and will they not smile at his endeavors since most of them that concern the truth of the Letter are such that we want Principles to go about to evidence them and the rest so obscure that a searching and sincere wit would still find something to reply to rationally or at least maintain his ground of Suspence with a Might it not be otherwise And were some one or two of these points demonstrable yet who sees not it is a task of so long study that a great part of a man's life would be spent in a weaâ—isome and hopeless endeavour to come to Faith by this tedious method which would both dis-invite to a pursuit and even a diligent man may in likelihood die ere he could rationally embrace any Faith at all Faith then being intended for a man to lead his life by 't is necessary it's Rule and the means to come to it should be easily victorious by reason of it's Certainty and Evidence over the shock of Doubts or the assaults of Intellectual Fears In which the Scripture's Letter being defective 't is plain that 't is far from the Nature of a Rule of Faith 4. The same discourse holds to prove that the Scripture's Letter is not convictive of the most obstinate and acute Adversaries which is the fifth Property of the Rule of Faith Yet to apprehend this more lively let us imagin it apply'd to practice and that some Text of Scripture were quoted to convince a Deist in some point He asks how you are certain that Book is God's word You alledge the Excellencies of it which indeed are such that eyes already enlighten'd by true Faith may discern something in it above nature and cry Digitus Dâ—i est hîc though not his dim sight He answers that many parts of it are indeed very excellently good but that the Devil can transform himself into an Angel of Light On the other side he requites your Excellencies with many strange Absurdities and Heresies even by your own confession in the open Letter as it lies and most unworthy God as that he has hands feet and passions like ours according to which he is variable He finds you direct Text against acknowledg'd Science in divers particulars and reckons up a multitude of Contradictions to his Judgment You answer that those places are understood according to human apprehension and are indeed incompetent to God but that there are mystical and spiritual meanings couch't in those sacred Oracles which with the help of History would reconcile those seeming Contradictions He cries you quite abandon your pretended Rule that since you confess Heresies are in the open Letter taken as it lies you must have some Knowledge in your Head concerning God which makes you decline the sence of the words as they lie and run to gloss them and demands whence you came by those tenets which oblige you to correct the plain Letter challenging your thoughts and carriage as witnesses that that
blotted worn out c. Which though it seems a remote and impertinent Exception yet to one who considers the wise Dispositions of Divine Providence it will deserve a deep Consideration For seeing the Salvation of Mankind is the End of God's making Nature the means to it should be more settled strong and unalterable than any other piece of Nature whatever Putting then Scripture's Letter to be this Rule and that all its Significativeness of God's Sence that is all its virtue of a Rule is lost if the material Characters its Basis be destroy'd or alter'd who sees not a very disorderly proceeding in laying so weak means in such immediateness to so main an end and concludes not thence that Faith's Rule ought in right reason have a better Basis than such perishable and alterable Elements 3. Reflecting next on those material Characters in complexion with the Causes actually laid in the world to preserve them entire we shall find that either those Causes are Material and then themselves are also liable to continual alterations and innumerable Contingencies or Spiritual that is men's Minds Now these being the noblest pieces in Nature and freed in part from Physical mutability by their Immateriality we may with good reason hope for a greater degree of constancy from them than from any other and indeed for a perfect unalterableness from their Nature and this being to conceive Truth an Inerrableness if due circumstances be observ'd that is if due proposals be made to beget Certain Knowledge and due care us'd to attend to such Proposals Otherwise their very Createdness and Finitness entitle them to defectibility besides their obnoxiousness to mutation and perpetual alteration through the alloy of their material Compart I call it due proposal when it must necessarily affect the Sense and so beget natural Knowledge or when unequivocal terms are so immediately and orderly laid that the Conclusion must as necessarily be seen in the Premises as that the same thing cannot both be and not-be at once by a mind inur'd to reflexion and speculation and I call that due care which preserves the Soul in such temper as permits the objects impression to be heeded and the Mind to be affected by it 4. This premised we may reflect that the Rule of Faith as was provd Disc. 1. § 4 5 10 11. must be obvious to men of ordinary Sence and not onely to Speculators as also that Objects of the Senses may be of two sorts Of the the first are things in Nature or else simple vulgar actions and plain matters of Fact which if oft repeated and familiariz'd are unmistakable and consequently the perceiver inerrable in such a matter Of the second are such actions as are compounded and made up of an innumerable multitude of several particularities to be observed every of which may be mistaken apart each being a distinct little action in its single self Such as is the transcribing a whole book consisting of such myriads of words single Letters and Tittles or Stops and the several actions of writing over each of these so short and cursory that it prevents diligence and exceeds human care to keep awake and apply distinct attentions to every of these distinct actions And yet to do our Opposers right I doubt not but each of these failings may possibly be provided against by oft-repeated Corrections of many sedulous and sober examiners set apart for that business and that the truth of the Letter of an whole Book might to a very great degree if not altogether be ascertain'd to us were the Examiners of each Copy known to be very numerous prudent and honest and each of them testifying his single examination of it word by word For then the difficulty consisting in the multiplicity and the variety is provided against by the multitude of the preserving Causes and their multifariousness made convictive to us by their well-testify'd consent 5. To apply this discourse to the matter in hand If we were Certain there had been anciently a multitude of Examiners of the Scripture's Letter in each Copy taken from the first Original or the next Copies from these and so forwards with the exact care we have defin'd the single Examinations of each and the amendment of the Copy according to their Examinations convincingly testify'd and that by Excommunication or heavy Ecclesiastical Prohibitions and Mulcts it had been provided for from the beginning that none should presume to take a Copy of it and that Copy be permitted to be read or seen till it were thus examined much might have been said for the Certainty of the Scripture's Letter upon these men's Principles But if no such Orders or Exactness was ever heard of especially of the New Testament upon the Truth of whose Letter they build Christian Faith If the multitudes of Letters Commaes blottings or illegibleness of the Originals like-appearance of Letters and even whole Words in in the Book like-sounding in the ear or fancy of the Transcriber possibility of misplacing omitting inserting c. did administer very fruitful occasions to human overâ—ight If the more Copies were taken the more the errours were like to grow and the farther from correcting If Experience testifies no such exact diligence has been formerly us'd by the diverse Readings of several Copies now extant and thousands of Corrections which have lately been made of the Vulgar Edition the most universally currant perhaps of any other what can we say but that for any thing these Principles afford Scriptures Letter may be uncertain in every tittle not withstanding the diligence which has de facto been used to preserve it uncorrupted in the way of those who hold it the onely Rule of Faith In their way I say who will not have the Sence of Christ's Doctrine writ in Christians hearts the Rule for the Correcters of the Letter to guide themselves by but the meer Letter of a formeâ— and God knows controvertible Copy out of which the Transcription and by which onely the Examination is made What Certainty accrues to Scripture's Letter by the means of Tradition or the living voice of the present Church in each Age is the Subject of another enquiry 6. Now as for the Certainty of the Scripture's Significativeness which is the other Branch nothing is more evident than that this is quite lost to all in the Uncertainty of the Letter and 〈◊〉 evident that 't is unattainable by the vulgar that is the better half of mankind since they are unfurnisht of those Arts and Skills as Languages Grammar Logick History Metaphysicks Divinity c. requisit to establish and render certain the sence they conceive the Letter ought to bear without which they can never make such an Interpretation of it but an acute Scholler skill'd in those means will be able to blunder theirs and make a seeming clearer one of his own In a word if we see eminent Wits of the Protestants and the Socinians making use of the self-same and as they conceive the best
