or writing such Characters as shall convey into the ears or eyes of others Corporeal Impressions from which they may judge of our thoughts which is a great way about and much more unintelligible though we are very sure it is true then that a spirit shall communicate its thoughts to our understandings which it may either do by such outward impressions on our senses as bring the thoughts of other men to our knowledge or without these outward objects may make the same Impressions on our Brain And like to this are the impressions made on us in sleep in which we imagine we converse with the objects of sense Or finally without the means of any Corporeal phantasms a spirit especiaally the supreme and soveraign spirit may immediately convey to our understanding its pleasure as well as our understandings do receive hints from gross phantasms which is a great deal harder to conceive than this Thus the Atheist can propose nothing that will prove there can be no Inspiration but there is great necessity of guarding this both from the juglings of Impostors and the more innocent though no less hurtful deceits of our heated fancies which may obtrude their Notions on us as Divine especially in some in whom the Spleen or hysterical distempers may produce strange effects therefore this must be well proved and warranted before others are bound to acknowledge or submit to it nor must the great heats and divine Raptures of the inspired person ingage our belief We know how the Sibylls were said to be inspired and with what Bacchick fury many heathen Priests delivered some of their Impostures and it is dayly seen what strange appearances of inspiration are in hysterical persons Therefore it must be accompanied with such other extraordinary Characters as can neither be the forgeries of Juglers nor the vapours of the Spleen or Mother and these are Miracles or Prophecies which are certain indications of some extraordinary and supernatural presence with the inspired persons And thus far I have helped I. K. to prove the necessity of Revelation for the ascertaining mankind of the Worship and Obedience that God requires and have met with the great objections which Deists and other enemies to Revelation bring against it But I now follow him to his fourth proposition about the truth of the Christian Religion CHAP. IV. It is considered if J. K. hath proved convincingly the truth of the Christian Religion J. K. goes on in his Series of truths and his next attempt is to prove the truth of Christian Religion And indeed the Atheism that hath of late broke out in the world and in upon us hath engaged so many excellent pens of all the parties and divisions of Christendom to stand up in vindication of our most holy Faith with so much closeness of Reason that it may be justly a problem whether that pestiferous contagion hath not occasioned as much good to Christian Religion by the many admirable Treatises have been writ for it upon that account as it hath done hurt by its own venome But to see I. K. manage so glorious a Cause so poorly and so faintly after all that light which these Books offer does justly raise Indignation and it is plain he was afraid to bring out the strongest proofs for it lest it should appear there was much more to be said for the Verity of the Christian Religion than can be for the Roman but I. K. being resolved to prove there was no more to be said for the one than for the other and therefore would manage this Cause faintly that he might maintain the other more strongly and so it seems cares not with how slender Evidence â—e assert the truth of Christianity so that the truth of the Roman Religion be but as undisputed His great Argument for its truth is That it hath been miraculously propagated which could not have been without true and real Miracles and these are manifest proofs of that truth which they confirm Now since Christian Religion though it contains Mysteries far above the reach of humane reason and severities contrary to humane Inclinations yet has been propagated without the help of Arms or humane enticements by men of themselves unfit for so great a work and hath overcome other Religions which were both well established and preached liberty and pleasures Then this was either done with Miracles or without them if with them it is confessed there were Miracles if without them such a propagation must be confessed to be a Miracle This is the substance of what I. K. brings for the proof of the Christian Religion But this alone cannot satisfie a considering mind For it is acknowledged by all who believe any Religion that the power of evil spirits is very great and far above ours so that Miracles cannot determine my belief since there must go somewhat previous to that Therefore Moses told the people of Israel that though a Prophet by a Sign or wonder did amuse them and upon that perswaded them to go after other gods they should not hearken to that Prophet but put him to Death And S. Paul tells us that if an Angel from heaven should preach another Gospel he must be anathematized So that Miracles or other extraordinary apparitions do not prove a Prophet Therefore the first and great Argument for the proof of the Christian Religion is the purity of the Doctrine and the holiness of its precepts which are all so congruous to the common Impressions of nature and reason and this must prove as our Saviour himself taught us that his Miracles were true ones and not wrought by the Prince of Devils since his Doctrine is opposite and destructive of his Interest and Kingdom And our Saviour also asserts the truth of what he said most commonly from this Topick that he came not to do his own will but the will of him that sent him that he sought not himself nor his own honour but his Father's Again our Saviour asserts his authority from the Prophecies of Moses and the other inspired persons of that Dispensation whose predictions of the Messias did all agree to him and receive completion in him And from these our Saviour often silenced the Iews and this is to us still a strong Argument that these Books which the enemies and blasphemers of our Religion have still kept as sacred and had among them for some thousands of years do give such clear and evident Characters of our Saviour as their Messias as must needs convince every serious and sober enquirer These are the chief and great proofs of the authority of our Saviour by which we are assured that all the mighty works he did were by the presence and wonderful assistance of a Divine spirit And for the Miracles themselves I. K. would resolve all our certainty concerning them into a miraculous propagation of Christianity So that if there be no other certain way to prove them then if Christian Religion had not been so
