People such as Masters of Reason Learning Scholarship and the like or else a Man may find more sound Reason among a few Men of the meanest Employments and meanest Capacities than in an whole Conclave of such Doctors as you are For I pray you Sir tell me without Heat and Prejudice and with solid substantial Reason what a kind of senseless lifeless something worse than nothing must you snppose God to be if you could suppose him to be without or before he acted Hath your great Learning spoiled your Memory so much as to make you forget that common Maxim that where there is Life there is Motion Sure that Cause must be very desparately defective and unreasonably bad that necessarily runs Men upon Atheism or something worse and so much the worse because they pretend to plead for Reason all that while Nay the Considerator in his Letter to H. H. is so confident but foolish enough God knows as to tell the World they were always too hard for the Trinitarians at these two Weapons Reason and Scripture But hitherto we have found them too short in their sound Reasoning we shall try what strength they have by the Scriptures in due place In the mean time it may not be an unreasonable Work to enquire what true Reason is that we may not be as Men beating the Air crying out great is Humane Reason and at the same time scarce know what true Reason is And if the Doctors of Reason would not be offended I would tell them what I take it to be It is a good Gift of God which he is pleased to bestow in some measure on most of the Children of Men whereby we are enabled to discern the Connexion or Dependancy that one thing hath upon another Hence it follows that Knowledge is not Reason neither can Reason work without knowledge any more than a Man can walk in the Air or a Carpenter can build a House without a Foundation Hence it follows that the greatest Scholars are not always the wisest Men as one of their own hath lately told us as good and as great a one perhaps as any this day living Saith he There are a great many Scholars who are carried only by their Books They know much and therefore can tell a great deal as you know every Fool can tell as he is told But for matter of sound Reason whereby they are inabled to draw just and Reasonable conclusions from known and certain Premises If it be never so little out of their Book Road and for which they have not as yet consulted an Author Truly a Man may let a great many of these Gentlemen alone hence it comes to pass for we are now discoursing about Reason it is a power of drawing just and right conclusions from known and certain Premises Hence it is that though Learning is in it self a very great and very good Gift of God and a great accomplishment to a Man and therefore to be highly prized by them that have it and to be honoured by them that have it not Yet great Scholarship cannot deliver some Men from being great Blockheads for Soveraign Pleasure will bestow his Gifts to whom and how he pleaseth to one a Word of Wisdom to another the Word of Knowledge by the same Spirit 1 Cor. 12. 8. How preposteriously then do those Gentlemen go to Work that would Measure the being and properties of the infinite God by their weak and imperfect Reason of which there are as many degrees it may be as there are Men in the World and which can no more Work of it self without some Knowledge to Work upon then an Artist can Work without Tools or Matter to Work upon And it is impossible for Man to have any saving Knowledge of God but by Revelation and there are but three Ways that ever God revealed himself by to Men they are his Works his Word and by his Holy Spirit and it is not our Reason as it is a Faculty or Power in us now corrupted that can gather any true or saving Knowledge of God as he is in himself or will be to us from his Works of Creation and Providence No nor from his Word neither without the Aid of his Holy Spirit and that in an especial manner We see this by the Heathen who were as great Masters of Reason as any of our present Pretenders and yet were far enough from a true Knowledge of God and how could they for who knows the Mind of God much less the Nature but the Spirit of God and he to whom he reveals him But let us consider the Knowledge that God gives us of himself by Creation and see what improvements Reason can make of it we see a visible World and therefore by the Apostles Argument in Romans 1. 19. 