is the same pleasure to me to have my Notions confuted when unsound as it is to be restored to health when I have been sick § 8. Having briefly viewed the serviceableness of Reason as to the demonstrating the Divinity of the Scripture we may ere we make any further proceed infer and conclude from hence its Authority For upon its Divine Original doth its Authority bear The formal reason of our submitting our Hearts and Consciences to the Bible is Gods speaking in it The Authority of God is his right to command and require Obedience and it is founded not only in the supereminence of his Nature but his Relation to us as our maker Having made us Rational Creatures capable of moral Government he may accordingly Rule us by Laws backt with promises and threatnings I acknowledg that de facto men may withdraw themselves from under the Authority of God and may deny him Obedience but that militates nothing against the Right that is vested in Him of ruling them nor the obligation that they are under of obeying him Now the Authority of the Scripture ariseth from its being Gods Word and his speaking in it Nor are the most momentous Reasons of that significancy to determine our Assent as the Testimony of a person of infinite Power Wisdom Goodness and Truth What greater Assurance can we have to ascertain our belief than that the affirmer is infinitely Wise and cannot be deceived himself and infinitely Good and cannot deceive others To say as the Papists do that the Scripture hath its Authority in se in its self from its self but that it hath its Authority quoad nos with respect to us from the Testimony of the Church is to talk without either Reason or sense For 1 Authority being a Relative Term nothing can have Authority in it self which hath it not in respect of others Nothing is a Law properly but what is a Law to some It is impossible to suppose an actual Right in any to Command without supposing an obligation in some to obey If the Scripture therefore have no Authority from it self in respect of us it neither hath nor can have any Authority in its self at all 2 If the Scripture have no Authority with respect to us but what it hath from the Church how comes the Church it self to be under an Obligation to receive and obey it There can be no obligation but in Relation to some Antecedent Authority and if there be no such Authority obliging the Church to receive the Scripture there should be no Sin in her rejecting it 3 If the Scripture have no Authority from its self and Gods speaking in it with respect to us then the Church should be the first Credible which is altogether false it being by the Scripture that we both know that there is a Church and how far her Testimony is to be trusted to 4. every Testimony is posterior to the thing testified and is accordingly true or false as it is agreeable or disagreeable to the nature of the Thing it beareth witness to If therefore the Scripture have any Authority with respect to us upon the Testimonial of the Church it behoved to have it antecedently In a word if God have not a Right of commanding us independently on the Testimonials of the Church then no private Revelation that ever God made or could make of himself to any is of the least force or significancy Nor could they to whom God by Visions Dreams Inspirations or otherwise made himself his Mind and Will known take upon them to give forth and publish to others what was thus revealed to them till they had the Testimony of the Church that it was Authentick Having established the Authority of the Scripture upon its true basis namely on its being Gods Word and speaking in it Now forasmuch as no man either is or can be obliged to believe a lie We may hence learn what to judg of that Notion of Des-Cartes and some others viz. Deum posse fallere si velit that God can deceive if he please No one denies but there both may be and are those things in the Word of God which men may turn into occasions of being Deceived all that is contended for is this that there can be nothing in a Revelation from God which may be a proper Cause of Error To say that God may Deceive if he would is no less than to affirm that he may cease to be God if he would God can do nothing but what in sensu diviso abstracting from his Decree to the contrary he may Will to do If we prove therefore that it is repugnant to the Nature of God to be Willing to deceive his Creatures we at the same time demonstrate that it is contradictory to his Power to do so First then If God may Deceive if He please what assurance have we but that he hath and may chuse to do it Nor is it enough to say that he hath told us that he will not for if he may deceive at all I know nothing hinders but that he may even then deceive us when he informs us he will not Secondly no one can deceive an other but it must proceed either from Ignorance Errour or Malice but all these interfere with the Nature of God and by consequence this posse fallere lyes cross to his Nature also To deceive argues either want of Wisdom Goodness or Veracity and therefore in no sense can God Deceive seeing he can neither cease to be Wise nor give over to be Good nor fail to be True Thirdly though a finite ignorant and mistaken Creature may impose upon us without saying one thing when he thinks another Yet it is impossible that an Infinite Wise and Omniscient Being should deceive any but that at the same time he must lie But that God cannot lie we have both the Testimony of Scrpture Tit. 1.2 and the highest assurance that Reason can give us Hence no one ever acknowledged a Deity but he withall included in his Nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to speak nothing but truth § 9. Having unfolded the Nature and Quality of the Motives that our assent to the Divinity of Scripture is raised on we may hence infer that our Belief of the Bibles being the Word of God is Divine and Infallible For as Doctor Hammond sayes in another case if the Person affirming be Infallible then is the Belief of such a Person Infallible also So if the Grounds of our Assent to the Scriptures being a Revelation from God be Infallible our Assent which is built upon these Grounds is Infallible likewise Assents are not specificated and Denominated from their Objects nor yet from the Faculties that elicite them but from the Foundations and Grounds on which they are raised Whilst then the Motives upon which we believe the Scripture are more than Moral our assurance of it's Divinity is more than Moral also For as we distinguish between the Consequent and the
sense and the Mystical that they do both together make up one entire compleat sense of the place Yea it may be said that in all propositions which admit a Literal and a Mystical sense though there be but one Explicite Enunciation yet there are two implicitely And if any have a mind upon this account to distinguish betwixt the Literal sense and the Mystical they may for me nor will I quarrel with them But to assign a plurality of coordinate or Ambiguous senses to one and the same text is the height of Madness invented only to reproach the Scripture and to make way for the Authority of the Church in the expounding of it and is indeed repugnant not only to the perspicuity of the Scripture but to the unity of Truth and the end of Gods revealing the Word which is to instruct us in Faith and Obedience for wheresoever there is a Multiplicity of Disparate Senses we can never be sure that we have attained to the true meaning of any one proposition Now when we enquire into the Sense of Scripture and asseâ—t its being Intelligible we always distinguish betwixt the perspicuity of the Object and the capacity of the Subject actually to understand it The easiness of the Scripture to be understood in respect of it self and our disposedness to understand it right are things vastly distant The Sense of the Word may be in it self facile and plain though in the mean time it remain dark and obscure to those who have shut their eyes or that have their understanding defiled tinctur'd and darkned by fuliginous vapours The Bible is only plain to such who apply themselves to the study of it without prepossessions prejudice and forestalled judgments are withall humble and diligent in the use of means to find out the meaning of it Though the Ethereal Regions be replenished with rayes of light emitted from the great Luminary yet it is both necessary that men have eyes and that they open them in order to their discovering and receiving the benefit of it If our understandings either from that darkness and ignorance which they are enveloped and muffled with through the Fall or from malignant Habits occasioned either by unhappy education or sensual lusts do not discern the sense and meaning of Scripture it is no impeachment of its perspicuity but a manifestation of our weakness corruption and folly Besides when we speak of the plainness of the Scripture its easiness to be understood we always put a difference betwixt Scripture Texts relating to Doctrines of Faith manners which are absolutely necessary to be known and such of whose Sense we may be safely ignorant the Doctrines they refer to having no indispensable connexion with Salvation The whole Will and Mind of God as to all that is needfull to be known in order to our duty and Happiness is revealed in the Scripture without any such ambiguity or obscurity as should hinder it from being understood though God in his Soveraign Wisdome hath in many things whose simple Ignorance doth not interpose with Salvation left many hard and difficult Texts partly to make us sensible of the weakness of our Understandings partly to imploy our minds unto diligence partly to induce us to implore Divine instruction and to make us depend upon God for illumination and partly to exercise our Souls unto reverence But in Fundamental Truths the Case is otherwise for the end giving measure and fixing bounds unto means it is not consistent with the Wisdom and Goodness yea nor Justice of God to leave that hard to be understood which upon no less peril than the hazard of Salvation he hath required the indispensable knowledg of As first principles of Reason need no proof of their Truth being self-evident to every one that understands the Import of Terms So Fundamental Doctrines of Religion carry an Evidence in the plainness and perspicuity of their Revelation that every one who reads the Bible without prejudice and a perverse mind may be satisfied that such Doctrines are there proposed Nor is it any Argument that those Texts of Scripture where such Articles are revealed are not easy to be understood because some out of prejudice or perversness have wrested them to a Corrupt sence seeing God did not endite the Bible for the froward and Captious but for such who will read it with a free and unprejudiced mind and are willing to come to the knowledge of the Truth For as Aristotle says in the Case of the first principles of Reason 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A self Evident Principle is not Evident to all men but only to such who have found and undepraved Understandings Topic. 6. Cap. 4. So it is no impeachment of the perspicuity of the Revelation of Fundamental Truths of Religion that men who have their minds defiled and darkned by Lusts infected with evil Opinions and filled with prejudices do not believe and acknowledg them And by the way while all Truths absolutely necessary to be known are easy and plain and while we are indispensably obliged to believe and receive whatsoever is so an Enumeration of Fundamental Truths is neither necessary nor useful and possibly not safe Now as all Doctrines necessary to be Understood are so revealed in the scripture that they are easy enough to be so so being understood they are as well the Standard and Measure by which dark and obscure Texts are to be interpreted as the Key to the opening of them As Curve lines are best discerned when applied to straight so are Heterodox senses imposed on Obscure Texts of Scripture best perceived when examined by their Habitudes to necessary and plain Truths Whatsoever bears not a Symmetry with the Foundation can be no Superstruction of God And whatsoever Notion either Formally or Virtually directly or consequentially interfere's with a fundamental Truth though never so many Texts be pressed in the proof of it we maybe sure both of its falsity and that they are all wrested and mistaken But though the Scripture be most plain in points necessary to Salvation yet no one Text of the Bible is in it self unintelligible for as Dr. More say's to affirm that the Holy Writ is in it elf unintelligible is aequivalent to the pronouncing it nonsense or to averr that such and such Books or Passages of it were never to be understood by men is to insinuate as if the Wisedome of God did not only play with the Children of men but even fool with them Mons. Wolzogen therefore in his late Book de Interprete Scripturarum hath not only in this matter shamefully betrayed the Protestant cause but reflected reproach upon the Spirit of God There are somthings says he in the Scripture which we cannot understand not through any defect or fault of our Minds or through the Sublimity Majesty of the Doctrines themselves but through the Frame of the Scripture it self and the manner in which they are revealed If there be but one
