be the Church and yet still be mistaken In short no Authority can render me infallibly certain but that which is infallible no Infallibility can render me infallibly certain but that of which I have an infallible Certainty Either therefore the Scripture can render me infallibly certain of the Infallibility of their Church and if it cannot I am sure nothing can or it cannot if it can why may it not as well render me infallibly certain of other Principles of Christianity which are at least as plainly revealed in it as that If it cannot how can I be infallibly certain that any Thing she defines and declares to me is true If then the Authority of Scripture can give us an infallible Certainty we have as just a Pretence to it as They it being upon this Authority that we ground our Faith if it cannot neither they nor we can justly pretend to it because they can no otherwise be infallibly certain of their own Infallibility but by Scripture But the Truth of it is God never intended either that they or we should be infallibly certain in the Matters of our Religion for after all the Means of Certainty that he hath given us he still supposes that we may err and plainly tells us that there must be Heresies and that even from among the Members of the true Church where infallible Certainty is if it be any where there should arise false Teachers who should bring in damnable Doctrines which could never have happened if he had left any such Means to his Church as should render her Children infallibly certain All that he designed was to leave us such sufficient Means of Certainty in Religion as that we might not err either dangerously or damnably without our own Fault He hath left us his Word and in that hath plainly discovered to us all that is necessary for us to believe in order to eternal Life He hath left us a standing Ministry in his Church to explain his Word to us and to guide us in the Paths of Righteousness and Truth but still he requires us to search the one and attend to the other with honest humble and teachable Minds and if we do not we may err not only dangerously but damnably and it is but fit and just we should But if we diligently search the Scripture and faithfully rely upon its Authority without doing of which we search it in vain if we sincerely attend to the publick Ministry with Minds prepared to receive the Truth in the Love of it though we may possibly err in Matters of less Moment yet as to all Things necessary to our eternal Salvation our Faith shall be inviolably secured and this is as much as any honest Man needs or as any honest Church can promise 2. From hence also I infer that in the Matters of our Faith and Religion God doth expect that we should make use of our own Reason and Judgment For to what End should he put us upon searching the Scriptures but that thereby we may inform our selves what those Things are which he hath required us to believe and practise But if it were his Mind that we should wholly rely upon the Authority of our Church or of our Spiritual â—â—ids and submit our Faith to their Dictates without any Examination what a needless and impertâ—â—â—nt Imployment would this be for us to search and consult the Scriptures Consult them for what it we are not to follow their Guidance and Direction and to take the Measures of our Faith and Manners from them And if for this End God hath obliged us to consult them as to be sure it can be for no other End then he hath obliged us to imploy our own Reason and Judgment to consider what they say and enquire what they mean otherwise he hath obliged us to consult them to no Purpose It is as evident therefore that God will have us use our own Reason and Judgment in discerning what we are to believe and what not in Religion and not lazily rely upon others to see and discern and believe for us as it is that he would have us search and consult the Scriptures and that I think is evident enough from what hath been said to any one that is not resolved to admit of a Conviction And indeed seeing our Reason is the noblest Faculty we have it would be very strange if God should not allow it to intermeddle in the highest and most important Affair wherein he hath engaged us and seeing it is our Reason only that renders us capable of Religion what an odd Thing would it be for God to forbid us making use of our Reason in the most important Concerns of Religion that is indistinguishing what is true Religion from what is false and what we ought to believe from what we ought to reject I know it is pretended by those who urge the absolute Necessity of submitting our Reason to the Church that they allow Men to make Use of their own Reason and Judgment in discovering which the true Church is and that all they contend for is only this that when once Men have found the true Church they ought to enquire no farther but immediately to deliver up their Reason and Understanding to it and believe every Thing it believes without any farther Examination So that before Men come into their Church it seems they are allowed to see for themselves but after they are in they must wink and follow their Guides and depute them to see and understand for them which to such Men as are not quite sick of their own Reason and Understandings should methinks be a great Temptation to keep them out of their Church for ever For if I may judge for my self while I am out of it but must not while I am in it I must be very fond of parting with my own Eyes and Reason if ever I come into it at all But suppose I was always in it and had been bred up in its Communion from my Infancy will they allow me when I come to the full use of my Reason fairly to question whether theirs be the only true Church or no and to hear the Reasons and examine the Scriptures and consult the Doctors on both sides No by no means this I am forbid under the Penalty of being deprived of the Benefit of Priestly Absolution So that in short they will allow me to make Use of my Reason if I have been bred an Heretick in order to my Reconciliation to their Church but if I have never been an Heretick I must never use my Reason to examine the Truth either of my Church or Religion that is to say I may use my Reason when there is no other Remedy and I must continue a Heretick if I do not But it were much better that I had never had Occasion to use my Reason at all So that according to these Men the Use of our Reason in Religion is only the least of two Evils
