of Disputes are qualified and the Disease it self is undermined 5. It inclines Men to place the Essential Principles of Religion only in the plain and certain Articles For Philosophers are disposed to think that Certainty is in a little room And whoever believes so concerning the Tenents of Theology will not lay the main stress upon any but the clear acknowledg'd Principles by which prudent Caution he serves all the important Concernments of Religion He will not wrangle for every Conceit nor divide for every Difference but takes care to walk in the ways of Charity and Obedience And so the Church is safe and Schisms are prevented and cured 6. The Real Philosophy ends many Disputes by taking Men off from unnecessary Terms of Art which very osten are the chief occasions of the Contests If things were stated in clear and plain words many Controversies would be ended and the Philosophy I am recommending inclines Men to define with those that are simplest and plainest and thereby also it very much promotes the Interests both of Truth and Peace In sum I say the Free and Real Philosophy makes Men deeply sensible of the Infirmities of Humane Intellect and our manifold hazards of mistaking and so renders them wary and modest diffident of the certainty of their Conceptions and averse to the boldness of peremptory asserting So that the Philosopher thinks much and examines many things separates the Certainties from the Plausibilities that which is presumed from that which is prov'd the Images of Sense Phansie and Education from the results of genuine and impartial Reason Thus he doth before he Assents or Denies and then he takes with him also a Sense of his own Fallibility and Defects and never concludes but upon resolution to alter his Mind upon contrary Evidence Thus he conceives warily and he speaks with as much caution and reserve in the humble Forms of So I think and In my Opinion and Perhaps 't is so with great difference to opposite Perswasion candour to Dissenters and calmness in Contradictions with readiness and desire to learn and great delighâ—… in the Discoveries of Truth and Detections of his own Mistakes When he argues he gives his Reasons without Passion and shines without flaming Discourses without wrangling and differs without dividing He catcheth not at the Infirmities of his Opposite but lays hold of his Strength and weighs the Substance without blowing the dust in his eyes He entertains what he finds reasonable and suspends his Judgment when he doth not clearly understand This is the Spirit with which Men are inspired by the Philosophy I recommend It makes them so just as to allow that liberty of Judgment to others which themselves desire and so prevents all imperious Dictates and Imposings all Captious Quarrels and Notional Wars And that this is the Philosophick Genius may be shewn in a grand Instance the ROYAL SOCIETY which is the Great Body of Practical Philosophers In this Assembly though it be made up of all kinds of Dispositions Professions and Opinions yet hath Philosophy so rarely temper'd the Constitution that those that attend there never see the least inclination to any unhandsome opposition or uncivil reflexion no bold obtrusions or consident sayings The forbearing such Rudenesses is indeed a Law of that Society and their Designs and Methods of Inquiry naturally form Men into the modest temper and secure them from the danger of the Quarrelsome Genius This is palpable evidence of the sweet Humour and ingenious Tendencies of the Free Philosophy and I believe 't will be hard to shew such another Example in any so great a Body of differing Inclinations and Apprehensions Thus the Experimental Learning rectifies the grand Abuse which the Notional Knowledge hath so long foster'd and promoted to the hinderance of Science the disturbance of the World and the prejudice of the Christian Faith And there is no doubt but as it hath altered and reformed the Genius in Matters of Natural Research and Inquiry so it will in its progress dispose Mens Spirits to more Calmness and Modesty Charity and Prudence in the Differences of Religion and even Silence Disputes there For the free sensible Knowledge tends to the altering the Crasis of Mens Minds and so cures the Disease at the Root and true Philosophy is a Specifick against Disputes and Divisions To confirm which we may observe further That where-ever this sort of Knowledge prevails the Contentious Divinity loseth ground and 't will be hard to find any one of those Philosophers that is a zealous Votary of a Sect which reservedness doth indeed give occasion to Sectaries and Bigotts to accuse them of Atheism and Irreligion But it really is no Argument of less Piety but of more Consideration and Knowledge And 't would make much for the advantage of Religion and their own if those fierce Men would understand that Christianity should teach them that which they rail against in the Philosophers But now I must expect to hear I. That Disputes serve to discover Truth as latent Fire is excited and disclosed by the collision of hard Bodies So that the Pretence is That Philosophy doth on this account rather disserve than promote the Interests of Religion To this I Answer 1. That all the necessary material Truths in Divinity are already discover'd and we have no need of New Lights there the Ancientest are truest and best though in the disquisitions of Philosophy there will be always occasions of proceeding I add 2. Disputes are one of the worst ways to discover Truth If new things were to be found out in Religion as well as Nature they would scarce be disclosed by this way of Enquiry A calm Judgment and distinct Thoughts and impartial Consideration of many things are necessary for the finding Truth which lies deep and is mingled up and down with much Error and specious falshood and 't is hard if not utterly impessible to preserve any one of these in the heat of Disputation In such Occasions the Mind is commonly disordered by Passion and the Thoughts are confused and our Considerations tyed to those things which give colour to our Opinions We are biast by our Affections towards our own Conceits and our love to them is inflamed by opposition we are made incapable of entertaining the assistance of our Opposites Suggestions by strong prejudice and inclined to quarrel with every thing he saith by spight and desire of triumph and these are ill Circumstances for the discovery of Truth He is a wonderful Man indeed that can thread a Needle when he is at Cudgels in a crowd and yet this is as easie as to find Truth in the hurry of Disputation The Apostle intimates 1 Tim. 6. 5. That perverse Disputers are destitute of Truth and tells us That of the strife of words come envy railings evil surmisings but no discovery of unknown Verities But II. we are told in favour of Disputes in Religion That we are to contend earnestly for the Faith that was once
made And the Royal Psalmist speaks to the like purpose Psal. 19. The Heavens declare the Glory of God and the Firmament sheweth his handy-Works And again Psal. 148. 3. Praise him Sun and Moon praise him ye Stars and Light which intimates that these Works of his afford Matter to our Reasons for Religious Acknowledgments And Reason proves the Existence of God srom the beauty and order and ends and usefulness of the Creatures for these are demonstrative Arguments of the Being of a wise and omnipotent Mind that hath framed all things so regularly and exactly and that Mind is God This Article then Reason proves which was the first Branch of the Particular and I add that it is Reason only that can do it which was the other For there are but three things from whence the Existence of any Being can be concluded viz. Sense Revelation or Reason Sense hath no more to do here but to present Matter for our Reasons to work on and Revelation supposeth the Being of a God and cannot prove it for we can have no security that the Revelation is true till we are assured it is from God or from some commissioned by him The knowledge of his Being therefore must precede our Faith in Revelation and so cannot be deduced from it So that only Reason is left to assure us here And thus Reason lays the very Corner Stone of Religion The next to this is the other Principle mentioned viz. 2. The Divine Authority of Scripture This also is to be proved by Reason and only by it The great Argument for the truth of Scripture is the Testimony of the Spirit in the Miracles wrought by Christ and his Apostles Our Saviour himself useth this Argument to gain credit to his Doctrines Believe me for the Work 's sake The Works that I do bear testimony of me and if I had not done among them the Works that no other Man did they had had no sin John 15. 24. And the Apostles continually urge that great Miracle the Resurrection of Christ from the dead for the conviction both of the Jews and Gentiles That he was the Son of God and his Doctrines true Now Miracles are an Argument to our Reasons and we reason from them thus Miracles are God's Seal and they are wrought by his Power and he is true and good and would not lend these to Impostors to cheat and abuse Mankind Therefore whoever works real Miracles for the confirmation of any Doctrine it is to be believed that he is taught of God and commissioned to teach us And that Christ and his Apostles did those things which are recorded of them is Matter of Testimony and Reason clears the validity of this by the aggregation of multitudes of Circumstances which shew That the first Relators could not be deceived themselves and would not deceive us nor indeed could in the main Matters if they had designed it And the certainty of the conveyance of those things to us is evinced also by numerous convictive Reasons So that the matter of Fact is secure and that such Doctrines were taught as are ascribed to those Divine Persons and those Persons inspired that penned them are proved the same way And so it follows from the whole that the Gospel is the Word of God and the Old Testament is confirmed by that Thus Reason proves the Divine Authority of Scripture and those other Arguments that use to be produced for it from its Stile and its influence upon the Souls of Men from the excellency of its Design and the Providence of God in preserving it are of the same sort though not of the same strength Reason then proves the Scriptures and this only for that they are from God is not known immediately by Sense and there is no distinct Revelation that is certain and infallible to assure us of it and so Reason only remains to demonstrate the Article These two great Truths The Existence of God and Authority of Scripture are the first in our Religion and they are Conclusions of Reason as well as Foundations of Faith And thus briefly of those Principles of Religion that are presupposed unto it we have seen how Reason serves for the Demonstration of them II. I COME now to the other sort of Principles viz. those that are formally so They are of two sorts â—…t and pure The mixt are those that are discovered by Reason and declared by Revelation also and so are Principles both of Reason and Faith Of this kind are the Attributes of God Moral good and evil and the immortality of Humane Souls The Principles of pure Faith are such as are known only by Divine Testimony as the Miraculous Conception the Incarnation and the Trinity The first sort Reason proves as well as Scripture this I shew briefly in the Instances mention'd 1. That the Divine Attributes are revealed in the Holy Oracles is very clear and as plain it is that they are deduced from Reason For 't is a general Principle through the World That God is a Being absolutely perfect And hence Reason concludes all the particular Attributes of his Nature since Wisdom Goodness Power and the rest are Perfections and imply nothing of imperfection or defect and therefore ought to be ascribed to the infinitely perfect Being 2. That there is moral Good and Evil is discoverable by Reason as well as Scripture For these are Reason's Maxims That every Thing is made for an end and every Thing is directed to its end by certain Rules These Rules in Creatures of understanding and choice are Laws and the transgressing these is Vice and Sin 3. The Immortality of our Souls is plain in Scripture and Reason proves it by shewing the spirituality of our Natures and that it doth from the nature of Sense and our perception of Spiritual Beings of Vniversals and of Logical Metaphysical and Mathematical Notions From our compounding Propositions and drawing Conclusions from them From the vastness and quickness of our Imaginations and liberty of our Wills all which are beyond the Powers of Matter and therefore argue a Being that is Spiritual and consequently immortal which Inference the Philosophy of Spirits proves Also the Moral Arguments of Reason from the goodness of God and his Justice in distributing Rewards and Punishments the nature of Vertue and tendencies of Religious Appetites conclude I think very hopefully That there is a Life after this Thus in short of the Principles I called mixt which Reason demonstrates BUT for the others viz. 2. Those of pure Revelation Reason cannot prove them immediately nor is it to be expected that it should For they are Matters of Testimony and we are no more to look for immediate proof from Reason of those things than we are to expect that abstracted Reason should demonstrate That there is such a place as China or that there was such a Man as Julius Caesar All that it can do here is to assert and make good the credibility and truth of the Testimonies
deduce some Corollaries that may be of use for the better understanding of the whole Matter 1. Reason is certain and infallible This follows from the state I gave of the Nature and Notion of Reason in the beginning It consists in First Principles and the Conclusions that are raised from them and the Observations of Sense Now first Principles are certain or nothing can be so for every possible Conclusion must be drawn from those or by their help and every Article of Faith supposeth them And for the Propositions that arise from those certain Principles they are certain likewise For nothing can follow from Truth but Truth in the longest Series of Deduction If Error creep in there is ill consequence in the case And the sort of Conclusions that arise from the Observations of Sense if the Sense be rightly circumstantiated and the Inference rightly made are certain also For if our Senses in all their due Circumstances deceive us All is a delusion and we are sure of nothing But we know that first Principles are certain and that our Senses do not deceive us because God that bestowed them upon us is True and Good and we are as much assured that whatever we duly conclude from either of them is certain because whatever is drawn from any Principle was virtually contained in it 2. I infer That Reason is in a sense the Word of God viz. That which he hath written upon our Minds and Hearts as Scripture is that which is written in a Book The former is the Word whereby he hath spoken to all Mankind the latter is that whereby he hath declared his Will to the Church and his peculiar People Reason is that Candle of the Lord of which Solomon speaks Prov. 20. 27. That Light whereby Christ hath enlightned every one that cometh into the World John 1. 9. And that Law whereby the Consciences of the Heathen either accuse or excuse one another Rom. 2. 15. So that Hierocles spoke well when he said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To be perswaded by God and right Reason is one and the same thing And Luther called Philosophy within its own bounds The Truth of God 3. The belief of our Reason is an Exercise of Faith and Faith is an Act of Reason The former part is clear from the last Particular and we believe our Reasons because we have them from God who cannot mistake and will not deceive So that relying on them in things clearly perceived is trust in God's veracity and goodness and that is an exercise of Faith Thus Luke 12. The not belief of Reason that suggests from God's clothing the Lillies that He will provide for us is made by our Saviour a defect of Faith Vers. 28. O ye of little Faith And for the other part that Faith is an Act of Reason that is evident also For 'T is the highest Reason to believe in God revealing 4. No Principle of Reason contradicts any Articles of Faith This follows upon the whole Faith befriends Reason and Reason serves Religion and therefore they cannot clash They are both certain both the Truths of God and one Truth doth not interfere with another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Aristotle Truth agrees with all things that are Whatsoever contradicts Faith is opposite to Reason for 't is a Fundamental Principle of that That God is to be believed Indeed sometimes there is a seeming contradiction between them But then either something is taken for Faith that is but Phansie or something for Reason that is but Sophistry or the supposed contradiction is an Error and Mistake 5. When any thing is pretended from Reason against any Article of Faith we ought not to cut the Knot by denying Reason but endeavour to unite it by answering the Argument and 't is certain it may be fairly answered For all Hereticks argue either from false Principles or fallaciously conclude from true ones So that our Faith is to be defended not by declaiming against Reason in such a case which strengthens the Enemy and to the great prejudice of Religion allows Reason on his side But we must endeavour to defend it either by discovering the falshood of the Principles he useth in the name of Reason or the ill Consequence which he calls Proof 6. When any thing is offered us for an Article of Faith that seems to contradict Reason we ought to see that there be good cause to believe that this is divinely revealed and in the sense propounded If it be we may be assured from the former Aphorisms that the Contradiction is but an Appearance and it may be discovered to be so But if the Contradiction be real This can be no Article of Revelation or the Revelation hath not this sense For God cannot be the Author of Contradictions and we have seen that Reason as well as Faith is his I mean the Principles of Natural Truth as well as those of Revelation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 faith Aristotle Truth is throughout contrary to falshood and what is true in Divinity cannot be false in Reason 'T is said indeed in the Talmud If two Rabbins differ in Contradictories yet both have their Opinions from Moses and from God But we are not obliged to such an irrational kind of Faith And ought not to receive any thing as an Article of it in a sense that palpably contradicts Reason no more than we may receive any sense that contradicts the direct Scriptures Faith and Reason accord as well as the Old Testament and the New and the Analogy of Reason is to be heeded also because even that is Divine and Sacred 7. There is nothing that God hath revealed to oblige our Faith but he hath given us reason to believe that he hath revealed it For though the thing be never so clearly told me if I have not reason to think that God is the Revealer of what is so declared I am not bound to believe it except there be evidence in the thing it self For 't is not Faith but vain credulity to believe every thing that pretends to be from God So that we ought to ask our selves a Reason why we believe the Scripture to be the Revelation of God's Will and ought not to assent to any sense put upon it till we have ground to think that that sense is his mind I say we must have ground either from our particular Reasons or the Authority of the Church otherwise our Faith is vain Credulity and not Faith in God 8. A Man may hold an erroneous Opinion from a mistaken sense of Scripture and deny what is the truth of the Proposition and what is the right meaning of the Text and yet not err in Faith For Faith is a belief of God revealing And if God have not so revealed this or that as to give us certain ground to believe this to be his sense he hath not sufficiently revealed it to oblige our Faith So that though I deny such or such a sense while I believe
