our Knowledge that God revealed it which in this Case where the Proposition suppos'd reveal'd contradicts our Knowledge or Reason will always have this Objection hanging to it viz. that we cannot tell how to conceive that to come from GOD the bountiful Author of our Being which if received for true must overturn all our Principles and Foundations of Knowledge render all our Faculties useless wholly destroy the most excellent part of his Workmanship our Understandings and put a Man in a Condition wherein he will have less Light less Conduct than the Beast that perisheth For if the Mind of Man can never have a clearer and perhaps not so clear an Evidence of any thing to be a divine Revelation as it has of the Principles of its own Reason it can never have a ground to quit the clear Evidence of its Reason to give place to a Proposition whose Revelation has not a greater Evidence § 6. Thus far a Man has use of Reason and ought to hearken to it even in immediate and original Revelation where it is supposedly made to himself But to all those who pretend not to immediate Revelation but are required to pay Obedience and to receive the Truths revealed to others which by the Tradition of Writings or Word of Mouth are conveyed down to them Reason has a great deal more to do and is that only which can induce us to receive them For Matter of Faith being only Divine Revelation and nothing else Faith as we use the Word called commonly Divine Faith has to do with no Propositions but those which are supposed to be divinely revealed So that I do not see how those who make Revelation alone the sole Object of Faith can say that it is a Matter of Faith and not of Reason to believe that such or such a Proposition to be found in such or such a Book is of Divine Inspiration unless it be revealed that that Proposition or all in that Book was communicated by Divine Inspiration Without such a Revelation the believing or not believing that Proposition or Book to be of Divine Authority can never be Matter of Faith but Matter of Reason and such as I must come to an Assent to only by the use of my Reason which can never require or enable me to believe that which is contrary to it self it being impossible for Reason ever to procure any Assent to that which to it self appears unreasonable In all Things therefore where we have clear Evidence from our Ideas and those Principles of Knowledge I have above mentioned Reason is the proper Judge and Revelation though it may in consenting with it confirm its Dictates yet cannot in such Cases invalidate its Decrees Nor can we be obliged where we have the clear and evident Sentence of Reason to quit it for the contrary Opinion under a Pretence that it is Matter of Faith § 7. But Thirdly There being many Things wherein we have very imperfect Notions or none at all and other Things of whose past present or future Existence by the natural Use of our Faculties we can have no Knowledge at all these as being beyond the Discovery of our natural Faculties and above Reason are when revealed the proper Matter of Faith Thus that part of the Angels rebelled against GOD and thereby lost their first happy State And that the Bodies of Men shall rise and live again These and the like being beyond the Discovery of Reason are purely Matters of Faith with which Reason has directly nothing to do § 8. But since all Things that are under the Character of Divine Revelation are esteemed Matter of Faith and there are amongst them several Things that fall under the Examen of Reason and are such as we could judge of by our natural Faculties without a Supernatural Revelation In these Revelation must carry it against the probable Conjectures of Reason because the Mind not being certain of the Truth of that it does not evidently know but is only probably convinced of is bound to give up its Assent to such a Testimony which it is satisfied comes from one who cannot err and will not deceive But yet it still belongs to Reason to judge of the Truth of its being a Revelation and of the signification of the Words wherein it is delivered Indeed if any thing shall be thought Revelation which is contrary to the plain Principles of Reason and the evident Knowledge the Mind has of its own clear and distinct Ideas there Reason must be hearkned to as to a Matter within its Province since a Man can never have so certain a Knowledge that a Proposition which contradicts the clear Principles and Evidence of his own Knowledge was divinely revealed or that he understands the Words rightly wherein it is delivered as he has that the Contrary is true and so is bound to consider and judge of it as a Matter of Reason and not swallow it without Examination as a Matter of Faith § 9. The Summ of all is First Whatever Proposition is revealed of whose Truth our Mind by its natural Faculties and Notions cannot judge that is purely Matter of Faith and above Reason Secondly All Propositions whereof the Mind by the use of its natural Faculties can come to determine and judge from natural acquired Ideas are Matter of Reason with this difference still that in those concerning which it has but an uncertain Evidence and so is persuaded of their Truth only upon probable Grounds which still admit a Possibility of the Contrary to be true without doing Violence to the certain Evidence of its own Knowledge