Frame of Nature must go out of the Channel into which God did at first put it The Order of Things on this Earth takes a great Turn from the Wind both as to the Fruitfulness of the Earth and to the Operations on the Sea and has likewise a great Influence on the Purity of the Air and by consequence on mens good or ill Health and the Wind or the Agitation of the Air turns so often and so quick that it seems to be the great Instrument of Providence upon which an unconceivable variety of things does naturally depend I do not deny but that it may be said that all those Changes in the Air arise from Certain and Mechanical though to us unknown Causes which may be supported from this That between the Tropicks where the Influence of the Heavenly Bodies is stronger the Wind and Weather are more Regular though even that admits of great Exceptions Yet it has been the common Sense of Mankind That besides the Natural Causes of the Alterations in the Air they are under a particular Influence and Direction of Providence And it is in it self highly probable to say no more of it This may either be managed immediately by the Acts of the Divine Mind to which Nature readily obeys or by some subaltern Mind or Angel which may have as Natural an Efficiency over an Extent of Matter proportioned to its Capacity as a Man has over his own Body and over that compass of Matter that is within his reach Which way soever God governs the World and what Influence soever he has over Mens Minds we are sure that the governing and preserving his own Workmanship is so plainly a Perfection that it must belong to a Being infinitely perfect And there is such a Chain in things those of the greatest consequence arising often from small and inconsiderable ones that we cannot imagine a Providence unless we believe every thing to be within its Care and View The only difficulty that has been made in apprehending this has arisen from the Narrowness of Mens Minds who have measured God rather by their own Measure and Capacity than by that of Infinite Perfection which as soon as it is considered will put an end to all further doubtings about it When we perceive that a vast Number of Objects enter in at our Eye by a very small Passage and yet are so little jumbled in that Crowd that they open themselves regularly though there is no great space for that neither and that they give us a distinct apprehension of many Objects that lye before us some even at a vast distance from us both of their Nature Colour and Size and by a secret Geometry from the Angles that they make in our Eye we judge of the distance of all Objects both from us and from one another If to this we add the vast Number of Figures that we receive and retain long and with great order in our Brains which we easily fetch up either in our Thoughts or in our Discourses we shall find it less difficult to apprehend how an Infinite Mind should have the Universal View of all things ever present before it It is true we do not so easily conceive how Free Minds are under this Providence as how Natural Agents should always move at its direction But we perceive that one Mind can work upon another A man raises a sound of Words which carry such signs of his inward Thoughts that by this Motion in the Air another Man's Ear is so struck upon that thereby an impression is made upon his Brain by which he not only conceives what the other Man's Thought was but is very powerfully inclined to consent to it and to concur with it All this is a great way about and could not be easily apprehended by us if we had not a clear and constant Perception of it Now since all this is brought about by a Motion upon our Brains according to the force with which we are more or less affected it is very reasonable for us to apprehend that the Supreme Mind can besides many other ways to us less known put such Motions in our Brain as may give us all such Thoughts as it intends to impress upon us in as strong and effectual a manner as may fully answer all its purposes The great Objection that lies against the Power and the Goodness of Providence from all that Evil that is in the World which God is either not willing or not able to hinder will be more properly considered in another place at present it is enough in general to observe That God's Providence must carry on every thing according to its Nature and since he has made some Free Beings capable of Thought and of Good and Evil we must believe That as the Course of Nature is not oft put out of its Channel unless when some extraordinary thing is to be done in order to some great End so in the Government of free Agents they must be generally left to their liberty and not put too oft off of their Biass This is a hint to resolve that difficulty by concerning all the Moral Evil which is generally speaking the occasion of most of the Physical Evil that is in the World A Providence thus setled that extends it self to all things both natural and free is necessary to preserve Religion to engage us to Prayers Praises and to a dependence on it and a submission to it Some have thought it was necessary to carry this further and so they make God to be the first and immediate cause of every Action or Motion This some Modern Writers have taken from the Schools and have drest it in new Phrases of General Laws Particular Wills and Occasional Causes and so they express or explain God's producing every Motion that is in Matter and his raising every Sensation and by the same parity of Reason every Cogitation in Minds This they think arises out of the Idea of Infinite Perfection and fully answers these words of the Scriptures That in God we live move and have our being To others all this seems first unnecessary for if God has made Matter capable of Motion and capable of receiving it from the Stroke or Impulse that another piece of Matter gives it This comes as truly from God as if he did immediately give every Motion by an act of his own Will It seems more suitable to the Beauty of his Workmanship to think that he has so framed things that they hold on in that course in which he has put them than to make him perpetually produce every new Motion And the bringing God immediately into every thing may by an Odd Reverse of Effects make the World think that every thing is done as much without him as others are apt to imagine that every thing is done by him And though it is true that we cannot distinctly apprehend how a Motion in our Brain should raise such a Thought as Answers to it in our Minds
