The Reasonableness of Believing without Seeing A SERMON Preach'd before the KING IN St. Iames's Chappel On Palm-Sunday MARCH 24. 1699 1700. By the Most Reverend Father in God IOHN Lord Archbishop of YORK Publish'd by His Majesty's Special Command LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard And William Rogers at the Sun against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet street 1700. The Archbishop of YORK'S SERMON Before the KING On Palm-Sunday March 24. 1699 1700. St. JOHN XX. 29. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed THESE are our Saviour's Words to St. Thomas after his Resurrection The occasion of them was this The other Disciples had assured Thomas That our Saviour was risen from the dead and that he had in Person appeared to them Thomas would not believe this upon their report but required farther Evidence Except saith he I shall see in his hands the print of the nails and thrust my hand into his side I will not believe The next time that our Saviour appeared to them Thomas was in the Company and then he was pleased to give him such a Proof of his Resurrection as he himself had stood upon for he calls upon him and bids him reach forth his finger and behold his hands where the Print of the Nails was and reach forth his hand and thrust it into his side and after this not to be faithless but believing Hereupon Thomas owns himself fully convinced and in token thereof he answered and said unto him My Lord and my God Then come in the Words of the Text Iesus saith unto him Thomas Because thou hast seen me thou hast believed Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed In which Words as our Saviour tacitly reproves Thomas for his Incredulity in not believing a matter of Fact well attested unless he himself saw it So he lays down an universal Proposition for the Encouragement of all Mankind in future Ages of the world to believe in him though they had not seen him Our Saviour knew very well that this was to be the Case of far the greatest part that were to believe in him For it was only to the men of that Age in which he lived and of that Country where he conversed to whom it was given to hear from his own mouth his Divine Doctrines and to see with their eyes the Proofs that he gave of his Divine Mission particularly that illustrious one of his Resurrection from the dead But for all the succeeding Generations of men they were to believe without seeing Their Faith was not to be grounded on the Evidence of their own Senses but on the Testimony of those that had had that Evidence And therefore for the obliging and encouraging all Mankind in the Ages to come to Embrace his Religion upon such Motives and such Evidence as this he pronounceth these words Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed I doubt not but that all Christians are fully satisfied both of the Truth and Reason of this Proposition of our Saviour and are convinced that they have Motives enow to oblige them to believe in him and to own his Religion though they never saw nor were capable of seeing the Original Proofs and Evidence he gave for the Truth of it Indeed if it were otherwise none of us at this day could be Christians upon rational Grounds But this Doctrine will not pass among all men On the contrary By several Their not Seeing is made the great if not the only pretence for their not Believing This being so I hope it will not be time mis-spent if I endeavour to answer this Plea of theirs and I think I cannot to better purpose discourse upon this Text than by doing so The Case is this Some there are among us that endeavour to run down all Reveal'd Religion If you ask them whether then they are for any Religion at all They will tell you Yes they are for that which Natural Reason teacheth We wish they were in good earnest when they say this For then we should hope to be soon all of a mind For we cannot doubt but that whosoever doth sincerely believe all that Natural Reason will teach him about Religion and doth seriously endeavour to frame his Life accordingly such a one will not fail to embrace Christianity whenever the Doctrines of our Saviour and the Proofs he gave for the Truth of them are fairly represented to him But in truth these mens loose way both of discoursing and of living renders it suspicious that their Profession of Natural Religion is not very sincere but only for the sheltering them from the Imputation of Atheism and serving other secular ends For such a Scheme of Natural Religion have they framed to themselves as will not much trouble their Consciences let them live how they will But now the Christian Religion which is that they chiefly oppose under the name of Revealed Religion is a more Stubborn thing and will not so easily be brought to Comply with their Humours and Inclinations And That we fear though they are loth to own it is the secret reason of their Grudge against it The Gospel of Christ doth not favour such sort of Principles as these men have taken up nor such a kind of Life as they are engaged in But on the contrary severely declares against them And therefore some colourable Reason must be found out for the setting aside the Authority of this Gospel which is so contradictory to their Interests But how is this to be come by To object against the Sufficiency of the Proof that our Saviour gave to the world of his being sent from God to teach this Religion to Mankind That there is no colour for For they are sensible that if his History as it is related in the Gospel be admitted to be a true History so that one may depend upon the Matters of Fact there Recorded concerning him If this I say be admitted it cannot be denied but that our Saviour gave abundant Evidence that he was what he pretended to be the Son of God and the great Prophet whom all men were to be obedient to if they meant to be saved Since therefore they cannot fasten upon this they pitch upon another Method They endeavour to run down all our Evidence for the Truth of Christ's Religion by making a Difference between seeing our Saviour's Miracles and reading them in a Book They will allow that if any man heard or saw Jesus Christ speaking those things or doing those things which are Recorded of him such a man would have sufficient Reason to induce him to be his Disciple But they deny that they have any such Reason to be so because they neither heard nor saw any of those things nor are they convinced that such things were ever done They reproach us that when they desire of us a Proof of the Christian Religion all the Answer they can obtain of us is