and overturning the Principles of all Reason In such probable Propositions I say an evident Revelation ought to determine our Assent even against Probability For where the Principles of Reason have not determined a Proposition to be certainly true or false there clear Revelation as another Principle of Truth and Ground of Assent may determine and so it may be Matter of Faith and be also above Reason Because Reason in that particular Matter being able to reach no higher than Probability Faith gave the Determination where Reason came short and Revelation discovered on which side the Truth lay § 10. Thus far the Dominion of Faith reaches and that without any violence or hindrance to Reason which is not injured or disturbed but assisted and improved by new Discoveries of Truth coming from the Eternal Fountain of all Knowledge Whatever GOD hath revealed is certainly true no Doubt can be made of it This is the proper Object of Faith But whether it be a divine Revelation or no Reason must judge which can never permit the Mind to reject a greater Evidence to embrace what is less evident nor prefer less Certainty to the greater There can be no Evidence that any traditional Revelation is of divine Original in the Words we receive it and in the Sense we understand it so clear and so certain as those of the Principles of Reason And therefore
whatsoever impressions he himself may have from the immediate hand of GOD this Revelation if it be of new simple Ideas cannot be conveyed to another either by Words or any other signs because Words by their immediate Operation on us cause no other Ideas but of their natural Sounds and 't is by the Custom of using them for Signs that they excite and revive in our Minds latent Ideas but yet only such Ideas as were there before For Words seen or heard recall to our Thoughts those Ideas only which to us they have been wont to be Signs of but cannot introduce any perfectly new simple Ideas which were never there before The same holds in all other Signs which cannot signifie to us Things of which we have before never had any Ideas at all Thus whatever Things were discovered to St. Paul when he was rapp'd up into the Third Heaven whatever new Ideas his Mind there received all the description he can make to others of that Place is only this That there are such Things as Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard nor hath it entred into the Heart of Man to conceive And supposing God should discover to any one supernaturally a Species of Creatures inhabiting For Example Iupiter or Saturn for that it is possible there may be such no body can deny which had six Senses and imprint on his Mind the Ideas convey'd to theirs by that sixth Sense he could no more by Words produce in the Minds of other Men those Ideas imprinted by that sixth Sense than one of us could convey the Idea of any Colour by the sound of Words into a Man who having the other four Senses perfect had always totally wanted the fifth of Seeing For our simple Ideas then which are the Foundation and sole Matter of all our Notions and Knowledge we must depend wholly on our Reason I mean our natural Faculties and can by no means receive them or any of them from Traditional Revelation I say Traditional Revelation in distinction to Original Revelation By the one I mean that first Impression which is made immediately by GOD on the Mind of any Man to which I pretend not to set any Bounds and by the other those Impressions delivered over to others in Words and the ordinary ways of conveying our Conceptions one to another § 4. Secondly I say that the same Truths may be discovered and conveyed down from Revelation which are discoverable to us by Reason and those clear Ideas we have So God might by Revelation discover the Truth of any Proposition in Euclid as well as Men by the natural use of their Faculties come to make the discovery themselves In all Things of this Nature there is little need or use of Revelation GOD having furnished us with natural and surer means to arrive at the Knowledge of them For whatsoever Truth we come to the discovery of from the Knowledge and Contemplation of our own clear Ideas will always be certainer to us than those which are conveyed to us by Traditional Revelation for the Knowledge we have that this Revelation came at first from GOD can never be so sure as the Knowledge we have from our own clear and distinct Ideas As if it were revealed some Ages since That the three Angles of a Triangle were equal to two right ones I might assent to the Truth of that Proposition upon the Credit of the Tradition that it was revealed but that would never amount to so great a Certainty as the Knowledge of it upon the comparing and measuring my own clear Ideas of two right Angles and the three Angles of a Triangle The like holds in Matter of Fact knowable by our Senses v. g. the History of the Deluge is conveyed to us by Writings which had their Original from Revelation and yet no body I think will say he has as certain and clear a Knowledge of the Flood as Noah that saw it or that he himself would have had had he then been alive and seen it For he has no greater an assurance than that of his Senses that it is writ in the Book supposed writ by Moses but he has not so great an assurance that Moses writ that Book as if he had seen Moses write it so