to do so I am as sure that once there were such persons as William the Conquerour and Henry the Eight and that there are or lately were such Cities as Rome and Constantinople as I am that Two and Two make Four or that the Whole is greater than the Parts 91. Firm Assent in matters in themselves mutable and of a contingent nature may be called Confidence but in matters of a necessary firm and immutable nature it is Science Infirm Assent or Assent with Dubitation is called Opinion Suspition is a beginning Assent or an inclination to believe a thing and is short of Opinion Suspition on grounds is called just suspition Suspition on no grounds is mere suspition Probability is appearance of Truth And ground of Suspition is Appearance of Probability Suspition is also called Presumption 92. Assent on Evidence by the testimony of our own Senses rightly circumstanced and conditioned is as firm as firm can be and is called Knowledge Assent to a thing upon anothers knowledge and not our own is called Belief To Believe is to take a thing upon anothers word and if that word be divine the belief is called Faith or if but humane it is called simply Belief or Credit Belief is grounded on the wisdom and veracity of the person believed for he that believes another believes him to have wisdom enough not to be imposed upon or deceived himself and Veracity or Truth which among men is called Honesty enough not to impose upon or to deceive him The Word of God therefore is the most proper object of belief God being so wise he cannot be deceived and so true he cannot deceive Notoreity of a thing of a fact is the certainty of it on Common Knowledge It is not Presumption nor Probability but Certainty 93. Assent to Falsity under the notion of Truth if it be firm is called Errour If infirm and with dubitation it is erroneous Opinion 94. Ratiocination Speculative is either Euretick or Hermeneutick Inventive or Interpretative and this latter again is either interpretative of the World the Book of Nature or of the Scriptures the Book of God But of these perhaps another time as also of the method of Reasoning which I called Practical and is either that of Prudence 1. Humane or 2. Christian or of Conscience Now on the whole Matter who seeth not the share and interest that Reason hath in matters of Religion Men are reasonable Creatures and therefore their Religion must be reasonable Every Tree must bring forth Fruit in its kinde Faith it self it is a rational Act If I have any reason to believe Men I have all reason to believe God and Ratiocination is as much imploy'd in points of Revelation as in points of mere Reason Truth is the immediate reason of Assent in matters of Revelation as well as in others and there is an Analogie of Faith as well as of Nature the Mediums are different but Ratiocination is the same in both We are as well obliged to compare Spiritual things with Spiritual in the one as Natural things with Natural in the other Thus are the Bereans applauded as persons of nobler and more generous Mindes than those of Thessalonica because they took not all on trust as these did but examined the things were told them and compared them with the Scriptures It is easie also to infer that if any person shall give himself the trouble of disproving what in my Apologie I presented to the World to do it to Conviction he must produce a frame and Scheme of Thoughts more Congruous and Harmonical than mine and must account for those Phaenomena which I therein essay'd to solve in a method more perspicuous and natural and with more agreeableness and uniformity of Notions than I have or else he will not Confute but confirm it I say this to shew the fairer play to those that undertake to answer me if after I have said it any shall resolve to do so and I say no more to shew the Opinion I yet avow to be mine of all the Objections whispered up and down that in themselves they have as little force and evidence and as little conviction as those that make them have yet had either Courage to own them to the world or Candour to own them to me Thus Sir I have performed what I principally designed I have shew'd the nature of Reason I have shewed the true method of Reasoning as also the nature of Truth and up and down my Discourse dispersedly the causes of Errour and I have shew'd the extent of Reason In which performance whatsoever other Incongruity or Errour I may have been guilty of sure I am I have committed none in dedicating it For to whom could I address a Discourse of Reason and of Truth more properly than to a Person who is so great a Lover and owner of both and withal who is so perfectly honoured as you are by all that have the happiness to know you But by none more than Sir Bowdon Aug. 14. 1677. Your most humble Servant and Son Richard Burthogge BOOKS Printed for and sold by Samuel Crouch in Popes-head-ally FEltham's Resolves Divine Moral Political with new Additions Clark's Martyrologie His Lives of the Fathers The Sabbath of Rest to be kept by the Saints here By N. Smith Master of Arts. Cole's English Dictionary Dr. Thomson's method of Curing His Epilogismi Chymici Sleepy spouse of Christ alarm'd in several Sermons By J. B. Recommended in a Preface by Mr. Nath. Vincent Purchasers Pattern much enlarged The English Tutor or the plain Path-way to the English Tongue with examples of most Words from one to six Syllables both in whole Words and also divided with Rules how to spell them by way of Question and Answers
