Sure Footing in Christianity, Discourse 7
THE Seventh Discourse EXAMINED. About an Objection cleared.
IN this Discourse the summe may be taken in 3 Heads general.
1. An objection and proposed answered. Sect. 1.
2. An Elucidation of the a…swer by stating the rise of Heresie. Ss. 2. 3. 4.—
3. A close excusing th s Parergon, by the usefulness of it. Sect 5.
1. The Objection formed by him, may run thus, There have been actually many Hereticks or Deserters of Tradition, therefore Tradition must needs have been defective and interrupted.
We understanding this Tradition to be of the Primitive Doctrine of Christ, (whether it be Oral or Scriptural) do grant the Antecedent, There have been many Heretical Deserters of that Tradition which the Discourser cannot deny; however he would wave the Consequence as concluding against his Daemon. But we yeeld the whole Argument, and shall maintain it.
1. The Antecedent is verified all along, since that Man of sin, and son of perdition was revealed, who exalted himself above the foreign, or Augusti, 2 Thes. 2.4.and sat in the Temple of God, shewing himself that he was God. Thus his Ʋniversal Head hath done; and he and his Hierarchy have been and are the sons of that great Apost…cy, who did desert the true Faith of Christ taught and written to them; and are turned and keep unto most damnable Heresies that ever were invented. These prove plainly a defection from, and an interruption of the true Tradition from Christ.
2. The Consequent therefore of Traditions defectiveness cannot be denied; neither dareth the man here expresly to deny it. Only so farre as his skill serveth him, he labours notwithstanding to assert his conclusion, the Indefectiveness of his Tradition. His props are broken Reeds, which fall with their building by a touch.
1. Contingency is urged, Such a thing may be in working upon a whole species or kind; an yet the general Indeficiency ab…de. We can tell him, there is not only a Contingency, 1 Cor. 11.19.but a necessity laid by heaven; that such Heresies must be, that they who are approved may be made manifest. Yet again if it be but a Contingent defect of Trad…tion, it is enough to destroy the Indef ctibility.
2. It is a most gross untruth, That the Causes propagating faith to Posterity, are as Effic…cious, s those which are laid to propagate mankind; unworthy of a man of Reason to utter. For, the Causes …f Mans propagation are natural and laid under providence necessarily producing the same kind; but the causes of Faiths conveiance and preservation among men, such as the Author mentions, Fore-fathers teaching, Church Inspection &c. are voluntary, depending on mans will; and therefore weak and uncertain to produce the effect intended. Are these equal then in force of propagation? Besides the reason added is insipid; Because Faith continueth no longer than Mankind its only Subject. Suppose th…s true: Is therefore Faiths Propagation as extensive and sure as Mankinds? Or is Faith con-natural to Mankind? Or because Faith is competent only to Man, is it proper to all men? What mea…s the man by such wild kind of reasonings? As well might he say; Mankind is born learned.
3. It is as frothy a suggestion, he maketh in the next place, That these Causes of Faiths propagation before explicated, are effectively powerful to make multitudes daily debar themselves of those pleasures, which are the Causes of Mankinds propagation. The Inference hence must be, that Faiths propagation is more ample and sure, because it hinders the propagation of men O monstrous fruit of Popish Tradition. What can he mean, but that his Traditionary faith hindreth men from marrying, and so from p…opagating their kind; that their F…ith may have the better increase? Which is one express character of Antichristian Apostasie to forbid men to marry. And the Author here confesseth that his Traditionary faith puts a bar unto such marriage pleasures allowed and ordained of God for propagation of Mankind, and so his Church among them. Unless he mean adulterous and unlawful pleasures; which he knows that his Traditionary Faith could never bar out of their Monasteries and Nunneries: and that it hath allowed common stews for the relief of those Monastical Persons, to whom they have interdicted Marriage, as an unholy thing. Their own Children of Rome have written, and testified these things to their faces. Why then should not the Discourser blush to render such a reason of Faiths more certain increase to a Posterity of Beleevers, then the Propagation of all Mankind? If he will not, we shall cast a vail over him and pass away.
4. As to his last proof from History, since the first planting of Christianity, Th…t by experience we shall find more particular failing in propagating their Kind than their Faith.