that the assurance of its being a Revelation is less still than the assurance of his Senses § 5. In Propositions then whose Certainty is built upon clear and perfect Ideas and evident Deductions of Reason we need not the assistence of Revelation as necessary to gain our Assent and introduce them into our Minds Because the natural ways of Knowledge could settle them there or had done it already which is the greatest assurance we can possibly have of any thing unless where God immediately reveals it to us and there too our Assurance can be no greater than our Knowledge is that it is a Revelation from God But yet nothing I think can under that Title shake or over-rule plain Knowledge nor rationally prevail with any Man to admit it for true in a direct contradiction to the clear Evidence of his own Understanding For since no Evidence of our Faculties by which we receive such Revelations can exceed if equal the Certainty of our intuitive Knowledge we can never receive for a Truth any thing that is directly contrary to our clear and distinct Knowledge v. g. The Idea of one Body and one Place does so clearly agree and the Mind has so evident a Perception of it that we can never assent to a Proposition that affirms the same Body to be in two distant Places at once however it should pretend to the Authority of a divine Revelation since the Evidence First That we deceive not our selves in ascribing it to GOD Secondly That we understand it right can never be so great as the Evidence of our own intuitive Knowledge whereby we discern it impossible for the same Body to be in two Places at once And therefore no Proposition can be received for divine Revelation or obtain the Assent due to all such if it be contradictory to our clear intuitive Knowledge Since this would be to subvert the Principles and Foundations of all Knowledge Evidence and Assent whatsoever and leave no difference between Truth and Falshood no measures of Credible and Incredible in the World if doubtful Propositions shall take place before self-evident and what we certainly know give way to what we may possibly be mistaken in In Propositions therefore contrary to our distinct and clear Ideas 't will be in vain to urge them as Matters of Faith They cannot move our Assent under that or any other Title whatsoever For Faith can never convince us of any thing that contradicts our Knowledge Because though Faith be founded on the Testimony of God revealing any Proposition to us who cannot lie yet we cannot have an assurance of the Truth of its being a divine Revelation greater than our own Knowledge since the whole strength of the Certainty depends upon
secured by them But Men are in the same uncertain floating estate with as without them An evident indubitable knowledge of unavoidable punishment great enough to make the transgression very uneligible must accompany an innate Law Unless with an innate Law they can suppose an innate Gospel too I would not be here mistaken as if because I deny an innate Law I thought there were none but positive Laws There is a great deal of difference between an innate Law and a Law of Nature between something imprinted on our Minds in their very original and something that we may attain to the knowledge of by our natural Faculties from natural Principles And I think they equally forsake the Truth who running into the contrary extreams either affirm an innate Law or deny that there is a Law knowable by the light of Nature i. e. without the help of positive Revelation § 14. The difference there is amongst Men in their practical Principles is so evident that I think I need say no more to evince that it will be imposisible to find any innate Moral Rules by this mark of general assent And 't is enough to make one suspect that the supposition of such innate Principles is but an Opinion taken up at pleasure since those who talk so confidently of them are so sparing to tell us which they are This might with Justice be expected from those Men who lay stress upon this Opinion and it gives occasion to distrust either their Knowledge or Charity who declaring That God has imprinted on the Minds of Men the foundations of Knowledge and the Rules of Living are yet so little favourable to the Information of their Neighbours or the Quiet of Mankind as not to point out to them which they are in the variety Men are distracted with But in truth were there any such innate Principles there would be no need to teach them Did Men find such innate Propositions stamped on their Minds they would easily be able to distinguish them from other Truths that they afterwards learned and deduced from them and there would be nothing more easie than to know what and how many they were There could be no more doubt about their number than there is about the number of our Fingers and 't is like then every System would be ready to give them us by tale But since no body that I know has ventured yet to give a Catalogue of them they cannot blame those who doubt of these innate Principles since even they who require Men to believe that there are such innate Propositions do not tell us what they are 'T is easie to foresee that if different Men of different Sects should go about to give us a List of those innate practical Principles they would set down only such as suited their distinct Hypotheses and were fit