Mixture of Scholastical Divinity with Practical Part 2, Excerpt and reply 32 – Excerpt and reply 33
Dr. …. sect. 41.
To discover this deceit then, the Syllogisme, which is now no Syllogisme, must bee somewhat better formed, according to the rules of Logick, and reduced, as … as it can, into a true Syllogisme. Thus,
Whatsoever is it self undecent, cannot be the onelyonly rule of Decency.
But custome is it self undecent.
Therefore Custome cannot be the onelyonly rule of ….
Here before it can be defined, whether this be a regular Syllogisme, or no? It must bee demanded, quanta est minor, is the assumption universal or particular? If it be particular, then either the conclusion must be particular also, or else 'tis a false Syllogisme. And if the … be particular, then it inferres no more, than that some undecent custome cannot be the onelyonly rule of decency, which is … granted by me, who doe not at all affirm it of undecent …. But if the Minor be universal, then 'tis a false proposition; for certainly all cust mes are not indecent. The short is, Nature may bee the rule of one sort of decency, and Custome … onelyonly rule of another; … if the custome be in it self indecent, then of such indecent custome it is not pretended, that it is either onelyonly, or at all the rule of decency. And so still my proposition may stand good, which as it belonged not to natural decency, so much lesse to what is by nature, or in it selfe undecent, never imagining it reasonable, that what gestures were against those Laws of Nature, or Scripture, or any other Law of decency, or rather of naturall … and …, … by pretense of any custome whatever, be … into Gods …: 'Tis sufficient that some customes, may bee decent, or in themselves not indecent, and that all decency in the service of God, is to be regulated and … of … … with them: For I said not, that all customes were the … of …, … that some were, and that there was no other rule, but custome. This, I hope, hath discovered the invalidity of his second Argument.
Jeanes.
My Syllogisme is, as I have demonstrated, a true Syllogisme; you might then very well have spared the paines you have taken to reduce it, as neare as you could, to a true Syllogisme; for there was no need of it: You deserve then no … for your labour, but I have reason to expect reparation from you for … of my Syllogisme: This Section therefore I might wholly passe over, but yet I shall stay a while upon the examination of a second restriction that you put upon your dictate: you have already told us, that it is not to be understood of all decency. Now you give us to understand, that 'tis not meant of all custome, but onelyonly of some such as are not … …; when you say custome is the onelyonly rule of decency, your meaning is some customes are the only rule of some kind of decency in the Ceremonies of Gods worship.
But whether this liberty which you assume in thus limiting your position bee justifiable, is very questionable; for after this rate, what … absurdities … any man maintain? If I should say, that solum brutum est animal: that a spirit only is substance: that number onelyonly is quantity: that Baptisme is the only Sacrament of the New Testament: would not every one cry out against these propositions as untrue, as well they might? and doe you thinke they would passe for …? though I should come with an after game, and goe about to limit them, in such a manner as you have done, by your assertion, and say, my … was, that solum brutum est animal irrationale: that a spirit onelyonly is an … substance: that number onelyonly is … quantity: that … is the onelyonly Sacrament of the New Testament of initiation; and yet these restrictions are altogether as fair and allowable as yours.
2. I did not think your proposition capable of having an universal sign affixed unto it; and my reason was, because as Aquinas p. 1. q. 31. art. 3. observeth out of the Summularii, dictio … immobilitat terminum cut adjungitur, ut non … … sub eo descensus pro … suppositorum, non enim sequitur, … … is animal rationale mortale: Ergo solus Socrates.
But yet notwithstanding this, I thought your proposition might be … de …, as they say; and so, though it were not formally, it would be … universal.
But now I shall … aside this conjecture, because you inform us, that your indefinite proposition, was intended by you for a particular proposition, only I shall propound some objections against your making it a particular proposition.
1. When you … Custome is the only rule of Decency, you speak of Custome either formally or materially; if you speak of Custome formally and … as Custome, why then every Custome is a rule of Decency, because à quatenus … de omni valet consequentia, that which doth agree to a thing as such, doth agree to every singular contained under it: but if you speak of Custome only …, and your meaning be, that Custome sub tali formali under such a consideration or qualification, is the only rule of Decency, why then this formale, this consideration or qualification of Custome, may, with farre better reason, be said to bee the importance of the Apostles foreign, then according unto Custome, … … will be but the materiale in the rule of Decency.
2. Untill you expresse how those some … may be qualified, that you make to be the onelyonly rule of Decency, your interpretation of the … …, Let all things be done decently, will be very obscure, … …, if not … …, yet … … ignotum, and your proof that you bring for your Exposition will be as dark and doubtsome: Thus both will runne, Let all things be done according to some customes, because some customes are the only rule in some things of some decency, whether that which you call the clear importance of the place, do … leave the Reader in an uncertainty, be you your self judge.
