Chapter 12

Pag. 36. You insist upon somewhat in particular that looks towards your purpose, which shall therefore be discussed; for I shall not willingly miss any opportunity that you will afford me, of examining whatever you have to tender in the behalf of your dying cause. You mind me therefore of my answer to that discourse of yours; If the Papist or Roman Catholic who first brought us the news of Christianity, be now become so odious; then may likewise the whole story of Christianity be thought a Romance. You speak with the like extravagancy, and mind not my hypotheticals at all, to speak directly to my inference as it became a man of art to do: but neglecting my consequence, which in that discourse is principally and solely intended; you seem to deny my supposition: which if my discourse had been drawn into a syllogism, would have been the minor of it. And it consists of two categories; First, That the Papist is now become odious. Secondly, That the Papist delivered us the first news of Christianity. The first of these you little heed: the second you deny. That the Papist, say you, or Roman Catholic first brought Christ and his Christianity into this land, is most untrue: I wonder, &c. And your reason is, because if any Romans came here, they were not Papists, and indeed our Christianity came from the East. And this is all you say to my hypothetical, or conditional ratiocination, as if I had said nothing at all, but that one absolute category, which being delivered before, I now only suppose. You use to call me a civil logician; but I fear a natural one as you are, will hardly be able to justify this notion of yours as artificial. A conditional has a verity of its own, so far differing from the supposed category, that this being false, that may yet be true. For example, if I should say thus, A man who has wings as an Eagle, or if a man had wings of an Eagle, he might fly in the air as well as another bird; and such an assertion is not to be confuted by proving that a man has not the wings of an Eagle.

The substance of this whole discourse, is no more but this; that because the inference upon a supposition, may be a consequence logically true, though the supposition be false, or feigned: therefore the consequent, or thing inferred also is really true, and a man must fly in the air, as you say, like another bird. But Sir, though every consequence be true logically, that is lawfully inferred from its premises, be they true or false; and so must in disputation be allowed: yet where the consequent is the thing in question, to suppose that if the consequence be lawfully educed from the premises, that it also must be true, is a fond surmise. And therefore they know qui nondum aere lavantur, that the way to disappoint the conclusion of an hypothetical syllogism, is to disprove the category included in the supposition, when reduced into an assumption from where it is to be inferred. For instance, if the thing in question be, whether a man can fly in the air (as you say) like another bird; and to prove it, you should say, if he has wings he can do so: the way I think to stop your progress, is to deny that he has wings. And if you should continue to wrangle that your inference is good, if he has wings, he may fly like another bird, you would but make yourself ridiculous. But if you may be allowed to make false and absurd suppositions, and must have them taken for granted, you are very much to blame if you infer not conclusions to your own purpose. And this in general is your constant way of dealing: unless we will allow you to suppose yourselves to be the Church, and that all the excellent things which are spoken of the Church, belong to you alone, with the like groundless presumptions you are instantly mute, as if there had appeared to you Harpocrates digito qui significat St. But if in the case in agitation between us, I should permit you without control to make what suppositions you please, and to make inferences from them, which must be admitted for truth, because logically following upon your suppositions, what man of art I might have appeared to you, I know not: I fear with others, I should scarcely have preserved the reputation of common sense or understanding. And I must acknowledge to you, that I am ignorant of that logic which teaches men to suffer their adversaries to proceed and insist upon absurdities and false suppositions, to oppose the truth which they maintain. And yet I know well enough what Aristotle has taught us concerning [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], in which part of his logic, you seem to have been most conversant.

But let us once again consider your ratiocination as here you endeavour to reinforce it. Your supposition you say includes these two Categories; First, that the Papists are become odious to us: Secondly, That the Papists delivered us the first news of Christianity. Well, both these propositions I deny. Papists are not become odious to us, though we love not their Popery: Papists did not bring us the first news of Christianity. This I have proved to you already, and shall yet do it further. Will you now be angry and talk of Logick, because I grant not the consequent of these false pretensions to be true; as if every Syllogisme must of necessity be true materially, which is so in form. But yet farther, to discover your mistake, I was so willing to hear you out to the utmost of what you had to say, that in the Animadversions after the discovery of the falsity of the Assertions that it arose from, I suffered your supposition to pass, and shewed you the weakness of your Inference upon it. And the reason of my so doing, was this; that because though the Papists brought not the Gospel first into England, yet I do not judge it impossible but that they may be the means of communicating it to some other place or People; and I would be loth to grant, that they who receive it from them, must either always embrace their Popery, or renounce the Gospel. I confess a great intanglement would be put on the thoughts and minds of such Persons, by the Principle of the Infallibility of them that sent your Teachers, whereinto it may be also they would labor to resolve your belief. But yet if withal you shall communicate to them the Gospel its self, as the great Repository of the Mysteries of that Religion wherein your instruct them, there is a sufficient foundation laid for their reception of Christianity, and the rejection of your Popery. For when once the Gospel has evidenced its self to their consciences that it is from God, as it will do, if it be received to any benefit or advantage at all, they will, or may easily discern, that those who brought it to them, were themselves in many things deceived in their apprehensions of the mind of God therein revealed; especially as to your pretence of the Infallibility of any man, or men, any further then his conceptions agree with what is revealed in that Gospel which they have received, and now for its own sake believe to be from God. And once to imagine, that when the Scripture is received by faith, and has brought the soul into subjection to the Authority of God exerting it self in it, and by it, that it will not warrant them in the rejection of any respect to men whatever, is, to err not knowing the Scripture, nor the Power of God. In this condition of things, men will bless God for any means which he was pleased to use in the communicating the Gospel to them; and if those