1. We challenge him to produce such an History, or else he is a Fabler.
2. We charge him with this Issue, which must follow from his History alledged, That there have been more Believers born than men. For if Faith have failed less in its propagation, than men in propagating their kind; there must needs be more Faith than Manhood in the world, Risum teneatis Amici? If the Discourser be a reasonable man, and learned as he seemeth to profess himself, let him clear himself from this absurd Consequence of his Historical proof: Or if not, let him ingeniously say he was mistaken: but if he will not, all men may see that a spirit of perverseness doth misguide him. So much to his answer of the Objection.
2. All that follows in Ss. 2, 3, & 4. The Discourser himself stileth very truly a Parergon, that is, a Glosse besides the Text, or a needless digression, beside the matter in hand, or a troublesome Parenthesis, justly to be expunged; Yet not to leap over all at once (as justly it may be slighted) we shall make some steps over it, in a way of Animadversion. In the second and third he sheweth the Rise and growth of Heresie; In the fourth the sad consequents of the same.
We shall not repeat all he saith, but animadvert upon his passages S. 2.
1. He supposing Heresie an Evil incident in the visible Church, and seducing from it, we add, It must then be the true Primitive Church settled by the Apostles, not the Apostate Church of Rome, (which the Author intends) For it can be no heresie to separate from Hereticks as being such; among which none are greater than Papists sworn to their Trent-Doctrine. And that he must mean this Church, and not the other, every Reader may perceive from his own suggestion: That these Deserters lay hold on some accidental miscarriages, as foolish Opinions or ill lives of some in the Church, which they aggravate b…y…nd all reason to justifie their Rebellion. Were there such foolish opinions in the Church Apostolical? Or such ill lives among them to give occasion unto such, who pretended better, to forsake them? Idolatrous Balaamits indeed, and Lascivious Nicolaitans, left them, because their doctrine was truly spiritual, and and their lives too strict, and holy for them. If the Discourser therefore characterize Hereticks by this, in forsaking a Church for foolish doctrins, and loose lives; It will prove at last better to be such an Heretick, than a member of such a Church, when he saith, that there are but some so bad; and that their failings are aggravated beyond all reason: Let him know that all his Church are alike guilty in matter of Doctrine, if not in beastliness of life; and that false Doctrine and wicked life cannot be aggravated beyond reason or measure upon such as pretend to be of the Church of Christ. It is no Rebellion to relinquish Rome, for wicked opinions and sinful lives; nor an unreasonable crime to aggravate their abominations, which may make the Heavens blush to behold, and be astonished, that they should be acted under the name of Christ.
2. As to his method of inventing new Tenets, and suting them by plausibleness and licentiousness w…th the passionate humors of d…vers; and so drawing into a Faction, get the state on their sides; and so having …ndemnity and hop…s of rewards, their Corrupt …e low Revolters bandy with them against the former Church, and thus a Body is made &c▪ Our return is, 1. Th t t…is is the fairest description of the Me h…d taken by R…me Papal in their Apostasie from Christs Doctrine delivered by the Apostles in word and writing, none could give a more lively discovery of it from History.
2 That this they did by their Oral-Tradition contradicting the Scripture of Truth.
3. The known newness of which to the first settled Doctrine of Christ, is so evident, that to deny it, were (as the Discourser phraseth it) to tell an open lye to no imaginable purpose.
3. As to his Inferences fetcht from the premises.
1. We see plainly that it is the Romish Society, which he covers under the name of the Church, concerning which we professedly assert, that they have erred from the Faith of Christ; and that by their Tradition. And this is proved in the sight of the Christian World, above their contradiction.
2. The Protestants who maintain the former, seek out no new Rule but the first and oldest, even the Scripture of God as senced by himself.
3. They detest private Inspirations inconsistent with the word of God; they scorn quirks of wit to blunder any; their learning is not wordish nor curiously Critical: but such whereby their most learned Jesu…ts have been proved foolish Soph…sters, in defending their cause against the Scriptures of God; even the wisedome of God in his Mystery.
4. They scorn to hook in Romish Catholicks, but tell them plainly that their Infallible and evident way of Tradition is a Lie; neither do they cry victory, but where Gods word (which he cannot deny) prevaileth and puts them to silence.
