his Spirit should lead them into all Truth and yet for such a Tract of time the whole multitude of Christians should account it impious to believe That which now the Polish Catechism says It is damnable not to believe when it is propos'd So that if Christians were saved before that time in the Common Faith it was from the Apology of their Ignorance as their Ignorance was because they had not a Socinus to instruct them Say rather why the Deists may not as colourably Reject the Scriptures as the Socinians Own them with so many contradictions to God's Truth and Goodness In due Reverence to both these Attributes of God we are obliged to affirm that the Sense as well as the Letter of the Scripture in all Matters necessary either to be done or believed hath been the Depositum of the Church and Faithfully Preserv'd under it's Keeping That the whole Faith which as the Apostle says was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at once delivered unto the Saints had at the same time its Meaning delivered which from them has been derived by indubitable Testimony as the Matter of our uniform Belief That the different Opinions Sects and Factions in the World are no Argument against This Because as St. Peter has warn'd us They who diversifie the Common Faith do not Interpret but Wrest the Scriptures and as St. Paul has observ'd Divisions and Heresies spring not from Ignorance but from Carnality not from want of Light but want of Love Pride and Envy and Contention and Vanity and such contrarious Passions have in all Ages not been at a Loss for Truth but have been contriving and setting up somewhat they liked better And let us see in the next place what it was that the particular Affections of Socinus liked better than the received Interpretations He and his Party are pleas'd to take offence that there are any Mysteries in Religion They will have nothing for the Object of our Faith but what is plain to our Understanding and easy to our apprehension and altho' they will not affirm that Reason has the Measure of what is or what may be yet they resolve Reason to have the Measure of what ought to be believed Which I think is Absurdity sufficient They conclude thereupon that the Doctrine of the Incarnation that is of God Taking our Flesh and dwelling among us must not be believed because it is Irrational And as for the Doctrine of the Trinity it would be offensive to pious Ears to repeat those expressions of Reproach with which they load it They say that these Doctrines do justly scandalize Jews and Turks and hinder them from coming in to our Religion But as it is no Office of Civility to complement away our Faith so neither is it any Office of Charity in the Socinians to go off from the Foundation to meet Jews and Turks and to turn Half-Infidels that They may turn Half-Christians But after all when by the grossest wresting of Words and abuse of plain Sense they have shewed themselves as much Friends to Fancy as they are Enemies to Faith after that they have interpreted all Mysteries out of Religion and so made their new Hypothesis familiar and inoffensive and therefore Credible as they would have us imagine We must pronounce upon it what Minucius sometimes did in the like Case In Incredibili Verum in Credibili Mendacium Truth still lies on the Incredible and Falshood on the Credible side And to justifie this Censure let us confider That the Mystery of any thing or what is all one The Abstruse or Incomprehensible Nature of any thing is no Argument against our believing it This is a Rule I am sure that holds true in Nature and then with what Face can we deny it to hold true in Religion We surrender our Faith to the state of all Visible things without comprehending them and what Obstinacy is it then to refuse our Faith to the Things of God under the same Condition It would be an affront and calumny to Nature to affirm that Those things which are before us those Works of God which lie every Moment under our Senses are simply Credible that is such as our Reason would Perswade us could be if we had not seen them to be How short is our Plummet from Fathoming the Essence Mode Powers Operations Productions of the most common Beings Undoubtedly had we the Knowledge of this World we live in as we have that of its Maker only from a Book I say had we the Knowledge of this World we live in only from a Book we should be Tempted to treat that Book with as little Reverence as the Socinians or Deists have done the Holy Scriptures And conclude that most of the things that are in it were as Incomprehensible Impossible and therefore Incredible as they fancy any thing to be that God has revealed concerning himself Let me produce an Instance or two and those out of the Holy Scriptures to inculcate by the way That the Philosophical Truths we meet with there are Venerable as well as the Divine In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth says the Sacred History Where the Word Created is interpreted by all to mean That God made the World without any Pre-existent Matter to make it of Now this Production of the World we believe from the Authority of the Report and likewise because of the Absurdities that necessarily follow from the Supposal of the contrary And yet Human Reason could never form any Idea whereby to conceive the Possibility of such a Production And let any one say whether it be harder to believe That the Divine Essence did from everlasting emanate or flow into Three Social and Co-eternal Subsistences than to believe That in the Beginning of Time All things were made out of Nothing Or whether-Reason has more Arguments to plead for the One than for the Other Holy Job to exemplifie the Power of God pitches upon this Instance ch 26. 