of those Ages and the chief preservative of Piety and good manners so as they have it among them it hath been one of the greatest engines of Hell for driving out of the minds of men all sense of the duties of a holy and good life I do not deny but some Priests among them make good use of it but those being very few it does give but a small allay to the gross corruptions which even many grave and pious Writers of their own Communion complain of and condemn Shall I here mention the giving Absolution and admitting to the Sacrament upon Confession before any part of the Penance be performed the trifling Penances are often enjoyned the taking Confessions from persons unknown the receiving it when it is apparent they are only reciting their sins without any Compunction And for Contrition they confess it is not necessary Now the generality of that Church being perswaded that if they Confess with a little Attrition and be Absolved and receive the Sacrament they stand clear and innocent in the presence of God whatever their former life have been or their present temper may be Is not here a very sure way to defeat the whole design of Religion and Holiness when men are taught so eaâ—ie a way of getting into the favour of God without repenting of and forsaking their sins And thus it appears that in the Roman Church Confession is no severity but a thing very grateful to flesh and blood The last particular I. K. instances is the prohibition of Priests to Marry Truly if to reckon that impure which the holy Spirit of God hath declared honourable in all without exception be a great sublimity they may well glory in it Our Saviour recommended Cellbate only to those who were able to receive it but the Roman Church will force all in Orders to receive it whether they can or not And though S. Paul makes it one of the Characters of a person fit to be a Bishop that he has been married and educated his children well which I shall not stretch so far as either the Greek or the Russian Churches do now and does not at all command him to abandon her and has elsewhere condemned that in all persons without exception except it be for a time in order to fasting and prayer and conform to this the primitive Church did not require the Clergy to abandon their wives but on the contrary did condemn such as did yet the Roman Church has most tyrannically imposed this on all the Clergy And although we read that God will judge Whoremongers and Adulterers but no where that he will judge the Married yet they have been very gentle to these crying scandals which continue to this day and have allowed the Concubinate when they condemned the Marriage of the Clergy By which they shew they prefer the Traditions of men to the Command of God And thus far I have examined this Branch of the parallel I. K. makes between the Roman and the Christian Religion wherein I have been longer than I intended but as short as the particulars he named did allow When he brings the rest of his c. I doubt not it shall appear they are a sequel of such things which the same or the like considerations will clear But I must follow his next step that the Roman Religion hath been propagated over a great part of the world without the help of Arms or humane enticements by strangers who converted many from Paganism that allowed liberty to their Religion that teaches Severities and Mortification To all which I reply That since the Roman Church is still Christian I deny not but God may bless the honest endeavours of a great many of that Communion so that their labours may have great success on Infidels in converting them to Christianity herein God blessing them as he did the Hebrew Midwives whose charitable tender hearts God rewarded building them Houses passing over their lie But I. K. must not insist on this as a good Argument otherways he will be driven into great absurdities Did not the Arrians by Ulphilas his means who was a stranger to the Goths that were a barbarous cruel and yet vastly numerous people convert them both to Christianity and Arrianism at once From whence we find the whole Roman Empire very soon overrun by Arrianism upon the Incursion of the Goths Vandals and Longobards Philostorgius does also inform us that Theophilus an Arrian converted the Indians to the Christian Faith Did not the Greek Church when it was broke from the Roman convert many Nations the Bulgars the Muscovites and many other northern Kingdoms In fine what will I. K. answer according to his own Argument to the great progress of the Doctrine of Luther and Zuinglius who notwithstanding all the opposition they met and all the persecutions their followers suffered yet did so strangely propagate their Doctrine that before half an Age went about the greater half of the Roman Church fell off from the Obedience of that See to their Doctrine which holds all the Mysteries of the Christian Religion and there was no need of more and instead of all the Juglings the Roman Priests had brought in teaching men an easie way to Heaven did preach all the severities of a holy Life which our Saviour and his Apostles taught And as they taught a severer course of Life to all Christians I do not speak of the particular severities of some Orders in the Roman Church but what must be the necessary conditions upon which all may hope for Salvation so they advanced this without Arms and under great Persecutions And here I. K. must think how he will answer his own Dilemma That either this was done with Miracles or without them if with them the Doctrine must be true that was confirmed by Miracles if without them that propagation was a great Miracle and thus I. K. will find it hard to avoid the dint of his own Argument Besides when I. K. speaks of the propagation of the Roman Religion he must not prove that from the propagation of Christianity by persons of that Religion though the same Instruments might at the same time have engaged their new Converts to the particular conceits of that Church For as it was observed before God blessing the sincerity of their Labours so that they made Converts to the Christian Doctrine that has so much to be said for it that it is a wonder all the world did not receive it it was not strange if those so converted seeing the foundation of the Divine Mission of Iesus Christ to be true did either in humble gratitude to their charitable Instructors pay them all the returns of acknowledgment and Obedience or being ignorant of that Doctrine which was wholly new to them did easily receive and imbibe any particular Opinions they might infuse in them and so at the same time became Votaries to Christ and to Rome But if I. K. will deal fairly and satisfyingly he must
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
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
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
disposed have run so together by Chance which must needs be unequal and unconstant So that mans Formation must owe its Original to a wise Being and that this is not the wisdom of the Father and Mother every one knows therefore there must be some unseen wise Being that created the Universe and did not only at first set the several parts of it in those Channels wherein they still run but does continue to mould this Matter according to the designs of his Eternal mind All this receives a further Confirmation from the many sudden changes of the Course of Nature at the command of some extraordinary persons who have forced her out of her common Methods and Operations which is an evident demonstration there is somewhat Superior to Matter and Motion which can over-rule and govern it This having appeared often in the sight of many thousands of discerning and impartial witnesses who have both confessed and attested the truth of what they saw and heard we have no reason to doubt the matter of Fact and as little to question the being of a Deity who is Master of the world and can do in it and with it what he will Thus far have I considered upon what true and solid grounds the belief of a Deity must rest which are indeed such that we need not the help of any little piece of Sophistry to maintain them they require only a serious and thinking temper to examine and weigh things in a fair and Rational way without either the prejudices of Education or the partialities of lust and interest CHAP. II. It is considered if J. K. proves convincingly that there must be some true