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
say are Fundamentals of Religion for It supposeth and stands upon them There are others which are not so absolutely necessary as these but yet very incouraging and helpful I reckon Four here also Viz. 1. THAT God will pardon us if we repent 2. THAT he will assist us if we indeavour 3. THAT he will accept of Services that are imperfect if they are sincere 4. THAT he will reward or punish in another world according to what we have done in this This I count to be the summe of Religion general and Christianity takes in all those Duties and all the Principles advancing the Duties to nobler measures and incouraging them by new motives and assistances and superadding two other instances Baptism and the Lords Supper And for the Principles It confirms those of natural Religion and explains them further and discovers some few new ones And all these both of the former and the latter sort are contained in the Creed Here are all the Fundamentals of Religion and the main assisting Principles also And I call nothing else Religion but plain Duties and these acknowledged Principles And though our Church require our assent to more Propositions yet those are only Articles of Communion not Doctrines absolutely necessary to salvation And if we go beyond the Creed for the Essentials of Faith who can tell where we shall stop The summe is Religion primarily is Duty And duty is All that which God hath commanded to be done by his Word or our Reasons and we have the substance of these in the Commandments Religion also in a secondary sense consists in some Principles relating to the Worship of God and of his Son in the ways of devout and virtuous living and these are comprised in that Summary of belief called the Apostles Creed This I take to be Religion and this Religion I shall prove to be reasonable But I cannot undertake for all the Opinions some men are pleased to call Orthodox nor for all those that by many private persons and some Churches are counted essential Articles of Faith and Salvation Thus I have stated what I mean by Religion THE OTHER thing to be determined and fixt is the proper Notion of Reason For this you may please to consider that Reason is sometimes taken for Reason in the Faculty which is the Understanding and at other times for Reason in the object which consists in those Principles and Conclusions by which the Understanding is informed This latter is meant in the dispute concerning the agreement or disagreement of Reason and Religion And Reason in this sense is the same with natural truth which I said is made up of Principles and Conclusions By the Principles of Reason we are not to understand the Grounds of any mans Philosophy nor the Critical Rules of Syllogism but those imbred fundamental notices that God hath implanted in our Souls such as arise not from external objects nor particular humours or imaginations but are immediately lodged in our minds independent upon other principles or deductions commanding a sudden assent and acknowledged by all sober mankind Of this sort are these That God is a being of all perfection That nothing hath no Attributes That a thing cannot be and not be That the whole is greater than any of its parts And such like others which are unto Us what instincts are to other Creatures These I call the Principles of Reason The Conclusions are those other notices that are inferred rightly from these and by their help from the observations of sense And the remotest that can be conceived of all these if it be rightly inferred from the Principles of Reason or duly circumstantiated sense is as well to be reckoned a part and branch of Reason as the more immediate conclusions that are principles in respect of those distant truths And thus I have given an account also of the proper notion and nature of Reason I AM to shew next 2. That Religion is reasonable and this implies two things viz. That Reason is a friend to Religion and that Religion is so to Reason From these two results their correspondence and agreement I begin with the FIRST and here I might easily shew the great congruity that there is between that light and those Laws that God hath placed in our Souls and the duties of Religion that by the expressness of his written Word he requires from us and demonstrate that Reason teacheth All those excepting only the two Positives Baptism and the holy Eucharist But there is not so much need of turning my discourse that way and therefore I shall confine it to the Principles of Religion which are called Faith and prove that Reason mightily befriends these It doth this I. By proving some of those Principles and II. By defending all For the clearing both these you may consider That the Principles of Religion are of two sorts Either 1. such as are praesupposed to Faith or such as 2 are formal Articles of it Of the first sort are The Being of a God and the Authority of the Scripture And of the second such as are expressely declared by divine Testimony As the Attributes of God the Incarnation of his Son and such like I. For the former they are proved by Reason and by reason only The others we shall consider after I. That the Being of a God the foundation of all is proved by reason the Apostle acknowledgeth when he saith That what was to be known of God was manifest and to the Heathen Rom. I.XIX. and he adds ver XX. That the invisible things from the Creation of the World are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made And the Royal Psalmist speaks to the like purpose Psal. XIX The Heavens declare the Glory of God and the Firmament sheweth his handy works And again Psal. 148.3 Praise him Sun and Moon praise him ye Stars and Light which intimates that these Works of his afford matter to our reasons for religious acknowledgments And reason proves the existence of God from the beauty and order and ends and usefulness of the Creatures for these are demonstrative arguments of the being of a wise and omnipotent mind that hath framed all things so orderly and exactly and that Mind is God This Article then Reason proves which was the first branch of the particular and I add that it is Reason only that can do it which was the other This you will see when you consider that there are but three things from whence the existence of any being can be concluded viz. Sense Revelation or Reason For Sense it hath no more to do here but to present matter for our Reasons to work on and Revelation supposeth the being of a God and cannot prove it for we can have no security that the Revelation is true 'till we are assured it is from God or from some Commissioned by him The knowledge of his Being therefore must precede our Faith in Revelation and so cannot be deduced from it Thus
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