to evince it though obstinate persons and such as maintain Tenets in despite of evidence to the contrary may not be convinced by them 'T is the Church in its full latitude and extent that is eminently Christs Body and his Spouse and 't is his Body and Spouse that he is conjoyned and marryed to Now for any one to say that he is united to the Church by the vincula that are between him and Individual Believers is to run himself into the absurdity which we commonly call a circle For if the copula of particular Christians to Christ be their Society and Fellowship with the Christian Church and if the vinculum between Christ and the Church be through the cohesion of particular Believers to Christ there is no remedy but that our Author must be entangled in a circle or else there is no such thing in the World as circular defining and discoursing And to say that Christ is united to the Church by the Churches belief of his Revelations and Obedience to his Laws is but instead of loosing the knot to tye it faster For the Church being an Aggregate Body of Believers she can no other ways embrace the Revelations of the Gospel or yield obedience to its commands but in the virtue of what her particular constituent Members do 2. That our Union with Christ even supposing it a meer Political Relation should be by the means of our Union with the Christian Church is repugnant to that conception and idea which we have of the Church For the Church Catholick-Visible and much more particular instituted Churches being nothing else but the Collective Body of Christians it naturally follows that they must in priority of Nature be Christians before they can any ways belong to the Church Now to suppose them Christians I speak of adult persons without their previous owning the Authority of Jesus Christ through a belief of his Doctrines and a professed subjection to his Laws is an absurd and self-contradictious Imagination 3. If the Apostles were immediately United to Christ without any Antecedent Relation to the Christian Church I see no cause why every Individual Christian ought not to be held united to Him in the same manner that they were For the Apostles being united to Christ under the formal consideration of their being Christians and not under the reduplication of their being Apostles it follows by a short and easie train of ratiocination that all who have a right to the denomination of Christians are united by the same Bond and stand in the same immediateness of conjunction with Christ that they were Yea Paul hath said enough to set this beyond all suspect in that speaking of the Body of Christ he reckons the Apostles in the classis of Members with other Believers 1 Cor. 12.27 28. Now that the Apostles were not united to Christ by the Mediation of any Antecedent Relation to the Christian Church but that their Relation of Oneness with Him was immediate there be unanswerable Arguments at hand to demonstrate But I shall only mention one namely there was no Christian Church pre-existent to them into whose Society and Fellowship they could be admitted I have thus far discoursed these things with Mr. Sherlock taking the church for the universal Catholick Visible Church which is the most favourable acceptation to befriend the Notion of our being united to Christ by the means of Union to the Christian Church that 't is capable of And this acceptation of the Church as our communion with it is the Medium and Bond of our Union with Christ Mr. Sherlock finds himself in some cases necessitated to retreat to If says he there be no Visible Society of Christians professing the Faith of â—hrist and living in Communion with each other as it may happen in times of persecution or some great degeneracy of the Church our Union to Christ then consists in an acknowledgment of his Authority and Subjection to his Laws which makes us Members of the Universal Church though there be no particular Church to communicate with Now if the Notion of Union with Christ by the Medium of a previous Interest in the Catholick Visible Church be not defensible much less is it maintainable on the Hypothesis of an Union with a particular Church as the Vinculum and Foundation of it And yet most of our Authors discourse is fram'd in countenance of this namely that Individual Christians are not united to Christ but by means of their Union to some particular Church Hence we are told that we cannot be United to Christ that is cannot own his Authority and Government till we unite our selves to the publick Societies of Christians and submit to the publick Instructions Authority and Discipline of the Church And this is made the motive and ground of our living in the Communion of the Church where Providence hath cast us so long as she submits to the Laws of Christ and acknowledgeth his Authority because as our Author saith this Unites us to Christ. Mr. Sherlock so far as I am able to conjecture was not at leisure to think what was most serviceable to the Hypothesis he had espoused or what was most disserviceable to it All Immediate Union of particular Christians with Christ save by means of their union with the Christian Church he was resolved to deny but in what sense the Church was to be taken by Communion with which we come to be copulated with Jesus Christ he durst not determine At one time 't is by our being Members of the Universal Church at another 't is by our Fellowship with such a Church as is under the conduct of Bishops and Pastors whose Members are in regular subjection to their spiritual Guides and Rulers and live in concord and Unity amongst themselves and in a mutual discharge of all Christian Offices But that Communion with a particular Church cannot be the Medium of a Christians Union with Christ I come under the influence and command of these Reasons to believe 1. There may be some Individual Christians where there is no particular Instituted Church of Christ into which they can be admitted Nor may this only be supposed but there are divers instances in Ecclesiastical story to evince it Yea there can be no particular Church without the pre-existence of Individual Believers seeing it is of such that every particular Church is constituted and formed We may as well build a House without pre-existent Materials as erect a particular Church without Believers to constitute it of There must be living stones of which this Temple of God is built and fram'd The being Saints through the effectual Vocation and renewing of the Holy Ghost is the first ground presupposed by the Apostles in their adscription of the Name and Title of Church to any Nor are the Duties required of those that stand in a particular Church Relation possible to be performed but by such as are sincere Christians 2. Christians in the very
words which the Holy Ghost teacheth comparing spiritual things with spiritual And as I have endeavoured to regulate all my Conceptions by Scripture and Reason so whatever Proposition shall be made appear to lye in a Repugnancy to these I am ready openly to retract it If any shall attaque these Discourses with Reviling Reproachful Language I do declare before-hand that I reckon my self superseded from Replying I will combat no man at these weapons nor do I think it a reputation 〈◊〉 any to Rail how much in Fashion soever it is though he should be able to do it in fine Language How often Mr. Sherlock hath contradicted himself and by what falsifications he hath imposed Principles on the Non-conformists which they never held how he treats the Sacred Writers with as much contempt as he doth T. W. and Burlesques the Scripture no less than others have done Virgils Poems how he hath renounced the Doctrine of the Church of England and borrowed his Glosses on the Bible as well as his Dogmatical Notions from the Socinians how Illogical he is in all his deductions and slandereth his Adversaries by undue Inferences should have been the Theme and Argument of this Preface and accordingly I had digested Materials for it but the Book being swell'd to too great a bulk already and there being others engaged against the same Author within whose Province these things must needs lye as having undertaken the arraignment of his whole Discourse I do wave the prosecution of them all at this time And shall detain the Reader no longer than to tell him that since the Printing off the first Chapter which treats of the Interest of Reason in Religion there is come to my hands a Treatise of Humane Reason in which there are many iâ—l things though as it often happens they be well said I know not an Opinion more pernicious in its Consequences than that Men may be as safe in the Event by embracing Turcism as Christianity and as secure of happiness in their Errours as others are in the Truths which they do espouse Should Persons conspire to overthrow all Revelation they could not fall upon a Method more likely to effect it than by endeavouring to persuade the World that there are things equally as strange in the Bible as in the Alcoran 'T is enough that our Reason may serve us if duely attended to and pursued to discern that this or that Religion is false nor are we therefore to be judged Innocent because we neglect the Exercise of it in making the Discovery No man can embrace a false Religion but by a Criminal Deviation from Reason and who will admit one Transgression to take Sanctuary in another That whole Treatise proceeds upon a false Hypothesis namely that as mens belief of the Scripture is owing to the conduct of Reason so they may disbelieve it by the same Guidance Corrupt Ratiocinations are recommended by the Name of Humane Reason and being once cloathed with this Livery every Foolery as well as Abomination appeals to them if not for its justification at least for its being but a Venial offence No man ceaseth to be an Offender in Morals nor doth he therefore deserve pardon because he hath the concurrence of his judgment in what he does Though no man can chuse or prosecute what his understanding continues to represent to him as Evil yet its failâ—ur in point of duty neither alters the Essential Nature of things nor makes his condition more safe for acting under the conduct of it Some men would have no restraint laid upon their Vnderstandings because they will submit to none in their lives and they would have their corrupt Ratiocinations in Doctrinals as Venial as they seem in reference to Manners to presume the gratifying of their Lusts to be 'T is to be hop'd that for the undeceiving such as are already imbu'd with the principles