the wisdom of the Father, who hath, in the Holy Scriptures, taught us all his Father's will.

12. (4.) And therefore, as to this, nothing can be added from the stock of nature or principles of natural reason, so if it did need a supply, reason could ill do it. For the object of our faith must be certain and infallible; but no man's reason is so; and therefore to put new wine into broken bottles is no gain, or real advantage; and although right reason is not to be gainsaid, yet what is right reason is so uncertain, that in the midst of all disputes, every man pretends to it, but who hath it no man can tell, and therefore it cannot be a guide or measure of faith.

13. (5.) But above all, if we will pretend to reason in religion, we have but one great reason that we can be obliged to; and that is, to believe that whatsoever God hath said, is true: so that our biggest reason in religion is, to submit our reason, that is, not to use our reason in particular inquiries, but to captivate it in the whole. And if there be any particular inquiries, let them seem what they will to my reason, it matters not; I am to follow God, not man; I may be deceived by myself, but never by God. It is therefore sufficient to me that it is in the Scriptures. I will inquire no further. This therefore is a concluding argument; This is in the Scripture, therefore this is true: and this is against Scripture, therefore it is absurd, and unreasonable.

14. (6.) After all, experience is our competent guide, and warning to us for we see when witty men use their reason against God that gave it, they in pursuit of reason go beyond religion; and when by reason they look for God, they miss him; for he is not to be found but by faith, which when they dispute for, they find not; because she is built and persuaded by other mediums, than all schools of philosophy to this day have taught. And it was because of reason, that the religion of Jesus was so long opposed and hindered to possess the world. The philosophers would use their reason, and their reason would not admit this new religion: and therefore St. Paul being to remove every stone that hindered, bade them to beware of "vain philosophy;" which does not distinguish one kind of philosophy from another, but marks all philosophy. It is all vain, when the inquiries are into religious mysteries.

15. (7.) For is it not certain that some principles of reason are against some principles of faith and Scripture? and it is but reason, that we should hear reason wherever we find it; and yet we are to have no intercourse with devils, though we were sure they would tell us of hidden treasures, or secrets of philosophy and upon this account it is that all genethliacal predictions and judicial astrology are decried by all religious persons; for though there be great pretensions of reason and art, yet they being against religion and revelation are intolerable. In these and the like cases, reason must put on her muffler, and we must be wholly conducted by revelation.

16. These are the pretences against the use of reason in questions of religion; concerning which the same account may be given, as by the Pyrrhonians and sceptics concerning their arguments against the certainty of sciences. These reasons are like physic, which if it uncertainly purges out the humour, it most certainly purges out itself: and these arguments either cannot prevail against the use of reason in religion, or if they do, they prevail against themselves: for either it is against religion to rely upon reason in religion, or it is not: if it be not, then reason may without danger to religion be safely relied upon in all such inquiries. But if it be against religion to rely upon reason, then certainly these reasons intended to prove it so, are not to be relied upon; or else this is no question of religion. For if this be a question of religion, why are so many reasons used in it? If it be no question of religion, then we may, for all these reasons to the contrary, still use our reason in religion without prejudice to it. And if these reasons conclude right, then we may, for these reasons' sake, trust the proposition which says, that in religion reason is to be used; but if these reasons do not conclude right, then there is no danger, but that reason may still be used, these arguments to the contrary notwithstanding.

17. But there is more in it than so: This foregoing discourse, or to the like purpose, is used by two sorts of persons; the one is by those, who in destitution of particular arguments, make their last recourse unto authority of men. For by how much more they press their own peremptory affirmative, by so much the less will they endure your rea

sons and arguments for the negative. But to these men I shall only say, Let God be true, and every man a liar :' and therefore if we trust men concerning God, we do not trust God concerning men; that is, if we speak of God as men please, we do not think of men as God hath taught us; viz., that they are weak, and that they are liars: and they who have, by artifices and little devices, acquired to themselves a reputation, take the less care for proving what they say, by how much the greater credulity that is, by which men have given themselves up to be possessed by others. And if I would have my saying to prevail whether it be right or wrong, I shall the less endure that any man should use his own reason against me. And this is one of the great evils for which the church of Rome hath given Christendom a great cause to complain of her, who not only presses men to believe or to submit to what she says upon her own authority, without enduring them to examine whether she says true or no, but also requires as great an assent to what she cannot prove, as to what she can; requiring an adherence not less than the greatest, even to those things which she only pretends to be able to prove by prudential motives. Indeed in these cases if they can obtain of men to bring their faith, they are safe; but to come accompanied with their reason too, that is dangerous.

