Chapter 7

The next thing proposed as a good to be aimed at, is unity in faith and settlement, or infallible assurance therein. This is a good desirable for its self; whereas the moderation treated of, is only a medium of relief against other evils, until this may be attained. And therefore though it be, upon supposition of our differences, earnestly to be endeavoured after, yet it is not to be rested in, as though the utmost of our duty consisted in it, and we had no prospect beyond it. It is a Catholic unity in faith, which all Christians are to aim at, and so both you and we profess to do; only we differ both about the nature of it, and the proper means of attaining it. For the nature of it, you conceive it to consist in the explicit or implicit belief of all things and doctrines determined on, taught, and proposed by your Church be believed, and nothing else, (with faith supernatural) but what is so taught and proposed. But this description of the unity of faith, we can by no means admit of. 1. Because it is novel; it has no footstep in any writings of the Apostles, nor of the first fathers or writers of the Church, nor in the practice of the disciples of Christ for many ages. That the determination of the Roman Church, and its proposal of things or articles to be believed should be the adequate rule of faith to all believers, is a matter as foreign to all antiquity, as that the prophecies of Montanus should be so. 2. Because it makes the unity of faith after the full and last revelation of the will of God, flux, alterable, and unstable, liable to increase and decrease; whereas it is uniform, constant, always the same in all ages, times, and places, since the finishing of the canon of the Scriptures. For we know, and all the world knows, that your Church has determined many things lately, some [illegible], as it were but yesterday, to be believed, which itself had never before determined, and so has increased the rule of faith, moved its center, and extended its circumference: and what she may further determine and propose tomorrow, no man knows; and your duty it is to be ready to believe whatever she shall so propose; whereby you cannot certainly know to your dying day whether you do believe all that may belong to the unity of faith, or no. No, 3. your Church has determined and proposed to be believed express contradictions, which determinations abiding on record, you are not agreed which of them to adhere to, as is manifest in your conciliary decrees about the power of the Pope and the Council, to which of them the preeminence is due. Now this is a strange rule of the unity of faith, that is not only capable of increase, changes, and alterations, so that, that may belong to it one day, which did not belong to it another, as is evident from your Tridentine decrees, wherein you made many things necessary to be believed which before were esteemed but probable, and were the subjects of sophistical altercations in your schools; but also comprises in itself express contradictions, which cannot at all belong to faith because both of them may be false, one of them must be so; nor to unity, because contrary and adverse. 4. Whereas holding the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, or the unity of faith is so great and important a duty to all Christians, that they can no way discharge their consciences to God, without a well grounded satisfaction that they live in the performance of it, this description of its nature, renders it morally impossible for any man explicitly to know, (and that only a man knows which he knows explicitly) that he does answer his duty herein. For 1. the determinations of your Church of things to be believed are so many and various, that it is not within the compass of an ordinary diligence and ability to search and find them out. Nor when a man has done his utmost, can he obtain any tolerable security, that there have not other determinations been made, that he is not as yet come to an acquaintance with all, or that he ever shall so do; and how in this case he can have any satisfactory persuasion that he keeps the unity of faith, is not as yet made evident. 2. In the determinations he may meet withal, or by any means come to the knowledge of, he is to receive and believe the things determined and proposed to him, in the sense intended by the Church, or else he is never the nearer to his end. But what that sense is in the most of your Church's proposals, your doctors do so endlessly quarrel among themselves, that it is impossible a man should come to any great certainty in his enquiry after it; yet a precise meaning in all her proposals your Church must have, or she has none at all. What shall a man do when he comes to one of your great masters to be acquainted with the genuine sense of one of your Church's proposals, this being the way that he takes for his satisfaction. First he speaks to the article or question to be considered in general; then gives the different senses of it according to these and those famous masters, the most of which he confutes; who yet all of them professed themselves to explain, and to speak according to the sense of your Church; and lastly gives his own interpretation of it, which it may be within a few months, is confuted by another. 3. Suppose a man have attained a knowledge of all that your Church has determined and proposed to be believed, and to a right understanding of her precise sense and meaning in all her determinations and proposals, which I believe never yet man attained to, yet what assurance can he have if he live in any place remote from Rome, but that your Church may have made some new determinations in matters of faith, whose embracement in the sense which she intends belongs to his keeping the unity of faith, which yet he is not acquainted withal. Is it not simply impossible for him to be satisfied at any time that he believes all that is to be believed, or that he holds the unity of faith? Your late pontifical determination in the case of the Jansenists and Molinists, is sufficient to illustrate this instance. For I suppose you are equally bound, not to believe what your Church condemns as heretical, as you are bound to believe what it proposes for Catholic doctrine.

4. I desire to know when a man who lives here in England, begins to be obliged to believe the determinations of your Church that are made at Rome. It may be he first hears of them in a Mercury or weekly News book; or it may be he has notice of them by some private letters from some who live near the place; or it may be he has a knowledge of them by common report; or it may be they are printed in some books, or that there is a brief of them published somewhere under the name of the Pope; or they are put into some volume written about the councils; or some religious persons on whom he much relyes, assures him of them. I know you believe that your Church's proposition is a sufficient means of the revelation of any article, to make it necessary to be believed; but I desire to know what is necessary to cause a man to receive any dictate or doctrine as your Church's proposition; not only upon this account, that you are not very well agreed upon the requisita, to the making of such a proposition, but also because, be you as infallible as you please in your proposals, the means and ways you use to communicate those proposals you make, to individuals in whom alone the faith whereof we treat exists, are all of them fallible. Now that which I desire to know is, what is, or what are those certain means and ways of communicating the propositions of your Church to any person, wherein he is bound to acquiesce, and upon the application of them to him to believe them, fide divina cui non potest subesse falsum. Is it any one thing, or way, or means, that the hinge upon which his assent turns? Or is it a complication of many things concurring to the same purpose? If it be any one thing, way, or medium, that you fix upon, pray let us know it, and we shall examine its fitness, and sufficiency for the use you put it to. I am sure we shall find it to be either infallible or fallible. If you say the former, and that particular upon which the assent of a man's mind to any thing to be the proposal of your Church depends, must in the testimony it gives, and evidence that it affords be esteemed infallible, then you have as many infallible persons, things, or writings, as you make use of to acquaint one another with the determinations of your Church; that is, upon the matter you are all so; though I know in particular that you are not. If the latter; notwithstanding the first pretended infallible proposition, your faith will be found to be resolved immediately into a fallible information. For, what will it advantage me, that the proposal of your Church cannot deceive me, if I may be deceived in the communicating of that proposal to me? And I can with no more firmness, certainty, or assurance, believe the thing proposed to me, than I do believe that it is the proposal of the Church wherein it is made. For you pretend not to any self-evidencing efficacy in your Church's propositions, or things proposed by it; but all their authority, as to me, turns upon the assurance that I have of their relation to your Church, or that they are the proposals of your Church; concerning which I have nothing but very fallible evidence, and so cannot possibly believe them with faith divine and supernatural. If you shall say that there are many things concurring to this communication of your Church's proposals to a man, as the notority of the fact, suitable proceedings upon it, books written to prove it, testimonies of good men, and the like; I cannot but mind you, that all these being sigillatim, every one apart fallible, they cannot in their conspiracy improve themselves into an infallibility. Strengthen a probability they may, testify infallibly they neither do nor can. So that on this account it is not only impossible for a man to know whether he holds the unity of faith or no; but indeed whether he believe any thing at all with faith supernatural and divine; seeing he has no infallible evidence for what is proposed to him to believe, to build his faith upon.