of it and for the preventing others from being â—ainâ—ed and inveigled some one or other will bring the whole under an Examen In the interim I shall adventure to say that 't is as weak in regard of the Reasonings which occur in it as it is pernicious in its tendency Farewell THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. Of the Interest and Use of Reason in Religion INtroduction 1. Motives influencing to the handling of this subject 2. The Import of Reason 3. What 's meant by Religion 4. The serviceableness of Reason in demonstrating the Existence of a Deity with an account of the Topicks on which it proceeds 5. It s usefulness in proving the Divinity of the Scripture with the several Media which it makes use of to this purpose 6.7 Of the Authority of the Scripture as emerging from its Divine Original 8. Our Belief of the Bibles being the Word of God Divine and Infallible seeing built upon Media that are so 9. The serviceableness of Reason in our attaining the sense and meaning of the Word with an account of the Measures which we are herein to be guided by 10. Of Scripture-Consequences and the usefulness of Reason in making the Deductions 11. What appertains to Reason in reference to Doctrines which besides the Foundation they have in Revelation have also evidence in the Light of Nature this exemplified with respect to the Immortality of the Soul and the certainty of Providence 12. The concernment of Reason in defending the whole of Religion from the Clamors and Objections of Gainsayers 13. Nothing contradictious to Right Reason to be admitted as a Mystery of Faith Many things obtruded for Principles of Reason which are not so The prejudice done Religion by mistaken Philosophy pursued and declared in various instances 14. CHAP. II. Of the Import and Use of Scripture Metaphors THe Inducements upon which some men endeavour to discharge all Disputes in and about Religion The Grounds of their Quarrelling at Metaphors with an account of the reasons of my discoursing this Theme 1. No Forms of speech used by the Holy Ghost but what are proportioned to the end for which they are made use of The Bible adorned with all sorts of Figurative Expressions Some fancy more Tropes in the Bible than there are Mr. Sherlock among others guilty of this 2. The Nature of a Metaphor what Tropes it hath affinity with the Rules and Lines by which it is distinguished from them 3. The Reason why God who doth all things according to infinite sapience hath so often adopted Metaphorical Terms to declare himself and the Things of his Kingdom in and by 4. When an Expression is to be accounted Metaphorical 5. How to attain the true conceptions that are lock't up under Metaphors 6. An Enquiry into the use of other common Metaphors with an account of their usefulness and the Measures that are to be attended to in the Vsurpation of them 7. The Non-conformists injuriously charged for their Vsage of Metaphors the Contempt thrown upon them falls often with the same weight upon the Holy Ghost None so Guilty of turning Religion into
sensual Appetites clogg'd and hindred by the distemperature of indisposed Organs not to mention the prepossessions and anticipations of Infancy the prejudices of Education with the deceits and impositions we are liable to by the delusion of external Objects for such the World is filled with since disorder and confusion arrested it However Reason considered thus namely as denoting the rational Faculty though even corrupted by the Fall is First That which disposeth and adapteth us for converse with objects of Revelation As the Light of the Sun had been useless to us had we not enjoy'd an Organ suited to receive the impression of its Beams so all supernatural Revelation had been both impertinent and superfluous were we not endow'd with Faculties fitted to converse with it God in all his Transactions with us supposeth us Rational and he is a degree worse than an Enthusiast who affirm's that the way to be a Christian is first to be a Brute Revelation doth not cassate the use of our Intellectual Powers but supposeth them and by enriching them with discoveries which they could not by their own search have arrived at it perfects them and they plainly acquiesce that these are the things they sought for but could not find There neither is nor can be any thing in Divine Revelation that overthrow's the rational Faculty or crosseth it in its Regular and Due Exercise There is a Spirit in Man And the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding Job 32.8 For as Austin saith Possâ— recipere fidem est Naturae licet actu credere sit Gratiae De praedest Sanct. cap. 5. Both external Revelation and internal Illumination presuppose us to be Rational and through the want of a Faculty that is so Brutes are incapable both of the one and the other Secondly Reason taken for the intellectual Faculty or the Principle of Apprehension Judgment and Ratiocination is both the instrument whereby we certainly discern the grounds and motives of Faith and the vital Principle of the Act it self Faith is not only an Elicit act of our minds but besides there can be no act of Faith without a previous exercise of our Intellects about the things to be believed Faith being nothing but an unwavering assent to some Doctrine upon the account of a divine Testimony our Reason must be antecedently perswaded that the Testimony is Divine before it can assent to the Doctrine upon the Authority and Veracity of the Revealer Though in many things we can give no Reason for what is believed distinct from Divine Testimony yet we ought to be always able to give a Reason for the Authentickness and the Divinity of the Testimony For as Austin saith Quod intelligimus aliquid rationi debemus quod autem credimus auctoritati Lib. de utilit Credendi cap. XI The Authority of God in the Scripture is the formal reason of Assent to such and such Doctrines but it is by the means and exercise of our intellectual Faculties that we come to understand such a Declaration to proceed from God and that these things are the sense of such and such Propositions Thus the Understanding of Man is the Candle of the Lord resolving us in the Authentickness and Sense of Revelation though Faith be built upon the Credit only of the Revealer To this purpose is that of Maximus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Should I neglect the Scripture Whence should I have Knowledge Should I relinquish Reason How should I have Faith Secondly Reason is taken Metonymically for common Maxims or principles whose Truth is inviolable And these are 1. Such as be so connate to Sense and Reason that upon their bare Representation they are universally assented to These Principles are not borrowed from Reason as their first Spring and Original but having their Root in the nature of God and Essences of Things are only discerned by the Rational mind and Intellect I do not say that we are brought forth with a List and Scroll of Axioms 〈◊〉 Imprinted upon our Faculties 〈◊〉 that we are furnished with such Powers upon the first Exercise of which about such things without any Harangues of Discourse or previous Ratiocinations we cannot without doing Violence to our Rational Nature but pay them an Assent Those Truths whether Logical Moral Physical or Mathematical Whether General because of their Universal Influence upon all Disciplines or Particular from their being confined in their Use to some one Science are justly stiled Natural being Founded in the Nature of God the Essences of things and the intrinsecal Rectitude of the Rational Faculty These are the Foundations and Measures of all Science Knowledge and Discourse being in themselves certain and incontestable Nor is there any other proof to be Assigned of them besides their Consonancy to the Rational Faculty to which they are centrally co-united And forasmuch as all men paâ—take of the same Reasonable Nature the certainty of these Principles is Universal What is disconvenient to the Essential Nature of one Man being so to the Nature of another nor is it possible to dissent from them without doing Contempt to our Faculties Of this sort are these That a Thing cannot at the same time be and not be That every Effect supposeth it's cause and many such like Nor doth Theology borrow these from Philosophy but they are pre-supposed to both and Science as well as Faith builds upon them 2 dly There are others whose Truth and Certainty are not understood nor do they win our Assent upon their first and naked Representation but they are discovered by a Chain of Ratiocinations and their Verity established by a Harangue of Inductions These are stiled Acquired Principles being by an Industrious Exercise of the Discursive Faculty raised and superstructed upon the former Nor are they less True than the other though more Remote from the first View of our Understandings Whatsoever is rightly deduced from Unquestionable Premisses hath the same stamp of Truth upon it that the Principles have from which it is inferred Where there is a just Connexion between Conclusions and Principles the latter cannot be denied without questioning the former from which they are fetch 't The Deduction of these by regular Trayns of Argumentation is the work of a Philosopher and these being Systematically digested constitute Philosophy So far then as Philosophy includes only Conclusions duly inferred from Unquestionable Principles so far there is not only a Friendly Alliance between it and Divinity but a wonderful Subserviency in it to Faith Nor is any thing true in Philosophy that is not so in Theology For as Aristotle sayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whatsoever is true must be Consentaneous to all that is so lib. 1. Prior. Analyt cap. 32. And as he adds elsewhere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All Truth is consentient to Truth lib. 1. Ethic. cap. 8. What our Souls in the Regular Exercise of Reason instruct us in is as much the Voyce of God to us as any Revelation he vouchsafeth us
express and explicite Authority of God upon it For whosoever explicitely reveal's the thing defined reveals in effect all those things which we have enumerated concerning it While the Scripture for example assureth us that Christ is a man it doth at the same time assure us that he is a Rational Creature and by telling us that he is a man it doth in effect tell us that he is not an Angel And however some late Papists talk in this Matter not to speak of others that they may shift the Protestant Arguments which they cannot Answer Yet I am sure the most learned that ever espoused the Romane Cause are at an agreement with us in this point That is an Article of Faith says Bellarmine which God hath either revealed by the Prophets and Apostles or which may be evidently inferred from thence Smiglesius against Mascorovius proclaims it ridiculous to think otherwise That is not only a part of the Christian Doctrine which is expressly revealed by the Apostles but whatsoever can be evidently deduced thence though one of the propositions going to the deducement of it have its certainty only in Natural Light saith Canus And whereas they say that Conclusio sequitur debiliorem partem the Conclusion receives it specification and is denominated from the weakest proposition I reply 1 Were that Logical Maxime to be taken in the universal Latitude which they affix to it they are yet so far from gaining any thing thereby that their whole Cause in this Matter is supplanted For if both Propositions be evidently true their Dogm's must be evidently false seeing the Conclusions that lye in repugnancy to them are our Enemies being Judges deduced from true propositions God is as much the Author of the Rational Faculty in its Regular Exercise as of Scripture and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be persuaded by God and to be persuaded by Right Reason is one and the same thing 2. That proposition in a Philosophical sense is the weakest which is remotest from self evidence and therefore where there are two premisses whereof the one hath no other Evidence but what it borrows from the Authority of the Infallible Revealer the other in the mean time havâ—ng â—ts Evidence from a light residing in it self and from its Congruity to the Essential Rectitude of our Intellectual Faculties if the Conclusion follow the fortune of the weaker proposition it must be a Conclusion of Faith and not of Science For though the Certitude of Faith be not only equal but transcendent to the Certitude of Reason Sense and Experience 2 Pet. 1.16 17 18 19. Yet the Evidence of Reason and Sense is with respect to the Object assented to the habitude it stands in to us beyond the Evidence of Faith 2 Cor. 5. â— 1 1 Cor. 13.12 Nor do the School men only allow a proposition grounded on an Axiome of Reason to be more evident than a proposition founded only on Revelation but withal not a few of the Learned'st Romanists both School-men and others will have the former to be also more Certain at least quo ad nos than the latter See Bellarm lib. 3. de justifiâ— cap. 2. Durand in 3. d. 23. quest 7. Compt. Tom. poster disp 9. 