see such a supplement to what he had so scantly proposed But I am afraid and perhaps not without reason that he knowing how weak his Arguments must needs be for the two positions that follow and yet designing to impose on the Reader all the Six as equally certain he would needs disguise the first Four and propose them so weakly guarded that the proofs of all the Six might be of a piece But I have hitherto helped I. K. henceforth I quit that part and go to enter in a down-right opposition to him in what remains CHAP V. It is considered if J. K. proves convincingly that the Roman Catholick Religion is true J. K. now comes to that which he drove at all along and proves it thus If Christian Religion be true then that Religion which has the same proofs that it hath at least any of them that are solid must needs be true Since then the miraculous propagation of Christianity is a common solid and evident proof of its truth therefore the Roman Catholick Religion must be true since it is solidly proved by the like propagation for though it contains very hard Mysteries in it above the reach of humane reason as Transubstantiation and some very hard Precepts and Counsells as Vows Fasts Confession prohibition for Priests to marry c. yet it hath been propagated over a great part of the world without the help of Arms or humane Enticements by strangers who have converted Nations from Paganism to embrace the Christian Faith as S. Austin the Monk did in England and Xaverius in the Indies and many others in other places which can be manifestly proved from History nor can any exception be made against it which the enemies of Christianity may not make against the same proâ—f brought for the Christian Religion And to use S. Austin's dilemma This propagation of Roman Catholick Religion was either with or without Miracles if with Miracles it must be true since confirmed by Miracles if without them then no Miracle is greater than this propagation By which it appears we have as good ground to be Roman Catholicks as we have to be Christians By this time I suppose it is clear enough why I. K. would bring no better proofs for the Truth of the Christian Religion and now he thinks he has gained his design but what I said in the former Section has undermined this Fabrick since it is made out that the miraculous propagation is neither the only nor the chief proof of Christianity but that before we believe even the Miracles of our Saviour to be of God two things were to be made out the one that his Doctrine was all holy and such as tended to the glory of God the other was that all he said and delivered agreed with the Prophecies had gone before So by the same rule of proceeding we must first see that all the parts of the Roman Religion are holy and such as tend to the glory of God and then that they 〈◊〉 as fully with both the Testaments as our Saviours Doctrine did with 〈◊〉 and the Prophets If this Method be taken I am afraid I. K. will find it a hard task to prove the holinâ—â—s of all the Roman Doctrines What a Sanctuary for all manner of Vice and Impiety is the 〈◊〉 power of Dispensing Pardoning and giving Indulgences for all sins upon such trifling accounts Witness the present year with all the favours and Indulgences to such as go to the thresholds of the Apostles What a patrociny to impenitence is their Opinion of a simple Attrition being sufficient for the Sacrament And the whole trade of their penances and absolutions looks like a design to quiet all mens Consciences let them lead as bad lives as they will Besides who can believe that to be a true Religion that has tolerated a great many Casuists who have found out distinctions to excuse men from all the duties they owe God and their Neighbour and have studied to satisfie men in the most impious and immoral practises A woman that entertains common and avowed Prostitutes will never be thought an honest woman though none could prove her self guilty of any base act So that Church that not only entertains but cherishes those who have studied to discharge mankind of all sense of Religion and Vertue can never pass for a pure Church Nor does the Doctrine of that Church tend wholly to the glory of God as our Saviours did for what greater dishonour can be done him than to Worship him in a way which himself has so often condemned and never since allowed by the representations of Pictures and Images And that instead of addressing their Adorations and Prayers to him by his Son have found out a great many other Mediators both Angels and Saints and the Blessed Virgin Surely this is highly to the dishonour of God when the Souls of people are turned off from their Faith and dependence on him and his blessed Son into a trusting to and calling on Creatures and when instead of that plain simple and rational Worship that is sutable to the Divine nature and pleasing to him the mimical pageantry of a Thousand little apish practises and an unknown Worship are brought into his Church If we likewise consider and measure the Roman Religion by the second great Topick by which our Saviour cleared himself which was his appealing to the Scriptures we will quickly find good reason to suspect them guilty there since they study nothing more than the suppressing and concealing the Scripture and by all means labour to prove it an incompetent rule to decide Controversies by And yet I am sure I. K. will give me no reason to prove the Scriptures an unproper rule for deciding Controversies and that we must submit to the verdict and decree of the Church that might not with more strength been made use of by the Iews against our Saviour And if I carry this consideration as far as it will go it must necessarily lead me to compare all the Doctrines of the Roman Religion with the Scriptures And as if our Saviours Doctrine had been contrary to the Law of Moses there had been no reason to have believed him for all his mighty deeds which in that case might justly have been imputed to evil spirits so now should an Angel from heaven teach any thing contrary to this Doctrine and Gospel he must be anathematized even though he wrought mighty wonders Therefore we are with the Bereans to examine all new Doctrines by their conformity to the Scriptures and till that appear we are not to look on any thing they do as miraculous And thus far I hope I have said enough to convince I. K. that though what he says of the miraculous propagation of the Roman Religion were true it does not from that follow that the Religion it self must be true But I go next to convince him how much he mistook himself in his account when he asserted that the Christian and the
nor uncircumcision availed any thing and that in the new Creature there was neither Circumcision nor uncircumcision but Christ was all in all and that one God did both justifie the Circumcision by Faith and the uncircumcision through Faith from all which it is evident that those of the Circumcision might be saved and by consequence that their Religion was a true Religion and yet that their doctrine of Circumcision was an error can be disputed by none who read the Epistles of S. Paul And it is no less clear that they held it an Article of Faith delivered to Abraham by God So here it is plain that S. Paul in one breath both condemns this Opinion as erroneous and yet allows Salvation to such as believed it With how many errors doth S. Iohn charge some of the seven Churches yet they were still the Churches of Christ. The Church in the second Century did generally believe the Millennium as a thing revealed by God which the Roman Church now calls an error yet I hope I. K. will not condemn that Church as holding a false Religion The African Churches held it necessary for Infants to receive the Eucharist from these words Except you eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man you have no life in you and this was approved by P. Innocent and was continued many Ages in the Roman Church as appears from the Ordo Romanus and yet that Church has declared that not to be necessary by which the Opinion the former Ages had of its necessity is declared an error But it were a strange thing from that to condemn these as holding a false Religion The Franciscans and Dominicans had hot contests about the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin and both pretended Divine authority and Revelations so that one of those must