side you know the doom of those who shall attempt to press it more open than they have set it but in them the Way is said to be streight and the Gate narrow and that few shall enter therein Is it not plain therefore that leaving the right and following your wrong and natural Guide you are brought into a streight between two excesses that to shun Austerity as you term it on the one side you are put upon that profane and wretched belief of an equal possibility for the Salvation of Turks Heathens and Jews with that of the Christians nay of Atheists themselves if there be any such now if you will believe the Scriptures the fool hath said in his heart there is no God And amongst the Heathen Philosophers not to mention single Instances the whole Sect of the Epicureans could be no less who whilest they could not track the Methods of Divine Power and Providence denyed the Deitie's Creation and his Government of the World After all therefore it seems much safer to suspend your belief concerning the Fate of those People who are out of the Pale of Christianity and leave them as you acknowledge some do in the hands of the Creator than to descant in the least on his extraordinary Disposals not revealed to our Understandings But above all how heretical and horrid is your Conceit about the possibility of the Salvation of Devils from the excessive kindness of the Judge which contradicts all Divine Declarations nor is there any colour on their part to plead either invincible Ignorance or the Merits of a Redeemer the two grand means even according to your own Doctrine for the obtaining of Pardon Thus you see to what extravagancies your Natural Reason is brought by a high Conceit and Partiality to its self under a pretence of Charity to the World As to your Discourse Page 33. That although Christ is the onely Source and Cause of Eternal Felicity yet you may very well believe that there are secret and wonderful ways by which God may be pleased to apply his Merits to Mankind besides those direct open and ordinary ones of Baptism and Confession let it suffice those ways are not revealed and therefore ought not to be pryed into by the Rules of Christianity Page 34. In defiance of the Churches Anathemaes you assert That all sorts of Christians shall be saved except their Lives disagree from their Doctrines which likewise is a Disobedience to their Reasons and this also you in effect have affirmed of men of the worst Religions for brevity sake Therefore I shall endeavour to answer them both together That it is obvious enough to those who have any insight into the vast differences in the profession of Christianity at large that many pass under the Title of Christians because they in general profess the Mission of the Messias yet hold many Tenents heretical and derogatory both to his Nature and Office and those Opinions as an additional mischief so much influence their Actions that they lead ill Lives suitable to the Errors of their Understandings And this also is most true of the strictest Professors of the worst Religions and it is observable that those sorts of men who after this manner oppose the Catholick Church and the Precepts of the Scriptures are such as pay too much Obedience to their Natural Reasons in Divine Matters the Instances are too frequent and obvious in all Ages to need particular Quotations Page 35. Your discovery and stating of Heresie is as insignificant as the rest of your Opinions for if any one shall stubbornly set up his own private Reason and Judgment against that of the Publick and shall upon that incompetent account broach Positions contrary to the Principles and Authority of the Catholick Church or Practice accordingly doubtless our Ecclesiastical Guides in these later Ages may pronounce the Censures of the Church against such persons according to the pattern of Primitive Governours who did as little as ours pretend to the Deities Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as you phrase it to have a perfect sight of the whole Contexture of mens thoughts and actions Lastly as to your feigned Law about Murder and its qualifying Circumstances to make the sentence Conditional I shall only answer that as a Comparison at best is no good argument of it self so neither can you deduce any from this for mens disobedience to the Church in matters of belief For the foundation of the Catholique Faith deduced from the Notions and Usage of Primitive times backed by the Scriptures is the highest accompt which the nature of the Subject is capable of therefore whoever it is proposed to may give their rational assent and is the best ground for an unqualified sentence upon all stubborn opposers Page 36. Thus much for Herisy as you say now for Schism but your way The remedy for that is the disease it self for Schism is defined to be a voluntary seperation from the Church upon a trivial account without any mention either of censure or connivance the first of which you say makes the other cures it but if this difinition be true then your individual Sects however allowed will be guilty of it after a most intolerable manner neither can your absolute Independency in affairs of Religion admit of any thing more than a civil Compliance in mens outward conversation but utterly ravels that continuity of Faith which is necessary to preserve that unity of the Church you your self mention nay should such a Licence be but admitted in Temporals in