I have said something of it be fore in answering this Argument turn'd against this Opinion unhappily and because the manner of establishing this Liberty in a Commonwealth will require a Discourse entirely by it self The last defence of this Cause and which indeed needs not the assistance of any other shall be because though men deceive themselves herein and as it often happens know not their own Opinions it is impossible that ever any man should have been is or can hereafter be guided by any thing else but his own Reason as in other things so also in matters of Religion I say impossible for whatsoever way we take we shall find that the last Anchor to which our Faith holds the last Element into which it is resolv'd and therefore it is likewise compounded of the same is onely Reason For when I ask why you believe any Mystery of Faith you will answer perhaps Because the present Church commands you If I proceed and ask Why do you believe what the present Church commands you will say Because the former Church teaches the same Why do you believe the former Church Because God commands you so to do Why do you believe that God commands it Because you find it in the Scripture Why do you believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God Because they were confirmed by Miracles Why do Miracles confirm that Because they are works which can proceed from nothing but the absolute and immediate power of the Deity Why so Because nothing contrary to or above the Course of Nature can be done by natural Agents but Miracles are effects contrary to or above the Course of Nature therefore they proceed from the Divine Operation Thus you see Faith at last resolv'd into a Syllogisme which is the proper work of the Understanding On the other hand if I demand Why you do believe that any Miracles were done for the Confirmation of the Faith Because of the great and many Testimonies of the Truth thereof Why do you believe those Testimonies Because so many Persons in so several times and places with so several interests could never agree in being deceived or to deceive So that you rest not at all in any Authority but discourse first what may be said for or against the validity of it examine it punctually in all Circumstances and at last submit to it upon some Syllogisme which is the onely Law that binds our Reason Two things are to be considered in all Authority before we obey or believe it first The condition and quality of the Persons who Command or Instruct and secondly The true interpretation of their Commands or Instructions For the first The Persons in Commanding must have a lawful Power derived to them either from God Nature or Custome which latter depends upon the two former And in Instructing must have either an absolute infallibility or else at least a probability of not Erring So that no Authority is obeyable or believeable in it self without farther examination no not that of God himself for the strength of Gods Authority depends upon that Syllogisme which proves that the nature of God is such that he can neither deceive nor be deceived Now all this Examination is purely and entirely the work of our Reason by measuring a particular and an universal Whatsoever hath such Conditions is to be obeyed or believed but such Person or Persons hath such Conditions therefore such Person or Persons are to be obeyed or believed Neither do's our Reason onely prescribe obedience and belief to us but also searches and establishes the bounds of both setting up some solid and apparent Notions by which we know our Ne plus ultra True it is that some men Obey and some men Believe without considering that they make this discourse but that is only from inadvertency as men often move their Bodies without any particular exerted thought of doing so Thus far then Authority wholy depends upon Reason And much more in the second Condition which is the interpretation of it in which business the interposition of Reason is so necessary that I shall omit either to prove or illustrate the Point Now as they who enslave themselves to Authority make it the rule and guide of Faith because that even the belief that Scripture is the Law of God depends upon it as truly it do's in my Opinion upon the tradition of Miracles so I say that much rather Reason is to be accounted that Rule and that Guide we look for because even Authority upon which even Scripture it self depends depends as much upon that neither do we more believe the Scripture for Authority then that very Authority for the Reason we think we have to do so The Samaritan says I have an infallible Rule which is the Books of Moses and only them The Jew says I cannot erre for I follow the Old Testament which is infallible and only that The Christian assures himself of the Truth as long as he is guided by the Evangelists and Apostles whose Writings are the infallible dictates of the Holy Ghost The Turk assumes the same from the Alcoran and the Heathen from Oracles Sybill's Books and the like What shall I do None of all these Books can be believed by their own Light for there are things equally strange in them all Follow the Authority of the Church which cannot misguide you Most willingly but again the same difficulty returns in another habit for as every one Cries I follow these Books which are infallible so he goes on too and says I believe these Books to be so because our Church