5. Protestants are not satisfied with your general implicit assent to what your Church teaches and determines, which you have invented to solve the difficulties that attend your description of the unity of faith. Of what use it may be to other purposes, I do not now dispute, but as to this, of the preservation of the unity of faith, it is certainly of none at all. The unity of faith consists in all men's express believing all that all men are bound expressly to believe, be it what it will. Now you would have this preserved by men's not believing what they are bound to believe: for what belongs to this keeping the unity of faith they are bound to believe expressly, and what they believe implicitly, they do indeed no more but not expressly disbelieve; for if they do any more than not disbelieve, they put forth some act of their understanding about it, and so far expressly believe it. So that, upon the matter, you would have men to keep the unity of faith, by a not believing of that, which that they may keep the unity of faith they are bound expressly to believe. Nor can you do otherwise while you make all the propositions of your Church of things to be believed, to belong to the unity of faith. Lastly, the determinations of your Church you make to be the next efficient cause of your unity; now these not being absolutely infallible, leave it, like Delos, flitting up and down in the sea of probabilities only. This we shall manifest to you immediately; at least we shall evidence that you have no cogent reasons, nor stable grounds to prove your Church infallible in her determinations. At present, it shall suffice to mind you, that she has determined contradictions, and that in as eminent a manner as it is possible for her to declare her sense by; namely by Councils confirmed by Popes; and an infallible determination of contradictions, is not a notion of any easy digestion in the thoughts of a man in his right wits. We confess then, that we cannot agree with you in your rule of the unity of faith, though the thing itself we press after as our duty. For, (2.) Protestants do not conceive this unity to consist in a precise determination of all questions that are or may be raised in or about things belonging to the faith, whether it be made by your Church or any other way. Your Thomas of Aquine, who without question is the best and most sober of all your school doctors, has in one book given us 522 articles of religion, which you esteem miraculously stated; Quot Articuli, tot Miracula. All these have at least five questions one with another stated and determined in explication of them; which amount to 2610 conclusions in matters of religion. Now we are far from thinking that all these determinations, or the like, belong to the unity of faith, though much of the religion among some of you lies in not dissenting from them. The questions that your Bellarmine has determined and asserted the positions in them as of faith, and necessary to be believed, are I think near 40 times as many as the articles of the ancient Creed of the Church; and such as it is most evident that, if they be of the nature and importance pretended, it is impossible that any considerable number of men should ever be able to discharge their duty in this business of holding the unity of faith. That a man believe in general that the holy Scripture is given by inspiration from God, and that all things proposed therein for him to believe, are therefore infallibly true, and to be as such believed, and that, in particular, he believe every article or point of truth, that he has sufficient means for his instruction in, and conviction that it is so revealed, they judge to be necessary to the holding of the unity of faith. And this also they know, that this sufficiency of means to every one that enjoys the benefit of the Scriptures, extends itself to all those articles of truth, which are necessary for him to believe, so as that he may yield to God the obedience that he requires, receive the holy Spirit of promise, and be accepted with God. Herein does that unity of faith which is among the disciples of Christ in the world consist; and ever did, nor can do so in any thing else. Nor does that variety of apprehensions that in many things is found among the disciples of Christ, and ever was, render this unity, like that you plead for, various and uncertain. For the rule and formal reason of it, namely God's revelation in the Scripture, is still one and the same, perfectly unalterable. And the several degrees that men attain to in their apprehensions of it, does no more reflect a charge of variety upon it, than the difference of seeing as to the several degrees of the sharpness or obtuseness of our bodily eyes, does upon the light given by the sun. The truth is; if there was any common measure of the assents of men, either as to the intension of it, as it is subjectively in their minds; or extension of it, as it respects truths revealed that belonged to the unity of faith, it were impossible there should be any such thing in the world, at least that any such thing should be known to be. Only this I acknowledge, that it is the duty of all men to come up to the full and explicit acknowledgment of all the truths revealed in the word of God, wherein the glory of God, and the Christian's duty are concerned: as also to a joint consent in faith objective, or propositions of truth revealed; at least in things of most importance, though their faith subjective, or the internal assent of their minds have, as it will have, in several persons, various degrees, yes in the same persons it may be, at different seasons. And in our laboring to come up to this joint acknowledgment of the same sense and intendment of God in all revealed truths, consists our endeavor after that perfection in the unity of faith which in this life is attainable; as our moderation does in our walking in peace and love with and towards others, according to what we have already attained. We may distinguish then between that unity of faith which an interest in, gives union with Christ to them that hold it, and communion in love with all equally interested therein; and that accomplishment of it, which gives a sameness of profession, and consent in all acts of outward communion in the worship of God. The first is found in, and among, all the disciples of Christ in the world wherever they are; the latter is that which moreover it is your duty to press after. The former consists in an assent in general to all the truths of God revealed in the Scripture, and in particular to them that we have sufficient means to evidence them to us to be so revealed. The latter may come under a double consideration; for either there may be required to it in them who hold it, the joint perception of, and assent to every truth revealed in the Scripture, with an equal degree of certainty in adherence and evidence in perception, and it is not in this life, wherein the best of us know but in part, attainable; or only such a concurrence in an assent to the necessary propositions of truth, as may enable them to hold together that outward communion in the worship of God which we before mentioned. And this is certainly attainable, by the ways and means that shall immediately be laid down. And where this is, there is the unity of faith, in that completeness which we are bound to labor for the attainment of. This the Apostolical Churches enjoyed of old; and to the recovery whereof, there is nothing more prejudicial than your new stating of it upon the account of your Church's proposals.

This unity of faith we judge good, and necessary, and that it is our duty to press after it: so also in general do you. It remains then, that we consider what is the way, what are the means and principles, that Protestants propose and insist upon for the attainment of it; that is, in answer to your question, What it is that can settle any man in the truth of religion, and unite all men therein. And then because you object this to us, as if we were at some loss and uncertainty therein, and your selves very secure, I shall consider what are the grounds and principles that you proceed upon for the same ends and purposes, namely to settle any man in the truth of religion, and to bring all men to an harmony and consent therein.