Religion THE next step I. K. makes is to prove that there must be a true Religion which he defines A Doctrine that teaches men in what manner God will be worshipped by them and in what matters he will be obeyed by them Now he proves this for if there be a true God we ought to worship him in what manner he will be worshiped by and obey him in what matters he will be obeyed by us as subjects and servants reverence and â—bey their Soveraigns and Masters Therefore if God be the best and greatest of all things we are his subjects and servants for certainly he is the supreme Governour of the Universe and this he thinks none who grant a true God can deny and this way of Worship must be assigned by God and men must know it This is the substance of what I. K. says on this head which is so extremely weak and ill proved that I am amazed he did not see it For he must remember he only pretended there was a Being best of all others Now though that were true it will not follow from that that I must Worship or Obey God much less that I am his subject and servant all that will follow being only that I ought to esteem him the best of all Beings but why Adore or Obey him and why am I his servant or subject Adoration and Obedience can only be exacted as acts either of Justice Gratitude or Interest If any have a right to my Worship or Obedience they are due to him in Justice or if he have put such Obligations on me that these are but a proportioned return and acknowledgment of them then they are due in Gratitude or if he be able to confer extraordinary favours or inflict most severe punishments then the avoiding his displeasure and the procuring his favour are necessary on the account of my own Interest and so I must study to please him by Worship and Obedience but nothing of all this will follow if it be only proved that there is a best of Beings which is all I. K. attempted And hence it was that though the Epicureans acknowledged such a Deity as he thinks he has proved yet they denying both Creation Providence and another State did throw off the care and thoughts of Religion as the effects of fear and superstition And I. K. defining Religion to be a Doctrine teaching us to worship and obey God so as he will have us do goes to prove there must be a Religion because if there be a God he must be Worshipped and Obeyed so as pleases him Now this being his definition of Religion and by consequence all one with it he proves that if there be a God there must be a Religion thus if there be a true God there must be a true Religion And how Sophistical a way of procedure this is common sense not to say Logick does make appear And thus he is again unhappy in this his second step But as in the former Section I judged it ne-necessary to substitute some better proofs of a Deity than he gave so I shall now offer â—ome stronger Arguments to prove there must be a Religion And first if God be the Creator of all things and the Author of our beings as was already proved then we are his subjects by that right of Creation and owe our Nature Reason and Life wholly to him Therefore as in justice we ought to acknowledge this by our thankful Praises and Adorations so we ought by the same justice to give our selves up to him and do and suffer what he will have us do and suffer And this is confirmed by those impressions of Awe and Reverence which as was before proved the greatest and best nay and often the worst part of Mankind feel on their hearts Which with the checks and pangs of Conscience for sins shews how Religion is natural to the Soul and proportioned to our faculties Again if God created the world and all things in it he must uphold preserve and govern his own workmanship which the regular course of Nature with the dayly productions of it do demonstrate And it is no less clear from the extraordinary and miraculous interruptions and changes which by his great power are given to the common course of Second causes Now if there be a supreme Providence that watcheth over all humane things and from whose care all the blessings oâ— this life flow upon us then we ought to make returns sutable to such favours and likewise implore the continuance of them Finally if there be a God that made and governs all things â—e must be both so good and so just as to protect and reward all who trust in him and serve him this being the natural result of justice and goodness and there must be some discrimination between those that worship and obey him and those that do not so Now this is not done in this life for often those who Fear and Love him are in great Miseries Pains and Troubles and live and die most uncomfortably whereas those who dishonour and disobey him are often in great honour and esteem and abound in all outward advantages nor is there any visible discrimination in this Life yet that being inseparable from the notion of justice and goodness it must certainly be done at some time
or other Since therefore it is not in this Life it must be in another therefore we must believe our Souls shall outlive this state When likewise we consider that Matter in all its subtilest refinings and nimblest motions gives no discoveries of Sense or Cogitation and yet we feel a Thinking being within us which we plainly perceive to be a Being different from Matter both in its actings and nature we conclude there is a principle in us that must not necessarily die at the dissolution of this life Which is confirmed from innumerable stories of the Apparitions of some Rational beings separated from Bodies which in all Ages and places of the world have abounded and are as certainly attested as ever any matter of Fact hath been Which shews that there are Beings distinct from Matter and that our Souls are such their subtle reasonings both Metaphysical and Mathematical do demonstrate Their surviving this Body is also gathered from their frequent ascent above material Figures and Phantasms in their Conceptions and Inferences which shews they do not so much depend on matter as not to outlive their union with it In fine The common apprehensions which all Thinking men in all Ages have owned and which appears in the greatest part of all both good and bad at their death shews the belief of this is among those common Notices of truth which are born with the Soul From all which I may fairly assume That there is another state in which our Souls surviving their union with our Bodies shall be rewarded or punished as they have deserved well or ill at the hands of the great Creator and Judge of all men And therefore if our own interests touch us or prevail upon us and the apprehensions of future rewards or punishments work on our fears or hopes we must carefully avoid all dishonouring disobeying or offending this God and with the same care we must study to acknowledge our beings are of him and for him and that all the blessings of this Life are the effects of his Bounty for which we must thank him and adoring his blessed Attributes and Perfections we must dedicate our whole Lives to his service that so we may still enjoy his favour here and in the next life receive the rewards of good and faithful servants And thus upon good and solid foundations I have built up this proposition That there must be some true Religion CHAP III. It is considered if J. K. proves convincingly that there must be some true Revealed Religion J. K. goes on to prove this Religion must be Revealed which he performs thus How can we know Gods will unless he Reveal it to us either immediately or mediately For natural Religion teaches only in general that we ought to Worship