7. He hangeth the Earth upon Nothing or as his Expression points elsewhere He maketh it stand firm without a Foundation Now when we find it impossible for the utmost Art of Man to make a small Clod of Earth hang in the Air It is naturally Impossible for Man to conceive how the whole Mass should hang in the Air T is true when we see how things are we Pride our selves in assigning of Reasons why they must be so but all fall short of solving the Difficulty Center or Magnetism or whatever Notions have been espoused will not Solve it in the present Instance No Cause could make the Earth hang upon Nothing but the Omnipotence of that Will that ordered it to be so Nor could we ever believe it but from a Submission of our Faith to that Omnipotence Or from a Submission to our Senses even while they control and muzzle the Reluctancy of our Reason For another Instance of the Incomprehensible Works of God The Sea is alledg'd in the same Book cap.
they thus to cease on a sudden if it were not from the design of Providence to make that event give Testimony both to Jesus and his Revelation To Jesus that he was one who had Power over the Devil and to his Revelation That it was Plenary and Consummate so that for the future Men needed not seek any farther to learn what is the full and acceptable and perfect Will of God When the Deist confirms his prejudice against the Christian Revelation from this Argument That all Religions do equally pretend to the fame Original that is to come from God I allow that Reason has Here a proper Province Let it therefore be call'd in Let Reason enquire and then Judge and say whether there is any other Religion so worthy of God as the Christian is Whether there is any whose Doctrines are so convincing And whose Miracles are so Demonstrative Nay whether ever there was any thing of Human Faith that came so attested as our Religion does and fail'd of Belief in the World And what singular Perversness is it then that this should not be believed Let any one say especially How the Gospel Truth that asserted it self so effectually in its beginning at that time when any possibility of fraud could best have been discover'd after it had asserted it self against all the Malice of Satan and the Opposition of all Worldly Powers can after 1600 Years be given up as a Fiction or be affected with any such discredit from the perfidiousness of a company of bold and loose and weak Deserters Let any one reflect upon theseConsiderations and he shall find that the Deists Opinion runs them upon a multitude of Absurdities besides all the fatal mischief of it's unconsidered Consequences The several Religions received among the Gentiles were so full of gross Superstitions and palpable Errors that many particular Men among those Gentiles of sounder Judgments and better Spirits than the common were scandalized at their Religions and had them in Contempt So that altho' for Decency's sake and Submission to the Laws they gave occasional countenance to the vulgar Rites of Worship Yet their private Religion consisted in forming to themselves a more rational Notion of God abstracted from all the received Idols And the Worship they deemed most suitable to such a God was placed in following Reason and reverencing their Consciences and cultivating their Minds in the study of Knowledge and Practice of Virtue And these were such as among the Greeks they first call'd Philosophers They whom we modernly call Deists are the Apes of those Philosophers and that they may be thought like them set up to treat Christian Religion with the same Contempt as those did the Vulgar Heathen But as it is observ'd of the Ape that altho' of all Creatures it most resembles Man yet it is the ugliest of all Creatures because the Honour of that resemblance is abated by many ridiculous Deficiencies So we may say of the Deists that they are the most absurd and foolish of Men because they Ape the wise under such great difference of Circumstances and such great deficiencies of Purpose For the Philosophers were such as in the Night of Gentile Darkness set up their Candle so Solomon calls the Spirit of Man The Candle of the Lord they strictly attended the improvement of their Minds and so set up their Candle and walked commendably by the Light of it Now these Men were truly Wise none under their Circumstances could possibly be Wiser But on the contrary the Deists are such as at Noon-Day shut up their Windows and keep out the Sun and then set up their Candle and say that That is the most agreeable Light and the best Guide to their houshold Business Now what can be alledg'd for the Wisdom of These There have been some carried away with this phantastical and mistaken Admiration of the Philosophers Religion in former times of Christianity but they were rare as Monsters and so accounted of But they never grew Numerous and in heart till of late since they took their Growth and Apology from the Conduct of the Socinians The second Party I proposed to instance in II. The Conduct of the Socinians was this They own'd the Scriptures to be the Word of God but would not abide by the received Interpretation of that Word nor admit that Explication of the principal Doctrines therein contain'd which had been delivered down by the Universal