20. we may conclude that there was some being that gave being to those Visible Changeable things and that this being must be before all those things that do appear else he could not give them being Thus arguing by Reason from the Effects to the Cause we rise from the Men now in being to the first Man that was Made and so likewise of all other Created beings to the first of them And so likewise of the Heavens and the Earth and all that therein is whose very being declare they had a Maker who is God for he that Maketh all things is God Hence we may Reasonably conclude that this God is an Almighty Infinitely Wise God yea that he is a Merciful God for his Mercy is Written in visible Characters over all his visible Works and yet it must be acknowledged that all the Reason that the greatest Doctors of it ever had could never gather any Reasonable hope of the Pardon of their Sin or of Eternal Life by the Revelation that God hath made of himself by the Works of Creation and Providence If you tell me you may hope for Mercy because you are the Works of his hands his Mercy being over all his Works I Answer the Devils may as Reasonably hope for Mercy as you or I upon this Account for they are Creatures and so are we and they are Sinners and so are we So that there is a necessity for God to reveal himself to us by some more Clearer Light then that of Creation if you and I ever come to a true and saving Knowledge of him this necessarily leads us to consider what Revelation God makes of himself in his Word But Before I come to Consider that I would a little inquire what further improvements Reason can make of the Work of Creation to find out God and Counting things One by One to find out the Account as we have began we may come to know that God is an Eternal being without beginning of days or end of time and it is necessary he should be so else he could not give being to all other beings neither could such an Infinite being arise or spring out of nothing but he is a Self
all and others he is pleased to take their Reason from them after they have had it witness Nebuchadnezzar and our Bethlem Now then seeing God is one and his Truth is one and the same yesterday to day and for ever What an unreasonable Reason doth the short Accountant give for his Faith in his 3d. page Where he with seeming Triumph tells us that he therefore believes what God reveals because he hath reason so to do And what if this Gentleman had no Reason must God's Word cease to be Truth because he hath no reason to be believe it And what if he had some Reason but not so much as now he pretends to and what if some have a great deal more than he as I have some Reason to believe there are that have Is it reasonable to say God's Word is true or false right or wrong according to the Measure of Reason that God hath given to every Man If this be not unreasonable Nonsence I know not what is Thus is the Word of Truth fulfill'd He that leaneth to his own Vnderstanding is a Fool That there is Reason to believe what God reveals is certain and to believe what God reveals because he reveals it is to make God's Truth and Power the Reason and Foundation of our Faith but to believe what God reveals only because it is agreeable to our reason is both irrational and absurd For thereby we make our foolish Reason the Rule and Standard of God's Truth and not only so but of the very Being of God himself so that if God doth reveal that the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost is one God and that this one God is the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost this Gentleman will not believe it because his Reason doth not comprehend it So that because he cannot find out the Almighty to Perfection therefore he will not believe him to be what he saith he is Thus when the Light shineth in Darkness and the Darkness comprehendeth it not then the Light must cease to be Light because the Darkness cannot comprehend it These are our Doctors of Reason or rather our Unreasonable Doctors who professing themselves wise are become Fools Rom. 1. 22. If you tell me that you cannot believe except you have Reason so to do because then your Faith would be unreasonable and unreasonable Men and faithless Men are joyned together in Scripture 2 Thes 3. 2. I answer the Unreasonableness of Unbelief lies in this That it makes God a Liar who is Truth it self and that Men following the Dictates of their own Reason cannot comprehend nor will their Wills submit to God's Will Hence it is that Carnal Reason is Enmity against God and whereas you tell us page 6. Colume 2. of your Divine Vnity asserted That the Reason you plead for is not Carnal or Corrupt Reason it being right Reason you plead for Yet it is evident enough that you are wrong notwithstanding all your Pretensions to right Reason for you confine Carnal Reason to the inordinate Appetites of the flesh such as drunkenness and the like which the Reason of the Heathens did see plain enough was very unreasonable Now in this you are not right for the World by Wisdom knew not God 1 Cor 1. 21. Now the World never accounted these Immoralities their Wisdom at least the wise Men of the World never did And I have reason to believe Panl had as good a stock of this Reason you plead for before his Conversion as your self Sir or any of the other six Wise Masters of Reason For as touching the Law he tells you he was blameless and doth not the Law forbid Drunkenness Uncleanness and the like and yet at this time a day he was much about as great an Enemy to Christ and the way of Salvation by him as your self Sir For he verily thought he ought to do many things against the Name of Jesus God grant you may be as great a Friend to our Lord Jesus Christ before you dye as Paul was And it is very reasonable indeed Sir that you consider what was the grand Error and Mistake not only of Paul but of the whole Body of the Jews who continued in Unbelief they could not believe that