may well be supposed to direct that Epistle to the Church or whole body of Christians which according to our version is said to be directed to the Elect Lady St. Jude directs his To them that are sanctified by God the Father Jude v. 1. and preserved in Jesus Christ and called St. Paul where he gives Laws about the Officers and Government of the Church directs his Epistles to the Governours onely as in his Epistles to Timothy and Titus otherwise he directs as here to the whole body of Christians 2. I consider the importance of the advice Prove all things The Greek word which we render Prove signifies to examine the truth or goodness of a thing and to discern the difference between one thing and another Luk. 12.56 ch 14. v. 19. Ro. 2.18 1 Cor. 3.13.11.27.16.3 It signifies to try and examine and sometime as the result of such tryall to approve It hath in the New Testament a particular reference to matters of Religion Ro. 2.18.12.2 Eph. 5.10 Phil. 1.10 These things deserve examining and there are about Religion many dangerous errours which want not the vogue and colour of truth 1 Joh. 4.1 We are required to try the Spirits and warned not to believe every Spirit We are required to examine and try the truth and goodness of things yea of all things and not to take them upon trust And this precept is subjoined to that 1 Cor. 14.3 4 5. Despise not prophecyings i. e. the preaching of the Word as may be collected from the Apostle's words elsewhere St. Paul doth frequently put us in mind to reverence the Ministers of Religion and tells us how they are to be esteemed He requires us in this Chapter To esteem them very highly in love for their works sake Heb. 13.17 1 Cor. 4.1 2 Cor. 5.20 v. 13. and bids us not despise prophecyings and yet even to this he adds Prove all things c. whence I raise this Doctrine or Proposition That it is the duty of Christian people to examine the grounds of their Religion and Faith and not to take them upon trust For the better speaking to it I shall First shew how this Proposition is to be understood Secondly I shall prove the Truth of it Thirdly I shall answer the Objections that may be brought against it Fourthly I shall make some use and application of the whole I shall shew how this Proposition is to be understood And that I shall doe in the following particulars 1. What I plead for is a judgment of discretion and not of jurisdiction and direction which belongs to our Superiors 'T is here as in the Laws of a Kingdom The people are obliged to know and keep them It is the duty and the interest of every man to know so much of them as concerns his life and property and the discharging his duty to his Prince and Countrey But then the power of making these Laws lies in his Prince or Governors and the learned in the Law are onely fit to direct and guide men in the matters of doubt and question And so it is in Religion It does not belong to every private man to be a preacher and interpreter of Holy Writ much less hath he any thing to doe to make Laws for other men But the private man hath a soul to save and in order thereunto is bound to inform himself in matters of faith Ro. 14.1 and those things which tend to the regulating his life and conversation We do not receive the people as judges of Controversies and doubtfull Disputations yet think them concerned in Religion in the mean time For matters of dispute and question the Priests lips are to preserve knowledge Here it becomes private men to be modest and to preserve a great reverence for their spiritual guides But there is a great deal of difference between asking the way when we are at a stand and pulling out our eyes and leaving our selves wholly to be led by another We may use our own eyes and our guides too 2. It is likewise a judgment of private discretion which I plead for It is not fit that a private man should judge for himself and his brother too His Conscience is not to be the common standard and measure of other mens Ro. 14.5 Let every man be fully perswaded in his own mind Every man ought to have this liberty to himself and to be content therewith and not to censure his brother 3. The practice of private men must notwithstanding this liberty be governed by the laws of their just Superiors And nothing can excuse them from an active obedience but where their Governors command what God hath forbid or forbid what he hath commanded And this determination of our practice especially in matters of order and discipline of which I would be chiefly understood is very consistent with that judgment of discretion which I am now pleading for Indeed if the thing commanded be evil I must obey God rather than man but if it be not I sin against God when I disobey my Superiors A private man is not judge of what is convenient most decent and orderly but ought to judge between good and evil lawfull and unlawfull true and false Our Doctrine does not give men a liberty to doe what they list when it permits them a judgment of discretion we do not pull out the peoples eyes nor yet allow them to break hedges and throw open enclosures and ramble whereever they list I shall prove the truth of this Proposition and shew that men are not to take their Religion upon trust That they ought to examine their Religion To try the Doctrines which they are taught whether true or false revealed by God or not And also to consider whether what is enjoined them be lawfull or not And to this purpose I desire you to consider 1. That the Scripture teacheth us this Doctrine We are here commanded to prove all things And our Saviour bids his followers take heed that no man deceive them Matt. 24.4 c. 23.10 1 Pet. 5. Christ allows no man a tyranny over the Consciences of men nor would St. Peter have it usurped nor did the Apostles themselves practice it St. Paul declares himself not to be a Lord over their faith but an helper of their joy 2 Cor. 1.24 Heb. 13.20 1 Cor. 11.1 Christ is our Master and great Shepherd His Ministers are but Stewards and Embassadors and are no farther imitable than they follow Christ Our Saviour calls upon his followers to beware of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees Matt. 16. Joh. 5.39 1 Joh. 4.1 Gal. 1. and to search the Scriptures And we are required to try the Spirits and not to believe an Apostle or an Angel that should preach any other Gospel God gave his law for our direction And we are assured that the Scripture is sufficient to render the man of God wise unto salvation through faith in Christ
