approve other Reasons of their FAITH But we shall endeavour in its proper place to undeceive them for no Adversary how absurd or trifling soever ought to be superciliously disregarded by an unfeign'd Lover of Men and Truth So far of REVELATION only in making it a Mean of Information I follow Paul himself who tells the Corinthians that he cannot profit them except he speaks to them by Revelation or by Knowledg or by Prophesying or by Doctrine CHAP. III. That by CHRISTIANITY â—…s intended a Rational and Intelligible Religion prov'd from the Miracles Method and Stile of the New Testament 19. WHAT we discours'd of REASON before and REVELATION now being duly weigh'd all the Doctrines and Precepts of the New Testament if it be indeed Divine must consequently agree with Natural Reason and our own ordinary Ideas This every considerate and wel-dispos'd Person will find by the careful perusal of it And whoever undertakes this Task will confess the Gospel not to be hidden from us nor afar off but very nigh us in our Mouths and in our Hearts It asfords the most illustrious Examples of close and perspicuous Ratiocination conceivable which is incumbent on me in the Explication of its MYSTERIES to demonstrate And tho the Evidence of Christ's Doctrine might claim the Approbation of the Gentiles and its Conformity with the Types and Prophecies of the Old Testament with all the Marks of the MESSIAH concurring in his Person might justly challenge the Assent of his Country-men yet to leave no room for doubt he proves his Authority and Gospel by such Works and Miracles as the stiff-neck'd Jews themselves could not deny to be Divine Nicodemus says to him No Man can do these Miracles which thou do'st except God be with him Some of the Pharisees acknowledg'd no Sinner could do such things And others that they exceedeá the Power of the Devil 20. JESUS himself appeals to his very Enemies ready to stone him for pretended Blasphemy saying If I do not the Works of my Father believe me not But if I do believe not me believe the Works that you may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in him That is believe not rashly on me and so give a Testimony to my Works but search the Scriptures which testify of the Messiah consider the Works I do whether they be such as become God and are attributed to him If they be then conclude and believe that I am he c. In effect several of the People said that Christ when he should come could do no greater Wonders and many of the Jews believ'd when they saw the Miracles which he did 21. How shall we escape says the Apostle if we neglect so great a Salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirm'd unto us by them that heard him God also bearing them witness with divers Miracles and Gifts of the Holy Spirit according to his own Will Those who heard Christ the Author of our Religion speak and saw the Wonders which he wrought renounce all the hidden things of Dishonesty all Craftiness and deceitful handling of the Word of God And that they manifest nothing but Truth they commend themselves to every Man's Conscience that is they appeal to every Man's Reason in the Sight of God Peter exhorts Christians to be ready always to give an Answer to every one that asks them a Reason of their Hope Now to what purpose serv'd all these Miracles all these Appeals if no Regard was to be had of Mens Understandings if the Doctrines of Christ were incomprehensible contradictory or were we oblig'd to believe reveal'd Non-Jense Now if these Miracles be true Christianity must consequently be intelligible and if false which our Adversaries will not grant they can be then no Arguments against us 22. But to insist no longer upon such Passages all Men will own the Verity I defend if they read the sacred Writings with that Equity and Attention that is due to meer Humane Works Nor is there any different Rule to be follow'd in the Interpretation of Scripture from what is common to all other Books Whatever unprejudic'd Person shall use those Means will find them notorious Deceivers or much deceiv'd themselves who maintain the New Testament is written without any Order or certain Scope but just as Matters came into the Apostles Heads whether transported with Enthusiastick Fits as some will have it or according to others for lack of good Sense and a liberal Education I think I may justly say that they are Strangers to true Method who complain of this Confusion and Disorder But the Proof of the Case depends not upon Generalities Tho whenever it is prov'd I will not promise that every one shall find a Justification of the particular Method he was taught or he has chosen to follow To defend any PARTY is not my business but to discover the TRUTH 23. The Facility of the GOSPEL is not confin'd only to Method for the Stile is also most easy most natural and in the common Dialect of those to whom it was immediately consign'd Should any preach in Xenophon's strain to the present Greeks or in correct English to the Country-People in Scotland 't would cost