3. The forementioned Logical Axiome referrs only to the Quantity and Quality of the premisses and not to any other affections incident to them If one of the Premisses be Negative the Conclusion in the virtue of the alledged Maxâ—me must be Negative also or if one of the propositions be a particular nothing beyond a particular can be concluded though the other be an Universal And howsoever in some cases it may hold further yet this and no more was the intendment of the first establishers of it Nor indeed is it admittable in the full Latitude which the Terms seem to bear seeing of two propositions whereof the one only is true there may follow sometimes a Conclusion that is true though the other proposition be in the mean time palpably false But ere I undertake the probation of the thing it self two or three things must be necessarily premised 1. That all Fundamental Articles are contained 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in so many letters and syllables in the Scripture Nor is there any thing necessary in order to our assent to them but that we understand the Terms of the Enunciations in which they are delivered 'T is true there are Terms and Phrases made use of to declare them unto the edification of Believers to secure the Minds of men from undue apprehensions of them that are not in the Scripture but this is no more than what is needful in the explaining of all Divine Truths yea all Moral Duties For example That there is One God and that the Father is this one God and that the Son is so also and the Holy Ghost likewise is declared in many express Testimonies in the Bible but in the Explication of this Doctrine and in the application of it to the Faith and Edification of Believers namely how God is One in respect of his Nature and Essence how being Father Son and Holy Ghost He subsists in these three distinct Persons what are their mutual respects to each other and what are the incommunicable Properties in the manner of their subsistence by which they are distinguished the One from the other there are such woâ—ds and phrases made use of as are not literally and syllabically contained in the Scripture but teach no other thing but what is there revealed 2. That these very Fundamental Articles may be also confirmed by consequences and logical deductions from express literal Testimonies nor do probations of this nature alter or enervate the quality of them The thing is in it self the same though the method of proof be varied For example the Doctrine of the Trinity is equally a Fundamental whether we prove it from express Texts or by consequences from literal Testimonies or by its connexion with the whole Systeme of the Gospel the Incarnation of the Son of God the Oeconomy of Redemption c. 3. That though all Fundamentals be in Terminis expressed in the Scripture that yet these very Truths do include others in them which cannot be proved but by Consequences For instance That God is a Spâ—rit is revealed in so many letters and syllables in the Bible but that therefore he hath not hands nor feet nor any corporeal members can only be concluded by way of Consequence In lâ—ke manner the Incarnation of the Son of God that the Word was made Flesh is expresly taught in the Scripture but yet there are many things predicable of the Word Incarnate which cannot be otherwise demonstrated but by Consequences and by borrowing some proposition or other from principles of Natural light Now these things being premised the lawfulness of arguing from express Scripture-Truths by deduction of Conclusions which though they be not mentioned in the Bible in letters and syllables are
yet there in effect and were accordingly intended may briefly be thus justified 1. In that to preclude this is to render the Word of God of no significancy to any particular person seeing 'tis by this method alone that general precepts promâ—ses and Comminations are applicable to single Individuals Nor can any one Universal direction be otherwise brought down to a particular case 2. God in instructing us how we are to demean our selves towards his Word doth it in Terms and Phrases which are peculiar to such as Discourse ratiocinate and deduce Conclusions from acknowledged Principles See Rom. 3.28 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore we conclude Rom. 6.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 likewise reckon ye also your selves 1 Cor. 2.13 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comparing Spiritual things with Spiritual Act. 17.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they searched the Scriptures namely whether the things which the Apostles deduced from the Testimonies of Moses and the Prophets had foundation in them yea or not 1 Thes. 5.21 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prove all things Hence we are enjoyned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rightly to divide the word of Truth 2 Tim. 2.15 and to Prophesie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the analogy of Faith Rom. 12.6 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to convince by argument and demonstration gainsayers And 't is said of Paul that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he reasoned wth the Jews out of the Scriptures Acts 17.2 And of Apollos that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he mightily in the way of ratiocination convinced the Jews demonstrating by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ Acts 18.28 Nor was it possible by any text of the Old-Testament for the Apostles to prove Jesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah but by argumentation trains of deductions There was no other way or Method by which this could be don but by shewing from Moses and the Prophets that to whomsoever such properties Characters c. agrâ—ed such a one behoved to be the Messiah and then evincing from History and Experience that all these Characterisms centred in and agreed to Jesus of Nazareth And in this way the Apostles proceeded in their dealing with the Jews by producing places out of their own Scriptures where the Properties Signatures Characteristical notes of the Person Natures Offices and Work of the Messiah were foretold and described and by which the Faith of the Church was guided to him and on which the World was bound to receive him and then in shewing that all these agreed to were verified of and met in our Lord Jesus as their Center they concluded that he was infallibly the person concerning whom the Promises were made unto the Fathers And this leads me to the 2d argument in proof of that we have undertaken to justifie namely the Method which the Inspired Writers observed in the conviction of Jews and Heathens There can be no fallacy where we act conformably to such a pattern nor can that be disclaimed as Sophistical in others which we find practiced by the Sacred Penmen without impeaching both the Wisedome and Truth of God by whom they were inspired To allow it to have been lawful for them to argue by Consequences and yet in the mean time to deny it to others is to be perverse partial and humoursome and to lodg it as an accusation on Them that they mistook in the course they steered is not only to justifie the Jews in their unbelief and the Heathen in their Idolatry but to blaspheme the Holy Spirit by whom they were acted and conducted in what they did Now that this was the Method which the Apostles observed in their demonstrating many of the chief Articles of the Christian Faith may be made good by many instances scattered up and down the New-Testament See Act 9.22 Act 18.28 Act 15.8 9. Act 17.16.17 Act 2.16 17 18. Act 3.22 23. Rom. 1.20 Rom. 3.9 to 21. Gal. 3.10 1 Cor. 15.4 5 6 7. Joh. 1.33 34. In all these places not to name more nor to urge the suffrage of the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews in whom this way of procedure manifests it self in every Chapter and paragraph We must acknowledg that they not only argued by consequences but that if their Arguments were digested into syllogisms there will be only one proposition found that is of Revelation the other being assumed either from Reason or Sense Besides the attestation of Apostolical practice in this matter we have also the example of our blessed Saviour to convince us not only of the lawfulness but to assure us of the obligation that lyes upon us of accounting all that for the Word of God which can by any train of Natural deduction be concluded from it If men were not resolved to be obstinate this alone were enough to issue the debate and to advance what we are pleading for beyond all jurisdiction of being gainsaid It is by way of argumentation and by consequences that he proves the Divinity of his Person Mat. 22.44 45. The Quality and Authority of his Office John 5.39 45 46. John 10.25 37 38. Luke 7.20 21 22. The necessity of the Death and sufferings of the Messiah Luke 24 26.27 The Resurrection of the Dead in General Mat. 22.31 32. All his Reasonings in the forecited places should they be reduced into a Logical Form will be found to bear upon one only Scripture premiss the other being constantly either a proposition drawn from natural Light or from the evidence of Sense And to affirm that the Ratiocinations of Christ and the Apostles though they joyned one premise from Reason or experience to another from Scripture were nevertheless conclusive because the Proposition from Reason by their very using of it became upon the account of the infallible authority they were clothed with a part of Divine Revelation I say to affirm this is ridiculous and impertinent For had they intended to have immediately concerned their authority in what they said Argumentation from an acknowledged Scripture Truth had been both needless and superfluous Where the whole evidence depends upon the Authority of the immediate Speaker a naked assertion is not only sufficient but most becoming Let the Authority of a person be what it will yet so far as in transacting with others he recurrs to arguments either from Reason or the Testimony of an other so far in that instance he plainly declines his Authority Nor did all these with whom Christ and the Apostles dealt in way of Argumentation acknowledg any such authority by vertue of which whatsoever they said in such a case became immediately a part of Divine Revelation to have belonged to them When the Scribes and Pharisees confessed Christ in the way and Method of proving the Resurrection to have said well Marc. 12.28 Luke 20.39 They did not thereby intend the acknowledgment of Christ as a prophet sent from God or that any authority upon that account resided in him For that they disclaimed but it was the Authority of God Exod.
