they thus to cease on a sudden if it were not from the design of Providence to make that event give Testimony both to Jesus and his Revelation To Jesus that he was one who had Power over the Devil and to his Revelation That it was Plenary and Consummate so that for the future Men needed not seek any farther to learn what is the full and acceptable and perfect Will of God When the Deist confirms his prejudice against the Christian Revelation from this Argument That all Religions do equally pretend to the fame Original that is to come from God I allow that Reason has Here a proper Province Let it therefore be call'd in Let Reason enquire and then Judge and say whether there is any other Religion so worthy of God as the Christian is Whether there is any whose Doctrines are so convincing And whose Miracles are so Demonstrative Nay whether ever there was any thing of Human Faith that came so attested as our Religion does and fail'd of Belief in the World And what singular Perversness is it then that this should not be believed Let any one say especially How the Gospel Truth that asserted it self so effectually in its beginning at that time when any possibility of fraud could best have been discover'd after it had asserted it self against all the Malice of Satan and the Opposition of all Worldly Powers can after 1600 Years be given up as a Fiction or be affected with any such discredit from the perfidiousness of a company of bold and loose and weak Deserters Let any one reflect upon theseConsiderations and he shall find that the Deists Opinion runs them upon a multitude of Absurdities besides all the fatal mischief of it's unconsidered Consequences The several Religions received among the Gentiles were so full of gross Superstitions and palpable Errors that many particular Men among those Gentiles of sounder Judgments and better Spirits than the common were scandalized at their Religions and had them in Contempt So that altho' for Decency's sake and Submission to the Laws they gave occasional countenance to the vulgar Rites of Worship Yet their private Religion consisted in forming to themselves a more rational Notion of God abstracted from all the received Idols And the Worship they deemed most suitable to such a God was placed in following Reason and reverencing their Consciences and cultivating their Minds in the study of Knowledge and Practice of Virtue And these were such as among the Greeks they first call'd Philosophers They whom we modernly call Deists are the Apes of those Philosophers and that they may be thought like them set up to treat Christian Religion with the same Contempt as those did the Vulgar Heathen But as it is observ'd of the Ape that altho' of all Creatures it most resembles Man yet it is the ugliest of all Creatures because the Honour of that resemblance is abated by many ridiculous Deficiencies So we may say of the Deists that they are the most absurd and foolish of Men because they Ape the wise under such great difference of Circumstances and such great deficiencies of Purpose For the Philosophers were such as in the Night of Gentile Darkness set up their Candle so Solomon calls the Spirit of Man The Candle of the Lord they strictly attended the improvement of their Minds and so set up their Candle and walked commendably by the Light of it Now these Men were truly Wise none under their Circumstances could possibly be Wiser But on the contrary the Deists are such as at Noon-Day shut up their Windows and keep out the Sun and then set up their Candle and say that That is the most agreeable Light and the best Guide to their houshold Business Now what can be alledg'd for the Wisdom of These There have been some carried away with this phantastical and mistaken Admiration of the Philosophers Religion in former times of Christianity but they were rare as Monsters and so accounted of But they never grew Numerous and in heart till of late since they took their Growth and Apology from the Conduct of the Socinians The second Party I proposed to instance in II. The Conduct of the Socinians was this They own'd the Scriptures to be the Word of God but would not abide by the received Interpretation of that Word nor admit that Explication of the principal Doctrines therein contain'd which had been delivered down by the Universal Church but instead of this usurped a Liberty of Interpreting all a-new at their own discretion and to make them speak their own prejudicated Sense In conformity to this Design Socinus after he had form'd his new Scheme of Divinity to make it pass upon the World with all the Advantage he could Introduces his Exposition upon St. John with this Sentence Multa sunt profecto in quibus Christianus orbis adhuc caecutit fortasse plura quam quis vel credere vel etiam cogitare possit i. e. There are undoubtedly many Truths and perhaps more than any one can either believe or imagine in respect of which the whole Christian World has been hitherto quite Blind and Ignorant Which Sentence and several such like accompanying it makes it appear That never any Man more fill'd up each Member of that Character which our Saviour gives of the Pharisee viz. Of thinking well of himself and despising others than Socinus did For it implies that altho' the Scriptures were the Oracles of God yet they resembled those of the Gentiles in this That they were