to dissenters and prevent all vehemencies of captious dispute all schisms and unnecessary separations and many Wars and Persecutions upon the account of Religion For if the things in which Men differ be not Religion be not Faith and Fundamental If this be true and this truth acknowledg'd All these would want pretence and so Peace and Vnity would possess the spirits of Men. They saw that Religion which was shaken by divisions and rendred suspected of uncertainty through the mixture of uncertain things would stand safe and firm when 't was lay'd only upon the plain infallible undoubted propositions That holiness would thrive when Mens zeal was taken off from talking and disputing against others and directed inwards to the government of themselves and the reformation of their own hearts and lives That Papism which in those times of distraction began to spread even here would drop to the ground if it were believed That the necessary principles of Religion were few and plain and those agreed on For then there would be no need of an Infallible Interpreter and Judge I say They were sensible that all the great Interests of Religion and Mankind might be served by the acknowledgment of this one Reasonable Principle which they saw was the only way to bring us to stability and consistence â—…o Peace and Vnion In Consequence of this Spirit and Doctrine they discours'd the things wherein they differ'd from others with mildness and modesty without anger and damning sentences and afforded their converses to all sorts of good Men though they believ'd them mistaken They never exprest rage in their conversations or discourses against bare errours and mistakes of judgment But for the pride and confidence censoriousness and groundless separations that are the frequent attendants of different opinions These sometimes mov'd them to anger and expression of just resentment because they look'd on them as great Immoralities and very pernicious sins And on the occasion of these spiritual vices they were warmed with zeal against the Sectaries and Bigots for the taking down of whose pride and confidence They thought it necessary to detect the Impostors and to expose their vanities which they did successfully and shew'd That their Divinity consisted most in Phrases and their boasted spirituality in fond affections That their new lights were but freakish fancies and old Heresies revived and the precious Mysteries of their Theology but conceited absurdities and non-sense in a fantastick dress They happily drew the parallel between our Separatists and those antient ones the Pharisees and proved that the same spirit acted the Ataxites that govern'd those Jewish Fanaticks And because their pretences were taking and specious and had caught great numbers of the easie well meaning people of Bensalem Therefore to disabuse them they labour'd much to shew the shortness of their kind of Godliness and the danger of placing all Religion in Praying Hearing Zeal Rapture Mysteries and Opinions Accordingly they declar'd and prov'd That 1. Fluency and Pathetick eloquence in suddain Prayer may proceed and doth many time from excited passion and warm imagination from a peculiar temper and heated melancholly That these are no sign that a man prays by the spirit nor do they argue him to be one jot the better then those that want the faculty or any whit the more accepted of God for it That to pray by the spirit is to pray with Faith Desire and Love and that a Man may pray by the spirit and with a Form 2. That people may delight to hear from other causes then conscience and a desire to be directed in the government of their Lives That hearing is very grateful to some because it feeds their opinions and furnisheth their tongues and inables them to make a great shew of extraordinary Saint-ship They represented that meer animal Men and fond lovers of themselves may be much taken with hearing of the Gracious promises and Glorious priviledges of the Gospel when at the same time they are told they are all theirs and theirs peculiarly and exclusively to the rest of Mankind That pride and vanity and self-love will recommend and indear such preaching That it is most luscious to fond and conceited men to hear how much better and more precious they are then their Neighbours how much dearer to God and more favour'd by him what an interest they have in free distinguishing Grace and how very few have a share in it besides themselves How their enemies are hated of God and how sad a condition they are in who differ from them in practices and opinions To doat on such preaching and admiringly to follow such Preachers They shew'd was but to be in love with flattery and self-deceit That it was no sign of Godliness but an evident argument of pride malice and immoderate selfishness That these are the true causes of the zeal and earnestness of many after Sermons and of the pleasure that they have in hearing though they would perswade others and believe themselves that the love of Religion and sence of duty are the only motives that prevail with them 3. Concerning zeal They taught That zeal in it self is indifferent and made good or bad as it's objects and incentives are That meer education and custom natural conscience and particular complexion do sometimes make Men very zealous about things of Religion That though the fervours of the Ataxites for their Doctrines and ways were not all feigned but real and sincere Yet their zeal was nothing worth being but meer natural passion kindled by a fond delight in their own self chosen practices and opinions That their coldness to the great known necessary duties of Justice Charity Obedience Modesty and Humility was an evident sign that their heat for pretended Orthodox tenents and modes of worship had nothing Divine in it That true zeal begins at home with self-reformation and that where it was imployed altogether about amendments of external Religion and publick Government it was pernicious not only to the World but to a Mans self also 4. And because the heights of zeal ran up sometimes into raptures and exstacies which were look'd on as wonderful appearances of God in the thus transported persons Therefore here also They undeceived the people as I said in the general before by shewing That these alienations may be caused naturally by the power of a strong fancy working upon violent affections That they together may and do oft produce deliquiums of sense That the Imagination working then freely and without contradiction or disturbance from the external senses and being wholly imploy'd about Religious matters may form to it self strange Images of extraordinary apparitions of God and Angels of Voices and Revelations which being forcibly imprest on the fancy may beget a firm belief in the exstaticall person that all these were divine manifestations and discoveries and so he confidently thinks himself a Prophet and an inspired Man and vents all his conceits for Seraphick truths and holy Mysteries And by the vehemency
his Nature The belief of these is necessary to all the parts of Religion He that comes unto God in any way of Worship or Address must know that he is and in some measure what Namely he must know and own the commonly acknowledg'd Attributes of his Being 2. A second necessary Principle is The Providenee of God viz. the Knowledge That he made us and not we our selves that he preserves us and daily provides for us the good things we enjoy This is necessary to the Duties of Prayer Praise and Adoration And if there be no Providence Prayer and Thanksgiving and other Acts of Worship are in vain 3. A third Fundamental is Moral Good and Evil. Without this there can be no confession of Sin no respect to Charity Humility Justice Purity or the rest that we call Vertues These will be confes'd to be Fundamentals of Religion And I shall not dispute how many more may be admitted into the number These we are sure are such in the strictest sense for all Religion supposeth and stands upon them And they have been acknowledg'd by Mankind in all Ages and Places of the World But besides these there are other Principles of Religion which are not in the same degree of absolute necessity with the former but yet are highly serviceable by way of incouragement and assistance I reckon four viz. 1 That God will pardon us if we repent 2. That he will assist us if we endeavour 3. That he will accept of Services that are imperfect if they are sincere 4. That he will righteously reward and punish in another World These contain the Matter and Substance of the Gospel more clearly and explicitly reveal'd to the Christian Church but in some measure owned also by the Gentiles So that I may reckon that the Principles I have mention'd are the sum of the Religion of Mankind I mean as to the Doctrinal Part of it and the Duties recited before are the Substance of the Practical which primarily and most essentially is Religion And Christianity takes in all these Duties and all these Principles advancing the Duties to higher degrees of Excellency and Perfection incouraging them by new Motives and Assistances and superadding two other Instances Baptism and the Lord's Supper And for the Principles it confirms those of Natural Religion it explains them further and discovers some few new ones And all these both of the former and the latter sort are contain'd in the Creed Here are all the Fundamentals of Religion and the main Assisting Principles also And though our Church require our assent to more Propositions yet those are only Articles of Communion not Doctrines absolutely necessary to Salvation And if we go beyond the Creed for the Essentials of Faith who can tell where we shall stop The sum is Religion primarily is Duty And Duty is All that which God hath commanded to be done by his Word or our Reasons and we have the substance of these in the Commandments Religion also in a secondary sense consists in some Principles relating to the Worship of God and of his Son in the ways of devout and vertuous living and these are comprised in that Summary of Belief called the Apostles Creed This I take to be Religion and this Religion I shall prove to be reasonable But I cannot undertake for all the Opinions some Men are pleased to call Orthodox nor for all those that by many private Persons and some Churches are accounted essential Articles of Faith and Salvation Thus I have stated what I mean by Religion The OTHER thing to be determined and fixt is the proper Notion of Reason For this we may consider that Reason is sometimes taken for Reason in the Faculty which is the Vnderstanding and at other times for Reason in the Object which consists in those Principles and Conclusions by which the Understanding is informed This latter is meant in the Dispute concerning the Agreement or Disagreement of Reason and Religion And Reason in this sense is the same with natural Truth which I said is made up of Principles and Conclusions By the Principles of Reason we are not to understand the Grounds of any Man's Philosophy nor the Critical Rules of Syllogism but those imbred Fundamental Notices that God hath implanted in our Souls such as arise not from external Objects nor particular Humours or Imaginations but are immediately lodged in our Minds independent upon other Principles or Deductions commanding a sudden assent and acknowledged by all sober Mankind Of this sort are these That God is a Being of all Perfection That nothing hath no Attributes That a Thing cannot be and not be That the Whole is greater than any of its Parts These and such-like are unto Vs what Instincts are to other Creatures And these I call the Principles of Reason The Conclusions are those other Notices that are inferred rightly from these and by their help from the Observations of Sense And the remotest of them that can be conceived if it be duly inferred from the Principles of Reason or rightly circumstantiated Sense is as well to be reckoned a Part and Branch of Reason as the more immediate Conclusions that are Principles in respect of those distant Truths And thus I have given an account also of the proper Notion and Nature of Reason I AM to shew next 2. That Religion is reasonable and this implies two things viz. That Reason is a Friend to Religion and that Religion is so to Reason I begin with the FIRST and here I might easily shew the great congruity that there is between that Light and those Laws that God hath placed in our Souls and the Duties of Religion that by the expressness of his written Word he requires from us and demonstrate that Reason teacheth All those excepting only the two Positives Baptism and the Holy Eucharist But there is not so much need of turning my Discourse that way and therefore I shall confine it to the Principles of Religion which are called Faith and prove that Reason exceedingly befriends these It doth this I. By proving some of those Principles And II. By defending all For the clearing both let us consider That the Principles of Religion are of two sorts Either 1. Such as are presupposed to Faith or such as 2. are formal Articles of it Of the first are The Being of a God and the Authority of the Scripture And of the second such as are expresly declared by Divine Testimony as the Attributes of God the Incarnation of his Son and such like I. For the former they are proved by Reason and by Reason only The others we shall consider after 1. That the Being of a God the Foundation of all is proved by Reason the Apostle acknowledgeth when he saith That what was to be known of God was manifest and to the Heathen Rom. 1. 19. and he adds vers 20. That the invisible Things from the Creation of the World are clearly seen being understood by the Things that are
Humane Reason by that for Reason directs us to live in simplicity and godly sincerity which he opposeth to a life in fleshly Wisdom By this therefore no doubt he means the Reason of our Appetites and Passions which is but Sense and Imagination for these blind Guides are the Directors of the Wicked but not the Reason of our Minds which is one of those Lights that illuminate the Consciences of good Men and help to guide their Actions And whereas 't is objected 5. From Col. 2. 8. Beware lest any spoil you through Philosophy I Answer There is nothing can be made of that neither for the disgrace of Reason for the Philosophy the Apostle cautions against is the same which he warns Timethy of 1 Tim. 1. 4. Neither give heed to Fables and endless Genealogies that minister Questions calling these prophane and vain bablings and oppositions of Science falsly so called 1 Tim. 6. 20. By all which Learned Interpreters understand the pretended Knowledge of which the Gnosticks boasted which consisted in the fabulous Pedigrees of the Gods under the name of 〈◊〉 and it may be the Genealogies of which the Jews were so fond and the disputing Philosophy among the Greeks which was properly Science falsly so called and did minister Questions and endless Strife I say 't is very probable these might be comprehended also But Reason is no otherwise concerned in all this but as condemning and reproving these dangerous Follies THUS we see the Pretensions from Scripture against Reason are vain But there are other Considerations by which it useth to be impugned as 1. OUR Reason is corrupted and therefore is not fit to meddle in Spiritual Matters To this I say That Reason as it is taken for the Faculty of Understanding is very much weakened and impaired It sees but little and that very dully through a Glass darkly as the Apostle saith 1 Cor. 13. And it is very liable to be misled by our Senses and Affections and Interests and Imaginations so that we many times mingle Errors and false Conceits with the genuine Dictates of our Minds and appeal to them as the Principles of Truth and Reason when they are but the vain Images of our Phansies or the false Conclusions of Ignorance and Mistake If this be meant by the corruption of Reason I grant it and all that can be inferred from it will be That we ought not to be too bold and peremptory in defining speculative and difficult matters especially not those that relate to Religion nor to set our Reasonings against the Doctrines of Faith and Revelation But this is nothing to the disreputation of Reason in the Object viz. Those Principles of Truth which are written upon our Souls or any Conclusions that are deduced from them These are the same that they ever were though we discern them not so clearly as the Innocent State did They may be mistaken but cannot be corrupted And as our Understandings by reason of their weakness and liableness to Error may take falshoods for some of those or infer falsly from those that are truly such so we know they do the same by the Scriptures themselves viz. they very often mis-interpret and very often draw perverse conclusions from them And yet we say not That the Word of God is corrupted nor is the use of Scripture decryed because of those abuses But here advantage will be taken to object again 2. That since our natural Vnderstandings are so weak and so liable to mistake they ought not to be used in the Affairs of Religion and 't will signifie little to us that there are certain Principles of eternal Reason if we either perceive them not or cannot use them To this I Answer That if on this account we must renounce the use of our natural Understandings Scripture will be useless to us also For how can we know the meaning of the words that express God's Mind unto us How can we compare one Scripture with another How can we draw any Consequence from it How apply general Propositions to our own particular Cases How tell what is to be taken in the Letter what in the Mystery what plainly whatin a Figure What according to strict and rigorous Truth What by way of accommodation to our Apprehensions I say without the exrcise of our Understandings using the Principles of Reason none of these can be done and without them Scripture will signifie either nothing at all or very little to us And what can Religion get this way This Inference therefore is absurd and impious All that can justly be concluded from the weakness of our Understandings will be what I intimated before that we ought to use them with modesty and caution not that we should renounce them He is a Mad-man who because his eyes are dim will therefore put them out But it may be objected further 3. That which Men call Reason is infinitely various and that is reasonable to one which is very irrational to another Therefore Reason is not to be heard And I say Interpretations of Scripture are infinitely various and one calls that Scriptural which another calls Heretical Shall we conclude therefore That Scripture is not to be heard Reason in it self is the fame all the World over though Mens apprehensions of it are various as the Light of the Sun is one though Colours are infinite And where this is it ought not to be denied because follies and falshoods pretend relation to it or call themselves by that name If so farewel Religion too But 4. 'T is Socinianism to plead for Reason in the Affairs of Faith and Religion And I Answer 'T is gross Phanaticism to plead against it This Name is properly applicable to the Enemies of Reason But the other of Socinianism is groundlesly applyed to those that undertake for it and it absurdly supposeth that Socinians are the only rational Men when-as divers of their Doctrines such as The Sleep and natural mortality of the Soul and utter exâ—…inction and annihilation of the Wicked after the Day of Judgment are very obnoxious to Philosophy and Reason And the Socinians can never be confuâ—…ed in their other Opinions without using Reason to maintain the Sense and Interpretation of those Scriptures that are alledged against them 'T is an easie thing we know to give an ugly Name to any thing we dislike and by this way the most excellent and sacred Things have been made contemptible and vile I wish such hasty Censurers would consider before they call Names That no Truth is the worse because rash Ignorance hath thrown dirt upon it I need say no more to these frivolous Objections Those that alledge Atheism and tendency to Infidelity against the reverence and use of Reason are disproved by my whole Discourse Which shews that the Enemies of Reason most usually serve the ends of the Infidel and the Atheist when as a due use of it destroys the Pretensions of both NOw from the foregoing brief Discourse I shall