it is not so bad as to continue a Heretick but if I had never been one it would be very bad and a certain Way to make me one which methinks looks very odd that the Use of my Reason should be necessary to reduce me from Heresy and the Disuse of it as necessary when I am reduced to preserve me from relapsing into Heresy 'T is a memorable Passage of the Bishop of St. Mark in the Council of Trent that Seculars are obliged humbly to obey that Doctrine of Faith which is given them by the Church without disputing or thinking farther of it Where by the Church he means the Clergy assembled in that Council So that according to this Manâ—s Doctrine the Faith of the People is a meer Beast of Burthen that right or wrong must bear all the Load that the Priests shall agree to lay upon it and though it should feel it self oppressed by them with never such gross Contradictions or Absurdities it must think no farther of it but tamely trudg on without starting or bogling At this Rate what Tricks may not the Priests play with the Faith of the People Let them invent what Doctrins they please to serve the Interest of their own Ambition and Covetousness the People must believe them without asking why or if they should ask why they must expect no other Answer but this because we have thought to define and declare them For it is by no means allowable that the People should exercise any private Judgment of their own about Matters of Faith no I confess it is not where the Matters proposed to their Faith are false and erroneus because it is a thousand to one but one time or other the People will discover the Frauds and Impostures of the Priests and this would spoil all But if the Matters of Faith are true in all Probability the farther the People enquire into them the better they will be satisfied about them and if in the Exercise of their private Judgments they should in some particulars err that is far more tollerable than that they should be utterly deprived of the Means of being able to give an Answer to every one that asks them a Reason of the Hope that is in them But when God hath given the People reasonable Faculties on purpose that by them they may be able to distinguish what is true from what is false for any Party of Men to forbid them the Use of these Faculties in distinguishing what is true from what is false in Religion in which above all Things they are most highly concerned it is a most injurious Usurpation upon the common Rights of humane Nature For by this Means our best Faculty is rendred useless to us in our greatest Concerns and whereas God gave it to us on purpose to guide and direct us we are utterly deprived of it's Guidance where we have most need of it and where it will prove most fatal to us if we should happen to err and go astray A DISSUASIVE FROM APOSTACY 1 TIMOTHY I. 19. Holding faith and a good conscience which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwrack THese Words are a part of St. Paul's Charge to his Son Timothy wherein he Pathetically Exhorts him as a Valiant Bishop to take all possible Care to preserve the Purity of the Christian Doctrine in his Diocess of Ephesus which at that time abounded with false Teachers whose Business it was to sow the Tares of Heresie and false Doctrine in that large and fruitful Field the Cultivation whereof St. Paul had committed to his Charge And that he might discharge this Office the more effectually the Apostle warns him in the first Place to take Care of himself that he did not suffer his own Faith and Manners to be depraved and corrupted by those leud and irreligious Principles which those Antichristian Seminaries were then scattering among his People that so he might be an Example to his Flock as well as a Teacher of pure and undefiled Religion And this v. 18. he presses upon him from the Consideration of what had been foretold of him by Divine Inspiration before ever he entred upon his Ministry viz. That he should war a good warfare that is prove a constant and couragious Champion of the Christian Faith which Prophesies he exhorts him to use his utmost endeavour to verifie both in his Profession and Practice by holding or as it is in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having or keeping faith and a good conscience which later viz. a good conscience some having put away concerning the former viz. Faith have made shipwrack Before we proceed to the Design of these Words it will be necessary briefly to explain some Terms in them as 1. What is meant by Faith 2. What by a good Conscience 3. What by putting away a good Conscience And 4. What by making shipwrack of the Faith 1. As for the fiâ—st What is here meant by keeping the Faith I answer By this Phrase Faith we are to understand the Christian Creed or summary of those necessary and essential Doctrines whereof the Christian Religion is composed For at that time there was little else professed and taught in the Christian Churches but only the fundamental Principles of Christianity together with the nearest and most immediate Inferences from them so that few then mis-believed but such as mis-believed in Fundamentals and every Error in Doctrine was generally a Heresie The Christian Faith in those Days lay within a narrow compass and so it continued till the Wantonness and Curiosity of succeeding Ages started disputable Opinions and as they prevailed adopted them into the Family of Faith insomuch that in process of Time sundry Opinions were received that were never so much as heard of in the Apostolical Age and as soon as they were received they were presently declared necessary Articles And as for the contradictory Opinions though Christianity was little or nothing concerned whether they were true or false yet they seldom underwent any milder Name than Heresie or gentler Doom than Damnation which hath been one of the grand Occasions of all the Ruptures and Divisions that have happened in the Christian World But as for the Faith which the Apostle here speaks of it was of a much less Bulk than what it is now arrived to by rolling through the wild Opiniatry of Sixteen Disputation Ages which by degrees have swelled it from a short script into a large Volume For if we look into the New Testament and into the Writings of the most Primitive Fathers we shall find the Sums of Christian Faith therein contained consisting of very few Articles and those such only as are essential to Christian Religion and such as wherein almost all the differing Persuasions of Christians do to this Day concenter To hold the Faith therefore is to persevere immovably in the Profession of the true Christian Doctrine so far as in us lies and not to be prevailed upon to desert or forsake it
