infer That Reason is in a sense the Word of God viz. that which he hath written upon our minds and hearts as Scripture is that which is written in a Book The former is the Word whereby he hath spoken to all Mankind the latter is that whereby he hath declared his will to the Church and his peculiar people Reason is that Candle of the Lord of which Solomon speaks Prov. 20.27 That light whereby Christ hath enlightned every one that cometh into the world John 1.9 And that Law whereby the Consciences of the Heathen either accuse or excuse one another Rom. 2.15 So that Hierocles spoke well when he said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To be perswaded by God and right reason is one and the same thing And Luther called Philosophy within its own bounds The truth of God 3. The belief of our reasons is an exercise of Faith and Faith is an act of Reason The former part is clear from the last particular and we believe our Reasons because we have them from God who cannot mistake and will not deceive So that relying on them in things clearly perceived is trust in Gods veracity and goodness and that is an exercise of Faith Thus Luke 12. The not belief of Reason that suggests from Gods cloathing the Lillies that He will provide for us is made by our Saviour a defect of Faith ver 28. O ye of little Faith And for the other part that Faith is an act of Reason that is evident also For 'T is the highest reason to believe in God revealing 4. No Principle of Reason contradicts any Articles of Faith This follows upon the whole Faith befriends Reason and Reason serves Religion and therefore They cannot clash They are both certain both the truths of God and one truth doth not interfere with another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Aristotle Truth agrees with all things that are Whatsoever contradicts Faith is opposite to Reason for 't is a fundamental Principle of that That God is to be believed Indeed sometimes there is a seeming contradiction between them But then either something is taken for Faith that is but Phancy or something for Reason that is but Sophistry or the supposed contradiction is an error and mistake 5. When any thing is pretended from Reason against any Article of Faith we ought not to cut the knot by denying reason but indeavour to unty it by answering the Argument and 't is certain it may be fairly answered For all Hereticks argue either from false Principles or fallaciously conclude from true ones So that our Faith is to be defended not by declaiming against Reason in such a case which strengthens the enemy and to the great prejudice of Religion allows reason on his side But we must indeavour to defend it either by discovering the falshood of the Principles he useth in the name of Reason or the ill consequence which he calls proof 6. When any thing is offered us for an Article of Faith that seems to contradict Reason we ought to see that there be good cause to believe that this is divinely revealed and in the sense propounded If it be we may be assured from the former Aphorisms that the contradiction is but an appearance and it may be discovered to be so But if the contradiction be real This can be no Article of Revelation or the Revelation hath not this sense For God cannot be the Author of Contradictions and we have seen that Reason as well as Faith is his I mean the Principles of Natural Truth as well as those of Revelation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Aristotle Truth is throughout contrary to falshood and what is true in Divinity cannot be false in Reason 'T is said indeed in the Talmud If two Rabbins differ in Contradictories yet both have their Opinions from Moses and from God But we are not obliged to such a non-sensical kind of Faith And ought not to receive any thing as an Article in a sense that palpably contradicts Reason no more than we may receive any in a sense that contradicts other Scriptures Faith and Reason accord as well as the Old Testament and the New and the Analogy of Reason is to be heeded also because even that is Divine and Sacred 7. There is nothing that God hath revealed to oblige our Faith but he hath given us reason to believe that he hath revealed it For though the thing be never so clearly told me If I have not reason to think that God is the Revealer of what is so declared I am not bound to believe except there be evidence in the thing it self For 't is not faith but vain credulity to believe every thing that pretends to be from God So that we ought to ask our selves a Reason why we believe the Scripture to be the Revelation of Gods will and ought not to assent to any sense put upon it 'till we have ground to think that that sense is his mind I say we must have ground either from our particular Reasons or the Authority of the Church otherwise our Faith is vain credulity and not faith in God 8. A man may hold an erroneous opinion from a mistaken sense of Scripture and deny what is the truth of the proposition and what is the right meaning of the Text and yet not err in Faith For Faith is belief of God revealing And if God have not so revealed this or that as to give us certain ground to believe this to be his sense he hath not sufficiently revealed it to oblige our Faith So that though I deny such or such a sense while I believe it is not from God his veracity and Authority is not concerned since I am ready however to give a chearful assent to whatever is clearly and sufficiently revealed This Proposition follows from the former and must be understood only of those Doctrines that are difficult and obscurely delivered And that many things are so delivered in Scripture is certain For some are only hinted and spoken occasionally some figuratively and by way of Parable and Allegory some according to mens conceptions and some in ambiguous and Aenigmatical Phrases which obscurities may occasion mistake in those who are very ready to believe what ever God saith and when they do I should be loath to say that such err in Faith Though those that wrest plain Texts to a compliance with their interests and their Lusts Though their affections may bring their judgments to vote with them yet theirs is error in Faith with a witness and capable of no benefit from this Proposition 9. In searching after the sense of Scripture we ought to consult the Principles of Reason as we do other Scriptures For we have shewn That Reason is another part of Gods Word And though the Scripture be sufficient to Its end yet reason must be presupposed unto It for without this Scripture cannot be used nor compared nor applied nor understood 10. The essentials of Religion are so plainly