to support the Doctrines of their particular Schools or Churches A plain evidence that there are no such innate Truths Nay a great part of Men are so far from finding any such innate Moral Principles in themselves that by denying freedom to Mankind and thereby making Men no other than bare Machins they take away not only innate but all Moral Rules whatsoever and leave not a possibility to believe any such to those who cannot conceive how any thing can be capable of a Law that is not a free Agent And upon that ground they must necessarily reject all Principles of Vertue who cannot put Morality and Mechanism together which are not very easie to be reconciled or made consistent § 15. When I had writ this being informed that my Lord Herbert had in his Books de Veritate assigned these innate Principles I presently consulted him hoping to find in a Man of so great Parts something that might satisfie me in this point and put an end to my Enquiry In his Chapter de Instinctu naturali p. 76. edit 1656. I met with these six Marks of his notitiae Communes 1. Prioritas 2. Independentia 3. Vniversalitas 4. Certitudo 5. Necessitas i. e. as he explains it faciunt ad hominis conservationem 6. Modus conformationis i. e. Assensus nullâ interpositâ morâ And at the latter end of his little Treatise De Religione Laici he say this of these innate Principles Adeo ut non uniuscujusvis Religionis confinio arctentur quae ubique vigent veritates Sunt enim in ipsâ mente coelitùs descriptae nullisque traditionibus sive scriptis sive non scriptis obnoxiae p. 3. And veritates nostrae Catholicae quae tanquam indubia Dei effata in foro interiori descripta Thus having given the marks of the innate Principles or common Notions and asserted their being imprinted on the Minds of Men by the Hand of God he proceeds at last to set them down and they are these 1. Esse aliquod supremum numen 2. Numen illud coli debere 3. Virtutem cum pietate conjunctam optimam esse rationem cultùs divini 4. Rescipiscendum esse à peccatis 5. Dari proemium vel poenam post hanc vitam transactam These though I allow them to be clear Truths and such as if rightly explained a rational Creature can hardly avoid giving his assent to yet I think he is far from proving them innate Impressions in Foro interiori descriptae For I must take leave to observe § 16. First That these Five Propositions are either all or more than all those common Notions writ on our Minds by the finger of God if it were reasonable to believe any at all to be so written Since there are other Propositions which even by his own Rules have as just a pretence to such an Original and may be as well admitted for innate Principles as at least some of these Five he enumerates viz. Do as thou wouldst be done unto And perhaps some hundreds of others when well considered § 17. Secondly That all his Marks are not to be found in each of his Five Propositions viz. his First Second and Third Marks agree perfectly to neither of them and the First Second Third Fourth and Sixth Marks agree but ill to his Third Fourth and Fifth Propositions For besides that we are assured from History of many Men nay whole Nations who doubt or disbelieve some or all of them I cannot see how the Third viz. That Vertue joined with Piety is the best Worship of God can be an innate Principle when the name or sound Vertue is so hard to be understood liable to so much uncertainty in its signification and the thing it stands for so much contended about and difficult to be known And therefore this can be but a very uncertain Rule of Humane Practice and serve but very little to the conduct of our Lives and is therefore very unfit to be assigned as an innate practical principle § 18. For let us consider this Proposition as to its meaning for it is the sence and not sound that is and must be the Principle or common
and Operations one upon another that perhaps Things in this our Mansion would put on quite another face and cease to be what they are if some one of the Stars or great Bodies incomprehensibly remote from us should cease to be or move as it does This is certain Things however absolute and entire they seem in themselves are but Retainers to other parts of Nature for that which they are most taken notice of by us Their observable Qualities Actions and Powers are owing to something without them and there is not so complete and perfect a part that we know of Nature which does not owe the Being it has and the Excellencies of it to its Neighbours and we must look a great deal farther than the Surface of any Body to comprehend perfectly those Qualities that are in it § 12. If this be so it is not to be wondred that we have very imperfect Ideas of Substances and that the real Essences on which depend their Properties and Operations are unknown to us We cannot discover so much as the size figure and texture of their minute and active Parts which is really in them much less the different Motions and Impulses made in and upon them by Bodies from without and the Effects of them upon which depend and by which is formed the greatest and most remarkable part of those Qualities we observe in them and of which our complex Ideas of them are made up This consideration alone may set us at rest as to all hopes of our having the Ideas of their real Essences which whilst we want the nominal Essences