341 ftrate, that all men must be good, who have fufficient arguments propounded to them, when experience tells us the contrary. Nay, it is in reafon impoffible, that moral arguments fhould be of a neceffary and infallible efficacy; because they are always propounded to a free agent, who may chufe whether he will yield to them or not. Indeed it is always reafonable, that men should yield to them; and if they be reasonable, they will: but fo long as they are free, it can never be infallibly certain that they will. And if men be not free, it is no virtue at all in them to be wrought upon by these arguments. For what virtue can it be in any man, to entertain the Chriftian doctrine, and adhere to it, and live accordingly, if he does all this neceffarily; that is, whether he will or no; and can no more chufe whether he will do fo or not, than whether he will fee the light when the fun fhines upon his open eyes, or whether he will hear a found when all the bells in the town are ringing in his ears; or (to ufe Mr. S.'s own fimilitudes, P. 53. whether he will feel heat, cold, pain, pleasure, 66 or any other material quality that affects his fenfes ?" We fee then how unreasonable his fuppofitions are; and yet, without thefe grounds, his demonftration falls: for, if it be poffible that Chriftians may mistake or forget the doctrine of Chrift, or any part of it, or be defective in diligence to inftruct others in it; or if it be poffible that the will of man, which is free, may not be neceffarily and infallibly fwayed by the arguments of hope and fear; then it is poffible that tradition may fail. And is not this a good demonftration, which fupports itself upon fuch principles, as do directly affront the conftant experience and the cleareft reafon of mankind? $3. And here I cannot but take notice, how inconfiftent he is to himself in laying the grounds of tradition's certainty. In one part of his book he tells us, 66 tradition hath for its bafis the best naP: 53. that ture in the univerfe, that is, man's; not according "to his moral part, defectible by reafon of original "corruption; nor yet his intellectuals, darkly groping "in the purfuit of fcience, &c.; but according to "thofe faculties in him, perfectly and neceffarily fubject to the operations and ftrokes of nature, that is, Ff3 his "his eyes, ears, handling, and the direct impreffion of "knowledge, as naturally and neceffarily iffuing from "the affecting thofe fenfes, as it is to feel heat, cold, "pain, pleasure, or any other material quality." So that, according to this difcourfe, the bafis of tradition is not man's nature confidered as moral, and capable of intellectual reflexion; for in this confideration, it is dark and defectible: but man's nature, confidered only as capable of direct fenfitive knowledge, as acting naturally and neceffarily which is to fay, that tradition is founded in the nature of man, confidered not as a man, but a brute; under which confideration, I fee no reafon why he fhould call it the best nature in the univerfe. But now, how will he reconcile this difcourfe with the grounds of his demonftration, where he tells us, that the ftability of tradition is founded in the arguments of hope and fear; the objects of which being future and at a distance, cannot work upon a man immediately by direct impreffions upon his fenfes, but muft work upon him by way of intellectual reflexion and confideration? For I hope he will not deny, but that the arguments of hope and fear work upon man according to his moral and intellectual part, elfe how are they arguments? And if man, according to his moral part, be (as he fays) defectible, how can the indefectibility of tradition be founded in thofe arguments which work upon man only according to his moral part? I have purposely all along, both for the reader's eafe and mine own, neglected to take notice of feveral of his inconfiftencies; but thefe are fuch clear and transparent contradictions, that I could do no less than make an example of them. SECT. V. The third answer to his demonftration. § 1. Thirdly, This demonftration is confuted by clear and undeniable inftances to the contrary. I will mention but two. 1ft, The tradition of the one true God, which was the cafieft to be preferved of any doctrine in the world, being fhort and plain, planted in every man's nature, and perfectly fuited to the reafon of mankind. And yet 66 : this tradition, not having paffed through many hands, by reafon of the long age of man, was fo defaced and corrupted, that the world did lapfe into polytheifm and idolatry. Now, a man that were fo hardy as to demonftrate against matter of fact, might, by a ftronger demonstration than Mr. S.'s, prove, that though it be certain this tradition hath failed, yet it was impoffible it fhould fail as Zeno demonstrated the impoflibility of motion, against Diogenes walking before his eyes. For the doctrine of the one true God .was fettled in the "heart of Noah, and firmly believed by him to be the way to happiness; and the contradicting or deferting "of this, to be the way to mifery." And this do&trine was by him fo taught to his children; who were encouraged by these motives, to adhere to this do"trine, and to propagate it to their children, and "6 were deterred by them from relinquishing it. And "this was in all ages the perfuafion of the faithful.” Now, the "hopes of happiness, and the fears of mifery, ftrongly applied, are the causes of actual will. "Befides, the thing was feasible, or within their power; "that is, what they were bred to, was knowable by ❝them; " and that much more easily than