be done by shewing 2. That it ought to be believed though the manner of it be not known For instance if any one denies all sorts of Creatures were in the Arke under pretense that it is impossible they should be contained within such a space He that can shew how this might be by a distinct enumeration of the kinds of Animals with due allowance for the unknown Species and a computation of the particular capacity of the Arke he defends the Sacred History the first way But if another denies the conversion of Aaron's rod into a Serpent upon the same account of the unconceivableness of the manner how it was done this cannot indeed be defended the former way But then it may by representing that the power of God is infinite and can easily do what we cannot comprehend how it is effected and that we ought to believe upon the credit of the Testimony that being well proved to us though the manner of this miraculous performance and such others as it relates be unknown And as it is in this last case so it is in all the mysteries of Faith and Religion Reason cannot defend them indeed the first way But then it doth the second by shewing that the Divine Nature is infinite and ovr Conceptions very shallow and finite that 't is therefore very unreasonable in us to indeavour to pry into the secrets of his Being and actions and to think that we can measure and comprehend them That we know not the Essence and ways of acting of the most ordinary and obvious things of Nature and therefore must not expect throughly to understand the deeper things of God That God hath revealed those holy Mysteries unto us and that 't is the highest reason in the world to believe That what He saith is true though we do not know how these things are These are all considerations of Reason and by the proposal of them It sufficiently defends all the Mysteries that can be proved to be contained in the Sacred Volumn and shews that they ought to be received by us though they cannot be comprehended Thus if any one should ask me How the Divine Nature is united to the Humane and declare himself unwilling to believe the Article till he could be satisfied how My answer would be in short That I cannot tell and yet I believe it is so and he ought to believe the same upon the credit of the Testimony though we are both ignorant of the manner And I would suggest that we believe innumerable things upon the evidence of our senses whose nature and properties we do not know How the parts of matter cohere and how the soul is united to the body are questions we cannot answer and yet that such things are we do not doubt And why saith Reason should we not believe Gods revelation of things we cannot comprehend as well as we do our senses about matters as little understood by us 'T is no doubt reasonable that we should and by proving it is so Reason defends all the propositions of Faith and Religion And when some of These are said to be Above reason no more is meant than that Reason cannot conceive how those things are and in that sense many of the affairs of nature are above it too Thus I have shewn how serviceable Reason is to Religion I am next to prove II. That Religion befriends it and here I offer some testimonies from the holy Oracles to make that good and in them we shall see how GOD himself and CHRIST and his APOSTLES do own and acknowledge Reason I consider then that GOD Isa. 1.18 calls the rebellious Israelites to reason with him Come now and let us reason together saith the Lord and by reason he convinceth the people of the vanity of Idolls Isa. 44 9. And he expostulates with their Reasons Ezek. 18.31 Why will ye die ye house of Israel And Mich. 6.3 O my people what have I done unto thee And wherein have I wearied thee Testifie against me He appeals unto their Reasons to judge of his proceedings Isa. 5.3 And now O inhabitants of Ierusalem and men of Iudah judge I pray you between me and my vineyard are not my ways equal and are not your ways unequal In this he intimates the competency of their Reasons to judge of the equity of his ways and the iniquity of their own And OUR SAVIOUR Commands the Disciples of the Pharisees to give unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and to God the things that are Gods implying the ability of their Reasons to distinguish between the things that belonged to God and those that appertained to Caesar. And he in divers places argues from the Principles and Topicks of Reason From that which we call a Majori ad Minus from the greater to the less Iohn 13.14 He shews it to be the duty of his Disciples to serve their brethren in the meanest Offices and to wash one anothers feet because he had washed theirs Ver. 14. inforcing it by this consideration of reason for the Servant is not greater than his Lord Ver. 16 and useth the same Iohn 15.20 to shew that they must expect persecution because He their Lord was persecuted And Luke 12.23 He endeavours to take them off from carking care and solicitude about Meat and Rayment by this consideration from reason that the Life is more than Meat and the Body than Raiment intimating that God having given them the greater there was no doubt but he would bestow the less which was necessary for the preservation of that To these instances I add some few from the Topick A Minori ad Majus from the less to the greater in the arguings of our Saviour Thus Mat. 7.11 If ye being evil know how to give good gifts to your Children how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those that ask him The ground of the Consequence is this Principle of Reason That God is more benign and gracious than the tenderest and most affectionate of our earthly Parents So Luke 12.24 He argues that God will provide for Us because he doth for the Ravens since we are better than they How much more are ye better than the Fowles Which arguing supposeth this Principle of Reason that that wisdom and goodness which are indulgent to the viler Creatures will not neglect the more excellent He proceeds further in the same Argument by the consideration of Gods cloathing the Lillies and makes the like inference from it Ver. 28. If God so cloath the grass how much more will he cloath you And Mat. 12. He Reasons that it was lawful for him to heal on the Sabbath day from the consideration of the general mercy that is due even to brute Creatures What man shall there be among you that shall have one sheep and if it fall into a Pit on the Sabbath day will he not lay hold of it to lift it out How much then is a man better than a
