of fancy or conception His actions and understanding must needs as much transcend ours as does his essence His ways are not as our ways nor his thoughts as our thoughts Isa. lv 8. 2. This Hypothesis of theirs that nothing is or ought to be believ'd but what is cleared up to the understanding by the evidence of the things themselves does wholly take away the Blessedness and Rewardableness annext to Faith One necessary condition to make any action capable of reward or commendation is that it flow from a principle of liberty and herein man who is endowed with reason the only true foundation of it has the preeminence above all other creatures that act only by instinct or the force of appetite or by necessity of Nature He becomes hereby as it were Lord of himself and can act or not act according as he is guided by counsel and rational motives or meerly as it pleaseth him and according either to the right or ill use of this liberty he is to be judg'd whether he has deserved well or no. That Chrystals shoot out into curious and exactly regular figures that the flakes of Snow are Hexagonal and ten thousand other Rarities of Nature are not to the commendation of the things themselves They shew admirably the wisdom of the first contriver of them the Artist not the Pendulum is praised though it measures time so exactly and performs all its various motions without any interruption or inequality because this necesssarily arises from a due proportion of weights and wheels and from a just adaptation of the several parts of it 't is the perfection of a man that he acts freely and consequently that he is virtuous out of choice notwithstanding all the allurements and inclinations of sense And the like is to be said of the several assents of the mind if the truths of Religion were in themselves so clear and evident that we could not but assent whether we would or no if they could be prov'd by arguments deriv'd from sense or nature where then would be the blessedness of Faith our Saviour speaks of which belong to those who have not seen and yet have believed when we have a clear and distinct perception of a thing then we know it and he must be very stupid and very pertinacious that â—ill not submit to the truth and evidence and conviction of a demonstration How ridiculous would it be to raise a dispute and heap up arguments against clear evidence and pretend dissatisfaction in the midst of so great certainty as science affords If there were no difficulty in the notions where were that Obedience of Faith the Apostle St. Paul mentions where would be our submission and humility for a trial of which I am perswaded that many Mysteries are now proposed by God which hereafter as a reward of our Faith shall be more clearly made out to us and that this shall be one principal part of the glory that shall attend the blessed in the other world when we shall be divested of those circumstances that now hinder the exertions of Reason when our understandings shall be enlightned and our capacities enlarged and our thoughts heightened and exalted not that it is possible for the most refined and raised intellect ever to attain to a full and comprehensive knowledg of them for the Angels those glorious spirits who attend the throne and are continually in the presence of God humbly vail their faces and adore but that what we now know by Faith and Revelation only we shall have a somewhat clearer insight into and be as fully and satisfactorily convinced of as for instance that there is a Trinity of Persons in one undivided Essence as if we understood the manner of their several subsistences 3. It reflects upon the Wisdom and Power of God who may if he please propose these things to us and command us to believe them For that God may do this who can question or deny that we are as much obliged to give up our judgments and understandings as our wills to his will to assent to any speculation or truth of doctrine revealed by him as to any mode of instituted worship commanded by him or any precept of Morality and that I am not to object and throw in my little conjectures and probabilities because it is not altogether or in the least evident to my reason when the nature of the thing renders it impossible that it should or if it did not yet his command should be enough to force my assent now to fancy that nothing is or ought to be credible but what can be made out and cleared up to the understanding by the evidence of the things themselves destroyes this supposition which has its certainty from and is supported by several of the divine attributes The Wisdom and Power of God are both infinite and therefore he knows more and can do more than what we possibly can conceive otherwise we must equal our little knowledg which we chiefly derive from the images and representations of things in our minds and which every contemptible insect and vegetable is too big for with his and upon the same account we must fancy our power equal too which is the effect of an irrational pride and madness like that of the Apostate Angels and by consequence throw off our dependence upon him and deny to yield obedience to his laws because they do as much cross our vitious and corrupt inclinations as the Mysteries of our Faith do our narrow conceptions and sentiments An infinite understanding only can fully comprehend an infinite perfection such a proportion between the faculty and the object being altogether necessary for if it could be comprehended by a finite intellect it would immediately cease to be infinite How insufferable then is such an insolence How vain and foolish are