I beg your Pardon for making you so slow a return of my H. T. for your exc. Letter of the 26 of Dec. & I shud have needed your pardon much more, had your favors in it been lesse: The excesse of them in such variety of obligations; justifys me in the leisure I take to taste & enjoy ech endearing Circumstance a part: weighing & comparing with one another the several Delights I owe you.
Lest I shud incurre the Taxe, either of Hyp. if I shud by Sil. confesse an assent in matters of Rel. where I am not convinc't: or of Perversenesse shud I dissent without showing cause for it.
Could I admit of such a Doctrine, that in the Affaire of our Faith I ought to be swayed by any humane Auth. either of one or many; I shud at this instant publish a Valediction to my Op. what great wits soever <may>replacing 'do' sustayne them; as willingly as I do here grant you the Preheminence above the hihest I have knowne.
If any former slip of my Pen can be but wrested to such an injustice, let me purge my selfe by a solemn Rec. But I hope my words imported not any such sense, I am sure my sense intended not any such words.
Wherein by 2 restrictions I am safely protected from any just Imp. of so injust a Negative. The one by the very Exc. of many Cases attributes to their Test. a Validity in many: the other allowes it an induceing Power in the very denying it a Convincing one: & tends no way to an Exclusion but onely to a Qualification of their Evidence.
Some of which I take to be Beames, all more then Moates, fit to be removed out of their Eyes, before we can with reason resigne up our Senses to their Guidance & Mamid space of 10 characters Aire-beaters
No marvell that to decide such they shud want wills, having neither meanes nor occasion to actuate their abilitys; or that they shud want abilitys, having noe provocations that might stimulate their wills.
Shud I †thi deleted grant them all to be true, it woud not follow that they were sufficinet: till it did appeare, (which I think never will, tho for the present we will suppose it.)
Which for brevity sake I note onely in the margent, pronounce to me in as cleere a sence as may be, the sufficiency of Scripture & superfluity of relying upon Traditions.
The organ then of our motion to hev'n being Faith & that Faith the strongest assent of our soules; the Ground upon which it must March ought to be no lesse [BP 44, fol. 115]Solide then Infallibility: since the strongest assent cannot be given but upon the strongest Inducement.
And lastly, I beleeve, that all Points whatsoever of [Christian Religion[?]] are there set downe as perspicuously & as cleerly intelligible to all Capacitys, as they are †are deleted cleerly necessary to be beleeved by all: & that God's Mercy in the Merits of Christ, accepting alike the fayth resultant from the Dark mists of the ignorant, & from the Cleerest intelligence of the Learned; the Lambe may wade to his Blisse, through the same water throu which the Elephant may swimme.
Since it was a Forme not chosen for the best, but impos'd by adversity & oppression: which in the beginning forc't the Church from what it wisht to what it might.
As we do in the other most true & prime Emanation of Nature, Friendship, which on your part to me I am ....approximately 1 character illegible must needs spring from thence; since my small merit affords no other motive: & as for mine to you, I am sure it is impossible without an entire concurrence of all the forces of sympathy, for any &c
Ces dernieres Preuves de son amour plus claires que les premieres de sa haine et je ne vous avouerois pas la Trahison que <je> vous †m'avez faite deleted fis; si mon dessein n'eust's' between 'e' and 'u' deleted esté tres-bon, & le succez tres advantageux pour vous.