strife I say 't is very probable these might be comprehended also But Reason is no otherwise concerned in all this but as condemning and reproving these dangerous follies THUS we see the pretensions from Scripture against Reason are vain But there are other Considerations by which it useth to be impugned as 1. OUR Reason is corrupted and therefore is not fit to meddle in spiritual matters To this I say That Reason as it is taken for the faculty of understanding is very much weakened and impaired It sees but little and that very dully through a glass darkly as the Apostle saith 1 Cor. 13. And It is very liable to be mislead by our senses and affections and interests and imaginations so that we many times mingle errors and false conceits with the genuine dictates of our minds and appeal to them as the Principles of Truth and Reason when they are but the vain Images of our Phancies or the false conclusions of ignorance and mistake If this be meant by the corruption of Reason I grant it and all that can be inferred from it will be That we ought not to be too bold and peremptory in defining speculative and difficult matters especially not those that relate to Religion nor set our Reasonings against the Doctrines of Faith and Revelation But this is nothing to the disreputation of Reason in the object viz. Those Principles of truth which are written upon our Souls or any Conclusions that are deduced from them These are the same that they ever were though we discern them not so clearly as the Innocent state did They may be mistaken but cannot be corrupted And as our understandings by reason of their weakness and liableness to error may take falshoods for some of those or infer falsly from those that are truly such so we know they do the same by the Scriptures themselves viz. they very often misinterpret and very often draw perverse conclusions from them And yet we say not That the Word of God is corrupted nor is the use of Scripture decried because of those abuses But here advantage will be taken to object again 2. That since our natural understandings are so weak and so liable to mistake they ought not to be used in the affairs of Religion and 't will signifie little to us that there are certain Principles of eternal Reason if we either perceive them not or cannot use them To this I answer That if on this account we must renounce the use of our natural understandings Scripture will be useless to us also For how can we know the meaning of the words that express Gods mind unto us How can we compare one Scripture with another How can we draw any Consequence from it How apply General Propositions to our own particular cases How tell what is to be taken in the Letter what in the mystery what plainly what in a Figure What according to strict and rigorous truth What by way of accommodation to our apprehensions I say without the exercise of our understandings using the Principles of Reason none of these can be done and without them Scripture will signifie either nothing at all or very little to us And what can Religion get this way This inference therefore is absurd and impious All that can justly be concluded from the weakness of our understandings will be what I intimated before that we ought to use them with modesty and caution not that we should renounce them He is a mad-man who because his eyes are dim will therefore put them out But it may be objected further 3. That which men call Reason is infinitely various and that is reasonable to one which is very irrational to another Therefore Reason is not to be heard And I say Interpretations of Scripture are infinitely various and one calls that Scriptural which another calls heretical Shall we conclude therefore That Scripture is not to be heard Reason in itself is the same all the world over though mens apprehensions of it are various as the light of the Sun is one though colours Its reflexes are infinite And where this is it ought not to be denied because follies and falshoods pretend relation to it or call themselves by that name If so farewell Religion too But 4. 'T is Socinianism to plead for Reason in the affairs of Faith and Religion And I answer 'T is gross Phanaticism to plead against it This name is properly applicable to the enemies of Reason But the other of Socinianism is groundlesly applied to those that undertake for it and it absurdly supposeth that Socinians are the only rational men when as divers of their Doctrines such as The Sleep and natural mortality of the soul and utter extinction and annihilation of the wicked after the day of judgment are very obnoxious to Philosophy and Reason And the Socinians can never be confuted in their other opinions without using Reason to maintain the sense and interpretation of those Scriptures that are alledged against them 'T is an easie thing we know to give an ugly name to any thing we dislike and by this way the most excellent and sacred things have been made contemptible and vile I wish such hasty Censurers would consider before they call names No truth is the worse because rash ignorance hath thrown dirt upon it I need say no more to these frivolous objections Those that alledge Atheism and tendency to Infidelity against the reverence and use of Reason are disproved by my whole discourse Which shews that the enemies of Reason most usually serve the ends of the Infidel and the Atheist when as a due use of It destroys the pretensions of both I COME now IV. to the Inferences that may be raised from the whole 1. Reason is certain and infallible This follows from the state I gave of the nature and notion of Reason in the beginning It consists in First Principles and the Conclusions that are raised from them and the observations of sense Now first Principles are certain or nothing can be so for every possible Conclusion must be drawn from those or by their help and every Article of Faith supposeth them And for the Propositions that arise from those certain Principles they are certain likewise For nothing can follow from truth but truth in the longest series of deduction If error creep in there is ill consequence in the case And the sort of Conclusions that arise from the observations of sense if the sense be rightly circumstantiated and the inference rightly made are certain also For if our senses in all their due circumstances deceive us All is a delusion and we are sure of nothing But we know that first Principles are certain and that our senses do not deceive us because God that bestowed them upon us is true and good And we are as much assured that whatever we duly conclude from either of them is as certain because whatever is drawn from any principle was vertually contained in it 2. I