5. The Protestants are not ambitious of any name, given or assumed by men; They content themselves with that Primitive Name of Christs Disciples, divinely imposed,Act. 11.26. which is Christians, no new Name. As for the name of Catholick they offer to prove. If the reason of it be the holding of the Catholick Faith, delivered by the Apostles, it is most properly theirs; as our own Country men have made good, and that famous Chamier stileth the Protestants commonly by that name in opposition to Papists. His Enumeration of Titles afterwards is ridiculous and scandalous: Who knoweth not that the Papists named them Lutherans and Zuinglians in scorn, who entertained the Doctrine of Christ preached by them? Did Luther or Zuinglius baptize Sects into their own names, any more then the Apostle Paul? The Discourser may be ashamed of such Foolish reflexions. Let Tritheits and Sacramentarians injoy the Title of their Tenets, if they deserve them. The Protestants will maintain their name (however they glory in none, but the name of Christ Jesus put upon them, from their Profession of Christs Truth against Romish and Antichristian Falshood; The Combination they leave to those Popish vassals, that are conspired against the Scripture-Truth.
Lastly, as to the poor Quakers and Dippers, the man knoweth or may know, that his Popish Emissaries have abused them, taught them Quaking and Dipping; and then abuse them. It is known that the Jesuitical Mountebanks have transformed themselves into all sorts of Sectaries, that have been active in these latter times; and that they have more prevailed under a Form of Godliness with poor simple souls to invalidate the Authority of Scriptures, and to deny Just fication of sinners by the Righteousness of Christ without them, by a pretended Christ within them, than ever they have done, since their Trent-Doctrine was established. They have more cause therefore to incourage these so far Proselytes of theirs, than thus to jeer them. It is but a just Diversion to put him upon the reconciling of all the names of the several orders in his own Romish Catholick Profession; there he will find work enough, if he passes by the names of other Sectaries.
2. All in S. 3. is Calumny and slander, cast upon the Protestants; which they blow off easily and truly. 1. They throw not by that Scripture Rule (which they professe) to take up Tradition without it; They maintain not Scriptures Letter their Rule. 2. They never denied Oral-Tradition of that Truth of Christ, which is written. 3. They leave not men to interpret Scripture to their fancies, but mainta…n the sufficiency of Scripture to open it self to rational understanders of it; all the Contradictions then suggested they detest. 4. It is a sin rightly charged upon Romish Powers, to punish any for deserting their Traditionary Rule of Falshood, which they recommend. And a greater sin it is for Protestants to punish those under them for following the Scriptures too close, being the Rule which themselves recommended and applauded, as the whole and sole Basis of their Reformation; for they must sin not only against the Truth, but the Light it self. And that a Papist should charge this upon Protestant Church-Powers before the Sun, if he can prove, it weel say,
—Pudet haec opprobria nobis.
Et dici potuisse. & non potuisse refelli.
We shall yet say, no Principle of Protestantism alloweth this. Let the guilty suffer, let the innocent go free. This makes not Tradition any whit the better, neither renders the Scripture-Rule any whit the worse.
3. In the fourth Sect. He draweth sad consequences from his premises, which we shall only shake off from our Scripture-Rule; whence his use will be as useless, as his Parergon.
1. Protestant Christians learn better from the Scriptures, than to wreak their malice against their Persecuters; or by numbers to involve nations in war and blood. The Scripture Rule teacheth them to pray for those that persecute them, and bless them that curse them. This is the natural Fruit of Scripture Grace; and made good by multitudes of suffering Christians: who will heartily say Amen to that Petition, God of his mercy avert such war and blood from our distracted Nation. This is a malicious insinuation against the Scripture-Rule: They who own it, abhorr disobeying of a certain and known legall Authority, and of making Rebellion, and an unimpowred sword the Defence of Truth.
2. His next insinuation hereupon is to prudent Considerers, how much it conduceth to State-unity and peace, that the Principle of conveying Faith, be built upon Sensible Evidence, acknowledgable by all Mankind, when rightly understood. This in plain Terms is Romish Tradition. And hereupon let us a little querae.
1: How many of Mankind, can or do understand this?
2. Can they who know it, upon due comparing it with the primitive Doctrine of Christ, understand it otherwise than to be a Lie?
3. Is the way of conveying down Faith by lies conducible to State-Unity, and Peace?
4. Why hath not this Tradition made peace among those Popish Nations of Germany, Spain, France, and Portugal. &c. Who are enslaved to it? Nay hath not this Jesuitical-Traditionary Doctrine been the only cause of blood and Massacres in France, &c? The Scripture Rule will advise Christian Rulers and States better for keeping themselves in a prosperous Unity and Peace:Psal. 2, 12. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, &c. Whatever worldly Politicians say; Submission of Thrones and Powers to the Law of the Prince of Peace in the simplicity of the Gospel, is the only way to have swords beaten into Plowshares, and Spears into pruning hooks; and to settle Peace in all Nations. This digression hath been forced by the Discoursers Parergon; leaving his Demonstration: whereunto the trouble of it is due.
