yield more easily to the antecedent Arguments of the Infallibility of that Church But if the Doctrine for which she vouches this Authority does upon the most impartial tryal that I can make appear to be worldly unscriptural or contrary to common sence then I am bound to examine the grounds of her Pretence more severely than in the former case And there is no question but such Doctrines may be taught by men pretending to Inspiration or Infallibility which will justifie a man in rejecting that Pretence out of hand and troubling himself no more about it If a Physician of never so great name should tell me that he would infallibly cure my Disease and then prescribe a dose of Arsenick I think Reason would advise rather to question his Infallibility because he goes thus madly to work than to take his Poyson because he promises an Infallible Cure Now if I am not to do violence to my own understanding in things that concern my bodily health much less should I do the same in things that regard my everlasting state And they are a strange sort of men who will allow people the liberty of using their Reason as well as they can for the security of their worldly interests but will have them be led in the great affairs of Religion and Eternity as if they had no reason at all For to judge aright and to know the truth in matters of Religion which is our highest concernment was the principal end for which we have Reason and are Creatures of judgment and choice And they may as well say that 't is dangerous for a man to walk abroad with his eyes open as that 't is dangerous for him to take upon himself to judge as well as he can whether he be in the right way to Heaven or not § 2. If we consider what has been already said it will not be difficult to answer the second Question 2. Whether a liberty of examining and judging in matters of Religion doth mischief in the Church and be the cause of Heresies and Schisms To which I answer that To affirm this is in effect to say that it had been much better in order to the peace of the Church and the prevailing of Truth that men had been nearer to stocks and stones than endued with natural Abilities of judging and natural propensions to use those Abilities which I think would be to reflect upon the Wisdom of our Maker For certainly it had been better for men to have wanted the faculties of judging and proving if it be so dangerous a thing to the Church to make use of them Nor is it much for the credit of the Church that it should be against her interest for men to examine her Doctrine and use their Reason about it as well as they can To speak to the thing It is not the liberty of examination and judgment in order to the knowledge of the Truth that causeth Heresies and Schisms but the not making a right use of this liberty i. e. mens entring upon this work with Pride and the prevalency of Lust and Passion and worldly interest their want of care and diligence and of proving things sufficiently their taking up Opinions without reasonable examination and then seeking for Pretences to colour their obstinacy The Lusts and Vices of men are against the peace of the Church and the interest of Truth but not the use of that Reason which is the divine part of our Natures and which God hath given us to restrain and govern our inferiour Faculties 'T is true indeed that if few or none troubled themselves at all to judge in matters of Religion there would be no Heresies But 't is true too that if they had no reason to judge of these things at all there would have been no Heresies and 't is as true that if there had been no Religion at all it were impossible that there should be Heresies in Religion But will any men say that Reason or Religion is therefore the cause of Heresies And yet there is as much reason to say this as to conclude that the use of our own understandings in the things of God is the cause of Heresies These things are too gross to need a Confutation And yet this Pretence against the liberty of proving what is propounded to us in Religion is intended chiefly against private and ordinary persons but not against the publick Guides and Officers of the Church whereas in truth if there be any thing in it it holds more strongly against these than against the other And that because the most pernicious Heresies that ever came into the Church were brought in by men of Learning and Authority in the Church And if this Pretence be good they of all men should be forbidden to inquire into matters of Religion because if they fall into any dangerous mistake their Authority is likely to give reputation to it and to make it go down more easily with the common People than if it had been started by one of themselves So that we must not lay the Heresies that have been in the Church to the liberty we have been contending for unless we will be content to exclude all from the duty of proving what they have been taught to 〈◊〉 And no man can think this reasonable unless he 〈◊〉 all Religions to be equally true that is every one to be alike false And he that believes this needs not care what Heresie he is of § 3. 