and Obey God but does not teach the particular manner or matters of this Worship and Obedience therefore there is a necessity of this Revelation Yea if God had left this to the Choice of every one yet at least that must be revealed In this Reasoning I. K. hath forgot a very necessary distinction of Revelation into that which is communicated naturally to the Soul and that which is superadded by some extraordinary manifestation or inspiration In the former sence it cannot be denyed but it is necessary there be a Revelation of Religion but that is not what I. K. drives at Now he must be very ignorant if he does not know that the greatest part of the Philosophers believed there were on the Souls of all men such inscriptions of Truth that if all should purifie their minds from the defilements Lust superinduced upon them they should then clearly discern every thing that the Deity enjoyned them and therefore they looked upon Inspiration as a degree of madness which was only incident to weaker minds whose imaginative powers were too hard for their reasons And indeed they knew so much of the juglings of their Oracles that no wonder they studied to detract from their Authority all they could Now I desire I. K. will review his discourse and see what strong or good reasons it offers for the conviction of those of this perswasion So that his Argument proving only that God must reveal how he will be Worshipped and Obeyed if it be replyed that it is done to all men by those common Notices of Truth that are born with their Souls he hath furnished us with nothing to prove a further Revelation necessary To make good this therefore against the Philosophers it is not to be denied but if mankind had continued in the purity wherein God did create our Natures their Reasons were strong but they themselves complained of a great depravation of their Natures which they found were much prevailed on by Senses and sensible objects by Education Custome Corporeal pleasure and the power of Fancy And for clearing of this they apprehended another Prior state wherein our Souls for some trespass had lost their wings and plumes and so were degraded into Bodies This shews they found some corruption on their Nature from which they studied to emerge and did indeed attempt most gloriously the recovering themselves to their first original This being then confessed that our minds are much darkned and that our bodies appetites and fancies are too strong for them it will thence very naturally follow that as our reasons cannot discover all things to us so that our way of apprehending of divine things may carry along with it much of a body and gross phantasms This was evidently demonstrated in that numberless variety of Opinions into which all Nations were divided about Religion a great mixture of bodily phantasms and gross pleasures appearing both in their opinions and practises about Religion Nor was this only the fate of the Rabble but both Tully and Varro have given us an account of the great diversity was among Philosophers about the very Notion and Nature of a Deity And if they differed so much in their thoughts of that primitive and first Truth into how many divisions may we imagine they must have run about the other Truths to be deduced from that Since therefore men did so grope after all the disputes and speculations of Philosophers in which there was no certainty nor had any of them such plenary Authority as to oblige others to submit to their decision thence I infer the necessity of some clear and certain way for satisfying all mankind in things of so great and universal concern The Speculations of Philosophers were neither certain nor such as they were evident to men of weaker understandings the only way therefore to avoid this was either to make such plain and glorious Manifestations of God's presence and pleasure as the Iews had on mount Sinai and in their most holy place or to authorize some men by divine Inspirations to reveal God's will to mankind Now there is no impossibility in the notion of an Inspiration For if we make known our thoughts to one another either by forming such a â—ound
propagated as it was it could not have been made out that it was true and if so what must have been the strong Arguments used for it before it was so propagated Either these were convincing or not if they were not convincing then it being propagated by weak and unconcluding Arguments we cannot be bound to submit to it or believe it if these Arguments were convincing we either know them or we know them not if we know them not how can we judge they were convincing if we know them then we may be as well convinced by them as those were to whom they were at first proposed The great Argument the Apostles offered was that our Blessed Saviour wrought many Miracles in the sight of the Iews and that he being dead and laid in the grave was raised from the dead and after a long stay with them on earth they saw him ascend with great glory to Heaven of all which they were witnesses Now these being matters of Fact so positively attested by so many eye-witnesses who were men of great probity that could not be cast on the pretence of their being hired or bribed there being no interest could lead them to give that testimony but only truth all other considerations deterring them from it there was good reason then and remains so still to believe this true whether the world had embraced it or not And I will ask I. K. what if the Gentiles had rejected their testimony as well as the Iews did yet if these sacred writings had been with a most Religious care conveyed down to us had we not been bound to believe the Gospel certainly we had for the Apostles were men who upon the strictest tryal of Law must be admitted as competent witnesses they were well informed of what they heard and saw for a tract of three or four years they were plain simple men who could not in reason be suspect of deep designs or contrivances they in the testimonies they gave do not only vouch private stories that were transacted in corners but publick matters seen and known of many hundreds they all agreed in their testimony so that the fumes of melancholy could not lead so many into such an agreement of mistakes Their testimonies if false might have been easily disproved the chief power being in the hands of their enemies who neither wanted power cunning nor malice And in fine the truth of their testimony appears in their constant adhering to it from which neither imprisonments whippings tortures no not death it self could divert them From all which it is as evident as is possible any matter of Fact can be that their testimony was true and this discourse must hold good whether the world had received and believed their report or not Which was the more fully confirmed by the miraculous operations of the Apostles in the name of Christ by which they did cast out Devils and cure all manner of diseases and to this they appeal in their Epistles and Acts which were published at that time wherein had the matter of Fact not been true they had been branded as bold and impudent Impostors We have also a Series of Books in all Ages citing the Writings wherein these Testimonies are contained by which we know they were written at that very time And the Apologists for the Christian Faith in their Apologies appeal to the wonders that were still wrought for confirmation of the Faith nor can we imagine that men of common sense not to say Modesty and Ingenuity would have appealed to proofs that were slender and false in matter of Fact Thus we see that great confirmation