that same Jesus was the Lord of Life For Paul tells you that had they known it they would not have crucified him they could see that he was Man plain enough and a Holy Man too but their Reason would not let them see that he was more than Man except such as God was pleased to reveal his Son unto as in Paul But my Author in his Divine Vnity asserted tells us in page 5. Colume 2. that these Lights which he had before mentioned namely Sense Reason and Revelation must not contradict each other and saith Our Sense is given as a ground to work upon and our Reason as a means to assist and compleat the Knowledge we receive by Sensation and Revelation can't be receiv'd but by Means of these two former 'Till now No nor yet neither do I understand that Sense is a Foundation for Faith nor that Divine Revelation is confin'd to our Reason nay the contrary is Evident and to say or think that it is so is to make God like our selves but such Fools God himself will reprove Psal 50. 21. Nor is our Reason till truly rectified by the Spirit of God a means to receive the revealed Will of God nay it is the main thing that opposeth the great Mystery of God's revealed Will in the Gospel For the Carnal Mind is Enmity against God and cannot be Subject to the Law nor reveal'd Will of God and that not only the Reason of the Drunkard as before mentioned but that which Men call true Reason though it be far enough from being so Nay our Author goes on in the greatness of his Reason or rather in the madness of his Folly and saith We cannot without the greatest Folly suppose a thing can be reveal'd to us contrary to our Sense or Reason and thinks he hath sufficiently prov'd it by saying God cannot tell us White is black or that two and one is not three or that a Debt that is freely forgiven is fully paid Now in this you are not Wise for I will show you that God is greater than Man Job 33. 12. and there is nothing more true and certain than this truth that the God of truth cannot Lye and there is nothing more true and self Evident than that God calls that White which the Wise Men of this World call Black opposing their Reason against the revealed Will of God still setting themselves against God so that what God reveals to be Good proud foolish Man will call Evil. Ay Sir and as great Doctors of Reason as your self or else how come the Wise Men and Scribes to have a hand in our Lords Death and to think they did God good Service when they kill'd his Disciples Doubtless their Reason such as it was and
gull the simple and unwary Reader There can be no Personal Vnion between God and a Creature he saith and pray why so why because the being of God doth not require the being of a Creature to his being or any thing but himself to make up his Person or Self This is a sort of Logick that the Gentleman may think may down well enough with Mechanicks and such like ordinary Fellows But it is strange the Doctors of Reason should send such stuff as this is abroad for sound Reason but I forget my Accountant and his Brother the Nameless Author are Doctors of Reason and perhaps they think they have ingrost all Reason into their own Hands and if so we must take what they will let us have and at their own price too or else one would think they could not be so vain and Foolish as to tell us there can be no Personal Union between God and a Creature Surely Almighty Power is able to take a Creature into Personal Union with himself and as for that Nonsensical pretended Reason that the being of God does not require the being of a Creature to his being What Sense or Reason is there in it If it had been necessary to his being it must have been Eternal as God himself is and then it could not be a Creature for no Creature is Eternal and then all the Condescention Grace and Love that the Scripture speaks of in Gods taking our Nature upon him must vanish away into Idle Tales or be led Captive at the Heels of our Accountants foolish Reason Pray try a little how this Argument will look in other Cases the being of God doth not require the being of any Creatures to make up his being happiness and blessedness therefore he cannot or will not descend to the Work of Creation and when they are all made they cannot all of them add one Tittle to his Essential Glory Therefore they were not made for nor are to his Glory now made Where is the wise Man where is the Scribe 1 Cor. 1 19 20. God will destroy the wisdom of the Wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent according to that old threatning against the Wise Men of this World Isa 29. 