advantages the Letter gives them as comparing places and such like and availing themselves the best they can by acquir'd skills yet differ in so main points as those of the B. Trinity and Christ's Divinity what Certainty can we undertakingly promise to weaker heads that is to the Generality of Mankind less able to make such fit allusions of places to one another incapable of such means as should help them which the other had and are very pertinent and proper to work upon the Letter And lastly who are for want of those unfurnish't of any steady Principles to settle their Judgements and rationally determin their own Interpretation Certain Scripture's Letter therefore is not Certain in it's self that is has no immovably secure Grounds enabling it to perform the Office of the Rule of Faith or to guide Mankind in their way to Faith with a rational assuredness Our Conclusion then is this that SCRIPTURE'S LETTER WANTS ALL THE FOREMENTIONED PROPERTIES BELONGING TO THE RULE OF FAITH 7. Lest any should misconstrue my former Discourse I declare here once more that in a great part of it I argue ad hominem that is I manifest what must follow out of the Principles of those who hold the Scripture's Letter the Rule of Faith not out of my own or Catholick ones I declare likewise that I with all reverence acknowledge such Excellencies in those Sacred Oracles as would task the tongues both of Men and Angels to lay them forth I onely contest that the Scripture's Letter is most improper and never intended for the Rule of Faith as is easy to be evinc't against an unobstinate Adversary by this that 't is known the Apostles and their Successors went not with Books in their hands to preach and deliver Christ's Doctrin but Words in their mouths and that Primitive Antiquity learn't their Faith by another Method a long time before many of those Books were universally spread amongst the vulgar much less the Catalogue collected and acknowledg'd till the Revolters from that Method and Rule being manifestly convinc't of Novelty by it were forâ—t to invent some other and chose this of the Scripture's Letter for most plausible as being held very Sacred untill by straining it to an undue use and to please the people putting it without any distinction of the person into their hands and leaving it to their Interpretation they have brought it as 't is made use of for a Rule of Faith to the vilest degree of contempt every silly upstart Heresy fathering it self upon It. Of which no Nation in the world is so evident an Instance as our miserable Country distracted into so many Sects all issuing from that Principle so impossible to be brought under Ecclesiastical Government and even with much ado under Temporal that 't is wonderful such proper Effects especially so sensible burthensome so universally spred and so continual should not long ago have abundantly demonstrated their Proper Cause and oblig'd them to renounce that Principle which is the necessary Parent of such ruinous and unredressable disorders FIFTH DISCOURSE Showing the Notion of TRADITION and that all the Properties of the Rule of Faith do clearly agree to It. 1. HAving then quite lost our labour in our last search let us see whether we shall have better success in this second Enquiry which is whether we may hope to find the Properties of the Rule of Faith meet in that which we call or all or Practical Tradition By which we mean a Delivery down from hand to hand by words and a constant course of frequent and visible Actions conformable to those Words of the Sence and Faith of Forefathers 2. But to make a more express conceit of Tradition that so we may more perfectly understand the Nature of that which we treat of let us first soberly reflect on the manner how Children learn their own and others names with whom they live as also of the rooms and thingâ— they converse with afterwards growing up to exercise their trades to write read or use civil or legal carriage to every one in their kindsâ— And looking into the Thing we shall observe that they first glean'd notions of those several Objects either meerly through Impressions on their Senses by the Thing it self alone or by the help of having them pointed at or something practic'â— about them at the same time they were nam'dâ— and afterwards learnt to repeat the same Word after others more and more intelligently by degrees and to practice the same Actions till aâ— length the former Generation of Teachers decaying by the course of Nature a new one iâ— sprung up to Perfection furnish't with all the accomplishments of the former and continuing the same natural and Civil Knowledges Actionâ— and Conveniences to this Age which the formeâ— enjoy'd and so forwards to succeeding Generations by a natural kind of method without needing Books or new Skills meerly to perform this Effect of continuing and preserving the former Age as it were alive in this Add now to this that this Continuation goes not by long leaps from Age to Age or from twenty years to twenty but from year to year nay moneth to moneth even less according as the new Off-spring grows up by degrees to a Capacity of understanding and practicing and then reflect on this whole Course and we shall see the true nature of Tradition or immediate Delivery as exercis'd in Civil matters and Human Conveniences 3. We want nothing now but to apply this self-same Method to Spiritual or Ecclesiastical affairs and to reflect how it brings down Faith by Doctrin couch't in Words and exprest in conformable Practices and then we shall have gain'd a compleat and proper notion of Faith-Tradition which is the Tradition we speak of 4. We may observe then that the Children of Christians first hear the Sounds afterwards by degrees get dim notions of God Christ Saviour Heaven Hell Virtue Vice and such like and according as their capacity increases are put on to practice what they have heard and made to do some external Actions by precept and Example which Actions by their more particularizing nature ripen to a more express and familiar conceit those raw Apprehensions or Judgments which while they stood under bare words look't as if they hover'd in the Ayr and afar off They are deterr'd from sins first from lying and disobeying their Parents afterwards others by reproaches and punishments and encourag'd to virtuous actions by rewards such as their Age bears to breed in them a conceit of the badness of sin and goodness of Virtue They are shown how to say Grace say their Prayers and made do it when they are able and to gain them some abstracted conceit of those Actions they are inur'd even while very Infants by certain carriages unusual at other times as holding up their hands or perhaps eyes kneeling keeping silence and other sober postures to look upon such actions as extraordinary ones when as yet they know no more of
them which breeds a certain awe in them before-hand preparing their minds to more reverence for the future Afterwards growing up they come acquainted with the Creed the ten Commandments the Sacraments some common forms of Prayer and other Practices of Christianity and are directed to order their lives accordingly the Actions or Carriage of the circumstant Church and Elder Faithful guiding the Younger notwithstanding the difficulty of the yet-undigested Metaphor in which dialect Faith is delivered to frame their lives to several sorts of Virtues by the doctrine deliver'd in words as Faith Hope Charity Prayer Adoration c. and the concomitant or subservient Virtues to these and the more intelligent whose Understandings are clear'd by Study and the circumstance of conversing with the learneder sort of Fore-fathers to do out of Knowledge and Reflexion what others do as it were naturally and by meer Belief or guidance of others And this goes on by insensible degrees till at last the Teachers die and leave in their room a new Swarm of the same nature with themselves as to Christian Life that is practising the same external Actions which determin to a certain degree the sence of the Words they have been inur'd to and since the practice of those Actions was instill'd from their Infancy and serious holding consequently the Principles of those Actions that is the same Points of Faith with the former Age. And this goes on not by leaps from an hundred years to an hundred or from twenty to twenty but by half-years to half-years nay moneths to moneths and even less according as the young brood of Eaglets made to see the Sun in his full Glory grow up to a capacity of having their tender eyes acquainted first with the dawning afterwards with the common day-light of Christian Doctrin 5. If any should be so dull as to think this looks like a Speculation onely and not to see plainly that 't is confirm'd by ten thousand Experements every day I desire them to consider how the Primitive Faithful were inur'd to Christianity ere the Books of Scripture were writ or communicated or how themselves though Protestants or Presbyterians were first imbu'd with Christian Principles ere they could read and they shall finde it was meerly by this way of Tradition Nay more I dare affirm that the very Presbyterians much more the Protestants still adhere to their Faith because their Parents Pastors taught them it when they were young and not upon the Evidence of Scripture's Letter to their own private Judgement which is manifest by this that those who are brought up under Mr. Baxter are apt to follow him others Mr. Pierce and all in general hold fixedly to the doctrin of others especially if their Parents be of the same persuasion So hard it is to beat down Nature by Designe or not to follow Tradition in practice though at the same time they write and talk never so vehemently and loud against it Nay 't is