3. But if every man hath a just liberty and right to examine for himself is not this a good reason for Toleration or for the universal liberty of practising according to a mans Conscience or Perswasion For to what purpose is liberty of enquiry if after all I must be concluded by the Authority of my Superiours or else suffer under those Laws by which they provide for Uniformity in Religion To this I answer That every mans right and duty to judge for himself in matters of Religion is no good reason for Toleration unless it were also apparent that every man used that Right as he ought to do i. e. with industry deliberation and impartiality If all men were sincere and would examine without prejudice without that byass to one side which is made by lust and passion and worldly interest if they all intended to know the truth that they might do their duty then doubtless it were very fit that all should enjoy an undisturbed liberty of practice according to their Judgment for then no man would err in things plain and necessary to his own salvation and the peace of Church and State For our Lord hath assured us that if any man will do the will of God he shall know of the Doctrine whether it be of God But so long as there is that Hypocrisie in the World whereof men are conscious to themselves so long as all those Vices also reign which insensibly corrupt the Judgment and make men disloyal to the Truth
in this business without directing them to use the best helps they can to find out the truth is very dangerous indeed and no wise man will contend for this liberty of judgment in behalf of Christian people or of any sort of men whatsoever for this were not so much to advise them to judge for themselves as to conclude for themselves before they had taken any pains to judge For I do not see how men can be said to judge who refuse the means without which they can make no tryal Now the assistance of men of greater knowledge and ability than themselves have is one very necessary means by which private and unlearned persons are to examine and judge in matters of Religion And God hath not onely given us ability to find out some truths by our selves but also to weigh and consider what others offer to us And therefore he hath appointed Governours and Guides of Souls that are to feed the Flock and to instruct Christian people in the way to Heaven And one part of their work is to enable them to give an answer to every one that asketh a reason of the hope that is in them I Pet. 3. 15. which I conceive they cannot do without informing and helping them to judge for themselves So that liberty of examining in order to private judgment does by no means exclude advising with and hearkening to men of greater skill and ability than our selves especially to the publick Guides of Souls but rather makes it necessary so to do this being one means of Gods appointment by which we are to inform our selves And I grant that without very good and clear reason we are not to depart from their Doctrine but in all doubtful cases to presume in favour of it But that it should be dangerous to private persons to weigh and consider as well as they can what their Guides teach them to believe or to do this is that which I can by no means understand unless it were a dangerous thing to follow our Guides like men that have Reason and not like beasts that have none It is at any time as safe to follow a Guide with our eyes open as to suffer our selves to be blindfolded and then to follow him by a string God hath referred us to Guides Heb. 13. 17. but yet he hath trusted us to our selves too and we are to try the spirits whether they be of God otherwise we may follow Guides that want Guides themselves And if the blind lead the blind both fall into the ditch To say that inquiries after truth with the best endeavours and means that we have in our power is the way to be mistaken is to reproach our own Reason and God the Author of it since as it seems the more we exercise and improve our Reason the more likely we are to be in the wrong and to deceive and abuse our selves At the great day of Accounts Seducers shall answer for those whom they have deceived And therefore the Guides of the Church are strongly obliged that they do not through wilfulness or negligence mislead us But if they mislead us in things that touch our eternal state I do not sind that all the blame will lie upon them but rather that we also shall answer for it our selves Otherwise why should our Saviour say Why of your selves do ye not judge that which is right Luke 12. 57. and St. John Believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits c. 1 Joh. 4. 1. and St. Paul Prove all things hold fast that which is good 1 Thess 5. 21. and Let no man deceive you 2 Thess 2. 