Dark and of a doubtful Sense and of no authoritative Interpretation and that hitherto they had been quite mistaken till such time as this new Illumination had been vouchsafed to himself Now since this Imagination past upon Socinus from his Caution of being impos'd upon by the former Interpreters of Scripture Let us consider how palpably he must have impos'd upon himself before this Imagination could take place If he believed it himself can any one else in Reason believe That the whole Christian World had been Blind down to his days and Ignorant in the most important Truths which it was reserved for his honour to Reveal So that the Light of the Word had not yet enlightned Mankind till his Comments had dispell'd the Cloud that lay upon it Can any one believe with Reason that all the Assertors of our Religion in the Primitive Ages Men Holy Studious Learned Signalized and Distinguish'd with all the Gifts of God both Gracious and Miraculous had yet none of that Knowledge of the Mind of God as might now be learnt at the feet of Socinus Can it appear agreeable to the Providence of God and his good Will for Human Salvation after he had required Faith to please him as well as Obedience and that Faith in Doctrines as well as in Promises yet to let 15 Centuries pass without making it commonly known what it was he required Men to believe Can it appear consistent with God's Promise to his Church That
erred concerning the Resurrection saying it was already past and no doubt but it was a start of Wisdom and Affectation of extraordinary Reach that first form'd this into a Heresie For Example Some of the Heathen Philosophers who were grown to dress up their Doctrines for Ostentation and not so much to instruct as to surprize and make themselves admired Had pronounc'd of Vertue That it was a sufficient Reward to it self and that a good Man was Happy enough in being Good and leading a Life according to Reason altho' there were no Expectations of a future Recompense Whereupon some Christian Proselytes pleasing themselves with the vain Glory of this Notion adopted it into Christianity and held that it was a Poor and Mercenary thing to practise Godliness for the Expectation of another World And that therefore altho' God had in the Gospel declared a Resurrection yet this Resurrection was to be understood in a Figurative and Moral Sense i. e. to import no more than a rising from the State of Sin to the State of Righteousness And that the Christian Vertue would then be more glorious and more worthy of God when it shall appear that he obeys for God's sake rather than for his own Thus those of the Anti-Anastasie were pleased by dint of Wisdom to void the Promises of Heaven which wild Conclusion we may wonder at the less since the wise Socinians have at this day with no less contradiction to Scripture been pleased to void the Threatnings of Hell We are told of another Sect in that Age who erred concerning the Condition of the Gospel-Covenant Resting upon a naked Faith as the entire Qualification and thereby voiding the Law vilifying Obedience and turning the Grace of God into Wantonness One would not think indeed that Wisdom could have much of pretence towards this Project and yet it had The Antinomians alledg'd That whereas it was the peculiarGlory of God to be infinitely Merciful and the Glory of Christ's Satisfaction to be infinitely Valuable The more Guilt Men had the more abundant opportunity they gave to God to discover the Riches of his Pardon and the more Men were in Debt the greater appeared to be both the Value of their Ransom and the Credit of their Redeemer No doubt but this Arguing seemed Wise to them that used it And at least we have this to alledge for the support of its pretence That the Antinomians were not more extravagant in asserting that Christ's Satisfaction was sufficient to save without the care of Good Living than the Socinians are in asserting that the Care of Good Living is sufficient to save without the Satisfaction of Christ For so their Scheme runs That Christ neither made nor intended any Satisfaction at all and yet every Impartial Man may convince himself That it is not more evident in Scripture That God requires us to be Holy than that Christ shed his Blood for our Redemption Redemption I say not in the Exemplary but in the Expiatory Sense We have another Mass of Heretical Corruption spoken of by our Apostle 2 Thess. 2. not indeed as then reigning but rather foretold as that it should reign through occasion of a Certain Man of Sin sitting as God in the Temple of God Even The Papists allowing that the Scene of this grand Corruption of Faith is Rome and we may without prejudice affirm it to be Popery it self Now to see how Wisdom has contributed to bring this Mass of abuses into that Church Let us but consider this single One which we may look upon as the most Charactistical viz. The setting up of a Human Infallible Guide Whereby every Bishop of that See seems to effect the pretence of Montanus and would be held for a Holy Ghost Incarnate And what can come nearer to one sitting as God in the Temple of God What hand Wisdom had in hatching this Conceit we may learn from the wisest of that Communion when they alledge that the Belief of This is the sure and onely Method to end all Controversies and establish that Peace and Union which all good Christians desire