Now I shall herein manifest to you these two things; 1. That the principles which the Protestants proceed upon, in the improvement whereof they obtain themselves assured and infallible settlement in the truth, and labor to reduce others to the unity of faith, are such as are both suited to, and sufficient for, the end and work which they design to effect by them, and also in themselves of such unquestionable truth, certainty, and evidence, that either they are all granted by your selves, or cannot be denied without shaking the very foundations of Christianity. 2. That those which you proceed upon, are some of them untrue, and most of them dubious and questionable, none of them able to bear the weight that you lay upon them; and some of them such as the admission of, would give just cause to question the whole truth of Christian religion. And both these, Sir, I crave leave to manifest to you, whereby you may the better judge whether the Scripture or your Church be the best way to bring men to settlement in religion, which is the thing enquired after.

1. Protestants lay down this as the [in non-Latin alphabet], as the very beginning and first principle of their confidence and confession, that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, as the Holy Ghost teaches them (2 Timothy 3:16). That is, that the books of the Old and New Testament were all of them written by the immediate guidance, direction, and inspiration of God; the hand of the Lord, as David speaks (1 Chronicles 28:19), being upon the penmen thereof in writing; and his Spirit, as Peter informs us, speaking in them (1 Peter 1:11). So that whatever is contained and delivered in them, is given out from God, and is received on his authority. This principle I suppose you grant to be true; do you not? If you will deny it say so, and we will proceed no farther, until we have proved it. I know you have various ways laboured to undermine the [in non-Latin alphabet] of the Holy Scriptures; many queries you put to men, How they can know it to be from God, to be true, from Heaven, and not of men; many scruples you endeavour to possess them with, against its authority; it is not my present business to remove them. It is sufficient to me, 1. That you your selves who differ from us in other things, and with whom our contest about the best way of coming to settlement in the truth alone, is, do acknowledge this principle we proceed upon to be true. And 2. That you cannot oppose it without setting your selves to dig up the very foundations of Christian religion, and to open a way to let in an inundation of atheism on the world. So our first step is fixed on the grand fundamental principle of all the religion and acceptable worship of God that is in the world.

2. They affirm that this Scripture evidences itself by many infallible [in non-Latin alphabet], to be so given by inspiration from God; and besides is witnessed so to be, by the testimony of the Church of God from the days of Moses, wherein it began to be written, to the days wherein we live; our Lord Christ and his Apostles asserting and confirming the same testimony; which testimony is conveyed to us by uninterrupted catholic tradition. The first part of this position, I confess, some of you deny; and the latter part of it you generally all of you pervert, confining the testimony mentioned to that of your present Church, which is a very inconsiderable part of it, if any part at all. But how groundlessly, how prejudicially, to the verity and honor of Christian religion in general you do these things, I shall briefly show you.

Some of you, I say deny the first part of this Assertion; so does Andradius Defens. Concil. Trident. Lib. 3. Neque enim, says he, in ipsis Libris quibus Sacra Mysteria conscripta sunt, quicquam inest Divinitatis, quod nos ad Credendum qua illis continentur, religione aliqua constring at; Neither is there in the Books themselves, wherein the holy Mysteries are written, any thing of Divinity, that should constrain us by vertue of any religious respect thereunto, to believe the things that are contained in them. Hence Cocleus, Lib. 2. de Authoritate Eccles. & Script. gathers up a many instances out of the Book of the Scripture, which he declares to be altogether incredible, were it not for the Authority of the Church. I need not mention any more of your Leaders, concurring with them; you know who is of the same mind with them, if the Author of Fiat Lux be not unknown to you. Your resolving universal Tradition into the Authority of your present Church, to which end there is a Book written not long since by a Jesuit under the name of Vincentius Severinus, is no less notorious. Some of you, I confess, are more modest, and otherwise minded, as to both parts of our Assertion. See Malderus Episcop. Antwerp. de Object. Fidei, qu. 1. Vaselius Groningen. de Potestat. Eccles. & Epist. ad Jacob. Hock. Alliacens. in Lib. 1. Sentent. Artic. 3. Gerson Exam. dos. part. 2. Consid. 1. Tom. 1. sol. 105. and in twenty other places. But when you come to deal with Protestants, and consider well the tendency of this Assertion, you use I confess an hundred tergiversations, and are most unwilling to come to the acknowledgment of it; and rather than suffer from it, deny it downright; and that with scurrilous reflections, and comparisons, likening it, as to any characters of God's truth and holiness upon it, to Livy's Story, yes Aesop's Fables, or a Piece of Poetry. And when you have done so, you apply your selves to the canvasing of Stories in the Old Testament, and to find out appearing contradictions, and tell us of the uncertainty of the Authors of some particular Books; that the whole is of its self a dead letter which can prove nothing at all; enquiring, Who told us that the Penmen of it were divinely inspired, seeing they testify no such things of themselves and if they should, yet others may do, and have done so, who notwithstanding were not so inspired; and ask us, Why we receive the Gospel of Luke who was not an Apostle, and reject that of Thomas who one; with many the like cavilling exceptions.