the manner of a Spirit without Extension or the filling of Space so that the Space which the Appearances possess is still a Vacuum or only filled by the Accidents For a Body without Extension as they suppose Christ's Body to be can never fill up an Extension Christ's Body in the Sacrament is denominated One yet still as the Species are broken and divided so many new Bodies are divided from one another every crumb of Bread and drop of Wine that is separated from the whole is a new Body and yet without a new Miracle all being done in consequence of the first great One that was all at once wrought The Body of Christ continues in this State as long as the Accidents remain in theirs but how it should alter is not easy to apprehend The corruption of all other Accidents arises from a change in the common Substance out of which new Accidents do arise while the old ones vanish but Accidents without a Subject may seem more fixed and stable Yet they are not so but are as subject to Corruption as other Accidents are Howsoever as long as the Alteration is not total though the Bread should be both musty and mouldy and the Wine both dead and sour yet as long as the Bread and Wine are still so far preserved or rather that their Appearances subsist so long the Body of Christ remains But when they are so far altered that they seem to be no more Bread and Wine and that they are corrupted either in part or in whole Christ's Body is withdrawn either in part or in whole It is a great Miracle to make the Accidents of Bread and Wine subsist without a Subject yet the new Accidents that arise upon these Accidents such as mouldiness or sourness come on without a Miracle but they do not know how When the main Accidents are destroyed then the Presence of Christ ceases And a new Miracle must be supposed to produce new Matter for the filling up of that space which the Substance of Bread and Wine did formerly fill And which was all this while possessed by the Accidents So much of the Matter of this Sacrament The Form of it is in the Words of Consecration which though they sound declarative as if the thing were already done This is my body and This is my blood Yet they believe them to be productive But whereas the common Notion of the Form of a Sacrament is that it sanctifies and applies the Matter here the former Matter is so far from being consecrated by it that it is annihilated and new Matter is not sanctified but brought thither or produced And whereas whensoever we say of any thing this is we suppose that the thing is as we say it is before we say it yet here all the while that this is a saying till the last Syllable is pronounced it is not that which it is said to be but in the Minute in which the last Syllable is uttered then the change is made And of this they are so firmly persuaded that they do presently pay all that Adoration to it that they would pay to the Person of Jesus Christ if he were visibly present Tho' the whole Vertue of the Consecration depends on the Intention of a Priest So that he with a cross Intention hinders all this Series of Miracles as he fetches it all on by letting his Intention go along with it If it may be said of some Doctrines that the bare exposing them is a most effectual Confutation of them certainly that is more Applicable to this than to any other that can be imagined For though I have in stating it considered some of the most important Difficulties which are seen and confessed by the School-men themselves who have poised all these with much exactness and subtilty yet I have passed over a great many more with which those that deal in School-divinity will find enough to exercise both their Thoughts and their Patience They run out in many Subtilties concerning the Accidents both primary and secondary Concerning the Ubication the Production and Reproduction of Bodies concerning the Penetrability of Matter and the Organization of a Penetrable Body concerning the Way of the Destruction of the Species concerning the Words of Consecration concerning the Water that is mixed with the Wine whether it is first changed by natural Causes into Wine and since nothing but Wine is transubstantiated what becomes of such Particles of Water that are not turned into Wine What is the Grace produced by the Sacrament what is the Effect of the Presence of Christ so long as he is in the Body of the Communicant what is got by his Presence and what is lost by his Absence In a word let a Man read the shortest Body of School-divinity that he can find and he will see in it a â—ast Number of other difficulties in this Matter of which their own Authors are aware which I have quite past over For when this Doctrine fell into the Hands of nice and exact Men they were soon sensible of all the Consequences that must needs follow upon it and have pursued all these with a closeness far beyond any thing that is to be found among the Writers of our side But that they might have a Salvo for every difficulty they framed a new Model of Philosophy new Theories were invented of Substances and Accidents of Matter and of Spirits of Extension Ubication and Impenetrability and by the new Definitions and Maxims to which they accustomed Men in the Study of Philosophy they prepared them to swallow down all this more easily when they should come to the Study of Divinity The Infallibility of the Church that had expresly defined it was to bear a great part of the Burden If the Church was Infallible and if they were that Church then it could be no longer doubted of In dark Ages Miracles and Visions came in abundantly to support it In Ages of more Light the infinite Power of God the Words of the Institution it being the Testament of our Saviour then dying and soon after confirmed with his Blood were things of great Pomp and such as were apt to strike Men that could not distinguish between the shews and the strength of Arguments But when all our Senses all our Ideas of things rise up so strongly against every part of this Chain of Wonders we ought at least to expect Proofs suitable to the difficulty of believing such a flat Contradiction to our Reasons as well as to our Senses We have no other Notion of Accidents but that they are the different Shapes or Modes of Matter and that they have no Being distinct from the Body in which they appear We have no other Notion of a Body but that it is an extended Substance made up of Impenetrable Parts one without another every one of which fills its proper space We have no other Notion of a Body's being in a Place but that it fills it and is so in it