the Truth of what they had written gave Testimony to them since they built their Faith upon the Matters of Fact they had delivered If therefore you suppose these Writers to be sincere honest men it is certain that what they recorded concerning our Lord Jesus and his Doctrines and his Actions must be true On the other side if you suppose them to have had Designs of imposing upon the world with a false Story you must at the same time suppose a great number of People of whom there is no ground for such a suspicion to be perfect Fools or Mad-men who gave so much Credit to all that matter which they related concerning our Saviour that they laid down their Lives to attest the Truth of it I know nothing to be said against this unless it be That though they could not well be supposed to be mistaken in the Matters of Fact which they relate concerning our Saviour yet they might in the Matter of his Doctrines These they might misrepresent and consequently their Writings ought not to be of that Authority with us as that we should be bound to believe all that they say But to this I give a very short Answer If we do admit them to be true Reporters of Matters of Fact we must also of necessity admit them to be true Reporters nay I say more Infallible Reporters of our Saviour's Doctrine so as that their Declarations of it must for ever conclude all Christians And the reason is this The Authors of these Writings were either Apostles or Apostolick Men as has been said before and it is one of the matters of Fact reported in these Writings that our Saviour did so assist these men with his Holy Spirit that they were enabled faithfully and infallibly to Preach that Doctrine to others which he had delivered to them Now if we be sure they were inspired in what they Preached we may be as much assured they were inspired in putting what they Preached into writing since it was the same Doctrine that they Preached and that they Wrote and especially since after it was written it was to remain to all succeeding Generations and to be a Rule of mens Faith so long as the world should last And further we are sure that all the Christians of those days did look upon those Writings to have a stamp of divine Authority upon them and distinguished them from all other human Compositions And to Evidence this they made these Writings to be the Standard of their Belief the Measure by which they tryed all Opinions and Doctrines in Religion So that whatever was not found in these Scriptures was not accounted as necessary to Salvation and whatever was found disagreeing from these Scriptures was rejected as an Innovation or an Error in Christianity And of this we have sufficient Evidence from Antiquity Well but how shall we know whether these Scriptures be faithfully transmitted down to us How do we know but that they may have been corrupted since the time they were written and made to speak different things now from what they did at the first This is the last Question upon this Argument and in Answer to it I say in the Sixth Place If the Providence of God as I told you before was ever concerned to preserve any Writings from being depraved or corrupted it was certainly more especially concerned to do it as to the Writings we are now speaking of they being of such vast Importance to all the Generations of Mankind But I do not leave the matter so There is Evidence of Fact as well as Reason to be offered in this Case Let the Books of the New Testament as we now have them be tryed by the severest Rules of Criticism Let the Copies both Ancient and Modern which are extant of them be compared Let the several Versions of them likewise that were made in the earliest times be examined Lastly Let all the Ecclesiastical Writers from the beginning of Christianity to this day who have either commented upon them or proved any Doctrine from them or but occasionally quoted them in their Writings be searched into It will appear by all these ways of Tryal that our Scriptures are the same at this day that they were at the beginning without any material difference Indeed considering the multitude of Copies that were taken of these Books and the several Translations that were made of them into other Languages even shortly after the time they were first published we cannot imagine it possible that in After-ages any thing could be foisted into them to serve the Turn of any Party but the Imposture would have been presently discovered And accordingly we find that when any Attempts of this kind have been made there were not wanting those who took care to detect and expose them I do not when I say this deny that there are many differences and various readings to be met with in the ancient Copies of these Books occasioned by the negligence or mistakes of Transcribers Nay and some few Passages may be wanting in some Copies that are found in others But then I desire it may be observed that these differences are of such small moment that it is of no Importance to the Christian Faith which of the Readings be right and which of them be wrong