two Idols of Atheists and Hereticks and that make Atheists to be Atheists and Hereticks to be Hereticks p. 12. His second Proposition Ibid. runs thus That to ascertain the very and true Faith we must attend only to that meaning of Scripture which the Words and Phrases do imply Rejecting all mixture of Reason and Philosophy in our Disputes about Religion and our Inquiries about the meaning of Scripture Now let any Reader try whether he can find any such Proposition as this in all my Sermon either in words or sense I could not for some time guess what shadow of pretence he could have for charging such a Proposition on me I did indeed in some principal Articles distinguish between Faith and Philosophy between what is revealed in Scripture and what Philosophical Disputes which the Scripture takes no notice of have been raised about them and warned all men from mixing and corrupting the Faith with Philosophy but does this forbid us Expounding Scripture agreeable to Reason and common Sense and Philosophy too where Sense and Reason and Philosophy are proper judges They are not the supreme and absolute judges in matters of pure Revelation But does it hence follow that they cannot judge of their proper Objects Do I any where say That we must always expound the Scripture to a literal Sense That when Christ is called a Way a Door a Rock we must understand this literally And yet this is plainly what he would have to be my Sense as his beloved instance of Transubstantiation shews In this Sermon I have given no Rules for Expounding Scripture which in time I hope I may But what I assert is this That when by all those Methods which Wise Men observe in expounding any Writing we have found out what the true sense of Scripture must be we must not reject such Doctrines meerly because natural Reason cannot conceive or comprehend them That Revelation as to such matters as are knowable only by Revelation must serve instead of Sense natural Ideas and natural Reason p. 11. This gives a plain Answer to all his Cant about Transubstantiation from our Saviour's words This is my Body p. 12. For is there no way of knowing what is Bread and what is Flesh but by Revelation Is not this the proper object of Sense and Reason And then it does not come within my Rule for Sense and Reason must judge of their proper Objects though Revelation must serve us instead of Sense and Reason as to such matters as can be known only by Revelation that is as I expresly add we must upon the Authority of Revelation believe things which we do not see things which we have no natural notion or conception of things which are not evident to natural Reason As for instance If it be Revealed in Scripture that God has an Eternal Word his Only-Begotten Son and that in time this Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us this Son of God became Man that God sent forth his Son made of a Woman made under the Law Though neither Sense nor natural Ideas nor meer natural Reason give us any notice of it yet if we will own a Revelation we must believe it upon the sole Authority of Revelation But though Revelation in such cases be Sense and Reason to us because we have no other means of Knowledge yet Sense must judge of the natural Objects of Sense and Reason of the Objects of natural Reason but Revelation was never intended to unteach us what Sense and natural Reason evidently teach and therefore it cannot teach us that Bread is Flesh and Wine is Blood But this Socinian is got so far towards Popery that he will not allow Sense to be judge of this matter whether the Bread be Transubstantiated or not and that for a very pleasant Reason his words are these p. 13. He cannot have recourse to Sense in the case 't is only Reason and Philosophy can help him out For though the Apostles who saw and tasted that it was Bread only and not Flesh might have appealed also to their Senses yet we that never saw or tasted the Substance which Jesus gave then to the Disciples can know by Reason and Philosophy only by nothing else that it was not his Flesh and Blood That is I can't know by Sense that Christ gave Bread and Wine and not Flesh and Blood to his Disciples because I did not See and Taste my self that very Substance that Christ gave to his Disciples But can I judge by Sense that what I my self See and Taste in the Lords Supper is Bread and Wine after Consecration not Flesh and Blood For that is the Question between us and the Church of Rome not whether we receive the same now which Christ gave to the Apostles in the first Institution which they take for granted and to question which is meer Scepticism but what that change is which the words of Consecration make in the Elements to this day and if we cannot judge of this by Sense the Church of Rome have a better Plea for themselves than I thought they had And if I can't now judge by my own Senses what it was Christ gave to his Apostles and what they Saw and Tasted I fear it will much weaken some other very good Arguments against Transubstantiation But how will this Socinian who rejects the Evidence of Sense confute Transubstantiation Why that is easily done by Reason and Philosophy as thus The Text expresly says it was Bread which he blessed and brake and called it his Body therefore it was his Body in Sign and Signification not in Reality All this is Arguing 