of the Scriptures depends The Second Proposition in the Article is That there is but one God As to this the common Argument by which it is proved is the order of the World from whence it is inferred That there cannot be more Gods than one since where there are more than one there must happen diversity and confusion This is by some thought to be no good reason for if there are more Gods that is more Beings infinitely perfect they will always think the same thing and be knit together with an intire love It is true in things of a Moral Nature this must so happen For Beings infinitely perfect must ever agree But in Physical things capable of no Morality as in creating the World sooner or later and the different Systems of Beings with a thousand other things that have no Moral Goodness in them different Beings infinitely perfect might have different Thoughts So this Argument seems still of great force to prove the Unity of the Deity The other Argument from Reason to prove the Unity of God is from the Notion of a Being infinitely perfect For a Superiority over all other Beings comes so naturally into the Idea of infinite Perfection that we cannot separate it from it A Being therefore that has not all other Beings inferior and subordinate to it cannot be infinitely perfect whence it is evident That there is but one God But besides all this the Unity of God seems to be so frequently and so plainly asserted in the Scripture that we see it was the chief Design of the whole Old Testament both of Moses and the Prophets to establish it in opposition to the false opinions of the Heathen concerning a diversity of Gods This is often repeated in the most solemn Words as Hear O Israel 6. Deut 4. the Lord our God is one God It is the First of the Ten Commandments Thou shalt have no other Gods but me And all things in Heaven and Earth are often said to be made by this one God Negative words are also often used 44. Isa. 6 8. There is none other God but one besides me there is none else and I know no other the going after other Gods is reckon'd the highest and the most unpardonable act of Idolatry The New Testament goes on in the same strain Christ speaks of the only true God and that he alone ought to be worshipped and served 17. Joh 3 4. Mat. 10. 1 Cor. 8.5 6. all the Apostles do frequently affirm the same thing They make the believing of one God in opposition to the many Gods of the Heathens the chief Article of the Christian Religion and they lay down this as the chief ground of our Obligation to mutual Love and Union among our selves 4. Eph. 4.5 6. That there is one God one Lord one Faith one Baptism Now since we are sure that there is but one Messias and one Doctrine delivered by him it will clearly follow that there must be but one God So the Unity of the Divine Essence is clearly proved both from the Order and Government of the World from the Idea of Infinite Perfection and from those express Declarations that are made concerning it in the Scriptures which last is a full proof to all such as own and submit to them The Third Head in this Article is that which is negatively expressed That God is without Body Parts or Passions In general all these are so plainly contrary to the Ideas of Infinite Perfection and they appear so evidently to be Imperfections that this part of the Article will need little Explanation We do plainly perceive that our Bodies are clogs to our Minds And all the use that even the purest sort of Body in an Estate conceived to be glorified can be of to a Mind is to be an Instrument of local Motion or to be a repository of Ideas for Memory and Imagination But God who is every where and is one pure and simple Act can have no such use for a Body A Mind dwelling in a Body is in many respects superior to it yet in some respects is under it We who feel how an Act of our Mind can so direct the Motions of our Body that a thought sets our Limbs and Joints a-going can from thence conceive how that the whole extent of Matter should receive such Motions as the Acts of the Supreme Mind give it But yet not as a Body united to it or that the Deity either needs such a Body or can receive any trouble from it Thus far the apprehension of the thing is very plainly made out to us Our thoughts put some parts of our Body in a present Motion when the Organization is regular and all the parts are exact and when there is no Obstruction in those Vessels or Passages through which that heat and those Spirits do pass that cause the motion We do in this perceive that a thought does command matter but our Minds are limited to our Bodies and these do not obey them but as they are in an exact disposition and a fitness to be so moved Now these are plain Imperfections but removing them from God we can from hence apprehend that all the Matter in the Universe may be so intirely subject to the Divine Mind that it shall move and be whatsoever and wheresoever he will have it to be This is that which all men do agree in But many of the Philosophers thought that Matter though it was moved and moulded by God at his pleasure yet was not made by him but was self-existent and was a Passive Principle but coexistent to the Deity which they thought was the Active Principle From whence some have thought that the belief of two Gods one good and another bad did spring Though others imagine that the belief of a bad God did arise from the corruption of that Tradition concerning fallen Angels as was before suggested The Philosophers could not apprehend that things could be made out of nothing and therefore they believed that Matter was co-eternal with God But it is as hard to apprehend how a Mind by its Thought should give Motion to Matter as how it should give it Being A Being not made by God is not so easily conceivable to be under the acts of his Mind as that which is made by him This conceit plainly destroys infinite Perfection which cannot be in God if all Beings are not from him and under his Authority besides that successive duration has been already proved inconsistent with Eternity This Opinion of the World 's being a Body to God as the Mind that dwells in it and actuates it is the foundation of Atheism For if it be once thought that God can do nothing without such a Body then as this destroys the Idea of Infinite Perfection so it makes way to this conceit That since Matter is Visible and God Invisible there is no other God but the vast extent of the Universe It is true God has