which Reasons Plea is much stronger to intitle it to an Independency than in matters of Religion it will utterly rase out all Society and Government in them as all order and communion in Spirituals You endeavour to reinforce this Argument for Independency in Religion from the great variety which God hath constituted in mans material parts their motions as if he may be delighted with no less variety not only in mans immaterial Parts but even in the most immaterial Actions of those Parts the Worship and Adoration of a Deity when the very nature of Truth and the Words of Holy Writ plainly informs us that it can be but one sutable to the unity of the object besides if a comparison altogether feigned by a wild supposition only without any demonstration betwixt beings of most dissimular natures may pass for an Argument what Proposition or Truth can be established among men Page 38. Of what weight or advantage to your Cause can you imagine your next Allegation can be that God without any distinction receives neither hurt nor advantage from the worship of man when this is a plain truth that his Essence indeed is not concerned at the operations of the Creature but his Glory is as it relates to the Creation and therefore for the magnifying of that here below he made man and instituted Divine Worship and hath expressed his delight in the uniformity of that devotion which himself hath
REMARKS UPON A TRACT INTITULED A TREATISE OF HUMANE REASON AND Upon Mr. Warren's late Defence of it By Sir George Blundell LONDON Printed for Jacob Tonson at the Judges Head in Chancery-Lane near Fleetstreet 1683. AN ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER I Had no Intentions until lately to expose these REMARKS which were made in the year 76 for my privat Diversion to the Publick Censure of an Age so much distracted in Opinions but finding that the Approbation of this Treatise after some men's endeavours to refute it doth still remain in the minds of many upon whose Inclinations to Novelty it may be hoped that the Variety as well as force of Arguments may prevail to make a new Answer serviceable and seeing likewise the Enemies of the poor Protestant Religion encrease so much both in numbers and audacity as to attack it on every side by most graceless and inhumane attempts I thought it the Duty of an Orthodox tho' an unworthy Professor to put my Mite into the Corban to help to support it But if it shall be further objected that I have not well timed the publishing of these Remarks in regard the Author of the Treatise may possibly be dead to this I shall only answer That no Books in any Age have been priviledged from being Confuted or Suppressed after the death of their Authors if their Contents were offensive to our Laws or Religion REMARKS UPON A TREATISE OF HUMANE REASON To the Author of the Treatise SIR IN reading your Treatise I deal franckly with you I was much disappointed for I did expect a discourse of the Origen Nature and Conveyance of Humane Reason to all the Generations of Men and in order to this that you would have treated First Of its primitive Inspiration and Descent from God himself to Man at his Creation 2ly Of its Perspicacity and Extent in the state of Innocency 3ly Of its impaired Condition in Adam himself and the first Ages before many of those vices which so much weaken it now were practised in the world 4ly That you would by some new Ratiocinations have either confirmed that Opinion of the Conveyance of Humane Reason to all Adam's Posterity which is generally agreed on to be the best account or that you would have discovered some other more satisfactory to the Readers Since the most prevalent Opinion is That the Rational Soul doth not inherit this Degeneration etraduce or by descent but that it is a Spirit infused indued with greater purity and intelligence than can possibly be exerted in the humane Compositum as it is now stated from which some Scepticks take occasion to Cavil And lastly That for the benefit and amendment of men and the vindication of our best Faculty you would have made some acute and new Essay at least to remind us that the exercise of Humane Reason is so much obstructed and dulled by meer sloth in some and injured and depraved by passions and Vices in others that it seems to be fallen from the Glory and Splendor of the great Luminary in the Heavens to the small appearance of a Star in the Sky For such was the proportion which Rationality bore in the uncorrupted Nature of Man to that which is so much decayed and weakned not only by Adam's Fall but also by the faults and ill management of his degenerated Posterity ever since But in lieu of all this I find a peremptory Claim made and Pretensions to assert Humane Reason's Title not only to an Office of Inquisition but also to a Power Judicial in Divine Matters for in searching out it must likewise determine in its own Court as you style it which is the right Religion and upon this account that the Orthodox Christian who is or ought to be its Friend and Subject upon the best and truest foundation doth above all others deny it its due station and dominion but how valid this Title is and the consequent Accusation must be discovered by examining the ensuing Treatise In the first Page whereof you declare your inducement to make an inquiry into the nature and quality of your Religion to be the duty of your private Condition and that your interest in humane society