of our Saviour from his Miracles is made good by another way of proof than by the propagation of it which I do not deny doth very strongly make out the truth of all yet is rather a consequent confirmation of what hath been said than an antecedent argument for proving it So though it be far from my thoughts to weaken this way of confirming Christian Religion yet it is plain that an extraordinary propagation will not infer the truth of the Doctrine though it be allowed it was done by Miracles since we cannot be assured these Miracles are wrought by a good Spirit till we first consider the Doctrines they confirm whether they be good or not It doth also appear that the truth of these Miracles is made out abundantly to us abstracting from the way of propagating them But in end we must a little examine what this way of propagating them was and we shall find that notwithstanding all the calumnies and lesser persecutions of the Iews of the derision of the Philosophers of the prejudice carnal lusts and appetites laid in the way and above all of the violent oppositions given it by the Roman Emperors who spared no cruelty for a Succession of three Ages and ten Persecutions that hell or hellish men could devise for destroying it yet it prevailed and in a few years did spread to the astonishment of the world and all other Religions were not only overthrown by the many Converts were daily flocking in to the Christian Church but by the ruine of these very Religions Judaism fell to the ground by the subversion of their Temple and the total ruine and dispersion of their State begun by Vespasian and Titus and compleated by Trajan and Hadrian nor could their attempts though cherished by an apostate Emperour succeed for the rebuilding their Temple Heaven and Earth combining to break off the work Heathenism did also receive a mortal blow by the silencing the Oracles upon the beginnings of Christianity which were the great supports of that Religion with the vulgar And the exemplary lives the heavenly Doctrines the mutual Charity and the noble Constancy of the first Witnesses and Martyrs of the Christian Faith wrought not a little on all that beheld thâ—m even on such as were very partial and byassed against them And the Christian Religion being thus universally received as it is a very full demonstration that these Miracles were no forgeries but known and approved truths So also it confirms in us a belief that there was an extraordinary presence of God in these beginnings of Christianity assisting and animating those Converts of all Ages Sexes and Qualities to adhere to it under all the discouragements and sufferings they were to pass through whether occasioned by the irregular appetites of their own carnal lusts or by the outward oppositions they met with And thus far I have considered how the truth of Christian Religion can be made out against the opposition of Atheists Infidels or Deists Hitherto I have waited on I. K. in the survey of these Truths about which we are agreed and I hope upon a review of what we have both performed he will not deny but I have strengthened his Positions with the accession of many more and better Arguments than any he brought So that if he be in earnest zealous for these four great Truths he will rejoyce to
see such a supplement to what he had so scantly proposed But I am afraid and perhaps not without reason that he knowing how weak his Arguments must needs be for the two positions that follow and yet designing to impose on the Reader all the Six as equally certain he would needs disguise the first Four and propose them so weakly guarded that the proofs of all the Six might be of a piece But I have hitherto helped I. K. henceforth I quit that part and go to enter in a down-right opposition to him in what remains CHAP V. It is considered if J. K. proves convincingly that the Roman Catholick Religion is true J. K. now comes to that which he drove at all along and proves it thus If Christian Religion be true then that Religion which has the same proofs that it hath at least any of them that are solid must needs be true Since then the miraculous propagation of Christianity is a common solid and evident proof of its truth therefore the Roman Catholick Religion must be true since it is solidly proved by the like propagation for though it contains very hard Mysteries in it above the reach of humane reason as Transubstantiation and some very hard Precepts and Counsells as Vows Fasts Confession prohibition for Priests to marry c. yet it hath been propagated over a great part of the world without the help of Arms or humane Enticements by strangers who have converted Nations from Paganism to embrace the Christian Faith as S. Austin the Monk did in England and Xaverius in the Indies and many others in other places which can be manifestly proved from History nor can any exception be made against it which the enemies of Christianity may not make against the same proâ—f brought for the Christian Religion And to use S. Austin's dilemma This propagation of Roman Catholick Religion was either with or without Miracles if with Miracles it must be true since confirmed by Miracles if without them then no Miracle is greater than this propagation By which it appears we have as good ground to be Roman Catholicks as we have to be Christians By this time I suppose it is clear enough why I. K. would bring no better proofs for the Truth of the Christian Religion and now he thinks he has gained his design but what I said in the former Section has undermined this Fabrick since it is made out that the miraculous propagation is neither the only nor the chief proof of Christianity but that before we believe even the Miracles of our Saviour to be of God two things were to be made out the one that his Doctrine was all holy and such as tended to the glory of God the other was that all he said and delivered agreed with the Prophecies had gone before So by the same rule of proceeding we must first see that all the parts of the Roman Religion are holy and such as tend to the glory of God and then that they 〈◊〉 as fully with both the Testaments as our Saviours Doctrine did with 〈◊〉 and the Prophets If this Method be taken I am afraid I. K. will find it a hard task to prove the holinâ—â—s of all the Roman Doctrines What a Sanctuary for all manner of Vice and Impiety is the 〈◊〉 power of Dispensing Pardoning and giving Indulgences for all sins upon such trifling accounts Witness the present year with all the favours and Indulgences to such as go to the thresholds of the Apostles What a patrociny to impenitence is their Opinion of a simple Attrition being sufficient for the Sacrament And the whole trade of their penances and absolutions looks like a design to quiet all mens Consciences let them lead as bad lives as they will Besides who can believe that to be a true Religion that has tolerated a great many Casuists who have found out distinctions to excuse men from all the duties they owe God and their Neighbour and have studied to satisfie men in the most impious and immoral practises A woman that entertains common and avowed Prostitutes will never be thought an honest woman though none could prove her self guilty of any base act So that Church that not only entertains but cherishes those who have studied to discharge mankind of all sense of Religion and Vertue can never pass for a pure Church Nor does the Doctrine of that Church tend wholly to the glory of God as our Saviours did for what greater dishonour can be done him than to Worship him in a way which himself has so often