yet it seems more reasonable to think that God has put us under such an Order of Being from which that does naturally follow than that he himself should interpose in every Thought The difficulty of apprehending how a thing is done can be no prejudice to the belief of it when we have the Infinite Power of God in our Thoughts who may be as easily conceived to have once for all put us in a method of receiving such Sensations by a general Law or Course of Nature as to give us new ones at every Minute But the greatest difficulty against this is That it makes God the first Physical cause of all the Evil that is in the World Which as it is contrary to his Nature so it absolutely destroys all Liberty and this puts an end to all the distinctions between Good and Evil and consequently to all Religion And as for those large Expressions that are brought from Scripture every word in Scripture is not to be stretched to the utmost Physical sense to which it can be carried It is enough if a sense is given to it that agrees to the Scope of it Which is fully Answered by acknowledging That the Power and Providence of God is over all things and that it directs every thing to Wise and Good Ends from which nothing is hid by which nothing is forgot and to which nothing can resist This Scheme of Providence fully agrees with the Notion of a Being Infinitely perfect and with all that the Scriptures affirm concerning it and it lays down a firm Foundation for all the Acts and Exercises of Religion As to the Power and Providence of God with relation to Invisible Beings we plainly perceive that there is in us a Principle capable of Thought and Liberty of which by all that appears to us Matter is not at all capable After its utmost Refinings by Fires and Furnaces it is still passive and has no Self-Motion much less Thought in it Thought seems plainly to arise from a single Principle that has no Parts and is quite another thing than the Motion of one subtle piece of Matter upon another can be supposed to be If Thought is only Motion then no part of us thinks but as it is in Motion So that only the moving Particles or rather their Surfaces that strike upon one another do think But such a Motion must end quickly in the Dissipation and Evaporation of the whole thinking-Substance nor can any of the quiescent Parts have any Perception of such Thoughts or any Reflection upon them And to say that Matter may have other Affections unknown to us besides Motion by which it may think is to affirm a thing without any sort of Reason It is rather a flying from an Argument than an Answering it No man has any reason to affirm this nor can he have any And besides all our Cogitations of Immaterial Things Proportions and Numbers do plainly show that we have a Being in us distinct from Matter that rises above it and commands it We perceive we have a freedom of Moving and Acting at pleasure All these Things give us a clear Perception of a Being that is in us distinct from Matter of which we are not able to form a compleat Idea We having only four Perceptions of its Nature and Operations 1. That it thinks 2. That it has an inward Power of Choice 3. That by its Will it can move and command the Body And 4. That it is in a close and intire Union with it That it has a dependance on it as to many of its Acts as well as an Authority over it in many other Things Such a Being that has no Parts must be immortal in its Nature for every single Being is immortal It is only the Union of Parts that is capable of being dissolved that which has no parts is indissoluble To this Two Objections are made One is That Beasts seem to have both Thought and Freedom though in a lower Order if then Matter can be capable of this in any Degree how low soever a higher Rectification of Matter may be capable of a higher Degree of it It is therefore certain That either Beasts have no Thought or Liberty at all and are only pieces of finely Organised Matter capable of many subtile Motions that come to them from Objects without them but that they have no Sensation nor Thought at all about them or since how prettily soever some may have dressed up this Notion it is that which Human Nature cannot receive or bear there being such evident Indications of even high degrees of Reason among the Beasts it is more reasonable to imagine That there may be Spirits of a lower order in Beasts that have in them a capacity of Thinking and Chusing but that so intirely under the Impressions of Matter that they are not capable of that largeness either of Thought or Liberty that is necessary to make them capable of Good or Evil of Rewards and Punishments And that therefore they may be perpetually rouling about from one Body to another Another Objection to the belief of an Immaterial Substance in us is That we feel it depends so intirely on the Fabrick and State of the Brain that a Disorder a Vapour or Humour in it defaces all our Thoughts our Memory and Imagination and since we find that which we call Mind sinks so low upon a disorder of the Body it may be reasonable to believe That it Evaporates and is quite Dissipated upon the Dissolution of our Bodies So that the Soul is nothing but the livelier Parts of the Blood called the Animal Spirits In Answer to this we know that those Animal Spirits are of such an Evanid and Subtile Nature that they are in a perpetual Waste new ones always succeeding as the former go off but we perceive at the same time that our Soul is a Stable and Permanent Being by the steddiness of its Acts and Thoughts We being for many Years plainly the same Beings and therefore our Souls cannot be such a Loose and Evaporating Substance as those Spirits are The Spirits are indeed the inward Organs of the Mind for Memory Speech and bodily Motion and as these flatten or are wasted the Mind is less able to Act As when the Eye or any other Organ of Sense is weakned the Sensations grow feeble on that side And as a Man is less able to work when all those Instruments he makes use of are blunted so the Mind may sink upon a decay or disorder in those Spirits and yet be of a Nature wholly different from them How a Mind should work on Matter cannot I confess be clearly comprehended It cannot be denied by any that is not a direct Atheist That the Thoughts of the Supreme Mind give Impressions and Motions to Matter So our Thoughts may give a Motion or the Determination of Motion to Matter and yet rise from Substances wholly different from it Nor is it unconceivable That the Supreme Mind should