and effective as the first By first and Second Notions I both understand Terms or Words and the Notions signified by them 27. So much for the Object of Apprehension which is Sense and Notion and for the Grounds of that Object which is Sentiment Now for the Affections of Apprehension if a good one and they are two namely Cleerness and Distinctness 28. Cleerness of Apprehension which is in the Minde the same that Cleerness of Seeing is in the Eye is opposed to Obscurity and Darkness and presupposes Light 29. Light is that which manifests and consequently Intellectual Light is that means whereby the Understanding comes to See and Apprehend its Objects or that which manifests them to it and is either Light of Revelation which is also called Light of Faith or Light of Nature which is also called Light of Reason where Reason is Appropriately taken and most strictly 30. The Light of Revelation is that Discovery or Manifestation God himself is pleased to make of things by his Spirit and is chiefly in the Holy Scriptures The Light of Nature is All other Light whatever but that of Revelation whereby we See and Apprehend things and is that we have by Sense and Discourse 31. Some things there are that may be seen in both Lights in that of Nature and that of Revelation though more cleerly in the latter than in the former as that God is Good and that he is the Maker and Conserver and supreme Director of All things Other things are onely to be seen in the Light of Revelation being of a nature not to be discovered but in and by it as the Mysteries of Christian Religion the Doctrine of the Trinity the Incarnation of God c. 32. The Lights of Faith and Nature of Revelation and Reason though they be not the same yet are not contrary I mean that what is shewn or seen to be true in one Light can never be shewn or seen to be false in the other What is Apprehended by Sense rightly circumstanced and condition'd to be This or to be That or else by Reason rightly acting to be so or so it is never contradicted by Revelation Things are nothing to a man but as they stand in his Analogie for him to believe against his Faculties is to believe a Contradiction If in the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper the Elements first and last are Bread and Wine to Sense and to Reason judging according to Sense I cannot hold my self obliged by any Revelation to believe them Flesh and Blood but in a Notion consistent with the judgment Sense and Reason make of them that is not flesh and blood substantially but sacramentally not flesh and blood really but only by signification Else Truth might be Incongruity Inconsistency Transubstantiation is to me a Mystery I am so far from making truth of it that I cannot make any sense of it I might as well believe that two and two make not four or three and three six as that it is not Bread or Wine which to my Eye my Taste my Touch in a word which being an Object of Sense to all Examinations of my Sense is so What is against Sense is against Knowledge 33. An Object onely to be seen by the Light of Faith may be said to be seen by Reason above Reason by Reason assisted with the Light of Revelation above Reason not so assisted but acting onely by the Aids of Nature but still it is Reason sees in both As I can see an Object with a Tube that with my naked and unarmed Eye I cannot or see in the Sun-light an Object that I cannot by Moon-light but still it is the Eye that sees in both the Organ is the same although the Lights be not It is the same Reason and Understanding the same Faculty that sees in the Light of Revelation as it is that sees by the Light of Nature and the same that Argues and Discourses in the one as by the other 34. The great Designe of God in all the Doctrines and even in the highest and most sublime Mysteries of our Religion is to affect the hearts of men and therefore as 1. He represents and reveals them in first Notions so 2. He also doth it in sensible and comparative ones and usually 3. He representeth one thing by many Notions 1. To make it more Affective and withal 2. to signifie that no one Notion he represents the thing in is adequate and just to it Thus he represents the great Mystery of our Union unto Christ and our Communion with him by that between the Vine and Branches between the Husband and Wife between the Head and Members As also the great work of Conversion that passes upon Men in the change he makes on them from their Darkness into his most marvellous Light He compares it to Generation to Adoption to Creation In fine the New Covenant is not only stiled a Covenant but also a Testament and a Promise All which resembling and comparative expressions may and ought to be employed and used for the apprehending of the things they are designed to signifie and the making of them more affective but neither of them so to be insisted on as if it were adequate or just 35. The Light of Faith and Revelation must not be confounded with that of Reason and Nature I mean we ought not to consider points of mere Revelation in the light of mere natural Reason Spiritual things cannot be discern'd but spiritually and therefore must not be compared but with Spirituals In Points of mere Revelation we ought entirely to confine our selves to the Notions Comparisons Similitudes and Representations God himself hath made of them without pretending to be wise above what is written and to say or understand just how in themselves the things are abstractly from the Dresses Revelation puts them in 36. He that pretends to understand the Mysteries of Christian Religion or any Point of meer Revelation stript of those Notions Resemblances and Comparisons when they be not revealed or discovered but in them as he looketh not on these things in the Light of Faith and Revelation but in that of Reason or Nature so not looking on them in their own Genuine and Proper Light no wonder if he either erre or trifle about them 37. Justly liable to this Reproof I judge them that are not content to think and speak of God the proper Object as well as Author of Revelation in that manner that he speaks of himself who Reveals himself to us men in Analogous and Comparative Notions not in such as adequate and adjust him but such as do proportion and suit with us as if he had an Understanding Will and Affections and did purpose Ends and elected Means to compass them did consult and decree and were touched with the Affections of Joy Grief Love Hatred Anger Revenge c. 38. They that tell us that he is not angry that Revenge is an Imperfection not to be imputed to him and