18. The other sort of men, is of those who do the same thing under another cover; for they not having obtained the advantages of union or government, cannot pretend to a privileged authority: but resolving to obtrude their fancies upon the world, and yet not being able to prove what they say, pretend the Spirit of God to be the author of all their theorems. If they could prove him to be their author, the thing were at an end, and all the world were bound to lay their necks under that pleasant yoke; but because they cannot prove any thing, therefore it is that they pretend the Spirit for every thing: and if the noise of so sacred a name will persuade you, you are within the snare; if it will not, you are within their hatred. But it is impossible that these men can prevail, because there are so many of them; it is as if it were twenty mountebanks in the piazza, and all saying they had the only antidote in the world for poison; and that what was not theirs, was not at all, and yet all pretend severally.

For all men cannot have the Spirit, unless all men speak the same thing: it were possible that even in union they might be deceivers but in division they cannot be right; and therefore since all these men pretend the Spirit, and yet all speak several things and contradictory, they do well to desire of us not to use our reason; for if we do, they can never hope to prevail; if we do not, they may persuade, as they meet with fools, that were not possessed before.

19. Between these two there is a third that pretends to no authority on one hand, nor enthusiasm on the other; but offers to prove what he says, but desires not his arguments to be examined by reason, upon pretence that he urges Scripture; that is, in effect, he must interpret it; but your reason shall not be judge whether he says right or wrong: for if you judge his interpretation, he says you judge of his argument, and make reason umpire in questions of faith: and thus his sect is continued, and the systems of divinity rely upon a certain number of propositions from generation to generation, and the scholar shall be no wiser than his master. for ever; because he is taught to examine the doctrines of his master by his master's arguments, and by no other. In effect, they all agree in this, they would rule all the world by religion, and they would have nobody wiser than themselves, but be fools and slaves, till their turn come to use others as bad as they have been used themselves: and therefore, as the wolves offered peace to the sheep upon condition they would put away their dogs; so do these men allow us to be Christians and disciples, if we will lay aside our reason, which is that guard of our souls, whereby alone we can be defended against their tyrannies and pretensions.

20. That I may therefore speak close to the inquiry, I premise these considerations;

(1.) It is a weak and a trifling principle, which supposes faith and reason to be opposite: for faith is but one way, by which our reason is instructed, and acquires the proper notices of things. For our reason or understanding apprehends things three several ways: the first is called vinos, or the first notices' of things abstract, of principles and the • primo intelligibilia;' such as are, The whole is greater than the half of the whole ;-Good is to be chosen ;-God is to be loved: Nothing can be and not be at the same time;—

for these are objects of the simple understanding, congenite notices, concreated with the understanding. The second is called diavonois, or discourse,' that is, such consequents and emanations which the understanding draws from her first principles. And the third is ioris, that is, such things which the understanding assents to upon the report, testimony, and affirmation, of others, viz., by arguments extrinsical to the nature of the thing, and by collateral and indirect principles. For example, I naturally know that an idol or a false god is nothing; that is vónois, or the act of abstract and immaterial reason. From hence I infer, that an idol is not to be worshipped: this my reason knows by diavónois, or illation and inference, from the first principle. But therefore, that all monuments of idolatry are to be destroyed, was known to the Jews by nioris, for it was not primely known, nor by the direct force of any thing that was primely known; but I know it from God by the testimony of Moses, into the notice of which I am brought by collateral arguments, by tradition, by miracle, by voices from heaven, and the like.

21. (2.) These three ways of knowing, are in all faculties sacred and profane: for faith and reason do not divide theology and philosophy, but in every science reason hath notices all these ways. For in natural philosophy there are prime principles, and there are conclusions drawn from thence, and propositions which we believe from the authority of Plato, or Socrates, or Aristotle; and so it is in theology; for every thing in Scripture is not, in the divided sense, a matter of faith that the sun is to rule the day, the moon and the stars to govern the night, I see and feel; that God is good, that he is one, are prime principles: that nothing but good is to be spoken of this good God, reason draws by a Savónois or discourse and illation: but that this good God will chastise his sons and servants, and that afflictions sent upon us are the issues of his goodness, or that this one God is also three in person, this is known by ioris, or by belief; for it is not a prime truth, nor yet naturally inferred from a prime truth, but told by God, and therefore is an object of faith; reason knows it by testimony, and by indirect and collateral probations.

22: (3.) Reason knows all things as they are to be known, and enters into its notices by instruments fitted to the na