all. Perhaps you will here complain, that this is not to satisfy your demand, but to avoid it, and to put you off, as the Areopagites did hard causes, ad diem longissimum, and bid you come again an hundred years hence. To deal truly, I did so intend it should be. Neither can you say, my dealing with you is injurious, seeing I require nothing of you, but that, what you require of others, you should shew it possible to be done, and just and necessary to be required. For, for my part, I have great reason to suspect, it is neither the one nor the other for whereas the verities which are delivered in Scripture, may be very fitly divided into such as were written because they were necessary to be believed (of which rank are those only, which constitute and make up the covenant between God and man in Christ); and then such as are necessary to be believed not in themselves, but only by accident, because they were written; of which rank are many matters of history, of prophecy, of mystery, of policy, of economy, and such like, which are evidently not intrinsical to the covenant: now to sever exactly and punctually these verities one from the other, what is necessary in itself, and antecedently to the writing, from what is but only profitable in itself, and necessary only because written, is a business of extreme difficulty, and extreme little necessity. For, first, he that will go about to distinguish, espe+ cially in the story of our Saviour, what was written because it was profitable, from what was written because necessary, shall find an intricate piece of business of it, and almost impossible that he should be certain he hath done it, when he hath done it. And then it is apparently unneces

sary to go about it, seeing he that believes all, certainly believes all that is necessary; and he that doth not believe all (I mean all the undoubted parts of the undoubted books of Scripture) can hardly believe any; neither have we reason to believe he doth so. So that, that protestants give you not a catalogue of fundamentals, it is not from tergiversation (as you suspect, who for want of charity to them always suspect the worst) but from wisdom and necessity: for they may very easily err in doing it; because, though all which is neces sary be plain in Scripture; yet all which is plain, is not therefore written because it was necessary: for what greater necessity was there, that I should know St. Paul left his cloak at Troas, than those worlds of miracles which our Saviour did, which were never written? And when they had done it, it had been to no purpose; there being, as mat ters now stand, as great necessity of believing those truths of Scripture, which are not fundamental, as those that are. You see then what reason we have to decline this hard labour, which you, a rigid task-master, have here put upon us. Yet instead of giving you a catalogue of fundamentals, with which I dare say you are resolved, before it come, never to be satisfied; I will say that to you, which, if you please, may do you as much service; and this it is-that it is sufficient for any man's salvation, that he believe the Scrip ture; that he endeavour to believe it in the true sense of it, as far as concerns his duty; and that he conform his life unto it either by obedience or repentance. He that does so (and all protestants, according to the dictamen of their religion, should do so) may be secure that he cannot err funda

mentally. And they that do so, cannot differ in fundamentals. So that, notwithstanding their dif ferences, and your presumption, the same heaven may receive them all.

28. Ad §. 20. Your tenth and last request is, to know distinctly what is the doctrine of the protestant English church, in these points; and what my private opinion? Which shall be satisfied when the church of England hath expressed herself in them; or when you have told us what is the doctrine of your church in the question of predetermination, or the immaculate conception. of 29. Ad. §. 21 and 22. These answers, I hope, in the judgment of indifferent men, are satisfactory to your questions, though not to you; for 1 have either answered them, or given you a reason why I have not. Neither, for aught I can see, have I flitted from things considered in their own 'nature, to accidental or rare circumstances; but told you my opinion plainly what I thought of your errors in themselves; and what as they were qualified or malignified with good or bad circumstances. Though I must tell you truly, that I see no reason, the question being of the damnableness of error, why you should esteem ignorance, incapacity; want of means to be instructed, accidental and rare circumstances: as if knowledge, capacity, having means of instruction concerning the truth of your religion, or ours, were not as rare and unusual in the adverse part of either, cas ignorance, incapacity, and want of means of instruction; especially how erroneous conscience can be a rare thing in those that err; or how unerring conscience is not much more rare, I am not able to apprehend. So that, to consider men

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of different religions (the subject of this controversy) in their own nature, and without circumstances, must be to consider them, neither as ignorant, nor as knowing; heither as having, nor as wanting, means of instruction; neither as with capacity, nor without it; neither with erroneous, nor yet with unerring conscience. And then what judgment can you pronounce of them, all the goodness and badness of an action depending on the circumstances? Ought not a judge, being to give sentence of an action, to consider all the cir cumstances of it? Or is it possible he should judge rightly, that doth not so? Neither is it to purpose, that circumstances being various, cant not be well comprehended under any general rule: for though under any general rule they cannot, yet under many general rules they may be comprehended. The question here is, you say, whether men of different religions may be saved? Now the subject of this question is an ambiguous term, and may be determined and invested with diverse and contrary circumstances; and, accordingly, contrary judgments are to be given of it. And who can then be offended with D. Potter for distinguishing before he defines (the want whereof is the chief thing that makes defining dangerous); who can find fault with him for saying, "If, through want of means of instruction, incapacity, invincible or probable ignorance, a man die in error, he may be saved. But if he be negligent in seeking the truth, unwilling to find it, either doth see it, and will not, or might see it, and will not, that his case is dangerous, and without repentance desperate." This is all that D. Potter says, neither rashly damning all that are of

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a different opinion from him, nor securing any that are in matter of religion sinfully, that is wik lingly, erroneous. The author of this reply (4 will abide by it) says the very same thing; neither can I see what adversary he hath in the main question but his own shadow; and yet, I know not out of what frowardness, finds fault with D. Potter for affirming that which himself affirms and to cloud the matter, whereas the question is, whether men by ignorance, dying in error, may be saved? would have them considered neither as erring, nor ignorant. And when the question is, whether the errors of the papists be damnable? to which we answer, that to them that do or might know them to be errors, they are damnable; to them that do not, they are not: he tells us that this is to change the state of the question; whereas, indeed, it is to state the question, and free it from ambiguity before you answer it; and to have recourse to accidental circumstances; as if ignorance were accidental to error, or as if a man could be considered as in error, and not be considered as in ignorance of the truth from which he errs! Certainly, error against a truth must needs presuppose a nescience of it; unless you will say that a man may at once resolve for a truth, and resolve against it; assent to it, and dissent from it know it to be true, and believe it not to be true. Whether knowledge and opinion touching the same thing may stand together, is madebay question in the schools: but he that would question whether knowing a thing, and doubting of it; much more, whether knowing it to be true, and believing it to be false, may stand together, deserves, without question, no other answer but