3. In Sect. 5. To make amends, he telleth us, The usefulness of this Parergon, serves to elucidate as it were practically and experimentally, the certainty of Tradition, &c.
We shall close up this Discourse with him by some counter-positions.
1. With the best eies we have, we can perceive no Elucidation by all that he hath said of the Certainty of his Romish Tradition; nor any eies but his own, or such as look with his spectacles, can perceive any such thing: But in truth he darkens knowledge by many vain words, as any careful, judicious and impartial Reader will see.
2. The number of the actual Deserters of the way of natural Tradition we judge was none; Seeing constantly Fathers to children, did still convey down their language: but the Revolters from Apostolical Trad…tion were numerous, as the very Scriptures and the next following Centuries do evidence. As to the Deserters of Romish Apostatical Tradition, (for this the Discourser must mean, and he can go no higher) if they were but few (as he observeth) then was fulfilled that Prophesie, That all that dwell upon the Earth should worship that Romish Be…st, and receive his mark,Rev. 13. whose names were not written in the Lambs book of Life. Let him make the best of it.
3. Protestant Revolters from Rome, did maintain Christs Tradition before, though not Popish; neither gave they their Interpretations of Scripture, as Tradition misplace The Disputer is mistaken.
4. The unsavory urging of the means to lessen Mankinds Propagation beneath that of Faith, and greatning the means of Faiths Issue beyond that of Mankind, must nauseate a Rational stomack that hath any savour of Christianity in it: As
1. The numerous contingencies hindring the propagation of mans nature, more than of Faith.
2. The da…ly decay of men, by natural and accidental deaths, not incident to Faith.
3. The whole Nations into which Tradition hath and doth propagate it self &c. without one Deserter of it.
4. The many External Instruments for propagating Faith, when single Progenitors only continue their kind. From all, which he concludes the causes of propagating a Body of Traditionary Christians, are lesse needing any particular Providence, than the keeping on Foot a Body of men. Wherefore they be all roving Arguments in his account, that are against the Perpetuation of his Tradition, and as well may they be against the perpetuating Mankind; And his answer is ready for them, only that they do so.
O the blindness and efficacious delusion which God hath sent upon these seducing Papists, while they contend against his Scripture Truth! Can an understanding Christian beleeve, that there are more Contingencies, or accidents hindring mens propagation than Faiths. If thousands of accidental deaths lessen the number of men, Are there not millions of …ns in every man which are so many spiritual deaths destroying faith? What means the Man by such wild expressions? Doth not also the Faith of men dye with them, as to their being in the world? And besides them, Are there not millions of men in the world surviving, who have no Faith when multitudes of Believers dye? Do only single Progenitors or lawful Fathers beget Children among the Papists? Are there nor as many Adulterous Parents with them as Emissaries who compass sea and lan… to make Rom…sh Proselytes? Is Popish Faith so fruitful by their Tradition? So it may be among Whores: But in Christs own observation, it is otherwise, as to the off-spring of true Faith; So his question imports, when the Son of Man commeth, shall he find Faith in the Earth? Luk. 18.8.He doubts not to …nd men enough; but he foreseeth …e… Beleevers. What the Body of Traditionary Christians means, we may know to be a most …me…o… seed of Papists, to whom he approp…ates that Title: And yet that there should be such a vast number of such corrupt Beleevers, exceeding all other mankind, is most inc…edible; unless the Pope hath …egotten all the earth to him; and then his Men and his Beleevers are but equal; In short, it is little les… then Blasphemy to say, that Faith needs less of particular Providence to produce it than Man, seeing the most special Providence g…eth it, and the arm of God worketh it in special chosen Subjects, to whom it is designed. But what will not a spirit of delusion utter against the Almighty? In fine this sottish discourse, was sufficiently uncovered, as to its folly. S. 1. Neither would we have said any more here, but as provoked with his unsavory re…terations of the same: We shall conclude, here is no Demonstration of Romish Traditions Indefectiveness made good. If yet the Discourse should boldly say, that he ha…h done it; It will be answer enough in his own kind to tell him, That he saies so. Enough of this: We shall inquire further into his second Demonstration.