have held an error The Dominicans and Iansenists believe Predestination and Grace efficacious of it self this the Molinists deny both vouch Scriptures and the definitions of the Church The Canonists Courtiers of Rome and Iesuits have asserted the Popes Infallibility from Scripture and Councils the Sorbon hath always rejected this Now of all these different Opinions the one must be true and the other false since they stand in the terms of a contradiction and they have all vouched God and Scriptures for them therefore those who hold the false side of the contradiction according to I. K's reasoning must be of a false Religion which I believe when he considers more maturely he will find he mistook his measures in this And in fine his Argument will also hold as strong to prove that every Individual of a true Religion must be exempt from all errors in every Opinion whereof he takes God to be the Author For I. K's Argument will be as strong for every thing whereof God is believed the Author as for Articles of Faith So that every mistaken sense of Scripture will turn one to be of a false Religion since every mistaken exposition is an error and yet that being thought the meaning of the place God is believed the author of that meaning and by I. K's consequence of the error it self From all which I may I hope even by I. K's leave infer the necessary distinction between things that are believed to be errors and those that are believed to be Truths For the former to vouch God the Author of what we know to be an error and corruption is certainly so criminal that none of the true Religion can be guilty of it But there be many things which though errors yet any one may very innocently mistake for truths I do not say the mistake does quite excuse the error if the error be fundamental the mistake must be so too But if the error be in a lesser matter it is a lesser error and it will never be made out That if one apprehending an Opinion true embrace it as come from God and as an Article of Faith if he is mistaken in that he strikes at the divine veracity for among men who thinks that any wronged his veracity if another mistook his meaning and understood his words in a different sense from what he intended and expressed Certainly he who so mistakes after the true meaning is cleared cannot be understood to have fastned any reproach upon the Candor of him whose words he mistook all the blame being to be cast only on his want of right understanding This were indeed a hard case if all our mistakings of divine Revelations did infer a charging God with error or corruption But the thing is so clear that I am afraid I have spent too many words about it and this Argument of I. K's cannot but upon first reading appear to all that are accustomed to weigh and examine truth to be a piece of crude ill digested and ill palliated Sophistry Thus far have I followed I. K. through those six points he imagines he has demonstrated and have shewed how true the first four were but how little reason there was to account them such for any thing he said for their proof and how false the other two are And I suppose he will acknowledge that if what is already set down hold true and be founded on good reason I need not follow him through the rest of his Book it being only a direction to his gentle courteous Reader how to manage this method of arguing so as to convince all persons that dissent from the true Religion which he thinks is a Mathematical and sure way of proceeding and such as no man can decline or avoid and in end must be either convinced by it or be forced to confess himself no better than an Ass or a block which concludes him a mad man I will not follow this with a railery that is as obvious as severe but I love not to mix matters of sport with such serious purposes therefore I follow I. K. no more through the rest of his Book But come next to consider the great support of that cause which he manages both in his Preface and through the rest of his Book that there can be no certainty neither about the true books of Scripture the Decrees of Councils or writings of Fathers without there be a true Church and Religion agreed on which shall both declare to us what Books are true and what not and shall deliver their true meaning to us otherwise endless confusions must follow which plainly appears in the many divisions of the Protestants and the uncertainties they are in about all Controverted points From which the necessity of a true Church appears as much as in a well ordered State there is not only a necessity of clear and good Laws but of Judges to expound them CHAP. VII Of the supposed Inconveniencies J. K. imagines in the want of a true Church to Iudge Infallibly and of the right methods of finding Truth THere is nothing about which those of the Roman Church make more noise than the necessity of
exquisite deckings of Art and Industry and judging of piety by some heats which were raised in the fancy by outward objects presented to it studied to fill all the parts of Worship with such rites as might make either a glorious shew for amusing the worshippers or some melting tender impressions for cozening them into an opinion of their being divinely elevated But after that by the blessed providence of God Religion was in many parts of the world refined from that dross yet the sensitive part of the natural man did not give over its attempts for embasing Religion many still continued to place all their Religion in forms and bestowed that Zeal which should have gone to the advancing true piety holiness of life and Brotherly Charity to the adorning and maintaining those Others thought they had pretty well escaped this whole danger being got into an extream very opposite to it of vilifying all forms but the Natural man did act in their sensitive powers though in another method for though they had emerged out of the Dominion or Influence of their outward senses in matters of Religion yet their inward senses and imaginations which are the rebound of sensible impressions upon the understanding prevailed much on them These therefore came to think a voluble way of pouring out soft words with great heavings of the natural mind was a mighty thing and gave themselves wholly to this so that the conceiving and hearing long Prayers and Sermons especially if accompanied with tenderness in the thoughts and great meltings in the fancy was thought the highest feat and elevation of Religion though it plainly appears to a man of a severe and discerning Reason that all this is but an illusion of the fancy heated by some fervours of the mind And yet they upon these deceits of their fanciful thoughts have separated themselves from all regular forms of Worship because that gratification of new words was necessary to feed their devotion Another great mischief of this distemper is that such persons judge that as long as they enjoy these heats all is as they would have it and this will readily continue as long as they are put to do nothing displeasing to them so that whatever they do be it never so contrary to the Laws of Religion yet if with that they can but keep up these heats they judge either that what they do is not at all a sin or at most such a sin as being a branch of necessary infirmity may consist well enough with Grace because it can live with those fervours and if any thing quench them which it is like every thing that displeases them may do then they throw it off as carnal Thus they measure all things by these fluctuating and inconstant motions and as that temper is volatile and of all others the most subject to change so the inequalities they are in are looked on as the flowings and ebbings of the divine Spirit and the heats they feel sometimes being ascribed to the divine Spirit every thought which drops into their minds when under these actuations is taken for a divine Revelation and followed and given out for such and the coldness and dulness which must of necessity follow these heats is thought a withdrawing and desertion of the divine Spirit Whence follow sad melancholy and perplexing scrupulosities which do often mightily afflict some devout but weak minds and bring up an ill report on Religion as if it were sullen and morose and led men into dejection and perpetual anxiety And this humor as it swells up the mind into a mighty conceit of its own eminent and exalted piety and to a contempt