persons of Eminence and Authority But this hath not been the method of the Roman Conversions which begun in a kind of Alliance with the Prince who being convinced of his advantage in the Change did upon that oblige his subjects to it not without severely punishing sometimes such as refused it so far were they from being persecuted for it If any one were by a fury or tumult killed that does not alter the case nor make it a persecution And thus it is apparent that for all the noise the Roman Church makes of their Conversions they have managed them in a method very different from the way of the primitive Christians How basely and barbarously it hath been carried on in the West Indies the Bishop of Guatimala did inform the world and the Bishop of Angelopolis did within these few years inform the Pope how wretchedly the Jesuits continue to manage it to this day And though we have little reason to believe the accounts given us from the Indies since we see those who publish them are guilty of such Impostures in things nearer us and easily discovered that we have no reason to credit them in things at so great a distance where the forgeries of their account cannot be found out yet even from these a great many of the observations made upon the methods of the Emissaries of the Roman Church may be proved But as for Austin the Monk I. K. cannot sure be so ignorant as to think we owe our Conversion to him for whatever truth may be in the story of Glastenbury it is undoubted we received the Faith at farthest in the second Century and that it did overrun our Island farther than the Roman Conquest Tertullian witnesses The Rites of our observing Easter do also prove we had not the Christian Faith by any sent from Rome so that long before the time of Avstin the Monk this Island was converted And that famed story of the Monks of Bangor as it proves what footing Christianity had then so it shews how proud and insolently cruel that pretended Apostle was And it is apparent he was a man of an Ambitious temper his great design on those of Bangor being to engage them to a subjection to the Pope and to comply with their Rites in the observation of Easter But if what is delivered by ancient Historians of his setting on the King of the Northumberlands to destroy these Monks be true he is to be looked on as an Emissary of Hell rather than an Apostle of Christ. Besides the King of Kent to whom he came was so favourable to the Christian Faith that as he had married a Christian Queen so he allowed the Christians a Church near Canterbury And so it is no wonder if a Prince so prepared was soon prevailed on But Austins first coming to him with all that pomp of Crosses carried before him has nothing primitive in it and the fabulous Legends of the Monks are little to be credited Thus far I have examined I. K's proofs for the truth of the Roman Religion and I doubt not upon a sober review of what hath been said he himself will acknowledge he must see for other and better Arguments before he can oblige any to believe the Roman Religion to be the true Catholick and Apostolical Religion CHAP VI. It is considered if J. K. proves convincingly that every thing the Roman Church teaches as an Article of Faith must be true J. K. advances to his last attempt which is the finishing of the whole contrivance to perswade the belief of every thing the Roman Church delivers as an Article of Faith for if that Religion be a true Religion then it is free from all fundamental errors and does erre against no fundamental point of Religion and if that be acknowledged then it does not erre against this point that God is not the Author of any error or corruption whatsoever that being unquestionably a fundamentâ—l point Now if the Roman Religion does not eâ—re against this it does not teach that God is the Author of any error or corruption and if it do not that then it teaches nothing as an Article of Faith which is either error or corruption for whatever it teaches as an Article of Faith is teaches as that which hath been delivered by God This then may be applied to every particular Article of Faith which the Roman Church teacheth for if that be either error or corruption it teaching God to be the Author of it makes him to be the Author of error or corruption which is to erre against a fundamental point and by consequence that Religion shall be no true Religion If by true Religion I. K. understands a Religion that has no mixture of error or corruption in it then it is needless to prove that if the Roman Religion be true it hath neither error or corruption in it for the proving it a true Religion must carry the other along with it But if by true Religion be only meant a Religion that holds all the fundamentals of Christianity so that Salvation may be had in its Communion then it is a most wretched Inference that it must be true in all itâ— definitions of Faith And to confute this I shall for once turn the Tables on I. K. and become an Advocate for the Roman Church to shew they may be still a true Church and a true Religion though they have a large mixture of errors and corruptions And this I do not so much out of love to them but from a general principle of charity to overthrow this unmerciful Opinion that damns all men as erring fundamentally for believing any error in a matter of Faith And let me first ask I. K. whether he takes the Church of Corinth to have had a true Religion when S. Paul wrote to it This sure he cannot deny if he read but S. Pauls first salutation and yet in that Church there were various parties some for Cephas some for Apollo some for Paul and some for Christ and great difference of opinion there was whether Moses Law did oblige or not Now these questions concerning Circumcision and the Law were matters of Faith and in all contradictory opinions one must be true another false those therefore that were of the false side must by I. K's doctrine be all irrecoverably lost as being in a fundamental error for each side believed his Opinion was of God But S. Paul taught another doctrine that whoso builds on the foundation Jesus Christ shall be saved though he build upon it wood hay and stubble And the distinction he there makes between those who build Gold Silver and precious stones and wood hay and stubble can only relate to sound and unsound Doctors the one building good and useful Superstructures upon the foundation the other teaching trifling Doctrines that will not bear the Tryal and yet that both may be saved is a plain demonstration against I. K. The same Apostle also tells us that neither Circumcision