such imaginations and every high thing as the Apostle speaks extravagant fancies and conceits that get into the brain that exalt themselves against the knowledg of God which ought to be captivated and made subject upon the highest Reason in the World to the obedience and doctrine of Christ which will appear by descending to the 2. Second Particular I proposed to make good that the Christian Religion requires us to believe its Mysteries upon such grounds as we cannot reject without doing violence to our faculties and consequently that the rejecting and disbelieving them must be unreasonable Now the grounds are chiefly these two 1. That we believe and admit the divine Revelations 2. That we yield obedience and submit our understandings and all the powers of our minds to the Will of God 1. That we believe and admit divine Revelations because God is of infinite veracity and to deceive is repugnant to the holiness of his Nature there is an utter impossibility in it Now if we repose so much trust and confidence in a friend because we have tried him and know that he is a man of great integrity and that he
A SERMON OF THE Credibility of the Mysteries OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION Preached before a LEARNED AUDIENCE By THO. SMITH Fellow of St. Mary Magdalen College in Oxon. LONDON Printed by Tho. Roycroft for Ric. Davis Bookseller in Oxford 1675. Imprimatur Sept. 7 h. 1674. C. Smith R. P. D. Episc Lond. à Sacris Domest Nobilissimo Viro D. ROBERTO BOYLE Verae ac Solidae Pietatis Summae eruditionis Instaurandae sanioris Philosophiae Optimè de literis tam Sacris quam Humanioribus merendi Famâ longè celeberrimo Magno aevi Exemplo Ornamento T. S. Hanc Concionem unà cum Appendice coram Academicis Oxoniensibus solenni S. Marci Evangelistae Festo In sacello Collegii B. Mariae Magdalenae Superiori anno habitam In debitae observantiae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lubens merito dedicat consecrátque ERRATA P. 7. l. 10. 〈◊〉 p. 15. l. 13. belief p. 17. l. 7. the ordin l. 23. ingenious p. 21. l. 24. for its read his p. 26. l. 10 revealed p. 28. l. 15. when p. 34. l. 14. belongs p. 42. l. 5. for I read we p. 45. l. 12 the onely p. 48. l. 24. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Appendix refers to Page 47. A SERMON Preached before a Learned Audience 1 TIM III. the former part of the 16. verse Without Controversie great is the Mystery of Godliness HOW much the Doctrine of Christianity tends to the improvement of Reason and Learning how it has brought into the World a better and more certain knowledg of God and of our selves how it has advanced the common notices of nature and has chased away with the clear evidences of its truth those thick shades of error that had darkned the understanding and has removed all those prejudices that were taken up from sense and a very partial and deceitful observation of things may be fully demonstrated by comparing the former estate of Mankind before the coming of Christ in the flesh with the present wherever it is received in its truth and power Men before were led by opinion and conjecture and fancy only as to matters of Religion and the concerns of another World They had fears upon them indeed of a divine justice that would revenge the violation of the law of nature either here or hereafter and a reflection upon the strange traverses and difficulties of life had taught them to expect another life after this but their eyes were dim however and they could not see far into futurity they could have no clear deductions of particular truths for want of a right knowledg of true and certain principles hence it was that they were so inconstant and wavering and knew not well where or what to fix on But Christ by his appearance and manifesting the will of God to us hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel and children and persons of an ordinary reach and capacity may now easily apprehend those things that is in reference to God and his attributes the misery we are in by sin the means of our recovery from this woful estate of life the immortality of the Soul and the like which before those great Philosophers notwithstanding all their vaunts and quests after learning notwithstanding they set up Schools and were ambitious to give names to Sects had but a very imperfect knowledg of But while these truths were received by those that were willing to be taught and to submit themselves to the dictates of reason and convictions of miracles which were added to give all possible satisfaction to the understanding others who were resolv'd before hand not to be convinced who had rather remain in their ignorance and idolatry and their sins then be converted to a new Religion and reduced to such strictness of life as that requires from their debaucheries and brutish pleasures who had rather fall down before a Statue or a Picture because their Fathers had done so before them and because it was the established Religion of their Country than acknowledg and adore a Crucified Saviour reject it upon the account of the Mysteries of Faith without ever examining the weight of the arguments that would have enforced them upon their belief They could not in the mean while but acknowledg the happy and glorious change that Christianity had wrought in the World how much it exceeds and goes beyond all the morality of the wisest and best Lawgivers and Founders of Republicks how it not only laies down rules for the right ordering of life but furnishes its votaries with a power to practise them not only shews us a way to walk in but takes us by the hand and leads us in it but the difficulties it seems that are to be met with in conceiving some of its mysteries offended them This was their pretence and their plea for their infidelity they would have demonstration for every thing they would be taught and convinced by Syllogism their Pride and their Self-conceit and the opinion they had of their own learning would not permit them to believe They made their understanding the measure of all truth and what did not suit with those narrow and low principles they had taken up was scornfully rejected by them The Jews saies the Apostle 1 Cor. 1. 