soever you shall find it Put the Question to your selves over and over O my Soul here are such Advantages and such Calamities before you importuning you to change your present discountenanced Religion for a more thriving and prosperous One Are you now resolved fairly and impartially to examine the Merit of the Cause And if thereupon you still find Reason to believe that your present Religion is the very Truth of Iesus will you rather renounce those Advantages and incur those Calamities than forgoe it Will you follow the Truth wheresoever you find it and whithersoever it shall happen to lead you though it be from Preferment into Persecution Are you resolved by the Grace of God to prostrate all your temporal Hopes and Fears before it and rather to lose any Good or suffer any Evil than desert it For let me tell you if you find your Heart shrink at this Proposal or that you have any reserved Intention if the worst come to the worst rather to part with your Religion right or wrong than to shake hands with your temporal Interest you are in a very unfitting Temper to examine on which side the Truth lies For it is a plain Case your Mind is under a prevailing Byass of temporal Hopes and Fears which will be sure to incline it to favour that side of the Question which is most for your Interest and 't will be impossible for you to examine fairly and judge impartially whilst your Judgment is thus bribed and corrupted by your Interest For your Will hath already determined upon the Matter before ever your Understanding hath heard the Cause and it is your secret Intention right or wrong to forgoe your Religion rather than your Interest if ever they come in Competition So that now you will be obliged in your own Defence to use your utmost Art to set the fairest Colours upon the Evidences against your Religion and to stifle and enervate those that assert and maintain it lest they should so confirm you in the Belief of it as that when Occasion requires you will not be able to surrender it up without committing an horrible Outrage and Violence upon your selves Wherefore before you suffer your worldly Hopes and Fears to summon your Religion upon a new Tryal be sure you fix this Resolution in your Souls By the Grace of God I will now lay aside all Interest and Affection and strictly examin the Evidence on hoth Sides with an equal and unbyass'd Iudgment I will attend to nothing but the Reasons of Things and the pure Merits of the Cause and where-ever I find the Truth lies whether on the Side of my Interest or against it I will be sure to follow it whatsoever shall be the Event and Issue For if upon the Temptation of any worldly Interest you bring your Religion to a new Tryal with this secret Intention that though it should still approve it self to your Judgment yet you will rather part with it than abandon that Interest this very Intention will be apt to blind and mislead your Judgment to arm your Wit and Reason against your Religion and to set all your Faculties at work to argue you out of it and pervert you from ii to a contrary Faith and Persuasion which if it should accomplish you will certainly be found guilty of a wilful Apostacy when you come to be tryed before the Tribunal of God to whose all-seeing Eye the most secret Motions of your Souls are as visible as if they were written on your Foreheads with a Sun-beam who sees your treacherous Heart and false Intention rather to forsake his Truth than your Interest and knows very well that it is this that seduces you and gives Force to those false Reasons and Convictions that impose upon your Judgment and betray your Faith 6. And lastly When you fall under any Temptation to change your Religion consider whether before you were inclined to change you did conscientiously comply with the Obligations of it We have too many Men that pretend to be mighty inquisitive after the true Church and the true Religion and yet live as if there were no such Thing as true Religion in the World and quietly allow themselves in such impious Courses as do openly affront the common Principles of all Religions There is nothing they dread so much as Heresy and if you will believe them are monstrously concerned to examine whether the Church with which they now communicate be Catholick or Heretical and yet all this while they persist without any Concern or Remorse in the most damnable Heresy in the World and that is a wicked and immoral Life So that upon comparing their Atheistical Lives with the loud Cry they make about the true Catholick Faith and Church one would be tempted to think that their Christianity began at the wrong End of their Creed and that they believed in the Holy Catholick Church before they believe in God the Father Almighty or in Iesus Christ his only Son our Lord Which is such a gross and fulsom Piece of Hypocrisy as one would think any modest Man should be ashamed of For in the name of God Sirs What have you to do to wrangle and make a Noise about Religion whose prostigate Manners are a Shame and Scandal to common Humanity It is a Reproach to any Religion for you to name it and Shame to any Church for you to pretend to it and therefore when such as you raise a Cry after the true Church and true Religion it is a plain Case that whatever Pretence you bring upon the Stage you are prompted by some base Interest behind the Curtain And is it not a pleasant Thing to hear such Profligates as these pretend to be Converts who only turn from one Opinion to another but still continue as wicked and unreformed in their Manners under the Opinion they turn to as they were under that they turned from These are such Converts as there is no Church is the World that advances true Piety above worldly Interest but would glory to lose and blush to gain And what Diogenes said of a wicked Fellow that praised him that the Religion may say which those Men turn to What Hurt have I done what wicked Principles am I guilty of that such vile Wretches as these should commend and embrace me For for God's sake what is it that they are converted to Is it to any Thing that renders them wiser or better Men No The contrary is too notorious through the whole Course of their Actions Well then it seems they are converted to something that doth them no manner of Good that serves them to no true End of Religion that is to a meer empty Notion that only gingles about their Understandings but hath no good Influence on their Hearts and Manners Had their Conversion proceeded upon pure Principles of Conscience that would have obliged them to change their Manners as well as their Opinions there being very few Opinions in Religion so