3.6 and the rationalness of his deduction from thence though made by the joyning of a proposition of another Nature to it which they paid a respect to The Multitude were swayed in this case by the meer strength and weight of his argument and are therefore said to have been astonished at his Doctrine Mat. 22.33 They admired his Wonderful Wisdom and profound Sagacity nor were they influenced by any Authority they held him vested with Nor indeed is it any great evidence of a profound Wisedom or of his insight into the Scripture to argue from Media which have no further convincing efficacy or force but what they borrow from his authority that useth them In brief either the Text quoted by our Saviour was sufficient antecedently to Christs using of it and abstracting from his Authority to demonstrate the Resurrection or it was not If it was then it was not meerly from his Authority that they came under an Obligation to a belief of that conclusion If it was not than how comes Christ to lodg their unbelief in reference to the ResurrectioÌ„ upon their ignorance of the Scriptures Marc. 12.24 Mat. 22.31 For if they stood not under the obligation of that consequence but meerly because of his Authority then the best acquaintance imaginable with the sense and meaning of that place could have ministred them no relief in that point yea it had been utterly unlawful to have drawn any such inference from it 5. Exclude Scripture-Consequences and the Papists are not able to impugn one Tenet of the Protestants nor are they in Capacity to prove the first Article of the Roman Faith namely the pretended Infallibility of their Church While they wrest such Weapons out of our hands they at the same time disarm themselves And by endeavouring to disserve the Cause of the Reformed Churches they utterly undo their own For if our Reasonings of this kind be insignificant against them theirs are also insignificant against us and by the same art that they endeavour to blunt the edge of our Swords they are bound to throw away their own I shall discourse this no farther only shut it up with a saying of Justin Martyr 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without Philosophy and right Reason there can be no knowledge nor science in the World § 12. The next thing that belongs to Reason in matters of Religion regards those Doctrines which besides the Foundation that they have in Revelation have also Evidence in the light of Nature And as I intimated before § 5. more is allowable to Reason in and about these than about those we are indebted only to the Scripture for the discovery of 'T is not enough that we enquire into the declaration of them as it lyes in the Bible and how they are there expressed c. but we are further to see what Media there are in the light of Nature by which they may be both discerned and confirmed Yet I shall here crave liberty to premise That where the Authority of the Scripture is owned our chief Topicks in all Theological debates ought to be fetcht from the sacred Records Thence we should both frame our Idea's of them and borrow as well the Arguments as the Colours and Ornaments by which we would commend them to the Minds and Consciences of Believers Especially a regard ought to be had to this in popular Discourses and Sermons As humane Authority ought to have very little place if any at all in the Pulpit so we ought not there to serve our selves too much from Maxims of Philosophie and principles of Reason As God hath impressed more of his Authority upon the Scriptures than upon any thing else that he hath made Himself and his Will known by so there is an Efficacy of the Spirit promised to attend the naked Preaching of the Word beyond what we can expect to accompany our Ratiocinations from principles of Reason As Faith prepares the spirits of men to a submission to what they hear immediately out of the Bible so there is something great and elevated which I know not how to express in Truths as nakedly delivered by the Holy Ghost which Argumentations from Natural Maximes doth for the most part obnubilate and darken The Majesty of God whose commands we deliver doth above all things most attract the respect of our Auditors nor do we at any time so effectually persuade as by the meer authority of him in whose Name we speak Yet I do not deny but that Rational proofs are of great use not only to such with whom Scripture-Testimonies signifie nothing but even to those who own and adore its Authority by shewing that as it is highly reasonable to believe whatsoever God hath said so the things themselves are agreeable to and have foundation in Reason and the two lights of Revelation and Nature do excellently harmonise This being premised among other Truths which besides their being plainly revealed in the Scripture have also evidence given to them in the Light of Nature the Immortality of the Soul and the certainty of Providence are especially remarkable 'T is True there are many other Doctrines of this quality viz. the Attributes of God the Creation of the World Moral Good and Evil c. All which as they are revealed in the sacred Scripture so they are demonstrable from undoubted principles of Reason But wavâ—ng these at present I shall only by way of essay and with all imaginable brevity consider what media there are in Nature by which the two former may be evinced and the serviceableness of Reason in the doing of it I shall begin with the Immortality of the Soul and the Unhappiness of the Age wherein we live doth render the inculcation of this Truth not only seasonable but necessary Men having degraded themselves into Beasts by practice they thence take the Measures of their Opinions and allow no difference betwixt themselves and the pâ—ttifullest Brute but that Matter in them is fallen into a more lucky texture and modification To justifie their sensualities they contend that they have nothing but their Animal inclinations to gratifie and indeed the soul of a Brute will very well serve all the Ends that some men propound to themselves Next the Belief of the Beeing of God the persuasion of the souls being Immortal is the hinge upon which all Religion turns 'T is this that leads us both to contemn the gratifications of the Flesh and to be solicitous about a happiness hereafter though it be with the undergoing of present inconveniences rather than here There is no one Truth hath a more powerful influence upon the whole course of our present life than a steddy and vigorous belief that the soul is immortal Now when we assert the Immortality of the Soul we do nâ—t intend that it is Immortal in such a sense as that by no cause it can be annihilated God alone is thus Immortal for as there are no principles of Corruption in his Nature so there is no forraign
faileur in one of these both most of the Arguments against the Doctrine of the Trinity and for Communication of Omnipresence to the Humane Nature of Christ because it agrees to the Person of the son of God not to instance in more particulars may be easily avoided and answered 2 by shewing that if it be an universal and true Maxime of Reason that the Objection is grounded on how that there is not any thing in Revelation that doth contradict it There is an excellent Harmony betwixt Truth and Truth and though they be distinct and different yet they are not contrary and repugnant the one to the other They who reject Gospel Mysteries on supposition of a Repugnancy they lye in to Reason have not been able to this day to justifie their Charge 'T is true the more we adventure too neerly to look into them the more we find our selves dazled with their Fulgor but yet we find no thing in them that implye's a Contradiction to our Faculties or that is repugnant to the Nature and Attributes of God Nor is there any one Argument produced to this day in proof of the repugnancy of the Mysteries of the Trinity the Incarnation of the Son of God his satisfying Divine Justice in the Room and behalf of Sinners the Eternal Decrees c. Which hath not received an answer and the Authors of it been shamefully baffled § 14. Having unfolded the Interest and concernment of Reason in and about Religion it will be necessary ere we shut up this Discourse more particularly to state and fix the Bounds betwixt these two and to offer some Measures by which Reason may have allotted all that belongs to it and yet nothing in the mean time be detracted from Faith First then Reason is the Negative Measure in Matters of Religion Nothing contradictory to right Reason is to be admitted as a Mystery of Faith What Right Reason say's cannot be done we must not father it upon God to do If Reason be objected against any Scripture Testimony how plausible and subtile soever it seems yet Right Reason it cannot be but only deceives through an Unbrage and shew of it And if Scripture Authority be urged against an undoubted and evident Principle of Reason he that doth so presseth not the true meaning of the Scripture for that he doth not reach but only imposeth his own Sense and urgeth what himself phancieth to be there instead of what indeed is so saith Austin These two lights though different yet they do not destroy one another God is the Author of natural as well as Supernatural Light nor can he bely himself We have no greater Certainty than that of our Faculties for by that alone are we inabled to discern a Divine Revelation from Humane or Diabolical Delusions Should God reveal such Doctrines as contradict Natural Truths and Principles of Right Reason He would thereby eradicate what himself hath planted in our Souls The Law of Reason being the first declaration of the Will of God originally annexed to and communicated with our Natures 't is not to be imagined that by any after declaration he should thwart his first Besides all Revelation is to instruct us in a reasonable though supernatural way and therefore though in many things it may exceed our Reason fully to comprehend it yet in all things it must be consistent with our Reasons To admit Religion to contain any Dogm's Repugnant to Right Reason is at once to tempt Men to look upon all Revelation as a Romance or rather as the invention of distracted men withall to open a Door for filling the World with figments and lyes under the palliation of Divine Mysteries We cannot gratifie the Atheist and Infidel more than to tell them that the prime Articles of our Belief imply a contradiction to our Faculties In a word this Hypothesis were it received would make us renounce Man espouse Brute in matters of the chiefest greatest concernment for without debasing our selves into a lower species we cannot embrace any thing that is formally impossible Nothing but mens entertaining opinions which they cannot defend from being absurd and irrational could have sway'd them to reproach Reason in the manner they do but they do only decline the weapons they are sure to be wounded by When men have filled Religion with Opinions that are contrary to common Sense and Natural Light they are forced to introduce a suitable Faith namely such a one that commends it self from believing Doctrines repugnant to the evidence and principles of both And thus under a respect that is pleaded to be due to sacred Mysteries do the wildest fancies take Sanctuary And meerly out of fear of violating that regard which ought to be paid to Objects of Faith we must believe that to be true which the Universal Reason of Man-kind gives the lye to Thus the first Hereticks that troubled the Christian Church under pretence of teaching Mysteries overthrew common sense and did violence to the Universal Uniform and perpetual Light of Mankind Some of them having taught that all Creatures are naturally Evil Others of them having established two Soveraign Gods one Good and another Bad Others having affirmed the