22 23. require a Sign and the Greeks seek after Wisdom but we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness But how irrational was the demand of both for what greater sign could there be to the Jews than the fulfilling of all the Prophesies in the person of Christ even to the minute circumstances of his life and death and those mighty miracles that shewed forth themselves in him what greater wisdom could the Philosophers pretend to or desire than the wisdom of God in a mystery as it is called 1 Cor. 11. 7. than those clear discoveries of the divine nature and the essential perfections of the Godhead than the admirable contrivances of the redemption of mankind by the sufferings and death of Christ the Son of God than the ways and means of recovering the dignity of our nature and of living here like men and of living hereafter like Angels Such a wisdom as will not only gratifie our earnest desires and pursuits after knowledg but will make us happy too for ever Their weak and blear eyes could not endure such a great light that brake in upon them and therefore they were desirous to retire into the shade They could not fully conceive and comprehend them they seemed therefore foolish and impossible notions that were owing wholly to an ungovern'd imagination And hereupon they proceed to calumniate the Christians as a company of well-meaning and honest and good-natur'd but very simple and over-credulous people who took all things upon trust without enquiring into their truth and certainty for such were the slanderous accusations of Celsus Lucian and Hierocles and the rest of the learned enemies of the Christian Religion They
confirmed with their blood but do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to use the words of St. Polycarp in his Epistle to the Philippians that is by their fraudulent devices model the oracles of God according to their own fancies and lusts who set up a new Religion which the Catholick Church of Christ never knew or was acquainted with and endeavour to destroy the faith of Christianity and think in the mean while they have reason on their side for so doing and how far by their arts and subtilties and plausible insinuations by this their slight and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive for it is nothing else however blancht over and disguised with shews of sober reason they have prevail'd upon this Age is too sad to consider so that now it chiefly concerns us to secure the ground-work the principles of the doctrine of Christ and to oppose this growing evil to watch and stand fast in the faith and quit our selves like men and not to be like children carried away with every blast and wind of doctrine and especially of the vain doctrine of Socinus as it will appear when the varnish and false colours are washt of but to be establisht in the truth of the holy Gospel as the Church hath taught us to pray in the Collect of this anniversary of St. Mark To evince therefore the unreasonableness of their pretensions I shall endeavour in the following discourse to make out these two particulars 1. That the great mysteries of Religion cannot and ought not to be any way prejudicial to the truth of it 2. That the Christian Religion requires us to believe these mysteries upon such grounds as we cannot reject without doing violence to our faculties and consequently that the rejecting and disbelieving them must be unreasonable 1. The great mysteries of Religion cannot and ought not to be any way prejudicial to its truth They who find fault with Christianity for proposing such great mysteries to our beliefs and would have all things so plain and obvious that they should command and force assent should first trie their reason in solving the difficulties of nature and if notwithstanding all their labour and toil after the most accurate researches into the nature of sensible beings of things that we daily see and handle of things that seem to lie level with our understanding and are no way disproportionable to it they cannot pretend to a perfect knowledg of them if the ordinary operations of nature be so abstruse and unintelligible and these depths are not to be fathomed if her secrets are beyond the discovery of the most piercing judgment and reason Religion with greater reason must be allowed to have its mysteries there being such a vast disproportion between things relating to God and his nature and the things of the world The contemplation of nature is curious and useful it is a part of the service and worship we owe to God the Creatour to admire his wisdom and power in the beautiful frame and order of things which is best done by enquiring into their natures and properties into their powers and operations and qualities by examining the curious contexture and the fitness and usefulness of their parts and there is nothing in the whole universe but deserves to be considered and very much conduces to this end This is the business of Philosophy and what contemplative minds labour in the