should at the same Time so unanimously agree to report and testifie the Miracles of a Man whom they had lately seen crucified before their Eyes when they knew in their own Consciences that it was all a meer Forgery and could not but foresee that by persisting in it they should incur an inevitable Ruin in this Life and an eternal Damnation in the Life to come Was there ever such a desperate Piece of Madness heard of from the Beginning of the World to this Day And yet this monstrous Thing which is by a thousand Times more incredible than any thing in the Christian Religion we must not only imagin may be but believe that it really was or else confess that St. Iohn says true here that they did see the Glory of his Miracles which is so undoubted an Evidence of the Truth of his Doctrine Wherefore since we are compassed about with such a Cloud of Witnesses let us by a lively and vigorous Faith adhere to the Truth of our holy Religion and then we shall find it quick and mighty through God to the casting down the strong Holds of our vicious Habits and implanting in us all those divine Dispositions which are necessary to qualifie us for those endless Joys which our blessed Lord hath promised to and prepared for us 3. They saw the Glory of that divine and incomparable Doctrine which he taught From whence I infer the Unreasonableness of Mens entertaining mean and contemptible Opinions of the Christian Faith since it is so excellent in it self that it was a Glory to the Son of God to be the Author of it We have a sort of Men among us who would fain be accounted the Wits and Virtuoso's of the Age who pretend to acknowledge a God and a Providence and all the Principles of Natural Religion and yet openly profess a very mean and contemptible Opinion of Christianity and take all Occasions to represent it as a ridiculous Fiction fit only to be imposed upon the credulous Vulgar But I would fain know of these mighty Men of Reason what plausible Pretence they can urge for this their bold and blasphemous Censure Is it because Christianity is a Revealed Religion or because there is any thing in it that is unworthy of God whom we pretend to be the Revealer of it or because there wants credible Evidence of its being revealed by him If they pretend to reject it because 't is a Revealed Religion I would beseech them to consider how it could have comported with the Goodness of God never to make any Revelation of his Will to the World when the Generality of Men were lost in such a Mid-night of Ignorance in respect of Natural Religion how even the natural Notions of the Deity were corrupted into all manner of Follies and Vanities and Men had formed Religions not only hateful to God but nauseous to all that were wise among themselves and how defective also they were in the best and purest Precepts of Morality having at last consecrated their Vices and inthroned them among the Graces of Religion In which miserable State of Things it is so far from being unreasonable to expect a Revelation that 't is hardly possible to vindicate God's Goodness without supposing it For should he have for ever left Mankind in this bewilder'd State without Revelation he would have been more wanting to Man who is the noblest of all his earthly Creatures than he is to the most contemptible Animal for to his meanest Creatures he hath given sufficient Ability to attain the highest End of their Beings which Mankind can hardly be supposed to have in his corrupt degenerate State without supposing a new Revelation from Heaven For we having an innate Notion within us of a Supreme Being above us that is superlatively good and endued with all possible Perfection our natural Reason dictates to us that to converse with and enjoy him for ever is the highest Good that we are capable of and the most suitable to our rational Natures but by what means we may be reconciled to him in this State of Revolt whereinto we are fallen and how at length we may arrive to the Enjoyment of him could never have been sufficiently made known to us in this Maze of Ignorance wherein we were involved without some divine Revelation And therefore to suppose Revelation unreasonable in our miserable State and Circumstances is to suppose it unreasonable for the great and good Governor of the World to furnish his noblest Creature Man with sufficient means to obtain his most excellent End And if it be acknowledged that there is a Revelation because it is so highly reasonable that there should be let us consider which of all the Religions in the World that pretends to be from God is most likely to be the Revelation of his Will and then I doubt not if we impartially compare them but our Reason will soon give its Vote for Christianity If you enquire for this Revelation of the Enthusiastick Poets of the Heathen how wild and extravagant is that Religion which we find in the Theology of Hesiod the Hymns of Orpheus the Odes of Pindar and the Poems of Homer Virgil and Ovid If you consult the Heathen Oracles of Delphos Dodona and Iupiter Hammon how vain and frivolous how uncertain and fallacious are all their Responses besides that the Books and Records of them are long since perished and consumed If you enquire for this Revelation in the Old Roman Theology which Numa pretended to receive from his Goddess Egeria that also is lost being burnt by the Roman Senate as Valerius Maximus tells us for that it contained many Things in it not only destructive to the Gods and Religions of other Countries but also to his own and the Roman Profession Or shall we confront Christianity with the Alchoran of Mahomet which he often pretends to have received from God There we shall find every Page almost abounding with monstrous Cheats and Impostures the whole being nothing else but a confused Medly of impious and contemptible Fopperies heaped together by a Triumvirate of Arians Iews and Pagans who were all of them known Impostors in the Ages wherein they lived So that to confront Christianity with any of these is to light up a Rush Candle and resolve to out-face the Sun with it For as for Christianity 't is a Religion made up of the most divine and Godlike Institutions its Precepts being such as are most worthy of God enjoining nothing but what is either true Godliness and most generous Morality or what are the most efficacious Means and Instruments of promoting them And as for its Doctrine it partly consists of those Principles of Natural Religion which all wise Men of whatsoever Nation or Religion have owned and acknowledged such as the Existence Vnity and Providence of the Godhead the Immortality of the Soul and the Rewards and Punishments of another Life together with the great Day of Accounts wherein Men shall receive according