3. The quantity of indefinite propositions may be gathered from their …; in a necessary matter they are universal, in a contingent, particular: Now I demand whether to be the rule of decency be predicated of custome necessarily or contingently? if necessarily, then custome cannot but be the rule of decency, and then all custome is a rule of decency: A necessary proposition that is affirmative, direct, natural, where superius praedicatur de …, or … de in …, is also de omni: if it be predicated of it contingently, then custome may bee, and may not be a rule of decency, and then I desire you to evidence unto us how … being thus a rule of decency, viz. contingently, will be a solid proof, that the clear importance of the Apostles words, Let all things bee done decently, is, let all things be done according unto custome? and your best and … way to clear this unto us, will bee by reducing your argument into a Syllogisme.
4. If to be a rule of decencie be predicated contingently of …, then custome is onelyonly a … … of …, and therefore it needs regulation by a higher rule; and if there be in the Ceremonies of Gods … a higher rule then custome, it will hereupon inevitably follow, that custome is not in them the onelyonly rule of decency.
5. You implyedly give us the Character of those Customes which you affirm to be the only rule of decency, when you say, that of such undecent customs it is not pretended, that 'tis either only, or at all the rule of decency: Now all customs, in the Ceremonies of Gods service, are either decent or undecent: the Custome that is undecent is not at all a rule of decency, and therefore your position is to be understood of that Custome which is decent: for betwixt decent and undecent customes in the Ceremonies of Gods service there is no medium, as I have shewed already: the upshot of your meaning then is, that some Customes, viz. such as are decent, are the onelyonly rule of decency, &c. What sobrietie is in this limitation will appeare, if we will consider that herein we have a twofold decency: one in the rule, decent customes; another in the thing, regulated decency: The former is different from, and antecedent unto the latter: now of the former decency, in the rule, in custome it self, I demand, What is the rule of that decency, whether custome it self, or some other thing? I presume you will not say Custome it self; for then it would be an underived, unsubordinate, and independent rule, a role of it selfe: and if you should say that some other thing besides custome is the rule of the decency which is in custome, thon by conformity unto this, we must judge of the decency of Customes in the Ceremonies of Gods worship, whether they be decent or undecent? and from this it is obvious to inferre, that in Ceremonies there is a rule of decency antecedent unto Custome, by which Custome it self is to be regulated and measured; and therefore Custome is not the onelyonly rule of Decency. Your limitation then is so farre from being any support unto your position, as that it giveth unto it a plain overthrow.
Dr. Hammond. sect. 42.
His last argument [because there is decency in the first usage of some things] falls upon that mistake of my words which I discoursed of, and cleared at the beginning; for I never said that a thing must be customary, before it is decent in any kind: … knowing unquestionably that there is a naturall decency) but that the decency of any Ceremony in Gods service, wherein God and Nature have prescribed nothing particularly, must be regulated according to those measures, which the customes of any place doe allow to be reverentiall among them; or, in yet plainer words, the civil customes of any nation, by which this or that sort of gesture is rendered a token of reverence, are the onelyonly rule, by which the decency of indifferent gestures, &c. is to be judged of, in order to Gods service. And so much for the last argument also, and consequently for the first part of his exception, that against my interpretation of foreign decently.
Jeanes.
You talke indeed, Section the ninth, of such a mistake of your words, but prove it not. Now to prevent all mistakes. I shall come up unto your limitation: Custome is not the onelyonly rule of all decency in the Ceremonies of Gods service, wherein God and Nature have prescribed nothing particularly: Verbi gratid, in the Surplice and Crosse: For your Principles I suppose will lead you to assert the decency of the first usage of the Crosse in Baptisme, and of the Surplice in Preaching and Praying; and indeed if the first usage of these Ceremonies was undecent, it was sinfull: and besides, this decency was not a natural decency, dictated by the Law of Nature, as you your self will confesse; but now if there were a decency in the first usage of these Ceremonies, Custome was not, could not be rule thereof, because, as I declared out of Aristotle and Aquinas, the frequent usage of a thing is required unto Custome.
For conclusion of this first part of mine exception, I shall intreat the Reader to take notice of the definition of Custome, usually quoted out of …: Consuetudo est jus quoddam moribus institutum quod pro lege suscipitur cum lex deficit. By this definition, Custome hath not the force of a Law, but where the Law is defective, and the Word, the Law of God is not defective in appointing religious mystical Ceremonies, for 'tis so sufficiently profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousnesse, as that the man of God may thereby be perfected, throughly furnished unto all good works, 2 Tim. 3. 16, 17. I shall therefore conclude that Custome doth not, cannot oblige unto any religious, mystical Ceremonies, besides those which God hath instituted in his Word.