well learn'd to apply the Doctrines they had been taught that he that should endeavour to undeceive them was sure to hear what an Enemy this Reason this Carnal Reason this Vain Philosophy was to Free Grace and Faith and how little able to judge of those Rich those Precious those Spiritual Enjoyments 'T was time now in such an Age as this to assert the sober use of Reason and to rescue Religion by it And They did this happily and shamed all false pretences to the Spirit shewing That there was nothing but Nature and Complexion in the Illuminations Incomes Raptures Prophesies New Lights fluency of Expression mysteriousness of Phrase and other wonderful things of the Enthusiasts which were ignorantly taken to be Divine Communications to the great abuse of Religion and the Souls of Men Perceiving I say that this dangerous Phanatick Spirit was the evil Genius of the Age they bent all their force against it and detected the imposture and labour'd zealously to disabuse the credulous People who were exceeding apt to be taken with such glorious Nothings But of this I shall have another occasion to speak more ANd because the wildness of Enthusiasm and reproaches of Reason had expos'd Christianity it self to the Suspicions of some and Contempts of others as if it were a precarious unreasonable thing that depended only upon Mens Fancies Therefore here They labour'd also with very pious pains to demonstrate the Truth and Reasonableness of the Christian Religion The Beeing of God The Immortality of Humane Souls And Authority of Scripture which they did with much Zeal and much Judgment And these Doctrines were too seasonable and necessary in that Age in which the most glorious Professors laid the whole stress of Religion upon Fancies and thereby undermin'd the Foundations of Faith and Truth and by many Vanities and endless Divisions had made so many Infidels and unhappily dispos'd so many others to go the same way Against these therefore They bent their strength and rescued multitudes especially those of the springing Generation from the hands both of the Enthusiast and the Infidel Answering and discrediting all the new Pretensions and Objections both of the one and the other And their Endeavours here were very needful because the Ancient Books of those kinds were despis'd and neglected by the concern'd Parties and they were not so suitable to the Guize and Fashion of our Age and many Exceptions were started a-new and many other vain things boasted of to which those elder Discourses did not apply their force But these new Defenders of the Christian Truths met them all and spake the things that were suitable as well as those that were strong and true By these means the reasonable sober Spirit began to propagate and the Enthusiast who took notice of it and knew it would destroy his Glorious Imaginations rais'd a loud clamour against these Men as Socinians and advancers of Proud Reason above Free Grace and Faith From this envious and foolish Charge they sufficiently justified themselves by several Sermons and publick Determinations in their Academical Solemnities against the chief Principles of Socinianism sirenously asserting the Deity of Christ and Immortality of Humane Souls c. and vigorously opposing the main Socinian Tenents In consequence of which they shew'd the sure and safe ways to destroy those Opinions without hurting the Catholick Doctrines which many had wounded to do them spight and in this Design some of them appeared in publick with great success HAving thus asserted the Honour of our Faculties and maintain'd the Fundamental Interests of Religion They took notice what unworthy and dishonourable Opinions were publish'd abroad concerning God to the disparagement of all his Attributes and discouragement of vertuous Endeavours and great trouble and dejection of many pious Minds and therefore here they appear'd also to assert and vindicate the Divine Goodness and love of Men in its freedom and extent against those Doctrines that made his Love Fondness and his Justice Cruelty and represented God as the Eternal Hater of the far greatest part of his reasonable Creatures and the designer of their Ruine for the exaltation of meer Power and arbitrary Will Against these sowr and dismal Opinions They stood up stoutly in a time when the Assertors of the Divine Purity and Goodness were persecuted bitterly with nick-names of Reproach and popular Hatred They gave sober Accounts of the Nature of God and his Attributes suitable to those Declarations of himself he hath made by the Scriptures and our Reasons They shew'd continually how impossible it was that Infinite Goodness should design or delight in the misery of his Creatures That God never acts by meer arbitrary Will but by a Will directed by the Perfections of his Nature That to act arbitrarily is Imperfection and Impotence That he is tyed by the excellency of his Beeing to the Laws of Right and Just and that there are independent Relations of True and Good among things antecedent to all Will and Vnderstanding which are indispensible and eternal That Goodness is the Fountain of all his Communications and Actions ad extra That to glorifie God is rightly to apprehend and celebrate his Perfections by our Words and by our Actions That Goodness is the chief moral Perfection That Power without Goodness is Tyranny and Wisdom without it is but Craft and Subtilty and Justice Cruelty when destitute of Goodness That God is not pleased with our Praises otherwise than as they are the suitable Actings of his Creatures and tend to make them love him in order to their being happy in him By such Principles as These which are wonderfully fertile and big of many great Truths they undermined and from the bottom overthrew the fierce and churlish Reprobatarian Doctrines And those Truths they proved from the Scripture and the Nature of God and Reason of Things with all possible clearness and strength of Evidence OBserving further That Faith was preach'd up as the whole of Religion and that represented variously phantastickly and after an unintelligible manner drest up in Metaphors and Phrases and dangerous Notions that prescinded it from Good Works and made them unnecessary Here they appeared also and detected the vanity and canting of this Airy Divinity Stating the Notion of Faith plainly and clearly and stripping it out of its Chymerical cloathing Teaching That Faith in the general is the Belief of a Proposition affirm'd and Divine Faith the belief of a Divine Testimony and Evangelical Saving Faith such a Belief as works on the Will and Affections and produceth the Works of Righteousness So that the Faith that is said to justifie in the forensick sense is a complex thing and takes in an Holy Life and all the Graces of the Spirit which are call'd by the name of Faith because that is the Root of all the rest Thus they asserted the necessity of a real inward Righteousness against the Solifidian and Antinomian Heresies which had poison'd the whole Body of the then Current
Theology and was counted the only Spiritual Doctrine In those days Men were taught that we are justifi'd only by the Jmputed Righteousness of Christ by which they said we are formally Righteous That Faith justifi'd only as it laid hold of that as they phrased it and that Inherent Righteousness was to be renounc'd and had nothing to do here These were the great dear Mysteries of their Theology that season'd all their Doctrines and Instructions which by this means also were rendred exceedingly fanciful and dangerous Therefore in this likewise those Divines interposed and demonstrated the vanity and mischief of such fulsome and groundless Conceits They stated the true and warrantable sense in which Christ's Righteousness is imputed viz. Metonymically and as to Effects That is That for the sake of his Righteousness God was pleas'd to pardon Penitents and to deal with them upon their Faith and sincere Obedience as if they had been Righteous themselves Not as if he past false and mistaken Judgements and looked on Christ's Righteousness as really and properly theirs but that for his sake He pardon'd their sins and accepted of their personal imperfect righteousness as if it had been perfect They shew'd that this account was agreeable to Scripture and the Analogy of sound Faith and Practice and that the other sense was no-where deliver'd in the holy Oracles but was a meer imagination contrary to the Attributes of God and to the Doctrines and designs of the Gospel and exceedingly pernicious to Christian Life and Vertue They alledg'd that Christ's Righteousness is no-where in Scripture said to be imputed That he is no otherwise made Righteousness to us then he is made Sanctification and Redemption that is He is the great Author and procurer of them and that in that sense he is the Lord our Righteousness They took notice how that by this odd Fanatick principle Personal Righteousness was undermin'd and disparaged and one of the first things the people were taught was to renounce their own Righteousness without restriction or limitation in which Counsel there is much shew of humility but much non-sense and much danger if it be not deliver'd and taken in a cautious sense For the Apostles and primitive Believers never renounc'd any Righteousness but that of the Mosaical dispensation in which some of them had gloried much before their conversion But after it were convinc'd It was nothing worth and counted it as dross and dung in respect of that Righteousness that Christ taught They never disparaged real inward Righteousness Yea they took ground of confidence and rejoycing from it viz. from the simplicity and sincerity of their conversation from their having a good Conscience in all things from their stedfastness amidst Tribulations and patience in their Sufferings and they plainly tell us That Religion was doing Righteousness and consisted in visiting the Widow and Fatherless and being unspotted with the World in denying all ungodliness and worldly lusts and living soberly righteously and Godly They warn us to beware of those deceivers that would perswade a man may be righteous withouâ—… doing righteously yea they declare the promises to be entail'd upon those that by patient continuance in well-doing seek for Glory and Immortality But said He I forget my self and run out too far into this Discourse in which I suppose I need not inform you the Scriptures being so full in it Here I took liberty to move a Question and ask'd him Whether those Divines did teach or allow Mens relying and depending on their own inward Vertues or outward Works To this he said They had not the least imagination that there was either Merit or Perfection in our qualifications or performances but that in those respects they renounc'd their own righteousness and obedience That they acknowledg'd and declared that our highest best services could never deserve the divine notice or acceptance by any worthiness in them But then added He They said also that Christ's obedience was Perfect and Meritorious and that God was so well satisfied with it that for his sake he promised to pardon the failings of our duties and to accept of Sincerity instead of Perfection That on this account our short defective righteousness was receiv'd as if it had been adaequate and compleat we being through Christ under a Covenant of Grace and Pardon and our obedience not judg'd according to strict measures and proportions but by the rules of mercy and favour Thus they stated that matter clearly and struck at the root of Antinomian follies and impostures ANd because Morality was despised by those elevated Fantasticks that talk'd so much of Imputed Righteousness in the false sense and accounted by them as a dull and low thing therefore those Divines labour'd in the asserting and vindicating of this Teaching the necessity of Moral Vertues That Christianity is the highest improvement of them That the meer first-table Religion is nothing without the works of the second That Zeal and Devoutness and delight in Hearing Prayer and other externals of worship may be in very evil men That Imitation and Custom and Pride and Self-love may produce these That these are no more then the Forms of Godliness That the power of it consists in subduing self-will and ruling our passions and moderating our appetites and doing the works of real Righteousness towards God and our Neighbour And because there was a Religion that had got into credit that did not make Men better but worse in all relations worse Governours and worse Subjects and worse Parents and worse Neighbours more sower and morose and fierce and censorious Therefore They prest Men to consider That the design of Religion was to perfect humane Nature To restore the empire of our minds over the will and affections To make them more temperate and contented in reference to themselves and more humble meek courteous charitable and just towards others On such things as these performed sincerely by the assistance and encouragement of Faith in Christ and from a desire to be ruled by his Laws they lay'd the whole stress ANd being the Age was unhappily dispos'd to place much Religion in their conceited Orthodoxy and Systems of Opinion to the destruction of Charity and Peace To the dissetlement of Religion and great hinderance of real Godliness They therefore zealously decryed this superstition of Opinions and smartly reproved Disputings and eagerness of contest about Notions and lesser Truths Shewing the inconveniencies and mischiefs of that spirit and it's inconsistency with Charity and the peace of Mankind They perswaded modestly in all extraessential Doctrines and suspence of judgement in things that were not absolutely certain and readiness to pardon the mistakes of those that differ from us in matters of speculation In order hereunto They made this one of their main Doctrines That The principles which are necessary to Salvation are very few and very plain and generally acknowledg'd among Christians This they taught and were earnest in it because they saw it would secure Charity
inclinations in meer Humane Knowledge But as to their way of Learning as Divines something may be added And with Relation to this I may say 1. That they are not much taken with the School-men but rather think That those subtile and Angelical Doctors have done Religion no small disservice by the numerous disputes niceties and distinctions they have rais'd about things otherwise plain enough By which The natural and genuine conceptions of mens minds are perverted and the clear light of Reason and Truth intercepted and obscur'd And they judg'd There was less cause in the latter ages to reckon of School-Divinity since the Peripatetick Philosophy on which it was grounded grew every where into discredit So that they thought it not safe to have Religion concern'd in that which did not truly help it and which was not now able to help it self 2. They did not admire many of the Commentators and Expositors of the Scripture For though they praised those Industrious Men for their Zeal and Devotion to the holy Writings Yet they did not think much due to divers of their performances For a considering Man could not but observe how they kept voluminous stir about the plain Places which they never left till they had made Obscure while they let the difficult ones pass without notice Besides which the manifold Impertinencies Phancies Disputes Contradictions to one another and the Scriptures which were observable among those Writers rendred divers of them of mean account in the Judgment of those Men. However they had a just esteem of many of the Critical Interpreters and particularly of those famous Lights of your end the World well known to us also Grotius and Hammondus whose learned works and expositions they beheld with great respect and veneration 3. As for the ANTIENT FATHERS They valued those greatly of the first 300 yea 500 years who lived before Christianity was so much mingled with Opinions and corrupted by disputes and the various devices of Men Their works they reverenced because there was much holiness in those venerable persons and much simplicity in their writings and among others there are two particular reasons why they had those sages in so much esteem 1. Because the Controversies they handle are mostly such as Concern the main things of Religion in opposition to the Jews Heathens and some gross Hereticks who undermined the Foundations of Faith and Life These were undertakings worthy the zeal and pains of those holy Ancients who did not multiply unnecessary quarrels and occasions of dispute or make speculative opinions Articles of Faith and fundamentals of Religion and presently denounce thick Anathema's against all that differed from them in lesser matters But they stuck firmly to the few plain things and placed their Religion principally in a holy Life and lived in Charity and Love and frequent communion Those days and those Men the Antifanites celebrated much and prayed and endeavour'd for the Restauration of Christianity to that Primitive Temper 2. They reverenc'd those Fathers because living nearer the times of the Apostles they had more advantages to know their Doctrines and Government and Usages than the ages at a greater remove have on which Accounts They attend more to their practises and opinions then to those of succeeding times when pride ambition covetousness and disputes had lead Men aside into the various ways of phancy and faction These then they accounted excellent witnesses of Christianity and our best Interpreters of it's Dectrines and Constitutions though they did not make them Judges in affairs of Faith and Religion or reckon all to be infallible that they did or said Thus were they dispos'd towards the first Fathers For Those of the following ages They esteem'd their piety and zeal and praised God for the good they did in their Generations and gave all due acknowledgments to their pious endeavours and were ready to imbrace their instructions in the ways of Godliness and Vertue and willing to receive the evidence of any truth from them But They did not equal them in their estimation with the Elder Fathers nor superstitiously doat on all their sayings nor take them for the best Guides in all the Doctrines of Religion For those Fathers lived in the disputing ages when pride and interest and prevailing faction had espoused opinions as essentials of Faith and made Men quarrel and divide and break the peace of the Church of the World for Trifles They much differ'd from one another and some of them at times from themselves and many of them in some things from Scripture and Reason and more primitive Antiquity They disputed often with much eagerness and were very angry with each other about things of no great moment and vented unseemly passions and were too often very impatient of Contradiction and different judgment They some of them spoke hastily and determined too soon in a heat against one kind of opposites and then forgot at another time and affirm'd the quite contrary against an other sort of Adversaries They made too much of their opinions and were many times too severe to harmless dissenters These and divers more such were the weaknesses of many of those Reverend Men which I do not mention said He to detract from their worth in other things or to lessen their just honour and valuation but to shew you some of the things which 't is like were the reasons why those Divines did not esteem of the latter as they did of the most ancient Fathers These and such like I say I judg might be the reasons But They themselves were very cautious in saying any thing that might look like detractions or disesteem of those venerable Persons They contented themselves to omit poring on such of them as They thought there might be less cause to admire or less need to study without discovering their nakedness and imperfections or discouraging others from following their inclinations to converse with them Yea they neglected not to read them themselves as they had time and occasion But then they read them not with design to gather fine sentences to adorn their discourses nor to gain Authorities in speculative matters to confirm their opinions But to improve their reasons to get direction from their pioâ—…s councils and to inform themselves of the Genius Principles and Customes of the Times in which they successively lived That they might not be imposed on by the pretenders to Antiquity who endeavour'd to gain pretence to their Innovations by pretence of ancient 〈◊〉 And this is enough of their Inclinations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have now said He 〈◊〉 a word to speak mâ—… under this Head and that shall be briefly 4. About their opinion of the Rabinical Learning Among the Authors of this sort diverse of them were very conversant not out of any great esteem of the Men or their Learning but from a desire to acquaint themselves by Them with the Doctrines Terms of speech and Customes of the Jews in order to their better understanding of the Scriptures