to what they have done in the Flesh And even the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity which is the profoundest Mystery of all our Religion hath been owned and professed by the greatest and most famous Philosophers that ever were And as for those Doctrines that are purely Christian such as the Birth and Life and Death the Resurrection and Ascension of our Saviour together with his Sitting at the Right-hand of God and coming at the last Day to judge the World they are all of them so excellently contrived to serve the great Ends of Religion so wonderfully pregnant with Motives and Arguments to engage Men to the greatest Purity and Goodness that by their own native Beauty and excellent Contrivance they manifest themselves to be the Products of a divine Wisdom So that there can be no reasonable Pretence to contemn Christianity either because it is a Revealed Religion or because it contains any thing in it that is any ways unworthy of the Revealer And that there wants not sufficient Evidence to demonstrate it to be the Revelation of God I have already proved in the former Inference So that after all the lewd Talk of these confident Men it 's apparent there is not the least Colour of Reason for their impious Censures of Christianity But alas it's evident that the Foundation of their Quarrel against it lies not so much in their Reason as their Lusts. Christianity lays them under severe Restraints and will not permit them to be wicked in quiet which provokes them to arm their Wit and the little Reason that they have against it that so having baffled or rather laughed themselves out of their Religion they may be left at liberty to play the Fools and Mad-men without Controul or Disturbance And I make no doubt but if instead of that strict Piety and Virtue which Christianity enjoins it had but indulged to them the Liberties of the Heathen Religion so that they could have but acted all their Wickedness with Devotion sacrificed to the Gods in drunken Bowls and worshipped in the Arms of a Strumpet there are no Men in the World would have been more zealous Christians than they But let no Man be so foolish as to imagine that he can alter the Nature of Things by laughing at them or that Christianity will cease to be true in Compliance with our wicked Interest and Desires no no Things will be as they are in despite of us and howsoever we will please to fancy them And if after all our rude Contempts of Religion it be found to be true as I doubt not but it will we shall be sensible when it is too late that it had been more for our Safety to have play'd before the Mouth of a Cannon while it is spitting Fire or to have catch'd hold of a Thunderbolt as it comes roaring down from the Clouds than to have plaid with Religion and made it the Subject of our impious Scorns and Buffooneries 4. And lastly They saw the Glory of his immaculate Holiness and Purity From whence I infer that Holiness and true Goodness is the greatest Glory and Honour to humane Nature For this was the Glory of the Son of God himself when he assumed our Nature and dwelt among us and there is nothing more glorious in Christ than his Goodness and notwithstanding those excellent Doctrines that he preached those stupendous Miracles that he wrought and that visible Splendor in which he was inrobed he had not deserved the Name of a great and glorious Man if he had not been just and charitable temperate and humble and Heavenly-minded and eminent in all those divine and humane Virtues which are the proper Glory and Ornament of humane Nature For that which makes a Man more honourable than a meer Animal and advances us into the next Degree of Beings to Angels is our Reason by which alone we border upon the Divinity and do claim Kindred with the Angelical Natures That therefore which is truly our Honour and Glory consists in living according to that Reason by which we are advanced above all sublunary Natures that is in governing our Passions and Appetites Words and Actions according to those Eternal Rules of Righteousness which Right Reason dictates to us and if instead of doing thus we wholly resign up our selves to the Dominion of our brutish and unreasonable Inclinations we thereby render our selves more despicable and infamous than the most beastly Brutes in all the Creation and even those Goats and Wolves and Swine and Tygers whom we resemble in our beastly Manners could they see our Shame would doubtlesly hiss at us and reproach us for greater Beasts than themselves for they all live up to the best of their Natures and regularly pursue the highest End for which they were created whereas we who are Allyed to the noblest of Beings and are created and designed for the most glorious Ends do by our base and unreasonable Condescentions shamefully under-value our selves in pursuing no Ends but what are extremely unworthy of us So that it had been much more for our Honour and Reputation to have assumed the Shape and Nature of Brutes when we assumed their Manners and Customs for then our Actions would have very well become us and neither God nor Men could have justly upbraided us for them But to lead the Lives of Brutes in the Shape and Nature of Men is monstrous 't is to advance the Beast above the Man to place our Heels where Nature hath placed our Head and become our own Reverse and Antipodes OF THE AUTHORITY OF THE Holy Scripture JOHN V. 39. Search the Scriptures for in them ye think ye have eternal life BY the Scriptures here must be meant the Old Testament for as yet the greatest Part of the New was unrevealed and the whole of it unwritten They were those very Scriptures which the unbelieving Iews to whom our Saviour was now preaching owned and acknowledged to be the Word of God for in them says our Saviour ye think ye have eternal life which it's certain they did not think of any other Scriptures but only those of the Old Testament and they are they says he which testify of me And to be sure there were no other Scriptures which could testify of Christ to the unbelieving Iews but only those of Moses and the Prophets these being the only Scriptures whose Testimony they credited But yet the Reason which our Saviour urges to move them to read the Old Testament doth as much oblige us to read the New as well as the Old as it did them to read the Old for in them ye think to have eternal life that is in them ye think ye have eternal Life promised and all the Necessaries to be believed and done by you in order to your obtaining it proposed to you And indeed as they thought so it was they had eternal Life proposed to them in Hieroglyphicks for that was the Mystery of their Holy of Holies that was the Interpretation of