any other doctrine whatsoever, being fhort, and plain, and natural. "This put, it follows as certainly, that a great num "ber in each age would continue to hold themselves, "and teach their children as themselves had been "taught, that is, would follow and stick to this tra"dition of the one true God, as it doth, that a caufe "put actually caufing, produceth its effect. Actually, "I fay; for fince the caufe is put, and the patient difpofed, it follows inevitably, that the cause is put "till actually caufing." This demonftration, which concludes an apparent falfhood, hath the whole ftrength of Mr. S.'s, and feveral advantages beyond it. For the doctrine conveyed by this tradition, is the most important, being the first principle of all religion; the danger of corrupting it as great, the facility of preferving it much greater, than of the Chriftian doctrine, for the caufes before mentioned: and yet, after all, it fignifies nothing against certain experience, and unquestionable matter of fact; only it fufficiently fhews the vanity of Mr. Mr. S.'s pretended demonstration, built upon the fame or weaker grounds. §2. 2dly, The other instance shall be in the Greek church, who received the Chriftian doctrine as entire from the Apostles, and had as great an obligation to propagate it truly to pofterity, and the fame "fears and hopes frongly applied, to be the actual causes of ‹‹ will; in a word, all the fame arguments and causes to preserve and continue tradition on foot, which the Roman church had: and yet, to the utter confufion of Mr. S.'s demonftration, tradition hath failed among them. For, as fpeculators, they deny the proceffion of the Holy Ghoft from the Son; and, as teftifiers, they difown any fuch doctrine to have been delivered to them by the precedent age, or to any other age of their church, by the Apoftles, as the doctrine of Chrift. $3. To this inftance of the Greek church, because Mr. White hath offered fomething by way of answer, I fhall here confider it. He tells us, (Apology for tradition, p. 51.), that "the plea of the Greek church is non"tradition; alledging only this, that their fathers did cr not deliver the doctrine of the proceffion of the Holy "Ghoft; not that they say the contrary: which clear"ly demonftrates there are no oppofite traditions be"6 tween them and us." But this was not the thing Mr. White was concerned to do, to demonftrate there were no oppofite traditions between the Greeks and the Latins, but to fecure his main demonstration of the impoffibility of tradition's failing, against this inftance. For that the Greeks have no fuch tradition as this, "that the 66 Holy Ghoft proceeds from the Son," is as good evidence of the failure of tradition, as if they had a pofitive tradition, "that he proceeds only from the Father; efpecially if we confider, that they (Phoc. ep. 7.) charge the Latin church with innovation in this matter; and fay, that the addition of that claufe," of the proceffion "from the Son alfo," is a corruption of the ancient faith, and a devilish invention. Why then does Mr. White go about to baffle fo material an objection, and I fear his own confcience likewife, by a pitiful evafion, inftead of a folid anfwer? What though there be no oppolite traditions between the Greek and Latin church? yet yet if their faith be oppofite, will it not from hence follow that tradition hath failed in one of them? I wonder that Mr. White, who hath fo very well confuted the infallibility of Popes and councils, and thereby undermined the very foundation of that religion, fhould not, by the fame light of reafon, discover the fondness of his own opinion concerning the infallibility of oral tradition, which hath more and greater abfurdities in it than that which he confutes. And, to fhew Mr. White the abfurdity of it, I will apply his demonstration of the infallibility of Chriftian tradition in general, to the Greek church in particular; by which every one will fee, that it does as ftrongly prove the impoffibility of tradition's failing in the Greek church, as in the Roman Catholick, as they are pleafed to call it. His demonstration is this: (De fid. & theolog. tract 1. §4.) "Chrift commanded his Apoftles to preach to all the world; and left any 66 one fhould doubt of the effect, he fent his Spirit into "them, to bring to their remembrance what he had "taught them; which Spirit did not only give them a 66 power to do what he inclined them to, but did caufe "them actually to do it." I cannot but take notice by the way of the ill confequence of this; which is, that men may doubt whether those who are to teach the doctrine of Christ will remember it, and teach it to others, unless they have that extraordinary and efficacious affiftance of the Holy Ghoft, which the Apostles had. If this be true, his demonftration is at an end; for he cannot plead that this affiftance hath been continued ever fince the Apostles. He proceeds," The Apostles preached this doctrine; "the nations understood it, lived according to it, and "valued it as that which was neceffary to them and "their pofterity incomparably beyond any thing "elfe." All this I fuppofe done to and by the Greeks, as well as any other nation. "These things being put, "it cannot enter into any man's underftanding, but "that the Chriftian [Greeks] of the firft age, being the "scholars of the Apostles, could and would earnestly "commend the Christian doctrine to their pofterity; if "fo, it is evident that they did. So that the continuance of purity of the faith in the [Greek] church, is "founded upon this, that fathers always delivered the 66 "fame |