AN

ACCOUNT

OF

REASON AND FAITH, &¢,

CHAP. X.

THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE, WITH AN ADDRESS TO

THE SOCINIANS.

I.

AND thus I have led my reader through a long courfe of

various reasoning, and perhaps as far as he is willing to follow me, though I hope his journey has not been without some pleasure that may deceive, and fome profit that may in part reward the labour of it. I have fhewn him what reafon is, and what faith is, that so he may fee from the abfolute natures of each what habitude and relation they have to one another, and how the darkness and obfcurity of the latter may confift with the light and evidence of the former. I have alfo confidered the diftinction of things above reafon and things contrary to reason, and fhewn it to be real and well grounded, and to have all that is requifite to a good distinction. And for the further confirmation of it, I have alfo fhewn that human reafon is not the measure of truth. From which great principle (which I was the more willing to discourse at large and thoroughly to fettle and establish becaufe of its moment and confequence to the concern in hand) I have deduced that weighty inference, that therefore the incomprehenfibility of a thing is no concluding argument of its not being true, which confequence, for the greater fecurity of it, because it is fo con

fiderable in the prefent controverfy, I have alfo proved backwards, by fhewing that if the incomprehenfibility of a thing were an argument of its not being true, then human reafon (contrary to what was before demonftrated) would be the measure of truth. Whence I infer again ex abfurds, that therefore the incomprehenfibility of a thing is no argument of its not being true. From this laft confequence I infer another of no lefs moment and confideration, viz. That therefore the incomprehenfibility of a thing is no argument against the belief of it neither, where alfo I confider that feemingly oppofite maxim of Des Cartes, that we are to affent to nothing but what is clear and evident, and reconcile it to the other pofition. Whence my next step was to ftate the true use of reafon in believing, which I fhewed to confift not in examining the credibility of the object, but in taking account of the certainty of the revelation, which when once refolved of we are no longer to difpute, but believe. In fine, I have made an application of these confiderations to the mysteries of the Chriftian faith, by fhewing that they are never the less to be believed for being mysteries, fuppofing them otherwife fufficiently revealed, against which also I have fhewn their incomprehenfibility to be no objection. So that every way the great argument against the mysteries of the Chriftian faith taken from the incomprehenfibility of them vanishes and finks into nothing. In all which I think I have effectually overthrown the general and fundamental ground of Socinianifm, and truly in great measure that of Deism too, whose best argument against revealed religion in general, is, because the Christian, upon all accounts the most preferable of those that pretend to be revealed, contains fo many things in it which tranfcend the comprehenfion of human understanding. But whether this beft argument be really a good one or no, the whole procedure of this difcourfe may fufficiently fhew, and whoever knows how to distinguish sophistry from good reasoning, may easily judge.

2. And now you gentlemen for whofe fakes I have been at the pains to write this treatife, give me leave in a few words to addrefs myself a little more particularly to you, and to expoftulate with you. Whether it be the good opinion you have of your caufe, or the prefent opportunity you have to appear in the behalf of it, that invites you fo freely to come abroad as you have done of late, you have certainly (to give your courage its due) taken a very rational and polite age for it, and I hope the wife conduct of Providence may turn this juncture to the advantage

of the truth, and that the light to which you have adventured to expofe your novel opinions may serve to make you see their abfurdities, if you do not too obftinately fhut your eyes against it. Some of you are confiderable masters of reason (otherwise truly I fhould not think it worth while to argue with you) and you all profefs great devotion to it (I wish you do not make it an idol) and to be very zealous and affectionate difciples of it. Reafon is the great measure by which you pretend to go, and the judge to whom in all things you appeal. Now I accept of your measure, and do not refuse to be tried in the court of your own choosing. Accordingly you fee I have dealt with you all along upon the ground of logic, and in a rational way, being very confident that reafon alone will difcover to you your undue elevations of it, and the errors you have been misled into by that occafion, if you do but confult even this oracle of yours as you ought, and make a right ufe of its facred light.

3. But I am afraid you do not. Inftead of employing your reafon in the first place to examine the certainty of the revelation, whether fuch a thing be truly revealed, and if fo, to believe it notwithstanding its being incomprehenfible, your method is to begin with the quality of the object, to confider whether it be comprehenfible or no, and accordingly to proceed in your belief or difbelief of its being revealed. It is true indeed you are not fo grofs as to argue thus, this is comprehenfible therefore it is revealed. But you cannot deny but that you argue thus, this is incomprehenfible, therefore it is not revealed, proceeding upon this general principle, that though whatever is comprehenfible is not therefore prefently revealed, yet whatever is revealed must be comprehenfible. But now judge you whether this be not to make your reafon the rule and meafure of divine revelation, that is, that God can reveal nothing to you but what you can comprehend, or, that you are able to comprehend all that God can poffibly reveal (for otherwife how is your not being able to comprehend any thing an argument of its not being revealed) I fay confider whether this be not to fet up your reafon as the rule of revelation, and confider again whether this does not refolve either into a very low opinion you' have of God and his infinite perfections, or an extravagantly high one you have of yourfelves and your own rational endow

ments.

4. And yet as if this were not prefumption enough, do you not alfo make your reafon the rule of faith, as well as of reve

lation? To be the rule of faith is a very great thing, and yet fo far it is plain that you make your reason the rule of faith, that you will allow nothing to be believed but whofe bottom you can found by that line; this being an avowed principle with you that you are to believe nothing but what you can comprehend. But hold a little, before your reafon can be the measure of faith, must it not be the measure of truth? And I pray confider feriously, and tell me truly, do you verily think in your confciences that your reason is the measure of truth? Do you think your rational faculties proportioned to every intelligible object, and that you are able to comprehend all the things that are, and that there is nothing in the whole extent of science too high, too difficult, or too abstruse for you; no one part of this vaft intellectual fea but what you can wade through? If you fay yes, befides the blafphemous prefumption and luciferian arrogance of the affertion, and how little, it falls on this fide of fimilis ero altiffimo, which banished the vain. glorious angel from the court of heaven, because nothing lefs would content his aspiring ambition than to be as God there (though by the way there is more fenfe and congruity of reafon in pretending to be a God in heaven, than to be a God upon earth) I fay befides this, I would put it to your more fober thought to confider whether it be not every whit as great an extremity in the way of rational speculation to dogmatize fo far as to pretend to comprehend every thing, as to fay with the Sceptics and Phyrrhonians that we know nothing: the latter of which however in regard of its moral confequences may be more innocently and fafely affirmed than the former, fince in that we only humbly degrade ourselves, and are content to fink down into the level of brutes, whereas in this we afpire to what is infinitely above us, and advance ourselves into the feat of God. And you know an excefs of felf-dejection is of the two the more tolerable extreme. But if you say that your reafon is not the measure of truth (as upon this, and the other confiderations there lies a neceffity upon you to confefs) how then, I pray, comes it to be the measure of your faith, and how come you to lay down this for a maxim, that you. will believe nothing but what you can comprehend? Why, if your reafon be not the measure of truth (and you yourselves care not, and I believe are afhamed in terms to say that it is) then do you not evidently difcern that there is no confequence from the incomprehenfibility of a thing to the incredibility of it, and that you have no reason to deny your belief to a thing as true, merely upon the