of others so it doth often carry on those who are imposed on by it into strange conceits making them apprehend they are obliged to nothing but as they are inwardly moved to it And thus they would supersede Reason and give themselves up to their fancies under a conceit that they are acted by a divine Spirit whereas it is but an impulse of some vapours of the grosser and more terrene parts of the natural man rarified by the heats of the Brain and the fumes of Melancholy into a thin and nimble agitation The next power of the Natural man is in his passions and appetites which being suited to the contexture of his Bloud Brain and Spirits have a mighty influence on all his thoughts and chiefly on those that relate to Religion And first these carrying him with a strong impetus to many irregular desires to which Religion if believed must give a stop he is from that made first to question then to doubt and at last to deny there is a God because his appetites are too dear to forgoe them for the belief of a superiour power or the hopes of another state And it is an easie thing for any man to bribe his Reason to believe what he has a great mind to perswade himself of either by diverting his thoughts from seriously considering the thing proposed or by looking only at the oppositions may be made to this belief without examining what may be said for it and by living in a perpetual disorder which both darkens the mind and keeps out all serious thoughts from it upon all which there may by the just judgment of God follow a searing of the Conscience and a blinding of the mind But if the power of Religion and the witness God hath in our Breast prove too hard for all this opposition then the next attempt of passion and lust is to misshape these notices of truth into such a figure as may best agree with their desires And thus the Heathens corrupted all the evidences of natural Religion and set up such Deities as were guilty of the most furious passions and the most ungoverned lusts of all sorts and this being once done no wonder the worship of those gods was of a piece with the opinions they had of them and that they devised such Sacrifices and services as might agree best with those Deities It was also a very natural result of this opinion that they should conform their lives to their gods and so they were secure of patrociny and protection when they were to commit the basest villanies And no wonder this prejudiced them at Christianity which they saw taught all its Converts to be severely vertuous and pious and therefore they complained that Christians came to disgrace their gods and to turn them from the Religion they had received from their Fathers But afterwards when the world rushed into the Church the passionate and lustful parts of the natural man finding nothing in that Faith for their shelter yet studied to doe the best they could for their own preservation Therefore insensibly men were turned from minding the great things for which Christ died and rose again to place all their care on other thingâ— which might well be maintained without overcoming a passion or mortifying a lust Some did set up highly for opinions others for forms and
and endless wranglings of the Schools in matters of Philosophy in which men being accustomed to that game of disputing and subtilising about nothing and going from those studies to Divinity and carrying that same temper and fiery edge along with them they made all that work about it which hath now so long divided the world They being also by a long practice habituated to many Maxims and Axioms which were laid down for rules not to be enquired into or denyed came really to believe those were true and to carry them along with them to all their Theological debates All which will appear very evident to any that compares their Philosophical and Theological works from which many of their strange inferences and positions did take their rise and I am afraid do still receive their nourishment Thus far I have discoursed of the several prejudices the powers of the natural man do lay in the way of our apprehending and judging aright of Divine truths and the common notions of the moral Philosophy will concur to teach all men that before their minds can be rightly qualified for the understanding any intellectual truth but most chiefly Divine truth we must abstract from all those figures of things which our senses present to us and rise above all grosser phantasms It is no less necessary that our thoughts be serene and free of passion that we may freely and at leisure consider what lies before us without the Byass of preconceived opinions or interests And it is equally rational with these that we have modest minds not vainly puffed up with an opinion of our own knowledge but tractable and docile such as will not stick after clear conviction to confess and retract an error and that we proceed in our reasonings closely and on sure grounds not on vain conjectures and maxims taken up meerly on trust but by a clear progress advance from one truth to another as the Series of them shall lead A man who is thus prepared must next consider all was said in the first four Sections with a great deal more to the same purpose That he be on good grounds perswaded there is a God that there is a true revealed Religion that the Christian Religion is the true Religion These things being laid down he is in the first place by earnest Prayers to beg God's direction to go along with him in all his enquiries which certainly will not be wanting if he bring with him a sincere well prepared mind not byassed nor prepossessed and of this we may be well assured both from the Divine goodness and veracity For as he hath promised that whoso seek shall find so it is a necessary consequent of infinite goodness to assist all that sincerely seek after life and happiness but if any come to this study without he be duly prepared he has himself to thank if he fall into errors and mistakes The next thing an exact searcher into Religion must labour in is once to observe the nature of Christianity and the great designs of it and in this he is not to follow the small game of some particular and obscure passages but to observe through the whole New Testament what was the great end of all our Saviour spoke and did and his disciples testified and wrote If once we comprehend this a right it will be a thread to carry us through particular disquisitions For as there be many natural truths of which we are well assured though Philosophy offers us some Arguments against them in the answering which we are not able to satisfie our Reasons so there may be some divine truths very certainly made out to us and yet there may be places of Scripture which seem so to contradict those truths that they cannot be well answered Again a serious Enquirer will see good reason to believe the Scriptures must be plain evident and clear since they were at first directed to men of very ordinary parts and of no profound understandings and learning therefore he may well conclude those strange Superstructures some have reared up for amusing the world can be none of the Articles of Faith necessary to be believed And as the first Converts were honest simple men so our Saviour and the Apostles spoke in a plain easie stile therefore all these forced Criticisms and Inferences by which some more ingenious than candid Writers would expound them in a sence favourable to their Opinions aâ—e not to be received since these do often represent the divine discourses rather like the little tricks of double-dealing and Sophistry for which an honest Tutor would severely chide his Pupil words are to be understood in their plain meaning and not as Logick or a nicety of Criticism may distort and throw them If then a man will in this method which no honest man can except against go to the search of the Scriptures with a mind prepared as hath been already said he cannot fail of finding out all that is necessary for his Salvation Nor is he to be doubtfully anxious concerning the true Books for none denies but the Churches care in all Ages hath been the great conveyance of this the many various Translations of all Ages and Languages nay and different Religions agreeing in all material points and the Citations out of those Books which we find in a Series of Authors who have lived in the several Ages since they were written agreeing