easie to remark that those who were brought up Protestants while they follow'd their Teachers and Forefathers in the Traditionary way continu'd firmly such and that none declin'd from that Profession until they began to use their own private Judgments in interpreting Scripture and that then they ran by whole shoals into innumerable other Sects However then they exclaim against Tradition yet 't is evident they owe to It all the Union and Strength they have and to the renouncing It all their Distractions and Weakness 6. What is said hitherto is onely to explain the Nature of Tradition perfectly and to settle a right conceit of it which done many Objections will be render'd unnecessary either to be answerd or mention'd as those that proceed against a kind of Prophetical Afflatus which can have no force against our way building upon perfect Evidence of our best Senses but especially those which take so wrong an aym that they dispute against res traditae or the things deliver'd instead of Tradition it self and thereupon accuse us for holding Human Traditions or things invented by men for Faith Whereas when we speak of the Rule of Faith we mean by the word Tradition onely the Method of publickly delivering and conveying down Tenets held to have come from Christ in the manner before declared This note premised to avoid mistake and keep the Reader 's mind more steady to the matter in hand let us see now whether Tradition have in it the nature of a Rule of Faith which is done by examining whether the fore-named Properties belong to it or no. 7. And first 't is already manifest from what is said that the First Property of the Rule of Faith namely that it must be Evident to all as to its Existence absolutely agrees with Tradition For Tradition being the open conveyance down of Practical Doctrines by our best senses of Discipline that is our Eyes and Ears and this by Sounds daily heard and Actions daily seen and even felt 't is as easily appliable to all sorts or Evident to them as to its Existence as it is to see and hear So that it can be insinuated into or affect not onely the rudest vulgar and little Children but in some degree even very Babes as was shown 8. The second Condition which is that its Ruling Power should be easily Evidenceable to any Enquirer is thus shown to agree to Tradition Let the rudest Doubter come and desire to be certify'd that Tradition is a Rule able if follow'd to convey down Christ's doctrin to our very daies or to the world's end and let these plain Interrogatories be put to him Suppose all Protestants in England were settled in an unanimous Profession of their Faith and that their Children without looking farther should believe and practice as their Fathers had brought them up would it not follow in self-evident terms that those Children while they followed this method would be Protestants too Suppose these now grown men under those Parents should have children too of their own who should behave themselves in the same manner towards their Fathers by believing and practising as they taught them without looking any farther would it not be equally evident they would still be Protestants also Since to believe and practice thus is to be a Protestant and would not this method if followed carry on that doctrin still forwards from Generation to Generation to the very end of the world 'T is then most easily evidenceable to the rudest capacity that this immediate delivery of Tradition as above explicated is a certain way of deriving down Christs Doctrin while the world shall last This Property therefore of the Rule of Faith is found evidently to agree to Tradition 9. The third Condition which is that the Rule of Faith must be apt to justify unreflecting and unredoubting persons that they proceed rationally while they rely on it is found most exactly in Tradition For the common course of human conversation makes it a madness not to believe great
made the Object of our Senses to comply with our weakness by the Word 's being made Flesh and dwelling amongst us his being born his suffering cold hunger persecution banishment and other inconveniencies in his Life his curing our diseased comforting our afflicted raising our dead and other miraculous actions his being bound buffetted scourged crown'd with thorns and lastly crucify'd and all this believed to be for our sakes all of them Objects most sensibly and palpably affecting our Understandings and thence sliding movingly and this by their sensible nature into our very Wills we shall discover that the Infinit Spiritual Good we spoke of is become through the Provident Goodness of our God both as easily appliable as the most visible and concerning civil Actions working on the best Sensations of our Forefathers the best and amplest Authority in the world to make their Sensations ours and the whole course of our Life Actions Sacraments and all other outward shows which could be invented to make such mysteries maniable can possibly render them and that if after all this they can be conceiv'd to want any thing of the Sensibleness 't is abundantly supply'd by that deep Impression which the Sacred Horrour of the Reverence given to them makes and the efficacious wayes to excite and and preserve that Reverence All which wayes and objects thus easily and strongly appliable were frequently and efficaciously apply'd by the education of Parents and by the Discipline and Oeconomy of the Church which brings those speculations to practice was ever and must needs reach the Generality In a word Christianity urg'd to execution gives its Followers a new Life and a new Nature than which a nearer Application cannot be imagin'd No Application therefore is wanting Wherefore the Efficient and the Matter being proper and fitted to one another the Effect must still be or continue that is the delivering down sincerely and carefully Christian Doctrin first received must still continue in some great multitude at least and this to the end of the world SEVENTH DISCOURSE An Objection clear'd and the Beginning and Progress of an HERESY connaturally laid open 1. WHat onely and mainly seems to prejudice our Argument is that there have actually been many Hereticks or Deserters of Tradition To which I answer that 't is not to be expected but some Contingency should have place where an whole Species in a manner is to be wrought upon It sufficeth us that the Causes to preserve Faith indeficiently entire are as efficacious as those which are lay'd for the propagagation of Mankind The Virtue of Faith not being to continue longer than Mankind its onely Subject does And they will easily appear as efficacious as the other if we consider the strength of those Causes before explicated and reflect that they are effectively powerful to make multitudes daily debar themselves of those pleasures which are the Causes of Mankind's Propagation And if we look into History for Experience of what has past in the world since the first planting of Christianity we shall find faâ— more particulars failing in propagating their Kind than their Faith 2. I know the multitudes of Hereticks which have from time to time risen makes this position seem incredible wherefore that we may 〈◊〉 once both open Tradition and make good ouâ— Tenet we will reflect how an Heresy is first bred To inforce then our former Argument we musâ— look on Christ's Church not onely as on a Congregation having in their hearts those most powerful motives already spoken of able of their own nature to carry each single heart possest by them though left at its own liberty but as oâ— the perfectest form of a Commonwealth having within her self Government and Officers appointed by Christ himself and so look't upon by the Faithful to take care all those motives bâ— actually apply'd as much as may be to the subject Layity and that all the Sons of the Church be aw'd by wholsom disciplin to conform their lives according to the Doctrin they profess Yet notwithstanding as in the Civil State maugre the Laws and care of Governours it happens sometimes that some particular Person turns Rebel or Outlaw and associates to himself others so it happens sometimes in the Church that because 't is impossible the perfection of Disciplin should extend it self in so vast a multititude to every particular some one or few persons by neglect of applying Christian motives to their Souls fall into extravagancies of spiritual Pride Ambition Lust or other vices and itching with desire of followers to honour and support them they first lay hold on some accidental miscarriages as foolish opinions or ill lives of some in the Church which they aggravate beyond all reason to justify their Rebellion and 〈◊〉 invent and propose new Tenets to others which partly by their plausibleness partly licentiousness suting with the curious or passionate humour of diverse if Governours be not vigilant and prudent draw them into the same faction with themselves especially if they get the State on their sides secure indemnity and hopes of reward draw the corrupt hearts of many to bandy with their fellow-revolters against the former Church Thus a Body is made inconsiderable in respect of the whole which yet is engag'd by the natural care of self-preservation to make Head against it The Church stands upon the uninterrupted Succession of her Doctrin from Christ grounded on the noon-day manifestation of the most universal and clear Attestation in the world The other's known newness makes it impossible to human nature though most deprau'd to pretend this reception from immediate Forefathers the contrary being so evident to the whole world's eye-sight that this were to tell an openly to no imaginable purpose They must cry therefore the Church has err'd in Faith else they condemn themselves whence they are oblig'd at next to renounce and disgrace Tradition or the living voice of the Church as unfit to be a Rule which left in force would presently quash and strangle all their Attempts After this a new Rule must be sought for either some private Inspiration or some waxen-naturâ—d words not yet senc't not having any certain Interpreter but fit to be plaid upon diversly by quirks of wit that is apt to blunder and confound but to clear little or nothing Their Policy must be to study vapour in wordish learning to be dextrous in Criticisms and all that can conduce to the various acception of words and then to hook Catholicks from their Infallible and Evident way of Tradition to combat with them at their own weapon and in their own way In which if the Catholick be so unwary or good-naturâ—d as to engage and having been inurâ—d to more solid and sober Grounds for his Faith be not perhaps so skilful in beating the air as his bird-witted Opponent presently a Victory is proclaimed with the loudest Trumpet of Fame and vanity being generally their God who place their honour in such aiery sorts of learning