all those Arguments that are brought for our Immortality are in this way clearly disabled For all that we can say will prove but this That the Soul is no Body or part of Matter but this will amount to no evidence if there are a middle kind of Essences that are not corporeal and yet mortal So that when I say Philosophy serves Religion against Sadducism I would not be understood to mean the Peripatetick Hypotheseis but that Philosophy which is grounded upon acquaintance with real Nature This by leaving this whole unintelligible sort of Beings out of its Accounts as things for which there is no shadow of ground from Reason or Nature but good evidence of their non-existence from both disappoints the Sadduce of the advantage he hath from this needless and precarious Principle And by distributing Substance into Body and Spirit without the admission of middle Natures the Real Philosophy gives demonstrative force to those Arguments for our Immortality that prove our Souls are not Bodies and so Sadducism is ruined by it These things I have thought fit to advertise not out of design to censure any particular way of Philosophy but for the security of my Discourse And though I have made a little bold with the Peripateticks here yet the great Name of Aristotle to which they pretend is not concerned for I am convinc'd that he taught no such Doctrine of substantial Forms as his later Sectators and Interpreters have imputed to Him who indeed have depraved and corrupted his sense almost in the whole Body of his Principles and have presented the World with their own Fancies instead of the genuine Opinions of that Philosopher But I proceed III. THe Real Philosophy that inquires into God's Works assists Religion against Superstition another of its fatal Enemies That I may prove this it must be premised That Superstition consists either in bestowing Religious Valuation and Esteem on things in which there is no good or fearing those in which there is no hurt So that this Folly expresseth it self one while in doting upon Opinions as Fundamentals of Faith and Idoliziug the little Models of Fancy for Divine Institutions And then it runs away afraid of harmless indifferent Appointments and looks pale upon the appearance of any usual Effect of Nature It tells ominous Stories of every Meteor of the Night and makes sad Interpretations of each unwonted Accident All which are the Products of Ignorance and a narrow Mind which defeat the Design of Religion that would make us of a free manly and generous Spirit and indeed represent Christianity as if it were a fond sneaking weak and peevish thing that emasculates Mens Understandings making them amorous of toys and keeping them under the servility of childish fears so that hereby it is exposed to the distrust of larger Minds and to the scorn of Atheists These and many more are the mischiefs of Superstition as we have sadly seen and felt Now against this evil Spirit and its Influences the Real Experimental Philosophy is one of the best Securities in the World For by a generous and open Inquiry in the great Field of Nature Mens minds are enlarged and taken off from all fond adherences to their private Sentiments They are taught by it That Certainty is not in many things and that the most valuable Knowledge is the practical By which means they will find themselves disposed to more indifferency towards those petty Notions in which they were before apt to place a great deal of Religion and to reckon that all that will signifie lies in the few certain operative Principles of the Gospel and a Life suitable to such a Faith not in doting upon Questions and Speculations that engender strife and thus the Modern Experimental Philosophy of God's Works is a Remedy against the notional Superstition as I may call it which hath been and is so fatal to Religion and the peace of Mankind Besides which by making the Soul great this Knowledge delivers it from fondness on small Circumstances and imaginary Models and from little scrupulosities about things indifferent which usually work disquiet in narrow and contracted Spirits And I have known divers whom Philosophy and not Disputes hath cured of this Malady This we may observe that those Remedies are the best and most effectual that alter the temper and disposition of the Mind For 't is suitableness to that which makes the way to Mens Judgments and settles them in their Perswasions There are few that hold their Opinions by Arguments and dry Reasonings but by congruity to the Understanding and consequently by relish in the Affections So that seldom any thing cures our intellectual Diseases throughly but what changes these And I dare affirm that the Free Experimental Philosophy will do this to purpose by giving the Mind another Tincture and introducing a sounder Habit which by degrees will repel and cast out all Malignities and settle it in a strong and manly Temperament that will master and put to flight all idle Dotages and effeminate Fears The Truth is This World is a very Bedlam and he that would cure Madmen must not attempt it by Reasoning or indeavour to shew the absurdity of their Conceits but such a course must be taken as may restore the Mind to a right Crasis and that when it is effected will reduce and rectifie the extravagances of the distemper'd Brain which Disputes and Oppositions will but inflame and make worse Thus for instance when frantick Persons are fond of Feathers and mightily taken with the employment of picking Straws 't would signifie very little to represent to them the vanity of the Objects of their Delights and when the Melancholist was afraid to sit down for fear of being broken supposing himself of Glass it had been to little purpose to have declared to him the ridiculousness of his Fears the disposition of the Head was to be alter'd before the particular Phrensie could be cured 'T is too evident how just this is in the application to the present Age Superstitious fondness and fears are a real degree of madness And though I cannot say that Philosophy must be the only Catholick way of Cure for of this the far greatest part of Men is incapable yet this I do affirm that 't is a Remedy for those that are strong enough to take it and the rest must be helped by that which changeth the Genius and this cannot ordinarily be done by any thing that opposeth the particular Fancy However I must say 2. That the sort of Superstition which is yet behind in my account and consists in the causless fear of some Extraordinaries in Accident or Nature is directly cured by that Philosophy which gives fair likely-hoods of their Causes and shews that there is nothing in them supernatural the light of the day drives away Apparitions and vain Images that fancy forms in obscure shades and darkness Thus particularly the Modern Doctrine of Comets which have been always great Bugbears to the guilty
and timorous World hath rescued Philosophers from the trouble of dreadful Presages and the mischievous Consequences that arise from those superstitious Abodings For whatever the casual Coincidencies may be between those Phaenomena and the direful Events that are sometimes observed closely to attend them which as my Lord Bacon truly notes are observ'd when they bit not when they miss I say notwithstanding these the Real Experimental Philosophy makes it appear that they are Heavenly Bodies far above all the Regions of Vapours in which we are not concerned and so they are neither the Signs nor the Causes of our Mischiefs And for the other little things which afford Matter for the Tales about Prodigies and other ominous Appearings the knowledge of Nature by exciting worthy and magnificent conceptions of the God of Nature cures that blasphemous abuse of the adorable Majesty whereby foolish Men attribute every trivial event that may serve their turns against those they hate to his immediate extraordinary interposal For 't is ignorance of God and his Works that disposeth Men to absurd ridiculous Surmises uncharitable Censures seditious Machinations and so to Thoughts that are prejudicial to the Glory of God the Interests of Religion and the security of Government to that Justice and Charity we owe to others and to the happiness that we seek our selves To which I add That this kind of Superstition is a relique of Pagan Ignorance which made Men look on Thunder Eclipses Earthquakes and all the more terrifying Phaenomena of Nature as the immediate Effects of Powers Supernatural and to judge Events by flights of Birds and garbages of Cattel by the accidental occursions of this Creature and the other and almost every casual occurrence But these Particulars have been most ingeniously represented and reproved in a late very elegant Discourse about Prodigies And though I do not acquiesce in the Design of that excellently penn'd Book which is to discredit and take away all kinds of Presages Yet I think it hath done rarely well so far as it discovers the folly and mischiefs of that ignorant and superstitious Spirit that makes every thing a Prodigy With such apprehensions as these the knowledge of Nature fills those Minds that are instructed in it And there is no doubt but that the Antipathy the Real Philosophy bears to all the kinds of Superstition is one cause why zealous Ignorance brands those Researches with the mark of Atheism and Irreligion For superstitious Folly adopts those groundless Trifles which Philosophy contemns and reproves into the Family of Religion and therefore reproacheth the Despisers of them as Enemies to the Faith and Power of Godliness So it fared with some of the bravest Spirits of ancient times who have had black Characters fixt upon their great and worthy Names only for their Oppositions of the foolish Rites and Idolatries of the vulgar Heathen We know the case of Socrates And as to the interest of their Names that of Anaxagoras Theodorus Protagoras and Epicurus was much worse the causless infamy coming down the Stream as far as the last Ages Since then we know who was an Heretick for saying there were Antipodes and a Pope was taken for a Conjurer for being a Mathematician yea those noble Sciences were counted Diabolical and even the Sacred Language could scarce escape the suspicion In later times Galilaeo fell into the Inquisition for the Discoveries of his Telescopes and Campanella could not endeavour to assert and vindicate the freedom of his Mind without losing that of his Person I might come nearer to our own days and knowledge Gothick barharity and the Spirit of the Iuquisition is not quite worn out of the Reformation Though indeed it ordinarily remains but among the scum and dregs of Men And no one is either less Religious or less Wise for being accounted an Atheist by the common Rabble But where-ever the knowledge of Nature and God's Works hath in any degree obtain'd those vile Superstitions have been despised and put to an infamous flight But to take another step IV. THe Real Philosophy and knowledge of God's Works serves Religion against Enthusiasm another dreadful Enemy Now Enthusiasm is a false conceit of Inspiration and all the bold and mistaken Pretensions to the Spirit in our days are of this sort What particularly Religion hath suffer'd from it would be too long to reckon upon this occasion It will be enough to say in an Age that hath so much and such sad experience of it That Enthusiasm hath introduced much phantastry into Religion and made way for all imaginable Follies and even Atheism it self which it hath done two ways 1. By crying up the Excesses and Diseases of Imagination for the greatest height of Godliness And 2. By the disparagrment of sober Reason as an Enemy to the Principles of Faith And Philosophy assists Religion against both these FOR the first in order The real knowledge of Nature detects the dangerous imposture by shewing what strange things may be effected by no diviner a cause than a strong Fancy impregnated by Heated Melancholy For this sometimes warms the Brain to a degree that makes it very active and imaginative full of odd Thoughts and unexpected Suggestions so that if the Temper determine the Imagination to Religion it flies at high things at interpretations of dark and Prophetick Scriptures at Predictions of future Events and mysterious Discoveries which the Man expresseth fluently and boldly with a peculiar and pathetick Eloquence which pregnances being not ordinary but much beyond the usual tone and temper of the Enthusiast and he having heard great things of the Spirits immediate Motions and Inspirations cannot well fail of believing himself inspired and of intitling all the excursious of his Fancy to the immediate Actings of the Holy Ghost and those thoughts by the help of natural pride and self-love will work also exceedingly upon the heightned Affections and they upon the Body so far as to cast it sometimes into Raptures Extasies and Deliquiums of Sense in which every Dream is taken for a Prophesie every Image of the Fancy for a Vision and all the glarings of the Imagination for new Lights and Revelations Thus have our Modern Prophets been inspired by Temper and Imagination and not by Design only For we may not think they are all Hypocrites and knowing Impostors No they generally believe themselves and the strength of their highly invigorated Fancies shuts out the sober Light of Reason that should disabuse them as sleep doth that of our External Senses in our Dreams And the silly People that understand not Nature but are apt to take every thing that is vebement to be sacred are easily deceived into the belief of those Pretensions and thus Diseases have been worship'd for Religion This account the Philosophy of Humane Nature gives of that by which the World hath been so miserably abused And when we cast our eyes abroad we may plainly see that those glorious things are no more than what hath been done
by the Extatick Priests of the Heathen Oracles and the Mad-men of all Religions by Sybils Lunaticks Poets Dreamers and transported Persons of all sorts And it may be observ'd daily to what degrees of elevation excess of drinking will heighten the Brain making some witty nimble and eloquent much beyond the ordinary proportion of their Parts and Ingenuity and inclining others to be hugely devour who usually have no great sense of Religion As I knew one who would pray rapturously when he was drunk but at other times was a moping Sot and could scarce speak sense Thus also some kinds of Madness Diseases Accidents Peculiarities of Temper and other natural things that heat the Brain fill Men with high surprizing Conceits about Religion and furnish them with fervid Devotion great readiness of Expression and unexpected applications of Scripture to their crasy Conceits I say the Experimental Philosophy of our Natures informs us that all this is common in alienations and singularities of Mind and Complexion And they were remarkable in the Prophets of the Heathen and the Priest whom Saint Austin knew that would whine himself into an Extasie In the wonderful Discourses of the American Bishop that said he was the Holy Ghost and the canting fluency of the German Enthusiasts some of whose Imaginations were as wild and extravagant of such Instances I might make up a much larger Catalogue if I should descend to our Domestick Lunaticks but their temper is well known and therefore I only add this more That I have often met with a poor Woman in the North whose habitual conceit it was That she was Mother of God and of all things living I was wont to personate a kind of complyance with her Fancy and a modest desire to be further informed about it which gentleness drew from her so many odd fetches of Discourse such applications of Scripture and such wonderful references to Things in which she was never instructed that look'd like gleanings out of Hobbs and Epicurus that I have been much amazed at her talk And yet when I diverted her to any thing else of ordinary Matters she spoke usually with as much sobriety and cold discretion as could well be expected from a Person of her Condition nor did she use to be extravagant in any thing but about that particular Imagination which Instance among many others I might produce very much confirms me in the truth of that Observation of those Philosophers who have given us the best light into the Enthusiastick Temper viz. That there is a sort of madness which takes Men in some particular things when they are sound in others which one Proposition will afford a good account of many of the Phaenomena of Enthusiasm and shews that the Extravagants among us may be really distracted in the Affairs of Religion though their Brains are untouc'd in other Matters Thus a Philosophical use of observation and the knowledge of Humane Nature by it helps us to distinguish between the Effects of the adorable Spirit and those of an hot distemper'd Fancy which is no small advantage for the securing the Purity Honour and all the interests of Religion But 2. there is another mischief of the Enthusiastick Spirit behind and that is its bringing Reason into disgrace and denying the use thereof in the Affairs of Faith and Religion This is an evil that is the cause of many more for it hath brought into the World all kinds of Phantastry and Folly and exposed Religion to Contempt and Derision by making Madness and Diseases Sacred It leads Mens Minds into a maze of confused Imaginations and betrays them into Bogs and Precipices deprives them of their Light and their Guide and lays them open to all the Delusions of Satan and their own distemper'd Brains It takes Religion off from its Foundations and leaves the Interest of Eternity in Mens Souls to Chance and the Hits of Imagination teaching those that are deluded to lay the stress of all upon Raptures Heats and Mysterious Notions while they forgetâ—… and scorn the plain Christianity which is an imitation of Christ in Charity Humility Justice and Purity in the exercise of all Vertue and command of our selves It renders Men obnoxious to all the Temptations of Atheism and the blackest Infidelity and makes it impossible to convince an Infidel to settle one that doubts or to recover one that is fallen off from the Faith These Evils I am content only to name in this place having represented them more fully in another Discourse and the experience of our own Age may convince us with a little consideration upon it That all those fatal Mischiefs have been tâ—… Effects of the Contempt and Disparagement of Reason But yet though I affirm this I am not so rash or so unjust as to believe or say That this Spirit hath produced all those sâ—…d things in every one that speaks hotly and inconsiderately against Reason I am far from the wildness of such a censure because I know how much imprudent Zeal customary Talk high Pretensions and superstitious Fears may work even upon honest Minds who many times hold bad things in the Principle which they deny in the Practice and so are upright in their Wills while they are very much confused and mistaken in their Vnderstandings This I account to be the case of multitudes of pious People in reference to Reason They have heard hot-headed indiscreet Men declaim against it and many of them whose Opinions will not bear the Light have an interest to do so Their Pretensions were plausible and their Zeal great their Talk loud and their Affirmations bold and the honest well-meaning Folks are caught in their Affections and these lead bad Principles into their Minds which are neither disposed nor able to examine So they believe and speak after their Teachers and say That Reason is a low dull thing ignorant of the Spirit and an Enemy to Faith and Religion while in this they have no clear thoughts nor yet any evil meaning But let these Fancies swim a-top in their Imaginations and upon occasions they run out at the Tongues end though they are not always improved to those deadly Practices For Charity and Caution I have said this but yet nothing hinders but that all the forecited Evils are justly said to be the Tendencies and in too many Instances have been and are the Effects of this Spirit And now I doubt not but 't will be granted readily by all considering Men that whatever assists Religion against this destructive Enemy doth it most important service and this the Free and Real Philosophy doth in a very eminent degree In order to the proof of this we may consider what I intimated just now viz. That Men are led into and kept in this Fancy of the Enmity of Reason to Religion chiefly by two things 1. By an implicit assent to the Systemes and Distates of those who first instructed them And 2. By defect in clearness of Thoughts and the ability to
state things distinctly and to understand their Dependencies and Sequels Both which Imperfections the Free Philosophy cures For as to the First 1. That Philosophy begins with the inlargement of the Mind and attempts to free it from Prejudices and Pre-ingagements which sophisticate and pervert our Judgments and render us incapable of discerning Things as they are Modest impartial enquiry is the Foundation of the real experimental way of Philosophy Not that it teacheth Scepticism and Neutrality in all Things but this Caution in our Disquisitions That we do not suddenly give firm assents to Things not well understood or examin'd which no doubt is very just and safe But as to what concerns those who through ignorance or other occasions are incapable of making due enquiry I think they ought not to concern themselves about Matters of Speculation at all or at least not to affirm any thing positively about them 'T is enough for such to believe and practise the plain Duties of Religion which are clear in the Holy Oracles and with which they may be acquainted without much sagacity or deep Judgment For Matters of Theory and difficult Enquiry appertain not to the vulgar and lower rank of Understandings But for those who are capable of search after Truth and are provided with anvantages for it Freedom of Judgment is necessary in order to their success With this I said the Real Philosophy begins and in all its progresses still more and more disposeth the Mind to it and so delivers it from the vassalage of Customary Sayings and Opinions And now whoever is so disposed will not be so ready to believe that Reason is an Enemy to Religion till he have consider'd and examin'd the Matter with an impartial Judgment And I dare say whoever shall do that will want nothing to convince him that such an Opinion is false and groundless but clear and distinct Thoughts and the knowledge of Consequence with which Philosophy will furnish him This is the second way whereby it helps to overthrow this Principle of Enthusiasm viz. 2. By teaching us to state Matters clearly and to draw out those conclusions that are lodged in them For 't is confusion of Notions and a great defect in reasoning that makes dark Zeal to rave so furiously against Reason Now Philosophy is Reason methodiz'd and improved by Study Observation and Experiment and whoever is addicted to these is exercised frequently in inquiry after the Causes Properties and Relations of Things which will inure the Mind to great intentness and inable it to define and distinguish and infer rightly And by these the Allegations against Reason will be made appear to be idle Sophisms that have no sound sense or substance in them And though the Discourses of some who have talk'd much of Philosophy and Reason have been sometimes bold and sawcy and opposite to the Interests of Religion Yet true Philosophy and well manag'd Reason vindicate Religion from those abuses and shew that there was Sophistry and imposture in those Pretensions So that they are no more to be blamed for the Insolencies and Riots of those that usurp their Name than Religion it self is for the Immoralities of such as cloath themselves in the Garments of external Piety and Saintship Thus of the services of Philosophy against ENTHVSIASM I come now to the last Instance V. IT helps Religion against the Humour of Disputing By which I mean that evil Genius that