likewise with the Books themselves together with many ancient Manuscripts which do yet remain of a great many Languages may abundantly satisfie even the most severe Inquirer that these be the very Books which the Apostles delivered and were universally received by all Christians The matter of Fact being thus cleared without any necessity of running to the authority of the Church all those scruples which I. K. with the rest of his Brethren would needs raise do vanish since they never distinguish exactly between a Witness and a Judge For the former nothing is required but honesty and good information and we have the agreeing suffrages of many witnesses that do all agree in their Testimony of these Books who though they differed very much in their Expositions of them yet concurred in their verdict about the Books and were checks on one another in the faithful preserving and transcribing them In this sence we do receive the Churches Testimony as the necessary means of conveying these Books to us But an Authority Sacred and Solemnly declared is required in a Judge and this no Church can so much as pretend to but from the Scriptures Therefore the Scriptures being received as Divine cannot depend on the sentence of the Church as a Judge since all its Jurisdiction is derived from Scripture which therefore must be acknowledged before it can be believed But because there be persons of a meaner Condition and not Educated so as to make all the inquiry which is necessary in so important a Business there is therefore a shorter method for such
deceiving Perspective cast on the falsest Propositions and the close Contextures of Reason derived from the common Notices of Truth which dwell on the minds of all men The subtleties of the Schoolmen did well enouâ—h in an Age that questioned nothing but nâ—w that men are throughly awake and having thrown off the prejudices of Custome and Education call for a fuller Evidence they are not the proper men to deal with this Age their ignorance of mankind makes them offer many things as demonstrations which some even of the most trifling pretenders to Wit can undo and blâ—w away and their being accustomed to their own Topicks not knowing how much they are rejected by men of severer and more searching Understandings makes them often beg the one half of the question to prove the other Therefore whoever would deal with our Hectors in matters of Religion must know men as well as Notiâ—nâ— and Books And as of 〈◊〉 Plato thought the Study of Geometry a necessary preparation to the understanding the higher Mysteries of his Philosophy So I have often judged an acquaintance with Mathematical Arts and Sciences a fit and almost necessary preparation for a right understanding and managing Theological debates since these teach us to distinguish Critically betwixt truth and falshood and practise a man into an exact considering of every thing that is proposed to him The want of this or at least a great overliness in it appears in J. K's late Book wherein he thinks he leads his Reader in a Mathematical method through a great many Propositions every one of which he imagines he has proved beginning from a very plain unquestioned one That something is True and ending it in a very fruitful one That every thing the Roman Church teaches as an Article of Faith must certainly be True Undoubtedly if his method be good that Church is infinitely beholding to him for its support having offered an easier and clearer method for bringing the world under her Authority than any yet thought on This he concludes as firm and sure of all sides and by a clear way of Analyticks offers a Resolution of any Theorem or Problem in Divinity even to the giving the Quadrature of that Circle their Church is forc'd to run round in proving her own Authority from the Scriptures and the Authority of the Scriptures from her own Testimony I shall without any further Introduction enter into a survey of the Six Points proposed by J. K. to be proved without examining the unwariness of his expressions in any of them in which though he lies often open yet it is of so little importance to quarrel about Words or forms of Speech that I shall not stand upon them being also careful to avoid the engaging in any debate that may be personal betwixt him and me and therefore shall confine my discourse to the Six Points he has gone through CHAP. I. It is considered if J. K. does prove convincingly that there is a God J K. thinks he hath proved the being of a God by this progression of Reason If something be true then this is true That there is something better than another which if any man deny he denies himself better than an Ass or a Block and so is either a mad man or a fool Now if something be better than other then there is a best of all things and every thing is better as it comes nearer that which is best and this best of all things is God Des Cartes is blamed by many for having left out all other Arguments for the proof of a Deity setting up only One which how strong soever it may be it is a great injury to the Cause he maintains to seem to slight all other proofs may be brought for so sacred and fundamental a truth Yet his establishing that upon a good and solid Foundation doth very much qualifie any guilt which is rather to be imputed to the over-valuing his own Notions than a designed betraying the Cause he undertook But upon this occasion the Reader may be tempted to severâ—r Câ—â—sure when the Foundations of so great a Suâ—â—â—structure are so ill laid and both the Antecedent and Consequent of this Argument prove equally weak And in the first place how is it proved that some things are better than other things or does any imagine the Atheists will admit that On the contrary they deny there is any thing morally good or evil and ascribe all the Notions of good and evil to Education Custom the several tempers and interests of men And indeed did they acknowledge the Morality of Actions they should yield the full half of the Debate that men ought to be good which would clearly make way for proving all the rest And these men will without any hesitation acknowledge themselves no better than Beasts or Blocks as to any moral goodness They will not deny but Matter is more refined in a man the Contexture better and the Usefulness greater than in other Animals but as to any moral goodness they plainly disclaim it As though Wood be never so neatly wrought in a fiâ—e and useful Cabinet yet is no better so than when it was an undressed Plank as to any moral goodness Thus it appears that I. K's ignorance of men makes him stumble in his first attempt nor is his next more successful for though some things be better it will not follow there is a best for of every sort of Beings there are some Individuals better than other but from that it does not follow there must be a best of that rank or order of Creatures because one Horse is swifter one Dog better scented one Lyon stronger therefore must there be a Horse swifter than all others a Dog the best scented of any and a Lyon stronger than any other Lyon This may be applied to all the Species of Creatures for all the goodness these people admit being only a better temper of more nimbly agitated Matter though one thing excel another it is not because it comes nearer the best of all Beings nor because it recedes further from the worst of all Beings but because it is more wieldy more apt to serve the several uses and interests of men without rising higher to consider any Orâ—ginal and Standart goodness Nor wâ—ll this any more prove the being of one that is 〈◊〉 all than because some men are sharper sighted others stronger limbâ—d others of a better digestion and others of a better tempered health that therefore there must be one that hâ—â— the sharpest sight of all men the strongest limbs the best dâ—gestion and the most constant health Besides though an Atheist did admit there were some beings Morally better and worse this does not prove there must be a best of all Beings for he may say that as naturally as Colours fit the eye and Sounds the ear so some Notions of good are suitable to the minds of men and their being better and worse is nothing but their keeping more close
