Volume 4 — A CHARGE, &c.

Reverend Brethren,

Without the use of Reason in Religion, we are liable to be imposed upon by others. With the immoderate or indiscreet use of it, we impose upon ourselves. Both extremes are to be carefully avoided: but the latter, being that into which we are most in danger of falling in these times, will possibly deserve your first and principal attention.

Indeed the great Apostle of the Gentiles, foreseeing the mischiefs which the pride of human reason would produce in the Church of Christ, gave a timely warning to the Roman converts, not to be wise in their own conceits[33]. And whoever considers the history of the Church from that time to this, will find that nothing has been so injurious to it as the affectation of being wise above, or beside, what is written; I mean, in opposing our own sense of things to the authority of Scripture, or (which is the commoner, because something the modester way of the two) in forcing it out of the sacred text by a licentious interpretation. In either way, we idolize our own understandings; and are guilty of great irreverence towards the word of God.

It infinitely concerns the preachers of the Gospel to stand clear of these imputations; and therefore it may not be unsuitable to the occasion of our present meeting, if I set before you what I take to be the whole office of REASON on the subject of revealed Religion; what it has to do, and what it should forbear to attempt; how far it may and should go, and where it ought to stop; and lastly, how important it is for a Christian teacher, and indeed for every Christian man, to confine his curiosity within those bounds.

I. The first and principal office of Reason on this subject is to see whether Christianity be a divine Religion; in other words, whether the Scriptures, especially those of the New Testament, which contain the religion of Christians, be written by inspiration, or have no higher authority than the compositions of mere fallible men.

Now, for this purpose, you will collect and examine the numerous proofs, external and internal, which have been alledged as the proper grounds of assent to the truth of Christianity: The proof EXTERNAL; first, from Prophecy, involving in it an incredible number of probabilities, some less striking than others, but all of them of some moment in your deliberation; secondly, from Miracles, said to have been purposely wrought to attest the truth of Christianity; recorded by persons of the best character, who themselves performed there miracles, or saw them performed, or had received the accounts of them immediately from the workers and eye-witnesses of them; and not questioned, as far as we know, by any persons of that time, or for some ages afterwards. In the next place, you will consider the INTERNAL PROOF, from the history and genius, from the claims and views and pretensions of this Religion.

Under this last head, you will particularly attend to the promises said to have been made by Jesus to his disciples; and to the manner in which those promises appear to have been made good: the promise of inspiration to the Apostles, and the evidence they afterwards gave of their being actually so inspired.

Above all, you will carefully inspect those books which contain the account of these and other momentous things, as well as the doctrines of Christianity itself; and you will see whether the facts they relate be, any of them, contradicted by authentick history, or the doctrines they deliver be repugnant to the first and clearest principles of human knowledge. You will next inquire whether these books, containing nothing but what is credibly or supposeably true, were indeed written by the persons whose names they bear, and not by persons of later times, or by persons of that time, whose authority is more questionable. You will, further, consider what degree of inspiration these writings claim to themselves, and whether their claims have, in any instance, been discredited and confuted. You will, lastly, take into your account the event of things, and will reflect how far the success of so great an undertaking has corresponded to the supposition of its having been divinely directed; if, in short, you can any way account for what you know and see to be clear and evident fact on any other supposition.

Such, I think, is the outline of what must be thought the duty of a reasonable inquirer into the pretensions of Christianity. To fill up this sketch would require a volume: but you see from these hints that here is room enough for the exercise of the understanding, for the full display, indeed, of its best faculties. If Christianity, which invites, will stand the test of this inquiry, you cannot complain that Reason has not enough to do, or that your reception of it, as a divine revelation, is not founded on reason. Only, let me caution you against coming hastily to a conclusion from a slight or summary view of the particulars here mentioned. You must have the patience to evolve them all; to weigh the moment of each taken separately, and to decide at length on the united force of these arguments, when brought to bear on the single point to which you apply them, the DIVINE AUTHORITY of your religion.