to what was set out in its proper Place And although we set a due value upon some of the Apocryphal Books yet others are of a lower Character The First Book of Maccabees is a very grave History writ with much exactness and a true Judgment but the Second is the Work of a mean Writer He was an Abridger of a larger Work and as he has the Modesty to ask his Readers Pardon for his Defects so it is very plain to every one that reads him that he needs often many grains of allowance So that this Book is one of the least valuable Pieces of the Apocrypha and there are very probable Reasons to question the Truth of that Relation concerning those who were thus prayed for But because that would occasion too long a Digression we are to make a difference between the Story that he relates and the Author 's own Reflections upon it for as we ought not to make any great Account of his Reflections these being only his private Thoughts who might probably have imbibed some of the Principles of the Greek Philosophy as some of the Iews had done or he might have believed that Notion which is now very generally received by the Iews that every Iew shall have a share in the World to come but that such as have lived ill must be purged before they arrive at it It is of much more importance to consider what Iudas Maccabeus did 2 Maccab. 12.40 which even by that Relation seems to be no more than this That he finding some things Consecrated to the Idols of the Iamnites about the Bodies of those who were killed concluded that to have been the cause of their Death And upon this he and all his Men betook themselves to Prayer and besought God that the Sin might be wholly put out of remembrance He exhorted his People to keep themselves by that Example from the like Sin and he made a Collection of a Sum of Money and sent it to Ierusalem to offer a Sin-offering before the Lord. So far the matter agrees well enough with the Iewish Dispensation It had appeared in the days of Ioshua how much guilt the Sin of Achan though but one Person had brought upon the whole Congregation and their Law had upon another Occasion prescribed a Sin-offering for the whole Congregation to expiate Blood that was shed when the Murderer could not be discovered That so the Judgments of God might not come upon them by reason of the cry of that Blood And by a parity of Reason Iudas might have ordered such an Offering to free himself and his Men from the guilt which the Idolatry of a few might have brought upon greater Numbers such a Sacrifice as this might according to the nature of that Law have been offered But to offer a Sin-offering for the Dead was a new thing without ground or any intimation of any thing like it in their Law So there is no reason to doubt but that if the Story is true Iudas offered this Sin-offering for the Living and not for the Dead If they had been alive then by their Law no Sin-offering could have been made for them for Idolatry was to be punished by cutting off and not to be expiated by Sacrifice What then could not have been done for them if alive could much less be done for them after their death So we have reason to conclude that Iudas offered this Sacrifice only for the Living And we are not much concerned in the Opinion which so slight a Writer as the Author of that Book had concerning it But whatever might be his Opinion it was far from that of the Roman Church By this Instance of the Maccabees Men who died in a State of mortal Sin and that of the highest nature had Sacrifices offered for them Whereas according to the Doctrine of the Church of Rome Hell and not Purgatory is to be the Portion of all such So this will prove too much if any thing at all that Sacrifices are to be offered for the Damned The design of Iudas his sending to make an Offering for them as that Writer states it was that their Sins might be forgiven and that they might have a happy Resurrection Here is nothing of Redeeming them out of Misery or of shortening or alleviating their Torment So that the Author of that Book seems to have been possessed with that Opinion received commonly among the Iews That no Iew could finally perish as we find S. Ierom expressing himself with the like partiality for all Christians But whatever the Author's Opinion was as that Book is of no Authority it is highly probable that Iudas's design in that Oblation was misunderstood by the Historian and we are sure that even his sense of it differs totally from that of the Church of Rome A Passage in the New Testament is brought as a full proof of the Fire of Purgatory 1 Cor. 3. from V. 10. to 16. When St. Paul in his Epistle to the Corinthians is reflecting on the Divisions that were among them and on that diversity of Teachers that formed Men into different Principles and Parties he compares them to different Builders Some raised upon a Rock an Edifice like the Temple at Ierusalem of Gold and Silver and noble Stones called precious Stones whereas others upon the same Rock raised a mean Hovel of Wood Hay and Stubble of both he says every man's work shall be made manifest For the day shall reveal it because it shall be revealed by fire for the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is And he adds If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon he shall receive a reward and if any man's work shall be burnt he shall suffer loss but he himself shall be saved yet so as by fire From the first view of these words it will not be thought strange if some of the Ancients who were too apt to Expound places of Scripture according to their first appearences might fancy that at the last day all were to pass through a great Fire and to suffer more or less in it But it is visible that that Opinion is far enough from the Doctrine of Purgatory These words relate to a Fire that was soon to appear and that was to try every Man's work It was to be revealed and in it every Man's work was to be made manifest So this can have no relation to a secret Purgatory Fire The meaning of it can be no other but that whereas some with the Apostles were building up the Church not only upon the Foundation of Jesus Christ and the Belief of his Doctrine but were teaching Men Doctrines and Rules that were Vertuous Good and Great Others at the same time were daubing with a profane mixture both of Judaism and Gentilism joining these with some of the Precepts of Christianity a day would soon appear which probably is meant of the destruction of Ierusalem and of the Iewish Nation or