Sense of it but to impose a Sense on it which was never in it for how can She expound the Sense of a Book which hath no Sense in it If the Church is to expound the Sense of Scripture the Scripture must have a certain determinate Sense in it before she expounds it for to expound the Sense of That which hath no Sense is Nonsense And if the Scripture hath a certain Sense in it antecedently to the Church's Exposition of it why do they call it a Parcel of Vnsensed Characters If their Meaning be only this that the Sense of Scripture as it is delivered in Scripture is so obscure and ambiguous that without the infallible Exposition of the Church we can never be certain what it is besides that this is notoriously false the Scripture in all necessary Points both of Faith and Manners being so very plain and clear that any Man that reads it with an unprejudiced Mind may be as certain of the Sense of it as he can be of the Sense of any Writing and consequently of the Sense of any written Exposition of the Church besides this I say it is evident that whatever these Men pretend it is not meerly because of the obscurity of Scripture that they oblige Men to ground their Faith upon the Church and not upon the Scripture For they own as well as we that in many Things the Scripture is very plain and clear and yet they will by no Means allow Men to ground their Belief of these things upon the Authority of Scripture but all must be resolved into the Authority of the Church By which it is evident That if all the Scripture were as plain as the plainest Scriptures they would still contend for the Necessity of Mens relying upon the Church and not upon the Scripture and consequently that the true Reason why they contend for it is not because the Scripture is obscure but because they are resolved to advance their Church's Authority We own as well as they that where the Scripture is obscure Men ought to be guided by the Authority of the Church which we freely allow to be the best Expositor of Scripture But the true State of the Difference between them and us is this That whereas we require plain Men to judge of plain Things with their own Understandings and all Men so far forth as they are capable to judge for themselves in Matters of Religion and not content themselves to see with the Church's Eyes where they are able to see with their own nothing will satisfie these Men but to have all Men as well Wise as Simple surrender up their Faith and Judgment to the Church and wink hard and believe what-ever the Church believes purely because the Church believes it Whatever they pretend therefore the Truth of the Case is this They will by no means allow us to believe upon the Authority of Scripture not because the Scripture is obscure though this they pretend for were it never so plain the Case would be the same but because they are sensible that this will inevitably subvert their usurped Dominion over the Faith and Consciences of Men. But we must believe upon the Authority of the Church and who is this Church I beseech you Why they themselves are this Church So that whereas God hath published a Book called the Bible on purpose to declare his Mind and Will to the World here are started up a Sort of Men that call themselves the Church who very gravely tell us Sirs You must not so much as look into this Book or if you do must not believe any one Word in it upon its own Credit and Authority For though we do confess it is the Word of God yet we are the sole Iudges of the Sense of it and therefore whatsoever we declare is its Sense how unlikely soever it may seem to you you are bound in Conscience to receive and believe it for this very Reason because we declare it In short you must resign up your Eyes your Faith your Reason and Vnderstandings to us and see only with our Eyes and believe only with our Faith and judge only with our Iudgment and whithersoever we shall think fit to lead you you must tamely follow us without presuming to examin whether we lead you right or wrong But yet after all to induce us thus to inslave our Understandings to them they themselves are fain to appeal to Scripture and allow us in some Things to judge of the Sense of it and to believe those Things upon its Authority For no wise and honest Man will ever believe either that They are the Church or the infallible Judges of the Sense of Scripture without some Proof and Evidence and for this they are fain to produce several Texts of Scripture such as Thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build my Church Now supposing that to be true which is notoriously false viz. that those Texts do necessarily imply that They are the only true Catholick Church and that as such they are constituted by God infallible Judges of Scripture yet before I can believe so I must judge for my self whether this be the Sense of them or no and if I judge it is I must believe that they are the Church and infallible upon the Scripture's Authority and not theirs for their Authority is the Thing in debate and I cannot believe upon it before I believe it So then though we must believe nothing else upon Scripture Authority yet upon this very Authority we must believe that they are the Church and that they are infallible which are the fundamental Principles of their Religion that is to say we must believe as much upon Scripture Authority as will serve their turn and no more But may I be certain of the Truth of these two Fundamental Principles upon Scripture Authority or no If I may why may I not as well be infallibly certain upon the same Authority of other Principles of Christianity as well as those seeing there are no common Principles of Christian Religion but what are at least as plainly revealed in Scripture as these But this will spoil all for if Men may be infallibly certain of the Principles of Religion upon Scripture Authority what will become of the Necessity of Mens relying upon the Church which is founded upon this Principle that Men can arrive at no infallible Certainty in Religion by relying upon the Authority of Scripture or indeed any other Authority but the Church's But if I cannot be infallibly certain of those two Principles viz. that they are the Church and Infallible by those Authorities of Scripture which they urge to prove them how can I be infallibly certain of any Thing that they declare and define For if I am not certain that they are the Church for all I know the Church may be infallible and yet they may be mistaken and if I am not certain that they are infallible for all I know they may