't is Reason that convinces us not Sense that the Substance he divided to them was indeed Bread not his Flesh which he neither blessed nor brake This is Reasoning indeed But did I ever reject Reasoning and Arguing about the meaning of Scripture Words and Phrases and the true Sense and Interpretation of Scripture Is there no difference between Reasoning about the Sense of Scripture and setting up the Conclusions of meer natural Reason and Philosophy against the plain and evident Doctrines of Scripture It is certain I made a manifest distinction between them p. 9. In all these cases we are concerned to enquire what the true sense of the Article is for this the Scripture teaches and so far our Faith is concerned and these are not only justifiable but necessary Disputes if the true Faith be necessary And such were the Disputes of the Catholick Fathers with the Sabellian Arian and Photinian Hereticks c. So that I allow of Arguing and Reasoning as much as he does and add But that which we are to beware of is not to mix Philosophy with our Faith nor to admit of any meer Philosophical Objections against the Faith nor to attempt any Explication of these Mysteries beyond what the Scriptures and the Faith and Practice of the Catholick Church will justify This distinction he knew very well but very honestly dissembles
not one word to answer but only says that I contradict this my self in my Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity where I assert That suppose the natural Construction of the Words of Scripture import such a Sense as is contrary to some evident Principle of Reason I won't believe it Of this more presently but what is this to the purpose Is there no difference between what Reason can't conceive comprehend approve and what the Reason of all Mankind contradicts No difference between believing what we do not see what we have no natural notion or conception of what is not evident to natural Reason and believing in contradiction to sense and such natural Notions and natural Evidence as all Mankind agree in But he is very much troubled according to his Principle of believing Scripture no farther than Natural Reason and Philosophy approves how to distinguish between believing Plato and Tully and believing a Revelation He says They look upon Plato and Tully as great Men but Fallible p. 15. and therefore may take the liberty to dissent from them and believe them no farther than Reason approves Very right but will he believe the Scripture any farther than Reason can conceive comprehend approve Have a care of that But they will do as well if Reason will not approve of such Scripture Doctrines as it can't conceive and comprehend they will Expound and Torture Scripture till it submits to Reason For it is more congruous to think that an Inspired Writer uses a Figurative or it may be a Catachrestical very Catachrestical Expression or Phrase than that he delivers flat contradictions or downright impossibilities That is to say they must by all means believe or pretend to believe the Scripture but then they must never own any thing to be in Scripture which their Reason calls a flat contradiction or downright impossibility which is the very same thing for the reason why they will not allow that the Scripture contains any thing which their Reason does not approve is because they must believe the Scripture but must not believe it beyond their own Reason and Comprehension and the only difference they make between Plato and Tully and the Scripture is That they can safely reject their Authority when they please but must be at the trouble of Expounding away whatever they do not approve in the Scripture This is what I told them in the Vindication and as Impious as this Author thinks it I will venture to Transcribe that whole Paragraph But I have not done with our Author thus but must give him a little more about Expounding Scripture according to Reason For I affirm that Natural Reason is not the Rule and Measure of Expounding Scripture no more than it is of Expounding any other Writing The true and only way to interpret any Writing even the Scriptures themselves is to examine the use and propriety of Words and Phrases the Connexion Scope and Design of the Text its allusion to Ancient Customs and Usages or Disputes c. For there is no other good reason to be given for any Exposition but that the words signify so and the circumstances of the place and apparent Scope of the Writer requires it But our Author as many others do seems to confound the Reasons of believing any Doctrine with the Rules of Expounding a Writing We must believe nothing that contradicts the plain and express Dictate of Natural Reason which all Mankind agree in whatever pretence of Revelation there be for it Well say they then you must Expound Scripture so as to make it agree with the necessary Principles and Dictates of Reason No say I that does not follow I must Expound Scripture according to the use and significations of the Words and must not force my own Sense on it if it will not bear it But suppose then that the Natural Construction of the words import such a sense as is contrary to some evident Principle of Reason Then I wont believe it How Not believe Scripture No no. I will believe no pretended Revelation which contradicts the plain Dictates of Reason which all Mankind