It may also, in particular, be easily made to appear how unsuited your means of bringing men unto the unity of faith are unto that supposition of the present differences in religion between you ai d us which you proceed upon; for suppose a man be convinced that many things taught by your church are false, luid contrary to the mmd of God, as you know the case to be between you and us, v/hat course would you take with him to reduce him unto the unity of faith? Would you tell him that your church cannot err? or would you endeavour to persuade him that the particulars which he in- stanceth in as errors are not so indeed, but real truths, and neces- sarily by him to be believed? The former, if you would speak it out downright and openly, as becometh men who distrust not the truth of their principles (for he that is persuaded of the truth never fears its strength), would soon appear to be a very wise course indeed. You would persuade a man in general that you cannot err, whilst he gives you instances that you have actually erred. Do not think you have any sophisms against motion in general that will prevail with any man to assent unto you whilst he is able to rise and walk to and fro. Besides, he that is convinced of any thing wherein you err, be- lieves the opposite unto it to be true ; and that on grounds unto him sufficiently cogent to require his assent. If you could now per- suade him that you cannot err, whilst he actually believes things to be true which he knows to be contrary to your determination, what a sweet condition should you bring him into ! Can you enable him to believe contradictions at the same time ? or, when a man, on particular grounds and evidences, is come to a settled, firm persua- sion that any doctrine of your chm-ch (suppose that of transubstan- tiation) is false and contradictory unto Scripture and right reason, if you should, abstracting from particulars, in general puzzle him with sophisms and pretences for your church's infallibility, do you think it is an easy thing for him immediately to forego that persua- sion in particular which his mind, upon cogent, and to him unavoid- able, grounds and arguments, was possessed withal, without a rational
810 A VINDICATION OF THE ANIiAIAD VERSIONS ON FIAT LUX.
removal of those grounds and arguments? Men's belief of things never pierces deeper into their souls than their imagination, who can take it up and lay it down at their pleasure. I am persuaded, there- fore, you would take the latter course, and strive to convince him of his mistakes in the things that he judgeth erroneous in the doctrine of your church. And what way would you proceed by for his con- viction? Would you not produce testimonies of Scripture, with arguments drawn from them, and the suffrage of the Fathers to the same purpose? Nay, would you not do so, if the error he charge you withal be that of the authority and infallibility of your church? I am sure all your controversy-writers of note take this course. And do you not see, then, that you are brought, whether you will or no, unto the use of that way and means for the reducing of men unto the unity of faith which you before rejected, which Protestants avow as sufficient to that purpose?
CHAPTEK IX.
Proposals from protestant principles tending unto moderation and unity.
You may, from what hath been spoken, pei'ceive how, upon your ovvn principles, you are utterly disexiabled to exercise any true modei'ation toAvards dissenters from you ; and that which you do so exercise we are beholding for it, as Cicero said of the honesty of some of the Epicureans, to the goodness of their nature, which the illness of their opinions cannot corrupt; neither are you any way enabled by them to reduce men unto the unity of faith : so that you are not more happy in your proposing of good ends unto yourself than you are unhappy in choosing mediums for the effecting of them. It may be, for your own skill, you are able, like Archimedes, to re- move the earthly ball of our contentions; but you are like him again that you have nowhere to stand whilst you go about your work. Plowever, we thank you for your good intentions : " In magnis vo- luisse," is no small commendation. Protestants, on the other side, you see, are furnished with firm, stable principles and rules in the pursuit both of moderation and vmity ; and there are some things in themselves very practicable, and naturally deducible from the prin- ciples of Protestants, wherein the complete exercise of moderation may be obtained, and a better progress made towards unity than is likely to be by a rigid contending to impose different principles on one another; or by imioetuous clamours of " Lo here, and lo there,"
MODERATION AND UNITY ON PROTESTANT PRINCIPLES. 311
Avhich at present most men are taken up withal. Some few of them I shall name unto you, as a pacific coronis to the preceding critical
discourse; and
• " Si quid novisti rectius istis
Cauciidus inipcrti ; si noii, liis utere mecum." Ilor. Ep. i. 6, 68.