who were employed in that work shall persist in obtruding upon their faith and worship, things that are not revealed, they will quickly discover such a contradiction in their Principles, as that it is utterly impossible that they should rationally assent to, and embrace them all, but either they must renounce the Gospel which they have brought them, or reject those other Principles which they would impose upon them that are contrary thereunto. And whither of those they will do, upon a supposition that the Gospel has now obtained that Authority over their consciences and minds, which it claims in and over all that receive it, it is no hard matter to determine. Men then who have themselves mixed the doctrine of the Gospel with many abominable errors of their own, may in the Providence of God be made instrumental to convey the Gospel to others. At the first tender of it they may for the Truth's sake which they are convinced of, receive also the errors that are tendered to them, as being as yet not able to discern the chaff from the wheat. But when once the Gospel is rooted in their minds, and they begin to have their senses exercised therein to discern between good and evil, and their faith of the Truth they receive is resolved into the Authority of God himself the Author of the Gospel, they have their warrant for the rejection of the errors which they had before imbibed, according as they shall be discovered to them. For though they may first consider the Gospel on the proposition of them that first bring them the tidings of it, as the Samaritans came to our Savior upon the information of the woman; yet when they come to experience themselves its power & efficacy, they believe it for its own sake, as those did also in our Lord Jesus Christ upon his own account; when this is done, they will be enabled to distinguish, as the Prophet speaks, between a dream and a prophecy, between chaff and wheat, between error and Truth. And thus if we should grant that the first news of Christianity was brought into England by Papists, yet it does not at all follow, that if we reject Popery, we must also reject the Gospel or esteem it a Romance. For if we should have received Popery, we should have received it only upon the credit and Authority of them that brought it: but the Truth of Christianity we should have received on the Authority of the Gospel, which was brought to us: So that our entertainment of Popery and Christianity standing not on the same bottom or foot of account, we might well reject the one, and retain the other. But this consideration as to us, is needless; they were not Papists which brought Christianity first into this Land. Therefore well knowing that the whole strength of their reasoning depends on the supposition that they were so, you proceed to confirm it in your manner, that is, by saying it over again. But we will hear you speaking your own words.

We had not our Christianity immediately from the East, nor from Joseph of Arimathea, we Englishmen had not. For as he delivered his Christianity to some Britans, when our Land was not called England but Albion or Brittany, and the inhabitants were not Englishmen but Britans or Kimbrians, so likewise did that Christianity, and the whole news of it quite vanish, being suddenly overwhelmed by the ancient deluge of Paganism; nor did it ever come from them to us. No, the Britans themselves had so forgot and lost it, that they also needed a second Conversion, which they received from Pope Eleutherius. And that was the only news of Christianity which prevailed and lasted even among the very Britans, which seems to me a great secret of Divine Providence in planting and governing his Church, as if he would have nothing to stand firm and lasting, but what was immediately fixed by, and seated upon that Rock. For all other conversions have variety, and the very seats of the other Apostles failed, that all might the better cement in the unity of one head. No, the Tables which God wrote with his own hand were broken, but the other written by Moses remained; that we might learn to give a due respect to him, whom God has set over us as our Head and Ruler under him, and none exalt himself against him. I know you will laugh at this my observation; but I cannot but tell you what I think. Where I speak then of the news of Christianity first brought to this Land I mean not that which was first brought upon the earth or soil of this Land, and spoken to any body then dwelling here, but which was delivered to the forefathers of the now present inhabitants, who were Saxons or Englishmen. And I say, that we the now present inhabitants of England, offspring of the Saxons or English, had the first news of our Christianity immediately from Rome, and from Pope Gregorius the Roman Patriarch, by the hands of his Missioner Saint Austin. Since then the categorical assertions are both clear, namely that the Papists first brought us the news of Christianity, and secondly, that the Papist is now become odious to us: what say you to my consequent? That the whole story of Christianity may as well be deemed a Romance, as any part of that Christianity we at first received, is now judged to be a part of a Romance. This consequence of mine, it behooved a man of those great parts you would be thought to have, to heed attentively, and yet you never minded it.

Some few observations upon this discourse of yours, will further manifest the absurdity of that consequence, which you feign not to have been taken notice of in the Animadversions, for which you had no cause, but that you might easily discern that it did not deserve it. 1. Then you grant that the Gospel came out of the East into this land. So then we did not first receive the Gospel from Rome, much less by the means of Papists. But the land was then called Albion, or Brittany, and the people Brittans or Kimbrians, not Englishmen. What then, though the names of places or people are changed, the Gospel wherever it is, is still the same. But the Brittans lost the Gospel until they had a new conversion from Rome by the means of Eleutherius. But you fail, Sir, and are either ignorant in the story of those times, or else wilfully pervert the truth. All the Fathers and favourers of that story agree that Christianity was well rooted and known in Brittain when Lucius, as is pretended, sent to Eleutherius for assistance in its propagation. Your own Baronius will assure you no less (ad An. 183. n. 3, 4). Gildas de Excid. will do it more fully. Virunnius tells us that the Brittans were then strengthened in the faith, not that they then received it: strengthened in what they had, not newly converted, though some as it is said were so. And the days of Lucius are assigned by Sabellicus as the time wherein the whole province received the name of Christ, publicitus cum ordinatione, by public decree: that it was received there before, and abode there, as in other places of the world under persecution, all men agree. In this interval of time did the British Church bring forth Claudia, Ruffina, Elvanus and Meduinus, whose names among others are yet preserved. And to this space of time do the testimonies of Tertullian ad Judae and of Origen (Hom. 4. in Ezek.) concerning Christianity in Brittain belong. Besides, if the only prevalent religion in Brittany were as you fancy that which came from Rome, how came the observation of Easter both among the Brittans, as Beda manifests, and the Scots, as Petrus Cluniacensis