was the Cause of your offering to the view of others the effects of that search which if beneficial to your self and others as upon the score of Charity we may suppose you believe by your publishing it is thanks and praise-worthy but if otherwise then upon a sight and acknowledgment of your mistake a true Repentance and all possible endeavours to prevent the spreading of your Errours is only pardonable In the 2d and 3d. Pages you have laid the foundation of all your opinion contained in the following Treatise if therefore upon examination this shall be found faulty your small Fabrick will with much more ease be totally demolished Here you acknowledge the History of Adam's Fall as it is stated in the Scriptures and the miserable Consequence of it upon him and his lapsed Posterity as to the great vitiating and blurring the eye-sight of our understandings that to use your own expression One had great need of a better eye-sight than is left us by the fall of our first Fore-father to guide us amongst many erroneous to the right way of Salvation I question not but this will be allowed you as Orthodox and if instead of your so anxious Debate and Consideration in the next place you had applyed your self to receive the directions and obey the Precepts contained in the rest of the Scripture according to the Principles of the Catholick Church they would have convinced you that Tradition Revelation Miracles and the Grace of the Holy Spirit which teacheth the right use of the rest are prepared by the Divine Providence as the best Pilots to steer your Reason in this dubious Voyage and would certainly have preserved you from so sudden a revolt from the Truth and so direct a Contradiction to your own Notion within four lines after by pitching upon your own Reason for that clear-sighted Guide which it self so much wanted before This is that irreparable flaw in your Foundation which causes the ruine of your whole Superstructure You have penned the next Clause darkly for a blind I suppose to the contradiction in the former If Reason takes such directions as it ought and may do before it sets forth If you mean those Directions which I mentioned before as indeed it may and ought then the subject of the Question is altogether lost for so Reason alone cannot be stated as the best Guide but if you mean such Directions as Natural Reason shall give it self then the same thing will both guide and be guided to the same end Now a Guide subject to such Incongruities as these cannot but bring you into Errors but not through them to happiness at last which in this Clause also you as incongruously as vainly assert In the next place you digress by bidding defiance to those many Enemies which you expect
should attack your Doctrine having as you boast Coup't up their Front and Reer in the Ambuscade of this Dilemma That those who dispute most against the Power and Priviledges of Humane Reason do it because their own reason perswades them to that belief and so whether the Victory be on mine or on their side are equally defeated Yeur Argument is parallel to this He that is sick and from a true sence of his Disease acknowledgeth his weakness by that very acknowledment makes it manifest that he is well and he that is in the like Condition but is so insensible of his Distemper that he conceits he is in health is well also whereas the indisposition of both remains but the last labours under the most desperate Symptoms your own Case see now your Victory or rather your plain Defeat either way Neither in my weak opinion is your Answer to the Accusation which you quote against the Wits more convincing than your Victory was triumphant for if lapsed Reason in its most accurate state as it is possessed by the Wits may be made a slave to the wills interests or the prejudices of men or be apt to be wanting in any part of its necessary duty for so hazardous a passage all which you acknowledge in your fourth page then it cannot appear to judicious and considering men to be a Guide solely to be relyed on in this grand Affair nor can even the weakest Understandings be so absolutely unbyassed as to render their Errors unblameable as you have stated this Case for every Sciolist knows that your advancing the humane Faculty into an Office too high for it is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which intails a just condemnation upon all such Errors as are consequential to that But if such fatal mistakes be the meed of the Wits what Confusion shall we have when all sorts of people whether men women c. for you exempt none shall be allowed the priviledge to govern themselves from within without the least regard had either to Example or Authority or any thing else whatsoever especially since deplorable Experience manifests that neither the Penalties of humane nor of divine Laws nor the immediate Judgments of Gods own hand can restrain some even of all degrees of men from perpetrating the greatest crimes and falling into the most barbarous Practices as well as Opinions is it not plain before you in this Case that more of God's glory and regiment will be found among the Fowls of the Air and Beasts of the Desart than among those who shall practise your abominable doctrine For even among such Animals some footsteps appear both of Authority and Example nor can they commit either blasphemy or idolatry the two inevitable as well as uncontrollable products of your detestable opinions