§ 2. The light of reason was at first the bright lamp or candle of the Lord, till sin, like a thief, melted it down to snuff; whereby (comparatively speaking) it becomes a poor glimmering light in the best of men, and almost quite extinguished in some men. Fallen man is become less than himself, and will never act like himself, till he be fully restored to himself.
Sanctification indeed snuffs and trims the lamp of reason; but there being few sanctified persons among men, adouble misery consequently befals a very great part of mankind ; whose conversation speaks them not only destitute of religion, which bereaves them of the blessed- ness of the world to come ; but men almost entirely despoiled of the benefits and blessings of their own reason, which makes them un- happy and miserable in this world : beasts, rather than men, as the sacred scriptures stiles them ; unreasonable men; men fallen out with their own faculties ; who after many a sharp battle with their rea- son, are now dragging it like a conquered captive, at the chariot wheels of their victorious and triumphant lusts.
§ 3. It is scarce imaginable, that ever sin should prevail so far as it doth, to the very unmanning of men, did they not first delude and bribe their own reason, by close and cunning applications to their bewitched affections ; whereby, though they cannot make it a party, yet they make it stand by as a silent spectator, or neuter, whilst they act the beast, yea, the devil, rather than the man.
We little know how far unsanctified reason may (this way) be pre- vailed upon to quit his throne, and resign its sceptre into the hands of lust and appetite ; yea, to engage in the defence of their most absurd laws and dictates. It only serves in some men, to invent excuses, pleas, and specious pretences, to j ustify or extenuate their beast-hk« actions ; the basest servitude it can be condemned to.
If this will not do, sensual lusts have another way to obtain theif
474 THE REASONABLENESS OF PERSONAL HEEORMATION.
satisfaction, in despite of reason and conscience ; even by stopping^ their ears to the voices of both, and pushing on with a brutish im- jjetus, they suffer neither to enjoy the opportunity of a calm debate of these matters with them.
§ 4. But let men do what they will, it is next to an impossibilitj'-, they shall so far subdue and destroy those inbred principles of reason and conscience, but that they will, at one time or other, give them some check and oppositions in their profane courses ; especially when they shall get the advantage of some eminent distress, or special dan- ger, which disposes them to lend an ear to their voices. And there be few men in the world, but are sometimes providentially cast into such cases and conditions.
So that appeals to the reason of the most profligate wretches, are not altogether vain and useless : for if the case cannot be tried and decided at the bar of reason and conscience at one time, it may with more advantage at another : and haply appeals to reason may produce a reformation in some men, sooner than appeals to the scriptures, or principles of faith, especially when the world is so notoriously drenched in practical atheism, that serious religion becomes the common sub- ject of drollery amongst multitudes of men.
Yet it were hard and uncharitable, to imagine any man sunk so deep into the mire of beastiality and profaneness, as not still to retain some value and veneration forhisown reason, and as much as he abuses it, yet to refuse the v.hole world in exchange for it; and to account it a greater misery to be utterly deprived of it, than to have the hoofs of an horse given him in exchange for his hands and feet.
§ 5. The scriptures therefore do, in many cases, appeal to the reason of sinners, and design their reformation by such appeals : for it being a most shameful thing, for a man to be convicted at the bar of his own reason, of acting like a beast rather than a man, every man is pre- sumed to be afraid, and ashamed of such an indictment. Such miscre- ants are the shame and reproach of humanity itself; they are branded for brutes throughout the sober world ; their company declined and shunned by all wise and good men. He that hath no reason to justify his actions, may yet be supposed to be owner of some stock of na- tural shame; which cannot but afford a blush, upon such a plain con- viction. This therefore was the course which the prophet Isaiah took, by divine direction, to reform the idolatrous Israelites ; Isa. xlvi. 8. He states the case at the bar of their own reason, and calls for a verdict upon it. The case was this : Whether idols, having not power enough to shezo themselves gods, those that worship them, must not want wisdom enough to shew themselves menf " Remember this, and shew yourselves men ; and bring it again to mind, O ye trans- gressors !" q. d. For shame, let not men act like brutes, which have no animadversion.
§ G.When things therefore are brought to such an exigence, that ruin or reformation is the only choice men have to make, and all re-
THE REASONABLENESS OF PERSONAL EEFORMATION, 475
ligious impressions so obliterated and worn out, that men pay no re-» verence to them ; an appeal to the reason of men, seems then to be an hopeful method of prevaihng with them, to suffer a reformation ratlier than a ruin. Not that I imagine the topics of reason able to afford more ].H)werful arguments, than those of religion do ; but that they, who by their ignorance and strong prejudices against religion, have made themselves more incapable of conviction that way, may haply feel the force of reason prevailing so far at least, as to put their outrageous lusts under some restraints.
As for the scriptures, and serious religion begotten by them in the souls of men, they are perfect strangers to all, but the names of these things: And even their very names are grown almost ridiculous with them too. But reason may convince and shame them. What force the reason of man hath, even without saving grace, to produce civi- lity, sobriety, and other moral virtues, is abundantly evident in the very Heathens ; who, by the only light of reason, discovered so muchodiousness in vice and immortality, and such an amiable beauty injustice, temperance, and the other moral virtues, that their praises for them are sounded throughout the world.