Roman Religion were propagated in the same manner and shall first examine his grounds His first Branch of the Comparison is that as the Christian Religion contains some high Mysteries in it above the reach of humane Reason so does the Roman Religion in holding Transubstantiation He did well to distinguish this from the Mysteries of the Christian Religion for it is indeed none of them nor is it above humane Reason as he calls it but contrary to it and not at all to be compared to the Mysteries of Christian Religion as the Trinity the Incarnation and the Resurrection The last of these contains nothing in it that may not be Rationally enough conceived as very possible and easy to Divine Omnipotence for the other Mysteries that concern God it is no wonder those be above our understandings since the divine Nature is so vastly exalted above all our depressed Notions of things and therefore is not a proper object for our Faculties So no wonder we cannot frame such clear conceptions of his Nature as to give a distinct account of it to our Reasons But a material object proposed to our senses is proportioned to our Faculties And therefore we must either believe the clear evidence our Faculties give us of the Bread and of the Wine after the Consecration or turn Scepticks for ever since full evidence to our Faculties is all can possibly be offered for our conviction and if that in any case fail it is in no case certain So that if our Senses fail in this we have no reason to receive any thing upon their Testimony for a noted Liar in one thing is to be believed in nothing even though his lie had been discovered by a divine Revelation Now if we weaken the evidence of Sense all the authority of the Christian Religion which it received from the Miracles will be weakned for these were only known by the Senses of the spectators And so far of the first branch of the parallel The Second branch of the parallel is that as the Christian Religion enjoyns diverse severities to embrace Crosses to Love our enemies and to Mortifie our passions so also the Roman teaches very hard precepts and Counsels as Vows Fasts Confession prohibition for Priests to Marry to which I. K. adds an c. The Christian Religion does indeed command diverse duties contrary to our natural appetites but those are things of themselves Morally good and such as do highly perfect our Natures But the Roman Religion has made a shift to find means for voiding all these Sacred obligations and to set a great many little trifling performances instead of them which have no tendency to the purifying of our Natures or the bettering of Mankind How much they have detracted from the obligation to all the severer and unalterably Moral Duties of Christianity hath been already and shall be more fully laid open if it be called for though that be needless it being so clearly done by many better Pens but for those they have substituted in their room let us a little consider these I. K. mentions and to begin with Vows We do not deny that the first design of Monasteries in the primitive Church was excellent but it quickly began to degenerate into idleness and superstition which S. Ierome though inclined enough to the severities of that course of Life hath fully told us But how they did afterwards sink into all the Corruptions imaginable all Histories inform us And whatever may be said for such Houses as either Seminaries for the Church or Sanctuaries for those that are no more able to labour in it yet certainly the entanglements of Vows is a yoke which none can be assured he shall be able to bear We ought to Vow and pay our Vows unto God and therefore should be sure to Vow nothing but that whereof the execution is in our power Now when we Vow to serve God which we do in the Sacraments we are assured of the aid of the Divine Grace to assist us in the performance But to Vow things which we are not sure to perform our tempers being so liable to Change that what agrees with them at one time becomes an intolerable burden and snare at another is certainly to cast our selves headlong into many temptations And what unnatural and brutal lusts have abounded in these Houses we read a great deal more than I am willing to repeat What a cheat is the pretence to poverty in those Orders which have got such vast Riches that they are become the envy of the world as the Benedictine the Caâ—â—husians and the Iesuits And for the begâ—ing Orders it is both against the rules of Chrisâ—iâ—n Religion and all good Government to allow much more to encourage such swarms of idle fellows who shall always go rambling and begging about and do not work that they may eat And for their obedience what a rack it may be under a Tyrannical Superiour and what an engine it may prove for Sedition and disturbance I leave to all to judge In a word all such severities as tend to the subduing our lusts and passions are good and sutable to the spirit of Christianity but for overcharging men with new burdens which signifie nothing but to create a perpetual trouble and constant scrupulosity is to abridge them of their Christian liberty without cause and tends to swell them up with pride and a lofty opinion of their meriting by such practises and a contempt of others who though they bear none of these voluntary assumed burdens yet are more meek more humble and more charitable and in all things more conformable to the life and doctrine of our Blessed Saviour And if voluntary severities be a character of a true Religion the Priests of Baal the worshippers of Diana Taurica the Ebionites the Montanists the Eâ—cratites and many