Full and easy satisfaction which is the true and safe religion in a conference…Full and easie satisfaction which is the true and safe religion in a conference…

For if the very Being of the Creatures, which is the Matter of these Signs be uncertain to us, and all our senses and minds deceived about it, then we have no place for enquiry, Whether this Creature be any sign of the mind of God. As if the hearing of all men was deceived, that thought they heard that voice, [This is my Beloved Son] or Pauls, that thought he heard Christ speak to him [Saul, Saul, &c.] or if their Eyes and Intellects were deceived, that thought they saw Christ and his miracles; or that think now that they read the Bible, and indeed there be no such thing as a Bible, no such words, &c. then there is no room to enquire what ⟨p. 81⟩they signify: For nothing hath no signification. Truth and Goodness are affections or modes of Being: And if we cannot by all our sound senses know the Being of things, we can much less know that they are True or Good. Therefore all knowledge, and all faith, and all Religion is overthrown by your denial of the truth of our Senses and Intellects perception of things sensible. Reason IV. And by this means you are not capable of being disputed with, nor any Controversy between you and any others in the world, of being decided, while you deny sense. For then you agree not with mankind in any one common principle. And they that agree in nothing, can dispute of nothing. For this is the first principle: Est vel non est is first to be agreed on, before we can dispute any farther of a substance. What will you do to confute an adversary, but drive him to deny a certain principle? And can you drive him to deny a lower fundamental Principle, than the Being of a substance perceived by sense, yea, by all the sound senses of all men in the world? Reason V. Yea, it is specially to be noted, that our difference is not only about the species of a sensible substance, but about the very substance it self in genere, Whether all our senses perceive any substance at all, or not. Suppose the question were, Whether it be water or not, which all mens senses see in Rivers? If a Papist would deny it to be water, doubtless he denied the agreeing judgement of all mens Intellect by sense. But if he should also say, It is no substance, which we call water or earth, This were to deny the first Principle, and most fundamental perception in nature. Now that this is your case, is undeniable. For, 1.

For if the very Being of the Creatures, which is the Matter of these Signs be uncertain to us, and all our senses and minds deceived about it, then we have no place for enquiry, Whether this Creature be any sign of the mind of God. As if the hearing of all men was deceived, that thought they heard that voice, [This is my Beloved Son] or Pauls, that thought he heard Christ speak to him [Saul, Saul, &c.] or if their Eyes and Intellects were deceived, that thought they saw Christ and his miracles; or that think now that they read the Bible, and indeed there be no such thing as a Bible, no such words, &c. then there is no room to enquire what