makes Men confident of uncertain Opinions and clamorously contentious against every different Judgment This is that pestilent Spirit that turns Religion into Air of Notion and makes it intricate and uncertain subject to eternal Quarrels and Obnoxious to Scepticism and Infidelity That which supplants Charity Modesty Peace and Meekness substituting in their room Rage and Insolence Pride and Bitter Zeal Clamours and Divisions and all the Opposites of the Spirit of Christ and the Gospel So that it depraves Religion and makes its Sacred Name an Instrument to promote the Projects of the Kingdom of Darkness by envenoming Men one against another and inflaming their Spirits and crumbling them into Sects and disturbing Societies and so it hinders the Progress of the Gospel and lays it open to the scorns of Vnbelievers it turns Men from the desire of practising to the itch of talking and abuses them into this dangerous belief That Godliness consists more in their beloved Orthodoxy than in a sober Vertue and the exercise of Charity it makes them pert and pragmatical buste about the Reformation of others while they neglect their own Spirits fancying a perfection in the fluency of the Tongue while the worst of Passions have the Empire of their Souls These are some of the sad Effects of the Humour of Disputing which hath done deplorable execution upon Religion in all Places and Times and therefore 't is none of the least Services that can be afforded it to destroy this evil Genius and there is nothing meerly humane that contributes more towards the rooting of it out of the World than the Free and Real Philosophy For 1. An intimate Commerce with God's Works gives us to see the mighty Difficulties that are to be met in the speculation of them and thereby Men are made less confident of their Sentiments about Nature and by many Considerations and Observations of this kind are at length brought to such an habitual Modesty that they are afraid to pass bold Judgments upon those Opinions in Religion of which there is no infallible assurance And 2. By the frequent exercises of our Minds we come to be made sensible how easily and how oft we are deceived through the fallibility of Sense and shortness of our Understandings by Education Authority Interest and our Affections and so are disposed to a more prudent coldness and diffidence in things of doubtful Speculation by which the Disputing Humour is destroyed at the bottom Besides which 3. The Real Philosophy brings Men in-love with the Practical Knowledge The more we have imployed our selves in Notion and Theory the more we shall be acquainted with the uncertainty of Speculation and our esteem and love of Opinions will abate as that sense increaseth By the same degrees our respect and kindness for Operative knowledge will advance and grow which disposition will incline us also to have less regard to Nicities in Religion and teach us to lay out our chief Cares and Endeavours about Practical and certain Knowledge which will assist and promote our Vertue and our Happiness and incline us to imploy our selves in living according to it And this also will be an effectual means to destroy the Humour of Contending 4. Philosophy gives us a sight of the Causes of our Intellectual Diversities and so lessens our expectation of an Agreement in Opinions and by this it discovers the unreasonableness of making câ—…sent in less certain Tenents the condition of Charity and Vnion and of being angry and dividing upon every difference of Judgment By which the hurtful Malignities
upon others nor do I care to endeavour the change of their Minds though I judge them mistaken as long as Vertue the Interests of Religion the Peace of the World and their own are not prejudiced by their Errors By this modest indifference I secure Charity for all the diversities of Belief and equally offer my Frienship and Converses to the several Sects and Perswasions that stick to the plain Principles of the Gospel and a Vertuous Life overlooking their particular fondnesses and follies This is the temper of my Genius and this some warm People who have more Heat than Light are apt to call Scepticism and cold Neutrality But that it deserves better Names I have made appear in some other Papers True it is That the Men of the meer Epicurean sort have left God and Providence out of their Accounts But other Philosophers have shewn what Fools they are for doing so and how absurd their pretended Philosophy is in supposing things to have been made and ordered by the casual hits of Atoms in a mighty Void And though their general Doctrine of Matter and Motion be exceeding ancient and very accountable when we suppose Matter was at first created by Almighty Power and its Motions ordered and directed by Omniscient Wisdom Yet the supposal that they are independent and eternal is very precarious and unreasonable And that all the regular Motions in Nature should be from blind tumultuous jumblings intermixtures is the most unphilosophical Fansie and ridiculous Dotage in the World So that there is no reason to accuse Philosophy of a Fault which Philosophy sufficiently shames and reproves and yet I doubt too many have entertain'd great prejudice against it upon this score and 't is a particular brand upon some of the modern Men that they have revived the Philosophy of Epicurus which they think to be in its whole extent Atheistical and Irreligious To which I say that the Opinion of the World 's being made by a fortuitous concurrence of Atoms is impious and vile And this those of Epicurus his Elder School taught Whereas the late Restorers of the Corpuscularian Hypothesis hate and despise the wicked and absurd Doctrine But thus far they think the Atomical Philosophy reasonable viz. as it teacheth That the Operations of Nature are performed by subtile streams of minute Bodies and not by I know not what imaginary Qualities and Forms They think That the various Motions and Figures of the parts of Matter are enough for all the Phaenomena and all the varieties which with relation to our Senses we call such and such Qualities But then they suppose and teach That God created Matter and is the supreme Orderer of its Motions by which all those Diversities are made And hereby Piety and the Faith of Providence is secured This as far as we know any thing of elder Times was the ancient Philosophy of the World and it doth not in the least interfere with any Principle of Religion Thus far I dare say I may undertake for most of the Corpuscularian Philosophers of our times excepting those of M. Hobbes his way And therefore I cannot but wonder at a late Reverend Author who seems to conclude those Modern Philosophers under the name and notion of such Somatists as are for meer Matter and Motion and exclude immaterial Beings whereas those Learned Men though they own Matter and Motion as the material and formal causes of the Phenomena They do yet acknowledge God's Efficiency and Government of all Things with as much seriousness and contend for it with as much zeal as any Philosophers or Divines whatsoever And 't is very hard that any number of Men should be exposed to the suspicion of being Atheists for denying the Peripatetick Qualities and Forms and there is nothing else overthrown by the Corpuscularian Doctrines as they are managed by those Philosophers So that methinks that Reverend Person hath not dealt so fairly with the great Names of Des-Cartes and Gassendus where he mentions them promiscuously with the meer Epicurean and Hobbian Somatists without any note to distinguish them from those Sadduces For both those celebrated Men have laboured much in asserting the Grand Articles of Religion against the Infidel and Atheist But 2. 't is alledg'd by some Philosophy disposeth Men to despise the Scriptures or at least to neglect the study of them and therefore is to be flighted and exploded among Christians To this I say That Philosophy is the knowledge of God's Works and there is nothing in God's Works that is contrary to his Word How then should the study of the one incline Men to despise the other Certainly had there been any such impious tendency in searching into God's Works to the lessening of our value of the Scriptures The Scripture it self would never have recommended it so much unto us Yea this is so far from being true that on the contrary the knowledge of God's Works tends in its proper nature to dispose Men to love and veneration of the Scriptures For by familiarity with Nature we are made sensible of the Power Wisdom and Goodness of God fresh Instances of which we shall find in all things And 't is one great design of the Scripture to promote the Glory of these Attributes How then can he that is much affected with them chuse but love and esteem those Holy Records which so gloriously illustrate the Perfections he admires Besides by inquiry into God's Works we discover continually how little we can comprehend of his Ways and Menagements and he that is sensible of this will find himself more inclined to reverence the declarations of his Word though they are beyond his reach and though he cannot fathom those Mysteries he is required to believe Such a disposition is necessary for the securing our Reverence to the Divine Oracles and Philosophy promotes it much So that though 't is like enough there may be those that pretend to Philosophy who have less veneration and respect for the Scripture than they ought yet that impious disesteem of those sacred Writings is no effect of their Philosophy but of their corrupt and evil Inclinations And to remove the scandal brought upon Natural Wisdom by those Pretenders it may be observed that none are more earnest or more frequent in the proof and recommendation of the Authority of Scripture than those of Philosophical Inclination and Genius who by 〈◊〉 â—…mblick Capacity and Profession have the best opportunities to give testimony to the Honour of that Divine Book But to justifie the imputation of the disservice Philosophy doth Religion and the Scriptures it may by some be pleaded That Philosophy viz. that which is called the new teacheth Doctrines that are coutrary to the Word of God or at least such as we have no ground from Scripture to believe For instance That the Earth moves and That the Moon is of a Terrestrial Nature and capable of Inhabitants which Opinions are presumed to be impious and Antiscriptural In return to this
Brass for our Defence and they have little else than Twigs and Bull-rushes for the Assault we have Light and firm Ground and they are lost in Smoak and Mists They tread among Bogs and dangerous Fens and reel near the Rocks and Steeps And shall we despise our Advantages and forsake them Shall we relinquish our Ground and our Light and muffle our selves up in darkness Shall we give our Enemies the Weapons and all the odds and so endeavour to insure their Triumphs over us This is soâ—…tishly to betray Religion and our selves If this Discourse chance to meet with any that are guilty of these dangerous Follies it will I hope convince them That they have no reason to be afraid of Philosophy or to despise its Aids in the Concerns of Religion And for those who never yet thought of this part of Religion to glorifie God for his Works I wish it may awaken them to more attentive consideration of the wisdom and goodness that is in them and so excite their pious acclamations And to encourage them to it I shall adventure to add That it seems very probable that much of the Matter of those Hallelujah's and triumphant Songs that shall be the joyful entertainment of the Blessed will be taken from the wonders of God's Works and who knows but the contemplation of these and God in them shall make up a good part of the imployment of those glorified Spirits who will then have inconceivable advantages for the searching into those Effects of Divine Wisdom and Power beyond what are possible for us Mortals to attain And those Discoveries which for ever they shall make in that immense Treasure of Art the Vniverse must needs fill their Souls every moment with pleasant astonishment and inflame their hearts with the ardours of the highest Love and Devotion which will breathe forth in everlasting Thanksgivings And thus the study of God's Works joyned with those pious Sentiments they deserve is a kind of anticipation of Heaven And next after the contemplations of his Word and the wonders of his Mercy discovered in our Redemption it is one of the best and noblest Imployments the most becoming a reasonable Creature and such a one as is taught by the most reasonable and excellent Religion in the World THE AGREEMENT OF Reason and Religion Essay V. Essay V. THE AGREEMENT OF Reason and Religion THere is not any thing that I know which hath done more mischief to Religion than the disparaging of Reason under pretence of respect and favour to it For hereby the very Foundations of Christian Faith have been undermin'd and the World prepared for Atheism And if Reason must not be heard the Being of a God and the Authority of Scripture can neither be proved nor defended and so our Faith drops to the Ground like an House that hath no Foundation By the same way those sickly Conceits and Enthusiastick Dreams and unsound Doctrines that have poyson'd our Air and infatuated the Minds of Men and expos'd Religion to the scorn of Infidels and divided the Church and disturbed the Peace of Mankind and involv'd all the Nation in so much Blood and so many Ruines I say hereby all these fatal Follies that have been the oceasions of so many Mischiefs have been propagated and promoted On which accounts I think I may affirm with some confidence That here is the Spring-Head of most of the Watters of Bitterness and Strife And here the Fountain of the Great Deeps of Atheism and Fanaticism that are broken up upon us So that there cannot be a more seasonable Service done either to Reason or Religion than to endeavour the stopping up this Source of Mischiefs by representing the Friendship and fair Agreement that is between them For hereby Religion will be rescued from the impious accusation of its being groundless and imaginary And Reason also defended against the unjust Charge of its being prophane and irreligious This we have heard often from indiscreet and hot Men For having entertain'd vain and unreasonable Doctrines which they had made an Interest and the Badges of a Party and perceiving that their Darling Opinions could not stand if Reason their Enemy were not discredited They set up loud cries against it as the grand Adversary of Free Grace and Faith and zealously endeavour'd to run it down under the misapplyed names of Vain Philosophy Carnal Reasoning and the Wisdom of this World and what have been the Effects of this proceeding we have seen and felt So that in my Judgment it is the great duty of all sober and reasonable Men to rise up as they can against this Spirit of Folly and Infatuation And something I shall attempt now by shewing That Reason is very serviceable to Religion and Religion very friendly to Reason In order to which I must 1. State what I mean by Religion and what by Reason For there is nothing in any Matter of Enquiry or Debate that can be discover'd or determin'd till the Terms of the Question are explain'd and the Notions settled The want of this hath been the occasion of a great part of those Confusions we find in Disputes and particularly most of the Clamours that have been raised against Reason in the Affairs of Religion have sprung from it For while ungrounded Opinions and unreasonable Practises are often call'd Religion on the one hand and vain Imaginations and false Consequences are as frequently stiled Reason on the other 'T is no wonder that such a Religion disclaims the use of Reason or that such Reason is opposite to Religion Therefore in order to my shewing the Agreement between True Religion and the Genuine Reason I shall with all the clearness that I can represent the just meaning of the one and of the other For Religion first It is taken either strictly for the Worship of God or in a more comprehensive sense for the sum of those Duties we owe to Him And this takes in the other and agrees with the Notation of the Name which imports Binding and implies Duty Now all Duty is comprised under these two viz. Worship and Vertue Worship comprehends all Duties that immediately relate to God as the Object of them Vertue all those that respect our Neighbour and our Selves So that Religion primarily and mainly consists in Worship and Vertue But Duty cannot be performed without Knowledge and some Principles there must be to direct the Practice and those that discover the Duties and guide Men in the performance of them are call'd Principles of Religion These are of two sorts Some 1. Fundamental and Essential Others 2. Accessory and Assisting Fundamental is a Metaphor taken from the Foundation of a Building upon which the Fabrick is erected and without which it cannot stand So that Fundamental Principles are such as are presupposed to the Duties of Religion one or more and such as are absolutely necessary to the doing of them of this sort I shall mention three viz. 1. The Being of God and the perfections of
that relate such Matters and that it doth in the present case proving the Authority of Scripture and thereby in a remoter way it demonstrates all the Mysteries of Faith which the Divine Oracles immediately discover And it is no more disparagement to our Reasons that they cannot evince those Sacred Articles by their own unaided force than it is a disgrace unto them that they cannot know that there are such things as Colours without the help of our Eyes or that there are Sounds without the faculty of Hearing And if Reason must be called blind upon this account because it cannot know of it self such things as belong to Testimony to discover the best Eyes in the World may be so accounted because they cannot see Sounds and the best Palate dull and dead because it cannot taste the Sun-Beams But though I have said That Reason cannot of it self immediately prove the Truths of pure Revelation Yet 1. it demonstrates the Divine Authority of the Testimony that declares them and that way proves even these Articles If this be not enough I add thesecond Assertion 2. That Reason defends all the Mysteries of Faith and Religion And for this I must desire it be noted That there are two ways whereby any thing may be defended viz. Either 1. by shewing the manner how the thing is Or if that cannot be done by shewing 2. That it ought to be believed though the manner of it be not known For instance if any one denies That all sorts of Creatures were in the Ark under pretence that it is impossible they should be contained within such a space He that can shew how this might be by a distinct enumeration of the kinds of Animals with due allowance for the unknown Species and a computation of the particular capacity of the Ark he defends the Sacred History the first way But if another denies the conversion of Aaron's Rod into a Serpent upon the same account of the unconceivableness of the manner how it was done this cannot indeed be defended the former way But then it may by representing that the Power of God is infinite and can easily do what we cannot comprehend and that we ought to believe upon the credit of the Testimony that being well proved to us though the manner of this miraculous performance and such others as it relates be unknown And as it is in this last case so it is in all the Mysteries of Faith and Religion Reason cannot defend them indeed the first way But it doth the second by shewing That the Divine Nature is infinite and our Conceptions very shallow and finite that 't is therefore very unreasonable in us to indeavour to pry into the Secrets of his Being and Actions and to think that we can measure and comprehend them That we know not the Essence and Ways of acting of the most ordinary and obvious Things of Nature and therefore must not expect throughly to understand the deeper Things of God That God hath revealed those Holy Mysteries unto us and that 't is the highest reason in the World to believe That what be saith is true though we do not know how these things are These are all Considerations of Reason and by the proposal of them it sufficiently defends all the Mysteries that can be proved to be contained in the Sacred Volume and shews that they ought to be received by us though they cannot be comprehended Thus if any one should ask me How the Divine Nature is united to the Humane and declare himself unwilling to believe the Article till he could be satisfied how My answer would be in short That I cannot tell and yet I believe it is so and he ought to believe the same upon the credit of the Testimony though we are both ignorant of the Manner In order to which I would suggest that we believe innumerable things upon the evidence of our Senses whose Nature and Properties we do not know How the parts of Matter cohere and how the Soul is united to the Body are Questions we cannot answer and yet that such things are we do not doubt And why saith Reason should we not believe God's Revelation of things we cannot comprehend as well as we do our Senses about Matters as little understood by us 'T is no doubt reasonable that we should and by proving it is so Reason defends all the Propositions of Faith and Religion And when some of these are said to be above Reason no more is meant Than that Reason cannot conceive how those things are and in that sense many of the Affairs of Nature are above it too Thus I have shewn how serviceable Reason is to Religion I am next to prove That II. Religion befriends it And here I offer some Testimonies from the Holy Oracles to make that good and in them we shall see how God himself and Christ and his Apostles do own and acknowledge Reason I consider 1. that God Isa. 1. 18. calls the rebellious Israelites to reason with him Come now and let us reason together saith the Lord and by Reason he convinceth the People of the vanity of Idols Isa. 44.9 And he expostulates with their Reasons Ezek. 18. 31. Why will ye die O ye House of Israel And Mich. 6. 3. O my People what have I done unto thee And wherein have I wearied thee Testifie against me He appeals unto their Reasons to judge of his proceedings Isa. 5. 3. And now O inhabitants of Jerusalem and Men of Judah judge I pray you between me and my vineyard are not my ways equal and are not your ways unequal In this he intimates the competency of their Reasons to judge of the equity of his Ways and the iniquity of their own And 2. our Saviour commands the Disciples of the Pharisees to give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's implying the ability of their Reasons to distinguish between the things that belonged to God and those that appertained to Caesar. And he in divers places argues from the Principles and Topicks of Reason From that which we call à majori ad minus from the greater to the less John 13. 14. He shews it to be the duty of his Disciples to serve their Brethren in the meanest Offices and to wash one another's feet because he had washed theirs Vers. 14. inforcing it by this consideration of Reason For the Servant is not greater than his Lord Vers. 26. and useth the same John 15. 20. to shew that they must expect Persecution because He their Lord was persecuted And Luke 12. 23. He endeavours to take them off from carking care and sollicitude about Meat and Raiment by this consideration from Reason That the Life is more than Meat and the Body than Raiment intimating that God having given them the greater there was no doubt but he would bestow the less which was necessary for the preservation of it To these Instances I add some few from the Topick