Soul to be a part of the Divine Substance not to mention a thousand falsities more all these they defended against the assaults of the Orthodox by pretending that they were Mysteries about which Reason was not to be hearkened to Thus do others to this day who being resolved to obtrude their fancies upon the World and being neither able to prove nor defend what they say they pretend the Spirit of God to be the Author of all their Theorem's Nor can I assign a better reason for the antipathy of the Turks to Philosophy than that it overthrows the follies and absurdities of their Religion This themselves confess by devoting Almansor to the vengeance of Heaven because he hath weakned the Faith of Mussul-men in the Alcoran through introducing Learning and Philosophy amongst them There is no Combating of the Valentinians Marcionites Eutychians and others but by shewing the repugnance of their Opinions to first principles of Reason We do not make Natural Light the positive Measure of things Divine do only allow it a Negative voyce We place it not in the Chair in Councels of Faith but do only permit it to keep the door and hinder the entring of Contradictions and Irrational Fancies disguised under the Name of Sacred Mysteries This I thought fit to propose in the first place and have the more largely insisted on it because of its serviceableness against the Corporal presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the ubiquity of Christs Body and divers other Articles both of the Romane and Lutheran Creeds What the Universal Reason of Man-kind tells us is finite commensurable and impenetrable c. they would have us believe it to be Infinite Immense and subject to penetration The great Article of the Roman Faith viz. Transubstantiation must needs be
by virtue of their being vested with an Office are obliged to yet to ascribe Actions to an Office as if it were the very Agent whereas it is meerly the Foundation from which an Obligation to the performance of such and such Actons in the due discharge of it results whatever Wit or profoundness his Friends may Imagine in it I cannot otherwise account of it than a piece of sublime Nonsense And Nonsence is not to be refuted but exposed For he betrayes the weakness of his own Reason who undertakes to encounter an absurd Phrase with Arguments Nor Secondly doth the Name Christ in the Question under Debate signifie the Gospel and Religion of Christ. 'T is indeed by the Doctrine of the Gospel as a Moral means that we come to be united to Christ but 't is not It that we are united to As the Gospel alone reveals our Union with Christ and as the Communication of the Spirit the repairing the Image of God in our Souls are only promised by it So God in his soveraign Wisdom hath ordained it to be the alone Vehiculum of the Spirit and the means of ingenerating Faith in our Hearts which are the Bonds of our Union Hence 't is called the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 3.8 in opposition to the Law which was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And as the purity of its Precepts and the nobleness of its Promises do admirably qualify and adapt it as an Objective Moral means of restoring the Image of God in us so through the Blessing of God attending it as His solemn Institution to this End we become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by it 2 Pet. 1.4 Though no Physical Efficiency is to be ascribed to it yet besides a Moral Efficacy which through its own frame and complexion it hath to reform Mankind beyond what any Declaration of God our selves that ever the World was made acquainted with had There is a Physical efficacious Operation of the Spirit of God accompanies it on the score of the Lords having in Infinite Sapience ordained it as a means for the communicating Grace But still 't is not the Doctrine of the Gospel that we are united to 'T is true that it is both by the Doctrine of the Gospel that we are brought to be united to Christ and 't is also true that whosoever are united to Him have the Doctrine of the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as an ingraffed and incorporated Word and are moulded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into the Form of its Doctrine But yet 't is not the Terminus of the Relation of Union which intervenes betwixt Christ and them nor is it That which they are united to Mr. Sherlock I confess tells us that when Christ Joh. 15. speaks of the First person I and in Me he cannot mean this of his own person but of his Church Doctrine and Religion and that by I in him v. 4. and I in you v 5. we are to understand the Christian Doctrine dwelling and abiding in us 'T is pretty to observe with what nimble removes from the Church to the Doctrine of Christ again from the Doctrine to the Church of Christ our Author paraphraseth the first five or Six verses of that Chapter The I and me in the first 2d verses are glossed as referring to the Church I am the true Vine the meaning is saith Mr. Sherlock that Church which is founded on the Belief of my Doctrine is the true Vine Every Branch in me i. e. saith he every Member of my visible Church But then the I in you and the I in him v. 4. and 5. are expounded of the Doctrine of Christ. His flying from one quarry to another argues some inconvenience and danger he foresaw his exposition of the place encumbred with or else that some vertigo troubled his pericranium I shall at present only examine so much of his paraphrase as respects those words where in stead of the person of Christ he will have the Doctrine and Religion of Christ to be understood That which he interprets as relating to the Church of Christ which can only be understood also of his person shall hereafter be taken into consideration And as to that which lyeth now before me 't is enough not only to prejudice Mr. Sherlocks exposition but to overthrow it with all Judicious persons that-Expressions of the same Nature are not allowed the same sense I know that one and the same Word is sometimes in one the same verse differently sensed when the subject Matter context scope of the Discourse do so require But to impose disagreeing and various meanings upon Expressions of one and the same Nature occurring together where one and the same sense may safely be admitted is to violate all Laws of Exposition and to make the Scripture pliable to what purposes we please The in you and the in him v. 4. and 5. are predicates referring to the same I affirmed of the same Subject that True Vine is predicated of v. 1. and 5. But it being as well absurd to style the Doctrine of the Gospel the true Vine as to assert concerning the Church that it is in us our Author hath therefore found it necessary to make the subjects of the Propositions different though there needs no more where the Judgment is not forestalled and the mind under a chosen Occecation than the meer inspection of the Paragraph to ascertain the contrary 2 Though the subject of a Proposition may be brought into Debate where it is expressed by a Relative Pronoun yet when one speak's of Himself in the First Person by a Pronoun Demonstrative as the Evangelist introduceth Christ here doing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to say that he speaks not of Himself is no less than to give him the Lie Words in the common acceptation and stated sense of them being infallible manifestative signs of the Conceptions of the Speaker when the Author is Veracious I would know of Mr. Sherlock that supposing it had been the design of Christ to have told us that by I in you and I in Him he meant himself how he could have done it otherwise or in Terms of a more determined signification What better Evidence can we have of the sense of a Place than that had an Author intended such a meaning he could have used no plainer Expression to declare it 3 The I in you v. 4. is the same with the I that had spoken to them and through whose Word they were made clean v. 3. Now to think that this could be the Doctrine of Christ or any other than Christ himself is a Non-sensical Imagination What friendship our Author hath for the Religion of Christ I cannot tell but that he expounds Scripture at a high rate of confidence to the derogation of his Person is by the Instance before us too plain evident Nor do we Thirdly in the Question under consideration understand by Christ the Church of Christ. I shall
we are copulated to Him then not only sincere Believers but the most obdurate sinners providing only they receive the Eucharist should be united to Him Admitting the Popish Hypothesis I neither see of what advantage Faith is to one Communicant nor of what damage Infidelity can be to another but that the whole of both their securities depends upon this that their Stomacks be not queasy and that they have a good digestion 'T is but to swallow the consecrated Host and Christ and they are one whether they partake of the Spirit of the new Birth or not Either Pauls assertion of some mens eating damnation to themselves is false or else the Popish Notion of our being united to Christ by the eating of his Flesh under the Species and Accidents of a white Wafer is so and which of these is most likely to deserve that Brand I leave to the umpirage of all Christians 2 Were this the Foundation and Bond of Union betwixt Christ and his Members there should then be none United to Him but such as have first been made partakers of the Eucharist which is so remote from all shadow of Truth that on the contrary none ought to approach the sacred Table but they who are first sincere Christians 'T is true their pretending to be so if their claim cannot be disproved obligeth Ministers to admit them but yet it is only their being so that authoriseth them to come 'T is sincere Love and Gospel-Faith that God prerequires of all his Guests though his Stewards are often necessitated to take up with professions of them Although the Sacraments be necessary necessitate praecepti and cannot be neglected by any without guilt yet they are not so necessary necessitate Medii but that God hath and can communicate his Grace independently upon them 3 Were there no other bond of our Union with Christ save that which the Church of Rome suggests our Cohesion to Christ were a very lubricous thing and not such an indissoluble Ligue as the Scripture reports it For the Foundation of Oneness ceasing the Relation superstructed thereupon must cease also Union can hold no longer than the unition upon which it results and from which it emergeth holds now this according to the Romanists continues no longer than till the Form Figure and other Accidents of the consecrated Wafer dissolve and vanish So that instead of an abiding conjunction with Christ a little time unties the knot and the incorporation of Christians with Him comes to nothing 4 Were our Carnal and Corporal eating the Body of Christ the Medium of betwixt Him and us I do not see but that Mice and Rats c. may come to be united to Him as well as Believers For that these through the Priests neglect or by some accident or other may snatch up swallow down the consecrated Wafer is a thing easily conceivable there are instances enough of it and by consequence all that is necessary to the Relation of Union intervening betwixt Christ and them the Habitude and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it self must ensue also I shall only add upon this occasion that Minutius Felix's argument in disproof of the Heathen Gods doth with equal strength militate against the Corporeal presence of Christ in the Eucharist The Mice Swallows and Crows saith he know better than you Pagans what your Gods are For by gnawing and sitting upon them and being ready to nest in their Mouths if you did not drive them away they know that they have neither sense