other heresies might have put in a fair claim since they abounded in them From your Vows I go to your Fasts God forbid we should disclaim Fasting which our Saviour did so much recommend both by his example and Commands we acknowledge it a powerful mean both for mortifying all bodily lusts and for disposing the mind to prayer and all other spiritual exercises and therefore we do not allow these to the Roman Church as peculiar to them And I do not believe any of them will justifie the corruptions they are palpably guilty of in the observance of their Fasts which are generally only a change of diet wherein no severity nor strictness is to be seen Wine is liberally drunk the most delicate Fishes with the most exquisite way of dressing them are sought for and no other mixtures of higher Devotion appear on these weekly or annual returns For Confession I know no Christians that deny the usefulness of it but the setting up the necessity of Auricular Confession as it hath driven out of their Church the primitive and publick Confession with all the ancient discipline which was indeed the great glory
or other Since therefore it is not in this Life it must be in another therefore we must believe our Souls shall outlive this state When likewise we consider that Matter in all its subtilest refinings and nimblest motions gives no discoveries of Sense or Cogitation and yet we feel a Thinking being within us which we plainly perceive to be a Being different from Matter both in its actings and nature we conclude there is a principle in us that must not necessarily die at the dissolution of this life Which is confirmed from innumerable stories of the Apparitions of some Rational beings separated from Bodies which in all Ages and places of the world have abounded and are as certainly attested as ever any matter of Fact hath been Which shews that there are Beings distinct from Matter and that our Souls are such their subtle reasonings both Metaphysical and Mathematical do demonstrate Their surviving this Body is also gathered from their frequent ascent above material Figures and Phantasms in their Conceptions and Inferences which shews they do not so much depend on matter as not to outlive their union with it In fine The common apprehensions which all Thinking men in all Ages have owned and which appears in the greatest part of all both good and bad at their death shews the belief of this is among those common Notices of truth which are born with the Soul From all which I may fairly assume That there is another state in which our Souls surviving their union with our Bodies shall be rewarded or punished as they have deserved well or ill at the hands of the great Creator and Judge of all men And therefore if our own interests touch us or prevail upon us and the apprehensions of future rewards or punishments work on our fears or hopes we must carefully avoid all dishonouring disobeying or offending this God and with the same care we must study to acknowledge our beings are of him and for him and that all the blessings of this Life are the effects of his Bounty for which we must thank him and adoring his blessed Attributes and Perfections we must dedicate our whole Lives to his service that so we may still enjoy his favour here and in the next life receive the rewards of good and faithful servants And thus upon good and solid foundations I have built up this proposition That there must be some true Religion CHAP III. It is considered if J. K. proves convincingly that there must be some true Revealed Religion J. K. goes on to prove this Religion must be Revealed which he performs thus How can we know Gods will unless he Reveal it to us either immediately or mediately For natural Religion teaches only in general that we ought to Worship and Obey God but does not teach the particular manner or matters of this Worship and Obedience therefore there is a necessity of this Revelation Yea if God had left this to the Choice of every one yet at least that must be revealed In this Reasoning I. K. hath forgot a very necessary distinction of Revelation into that which is communicated naturally to the Soul and that which is superadded by some extraordinary manifestation or inspiration In the former sence it cannot be denyed but it is necessary there be a Revelation of Religion but that is not what I. K. drives at Now he must be very ignorant if he does not know that the greatest part of the Philosophers believed there were on the Souls of all men such inscriptions of Truth that if all should purifie their minds from the defilements Lust superinduced upon them they should then clearly discern every thing that the Deity enjoyned them and therefore they looked upon Inspiration as a degree of madness which was only incident to weaker minds whose imaginative powers were too hard for their reasons And indeed they knew so much of the juglings of their Oracles that no wonder they studied to detract from their Authority all they could Now I desire I. K. will review his discourse and see what strong or good reasons it offers for the conviction of those of this perswasion So that his Argument proving only that God must reveal how he will be Worshipped and Obeyed if it be replyed that it is done to all men by those common Notices of Truth that are born with their Souls he hath furnished us with nothing to prove a further Revelation necessary To make good this therefore against the Philosophers it is not to be denied but if mankind had continued in the purity wherein God did create our Natures their Reasons were strong but they themselves complained