And as for the Means made use of to bring this Conceit into Credit they have carried in them the most pompous Semblance of Wisdom Imaginable While its particular Champions the Jesuits the Artificial Petavius and others have contriv'd with elaborate Pains and Study to weaken the Authority of the Scriptures as being of Uncertain Interpretation and of Uncertain Reception and to puzzle the Sense of all the distinguishing Articles of Christianity by alledging the Opposition of Hereticks and the difference of Conciliary Decrees and by raking up all the Dissonancies of Expressions that are to be met with in the Writings of the Ancients As indeed how can the same Truth be delivered without Dissonancies of Expression supposing it to be delivered upon different Occasions and for different Respects Let the Expressions of St. Paul and St. James upon the Article of Justification pass for an Instance of Appeal In the mean time the Wisdom of the Church of Rome thought fit to do all this Insidiously and with purpose to Deceive so they might serve this Important End viz. To make Christians believe that they must needs be bewildred while they were under such an unstable Conduct as that of the Scriptures Councils and Fathers and therefore to conclude themselves obliged to repair to the standing Infallible Guide Ask the Socinians themselves Whether there were not admirable Wisdom in this Contrivance For even they themselves make use of the same Means and borrow their boasted Armes of Learning from the Jesuit's Shop not indeed to the same End in Form but to the same in Mischief Not to establish the Pope for an Infallible Guide but to establish Reason for an Infallible Guide which in effect is to set up as many Popes in the World as there are Men of an assuming Imagination What I have said hitherto has been in order to evince the Truth of my first Proposition viz. That Wisdom is a dangerous Guide in Matters of Religion I offer'd a Second viz. That God has vouchsafed Faith as a necessary Expedient both to make and to keep Men Wise Which I reserve for the Subject of another Discourse SERMON II. ROM i. 22. Professing themselves to be Wise they became Fools FRom these Words consider'd together with their Occasion I have before inferr'd these Two Heads of Discourse I. That Human Wisdom or Reason is a dangerous Guide in Matters of Religion And this I have proved already by shewing How strangely Wisdom has fail'd in all her Conduct about such Matters The Second is II. That God has ordained Faith as a Necessary Expedient both to Make and to Keep Men Wise. The Proof whereof I am now to pursue I suppose there is no Man in the World of what Perswasion soever but will be ready to grant That what God vouchsafes to reveal must be abler to make us Wise than what we can conceive of our selves Nor in
consequence will any deny That Faith to what is Revealed is a Due which we owe not only to God for the Honour of his Truth but likewise to our selves for the sake of our safe Conduct And therefore there is like to be no Dispute whether Faith in general can make Men Wise The Dispute is only upon this Point What kind of Faith in particular it must be that makes Men Wise And we shall find that the Judgment of Mankind lies under a common Prejudice against what is true in reference to this Point For we may observe it to obtain in the World That the Faith adapted to make a Wise Man must be a Cautious and Reserved Faith because all Forwardness in Believing exposes Men to be deceived And yet in Holy Scripture we are taught clean contrary That God is only pleased with an Humble and Ready Faith and every Abatement of Forwardness is a Diminution of its Value Our Saviour in his Walk to Emmaus calls his Disciples Fools because they were slow of Heart to Believe And soon after he tells Thomas That the Tardiness of his Faith had robb'd it of its Blessing For Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed And because I am falln upon the mention of this Apostle I will choose to insist a little upon his Character which may serve both for an Example and an Illustration of the matter I am upon Thomas as far as we may learn by all the mentions made of him in Holy Writ was a Man Bold in Reasoning and extreamly Nice in Believing Which is a Character that by the standard of the present Age has Licence to pass for an Indication of Wisdom Joh. 14. 2 3 4. We have a Passage of Discourse wherein this Apostle was wholly concern'd There our Saviour says very obligingly to those about him In my Father's House are many Mansions I go to prepare a place for you And whither I go you know and the way you know To this obliging Declaration Thomas answers very peremptorily Lord we know not whither thou goest and how should we know the Way We see the Answer is directly contradicting to that which our Saviour alledged and yet no doubt but the Apostle thought himself to have Reason on his side for making such an Answer Let us imagine what that Reason might be 'T is possible he might form his arguing on this manner Lord Thou sayest Thou art going to thy Father's House to provide Mansions for us Now we know thy Father's House according to natural Generation is that of Joseph and Mary in which many Mansions are not to be had But if thou meanest a Father by any other kind of Generation or any other Inheritance which thou hast a Title