A RATIONAL METHOD For proving the Truth of the CHRISTIAN RELIGION As it is Professed in the Church of England In Answer to A Rational Compendious Way to Convince without Dispute all persons whatsoever Dissenting from the true Religion By I. K. By Gilbert Burnet LONDON Printed for Richard Royston Bookseller to His most Excellent Majesty M DC LXXV To I. K. SIR ABout two or three months ago a Noble Lady gave me your Book with a Letter that addressed it to me wherein after some civilities I was desired to peruse the Book and made hope I should reap great advantages from it and indeed if I had not learned from the Inspired Preacher that there is nothing new under the Sun or had been easily catched to believe Novelties a Title and Preface that promised so much should have made me apprehend I had got sent me the Philosophers stone in Divinity and truly so short so sure so easie and so general a Method as you think you offer for curing and preventing all distempers about Religion deserved to be entertained with equal degrees of Joy and Astonishment What a happiness were it to Mankind after all the expence of Bloud all the toyl and sweat of Care all the Speculations and Labours of the Learned and the Industry and endeavours of Statesmen for resolving the doubts and difficulties about Religion to find a shorter and a safer way to get out of that trouble But as the high pretences and promises of the Spagiricks make sober people afraid to meddle with them and do oft bring disesteem and neglect on the Medicines because they are overvalued so I am afraid your Book shall have the same fate with clearer and unpossessed minds And I must confess my self strongly prejudiced against these hudling Methods so that I always apprehend some Legerdemain from them And the Title of your Book did very naturally lead me to this thought it being a form of Speech we in England call a Bull A Rational way to convince without any Dispute for a Rational way of Conviction is when upon a full hearing and considering all can be said on both sides of any debate the evidence of Reason determines our perswasion And to form an opinion after we have only considered the grounds of one side is as unequal and unjust as for a Judge to pass sentence when he has heard but one party Now Disputing is only the considering with an even ballance what all parties say and the suspending our Verdict till they have finished their Evidence It is therefore no Rational way but a blind and unreasonable one that bars Disputing nor can it be a Conviction but only a prepossession when we are led into any Opinion before all that can in reason be said hath been examined by us But I suppose by Dispute you meant the eager and hot contests of wrangling Disputants who espousing a party do with all the tricks and disingenuities of Sophistry and the petulant Incivilities of rude treatment manage debates as persons more concerned for glory and victory than for truth and rather than confess an escape and disclaim an error will with all the trifling arts of their embased Logick defend every thing which either they themselves have once said or that party they adhere to has maintained But as I passed from your Title through your Preface to your Book I must freely confess I did not find in it such fair and clear Reasoning as you promised and I saw you had a great deal of reason to avoid Disputing for nothing but a blind easie yielding to what you delivered could save your Book from being rejected And this seemed to me so obvious that I judged it needless to engage in any Answer to it and so laid it aside But a few days ago a worthy and learned friend of mine told me many wished some would be at the pains to Answer it and desired me to do it and when I told him how it was brought to my hands he thought I was under some obligation to send you the reasons that lay in my way and kept me from yielding to this new Method of Conviction I was the more easily perswaded to it that my present circumstances did leave me at a greater freedom of disposing of my time than I have enjoyed for some years The starched formality of Dedications is as much out of esteem with me as out of date in this freer age but it was natural to address this to your self though utterly unknown to me by any other Character than what your Book gives of you and so I am in no hazard of making personal reflections I shall first give you my sense of your Method in all the Six points you go through before I take any notice of what is in your Preface which I shall consider last of all and with the same breath shall offer a Rational way of managing all Disputes about Religion so that after a full hearing of what may be said we may arrive at a clear and well grounded Conviction in matters of Religion I hope you will consider what I go to lay before you with a mind calm and undisturbed and believe that in this I am acting the part of one who is sincerely Your Friend and Servant Gilbert Burnet IMPRIMATUR Guliel Wigan Feb. 27. 1674 5. THE CONTENTS CHap. I. It is considered if J. K. does prove convincingly that there is a God Page 1. Chap. II. It is considered if J. K. proves convincingly that there must be some true Religion p. 11. Chap. III. It is considered if J. K. proves convincingly that there must be some true Revealed Religion p. 17. Chap. IV. It is considered if J. K. hath proved convincingly the truth of the Christian Religion p. 23. Chap. V. It is considered if J. K. proves convincingly that the Roman Catholick Religion is true p. 33. Chap. VI. It is considered if J. K. proves convincingly that every thing the Roman Church teaches as an Article of Faith must be true p. 57. Chap. VII Of the supposed inconveniences J. K. imagines in the want of a true Church to judge Infallibly and of the right methods of finding truth p. 65. THE INTRODUCTION NOthing doth give both occasion and nourishment to Error and Mistake more than the being prevailed on by the heats of fancy without bringing them under the severer tryal of Reason nor do our Imaginative powers in any case more certainly impose upon us than when they present Notions to us which do at once surprise with their novelty and delight with their apparent usefulness and none are sooner catch'd with such a bait than men of Speculative heads accustomed to Disputes and to the little tricks of Logick for they being habituated to so many Axioms which pass among them for sacred Truths think if they can found a discourse on some received Maxim all is sure work and have not distinguished aright betwixt the Colours of Truth which Wit Eloquence and Sophistry can by a