To grasp all these considerations in one view will require the utmost effort of the strongest mind: And, when you have done this, you will remember that very much (so widely extended and so numerous are the presumptions on this subject) has probably, nay, has certainly, escaped your best attention.

However, on these grounds, I will now suppose that a serious man, who would be, and is qualified to be, a believer on conviction, has fully satisfied himself that Christianity is true, and that the Scriptures, in which the whole of that religion is contained, are of divine authority.

II. A second and very momentous use of Reason will then be, To scrutinize these Scriptures themselves, now admitted to be divine; that is, to investigate their true sense and meaning. For, whatever their authority be, as they were written for the use of men, they must be studied, and can only be understood, as other writings are, by applying to them the usual and approved rules of human criticism.

I have already supposed, that you have seen enough of these Scriptures to be satisfied of their containing no contradictions to the clear intuitive principles of human knowledge. For this satisfaction must precede the general conclusion, that the Scriptures are divinely revealed; all truth being consistent with itself, and it being impossible that any evidence for the truth of revelation should be stronger than that of Intuition. Still, it remains to inquire of doctrines taught in these books, and apparently, as to the general sense of them, not inadmissible, what is their precise and accurate interpretation.

And here, besides the use of languages, antiquities, history, and such other helps as are necessary to the right understanding of all ancient books, you will have ample scope for the exercise of your sagacity in studying the character of the sacred writers, the genius and views of each, with the peculiarities of their style and method; in tracing the connexion of their ideas, the pertinence and coherence of their reasonings; in comparing the same writer with himself, or different writers with each other; in explaining the briefer and darker passages by what is delivered more at large and more perspicuously elsewhere; in apprehending the harmony of their general scheme, and the consistency of what they teach on any particular subject.

In all these ways, and if there be any other, your Reason may be and should be employed with all the attention of which ye are capable. And when this task is now performed, and you have settled it in your own minds what the true genuine doctrines of Christianity are; what our religion teaches of divine things, and what it prescribes to us in moral matters; What more remains to be done? Clearly, but this—To BELIEVE, AND TO LIVE, according to its direction.

But, instead of acquiescing in this natural and just conclusion, the curiosity of the human mind is ready to engage us in new and endless labours. “The wise in their own conceits will examine this Religion, and see if it be REASONABLE: for surely nothing can proceed from Heaven but the purest and brightest reason.”

Here, first, they perplex themselves and others, by the use of an ambiguous term: for, by reasonable is meant, either what is not contrary to the clearest principles of reason, or what is clearly explicable, in all respects, by those principles. In the former sense, it must be maintained that Christianity is a reasonable Religion, and that no such contrariety to reason is to be found in it. In the latter sense, it may be true that Christianity is not reasonable, I mean, that the reasons on which it is founded are not always apparent to us: but then this sense of the word is not pertinent to the case in hand; and we may as well pretend that the constitution of the natural world is unreasonable, as that the system of Revelation is so, because we are in the same ignorance, for the most part, of the grounds and reasons on which either fabrick is erected.

In the next place, supposing that, by intense pains, and a greater sagacity than ordinary, we are enabled to see, or guess at least, in some instances, on what principles of reason the great scheme of revelation or some of its doctrines at least are founded, what do we get by the discovery? Only, the addition of a little speculative knowledge, which does not make us at all wiser to salvation, than we were before, and possibly not so wise; since knowledge, we know, puffeth up, and God giveth grace to the humble.

But, lastly, how do we arrive at this supposed pre-eminence of wisdom? Generally, by forcing the word of God to speak our sense of it, and not his; by taking advantage of some difficult texts, and by wresting many plain ones; by making every thing bend, in short, to our presumptuous fancies and preconceived opinions.

You see, then, what my meaning is—“That the EVIDENCE of Christianity, and not its rationale (which, however justly conceived and ably executed, cannot extend so far as curious men require, because Reason itself is so limited); I say then that the evidence of our religion is the proper object of inquiry;” and “that the Scriptures are to be admitted in that sense which they obviously bear, on a fair unforced construction of them, although that sense appear strange to us, or be, perhaps, inexplicable;” in a word, that the AUTHORITY and RIGHT INTERPRETATION of Scripture are what we ought to look after, and not the REASONABLENESS of what it teaches.