But (1.) that must needs be a bad cause which stands in need of such a defence. Is this the voice of Jacob, or Esau? Are these the expressions of Christians, or Pagans? From whose quiver are these arrows taken? Is this fair, sober, candid Christian dealing? Have you no way to defend the authority of your Church, but by questioning the authority of the Scripture? Did ever any of the Fathers of old, or any in the world before yourselves, take this course to plead their interests in any thing they professed? Is this practice Catholic, or like many of your principles; singular, your own, Donatistical? Is it any great sign that you have an interest in that living child, when you are so ready he should be destroyed, rather than you would be cast in your contest with Protestants? (2.) Do you think that this course of proclaiming to Atheists, Turks, and Pagans, that the Scripture, which all Christians maintain against them to be the Word of the living God, given by inspiration from him, and on which the faith of all the Martyrs who have suffered from their opposition, rage, and cruelty, and of all others that truly believe in Jesus Christ, was and is founded, and whereinto it is resolved, has no arguments of its divine original implanted on it, no lines of the excellencies and perfections of its Author drawn on it, no power or efficacy towards the consciences of men, evidencing its authority over them, no ability of its self to comfort and support them in their trials and sufferings with the hope of things that are not seen? Is this, think you, an acceptable service to the Lord Christ, who will one day judge the secrets of all hearts according to that Word? Or, is it not really to expose Christian religion to scorn and contempt? And do you find so much sweetness in, Delus an Virtus? quis in hoste requirat, as to cast off all reverence of God and his Word, in the pursuit of the supposed adversaries of your earthly interests? (3.) If your arguments and objections are effectual and prevalent to the end for which you intend them, will not your direct issue be the utter overthrow of the very foundation of the whole profession of Christians in the world? And are you, like Sampson, content to pull down the house that must fall upon yourselves also, so that you may stifle Protestants with its fall? It may be, it were well you should do so; were it an house of Dagon, a temple dedicated to idols: but, to deal so with that wherein dwells the majesty of the living God, is not so justifiable. It is true; evert this principle, and you overthrow the foundation on which the faith of Protestants is built; but it is no less true, that you do the same to the foundation of the Christian faith in general, wherein we hope your own concernment also lies. And this is the thing that I am declaring to you; namely, that either you acknowledge the principles on which Protestants build their faith and profession, or by denying them you open a door to Atheism, at least to the extirpation of Christian religion out of the world. I confess you pretend a relief against the present instance, in the authority of your Church, sufficient as you say to give a credibility to the Scriptures, though its own self-evidencing power and efficacy, with the confirmation of it by Catholic tradition exclusive to your present suffrage, be rejected. Now I suppose you will grant, that the prop you supply men withal upon your casting down the foundations on which they have laid the weight of their eternal salvation, had need be firm and immoveable. And remember that you have to do with them, who though they may be otherwise inclinable to you, Non tamen ignorant quid distent aera a lupinis; and must use their own judgement in the consideration of what you tender to them. And they ask you, 1. What will you do if it be as you say with them who absolutely reject the authority of your Church, which is the condition of more than a moiety of the inhabitants of the world, to speak sufficiently within compass? And 2. What will you advise us to say to innumerable other persons that are pious and rational, who, upon the mere consideration of the lives of many, of the most, of the guides of your Church, your bloody inhuman practices, your pursuit of worldly carnal designs, your visible secular interest wherein you are combined and united, cannot persuade themselves, that the testimony of your Church in and about things that are invisible, spiritual, heavenly, and eternal, is at all valuable, much less that it is sufficient to bear the weight you would lay upon it. 3. Was not this the way and method of Vaninus for the introduction of his Atheism; first to question, slight, and sophistically except against the old approved arguments, and evidences manifesting the being and existence of a divine self-subsisting power, substituting in their room, for the confirmation of it, his own sophisms, which himself knew might be easily discussed and disproved? Do you deal any better with us in decrying the Scripture's self-evidencing efficacy, with the testimony given to it by God himself, substituting nothing in the room thereof but the authority of your Church? A man certainly can take up nothing upon the sole authority of your Church, until, contrary to the pretensions, reasons, and arguments of far a greater number of Christians than yourselves, he acknowledge you to be a true Church at least; if not the only Church in the world. Now, how I pray will you bring him into that state and condition that he may rationally make any such judgement? How will you prove to him that there is any such thing as a Church in the world; that a Church has any authority, that its testimony can make any thing credible, or meet to be believed? You must prove these things to him, or whatever assent he gives to what you say, is from fanatical credulity. To suppose that he should believe you upon your word, because you are the Church, is to suppose that he believes that, which you are yet but attempting to induce him to believe. If you persist to press him without other proof, not only to believe what you first said to him, but also even this, that whatever you shall say to him hereafter that he must believe it, because you say it; will not any rational man nauseate at your unreasonable importunity? And tell you that men who have a mind to be befooled, may meet with such alchemistical pretenders all the world over. Will you persuade him that you are the Church, and that the Church is furnished with the authority mentioned, by rational arguments? I wish you would inform me of any one that you can make use of, that does not include a supposition of something unproved by you, and which can never be proved but by your own authority, which is the thing in question, or the immediate authority of God which you reject. A number indeed of pretences, or, it may be, probabilities you may heap together, which yet upon examination will not be found so much neither, unless a man will swallow among them that which is destitute of all probability; but what is included in the evidence given to it by divine revelation which is not yet pleaded to him. It may be then you will work miracles to confirm your assertions. Let us see them. For although very many things are requisite to manifest any works of wonder that may be wrought in the world to be real miracles, and good caution be required to judge to what end miracles are wrought; yet if we may have any tolerable evidence of your working miracles in confirmation of this assertion, that you are the true and only Church of God, with the other inferences depending thereon, which we are in the consideration of, you will find us very easy to be treated withal. But herein also you fail. You have then no way to deal with such a man as we first supposed, but as you do with us; and produce testimonies of Scripture to prove and confirm the authority of your Church; and then you will quickly find where you are, and what snares you have cast yourselves into. Will not a man who hears you proving the authority of your Church by the Scripture, ask you, And from where has this Scripture its authority? Yes, that is supposed to be the thing in question, which denying to it an [illegible], you yet produce to confirm the authority of that, by whose authority alone, its self is evidenced to have any authority at all. Rest in the authority of God manifesting its self in the Scripture, witnessed to by the Catholic tradition of all ages, you will not. But you will prove the Scripture to be the Word of God by the testimony of your Church; and you will prove your Church to be enabled sufficiently to testify the Scriptures to be of God, by the testimonies of the Scripture. Would you knew where to begin and where to end? But you are indeed in a circle which has neither beginning nor ending; I know not when we shall be enabled to say, Inventus, Chrysippe, tui finitor acervi. Now do you think it reasonable that we should leave our stable and immoveable firm foundations, to run round with you in this endless circle, until through giddiness we fall into unbelief or Atheism? This is that which I told you before, you must either acknowledge our principle in this matter to be firm and certain, or open a door to Atheism, and the contempt of Christian religion; seeing you are not able to substitute any thing in the room thereof, that is able to bear the weight that must be laid upon it, if we believe. For how should you do so; shall man be like to God, or equal to him? The testimony we rest in is divine, fortified from all objections by the strongest human testimony possible, namely Catholic tradition. That which you would supply us with, is merely human and no more. And 4. your importunity in opposing this principle, is so much the more marvelous to us, because therein you openly oppose yourselves to express testimonies of Scripture and the full suffrage of the ancient Church. I wish you would a little weigh what is affirmed, (2 Peter 1:19, 20; Psalm 119:152; John 5:34, 35, 36, 39; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; Acts 17:11; 1 John 5:6, 10; 1 John 2:20; Hebrews 11:1; 1 Timothy 1:15; Acts 26:22). And will you take with you the consent of the ancients? Clemens Alexand. Strom. 