1. It would fill many volumes to do it, as the number and quality of the objections do require. 2. Those that require it are yet so lazy, that they will not read this much which I have already written, as esteeming it too long. 3. They may find it done already by commentators, if they will but have the patience to peruse them. 4. I have laid down that evidence for the main cause of godliness and Christianity, by which he that well digesteth it, will be enabled himself to defend it against abundance of cavils, which I cannot have time to enumerate and answer. 5. The scribbles of self-conceited men are so tedious, and every one so confident that his reasons are considerable, and yet every one so impatient to be contradicted and confuted, that it is endless to write against them, and it is unprofitable to sober readers, as well as tedious to me, and ungrateful to themselves. To instance but in the last that came to my hands, an 'Inquisitio in Fidem Christianorum hujus seculi :' (the name prefixed I so much honour, that I will not mention it :) p. 3, he calleth confidence in error by the name of certainty, as if every man were certain that hath but ignorance enough to overlook all cause of doubting. P. 13, he will not contend if you say, that it is by divine faith, that we believe the words to be true which are God's; and by human faith, by which we believe them to be the words of God. He saith, that faith hath no degrees; but is always equal to itself: to believe is to assent, and to doubt is to suspend assent; ergo, where there is the least doubt, there is no faith; and where there is no doubt, there is the highest faith; ergo, faith is always in the highest, and is never more or less: and yet it may be called small when it is quasi nulla, (that quasi, is to make up a gap,) in respect of the subject, or at least hardly yielded; and in regard of the object, when few things are believed. P. 26, he maketh the Calvinists to be enthusiasts, that is, fanatics, because they say, that they know the Scripture by the Spirit: as if, subjectively, we had no need of the Spirit to teach us the things of God; and, objectively, the Spirit of miracles and sanctification, were not the notifying evidence or testimony of the truth of Christ. The same name he vouchsafeth them that hold that the Scripture is known by universal tradition to be God's word, and every man's own reason must tell him (or discern) the meaning of it. And he concludeth, that if every one may expound the Scripture, even in fundamentals, then every man may plead against all inagistrates, in defence of

murder, or any other crime, as a rational plea; and say, why should you punish me for that which God hath bid me do? As if God would have no reasonable creature, but brutes only to be his subjects. As if a man could knowingly obey a law, which he neither knoweth, nor must know the meaning of, and is bound to do he knoweth not what. And as if the king's subjects must not understand the meaning of the fifth commandment, nor of Rom. xiii. 1, "Honour thy father and mother ;" and, "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers, and not resist." Or, as if kings must govern only dogs and swine; or might make murder, adultery, idolatry, and perjury, the duty of all their subjects when they pleased, because none must judge of the meaning of God's law by which they are forbidden: or, as if it were the only way to make men obedient to kings and parents, to have no understanding that God commandeth any man to obey them, nor to know any law of God that doth require it. Or, as if all our pastors and teachers were not to be so useful to us as a sign-post; nor we were not to learn of them or of our parents any thing that God, either by nature or Scripture, ever taught us: or, as if a child or subject, who is required to learn the meaning of his ruler's laws, to judge of them judicio privatæ discretionis, were thereby allowed to misunderstand them, and to say that they command us that which they forbid us ; and because the king forbiddeth us to murder, he alloweth us to say, you proposed it to my understanding, and I understand it that you bid me murder, and therefore you may not punish me. As if he that is bound to judge by a bare discerning what is commanded him, and what forbidden, were allowed to judge, in partem utramlibet, that it is or it is not, as please himself. As if when the king hath printed his statutes, he had forfeited all his authority by so doing, and his subjects might say, why do you punish us for disobeying your laws, when you promulgated them to us, as rational creatures, to discern their sense? Will it profit the world to write confutations of such stuff as this; or must a man that is not condemned to stage-playing or balladmaking, thus waste his time? Do the people need to be saved from such stuff as this? If so, what remedy, but to pity them, and say, 'Quos perdere vult Jupiter hos dementat, et si populus vult decipi, decipiatur.'

And yet to do no more wrong to the Scriptures, than to councils, and bulls, and statutes, and testaments, and deeds, and bonds, he concludeth, "Of all writings whatsoever, that by the

mere words of the writer you cannot be certain of his sense, though they be common words, and you take them in the common sense.' So that if any doubt arise about my words, if I resolve it by writing, I cannot be understood; but if I spake the same syllables by word of mouth, it would serve the turn. -As if no man could be sure of the sense of any law, or testament, or bond, or covenant, which is committed to writing, nor of any exposition of them, if once it fall under pen or press. As if God's writing the Ten Commandments had left them unintelligible, in comparison of his speaking them: then farewell all historical certainty. Hath every single priest himself any assurance of the sense of the council, the canons, the pope's decretals and bulls, but by the way of writing? And so the poor people must, instead of the church, believe only that priest that orally speaketh to them, though he have no certainty of the matter himself. If this doctrine be made good once, it will spoil the printers' trade, and the clerks', and the courts of record, and the post-office, too.

But, p. 51, he maketh the consent of the universal church to be the only sure communication of christian doctrine in the articles of faith; yea, the consent of the present age concerning the former. But how the consent of the whole church shall be certainly known to every man and woman, when no writing can certainly make known any man's mind, is hard to tell a man that expecteth reason. And that you may see how much the subject of this treatise is concerned in such discourses, he addeth, "That if the church had at any time been small, its testimony had been doubtful; but (saith he) it testifieth of itself that Christians were never few ;" and therefore it is to be believed. But we will have no such prevaricating defence of Christianity. The major is the infidel's erroneous cavil; the minor is a false defence of the faith. The church never said that Christians were never few: it hath ever confessed the contrary, that once they were few; and yet it hath proved against the infidel, that its testimony was not doubtful, having better evidence of their veracity than numbers.

You may perceive by these strictures upon this one discourse, what an endless task it would be to write confutations of every man that hath leisure to publish to the world his opinions, which are injurious to the christian verity. And, therefore, no sober reader will expect that I or he must be so tired, before he can be satisfied and settled in the truth.

MORE REASONS

FOR THE

CHRISTIAN RELIGION,

AND

NO REASON AGAINST IT:

OR,

A SECOND APPENDIX TO THE REASONS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION,

BEING

I. An Answer to a Letter from an unknown person, charging the Holy Scriptures with contradiction.

II. Some Animadversions on a Tractate de 'Veritate,' written by the noble and learned Lord Edward Herbert, Baron of Cherbury, &c., and printed at Paris, 1624, and at London, 1633; resolving Twelve Questions about Christianity.