search of to discover and make out how things were at first made and are still continued in their being and to find out their peculiar virtues whereby they produce such a variety of effects and how they may be altered or improved for the farther use and benefit of mankind Nothing of which can be effected at least but very imperfectly and in a way scarce tolerable by acquiescing in general observations derived from weak and slight notices without descending to severe trials and experiments or by relying upon the principles of ordinary Philosophy that are confessedly unintelligible and which instead of explaining nature do but perplex and confound the understanding and which have nothing to maintain and keep up their credit but the authority of a name and the immoderate love of antiquity But whatever hypothesis we fix upon they who have the deepest insight into nature will be forced to confess they see but a little way and all that they can pretend to is but conjecture and probability that when they may seem to arrive at some satisfaction in the order and connexion of things it is very possible and likely that things may be made and exert their causalities otherwise than they suppose be their fancy never so ingenuous and their reason never so profound and strong for who will be so presumptuous as to limit either the wisdom or power of God that he can do no more or must do what they fancy that there are thousands of things that they cannot give any satisfactory account of and that the more they seek to comprehend the reason of things the more they are at a loss the more they are dissatisfied and the effect of their study is nothing but disorder and trouble of mind Now if we are convinced of the weakness and insufficiency of our reason in our ordinary speculations if it fails us when we attempt to give an account of our selves and the operation of our minds and when we have to do with plain matters of sense how unfit and unable must it be to comprehend and make out things that stand at that infinite distance from it to which it bears no proportion They may as well pretend that all these great difficulties and perplexities we meet with in the conceptions of things should be taken away that all men ought to be born compleat Philosophers and be inspir'd with the perfect knowledg of things which they cannot attain to after several years spent in labour and study that nothing should exist but what we can conceive and that the truth and possibility of things should not derive from the will and pleasure of God and from that Idea he has in his divine understanding but only take their measures and be judged by those narrow conceptions we borrow from sense Men are not to be disputed out of the belief of their senses that there is no such thing as motion or continuity of parts in extended matter because of the great difficulties that attend the conception of them and things are daily produced and by degrees arrive at the perfection of their being and perform actions suitable to their respective natures though Philosophers disagree in their opinions and are dissatisfied one with another and cannot tell how or in what manner they do all this 2. Thus Nature has its Mysteries and who will undertake to explain Secondly the Mysteries of Providence and account for all those extraordinary events which have hapned in all ages of the world O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and
is it in matter of Doctrine whatsoever is proposed by God becomes thereby immediately credible and my assent is rational and just though the thing be above my apprehension and this I must ascribe to the greatness of the object and the imperfections of my reason which neither is nor can pretend to be an arbiter and judge in such matters which are too high for it so that before a man can safely pronounce a doctrine that is revealed incredible and reject it as such he must question the power and veracity of God and maintain that nothing is possible but what we can comprehend and thus under a pretence of caution betray the greatest immodesty in the world when he himself believes several other things upon the bare testimony of men which neither his wit nor curiosity nor his reason can ever be able satisfactorily to make out and demonstrate 2. It is equally false that no Proposition ought to be believed but what may be cleared up to the understanding by the evidence of the things themselves The falseness of which assertion I shall fully evince in these three particulars by shewing 1. That it destroyes the nature Faith 2. It takes away the blessedness and rewardableness annext to it 3. It reflects on the Wisdom and Soveraignty of God who may if it pleases him propose such things to us and command us to believe them 1. It destroyes the nature of Faith To believe in general in the proper notion of it is to assent to things upon the discovery and attestation of others which are not evident and apparent of themselves that is when I have no demonstrative or sensible knowledg of things I admit and judge them to be true not because I either saw them and can assure my self of them by any of my other senses or because they are so evident to my reason that I must needs embrace them as a principle or conclusion in Philosophy but because I have received them from another who informs me and gives me this account of them for whose sake I assent to them as real and certain By which it is distinguished from science which is grounded upon the evidence and clearness of the apprehension of the respective propositions or objects when things are so plain that