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no Church, or not a Church of Chrift, when you reform'd it; then I would know, how your Church can be a reformed Church? Or your Religion a reformed Religion? For you could not reform what was not; therefore your Religion is not a reformed Religion, but abfolutely a new Religion, i. e. a falfe Religion. Sir, all that is in the best part of your Reply to my Anfwer, may be reduced to these points, and all the Strength of it (if 1 may call fo much Weakness Strength) is contained in them; and had you fent me these, or the like diftinct and plain Queries according to the Laws of Controverfy, you should have had a speedy and clear Anfwer to them; but instead of fuch Queries you fent ine a Medley, manifold, and confufed Query, in Words of uncertain Signification, on purpofe to confound the Controverfy, to caft a Mift before the Eyes of your Female Profelyte, aud to imploy me in feparating one part of it from another, and diftinguishing the ambiguous Terms, in all the parts of it, into their feveral Significations, that I might not come immediately to the Merits of the Caufe, and a clofe and folid Difpute.

II. I fhall confider the most material part of your Reply, which I think may be reduced to thofe Queries, before I have done, but I inuft go on in answering the fcattered Paffages of your Reply, [which for method's fake I am forced to feparate from the reft] and firft of all I must take notice of the fpecial part of your mongrel Query, I mean the Question which lies intrenched between the Suppofition and the Challenge in thefe Words: I'defire to know (if the Proteftant Church be the true one) where it was many hundred Years before Luther? This I told you was not one, but two Questions, which an accurate Adverfary would have propo

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fed thus, ift. I defire to know, if the Proteftant Church be the true Church? If so, then I defire to know, where it was many hundred Years before Luther? To this Charge you reply nothing in your first Paragraph, but only call it a fhort Query, which you could not imagine had fo much of ambiguity in it, as to render it incapable of an Anfwer, you fhould have added, without fo much diftinguishing. But, Sir, the Secrets of your Imagination are beft known to your felf; and if my Imagination may be fet against yours, I cannot but imagine that you, who were the Strophe Inventor, the Dolifabricator, the crafty Architect of all that Ambiguity, must needs be conscious of it, both when you contrived your Query, and when you read my Answer to it. Do you not plainly fee, that the Parenthefis in it, viz. If the Proteftant Church be the true one, is itself one Query? And then the other part, where it was many bundred Years before Luther, you will not deny to be another. If you do not difcern the Parenthefis of your short plain Query [as you call it] to be a Query, or contain the Nature of a Question in it; it is, to return your own Words, because you wink fo bard, you will not fee it. All indifferent Perfons that have but good natural Logick, and much more those who have learned the Artificial, will difcern it at first fight.. But, Sir, to help your Imagination a little, I will beg leave to illuftrate the plural Nature of your Query with fome others of the like fort, in matters of a different Nature. e. g. Sir, I defire to know (if Epifcopacy is of divine Right) whether it was immediately inflituted by Chrift. In this Query, as in yours, there are apparently two Questions, one imply'd in the Parenthefis, If Epifcopacy is of Divine Right; and the other expref

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expreffed, whether it was immediately inflituted by Chrift? And the Refpondent to whom this complex plural Query is propofed, must give it two diftinct Refolutions. First, by anfwering, that Epifcopacy is or is not of Divine Right, and then that it was or was not immediately inftituted by Chrift. Such a Query alfo is this, that muft require two diftinct Answers, and by Confequence be a double Query; Sir, I defire to know if the Carthufians are Monks) who was the Founder of the Order? And this alfo; Sir, I defire to know (if the Cardinals are Dignitaries of the Roman Church) when the Dignity of the Cardinalate began? Thus it is eafie to couch two or more Queries in one, and it is allowable in many ways of Writing for brevity fake. But to do fo in ftrict Controverfy, you know, Sir, is always counted bafe and difhonourable, against the Rules of Logick, and the Honour of all Difputes for Truth. I thought fit to premife thefe parallel Questions in my juftification, before I took notice of what you fay in your IV. Paragraph. There maintaining your Query to be but one, you fay, Now come we to the Queftion, which he takes in peices. This faith be, is not one Queftion but two; I refer it to any Man, there is evidently but one Queftion. And, Sir, I am fo willing to refer it to any Man, that I intend to make all Men Judges of this and every thing elfe in Controverfy between us; and fo let my willingnefs to refer it, be as good an Argument as yours. Then lay you, if I had propofed it in two Queftions, I should have reckoned my felf to have been very formally impertinent. For what reafon bad I to make a Question of it, whether he would fay. the Proteftant Church was the true one or no? Things fo clear are to be fuppofed not asked, by all

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who would not multiply Questions without end. But I am fure, Sir, this Reply of yours is very formally impertinent. First, Because you know I excepted against the complex Phrafe of the Proteftant Church, telling you that there were many Proteftant Churches, of which fome were true, and fome not true Churches; and therefore you could not but queftion, whether I would fay fo improper a thing, as that the Proteftant Church was the true one, when I had fhewed you the Impropriety of the Phrafe, wherein you speak of many independent Churches of different Reformations and Communions, as if they were one. Secondly, You could not in reafon fuppofe, I would fay or allow it, though you had put the Queftion of the Proteftant Church of England. For to fay the Proteftant Church of England is the true one, is either to fuppofe there is no other Proteftant Church, or that it only is the true Proteftant Church, which are equally falfe and abfurd. But, Thirdly, if you had no Reafon to make it a Question, whether or no I would allow the Proteftant Church to be the true one, why did you put it without Reafon in thefe Words, if the Proteflant Church be the true Church? Every if implies a Doubt, and every Doubt implies a Query or Queftion; and therefore it is all one to ask, I defire to know (if the Proteftant Church be the true one) where it was many hundred Years before Luther? As to fay in two Queftion, I defire to know, whether the Prateftant Church be the true one; and if it be, where it was many bundred Years before Luther? The former Query calls the Truth of the Proteftant Religion as much into Doubt, and makes a Question of it, as much as the two latter. And there is no other difference between them, but that the Que

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ftion is expreffed in the one, and implied in the other. Would you not think, Sir, I called your Honesty in queftion, if I fhould fay, I defire to know (if you are an honeft Man) when you'll pay me what you owe me? Fourthly, You ought as much to fuppofe, that I believe and would af firm the Proteftant Religion to be a thoufand Years older than Luther, as that I believe it to be the true one; for it cannot be the true one, unlefs it is as old as the time of the Apoftles: And therefore if fuch a Suppofition was a good Reafon, why the Parenthefis, if the Proteftant Church be the true one, was not a Question, then it is as good a Reafon against the whole Query; and fo you asked nothing, you made noQueftion, but fuppofed all. To conclude in your obliging Words, If you could not take me to be fuch a Knave, as to be of a Religion, I would not fay was the true one, furely you could not take me to be fo much a Fool and Knave too, as to be of a Religion which I did not think to be as much older than Lutber, as St. Peter himself was. I affure you, Sir, I would not be of a Religion, which I did not know and believe to be as old, as the Chriftian Faith; and therefore I can never be of yours.

III. BUT 2dly, to fhew you the fecundity of your Query, and how many others it hath in the Belly of it, I put you in mind, that there were many Proteftant Churches of different kinds; and that before I could answer your Query, I muft ask you (as I thought the Laws of Logick and Difputation obliged me) what Proteftant Church or which of the Proteftant Churches you meant? And when you explained your felf, I told you I would return an Answer. This 1 did to fhew that your Query, befides that comprehended in the

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