agree in and were I persuaded that those Books which we call the Holy Scriptures did so I wou'd not believe them and this is a fairer and honester way than to force them to speak what they never intended and what every impartial man who reads them must think was never intended that we may believe them To put our own Sense on Scripture without respect to the use of words and to the Reason and Scope of the Text is not to believe Scripture but to teach it to speak our Language is not to submit to the Authority of Scripture but to make Scripture submit to our Reason even in such matters as are confessedly above Reason as the Infinite Nature and Essence of God is Though I am never so well assured of the Divine Authority of any Book yet I must Expound it as I do other Writings for when God vouchsafes to speak to us in our own Language we must understand his words just as we do when they are spoke by men Indeed when I am sure that it is an Inspired Writing I lay it down for a Principle That it contains nothing absurd and contradictions or repugnant to the received Principles of Natural Reason but this does not give me Authority to Expound the words of Scripture to any other sense than what they will naturally bear to reconcile them with such Notions as I call reason for if one man has this liberty another may take it and the Scripture will be tuned to every man's private Conceit and therefore in case the plain sense of Scripture contradicts those Notions I have of things if it be possible to be true I submit to the Authority of Scripture if it seems to include a Contradiction and Impossibility if that Contradiction be not plain and notorious and in such matters as I am sure I perfectly understand there I submit again and conclude it is no Contradiction though I cannot comprehend how it is if I can by no means reconcile it I will confess I do not understand it and will not pretend to give any sense of it much less to give such a sense of it as the words will not bear His Fourth Charge is that I say Difficulty of conceiving a thing nay the absolute unconceivableness of it must not hinder our assent to what is contained in Revelation because we do not disbelieve what is made known to us by Sense or by Reason notwithstanding any difficulty or inconceivableness adhering to such things These are neither my Words nor my Argument My Argument is this That since as I had shewn in matters of pure Revelation which can be known no other way Revelation must stand in the place of Sense and Reason we must allow no Objections against revealed Mysteries but what we will allow to be good Objections against Sense and Reason Now no man questions the truth of
A VINDICATION OF Dr. Sherlock's SERMON CONCERNING The Danger of Corrupting the Faith by Philosophy IN ANSWER TO SOME Socinian Remarks By WILLIAM SHERLOCK D. D. Dean of St. Paul's Master of the Temple and Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty LONDON Printed for W. Rogers at the Sun against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet MDCXCVII To the Right Honourable Sir EDWARD CLARKE LORD MAYOR And to the Honourable Court of Aldermen MY LORD I Beg leave to Present Your Lordship with the Vindication of my Sermon lately Published by the Order of Your Court against the Cavils Calumnies and wilful Misrepresentations of a Socinian Writer The Argument is of that great Consequence that it deserves to be defended and this Pamphleteer has so rudely reflected upon the Honour and Sincerity of the Court for their Order to Print it that I look'd upon my self under a double Obligation to Defend so Important a Truth and in that to justify Your Lordship's Order I pray God rebuke that perverse Spirit of Infidelity and Heresy which is gone abroad in the World and secure the Faith of Christians from all the Arts and Insinuations of Impostors That God would bless Your Lordship's Government and preserve this Great City from all Temporal and Spiritual Evils is the hearty Prayer of MY LORD Your Lordship's Most Obedient Servant William Sherlock A VINDICATION OF Dr. SHERLOCK'S Sermon before my LORD MAYOR c. WHEN I receiv'd the threatning and boasting Message from some busy Factors of the Socinian Fraternity what work they would make with my late Sermon before my Lord Mayor concerning the Danger of corrupting the Faith by Philosophy my greatest Concernment was how to meet with their Answer which usually comes last to my hands and how to bear the Drudgery of reading it for their Arguments have been spent long since and that little Wit they had is now degenerated into Railing That scurrilous Treatment they have lately given to so many Excellent Persons especially to that Great Man the Bishop of Worcester is a fair Warning to all who dare oppose them what they must expect And besides the Experience of their many former Civilities I had more than ordinary reason to expect it now they being touch'd in a very sensible part without any other Defence to make And this Author has not deceiv'd my Expectations for upon a Perusal of his Remarks I find nothing of Argument a very little Wit and abundance of Railing His Wit and Railing be to himself but I am sorry I can find nothing that looks so like an Argument as to administer occasion for any useful Discourse This there is no help for if Men will write Books without any