nor understanding 5 Though I be not forward to concern the Authority of Scripture to confute senseless and irrational Notions reckoning it a condescension to encounter them with Reason and holding it a disparagement put upon the sacred Oracles to call in their Suffrage where Sense alone can give the decision yet I cannot but here observe that our Lord Jesus Christ even there where he most seemingly speaks in Favour of a Carnal eating of his Flesh viz. John 6. hath in words hugely Emphatical said enough to prevent such a Gross stupid and unreasonable Imagination For besides that not a word of that whole discourse relates to feeding upon Christ in the Eucharist as is acknowledged by the most learned of the Roman Writers we have in the preface to it ver 35.40 and in the conclusion of it ver 63. a key afforded us to unlock the whole and to assure that it is not only to be taken in a spiritual sense but that a fleshly eating of the Son of man would conduce nothing to our Good 'T is the Spirit that quickneth the flesh profiteth nothing The words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are life § 9. Having declared that whatever the Nature and Quality of our Union with Christ and what ever the Medium by which it is accomplished be that it is the Person of Christ which we are United to and having also declared that it implies something more than a meer participating of the same specifick Humane Nature and having just now manifested that it consists not in a mixture of Christs bodily substance through our eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood in a Carnal and Corporeal Manner with ours The next thing to be disclaim'd from all room and Interest in the Idea of it is its being a Personal Union And this I am the rather obliged to do because Mr. Sherlock with little regard to Truth and as little consistency with himself tells the World That we place all our hopes of Salvation in a personal Union with Christ. A slander so enormous and so void of any colour by which it may be glossed that to what I should impute our Authors charging it upon us I cannot tell Ignorance it cannot be ascribed to seeing Dr. Jacomb whom Mr. Sherlock hath particularly singled out to oppose in this Theme not only barely disclaims but refutes it and seeing our Author himself acknowledgeth else-where that it is only an Union of Persons and not a Personal Union which we plead for p. 198. 293. And to attribute it to a wilful Falsification were to arraign him of a Crime which I would be loath to judge any Man pretending Justice and Honesty much less a Minister of the Gospel guilty of I would rather therefore think it the result of some deduction unduely and illogically drawn from Innocent principles or that he took it up in discourse from some of those who for their diversion throw out accusations against us at adventure than that he either judged it to be held by us in Terminis or that he should fasten it upon us in meer Malice only that he might the better expose us However this in Modesty may be required of him that the next time he writes he would either acquit the Nonconformists from the guilt of this charge or else enforce it by express quotations extracted out of their Books or by lawful Trains of Argumentation from some of their avowed Doctrines
be rendred more easie and familiar for our minds to contemplate and that our Faith concerning them may be promoted and assisted by their being represented to us under obvious and sensible Images We have also elsewhere intimated that where the Terms are Metaphorick yet the Truths intended and expressed by them are Real And as to that which we are now upon 't is highly remarkable that there being no one kind of Union in Nature which serveth fully to illustrate the Union betwixt Christ and Christians that therefore the Holy Ghost hath sought to enlighten it by Similitudes and Resemblances transferred and borrowed from all sorts of Unions For as Chrysostom well observes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ Unites us to himself by many paterns And it is worth taking notice of that having given us a List and Collection of some of them he shuts up the whole with this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all these things declare an Union between Christ Believers such an one as will not admit the least thing to come between them Had our Oneness with Christ been only represented by the Relation between a Shepherd and Sheep the Conjunction between a Husband Wife or the habitude between a Prince and his Subjects there might have been some probability in Mr. Sherlocks Notion but being also represented by resemblances drawn from Natural and Artificial Union as the Insition of branches into their root the copulation of Members to their Vital Head the incorporation of concocted Food with our pre-existent Flesh the cohesion of a building by a strong cement to its Foundation and the confederation of the Vital Soul with the Organick Body There must be a sublimer kind of Union between Christ and Christians than meerly what a Political Relation doth import Christ is the Vine we are the Branches He is the Vital Head we the enlivened Members He is the Living Foundation Stone to whom we as lively Stones are cemented I may confidently say that there is not any Analogy between what is originally signified by these Metaphors and the thing aimed at and designed by them if only a Political Relation between Christ and Christians is to be understood The Gospel-Method and Form is the most obscure and improper way in the World of teaching the Truth of things if all these Tropical phrases imply no more but that Christians acknowledg Christ for their Legislator and obey him as their Soveraign Grand expressions and magnificent Terms in Subjects that require Low are an argument of no great discretion in a common Author And to imagine that in the Scripture petty things should be declared in Forms that are august lofty and Emphatical is to think diminutively of the divine Wisdom In a word if there be no more intended under all those Symbolick expressions which we have mentioned but that Believers own the Authority of Jesus Christ by believing his Doctrines and submitting to his Laws then we wonderfully expose the Gospel to contempt by telling the World that under a grandeur of words and Hyperbolical expressions things of a mean and low sense are to be apprehended and conceived I shall only urge this from two other Pattern Unions to which the Scripture in the shadowing forth and illustrating the Oneness between Christ and Christians signally alludes The first of these Symbolical Unions is that of the association and adhesion of the component particles corpuscles of Meal of which a Loaf is kneaded and compacted For as the Apostle says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Seeing 't is one Loaf of which we partake we are therefore one Body viz. in Christ who participate of that one Loaf 1 Cor. 10.17 Picherellus well observes that Paul doth not say we are One Loaf or Bread though our Translation render it so but that he argues from the coalition of the clusters of the small corpuscles of Meal of which a Loaf is kneaded and contexed to the identity and Oneness that intervenes between Christ and Believers And accordingly Beza translates it As the Loaf of which we all eat is one so we partaking of that One Loaf although we be many are but One Body to Christ. Thus also Chrysostom paraphraseth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. What is that Loaf It is the Body of Christ viz. Sacramentally what are those who partake of it They are the Body of Christ not many Bodies but One. For as the many grains of which a Loaf is form'd are so conven'd into one Mass that the distinction and diversity of one from another doth not appear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the same manner are we conjoyned to Christ and one another in 1 Cor. Hom. 24. The cohesion of the many little parts of Flour of which one and the same Individual Loaf is kneaded and compacted being that which the Apostle declares and illustrates our conjunction with Christ by it plainly follows that our Conjunction to him must be of another kind than what a bare Political Relation doth import The second Pattern Union I shall at present argue from is the Oneness betwixt the Father and Son in the blessed Trinity At that day ye shall know saith Christ to his Disciples that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you Joh 1.14 20. I pray that they all be One as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be One in us c. Joh. 17.21 I readily grant that 't is not an Oneness of Essence betwixt Christ and Christians an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Weigelians wildly and blasphemously imagine that is here to be understood Nor doth the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 always signifie sameness but is often used to denote similitude and likeness as Matth. 9.48 Luk. 6.36 But yet upon the other hand I deny that 't is meerly an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or an Oneness of Will and affection between the Father and Son as the Arians and Socinians pretend that is here meant Nor indeed can there be an Oneness of Will and an universal Consent and Agreement in Design and Affections where there is not previously either a Specifick or a Numerical Oneness of Nature An attendance to other Texts such as Joh. 10.30 Joh. 14. 9 10. 1 Joh. 5.9 where the same phrases occurr will best resolve us what kind of Oneness between the Father and Son we are here to understand And certainly unless we will betray the Gospel and the Faith of Christians into the hands of their worst Enemies 't is an Essential Unity that is there meant Now though we plead not for the same kind of Oneness between Christ and Believers as is between the Father and Son yet we affirm that somthing more sublime than barely a Political Relation between Him and Them is adumbrated and shadowed forth to us 'T is not a sameness of Union between Christ and Christians with that betwixt the Father and Son which the Holy Ghost intends by
