72 ANiaiADVERSIONS ON A TREATISE
Scripture cannot be known, believed, understood, but by the church; the church cannot be proved to have being, constitution, or autho- rity but by the Scripture: and then, if you doubt of the authority of that proof of the church, you must return to the church again ; and so on, till all faith and reason vanish, or men make shipwreck of then: faith,' and become brutish in their imderstanding, pretending to be- lieve they know neither what nor why. And this employment of raising surmises and stirring up jealousies about the word of God, its penmen and their authority, do men put themselves upon, I will not say to gratify the Koman court, but I will say in obedience to their prejudices, lusts, and darkness,— the saddest drudgery that any of the sons of men can be exercised withal. And, if he would be beheved, he professeth himself an anti-scripturist, and in that profession, which he puts upon himself, an atheist. For my part, I am amazed to think how men are able to hold their pens in their hands, — ^that a horror of the work they have before them doth not make them shake them out, when ihey are thus traducing the holy word of Christ, and exciting evil surmises about it. Should they deal with a man of any power and authority, they might not expect to escape his indignation ; even to publish to all the world that he is indeed an honourable per- son, but yet, if men will question his honour, truth, honesty, autho- rity, and affirm him to be a cheat, thief, murderer, adulterer, they cannot see how they can be disproved, — at least, he would have a difficult task in hand that should endeavour to free him from objec- tions of that nature. Yet thus men dare to deal with the Scripture, that word which God hath magnified above all his name. If this be the spirit that breathed in the apostles, the holy army of martyrs of old, and all the fathers of the primitive church, I am much mistaken ; nay, I am greatly so, if with one consent they would not denounce an anathema against such a defence of any religion whatever. But you will say, the same person defends also the Scripture, just as he in the poet did Pelilius: —
" Me Capitolinus convictore usus amicoque A puero est, causaqtie mea permulta rogatus Fecit ; et incolumis Itetor quod vivit in urbe ; Sed tamen admiror quo pacto judicium illud Fugerit." [Hor. Sat. i. 4, 96.]
A defence worse and more bitter than a downright accusation. I am not now to observe what prejudice this excuse brings to the cause of our author with all intelligent persons, having noted it once and again betore ; nor what contentment Protestants take, to see that the truth they profess cannot be shaken without inducing men to ques- tion the fundamental principles of Christian religion, and if this course be persisted in, for aught that I can understand, the whole
ENTITLED FIAT LUX. 73
controversy between us and the Romanists must needs be at last reduced unto this head, Whether the Scripture of the Old and New- Testament was given by divine inspiration? For the present, having, in the consideration of the general suppositions of this treatise, spoken before to this head, I shall not need to answer particular exceptions given in against its authority; nor do I think it incumbent on me so to do, unless our author own them for his sense : which if he be pleased to do, I promise him, if God give me life, to give him a dis- tinct answer to every one of them, and all that is contained in them. Moreover, these things will again occur in his loth section, where he expressly takes the Scripture to task, as to its pleas for judging of and settling men in the truth.
Proceed we to his next section, p. 126.
CHAPTER VIL
Use of Reason.
Sect. xi. 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 persuade 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 Catholics. 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 emptied Circe's box of ointment, whereby she transformed men into swine, he will confess it somewhat a difficult task that he hath undertaken. Methinks one of these demands might suffice at once. But he presumes he hath put his countrymen into a good humoui:, and, knowing them free and open-hearted, he plies them whilst 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 itself. And yet I am persuaded most readers think as well of this section as any in the book. To whom the unreasonableness 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 unto prejudice; nor, if we will learn, are we to think strange of any thing. Let us, then, weigh impartially what is of reason in this discourse against the use of reason. Whatever he pretends, he knows full well that he hath no difference with any sort of Protestants about " finding out a religion by reason," and adhering only to its dictates in the worship of God.