revealed that no man can miss them that hath not a mighty corrupt bias in his will and affections to infatuate and blind his understanding Those Essentials are contained in the Decalogue and the Creed Many speculative remoter Doctrines may be true but not Fundamental For 't is not agreeable to the goodness or justice of God that mens eternal interests should depend upon things that are difficult to be understood and easily mistaken If they did No man could be secure but that do what he could he should perish everlastingly for not believing or believing amiss some of those difficult points that are supposed necessary to salvation and all those that are ignorant and of weak understanding must perish without help or they must be saved by implicit Faith in unknown Fundamentals THESE are some Propositions that follow from my discourse and from one another The better they are considered the more their force will be perceived and I think they may serve for many very considerable purposes of Religion Charity and the peace of mankind AND now give me leave to speak a word to You my Brethren of the CLERGY Those I mean of the Younger sort for I shall not presume to teach my Elders You have heard no doubt frequent and earnest declamations against Reason during the years of your Education and Youth we know receives impressions easily And I shall not wonder if you have been possessed with very hard thoughts of this pretended terrible enemy of Faith and Religion But did you ever consider deeply since what ends of Religion or Sobriety such vehement defamations of our faculties could serve And what Ends of a Party they did I hope these things you have pondered as you ought and discern the consequent mischiefs But yet I shall beg leave to refresh your thoughts with some Considerations of the dangerous tendencies and issues of such Preachments 1. To disclaim Reason as an Enemy to Religion tends to the introduction of Atheism Infidelity and Scepticism and hath already brought in a floud of these upon us For what advantage can the Atheist and Infidel expect greater than this That Reason is against Religion What do they pretend What can they propose more If so there will be no proving That there is a God or That the Scripture is his Word and then we believe gratis and our Faith hangs upon humour and imagination and that Religion that depends upon a warm Phancy an ungrounded belief stands but 'till a disease or a new conceit alter the Scene of imagination and then down falls the Castle whose foundation was in the Air. 'T was the charge of Iulian the Apostate against the Primitive Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That their only wisdom was to believe as if they had no ground for their Faith And those that renounce and decry Reason justifie Iulian in his charge Thus Religion will have no bottom but the Phancy of every one that professeth it and how various and inconstant a thing Imagination is every man knows These are the Consequences of the defamations of Reason on the pretended account of Religion and we have seen in multitudes of deplorable Instances That they follow in practice as well as reasoning Men of corrupt inclinations suspect that there is No Reason for our Faith and Religion and so are upon the borders of quitting it And the Enthusiast that pretends to know Religion best tells them that these Suspicions are very true and thence the Debauchee gladly makes the desperate Conclusion And when others also hear Reason disparaged as uncertain various and fallacious they deny all credit to their Faculties and become confounded Scepticks that settle in nothing This I take to have been one of the greatest and most deadly occasion of the Atheism of our days and he that hath rejected Reason may be one when he pleaseth and cannot reprehend or reduce any one that is so already 2. The Denial of Reason in Religion hath been the principal Engine that Hereticks and Enthusiasts have used against the Faith and that which lays us open to infinite follies and impostures Thus the Arrians quarrelled with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it was deduced by consequence but not expressed in Scripture The Apollinarists would by no means allow of Reason And St. Austin saith of the Donatists that they did calumniate and decry It to raise prejudice against the Catholick Faith and elsewhere Doctores vestri Hominem dialecticum fugiendum potius cavendum quam refellendum censuerunt The Ubiquitarians defend their Errors by denying the judgment of Reason and the Macedonians would not have the Deity of the Holy Ghost proved by Consequence The later Enthusiasts in Germany and other places set up loud and vehement out cries against Reason and the Lunaticks among us that agree in nothing else do yet sweetly accord in opposing this Carnal Reason and this indeed is their common Interest The impostures of mens Phancies must not be seen in too much light and we cannot dream with our eyes open Reason would discover the nakedness of Sacred Whimsies and the vanity of mysterious non-sense This would disparage the darlings of the brain and cool the pleasant heats of kindled Imagination And therefore Reason must be decryed because an enemy to madness and Phancy set up under the Notion of Faith and Inspiration Hence men had got the trick to call every thing that was Consequent and Reasonable Vain Philosophy and every thing that was Sober Carnal Reasoning Religion is set so far above Reason that at length it is put beyond Sobriety and Sense and then 't was fit to be believed when 't was impossible to be proved or understood The way to be a Christian is first to be a Brute and to be a true Believer in this Divinity is to be fit for Bedlam Men have been taught to put out their eyes that they might see and to hoodwink themselves that they might avoid the Precipices Thus have all extravagancies been brought into Religion beyond the Imaginations of a Fever and the Conceits of Midnight Whatever is phancied is certain and whatever is vehement is Sacred every thing must be believed that is dream'd and every thing that is absurd is a Mystery And by this way men in our days have been prepared to swallow every thing but what is sober whatever is wild will be suck'd in like the Air but what is reasonable will be fled like infection So that if a man would recommend any thing for his life to those enemies of Reason it must be some odd non-sense in the cloathing of Imagination and He that can be the Author of a new kind of madness shall lead a Party Thus hath Religion by the disparagement of Reason been made a medley of Phantastick trash spiritualized into an heap of vapours and formed into a Castle of Clouds and exposed to every wind of humour and Imagination 3. By the same way great advantage is given to the Church of Rome Which those