7. speaks fully to our purpose, as he does also lib. 4. where he plainly affirms that the Church proved the Scripture by its self, and other things, as the unity of the Deity, by the Scripture. But his own words in the former place are worth the recital, [in non-Latin alphabet]: For the beginning of faith, or principle of what we teach, we have the Lord; who in sundry manners, and by divers parts, by the Prophets, Gospel, and holy Apostles, leads us to knowledge. And if any one suppose, that a principle stands in need of another (to prove it) he destroys the nature of a principle; or, it is no longer preserved a principle. This is that we say: The Scripture, the Old and New Testament, is the principle of our faith. This is proved by its self, to be of the Lord who is its Author; and if we cause it to depend on any thing else, it is no longer the principle of our faith and profession. And a little after, where he has showed that a principle ought not to be disputed, nor to be the [in non-Latin alphabet] of any debate, he adds, [in non-Latin alphabet]: It is meet then, that receiving by faith the most absolute principle without other demonstration, and taking demonstrations of the principle from the principle its self, that we be instructed by the voice of the Lord to the knowledge of the truth. That is; we believe the Scripture for its own sake, and the testimony that God gives to it, in it and by it; and do prove every thing else by it, and so are confirmed in the faith or knowledge of the truth. So he further explains himself, [in non-Latin alphabet]: For we do not simply or absolutely attend or give heed to men determining or defining, against whom it is equal that we may define or declare our judgements. So it is; while the authority of man, or men, any society of men in the world, is pleaded, the authority of others, may be as good reason be objected against it; as while you plead your Church and its definitions, others may on as good grounds oppose theirs to you therein. And therefore Clemens proceeds; [in non-Latin alphabet]: For if it be not sufficient merely to declare or assert that which appears to be truth, but also to make that credible or fit to be believed which is spoken, we seek not after the testimony that is given by men, but we confirm that which is proposed, or enquired about with the voice of the Lord, which is more full than any demonstration, or rather is its self the only demonstration; according to the knowledge whereof they that have tasted of the Scriptures, are believers. Into the voice, the Word of God alone, the Church then resolved their faith, this only they built upon, acknowledging all human testimony to be too weak, and infirm to be made a foundation for it; and this voice of God in the Scripture evidencing its self so to be, is the only demonstration of faith which they rested in; whereupon a little after he adds [in non-Latin alphabet]; so we having perfect demonstrations out of the Scriptures, are by faith demonstratively assured or persuaded of the truth of the things proposed. This was the profession of the Church of old; this the resolution of their faith; this is that which Protestants in this case adhere to. They proved the Scripture to be from God, as he elsewhere speaks, [in non-Latin alphabet], [in non-Latin alphabet], as we also do. Strom. 4. To this purpose speaks Salvianus de Gub. Lib. 3. Alia omnia (idest humana dicta) argumentis & testibus egent; Dei autem Sermo ipse sibi testis est, quia necesse est ut quicquid incorrupta veritas loquitur, incorruptum sit testimonium veritatis: All other sayings stand in need of arguments and witnesses to confirm them, the Word of God is witness to its self; for, whatever the Truth incorrupted speaks, must of necessity be an incorrupt testimony of truth. And although some of them allowed the testimony of the Church as a motive to believing the Gospel or things preached from it, yet as to the belief of the Scripture with faith divine and supernatural to be the Word of God, they required but these two things; 1. That self-evidence in the Scripture its self which is needful for an indemonstrable principle; from which, and by which, all other things are to be demonstrated: and that self-evidence Clemens puts in the place of all demonstrations. 2. The efficacy of the Spirit in the heart, to enable it to give a saving assent to the truth proposed to it: thus Austin in his Confessions Lib. 6. cap. 5. Persuasisti mihi, ô Domine Deus, non eos qui crederent libris tuis quos tanta in omnibus ferè Gentibus authoritate fundasti esse culpandos; sed eos qui non crederent, nec audiendos esse, siqui mihi forte dicerent, Unde scis, illos libros unius veracissimi Dei Spiritu esse, humano generi ministratos; idipsum enim maximè credendum erat. O Lord God, you have persuaded me, that not they who believe your books which with so great authority you have settled almost in all nations, were to be blamed; but those who believe them not, and that I should not hearken to any of them who might chance to say to me, From where do you know those books to be given out to mankind from the Spirit of the only true God; for that is the thing which principally was to be believed. In which words, the holy man has given us full direction what to say when you come upon us with that question which some used it seems in his days. A great testimony of the antiquity of your principles. Add hereunto what he writes in the 11th book and 3d chapter of the same treatise, and we have the sum of the resolution and principle of his faith: Audiam, says he, & intelligam, quomodo fecisti Coelum & terram: Scripsit hoc Moses, scripsit & abiit, transivit hinc ad Te. Neque enim nunc ante me est: nam si esset, tenerem eum, & rogarem eum, & per Te obsecrarem ut mihi ista panderet, & praberem aures corporis mei, sonis erumpentibus ex ore ejus. At si Hebraea voce loqueretur, frustra pulsaret sensum meum, nec inde mentem meam tangeret: si autem Latinè, scirem quid diceret; sed, Unde scirem an verum diceret? quod si & hoc scirem, num & ab illo scirem? Intus utique mihi, intus in domicilio cogitationis, nec Hebraea, nec Graeca, nec Latina, nec barbara veritas sine oris & linguae organis, sine strepitu syllabarum diceret, verum dicit; & ego statim [illegible] confidenter illi homini tuo dicerem, Verum dicis. Cum ergo illum interrogare non possim, Te, quo [illegible] vera dixit, Veritas, rogo Te Deus meus, rogo, parce peccatis meis, & qui illi servo tuo dedisti haec dicere, [illegible] & mihi haec intelligere. I would hear and understand, O Lord, how you have made the heavens and the earth: Moses wrote this, he wrote it and is gone, and he is gone to you. For now he is not present with me; if he were, I would lay hold on him, and ask him and beseech him for your sake, that he would unfold these things to me, and I would cause the ears of my body to attend to the words of his mouth. But if he should speak in the Hebrew tongue, he would only in vain strike upon my outward sense, and my mind within would not be affected with it. If he speak in Latin, I should know what he said; but from where should I know that he spoke the truth? Should I know this also from him? The truth, that is neither Hebrew, Greek, Latin, nor expressed in any barbarous language, would say to me inwardly in the dwelling place of my thoughts, without the organs of mouth or tongue, or noise of syllables, He speaks the truth; and I with confidence should say to him your servant, You speak the truth. Seeing therefore I cannot enquire of him, I beseech you that are truth, with whom he being filled spoke the truth, I beseech you O my God, pardon my sins, and you who gave to him your servant to speak these things, grant to me to understand. Thus this holy man ascribes his assent into the one unquestionable principle of the Scripture, as to the effecting of it in himself, to the work of God's Spirit in his heart. As Basil also does on Psalm 11. [in non-Latin alphabet]: Faith which draws the soul to consent above the efficacy of all rational ways or methods of persuasion; faith, that is wrought and begotten in us not by geometrical enforcements or demonstrations, but by the effectual operations of the Spirit. And both these principles are excellently expressed by one among yourselves, even Baptista Mantuanus. Lib. de Patientia, Cap. 32, 33. Saepnumerò, faith he, mecum cogitavi, Unde tam suadibilis esset ista Scriptura, ut tam potenter influat in animos auditorum; unde tantum habeat energiae, ut non adopinandum sed ad solidè credendum omnes inflectat. I have often thought with my self from where the Scripture is so persuasive, from where it does so powerfully influence the minds of the hearers; from where it has so much efficacy, that it should incline and bow all men, not to think as probable, but solidly to believe, the things it proposes. Non, says he, est hoc imputandum rationum evidentiae quas non adducit, non artis industriae & verbis suavibus & ad persuadendum accommodatis quibus non utitur. It is not to be ascribed to the evidence of reasons, which it brings not, neither to the excellency of art, sweet words, and accommodated to persuasion, which it makes no use of. Sed vide an id in causa sit quod persuasi sumus eam à prima veritate fluxisse; But see if this be not the cause of it, that we are persuaded that it proceeds from the prime verity. He proceeds, Sed unde sumus ita persuasi nisi ab ipsa, quasi ad ei credendum non sua ipsius trahat Authoritas. Sed unde quaeso hanc sibi Authoritatem vindicavit? Neque enim vidimus nos Deum concionantem, scribentem, docentem; tamen ac si vidissemus, credimus & tenemus à Spiritu Sancto fluxisse quod legimus: Forsitan fuerit haec ratio firmiter adharendi, quòd in ea veritas sit solidior quamvis non clarior, Habet enim omnis veritas vim inclinativam, & major majorem, maxima maximam. Sed cur ergo omnes non credunt Evangelio? Respondeo quod non omnes trahuntur à Deo. And again, Inest ergo Scripturis Sacris nescio quid Naturâ sublimius, idest inspiratio facta divinitus & divinae irradiationis influxus certus. But from where are we persuaded, that it is from the first verity, but from it self; its own authority draws us to believe it. But from where obtains it this authority? We see not God preaching, writing, teaching; but yet, as if we had seen him, we believe and firmly hold that which we read to have come from the Holy Ghost. It may be that this is a reason of our firm adhering to it, that the truth in it is more solid, though not more clear (than in any other way of proposal) and all truth has a power to incline to belief; the greater the truth the greater its power, and the greatest truth must have the greatest power so to incline us. But, why then do not all believe the Gospel? I answer, because all are not drawn of God. There is then in the holy Scripture somewhat more sublime than nature, that is, the divine inspiration from where it is, and the divine irradiation wherewith it is accompanied. This is the principle of Protestants. The sacred Scripture is credible as proceeding from the first verity: this it manifests by its own light and efficacy; and we are enabled to believe it by the effectual working of the Spirit of God in our hearts. From where our Savior asks the Jews (John 5), If you believe not the writing of Moses, how will you believe my words. They who will not believe the written Word of the Scripture, upon the authority that it has in its self, would not believe if Christ should personally speak to them. So says Theophylact on the place; [in non-Latin alphabet].