which onely themselves know and are conscious of and on the other side nothing appears why such a kind of Impression is impossible nay 't is granted possible 't is clear none can argue against that inward Light 's existence out of the nature of that inward perswasion Fanaticks have in regard 't is latent and unknown It follows then that the way to conclude against it is to show out of evident Principles the contrary to these Inspiration to be Truth None therefore as plain matter of Fact testifies taking the way of arguing from Principles absolutely evident or demonstrating but Catholiks or the followers of Tradition and they effecting this by virtue of Tradition Disc. 5 6 8. it follows that they and onely they are able to confute Fanaticks and conclude their inward Light delusive Again since a Fanatick builds on conceited experience of Divine Inspiration there is no hopes to convince his Judgment without producing Demonstration for the contrary a task onely performable in the way of Tradition Which is enforc't and strengthen'd by this Consideration that the Basis of Tradidition is natural Knowledge directly imprinted by his Senses in which Knowledges he is undeceivable and these Sensations or Knowledges are daily repeated not on one private temper but on innumerable millions conspiring in the same that is Tradition is built on almost Infinit daily and most manifest Experiences whereas the conceited Effect of Inspiration or his strong persuasion that God speaks thus inwardly is found with consent of tenets in a few onely and liable to deceit by depending upon Fancy not Sense as appears in diseased or mad persons and the Fanaticks contradicting one another though both proceeding on the same Principle Without Tradition's help then 't is very hard if not impossible to confute Fanaticks as Experience also testifies by Protestants being forc't to recurr to Tradidion in disputes with them though very easy with it or by means of it 22. There is no arguing against Tradition without questioning the Constancy of every species in Nature that is the Certainty of whole Nature For seeing Man's Nature is as necessarily fit to receive the direct Impressions of Objects on his Soul that is Natural Knowledges and as necessarily determin'd to work for a motive or reason good or bad as Fire is to heat or water to wet and this absolutely and alwayes abstracting from disease incapacitating him to use his senses or his Fancy and both these spring out of the very Substance of his Nature as Rational or of such a species which Original Corruption hinders not it follows that he is as fit for those Operations and consequently will as frequently perform them as Fire burn water wet fruit-trees bear fruit or any other species in Nature do its ptoper Effect that is generally and onely rarely and contingently fail unless the Authour of Nature order the whole course of it worse for Man than for other things which were blasphemy to say and contrary to Experience since we find a course of Supernaturals on foot and that they comfort and strengthen man's true nature as hath been formerly declared Less liable then is the human Species to contingency in those its natural operations than any other kind is Wherefore seeing Traditions Certainty is grounded upon direct natural Knowledges and its Indefectiveness on Mankind's Incapableness to act without some motive to argue against It were to question These that is the constancy of the best and best-supported Species in Nature and a fortiori the Constancy of the rest Note here that all the Arguments brought by witty Reasoners against Tradition are fetcht from the Contingency of some one or some few Particulars whence by a wild kind of roving way they would conclude the defectibleness of the Generality or of the entire Species But because it looks too palpably inconsequent in Logicall form to say a few can err ergo all therefore they use to bring it in with a why not So that all the arguers against Tradition from natural reason oppose directly any Constancy in the Species or Generality and so are destroyers of natural Certainty and of their own Arguments to boot 23. There is no possibility of arguing at all against Tradition rightly understood or the living voice of the Catholick Church with any show of reason For since 't is evident that Scripture's Copy or Letter is in the whole and every tittle Uncertain Disc. 2 and 4. without Tradition as also that the writings of Fathers Councils History and of any written or dead Testimony whatever Corol. 14 and 16. are utterly unauthoriz'd otherwise than by means of Tradition and that no living Testimony or Tradition is alledgable against the Tradition we speak of or Catholick Tradition Corol. 13. and 17. Nor any pretended Instance of Traditionâ—s failing has force but by its being faithfully convey'd down by Tradition and depending on Tradition for its Certainty Corol. 19. and all Arguments from Natural Reason are so weak that they destroy all Certainty in that matter while levell'd against Tradition Corol. 18. 22. It follows that no Argument from any Authority publickly appearing in the world nor yet from intrinsecal mediums fetcht from second Causes in Nature can bear any show against Tradition Nor yet from private Effects pretended from the first Cause call'd Inspiration or Light of the Private Spirit Corol. 21. For besides what has been concluded for this point however this pretenâ—e may make the first Syllâ—â—gism yet when it comes to be prov'd that is made appear outwardly that the first Cause inspir'd thus or thus no extraordinary Effects proper to that Cause as miracles being producible their arguing or Proof is at an end however their Inward Adhesion stands There being then no other Argument imaginable but what is fetcht from Authority living or dead or else from Effects or Experience testifiable by those Authorities or from proper Effects or Causes in the ordinary course of natural things or from extraordinary private and unseen pretended Effects of the first Cause and none of these bearing any show against Tradition 'T is evident There is no possibility of arguing against Tradition rightly understood or the living voice of the Catholick Church with any show of Reason 24. Tradition is the First Principle in the way of Authority as it engages for matter of Fact long ago past For seeing that is the first Principle in any Knowledge into which all Knowledges in that kind are resolv'd to establish their Certainty and all ptetended Authorities for any matter of Fact long ago past Corol. 16. and consequently all Knowledges caus'd by the means of them are resolv'd finally into Tradition and depend on it for their Certainty it follows that Tradition is the very first Principle in the way of Authority as it undertakes for the truth of matters of Fact long ago past 25. Tradition in the matter of Tradition that is in matter of Fact before our time is Self-evident to all those who can need
but that Christ promist his Church Infallibility is not thus self-evident but needs other Knowledges to evidence it unless we will make all come by Inspiration Besides if God's Providence laid in second Causes for Tradition's Indeficiency be not Certain in its self abstracting from Christ's promise to his Faithful Tradition can never convey certainly that Promise to us It must then be assur'd to us by Scripture's Letter ascertain'd onely by imagin'd diligence from Copy to Copy not by Tradition that is that Letter could not be certain its self and so fit to ascertain others till Tradition's Certainty be establish't antecedently And were it suppos'd a true Letter this Letter Tradition being as yet suppos'd unknown to be able to convey down certainly Christs sence must be interpreted onely by private skills and so all the Churches Veracity that is all Mankinds Salvation must be built on that private Interpretation Private I say for in that supposition till the Scripture's Letter for that point be Interpreted certainly truly the Churches veracity or power to interpret it truly is not yet known which besides the common Rule that no Scripture is of private Interpretation is particularly and highly faulty in this case that it would make our Fundamental of Fundamentals the Certainty of our Rule of Faith rely on such a private Interpretation Moreover to say Tradition of the Church is Certain because Christ promist it puts it to be believ'd not seen and is the same in Controversy as it is in Nature to say in common such an Effect is wrought because 't is God's will which gives