14. That wisdom should perish from the wise and the understanding of prudent Men shall be hid But I pass on to his Eighth Reason where I find our Accountant having past all bounds of â—ight Reason will needs break thorow all bounds of Truth and Modesty too and therefore tells us Whatever is said of Christ in Scripture is said of him as Man But he presently adds to cover this Story That the shift so many use of Christ speaking so and so as God and so and so as Man is unscriptural and Foolish and sounds no better then this that Peter as Peter denyed his Master but Peter as John did not deny his Master We look upon it as a prudential peice of Justice to suspect Common Lyars when they speak Truth and therefore I hope our Accountant will not think it any dishonour to him If I do by him as the Noble Bereans did by Paul search the Scriptures before I receive this assertion for Truth or sound Reason But upon a Second view of this Eighth Reason I find there is not one Scripture mentioned and therefore I may very honestly retort his assertion back upon him again and tell him this assertion is very Foolish and unscriptural But if I can give no other Answer than this I know my Accountant will out Reckon me by abundance for he is a Man of Reason and perhaps may be as ready to say to me concerning Reason as Zedekiah did to Micaiah concerning the Spirit and ask which way went Reason from him to me 2 Chron. 18. 23. But what faith the Scriptures in this Case for by them my Author thinks to dishonour our Lord Jesus Christ with no less then Robbing him of his Divine Nature Isaiah 9. 9. For unto us a Child is Born There his Humanity is spoken of but read out the verse and see if your Reason hath not robb'd you of all good Manners and Modesty You will not dare to give the Lye to the Spirit of God and there he is called the wonderful Counsellor the mighty God the everlasting Father The Prince of Peace see ikewise Rev. 1. 17 18. Now Sir will you have the impudence to give the Spirit of God the Lye in these two Scriptures or will you suffer your Reason to possess you with so much Madness and Folly as to charge the Spirit of God with Folly and say he speaks Nonsence chuse you whither But Our Accountant goes on and I am willing to follow him being willing to find out the reason of a thing and he tells us which he calls his Ninth Reason Page 4th That tho' Christ be truly said to be the Son of God yet he is never in Scripture caelled God the Son Now would I give you a Scripture to prove that he is called God the Son but you have told me already such Scriptures are dark but I cannot help that they are Scriptures notwithstanding and the darkness you speak of lyes in the weakness of your understanding and the Folly of your pretended Reason Besides the Scriptures were Written for this very purpose to give Wisdom to the simple but those that are Wise in their own conceit may be sent away as they came For you know God himself tells us that he sends the rich empty away Pray Sir Read Heb. 1. 8. but unto the Son he saith Thy Throne O God is for Ever c. I think this is not so dark a saying but you may understand him to be called God the Son in those Words and admitting it were dark or hard as those said who told our Lord his sayings were hard when he spoke of giving them his Flesh to eat And no doubt but they were as much above their understandings and as contrary to their Reason as the Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity is above or against yours yet were they the Words of Truth it self for all that And Solomon tells us Prov. 1. 5 6. A wise Man will hear and increase Learning And for this Reason among others to understand the Words of the Wise and their dark sayings But our Accountant and his Brother the Nameless Author are Wise Men whether it be in their own eyes or others no matter for that Their Reason is the Touch-stone of Gods Truth and therefore whatever God reveals must First come and make its acknowledgments to Mr. Licenser General our Authors Reason and if it pass Muster in his Foolish Noddle it may go for Truth but if not as what reasonable Man can think that the Mysteries of God should be comprehended by the Foolish corrupted unreasonable though pretended Reason of Man Especially seeing the Carnal Mind is Enmity against God and the Scripture yea Reason it self may inform us that none knows the things of God
minded there If he tell me there is no hope of getting a Cardinals Cap because the Doctrine of the Trinity is maintained by the Church of Rome also I Answer the Being of God is an Article of their Creed too and yet I doubt not but Mr. Considerators great Learning hath delivered him from so much ignorance in Church History That he well knows some Atheists or Atheistical Fellows have by more Wit and Learning then by sound Reason Honesty and true God liness stept into the inâ—alible Chair for before now And this may serve for an Answer to Our Nameless Authors argument in his Pag. 18. where he would deny the Doctrine of the Trinity because t is maintained by the Church of Rome An Argument so Weak and Foolish that I did not think it worth my while to take any other Notice of it than occasionally by the way for sure we shall never be able to maintain the Protestant Doctrine If this be any Argument with us That we are right because we dissent from them or because in many or most things they are wrong but a foolish Cause must have foolish Arguments or none at all And indeed notwithstanding the Considerators vain glorious boasting of his great Learning I look upon him to be as great a dishonour to the Schools for want of Answerable measures of sound Reason as it must be an affliction to our Clergy to find such Hereticks harboured in the Bosom of our Church For although he boast so much of the Mighty Revolution that greater liberty in matters of Religion would make from Christianity to Socinianism or Deism yet if he had sonnd Reason and integrity answerable to his great Learning and the knowledge that he must needs have there by in Church History The remembrance of the Arrian Persecution must deliver him from that foolish Dream nor could he were his attainments in Divinity and sound Reason proportionable to his great Learning deny our Lord Jesus Christ to be the true God and Eternal Life according to the Scriptures 1 Joh. 5. 