3. Protestants believe and profess, that the end therefore God gave forth his Word by inspiration, was that it might be a stable infallible revelation of his mind and will, as to that knowledge which he would have mankind entertain of him, with that worship and obedience which he requires of them, that so they may please him in this world, and come to the fruition of him to all eternity. God who is the formal object, is also the prime cause of all religious worship. What is due to him as the first cause, last end, and sovereign Lord of all, as to the substance of it, and what he further appoints himself, as to the manner of its performance, suited to his own holiness, and the condition wherein in reference to our last end we stand and are, making up the whole of it. That he has given his Word to reveal these things to us, to be our rule, guide, and direction in our ways, walkings, and universal deportment before him, is, as I take it, a fundamental principle of our Christian profession. Neither do I know that this is denied by your Church; although you startle at the inferences that are justly made from it. I shall not need therefore to add any thing in its confirmation, but only mind you again, that the calling of it into question, is directly against the very heart of all religion, and the unanimous consent of all that in the world are called Christians, or ever were so. Yes, and it must be granted, or the whole Scripture esteemed a fable, because it frequently declares, that it is given to us of God for this end and purpose. And hence do Protestants infer two other conclusions, on which they build their persuasion concerning the unity of faith, and the proper means of their settlement therein.

That therefore the Scripture is perfect and every way complete; namely with respect to that end whereunto of God it is designed. A perfect and complete revelation of the will of God as to his worship, and our obedience. And we cannot but wonder that any who profess themselves to believe that it was given for the end mentioned, should not have that sacred reverence for the wisdom, goodness, and love of its Author to mankind, as freely to assent to this inference and conclusion, He is our Rock, and his work is perfect. And lest any men should please themselves in the imagination of contributing any thing towards the effecting of the end of his Word, by a supply to it, he has strictly forbidden them any such addition, Deuteronomy 4:2 & 12:12, Proverbs 30:6. Which if it were not complete in reference to its proper end, would hold no great correspondency with that love and goodness which the same Word every where declares to be in Him. I suppose, you know with how many express testimonies of Scripture its self, this truth is confirmed, which, added to that light and evidence, which as a deduction from the former fundamental truth it has in its self, is very sufficient to render it unquestionable. You may at your leisure, besides these forenamed consult, Psalms 19:8; Isaiah 8:20; Ezekiel 28:18; Matthew 15:6; Luke 1:3–4; ch. 16:29, 31; ch. 24:25, 27; John 5:39; ch. 20:10; Acts 1:11; ch. 17:2–3; ch. 20:27; ch. 26:22; Romans 10:17; ch. 15:4; 1 Corinthians 4:6; Galatians 1:8; Ephesians 2:19–20; 2 Timothy 3:16–17; Hebrews 1:1; 2 Peter 1:19; Revelation 22:18. For though texts of Scripture are not appointed for us to throw at one another's heads as you talk in your Fiat, yet they are for us to use and insist on in the confirmation of the truth; if we may take the example of Christ and all his Apostles, for our warrant. And it were endless to recite the full and plain testimonies, of the ancient fathers and councils to this purpose. Neither is that my present design; though I did somewhat occasionally that way, upon the former principle. It shall suffice me to show, that the denial of this assertion also, as it is inferred from the foregoing principle, is prejudicial, if not pernicious to Christian religion in general. The whole of our faith and profession is resolved into the known excellencies and perfections of the nature of God. Among these, there are none that have a more immediate and quickening influence into them, than his wisdom, goodness, grace, care and love towards them, to whom he is pleased to reveal himself. Nor is there any property of his nature that in his Word he more frequently gives testimony to. And all of them does he declare himself to have exalted and glorified in a signal manner, in that revelation, which he has made of himself, his mind and will therein. I suppose, this cannot be denied by any, who has the least sense of the importance of the things revealed. Now, if the revelation made for the end before proposed be not perfect and complete, that is sufficient to enable a man to know so much of God his mind and will, and to direct him so in his worship and obedience to him, as that he may please him here, and come to the fruition of him hereafter; it must needs become an evident means of deceiving him, and ruining him, and that to all eternity. And the least fear of any such event, overthrows all the notions which he had before entertained of those blessed properties of the divine nature, and so consequently disposes him to atheism. For if a man has once received the Scripture as the Word of God, and that given to him to be his guide to Heaven, by God himself; if one shall come to him and tell him, yes but it is not a perfect guide, but though you should attend sincerely to all the directions that it gives you, yet you may come short of your duty and expectation; you may neither please God here, nor come to the fruition of Him hereafter: in case he should assent to this suggestion, can he entertain any other thoughts of God, but such as our first parents did, when by attendance to the false insinuations of the old Serpent, they cast off his sovereignty, and their dependance on him? Neither can you relieve him against such thoughts by your pretended traditional supply; seeing it will still be impossible for him to look on this revelation of the will of God, as imperfect and insufficient for the end, for which it plainly professes its self to be given forth by him, without some intrenchment on those notions of his nature which he had before received. For it will presently occur to him, that seeing this way of revealing himself for the ends mentioned, is good and approved of himself so to be, if he has not made it complete for that end, it was either because he could not, and where then is his wisdom; or because he would not, and where then is his love, care, and goodness; and seeing, he says, he has done, what you would have him to believe, that he has not done, where is his truth and veracity? Certainly a man that seriously ponders what he has to do, and knows the vanity of an irrational fanatical Credo, will conclude, that either the Scripture is to be received as perfect, or not to be received at all.