The truth is (for I would now, in conclusion, point out to you the mischievous effects of this curious theology, which has so much engaged the minds of Christians), the truth, I say, is, That we know not what we do, when we take heaven, as it were, to task, and examine a confessedly divine Revelation by the twilight of our Reason.

1. One effect is (and can there be a more dreadful one?) that this inquisitive humour, thus leads directly to Infidelity, and even Atheism. For the wise in their own conceits, not being able to clear up many parts of the divine dispensations, whether of nature or grace, to their satisfaction, hastily conclude that there is no fitness or wisdom, where they see none, and make their inapprehension an argument for their rejection of both. A perverse conduct, indeed! but so common, that I doubt whether there be any other so fruitful source of irreligion. But

2. When the mischief does not proceed to this extreme, still it is no small evil, that heresies arise, and must for ever arise, among believers themselves, from this way of subjecting the word of God to the scrutiny of our reason. For this faculty, being a different thing, under the same name, in every pretender to it, and, in its most improved state, being naturally incapable, where the revelation itself is silent or obscure, of deciding on what is fit and right in the divine counsels, must needs lead to as many different views and conclusions, as there are capacities and fancies of curious men. And, as every man’s reason is infallible to himself, because his own reason, his zeal in the propagation of what he calls truth, will keep pace with his presumption, till all is noise and dissonance and discord; till peace and charity forsake the world; till Religion herself disappears; and what is left to usurp her name and place is only an art, or rather a fit, of disputation. Then consider

3. How immense a sacrifice we make to the indulgence of a wanton curiosity. The Gospel was given to fix our faith and regulate our practice; to purify our hearts and lives, and to fill us with all joy and peace in believing. Instead of these substantial fruits, we reap I know not what phantom of self-applause for our ingenious speculations: we lose our precious time in reasoning, when we should act, and hardly ever come to an end of our reasonings: we grope on in these dark and intricate paths of inquiry, without ever attaining the heart-felt joy of conviction: we are so intent on trying all things, that we hold fast nothing: we spend a great part of our lives, some of us our whole lives, in suspense and doubt: and are so long examining what our faith is, and whether it be reasonable or no, that, with a divine directory in our hands, we drop into our graves before we come to a resolution of those questions.

These are the sad effects of this intemperate wisdom, which therefore we shall do well to exchange for a little modest piety. And such has been uniformly the advice of the ablest and wisest men, from the foundation of Christianity down to this day. It would be endless to refer you to particular instances in their writings. Their sentiments on this subject are concisely and forcibly expressed in the following passage of as great a master of reason as hath appeared in the Christian world since the revival of letters, which I will therefore leave with you, and would recommend to your most attentive consideration.

“Rationibus humanis scrutari divinæ naturæ (and what he observes of the divine nature, is equally true of the divine councils) cognitionem, temeritas est: loqui de his, quæ nullis verbis explicari queunt, dementis est: definire, impietas est.” And again—“Satis est ad consequendam salutem æternam, ea de Deo credere, quæ palam ipse de se prodidit in sacris literis, per selectos ad hoc viros, spiritu suo afflatos; quæque post versans in terris ipse discipulis aperuit: ac demum per spiritum sanctum iisdem in hoc selectis discipulis patefacere dignatus est. Hæc simplici fide tenere, Christiana philosophia est: hæc puro corde venerari, vera Religio est: per hæc tendere ad cœlestis vitæ meditationem, pietas est: in his perseverare, victoria est: per hæc vicisse, summa fœlicitatis est. Cæterum HOMINEM ULTRA HÆC HUMANIS RATIONIBUS DE REBUS DIVINIS VESTIGARE, PERICULOSÆ CUJUSDAM ATQUE IMPIÆ AUDACIÆ EST[34].”