Chapter 8: Use of Reason

Use of Reason. Sect. 11.

This Section is set apart for the cashiering of Reason from having any hand in the business we deal about; and the truth is, if our Author can perswade us first to throw away our Bibles, and then to lay aside the use of our Reason, I suppose, there is no doubt but we shall become Roman-Catholicks. This work, it seems, cannot be effected, unless men are contented to part with Scripture and Reason; all that whereby they are Christians and Men. But unless our Author have emptyed Circe's Box of Oyntment, whereby she transformed Men into Swine, he will confess it somewhat a difficult task that he has undertaken. Methinks one of these demands might suffice at once. But he presumes he has put his Countrey-men into a good humor, and knowing them free and open-hearted, he plyes them whilest they are warm.

We have, indeed, in this Section, as fair a flourish of words as in any other; but, there can be but little reason in the words that men make use of, to plead against Reason it self. And yet I am perswaded most Readers think as well of this [illegible] as any in the Book. To whom the un[illegible]easonableness of this is evident, that of the others is so also; and those who willingly imbibe the other parts of his Discourse, will little strain at this. Nothing is to be trusted to Prejudice. Nor, if we will learn, are we to think strange of any thing. Let us weigh then impartially, what is of Reason in this Discourse against the use of Reason. Whatever he pretends, he knows full well, that he has no difference with any sort of Protestants about finding out a Religion by Reason, and adhereing only to its dictates in the Worship of God. All the World of Protestants profess, that they receive their Religion wholly by Revelation from God, and no otherwise; Nor is it about ascribing a sovereignty to Reason to judge of the particulars of Religion so Revealed, to accept or refuse them, according as that shall judge them suitable, or not, to its principles and liking. This is the sovereign dictate of Reason, That whatever God reveals to be believed, is true, and as such must be embraced, though the bottom of it cannot be sounded by Reason's line; and that because [illegible] reason of a man is not absolutely reason, but being the reason of a man, is variously limitted, bounded, and made defective in its ratiocinations. An objective Truth our Reason supposes, all that it has to do, is but to judge of what is proposed to it according to the best Principles that it has; which is all that God in that kind requires of us; unless in that work wherein he intends to make us more then men, that is, Christians, he would have us make our selves less then Men, even as Brutes. That in our whole obedience to God, we are to use our Reason, Protestants say indeed; and moreover, that what is not done reasonably, is not Obedience. The Scripture is the Rule of all our Obedience, Grace the Principle enabling us to perform it; but the manner of its performance must be Rational, or it is not the supposition of Rule or Principle that will render any act of a man, Obedience. Religion, say Protestants, is revealed in the Scripture, proposed to the minds and wills of men for its entertainment by the Ministry of the Church; Grace to Believe, and Obey, is supernaturally from God; but, as to the Proposals of Religion from Scripture, they averre, that men ought to admit and receive them as men, that is, judge of the sense and meaning of them, discover their truth, and finding them revealed, acquiesce in the Authority of him by whom they are first revealed. So far as men, in any things of their concernments that have a moral good or evil in them, do refuse, in the choice or refusal of them, to exercise that judging and discerning, which is the proper work of Reason, they un-Man themselves, and invert the order of Nature; dethroning the [illegible] of the Soul, and causing it to follow the faculties that have no light but what they receive by and from it. It's true, all our carnal reasonings against Scripture-Mysteries, are to be captivated to the Obedience of Faith; and, this is highly reasonable, making only the less, particular, defective collections of reason, give place to the more noble, general and universal principles of it. Nor is the denying of our reason any where required, as to the sense and meaning of the words of the Scripture, but as to the things and matter signified by them. The former, Reason must judge of, if we are men; the latter, if, in conjunction with unbelief and carnal lusts, it tumultuate against it, is to be subdued to the Obedience of Faith. All that Protestants in the business of Religion ascribe to men, is but this, that in the business of Religion they are, and ought to be men; that is, judge of the sense and truth of what is spoken to them according to that Rule which they have received for the measure and guide of their Understandings in these things. If this may not be allowed, you may make a Herd of them, but a Church never.