20. when he himself asserts That in his Pag. 11. Colum 2. and Page 26. Colum 2. which by sound Reason and by Just and necessary Consequence proves him to be so for he saith God neither hath nor can give him the incommunicable properties of the Deity such as Ominpotency Omnipresence Omniscience and the like so then it is but for me or any private Christian to prove that Christ hath those incommunicable properties of the Divine being and the Considerator himself will maintain that he is God Now Sir if you had not excepted against the Revelation of St. John as being no part of Divine Writ you know I could presently have proved that our Lord Jesus Christ is Omniscient Rev. 2. 23. I am he that searcheth the reins and hearts Pray Sir compare this with Jer. 11. 20 27. and 10. 9. But seeing the Seducers and Cunningly devising fable Men of our day under the Specious pretences of Learning and Reason would fain gather up us Lay-men as Branches cut off from the true Vine and may succeed therein among the withered Branches according to what our Lord hath foretold and threatned concerning such in the 15th of Joh. and the 6th Yet our Lord hath given his word for it that they shall not deceive the Elect though they may and shall deceive many Mat. 24. 4 5. and 22 23 25. And that those pretenders to Reason are those very deceivers among others there spoken of is evident not only from our Lords words in ver 11. calling them False Prophets and deceiving many which they could never be able to do if they did not pretend Reason for there Cnnningly devised Fables but also their own Practices should bewray them to be Wolves in Sheeps Clothing in treading in the very steps of the Grand Saddneers in our Lords-day who that they might carry on that Fundamental Herisie of denying the Resurrection the more successfully they denyed the greatest part of the old Testament and would own nothing for Divine Writ but the 5 Books of Moses and sticking there they thought to confound our Lord himself by their Rational and Learned Argument that there must be Confusion Contradiction Absurdity and Nonsence if the dead Rise And you know Sir they grounded their Argument upon Scripture and made their foolish Reason and ignorance of the Power of God Judge of the Cause Seeing therefore the Considerator is not ashamed to tread in the Sadduces Steps but will imitate them in denying part of the Word of God and yet at the same time as they did pretend Reason and Scripture for what they held And to give them their due there are as many contradictions and seeming impossibilities to Reason against the Resurrection as there are against the Doctrine of the Trinity and our Faith therein must be intirely resigned up unto the revealed will and Almighty Power of God But I say seeing the Considerator will imitate the Sadduces in denying part of the Scriptures I shall endeavour to follow the Example of my Lord Jesus Christ and prove from such part of the Scriptures as they will own that our Lord Jesus Christ is Omnicisent and and Omnipresent but at the same time protesting against their unreasonable partiality in choosing and refusing what they please for Divine Writ and saving to the Service of the Truth all those arguments that are or may be drawn from any part of the Gospel of St. John the Three Epistles and the Revelation for destruction from God is a terror to me and because of his greatness I cannot indure to add to those things nor take away from the words of the Book of this Prophesie least God should take away my part out of the Book of Life Job 31. 22. Revelation 18. 19. Now Sir I think you do not except against the Gospel of St. Mat. and there we read Chap. 28. ver 20. Christ Promised his Disciples to be with them alway to the end of the World Now Sir let me freely Discourse with you concenring this Promise our Lord Jesus Christ is gone to Heaven and his Humane nature is to continue there till the Restitution of all things neither can a Man be at two Places at one time Now what will you do will you give our Lord the Lye in this Promise or will you believe that a Man or the Humane nature of Jesus Christ is not only in the Sacrament of the Alter and so in Thousands of Places at the same time with the Papist but also every where in all places of the World where ever there is a Believer Or will you believe the Truth as it is in Jesus that he is the Omnipresent God and so is with his People in all places and in all Conditions according to his gracious Promise Joh. 14. 18. I will not leave you comfortless I will come to you Perhaps you will tell me that this is no more then Paul said of himself 1 Cor. 5.