or other Since therefore it is not in this Life it must be in another therefore we must believe our Souls shall outlive this state When likewise we consider that Matter in all its subtilest refinings and nimblest motions gives no discoveries of Sense or Cogitation and yet we feel a Thinking being within us which we plainly perceive to be a Being different from Matter both in its actings and nature we conclude there is a principle in us that must not necessarily die at the dissolution of this life Which is confirmed from innumerable stories of the Apparitions of some Rational beings separated from Bodies which in all Ages and places of the world have abounded and are as certainly attested as ever any matter of Fact hath been Which shews that there are Beings distinct from Matter and that our Souls are such their subtle reasonings both Metaphysical and Mathematical do demonstrate Their surviving this Body is also gathered from their frequent ascent above material Figures and Phantasms in their Conceptions and Inferences which shews they do not so much depend on matter as not to outlive their union with it In fine The common apprehensions which all Thinking men in all Ages have owned and which appears in the greatest part of all both good and bad at their death shews the belief of this is among those common Notices of truth which are born with the Soul From all which I may fairly assume That there is another state in which our Souls surviving their union with our Bodies shall be rewarded or punished as they have deserved well or ill at the hands of the great Creator and Judge of all men And therefore if our own interests touch us or prevail upon us and the apprehensions of future rewards or punishments work on our fears or hopes we must carefully avoid all dishonouring disobeying or offending this God and with the same care we must study to acknowledge our beings are of him and for him and that all the blessings of this Life are the effects of his Bounty for which we must thank him and adoring his blessed Attributes and Perfections we must dedicate our whole Lives to his service that so we may still enjoy his favour here and in the next life receive the rewards of good and faithful servants And thus upon good and solid foundations I have built up this proposition That there must be some true Religion CHAP III. It is considered if J. K. proves convincingly that there must be some true Revealed Religion J. K. goes on to prove this Religion must be Revealed which he performs thus How can we know Gods will unless he Reveal it to us either immediately or mediately For natural Religion teaches only in general that we ought to Worship and Obey God but does not teach the particular manner or matters of this Worship and Obedience therefore there is a necessity of this Revelation Yea if God had left this to the Choice of every one yet at least that must be revealed In this Reasoning I. K. hath forgot a very necessary distinction of Revelation into that which is communicated naturally to the Soul and that which is superadded by some extraordinary manifestation or inspiration In the former sence it cannot be denyed but it is necessary there be a Revelation of Religion but that is not what I. K. drives at Now he must be very ignorant if he does not know that the greatest part of the Philosophers believed there were on the Souls of all men such inscriptions of Truth that if all should purifie their minds from the defilements Lust superinduced upon them they should then clearly discern every thing that the Deity enjoyned them and therefore they looked upon Inspiration as a degree of madness which was only incident to weaker minds whose imaginative powers were too hard for their reasons And indeed they knew so much of the juglings of their Oracles that no wonder they studied to detract from their Authority all they could Now I desire I. K. will review his discourse and see what strong or good reasons it offers for the conviction of those of this perswasion So that his Argument proving only that God must reveal how he will be Worshipped and Obeyed if it be replyed that it is done to all men by those common Notices of Truth that are born with their Souls he hath furnished us with nothing to prove a further Revelation necessary To make good this therefore against the Philosophers it is not to be denied but if mankind had continued in the purity wherein God did create our Natures their Reasons were strong but they themselves complained of a great depravation of their Natures which they found were much prevailed on by Senses and sensible objects by Education Custome Corporeal pleasure and the power of Fancy And for clearing of this they apprehended another Prior state wherein our Souls for some trespass had lost their wings and plumes and so were degraded into Bodies This shews they found some corruption on their Nature from which they studied to emerge and did indeed attempt most gloriously the recovering themselves to their first original This being then confessed that our minds are much darkned and that our bodies appetites and fancies are too strong for them it will thence very naturally follow that as our reasons cannot discover all things to us so that our way of apprehending of divine things may carry along with it much of a body and gross phantasms This was evidently demonstrated in that numberless variety of Opinions into which all Nations were divided about Religion a great mixture of bodily phantasms and gross pleasures appearing both in their opinions and practises about Religion Nor was this only the fate of the Rabble but both Tully and Varro have given us an account of the great diversity was among Philosophers about the very Notion and Nature of a Deity And if they differed so much in their thoughts of that primitive and first Truth into how many divisions may we imagine they must have run about the other Truths to be deduced from that Since therefore men did so grope after all the disputes and speculations of Philosophers in which there was no certainty nor had any of them such plenary Authority as to oblige others to submit to their decision thence I infer the necessity of some clear and certain way for satisfying all mankind in things of so great and universal concern The Speculations of Philosophers were neither certain nor such as they were evident to men of weaker understandings the only way therefore to avoid this was either to make such plain and glorious Manifestations of God's presence and pleasure as the Iews had on mount Sinai and in their most holy place or to authorize some men by divine Inspirations to reveal God's will to mankind Now there is no impossibility in the notion of an Inspiration For if we make known our thoughts to one another either by forming such a â—ound
or writing such Characters as shall convey into the ears or eyes of others Corporeal Impressions from which they may judge of our thoughts which is a great way about and much more unintelligible though we are very sure it is true then that a spirit shall communicate its thoughts to our understandings which it may either do by such outward impressions on our senses as bring the thoughts of other men to our knowledge or without these outward objects may make the same Impressions on our Brain And like to this are the impressions made on us in sleep in which we imagine we converse with the objects of sense Or finally without the means of any Corporeal phantasms a spirit especiaally the supreme and soveraign spirit may immediately convey to our understanding its pleasure as well as our understandings do receive hints from gross phantasms which is a great deal harder to conceive than this Thus the Atheist can propose nothing that will prove there can be no Inspiration but there is great necessity of guarding this both from the juglings of Impostors and the more innocent though no less hurtful deceits of our heated fancies which may obtrude their Notions on us as Divine especially in some in whom the Spleen or hysterical distempers may produce strange effects therefore this must be well proved and warranted before others are bound to acknowledge or submit to it nor must the great heats and divine Raptures of the inspired person ingage our belief We know how the Sibylls were said to be inspired and with what Bacchick fury many heathen Priests delivered some of their Impostures and it is dayly seen what strange appearances of inspiration are in hysterical persons Therefore it must be accompanied with such other extraordinary Characters as can neither