3. Again if it be dangerous to permit men to judge for themselves in that sense wherein I contend for it then these are not wholsom but very dangerous Exhortations And yet if a Church which pretends to be an Infallible Guide in Religion could make it out clearly and plainly that she is so I should without much examination of her particular Doctrines receive them as the Oracles of God But then I must have stronger Arguments to assure me that she is infallible than those which at present make me certain that she is actually deceived For to submit to a pretended infallible Authority without knowing why I do so is to put it into the power of others for ought I know to lead me into the most damnable errours and to call Virtue Vice and Vice Virtue Therefore they must be very convincing Reasons upon which I am to believe that of my Guide which being once admitted I must take his bare word afterward for all things else I think none of the Roman Communion will deny this And then it will follow that for my own safety I am to use my own Reason and Judgment as severely as I can before I admit this fundamental Article of their Faith And this will amount to what I say that it is so far from being dangerous for men to use their own Judgment in matters of Religion that it is very dangerous for them not to do so since otherwise they are likely to follow men of the greatest confidence as they for the most part are who have the least reason for it Besides if I am led into errour by the Authority of a Church that does not pretend to Infallibility I may hope to recover the knowledge of the truth especially if it be a matter of great consequence more than if she pretended and I believed her infallible For such a Church will not so readily deny me the means of examining her Doctrine and so I may be able to discover the errour my self If not I have this comfort at least that my Guides being not engaged to contend that they are infallible are themselves in the way of detecting their own mistake and will more easily come off from it But they that pretend to Infallibility are stak'd down to their Opinions and though their Cause be never so bad they are engaged to serve it And therefore this Pretence is so far from discharging me of the pains of using my own Judgment and Reason in matters of Religion that I make the most foolish venture in the world if I do not use my Reason as strictly as I can in examining that very Pretence before I admit it And though a Churches claim to Infallibility were in it self never so just and well-grounded it is to me but a Pretence till I understand the grounds of it Nor can any man blame me if before I am convinced of the Infallibility of that Church I take those particular Doctrines into consideration which are to be believed upon this account that I may this way also judge of the reasonableness of that Pretence for 't is not for nothing that men would be thought infallible If I find the Doctrine they would put off with such authority to be indeed divine and heavenly rational and scriptural tending to the reformation and salvation of Mankind this will incline me to
have misled them Fourthly We should not easily believe those men in matters of Religion who would keep us from examining their Doctrines by fair ways of tryal and would affright us into an implicit Faith by pronouncing damnation against all that are not of their own way If men use violence or subtlety to hinder us from judging for ourselves there is great reason to suspect that they are conscious to themselves of a bad Cause which will not bear the tryal I need not say how this reaches the Roman Church which forbids the Laity to read the Scriptures unless some one Lay-man has that special favour granted him of leave so to do from his Ordinary who commonly is wise enough not to give this license but where he is sure the party is fast enough to the Cause of that Church Those of the separate Congregations best know what Arts are used to keep the people that go that way from informing themselves by reading our Books or discoursing with our Ministers about the matters in controversie between them and us But we are not ignorant of all of them some of their Leaders teach them to pity our ignorance and want of illumination Alas poor wretches that we are we know not the things of the Spirit of God! we are strangers to the life and power of Godliness Thus they use to represent us They take all the good names and promises of the Scripture to themselves and leave the threatnings of God and the punishments inflicted upon his enemies to us Now this is but a cunning and indirect way to keep the People from hearkning to any thing we can say to 'em and to teach them how to conclude against us without thinking it to any purpose to examine what is offered on both sides They that have a good Cause need not use those disingenuous Arts they will not fright men from considering what their adversaries say by denouncing damnation against them nor forbid them to read their Books but rather encourage them to do so that they may see the difference between Truth and Errour between Reason and Sophistry with their own eyes This is the effect of a well-grounded confidence in the Truth and there is this signe of a good Cause apparently discernable in the Application of the Clergy of this Church both to their friends and enemies They desire both the one and the other to consider impartially what is said for us and against us And whatever Guides of a Party do otherwise they give just cause to those that follow them to examine their Doctrines so much the more by how much they are unwilling to have them examined It is a bad signe when men are loath to have their Opinions seen in the day but love darkness rather than light Thus I have shewn in what cases we are most concerned to examine the Doctrines of those that undertake to inftruct and guide us § 5. II. Because the duty