they do necessitate our assent as that the opposite members of a true and perfect contradiction cannot belong to the same thing at the same time that equals added to equals make equals that in a triangle three angles are always equal to two right angles and the like And the like assurance and certainty of knowledg is gained when we draw conclusions according to rule and the laws of method from first principles which are assented to assoon as they are proposed and the terms understood whence there is an immediate dependance and connexion of things and one thing naturally follows another Then we are said to know a thing when we can run it up to its first principles can trace its original and cause and understand its effects and operations This distinction being so just and natural to call for evidence and demonstration in things proposed to be believed is to confound different assents of the mind to turn Religion into Science to destroy the truth of History and Tradition and Revelation and to fall into Scepticism and doubt whether any thing be certain but what we see and can prove and represent by a Scheme and at last question whether our Sense and what we call our Reason do not deceive us or else which is the effect of a greater phrensie run our selves into this gross absurdity that we are as wise as God and that he can do no more than what our gross fancies will have him That then some of the grand articles of Religion are not so clear as Propositions in Metaphysicks or Theorems in Geometry or indeed are not clear at all cannot be objected against their credibility They are in themselves as certain and as infallible nay more certain and more infallible if infallibility may be supposed to admit of degrees but in reason it cannot be expected our knowledg of them should be as explicit and as clear Supernatural Truths are not cannot be determined or judged of by proofs derived from nature or sense they have proper proofs of their own as all other arts and sciences have To judge of these things therefore by our narrow conceptions is a most false and unwarrantable way of procedure and indeed it cannot seem strange that so much Error and Blasphemy and all that direful train of Heresies in matters relating to God and Religion which have so much disturb'd the peace of Christendome should spring from this one absurd and corrupt principle Hence it was also that Orpheus and the other Greek Poets have dressed up their Gods in the habit and figure of men and cloathed them with all the infirmities and passions incident to humane nature and hereby made way for all the debaucheries and superstitions that lust could possibly suggest or a troubled fancy invent They made use of no other faculty to judg of God but a gross imagination Epicurus upon this very slight pretence excluded God from having any thing to do in the ordering and governing of the world because he fancied this could not be done without anxiety and trouble like the due management of a great charge or employment which takes up ones whole time and requires contrivance and study and foresight to keep things in an equal poise to prevent disorders to apply remedies to the least inconveniences that otherwise might quickly grow and improve into a mischief and to secure all by an equal distribution of rewards and punishments forgetting that God's power is infinite and inexhaustible that his eyes reach from one end of the world to the other and see into the very essences of things that all things are at his absolute disposal and command that trouble only arises either from fear of success or when we are overwhelm'd with business or our strength is not proportionable or any way sufficient to sustain so great a weight Aetius presently rejects the eternal generation of the Son of God because this does not in all things agree with natural generations and because it cannot be so with men he impiously and dogmatically concludes it is an impossible notion and thinks he has reason for his blasphemy and peremptoriness by laying down seven and forty arguments for it as they are numbred and confuted by Epiphanius in his Panarium The same gross fancies have the Mahometans of this article of faith to this day who deride the Christians by asking impious questions concerning it and even in their Devotion renounce it with a great deal of earnestness with a far be it from thee what the Christians impute to thee as if man were the measure and standard of all things even of God himself who made him and who is of infinite perfection beyond the utmost reach
abhors the very thought of deceiving any one with the least falsehood and speaks exactly according to his knowledg without any reserved or secret meaning or equivocation or concealing part of the proposition in his mind that it may be otherwise understood than he intends it much more with all the readiness of submission of mind imaginable are we to receive whatever comes from God without the least demur or doubt or contradiction This an infinite and eternal rectitude does justly challenge from us for God may assoon deny his being as falsifie his word so that whoever goes about to question or disbelieve any thing that God has revealed will run himself upon one of these two gross and absurd impieties either doubt whether God himself has an exact and perfect knowledg of those things he has propos'd to our belief or whether he has been just and true to deliver what he knows It is a most rational conclusion of St. John 1 Epist. v. 10. he that believeth not God has made him a lyar No difficulty then can or ought to deter me from the