deceiving Perspective cast on the falsest Propositions and the close Contextures of Reason derived from the common Notices of Truth which dwell on the minds of all men The subtleties of the Schoolmen did well enouâ—h in an Age that questioned nothing but nâ—w that men are throughly awake and having thrown off the prejudices of Custome and Education call for a fuller Evidence they are not the proper men to deal with this Age their ignorance of mankind makes them offer many things as demonstrations which some even of the most trifling pretenders to Wit can undo and blâ—w away and their being accustomed to their own Topicks not knowing how much they are rejected by men of severer and more searching Understandings makes them often beg the one half of the question to prove the other Therefore whoever would deal with our Hectors in matters of Religion must know men as well as Notiâ—nâ— and Books And as of 〈◊〉 Plato thought the Study of Geometry a necessary preparation to the understanding the higher Mysteries of his Philosophy So I have often judged an acquaintance with Mathematical Arts and Sciences a fit and almost necessary preparation for a right understanding and managing Theological debates since these teach us to distinguish Critically betwixt truth and falshood and practise a man into an exact considering of every thing that is proposed to him The want of this or at least a great overliness in it appears in J. K's late Book wherein he thinks he leads his Reader in a Mathematical method through a great many Propositions every one of which he imagines he has proved beginning from a very plain unquestioned one That something is True and ending it in a very fruitful one That every thing the Roman Church teaches as an Article of Faith must certainly be True Undoubtedly if his method be good that Church is infinitely beholding to him for its support having offered an easier and clearer method for bringing the world under her Authority than any yet thought on This he concludes as firm and sure of all sides and by a clear way of Analyticks offers a Resolution of any Theorem or Problem in Divinity even to the giving the Quadrature of that Circle their Church is forc'd to run round in proving her own Authority from the Scriptures and the Authority of the Scriptures from her own Testimony I shall without any further Introduction enter into a survey of the Six Points proposed by J. K. to be proved without examining the unwariness of his expressions in any of them in which though he lies often open yet it is of so little importance to quarrel about Words or forms of Speech that I shall not stand upon them being also careful to avoid the engaging in any debate that may be personal betwixt him and me and therefore shall confine my discourse to the Six Points he has gone through CHAP. I. It is considered if J. K. does prove convincingly that there is a God J K. thinks he hath proved the being of a God by this progression of Reason If something be true then this is true That there is something better than another which if any man deny he denies himself better than an Ass or a Block and so is either a mad man or a fool Now if something be better than other then there is a best of all things and every thing is better as it comes nearer that which is best and this best of all things is God Des Cartes is blamed by many for having left out all other Arguments for the proof of a Deity setting up only One which how strong soever it may be it is a great injury to the Cause he maintains to seem to slight all other proofs may be brought for so sacred and fundamental a truth Yet his establishing that upon a good and solid Foundation doth very much qualifie any guilt which is rather to be imputed to the over-valuing his own Notions than a designed betraying the Cause he undertook But upon this occasion the Reader may be tempted to severâ—r Câ—â—sure when the Foundations of so great a Suâ—â—â—structure are so ill laid and both the Antecedent and Consequent of this Argument prove equally weak And in the first place how is it proved that some things are better than other things or does any imagine the Atheists will admit that On the contrary they deny there is any thing morally good or evil and ascribe all the Notions of good and evil to Education Custom the several tempers and interests of men And indeed did they acknowledge the Morality of Actions they should yield the full half of the Debate that men ought to be good which would clearly make way for proving all the rest And these men will without any hesitation acknowledge themselves no better than Beasts or Blocks as to any moral goodness They will not deny but Matter is more refined in a man the Contexture better and the Usefulness greater than in other Animals but as to any moral goodness they plainly disclaim it As though Wood be never so neatly wrought in a fiâ—e and useful Cabinet yet is no better so than when it was an undressed Plank as to any moral goodness Thus it appears that I. K's ignorance of men makes him stumble in his first attempt nor is his next more successful for though some things be better it will not follow there is a best for of every sort of Beings there are some Individuals better than other but from that it does not follow there must be a best of that rank or order of Creatures because one Horse is swifter one Dog better scented one Lyon stronger therefore must there be a Horse swifter than all others a Dog the best scented of any and a Lyon stronger than any other Lyon This may be applied to all the Species of Creatures for all the goodness these people admit being only a better temper of more nimbly agitated Matter though one thing excel another it is not because it comes nearer the best of all Beings nor because it recedes further from the worst of all Beings but because it is more wieldy more apt to serve the several uses and interests of men without rising higher to consider any Orâ—ginal and Standart goodness Nor wâ—ll this any more prove the being of one that is 〈◊〉 all than because some men are sharper sighted others stronger limbâ—d others of a better digestion and others of a better tempered health that therefore there must be one that hâ—â— the sharpest sight of all men the strongest limbs the best dâ—gestion and the most constant health Besides though an Atheist did admit there were some beings Morally better and worse this does not prove there must be a best of all Beings for he may say that as naturally as Colours fit the eye and Sounds the ear so some Notions of good are suitable to the minds of men and their being better and worse is nothing but their keeping more close