and our Traditions which are certainly the best Authority assures us that they were written by Divine inspiration Let the Christian take heed of saying here But my Tradition is more ancient and more Universal for in the first the Jew will overcome him and in both the Heathen I must in this diversity of waies either stand still that is suspend absolutely from the belief of any Religion which is almost impossible after the belief that there is a GOD or I must choose out of these Now Election is a work so proper to Reason that it cannot be done by any thing else and therefore to be brought to a necessity of an Election is to be necessarily brought to submit in matters of Religion to the determination of our Understanding So that in matters of Religion wherein there is difference I choose this side rather than the other because my Reason bids me and where there is no difference even there I am wholy guided by my Reason because the uncontradicted concurrence of the Parties makes up a Syllogisme to perswade I say to perswade onely my Belief Briefly I cannot Believe but by an act of the Will nor can I Will but according to the directions of the Understanding so that they who say they follow Authority or they follow Divine particular Revelation or any thing else imaginable do it because that agrees with their own Reason and will quit the Party as soon as it do's otherwise The End * Contumelia afficere
oppos'd to Animus and both sometimes to Mens So that the meaning is that whilst a mans Reason is seduced by his appetites and passions it is an unfit Judge of Spiritual matters neither can be Umpire for a peace having joyn'd it self to the Party of those things which are in perpetual warfare against the Spirit But they say this authority which we ascribe to Reason is strangly different from that Captivity which Saint Paul subjects it to when he says Casting down reasonings and every high thing that exalts it self against the knowledge of God and bringing into Captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ And what Captivity say they can there be whilst we are only guided by the motions of our own understanding All which signifies no more but that St. Paul relates in vindication of his own just greatness against the Calumnies of some that despised his person especially as weak and rude of speech how he had confuted those persons that opposed themselves by reasonings against the Doctrine of Christ and whereas their understandings before were enslaved and captivated to the desires of the sensual Soul for which he calls them in another place beasts at Ephesus which hindred them from the obedience of Christ he freed them from their cruel bondage by casting down all their strong holds and breaking the chains of their fallacious reasonings and brought them into another captivity by right of conquest but such an one where the yoaks are light and the burthens easie that is by true reason he overcame and captivated their false ones And from this Example I desire those who would have our Understandings captivated to convince us first by theirs that they ought to be so and not to think to enslave our Reasons till they first overcome them which when they have done then they will lose what they contend for For by our Reasons being guided conquered and enslaved theirs are become Guides Conquerours and Masters So that it will appear at last impossible for humane Reason to lose any thing in one place without gaining as much in some other They who follow the apprehension of a Vision or Revelation extrinsecally coming into their Souls if it happen that that extrinsecal light come from the Father of Lights as the pillar of Fire did which led the Israelites they must needs be guided rightly but if it chance to be an Ignis fatuus a flame driven about as men commonly believe by malicious Spirits the Errours which it leads them into become unpardonable for what plea can they make for mercy since there is no command nor no counsel can be alleadged for the trusting of themselves to that Stranger which they can neither know from whence he comes nor whither he designs to go The like happens if we obey Authority For if that Authority prescribe truth we have good fortune in our obedience and meerly good fortune but if it draw us into Errours we have nothing to say for our excuse because we have nothing to alleadge for our obedience to that Authority So Eve pleaded the Authority of the Serpent but both were punished so Adam with more appearance of innocency the Woman that thou gavest me for an Helper bad me eat and accordingly I did but to him too a Curse is pronounced because he believed that which was figuratively one with him as members of the Church pretend to do the Church rather then that which was most certainly and singly one with him which was his own Reason Thus the best that can be made of these mens Opinions is that after they have blind-folded themselves amongst the many doors where they may enter there is one which will lead them to Heaven which if they miss it will be asked not why you entered not there but why by blinding your own eyes did you put your self into a greater probability of not finding than of lighting upon the true passage Now contrariwise those who commit themselves to the guidance of their own understanding if they do commit themselves wholly to it are as safe on the left hand as