belief of a thing if God has once revealed it nor can the mind of man possibly desire a greater satisfaction than this 2. That we yield obedience and submit our understandings and all the powers of our minds to the will of God for 1. That there are thousands of things de facto above our knowledg and conception cannot be deemed by any without the highest immodesty an unjust postulatum 2. That all or at least most of our knowledg deriving from sense the more things are freed and abstracted from the entanglements of gross matter the more difficult is the conception because they fall less under the examination of our senses from which we receive so great prejudices in our infancy and childhood which make that deep impression on our fancies that they are not easily to be removed 3. God by virtue of his absolute dominion and soveraignty may command us to assent to things above our reach and conception and knowledg Faith is not to choose its Object no more than a mans will can prescribe and set to him a Law because its whole and only power consists in the liberty of obeying or not obeying of a Law prescrib'd by a superiour Power Whatsoever Doctrine therefore is delivered and revealed by God becomes immediately credible by reason of the authority that does accompany it and enforce it upon us The Articles of Faith carry along with them sufficient motives of Credibility but then these motives must not be fetched from the nature of the things themselves as if they were to be so evident that our Reason might fully discover their connexion and dependance but from without that is my Faith is rightly grounded and an obligation lies upon me to believe what is proposed by God if it be evidenced so to be by just and rational proofs and if the authority be certain and infallible God therefore declaring his Will and confirming the Revelations he has made of it by his divine Power this latter is a sufficient proof and a just and rational ground of my Belief for how absurd would it be for any one because he cannot comprehend and make out a thing fully which in the nature of it and by reason of our weakness and incapacity is incomprehensible and which he ought to acknowledg to be such unless he will presume to measure Eternity and grasp Infinity with a span therefore to doubt of so plain a truth as this is that the divine Power cannot be made use of to confirm any Proposition but what is exactly true and certain so that this is not to forego our Reason as the Socinians plead for nothing is more agreeable to the principles of right Reason but to act according to it and therefore to say that we Believe I know not what if they mean that the objects of our Faith cannot be proved to exist with the same kinds of proofs as what is presented to our senses or as a propriety may be demonstrated of the subject of a speculative Science this cannot be any prejudice at all to our belief because in all Faith whether Humane or Divine there cannot be the same clearness and evidence but that there are such Objects of our Faith we are as certainly assured as if we had a particular demonstration of each Now that the Mysteries of Christianity are confirm'd by such an authority and therefore are to be believed by us and consequently that the Christian Religion requires our assent to no more than what is apparent to be God's Will we have this assurance that they were attested and made good by the miracles of our Saviour by these he proved his Commission to be deriv'd from Heaven This was the belief of the Jews in general both Learned and Unlearned Nicodemus was fully convinced of the truth and evidence of it Joh. iii. 2. Rabbi we know that thou art a Teacher come from God for no man can do those miracles that thou dost except God be with him In the case of the blind man who was restored to his sight the doubt was rational How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles Joh. ix 16. If this man were not of God he could do nothing v. 33. that is he could not do such things as are above the power of a meer Man which we see him do It was nothing but a most unjust prejudice to our Saviours Person and to the meanness of his Birth and Parentage arising from a false principle concerning the temporal Kingdom of the Messias through a misunderstanding of the Prophesies that made them against their Belief and Conscience reject the authority of so many evident and often repeated miracles and though they would not acknowledg him for their Messias that came in a way of humility and meekness so opposite to their humours and expectations who thought of nothing but triumphs and revenge yet they are forced to acknowledg that the Messias could not do greater and lastly our blessed Saviour appeals to miracles as to his credentials as being a most rational motive to work faith in the minds of the most scrupulous if ye believe not me believe the works that I do This then is a sufficient confirmation of our Saviours mission and of the doctrine He and the Apostles delivered from him and preach'd through the several parts of the World which they travelled and after put in writing for the benefit and greater satisfaction of all succeeding Generations Nor are we now at this great distance of time to call for new signs from Heaven or to desire a farther confirmation of what hath been received so universally for so many successions of Ages The holy Scriptures are the authentick Registers of the Doctrine and Revelations of God and that I may add this by the way were they but of humane authority they deserved not to be drolled upon but to be treated with an equal if