Arguments to be answered there is nothing to be done but only to shew that they have offered nothing to the purpose or that needs an Answer And this will be done in a few words for he has disputed at large against what I never said nor thought but has not one word against any part of the Argument of that Sermon His Title-Page pretends a great Zeal for the Doctrine of the Catholick Church and of the Church of England concerning the Blessed Trinity Which is as true as that Richard Baldwin printed this Pamphlet who has publickly disowned it in Print But though a Socinian Conscience can digest such Godly Cheats as a piece of Wit and Artifice yet a Wise Man would not venture on them because Mankind hate to be abused and grow very jealous of Men of Tricks And yet had we to deal with Modest Men it would be thought a little of the latest for a Socinian to talk of defending the Doctrine of the Catholick Church and of the Church of England concerning the Blessed Trinity For their Cant about Real and Nominal Trinitarians and Three Infinite Minds and Spirits is too well known to pass for so much as a Jest any longer and till they can defend the Judgment of their Disinteressed Person a little better than by scorning the Answer which they will never be able to make any other Reply to it were time for them could they find any thing else to say in the room of it to let that alone And yet this is what he would bring this present Dispute to if he knew how He often flirts at Three Infinite Minds and Spirits though there is no such Expression in the whole Sermon but still he says I intimate this in asserting a Real Trinity Now if Three Infinite Minds and Spirits be essential to the Notion of a Real Trinity as his Inference supposes it is the best Vindication that could possibly be thought of for that Expression For not to believe a Real Trinity is to deny the Father to be a True and Real Father and the Son to be a True and Real Son and the Holy Ghost to be a True and Real Spirit and this is to deny the Catholick Faith of Father Son and Holy Ghost which cannot be a Real Trinity cannot be really Three if each of them be not truly and really what is signified by those Names But though that Phrase of Three Infinite Minds and Spirits was used very innocently by me only to signify Three Infinite Intelligent Persons each of which is Infinite Mind and Spirit and neither of them is each other which is the Catholick Faith yet I freely acknowledge as I have done more than once That it is liable to a very Heretical Tritheistick Sense if understood absolutely and in that Sense I always disowned it And it is a sign Men have very little to say when they make such a noise with an inconvenient Form of Speech though expounded to a Catholick Sense But the Margin will direct the Reader where he may find the true State of this Controversy But what is all this to my Sermon which neither explains nor defends any particular Hypothesis about the Trinity but is a general Vindication of the Christian Faith from the Pretences of Reason and Philosophy But The Doctrine of the Catholick Church and of the Church of England concerning the Blessed Trinity explained and asserted against the dangerous Heterodoxies in a Sermon by Dr William Sherlock c And Remarks upon Dr. William Sherlock ' s False and Treacherous Defence and Explication of some Principal Articles of Faith c. were more specious Titles and both so good that they knew not which to chuse and therefore adorned the Title-Page with one and the Frontispiece with the other that if ever a poor Sermon was confuted with Titles which have a strange Magick in them this is utterly undone But it is time to consider his Remarks which exactly answer the Title that they are nothing to the purpose I am not at leisure to follow him in all his Harangues and his Wit and Buffoonry I despise too much to take notice of it and when it appears that a Man has discharged all his Artillery of Witticisms against his own Mistakes he is witty at his own Cost too He has
what he sees and feels or what he can prove to be true by plain and undeniable Reason meerly because there are unconceivable difficulties in it as there is in every thing even the most certain and familiar things in Nature And if revealed Truths are not more unconceivable than many Natural Objects of Sense and Reason why should their being unconceivable be a greater Objection against believing a Revelation than it is against believing our Sense and Reason in matters equally unconceivable Serm. p. 13. This Argument is easily understood but can never be Answered and therefore he wisely resolved not to understand it In Answer to this he tells us That he does not always believe his Senses nor his Reason neither when it is not clear but perplext with difficulties or darkening doubts but especially when there is a remarkable and manifest inconceivableness Nor do I require he should but my only Question is Whether he does not believe both his Senses and Reason that there are many things in the World whose Natures are so mysterious that he cannot conceive or comprehend the Reasons and Philosophy of them That though he sees Men and Beasts Heaven and Earth Sun Moon and Stars he will not believe that there are such things as he sees because he cannot understand the Philosophy of their Natures and sees a