Wretch who though he believes his own Religion true exchanges it for another which he believes to be false upon no other Consideration but so much temporal Advantage to boot By which he plainly declares that in the Ballance of his Estimation the Odds between Truth and Falshood the Declarations of God and the Impostures of the Devil is so inconsiderable that the least Addition of the transitory Goods of this World to the later renders it of sufficient Weight to turn the Scale against the former and that for his part he is not much concerned whether the Almighty be his Friend or Foe and provided he may but enjoy his Ease and Pleasure a few Years longer here he is very well contented to part with all his Hopes and Interest in God for ever For this is the natural Construction of Mens Apostacy from the true Religion in Consideration of their worldly Interest that that Interest is in their Esteem far more eligible than God with all his Power and Goodness that it is better to be without God in the World than without Preferment and that that Man makes a very good Bargain who gets a good Place in Exchange for his Maker and with the treacherous Iudas sells his Saviour though it be but for thirty Pieces of Silver Which is such a monstrous Degree of Impiety as one would think should be fufficient to scare and affright the most couragious Sinner that hath but the least Apprehension of God or Sense of Good and Evil. But then 2. Consider the desparte Folly of Mens abandoning their Religion in Complyance with their vicious Affections For he who without through Conviction abandons the Profession of his Religion whether it be true or false doth together with that most certainly abandon all the blessed Rewards and incur all the dreadful Penalties that true Religion promises and denounces because though his Religion perhaps may be false yet in renouncing it whilst he believes it true his Will doth as maliciously renounce the true Religion as if it really were so He thought it true and yet renounc'd it by which he plainly declares that if it had been true he would have renounced it so that whether it be true or false it 's all one to him his Will is the same his Crime and Guilt the same it is true Religion he intentionally renounces and therefore in so doing he doth intentionally renounce all his Concern and Interest in true Religion Now what a desperate Piece of Folly is this for a Man to part with all his Stock in the Common Bank of Religion which if it be not a down right Sham and Imposture is of everlasting Moment and Concern to him only for a present Gratification of some vain and unreasonable Lust to divorse himself for ever from the Love of God to quit all Title and Interest in the precious Blood of the Saviour of the World only to curry a short-lived Favour with Men with Men whose Breath is in their Nostrils and who within a few Days or Years must go off the Stage and leave us here perhaps forlorn and destitute To part with all my glorious Hopes of Heaven which are my best Heaven upon Earth and which is worse with Heaven it self where I have Treasures of Bliss sufficient to maintain me in a most happy Port to eternal Ages only to gain or secure a transitory Estate or Preferment which while I have it cannot make me happy and from which erelong I shall be torn and divided and not be a Farthing the better for forever to expose one self as a publick Spectacle of Scorn and Contempt to God and Angels and all the wise and good Part of the rational World for a short extemporary Blaze of pompous Splendor and Greatness which lies at the Mercy of every Counter-blast of Fortune and in all Probability will e'er long expire in Smoak and Stink Wretchedness and Infamy to plunge one self head-long into all the Agonies and Torments the Horrors and Desperations of a woful Eternity only to escape a short Persecution and a glorious Martyrdom when a little after perhaps I shall suffer a great deal more and longer under the Gout or Stone or Strangury without the Comfort of dying in a brave Cause and being assured of an immortal Recompence than I could have done under the Hand of the Executioner with it And yet all these mad Pranks that Man plays at once who abandons his Religion in Complyance with his Lusts. 3. Consider the foul Dishonesty of it For besides that our Religion being the most sacred Pledg committed to us by God for our own Use and the Use of our latest Posterity we cannot viciously desert and abandon it without betraying of God and falsifying our Trust to him and which is worse without squandering away the most inestimable Good that ever he committed to Men upon our own base Lusts and his most execrable Enemies which is Dishonesty blackned with the foulest Ingratitude Besides this I say by forsaking our Religion in Complyance with any leud Affection we not only do a dishonest Thing at present but also totally discard the Obligations to Honesty for the future For there is nothing can rationally oblige a Man to be throughly honest but only his Religion or inward Sense that it is his indispensable Duty towards God before whose righteous Tribunal he must one Day give an Account of all his Actions The two great Motives of humane Action are Religion and worldly Interest Now as for Religion that consists of fix'd and unalterable Principles which will by no Means ply or bend to the Alterations of outward Affairs and Circumstances but do in all Conditions move and oblige us with equal Force and Vigour whereas Worldly Interest is a fickle and mutable Thing that varies and alters with every outward Turn and Revolution So that that which is my Interest to Day may prove my Damage to Morrow and if it should whatever Part I act to Day it will oblige me to act the contrary to Morrow When therefore a Man hath let go his Religion and hath nothing but his Interest to hold him it is Cross or Pile for the future whether you find him an honest Man or a Knave because from henceforth he will be Knave or Honest according as it serves his Turn and that which serves his Turn to Day may prove his Loss and Prejudice to Morrow so that whether to Day or to Morrow he proves a true Man or a Cheat wholly depends upon the Die of Fortune and you must consult his Stars to find the lucky Hour or Moment when you may safely trust him For after the Wretch hath been so perfidious as to renounce his God and his Religion he hath no one Principle remaining in him upon which you can fasten any lasting Confidence As for his Interest that is such a fickle and inconstant Thing that there is no trusting it if it plead for you now the next Turn of Affairs it may be
