nature should still lament and tremble that the entrances to Heaven are so few and so difficult though they were yet far more and much easier than this opinion makes them There are enow obstructions from the frailty of our Flesh the subtilty of the Devil the tyranny of our Passions and the perverse crookedness of our corrupted Wilâ—s without the additions of any more from the imperfections of our intellect Sufficient is the danger we run in not performing those Duties which vve understand aright without making our mis-understandings damnable and condemning that as a Guilt which is to be pitied as a misfortune What then shall vve believe Turks Jews Heathens Atheists themselves if there be any such in an equal possibility of salvation with the unerring Christian Shall vve save all Beasts of what kind soever clean or unclean in that mystical Ark the Church of God Certainly in the two contrary excesses of belief in this matter that on the side of Mercy hath the appearance of greater safety and I had rather think with Origen That the Devils themselves by the excessive kindness of their Judge shall at last be exempted from damnation than that he himself shall be damn'd for that Opinion But as to this their Objection I believe first That Reason it self will declare to every Man in the World that he ought to adhere to the Christian rather than to any other Religion whatsoever if all things be propounded to him in a clear and impartial manner and this whosoever shall deny I dare confidently affirm it is impossible for him to be a Christian But because there are thousand accidents which hinder the greatest part of the world from the advantages of so fair a proposal hence it comes to pass that so small a part of Mankind hath submitted to the Obedience of the Christian Faith Now to condemn all those Millions of persons many millions for one that is to be saved is so wild an uncharitableness that few have been so barbarously severe as to be guilty of it and therefore those whose Ignorance in these matters hath been invincible they left to the hands of God without declaring a definitive opinion either of their safety or perdition Now if we consider rightly what Ignorance is to be accounted invincible we shall by this means restore the greatest part of Mankind into a hopeful and comfortable condition and none even amongst the worst Religions will be left to a certain ruine but such whose Consciences have been neglected or forced aside by those who ought to have been guided by them and such who can have no plea against the rigour of their sentence because they deserted themselves as well as God And the disobedience of Men to their own Conscience is not only in things of practice but also of belief and speculation though not in so evident and immediate a manner by suffering themselves to be deceived by the insensible operations of interest and prejudice Nor does it follow from hence that Christ is not the only source and cause of eternal felicity for I acknowledge there is no other Name under heaven by which men can hope for salvation But I may very well believe withal that there are secret and wonderful waies by which God may be pleased to apply his Merits to mankind besides those direct open and ordinary ones of Baptism and Confession which I have only advanc'd briefly in this place being a matter that will require a more ample and particular examination Now concerning the Salvation of all sorts of Christians except their lives disagree from their doctrines which is likewise a disobedience to their Reasons I know not why I should be terrifi'd out of my Charity by any Anathema whatsoever that shall proceed from the mouth of Man For I cannot see how any but God himself can certainly know that any man is an Heretick since it is only he who can discern by what close and unlawful means he corrupts his understanding and hardens his own will to the obstinate belief of any Errour for without that obstinacy there is no Heresie and without the perfect sight of the whole contexture of a mans Thoughts and Actions there is no knowledge of such an obstinacy and therefore when the Church declares any Opinion to be Heresie it is to be accepted as if the Law should say whosoever kills a man is a Murtherer which is a sentence not absolute but to be qualified with Circumstances even so the Church pronounces whosoever holds this Doctrine is an Heretick with an evident reservation of some Circumstances in the meaning thereof for no man can imagine that the sentence includes those who never shall hear of it nor no more say I those who though they hear of it yet cannot by any means bring their Conscience to the assent For to obey in matters of belief without being able to believe the thing commanded is no less and seems more a contradiction than simply to obey without knowledge of a Command Thus much briefly concerning Heresie which indeed is a Subject worthy a Treatise by it self But this will not suffice unless we can also clear our selves from the imputation of Schisme the ordinary railing word in all Controversies and a slander which is often fatal in making where it falsly accuses a separation of which they are truly guilty the word it self bearing witness against them who break the precious unity of the Christian Church but that is done not so much by them who differ in Opinions as by them who will not allow of such a difference Who knows whether that God who liked best that no mens Bodies should have the same complexion no mens Faces the same figures no Hands the same lines no Voices the same sounds nay not so much but their motions and gestures should be distinguishable has not likewise best pleased himself with no less variety in the parts of Men that are immaterial and even in the most immaterial Actions of those parts which is the worship and adoration of a Deity Does God gain any thing by our devotions does he receive hurt from one kind of worship and advantage by another is he pleased with any smell in the sacrifice besides that of Obedience and can a plain uniform unalterable obedience be expected without Commands of the same nature Without doubt he who gave Rules which might accept of so many several interpretations when he might have made them as plain to all in one sense as they seem now to every man in his own is likewise well contented that they shall be interpreted severally and as the Divines confess that the same words of Scripture admit of a Literal Typical Anagogical sense and that all those senses are both true and intended by the Holy Ghost that Spirit of unity that writ them so I say the Commands of God concerning Religion are equally obeyed and fulfilled by all the various kinds of Obedience which the Consciences of men conceive themselves bound