à minori ad majus from the less to the greater in the arguings of our Saviour Thus Mat. 7. 11. If ye being evil know how to give good Gifts to your Children how much more shall your Father which is in Heaven give good Things to those that ask him The ground of the Consequence is this Principle of Reason That God is more benign and gracious than the tenderest and most affectionate of our earthly Parents So Luke 12. 24. He argues that God will provide for Vs because he doth for the Ravens since we are better than they How much more are ye better than the Fowls Which arguing supposeth this Principle of Reason that that Wisdom Goodness which are indulgent to the viler Creatures will not neglect the more excellent He proceeds further in the same Argument by the consideration of God's clothing the Lillies and makes the like inference from it Vers. 28. If God so clothe the Grass how much more will be clothe you And Mat. 12. He reasons that it was lawful for him to heal on the Sabbith-day from the consideration of the general Mercy that is due even to brute Creatures What Man shall there be among you that shall have one Sheep and if it fall into a Pit on the Sabbath day will he not lay hold of it to lift it out How much more then is a Man better than a Sheep Vers. 12. Thus our Saviour used Arguments of Reason And 3. the Apostles did so very frequently S. Paul disproves Idolatry this way Acts 17. 29. Forasmuch then as we are the Off-spring of God we ought not to think that the God head is like unto Gold or Silver or Stone graven by Art And the same Apostle proves the Resurrection of the Dead by the mention of seven gross Absurdities that would follow the denyal of it 1 Cor. 1. 15. viz. If the Dead rise not Then 1. Christ is not risen And then 2. our Preaching is vain and we false Apostles And if so 3. your Faith is vain And then 4. you are not justified but are in your sins And hence it will follow 5. That those that are departed in the same Faith are perished And then 6. Faith in Christ prosits only in this Life And if so 7. we are of all Men the most miserable Because we suffer all things for this Faith From ver 14. to ver 19. And the whole Chapter contains Philosophical Reasoning either to prove or illustrate the Resurrection or to shew the difference of glorified Bodies from these And S. Peter in his second Epistle Chap. 2. shews that sinful Men must expect to be punished because God spared not the Angels that fell Instances of this would be endless these may suffice And thus of the Second thing also which I proposed to make good viz. That Religion is friendly to Reason and that appears in that God himself our Saviour and his Apostles own it and use Arguments from it even in Affairs of Faith and Religion BUt divers Objections are urged against the use of Reason in Religion from Scripture and other Considerations The chief of them I shall consider briefly From Scripture 't is alledged 1. That God will destroy the Wisdom of the Wise 1 Cor. 1. 19. And the World by Wisdom knew not God vers 21. And not many wise Men after the flesh are called vers 26. And God chose the foolish things of this World to confound the wise vers 27. By which expressions of wisdom and wise 't is presumed that Humane Reason and Rational Men are meant But these Interpreters mistake the Matter much and as they are wont to do put mere Arbitrary Interpretations upon Scripture For by Wisdom here there is no cause to understand the Reason of Men but rather the Traditions of the Jews the Philosophy of the Disputing Greeks and the worldly Policy of the Romans who were the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Rulers of that World That the Jewish Learning in their Law is meant the Apostle intimates when he asks in a way of Challenge vers 20. Where is the Scribe And the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies one that was skill'd in their Laws and Customs And that the Philosophy of the Greeks is to be understood likewise we have ground to believe from the other Question in the same Verse Where is the Disputer of this World Which though some refer to the Doctors among the Jews also yet I humbly think it may more properly he understood of the Philosophers among the Grecians For the Apostle writes to Greeks and their Philosophy was notoriously contentious And lastly That the worldly Policies of the Romans are included in this Wisdom of this World which the Apostle vilifies there is cause to think from the sixth Verse of the second Chapter where he saith He spake not in the Wisdom of the Princes of this World And 't is well known that Policy was their most valued Wisdom Tu regere imperio To govern the Nations and promote the grandeur of their Empire was the great design and study of those Princes of this World Now all these the Apostle sets at nought in the beginning of this Epistle Because they were very opposite to the simplicity and holiness self-denial and meekness of the Gospel But that is this to the disadvantage of Reason to which those sorts of Wisdom are as contrary as they are to Religion And by this I am enabled 2. To meet another Objection urged from 1 〈◊〉 2â—… 14. But the natural Man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him neither can be know them because they are spiritually discerned Hence the Enthusiast argues the Universal Inability of Reason in things of Religion and its Antipathy to them Whereas I can apprehend no more to be meant by the words than this viz. That such kind of natural Men as those Scribes and Disputers and Politioians having their Minds depraved and prepossessed with their own Wisdom were indisposed to receive this that was so contrary unto it And they could not know those things of God because they were Spiritual and so would require a Mind that was of a pure and spiritual frame viz. free from that earthly Wisdom of all sorts which counts those things foolishness and which by God is counted so it self 1 Cor. 3. 19. which place 3. Is used as another Scripture against Reason The Wisdom of this World is foolishness with God But it can signifie nothing to that purpose to one that understands and considers the Apostle's meaning What is meant by the Wisdom of this World here I have declared already And by the former part of my Discourse it appears that whatever is to be understood by it our Reason cannot since that either proves or defends all the Articles of Religion 4. And when the same Apostle elsewhere viz. 2 Cor. 1. 12. saith That they had not their Conversation in fleshly Wisdom we cannot think he meant
it is not from God his veracity and Authority is not concerned since I am ready however to give a chearful assent to what-ever is clearly and sufficiently revealed This Proposition follows from the former and must be understood only of those Doctrines that are difficult and obscurely delivered And that many things are so delivered in Scripture is certain For some are only hinted and spoken occasionally some figuratively and by way of Parable and Allegory some according to Mens Conceptions and some in Ambiguous and Aenigmatical Phrases which Obscurities may occasion mistake in those who are very ready to believe what-ever God saith and when they do I should be loth to say that such err in Faith Though those that wrest plain Texts to a compliance with their Interests and their Lusts Though their Affections may bring their Judgments to vote with them yet theirs is Error in Faith with a witness and capable of no benefit from this Proposition 9. In searching after the sense of Scripture we ought to consult the Principles of Reason as we do other Scriptures For we have shewn That Reason is another part of God's Word And though the Scripture be sufficient for its own end yet Reason must be presupposed unto it for without this Scripture cannot be used nor compared nor applied nor understood 10. The Essentials of Religion are so plainly revealed that no Man can miss them that hath not a mighty corrupt bias in his Will and Affections to infatuate and blind his Vnderstanding Those Essentials are contained in the Decalogue and the Creed Many speculative remoter Doctrines may be true but not Fundamental For 't is not agreeable to the goodness or justice of God that Mens eternal Interests should depend upon things that are difficult to be understood and easily mistaken If they did No Man could be secure but that do what he could he should perish everlastingly for not believing or believing amiss some of those difficult Points that are supposed necessary to Salvation and all those that are ignorant and of weak understanding must perish without help or they must be saved by implicit Faith in unknown Fundamentals THESE are some Propositions that follow from my Discourse and from one another The better they are considered the more their force will be perceived and I think they may serve for many very considerable purposes of Religion Charity and the peace of Mankind ANd now as a Conclusion to the whole I shall add some Considerations of the dangerous tendency of the common practice at least among the Sects of declaiming against Reason as an Enemy to Religion 1. It tends to the introduction of Atheism Infidelity and Scepticism and hath already brought in a flood of these upon us For what advantage can the Atheist and Infidel expect greater than this That Reason is against Religion What do they pretend What can they propose more If so there will be no proving That there is a God or That the Scripture is his Word and then we believe gratis and our Faith hangs upon Humour and Imagination and that Religion that depends upon a warm Phansie and an ungrounded belief stands but till a Disease or a new Conceit alter the Scene of Imagination and then down falls the Castle whose Foundation was in the Air. 'T was the charge of Julian the Apostate against the Primitive Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That their Wisdom was to believe as if they had no ground for their Faith And those that renounce and decry Reason justifie Julian in his Charge If this be so Religion will have no bottom but the Phansie of every one that professeth it and how various and inconstant a thing Imagination is every Man knows These are the Consequences of defamations of Reason on the pretended account of Religion and we have seen in multitudes of deplorable Instances That they follow in practice as well as reasoning Men of corrupt inclinations suspect that there is no Reason for our Faith and Religion and so are upon the borders of quitting it And the Enthusiast that pretends to know Religion best tells them that these Suspicions are very true and thence the Debauchee gladly makes the desperate Conclusion Or at least when they hear that Reason is uncertain various and fallacious they deny all credit to their Faculties and become confounded Scepticks that settle in nothing This I take to have been one of the greatest and most deadly occasions of the Atheism of our days and he that hath rejected Reason may be one when he pleaseth and cannot reprehend or reduce any one that is so already 2. The denial of Reason in Religion hath been the principal Engine that Hereticks and Enthusiasts have used against the Faith and that which lays us open to infinite follies and impostures Thus the Arrians quarrelled with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it was deduced by consequence but not expressed in Scripture The Apollinarists would by no means allow of Reason And St. Austin saith of the Donatists that they did calumniate and decry It to raise prejudice against the Catholick Faith and elsewhere Doctores vestri Hominem dialecticum fugiendum potius cavendum quà m refellendum censuerunt The Vbiquitarians defend their Errors by denying the judgment of Reason and the Macedonians would not have the Deity of the Holy Ghost proved by Consequence The later Enthusiasts in Germany and other places set up loud and vehement out-cries against Reason and the Lunaticks among us that agree in nothing else do yet sweetly accord in opposing this Carnal Reason and this indeed is their common Interest The impostures of Mens Phansies must not be seen in too much light and we cannot dream with our eyes open Reason would discover the nakedness of Sacred Whimsies and the vanity of Mysterious Non-sense This would disparage the Darlings of the Brain and cool the pleasant heats of kindled Imagination And therefore Reason must be decryed because an enemy to madness and Phansie set up under the Notion of Faith and Inspiration Hence Men had got the trick to call every thing that was Consequent and Reasonable Vain Philosophy and every thing that was Sober Carnal Reasoning Religion is set so far above Reason that at length it is put beyond Sobriety and Sense and then 't was fit to be believed when 't was impossible to be proved or understood The way to be a Christian is first to be a Brute and to be a true Believer in this Divinity is to be fit for Bedlam Men have been taught to put out their eyes that they might see and to hoodwink themselves that they might avoid the Precipices Thus have all Extravagancies been brought into Religion beyond the Imaginations of a Fever and the Conceits of Midnight Whatever is phansied is certain and whatever is vehement is Sacred every thing must be believed that is dream'd and every thing that is absurd is a Mystery And by this way Men in our days have been prepared to swallow
every thing every thing but what is sober whatever is wild will be suck'd in like the Air but what is reasonable will be fled like Infection So that if a Man would recommend any Doctrine for his life to those Enemies of Reason it must be some odd non-sense in the clothing of Imagination and he that can be the Author of a new kind of Madness shall lead a Party Thus hath Religion by the disparagement of Reason been made a Medley of Phantastick Trash spiritualized into an heap of Vapours and formed into a Castle of Clouds and exposed to every Wind of Humour and Imagination 3. By the same way great advantage is given to the Church of Rome Which is well known by those that adhere unto it And therefore Perronius Gonterius Arnoldus Veronius and other Jesuites have loudly declaimed against Reason and the last mentioned Veronius presented the World with a Method to overthrow Hereticks meaning those of the Protestant Faith which promised more than ordinary And that was to deny and renounce all Principles of Reason in Affairs of Faith absolutely and roundly and not to vouchsafe an Answer to any Argument against Transubstantiation or the other Articles of their new Faith but point-blank to deny whatever Reason saith in such Matters And he affirms that even these Principles of Reason viz. Non entis non sunt Attributa omne quod est quando est necesse est esse and such like which are the Foundations of all Reasoning are dangerous to the Catholick Faith and therefore not to be heeded This Man speaks out and affirms directly and boldly what the other Enemies of Reason mean but will not own This is a Method to destroy Hereticks in earnest but the mischief is all Christians and all other Religions and all other Reasonings are cut off by the same Sword This Book and Method of Veronius was kindly received by the Pope priviledged by the King of Spain approved by Cardinals Archbishops Bishops and all the Gallick Clergy as solid and for the advantage of Souls and the Sorbone Doctors gave it their approbation and recommended it as the only way to confute us and all the other Adversaries of their corrupted Faith and Religion Did these know what they did And did they think we understand the Interest of the Roman Church If so we kindly serve their ends and promote their Designs in the way which they account best while we vilifie and disparage Reason If this be renounced in Matters of Religion with what face can we use it against the Doctrine of Transubstantiation or any other Points of the Roman Creed Would it not be blameless and irreprovable for us to give up our Understandings implicitly to the Dictates and Declarations of that Church May we not follow blindly whatever the Infallible Man at Rome and his Councils say And would it not be vain self-contradiction to use Arguments against their Decrees though they are never so unreasonable Or to alledge Consequences from Scripture against any of their Articles though never so contrary to the Holy Oracles How easily may they rejoyn when we dispute against them You argue from Reason and by Consequences But Reason is dull and carnal and an enemy to the things of the Spirit and not to be heard in the high Matters of Religion And what can we say next if allow of the Accusation I say by this way we perfectly disable or grosly contradict our selves in most of our Disputes against the Romanists And we are very disingenuous in our dealings while we use Reason against them and deny it when 't is urged against our selves by another sort of Adversaries which implies that when we say Reason is not to be heard we mean 't is not to be heard against us But it must against the Church of Rome or any others we can oppugn by it So that our denying Reason in Religion is either very humoursom and partial or 't is a direct yielding up our Cause to our Enemies and doing that our selves which is the only thing they desire to undo us and to promote their own Interests upon our Ruines And thus I have represented some of the Mischiefs that arise from the disparagement of Reason we see they are great ones big of many others and such as are destructive to all Government and all the Interests of the sober part of Mankind This is properly Fanaticism and all that we call so grows upon it Here the Enemies of our Church and Government began upon this they insisted still and filled their Books and Pulpits and private Corners with these Cantings This was the Engine to overthrow all sober Principles and Establishments with this the People were infutuated and credit was reconciled to Gibberish and Folly Enthusiasms and vain Impulses This is the Food of Conventicles to this day the root of their Matter and the burden of their Preachments Let Reason be heard and tie them to Sense and most of their Holders-forth haue no more to say Their spirituality for which they are admired is besides Reason and against it rather than above it And while this Principle of the enmity between Reason and Religion stands the People will think them the more Spiritual Preachets because they are the less reasonable And while they are abused by such a belief 't will be impossible for sober Men to have any success in their endeavours to convince them AGAINST Modern Sadducism In the Matter of Witches and Apparitions Essay VI. Essay VI. AGAINST MODERN SADDUCISM In the Matter of Witches and Apparitions IF any thing were to be much admired in an Age of Wonders not only of Nature which is a constant Prodigy but of Men and Manners it would be to me matter of astonishment that Men otherwise witty and ingenious are fallen into the Conceit that there 's no such thing as a Witch or Apparition but that these are the Creatures of Melancholly and Superstition foster'd by Ignorance and Design which comparing the confidence of their disbelief with the evidence of the things denied and the weakness of their Grounds would almost suggest that themselves are an Argument of what they deny and that so confident an Opinion could not be held upon such inducements but by some kind of Witchcraft and Fascination in the Fancy And perhaps that evil Spirit whose Influences they will not allow in Actions ascribed to such Causes hath a greater hand and interest in their Proposition than they are aware of For that subtil Enemy of Mankind since Providence will not permit him to mischief us without our own concurrence attempts that by stratagem and artifice which he could never effect by open ways of acting and the success of all wiles depending upon their secrecy and concealment his influence is never more dangerous than when his agency is least suspected In order therefore to the carrying on the dark and hidden Designs he manageth against our Happiness and our Souls he cannot expect to advantage himself more