while you phantastically pretend to prevent I know not what universality and perpetuity of Error by broaching Myriads every day so long as the minds of the Rabble shall continue injudicious and wavering In the 5th page you seem to be sensible that you have too magisterially and rashly asserted Humane Reason's absolute ability to judge of Spiritual Truths by acknowledging that the what and the how of religious Mysteries are out of its sight and that it must make use of those helps which God hath prepared for us to that purpose to make them visible as such This is the true sense of your Clause to which all Catholicks will agree for it cannot be denied but if the Mysteries of Religion are delivered down to us upon a supernatural account but that our natural Capacity and Reason will need proportionable helps to enable it to apprehend them how plain is it therefore that from a high Conceit of your parts you designed to impose phantastical Phrases for new Notions upon weak understandings For a Close to this Paragraph you are reduced to trifle with one of Democritus his Allegories as if we shall find truth in our hearts as we see Heaven in a Well and this you assert is very applicable to your matter If so then according to your Metaphorical Doctrine your Disciples must not only leave searching the Scriptures for the true Religion and paying their Adoration to the Deity for Eternal Happiness but on the contrary they must look down into natural Reason to find out the first and consequently worship themselves to obtain the second These Principles indeed are entirely new and suitable to the wretched Conceits of the forlorn Votaries in the Covent of Bethlehem In the sixth Page you have quoted so tragical an Objection as you call it that notwithstanding your endeavours in 8 subsequent pages to give it an answer in my mean opinion you come very much short of it viz. To allow this liberty would beget as many Religions as there are several persons and consequently draw after it such disorder and confusion as is inconsistent not only with the Quiet but the very Being of Humane Society Now the truth of this Objection is so evident to all who have either seriously considered the unsteady and vexatious condition of lapsed Humanity or have read the past or do at all observe the present state of affairs in the World that they need not expect any other Arguments to evince that difference of Opinions especially in Religion hath ever had ill effects in dividing of Affections although not to the same degree in all Ages and Places but yet according to the circumstances of times and opportunities the temper of private persons as well as that of publick Government the Animosities which did arise from thence proved more or less mischievous to Humane Society Neither did those differing Sects of Philosophers you quote so peaceably agree if you will trust History as not to envy scandalize nay murther one another which possibly might have occasioned publick Commotions had they not been prevented by the juncture of Affairs in those times and prudence of Governors which preserves London and Amsterdam in Peace at this day notwithstanding the aptness of those Cities as well as all others infested with Sects to break out into Tumults not to quote late instances But however this instance as it is stated by your self of several Opinions dividing Philosophers and the Philosophers their Disciples doth not amount to so wild and independent Frenzy as to give every single person how mean soever in degree or incompetent for parts leave to become an uncontrollable Pope in Religion or constitute himself an individual Church and in effect to practice what Morals he lists so much the Consequences of Faith by governi g himself from within not having any regard either to Example or Authority the grand ligaments of Order or any thing else which Position not only defaces the Forms and Superstructures of all Government both Ecclesiastical and Civil but rases out all remains and foundations of Humane Society therefore no History can make mention of so licentious a practice in the world what ever page the 9th you wrongfully affirm of
last defence of this Clause which you say Pag. 80. needs not the assistance of any other in my poor Opinion is a plain desertion of it for although at first you as vainly as confidently assert That it is impossible that ever any man should have been is or can be hereafter guided by any thing else but his own reason as in other things so in matters of Religion Yet when you come to prove this you presently fall into the Toyls of a threefold Contradiction these are your words For whatsoever way we take we shall find that the last Element into which our Faith is resolved and therefore it is compounded of the same is only reason I omit your Instance of an Anchor as one of your Allegorical Tautologies but shall shew you your Absurdities in your most material Metaphor and its terms First then if your Reason is only a single Element or Ingredient of which among others our Faith is compounded by what Logick can you state it our sole and infallible Guide without any thing else in matters of Religion Secondly If to avoid this you shall alledge that our Faith is compounded of our Reason alone as of one single Element only then according to all the Rules of reasoning and sense this is no Composition Thirdly Neither can the parts of this notional Composition be so