nor uncircumcision availed any thing and that in the new Creature there was neither Circumcision nor uncircumcision but Christ was all in all and that one God did both justifie the Circumcision by Faith and the uncircumcision through Faith from all which it is evident that those of the Circumcision might be saved and by consequence that their Religion was a true Religion and yet that their doctrine of Circumcision was an error can be disputed by none who read the Epistles of S. Paul And it is no less clear that they held it an Article of Faith delivered to Abraham by God So here it is plain that S. Paul in one breath both condemns this Opinion as erroneous and yet allows Salvation to such as believed it With how many errors doth S. Iohn charge some of the seven Churches yet they were still the Churches of Christ. The Church in the second Century did generally believe the Millennium as a thing revealed by God which the Roman Church now calls an error yet I hope I. K. will not condemn that Church as holding a false Religion The African Churches held it necessary for Infants to receive the Eucharist from these words Except you eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man you have no life in you and this was approved by P. Innocent and was continued many Ages in the Roman Church as appears from the Ordo Romanus and yet that Church has declared that not to be necessary by which the Opinion the former Ages had of its necessity is declared an error But it were a strange thing from that to condemn these as holding a false Religion The Franciscans and Dominicans had hot contests about the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin and both pretended Divine authority and Revelations so that one of those must have held an error The Dominicans and Iansenists believe Predestination and Grace efficacious of it self this the Molinists deny both vouch Scriptures and the definitions of the Church The Canonists Courtiers of Rome and Iesuits have asserted the Popes Infallibility from Scripture and Councils the Sorbon hath always rejected this Now of all these different Opinions the one must be true and the other false since they stand in the terms of a contradiction and they have all vouched God and Scriptures for them therefore those who hold the false side of the contradiction according to I. K's reasoning must be of a false Religion which I believe when he considers more maturely he will find he mistook his measures in this And in fine his Argument will also hold as strong to prove that every Individual of a true Religion must be exempt from all errors in every Opinion whereof he takes God to be the Author For I. K's Argument will be as strong for every thing whereof God is believed the Author as for Articles of Faith So that every mistaken sense of Scripture will turn one to be of a false Religion since every mistaken exposition is an error and yet that being thought the meaning of the place God is believed the author of that meaning and by I. K's consequence of the error it self From all which I may I hope even by I. K's leave infer the necessary distinction between things that are believed to be errors and those that are believed to be Truths For the former to vouch God the Author of what we know to be an error and corruption is certainly so criminal that none of the true Religion can be guilty of it But there be many things which though errors yet any one may very innocently mistake for truths I do not say the mistake does quite excuse the error if the error be fundamental the mistake must be so too But if the error be in a lesser matter it is a lesser error and it will never be made out That if one apprehending an Opinion true embrace it as come from God and as an Article of Faith if he is mistaken in that he strikes at the divine veracity for among men who thinks that any wronged his veracity if another mistook his meaning and understood his words in a different sense from what he intended and expressed Certainly he who so mistakes after the true meaning is cleared cannot be understood to have fastned any reproach upon the Candor of him whose words he mistook all the blame being to be cast only on his want of right understanding This were indeed a hard case if all our mistakings of divine Revelations did infer a charging God with error or corruption But the thing is so clear that I am afraid I have spent too many words about it and this Argument of I. K's cannot but upon first reading appear to all that are accustomed to weigh and examine truth to be a piece of crude ill digested and ill palliated Sophistry Thus far have I followed I. K. through those six points he imagines he has demonstrated and have shewed how true the first four were but how little reason there was to account them such for any thing he said for their proof and how false the other two are And I suppose he will acknowledge that if what is already set down hold true and be founded on good reason I need not follow him through the rest of his Book it being only a direction to his gentle courteous Reader how to manage this method of arguing so as to convince all persons that dissent from the true Religion which he thinks is a Mathematical and sure way of proceeding and such as no man can decline or avoid and in end must be either convinced by it or be forced to confess himself no better than an Ass or a block which concludes him a mad man I will not follow this with a railery that is as obvious as severe but I love not to mix matters of sport with such serious purposes therefore I follow I. K. no more through the rest of his Book But come next to consider the great support of that cause which he manages both in his Preface and through the rest of his Book that there can be no certainty neither about the true books of Scripture the Decrees of Councils or writings of Fathers without there be a true Church and Religion agreed on which shall both declare to us what Books are true and what not and shall deliver their true meaning to us otherwise endless confusions must follow which plainly appears in the many divisions of the Protestants and the uncertainties they are in about all Controverted points From which the necessity of a true Church appears as much as in a well ordered State there is not only a necessity of clear and good Laws but of Judges to expound them CHAP. VII Of the supposed Inconveniencies J. K. imagines in the want of a true Church to Iudge Infallibly and of the right methods of finding Truth THere is nothing about which those of the Roman Church make more noise than the necessity of