on the right as secure of happiness in their Errours as others are who are otherwise guided even in the Truths which they happen to fall into For there is no danger of perishing but from disobedience without which every man may often erre the commandement of God being not to find out truth especially every particular one but to endeavour the finding it He commands no more but to search and ye shall find says he not every particular Truth for experience teaches us that cannot be the interpretation but whether you find or no the Truth which you search for you shall find the reward of searching which is Happiness Now he that bids you search is cruel and barbarous in his mockery if he knows you have no power or faculty so to search as he commands you there is therefore in man a natural ability of searching spiritual Truths and that can be nothing else but his Understanding neither to any thing else can the command be directed since all things else are without us and may serve for helps and directions in our search but cannot be our search it self Secondly because we lay the blasphemous accusation of Injustice upon God if he punish us for an Errour which we could not avoid and all Errours are such which we fall into after a full and mature search for the Truth according to the best means represented to our understanding so that as the liberty of our Will and the possibility we have of doing the contrary makes us suffer justly for evil Actions so the possibility our understanding had to have discover'd and entertained the Truth renders us liable to Condemnation for ill beliefs Thirdly We ought not to believe Errours in Faith to be damnable because this opinion is so wildly uncharitable that it strikes out ten thousand Millions out of the Book of Life for each single Name that it leaves in it so immeasurably vast if we consider the whole World and all the Ages of it is the number of those who have lived and died in great high and manifest Errours manifest I mean to us for they were not so to them above those that have been so happy as to find and to embrace the Truth Fourthly We ought not to teach men that any Errours in belief overthrow our hopes of salvation unless we could likewise give them a Catalogue of those Errours which do so it being confest that all do not because these must necessarily put all considering Men into a doubt or rather despair of their own salvation for what quiet or repose can our Conscience take whilst vve know our selves to be in many Errours the estate of a Travellour being uncapable of an exemption from them and believe that some Errours without knowing which or how many do exclude men from a possibility of entring into Heaven Fifthly Because in this case we cannot know our fault and therefore
should direct you to forsake your Christian-belief for which the Devil do's not want such pleasant colours and specious fallacies as may possibly deceive even a good understanding Before I answer this Objection I desire to know of him that makes it what it is for something it must be which he places in the same Ecclesiastical Superiority that I do reason The private Spirit what if that should perswade him to this Apostacy It cannot Not indeed if it be true but the same condition will make Reason as infallible as that and I may as well judg of the truth of the one as you of the other What is it then you will trust your Soul with in this important business Is it the Authority of Men These verily may lead you into error and it is not impossible into the greatest and worst of all which is the desertion of Christ himself not that this is likely to happen neither more probable is it that our Reason should so far misguide us But alas in this affair of so vast and so eternal consequence what security can we assume whilst there remains a possibility of miscarriage and this possibility is Evident For let us consider it in a Council which if there be any assurance in the number of men is that where most probably it may be found I will not here reckon up the many errors which great and famous Councils have fallen into themselves and labour'd to establish in others they are many and notorious But certainly if a Council could take away the satisfaction of Christs death and Divinity of his person as was done by that great one of the Arrians which condemned Athanasius not without the approbation of the Pope and the whole World besides a Council has already done that thing which you affirm impossible for it to do For they who believed Christ to come into the World as an example and pattern onely of Holiness are no more to be call'd Christians than Abrahamists or Davidists If you will here contend that even these men deserted not wholy Christianity as a man may do by the impulsion of his own private Reason yet certainly you will confess that they who fell so far into error might as well have sunk deeper and exalted some other Prophet above Christ as well as made Christ to be but a Prophet and this possibility of Errour even in so high a degree we shall find in the nature and very Elements of a Council for if any one Member of it may be a Heathen or Atheist in Opinion as the lives of many Popes and the speeches of some declare that they themselves have been why not two not three not more not the Major part that is the whole Council From the Sanctions of the 2 â— Nicene Council which establish'd