condemned and never since allowed by the representations of Pictures and Images And that instead of addressing their Adorations and Prayers to him by his Son have found out a great many other Mediators both Angels and Saints and the Blessed Virgin Surely this is highly to the dishonour of God when the Souls of people are turned off from their Faith and dependence on him and his blessed Son into a trusting to and calling on Creatures and when instead of that plain simple and rational Worship that is sutable to the Divine nature and pleasing to him the mimical pageantry of a Thousand little apish practises and an unknown Worship are brought into his Church If we likewise consider and measure the Roman Religion by the second great Topick by which our Saviour cleared himself which was his appealing to the Scriptures we will quickly find good reason to suspect them guilty there since they study nothing more than the suppressing and concealing the Scripture and by all means labour to prove it an incompetent rule to decide Controversies by And yet I am sure I. K. will give me no reason to prove the Scriptures an unproper rule for deciding Controversies and that we must submit to the verdict and decree of the Church that might not with more strength been made use of by the Iews against our Saviour And if I carry this consideration as far as it will go it must necessarily lead me to compare all the Doctrines of the Roman Religion with the Scriptures And as if our Saviours Doctrine had been contrary to the Law of Moses there had been no reason to have believed him for all his mighty deeds which in that case might justly have been imputed to evil spirits so now should an Angel from heaven teach any thing contrary to this Doctrine and Gospel he must be anathematized even though he wrought mighty wonders Therefore we are with the Bereans to examine all new Doctrines by their conformity to the Scriptures and till that appear we are not to look on any thing they do as miraculous And thus far I hope I have said enough to convince I. K. that though what he says of the miraculous propagation of the Roman Religion were true it does not from that follow that the Religion it self must be true But I go next to convince him how much he mistook himself in his account when he asserted that the Christian and the
Roman Religion were propagated in the same manner and shall first examine his grounds His first Branch of the Comparison is that as the Christian Religion contains some high Mysteries in it above the reach of humane Reason so does the Roman Religion in holding Transubstantiation He did well to distinguish this from the Mysteries of the Christian Religion for it is indeed none of them nor is it above humane Reason as he calls it but contrary to it and not at all to be compared to the Mysteries of Christian Religion as the Trinity the Incarnation and the Resurrection The last of these contains nothing in it that may not be Rationally enough conceived as very possible and easy to Divine Omnipotence for the other Mysteries that concern God it is no wonder those be above our understandings since the divine Nature is so vastly exalted above all our depressed Notions of things and therefore is not a proper object for our Faculties So no wonder we cannot frame such clear conceptions of his Nature as to give a distinct account of it to our Reasons But a material object proposed to our senses is proportioned to our Faculties And therefore we must either believe the clear evidence our Faculties give us of the Bread and of the Wine after the Consecration or turn Scepticks for ever since full evidence to our Faculties is all can possibly be offered for our conviction and if that in any case fail it is in no case certain So that if our Senses fail in this we have no reason to receive any thing upon their Testimony for a noted Liar in one thing is to be believed in nothing even though his lie had been discovered by a divine Revelation Now if we weaken the evidence of Sense all the authority of the Christian Religion which it received from the Miracles will be weakned for these were only known by the Senses of the spectators And so far of the first branch of the parallel The Second branch of the parallel is that as the Christian Religion enjoyns diverse severities to embrace Crosses to Love our enemies and to Mortifie our passions so also the Roman teaches very hard precepts and Counsels as Vows Fasts Confession prohibition for Priests to Marry to which I. K. adds an c. The Christian Religion does indeed command diverse duties contrary to our natural appetites but those are things of themselves Morally good and such as do highly perfect our Natures But the Roman Religion has made a shift to find means for voiding all these Sacred obligations and to set a great many little trifling performances instead of them which have no tendency to the purifying of our Natures or the bettering of Mankind How much they have detracted from the obligation to all the severer and unalterably Moral Duties of Christianity hath been already and shall be more fully laid open if it be called for though that be needless it being so clearly done by many better Pens but for those they have substituted in their room let us a little consider these I. K. mentions and to begin with Vows We do not deny that the first design of Monasteries in the primitive Church was excellent but it quickly began to degenerate into idleness and superstition which S. Ierome though inclined enough to the severities of that course of Life hath fully told us But how they did afterwards sink into all the Corruptions imaginable all Histories inform us And whatever may be said for such Houses as either Seminaries for the Church or Sanctuaries for those that are no more able to labour in it yet certainly the entanglements of Vows is a yoke which none can be assured he shall be able to bear We ought to Vow and pay our Vows unto God and therefore should be sure to Vow nothing but that whereof the execution is in our power Now when we Vow to serve God which we do in the Sacraments we are assured of the aid of the Divine Grace to assist us in the performance But to Vow things which we are not sure to perform our tempers being so liable to Change that what agrees with them at one time becomes an intolerable burden and snare at another is certainly to cast our selves headlong into many temptations And what unnatural and brutal lusts have abounded in these Houses we read a great deal more than I am willing to repeat What a cheat is the pretence to poverty in those Orders which have got such vast Riches that they are become the envy of the world as the Benedictine the Caâ—â—husians and the Iesuits And for the begâ—ing Orders it is both against the rules of Chrisâ—iâ—n Religion and all good Government to allow much more to encourage such swarms of idle fellows who shall always go rambling and begging about and do not work that they may eat And for their obedience what a rack it may be under a Tyrannical Superiour and what an engine it may prove for Sedition and disturbance I leave to all to judge In a word all such severities as tend to the subduing our lusts and passions are good and sutable to the spirit of Christianity but for overcharging men with new burdens which signifie nothing but to create a perpetual trouble and constant scrupulosity is to abridge them of their Christian liberty without cause and tends to swell them up with pride and a lofty opinion of their meriting by such practises and a contempt of others who though they bear none of