an Infallible Judge and of the great and visible inconveniencies that appear from the want of it in those Churches that have departed from the Roman Communion I have not long ago proposed a great many Queries to one of I. K's brethren in which I have set before him the many difficulties they must needs be involved in by clearing who this Infallible Judge must be and I shall here repeat nothing of what I said then but shall go on to shew upon what clear and certain grounds we may rest our perswasions about Articles of Faith and divine Truths All Arts and Sciences must be acquired by some rules and methods by which a progress may be made from plainer things to those that are more involved and difficult and if any would desire to understand any Theorem or Problem in Geometry without beginning at the Elements and advancing by Euclid or some other such methods he labours in vain So also if any would without more ado study to know a secret in Chymistry having neither learned to know the terms of Art nor the course of a process he shall not be the wiser though one deliver him their best secrets In like manner if a man will enter into the knowledge of Divine truth without any of those preparations which are necessary he is in a wrong way and the further he engages he is the more out of the way nor can he be ever in the right way till he begin afresh It may justly seem strange that Christian Religion was so plain a thing when the Apostles first delivered it that mean simple people poor women and an illiterate company should have understood it and that it subdued a great part of the Roman Empire before men of great Learning were Converted to the belief of it and all the knowledge they then had of it was by the Sermons and Epistles of the holy Apostles which remain to this day And though at this distance from that time we may have lost the true meaning of some phrases and we have not so particular a History of the state of the first Churches as might help us to understand many passages that seem very dark to us yet for the main of those Books they seem very easie and plain We have also still so perfect a knowledge of the Greek tongue as clearly to understand them But after all this Christian Religion is now become such a strange kind of secret that men with all their Learning and Study can scarce understand it Certainly we must have either changed Religion from what it was at first so that it hath now put on a new face or we are much mistaken in our methods of enquiring into it and examining what things are revealed to us by God S. Paul tells us the Natural man receives not the things of God neither indeed can be for they are spiritually discerned From which it appears that a Renovation of the mind from its natural mould and its being transformed into a spiritual temper are necessary as well for the understanding and discerning as the obeying the things of God Now all natural men may be divided into three Classes either they are so immersed in senses and sensible things that all their apprehensions are tinctured with the figures and phantasms which their senses and imaginations present to them or they rise a little above this but are so governed by the heats of nature and passion that either their minds are rendred quite incapable of all serious thoughts or so distorted in them that they do not discern them truly But the highest elevation of the natural man is Reason which hath a fairer appearance and if rightly managed would certainly advance him to a spiritual temper but being fed only with dry Notions and trying them by a false touchstone does strenghthen our errors fortifie our prejudices and swell us with pride and fret us with the itch of an unsatisfiable and useless curiosity Now it will not be ungrateful it is hoped to propose the great hinderances all these several Modifications of the Natural man have given to the right understanding Divine truths and to begin with those of the lowest form One whose mind is immersed in sense either believes nothing but what his senses propose to him or at least tinctures all his Notions with sensible objects Thus the Atheist believes no God because he cannot see him and those of the heathens over whom the power of their senses was strong yet not such as to overcome the Impressions of a Deity left on their Souls did believe the Sun Moon and Stars were Gods being both dazled with the brighter splendor of the day and delighted with the fainter shinings of the night And finding both the pleasant Lightsomness the warm Benignity and fruitful usefulness of their Beams they did adore them as gods and seeing strange effects answering some of their positions and aspects they came to imagine all humane things were governed by them and so framed an entire Theory if so ill grounded a thing can deserve that name of Astrology Others much taken with the greatness and glory of brave Commanders and Princes and having some Notion of the Souls Immortality on their minds did think that after their death they governed this inferiour world and to those Heroes they assigned Stars to dwell in and those gods they represented either by some Symbols the chief whereof was Fire or by some Statues Pillars or other pieces of Sculpture which at least represented that Deity to their Senses if it had not some strangely Magical and Divine influence united or affixed to it They did also prognosticate all future things either by the flight or feeding of Birds or by the inwards of Animals Here then a Religion entirely framed from the Conceptions of the Natural man in its lowest depression and their gross Notions of Religion made them both prejudiced against the Iews who worshipped nothing but a Celestial Deity and more against the Christians whom they called Atheists because they had none of those sensible representations or ways of Worship but their Faith was plain and simple But as the Natural man did thus corrupt the notices of natural Religion it did no less embase the Christian Religion When many natural men were engaged in the profession of it either by Education Custom or Interest who loathing its simple purity did study so to dress it up that it might gratifie their natural minds by bringing in the worship of deceased men and by worshipping them by Images Pictures Reliques and at length making Pictures for the Deity it self and by dressing up all the parts of Religious Worship so as to amuse and delight the senses by affecting an outward grandeur in Processions and other Festivals and in the greatness of their Priests chiefly of their high Priest all which were visibly the effects of minds deeply engaged in sensible things to whom nothing appeared sacred or solemn without it had been adorned with all the