Church but instead of this usurped a Liberty of Interpreting all a-new at their own discretion and to make them speak their own prejudicated Sense In conformity to this Design Socinus after he had form'd his new Scheme of Divinity to make it pass upon the World with all the Advantage he could Introduces his Exposition upon St. John with this Sentence Multa sunt profecto in quibus Christianus orbis adhuc caecutit fortasse plura quam quis vel credere vel etiam cogitare possit i. e. There are undoubtedly many Truths and perhaps more than any one can either believe or imagine in respect of which the whole Christian World has been hitherto quite Blind and Ignorant Which Sentence and several such like accompanying it makes it appear That never any Man more fill'd up each Member of that Character which our Saviour gives of the Pharisee viz. Of thinking well of himself and despising others than Socinus did For it implies that altho' the Scriptures were the Oracles of God yet they resembled those of the Gentiles in this That they were Dark and of a doubtful Sense and of no authoritative Interpretation and that hitherto they had been quite mistaken till such time as this new Illumination had been vouchsafed to himself Now since this Imagination past upon Socinus from his Caution of being impos'd upon by the former Interpreters of Scripture Let us consider how palpably he must have impos'd upon himself before this Imagination could take place If he believed it himself can any one else in Reason believe That the whole Christian World had been Blind down to his days and Ignorant in the most important Truths which it was reserved for his honour to Reveal So that the Light of the Word had not yet enlightned Mankind till his Comments had dispell'd the Cloud that lay upon it Can any one believe with Reason that all the Assertors of our Religion in the Primitive Ages Men Holy Studious Learned Signalized and Distinguish'd with all the Gifts of God both Gracious and Miraculous had yet none of that Knowledge of the Mind of God as might now be learnt at the feet of Socinus Can it appear agreeable to the Providence of God and his good Will for Human Salvation after he had required Faith to please him as well as Obedience and that Faith in Doctrines as well as in Promises yet to let 15 Centuries pass without making it commonly known what it was he required Men to believe Can it appear consistent with God's Promise to his Church That
38. Of which t is said That God has establisht its place by his Decree and set Barrs and Doors before it and said to it Hitherto shall thy proud Waves come and no farther Which Observation is founded upon the convexity or roundness of the Surface of those Waters in respect of which as the Psalmist naturally expresses it They stand upon a heap A heap as miraculous were it not more common as That the Israelites past thro' in the Red Sea For in this heap the Waters are bound up that as the Psalmist expresses it They turn not again to cover the Earth which by the common Laws of Motion they otherwise must necessarily do and pour in upon every Shore a Deluge instead of a Tide Reason uninform'd by Experience of this state of things could not possibly believe it and yet how wild would the Man be thought that should not believe it Once more The Psalmist for an Instance of the same kind takes it from the frame of our own Being I am fearfully and wonderfully made To consider the Curiousness of our Frame is amazing and to reflect upon the Power that orders it to be so is no less than Tremendous Let me instance but in one Particular whereof I will borrow the Hint from Solomon in his description of old Age Eccl. 12. 6. Or ever the Wheel be broken at the Cistern Which Expression cannot be interpreted so Genuinly of any thing as of that Spring and Pulse in the Heart which begins the Circular Motion of our Blood Let us consider in this Instance How our Blood a ponderous Body contrary to the Laws of common Nature ascends without reluctancy and descends without Precipitation is of so many different Colours under so many Forms of digestion moves so many Years without any influence of our Thought or Reflection and when it ceases takes Life away with it self Let any weigh these Circumstances and he may well cry out with the same Holy Writer Such Knowledge is too Great and Excellent for me I cannot attain unto it And yet none of this Mystery is an Argument against believing it I need Instance no farther Nature is full of Mysteries and Incomprehensible Things and may we think then that the Nature or Subsistence of God can be Reveal'd to us and not admit a Mystery We account those Israelites were very gross Logicians who thus argu'd Psal. 78. He smote the stony Rock indeed that the Waters gushed forth But can he give Bread also and provide Flesh for his People That is although we acknowledge that God has done this Miracle we will not believe he can do another But it is yet more gross arguing for any one to say I believe the Works of God altho ' they are Incomprehensible But I will not believe any thing of God himself unless I comprehend it 'T is true we believe these Incredible things in Nature because we see them But then may not our Ears bring in as good Evidence as our Eyes Certainly we are less obnoxious to Deception in hearing what God speaks than we are in seeing what Nature exhibits But this still is the Question which the Socinians will not suffer to be begg'd They affirm that God has not spoken any Mysteries