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
Vertue 2. That to Honour those that were eminent in such a manner was chiefly to honour God whose distinguishing Communications made them so 3. That to Address and Supplicate to such as Mediators was a more Modest and Reverential Address to God than if we applyed immediately to himself 4. That by applying to those who had been so nearly touched with our Infirmities and our Sins themselves not excepted we were sure to find the more Compassionate and tender Advocates I doubt not but Men in that Age were qualified to argue for their Humours as well as they can now and we know that Wisdom has carried this point in the Church of Rome even at this day this day of Meridian that is of Gospel-Light Thus Wisdom brought Idolatry into the World The second Instance I proposed to evince it a dangerous Guide in Matters of Religion was this That Wisdom or let me indifferently call it Reason a Name more in vogue and more used in reference to the present Subject but it means purely the same thing I say It was Wisdom or Reason that first wasted Man's Conscience and brought Sin into the World There has been a time when Human Wisdom or Reason had a fairer pretence to Conduct than ever it will have again In Paradise where it was without the Opposition of Appetite without the Byass of Prejudice without the Cloud of Perturbations who can think but that it had then more Power and Freedom to conduct wisely than ever it could pretend to since But therefore if it failed then in point of Conduct this must needs pass for an Argument to abate some of that Veneration which the Opinionative are willing should be ascrib'd to it under this State of so unhappy a Change Let us then consider the Scene of things as it lay at that time God then charged our first Parents not to eat of the Tree in the midst of the Garden binding his Charge with this Sanction That they should dye when they did it Now at that time there was not any 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No Law of the Members warring against the Law of the Mind no Rebellion of Appetite against the Dictates of Understanding To suppose there was would be to suppose our first Parents faln even before the Fall and to have been made under the same Disorder that their Posterity now complains of And accordingly we find in holy Scripture that the Sin of our first Parents in that case is distinguished from those of all their Off-spring For whereas other Mens Sins are generally called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lusts we may observe that their Sin is always called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deception The Apostle calls it so no less than thrice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is a Deception or Imposture that they sufferd to pass upon their Understanding Whereof we may take an Illustration from a Scriptural Passage 1 Kings 13. where we find a young Prophet of Judah sent to denounce God's Judgments against Jeroboam in Bethel who withal received a Command that he should neither Eat nor Drink in that Place Now it no way appears that the violence of this young Prophet's Appetite did raise in him any desire to disobey this Command on the contrary he was upon his return resolvedly and contentedly without either Eating or Drinking so that 't is plain his Appetite did not constrain him to transgress But an old Prophet of the Place moved probably with Envy that the Honour of this Message had been conferr'd on a Prophet of Judah and not on himself addresses to him with an Imposture telling him that God did reverse his former Order and did now give him Liberty to Eat and Drink in Bethel As consequently he did and thereupon received the Reward that is due to him who disobeys a certain Command for the sake of an uncertain Suggestion With the like Imposture and Fiction it was that the old Serpent address'd himself to our first Parents implying by the Tendency of all his Discourse that God had either dissembled his real Will in his former Order or at least that he had now Revers'd it So that now they should not Dye but on the contrary receive great advantage from the Eating of the Fruit And hereupon they proceeded to Eat it being drawn aside to do so not from the violence of Appetite but from the temerity of Reason which suffered them to believe an uncertain Suggestion in opposition to a certain Command From which I observe that it was Reason not Appetite that made the first false Step in Nature and withal open'd an inlet to the succeeding violence of the Passions And how little cause have we then to lay such a stress upon that Faculty or to be so fond of its Guidance For if Reason betrayed in the most perfect State how much more easily will it do so Now if ever it be permitted to argue against the obvious Sense of what has been Revealed And if Wisdom were thus Originally the Parent of Sin we may less wonder that in after Ages it has become so indulgent a Nurse to it as we may prove it to have been by one Instance I shall offer from which it will appear that this pretension to Wisdom or Reason has given a greater blow to Vertue and settled and Empire of Sin upon a firmer Establishment in the Christian World than either Ignorance or natural Pravity was ever able to do in the Heathen For Example When the State of a general Idolatry but now mention'd had brought Men to desert God and God in Justice to desert them to the mischief of their Option when in consequence to this affected Blindness Men in most cases came to be at a doubt what it was to do well and more uncertain of what advantage it would be to do so One would have thought that Sin Then if ever was like to get the Field and that the Kingdom of Satan had been settled without Reluctancy And yet it was not so The Heathens still found an Invincible Check from the Bodings of their Conscience and the Apprehensions thereupon that there was to be a future Reckoning And by this very Bridle many amongst them liv'd under great Restraint and were Men of Virtue and they that were otherwise could not escape Remorse and Affrightment for their Guilt The Wisdom of the World to arm it self against these Fears did 1. from Countenance of the palpable Mistake concerning the Gods then in Worship start the Opinion That there was no God at all But the Notion of Atheism did seem so Monstrous and Irrational that few would receive it and They who profess'd it were lookt upon as not believing themselves but as speaking rather what they wish'd than what they thought And of this the Psalmist gives us Notice Psal. 14. 1. Others proposing to offer less Violence to the common Conceptions of Mankind taught That indeed there were Gods but that they were Regardless of Human Affairs and that such a State of