resolved into one elemental last as to enable it to perform the Office of the whole for if the Composition be good every part hath its use and therefore to support it must be of equal duration but you might have been convinced of these Vanities also by the subsequent Series or Composition of our Faith which you have set down in a tedious Catalogue of Syllogistical Fragments As to the other part of this Clause true it is Rationality not being wholly extinguished by the Fall of our first Parents Man still is capable of living eternally but its perspicacity and vigour is so much impaired by it that Humane Reason is become dim-sighted in all things but especially in those matters of Religion which you style Celestial Mysteries and Verities as Objects too high for it and therefore even according to the terms of your own notion as well as Humane Reason's best Measures it needs proportionable helps to enable it to understand and acquiesce in their Truths Now after my best examination I can find no ground why you should boast of this Argument except it be for your dexterity in packing up two or three Contradictions in the same Clause therefore to end all Debates concerning this Point I shall leave the Reader to judge whether it looks like the last Defence or the last Gasp of your Cause The purport of your next Assertion in this Paragraph is that no Authority is obeyable or believable of it self without further examination that is without a rational account which no Catholick denieth You extravagantly tell us in the next place that our Reason not only prescribes Obedience and Belief to us but also searcheth and establisheth the bounds of both setting up some solid and apparent Notions by which we know our ne plus ultra Now the best sense that I can make of this mystical Periphrasis is that we must obey and believe upon a rational account which we assert all along but if you have any further aim beside this I assure you that the not appearing of your apparent Notions puts a ne plus ultra as well to my Understanding as my Design of answering them Page 86. In this short Paragraph you promise to omit that is as I hoped not to trouble us with that which by a breach of your Promise you make the Contents of your next but it had been much more Civility and Justice to have performed your engagement for it is only a Compilation or Summary of all the grand Errors that lie dispersed in your Treatise and seems to be chiefly composed out of your old Pieque to Christianity to insinuate over again that the Christian Religion wants both Antiquity and Universality for its Justification All which hath been discussed in the foregoing Remarks and is but a beating the Air or rather a return Cum suae ad volutabrum therefore I shall choose to joyn issue with you upon the sufficiency of my former Answers rather than by a needless and tedious rehearsal to nauseate the Reader By this time possibly it may appear that fewer Arguments might have been sufficient to have answered your whole Treatise but I thought it requisite to examine it throughly although forced in some places to a repetition of things by following your Tautologies lest that thin Vail of an Allegorical Style and incompetent Similies which you have all along spread over the many deformities both of your Arguments and Doctrine should in some place or other deceive the inartificial reasonings of ordinary capacity for whose sake only it deserves an Answer And now I have finished my task of examining the validity of the particular Objections and Arguments contained in your Treatise I shall for a Close give you a Summary as well as I can of the grand defects both of your Doctrine and Design First then you have not directed your Discourse to the most proper and adaequate Subject of the Title prefixt to your Treatise 2ly By stating Humane Reason the sole Judge of and Guide to the true Religion you have attributed to that whose Office it is to be only subservient as a Minister to our Faith the Supream Court of Appeal and highest Judicatory as well concerning the true Religion it self as all Methods and means of finding it out and yet so unfortunate are you that many of your Concessions plainly oppose it as hath been made evident 3ly According to your Doctrine of an Unlimited Liberty these Guides will prove rather numberless than one for the exercise of Humane Reason is of so different degrees in the minds of Individuals that no two persons in the world do entirely acquiesce in the same intrinsick Standard and Rule of their Thoughts and Opinions and yet every man's search must be according to his Capacity These Guides for so we must call them you upon the score of your own authority affirm will conduct their Followers through Errors to the true Religion and its reward Eternal Happiness at last which Errors so unlimited and barbarous is your Doctrine may be Idolatry Paganism Blasphemy c. to which Natural Reason hath already led great part of the world as you have observed although it cannot be denied but that the Learned men of the Gentiles were indued with it in a high degree as their Writings make manifest And as you have not stated what size and degree of Humane Reason whilest so many are exercised is to be pitched upon for this so infallible yet erring Guide so neither have you given us any good definition or description of the true Religion nor any the least assurance that you your self have been led to it by