declares, to be answerable to the customs of the Eastern Church, and contrary to those of the Roman? Did those that came from Rome teach them to do that which they judged their duty not to do? But what need we stay in the confutation of this figment? The very epistle of Eleutherius manifests it abundantly so to be. If there be any thing of truth in that rescript, it does not appear that Lucius wrote any thing to him about Christian religion, but about the imperial laws to govern his kingdom by; and Eleutherius in his answer plainly intimates that the Scripture was received among the Brittans, and the Gospel much dispersed over the whole nation. And yet this figment of your own you make the bottom of a most strange contemplation; namely, that God in his providence would have all that Christianity fail which came not from Rome. That is the meaning of those expressions, he would have nothing stand firm or lasting, but what was immediately fixed by, and seated on that Rock, for all other conversions have vanished. Really, Sir, I am sorry for you, to see what woeful shelves your prejudicate opinions do cast you upon, who in yourself seem to be a well meaning, good-natured man. Do you think indeed that those conversions that were wrought in the world by the means of any persons not coming from Rome, which were Christ himself and all his Apostles, were not fixed on the Rock? Can such a blasphemous thought enter into your heart? If those primitive converts that were called to the faith by persons coming out of the East were not built on the Rock, they all perished everlastingly, every soul of them; and if the other churches planted by them were not immediately fixed and seated on the Rock, they went all to Hell, the gates of it prevailed against them. Do you think indeed that God suffered all the churches in the world to come to nothing, that all Christians might be brought into subjection to your Pope, which you call cementing in a unity of one Head? If you do so, you think wickedly, that he is altogether like to yourself; but he will reprove you, and set your faults in order before your eyes. Such horrible, dismal thoughts do men allow themselves to be conversant withal, who are resolved to sacrifice truth, reason and charity to their prejudices and interests. Take heed, Sir, lest the Rock that you boast of prove not seven hills and deceive you. In the pursuit of the same consideration, you tell me that I will laugh at your observation, that the tables written by God's own hand were broken, but those written by Moses remained, that we may learn to give a due respect to him whom God has set over us. But you do not well to say so; I do not laugh at your observation, but I really pity you that make it. Pray, Sir, what were those tables that were written by Moses, when those written by God were broken? Such mistakes as these you ever and anon fall into, and I fear for want of being conversant in Holy Writ, which it seems your principles prompt you to a neglect of. Sir, the tables prepared by Moses were no less written with the finger of God than those were which he first prepared himself (Exodus 24:28; Deuteronomy 10:1, 2, 4). And if you had laid a good ground for your notion, that the tables prepared by God were broken, and those hewed by Moses preserved; and would have only added what you ought to have done, that there was nothing in the tables delivered to the people by Moses but what was written by the finger of God, I should have commended both it, and the inference you make from it. As it is built by you on the sand, it would fall with its own weight, were it no heavier than a feather. But you lay great stress I suppose on that which follows: namely, that the Brittans being expelled by the Saxons, the Saxons first received their Christianity from Rome. You may remember what has been told you already in answer to this case, about Rome's being left without inhabitants by Totilas. Besides, if we that are now inhabitants of England must be thought to have first received the Gospel then when it was first preached to our own progenitors in a direct line ascending, this will be found a matter so dubious and uncertain, as not possibly to be a thing of any concernment in Christian religion; and moreover will exempt most of the chief families of England from your enclosure, seeing one way or other they derive themselves from the ancient Brittains. Such pitiful trifles are you forced to make use of, to give countenance to your cause. But let it be granted that Christianity was first communicated to the Saxons from Rome in the days of Pope Gregory, which yet indeed is not true neither: for Queen Berta with her Bishop Luidhardus had both practised the worship of Christ in England before his coming, and so prepared the people, that Gregory says in one of his epistles, Anglorum gentem voluisse fieri Christianam. What will from there ensue? Why plainly, that we must be all Papists or Atheists, and esteem the whole Gospel a romance. But why so, I pray? Why, the categoric assertions are both clear; namely, that the Papist first brought us the news of Christianity; and that Papists are now odious. But how comes this about? We were talking of Gregory, and some that came from Rome in his days. And if you take them for Papists, you are much deceived. Prove that there was one Papist at Rome in the days of that Gregory, and I will be another; I mean such a Papist as your present Pope is, or as yourself are. Do you think that Gregory believed the Catholic supremacy and infallibility of the Pope, the doing whereof in an especial manner constitutes a man a Papist? If you have any such thoughts, you are an utter stranger to the state of things in those days, as also to the writings of Gregory himself. For your better information you may do well to consult him (lib. 4. Epist. 32, 36, 38). And sundry other instances may be given out of his own writings, how remote he was from your present Popery. Irregularities and superstitious observations were not a few in his days crept into the Church of Rome, which you still pertinaciously adhere to, as you have the happiness to adhere firmly to any thing that you once irregularly embrace. But that the main doctrines, principles, practices and modes of worship which constitute Popery were known, admitted, practised, or received at Rome in the days of Gregory, I know full well that you are not able to prove. And by this you may see the truth of your first assertion, that Papists brought us the first news of Christianity: which you do not in the least endeavour to prove; but take it hand over head, to be the same with this, that some from Rome preached the Gospel to the Saxons in the days of Gregory, which it has no manner of affinity withal. Your second true assertion is, that the Papist is now become odious to us; but yet neither will this be granted you. Popery we dislike, but that the Papists are become odious to us, we absolutely deny. Though we like not the Popery they have admitted, yet we love them for the Christianity which they have retained. And must not that needs be a doubty consequence that is induced out of principles wherein there is not a word of truth! Besides, I have already in part manifested to you, that supposing both of them to be true, as neither of them is; yet your consequence is altogether inconsequent, and will by no means follow upon them. And this will yet more fully appear in an examination of your ensuing discourse.