no account of that particular Effect but onely sayes something in common Wherefore since the Certainty of the Rule of Faith it being antecedent to Faith must be seen not believ'd a Controversial Divine ought to make it seen that is ought to demonstrate its Certainty and Indeficiency by intrinsecal mediums or dependence on proper Causes It signisies therefore no more in the Science of Controversy to say Christ promist than in Natural Science to answer to every Question in stead of showing a proper Cause that God wills it which is a good saying for a Christian as is also the other but neither of them a competent Principle either for Philosopher or Controvertist Consent Of AUTHORITY To the substance of the foregoing Discourses 1. THus far Reason Let 's see how 't is seconded by Authority And first by the Scriptures 2. For the Self-evidence of the Way to Faith or which is all one The Rule of Faith see the Prophet Isay c. 35. v. 8. This shall be to you a direct way so that Fools cannot err in it That is evident to the rudest Vulgar or self-evident else Fools might possibly err in it in case it needed any Skill of Discourse and were not obvious to Common Sense 3. Now what this Self-evident Rule is is most expressively declar'd by the same Prophet c. 59. v. 21. speaking of God's favour intended to the Gentiles that is of the Law of Grace This is my Covenant with them saith the Lord my Spirit which is in thee and my words which I have put in thy Mouth shall not depart from thy mouth and from the mouth of thy Seed and from the mouth of thy Seed's Seed from henceforth for ever Here we see God's promise to perpetuate Christ's Doctrin and on what manner that is by Oral Tradition or Delivering it from Father to Son by word of Mouth or Teaching not by scanning a Book put in their hands We see it promist also that this Tradition shall be Indefectible or Vninterrupted and Lastly that his Spirit or Sanctity is both in the Church and will continue ever with her which being so she must needs be supernaturally assisted by the Holy Ghost that is incomparably above the power of Nature to this Effect of perpetuating Christ's doctrin by Tradition 4. As pithy and home is that of the Prophet Ieremiah c. 31. I will give my Law in their Bowels and iâ— their Hearts will I write it and still more that of St. Paul contradistinguishing the Law of Grace from Moses his Law by this that the later was writ in Tables of Stone the former in the fleshy Tables of mens Hearts Both as express as can be imagined to send us for our Faith to living Sence in the hearts of the Faithful not to meer dead Letters in a Book that is recommending to us Tradition which is the perfectest and naturalest way imaginable to write them there as hath been shown Note the word Hearts which in the Metaphorical expression is the Principle of Action not of meeâ— Speculative Knowledge as is the word Brain Which intimates the Practical nature of Tradition and that it imprints Christs Law and conveys it down by Christian Carriage and Action not by Speculative scanning the significativeness of Characters in a Book Note also the word Fleshy which signifies that the manner of writing Christ's Law is through the affecting the Soul by her Inferiour part considering her as she is a virtue of understanding that is by Sensations which make strong and plain Impressions in Mankind according to their material part and so force into them Natural Knowledge Whence things thus imprinted are apt to settle themselves solidly and even sink deeply into the most material gross and vulgar understandings Quite contrary to which in all regards is the way of beginning with reading and labouring to understand certainly Letters in a Book which is a kind of Speculation and so belongs to the Superiour part of the Soul as she is understanding being Artificial both in the very Nature of such Characters the skill in Reading and highest skills requisit to Sence them with Certainty 5. After Scripture-verdict succeed next in order those of Councils I will onely mention three in several Ages leaving multitudes of others The first Synod of Lateran We all confirm unanimously and consequently with one heart and mouth the Tenets and sayings of the Holy Fathers adding nothing subtracting nothing of those things which are DELIVERâ—D VS quae TRADITA sunt nobis by them and we believe so as the Fathers have believed we preach so as they have TAVGHT The Council of Sardica in its Encyclical sent to all Catholick Bishops We have received this Doctrin we have been taught so we hold this Catholick Tradition Faith and Confession And the seventh General Council in its second Act. We imbu'd with the precepts of the Fathers have so confest and do confess In the Third we receive and venerate the Apostolical Traditions of the Church And in the seventh Act giving their final determination they declare the Grounds on which they proceed in these words We walking in the King's-high-way Regiam viam incedentes and relying on the Doctrin of our holy and divine Fathers and observing the TRADITION of the Catholick Church define c. where we see General Councils that is the greatest Authority in the Catholick Church relying on the Teaching of
true Sence of that Letter in Points of Faith deliver'd See Coroll 29. 30 it follows that Scripture alledged by the Church relying on Tradition for its Rule engages certainly and fully the very Authority of the Divinely inspir'd Writer himself and gives that Testimony the whole Effect upon our understanding which that Sacred Writers Authority deserves to have given it No wonder then the Council proceeding upon Traditionary Interpretation as it constantly declares it self to do honours Scripture-Testimony so as to put it before Tradition or the delivery of Christs Doctrin from hand to hand Scripture thus alledg'd and securd having the same force as if the Apostle or Evangelist himself should sit in the Council and by way of living voice declar'd his own Sence in the matter to whom thus present what deference the Council would have given is obvious to be imagin'd Hence also the Protestant may see what high esteem our Church gives to Gods Word truly so calld that is having Gods Sence certainly-known to be such in it and that 't is onely the outward Letter as us'd to hammer a Faith out of by wordish skills that is indeed their Method of interpreting it which by reason of its Uncertainty falls short of engaging the Sacred Authority of Gods Word we fleight and scorn And most justly since 't is the having no better way to work on Scripture which has brought Scripture it self thus usâ—d to scorn and contempt as appears in the carriage of our Bedlam of new Sects in England I expect here some mighty man of talk but very weak Speculator should object that this is an excellent way to bring all into our Churches hands But till he can prove that both Letter Sence of Scripture are knowable with such a Certainty as to build on them that most firm Assent call'd Faith by any other way than this of Tradition I can neither hinder my Inferences nor will he ever be able to confute my discourse 20. Thus much to show evidently that the Substance of the Doctrin we have given in our former Discourses is the very Sence of our Church at present and that her present Sence in this matter is agreeable to the Judgment of Antient Fathers and Councils I have no more to do now but to show that at the very time of the Breach here in England the Catholick was found adhering fast to this Rule of Tradition renounc't by the Protestant This is evident by the Protestants own confession For as oft as you hear them alledge that England was formerly overgrown with Popery that the new Light of the Gâ—spel hath of late discovered it self that they reformâ—d in Faith that the former Church errd and such like expressions which naturally must burst out from them so oft you hear them acknowledge themselves Deserters of Tradition and Innovators Which Expressions of theirs by the way easily manifest to the most vulgar understanding who â—tis that hath renounct Tradition whence it being also easily evidenceable to the rudest capacity that Tradition is a most certain way of bringing down Faith Disc. 5. § 8. the most vulgar Soul is capable of knowing which Profession it is to follow For the two former points being known they are Certain by motives within their own Ken that Protestants have renounct the Certain way to bring down Faith but that we renounct Tradition of old is unacknowledged by us disputable and onely knowable by skills they are not Masters of Common Sense then teaching them they must guide themselves by reasons they are capable of and not by reasons of which they know nothing and that God requires no more at their hands than they can do Gods goodness has provided for those weak people out of the very Confessions of Traditionâ—s deserters Certain means to judge whether they ought to be Catholicks or Protestants But to return whence we diverted 21. It is not onely the Protestants own Confession but the open Profession of the Catholick Clergy in the very nick of the Breach manifests our claim and constant adherence to Tradition Whose Declaration found in the Synodal Book 1559. begins thus Because by relation of publick Fame it hath lately come to our knowledge that many Tenets of Christian Religion hitherto received and approvâ—d by the Publick and 〈◊〉 Consent of Christian Nations and BROVGHT DOWN BY HANDS even from the Apostles to Vs are callâ—d into doubt Therefore c. Where we find them stick firmly to Tradition And insisting on this Principle they proceed to make a Profession of their Faith which they exhibit to the Bishops to be given to the Lord Keeper but the State by power