Inconveniencies which we now so justly complain of they must be attributed either wholly to some other cause or to the conjunction of some other Accidents to it which have changed the nature and condition thereof And that having examined all particulars which touch upon this matter I can find to be no other than the strange and uncharitable Pride of those men who having with just cause vindicated their own Reason from the tyranny of unnecessary bonds endeavour nevertheless to lay them upon others so that not the use of such Liberty but the appropriating of it to our selves only is the true and I think the sole fountain of these Disorders for there cannot certainly in the World be found out so mild and so peaceable a Doctrine as that which permits a difference in Beliefs for what occasion can any man take to begin a quarrel when both he himself is suffered quietly to enjoy his own Opinion and his own opinion is this that he ought to suffer others to do the same But if once men entertain an imagination that every thing is wicked and damnable which complies not with their own sense and that in this vast latitude of probabilities which is in all kind of disquisitions but especially those of Religion they being most obscure and most indemonstrable there is none can lead one to salvation but the path wherein he treads himself we may see the evident and necessary consequence of eternal troubles and confusions For not only publick Charity will perswade us to force Men to that wherein consists their everlasting happiness or calamity if by no other means we can induce men to it as without injury we bind the hands of a man that would kill himself but also our private interest and that particular care which every man owes to his own Posterity which without suppression of all Heresies must run the hazard of eternal punishments obliges us by all means to endeavour the extirpation of those weeds out of the fields of our Neighbours which would else so quickly overgrow our own whereas if we had either more of Charity to others to believe some Errours the inseparable Companions of Humane Nature ought not to exclude men from the Communion of the present Church and the hope of the future or less of self-flattery to think that all men grope in the dark that light not their Candle at ours we could not be so cruel in persecution of those faults to which God himself is so merciful and from which we our selves are not exempt I shall therefore conclude this Argument with a confident assertion That all the miseries which have followed the variety of Opinions since the Reformation have proceeded entirely from these two mistakes The tying infallibility to whatsoever we think Truth and damnation to whatsoever we think Errour Another absurdity this Doctrine is accused of that if we guide our selves wholly by the light of Reason we shall not only every one differ from every body else but every one frequently from himself changing Religion almost as often as our Habits driven about perpetually by every wind and in all probability dasht by some one at last against a rock now a Papist to morrow a Lutheran next a Calvinist and so like the Heathen dedicate every day in the week to a several Deity I must confess Inconstancy is one of the greatest weaknesses of the weakest Sex and much less to be endured in Man especially in that most weighty affair of his whole life the service of God but I cannot conceive that the fear of this scandal obliges us to a blind and inalterable observance of those Laws and Opinions which either the fate of our birth and education or the fortune of other accidents have engaged us in but we ought to make a serious and long enquiry whether they agree most with that light of our Understanding which God has infused into us for that end according to the best extent of those means which are allowed by him to our understandings for this examination and whatsoever we shall fix upon after this consideration if it be duly made will be upon such grounds as are not likely every day and upon every new argument to be removed from us for if they be it is a great though not an infallible sign that the enquiry was not made at first with so much diligence as was possible And when we have once carefully setled our selves in a belief though we happen to meet afterwards with some new and unforeseen difficulties which may seem to evince the contrary yet Reason will not presently advise us to a change because it finds it self unable to unty the knot but suspend a while and attempt again and try a thousand several wayes before it despair and yield up it self to the argument which remaining still after all this unconquerable it will then turn back and consider whether if it alter now its judgment it be able to satisfie all those defences which will be made for its former opinion and if it be overmatch'd by the doubts on both sides rather chuse to continue as before then make an innovation without advantage This Rule being observ'd we shall not be subject to the inconvenience of frequent changes and yet as true it is that we shall not be exempt from the possibility of changing at all which is neither requisite nor attainable in this life and if in this permutation after all our industry and humility therein it shall be our ill fortune to give away a truth for a false-hood it will be as killing a man against our will is no murther at the worst but an error by chance-medley and will both find I had almost said claim mercy from God and deserve pity from men We know very well that every mans body is in so perpetual a flux that about the space of seven years renders him wholy and entirely another corporeal substance from what he was before the whole mass both of accidents and matter being thrust away by the continual succession of new ones and yet because the soul remains still the same and retains all the while the same power and uninterrupted government over the whole succession we justly esteem it the same person nay every part of him to be always so truely the same that at any time of his life he may say with these Eyes I shall behold my Saviour though the accidents and very matter of them be so often changed Such an Identity as this is requisite to a mans Faith he may now be fully a Papist and seven years hence fully a Protestant and yet his faith still remains the same because it is all the while actuated and moved by the same soul of faith which is conscience which if he preserve inviolably both when he was a Papist and when he is a Protestant he may truly say with this very faith I shall behold my Saviour But suppose this so exalted Guide of yours your own Conscience