them much more Time and Pains to learn the very Words than the Knowledg of the Things denoted by them Of old as well as in our time the Jews understood Hebrew worse than the Tongues of those Regions where they dwelt No Pretcnces therefore can be drawn from the Obscurity of the Language in favour of the irrational Hypothesis for all Men are suppos'd to understand the daily Use of their Mother-Tongue whereas the Stile of the Learned is unintelligible to the Vulgar And the plainest Authors that write as they speak without the Disguise of pompous Elegance have ever been accounted the best by all good Judges It is a visible Effect of Providence that we have in our Hands the Monuments of the Old Testament which in the New are always suppos'd quoted or alluded to Nor is that all for the Jewish Service and Customs continue to this day If this had been true of the Greeks and Romans we should be furnish'd with those Helps to understand aright many unknown Particulars of their Religion which make us Rulers and Teachers in Israel Besides we have the Talmud and other Works of the Rabbins which however otherwise useless give us no small Light into the antient Rites and Language And if after all we should be at a loss about the Meaning of any Expression we ought rather to charge it upon Distance of Time and the want of more Books in the same Tongue than to attribute it to the Nature of the thing or the Ignorance of the Author who might be easily understood by his Country-men and Contemporaries But no Truth is to be establish'd nor Falshood confuted from such Passages no more than any can certainly divine his
doting Philosophers into Articles of Faith they raise a loud Clamour against Reason before whose Evidence and Light their empty Shadows must disappear For as in Philosophy so in Religion every Sect has its peculiar Extravagancies and the INCOMPREHENSIBLE MYSTERIES of the latter do perfectly answer the OCCULT QUALITIES of the former They were both calculated at first for the same Ends viz. to stop the Mouths of such as demand a Reason where none can be given and to keep as many in Ignorance as Interest shall think convenient But God forbid that I should impute the like nefarious Designs to all that contend for Mysteries now Thousands whereof I know to be the best meaning Men in the Universe This sophistical or corrupt Philosophy is elsewhere in the New Testament stil'd the Wisdom of this World to which the Greeks were as much bigotted as the Jews were infatuated with a Fancy that nothing could be true but what was miraculously prov'd so The Jews require a Sign and the Greeks seek after Wisdom But this boasted Wisdom was then Foolishness with God and so it is now with considering Men. 49. A Passage out of the Epistle to the Romans is cited likewise to prove Humane Reason not a capable Judg of what is divinely reveal'd The Words are The Carnal Mind is Enmity against God for it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be But if these Words be spoken of Reason there can be nothing more false because Reason do's and ought to subject it self to the Divine Law yet this Submission argues no Imperfection in Reason as our Obedience to just Laws cannot be said to destroy our Liberty Reason must first understand the Law of Goâ—… and then comply with it for a Man can no more deserve Punishment for not observing such Laws as are unintelligible than for not performing what was never enjoin'd him The carnal Mind then in this Place is not Reason but the carnal Desires of lewd and wicked Men whose Practices as they are contrary to the reveal'd Law of God so they are to that of sound Reason too 50. What has been discours'd of pretended Wisdom and sensual Minds may be easily appli'd to another Passage where it is said that the Weapons of our Warfare are not carnal but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong Holds casting down Imaginations and every high thing that exalteth it self against the Knowledg of God and oringing into Captivity every Thought to the Obedience of Christ. It is plain from the Words as well as the Scope of the whole that these are the Thoughts and Imaginations of foolish and profane Men and should be captivated or reform'd by Reason as well as Scripture as in effect they often are for such Persons not ordinarily allowing of Argument from Scripture are first perswaded by Reason and after that they receive the Scripture But can Reason cast down or destroy it self No but it reduces those vain and impious Sophisms which borrow its Name to cover or authorize the Disorders they occasion 51. It would be extremely tedious to go one by one over all the Texts which ignorant or perverse Men alledg against that Use of Reason in Religion which I particularly establish Any single Passage to my purpose should one would think give sufficient Satisfaction to all Christian Lovers of Truth for the Word of God must be every where uniform and self-consistent But I have quoted several in the second Chapter of the second Section to speak