over-bearing the Votes of the Reverend Convocation and persecuting them for their constancy the Breach ensuâ—d The Catholick cleaving fast to his Old Rule Tradition the Protestants chusing a new one of Scripture privately interpreted whose vanity a little reason makes them see but experience perfectly find and relinquishing the Antient Rule so demonstrably self-evident secure and solid By which means they became cut off from the onely Certain way to know Christs Sence that is from the Root of Faith and consequently from the Body of the Church The Guilt of which Fact neither Human Authority Multitude Prosperity Continuance nor yet all their Voluminous wordish Excuses will ever be able to Efface ANIMADVERSIONS On Dr. Pierce's Sermon Also on Mr. Whitby and Mr. Stillingfleet where they touch the Way lay'd in the foregoing Discourses In Three Appendixes Psalm 63. Sagittae parvulorum factae sunt Plagae eorum Anno Dom. 1665. TRANSITION To The following APPENDIXES I Have finisht my Discourse how dexterously must be determin'd by the Iudgment of my Readers and Confutation from mâ—â—e Adversaries But I account those onely my proper Iudges competent Adversaries who lay their Principles ere they discourse and weigh the efficaciousness of their Testimonies in the Scales of Reason ere they alledge them If I find a man laying no Principles of his own but supposing them and making account all men must admit them out of respect to him or his party and yet bend all his endeavours to cavil at Principles laid by others to ascertain and establish the Groundwork of Christianity If I find one ignorant of or resolv'd against the onely-Certain method and Rule of Discourse which is that No Position deserves Assent unless the Connexion of its Terms be Evident which must either be when they are Evidently connected of themselves of which nature ought to be all First Principles or made evidently-connected by the interposition of some other which we call Evident-by-consequence or Deduction Lastly if I find a man wedded to Parrat-talk of Ayr and Sounds that he thinks it a rare thing to load margents with Citations without first distinguishing them and considering what strength each ought to have according to rational Principles I decline such an empty Soul for my Iudge and sleight him as mine Adversary And lest any should impute this carriage to me
her Certainty is the First Principle in the Science of Controversy 6. This tenour of my Discourse briefly reflected on I beg of my intelligent Reader to regard it once more in the bulk and he will see that I begin with Self-evident Principles That my Principles are antecedent to Authorities and so are competent means to judge Authorities by that I studiously avoid wordish ambiguity which Rhetorical Discoursers ly open to holding rigorously to the notion or meaning of the words that I lay but the meaning of two familiar words Rule and Faith for the basis of all my Discourse that I endeavour to pursue my Principles by very obvious and immediate connexions that all the way I attend heedfully to and build upon the Natures of the Things which in short devolves to this that it may be hop't at least by my method that there needs nothing but Time and Industry to frame and make up in rigorous demonstrative form that sence which I have here deliver'd in a way more sutable to the temper of the World and ease of my Readers who may see Evidence in my Discourse without being oblig'd to bend their brains to study my Book with that severity as they would do an Euclid 7. When this is done let my Reader reflect on all the Discourses concerning Faith made by any Protestant and see how far they are short from I will not say any such performance but even an Attempt of Evidence First Principles they lay none and consequently Evidence of Deduction cannot be expected from them for wanting First Principles 't is nonsence and folly to talk of deducing Again For want of such Principles they want Certainty of any Text of Scripture to justify it against an Atheist or Deist They want Self-evident Principles to guide them in interpreting their Vncertain Letter and so confute other Sects which differ from their Church and the method they take to do it is evidently quite of another nature than Scientifical They have nothing upon account of Living Teachers which ascertain Sence so that you must to find your Faith not build upon the sence of two or a few familiar words but of an whole large Book that is on millions of words and those too not onely unsenc't but also very abstruse and mysterious They suppose all which is antecedent to Faith that is all Principles which are to induce Faith and so make no Provision for the Grounds of Christianity against Heathens and Atheists The Natures of Things they are so far from proceeding upon that they not so much as mind or think of them nor I doubt fancy or value that method when set before their eyes Principles to weigh each Testimony by they lay none and so quote at randome Certainty they seek not nor care for for they quote the Fathers and Scripture as by themselves interpreted and yet neither hold the Testimony of Fathers Infallible nor yet themselves in interpreting Scripture yet plainest reason tells us that unless the Fathers or themselves were Infallible hic nunc in this saying or interpretation they were hic nunc Fallible that is all built on that Testimony or Interpretation is contingent and Vncertain yet of such Citations no better authoriz'd clâ—d perhaps in some fine words the Books of their best Champions are made up So that they are convinc't not to study Things but Words that is not to be Scholars or Knowers but Empty Talkers and so the effect of their endeavours can never be satisfaction to an intelligent soul but onely tickling the Ear or pleasing the Fancy 9. As I have shown this Vngrounded proceeding of the Protestants by Principles so I intend to do the same by Instances but ere I go about this undertaking I think fit to meet with an Objection obvious to many Readers 'T is this that 'T is strange all Catholicks do not take this way it being so conclusive as well as I. 10. I answer that all Truths being connected 't is evident each Truth even for being such is maintainable several wayes especially Supreme â—nd very concerning ones Amongst which wayes some are sutable to some capacities others to others Wherefore Catholick Controvertists esteeming themselves Debtors both Sapientibus or to those who judg of things per altissimas causas and Insipientibus or those who do not so nor fly higher than a prudential pitch and the later of these being the Generality hereupon the Charity and Prudence of those learned Opposers of Dr. Pierce and very many others have thought fit to address to These by answering his Testimonies particularly leaving me the way of Reason and Principles though in danger to receive much disadvantage by my imperfect delivery and securer under the managery of their abler heads and pens I declare therefore that I intend no confutation of any of those Authours nor to share in the victory of those excellent Champions of Truth It being perhaps needless to the Generality however very satisfactory to examining Wits to confute that in Common which is already confuted by Retail I write more against their Way than their Books Yet if any will be so charitable as to judge my short hints to bear the force of a solid Confutation because they radically and fundamentally overthrow all their Arguments and very Method of arguing if it be Truth 's advantage I shall give God thanks for it and be glad of it But the main is it imports not in maintaining Truth what others do or do not but if it be shown that Catholick Principles I mean the living voice of the Catholick Church or Tradition our Rule of Faith can bear such a rigorous test of Reason and appear more lustrous and bright by so severe a trial and on the contrary that the Principles of the Revolters from her are so little solid so volatil and meerly made up of Fancy that they evaporate into ayr and even shrink into nothing when set in the mid-daâ— beams of Truth the Rules of Evidence I desire no higher an honour to the Catholick Church nor deeper discredit to her Adversaries FIRST APPENDIX Animadversions on the Groundlesness of Dr Pierce's Sermon 1. LOoking about for Instances of Protestants Books most proper to be confuted by my former Doctrin my thoughts pitcht naturally on Mr Whitby's where he goes about to settle rationally his Rule of Faith and on Mr Stillingfleet's where he opposes the way of Reason and the Certainty of Tradition But it seem'd convenient to take to task also some Adversary who insisted on Testimonies and bring him to Grounds because in the way of Reason which brings Testimonies to Grounds to confute one is in a manner to confute all Dr Hamond seem'd proper but his Book is now out of vogue if it were ever in it for I never heard past two or three persons speak of it and I am sure the best Protestant Wits of our Nation never valued him as a smart and efficacious Writer Besides the Notes I have lately given upon the