of proving all things supposes certain Rules and Tests by which Doctrines are to be examined and tryed I proceed to shew what they are Now it is very certain that the Rules by which we are to try Doctrines for our own satisfaction about them are no other than those want of Argument by which a wise man would prove the truth of his Perswasion to others for their satisfaction And therefore it is plain that those Rules must be common to me and to other men whom I would also guide so into the knowledge of that Truth to which I have attained And they are these three 1. Reason which is a common Rule to all men 2. Scripture which is a common Rule to all Christians 3. Antiquity or the uniform Judgment and Practice of the Church in the first Ages of Christianity which is a common Rule to those who are verst in the Histories of the Primitive Church and in the Writings of the Fathers The two former Rules are the principal and most necessary and we are safe if our Perswasions in Religion will bear the Test of Reason and Scripture and withal those Rules are near at hand for every mans use amongst us But the last Rule is also of good use to those that can use it for their own confirmation in the truth and stopping the mouths of gain-sayers But more particularly 1. By Reason I do not understand that Faculty by which we are men and can compare one thing with another and argue and conclude c. for this is that Natural Power by which we use any kind of Rule whereby to judge of the truth or falshood of Opinions in Religion but I understand by it those common Truths which are natural to the minds of men and to which we give a ready assent without any need of having them proved by any thing else For by these fundamental Truths we are to prove all things else and if there were none such we could prove nothing And they are such as these That nothing can make it self That the same thing cannot be and not be at the same time That common sence is to be trusted That God is a being absolutely perfect That the Good is to be chosen and the Evil to be refused and that Contradictions cannot be true and the like Now whatever is by true consequence deduced from such Principles is thereby proved to be true and whatsoever is repugnant to them or can be disproved by them is false They are the forementioned Propositions with others as self-evident as they which make up that which we call the Light of Nature or of Reason And I mention this Rule in the first place because it must be presupposed to all other ways and means of enquiring after Truth and without which nothing could be done in it insomuch that the belief of that Truth which is not to be deduced from mere natural Reason but depends upon a divine Testimony is at last resolved into a rational Act and relies upon this natural Principle that God cannot lye Wherefore they that cry down Reason as if it were at no hand to be trusted in matters of Religion and call it carnal blind and foolish Reason and such-like vile names if they are in good earnest they are incapable of searching after Truth themselves and of receiving any satisfaction from others While they are in this humour I may as well take a Beast to dispute with as go about to convince them And if all men were thus senseless it were impossible that men should be serviceable to instruct one another in the things of God But to abandon the use of Reason in matters of Religion and to scorn a man when he speaks consistently and argues clearly from common Principles of Truth is such a wretched sort of unmanliness that I cannot but think it is for the most part taken up in designe by those men that have brought Nonsence and Contradictions and absurd Opinions into Religion which no man can admit without doing violence to his own
led to a Practice where there is danger of such a complicated sin 3. I am to consider that differences in Religion and Worship do dangerously affect the Peace of Kingdoms and all other Societies especially where the interests of Church and State are so mixed and interwoven together as they are in England They that agree in Religion are the most likely to be at peace and to agree together in other things But it seldom happens that they maintain hearty correspondence in any thing who are of opposite Communions in the service of God When the Unity of the Church is broken there is a foundation laid of those uncharitable censures and animosities which for the most part end in violence and bloudshed very often to the dissolation of Kingdoms and Nations It were easie to put this out of question by several instances of the sad experience which Christendom hath had of it But the late and sad Example hereof at home is enough to make all others needless for our conviction The Rebellion here was supported by nothing more than by difference about Religion This was the principal cause that brought together so many People against the King and that inslamed them with anger and resolution to venture all till they had secured the King and enslaved the Kingdom I need not say for sure every body must be sensible of that how diversity of Religions weaken the Government and render a People unable to do well for themselves to oppose foreign Enemies and to use the most likely opportunities for the