of a great depravation of their Natures which they found were much prevailed on by Senses and sensible objects by Education Custome Corporeal pleasure and the power of Fancy And for clearing of this they apprehended another Prior state wherein our Souls for some trespass had lost their wings and plumes and so were degraded into Bodies This shews they found some corruption on their Nature from which they studied to emerge and did indeed attempt most gloriously the recovering themselves to their first original This being then confessed that our minds are much darkned and that our bodies appetites and fancies are too strong for them it will thence very naturally follow that as our reasons cannot discover all things to us so that our way of apprehending of divine things may carry along with it much of a body and gross phantasms This was evidently demonstrated in that numberless variety of Opinions into which all Nations were divided about Religion a great mixture of bodily phantasms and gross pleasures appearing both in their opinions and practises about Religion Nor was this only the fate of the Rabble but both Tully and Varro have given us an account of the great diversity was among Philosophers about the very Notion and Nature of a Deity And if they differed so much in their thoughts of that primitive and first Truth into how many divisions may we imagine they must have run about the other Truths to be deduced from that Since therefore men did so grope after all the disputes and speculations of Philosophers in which there was no certainty nor had any of them such plenary Authority as to oblige others to submit to their decision thence I infer the necessity of some clear and certain way for satisfying all mankind in things of so great and universal concern The Speculations of Philosophers were neither certain nor such as they were evident to men of weaker understandings the only way therefore to avoid this was either to make such plain and glorious Manifestations of God's presence and pleasure as the Iews had on mount Sinai and in their most holy place or to authorize some men by divine Inspirations to reveal God's will to mankind Now there is no impossibility in the notion of an Inspiration For if we make known our thoughts to one another either by forming such a â—ound
nor uncircumcision availed any thing and that in the new Creature there was neither Circumcision nor uncircumcision but Christ was all in all and that one God did both justifie the Circumcision by Faith and the uncircumcision through Faith from all which it is evident that those of the Circumcision might be saved and by consequence that their Religion was a true Religion and yet that their doctrine of Circumcision was an error can be disputed by none who read the Epistles of S. Paul And it is no less clear that they held it an Article of Faith delivered to Abraham by God So here it is plain that S. Paul in one breath both condemns this Opinion as erroneous and yet allows Salvation to such as believed it With how many errors doth S. Iohn charge some of the seven Churches yet they were still the Churches of Christ. The Church in the second Century did generally believe the Millennium as a thing revealed by God which the Roman Church now calls an error yet I hope I. K. will not condemn that Church as holding a false Religion The African Churches held it necessary for Infants to receive the Eucharist from these words Except you eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man you have no life in you and this was approved by P. Innocent and was continued many Ages in the Roman Church as appears from the Ordo Romanus and yet that Church has declared that not to be necessary by which the Opinion the former Ages had of its necessity is declared an error But it were a strange thing from that to condemn these as holding a false Religion The Franciscans and Dominicans had hot contests about the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin and both pretended Divine authority and Revelations so that one of those must have held an error The Dominicans and Iansenists believe Predestination and Grace efficacious of it self this the Molinists deny both vouch Scriptures and the definitions of the Church The Canonists Courtiers of Rome and Iesuits have asserted the Popes Infallibility from Scripture and Councils the Sorbon hath always rejected this Now of all these different Opinions the one must be true and the other false since they stand in the terms of a contradiction and they have all vouched God and Scriptures for them therefore those who hold the false side of the contradiction according to I. K's reasoning must be of a false Religion which I believe when he considers more maturely he will find he mistook his measures in this And in fine his Argument will also hold as strong to prove that every Individual of a true Religion must be exempt from all errors in every Opinion whereof he takes God to be the Author For I. K's Argument will be as strong for every thing whereof God is believed the Author as for Articles of Faith So that every mistaken sense of Scripture will turn one to be of a false Religion since every mistaken exposition is an error and yet that being thought the meaning of the place God is believed the author of that meaning and by I. K's consequence of the error it self From all which I may I hope even by I. K's leave infer the necessary distinction between things that are believed to be errors and those that are believed to be Truths For the former to vouch God the Author of what we know to be an error and corruption