be the forgeries of Juglers nor the vapours of the Spleen or Mother and these are Miracles or Prophecies which are certain indications of some extraordinary and supernatural presence with the inspired persons And thus far I have helped I. K. to prove the necessity of Revelation for the ascertaining mankind of the Worship and Obedience that God requires and have met with the great objections which Deists and other enemies to Revelation bring against it But I now follow him to his fourth proposition about the truth of the Christian Religion CHAP. IV. It is considered if J. K. hath proved convincingly the truth of the Christian Religion J. K. goes on in his Series of truths and his next attempt is to prove the truth of Christian Religion And indeed the Atheism that hath of late broke out in the world and in upon us hath engaged so many excellent pens of all the parties and divisions of Christendom to stand up in vindication of our most holy Faith with so much closeness of Reason that it may be justly a problem whether that pestiferous contagion hath not occasioned as much good to Christian Religion by the many admirable Treatises have been writ for it upon that account as it hath done hurt by its own venome But to see I. K. manage so glorious a Cause so poorly and so faintly after all that light which these Books offer does justly raise Indignation and it is plain he was afraid to bring out the strongest proofs for it lest it should appear there was much more to be said for the Verity of the Christian Religion than can be for the Roman but I. K. being resolved to prove there was no more to be said for the one than for the other and therefore would manage this Cause faintly that he might maintain the other more strongly and so it seems cares not with how slender Evidence â—e assert the truth of Christianity so that the truth of the Roman Religion be but as undisputed His great Argument for its truth is That it hath been miraculously propagated which could not have been without true and real Miracles and these are manifest proofs of that truth which they confirm Now since Christian Religion though it contains Mysteries far above the reach of humane reason and severities contrary to humane Inclinations yet has been propagated without the help of Arms or humane enticements by men of themselves unfit for so great a work and hath overcome other Religions which were both well established and preached liberty and pleasures Then this was either done with Miracles or without them if with them it is confessed there were Miracles if without them such a propagation must be confessed to be a Miracle This is the substance of what I. K. brings for the proof of the Christian Religion But this alone cannot satisfie a considering mind For it is acknowledged by all who believe any Religion that the power of evil spirits is very great and far above ours so that Miracles cannot determine my belief since there must go somewhat previous to that Therefore Moses told the people of Israel that though a Prophet by a Sign or wonder did amuse them and upon that perswaded them to go after other gods they should not hearken to that Prophet but put him to Death And S. Paul tells us that if an Angel from heaven should preach another Gospel he must be anathematized So that Miracles or other extraordinary apparitions do not prove a Prophet Therefore the first and great Argument for the proof of the Christian Religion is the purity of the Doctrine and the holiness of its precepts which are all so congruous to the common Impressions of nature and reason and this must prove as our Saviour himself taught us that his Miracles were true ones and not wrought by the Prince of Devils since his Doctrine is opposite and destructive of his Interest and Kingdom And our Saviour also asserts the truth of what he said most commonly from this Topick that he came not to do his own will but the will of him that sent him that he sought not himself nor his own honour but his Father's Again our Saviour asserts his authority from the Prophecies of Moses and the other inspired persons of that Dispensation whose predictions of the Messias did all agree to him and receive completion in him And from these our Saviour often silenced the Iews and this is to us still a strong Argument that these Books which the enemies and blasphemers of our Religion have still kept as sacred and had among them for some thousands of years do give such clear and evident Characters of our Saviour as their Messias as must needs convince every serious and sober enquirer These are the chief and great proofs of the authority of our Saviour by which we are assured that all the mighty works he did were by the presence and wonderful assistance of a Divine spirit And for the Miracles themselves I. K. would resolve all our certainty concerning them into a miraculous propagation of Christianity So that if there be no other certain way to prove them then if Christian Religion had not been so
Roman Religion were propagated in the same manner and shall first examine his grounds His first Branch of the Comparison is that as the Christian Religion contains some high Mysteries in it above the reach of humane Reason so does the Roman Religion in holding Transubstantiation He did well to distinguish this from the Mysteries of the Christian Religion for it is indeed none of them nor is it above humane Reason as he calls it but contrary to it and not at all to be compared to the Mysteries of Christian Religion as the Trinity the Incarnation and the Resurrection The last of these contains nothing in it that may not be Rationally enough conceived as very possible and easy to Divine Omnipotence for the other Mysteries that concern God it is no wonder those be above our understandings since the divine Nature is so vastly exalted above all our depressed Notions of things and therefore is not a proper object for our Faculties So no wonder we cannot frame such clear conceptions of his Nature as to give a distinct account of it to our Reasons But a material object proposed to our senses is proportioned to our Faculties And therefore we must either believe the clear evidence our Faculties give us of the Bread and of the Wine after the Consecration or turn Scepticks for ever since full evidence to our Faculties is all can possibly be offered for our conviction and if that in any case fail it is in no case certain So that if our Senses fail in this we have no reason to receive any thing upon their Testimony for a noted Liar in one thing is to be believed in nothing even though his lie had been discovered by a divine Revelation Now if we weaken the evidence of Sense all the authority of the Christian Religion which it received from the Miracles will be weakned for these were only known by the Senses of the spectators And so far of the first branch of the parallel The Second branch of the parallel is that as the Christian Religion enjoyns diverse severities to embrace Crosses to Love our enemies and to Mortifie our passions so also the Roman teaches very hard precepts and Counsels as Vows Fasts Confession prohibition for Priests to Marry to which I. K. adds an c. The Christian Religion does indeed command diverse duties contrary to our natural appetites but those are things of themselves Morally good and such as do highly perfect our Natures But the Roman Religion has made a shift to find means for voiding all these Sacred obligations and to set a great many little trifling performances instead of them which have no tendency to the purifying of our Natures or the bettering of Mankind How much they have detracted from the obligation to all the severer and unalterably Moral Duties of Christianity hath been already and shall be more fully laid open if it be called for though that be needless it being so clearly done by many better Pens but for those they have substituted in their room let us a little consider these I. K. mentions and to begin with Vows We do not deny that the first design of Monasteries in the primitive Church was excellent but it quickly began to degenerate into idleness and superstition which S. Ierome though inclined enough to the severities of that course of Life hath fully told us But how they did afterwards sink into all the Corruptions imaginable all Histories inform us And whatever may be said for such Houses as either Seminaries