left out to maintain the Fight and as some after the greatest defeats have impudence enough to pretend a Victory so that art was not omitted by them but loud acclamations of Victory were made when all free discerners saw they were quite routed and the rudeness they had learned in their Cells was brought out with them for they managed their disputes with all the roughness of expression the most petulant insultings and the most barbarous railings Nor does this charge fall only on one side of Christendom though one Church be most notoriously guilty but the Disputants of all sides have for the greatest part managed their debates with that acrimony of stile those severe invectives and the catching up some escapes of inconsiderate Pens as if they were more concerned for Glory than for Truth Besides that every one swallows down an entire system of that party to which he hath offered up himself and all must be defended without that ingenuity which becomes inquirers into divine truth Nor do most men take their opinions from the sacred Oracles but from their Educations and the Catechisms and Confessions they have been accustomed to and being thus prepossessed go to the Scriptures to seek proofs for their opinions being resolved before-hand to defend them and to make the Scriptures serve their turns which if they will not do easily they will so stretch them upon the rack by their forced Criticisms or consequences as to make them confess any thing though never so plainly contrary to the clear meaning of the words And it is evident that men thus blown up with pride are resolved to justifie all they have ever said though to the cost of throwing off all candid and fair dealing saying things that no man of common sense would say if he were not strangely byassed And indeed we dayly see things brought for the proof of many opinions which are so visibly weak and unconcluding that it is scarce possible to think those believed them that said them but that being resolved to stand to what they once asserted some mist must be raised for keeping up their reputation and imposing on weaker and more credulous Disciples And thus it must continue as long as men are led by their pride to be stubborn in all their reasonings about Religion Another great abuse of Reason is a needless curiosity about things that either are of no great importance or are wrapped in mysterious darkness into which if men will penetrate their Conjectures and Discourses must turn to impertinent Cantings and Nonsense Thus the Philosophers disputing about the nature of the Deity and of the Soul do fall into unintelligible niceties and Cabalistical conceits of Numbers of which no account can be given but that they would seem to say somewhat where they could say nothing And this curious subtilising carried along another mischief with it that they rejected every thing of which they could not give a distinct account and therefore called S. Paul a babler when he told them of the Resurrection But when some of the Philosophers became Converts to Christianity both these effects of this curiosity did appear some studying to make out the high Mysteries of the Faith from their Metaphysicks and to reconcile them to the Platonical Notions in which any discerning Reader will see a great deal of needless and very ill proved and worse applyed curiosity This appearing both too curious and ill grounded to others was no small occasion of their rejecting those Mysteries or at least framing them so as to agree with their Conceptions of things and both seem to have had too laâ—gâ— a share of this oversearching humour and of not believing any thing but what was made out to their Reasons the one party pretending they did understand the Mysteries and the other denying them because they could not understand them What subtleties were used in explaining those incomprehensible doctrines any that hath conversed in those writings must needs know and how they were opposed with the like subtleties Whereas had all sides adored the divine Revelations without engaging into these discantings they had held the simplicity of the Gospel and acted more like true Christian Philosophers since it agrees with the strictest reason to acknowledge our faculties are limited and so not fit to comprehend the divine Nature nor the operations or the communications of that Supream being and therefore we must believe with all humility what himself hath been pleased to reveal to us concerning himself without either doubting the truth because we understand not what is so far above us or engaging into over curious searching into that which it appears from our limited understandings and the general terms of Revelation God intended should be still a Mystery to us But indeed the Schoolmen have thought it below the height of their â—ouring minds and great Learnings to stick at the explaining all Mysteries and as far as hard words and unconceivable niceties will go they have given us a very satisfying account of all Mysteries by which we know neither more nor less than we do without them Whether this may not have led many over curioâ—s enquirers into the contrary extream I shall not determine but this is plainly an abuse of Reason on both hands The humour of enquiring into all subtleties did quickly bring into the Church a superfetation of unconceivable Mysteries For every bold conceit that any who had so much authority as to be well followed took up was presently given out for a Mystery and then it was sacred and must not be touched and if any did offer to examine it he was scared with the bugbear of a Mystery So that Transubstantiation the treasure of the Church the way of the Popes Infallibility together with a thousand devised Mysteries in all the pieces of Divine Worship were cramm'd down the throats of all Christians and many being justly provoked by these pretended Mysteries and seeing the other great Mysteries made the engines of obtruding these on the world were thereupon by an unjustifiable and an immoderate use of the Counterpoise led to the other extream of denying all And with how great nicety of Argument have even the Reformed managed many high mysterious points as the derivation of Adam's sin the Order o the Divine decrees with the nature of the aids and assistances of Grace which have been canvassed with a very searching curiosity and as dark as these must be confessed to be yet they are delivered with as much dictating and imperious authority as if these Authors had been caught up to the third Heavens Many other niceties are also found out to exercise their curiosity yet if it rested there the hazard were not so great but these are all made Articles of Faith and all who are not satisfied about them are barred the Communion of the Church and so no wonder there be endless heats and debates The occasion of this curiosity and itch of disputing may be perhaps not unjustly derived from the contentions