the worship of Images how easie a step was there made for the next to the introduction of a full undisguis'd and Heathenish Idolatry which we must not say could not because by the mercy of God it did not happen And I verily believe if God had not stirr'd up some persons of excellent Abilities and worthy Spirits for such sure they were though not exempt from humane weaknesses to examine by the Rules of their own Reasons those follies and dangerous Errours in Religion which partly by the Interest partly by the Ignorance of Men and insensible advances of ill Custome were blindly embraced by the whole World if these Men I say had not discover'd the past Errours and by that means made their Adversaries more cautious not to fall into any new ones the world through the Adoration of Saints and Images and the boundless Increase of vain and Superstitious Ceremonies would have past before this time to its old and abominable worship of several Deities and to a Religion overwhelm'd if not with the same yet with as many and as vain Impieties It remains therefore that you put your Confidence rather in the Traditions of the former than the Commands of the present Church but what those were you must either trust some number of Men present which is not without the possibility of being misguided or your own search and diligence which is to fall into that Opinion which you condemn in me And truly they who build their Belief wholly upon the Authority of past or present Ages if they look upon all the Consequences of that Opinion are in much greater danger of being drawn from the Christian Faith than those who remit the judgment of these things to their own Reason For ever since the beginning of the Christian belief there has been the Authority of above an hundred to one against it and this Authority backt and strengthened with the universal agreement of more than three thousand years before it But on the contrary if we weigh impartially the Motives and Arguments which every Religion can produce in its own defence Reason it self will find more and much greater for the Christian than it can for any other Belief whatsoever And I am very confident that no man ever from a Christian became a Turk or a Jew because his Reason told him that was a better Religion but because either fear of punishment or hope of reward or some other sinister Cause perswaded his Reason that the worst Religion in it self would be the better to him upon those Conditions Now all those Arguments by which some men have laboured to prove that our Guide in spiritual matters ought to be Infallible will though they be granted for true as I believe in some sense they are will not at all dispossess Reason of this Authority which we have declared to be her due For the Infallibility of a Guide I conceive to be only this That it cannot fail to bring us to that end for which we chose to be guided by it and if to this end there happen to be a thousand several waies it is a Guide no less infallible as to the End if it lead us through a long an unpleasant and obscure Tract than if it conducted us by a short a delightful and an open road for not the goodness of the passage but certainty of not missing the End is that which constitutes this kind of Infallibility And truly every mans particular Reason if well followed for whatsoever Guide you pitch upon whether Scripture Spirit Church past or present or any thing else imaginable must have that condition annext or else it will become unprofitable will infallibly carry him at last though perhaps through many tedious and troublesome wandrings to his eternal happiness if it be followed for that condition cannot be repeated too often with constancy diligence and sobriety This Doctrine sets the great gate of Heaven so wide open that it will displease those men who with an envious kind of pride think it more honour to enter in with a few at a narrow wicket But I truly out of an humble consideration of my own weakness and the general imbecillity of humane
nature should still lament and tremble that the entrances to Heaven are so few and so difficult though they were yet far more and much easier than this opinion makes them There are enow obstructions from the frailty of our Flesh the subtilty of the Devil the tyranny of our Passions and the perverse crookedness of our corrupted Wilâ—s without the additions of any more from the imperfections of our intellect Sufficient is the danger we run in not performing those Duties which vve understand aright without making our mis-understandings damnable and condemning that as a Guilt which is to be pitied as a misfortune What then shall vve believe Turks Jews Heathens Atheists themselves if there be any such in an equal possibility of salvation with the unerring Christian Shall vve save all Beasts of what kind soever clean or unclean in that mystical Ark the Church of God Certainly in the two contrary excesses of belief in this matter that on the side of Mercy hath the appearance of greater safety and I had rather think with Origen That the Devils themselves by the excessive kindness of their Judge shall at last be exempted from damnation than that he himself shall be damn'd for that Opinion But as to this their Objection I believe first That Reason it self will declare to every Man in the World that he ought to adhere to the Christian rather than to any other Religion