nothing of what I perform'd in the foregoing Chapter of the present Section Yet because this Reasoning might be retorted and to leave no plausible Pretences to Cavillers or Deceivers I have punctually answer'd the strongest Objections I have observ'd in the most celebrated Pieces of Divinity I say which I have observ'd for I should read the Gospel a Million of Times over before the Vulgar Notion of Mystery could ever enter into my Head or any Passage in that Book could suggest to me that the Sense of it was above Reason or Enquiry Nor do I find my self yet inchn'd to envy those who entertain other Thoughts of it when all the while they openly acknowledg it to be a Divine Revelation But seeing the most material Difficulty made to me by a Friend is that my Opinion destroys the Nature of FAITH I shall with all the Brevity I can deliver my Sentiments concerning this Subject 52. I will spend no time upon the ordinary Divisions of Faith into Historical Temporary or Justifying Lively or Dead Weak or Strong because most of these are not so much Faith it self as different Effects thereof The word imports Belief or Perswasion as when we give Credit to any thing which is told us by God or Man whence Faith is properly divided into Human and Divine Again Divine Faith is either when God speaks to us immediately himself or when we acquiesce in the Words or Writings of those to whom we believe he has spoken All Faith now in the World is of this last sort and by consequence entirely built upon Ratiocination For we must first be convinc'd that those Writings are theirs whose Names they bear we then examine the outward State and Actions of those Persons and lastly understand what is contain'd in their Works otherwise we cannot determine whether they be worthy of God or not much less firmly believe them 53. To be confident of any thing without conceiving it is no real Faith or Perswasion but a rash Presumption and an obstinate Prejudice rather becoming Enthusiasts or Impostors than the taught of God who has no Interest to delude his Creatures nor wants Ability to inform them rightly I prov'd before Sect. 2. Chap. 2. that the Difference between Human and Divine Revelations did not consist in degrees of Perspicuity but in Certitude So many Circumstances frequently concur in History as render it equal to Intuition Thus I can as soon deny my own Being as the Murder of Cicero or the Story of William the Conqueror yet this happens only sometimes But God speaks always Truth and Certainty 54. Now since by Revelation Men are not endu'd with any new Faculties it follows that God should lose his end in speaking to them if what he said did not agree with their common Notions Could that Person justly value himself upon being wiser than his Neighbours who having infallible Assurance that something call'd Blictri had a Being in Nature in the mean time knew not what this Blictri was And seeing the Case stands really thus all Faith or Perswasion must necessarily consist of two Parts Knowledg and Assent 'T is the last indeed that constitutes the formal Act of Faith but not without the Evidence of the first And this is the true Account we have of it all over the New Testament There we read that without Faith it is impossible to please God but he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a
Fortune from the Sound of Bow-bell 24. If any object that the Gospel is penn'd with little or no Ornament that there are no choice of Words nor studi'd Expressions in it the Accusation is true and the Apostles themselves acknowledg it nor is there a more palpable Demonstration of their having design'd to be understood by all I came not to you says Paul with Excellency of Speech or Wisdom declaring unto you the Testimony of God My Speech and my Preaching was not with enticing Words of Humane Wisdom but in Demonstration or Conviction of the Spirit or Mind and in Power or Efficacy This he speaks in reference to the Philosophers and Orators of those Times whose Elocution 't is confess'd was curious and Periods elaborate apt to excite the Admiration of the Hearers but not to satisfy their Reasons charming indeed their Senses whilst in the Theatre or the Temple but making them neither the better at home nor the wiser abroad 25. These Men as well as many of their modern Successors were fond enough of their own ridiculous Systems to count the things of God Foolishness because they did not agree with their precarious and sensual Notions because every Sentence was not wrapp'd up in Mystery and garnish'd with a Figure not considering that only false or trivial Matters need the Assistance of alluring Harangues to perplex or amuse But they were Enemies and Strangers to the Simplicity of Truth All their Study as we took notice lay in tickling the Passions of the People at their Pleasure with bombast Eloquence and apish Gesticulations They boasted their Talent of perswading for or against any thing And as he was esteem'd the best Orator that made the worst Cause appear the most equitable before the