some good warm Place or the Hope of gaining some important Station or Preferment And if this be found the Truth of his Case when he comes to appear before the Tribunal of God it had been a thousand times better for him that he had never been born for then he will be found a base Deserter of his God a treacherous Iudas to his Saviour and a perfidious Renegado from his Religion and according to the Quality of his Sin and Guilt receive his Portion of Damnation 4. Consider whether before you entertained any Intention to change you were fully resolved impartially to consult both sides of the Question I doubt there are too many among us that first resolve to change their Religion and then begin to enquire after Reasons and Arguments against it and that their Resolution to change is so far from being the Effect of sincere Conviction that their Conviction is the Effect of their Resolution First Some vile Affection or some temporal Interest recommends another Religion to them that either gives them leave to be wicked without Remorse or Disturbance or promises them Gain and Advancement upon which they resolve right or wrong to entertain and embrace it and then to excuse themselves to their own Consciences or to vindicate their Reputation to the World from the Scandal of being down-right Apostates they fall a hunting after Reasons and Arguments to convince themselves of the Truth of it or at least to make the World believe that it was not their Interest but their Conviction that turned them And when Men thus resolve first and enquire afterwards to be sure their Enquiry will be very partial for being fully resolved to change their Religion upon some vicious or secular Motive it is become their Intâ—rest to pick Holes in it and to reason or cavil themselves out of the Belief of it And this makes them shy of bringing the Matter under a fair and impartial Examination lest while they are seeking Reasons to overthrow their Faith they should find Reasons to establish and confirm it So that they begin their Enquiry with these secret Intentions We will listen only to one side of the Cause and leave the other to shift for it self and seek for as many Arguments as we can against our Religion but none for it We will read the Books and consult the Teachers of one side only viz. the opposite side to our present Belief and Persuasion and if among them we can but find Arguments enough to render the contrary Persuasion any way probable we will submit our Faith to it without any farther Enquiry and not trouble our selves to examine the Evidence on the other side for Fear we should be convinc'd in spight of our Teeth that the Truth lies there and then our Conscience will never let us be quiet but be perpetually clamouring against us for base and impious Apostates That this is the foul and hypocritical Intention of too many among us is notorious enough by their Practice they leap from Church to Church and from one Communion to another without any Pause or Consideration they are with us to Day and gone from us to Morrow and are such Mushroom extemporary Converts that before ever we hear they doubted of their own they are confirmed in a contrary Religion In short they steal out of their Religion so softly and with so little Noise that they are commonly gone before ever we hear they are going as if they were afraid we should stop and detain them by better Reasons and fuller Convictions Whereas had these Men any Conscience or Honesty in them they would consider that Religion is a Thing too sacred and serious to be thus dallied and trifled with and that to change ones Religion is a matter of such vast Importance as requires a long and through Consideration and a very clear and full Conviction of Mind that there is too much depends upon it to part with it upon slight Pretences and that it concerns them as much as an Eternity of Bliss amounts to not to desert it upon any other Inducement but that of a through well-weighed Persuasion of Conscience And if they had had any such honest Thoughts about them while they were under the Temptation to change they would never have admitted any Doubt of their Religion but upon great and palpable Evidence and then they would have doubted long before they would have concluded against it and not have precipitated their Judgment hand over head into a contrary Persuasion till they had first applied themselves for Resolution again and again to their old Guides and Pastors and with all due Deference to their Authority had strictly examined all their Reasons and Answers till they had throughly inspected their Arguments pro and con and equally heard both sides of the Cause till they had read advised and consulted on both sides and weighed the whole matter over and over with the greatest Care and Exactness But when Men run away from their Religion in an Instant without ever observing this regular Process of sincere Enquiries it is a plain Case that their Wills were resolved before their Understandings and that they were converted before ever they were convinced and consequently that it was not Reason and Conviction that turned them but Lust or Interest For though when they are turned they may perhaps be very diligent to seek Conviction yet this is only an After-game which they are fain to play to save their Conscience or their Reputation 5. Consider before you entertain any Intention to change Whether it be your unfained Intention whatever shall happen to you to adhere to that side which shall appear most reasonable Perhaps you are not yet arrived to that Height of Impiety as to resolve right or wrong to change your Religion whether you find it true or false upon a just and fair Examination for this is such an horrible defiance of God such an express and absolute Renunciation of all that is sacred and good as no Man can be guilty of who is not utterly abandoned of all his natural Sense of Religion and Relish of Good and Evil. But yet perhaps you may be tempted to change with the Prospect of such Advantages on the one side and Calamities on the other which though it doth not obtain of you that base and wicked Resolution yet doth so far prevail as to engage you upon a fresh Enquiry to try whether upon second Thoughts and better Consideration you can satisfie your own Minds of the Truth of that Religion you are invited to turn to that so you may if possible comply with a good Conscience and secure your Interest in doing your Duty And thus far you are safe enough but before you proceed any farther it concerns you as you tender your everlasting Interest to look into your own Souls and consider seriously whether you are unfeignedly resolved whatsoever the Consequence of Things may be to cleave fast to the Truth of God on which side