That which you fix upon to accept against, is towards the close of my Discourse to this purpose in these words as set down by you, pag. 40. Many things delivered us at first with the first news of Christianity, may be afterwards rejected for the love of Christ, and by the Commission of Christ. The truth of this Assertion I have newly proved again to you, and have exemplified it in the instance of Papists bringing the first news of Christianity to any place, which is not impossible but they may do, though to this Nation they did not. I had also before confirmed it with such reasons as you judged it best to take no notice of; which is your way with things that are too hard for you to grapple withall. I must I see, drive these things through the thick obstacles of your prejudices with more instances, or you will not be sensible of them. What think you then of those who received the first news of Christianity by believers of the circumcision, who at the same time taught them the necessity of being circumcised, and of keeping Moses Law? Were they not bound afterwards upon the discovery of the mistake of their teachers to retain the Gospel, and the truth thereof taught by them, and to reject the observation of Mosaical rites and observations? Or were they free upon the discovery of their mistake to esteem the whole Gospel a Romance? What think you of those that were converted by Arians, which were great multitudes, and some whole Nations? Were not those Nations bound for the love of Christ, by his word, to retain their Christianity, and reject their Arianisme, or must they needs account the whole Gospel a fable, when they were convinced of the error of their first teachers, denying Christ Jesus in his Divine nature to be of the same substance with his Father, or essentially God! To give you an instance that it may be will please you better; there are very many Indians in New England or elsewhere converted to Christianity by Protestants, without whose instruction they had never received the least rumor or report of it. Tell me your judgement; if you were now among them, would you not endeavour to perswade them that Christian Religion indeed was true, but that their first instructers in it had deceived them as to many particulars of it, which you would undeceive them in, and yet keep them close to their Christianity! And do you not know that many who have in former days been by heretics converted to Christianity from Paganism, have afterwards from the principles of their Christianity been convinced of their heresy, and retaining the one, have rejected the other? It is not for your advantage to maintain an opposition against so evident a truth, and exemplified by so many instances in all ages. I know well enough the ground of your pertinaciousness in your mistake, it is that men who receive the Gospel, do resolve their faith into the authority of them that first preach it to them. Now this supposition is openly false and universally as to all persons whatever not divinely inspired, yes as to the Apostles themselves but only with respect to their working of miracles, which gave testimony to the doctrine that they taught. Otherwise God's Revelation contained in the Scriptures is that which the faith of men is formally and ultimately resolved into; so that whatever propositions that are made to them, they may reject, unless they do it with a non obstante for its supposed Revelation, the whole Revelation abides unshaken, and their faith founded thereon. But as to the persons who first bring to any the tidings of the Gospel, seeing the faith of them that receive it, is not resolved into their authority or infallibility, they may, they ought to examine their proposals by that unerring word which they ultimately rest upon, as did the Bereans, and receive or reject them at first or afterwards as they see cause, and this without the least impeachment of the truth or authority of the Gospel itself which under this formal consideration as revealed of God, they absolutely believe. Let us now see what you except hereunto. First you ask, What love of Christ's dictates, what commission of Christ allows you to choose and reject at your own pleasure? Ans. None; nor was that at all in question, nor do you speak like a man that durst look upon the true state of the controversy between us. You proclaim your cause desperate by this perpetual tergiversation. The question is, whether when men preach the Gospel to others, as a Revelation from God, and bring along the Scripture with them wherein they say that Revelation is comprized, when that is received as such, and has its authority confirmed in the minds of them that receive it, whether are they not bound to try all the teaching in particular of them that first bring it to them, or afterwards continue the preaching of it, whether it be consonant to that Rule or Word, wherein they believe the whole Revelation of the will of God relating to the Gospel declared to them to be contained, and to embrace what is suitable thereunto, and to reject any thing that in particular may be by the mistakes of the teachers imposed upon them? Instead of believing what the Scripture teaches, and rejecting what it condemns, you substitute choosing or rejecting at your own pleasure, a thing wherein our discourse is not at all concerned. You add, What heretic was ever so much a fool as not to pretend the love of Christ, and Commission of Christ for what he did? What then I pray! may not others do a thing really upon such grounds as some pretend to do them on falsly? May not a Judge have his Commission from the King, because some have counterfeited the great Seal? May not you sincerely seek the good and peace of your Country upon the principles of your Religion, though some pretending the same principles have sought its disturbance and ruin? If there be any force in this exception, it overthrows the authority and efficacy of every thing that any man may falsly pretend to, which is to shut out all order, rule, government, and virtue out of the world. You proceed, How shall any one know you do it out of any such love or Commission, since those who delivered the articles of faith now rejected, pretended equal love to Christ and Commission of Christ for the delivery of them as any other! I wonder you should proceed with such impertinent enquiries. How can any man manifest that he does any thing by the Commission of another, but by his producing and manifesting his Commission to be his? And how can he prove that he does it out of love to him, but by his diligence, care, and conscience in the discharge of his duty, as our Savior tells us, saying if you love me, keep my Commandments, which is the proper effect of love to him, and open evidence or manifestation of it. Now how should a man prove that he does any thing by the Commission of Christ, but by producing that Commission? That is, in the things about which we treat, by declaring and evidencing that the things he proposes to be believed, are revealed by his spirit in his word, and that things which he rejects are contrary thereunto! And whatever men may pretend, Christ gives out no adverse Commissions; his word is every way and everywhere the same, at perfect harmony and consistency with itself; so that if it come to that, that several persons do teach contrary doctrines either before or after one another, or together, under the same pretence of receiving them from Christ, as was the case between the Pharisees of old that believed, and the Apostles, they that attend to them, have a perfect guide to direct them in their choice, a perfect rule to judge of the things proposed. As in the Church of the Jews the Pharisees had taught the people many things as from God, for their Traditions or Oral Law they pretended to be from God: our Savior comes, really a teacher from God, and he disproves their false doctrines which they had prepossessed the people withall, and all this he does by the Scripture the Word of Truth which they had before received. And this example