For they all agree in all the Matters which concern either our Saviour's Doctrines or his Precepts or the Proofs he gave of his Divine Mission And farther agreement than this I think none needs to desire Indeed if slight and verbal differences in Copies be a good Argument against the Genuineness of a Writing we have no Genuine Writing of any ancient Author at this day For the same thing has happened to all old Books whatsoever that have been often transcribed And to suppose that it should be otherwise in the Books of the Scripture is to suppose that God ought in every age as immediately and infallibly to guide the Pen of every Transcriber of them as he did the Minds of their first Authors To make now a little Reflection on what I have said about the Scriptures of the New Testament It is urged by our Deists as a very hard thing That whereas when the Gospel was first preached men had opportunities of being convinced by their senses of the Truth of it or at least it is pretended they had such Opportunities we now are only referred to a Book that gives us an account of these matters Why I desire to know what other way they would have had an account of them but by Books Would they have had our Saviour to come down from Heaven every Fifty or Threescore years and to Preach the same Doctrine and Confirm it by the same Miracles to the men of that Generation that he once did among the Iews Yet this it must be supposed necessary for him to do if Men cannot otherwise be convinced of the Truth of his Religion but by their Senses Nay that would not be enough He must
not only publish his Doctrine and repeat his Miracles to every Age but to every individual Man of every Age Otherwise All Men had not opportunity of being convinced by their Senses and consequently could not upon reasonable grounds believe in him But if this Supposition be absurd as it certainly is then we must be content and there is all the reason in the world we should be so with that sort of Evidence for the Truth of his Gospel that other Matters of Fact done at a great distance of time from us are capable of That is to say Authentick Witnesses of them at the first and the Testimony of those Witnesses faithfully transmitted down to Posterity And how any Testimony can be more faithfully transmitted than by the way of Writing let them shew us if they can And then as for the Books or Writings that we refer you to in this Case we ask no more for the gaining Credit to them than only that it may be seriously considered of what sort they are and what Authority they carry along with them We do not send you to Herodotus and Pliny or such like Writers who though they were very good Authors yet took a great deal of what they said from uncertain Reports Much less do we send you to a Golden Legend or the Lives of the Saints as they have been written of later days by Men who took advantage of the Ignorance and Credulity of the Age they liv'd in to obtrude what they pleased upon the World But we send you to Authors who themselves knew and were Witnesses of what they wrote Who gave all possible proof of their Sincerity and Integrity not only by publickly in all places asserting the Truth of what they had written but some of them also sealing it with their Blood Who were so assisted with the Divine Spirit that they themselves wrought the same Miracles for the confirmation of Christ's Doctrine that they had recorded him to have done And lastly Who in all succeeding Ages were had in such veneration among Christians that their Writings were esteemed the Platform and Standard of True Faith And upon which they set so high a value that they would keep them at the Peril of their Lives And Instances we have of Multitudes who rather chose Torments and Death than they would deliver up their Bibles Taking now all this together can any thing like it be said for the Truth or the Authority of any other Book in the world But this is not all I desire in the Seventh and last place it may be considered That we do not send you to a bare Book for the Proof of the Christian Religion how much soever that Book may have the Marks not only of a True and Genuine but also of a Divine History But we insist upon a great many other things for the Proof of the Matters contained in that Book besides the Authority of the Book it self If indeed nothing had followed upon Christ's publishing his Gospel and we had never heard more of it or him save what we might happen to meet with in those Old Writings I do not know how far their Evidence alone now at the distance of near Seventeen hundred Years would have prevailed with us to embrace his Religion But now when we see and are convinced that so many remarkable Effects ensued upon his Preaching in the world and still continue visible at this day which yet cannot be ascribed to any other cause than to the particular Power and Providence of God which was concerned to justify our Saviour and his Pretensions to the world This is certainly a new Evidence and a standing one both for that Book which mentions all these things and especially for that Cause it maintains The Case of the Christian Religion is plainly this Iesus Christ a mean Person as to his outward Circumstances sets up for a Preacher of a new Religion And this not in the times of Ignorance and Barbarism when an Imposture might be supposed more easy to be carried on and which Advantages Mahomet afterwards made use of but in the Reign of Augustus Caesar when Learning and Arts and Sciences were in the most flourishing Condition that ever they were known to be He chuses a Company of very ordinary Unlettered Men but very Honest Men to be the Witnesses of his Conversation and Doctrine And these he designs for the Spreaders of his Religion throughout the World He neither makes use of Arts nor Arms for the gaining