Judges so he was the best Philosopher that could get the wildest Paradox to pass for Demonstration They were only concern'd about their own Glory and Gain which they could not otherwise support but according to an Artifice that never fails and therefore ever practis'd by imposing upon the People with their Authority and Sophistry and under pretence of instructing dexterously detaining them in the grossest Ignorance 26. But the Scope of the Apostles was very different Piety towards God and the Peace of Mankind was their Gain and Christ and his Gospel their Glory they came not magnifying nor exalting themselves not imposing but declaring their Doctrine they did not confound and mislead but convince the Mind they were employ'd to dispel Ignorance to eradicate Superstition to propagate Truth and Reformation of Manners to preach Deliverance to Captives i. e. the Enjoyment of Christian Liberty to the Slaves of the Levitical and Pagan Priesthoods and to declare Salvation to repenting Sinners 27. I shall add here some of the Characters which David gives of the Law and Word of God that we may admit nothing as the Will of Heaven but what is agreeable to them The Law of the Lord says he is perfect converting the Soul The Testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the Simple The Statutes of the Lord are right rejoicing the Heart The Commandment of the Lord is pure enlightning the Eyes The Fear of the Lord is clean endâ—…ring for ever The Judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether I have more Understanding than all my Teachers for thy Testimonies are my Meditation I understand more than the Antients because I keep thy Precepts Thy Word is a Lamp unto my Feet and a Light unto my Path. The New Testament is so full of this Language and the Contents of it are every where so conformable to it that I shall refer the Reader to the particular Discussion of the Whole in the second Discourse But I must remark in the mean time that not a Syllable of this Language is true if any Contradictions seeming or real be admitted in Scripture As much may be said of Mysteries but we shall talk of that by and by CHAP. IV. Objections answer'd drawn from the Pravity of Humane REASON 28. THere remains one Obâ—…ection yet upon which some lay a mighty Stress tho it 's like to do them little Service Granting say they the GOSPEL to be as reasonable as you pretend yet corrupt and deprav'd Reason can neither discern nor receive Divine Verities Ay but that proves not Divine Verities to be contrary to sound Reason But they maintain that no Man's Reason is sound Wherefore I hope so to state this Question as to cut off all Occasion of Dispute from judicious and peaceable Men. Reason taken for the Principle of Discourse in us or more particularly for that Faculty every one has of judging of his Ideas according to their Agreement or Disagreement and so of loving what seems good unto him and hating what he thinks evil Reason I say in this Sense is whole and entire in every one whose Organs are not accidentally indispos'd 'T is from it that we are accounted Men and we could neither inform others nor receive Improvement our selves any more than Brutes without it 29. But if by Reason be understood a constant right Use of these Faculties viz. If a Man never judges but according to clear Perceptions desires nothing but what is truly good for him nor avoids but what is certainly evil Then I confess it is extreamly corrupt We are too prone to frame wrong Conceptions and as erroneous Judgments of things We generally covet what flatters our Senses without distinguishing noxious from innocent Pleasures and our Hatred is as partial We gratify our Bodies so much as to meditate little and think very grosly of spiritual or abstracted Matters We are apt to indulge our Inclinations which we term to follow Nature so that the natural Man that is he that gives the swing to his Appetites counts Divine Things mere Folly calls Religion a feverish Dream of superstitious Heads or a politick Trick invented by States-men to aw the credulous Vulgar For as they that walk after the Flesh mind the things thereof so their carnal Wisdom is Enmity against God Sin easily besets us There is a Law in our Members or Body warring against the Law of our Minds or Reason And when we would do Good Evil is present with us If thus we become stupid and unfit for earthly Speculations how shall we believe when we are told of heavenly things 30. But these Disorders are so far from being Reason that nothing can be more directly contrary to it We lie under no necessary Fate of sinning There is no Defect in our Unâ—…erstandings but those of our own Creation that is to say vicious Habits easily contracted but difficultly reform'd 'T is just with us as with the Drunkard whose I cannot give over Drinking is a deliberate I will not For upon a Wager or for a Reward he can forbear his Cups a Day a Month a Year according as the Consideration of the Value or Certainty of the expected Gain do's influence him Let