Let us now consider what is offered in this Section about Reason, wherein the concernment of any Protestants may lye. As the matter is stated, about any one's setting up himself to be a new and extraordinary Director to men in Religion, upon the account of the irrefutable Reason he brings along with him, which is the spring and source of that Religion which he tenders to them; I very much question, Whether any instance can be given of any such thing from the foundation of the World. Men have so set up indeed sometimes, as that Good Catholick Vanine did not long since in France, to draw men from all Religions; but, to give a new Religion to men, that this pretension was ever solely made use of, I much question. As true Religion came by Inspiration from God, so all Authors of that which is false, have pretended to Revelation. Such were the pretensions of Minos, Lycurgus, and Nunia of old, of Mahomet of late, and generally, of the first Founders of Religious Orders in the Roman Church; all in imitation of real Divine Revelation, and in answer to indelible impressions on the minds of all men, that Religion must come from God. To what purpose then, the first part of his Discourse about the coining of Religion from Reason, or the framing of Religion by Reason, is, I know not; unless it be to cast a blind before his unwary Reader, while he steals away from him his treasure, that is, his Reason, as to its use in its proper place. Though therefore there be many things spoken, unduly, and, because it must be said, untruly also, in this first part of his Discourse, until toward the end of Pag. 131. which deserve to be animadverted on; yet, because they are such as no sort of Protestants has any concernment in, I shall pass them over. That wherein he seems to reflect any thing upon our Principles, is in a supposed reply to what he had before delivered; whereunto indeed it has no respect or relation, being the assertion of a Principle utterly distant from that imaginary one, which he had timely set up, and stoutly cast down before. It is this; That we must take the words from Christ and his Gospel; but the proper sense, which the words of themselves cannot carry with them, our own reason must make out. If it be the Doctrine of Protestants, which he intendeth in these words, it's most disadvantagiously and uncandidly represented, which becomes not an ingenious and learned person. This is that which Protestants affirm: Religion is Revealed in the Scripture; that Revelation is delivered and contained in Propositions of Truth. Of the sense of those words, that carry their sense with them, Reason judgeth, and must do so; or we are Brutes; and that every one's Reason, so far as his concernment lies in what is proposed to him.

Neither does this at all exclude the Ministry or Authority of the Church, both which are entrusted with it by Christ, to propose the Rules contained in his Word to Rational Creatures, that they may understand, believe, love, and obey them. To cast out this use of Reason, with pretence of an ancient sense of the words, which yet we know they have not about them, is as vain as any thing in this Section, and that is vain enough. If any such ancient sense can be made out, or produced, that is a meaning of any Text that was known to be so, from their Explication who gave that Text, it is by reason to be acquiesced in. Neither is this to make a man a Bishop, much less a chief Bishop, to himself. I never heard that it was the office of a Bishop, to know, believe, or understand for any man, but for himself. It is his Office, indeed, to instruct and teach men; but they are to learn and understand for themselves, and so to use their Reason in their Learning. Nor does the variableness of men's thoughts and reasonings infer any variableness in Religion to follow; whose stability and sameness depends on its first Revelation, not our manner of Reception. Nor does any thing asserted by Protestants, about the use of Reason in the business of Religion, interfere with the rule of the Apostle about captivating our Understandings to the Obedience of Faith, much less to his assertion, That Christians walk by Faith, and not by Sight; seeing that without it we can do neither the one nor the other. For I can neither submit to the truth of things to be believed, nor live upon them, or according to them, unless I understand the Propositions wherein they are expressed; which is the work we assign to Reason. For those who would resolve their Faith into Reason, we confess, that they overthrow not only Faith, but Reason itself; there being nothing more irrational, than that belief should be the product of Reason, being properly an assent resolved into Authority, which if Divine, is so also. I shall then desire no more of our Author, nor his Readers, as to this Section, but only this, that they would believe, that no Protestant is at all concerned in it: and so I shall not further interpose, as to any contentment they may find in its review or perusal.