Disciples to himself only declares plainly that he is the Person whom God had long before promised to send and whom he did now send to publish Eternal Salvation to all that should believe in him The Religion which he taught and which all his Followers were to take upon them was so far from gratifying Flesh and Blood that it seemed much better contrived as the World then stood for the frighting men from it than for the alluring Proselytes to it For there was nothing in it that ministred to any sensual or worldly purposes nothing that tended to make a man either wise or rich or great or happy in the sense of this world but all the quite contrary He that would be his Disciple must quit all the popular Notions about Happiness Instead of being thought wise must submit to be counted a Fool for Christ's sake Instead of getting Wealth or Honour or Preferment must be prepared to part with all these things if he was already possessed of them must deny himself and all his Temporal Interests nay must forsake Father and Mother and his own Life also whenever he was called to it The way to Heaven as he taught it was by Humility and Meekness and Contempt of the World and all the Glories of it by patient suffering Afflictions and Injuries and an absolute Resignation of our selves to God to do and suffer whatever was his Will And he himself as he lived thus so did he thus go off the Stage being after Three Years preaching this sort of Doctrine hanged up on a Cross as an Impostor and that by the Vote of his own Countrymen Where now was the temptation to the generality of men to own this Man as a Prophet sent from God to Mankind Why in truth by what I have yet represented there was very little Nay indeed to any one that considers these beginnings of the Gospel it will be matter of Astonishment that any more came of it and that it did not presently dye with the Author of it But here was the thing Our Lord in how poor a Condition soever he lived yet he spake as never man spake He so explained the Old Scriptures which foretold of him He taught such Important Truths concerning another Life concerning the Nature and Providence of God and his Mercy to lost Mankind and the way in which he would be served and in what sort of things it was that true Religion did consist that he pierced the very Souls of those
that heard him There was so much Evidence in the Truths themselves that he delivered that no honest virtuously-disposed Minds could stand out against them but must be convinced in their own Consciences that this of all that they had ever heard of was a Religion worthiest to come from God and most accommodated to the Spiritual Needs of men nay and their Temporal ones too supposing that all men would embrace it And then the whole Tenor of his Life was suitable hereunto For he appeared in all his Actions and Conversation to be a Man of so much Candor and Goodness and Clearness of Spirit so Humble so Just so Prudent so Charitable so Obliging to all Mankind so full of Piety and Devotion and Resignation to God and lastly so free from all suspicion that he carried on any selfish Designs that all these Heavenly Doctrines came better out of his Mouth than if any other had delivered them But that which crowned all was this that throughout the whole Stage of his Life there was a visible Evidence of a Divine Power and Presence going along with him which shewed it self in a thousand Instances of the most glorious Miracles that ever were seen or heard of in the world and that to the Amazement of the whole Country where he lived In this manner I say did our Saviour lay the Foundation for a Belief of his Doctrine to all succeeding Generations and a solid unshaken Foundation it was But yet for all that if the Power of God had stopped here I do not know what Superstructure would ever have been made upon this Foundation For so it was that those very men those honest plain-hearted men that he had taken into his Family to be Witnesses of what he did and taught with a design as I told you of sending them abroad to publish all those things throughout the World yet when he came to dye such poor-spirited Creatures they proved that every man of them forsook him O sad Example of human Frailty and Inconstancy those men that had the greatest opportunities of knowing him and his Doctrine and had professed the most firm Resolutions of adhering to him yet all forsook him in the hour of danger and shifted for themselves But God Almighty tho he suffered good men to act as men did not therefore lay aside that great Design he had set on foot by our Lord Jesus no nor of accomplishing it by the Ministry of these very men For he raised up his Son from the dead on the Third Day as our Saviour had before told them he would and this put new Life and Spirit into those Persons that had lately abandoned him But that was not all Our Saviour calls them all together after he was thus risen from the dead He acquaints them with the Work that he had committed to them He assures them that he will be with them and those that should succeed them in that Ministry for ever Not in Person for he was to continue in Heaven to intercede for all Believers at the Right Hand of God but by the Virtue and Presence of the Holy Spirit who was to be his Deputy and Vicegerent upon Earth This Holy Spirit he would in a few days send down upon them who should effectually furnish and endue them with all Powers and Qualities and Abilities needful for the discharge of so great a Work as the Conversion of the World to his Religion was And after he had told them these things he visibly in their Presence ascended up into Heaven Here now begins Christ's Kingdom He had conquered Death before and now he comes to conquer the Devil and the World From henceforward you hear of no Fear no Pusillanimity no mean