concerning either himself or his Methods of our Redemption They say our Interpreters have coin'd these Mysteries Whereas Their Interpretation has voided them and made them all plain And here I confess again Reason has a proper Province to act in For altho' Reason is not to prescribe the Matter of our Belief Revelation is to do That yet Reason is a proper Judge whether such or such a Matter is Revealed or no For this consists only in apprehending the Sense of plain Words which every Man's understanding has an equal Right to pretend to Whereas therefore Socinus says he had a favourable regard to Jews and Turks in his Interpretation of the Scripture let them fairly be call'd in and suffered to Interpret for themselves They are Scandaliz'd at the Belief of a Trinity Be it so But when they see in the Scriptures That there are Three to whom we are devoted in our Baptismal Covenant Three in whom we must believe To whom we must pray By whom we must bless to whom we must give Worship and Glory Undoubtedly they will believe a Trinity as soon as they will believe that the Scriptures do not Teach One They are averse from believing that Jesus was God Be it so But when they see it express in Scripture That he who in time was Jesus was God from everlasting that when he took our Flesh upon him He thought it no Robbery to be equal with the Father That He it is who in the beginning laid the Foundations of the Earth and the Heavens are the work of his hands Undoubtedly they will as soon believe that Jesus is Truely God as they will believe that the Scriptures do not say he is Let them see How when our Blessed Lord was charged with Blasphemy for making himself Equal with God he denyed not the matter but only absolved it from the Crime How at his most Solemn Devotion when about to leave the World he prayed on this manner And now O Father Glorifie me with the Glory which I had with thee before the World was Undoubtedly they will conclude That if what the Socinians say be True viz. That he was not God Neither was he a Good Man For all this deportment can imply no less than that he affected to be accounted God and so he was ambitious ev'n sacrilegiously ambitious of that Honour to which he had no Title and this no Good man could be In fine Let Jews and Turks be admitted of the Jury and they will undoubtedly give Verdict That if we are deceived in our Common Faith that Spirit that dictated the Scriptures could design no less than that we should be deceived Let those who have given occasion to such Reflections as these find out a Reply whereby to stave off their Reproach In the mean time I may observe that the Socinians have been Unlucky in the execution of their main design For they have not purged Mystery out of the Scripture They have only changed its Place They have taken Mystery out of the Doctrine of the Scripture Where it was Venerable and Worthy the Majesty of God and they have placed it in the phrase of the Scripture where it is opprobrious and repugnant to God's Sincerity For Example Expounding Joh. 1. 1. They say That In the beginning was the Word signifies no more than that Christ was when he was born That The Word was with God signifies nothing else but That Christ was taken up into Heaven to receive Instructions for his subsequent Errand That The Word was God signifies no more than That he was God's Messenger That All things were made by him and without him nothing was made that was made signifies only That he was to preach the Gospel by Virtue whereof Men were to
be made New Creatures What Mystery and Riddle do they make of these Expressions and how remote is that Meaning from the Reach of a Rational Conjecture Amidst this Romantick Pains of Interpreting They met with a Text in the General Epistle of St. John viz. There are Three that bear witness in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these Three are One which so bafled their Invention that they despair'd of ever accomodating it to their Scheme Whereupon the Brethren of Transylvania thought it their wisest way to Vote this Epistle out of the Canon But being instructed that there were some Copies of the Bible wherein this Text was not found they concluded it for their Advantage to let the Epistle pass for Canonical but the Text for Spurious and Forged And hereupon there grew a great Triumph over the Trinitarian Cause but a Triumph without any possible Victory For the Cause does not want ev'n the Text much less a Forgery of it to support it self withal T is alledg'd that this Text was not read in those Copies that were in vulgar Use at the time of the Council of Nice because otherwise it would certainly have been cited against the Arians However this be t is as certain that this Text was read in those Copies that were in use before the Council of Nice For St. Cyprian asserting the Unity of the Church notwithstanding it consisted of several Congregations Argues it from the Unity of the Godhead altho' consisting of several Persons And cites This Text for his Proof And Tertullian asserting This to be the Christian Doctrine That the Father Son and Holy Ghost were each of them God and yet the God-head not Divided proves it from This Text Hi tres Unum sunt And then he remarks from the Gender that they were not Unus but Unum i. e. not One in Person but One in Essence Thus it was before the Council of Nice and within half an Age after that Council Damasus Bishop of Rome perceiving from common Complaints that many Differences were crept into