to recommend us to This is what we do not understand and what we do not understand it is impossible for us to Believe And therefore say to us something that we may believe or in the mean time permit us to be Incredulous and to say We know not whither thou goest If I have in this Form Argu'd any thing contrary to the Sentiments of the Apostle I have whereof to Retract in reverence to his subsequent better Understanding But I fear I have said nothing that the present Age will require me to Apologize for Because they who set up for a leading Genius please themselves to argue in the very same Method to justifie a like Incredulity Thus runs the common Argument We cannot believe what we please we must comprehend both the Matter and its Credibility or else it were Rash and Foolish to believe it Joh. 11. We have another Passage wherein Thomas was wholly concern'd There verse 14. our Saviour says to his Disciples Our Friend Lazarus is Dead and I am glad for your sakes that I was not there to the intent you may believe This we see our Saviour urged expresly for an Encouragment of their Faith and yet Thomas his Reasoning turned it immediately into an Argument of Distrust As is apparent from what he said to his Fellow Disciples upon this Occasion verse 16. Let us also go That we may Dye with him The Key of his meaning in this Sentence we may take from the Narration in the beginning of the Chapter Where 't is sai'd That our Saviour being then in Galilee upon the News of Lazarus his Sickness proposed to go into Judea to visit him Whereupon the Disciples answer'd V. 8. Master the Jews of late sought to Stone thee and goest thou thither again Now this Thought made a deep Impression upon the wary Imagination of Thomas and therefore when he saw his Master resolved to go he wound up all into this sort of Reasoning Despair Lazarus is Dead and all his Pains and Fears are over and better it were for us if ours were so too The Jews Malice is bent upon the Destruction of us all and if our Master could not save his principal Friend from Death what hopes is there of his saving us Let us go then and meet our Doom as patiently as we can This is the natural Paraphrase of what Thomas meant by that Sentence Let us also go that we may Die with him And altho' nothing could be more contrary to the Faith he ow'd his Master or more affronting to the importance of what he had then said yet still he lookt upon this as sound Reasoning And indeed it was as sound as any other Man's is and brought forth as good Fruits as any other Man's does when it once takes Licence to Scruple what it ought to believe The last mention of this Apostle is in the Instance of the Resurrection He had been told that our Saviour was Risen from the Dead and the truth of it had been attested to him by Evidences beyond Exception Several Companies who had seen him and converst with him several times to whom he had expos'd the sight and feeling of his Wounds to whom he had Expounded the Scriptures concerning himself with whom he had broken the Sacramental Bread and conferr'd on them the operative Benediction of Receive ye the Holy Ghost All these with all these convincing Tokens had told Thomas that Christ was Risen But yet Thomas in pure Wisdom would not believe He was also called Didymus says the Text And I think that Allegation how casual soever it may seem is Argumentative to my purpose viz. Thomas had a Greek Name as well as a Hebrew one which is a probable Argument that he had had a Conversation with the Greeks and perhaps had learnt from them That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Have a care of being Credulous was the grand Advice of one of their Sages and thereupon he resolved not to believe without farther Conviction than all this And no doubt but he conceiv'd Reason to be on his side for all this Behaviour Reason suggested that a wise Man ought to be cautious to the utmost least he be impos'd upon Reason suggested that when he had his Choice of several
his Spirit should lead them into all Truth and yet for such a Tract of time the whole multitude of Christians should account it impious to believe That which now the Polish Catechism says It is damnable not to believe when it is propos'd So that if Christians were saved before that time in the Common Faith it was from the Apology of their Ignorance as their Ignorance was because they had not a Socinus to instruct them Say rather why the Deists may not as colourably Reject the Scriptures as the Socinians Own them with so many contradictions to God's Truth and Goodness In due Reverence to both these Attributes of God we are obliged to affirm that the Sense as well as the Letter of the Scripture in all Matters necessary either to be done or believed hath been the Depositum of the Church and Faithfully Preserv'd under it's Keeping That the whole Faith which as the Apostle says was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at once delivered unto the Saints had at the same time its Meaning delivered which from them has been derived by indubitable Testimony as the Matter of our uniform Belief That the different Opinions Sects and Factions in the World are no Argument against This Because as St. Peter has warn'd us They who diversifie the Common Faith do not Interpret but Wrest the Scriptures and as St. Paul has observ'd Divisions and Heresies