these voluntary assumed burdens yet are more meek more humble and more charitable and in all things more conformable to the life and doctrine of our Blessed Saviour And if voluntary severities be a character of a true Religion the Priests of Baal the worshippers of Diana Taurica the Ebionites the Montanists the Eâ—cratites and many other heresies might have put in a fair claim since they abounded in them From your Vows I go to your Fasts God forbid we should disclaim Fasting which our Saviour did so much recommend both by his example and Commands we acknowledge it a powerful mean both for mortifying all bodily lusts and for disposing the mind to prayer and all other spiritual exercises and therefore we do not allow these to the Roman Church as peculiar to them And I do not believe any of them will justifie the corruptions they are palpably guilty of in the observance of their Fasts which are generally only a change of diet wherein no severity nor strictness is to be seen Wine is liberally drunk the most delicate Fishes with the most exquisite way of dressing them are sought for and no other mixtures of higher Devotion appear on these weekly or annual returns For Confession I know no Christians that deny the usefulness of it but the setting up the necessity of Auricular Confession as it hath driven out of their Church the primitive and publick Confession with all the ancient discipline which was indeed the great glory
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
exquisite deckings of Art and Industry and judging of piety by some heats which were raised in the fancy by outward objects presented to it studied to fill all the parts of Worship with such rites as might make either a glorious shew for amusing the worshippers or some melting tender impressions for cozening them into an opinion of their being divinely elevated But after that by the blessed providence of God Religion was in many parts of the world refined from that dross yet the sensitive part of the natural man did not give over its attempts for embasing Religion many still continued to place all their Religion in forms and bestowed that Zeal which should have gone to the advancing true piety holiness of life and Brotherly Charity to the adorning and maintaining those Others thought they had pretty well escaped this whole danger being got into an extream very opposite to it of vilifying all forms but the Natural man did act in their sensitive powers though in another method for though they had emerged out of the Dominion or Influence of their outward senses in matters of Religion yet their inward senses and imaginations which are the rebound of sensible impressions upon the understanding prevailed much on them These therefore came to think a voluble way of pouring out soft words with great heavings of the natural mind was a mighty thing and gave themselves wholly to this so that the conceiving and hearing long Prayers and Sermons especially if accompanied with tenderness in the thoughts and great meltings in the fancy was thought the highest feat and elevation of Religion though it plainly appears to a man of a severe and discerning Reason that all this is but an illusion of the fancy heated by some fervours of the mind And yet they upon these deceits of their fanciful thoughts have separated themselves from all regular forms of Worship because that gratification of new words was necessary to feed their devotion Another great mischief of this distemper is that such persons judge that as long as they enjoy these heats all is as they would have it and this will readily continue as long as they are put to do nothing displeasing to them so that whatever they do be it never so contrary to the Laws of Religion yet if with that they can but keep up these heats they judge either that what they do is not at all a sin or at most such a sin as being a branch of necessary infirmity may consist well enough with Grace because it can live with those fervours and if any thing quench them which it is like every thing that displeases them may do then they throw it off as carnal Thus they measure all things by these fluctuating and inconstant motions and as that temper is volatile and of all others the most subject to change so the inequalities they are in are looked on as the flowings and ebbings of the divine Spirit and the heats they feel sometimes being ascribed to the divine Spirit every thought which drops into their minds when under these actuations is taken for a divine Revelation and followed and given out for such and the coldness and dulness which must of necessity follow these heats is thought a withdrawing and desertion of the divine Spirit Whence follow sad melancholy and perplexing scrupulosities which do often mightily afflict some devout but weak minds and bring up an ill report on Religion as if it were sullen and morose and led men into dejection and perpetual anxiety And this humor as it swells up the mind into a mighty conceit of its own eminent and exalted piety and to a contempt of others so it doth often carry on those who are imposed on by it into strange conceits making them apprehend they are obliged to nothing but as they are inwardly moved to it And thus they would supersede Reason and give themselves up to their fancies under a conceit that they are acted by a divine Spirit whereas it is but an impulse of some vapours of the grosser and more terrene parts of the natural man rarified by the heats of the Brain and the fumes of Melancholy into a thin and nimble agitation The next power of the Natural man is in his passions and appetites which being suited to the contexture of his Bloud Brain and Spirits have a mighty influence on all his thoughts and chiefly on those that relate to Religion And first these carrying him with a strong impetus to many irregular desires to which Religion if believed must give a stop he is from that made first to question then to doubt and at last to deny there is a God because his appetites are too dear to forgoe them for the belief of a superiour power or the hopes of another state And it is an easie thing for any man to bribe his Reason to believe what he has a great mind to perswade himself of either by diverting his thoughts from seriously considering the thing proposed or by looking only at the oppositions may be made to this belief without examining what may be said for it and by living in a perpetual disorder which both darkens the mind and keeps out all serious thoughts from it upon all which there may by the just judgment of God follow a searing of the Conscience and a blinding of the mind But if the power of Religion and the witness God hath in our Breast prove too hard for all this opposition then the next attempt of passion and lust is to misshape these notices of truth into such a figure as may best agree with their desires And thus the Heathens corrupted all the evidences of natural Religion and set up such Deities as were guilty of the most furious passions and the most ungoverned lusts of all sorts and this being once done no wonder the worship of those gods was of a piece with the opinions they had of them and that they devised such Sacrifices and services as might agree best with those Deities It was also a very natural result of this opinion that they should conform their lives to their gods and so they were secure of patrociny and protection when they were to commit the basest villanies And no wonder this prejudiced them at Christianity which they saw taught all its Converts to be severely vertuous and pious and therefore they complained that Christians came to disgrace their gods and to turn them from the Religion they had received from their Fathers But afterwards when the world rushed into the Church the passionate and lustful parts of the natural man finding nothing in that Faith for their shelter yet studied to doe the best they could for their own preservation Therefore insensibly men were turned from minding the great things for which Christ died and rose again to place all their care on other thingâ— which might well be maintained without overcoming a passion or mortifying a lust Some did set up highly for opinions others for forms and