as that it can be no where else at the same time And though we can very easily apprehend that an Insinite Power can both create and annihilate Beings at pleasure yet we cannot apprehend that God does change the Essences of Things and so make them to be contrary to that Nature and sort of Being of which he has made them Another Argument against Transubstantiation is this God has made us capable to know and serve him And in order to that he has put some Sâ—nses in us which are the conveyances of many subtile Motions to our Brains that give us Apprehensions of the Objects which by those Motions are represented to us When those Motions are lively and the Object is in a due distance when we feel that neither our Organs nor our Faculties are under any disorder and when the Impression is clear and strong we are determined by it We cannot help being so When we see the Sun risen and all is bright about us it is not possible for us to think that it is dark Night No authority can impose it on us we are not so far the Masters of our own Thoughts as to force our selves to think it though we would for God has made us of such a Nature that we are determined by such an Evidence and cannot contradict it When an Object is at too great a distance we may mistake a weakness or an ill disposition in our sight may misrepresent it and a false Medium Water a Cloud or a Glass may give it a tincture or cast so that we may see cause to correct our first Apprehensions in some Sensations but when we have duly examined every thing when we have corrected one Sense by another we grow at last to be so sure by the Constitution of that Nature that God has given us that we cannot doubt much less believe in contradiction to the express Evidence of our Senses It is by this Evidence only that God convinces the World of the Authority of those whom he sends to speak in his Name He gives them a Power to work Miracles which is an Appeal to the Senses of Mankind and it is the highest Appeal that can be made for those who stood out against the Conviction of Christ's Miracles had no Cloak for their Sins It is the utmost Conviction that God offers or that Man can pretend to From all which we must infer this That either our Senses in their clearest Apprehensions or rather Representations of Things must be Infallible or we must throw up all Faith and Certainty since it is not possible for us to receive the Evidence that is given us of any thing but by our Senses and since we do naturally acquiesce in that Evidence we must acknowledge that God has so made us that this is his voice in us because it is the voice of those Faculties that he has put in us and is the only way by which we can find out Truth and be led by it And if our Faculties fail us in any one thing so that God should reveal to us any thing that did plainly contradict our Faculties he should thereby give us a right to disbelieve them for ever If they can mistake when they bring any Object to us with the fullest Evidence that they can give we can never depend upon them nor be certain of any thing because they shew it Nay we are not and cannot be bound to believe that nor any other Revelation that God may make to convince us We can only receive a Revelation by hearing or reading by our Ears or our Eyes So if any part of this Revelation destroys the certainty of the Evidence that our Senses our Eyes or our Ears give us it destroys it self for we cannot be bound to believe it upon the Evidence of our Senses if this is a part of it that our Senses are not to be trusted Nor will this matter be healed by saying that certainly we must believe God more than our Senses And therefore if he has revealed any thing to us that is contrary to their Evidence we must as to that paâ—ticular believe God before our Senses But that as to all other things where we have not an express Revelation to the contrary we must still believe our Senses There is a difference to be made between that feeble Evidence that our Senses give us of remote Objects or those loose Inferences that we may make from a slight view of Things and the full Evidence that Sense gives us as when we see and smell to we handle and taste the same Object This is the voice of God to us he has made us so that we are determined by it And as we should not believe a Prophet that wrought ever â—o many Miracles if he should contradict any part of that which God had already revealed so we cannot be bound to believe a Revelation contrary to our Sense because that were to believe God in contradiction to Himself which is impossible to be true For we should believe that Revelation certainly upon an Evidence which it self tells us is not certain and this is a Contradiction We believe our Senses upon this foundation because we reckon there is an Intrinsick certainty in their Evidence we do not believe them as we believe another Man upon a Moral presumption of his Truth and Sincerity but we believe them because such is the nature of the Union of our Souls and Bodies which is the work of God that upon the full Impressions that are made upon the Senses the Soul does necessarily produce or rather feel those Thoughts and Sensations arise with a full Evidence that correspond to the motions of sensible Objects upon the Organs of Sense The Soul has a sagacity to examine these Sensations to correct one Sense by another but when she has used all the means she can and the Evidence is still clear she is perswaded and cannot help being so she naturally takes all this to be true because of the necessary connexion that she feels between such Sensations and her assent to them Now if she should find that she could be mistaken in this even tho' she should know this by a Divine Revelation all the Intrinsick certainty of the Evidence of Sense and that connexion between those Sensations and her assent to them should be hereby dissolved To all this another Objection may be made from the Mysteries of the Christian Religion which contradict our Reasons and yet we are bound to believe them altho' Reason is a faculty much superior to Sense But all this is a mistake we cannot be bound to believe any thing that contradicts our Reasons for the Evidence of Reason as well as that of Sense is the voice of God to us But as great difference is to be made between a feeble Evidence that Sense gives us of an Object that is at a distance from us or that appears to us through a false Medium such as a Concave or a Convex-Glass