is certainly so criminal that none of the true Religion can be guilty of it But there be many things which though errors yet any one may very innocently mistake for truths I do not say the mistake does quite excuse the error if the error be fundamental the mistake must be so too But if the error be in a lesser matter it is a lesser error and it will never be made out That if one apprehending an Opinion true embrace it as come from God and as an Article of Faith if he is mistaken in that he strikes at the divine veracity for among men who thinks that any wronged his veracity if another mistook his meaning and understood his words in a different sense from what he intended and expressed Certainly he who so mistakes after the true meaning is cleared cannot be understood to have fastned any reproach upon the Candor of him whose words he mistook all the blame being to be cast only on his want of right understanding This were indeed a hard case if all our mistakings of divine Revelations did infer a charging God with error or corruption But the thing is so clear that I am afraid I have spent too many words about it and this Argument of I. K's cannot but upon first reading appear to all that are accustomed to weigh and examine truth to be a piece of crude ill digested and ill palliated Sophistry Thus far have I followed I. K. through those six points he imagines he has demonstrated and have shewed how true the first four were but how little reason there was to account them such for any thing he said for their proof and how false the other two are And I suppose he will acknowledge that if what is already set down hold true and be founded on good reason I need not follow him through the rest of his Book it being only a direction to his gentle courteous Reader how to manage this method of arguing so as to convince all persons that dissent from the true Religion which he thinks is a Mathematical and sure way of proceeding and such as no man can decline or avoid and in end must be either convinced by it or be forced to confess himself no better than an Ass or a block which concludes him a mad man I will not follow this with a railery that is as obvious as severe but I love not to mix matters of sport with such serious purposes therefore I follow I. K. no more through the rest of his Book But come next to consider the great support of that cause which he manages both in his Preface and through the rest of his Book that there can be no certainty neither about the true books of Scripture the Decrees of Councils or writings of Fathers without there be a true Church and Religion agreed on which shall both declare to us what Books are true and what not and shall deliver their true meaning to us otherwise endless confusions must follow which plainly appears in the many divisions of the Protestants and the uncertainties they are in about all Controverted points From which the necessity of a true Church appears as much as in a well ordered State there is not only a necessity of clear and good Laws but of Judges to expound them CHAP. VII Of the supposed Inconveniencies J. K. imagines in the want of a true Church to Iudge Infallibly and of the right methods of finding Truth THere is nothing about which those of the Roman Church make more noise than the necessity of
an Infallible Judge and of the great and visible inconveniencies that appear from the want of it in those Churches that have departed from the Roman Communion I have not long ago proposed a great many Queries to one of I. K's brethren in which I have set before him the many difficulties they must needs be involved in by clearing who this Infallible Judge must be and I shall here repeat nothing of what I said then but shall go on to shew upon what clear and certain grounds we may rest our perswasions about Articles of Faith and divine Truths All Arts and Sciences must be acquired by some rules and methods by which a progress may be made from plainer things to those that are more involved and difficult and if any would desire to understand any Theorem or Problem in Geometry without beginning at the Elements and advancing by Euclid or some other such methods he labours in vain So also if any would without more ado study to know a secret in Chymistry having neither learned to know the terms of Art nor the course of a process he shall not be the wiser though one deliver him their best secrets In like manner if a man will enter into the knowledge of Divine truth without any of those preparations which are necessary he is in a wrong way and the further he engages he is the more out of the way nor can he be ever in the right way till he begin afresh It may justly seem strange that Christian Religion was so plain a thing when the Apostles first delivered it that mean simple people poor women and an illiterate company should have understood it and that it subdued a great part of the Roman Empire before men of great Learning were Converted to the belief of it and all the knowledge they then had of it was by the Sermons and Epistles of the holy Apostles which remain to this day And though at this distance from that time we may have lost the true meaning of some phrases and we have not so particular a History of the state of the first Churches as might help us to understand many passages that seem very dark to us yet for the main of those Books they seem very easie and plain We have also still so perfect a knowledge of the Greek tongue as clearly to understand them But after all this Christian Religion is now become such a strange kind of secret that men with all their