and endless wranglings of the Schools in matters of Philosophy in which men being accustomed to that game of disputing and subtilising about nothing and going from those studies to Divinity and carrying that same temper and fiery edge along with them they made all that work about it which hath now so long divided the world They being also by a long practice habituated to many Maxims and Axioms which were laid down for rules not to be enquired into or denyed came really to believe those were true and to carry them along with them to all their Theological debates All which will appear very evident to any that compares their Philosophical and Theological works from which many of their strange inferences and positions did take their rise and I am afraid do still receive their nourishment Thus far I have discoursed of the several prejudices the powers of the natural man do lay in the way of our apprehending and judging aright of Divine truths and the common notions of the moral Philosophy will concur to teach all men that before their minds can be rightly qualified for the understanding any intellectual truth but most chiefly Divine truth we must abstract from all those figures of things which our senses present to us and rise above all grosser phantasms It is no less necessary that our thoughts be serene and free of passion that we may freely and at leisure consider what lies before us without the Byass of preconceived opinions or interests And it is equally rational with these that we have modest minds not vainly puffed up with an opinion of our own knowledge but tractable and docile such as will not stick after clear conviction to confess and retract an error and that we proceed in our reasonings closely and on sure grounds not on vain conjectures and maxims taken up meerly on trust but by a clear progress advance from one truth to another as the Series of them shall lead A man who is thus prepared must next consider all was said in the first four Sections with a great deal more to the same purpose That he be on good grounds perswaded there is a God that there is a true revealed Religion that the Christian Religion is the true Religion These things being laid down he is in the first place by earnest Prayers to beg God's direction to go along with him in all his enquiries which certainly will not be wanting if he bring with him a sincere well prepared mind not byassed nor prepossessed and of this we may be well assured both from the Divine goodness and veracity For as he hath promised that whoso seek shall find so it is a necessary consequent of infinite goodness to assist all that sincerely seek after life and happiness but if any come to this study without he be duly prepared he has himself to thank if he fall into errors and mistakes The next thing an exact searcher into Religion must labour in is once to observe the nature of Christianity and the great designs of it and in this he is not to follow the small game of some particular and obscure passages but to observe through the whole New Testament what was the great end of all our Saviour spoke and did and his disciples testified and wrote If once we comprehend this a right it will be a thread to carry us through particular disquisitions For as there be many natural truths of which we are well assured though Philosophy offers us some Arguments against them in the answering which we are not able to satisfie our Reasons so there may be some divine truths very certainly made out to us and yet there may be places of Scripture which seem so to contradict those truths that they cannot be well answered Again a serious Enquirer will see good reason to believe the Scriptures must be plain evident and clear since they were at first directed to men of very ordinary parts and of no profound understandings and learning therefore he may well conclude those strange Superstructures some have reared up for amusing the world can be none of the Articles of Faith necessary to be believed And as the first Converts were honest simple men so our Saviour and the Apostles spoke in a plain easie stile therefore all these forced Criticisms and Inferences by which some more ingenious than candid Writers would expound them in a sence favourable to their Opinions aâ—e not to be received since these do often represent the divine discourses rather like the little tricks of double-dealing and Sophistry for which an honest Tutor would severely chide his Pupil words are to be understood in their plain meaning and not as Logick or a nicety of Criticism may distort and throw them If then a man will in this method which no honest man can except against go to the search of the Scriptures with a mind prepared as hath been already said he cannot fail of finding out all that is necessary for his Salvation Nor is he to be doubtfully anxious concerning the true Books for none denies but the Churches care in all Ages hath been the great conveyance of this the many various Translations of all Ages and Languages nay and different Religions agreeing in all material points and the Citations out of those Books which we find in a Series of Authors who have lived in the several Ages since they were written agreeing likewise with the Books themselves together with many ancient Manuscripts which do yet remain of a great many Languages may abundantly satisfie even the most severe Inquirer that these be the very Books which the Apostles delivered and were universally received by all Christians The matter of Fact being thus cleared without any necessity of running to the authority of the Church all those scruples which I. K. with the rest of his Brethren would needs raise do vanish since they never distinguish exactly between a Witness and a Judge For the former nothing is required but honesty and good information and we have the agreeing suffrages of many witnesses that do all agree in their Testimony of these Books who though they differed very much in their Expositions of them yet concurred in their verdict about the Books and were checks on one another in the faithful preserving and transcribing them In this sence we do receive the Churches Testimony as the necessary means of conveying these Books to us But an Authority Sacred and Solemnly declared is required in a Judge and this no Church can so much as pretend to but from the Scriptures Therefore the Scriptures being received as Divine cannot depend on the sentence of the Church as a Judge since all its Jurisdiction is derived from Scripture which therefore must be acknowledged before it can be believed But because there be persons of a meaner Condition and not Educated so as to make all the inquiry which is necessary in so important a Business there is therefore a shorter method for such