whose Genius and Ways are so unlike him But the other excellent Souls I describ'd will as certainly be visited by the Divine Presence and Converse as the Chrystaline Streams are with the Beams of Light or the fitly prepared Earth whose Seed is in it self will be actuated by the Spirit of Nature So that there is no reason to Object here the want of Angelical Communications though there were none vouchsafed us since good Men enjoy the Divine which are infinitely more satisfactory and indearing And now I may have leave to proceed to the next Objection which may be made to speak thus XII XII THe belief of Witches and the wonderful things they are said to perform by the help of the Confederate Daemon weakens our Faith and exposeth the World to Infidelity in the great Matters of our Religion For if they by Diabolical Assistance can inflict and cure Diseases and do things so much beyond the comprehension of our Philosophy and activity of common Nature What assurance can we have that the Miracles that confirm our Gospel were not the Effects of a Compact of like nature and that Devils were not cast out by Beelzebub If Evil Spirits can assume Bodies and render themselves visible in humane Likeness What security can we have of the reality of the Resurrection of Christ And if by their help Witches can enter Chambers invisibly through Key-holes and little unperceived Crannies and transform themselves at pleasure What Arguments of Divinity are there in our Saviour's shewing himself in the midst of his Disciples when the Doors were shut and his Transfiguration in the Mount Miracles are the great Inducements of Belief and how shall we distinguish a Miracle from a Lying Wonder a Testimony from Heaven from a Trick of the Angels of Hell if they can perform things that astonish and confound our Reasons and are beyond all the Possibilities of Humane Nature To this Objection I reply 1. The Wonders done by Confederacy with Wicked Spirits cannot derive a suspition upon the undoubted Miracles that were wrought by the Author and Promulgers of our Religion as if they were performed by Diabolical Compact since their Spirit Endeavours and Designs were notoriously contrary to all the Tendencies Aims and Interests of the Kingdom of Darkness For as to the Life and Temper of the Blessed and Adorable JESUS we know there was an incomparable sweetness in his Nature Humility in his Manners Calmness in his Temper Compassion in his Miracles Modesty in his Expressions Holiness in all his Actions Hatred of Vice and Baseness and Love to all the World all which are essentially contrary to the Nature and Constitution of Apostate Spirits who abound in Pride and Rancour Insolence and Rudeness Tyranny and Baseness Universal Malice and Hatred of Men And their Designs are as opposite as their Spirit and their Genius And now Can the Sun borrow its Light from the Bottomless Abyss Can Heat and Warmth flow in upon the World from the Regions of Snow and Ice Can Fire freeze and Water burn Can Natures so infinitely contrary communicate and jump in Projects that are destructive to each others known Interests Is there any Balsam in the Cockatrices Egg or Can the Spirit of Life flow from the Venom of the Asp Will the Prince of Darkness strengthen the Arm that is stretcht out to pluck his Usurp't Scepter and his Spoils from him And will he lend his Legions to assist the Armies of his Enemy against him No these are impossible Supposals No intelligent Being will industriously and knowingly contribute to the Contradiction of its own Principles the Defeature of its Purposes and the Ruine of its own dearest Interests There is no fear then that our Faith should receive prejudice from the acknowledgement of the Being of Witches and Power of Evil Spirits since 't is not the doing wonderful things that is the only Evidence that the Holy JESUS was from God and his Doctrine True but the conjunction of other Circumstances the Holiness of his Life the Reasonableness of his Religion and the Excellency of his Designs added credit to his Works and strengthned the great Conclusion That he could be no other than the Son of God and Saviour of the World But besides I say 2. That since Infinite Wisdom and Goodness rules the World it cannot be conceiv'd that they should give up the greatest part of Men to unavoidable deception And if Evil Angels by their Confederates are permitted to perform such astonishing things as seem so evidently to carry God's Seal and Power with them for the confirmation of Falshoods and gaining credit to Impostors without any Counter-evidence to disabuse the World Mankind is exposed to sad and fatal Delusion And to say that Providence will suffer us to be deceived in things of the greatest Concernment when we use the best of our Care and Endeavours to prevent it is to speak hard things of God and in effect to affirm That He hath nothing to do in the Government of the World or doth not concern himself in the Affairs of poor forlorn Men And if the Providence and Goodness of God be not a security unto us against such Deceptions we cannot be assured but that we are always abused by those mischievous Agents in the Objects of plain Sense and in all the Matters of our daily Converses If One that pretends he is immediately sent from God to overthrow the Ancient Fabrick of Established Worship and to erect a New Religion in His Name shall be born of a Virgin and honoured by a Miraculous Star proclaimed by a Song of seeming Angels of Light and Worshipped by the Wise Sages of the World Revered by those of the greatest Austerity and admired by all for a Miraculous Wisdom beyond his Education and his Years If He shall feed Multitudes with almost nothing and fast himself beyond all the possibilities of Nature If He shall be transformed into the appearance of extraordinory Glory and converse with departed Prophets in their visible Forms If He shall Cure all Diseases without Physick or Endeavour and raise the Dead to Life after they have stunk in their Graves If He shall be honoured by Voices from Heaven and attract the Universal Wonder of Princes and People If he shall allay Tempests with a Beck and cast out Devils with a Word If he shall foretel his own Death particularly with its Tragical Circumstances and his Resurrection after it If the Veil of the most famous Temple in the World shall be Rent and the Sun darkned at his Funeral If He shall within the time foretold break the Bonds of Death and lift up his Head out of the Grave If Multitudes of other departed Souls shall arise with Him to attend at the Solemnity of his Resurrection If He shall after Death visibly Converse and Eat and Drink with divers Persons who could not be deceived in a Matter of clear Sense and ascend in Glory in the presence of an astonisht and admiring Multitude I
the plain things they are taught without busie intermedling in Speculative Opinions and things beyond their reach Such a Liberty of Judgment as this they taught and such was necessary for the Age in which the Minds of Men were inthrall'd by the Masters of Sects and the Opinions then stil'd Orthodox from which it was accounted Heresie and Damnatiou to recede So that nothing could be done to set them at large from those vain Fancies and Ways till they were perswaded to examine them with freedom and indifference and to conclude according to the Report of their Faculties They knew That Truth would have the advantage could it but procure an impartial Tryal That the False Doctrines and Fanatical Practices of the Times would be detected and sham'd were it not for the superstitious straightness that supprest all Enquiry and that those Old Truths that were exploded with so much abhorrence would in all likelyhood gain upon the Judgments and Assents of all that were free and durst to be inquisitive On such accounts they prest the Liberty of Judgment and in a time when it was very seasonable and no hurt could directly arise from it Since 2. They taught and urged much modesty together with it and allow'd not Dogmatical Affirmations but in things that were most fundamental and certain They consider'd That our Understandings at best are very weak and that the search of Truth is difficult that we are very liable to be imposed on by our Complexions Imaginations Interests and Affections That whole Ages and great Kingdoms and Christian Churches and Learned Counsels have joyn'd in Common Errors and obtruded false and absurd Conceits upon the World with great severity and flaming Zeal That much Folly and great Non-sense have many times generally obtain'd and been held for certain and Sacred That all Mankind are puzled and bafled in the disquisition of the seeming plainest and most obvious things In the Objects of Sense and Motions of our own Souls That in earnest we cannot tell How we speak a Word or move a Finger How the Soul is united to the Body or the Parts of Bodies to one another how our own were framed at first or how afterwards they are nourish'd That these nearest things and a thousand more are hid from our deepest Enquiries Thus they consider'd often and fill'd their Thoughts with a great sense of the narrowness of humane Capacity and the Imperfections of our largest Knowledge which they used not to any purposes of unwarrantable Scepticism or absolute neutrality of Judgement but to ingage their Minds to a greater wariness in Enquiry and more shiness of Assent to things not very clear and evident to more reservedness in their Affirmations and more modesty in their Arguings After this manner they practised themselves and thus they discours'd to others and nothing could be more proper for those times in which everyone almost was immoderately confident of his own way and thereby rendred insolent in his Dictates and incurable in his Errors scornful to opposite Judgments and ready to quarrel all Dissenters So that the World was hereby fill'd with Animosity and Clamours whereas modesty in Opinions would have prevented those Mischiefs and it was taught by those Men as the likelyest way of Cure For there is no hopes either of Truth or Peace while every one of the divided thinks himself infallible But when they come to grant a possibility of their being out in their Beloved Tenents there is something then to work upon towards their better Information But 3. there was still less danger in the Liberty they promoted for as much as they practised and perswaded much prudence to be us'd in the publishing of their Tenents They allowed not any declaration of private Sentiments when such a Declaration might tend to the disgrace or dissettlement of Legal Appointments or any Articles of the Establish'd Religion provided there were no Idolatry or direct Heresie in the things injoin'd But believ'd and taught That Men ought to content themselves with their own Satisfactions in the Supposed Truths they have discover'd without clamorous Disputes or Wranglings And though in the large compass of Enquiry they took and the Considerations they had of all sorts of Idaea's that enter into the various Minds of thinking Men it could not be but that they should have several Apprehensions different from vulgar Thoughts Yet they were very cautious in discovering their Conceptions among the illiterate and unqualified They had no delight in speaking strange things or in appearing to be singular and extraordinary They were not so fond of their own Opinions as to think them necessary for all others Nor were they infected with the Common Zeal to spread and propagate every Truth they thought they knew No they consider'd there were Truths which the World would not bear and that some of the greatest would be receiv'd here with the bitterest contempt and derision So that to publish would be but to expose them to popular scorn and themselves also Their main Design was to make Men good not notional and knowing and therefore though they conceal'd no practical Verities that were proper and seasonable yet they were sparing in their Speculations except where they tended to the necessary vindication of the Honour of God or the directing the Lives of Men They spoke of other Matters of Notion only among their known Friends and such as were well prepar'd able to examine and dispos'd to pardon or receive them Among these they discours'd the greatest freest Speculations with as much liberty in their Words as in their Thoughts and though they differ'd in many Notions yet those Differences did nothing but serve the pleasure of Conversation and exercise of Reasoning They begot no estrangements or distasts no noise or trouble abroad Such was the prudence that They practised and taught and this also was very proper for those Times when every Man vented his Conceits for Articles of Faith and told his Dreams for Revelations and then pretended he was extraordinarily enlightned and strove to make Proselites and quarrel'd with all that did not embrace his Fancies and separated from the Communion of the Church and endeavour'd to involve the World in Hurries and Distractions and all this for the sake of a few pittiful needless sensless Trifles In such a time this prudent Spirit and Practice was singularly seasonable and useful But though they were thus cauteous and wary about Theories more remote and not necessary yet they were not altogether indifferent to what Men believ'd and thought No They were concern'd and zealous against the Fanatick Conceits and Humours of the Age which were the occasions of so much Folly Irregularity and Disturbance And my next Business is to declare in some great Instances how they demeaned Themselves in opposing of them This was the second thing I undertook to relate namely Their particular endeavours in the Affairs of Religion But before I fall on it I must declare to you That They had not any
Religion different from that of other Catholick Christians but were faithful adherers to the old acknowledg'd Christianity as it was taught by the Church of Bensalem To this Church they conform'd heartily though they were distinguishable from some others of her Sons by the application of their Genius and Endeavours I have told you They grew up among the Sects They were Born and Bred in that Age which they could not help But as they order'd the Matter it was no hurt to the Church or them that they were educated in bad times They had the occasion thence of understanding the Genius Humour and Principles of the Parties which those that stood always at distance from them could not so thorowly and inwardly know By that means they had great advantage for providing and applying the Remedies and Confutations that were proper and effectual And by daily Converse and near Observation they setled in their Minds a dislike of those ways that was greater and juster than the Antipathy of some others who saw only their out-sides that in many things were specious and plausible They studied in the Places where some of the chief of the Sects govern'd and those that were ripe for the Service preach'd publickly as other Academical Divines did This they scrupled not because they were young and had been under no explicit ingagements to those Laws that were then unhappily over-ruled But in those and in their other Vniversity-Exercises they much serv'd the Interest of the Church of Bensalem by undermining the Ataxites so the Sectaries are here call'd and propagating the Anti-fanatical Doctrines which they had entertain'd and improved So that I cannot look upon that Spirit otherwise than as an Antidote that Providence then seasonably provided against the deadly Infection of those days On which account they were by some call'd the Anti-fanites because of their peculiar opposition of the Fans or Fanites as the Ataxites were sometimes named And though some Persons thought fit to judge and spoke of Them as a new Sort of Divines Yet they were not to be so accounted in any sense of disparagement since the new Things they taught were but contradictions of the new Things that were introduced and new Errors and Pretences will occasion new ways of Opposition and Defence I have now I doubt said the Governor almost tired you with prefacing but these things were fit to be premised I exprest my self well-pleased both with the Matters he related and the order which he thought convenient to declare them in and so he proceeded to the second main Head Their particular Principles and Practices I MUST tell you then said He first That they took notice of the loud Out-cries and Declamations that were among all the Sects against Reason and observ'd how by that means all Vanities and Phanatick Devices were brought into Religion They saw There was no likelyhood any stop should be put to those Extravagancies of Fansie that were impudently obtruding themselves upon the World but by vindicating and asserting the use of Reason in Religion and therefore their private Discourses and publick Exercises ran much this way to maintain the sober use of our Faculties and to expose and shame all vain Enthusiasms And as Socrates of old first began the Reformation of his Age and reduced Men from the wildness of Fansie and Enthusiastick Fegaries with which they were overgrown by pleading for Reason and shewing the necessity and Religion that there is in hearkning to its Dictates So They in order to the cure of the madness of their Age were zealous to make Men sensible That Reason is a Branch and Beam of the Divine Wisdom That Light which he hath put into our Minds and that Law which he hath writ upon our Hearts That the Revelations of God in Scripture do not contradict what he hath engraven upon our Natures That Faith it self is an Act of Reason and is built upon these two Reasonable Principles That there is a God and That what he saith is true That our Erroneous Deductions are not to be call'd Reason but Sophistry Ignorance and Mistake That nothing can follow from Reason but Reason and that what so follows is as true and certain as Revelation That God never disparageth Reason in Scripture but that the vain Philosophy and Wisdom of this World there spoken against were Worldly Policies Jewish Genealogies Traditions and the Notional Philosophy of some Gentiles That Carnal Reason is the Reason of Appetite and Passion and not the Dictates of our Minds That Reason proves some Main and Fundamental Articles of Faith and defends all by proving the Authority of Holy Scripture That we have no cause to take any thing for an Article of Faith till we see Reason to believe that God said it and in the sense wherein we receive such a Doctrine That to decry and disgrace Reason is to strike up Religion by the Roots and to prepare the World for Atheism According to such Principles as these They managed their Discourses about this Subject They stated the Notions of Faith and Reason clearly and endeavour'd to deliver the Minds of Men from that confusedness in those Matters which blind Zeal had brought upon them that so they might not call Vain Sophistry by the name of Humane Reason and rail at this for the sake of Fallacy and the Impostures of Ignorance and Fancy Hereby they made some amends for the dangerous rashness of those inconsiderate Men who having heard others defame Reason as an Enemy to Faith set up the same Cry and fill'd their Oratories with the terrible noise of Carnal Reason Vain Philosophy and such other misapplyed words of reproach without having ever clearly or distinctly consider'd what they said or whereof they affirm'd And this they did too at a time when the World was posting a-pace into all kinds of madness as if they were afraid the half-distracted Religionists would not run fast enough out of their Wits without their Encouragement and Assistance And as if their Design had been to credit Phrensie and Enthusiasm and to disable all proof that could be brought against them This I believe many of those well-meaning Canters against Reason did not think of though what they did had a direct tendency that way And accordingly it succeeded For the conceited People hearing much of Incomes Illuminations Communions Lights Discoveries Sealings Manifestations and Impressions as the Heights of Religion and then being told that Reason is a low Carnal Thing and not to judge in these Spiritual Matters That it is a Stranger to them and at enmity with the Things of God I say the People that were so taught could not chuse but be taken with the wild Exstatical Enthusiasts who made the greatest boasts of these glorious Priviledges nor could they easily avoid looking upon the glarings of their own Imaginations and the warmths and impulses of their Melancholy as Divine Revelations and Illapses To this dangerous pass thousands were brought by such Preachments and had so