the Sacrament of his Blood is the Blood of Christ he carried himself in his own hands in some sort when he said This is my Body St. Chrysostom says the Bread is thought worthy to be called the Body of our Lord And in another Place reckoning up the improper Senses of the word Flesh he says the Scriptures use to call the Mysteries that is the Sacrament by the Name of Flesh and sometimes the whole Church is said to be the Body of Christ. So Tertullian says Christ calls the Bread his Body and names the Bread by his Body Tertul. Lib. 4. adv Marci c. 40. The Fathers do not only call the consecrated Elements Bread and Wine They do also affirm that they retain their proper Nature and Substance and are the same thing as to their Nature that they were before And the Occasion upon which the Passages that I go next to mention are used by them does prove this Matter beyond Contradiction Apollinaris did broach that Heresy which was afterwards put in full Form by Eutycheâ— and that had so great a Party to support it that as they had one General Council a pretended one at least to favour them so they were condemned by another Their Error was that the human Nature of Christ was swallowed up by the Divine if not while he was here on Earth yet at least after his Ascension to Heaven This Error was confuted by several Writers who lived very wide one from another And at a distance of above a hundred Years one from another St. Chrysostom at Constantinople Theodoret in Asia Ephrem Patriarch of Antioch and Gelasius Bishop of Rome All those write to Prove that the human Nature did still remain in Christ not changed nor swallowed up but only sanctified by the Divine Nature that was united to it They do all fall into one Argument which very probably those who came after St. Chrysostom took from him Epist. ad Celarium So that though both Theodoret and Gelasius's Words are much fuller yet because the Argument is the same with that which St. Chrysostom had urged against Apollinaris I shall first set down his Words He brings an Illustration from the Doctrine of the Sacrament to shew that the human Nature was not destroyed by its Union with the Divine and has upon that these Words As before the Bread is sanctified we call it Bread but when the Divine Grace has sanctified it by the means of the Priest it is freed from the name of Bread and is thought worthy of the name of the Lord's Body though the nature of Bread remains in it And yet it is not said there are two Bodies but one Body of the Son So the divine Nature being joined to the Body Both these make one Son and one Person In Photi Bibli Cod. 229. Ephrem of Antioch says The Body of Christ which is received by the faithful does not depart from its sensible Substance So Baptism says he does not lose its own sensible Substance and does not lose that which it was before Dial. 1st and 2d â—ont Eutych Theodoret says Christ does honour the Symbols with the name of his Body and Blood not changing the nature but adding grace to nature In another Place pursuing the same Argument he says The mystical Symbols after the sanctification do not depart from their own nature For they continue in their former substance figure and form and are visible and palpable as they were before But they are understood to be that which they are made Pope Gelasius says The Sacraments of the Body and Blood of Christ are a divine thing Lib. de duâ—bus nat Christ for which reason we become by them partakers of the divine Nature and yet the substance of Bread and Wine does not cease to exist And the image and likeness of the Body and Blood of Christ are celebrated in holy Mysteries Upon all these Places being compared with the Design with which they were written which was to prove that Christ's Human Nature did still subsist unchanged and not swallowed up by its Union with the Divinity some Reflections are very obvious â—irst If the corporal Presence of Christ in the Sacrament had been then received in the Church the natural and unavoidable Argument in this Matter which must put an end to it with all that believed such corporal Presence was this Christ has certainly a natural Body still because the Bread and the Wine are turned to it and they cannot be turned to that which is not In their Writings they argued against the possibility of a substantial Change of a Human Nature into the Divine but that could not have been urged by Men who believed a substantial Mutation to be made in the Sacrament For then the Eutychians might have retorted the Argument with great Advantage upon them The Eutychians did make use of some Expressions that were used by some in the Church which seemed to Import that they did argue from the Sacrament as Theodoret represents their Objections But to that he answers as we have seen denying that any such substantial Change was made The Design of those Fathers was to prove that things might be united together and continue so united without the change of their Substances and that this was true in the two Natures in the Person of Christ And to make this more Sensible they bring in the Matter of the Sacrament as a thing known and confessed For in their arguing upon it they do suppose it as a thing out of dispute Now according to the Roman Doctrine this had been a very odd Sort of an Argument to prove that Christ's Human Nature was not swallowed up of the Divine because the Mysteries or Elements in the Sacrament are changed into the Substance of Christ's Body only they retain the outward appearances of Bread and Wine To this an Eutychian might readily have answered that then the Human Nature might be believed to be destroyed And though Christ had appeared in that likeness he retained only the Accidents of Human Nature but that the Human Nature it self was destroyed as the Bread and the Wine were destroyed in the Eucharist This had been a very absurd way of arguing in the Fathers and had indeed delivered up the Cause to the Eutychians Whereas those Fathers make it an Argument against them to prove that notwithstanding an Uninion of two Beings and such an Union as did communicate a Sanctification from the one to the other yet the two Natures might remain still distinguish'd and that it was so in the Eucharist Therefore it might be so in the Person of Christ. This seems to be so evident an Indication of the Doctrine of the whole Church in the Fourth and Fifth Century when so many of the most eminent Writers of those Ages do urge it so home as an Argument in so great a Point that we can scarce think it possible for any Man to consider it fully without being determined by it