we make use of instead of them will be able to furnish us but very sparingly with any general Knowledge or universal Propositions capable of real Certainty § 13. We are not therefore to wonder if Certainty be to be found in very few general Propositions made concerning Substances Our Knowledge of their Qualities and Properties go very seldom farther than our Senses reach and inform us Possibly inquisitive and observing Men may by strength of Iudgment penetrate farther and on Probabilities taken from wary Observation and Hints well laid together often guess right at what Experience has not yet discovered to them But this is but guessing still it amounts only to Opinion and has not that certainty which is requisite to Knowledge For all general Knowledge lies only in our own Thoughts and consists barely in the contemplation of our own abstract Ideas Wherever we perceive any agreement or disagreement amongst them there we have general Knowledge and by putting the Names of those Ideas together accordingly in Propositions can with certainty pronounce general Truths But because the abstract Ideas of Substances for which their specifick Names stand whenever they have any distinct and determinate signification have a discoverable connexion or inconsistency with a very few other Ideas the certainty of universal Propositions concerning Substances is very narrow and scanty in that part which is our principal enquiry concerning them and there is scarce any of the Names of Substances let the Idea it is applied to be what it will of which we can generally and with certainty pronounce that it has or has not this or that other Quality belonging to it and constantly co-existing or inconsistent with that Idea where-ever it is to be found § 14. Before we can have any tolerable knowledge of this kind we must first know what Changes the primary Qualities of one Body do regularly produce in the primary Qualities of another and how Secondly we must know what primary Qualities of any Body produce certain Sensations or Ideas in us which in truth to know all the Effects of Matter under its divers modifications of Bulk Figure Cohesion of Parts Motion and Rest which is I think every body will allow is utterly impossible to be known by us without revelation Nor if it were revealed to us what sort of Figure Bulk and Motion of Corpuscles would produce in us the Sensation of a yellow Colour and what sort of Figure Bulk and Texture of Parts in the superficies of any Body were fit to give such Corpuscles their due motion to produce that Colour Would that be enough to make universal Propositions with certainty concerning the several sorts of them unless we had Faculties acute enough to perceive the Bulk Figure Texture and Motion of Bodies in those minute Parts by which they operate on our Senses and so could by those frame our abstract Ideas of them I have mentioned here only corporeal Substances whose Operations seem to lie more level to our Understandings For as to the Operations of Spirits both their thinking and moving of Bodies we at first sight find our selves at a loss though perhaps when we have applied our Thoughts a little nearer to the consideration of Bodies and their Operations and examined how far our Notions even in these reach with any clearness beyond sensible matter of fact we shall be bound to confess that even in these too our Discoveries amount to very little beyond perfect Ignorance and Incapacity § 15. This is evident the abstract complex Ideas of Substances for which their general Names stand not comprehending their real Constitutions can afford us but very little universal Certainty they not being that on which those Qualities we observe in them and would inform our selves about do depend or with which they have any certain connexion v. g. Let the Idea to which we give the name Man be as it commonly is a Body of the ordinary shape with Sense voluntary Motion and Reason join'd to it This being the abstract Idea and consequently the Essence of our Species Man we can make but very few general certain Propositions concerning Man standing for such an Idea Because not knowing the real Constitution on which Sensation power of Motion and Reasoning with that peculiar Shape depend and whereby they are united together in the same Subject there are very few other Qualities with which we can perceive them to have a necessary connexion and therefore we cannot with Certainty affirm That all Men sleep by intervals That no Man can be nourished by Wood or Stones That all Men will be poisoned by Hemlock because these Ideas have no connexion nor repugnancy with this our nominal Essence of Man with this abstract Idea that Name stands for We must in these and the like appeal to trial in particular Subjects which can reach but a little way We must content our selves with Probability in the rest but can have no general Certainty whilst our specifick Idea of Man contains not that real Constitution which is the root wherein all his inseparable Qualities are united and from whence they flow whilst our Idea the word Man stands for is only an imperfect Collection of some sensible Qualities and Powers in him there is no discernible connexion or repugnance between our specifick Idea and the Operation of either the Parts of Hemlock or Stones upon his Constitution There are Animals