has he left to his Church to the end of the world. But you yet proceed; Why may we not at length reject all the rest for love of something else, when this love of Christ which is now crept into the very outside of our lips is slipped off from there! Do you think men cannot find a cavil against him as well as his Law delivered to us with the first news of him, and as easily dig up the root as cut up the branches! You are the pleasantest man at a disputation that ever I met withal, haud ulli veterum virtute secundus; you outgo your masters in palpable sophistry. If we may, and ought for the love of Christ, reject errors and untruths taught by fallible men, then we may reject him also for the love of other things. Who doubts it, but men may if they will, if they have a mind to do so? They may do so physically, but may they do so morally? May they do so upon the same or as good grounds and reasons as they reject errors and false worship for the sake of Christ? With such kind of arguing is the Roman Cause supported. Again, you suppose the Law of Christ to be rejected, and therefore say that his Person may be so also. But this contains an application of the general thesis to your particular case, and thereupon the begging of the thing in question. Our enquiry was general whether things at first delivered by any persons that preach the Gospel may not be rejected without any impeachment of the authority of the Gospel itself? Here, that you may insinuate that to be the case between you and us, you suppose the things rejected to be the Law of Christ, when indeed they are things rejected because they are contrary to the Law of Christ, and so affirmed in the Assertion, which you seek to oppose. For nothing may be rejected by the Commission of Christ, but what is contrary to his Law. The truth is, he that rejects the Law of Christ as it is his, needs no other inducement to reject his Person; for he has done it already in the rejection of his Law: but yet it may not be granted, though it belong not to our present discourse, that every one that rejects any part of the Law of Christ, must therefore be in a propensity to reject Christ himself, provided that he do it only because he does not believe it to be any part of his Law. For while a man abides firm and constant in his faith in Christ and love to him, with a resolution to submit himself to his whole Word, Law, and Institutions, his misapprehensions of this or that particular in them, is no impeachment of his faith, or love. Of the same importance is that which you add, namely, Did not the Jews by pretence of their love to the immortal God, whom their forefathers served, reject the whole Gospel at once? And why may not we possibly by piece meal? You do only cavil at the expression I used, of doing the thing mentioned for the love of Christ, but I used it not alone, as knowing how easy a thing it was to pretend it, and how unwarrantable a ground of any actings in Religion such a pretence would prove; therefore I added to it, his Commission, that is his Word. And so I desire to know of you whether the Jews out of love to God and by the direction of his word did reject the Gospel or no. This you must assert if you intend by this instance to oppose my assertion. Besides indeed the Jews did scarce pretend to reject the Gospel out of love to God, but to their old Church-State, and Traditions, on which very account your selves at this day reject many important truths of it. But it is one thing vainly to pretend the love of God, another so to love him indeed as to keep his Commandments, and in so doing to cleave to the Truth, and to reject that which is contrary thereunto. You add as the issue of these enquiries, Let us leave cavils, grant my supposition which you cannot deny; then speak to my Consequence, which I deem most strong and good, to inter a Conclusion which neither you nor I can grant. Answ. I wish you had thought before of leaving cavils that we might have been eased of the consideration of the foregoing queries, which are nothing else, and those very trivial. Your supposition which is, that Papists first brought the Gospel into England, you say I cannot deny: but Sir, I do deny it, and challenge you or any man in the world to make it good, or to give any color of truth to it. Then your Consequence you say you deem strong and good; I doubt not but you do so; so did Suffenus of his Poems, but another was not of the same mind who says of him, Qui modo scurra Aut si quid hac re tritius (or hoc re tritius) videbatur, Idem inficeto est inficetior rure, Simul poeta attigit, neque idem unquam Aeque est beatus ac poema cum scribit, Tam gaudet in se, temque se ipse miratur.

You may for ought I know have a good faculty at some other things; but you very unhappily please your self in drawing of consequences; which for the most part are very infirm and naught, as in particular I have abundantly manifested that to be, which you now speak of. But you conclude; I tell you plainly and without tergiversation before God and all his holy Angels what I should think if I descended to any conclusion in this affair. And it is this, Either the Papist who holds at this day all these articles of faith which were delivered at the first conversion of this land by Saint Austin, is unjustly become odious among us, or else my honest Parsons, threw of your Cassocks, and resign your benefices and [illegible] into the hands of your neighbours whose they were [illegible]. My consequence is irrefragable. And I [illegible] you plainly that I greatly pity you for your [illegible], and that on many accounts. First, that in the same breath wherein you so solemnly protest before God and his holy Angels, you should so openly prevaricate, as to intimate that you descend to no conclusions in this affair, wherein notwithstanding your pretences you really dogmatize and that with as much confidence as it is possible I think for any man to do. And 2. that you cast before God and his holy Angels the light froth of your scoffing expressions, my honest Parsons, &c. a sign with what conscience you are conversant in these things. And 3. that undertaking to write and declare your mind in things of the nature and importance that these are of, you should have no more judgement in them or about them, then so solemnly to entitle such a trifling sophism by the name of irrefragable consequence. As also 4. that in the solemnity of your protestation you forgot to express your mind in sober sense; for aiming to make a disjunctive conclusion you make the parts of it not at all disparate, but coincident as to your intention, the one of them being the direct consequent of the other. 5. That you so much make naked your desires after benefices and gleab lands, as though they were the great matter in contest among us, which reflects no small shame and stain on Christian Religion and all the professors of it. 6. Your irrefragable consequence is a most pitiful piece of sophistry, built upon I know not how many false suppositions, as 1. that Papists are become odious to us, whereas we only reject your Popery, love your persons, and approve of your Christianity. 2. That Papists brought us the first tidings of the Gospel, which has been sufficiently before disproved. 3. That Papists hold all things in religion that they did, and as they did, who first brought us the news of Christianity, which we have also manifested to be otherwise in the signal instance of the opinion of Pope Gregory about your Papal Power and titles. 4. That we have no occasion of exception against Papists, but only their holding the things that those did, who first preached the Gospel here; when that is no cause at all of our exceptions, but their multitude of pretended articles of faith, and idolatrous superstitious practices in worship, superadded by them since that time, are the things they stand charged withal. Now your consequent being built on all these suppositions, fit to hold a principal place in Lucian's vera historia, must needs be irrefragable.