the several Copies of the Scripture imploy'd St. Jerome the most expert Man in Biblick Learning that was in the World to bestow his Pains in rectifying those Errors And he having Copies sent to him from all Parts of the World as himself expresses it and conferring them together among many other Emendations from the Authority of those Copies that were most Ancient and Authentick he restored this Text with a Brand of Unfaithfulness upon those who first omitted it So that all the Fault concerning this Text can lie only on those who first left it out And what side of the Controversie that Fault can affect let any one Judge I mention this by the By and only to give some Caution against the Artifice of the present Socinian Factors who insinuate with Hands lifted up that the Trinitarian Cause must needs be desperate when it could be reduc'd to such mean shifts as the forging of a Text for its support Which as it is a Calumny that may indeed shock the Surpriz'd so all that are at leisure to open their Eyes may see it has no Foundation Upon the whole we find that the Trinitarian Cause asserted it self sufficiently against Arius altho' his Opposition was more formidable than any others can be Because his Hypothesis came by little and little to be so finely spun that many Good Men professed they could hardly see that the Difference of the Controversie lay more than in Words and that Erat quando erat which they only insisted upon being applyed to the Term of a Rational duration not a Temporary one was not competent to justifie such Uncharitable Divisions But as for the Socinians their Hypothesis is Grosser and Looser more Absurd and more Precarious and therefore neither their Arts nor Arguments can ever be so formidable God averting the Judgment of removing the Candlestick from an unworthy Age For under that Determination the Weakest Means will be sufficient to undo us I insisted upon Thomas at the beginning of this Discourse as a Pattern of the Socinians Incredulity But Thomas being vouchsafed an irresistible Conviction made what amends he was able by Crying out My Lord and my God! Which the Christian World has hitherto lookt upon as the Orthodox Confession of our Faith in Christ. But the Socinians to avoid this part of his Example are pleas'd to expound his Confession in this Mysterious manner They say that the First Compellation My Lord was directed to Christ implying that Thomas acknowledg'd him to be his very Lord and Master But the second Compellation My God was only an effect of Admiration and was directed by an Apostrophe to God in Heaven and meant no more than Men ordinarily do when admiring they Cry O God! what a wonderful thing is this Alas That these Men would let Reason and Modesty work on them so far as to restore Mystery to its proper Place in the Book of God! To let it be in Things where it is Adorable and to remove it from Words where it is Ridiculous That they would allow Thomas to have spoken Truth and plain Sense in the Form of his Confession And That he is through all Ages more wisely Imitable in his Retractation than in his Unbelief That they would not give Covert to their Obstinacy under this deluding Axiom We cannot believe what we Will We must have Reason for what we believe Since it is the highest Act of Reason to submit our Assent to that Testimony that cannot deceive us And since it is the next Act of Reason to receive that Testimony in the most natural Sense of the Words wherein it is deliver'd And since it is equally an Act of Reason to believe that whatsoever is Revealed relating to God The more Incredible it seems the more Credible it is Because if what is Revealed concerning God were always adapted to our Comprehension how could it reach or with any fitness represent that Nature which we allow to be Incomprehensible But farther to evince the Deceit of that Axiom We cannot believe what we Will we must have Reason on our side Experience will make it appear that Will has frequently more influence upon our Belief than Reason has T is an old Rule built upon just Observation That What we would willingly have we easily Believe And let any one assign a Cause why most Men should think so Particularly concerning themselves concerning their own Talents Properties and Opinions so that no in different By-stander is able to think the same If it be not This That Fondness can carry it above Reason and where Affection takes Place their Judgment becomes partial and blind and pronely Seducible And as Will has such an Influence upon our Belief so be sure it has the same upon our not Believing There is no cause assignable for our not believing many Things so eminent as this that we are not Willing to believe them We refuse our Assent as often for want of Inclination as we do for want of Argument And looking into the bottom of Motives and Pretences we shall find a Truth well worth our Observing viz. That what Men at first call Reason and afterwards Conscience is oftentimes no other then Affection and Prejudice and Willfulness crept into the Chair I have neither time nor need to insist any farther for the Proof of that thing I purposed From the Considerations already offer'd I think we may safely conclude That an humble and ready Faith Casting down Imaginations and every thing that exalts it self against the Knowledge of Christ is the only Expedient both to make and to keep Men Wise. To the Author and Finisher of our Faith God blessed for ever be all Glory and Thanksgiving World without End FINIS