they had generally silly and fantastick conceptions of Free Grace Gospel-liberty Saving knowledge Pure Ordinances The motions of the Spirit Workings of Corruption Powerful preaching Liberty of Conscience Illuminations and Indwellings That their Admirers generally talk'd those words by rote without knowing the meaning of them and that the Teachers themselves understood them in a false and erroneous sense That bating such words and the talk of Outgoings Incommings Givings-in Dawnings Refinings Withdrawings and other Metaphors there was nothing extraordinary in their whole Divinity but the non-sense and absurdities of it Thus They declar'd freely against the Gibberish of that Age and stated the right Notion of those points of Religion which the others had so transformed and abused FUrther Whereas the Sects kept up loud cryes against the Church of Bensalem as guilty of Superstition Will-worship undue Impositions and Persecution They took them to task here also and declar'd That Superstition in the properest sense of it imports An over-timerous and dreadful apprehension of God which presents him as rigid and apt to be angry on the one hand and as easie to be pleas'd with flattering devotions on the other so that Superstition works two wayes viz. by begetting fears of things in which there is no hurt and fondness of such as have no good in them on both which accounts they declar'd the Ataxites to be some of the most superstitious people in the World They shew'd That their dreadful notions of God which represented him as one that by peremptory unavoidable decrees had bound over the greatest part of men to everlasting Torments without any consideration of their sin only to shew the absoluteness of his power over them I say They declar'd that those black thoughts of Him were the Fountain of numerous superstitions That their causless fears of the innocent Rites and usages of the Church of Bensalem which were only matters of order and decency appointed by the Governours of the Church and not pretending any thing in particular to divine Institution was very gross and silly superstition That they were very superstitious in being afraid and bogling at prescribed Forms of Prayer kneeling at the holy Sacrament the Cross in Baptism and the like becomming and decent Institutions That 't was Ignorance and Superstition to fly off with such dread from a few injoyn'd Ceremonies because forsooth they were symbolical and significant That the Ceremonies that are not so are vain and impertinent That the Ruling Powers may appoint such for the visible instruction and edification of the People and for the more reverence and solemnity of Worship That the current principle among them That Nothing is to be done in the Worship of God but what is particularly commanded and prescribed in Scripture is a foolish groundless conceit and the occasion of many Superstitions That though this is always pretended and said yet it was never proved That to observe the Church in such appointments without any opinion of their antecedent necessity is a due act of obedience to it But to fly from them as sinful and Anti-christian is great Superstition These things they declar'd and prov'd against the negative Superstitions of Taste not Touch not handle not And They shew'd also how justly chargeable the Ataxites were with many Positive ones in that they doated upon little needless foolish things and lay'd a great stress of Religion upon them That the keeping such stir about pretended Orthodox opinions and the placing them in their Creeds among the most sacred and fundamental Doctrines was a dangerous and mischievous Superstition That it was very superstitious to dignify private conceits or uncertain tenents with the style of Gospel-light Gods Truths precious Truths and the like expressions of admiration and fondness That to intitle the Spirit of God to the effects of our imaginations and the motions of natural passions was Superstition and that so was the opinion of the necessity and spirituality of suddain conceiv'd prayer That there was much Superstition in their Idolizing their particular ways of Worship and models of Discipline as the pure Ordinances and Christs Government and Scripture Rules And that in these and many other respects they that talk'd so much against Superstition were themselves most notoriously guilty of it As to Will-worship They taught after your most learned Hammondus That the Apostle in the only place where it is mention'd Col. 2. doth not speak of it in an evil sense But that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imports a free and unconstrain'd worship which is the more acceptable for being so That Sacrifices before the Law Free-will-offerings under it The feasts of Purim and Dedication Davids design of building the Temple the Austerities of the Rechabites and St. Paul's refusing hire for his labour among the Corinthians were of this sort That men are not to be blamed for Will-worship except they would impose it without Authority as necessary That when they thus teach for Doctrines their own Traditions and grow so proud and conceited with them as to separate from the publick Communion upon the fancy that they are more pure and holy then others That this their Will-worship is sinful and Pharisaical which was the case of the Ataxites who therefore were Will-worshippers in the evil sense But the Anti-fanites shewed that the pious Institutions of just Authority were no way lyable to any such imputation That such might impose particular Circumstances and Decencies and that those Impositions were no way contrary to Gospel Liberty That that was only Freedom from the Jewish yoke from the bondage of sin and power of Sathan not Liberty from the Injunctions and Appointments of Civil or Ecclesiastical Governours That all or the chief power of these conconsisted in fixing and appointing circumstances of order and decorum that were left undetermined and not prescrib'd in Scripture That if they may not do this they are in a manner useless That the Church of Bensalem impos'd nothing that was grievous or prohibited They minded the Ataxites that themselves were great Imposers That they imposed Oaths and Ceremonies in that part of Religious Worship a form of words the lifting up of the hand and That they would have impos'd numerous doubtful and false opinions to have been subscrib'd as a necessary Confession of Faith making thereby their own private tenents of equal moment and certainty with the great fundamental Articles which is proper imposing upon the Conscience That they would not by any means allow Liberty of Conscience when they were in power that this then was the great Abomination and the most accursed thing in the world That they persecuted the Bensalemites for their Consciences with wonderful inhumanity That when other power is taken from them they are grievous persecutors with their Tongues and are continually shooting the Arrows of bitter scornful words against all that are of different judgment Thus Those Divines disabled all the charges and pretences of the Fanites and turn'd the points and edge upon themselves And
and the defence of Christianity against those enemies of the Cross. On these accounts they 〈…〉 Writers notwithstanding the 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 with which their Books were loaded to be very useful for a Divine and like to be of more behoof to him than all the tedious volumes of the Schoolmen And some thought it would not be amiss if the Rabbins succeeded in those places which those other Doctors were leaving vacant And now said He I have also given you a Taste of the Genius and Humour of those Divines in some chief parts of Learning And though I have mentioned only some particular sorts yet I do not thereby exclude them from their share in the Languages History and other kinds of knowledg which I have omitted in this account only because their sence of them for the most part was common with the judgment and opinion of other learned Men. I have represented to you their Genius and endeavours not with design as I intimated before to exalt and magnifie them above the other Divines of Bensalem but to shew how the Providence of God over-rul'd those evil times in which those Men were bred and to raise a good and generous Spirit amid the extravagances of an unhappy age and I have thus particularly described their Principles and Practices not to exclude other worthy and Reverend Men with which thanks be to God this Church abounds from the share of acknowments that are due to their pious and excellent Labours but because those Persons are better known to me than any others of our Clergy At this Period of his discourse a Servant came in and with low reverence acquainted the Governor that some Persons of quality were come to speak with him Upon which he rising up told me He was sorry for this interruption but hoped ere long to have the freedom of another opportunity of Conversing with me FINIS Books Published by Mr. Joseph Glanvill THe Way of Happiness represented in it's Difficulties and Encouragements and freed from many popular and dangerous mistakes Catholick Charity recommended in a Sermon before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London A Fast Sermon on the Kings Martyrdom Lux Orientalis being a modest Philosophical Enquiry into the Doctrine of Pra-existence A Prefatory Answer to Mr. Henry Stubbs A Further Account of Mr. Stubbs A Letter concerning Aristotle An Apology for some of the Clergy who suffer under false and scandalous Reports on the occasion of the Rehearsal Transprised An Earnest Invitation to the Sacrament of the Lords Supper Seasonable Reflections and Discourses in order to the cure of the Scoffing and Infidelity of a degenerate Age. ESSAYS Philosophical and Theological Books Printed for and Sold by Henry Mortlock at the Phoenix in St. Pauls Church-Yard and at the White Hart in Westminster-Hall A Rational Account of the Grounds of Protestant Religion being a Vindication of the Lord-Arch-Bishop of Canterbury's Relation of a Conference c. from the pretended Answer of T. C. folio Sermons preached upon several occasions with a Discourse annexed concerning the true Reasons of the Suffering of Christ wherein Crellius's Answer to Grotius is considered fol. Irenicum A Weapon-Slave for the Churches wounds In quarto Origines Sacra or a Rational Account of the Grounds of Christian Faith as to the Truth and Divine Authority of the Scriptures and the matters therein contained quarto A Discourse concerning the Idolatry practised in the Church of Rome and the hazard of Salvation in the Communion of it in Answer to some Papers of a Revolted Protestant wherein a particular account is given of the Phanaticisms and Divisions of that Church Octavo An Answer to several late Treatises occasioned by a Book entituled A Discourse concerning the Idolatry practised in the Church of Rome and the hazard of Salvation in the communion of it the first Part Octavo A second Discourse in vindication of the Protestant Grounds of Faith against the pretence of Infallibility in the Roman Church in Answer to the Guide in Controversie by R. H. Protestancy without Principles and Reason and Religion or the certain Rule of Faith by E. W. with a particular enquiry into the Miracles of the Roman Church Octavo An Answer to Mr. Cresy's Epistle Apologetical to a Person of Honour touching his Vindication of Dr. Stillingfleet Octavo All written by Edw. Stillingfleet D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty The Rule of Faith or an Answer to the Treatise of Mr. J. S. entituled Sure-Footing c. by John Tiâ—…lotson D. D. Preacher to the Honourable Society of Lincolns-Inn To which is adjoyned a Reply to Mr. J. S. his third Appendix c. by Edw. Stillingfleet D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty Knowledge and Practice Or a plain Discourse of the chief things necessary to be known believed and practiced in order to Salvation By. S. Cradock Quarto a Book very useful for Families The Remains of Sir Walter Rawleigh in Twelves A Discourse of War and Peace by Sir Robert Cotton in Octavo The Moral Philosophy of the Stoicks in Octavo Hodders Arithmetick Twelves The Triumphs of Rome over despised Protestancy Octavo The Original of Romances Octavo The Advice of Charles the Fifth Emperor of Germany and King of Spain to his Son Philip the Second upon resignation of his Crown to his said Son Twelves Observations upon Military and Political affairs by the Right Honourable George Duke of Albemarle Folio Published by Authority A Fathers Testament by Phineahs Fletcher in Octavo A Sermon preached before the King January 30. 1675. by Greoge Sâ—…radling D. D. Dean of Chichester and one of his Majesties Chaplains in Ordinary A Sermon preached before the King May 9. 1675. by John Sadbâ—…ry D. D. Dean of Durham and Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty The Reformation Justified in a Sermon preached at Guild Hall Chappel September 21. 1673. before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen c. upon Acts 24. 14. A Sermon preached November 5. 1673. at St. Margarets Westminister upon St. Matthew 7. 15 16. A Sermon preached before the King February 24. 1675. upon Heb. 3. 13 These three last by Edw. Stâ—… D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty Books Printed for and Sold by John Baker at the three Pidgeons in St. Pauls Church-Yard DUPORT in Psalmos 4. Greek and Latine Cantabrigiae 4. Idem in Psalmos 4. Grace in Homer 4. Grace Latine Beveridge Grammatica Orientalis 8. Gore Nomenclator Geograph 8. Seldeni Eutichyus 4. Arab. Lat. Ailsbury de Decreto Dei 4. Dionysius de Situ Orbis 8. Grace Comenii Janua 8. Lat. cum Figu Confessio Fideâ—… 8. Doughtei Analecta Sacra 8. p. s. 23. Ignoramus 12. Vossii Elementa Rhetorica 8. Elegantiae Poeticae 12. Exaletation of Ale 8. Comenii Vestibulum 8. Lat. Eng. Pasoris Lexicon 8. Gr. Lat. Quintiliani Orationes 8. Glanvil on the Sacrament 12. Burroughs Remedy against Grief 12. bound together Directions about Death 12. bound together Emperor Augustus's speeches to the Married and Unmarried Dr. Meggots Sermon before St. Pauls Scholars on St. Pauls day 1675. A Visitation Sermon before the Lord Bishop of Ely by Timothy Parker at Lewis in Sussex Praeces scholae Paulinae 8. Lat. Eng. Where are Sold all sort of Forreign Books and School-Books FINIS
delivered to the Saints and hereby Heresies are said to be confuted and overthrown So that the disabling and suppressing of Disputes seems to be a weakening rather than any advantage to Religion and the Concernments of it To this I say That by the Faith we are to contend for I conceive the Essentials and certain Articles are meant These we may and we ought to endeavour to defend and promote as there is occasion and we have seen how the Real Philosophy will help our Reasons in that Service But pious Contentions for these are not the disputings of which I am now discoursing those are stiff Contests about uncertain Opinions And such I dare very boldly say are no Contentions for the Faith but the Instruments of the greatest mischiefs to it As for those other Disputes that are used to convince Men of the Truths of the Gospel and the great Articles thereof and for the disproving Infidelity and Heresie they are necessary and Philosophy is an excellent help in such Contests So that those other Objections pleadable from the necessity of proving and trying our Faith and convincing Hereticks From the Example of our Saviour's disputing with the Doctors and the Sadduces and of St. Paul at Athens with the Jews These and such other little Cavils can signifie nothing to the disadvantage of what I have said about the Humour of Disputing in Matters of doubtful and uncertain Opinions against which the Real Philosophy is an Antidote ANd thus I have shewn under five material Heads That the knowledge of Nature and the Works of God promotes the greatest Interests of Religion and by the three last it appears how fundamentally opposite it is to all Schism and Fanaticism which are made up and occasioned by Superstition Enthusiasm and ignorant perverse Disputings So that for Atheists and Sadduces and Fanaticks to detest and inveigh against Philosophy is not at all strange 'T is no more than what may well be expected from Men of that sort Philosophy is their Enemy and it concerns them to disparage and reproach it But for the Sober and Religious to do any thing so unadvised and so prejudicial to Religion is wonderful and deplorable To set these right in their Judgment about Philosophical Inquiry into God's Works is the Principal design of these Papers and in order to the further promoting of it I advance to the last Head of Discourse proposed viz. IV. THat the Ministers and Professors of Religion ought not to discourage but promote the knowledge of Nature and the Works of its Author This is the result of the whole Matter and follows evidently upon it And though it will not infer a necessity of all Mens deep search into Nature yet this it will That no Friend or Servant of Religion should hinder or discountenance such Inquiries And though most private Christians and some publick Ministers have neither leisure nor ability to look into Matters of natural Research and Inquisition yet they ought to think candidly and wish well to the endeavours of those that have and 't is a sin and a folly either in the one or other to censure or discourage those worthy Undertakings So that I cannot without trouble observe how apt some are that pretend much to Religion and some that minister in it to load those that are studious of God's Works with all the studious Names that contempt and spight can suggest The Irreligion of which injurious carriage nothing can excuse but their ignorance And I will rather hope that they neither know what they say nor what they do than believe that they have any direct design against the Glory of their Maker or against any laudable endeavours to promote it I know well what mischief Prejudice will do even upon Minds that otherwise are very honest and intelligent enough And there are many common slanders and some plausible Objections in the Mouths of the Zealous against Philosophy which have begot an ill Opinion of it in well-meaning Men who have never examined things with any depth of Inquiry For the sake of such I shall produce the most considerable Allegations of both sorts and I hope make such returns to them as may be sufficient to satisfie those whose Minds are not barr'd by Obstinacy or Ignorance I speak first of the bold and broad Slanders among which that I. Of Atbeism is one of the most ordinary But certainly 't is one of the most unjust Accusations that Malice and Ignorance could have invented This I need not be industrious to prove here having made it appear that Philosophy is one of the best Weapons in the World to defend Religion against it and my whole Discourse is a confutation of this envious and foolish charge Concerning it I take notice That Philosophical Men are usually dealt with by the Zealous as the greatest Patrons of the Protestant Cause are by the Sects For as the Bishops and other Learned Persons who have most strongly oppugned the Romish Faith have had the ill luck to be accused of Popery themselves in like manner it happens to the humblest and deepest Inquisitors into the Works of God who have the most and fullest Arguments of his Existence have raised impregnable Ramparts with much industry and pious pains against the Atheists and are the only Men that can with success serve Religion against the Godless Rout These Superstitious Ignorance hath always made the loudest out-cry against as if themselves were guilty of that which they have most happily oppugned and defeated And the certain way to be esteemed an Atheist by the fierce and ignorant Devoto's is to study to lay the Foundations of Religion sure and to be able to speak groundedly and to purpose against the desperate Cause of the black Conspirators against Heaven And the greatest Men that have imploy'd their Time and Thoughts this way have been pelted with this Dirt while they have been labouring in the Trenches and indeavouring to secure the Foundations of the Holy Fabrick But besides I observe That narrow angry People take occasion to charge the freer Spirits with Atheism because they move in a larger Circle and have no such fond adherence to some Opinions which they adore and count Sacred And for my own part I confess I have not Superstition enough in my Spirit or Nature to incline me to doat upon all the Principles I judge true or to speak so dogmatically about them as I perceive confident and disputing Men are wont But contenting my self with a firm assent to the few practical Fundamentals of Faith and having fix'd that end of the Compass I desire to preserve my Liberty as to the rest holding the other in such a posture as may be ready to draw those Lines my Judgment informed by the Holy Oracles the Articles of our Church the Apprehensions of wise Antiquity and my particular Reason shall direct me to describe And when I do that 't is for my self and my own satisfaction but am not concern'd to impose my Sentiments