great many things done by them which are perfectly unaccountable and would have been thought absolutely impossible had we not seen them done These are all the contradictions and impossibilities which I say men may make or find when they know not the Philosophical Natures of things nor how they act and yet will be reasoning and guessing at them which this wise Author calls a Sermon for Contradictions But do I require any man to believe Contradictions Nay do I say that there are any such Contradictions But this I say that there are such unconceivable Mysteries in all Created Nature much more in the Incomprehensible Nature of God as some Gotham Philosophers as he who knows them best calls them charge with impossibilities and contradictions and yet these Gotham Philosophers are so wise as not to disbelieve their Senses as to the being of those things how unconceivable and incomprehensible soever their natures are and this is all I ask that in matters of pure Revelation we give the same credit to Revelation that in the Objects of sense we give to sense i. e. not to disbelieve what is revealed As that God has an Eternal Son and that this Eternal Son in time was made Man because the Eternal Generation and Incarnation are inconceivable Mysteries as we do not disbelieve that there are any Men in the World because Human Generations and the Union of Soul and Body are inconceivable Mysteries in Nature Towards the Conclusion of my Sermon I Answered Two Objections against believing a Revelation as to such Doctrines which are inconceivable and incomprehensible to meer Natural Reason And here to prepare the way he first scorns the Objections as never made before or however by none but my self That I pass over known and very dangerous Objections and Answer only to Chimera's and Follies never suggested or thought of by any p. 18. I am glad to find that he grows ashamed of these Socinian Chimera's and Follies but let us hear what they are 1. It is thought very unnatural that when God has made us reasonable Creatures and therefore made natural Reason to us the measure of truth and falshood he should require us to believe without Reason as we must do if he reveal such things to us as we do not and cannot possibly know the reasons of If we must believe with our understanding how can we believe things which we cannot understand Now this Socinian does not believe that any Sect of Religious ever made this or the like Objection Let him as he says snuff his Candle once more and look into the late Socinian Pamphlets What is the meaning of all their Zeal for Reason in this Cause of their great noise and outcry about Mysteries Nonsense Contradictions What is the meaning of their Expounding Scripture by Reason not like Fools but like Wise men Why has this Author shewn such a furious Zeal against believing a Revelation notwithstanding any Objections from meer Natural Reason and Philosophy against it If as he now says our Reason and Understandings are finite and imperfect and the Wisdom and Power of God most perfect Therefore he may reveal many things to us to be believed by us though we understand them not nor have any other cause of our believing them but only God's Revelation of them p. 19. Nothing can be more true than what he says that Reason is the measure of truth and falshood but not the frail Fallible Reason of Men but the Infallible Wisdom of God If he be sincere and hearty in this we are perfectly agreed for this is the very Doctrine of my Sermon which he has so furiously opposed or would be thought to oppose for to speak the Truth he has not opposed the Doctrine of my Sermon but in his own Language his own Chimera's and Follies But here is either a Fallacy in his Words or he gives up his Cause which it is plain he never intended The Question is not absolutely What is the Rule and Measure of Truth and Falshood but what is so to us Now if he will allow that Frail and Fallible Reason is not a Rule to us then we may believe things which our Reason does not approve nay which it may judge improbable and false And if the infallible Wisdom of God be a Rule to us it can be so only in a Revelation and then we may and must believe the infallible Wisdom of God in a Revelation against the Objections of Frail and Fallible Reason And one may easily guess there is something amiss still notwithstanding all these concessions for as silly an Objection as he says this is which I am glad to hear he will by no means own that I have Answered it and then I have very ill luck indeed to make a silly Objection which was never made before and not be able to Answer it when I have done The Answer I give to this Objection is this That the Matter of the Objection is not true for we do understand both what it is we believe and the reasons why we believe it and this I suppose may pass for an Answer to that Objection But then it is farther Objected That we believe such things whose Natures we cannot understand and cannot account for by natural Reason To this I Answer That Reason is not the judge of the Nature and Philâ—sophy of things nor does it require us to believe nothing but what we thus understand and comprehend For then as I had shewn we must no more believe Sense and Reason than Revelation And this I take to be a good Answer too but then to shew the reason of this I add When we make