Learning and Study can scarce understand it Certainly we must have either changed Religion from what it was at first so that it hath now put on a new face or we are much mistaken in our methods of enquiring into it and examining what things are revealed to us by God S. Paul tells us the Natural man receives not the things of God neither indeed can be for they are spiritually discerned From which it appears that a Renovation of the mind from its natural mould and its being transformed into a spiritual temper are necessary as well for the understanding and discerning as the obeying the things of God Now all natural men may be divided into three Classes either they are so immersed in senses and sensible things that all their apprehensions are tinctured with the figures and phantasms which their senses and imaginations present to them or they rise a little above this but are so governed by the heats of nature and passion that either their minds are rendred quite incapable of all serious thoughts or so distorted in them that they do not discern them truly But the highest elevation of the natural man is Reason which hath a fairer appearance and if rightly managed would certainly advance him to a spiritual temper but being fed only with dry Notions and trying them by a false touchstone does strenghthen our errors fortifie our prejudices and swell us with pride and fret us with the itch of an unsatisfiable and useless curiosity Now it will not be ungrateful it is hoped to propose the great hinderances all these several Modifications of the Natural man have given to the right understanding Divine truths and to begin with those of the lowest form One whose mind is immersed in sense either believes nothing but what his senses propose to him or at least tinctures all his Notions with sensible objects Thus the Atheist believes no God because he cannot see him and those of the heathens over whom the power of their senses was strong yet not such as to overcome the Impressions of a Deity left on their Souls did believe the Sun Moon and Stars were Gods being both dazled with the brighter splendor of the day and delighted with the fainter shinings of the night And finding both the pleasant Lightsomness the warm Benignity and fruitful usefulness of their Beams they did adore them as gods and seeing strange effects answering some of their positions and aspects they came to imagine all humane things were governed by them and so framed an entire Theory if so ill grounded a thing can deserve that name of Astrology Others much taken with the greatness and glory of brave Commanders and Princes and having some Notion of the Souls Immortality on their minds did think that after their death they governed this inferiour world and to those Heroes they assigned Stars to dwell in and those gods they represented either by some Symbols the chief whereof was Fire or by some Statues Pillars or other pieces of Sculpture which at least represented that Deity to their Senses if it had not some strangely Magical and Divine influence united or affixed to it They did also prognosticate all future things either by the flight or feeding of Birds or by the inwards of Animals Here then a Religion entirely framed from the Conceptions of the Natural man in its lowest depression and their gross Notions of Religion made them both prejudiced against the Iews who worshipped nothing but a Celestial Deity and more against the Christians whom they called Atheists because they had none of those sensible representations or ways of Worship but their Faith was plain and simple But as the Natural man did thus corrupt the notices of natural Religion it did no less embase the Christian Religion When many natural men were engaged in the profession of it either by Education Custom or Interest who loathing its simple purity did study so to dress it up that it might gratifie their natural minds by bringing in the worship of deceased men and by worshipping them by Images Pictures Reliques and at length making Pictures for the Deity it self and by dressing up all the parts of Religious Worship so as to amuse and delight the senses by affecting an outward grandeur in Processions and other Festivals and in the greatness of their Priests chiefly of their high Priest all which were visibly the effects of minds deeply engaged in sensible things to whom nothing appeared sacred or solemn without it had been adorned with all the
and endless wranglings of the Schools in matters of Philosophy in which men being accustomed to that game of disputing and subtilising about nothing and going from those studies to Divinity and carrying that same temper and fiery edge along with them they made all that work about it which hath now so long divided the world They being also by a long practice habituated to many Maxims and Axioms which were laid down for rules not to be enquired into or denyed came really to believe those were true and to carry them along with them to all their Theological debates All which will appear very evident to any that compares their Philosophical and Theological works from which many of their strange inferences and positions did take their rise and I am afraid do still receive their nourishment Thus far I have discoursed of the several prejudices the powers of the natural man do lay in the way of our apprehending and judging aright of Divine truths and the common notions of the moral Philosophy will concur to teach all men that before their minds can be rightly qualified for the understanding any intellectual truth but most chiefly Divine truth we must