What you add farther on this subject, is but a repetition in other words of what you had said before, with an application of your false and groundless supposition to our present differences; but yet least you should flatter your self, or your disciples deceive themselves with thoughts that there is any thing of weight or moment in it, shall also be considered. You add then, that if any part, much more if any parts, great substantial parts of religion brought into the land with the first news of Christianity be once rejected (as they are now among us) as Romish or Romanical, and that rejection or reformation be permitted, then may other parts and all parts, if the gap be not stopped, be looked upon at length as points of no better a condition.

I have given you sundry instances already, undeniably evincing that some opinions of them who first bring the news of Christian Religion to any, may be afterwards rejected without the least impeachment of the Truth of the whole, or of our faith therein. Yes, men may be necessitated so to reject them, to keep entire the Truth of the whole. But the rejection supposed, is of men's opinions that bring Christian Religion, and not of any parts of Christian Religion itself. For the mistakes of any men whatever, whether in speculation or practice about Religion, are no parts of Religion, much less substantial parts of it. Such was the opinion of the necessity of the observation of Mosaical Rites taught with a suitable practice, by many believers of the Circumcision, who first preached the Gospel in sundry places in the world. And such were the Rites and opinions brought into England by Austin that are rejected by Protestants, if any such there were, which as yet you have not made to appear. There is no such affinity between Truth and error, however any men may endeavor to blend them together, but that others may separate between them, and reject the one without any prejudice to the other; male sarta gratia nequaquam coit. Yes, the Truth and Light of the Gospel is of that nature, as that if it be once sincerely received in the mind and embraced, it will work out all those false notions, which by any means together with it may be instilled: as rectum is index sui & obliqui. While then we know and are persuaded that in any system of Religion which is proposed to us, it is only error which we reject, having an infallible Rule for the guidance of our judgment therein, there is no danger of weakening our assent to the Truth which we retain. Truth and falsehood can never stand upon the same bottom, nor have the same evidence, though they may be proposed at the same time to us, and by the same persons. So that there is no difficulty in apprehending how the one may be received, and the other rejected. Nor may it be granted (though their concernment lie not therein at all) that if a man reject or disbelieve any point of Truth that is delivered to him in an entire system of Truths, that he is thereby made inclinable to reject the rest also, or disabled to give a firm assent to them, unless he reject or disbelieve it upon a notion that is common to them all. For instance: he that rejects any Truth revealed in the Scripture on this ground, that the Scripture is not an infallible Revelation of divine and supernatural Truth, cannot but in the pursuit of that apprehension of his, reject also all other Truths therein revealed, at least so far as they are knowable only by that Revelation. But he that shall disbelieve any Truth revealed in the Scripture, because it is not manifest to him to be so revealed, and is in a readiness to receive it when it shall be so manifest, upon the Authority of the Author of the whole, is not in the least danger to be induced by that disbelief to question any thing of that which he is convinced so to be revealed. But as I said, your concernment lies not therein, who are not able to prove that Protestants have rejected any one part, much less substantial part of Religion; and your conclusion upon a supposition of the rejection of errors and practices of the contrary to the Gospel or principles of Religion, is very infirm. The ground of all your sophistry lies in this, that men who receive Christian Religion, are bound to resolve their faith into the Authority of them that preach it first to them: whereupon it being impossible for them to question any thing they teach without an impeachment of their absolute infallibility, and so far the Authority which they are to rest upon, they have no firm foundation left for their assent to the things which as yet they do not question, and consequently in process of time may easily be induced so to do. But this presumption is perfectly destructive to all the certainty of Christian Religion. For whereas it proposes the subject matter of it to be believed with divine faith and supernatural, it leaves no formal reason or cause of any such faith, no foundation for it to be built upon, or principle to be resolved into. For how can divine faith arise out of human authority! For acts being specificated by their objects, such as is the Authority on which a man believes, such is his faith, human if that be human, divine if it be divine. But resolving as we ought all our faith into the Authority of God revealing things to be believed, and knowing that Revelation to be entirely contained in the Scriptures, by which we are to examine and try whatever is by any man or men proposed to us as an object of our faith, they proposing it only upon this consideration that it is a part of that which is revealed by God in the Scripture for us to believe, without which they have no ground nor warrant to propose any thing at all to us in that kind, we may reject any of their proposals which we find and discern not to be so revealed, or not to be agreeable to what is so revealed, without the least weakening of our assent to what is revealed indeed, or making way for any man so to do. For while the formal reason of faith remains absolutely unimpeached, different apprehensions about particular things to be believed, have no efficacy to weaken faith itself, as we shall further see in the examination of your ensuing discourse.

The same way and means that lopt off some branches, will do the like to others, and root too: (but the errors and mistakes of men are not branches growing from the root of the Gospel) A vilification of that church wherein they find themselves who have a mind to prevaricate upon pretense of Scripture and power of interpreting it, light, spirit or reason, adjoined with a personal obstinacy that will not submit, will do it roundly and to effect. This first brought off the Protestants from the Roman Catholic Church; this lately separated the Presbyterians from the English Protestant Church, the Independent from the Presbyterian, and the Quakers from the other Independent. And this left good, maintains nothing of Christian Religion but the moral part, which indeed and truth is but honest Paganism. This speech is worthy of all serious consideration.