spring not from Ignorance but from Carnality not from want of Light but want of Love Pride and Envy and Contention and Vanity and such contrarious Passions have in all Ages not been at a Loss for Truth but have been contriving and setting up somewhat they liked better And let us see in the next place what it was that the particular Affections of Socinus liked better than the received Interpretations He and his Party are pleas'd to take offence that there are any Mysteries in Religion They will have nothing for the Object of our Faith but what is plain to our Understanding and easy to our apprehension and altho' they will not affirm that Reason has the Measure of what is or what may be yet they resolve Reason to have the Measure of what ought to be believed Which I think is Absurdity sufficient They conclude thereupon that the Doctrine of the Incarnation that is of God Taking our Flesh and dwelling among us must not be believed because it is Irrational And as for the Doctrine of the Trinity it would be offensive to pious Ears to repeat those expressions of Reproach with which they load it They say that these Doctrines do justly scandalize Jews and Turks and hinder them from coming in to our Religion But as it is no Office of Civility to complement away our Faith so neither is it any Office of Charity in the Socinians to go off from the Foundation to meet Jews and Turks and to turn Half-Infidels that They may turn Half-Christians But after all when by the grossest wresting of Words and abuse of plain Sense they have shewed themselves as much Friends to Fancy as they are Enemies to Faith after that they have interpreted all Mysteries out of Religion and so made their new Hypothesis familiar and inoffensive and therefore Credible as they would have us imagine We must pronounce upon it what Minucius sometimes did in the like Case In Incredibili Verum in Credibili Mendacium Truth still lies on the Incredible and Falshood on the Credible side And to justifie this Censure let us confider That the Mystery of any thing or what is all one The Abstruse or Incomprehensible Nature of any thing is no Argument against our believing it This is a Rule I am sure that holds true in Nature and then with what Face can we deny it to hold true in Religion We surrender our Faith to the state of all Visible things without comprehending them and what Obstinacy is it then to refuse our Faith to the Things of God under the same Condition It would be an affront and calumny to Nature to affirm that Those things which are before us those Works of God which lie every Moment under our Senses are simply Credible that is such as our Reason would Perswade us could be if we had not seen them to be How short is our Plummet from Fathoming the Essence Mode Powers Operations Productions of the most common Beings Undoubtedly had we the Knowledge of this World we live in as we have that of its Maker only from a Book I say had we the Knowledge of this World we live in only from a Book we should be Tempted to treat that Book with as little Reverence as the Socinians or Deists have done the Holy Scriptures And conclude that most of the things that are in it were as Incomprehensible Impossible and therefore Incredible as they fancy any thing to be that God has revealed concerning himself Let me produce an Instance or two and those out of the Holy Scriptures to inculcate by the way That the Philosophical Truths we meet with there are Venerable as well as the Divine In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth says the Sacred History Where the Word Created is interpreted by all to mean That God made the World without any Pre-existent Matter to make it of Now this Production of the World we believe from the Authority of the Report and likewise because of the Absurdities that necessarily follow from the Supposal of the contrary And yet Human Reason could never form any Idea whereby to conceive the Possibility of such a Production And let any one say whether it be harder to believe That the Divine Essence did from everlasting emanate or flow into Three Social and Co-eternal Subsistences than to believe That in the Beginning of Time All things were made out of Nothing Or whether-Reason has more Arguments to plead for the One than for the Other Holy Job to exemplifie the Power of God pitches upon this Instance ch 26. 7. He hangeth the Earth upon Nothing or as his Expression points elsewhere He maketh it stand firm without a Foundation Now when we find it impossible for the utmost Art of Man to make a small Clod of Earth hang in the Air It is naturally Impossible for Man to conceive how the whole Mass should hang in the Air T is true when we see how things are we Pride our selves in assigning of Reasons why they must be so but all fall short of solving the Difficulty Center or Magnetism or whatever Notions have been espoused will not Solve it in the present Instance No Cause could make the Earth hang upon Nothing but the Omnipotence of that Will that ordered it to be so Nor could we ever believe it but from a Submission of our Faith to that Omnipotence Or from a Submission to our Senses even while they control and muzzle the Reluctancy of our Reason For another Instance of the Incomprehensible Works of God The Sea is alledg'd in the same Book cap.
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