common safety and prosperity Therefore in love to our Country and for the sake of Peace at home and of success in all just Enterprizes abroad we should be very backward to violate the present Constitution of the Church and to unsettle the state of Religion and never separate from the establish'd Communion till we find our selves forced to it by Reasons so plain and weighty that there is no avoiding of it if we would keep our selves honest men and good Christians 4. The setting of a bad example to others should in this case be most considered For if where a necessary Reformation in things of Religion is made by just Authority or a lawful separation made by private persons from a Communion polluted with unlawful conditions it is yet very hard to keep the Example from being abused by others in reforming or separating without any such cause and will still be of worse consequence to set an example of wanton and unjustifiable separation for this is so plain a contempt of Authority Order and Unity that others will be afraid to subdivide into more Parties as Self-conceit Ambition or Revenge or the like evil dispositions shall prompt them 5. If separation should not be made but with very great caution for fear of incurring the guilt of Schism by a causeless and unlawful departure from the Assemblies of the Church and setting up other Assemblies in opposition to them This in the judgment of the ancient Christians was no less than for a man to cut himself off from the Catholick Church of Christ and if the body of Christ be but one as the Scripture plainly tells us he that divides himself from any particular Church that is a Member of this Body divides himself from the whole Body And therefore Schismaticks were not accounted by the Ancients to be within the Church although they retained the profession of the Common Faith And surely a man would well advise with himself about an action whereby he may be in danger of putting himself into that condition The Vnity of Christians in one Body and Communion was instituted by our Lord for very great and weighty reasons and particularly for the securing of Brotherly kindness amongst his Disciples who being Members of the Body of Christ should therefore love and care for one another more than other men are wont to do and for the retaining of Professors within the Rules of a true Christian life from which if they should break away by any scandalous practice they were to be punished for it by the shame of being turned out of the Communion of the Church and by the loss of the great advantages thereof But it is evident that they who are guilty of dividing the Communion of Christians and setting up one Communion in opposition to another without necessary cause do what in them lies to render this provision for the maintenance of Charity and purity of Manners amongst Believers altogether ineffectual And we see by experience that hatred and ill will and looseness of life gains ground more by the Schisms that are amongst Christians than by any thing else and no wonder since men that are of different and opposite Communions do not use to love one another and vicious persons do not value the Communion of a true Church nor care if for their ill manners they be turned out of it when they can take Sanctuary in a pretended Church of another Communion that makes as loud a claim to all the Priviledges of a Chruch-Society as that Church can do from which they have divided themselves Which things being considered we are not to wonder that in St. Cyprian's time Schism was accounted no less but rather a greater fault than to sacrifice to Idols for the avoiding of persecution For though Idolatry simply considered be in it self worse yet Schism in its consequences is more pernicious He that is the Head of a Schism does more mischief to the Church than if he turned a Pagan or a Mahometan The conclusion from hence is this That it concerns every man that separates himself from an established Church it concerns him I say as much as his Soul is worth to look to it that the cause of his separation be just and necessary and such as will throw the guilt of Schism upon that Church from which he separates But alas how few are they that examine the reasons upon which they have broken away from the Church of England How many that when they are pressed in good earnest can say no more for themselves than that they have better preaching and more spiritual praying elsewhere than in our Parish-Churches How will they abuse our Prayers and call them Porridge and such other vile names who never in all their lives so much as read them and are not ashamed to own that they have not They call the Bishops Antichristian and the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church Idolatrous or Superstitious who yet never well considered what Antichrist means what is Idolatry or Superstition who have little or nothing to say if they be asked what evil is in Bishops in Liturgies and in the Rites of our Worship How many others are there who read the Books written to defend the separation but will not vouchsafe so much as to look upon any one that is published in behalf of the Communion of our Church God of his mercy give a better Spirit to such people and Repentance to those that