That which this Discourse seems to amount to, is that if a man question or reject any thing that is taught by the Church whereof he is a member, there remains no way for him to come to any certainty in the remaining parts of Religion, but that he may on as good grounds question and reject all things as any. As you phrase the matter, by mens vilifying a Church which a mind to prevaricate upon pretence of Scripture, &c. though there is no consequence in what you say, yet no man can be so mad as to plead in justification of such a proceeding. For it is not much to be doubted, but that he who layeth such a foundation, and makes such a beginning of a separation from any Church, will make a progress suitable thereunto. But if you will speak to your own purpose, and so as they may have any concernment in what you say with whom you deal, you must otherwise frame your hypothesis. Suppose a man to be a member of any Church, or to find himself in any Church state with others, and that he does at any time by the light and direction of the Scripture, discover any thing or things to be taught or practised in that Church whereof he is so a member, which he cannot assent to, unless he will contradict the Revelation that God has made of himself, his mind and will, in that compleat Rule of all that Religion and worship which are pleasing to him, and therefore does suspend his assent thereunto, and therein dissent from the determination of that Church; then you are to assert for the promotion of your design, that all the Consequents will follow which you expatiate upon. But this supposition fixes immoveably upon the penalty of forfeiting their interest in all saving truth, all Christians whatever, Greeks, Abissines, Armenians, Protestants in the Churches wherein they find themselves, and so makes [illegible] all their attempts for their reconciliation to the Church of Rome. For do you think they will attend to you, when you perswade them to a relinquishment of the Communion of that Church wherein they find themselves to joyn with you, when the first thing you tell them is, that if they do so, they are undone and that for ever? And yet this is the summ of all that you can plead with them, if there be any sense in the Argument you make use of against our relinquishment of the opinions and practises of the Church of Rome, because we or our forefathers were at any time members thereof, or lived in its communion. But you would have this the special privilege of your Church alone. Any other Church a man may leave, yes all other Churches besides; he may relinquish the principles wherein he has been instructed, yes it is his duty to renounce their Communion; only your Church of Rome is wholly sacred; a man that has once been a member of it must be so for ever; and he that questions any thing taught therein, may on the same grounds question all the Articles of faith in the Christian Religion. And who gave you leave to suppose the only thing in Question between us, and to use it as a medium to educe your Conclusion from? Is it your business to take care, bullatis ut tibi nugis Pagina turgescat, dare pondus idonea fumo. We know the condition of your Roman Church to be no other then that of other Churches, if it be not worse then that of any of them. And therefore on what terms and reasons soever, a man may relinquish the opinions and renounce the Communion of any other Church, upon the same may he renounce the Communion and relinquish the opinions of yours. And if there be no reasons sufficiently cogent so to deal with any Church whatever, I pray on what grounds do you proceed to perswade others to such a Course, that they may joyn with you? —Dicisque facisque quod ipse Non Sani esse hominis non sanus juret Orestes. To disintangle you out of this Labyrinth whereinto you have cast your self, I shall desire you to observe, that if the Lord Christ by his Word be the Supreme Revealer of all Divine Truth; and the Church, that is any Church whatever, be only the Ministerial proposer of it, under and from him, being to be regulated in all its propositions by his Revelation, if it shall chance to propose that for Truth, which is not by him revealed, as it may do, seeing it has no security of being preserved from such failures, but only in its attendance to that Rule, which it may neglect or corrupt: a man in such a Case cannot discharge his Duty to the Supreme Revealer, without dissenting from the Ministerial proposer. Nay if it be a Truth which is proposed, and a man dissent from it, because he is not convinced that it is revealed, he is in no danger to be induced to question other Propositions, which he knows to be so revealed, his faith being built upon, and resolved into that Revelation alone. All that remains of your discourse lyes with its whole weight on this presumption, because some men may either wilfully prevaricate from the Truth, or be mistaken in their apprehensions of it, and so dissent from a Church that teacheth the truth, and wherein she so teacheth it, without cause; therefore no man may or ought to relinquish the errors of a Church, which he is really and truly convinced by Scripture and solid reason suitable thereunto, so to be. An inference so wild and so destructive of all assurance in every thing that is knowable in the world, that I wonder how your Interest could induce you to give any countenance to it. For if no man can certainly and infallibly know any thing by any way or means wherein some or other are ignorantly or wilfully mistaken, we must bid adiew for ever to the certain knowledge of any thing in this world. And how slightly soever you are pleased to speak of Scripture Light, Spirit and Reason, they are the proper names of the ways and helps that God has graciously given to the sons of men, to come to the knowledge of himself. And if the Scripture by the assistance of the Spirit of God, and the light to it communicated to men by him, be not sufficient to lead them in the use and improvement of their Reason to the saving knowledge of the will of God, and that assurance therein which may be a firm foundation of acceptable obedience to him, they must be content to go without it; for other ways and means of it, there are none. But this is your manner of dealing with us. All other Churches must be sleighted and relinquished, the means appointed and sanctified by God himself to bring us to the knowledge of, and settlement in the Truth must be rejected, that all men may be brought to a fanatical unreasonable resignation of their faith to you and your Church; if this be not done, men may with as good reason renounce Truth as Error; and after they have rejected one error, be inclined to cast off all that Truth, for the sake whereof that error was rejected by them. And I know not what other inconveniences and mischiefs will follow: it must needs be well for you, that you are —Gallinae filius albae, Seeing all others are —Viles pulli nati infelicibus ovis. Your only misadventure is, that you are fallen into somewhat an unhappy age, wherein men are hard-hearted, and will not give away their Faith and Reason to every one that can take the confidence to beg them at their hands.