ought not to be taken upon trust because their salvation depends upon it If this chance to be false they may blindly give themselves up to a guide who may lead them to the regions of darkness 3. Supposing there were any truth in this principle yet it would be of no use to us unless we were also directed to the Church and guides to whom we are to surrender our selves Supposing we were bound to believe as the Church believes and blindly to follow our Priests yet if we do not know what Church is to be thus trusted and what Priests thus to be confided in and under what profession we are to doe it we shall be at as great a loss as ever For it cannot be supposed that it is the duty of all people in every Countrey and under every Profession to doe this For Jews Christians and Infidels cannot be all under an equal obligation It is then to be considered to what Church this belongs If the Church of Rome put in she must shew a better plea than any other that may pretend and a better than any she hath produced as yet For Antiquity Succession Miracles Amplitude Prosperity Success c. these are things that may be pleaded in behalf of Jews Pagans and Infidels They will at least severally share in these pretences Let the pretence be what it will before I can admit the pretender I must judge his title good and that will destroy the principle 4. This principle invades the prerogative of God and usurps upon his peculiar He onely hath a direct dominion over the Consciences of men Jam. 4.12 He is the one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy We are obliged to believe a verity because he saith it There must be a revelation before a divine faith Men have not power to make articles of faith or to require our assent upon presumption of such power 5. Many things in Religion are so plain that a man of ordinary capacity and competently instructed in the principles of Religion is able to judge of them But this principle destroys that power and supposeth men unable to judge in the plainest cases whatsoever From the Writers of the Romish Church we hear much of the obscurity of the Scriptures I grant that there are some things in them hard to be understood and every man therefore is not fit to interpret them God hath appointed an order of men to doe this Eph. 4.11 He hath given some Apostles some Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Teachers not to hoodwink the people and lead them out of the way but for the perfecting of the Saints and for the edifying of the body of Christ and preserving the people from the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive This is the great purpose of the institution 'T is for the instruction and building up of the faithfull But our way is generally plain and there we need no guide if we use our eyes and mind our rule Matters of faith as well as manners are plainly revealed Such are all the Articles of our most ancient Creed They are so plainly taught in the H. Scriptures that he who runs may reade them there That we love God and our Neighbour are the weightier things of Religion and easie to be understood Justice and Mercy and Peaceableness are plain That we obey the King be charitable to the poor just to all men and doe as we would be done by That we use no craft or equivocations but be sincere in all our actions and professions are things not hard to be understood But if men should undertake to be guides to the people and teach them rebellion injustice cruelty dissembling and equivocation to kill their King and destroy their enemies a man of mean understanding may discern that these are not the gifts which Christ gave unto men but that they are a company of false people or rather ravenous wolves To judge of these things no man needs a guide who hath eyes in his head I shall now answer the Objections which may be brought against what I have said Obj. 1 'T is pretended that this Doctrine will introduce Heresies and Schisms into the Church And we are upbraided with Schisms and Heresies as the effect of our Doctrine On the other hand that the people who confide in their Pastors and believe as the Church believes are kept in unity and at peace To this I answer Answ 1. 'T is a fond thing to imagine that there shall be no Heresies or Schisms and that we have found a way to prevent them This is like the boast of a Mountebank who pretends to a Panacea or universal remedy for all diseases who gains small credit with wise men I grant that Heresies and Schisms are great evils and that we ought to prevent them what we can And much might be done towards it if the Ministers of Religion could as easily secure the practice as inform the minds of men But Scandals or Offences are great evils as well as Heresies Matt. 18.7 And yet Christ tells us that it must needs be that offences come And St. Paul tells us as plainly 1 Cor. 11.19 There must be also heresies among you that they which are approved may be made manifest among you God hath foretold that there should come a falling away 2 Thess 2. and that some should be under strong delusions and believe a lye It is a vain thing to pretend a remedy against that evil against which God himself hath provided none 2. To believe without examining as the present Church believes is so far from preventing Heresies that it secures men under them without any hope of emerging A blind obedience may as well detain men in Heresie as keep them in the Faith. This principle shuts men up and is so far from preventing the disease that whenever men are overtaken with it all that it does is that it hinders all remedy 3. That the principle which I have exposed being not self-evident but contestable may well be supposed to divide men about the main question It ought to be examined because it does not carry its Evidence along with it And then who can tell but that the principle which is devised to unite may chance to divide men when they go about to examine it 4. We will suppose this principle self-evident and that it hath been anciently and universally received which is by no means to be granted yet we know that it was not effectual The Gnosticks Arians and other Hereticks did infest the Primitive Church This principle then was received in the Church from the beginning or it was not If it were not it is then a new Doctrine and we are not obliged to receive it now If it were received in the ancient Church I would then know how Heresies and Schisms got into the Church Was this principle then ineffectual and shall it not now fail to be effectual Obj. 2 This