abstract from all those figures of things which our senses present to us and rise above all grosser phantasms It is no less necessary that our thoughts be serene and free of passion that we may freely and at leisure consider what lies before us without the Byass of preconceived opinions or interests And it is equally rational with these that we have modest minds not vainly puffed up with an opinion of our own knowledge but tractable and docile such as will not stick after clear conviction to confess and retract an error and that we proceed in our reasonings closely and on sure grounds not on vain conjectures and maxims taken up meerly on trust but by a clear progress advance from one truth to another as the Series of them shall lead A man who is thus prepared must next consider all was said in the first four Sections with a great deal more to the same purpose That he be on good grounds perswaded there is a God that there is a true revealed Religion that the Christian Religion is the true Religion These things being laid down he is in the first place by earnest Prayers to beg God's direction to go along with him in all his enquiries which certainly will not be wanting if he bring with him a sincere well prepared mind not byassed nor prepossessed and of this we may be well assured both from the Divine goodness and veracity For as he hath promised that whoso seek shall find so it is a necessary consequent of infinite goodness to assist all that sincerely seek after life and happiness but if any come to this study without he be duly prepared he has himself to thank if he fall into errors and mistakes The next thing an exact searcher into Religion must labour in is once to observe the nature of Christianity and the great designs of it and in this he is not to follow the small game of some particular and obscure passages but to observe through the whole New Testament what was the great end of all our Saviour spoke and did and his disciples testified and wrote If once we comprehend this a right it will be a thread to carry us through particular disquisitions For as there be many natural truths of which we are well assured though Philosophy offers us some Arguments against them in the answering which we are not able to satisfie our Reasons so there may be some divine truths very certainly made out to us and yet there may be places of Scripture which seem so to contradict those truths that they cannot be well answered Again a serious Enquirer will see good reason to believe the Scriptures must be plain evident and clear since they were at first directed to men of very ordinary parts and of no profound understandings and learning therefore he may well conclude those strange Superstructures some have reared up for amusing the world can be none of the Articles of Faith necessary to be believed And as the first Converts were honest simple men so our Saviour and the Apostles spoke in a plain easie stile therefore all these forced Criticisms and Inferences by which some more ingenious than candid Writers would expound them in a sence favourable to their Opinions aâ—e not to be received since these do often represent the divine discourses rather like the little tricks of double-dealing and Sophistry for which an honest Tutor would severely chide his Pupil words are to be understood in their plain meaning and not as Logick or a nicety of Criticism may distort and throw them If then a man will in this method which no honest man can except against go to the search of the Scriptures with a mind prepared as hath been already said he cannot fail of finding out all that is necessary for his Salvation Nor is he to be doubtfully anxious concerning the true Books for none denies but the Churches care in all Ages hath been the great conveyance of this the many various Translations of all Ages and Languages nay and different Religions agreeing in all material points and the Citations out of those Books which we find in a Series of Authors who have lived in the several Ages since they were written agreeing likewise with the Books themselves together with many ancient Manuscripts which do yet remain of a great many Languages may abundantly satisfie even the most severe Inquirer that these be the very Books which the Apostles delivered and were universally received by all Christians The matter of Fact being thus cleared without any necessity of running to the authority of the Church all those scruples which I. K. with the rest of his Brethren would needs raise do vanish since they never distinguish exactly between a Witness and a Judge For the former nothing is required but honesty and good information and we have the agreeing suffrages of many witnesses that do all agree in their Testimony of these Books who though they differed very much in their Expositions of them yet concurred in their verdict about the Books and were checks on one another in the faithful preserving and transcribing them In this sence we do receive the Churches Testimony as the necessary means of conveying these Books to us But an Authority Sacred and Solemnly declared is required in a Judge and this no Church can so much as pretend to but from the Scriptures Therefore the Scriptures being received as Divine cannot depend on the sentence of the Church as a Judge since all its Jurisdiction is derived from Scripture which therefore must be acknowledged before it can be believed But because there be persons of a meaner Condition and not Educated so as to make all the inquiry which is necessary in so important a Business there is therefore a shorter method for such