Fathers Testimonies leave little in him to be reply'd to and my Discourses have left nothing at all Amongst late Adversaries then Dr Dentons folly seem'd so ultra crepidam that it was not worth a serious thought and 't is wholly answer'd by declaring that he begins and grounds his whole Book on so knavish a Calumny that could the Universality of Catholicks have the same Law against him that a private Protestant though the meanest in the Kingdome might freely have he would lose his Ears for Libelling The Dissuader for his plausibleness not for his strength of sence seem'd to require a larger Answer than was sutable to the design of an Appendix Dr Pierce was of highest vogue and short but he was already so doubly overthrown by two Learned Opposers that it seemâ—d unhandsome and ignoble to strike a man when he was down his Circumstances making him rather an Object of Pity than Victory Yet his Pulpit-alarum to excite all England to persecute Catholicks was so full of malice and so monstrously cry'd up that I judg'd it above all others deserving to be made an Example of ungrounded Talk Though I shall do it with that compassion as not so much to confute him as by laying a few Notes as Admonitions to him to open his Understanding and enable him to look into the force of his own Citations and so to guide himself better the next time he goes about to quote Authors a point I doubt he as yet never thinks on They may also give his Defender now as I hear writing some light to strengthen his Testimonies against us I am sure they will tend to clear Truth not to blunder it and so all ingenuous seekers of satisfaction will thank me for them To begin then 2. The whole scope of his Sermon exprest in the Title of it The Primitive Rule of Reformation causes my first Admonition For since we both agree that the Primitive Faith is to be held to and only differ about the Certain means to come to know what that Faith was we holding to Tradition and to Fathers and Councils which are taken properly parts of Tradition as Certain means to know that Faith The Protestants to private Interpretations of Scripture and to Citations quoted on any fashion The way to confute us Catholicks is to demonstrate the Certainty of the way they take to prove their Faith the same with the Primitive otherwise let them talk and write as long as they will they are never the neerer their Conclusion Now if plain Experience tells us the Smâ—ctymnuans too preacht and writ against Episcopacy by quoting Fathers and Scripture let Dr Pierce show us what his way of Talking has above theirs which gives it a virtue of ascertaining or perfectly settling the understanding or confess theirs and so his too is fallible and frivolous To demonstrate then against us and so confute us he ought rather have insisted on a derivative Rule or a Rule able to derive down to them Christ's Faith with Certainty so to make out their present knowledge which alone can justifie their present or late Action of Reforming and not run afar off to a Primitive Rule or Faith which is nothing to the Protestants unless they can prove Certainly they follow it When D. Pierce makes a Sermon at Court upon the Certainty of such a Rule we will all become Auditours so he will promise to begin with first Principles and bring Evidence of what he sayes Till then let him take heed of bragging in print of Demonstrations until he knows what the word means that is till he reflects how a Demonstration is a Proof which obliges the Uuderstaâ—ding and considers or studies wherein the virtue by which it performs this consists Such bold and careless talk has cost his Credit dear already and when it comes to be scann'd by Principles and Science will leave it quite bankrupt 3. We have seen the End and Scope of D. Pierce's Performance which is to over-leap all that concern'd him to prove if he would conclude with Certainty against us Now the usefullest part of his whole performance as he sayes in his Dedication are his Citations as being the Evideâ—ce and Warrant of all the rest which therefore if any thing deserve to be consider'd Their faults distinguish them into so many forts Of the first sort are those which are impertinent to our or indeed to any purpose but to make a noise or vaporing show Of the second those which are raw or unapply'd and onely say somthing in common which never comes home to the point Of the third those which are levell'd blindly at none knows what or at a question unstated and so are shot at rovers Of the fourth Those which impugn a Word for a Thing or some Circumstance or Manner for the Substance Of the fifth Negative Testimonies Of the sixth A private Authours saying against the torrent of a contrary consent which of it self is liable to innumerable contingencies of passion mistake or ignorance but thus compar'd signifies less than nothing The like is to quote a Schoolman or two for a point which others freely contradict Of the seventh those which are false and signifie not the thing they are expresly quoted for Of the eighth those which labour of obscurity by an evidently ambiguous word Of the ninth Sayings of those on his own side Of the tenth a few fragments of Scripture senc't by Fancy 4. I intend not to muster up one by one all his Citations and then rank them under their respective Heads the brevity of an Appendix not permitting it But I make this fair proffer to his Vindicater or himself that if they please to pitch upon any Testimonie of his which falls not under some one perhaps many of these Faulty Common-places I will yeild them all valid and conclusive and make him publick satisfaction for the Injurie Having thus given my bond for the Truth y charge and under so great a penaltie upon failure of being so I have Title to free licence to suppose my charge good which will also appear shortly in common by my § 9. and accordingly to apply my reason to consider his Citations I discourse then thus and Note 6. First That Citations are of two sorts the one alledges the Testifiers Knowledge by Eye-sight or Infallible Sense the other his Judgment or Opinion Now this later in regard mens Judgments or Opinions depend on Reasons is not properly that Authours Testimonie nor he a Witness who ought to proceed upon Evidence had by Senses but a Schollar or Relier on his Reasons and so his expressing himself in the words found in such a Citation has no Authority further than his Reason gives him which Reason therefore and not his Saying ought to be alledg'd in regard it was meerly by vertue of his Reason he knew this and so the whole vertue of his Authority which follows and goes paralel to Knowledge consists in that Reason None therefore are properly Testimonies but those
which relie on Sensitive Knowledge and those are of Certain Authority if the sincerity of the Testator be unquestionable and the conveyance of his sincerelymeant Knowledge to us be Evident not otherwise 2 ly Note secondly that for the reason given Citations from Adversaries and Opinators signifie nothing also those whose words presumed to express the Witnessers sence are Ambiguous or otherwise-interpretable or else their very Letter Uncertain as all are if the way of Tradition be held fallible Thus much in common of Citations as in themselves Considering them next as made use of by D. Pierce we finde he relies on them as on his Principles to conclude against us or as he good man unfortunately calls it Demonstrate Hence 3 ly They must not be Negative for such can conclude nothing 4 ly They must not be false or evidently signifying another thing than they are produc't for nor impertinent for then they are in both cases quite besides the purpose 5 ly They must be express and home to the point for Principles must need nothing but themselves besides the Application to infer the Conclusion pretended to spring from them 9 ly They must be void of ambiguity For Principles must be either self-evident or at least made evident ere they can deserve to be produc't or admitted as such Lastly Principles are Sence not Sounds or Characters and so their Sence ought to be Indisputable 7. The first Note evacuates at once all his Citations from Authours that concern any point between us For he brings no Certainty of any knowledge exprest to be built on Sense that is no Citation against us which in proper speech deserves to be call'd a Testimony The second Note particularly invalidates those of the eighth and ninth sorth The third those of the fifth sort The fourth those of the first and seventh The fifth those of the five first sorts and also those of the seventh The sixth those of the second third and particularly the eighth The last Note enervates the tenth and indeed almost all the rest It being evident that our learned Controvertists give other Sences to those Citations than what Protestants assigne them and maintain still those sences to be better than theirs 8. In a word seeing all Testimonial Authority supposes Knowledge in the Authour and all Knowledge is either from Sense call'd Experience or else from evident connexion of Terms or Reason and that this later knowledge is apt to make a Master that is one fit to convince and teach another rationally by Intrinsecal Mediums or to cause Science in him and so is unfit for Testifying And the former kind of Knowledge onely is fit to be an Extrinsecal Medium or apt to beget Belief of the Witnesses word in regard any person unacquainted otherwise with the Truth of the Point knows by ordinary Experience and common reason that mens Understandings may err but their Sences rightly circumstanc't cannot it follows that no Citation in proper speech deserves the name nor has the force or virtue of a Testimony but those which are built on Sence or Experience This weigh'd reflecting on the main I find not one â—â—â—ress Testimony against any point of our â—aith engaging Sense that is not one which merits the name of a Testimony or to be esteem'd a part of Tradition That of S. Austin for communicating Infants has the true nature of a Testimony in it and deserv'd a more elaborate Answer had its Sence been unquestionable and the Words cited from the Father himself but the Sence of it being Disputable his Expositors explicating S. Austin by himself in another place noâ— to mean oral Manducation but virtualâ—â—â—ly â—â—â—ly which is done by Baptism and withall cited as a private