But you will now prove by instances, that if a man deny any thing that your Church proposeth, he may with as good reason deny every Truth whatever. I shall follow you through them, and consider what in your matter or manner of proposal is worthy that serious perusal of them which you so much desire. To begin, see if the Quakers deny not as resolutely the regenerating power of baptism, as you the efficacy of absolution. See if the Presbyterians do not with as much reason evacuate the prelacy of Protestants, as they the papacy. All things it seems are alike, Truth and Error, and may with the same reason be opposed and rejected. And because some men renounce errors, others may on as good grounds renounce the Truth, and oppose it with as solid and cogent reasons. The Scripture it seems is of no use to direct, guide, or settle men in these things that relate to the worship and knowledge of God. What a strange dream has the Church of God been in from the days of Moses, if this be so! Hitherto it has been thought that what the Scripture teacheth in these things turned the scales, and made the embracement of it reasonable, as the rejection of them the contrary. As the woman said to Joab, They were wont to speak in old time, saying, they shall surely ask counsel at Abel, and so they ended the matter: They said in old time concerning these things, To the Law and the Testimonies, search the Scriptures, and so they ended the matter. But it seems tempora mutantur, and that now Truth and Falsehood are equally probable, having the same grounds, the same evidences. Quis leget haec, min, tu istud ais. Do you think to be believed in these incredible figments, fit to bear a part in the stories of Ulysses to Alcinous! Yet you proceed, see if the Socinian arguments against the Trinity, be not as strong as yours against the Eucharist. But where did you ever read any arguments of ours against the Eucharist? Have you a dispensation to say what you please for the promotion of the Catholic cause? Are not the arguments you intend, indeed rather for the Eucharist than against it? Arguments to vindicate the nature of that holy Eucharistical ordinance, and to preserve it from the manifold abuses that you and your Church do put upon it. That is, they are arguments against your Transubstantiation and proper sacrifice that you intend. And will you now say, that the arguments of the Socinians against the Trinity, the great fundamental article of our profession plainly taught in the Scripture, and constantly believed by the Church of all ages, are of equal force and validity, with those used against your Transubstantiation, and sacrifice of the Mass, things never mentioned, no not once in the whole Scripture, never heard of, nor believed by the Church of old, and destructive in your reception to all that reason and sense, whereby we are, and know that we are men and live? But suppose your prejudice and partial addiction to your way and faction, may be allowed to countenance you in this monstrous comparing and coupling of things together like his, who Mortua jungehat corpora vivis; is your inference from your enquiry any other but this, that the Scripture setting aside the authority of your Church, is of no use to instruct men in the Truth, [illegible] all things are alike uncertain to all! And [illegible] you farther manifest to be your meaning in your following enquiries. See say you, if the Jew do not with as much plausibility deride Christ, as you his Church. And would you could see what it is to be a zealot in a faction, or would learn to deal candidly and honestly in things wherein your own and the souls of other men are concerned. Who is it among us that derides the Church of Christ? Did Elijah deride the Temple at Jerusalem, when he opposed the priests of Baal? Or must every one presently be judged to deride the Church of Christ, who opposeth the corruptions that the Roman faction have endeavoured to bring into that part of it, wherein for some ages they have prevailed? What plausibility you have found out in the Jews' derision of Christ, I know not. I know some that are as conversant in their writings at least, as you seem to have been, who affirm that your arguings and revilings are utterly destitute of all plausibility and tolerable pretence. But men must have leave to say what they please, when they will be talking of they know not what; as is the case with you, when by any chance you stumble on the Jews or their concernments. This is that which for the present you would persuade men to; that the arguments of the Jews against Christ, are as good as those of Protestants against your Church, credat Apella. Of the same nature with these is the remainder of your instances and queries. You suppose that a man may have as good reasons for the denial of Hell, as Purgatory; of God's Providence and the soul's immortality, as of any piece of Popery; and then may not want appearing incongruities, tautologies, improbabilities to disable all Holy Writ at once. This is the condition of the man who disbelieves any thing proposed by your Church, nor in that state is he capable of any relief. Fluctuate he must in all uncertainties: Truth and error are all one to him; and he has as good grounds for the one as the other. But sir, pray what serves the Scripture for all this while? Will it afford a man no light, no guidance, no direction? Was this quite out of your mind? Or did you presume your reader would not once cast his thoughts towards it for his relief in that maze of uncertainties which you endeavour to cast him into? Or dare you manage such an impeachment of the wisdom and goodness of God, as to affirm that that Revelation of himself which he has graciously afforded to men to teach them the knowledge of himself, and to bring them to settlement and assurance therein, is of no use or validity to any such purpose? The Holy Ghost tells us, that the Scripture is profitable for doctrine and instruction, able to make the man of God perfect, and us all wise to salvation, that the sure Word of Prophecy, whereto he commands us to attend is a light shining in a dark place; directs us to search into it; that we may come to the acknowledgement of the Truth; sending us to it for our settlement, affirming that they who speak not according to the Law and the Testimonies have no light in them. He assures us that the word of God is a light to our feet, and his Law perfect, converting the soul: that it is able to build us up, and to give us an inheritance among all them that are sanctified: that the things in it are written that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, and that believing we may have life through his name. See also (Luke 16:29, 31; Psalm 19; 2 Peter 1:19; John 5:39; Romans 15:4; Hebrews 4:12). Is there no truth in all this, and much more that is affirmed to the same purpose? Or are you surprised with this mention of it, as Caesar Borgia was with his sickness at the death of his father Pope Alexander, which spoiled all his designs, and made him cry, that he had never thought of it, and so had not provided against it. Do you not know that a volume might be filled with testimonies of ancient fathers, bearing witness to the sufficiency and efficacy of the Scripture for the settlement of the minds of men in the knowledge of God and his worship? Does not the experience of all ages, of all places in the world render your sophistry contemptible? Are there not, were there not millions of Christians always, who either knew not, or regarded not, or openly rejected the authority of your Church, and disbelieved many of her present proposals, who yet were, and are steadfast and immoveable in the faith of Christ, and willingly seal the Truth of it with their dearest blood? But if neither the testimony of God himself in the Scriptures, nor the concurrent suffrage of the ancient Church, nor the experience of so many thousands of the disciples of Christ, is of any moment with you, I hope you will not take it amiss if I look upon you as one giving in yourself as signal an instance of the power of prejudice, and partial addiction to a party and interest, as a man can well meet withal in the world. This discourse you tell me in your close, you have bestowed upon me in a way of supererogation, wherein you deal with us as you do with God himself. The duties he expressly by his commands requireth at your hands; you pass by without so much as taking notice of some of them; and others, as those of the second commandment you openly reject, offering him somewhat of your own that he does not require, by the way, as you barbarously call it of supererogation; and so here you have passed over in silence that which was incumbent on you to have replied to, if you had not a mind vadimonium deserere, to give over the defence of that cause you had undertaken; and in the room thereof substitute this needless and useless diversion, by the way as you say of supererogation. But yet because you were too free of your charity, before you had paid your debts, as to bestow it upon me, I was not unwilling to require your kindness, and have therefore sent it you back again, with that acknowledgement of your favor wherewith it is now attended.