Matters to believe he ought to choose that for the Matter of his belief which was in it self most Credible Now it was more Credible that such a number of Witnesses might be Deceiv'd or as Honest as they once were might be drawn into Confederacy to Deceive Then that One should rise from the Dead Because This was naturally Impossible It could not be done without a Miracle and wise Men will never have recourse to Miracles so long as nature may solve the Appearance Now suppose that Thomas proceeded Th us far with Reason on his side and acted like a Wise that is to say a Cautious Man as for ought I see the standard of many Men's Judgments at this day will allow him to have acted Yet let me observe one thing more from his Example and that is This viz. That Human Reason is very subject to be partially Blind For while it is Hunting after those Arguments that make for its present Purpose it never takes notice of those that make more strongly against it As for Instance When Thomas refus'd to admit Conviction from the Sense and Attestation of so many credible Witnesses Yet at the same time he declared it fit to be determin'd by the Verdict of his Own Sense Where he never consider'd what a haughty Piece of Injustice it was to imply that his own single Sense was less Fallible then the joynt Experience of such a Number Again while he imagin'd it possible that so many good Men should conspire to deceive him he never consider'd how many Arguments there were to prove that this Censure of his was Absurd as well as Uncharitable For had he not Converst now three Years under the Conviction of all sorts of Miracles and could he not extend his Faith to believe that One more might be done After he had seen his Lord raise more than One from the Dead could he not think it possible that he himself might be rais'd by the same Power Nay what was yet more culpable than all the rest after he had heard his Lord publickly averring before hand that Thus it must be and that he should Rise again the Third Day He never consider'd that to distrust the Event after such a prediction of such a Person as had sufficiently prov'd himself able to do whatever he thought fit to be done was a distrust absolutely Irreligious and Prophane And yet thns it was Thus the wise Pretences of Incredulity could betray Thomas to be Irreverent Uncharitable Absurd and Irreligious and all under the colour of being Reasonable These extravagant Effects Niceness in believing could produce in him And who can Question but that they are likely to produce the same in any one else This single Example serves to inform us into what a Labyrinth Reason will lead Men when once it declines the Conduct of an humble and ready Faith and upon This my Assertion is founded that such a Faith is our only Guide unto Wisdom But I shall proceed to evidence the same by a black Cloud of Instances I doubt not but they who scruple or oppose or depart from the Common Faith at this day will readily allow That in whatever they except against the Received Form they do it from this same principle of Wisdom and Caution viz. Lest they should be impos'd upon by the Mistakes of others and therefore they resolve to adhere to some Sense of their own which they look upon as more Rational and less obnoxious to Absurdity or Deceiving And there are Two Parties of Men who have made themselves very notorious for this Pretence 1. The First is of Those who will not allow any Revelation i. e. Not any Scripture dictated from God 2. And the Second is of those who will not admit the received Interpretation of that Scripture which they allow to have been Revealed Now it may be made appear from the Instances of these very Parties That no Man ever departed from the Common Faith upon pretence of avoiding any Absurdities therein supposed but that he ran himself upon the necessity of believing greater Absurdities than any he pretended to avoid I. The first Party consists of Those who deny all Revelation who profess a Religion of Nature's Teaching but none that God has taught Who distinguish themselves by the name of Deists because they own a God but barely a God and not those dispensations which are most suitable to the Goodness of the God they own Of which Revelation is the Cheif Now however the Wisdom of such Men may please it self with this cautious Inffidelity which they pretend to take up as a Guard against Imposture Yet would it not be wiser for every Man to suspect his particular Reason when he does or may observe it to clash with the common Reason of Mankind And certainly to deny Revelation is a Conceit that clashes with the Universal Reason and Perswasion of Mankind in all Ages of the World For there is nothing wherein Men have consented more freely next to the Being of a God than in this Belief That it is suitable to the Goodness of God to hold a Correspondence and Commerce with Men and to exert himself in a Providence that extends as well to the Conduct of Actions as to the disposal of Events that is a Providence for Man's better Part as well as for his Worse So long as Men continu'd in the Worship of the true God They had this Notion riveted upon their Minds by the vouchsafement of frequent Messages and of such Oracular Directions as demonstrated themselves to come from God And when Men departed from the true Worship yet they could not depart from this rooted Expectation Insomuch that the Devil could not maintain the Reputation of his Worship among them without a pretence to the same Commerce And this was the Original of all the Heathen Oracles Which altho' they were Delusory yet they afford an Evidence that there were others True and Divine and that Mankind always hoped for such from the God they Worshipp'd The Deist will submit his Faith to a Heathen Evidence tho' he will not to a Christian And therefore he will not deny these Oracles to have been and to have been frequent among the Gentiles He readily grants that Socrates which he is willing to prefer above Christ and his Apostles got his Reputation of being counted the wisest Man of his Country from the Response of an Oracle In which Response by the way we must presume either that God over-rul'd the Voice of the evil Spirit as he did in Balaam's Case and so forc'd him to speak on Virtue 's side Or else that the Devil found himself necessitated sometimes to do so in Reverence to Men's Consciences over whom he was not always able to maintain his awe without some semblance of approving Virtue Now if such Oracles were Let any one likewise tell us how they came to cease all together as t is own'd they did at the Time of the Revelation by our Lord Jesus How came