Deut 4. Psal 1. 2 Tim. 3. Luke 16. Act 17.11 And those men are commended who searched the Scriptures and examined the Doctrine of the primitive Preachers by them If the blind lead the blind says Christ both shall fall into the ditch Mat. 15.14 Men will not be excused because they have been misled by their guides and believed as their Church believed Ezek. 3.17 18. Ezekiel tells us that where the people are not warned they shall dye in their iniquity Religion is every man's concernment and every man is obliged to take care of his Soul and not blindly to give himself up to him that pretends to be an infallible guide Be ready always says St. Peter to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you 1 Pet. 3 15. We must then judge of the grounds of our Faith and not take it upon trust 2. I shall represent to you for the better confirming my Proposition the just Exceptions against the contrary belief viz. That the people are bound to lay aside their own discretion and intirely to give themselves up without examining to be led as their guides please I shall shew the dangerous consequences the inconsistency and vanity the impiety and unreasonableness of this principle and that in the following particulars 1. This principle is of the most dangerous consequence It would justifie the Idolatry of the Israelites which was at any time introduced upon them by their H. Priests or false Prophets or evil Kings We reade of their sacrificing in high places their worship of the golden Calf and the Calves of Dan and Bethel of their brazen Serpent and their false Gods. It was not a just excuse for them that the golden Calf was made by Aaron 2 King. 10. They were not without blame for offering upon that Altar which resembled that which was at Damascus because Vriah their H. Priest set it up and Ahaz their King commanded the use of it But we know that God was angry with them when they followed their blind guides which he would not have been had they done well in it This principle would have justified the Jews in rejecting our Saviour For who could blame them for doing that which their H. Priest and Sanhedrim their Priests and Elders had done before It is true he wrought many Miracles But to this they might reply that their Church did not believe them effected by the power of God. Indeed Jesus appeals often to the Scripture but according to this principle to this they might have pleaded that it was not for private men to understand Scripture and that their Church did understand it otherwise They might have pleaded moreover that the interpreting of Scripture did not belong to private men as they were and that they were to be governed by Tradition or the Oral Law and not by the written one onely That they had among them an H. Priest and Sanhedrim Scribes or men learned in the Law and Traditions which latter they received with equal reverence with the Written Word Joh. 7.48 Have any of the Rulers and the Pharisees believed on him say they They were so far from it that they agreed that he who confessed him to be the Christ should be put out of the Synagogue Joh. 9. Would such pretences think ye have served the turn of the Jews By no means They ought to have read the Scriptures to which Jesus appealed to have compared events with prophecies This our Lord puts them upon Joh. 5.39.45 46 47. Act. 17.11 and it was at once their duty and interest to have done it They are commended who took this course This principle might afterwards have justified the Jews in their rejecting the Christian doctrine and the Apostles and first Preachers thereof The Jews might have pleaded against the Apostles many things e. g. The undoubted antiquity of the Jewish Church and novelty of the Christian doctrine The necessity of giving themselves up to the conduct of their Priests whose lips were to preserve knowledge and they were to seek the Law at their mouth They might have pleaded that they were in the safest way to salvation for though they denied the possibility of it to the Christians yet Jesus himself owned that salvation was of the Jews They might have urged the 17th of Deuteronomy to prove the infallibility of their Church with a far greater shew than ever Thou art Peter c. was produced to prove that of the Bishop of Rome It being expresly required Deut. 17.8 10. That in matters of Controversie men should abide by the Sentence of the law pronounced by the Priest or Judge of that time whereas no such thing is said of the Bishop of Rome in the New Testament This principle would effectually have hindred the propagation of the Christian Religion among the Gentil or Pagan part of the world They had their Priests and H. Priests too as well as the Jews they had antiquity to plead and great success and prosperity under their way of worship Sequendi sunt nobis parentes qui feliciter sequuti sunt suos saith Symmachus If this principle might be allowed there could be no way left to spread the faith among them This one principle where ever admitted would have put a perpetual bar to the conversion of Jews and Infidels to the Christian Faith. For what method can we take to bring them over if we cannot convince them that we are in the right and they in the wrong And how can they be made sensible of this if we allow them not the liberty of judging And sure if they be fit to judge of the whole matter they are not unfit to judge of the severals If we allow them the liberty to judge of Christianity before they embrace it it is not reasonable to deny them a judgment of discretion when they are received into the Christian Faith. This principle admitted would have excused the people that should have continued in Arianism when the Bishops and Priests and generally the whole Church was infected with it The Arians once filled the Church called themselves Orthodox and Catholicks and others Hereticks According to this principle the people ought to have continued thus always for they were to be governed by their Bishops and Priests And why should they think themselves obliged to hearken to what you had to offer from Scripture or Reason or the Council of Nice when it was against the sense of the present Church 2. This principle not being self-evident is inconsistent and manifestly destroys it self For 't is liable to be examined and ought to be strictly examined because very much depends upon it If it may be examined by the people they who maintain it have lost their question For then the people are not obliged to despoil themselves of their faculties and wiser powers but may judge in matters of Religion this being of the most principal concernment of all This