by a curious improving those hoped that their other faults should be more easily forgiven both by God and man Afterwards a great many notions were found out if not for a direct defence of those disorders yet for palliating them and allaying the grief for them A devotion to Saints was one great Engine the opinion of many sins being expiated in Purgatory together with the belief of the Popes power of Redeeming from it was an universal Medicine for all diseases of Conscience Then the dispensing with Vowes Covenants and most of all Duties was a great ease to the natural man There were also some new coined duties of Religion which did agree well with their passions such as fighting for Religion against Infidels Hereticks and others that were excommunicated by the Pope and a violent persecuting of all who in any point departed from the received Opinions And their Auricular Confessions easie Penances and ready Absolutions were sure and Infallible means to reconcile them to Religion after it was so debased as to meet them more than half way But when a great part of Europe was delivered from those more apparent Impostures the natural man did not for all that give over his practising upon Religion to frame it to his own taste and a fondness on some reformed Opinions with a Reverence for the Persons of the Teachers came to be set up by many as all they drave at But cunninger Arts were also found out and some sacred truths did insensibly become so abused as to be made the excuses of sins especially as they were stretched by the corruptions of men which were much encouraged by many unwary expressions of some hot Divines who in the eagerness of dispute had said many things that were not to be justified Hence it was that the Doctrine of Christs dying for sinners and being their Sacrifice by which the guilt of their sins was expiated and they reconciled to God was used by many for a security for men to sin as pleased them so they but trusted to Christ and because perfection was not attained in this life it was held unattainable and sin insuperable Nor could men be much afflicted for sin nor guard diligently against it who believed they were inevitably led and determined to it especially when that was thought done by God himself and fighting for Religion against the supream Authority was also by many made a great demonstration of their zeal for God and Religion and a surious bitter zeal against all who departed from their Opinions whether to the one hand or to the other was looked on as a great evidence of Grace and Love to God And it is plain in many persons Religion does not so much mortifie their passions and lusts as palliate and disguise them or at most change their object but not their nature Men of Cholerick dispositions placing all Religion in an eager violent yea and if need be a bloody maintaining all their Opinions about matters of Faith The melancholy men put it all in abstraction and recluseness valuing themselves much upon it and undervaluing others that were not so retired Others of a more sanguine Complexion finding either great excuses for all their levities and follies or if more serious turning all their thoughts to the dressing up some pretty Notion And thus men not forming their minds by the dictates and precepts of Religion but framing it according to their own tempers so as might best suit their inclinations did hold the truth in unrighteousness And thus again the natural man did adulterate the notions of Religion which are spiritually discerned But the last and greatest because both strongest and subtilest assault that Nature made upon Religion was by the misguidings of ill directed and ill managed Reason The former prejudices were more visible and could not be so well defended but this was managed with a deeper cunning And first the great value that the Masters and pretenders to Learning and Reason had of themselves made them scornfully reject all Instruction stiffly maintain all they had once asserted and despise every one that differed from them Hence it was that the Philosophers broke into so many divisions being as is apparent mightily swelled in self-conceit so that they scorned to yield to one another but employed all their wit and eloquence to justifie their own Notions how absurd soever Now this is the temper in the world the most incapable of instruction and this their pride they carried higher laughing at all Inspiration as a kind of madness which therefore they despised and thought that their Reason was able to penetrate into the deepest and secretest mysteries And as this occasioned a numberless variety of opinions so it made them despise the first preachings of Christianity in which as there was none of their Metaphysical canting so poor illiterate men delivering it they who valued themselves on their Learning and their noble generous tempers rejected it with scorn which was fed with the contempt they had for the first Converts who were either such as they called Barbarians or men of mean Education and Employments But after an Age or two many of those were by the prevailing progress of Christianity Converted to the Faith and did for some Ages very good service to it But diverse of their Successors retaining the old temper of the Philosophers the debates about Religion begun to be managed with an unyielding ambition and Anathema's were the common sanctions with which they imposed their Opinions And at length one of the Bishops assumed to himself and Successors the absolute authority of judging and deciding all Controversies which though the most unreasonable opinion in the world and that which destroys the free and right use of Reason yet was brought in on the highest pretences of Reason as the only mean to end all disputes And when a great many errors were visibly got into their Church and some rose who with all the evidence of Reason imaginable laid open these and pressed them to disown and reform them they continued in their stubborness multiplied their Anathema's and wreathed all their errors in one Chain as S. Iames had done the Law of God and imposed all without mercy And for doing this they brought their Janizaries whom they had educated in Nurseries at fencing cudgelling and the other discipline of Pen-slaughter and Ink-shed These Schoolmen who had been well trained to dispute about every thing and stubbornly to maintain every position how trifling or how false soever with all confidence and earnestness were brought to give Battel and they as Mercenaries who expected good preferments did fight it out most obstinately nothing was too disingenious for their confidence no Author was so spurious but they would vouch his testimony no place of Scripture sounded favourably to their Opinions but though it had been never so plain that it was to be understood in a different sence was brought as a certain proof no maxim of the Schools no old fustian distinction was
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