128 THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF APOSTASY.
sons, they are not the judges of them, but are the servants of faith — only in bearing witness unto them; for “the things of a man knoweth the spirit of man which is in him; but the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God,” 1 Cor. iz 11. . In brief, to affirm that we can be obliged to believe no more than we can comprehend, or nothing but what we can perfectly understand the nature of in itself, or that we may reject what is really above reason, on a supposition that it is contrary unto reason, is to renounce the gospel, and therewith all divine revelations. And this is spoken not of reason as it is corrupted, but merely as it is human reason, finite and limited.
2. As in things infinite, spiritual, and heavenly, the gospel pro- poseth unto men things quite above their comprehension, supposing their reason to be pure and incorrupted, only allowing it to be that which is finite and limited; so in things which practically respect the obedience of faith which it doth require, it prescribeth things con- trary unto our natural conceptions, or reason as it is in us depraved: for the natural conceptions of our minds about religious duties and the way of living unto God are all of them suited unto the covenant of works, for they are the effects of the remainders of that light which did direct us to walk with God thereby. But hereunto the disposal of things in the covenant of grace is diametrically opposed, so that their accounts will never intermix, Rom. xi. 6; yea, the carnal mind,—that is, reason as it is corrupted,—acts its contradic- tion unto the will of God as revealed in the gospel with enmity and hatred, chap. vii. 7. And [as] for those duties which are suited unto the light of nature, the gospel doth so change them, with the respect it gives them unto the mediation of Christ and the efficiency of the Holy Spirit, as that corrupted reason defies them, being so qualified, as foreign unto its conceptions. The duties themselves it can ap- prove of, but not of their respect unto Jesus Christ, whereunto they are disposed by the gospel.
Hence it is that of old those who pretended suoh : an absolute sovereignty of their own reason as to admit of nothing as truth but what its dictates complied withal, were of all men the ‘slowest to receive and the forwardest to oppose the mysteries of the gospel; because they were above it in some things, and contrary unto it in more, as it is in most things corrupted, they looked on them as folly, and so despised them. This the apostle declares and records, 1 Cor. i ih, Especially was it so among them who, unto the vain imagina- tions wherein in general “their foolish heart was darkened,” had superadded some peculiar sect in philosophy which was of reputation among the wise men of the world; for they conceived and main- tained all the maxims of their sect as the absolute dictates of right
ry ee
-
ya
PRIDE, ETC., CAUSES OF APOSTASY. 129
reason, though most of them were foolish fancies, either taken up by tradition or sophistically imposed on their understandings, Hence, every thing that was contrary unto such principles or inconsistent with them, they looked on as opposite unto reason, and so despised it. Nor is it much otherwise at this day with many Christians, who make the traditional principles of their sect or party the rule whereby every thing that is in religion proposed unto them may be examined, Thus, though the generality of philosophers and wise men at Athens rejected the doctrine of the apostle, yet were there none so forward and fierce in their opposition unto him, so contemptuously proud in their censures of him, as were the Epicureans and Stoics, Acts xvii. 18; and the reason hereof was, because the doctrine which he taught was eminently contrary to the maxims of their peculiar sects: for whereas the Epicureans denied the providence of God in the
_ government of the world, the existence of the souls of men after this
life, all eternal rewards or punishments, there was no admission of any one word of the apostle’s doctrine without a renunciation of all their impious sentiments, and so the ruin of their sect. And as for the Stoics, the fundamental principle of their philosophy was, that a man should look for all blessedness or happiness in and from him- self alone, and from the things that were in his own power, as being every way sufficient unto himself for that end. All that the apostle taught concerning the mediation of Christ and the grace of God by him was also diametrically opposite unto this principle. Wherefore those of these two sects opposed him in a peculiar manner, not only
_ from the pride and darkness that are naturally in the minds of men,
and are improved by the advancement of corrupted reason above its
~ own proper place and dignity, but from the prejudicate opinions which,
on the reputation of their sects, they adhered unto, as assured dictates of right reason in general. And when some such persons as these afterward, upon a general conviction of its truth, took upon them a profession of the gospel, they were the men who corrupted its prin- cipal mysteries by their vain philosophy, as the apostle intimates, Col. ii. 8. So Tertullian, “ Heereses a philosophia subornantur. Inde Mones et forms, et nescio que, et Trinitas hominum apud Valentinum, [qui] Platonicus fuerat. Inde Marcionis Deus melior de tranquillitate, a Stoicis venerat; et ubi anima interire dicatur ab Epicureeis observatur; et ut carnis restitutio negatur, de una omnium philosophorum schola sumitur.”