Protestants conclude hence, that the Scripture given of God for this purpose is intelligible to men, using the means by God appointed to come to the understanding of his mind and will therein. I know many of your way are pleased grievously to mistake our intention in this inference and conclusion. Sometimes they would impose upon us to say, that all places of Scripture, all words and sentences in it are plain, and of an obvious sense, and easy to be understood. And yet this you know, or may know if you please, and I am sure ought to know, before you talk of these things with us, that we absolutely deny. It is one thing to say, that all necessary truth is plainly and clearly revealed in the Scripture, which we do say; and another that every text and passage in the Scripture is plain and easy to be understood, which we do not say; nor ever thought, as confessing that to say so, were to contradict our own experience, and that of the disciples of Christ in all ages. Sometimes you feign, as though we asserted all the things that are revealed in the Scripture, to be plain and obvious to every man's understanding; whereas we acknowledge that the things themselves revealed are many of them mysterious, surpassing the comprehension of any man in this world; and only maintain that the propositions wherein the revelation of them is made, are plain and intelligible to them that use the means appointed of God to come to a right understanding of them. And sometimes you would commit this with another principle of ours; whereby we assert that the supernatural light of grace to be wrought in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, is necessary to give to us a saving perception and understanding of the mind of God in the Scripture; for what needs such special assistance in so plain a matter? As though the asserting of perspicuity in the object, made ability to discern in the subject altogether unnecessary: or that he who affirms the Sun to give light, does at the same time affirm also that men have no need of eyes to see it withal. Besides we know there is a vast difference between a notional speculative apprehension, and perception of the meaning and truth of the propositions contained in the Scripture, which we acknowledge that every reasonable unprejudiced person may attain to; and a gracious saving spiritual perception of them, and assent to them with faith divine and supernatural; and this we say is the especial work of the Holy Ghost in the hearts of the elect. And I know not how many other exceptions you make to keep yourselves from a right understanding of our intention in this inference; but, as yourself elsewhere learnedly observes, who so blind as he that will not see? I shall therefore once more, that we may proceed, declare to you what it is that we intend in this assertion. It is, namely; that the things which are revealed in the Scripture, to the end that by the belief of them, and obedience to them, we may please God, are so proposed and declared, that a man, any man, free from prejudices and temptations; in and by the use of the means appointed him of God for that purpose, may come to the understanding (and that infallibly) of all that God would have him know or do in Religion; there being no defect or hindrance in the Scripture, or manner of its revealing things necessary, that should obstruct him therein. What are the means appointed of God for this purpose, we do not now enquire, but shall anon declare. What defect, blindness, or darkness, there is, or may be, in and upon the minds of men in their depraved lapsed condition, what disadvantages they may be cast under by their prejudices, traditions, negligences, sins, and profaneness, belongs not to our present disquisition. That which we assert concerns merely the manner of the proposal of the truths to be believed, which are revealed in the Scripture; and this we say is such, as that there is no impossibility, no nor great difficulty, but that a man may come to the right understanding of them; not as to the comprehension of the things themselves, but the perception of the sense of the propositions wherein they are expressed. And this assertion of ours, is, as the former, grounded on the Scripture itself. See if you please (Deuteronomy 30:11; Psalm 19:9; Psalm 119:105; Proverbs 6:22; 2 Corinthians 4:3; 2 Peter 1:9). And to deny it, is to pluck up all religion by the roots, and to turn men loose to scepticism, libertinism, and atheism; and that with such a horrible reproach to God himself, as that nothing more abominable can be invented. The Devil of old, being not able to give out certain answers to them that came to enquire about their concernments at his oracles, put them off a long time with dubious, enigmatical, unintelligible sophisms. But when once the world had by experience, study, and observation, improved itself into a wisdom beyond the pitch of its first rudeness, men began generally to despise what they saw could not be certainly understood. This made the Devil pull in his horns, as not finding it for the interest of his kingdom to expose himself to be scoffed at by them, with whose follies and fanatical credulity in esteeming highly of that which could not be understood, he had for many generations sported himself. And do they not blasphemously expose the oracles of the true, holy, and living God, to no less contempt, who for their own sinister ends would frighten men from them with the ugly scarecrow of obscurity, or their not being intelligible to every man by the use of means, so far as he is concerned to know them, and the mind of God in them. And herein also Protestants stand as firmly as the fundamentals of Christianity will bear them.