should direct you to forsake your Christian-belief for which the Devil do's not want such pleasant colours and specious fallacies as may possibly deceive even a good understanding Before I answer this Objection I desire to know of him that makes it what it is for something it must be which he places in the same Ecclesiastical Superiority that I do reason The private Spirit what if that should perswade him to this Apostacy It cannot Not indeed if it be true but the same condition will make Reason as infallible as that and I may as well judg of the truth of the one as you of the other What is it then you will trust your Soul with in this important business Is it the Authority of Men These verily may lead you into error and it is not impossible into the greatest and worst of all which is the desertion of Christ himself not that this is likely to happen neither more probable is it that our Reason should so far misguide us But alas in this affair of so vast and so eternal consequence what security can we assume whilst there remains a possibility of miscarriage and this possibility is Evident For let us consider it in a Council which if there be any assurance in the number of men is that where most probably it may be found I will not here reckon up the many errors which great and famous Councils have fallen into themselves and labour'd to establish in others they are many and notorious But certainly if a Council could take away the satisfaction of Christs death and Divinity of his person as was done by that great one of the Arrians which condemned Athanasius not without the approbation of the Pope and the whole World besides a Council has already done that thing which you affirm impossible for it to do For they who believed Christ to come into the World as an example and pattern onely of Holiness are no more to be call'd Christians than Abrahamists or Davidists If you will here contend that even these men deserted not wholy Christianity as a man may do by the impulsion of his own private Reason yet certainly you will confess that they who fell so far into error might as well have sunk deeper and exalted some other Prophet above Christ as well as made Christ to be but a Prophet and this possibility of Errour even in so high a degree we shall find in the nature and very Elements of a Council for if any one Member of it may be a Heathen or Atheist in Opinion as the lives of many Popes and the speeches of some declare that they themselves have been why not two not three not more not the Major part that is the whole Council From the Sanctions of the 2 â— Nicene Council which establish'd the worship of Images how easie a step was there made for the next to the introduction of a full undisguis'd and Heathenish Idolatry which we must not say could not because by the mercy of God it did not happen And I verily believe if God had not stirr'd up some persons of excellent Abilities and worthy Spirits for such sure they were though not exempt from humane weaknesses to examine by the Rules of their own Reasons those follies and dangerous Errours in Religion which partly by the Interest partly by the Ignorance of Men and insensible advances of ill Custome were blindly embraced by the whole World if these Men I say had not discover'd the past Errours and by that means made their Adversaries more cautious not to fall into any new ones the world through the Adoration of Saints and Images and the boundless Increase of vain and Superstitious Ceremonies would have past before this time to its old and abominable worship of several Deities and to a Religion overwhelm'd if not with the same yet with as many and as vain Impieties It remains therefore that you put your Confidence rather in the Traditions of the former than the Commands of the present Church but what those were you must either trust some number of Men present which is not without the possibility of being misguided or your own search and diligence which is to fall into that Opinion which you condemn in me And truly they who build their Belief wholly upon the Authority of past or present Ages if they look upon all the Consequences of that Opinion are in much greater danger of being drawn from the Christian Faith than those who remit the judgment of these things to their own Reason For ever since the beginning of the Christian belief there has been the Authority of above an hundred to one against it and this Authority backt and strengthened with the universal agreement of more than three thousand years before it But on the contrary if we weigh impartially the Motives and Arguments which every Religion can produce in its own defence Reason it self will find more and much greater for the Christian than it can for any other Belief whatsoever And I am very confident that no man ever from a Christian became a Turk or a Jew because his Reason told him that was a better Religion but because either fear of punishment or hope of reward or some other sinister Cause perswaded his Reason that the worst Religion in it self would be the better to him upon those Conditions Now all those Arguments by which some men have laboured to prove that our Guide in spiritual matters ought to be Infallible will though they be granted for true as I believe in some sense they are will not at all dispossess Reason of this Authority which we have declared to be her due For the Infallibility of a Guide I conceive to be only this That it cannot fail to bring us to that end for which we chose to be guided by it and if to this end there happen to be a thousand several waies it is a Guide no less infallible as to the End if it lead us through a long an unpleasant and obscure Tract than if it conducted us by a short a delightful and an open road for not the goodness of the passage but certainty of not missing the End is that which constitutes this kind of Infallibility And truly every mans particular Reason if well followed for whatsoever Guide you pitch upon whether Scripture Spirit Church past or present or any thing else imaginable must have that condition annext or else it will become unprofitable will infallibly carry him at last though perhaps through many tedious and troublesome wandrings to his eternal happiness if it be followed for that condition cannot be repeated too often with constancy diligence and sobriety This Doctrine sets the great gate of Heaven so wide open that it will displease those men who with an envious kind of pride think it more honour to enter in with a few at a narrow wicket But I truly out of an humble consideration of my own weakness and the general imbecillity of humane