which yet is as morally certain as any thing can be Let then the simplest man in England provide himself of two New Testaments one published by the Church of England another by the Church of Rome as was that of Rheims Now he knows well what animosities be betwixt the Divines of these Churches and that they are engaged so hotly one against another that they agree in nothing but where the Evidence of truth especially in matters of Fact does bind them And yet he comparing these New Testaments will find that though the phrase the position of words and in some few places perhaps the sence varies but upon a survey of the whole he finds that they do plainly agree in all matters of moment So that from this he is perswaded that both have the same true Book which the Apostles did deliver to the Church and the Iews agreeing with us as to the Old Testament is the same Evidence to him that we have those very Books which were held Sacred by the Iews in our Saviour's time And thus by I. K's leave a man may be satisfied what be the true Books without being assured which is the true Church or the true Religion Being then assured about the Books and studying them in the method already set down he shall be certainly directed by God to find out every thing necessary to Salvation and this is far from setting up a private Spirit to lead us Enthusiastically but is an appeal to the Reason and ingenuity that is common to all men For let me ask I. K. how the Decrees and Canons of the Council of Trent are to be understood He himself says the meaning of those is plainly and certainly to be known yet every Reader must expound them to himself in that easie and clear sence which best agrees with the words Is this therefore to set up a private spirit to enterpret these Canons I know he will say and with good reason too that it is far from it and with the same warrant do I assert that the considering of Scripture according to the method proposed is not to interpret it by a private Spirit but by the clear conduct of our understandings directed by the divine Grace which is freely given to all that ask it If after all this it be replyed How is it then that there are such different Expositors and Expositions of Scripture the Answer is plain by sending back the Reader to what hath been said of the corruption of mens minds and as long as men live so ill as they do it is to no purpose to expect they shall think or understand aright Besides there be a great many things in the Scriptures which are not Articles of Faith which every man is not bound to know and conceive aright under the hazard of Damnation and about which there may be disputings and different Opinions without any hazard If any set up particular Opinions in matters justly controvertible and of less moment and impose these on all with severe Sanctions and if he have Authority to cast all out of the Church Society that do not agree with him or if he have not that Authority if he do separate from the Communion of the Church because they will not receive or hearken to his conceits he is a Schismatick for a dogmatizing and dictating spirit if strengthned with power doth always lead to persecution and if it want it to separation And thus I think enough is said for proving that the way to Salvation is not at all uncertain in our Church since it is no other but that new and living way which our Saviour did Consecrate through his flesh But in this we are strongly confirmed when we find the ancient Martyrs Fathers and Doctors of the Church going in the same Method and by it Converting the Nations enduring Martyrdome and giving glory to their most holy Faith and to its most holy Author whose Decrees when met in Councils and Doctrines delivered in their writings do so agree with Ours in all matters of Faith that we decline not to put the whole debates between us and them to this Tryal I. K. thinks we cannot know what Fathers or what Councils to receive but by first acknowledging a true Church which must tell what Fathers and Councils to receive But this being a matter of Fact we are to judge of it as of all matters of Fact that were transacted some Ages ago and by the evidence of Testimonies are to find out the truth concerning the Fathers and Councils and their Writings and Decrees We have good reason to decline the writers of the latter Ages since we plainly see that upon the overthrow of the Western Empire by the Goths and Vandals and other Northern Nations and of the Eastern Empire by the Saracens and other Mahometans Religion and Learning were quickly brought under sad and lasting decays which is confest by writers on all sides And what I. K. says That we may as well expect the whole Gospel in the first Chapter of S. Matthew as all Faith of the Church in the first four General Councils is very impertinently alledged Did we ask for all the definitions of the Church in the first Canon of Nice his comparison might well take place but it cannot be fitly used in our case who say we are the true Catholick Apostolick Christians because we in all things agree with the Churches of God as they were during their greatest purity both in the persecutions and after those for two Ages Certainly if we hold all that Faith they then held and if they were saved we may be so too and you cannot pass a severe sentence on us which will not likewise take hold of them I. K. cannot deny but they stated the Christian Faith in very formal Creeds and one of them expresly decreed That no new addition should be made to the Creed and so we who receive that Creed though at all this distance from them are really in Communion with them from which those have departed who have made such vast additions to the Creed And thus it appears we are in the same way which our Saviour first opened and in which that glorious cloud of witnesses followed him and are still in Communion with Rome as she was when her Faith was spoken of through the whole world and therefore we are in a safe way to Salvation But because Christians must live together in Unity and Charity and in order to that end must associate together in the Worship of God in mutual Councils and other necessary parts of Government and some External rites for maintaining the visible acknowledgment of the Faith therefore we have rules given in Scripture no less express for obeying the Civil powers in all their Commands that are not plainly contrary either to Natural or revealed Religion which is a clear and constant rule by which we may be satisfied if our minds be right prepared and qualified as was before set down And if by