Behaviour in any of the Apostles They then go and Preach to all the World that Gospel which their Master ordered them No Danger frights them No human Learning or Philosophy is able to stand before them The greatest Obstacles the greatest Terrors that come in their way are so far from making them quit the Work they had begun that they rather prove Incentives to them to go on in it They make it their business to gain Souls in every place to Jesus Christ They run about the whole Roman Empire and farther than ever that extended They pretend to no Eloquence no polite Learning no Arts of Insinuation But they preach a plain honest pious Doctrine but withal such a Doctrine that as the Times then went a man must expect to bid an everlasting Adieu to all the Wealth and Pleasures and Honours of this World if he once embraced it They declare to all people the Authority they had for the Preaching this Doctrine They vouch our Lord Jesus Christ as the Author of it who died for the bearing Testimony to it and rose again for its Confirmation and is now King of Heaven and Earth And they shewed that they had an Authentick Commission from Heaven for the doing all this by speaking the Language of every Country where they came without ever being taught it by curing all diseased people that were brought to them by dispossessing Devils by giving sight to the blind and making the lame to walk and restoring dead Bodies to life All these wonderful things they did all the World over And what the Effects hereof were was manifest every where and continues manifest to this day The Gospel spread like Lightning in all places And whereever it came Pagan Idolatry was confounded Till at last the whole Roman Empire was converted to the Religion of Jesus Christ. Converted it was by men naked and unassisted without the least Encouragement at the first from the Secular Powers nay in contradiction to the severest Penalties that the Secular Powers could contrive or decree to hinder it We grant indeed that many thousands of brave men did lose their Lives in this Religious War between our Lord Jesus Christ and the Devil who was then the Prince of this World and did patiently submit to Death that they might assert the truth of our Saviour's Cause But that was Christ's way of vanquishing the Devil He did thus break the Serpent's head while the Serpent bruised his heel And he did at last by this way effectually break his Kingdom as is visible and notorious even from that time to this day And now I Appeal to every one Whether this which is matter of Fact and known to all men that look into the Histories of Time and of which we at this day see and enjoy the happy Effects in having the Christian Religion not only received among us but made a part of our National Constitution I say whether this be not a convincing Proof both of the Truth of our Religion and likewise of those Scriptures from whence we fetch it Had not the Christian Religion been true how could these things have ever come to pass Seeing it is utterly unconceivable that without a Divine Power they could be effected And sure none can suppose that God would exert his Power for the confirming of a Falshood And again had not our Scriptures been true likewise or had they been the Fictions of any designing men how is it possible they should have given us an account of these things so long before they came to pass and when there was so little appearance of their ever coming to pass And yet all that I have now mentioned is plainly there set down as foretold by our Saviour and his Apostles And not only those things but a great many other remarkable Events are there also foretold which have since been exactly made good I hope by what hath been said it doth appear that we at this day have sufficient Arguments to oblige us to believe and adhere to the Religion of Jesus Christ tho we never saw the Original Proofs he gave of it which was the Point I was to make good For I think I have shewed That if those Proofs were good and conclusive at the first to them that saw them and were Witnesses of them they are so to us now who receive them upon their Testimony And as for the difference that may be alledged in point of Evidence between a man's seeing a thing and receiving it upon the Report of others all that I think by the account I have given is in a great measure out of doors as to this matter For the Report upon which we receive the Gospel being so Authentick so unexceptionable and likewise so confirmed by Matters of Fact still visible to us it amounts to as strong a Proof as if we had Evidence of Sense And I do in my Conscience believe that there is not a man in this Nation now stands out against the Religion of Jesus Christ but who would have done so if he had lived in the time of our Saviour and heard him preach the Gospel As for us who believe let us persevere in our Faith without wavering Our Faith is never the worse for not seeing Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed And as for those that do not believe their not seeing will be no excuse for them if our Saviour may be Credited For it was as well with respect to them that did not see as to them that did that he pronounced his Definitive Sentence when he sent out his Apostles to Preach his Religion Go saith he and preach the Gospel to every creature He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned God give us all Grace to consider the things that belong to our Everlasting Peace That both all those who now oppose the Truth as it is in Christ Iesus may be converted from the Error of their ways and that all those who do own and profess it may adorn the Doctrine of God which he hath called them to by a pure holy and unblameable Life to the Glory of God and the Eternal Salvation of their Souls in the Day of our Lord Jesus To whom c. FINIS