have no means of repenting of it Now God enjoyning men Repentance and promising Pardon thereupon for all sins whatsoever prescribes such a Physick as is impossible to be taken for Repentance presupposes knowledge of the Fault and knowledge of a fault do's not consist with an errour of the understanding for we cannot apprehend the thing so and yet be sorry that we are mistaken Sixthly The great probability and appearance of Truth on all sides even the erring ones ought to make us believe that God will not punish those who erre if that be probable which all or most men or many or the most wise or some wise men receive for Truth What Doctrine is there which in the whole compass of Religions may not pass for probable and what cause have we to condemn the Understanding of any man in a thing which he is drawn by probabilities to assent to I cannot possibly conceive it agreeable to the goodness of the Divine Nature so to have hidden and involved and almost disguised the Truth from us if he had intended to have censured the missing of it with so heavy a sentence as that of eternal ruine especially seeing there is but one true Way for one hundred false ones and no certain Mark set upon the entry of that one to distinguish it from the others And let this suffice to be said upon the first Argument to induce us to commit our selves wholly to our Reason in the search of Divine and Religious Verities which is drawn from the certainty of safety this way and the great hazard of it any other Secondly As in visible Objects we receive confidently and rest in the report of the sight because Nature hath ordained and accommodated it accordingly for that purpose without appeal from it either to other Sences or to Revelations or the Eyes of other men and as we do the like in all other operations of the Sense and all other faculties of the Soul so ought we as entirely and absolutely to resign our Belief to the dictates of our own Understanding in things intelligible which are as properly and naturally the Object thereof as things visible are of the Eye-sight and we might as well say we will trust our Eyes in green and white and black but not in red or yellow Colours as affirm that our Reason must guide us in the contemplation of Nature the search of Arts the Government of Publick Societies and the Regulation of mens Lives as far as the bounds of Morality but that it is not at all to be followed or obeyed in matters that concern Religion those too being intelligible Truths yea the chief and therefore most to be searcht and a part of the Understandings object as much or rather more than any other Now as the credit of the sight is not at all to be disparaged because some men have the Jaundies which paints every thing yellow some look through Blew spectacles which represent all things to them under the same colour and some through divers mediums which makes the straight Staff appear crooked some are short-sighted and take Men for Trees at a distance so I say the mistakes which Reason by accidental disturbances leads some men into is not a sufficient Argument for others to refuse to be guided by it If it be objected that the Sight though it be subject to some particular impediments yet is generally by its own nature much more certain and exact in the judgment of Colours than the understanding can ever be made even without accidental hinderances in the knowledge of things Spiritual I Answer That if such things be the proper object of such a faculty we are herein to be govern'd by the dictates of it without considering whether that faculty be as quick and perfect as God could make it in apprehension of its object neither ought we to give less trust to our Understanding in supernatural Truths because it is so much inferiour to that of Angels than we do to our Eye-sight in things visible though it be so far short of that of Eagles Certainly they who remove the cognizance of Divine Truths out of the Court of Reason take away that which most properly and naturally falls under its determination For when GOD had created all things else he thought the World imperfect as yet whilst there was nothing made that could contemplate thank and worship the Maker of it and therefore he created Man and this was the chief end of the production of a Rational Soul that by it they might consider the things which they saw and discourse and collect out of them the things which they saw not and both praise and love the Maker for and in them both which is the whole substance of Religion for the manners and kinds of doing it are accidental So then Religion appears to be the principal end of Mans Creation and therefore as if Horses be made for burthen they have a natural ability given them wherewith to do it if Birds to flie they have a faculty and wings given them for that purpose because where an end is Natural the means are so too so if Religion be the End of Man as he is partaker of a Rational Soul that reasonable Soul hath some power naturally placed in it for the exercise judgment and choice of Religion as far forth as is necessary to his own happiness that is to the attaining the end for which he was Created In the Third place This Opinion is not only most safe and most natural for every Man in particular but likewise most agreeable to the good and interest of Humane Society for all Wars of late Ages have been either really for Religion or at least that has been one of the chief pretences which if it were quite taken away it would be difficult for those men who disguise their Ambition with it to draw the People into the miseries and uncertainties either of a Civil or Forraign War Now if this Doctrine were generally planted in the minds of Men both the reality and pretence of fighting for Religion were utterly cancelled and though turbulent minds would then either find or make some other occasion to disturb their Neighbours yet the ill would neither be so frequent nor so cruel as it is at present For who would quarrel for Religion when this were made the main and general ground of all Religions That every Man ought quietly to enjoy his own True it is that unity in Religion would produce the same effect but alas both Reason and Experience teaches us that the hopes of that are vain and impossible and though a State may sometimes force all its Subjects to submit to an outward uniformity in all things that concern Divine worship yet they must know that every publick disturbance in the Common-wealth breaks all those bonds asunder of dissembled Obedience and that such compulsions both beget and ripen all Disorders Much might be spoken in this matter but not necessarily here both because