for the Church or Sanctuaries for those that are no more able to labour in it yet certainly the entanglements of Vows is a yoke which none can be assured he shall be able to bear We ought to Vow and pay our Vows unto God and therefore should be sure to Vow nothing but that whereof the execution is in our power Now when we Vow to serve God which we do in the Sacraments we are assured of the aid of the Divine Grace to assist us in the performance But to Vow things which we are not sure to perform our tempers being so liable to Change that what agrees with them at one time becomes an intolerable burden and snare at another is certainly to cast our selves headlong into many temptations And what unnatural and brutal lusts have abounded in these Houses we read a great deal more than I am willing to repeat What a cheat is the pretence to poverty in those Orders which have got such vast Riches that they are become the envy of the world as the Benedictine the Caâ—â—husians and the Iesuits And for the begâ—ing Orders it is both against the rules of Chrisâ—iâ—n Religion and all good Government to allow much more to encourage such swarms of idle fellows who shall always go rambling and begging about and do not work that they may eat And for their obedience what a rack it may be under a Tyrannical Superiour and what an engine it may prove for Sedition and disturbance I leave to all to judge In a word all such severities as tend to the subduing our lusts and passions are good and sutable to the spirit of Christianity but for overcharging men with new burdens which signifie nothing but to create a perpetual trouble and constant scrupulosity is to abridge them of their Christian liberty without cause and tends to swell them up with pride and a lofty opinion of their meriting by such practises and a contempt of others who though they bear none of these voluntary assumed burdens yet are more meek more humble and more charitable and in all things more conformable to the life and doctrine of our Blessed Saviour And if voluntary severities be a character of a true Religion the Priests of Baal the worshippers of Diana Taurica the Ebionites the Montanists the Eâ—cratites and many other heresies might have put in a fair claim since they abounded in them From your Vows I go to your Fasts God forbid we should disclaim Fasting which our Saviour did so much recommend both by his example and Commands we acknowledge it a powerful mean both for mortifying all bodily lusts and for disposing the mind to prayer and all other spiritual exercises and therefore we do not allow these to the Roman Church as peculiar to them And I do not believe any of them will justifie the corruptions they are palpably guilty of in the observance of their Fasts which are generally only a change of diet wherein no severity nor strictness is to be seen Wine is liberally drunk the most delicate Fishes with the most exquisite way of dressing them are sought for and no other mixtures of higher Devotion appear on these weekly or annual returns For Confession I know no Christians that deny the usefulness of it but the setting up the necessity of Auricular Confession as it hath driven out of their Church the primitive and publick Confession with all the ancient discipline which was indeed the great glory
by a curious improving those hoped that their other faults should be more easily forgiven both by God and man Afterwards a great many notions were found out if not for a direct defence of those disorders yet for palliating them and allaying the grief for them A devotion to Saints was one great Engine the opinion of many sins being expiated in Purgatory together with the belief of the Popes power of Redeeming from it was an universal Medicine for all diseases of Conscience Then the dispensing with Vowes Covenants and most of all Duties was a great ease to the natural man There were also some new coined duties of Religion which did agree well with their passions such as fighting for Religion against Infidels Hereticks and others that were excommunicated by the Pope and a violent persecuting of all who in any point departed from the received Opinions And their Auricular Confessions easie Penances and ready Absolutions were sure and Infallible means to reconcile them to Religion after it was so debased as to meet them more than half way But when a great part of Europe was delivered from those more apparent Impostures the natural man did not for all that give over his practising upon Religion to frame it to his own taste and a fondness on some reformed Opinions with a Reverence for the Persons of the Teachers came to be set up by many as all they drave at But cunninger Arts were also found out and some sacred truths did insensibly become so abused as to be made the excuses of sins especially as they were stretched by the corruptions of men which were much encouraged by many unwary expressions of some hot Divines who in the eagerness of dispute had said many things that were not to be justified Hence it was that the Doctrine of Christs dying for sinners and being their Sacrifice by which the guilt of their sins was expiated and they reconciled to God was used by many for a security for men to sin as pleased them so they but trusted to Christ and because perfection was not attained in this life it was held unattainable and sin insuperable Nor could men be much afflicted for sin nor guard diligently against it who believed they were inevitably led and determined to it especially when that was thought done by God himself and fighting for Religion against the supream Authority was also by many made a great demonstration of their zeal for God and Religion and a surious bitter zeal against all who departed from their Opinions whether to the one hand or to the other was looked on as a great evidence of Grace and Love to God And it is plain in many persons Religion does not so much mortifie their passions and lusts as palliate and disguise them or at most change their object but not their nature Men of Cholerick dispositions placing all Religion in an eager violent yea and if need be a bloody maintaining all their Opinions about matters of Faith The melancholy men put it all in abstraction and recluseness valuing themselves much upon it and undervaluing others that were not so retired Others of a more sanguine Complexion finding either great excuses for all their levities and follies or if more serious turning all their thoughts to the dressing up some pretty Notion And thus men not forming their minds by the dictates and precepts of Religion but framing it according to their own tempers so as might best suit their inclinations did hold the truth in unrighteousness And thus again the natural man did adulterate the notions of Religion which are spiritually discerned But the last and greatest because both strongest and subtilest assault that Nature made upon Religion was by the misguidings of ill directed and ill managed Reason The former prejudices were more visible and could not be so well defended but this was managed with a deeper cunning And first the great value that the Masters and pretenders to Learning and Reason had of themselves made them scornfully reject all Instruction stiffly maintain all they had once asserted and despise every one that differed from them Hence it was that the Philosophers broke into so many divisions being as is apparent mightily swelled in self-conceit so that they scorned to yield to one another but employed all their wit and eloquence to justifie their own Notions how absurd soever Now this is the temper in the world the most incapable of instruction and this their pride they carried higher laughing at all Inspiration as a kind of madness which therefore they despised and thought that their Reason was able to penetrate into the deepest and secretest mysteries And as this occasioned a numberless variety of opinions so it made them despise the first preachings of Christianity in which as there was none of their Metaphysical canting so poor illiterate men delivering it they who valued themselves on their Learning and their noble generous tempers rejected it with scorn which was fed with the contempt they had for the first Converts who were either such as they called Barbarians or men of mean Education and Employments But after an Age or two many of those were by the prevailing