controlled in nothing we say or do c. were ever intended for the Felicity of an Intellectual and Rational Being The Soul of a Brute would have served all the Ends that some men propound to themselves but surely the bestowing of an Immortal Spirit on us ought to instruct us that Blessedness consists in something else than Gauds Trifles Grandeur Airy Titles and the like And he who cannot want these things without thinking himself Miserable at once reproacheth his Maker as if he had Created him for nothing more worthy and degrades and dishonours himself by intimating that such gratifications are suitable to Him 6. The advantages which Good men receive by afflictions do amply compensate their feeling of them They hereby both discern their sincerity themselves and discover it to others Nor is it easie to imagine the satisfaction that the Consciousness of a constant sincerity ministers to a Soul To find that we love God notwithstanding the narrow allowance he affords us is a more soveraign Cordial to the Mind that would approve its self to God than the flushest enjoyment of sublunary things can yield Their Adversity also gives them either relief in Mortifying those Corruptions which endanger them or in exercising those Graces which glorifie God And who dare reproach the Wisdom or Goodness of God for disposing things in such a manner as may turn not only most to his own Honour but our advantage Storms and Frosts are as Useful to the Universe as serene and clear weather Nor are Sugar and Honey more necessary than Salt and Brine are If after all this there remain Inexplicables in the works of Providence 't is no more than what we daily meet with in the Works of Creation Nor must a finite Understanding hope to comprehend the Methods of an Infinite God And the future state will set all that straight which we now judge Crooked Having vindicated the Providence of God from those Objections which seem to affront it my next task is to suggest those Arguments which Reason abstracting from all Revelation can muster to attest it 1 Were there not an Omnipotent Power and an Omniscient skill to restrain and govern the quarrelsome Spirits that are in the World it would soon sink under the bottom of its own Confusion This the Heathen intimated in the Fable of Phaethon who being admitted to drive the Chariot of the Sun but for one day burnt both himself and it together It was well said by the Stoick that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is not worth the while to live in a World empty of God and Providence Nay it were the greatest unhappiness imaginable to be brought forth into the World to be perpetually tossed up and down by blind Fortune 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If there were not a Providence there could be no Order in the World And as another Philosopher saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If there were no Supreme Orderer whence comes order to be in the World 2. Preclude Providence we remove one of the greatest foundations of venerating the Diety 'T is not a persuasion of the Excellency of his Nature that can engage us to a hearty Adoration of Him if we once discharge him from all concernment in us and our affairs Though there be the like Eminency of Dignity in the French King as in the King of Great Brittain yet we have a greater reverence for the one than the other because the one protects us which the other doth not Nor can we well believe the Divine Nature to be excellent should we assert it devoid of Goodness which is the greatest perfection much less will it be easie to honour him for a God whose Felicity we judge to consist in Idleness We find our selves capable of yea endowed with the affections of Fear and Love and God is an Object most adapted for them but seclude him from the administration of the World and there is no Foundation left for the begetting and maintaining either the one or the other in the hearts of men towards him For if he regard not what we do instead of having provided due means for our fearing and loving of him he hath left us under an unavoidable temptation of acting towards with him with slight and contempt 3 If there be no Providence there is not the least ground for addresses to God out of hope of assistance or the thanking him for the benefits we partake of and yet the chief of natural Religion consists in these Who would pray to God to be delivered when in straits or praise him when he hath scaped his entanglements if God no ways interest himself in us and our affairs 4 If God govern not the world it is either because he Cannot or because he will not to say the first is to represent him contemptible for his Weakness and besides he that made the World cannot be supposed unable to Rule it to affirm the Second is to bestow Omnipotencie upon Him in vain and to impeach every one of his perfections because of a faileur in their most natural and agreeable effects 5 God is Soveraign of the World and therefore he must needs Govern it Through all things being the products of His will and Power he hath an incontestable Dominion over them Now we cannot fasten a greater reproach upon a Soveraign than that he throws off all the Care and Gubernation of his Subjects 6 We see effects in the World which could proceed from no cause but God and discoveries made to it which he alone can reveal and by consequence he hath not wholly withdrawn himself from the Rectorship of it 7 He must needs Rule the World who hath given it Laws for Law is the Relative of government and that he hath given it Laws the inbred Notions which we have of Good and Evil the Fears and hopes that haunt us do abundantly demonstrate These he hath woven into the composition of our Natures and by these order is maintained in the World Now 't is the greatest affront that can be offered to Reason to think that God should make use of a Fiction to preserve Truth Justice and Righteousness amongst mankind or that he should keep up the Respect of himself by falsehood and Deceit Thus by singling out one or two Truths that have evidence given to them in the Light of Nature as well as in Revelation we have shewn what belongs to Reason about all Doctrines of this Genius and complexion § 13. The next concernment of Reason in about Religion is to defend the whole of it from the Clamours and Objections of gainsayers For as Bisterfield says Though they who reject arguments levied from Reason against the Mysteries of Religion act modestly yet they do not throughly serve the interest nor hereby deserve well of the Cause of Truth which they own and profess 'T is true that the Authority of Divine Testimony is enough to warrant our Faith whatever Objections lye against the thing so testified
but to rest here without warding off the thrusts of Adversaries is to tempt them either wholly to throw off the belief of all Revelation or to affix perverse Senses to it Now there are some Articles of Religion which may not only be defended by shewing from the Testimony of the Bible that their Objects have an Existence but by explaining how they are and that either from principles of Natural Light or from the account that the Scripture it self Gives of the Modes of their Existence For Example How the Earth could be peopled in so little a time as the Mosaick History doth tacitely inform us when all Mankind sprung 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from one stock for so the word there signifies and proceeded from one Man and one Woman as their Original Progenitors How an Ark of that Capacity which the Scripture instructs us Noahs was could receive into it all kinds of living Creatures with provisions of Aliment for so long a time How the Israelites could multiply to such a number in Egypt within the compass of two hundred years or little more when there went down but such a handful thither of whom they descended There are other Articles of Religion which we can only shew from Revelation that the Objects of them are but the manner and way how they exist we cannot tell And seeing the Measure of Faith doth only follow and suit the measure of Revelation we are therefore in reference to such things only to believe that they are but the Mode of their Existence is to be no Article of our Creed And I crave liberty here to suggest that it is both a piece of Tyranny to impose the belief of the Modes of their existence upon the Consciences of men and hath been found disserviceable to Religion to undertake to explain the Manner according to which such a thing exists when God hath only revealed the Existence of the thing it self but concealed the Way how it is If in the explicating the Phaenomena of Nature which is the proper province of Reason the most that a discreet Philosopher will pretend to is to declare the possible ways by which a Phaenomenon may be accounted for without presuming to say that it is only performed in this way and that there is no other in which it may be explained Much more doth it become us in the Great mysteries of Revelation to abstain from defining the Manner how they are and to content our selves with what God hath been pleased to tell us viz. that they are without prying into the Mode of their being which he hath hid from us Now in and about such Doctrines these things appertain to Reason First To shew that 't is not required that it should comprehend them Whatsoever God hath said is to be assented to though we cannot frame adequate Notions of the thing it self nor understand the manner how it should be 'T is as much against Reason as Faith to think to fathom the perfections Counsels and Works of God seeing Reason acknowledgeth him to be infinite and it self to be Finite If we will pretend to Reason in Religion we are to be believe whatever God hath said to be True this being the greatest Reason that he who is Veracious cannot lye There is nothing more consonant to the transcendency of so a high a Nature as that of God than that it be acknowledged incomprehensible nor is there any thing more agreeable to his infinite Wisdom than that his projects designs and contrivances should be held past finding out 'T is both unjust and irrational to think that man should penetrate those depths and Abysm's which the Angels desire only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to look into as vailed and hidden from sight But more of this anon 2 dly We are to hold our selves assured that every Argument from Reason repugnant to a Doctrine revealed in the Scripture is a Sophism though may be we cannot discover the Fallacy 'T is one thing to be assured of a Truth and another to be able to answer all the Objections that are pressed against it There are Innumerable things even in Philosophy of which we are fully assured and yet we cannot resolve all the difficulties that attend them If every pusling Objection be enough to make us renounce what we have express Revelation for by a parity of Reason we must disclaim many a Natural Truth which we have the evidence of sense and Reason for because we cannot answer all the Objections that do encounter them It were the way to introduce an Universal Scepticsm to doubt of the Truth of every thing the knotts intricacies about the Natures Properties Operations and Modes of whose Existence we cannot unty What a man hath embraced upon just and weighty grounds he is not to desert it meerly because he can not answer every Objection that is urged against it 'T is the height of folly and Madness to forego an opinion when the Objections wherewith it is entangled are not of greater yea nor of the same importance with the reasons on which we received it 3 dly We are to answer the Objection not by explicating how the thing contested is but by shew-that there is nothing in the argument that prove's it impossible to be And this is done by shewing that what is stiled a Principle of Reason in truth and reality is not so at least in the degree and latitude that it is applied There are many vulgar Axioms urged as Maximes of Reason which are as far from obtaining in Philosophy as in Divinity there are others which though they hold in reference to some Objects and in relation to some Agents yet they are not to be allowed with respect to every Agent and every Object For example though a Finite Agent require a preexistent subject in order to its operation yet this holds not in relation to an infinite and Almighty worker And though Impenetrability may be affirmed of all Substances that are Corporeal yet to apply it to all Substances Universally and thereupon to reject Spirits as Mr. Hobbs doth is grosly to prevaricate Most received Maximes have their limitations nor are they principles of Reason farther then as they are circumscrib'd by such conditions and confinements and to urge them beyond their bounds is to contradict Reason which tells us that they hold only so far and no farther That great Maxime which is the Foundation of all Argumentation viz. that Extrem's identified to a middle Term are identified the one to the other admitts more than one or two limitations which if they be not attended to all our Syllogising is but meer Sophistry For if either the Extrem's be only collectively identified to the Medium not distributely or if they be one with it inadequately only and not adequately or if they Center in the Middle Term only in the Concrete and not in the Abstract there is no concluding of an Identity betwixt the Extremes themselves And I dare say that through a