Authours Sence concerning S. Austin it falls under the 6th and 8th Head of faulty or inconclusive Citations and so is already answer'd 9. This is the upshot of that famous Sermon And now I would gladly know what in the Judgment of an intelligent person who examins things by Grounds Dr. Pierce hath perform'd in this so highly extoll'd piece of his more than his dear Brother and fellow-champion against the Pope Mr. HENRY WHISTLER Onely he hath clad his little Nothings in some kind of mock-Rhetorick which like Fig-leaves cover after a pitiful manner the Nakedness of his empty Discourse Yet were even his Rhetorick examin'd by the substantial Rules of that Art I doubt it would come of as ill as his Proofs For 't is obvious to observe that the beginning of his Sermon is a-la-mode a School-boy's Theme and that his Style is far from even or spun on one thread Instead of the Thunder Lightning of strong and sententious Sence astonishing and moving the Auditors reason by the advantageous smartness and Majesty of the Expression he gives us a peal of Ordinance charg'd with ayr a volly of thunder-thumping bombast able to make a solid man's Reason nauseate and this most inartificially plac't at the very entrance of his Sermon § 2. Or else loud Pulpit-beating invectives and railings He makes huge account of little quirking Observations out of Human Authours which have no imaginable force or purpose but to make an ostentation of the uncouthness of his reading the Gallantry of his third paragraph For ingenious surprizes of Reason erecting and taking the Understanding we have wordish Quibbles Quirks and Paranomasias and those most evidently contrary to Art studiously and industriously affected His conâ—ident sayings without Proof make up half his Sermon and his Ironies and Sarcasms are the sauce to make all this windy meat go down 10. I will close with noting his excellent Faculty in quoting Scripture To do which when the place is worth looking as being brought to justify some passage we are about is grave and to some purpose but when no occasion or need invites upon the naming any two or three words which hap to be in Scripture to be still quoting and tricking the Margent with Book Chapter and Verse and relating Stars or little Letters is a very empty piece of Pageantrie and most sillily Pedantical Now our Dr. cannot talk of Faith but he must add though most unsutably to his Reformers in England to whom 't is most notorious no body deliver'd it which was once deliver'd to the Saints and Iude 3. shall ascertain it He cannot name the words which was from the beginning but the margent shall direct you to Mat. 19. 8. The two words Spending and being Spent oblige him to let you know where to find them 2 Cor. 12. 15. At the very naming Help and All sufficient two good honest words which might have been spoke whether Scripture had been or not he cannot for his heart hold but alledges you for it 1. Cor. 1. 27. And will needs though indeed very needlesly to us prove himself a weak Instrument by a plain Text 2 Cor. 10. 4. The obvious and common words condemn'd out of their mouths must have a Star of the First magnitude to light you
and my Grounds why I then believ'd rest still unchang'd nay are unchangeable But yet Reason acts much differently now then â—ormerly Before I came at Faith she acted about her own Objects Motives or Maxims by which she scand the Authorities we spoke of But in Acts of Faith she hath nothing to do with the Objects of those Acts or Points of Faith She is like a dimsighted man who us'd his Reason to find a trusty Friend to lead him in the twi-light and then reli'd on his guidance rationally without using his own Reason at all about the Way it self To make this clearer we may distinguish two sences in the word Reason one as 't is taken for that natural Faculty which constitutes Man which Faculty never deserts or ought to desert us in any action that is Manly or virtuous The other as 't is taken for that Power wrought upon by motives under its own ken in the same sence we call it human Reason by which is not meant the natural Power unactuated or abstractedly for then the word human were a Taâ—tology but Reason as conversant with such objects or inform'd by such knowledges as are commonly found within the sphere of our natural condition as Men such as are those which beget Science And this leaves us when we have once found the Authority now spoken of the Objects of Faith formally speaking being out of her reach nor is she thus understood the motive of our Assent to the verity of the Point of Faith but AVTHORITY onely Wherefore into Authority onely Faith as such is resolvd finally though if you go about to resolve the Rationalness of assenting to the Authority it self it will light into those Evident Reasons which your naturall power of reason as yet uninform'd by Faith but by motives or maxims within its own sphere was capable to wield 5. Reason therefore taken for my natural Power is my Eye or interiour sight as inform'd by common Principles or Maxims antecedent to Faith my Guid to bring me to believe Authority and those motives or Maxims are the Rules to my Reason by attending to which she hath virtue or skill to set her own thoughts right that is to guid me in my way to Faith but when I have once come to beleeve Authority that is come to Faith not Reason but Authority is my Guid for I follow Authority and not my Reason in judging what is Faith what not and though the Light of that naturall power never deserts me yet Reason as rul'd by her own natural maxims is useless to me as a Guid or those Maxims as a Rule for I apply neither of these to the mysteries of Faith to scan their verity or falsity by but purely rely upon Authority and beleeve them Authority then is my Guid and in the Infallibility of that Authority consists the power or virtue it has to guide me right that is to regulate or rule me as one of the Faithfull or as one who must have such Certain Grounds of my Assent as I may securely build my Salvation on This Authority then as it is Inâ—allible is also my Rule in my beleeving or the Rule of my Faith This of my Rule of Faith in Common against Adversaries of Faith in common But with Protestants who grant Christ to be God and consequently his words or doctrine true the onely Rule and Guid we need is to lead us into the Knowledge of what he said and assure it to us We affirm then that the Catholick Church is the Guid we follow and her Infallibility consisting in Tradition our Rule of Faith Hence all Catholicks profess her doctrin uninterruptedly succeeding from the Apostles time and so to continue to the end of the World hence with one voice they lay claim to Christs gracious Assistance to her in defending her from over-growing Errors against Faith or Heresies hence all profess to hear and follow her and pledge undoubtingly even the security of their salvation by relying on the Certainty of her Living Voice for their Tenets and on her Disciplin for the Practice of their Faith And though some Schoolmen make Scripture a partial Rule of Faith yet they can mean onely materially not formally that is that some part of Faith is signifi'd by Scripture's Letter not that Scripture's Letter alone is sufficient securely to signify it to private understandings so as to beget that most strong firm Assent found in Divine Faith as is evident by this that all hold no Scripture is of private Interpretation all hold the living voice of the Church and her constant Practice are the best Interpreters of Scripture Now Faith being Tenets and Sence that must be 〈◊〉 the Rule of Faith which ascertains us of Christs Sence not the materiall Characters which that Certain Interpreter we call the Church works upon and by her Practicall Tradition interprets 6. 'T is high time now to look back upon Dr. Pierce and his party how justly they deal with us and how mistakingly they discourse when they come to the Grounds of their Faith 7. First by the tenour of his discourse he would seem to obtrude upon us a Tenet which none but perfect mad-men could hold namely that we profess we have no reason why we believe the Church which devolves to this that we must profess we have as much reason to believe an old wife's dream as our Faith since there can be no less reason than none at all And hence he will needs assure the Reader that therefore the Enthusiastick Sectaries are in part Romish Proselytes c. And indeed upon so gross a calumny layd down for his principle and a sober Truth what might he not conclude with equal reason he might have inferr'd that all Bedlam were Catholicks and that to turn mad were to turn a Romanist But his carriage to put this upon Mr. S. C. is strangely unjust since he knows and hints it that he writ a Book upon his declaring himself Catholick entitled Motives of his Conversion does he think the word Motives does not signify Reasons or that to write an whole Book of Reasons why he adhea'd to the Catholick Church signifies that he renounc't all reason why he believ'd her 8. Next as for his own tenet he layes this for his Ground that Reason alone is Iudge in all cases I will propose him one case and 't is the Existence of a Trinity To work now with your Reason about this object and see how you evince it I doubt your best reasons will crack ere you make all ends meet But you mean you must have Reason to believe it I conceive speaking properly you should rather say you must have Reason to believe the Authority and Authority to believe It for Belief is as properly relative to Authority as Science is to an Act of true Reason or Evidence Whence 't is as incongruous to say I must have Reason to believe such a Point as to say I know such a point Scientifically by Authority