whatsoever if all things be propounded to him in a clear and impartial manner and this whosoever shall deny I dare confidently affirm it is impossible for him to be a Christian But because there are thousand accidents which hinder the greatest part of the world from the advantages of so fair a proposal hence it comes to pass that so small a part of Mankind hath submitted to the Obedience of the Christian Faith Now to condemn all those Millions of persons many millions for one that is to be saved is so wild an uncharitableness that few have been so barbarously severe as to be guilty of it and therefore those whose Ignorance in these matters hath been invincible they left to the hands of God without declaring a definitive opinion either of their safety or perdition Now if we consider rightly what Ignorance is to be accounted invincible we shall by this means restore the greatest part of Mankind into a hopeful and comfortable condition and none even amongst the worst Religions will be left to a certain ruine but such whose Consciences have been neglected or forced aside by those who ought to have been guided by them and such who can have no plea against the rigour of their sentence because they deserted themselves as well as God And the disobedience of Men to their own Conscience is not only in things of practice but also of belief and speculation though not in so evident and immediate a manner by suffering themselves to be deceived by the insensible operations of interest and prejudice Nor does it follow from hence that Christ is not the only source and cause of eternal felicity for I acknowledge there is no other Name under heaven by which men can hope for salvation But I may very well believe withal that there are secret and wonderful waies by which God may be pleased to apply his Merits to mankind besides those direct open and ordinary ones of Baptism and Confession which I have only advanc'd briefly in this place being a matter that will require a more ample and particular examination Now concerning the Salvation of all sorts of Christians except their lives disagree from their doctrines which is likewise a disobedience to their Reasons I know not why I should be terrifi'd out of my Charity by any Anathema whatsoever that shall proceed from the mouth of Man For I cannot see how any but God himself can certainly know that any man is an Heretick since it is only he who can discern by what close and unlawful means he corrupts his understanding and hardens his own will to the obstinate belief of any Errour for without that obstinacy there is no Heresie and without the perfect sight of the whole contexture of a mans Thoughts and Actions there is no knowledge of such an obstinacy and therefore when the Church declares any Opinion to be Heresie it is to be accepted as if the Law should say whosoever kills a man is a Murtherer which is a sentence not absolute but to be qualified with Circumstances even so the Church pronounces whosoever holds this Doctrine is an Heretick with an evident reservation of some Circumstances in the meaning thereof for no man can imagine that the sentence includes those who never shall hear of it nor no more say I those who though they hear of it yet cannot by any means bring their Conscience to the assent For to obey in matters of belief without being able to believe the thing commanded is no less and seems more a contradiction than simply to obey without knowledge of a Command Thus much briefly concerning Heresie which indeed is a Subject worthy a Treatise by it self But this will not suffice unless we can also clear our selves from the imputation of Schisme the ordinary railing word in all Controversies and a slander which is often fatal in making where it falsly accuses a separation of which they are truly guilty the word it self bearing witness against them who break the precious unity of the Christian Church but that is done not so much by them who differ in Opinions as by them who will not allow of such a difference Who knows whether that God who liked best that no mens Bodies should have the same complexion no mens Faces the same figures no Hands the same lines no Voices the same sounds nay not so much but their motions and gestures should be distinguishable has not likewise best pleased himself with no less variety in the parts of Men that are immaterial and even in the most immaterial Actions of those parts which is the worship and adoration of a Deity Does God gain any thing by our devotions does he receive hurt from one kind of worship and advantage by another is he pleased with any smell in the sacrifice besides that of Obedience and can a plain uniform unalterable obedience be expected without Commands of the same nature Without doubt he who gave Rules which might accept of so many several interpretations when he might have made them as plain to all in one sense as they seem now to every man in his own is likewise well contented that they shall be interpreted severally and as the Divines confess that the same words of Scripture admit of a Literal Typical Anagogical sense and that all those senses are both true and intended by the Holy Ghost that Spirit of unity that writ them so I say the Commands of God concerning Religion are equally obeyed and fulfilled by all the various kinds of Obedience which the Consciences of men conceive themselves bound