David or Solomon when the Iews were once lawfu◠〈◊〉 â—ubjects and the Christians owed the same Duty to the Emperors 〈◊〉 â—eathen that they paid them when Christian. The Relations of Nature such as that of a Parent and Child Husband and Wife continue the same that they were whatsoever mens Persuasions in matters of Religion may be So do also Civil Relations Master and Servant Prince and Subject they are neither increased nor diminished by the Truth of their Sentiments concerning Religion All Persons are subject to the Prince's Authority and liable to such Punishments as their Crimes fall under by Law Every Soul is subject to the higher Powers Neither is Treason less Treason because spoke in a Pulpit or in a Sermon It may be more Treason for that than otherwise it would be because it is so publick and deliberate and is delivered in the way in which it may probably have the worst effect So that as to persons no great difficulty can lye in this since every Soul is declared to be subject to the higher powers As to Ecclesiastical Causes it is certain That as the Magistrate cannot make void the Laws of Nature such as the Authority of Parents over their Children or of Husbands over their Wives so neither can he make void the Law of God That is from a Superior Authority and cannot be dissolved by him Where a thing is positively commanded or forbid by God the Magistrate has no other Authority but that of executing the Laws of God of adding his Sanctions to them and of using his utmost Industry to procure Obedience to them He cannot alter any part of the Doctrine and make it to be either truer or falser than it is in it self nor can he either take away or alter the Sacraments or break any of those Rules that are given in the New Testament about them because in all these the Authority of God is express and is certainly superior to his The only question that can be made is concerning Indifferent things For instance in the Canons or other Rules of the Church How far they are in the Magistrate's Power and in what Cases the Body of Christians and of the Pastors of the Church may maintain their Union among themselves and act in opposition to his Laws It seems very clear that in all matters that are indifferent and are determined by no Law of God the Magistrates Authority must take place and is to be obeyed The Church has no Authority that she can maintain in opposition to the Magistrate but in the executing the Laws of God and the Rules of the Gospel In all other things as she acts under his Protection so it is by his Permission But here a great distinction is to be made between two Cases that may happen The one is When the Magistrate acts like one that intends to preserve Religion but commits Errors and Acts of Injustice in his Management The other is When he acts like one that intends to destroy Religion and to divide and distract those that profess it In the former case every thing that is not sinful of it self is to be done in compliance with his Authority not to give him Umbrage nor provoke him to withdraw his Protection and to become instead of a Nursing Father a Persecutor of the Church But on the other hand when he declares or it is visible that his design is to destroy the Faith less regard is to be had to his Actions The People may adhere to their Pastors and to every Method that may fortify them in their Religion even in opposition to his Invasion Upon the whole matter the Power of the King in Ecclesiastical Matters among us is expressed in this Article under those Reserves and with that Moderation that no just Scruple can lye against it and it is that which all the Kings even of the Roman Communion do assume and in some Places with a much more unlimited Authority The Methods of managing it may differ a little yet the Power is the same and is built upon the same Foundations And though the Term Head is left out by the Article yet even that is founded on an Expression of Samuel's to Saul as was formerly cited It is a Figure and all Figures may be used either more loosely or more strictly In the strictest sense as the Head communicates Vital Influences to the whole Body Christ is the only Head of his Church he only ought to be in all things obeyed submitted to and depended on and from him all the Functions and Offices of the Church derive their Usefulness and Virtue But as Head may in a Figure stand for the Fountain of Order and Government of Protection and Conduct the King or Queen may well be called The Head of the Church The next Paragraph in this Article is concerning the Lawfulness of Capital Punishments in Christian Societies It has an appearance of Compassion and Charity to think that men ought not to be put to death for their Crimes but to be kept alive that they may repent of them Some both Antients and Moderns have thought that there was a Cruelty in all Capital Punishments that was inconsistent with the Gentleness of the Gospel But when we consider that God in that Law which he himself delivered to the Iews by the hand of Moses did appoint so many Capital Punishments even for Offences against Positive Precepts we cannot think that these are contrary to Justice or true Goodness since they were dictated by God himself who is eternally the same unalterable in his Perfections This shews that God who knows most perfectly our Frame and Disposition knows that the love of Life is planted so deep in our Natures and that it has such a Root there that nothing can work so powerfully on us to govern and restrain us as the fear of Death And therefore since the main thing that is to be considered in Government is the Good of the whole Body and since a feeble Indulgence and Impunity may set mankind loose into great Disorders from which the Terror of severer Laws together with such Examples as are made on the Incorrigible will naturally restrain them it seems necessary for the preservation of Mankind and of Society to have recourse sometimes to Capital Punishments The Precedent that God set in the Mosaical Law seems a full Justification of such Punishments under the Gospel The Charity which the Gospel prescribes does not take away the Rules of Justice and Equity by which we may maintain our Possessions or recover them out of the hands of violent Aggressors Only it obliges us to do that in a soft and gentle manner without Rigor or Resentment The same Charity though it obliges us as Christians not to keep up Hatred or Anger in our Hearts but to pardon as to our own parts the Wrongs that are done us yet it does not oblige us to throw up the Order and Peace of Mankind and abandon it to the Injustice and