pretend to tell us just what 's meant by it they might as well tell us that he doth not love nor hate that he doth not propose Ends to himself nor designe Means that he doth not consult nor decree that he hath no Providence no Foresight there being Imperfection in all those Notions and yet without them and the like you can nor Think nor Speak of God Abstract the Deity from these and other Comparative Notions Notions of Him which are not in Him and yet wherein He pleases to Reveal Himself and you will soon make Him such an one as Epicurus fanci'd an Infinite Excellency but unknown not concerned nor concerning of Himself with things below Him 39. It seems to me that he that would abstract God or any matter of Religion from the Notions or Comparisons which He or That is represented in would do like one that would consider the World onely in its Realities of Matter Figure Texture and Motion abstractly from those Phaenomena and Appearances occasion'd by them in our Senses and Mindes And if the latter may be thought to have but an Empty Dry and Barren Notion of the World the former would not have a much better of God whom now we cannot know as He is or of any Subject of Revelation that should so consider it 40. Whoever well attends will finde that all the Notions under which we apprehend God are Notions of Him like those we have of the World not as He is in Himself for so we know him not but as He stands in our Analogy and in that of the World which Notions are very fitly stiled Attributes not Accidents as not speaking things Inherent Really in Him but things ascribed by the Minde or attributed to Him as Colours which but in the Eye are yet ascribed to the Object and Sounds that indeed exist but in the Ear are attributed to the Air For we regarding God in that Relation that He bears to the world and to our selves and so considering Him have excited in us such Notions by the impressions the things we look on and God himself as interested in them make upon us The Attributes of God are but as so many Aspects Much Obscurity and many Errours in forming Notions about God and his Attributes are owing to an Unacquaintance with this Truth 41. Having spoken of Clearness of Apprehension and of the Lights that make it I will onely adde a Consideration which though obvious enough is not reflected on as it should namely that the Lights are gradual even that of Revelation and that all things are not equally clear in them so that we ought to put a difference as between Philosophical and Theological Points and Points unrevealed and revealed so in those revealed between Fundamental Points which are but few and plain and Superstructures upon them between what is in Scripture in express Terms and what is there but by Consequence and in Consequences between those that are immediate and next to Principles and those that are remote and further off As there are weighty Points of the Law so there are Tythe-mint Anise and Cummin he that makes no difference takes not his measures by Jesus Christ's As it is inept and foolish so it is inhumane and bloudy not to distinguish Errours from Heresies Heresie in Religion is as Treason in the Law a subversion of Fundamentals and it must be plainly and directly so and not by Consequences and far-fetcht Deductions For Heresie it must be eradicated but as for Errours he that is exempt from them let him throw the first stone at the guilty But this is not intended as a Plea for Errour God forbid but for Humanity 42. I proceed to the second Affection of Apprehension which is Distinctness And to apprehend a thing distinctly is to form such a Notion and Conception of it and to have such a sence as doth distinguish it from all things else 43. Distinctness of Apprehension is acquir'd by Distinction and by Definition Distinction as I take it is of Words Definition of Things To make a Distinction is when a Word hath many Significations to determine fix or define the Sence it is taken or us'd in and by certain Marks and Tokens to distinguish it and circumscribe it from all the others it hath Definitions of things are properly Descriptions To describe is to notifie mark and represent a thing in and by its Attributes that is according to the impressions that it makes upon our Faculties and Conceptions it occasions in them Essential Definitions are Non-sence Things are not Explicable but as they are to us in our Faculties 44. The more particularly any thing is marked the more distinct is the knowledge we have of that thing 45. Most Errours in Divinity as well as in Philosophy owe their being to confused Apprehensions and confused Apprehensions their 's to the Ambiguity of words and the uncertainty of their Signification He that uses words of many Significations without distinctly marking them and without particularly noting what Sence he takes the word in when he uses it may easily be apprehended to take it sometimes in one Sence sometimes in another that is to take one Sence for another and he that takes one Sence of a word for another mistakes and confounds things To confound things is to take one for another Confusion of things comes from Ambiguity of words A Word in one of its Sences may belong to a thing when in all it cannot 46. Caution Take heed of being abused with the Agreement of Words into a belief of answerable Agreement in Things 47. Direction To avoid confusion of Apprehension the best way is to look beyond the words we hear or read or have in our mindes unto their Sences and Meanings for Words may be uncertain and equivocal whereas Sence and Notion is not so but certain and fixt 48. Having treated of Apprehension in the general of its Object and of its two Affections Clearness and Distinctness it remaineth to speak of those Conditions which are requisite to the forming of a clear and distinct Apprehension and they are four a Due Illumination or Illustration of the Object a Right Disposition of the Faculty a Due Distance from the Object and a Due Attention to it The same Conditions in Apprehension as in Vision 49. A Due Illumination of the Object by which I mean here but Perspicuity of Expression a Representation of things unto the Minde in plain apt and significant Words and in a plain and instructive order and method Plainness of Expression and Method is the Light of a Discourse he that uses it is Didactical apt to teach but he that will clearly and methodically express his Thoughts to others must first conceive them so himself so that here I might say over again what I have already about Clearness and Distinctness of Apprehension 50. A Right Disposition of the Faculty a Right Temper of Mind Rectitude of Minde consists in a full and perfect Exemption of it from all