to pay unto them As well the Mud by growing hard as the Wax by melting obeys the Sun nor is it less glorified by one than by the other nor are those diversities of powers in the Sun but of capabilities in the object that receives him even so Faith is still properly one though according to the diverse receptions of it it produce not only diverse but contrary effects It is not unobservable that the Unity of the Church of God is compared not to the unity of one Man but of a Man and Woman joyned in Marriage so the Church in general is one with Christ so the Church Militant with the Triumphant and so every particular man with the Church militant Now this Unity is of one part more weak more infirm more ignoble than the other and the Female part in the similitude is the erring part in the Church it self and as that by the bond of Love so this by the bond of Charity is to be accounted one and the same with the other Can any thing be more irrational than to say that a foot when it hath the Gout or a hand when it shakes with the Palsey or a Head when it akes ceases to be a part of the body Sound or sick great or little well or ill shaped are outward considerations to the nature of a Member if it be informed by the same Soul it requires no other condition to make it such Nor can you make this Soul which is required of such necessity to give it life to be a full and entire agreement in all points of Faith of one member with another for then in matters of Belief you make no distinction betwixt sickness and death and the least indisposition of health is a total Corruption Men of the contrary Opinion I foresee cannot chuse but say here that in dangerous and infectious diseases cut off the affected member to save the rest and that he who in a Gangreen spares the Patient is the most hard-hearted and unmerciful Physician and truly if Errours in belief draw so ill a tail afâ—er them as the Devils and Damnation if they be to be esteemed Gangreens as well in respect of their mortality as their spreading and infectious Nature not only Prudence but Charity it self will put a sword into our hands to cut them off But alas these diseases are not so deadly as the Physicians of the Soul would make them for the exalting of their own reputation and he that would presently lop off an arm if the Gangreen be moving in it would not I hope prescribe the same remedy if it be but infected with an Itch both Evils would extend themselves over the whole body but the one to the perpetual destruction of the being the other only to the temporary loss of the beauty and quiet of it and therefore we rather patiently endure the trouble and vexation of continual scratching which is the true Metaphor for the Controversies of Ecclesiastical Writers with the loathsomness and deformity of so many sores than take away a Member which may possibly hereafter recover its former health and comeliness and is even now without them of great and necessary uses to the whole body Now as for those men who accuse us of pride and vanity for attributing so much to our own Reason making presumption and self-flattery the fountain of this Opinion it is a scandal so false and so ridiculous that without much humility I should disdain to answer it Are those to be accounted proud and tyrannical who being governed by their own Reason are content that all others should enjoy the same liberty or those who whilst they deny that they themselves are ruled by their own understandings would nevertheless have all others to submit to it Is it the voice of Pride to acknowledge that they who differ from me may possibly be in the right or if they mistake may do it without ruine or to say Whosoever is not of my Opinion is in the wrong and whosoever is in the wrong is eternally to perish for his Errour Is it the custome of Presumption to be ready to lay down an Opinion once entertained which is almost as great a Martyrdom as laying down our lives for the Truths sake when cause shall appear for so doing or by claiming to our selves the infallibility of our Party for he is infallible himself who agrees with them that are so to harden our selves into a necessary Opiniastrete These are the common Objections against this good-natur'd and gentle Doctrine But Mr. Hobbs according to his extraordinary wit has found out an odd and extraordinary Argument For in his first Chapter of Religion in the state of Gods natural Empire making every City the supream Judge in matters that belong to Gods worship and to which we ought to render an entire obedience saies thus Otherwise all absurd Opinions of the Nature of God and all ridiculous Ceremonies which have been admitted by any Nations would be seen at once in the same City by which it would happen that every particular person would believe all others to blaspheme or irreverently to behave himself towards God so that it could be said of no man that he worship'd God because no man worships God that is honours him externally but he who does those things by which he may appear to others to honour him But methinks if this be true the several unappealable Tribunals which are set up by Mr. Hobbs in several Cities or Commonwealths are as well destroyed by it as those which are placed by us in every Mans breast for several Cities appointing several kinds of worship or honour consisting in the Opinion not of the worshipper or honourer himself but of the witnesses and spectators of the worship or honour now if he say that when a whole Commonwealth has but one sort of worship none will be witnesses or spectatours of it but those who believe it honourable first as much scandal from the report as from the sight of it and besides the same I say will happen if there were an hundred Religions in one City for still their Religious Congregations were to be made up of men of the same Opinions Again Those who deny that a Commonwealth ought to enforce an unity of Worship upon all its Subjects will likewise as much deny that men ought to think those Worships dishonourable which are not practised by themselves and if he say there is no hindering of this latter he must needs pardon me if I cannot believe that impossible which has been in the world even in a more ridiculous variety than is at present at least in our parts for so many Ages and which is now exercised in some places And if ignorant or malicious Physicians in this violent Feavour did not apply new heats instead of Julips they might by Writing Disputing Preaching living Charitably which is all the former reduce the world in a short time to its ancient healthful and natural temper Lastly
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