progress of Christianity Converted to the Faith and did for some Ages very good service to it But diverse of their Successors retaining the old temper of the Philosophers the debates about Religion begun to be managed with an unyielding ambition and Anathema's were the common sanctions with which they imposed their Opinions And at length one of the Bishops assumed to himself and Successors the absolute authority of judging and deciding all Controversies which though the most unreasonable opinion in the world and that which destroys the free and right use of Reason yet was brought in on the highest pretences of Reason as the only mean to end all disputes And when a great many errors were visibly got into their Church and some rose who with all the evidence of Reason imaginable laid open these and pressed them to disown and reform them they continued in their stubborness multiplied their Anathema's and wreathed all their errors in one Chain as S. Iames had done the Law of God and imposed all without mercy And for doing this they brought their Janizaries whom they had educated in Nurseries at fencing cudgelling and the other discipline of Pen-slaughter and Ink-shed These Schoolmen who had been well trained to dispute about every thing and stubbornly to maintain every position how trifling or how false soever with all confidence and earnestness were brought to give Battel and they as Mercenaries who expected good preferments did fight it out most obstinately nothing was too disingenious for their confidence no Author was so spurious but they would vouch his testimony no place of Scripture sounded favourably to their Opinions but though it had been never so plain that it was to be understood in a different sence was brought as a certain proof no maxim of the Schools no old fustian distinction was
which yet is as morally certain as any thing can be Let then the simplest man in England provide himself of two New Testaments one published by the Church of England another by the Church of Rome as was that of Rheims Now he knows well what animosities be betwixt the Divines of these Churches and that they are engaged so hotly one against another that they agree in nothing but where the Evidence of truth especially in matters of Fact does bind them And yet he comparing these New Testaments will find that though the phrase the position of words and in some few places perhaps the sence varies but upon a survey of the whole he finds that they do plainly agree in all matters of moment So that from this he is perswaded that both have the same true Book which the Apostles did deliver to the Church and the Iews agreeing with us as to the Old Testament is the same Evidence to him that we have those very Books which were held Sacred by the Iews in our Saviour's time And thus by I. K's leave a man may be satisfied what be the true Books without being assured which is the true Church or the true Religion Being then assured about the Books and studying them in the method already set down he shall be certainly directed by God to find out every thing necessary to Salvation and this is far from setting up a private Spirit to lead us Enthusiastically but is an appeal to the Reason and ingenuity that is common to all men For let me ask I. K. how the Decrees and Canons of the Council of Trent are to be understood He himself says the meaning of those is plainly and certainly to be known yet every Reader must expound them to himself in that easie and clear sence which best agrees with the words Is this therefore to set up a private spirit to enterpret these Canons I know he will say and with good reason too that it is far from it and with the same warrant do I assert that the considering of Scripture according to the method proposed is not to interpret it by a private Spirit but by the clear conduct of our understandings directed by the divine Grace which is freely given to all that ask it If after all this it be replyed How is it then that there are such different Expositors and Expositions of Scripture the Answer is plain by sending back the Reader to what hath been said of the corruption of mens minds and as long as men live so ill as they do it is to no purpose to expect they shall think or understand aright Besides there be a great many things in the Scriptures which are not Articles of Faith which every man is not bound to know and conceive aright under the hazard of Damnation and about which there may be disputings and different Opinions without any hazard If any set up particular Opinions in matters justly controvertible and of less moment and impose these on all with severe Sanctions and if he have Authority to cast all out of the Church Society that do not agree with him or if he have not that Authority if he do separate from the Communion of the Church because they will not receive or hearken to his conceits he is a Schismatick for a dogmatizing and dictating spirit if strengthned with power doth always lead to persecution and if it want it to separation And thus I think enough is said for proving that the way to Salvation is not at all uncertain in our Church since it is no other but that new and living way which our Saviour did Consecrate through his flesh But in this we are strongly confirmed when we find the ancient Martyrs Fathers and Doctors of the Church going in the same Method and by it Converting the Nations enduring Martyrdome and giving glory to their most holy Faith and to its most holy Author whose Decrees when met in Councils and Doctrines delivered in their writings do so agree with Ours in all matters of Faith that we decline not to put the whole debates between us and them to this Tryal I. K. thinks we cannot know what Fathers or what Councils to receive but by first acknowledging a true Church which must tell what Fathers and Councils to receive But this being a matter of Fact we are to judge of it as of all matters of Fact that were transacted some Ages ago and by the evidence of Testimonies are to find out the truth concerning the Fathers and Councils and their Writings and Decrees We have good reason to decline the writers of the latter Ages since we plainly see that upon the overthrow of the Western Empire by the Goths and Vandals and other Northern Nations and of the Eastern Empire by the Saracens and other Mahometans Religion and Learning were quickly brought under sad and lasting decays which is confest by writers on all sides And what I. K. says That we may as well expect the whole Gospel in the first Chapter of S. Matthew as all Faith of the Church in the first four General Councils is very impertinently alledged Did we ask for all the definitions of the Church in the first Canon of Nice his comparison might well take place but it cannot be fitly used in our case who say we are the true Catholick Apostolick Christians because we in all things agree with the Churches of God as they were during their greatest purity both in the persecutions and after those for two Ages Certainly if we hold all that Faith they then held and if they were saved we may be so too and you cannot pass a severe sentence on us which will not likewise take hold of them I. K. cannot deny but they stated the Christian Faith in very formal Creeds and one of them expresly decreed That no new addition should be made to the Creed and so we who receive that Creed though at all this distance from them are really in Communion with them from which those have departed who have made such vast additions to the Creed And thus it appears we are in the same way which our Saviour first opened and in which that glorious cloud of witnesses followed him and are still in Communion with Rome as she was when her Faith was spoken of through the whole world and therefore we are in a safe way to Salvation But because Christians must live together in Unity and Charity and in order to that end must associate together in the Worship of God in mutual Councils and other necessary parts of Government and some External rites for maintaining the visible acknowledgment of the Faith therefore we have rules given in Scripture no less express for obeying the Civil powers in all their Commands that are not plainly contrary either to Natural or revealed Religion which is a clear and constant rule by which we may be satisfied if our minds be right prepared and qualified as was before set down And if by