4. Protestants believe, that it is the duty of all men who desire to know the will of God, and to worship him according to his mind, to use diligence in the improvement of the means appointed for that end, to come to a right and full understanding of all things in the Scripture, wherein their faith and obedience are concerned. This necessarily follows from the principles before laid down. Nor is it possible it should be otherwise. It is doubtless incumbent on every man to study and know his duty; that cannot be a man's duty which he is not bound to know, especially not such a duty as whereon his eternal welfare should depend: and I suppose a man can take no better course to come to the knowledge of his duty, than that which God has appointed for that purpose. The commands and exhortations which we have given us in the Scripture for our diligence in this matter, with the explications and improvements of them in the writings of the Fathers, are so obvious, trite, and known, that it were mere loss of time to insist on the repetition of them. I suppose, I should speak within compass, if I should say, that one Chrysostom does in a hundred places exhort Christians of all sorts, to the diligent study and search of the Scriptures, and especially of the Epistles of Paul, not the most plain and easy part of them. I know, the practice of your Church lies to the contrary, and what you plead in the justification of that practice; but I am sorry both for her and you; both for the contrivers of and consenters to this abomination: and I fear what your account will be as to this matter, at the last day. God having granted the inestimable benefit of his Word to mankind, revealing therein to them the only way by which they may attain to a blessed eternity; is it not the greatest ingratitude that any man can possibly contract the guilt of, to neglect the use of it? What then is your condition, who, upon slight and trivial pretences, set up your own wisdom and authority, against the wisdom and authority of God; advising and commanding men, upon the pain of your displeasure in this world, not to attend to that which God commands them to attend to, on pain of his displeasure in the world to come? So that though I confess that you deny this principle, yet I cannot see but that you do so, not only upon the hazard of your own souls, and the souls of them that attend to you, seeing, that if the blind lead the blind, both must fall into the ditch; but also, that you do it to the great prejudice of Christian religion in the very foundations of it. For what can a man rationally conclude, that shall see you driving all persons, and that on no small penalties, excepting yourselves who are concerned in the conspiracy, and some few others whom you suppose sufficiently initiated in your mysteries, from the reading and study of those books, wherein the world knows, and yourselves confess, that the arcana of Christian religion are contained; but that there are some things in them like the hidden sacra of the old pagan hierophants, which may not be disclosed, because however countenanced by a remote veneration, yet are indeed turpia or ridicula, things to be ashamed of, or scorned? And the truth is, some of your doctors have spoken very suspiciously this way; while they justify your practice in driving the people from the study of the Scripture, by intimations of things and expressions, not so pure and chaste as to be fit for the knowledge of the promiscuous multitude; when in the mean time themselves or their associates do publish to all the world, in their rules and directions for confession, such abominable filth and ribaldry, as I think was never by any other means vented among mankind.

5. Protestants say that the Lord Christ has instituted his Church, and therein appointed a ministry, to preside over the rest of his disciples in his name, and to unfold to them his mind and will as recorded in his Word; for which end he has promised his presence with them by his Spirit to the end of the world, to enable them in a humble dependence on his assistance, to find out and declare his commands and appointments to their brethren. This position, I suppose, you will not contend with us about; although I know that you put another sense upon most of the terms of it, than the Scripture will allow, or we can admit of.

These are the Principles of Protestants; this is the Progress of their Faith in coming to settlement and assurance. These are their Foundations, which are as unquestionable as any thing in Christianity; the most of them, your selves being judges. And from them, one of these two things will necessarily follow; Either that all men, to whom the Word of God does come, will come to an agreement in the Truth, or the Unity of Faith; or Secondly, That it is their own fault if they do not so do: For what upon these Principles should hinder them from so doing? All saving Truth is revealed by God in the Scripture, to the end that men may come to the knowledge of it. It is so revealed by Him, that it is possible, and with his assistance, easie for men to know aright his Mind and Will about the things so revealed: and he has appointed regular ways and means for men to wait upon him in and by, for the obtaining of his assistance. Now pray revive your Question that gave occasion to this discourse; however men may differ in Religion, why is not the Scripture sufficient to bring them to an agreement and settlement? Take heed that in your Answer, you deny not some Principle that will involve the whole interest of Christianity in its ruin: Where is the defect? Where the hindrance, why all men upon these Principles however differing at present, may not come to a full Settlement and Agreement? I hope, you will find none but what are in them selves; and for them; ipsi-viderint; the Scripture is blameless. Here is certainty of revelation from God, fullness of that revelation as to our duty, clearness and perspicuity for our understanding of it, means appointed and sanctified for that end; what I pray is wanting? All truths wherein it is the duty of men to agree are fixed and stated, so that it can never be lawful for any man, in any generation, to call any of them into question; plain and evident, that no man can mistake the mind of God in them in things wherein his duty is concerned, without his own crime and guilt. You will say then, it may be, But why then do not men agree, why do you not agree among your selves, but I would hope, that it is scarcely possible for any man to be so ignorant of the condition of mankind, and among them of the best of men, as seriously to ask this Question. Are not all men naturally blind in the things of God? Do not the best of men know only in part? Have not the different tempers, constitutions, and educations of men, a great influence upon their understandings and judgements? Besides do not lusts, corruptions, carnal interests, and respect to worldly things bear sway in the minds of many that profess Christian Religion? Are not many prepossessed with prejudices, traditions, customs and usages against the Truth? And are not these things and the like, sufficient to keep up variance in the world without the least suspicion of any disability in the Scripture to bring them to an holy agreement and immoveable Settlement? Neither is there any other way for men to come to Settlement and Agreement in Religion according to the mind of God, but that only which has been now proposed, and this they will come to, when all men shall be persuaded to captivate their understandings to the obedience of Faith. I deny not but that by outward force and compulsion, by supine negligence of their own concernments, by refusing to bethink themselves, and such other ways and means, some men may come to some Agreement among themselves in the things of Religion. But this Agreement, we say, is not of God, it is not built upon the [illegible], the foundation of faith towards God, and so is of no esteem with him. That such is all the Unity which on your Principles you are able to bring men to, we shall manifest in our next Discourse. For the present, I dare challenge you, or any man in the world, to question or oppose any one of the Principles before laid down, and which while they stand firm, it is evident to all, how the Scripture is able to settle men unquestionably in the Truth and that for ever; [illegible]. I shall close this Discourse with a passage out of Chrysostome, which fully confirms all that I have asserted; it is in Homil 33. in Act. Apost. Chap. 15. [illegible], says he, [illegible]. What shall we say to the Gentiles? A Gentile comes and says, I would be a Christian, but I know not to whom among you I should adhere. Let us hear the reasons of his hesitation; says he, [illegible]. There are many contentions, seditions, and tumults among you: what opinion to choose I know not: every one says, I am in the Truth; and I am utterly ignorant of what is in the Scripture about these things. Do you know whose Objections these are, and by whom they have been lately managed? Will you hear what Chrysostome answers? Says he, [illegible]. This makes wholly for us; for if we should say, that we believe on probable reasonings, you might justly be troubled; but seeing we profess that we believe in the Scriptures, which are plain and true, it is easy for you to judge and determine. He that yields his consent to them, he is a Christian; and he that contends against them, is far from the Rule of Christianity. And in the process of his Discourse, which is well worth the perusal before you write any more familiar Epistles, he requires no more of a man to settle him in the Truth, but that he receive the Scripture and have [illegible], a mind and judgment, to use in the consideration of it.

It remains now that we consider what it is that you propose to men to bring them to a Settlement in Religion, and all Christians to the Unity of Faith, with the Principles that you proceed upon to that purpose: which because I would not too far lengthen out this Discourse, I shall refer to the next Chapter.