but helps me not to it; that must come from proofs and arguments, and light arifing from the nature of things themselves, and not from my fhamefacedness, ignorance, or error.

$23. Above, contrary, and according to Reafon. By what has been before said of reafon we may be able to make some guess at the diftinction of things, into thofe that are according to, above, and contrary to reafon. 1. According to reafon are fuch propofitions whose truth we can discover by examining and tracing those ideas we have from fenfation and reflection, and by natural deduction find to be true or probable. 2. Above reafon are fuch propofitions whofe truth or probability we cannot by reafon derive from those principles. 3. Contrary to reafon are fuch propofitions as are inconfiftent with, or irreconcileable to our clear and diftin&t ideas. Thus the existence of one God is according to reafon; the exiftence of more than one God contrary to reafon; the refurrection of the dead above reafon. Farther, as above reafon may

be taken in a double tikiu, VINI VALLICA as ngmitying above probability, or above certainty; fo in that large fenfe alfo, contrary to reafon, is, I fuppofe, fometimes

taken.

§ 24. Reafon and Faith not oppofite.

THERE is another ufe of the word reafon wherein it is oppofed to faith; which though it be in itself a very improper way of speaking, yet common ufe has fo authorifed it, that it would be folly either to oppofe or hope to remedy it; only I think it may not be amifs to take notice, that however faith be oppofed to reafon, faith is nothing but a firm affent of the mind; which if it be regulated, as is our duty, cannot be afforded to any thing but upon good reason, and so cannot be oppofite to it. He that believes, without having any reafon for believing, may be in love with his own fancies, but neither feeks truth as he ought, nor pays the obedience due to his Maker, who would have him use those difcerning faculties he has given him to keep him out of mistake and error. He that does

not this to the best of his power, however he fons times lights on truth, is in the right but by chanc and I know not whether the luckiness of the accider will excuse the irregularity of his proceeding. Th at least is certain, that he must be accountable fo whatever mistakes he runs into; whereas he the makes use of the light and faculties God has giva him, and feeks fincerely to difcover truth by th:2 helps and abilities he has, may have this fatisfactic in doing his duty as a rational creature, that thoug he fhould mifs truth, he will not mifs the reward c it; for he governs his affent right, and places it he should, who in any case or matter whatsoever be lieves or disbelieves according as reason directs him: he that does otherwife tranfgreffes againft his ow light, and misuses those faculties which were give him to no other end but to search and follow the clearer evidence and greater probability. But fince reason and faith are by fome men opposed, we will fo confider them in the following chapter.

CHAP. XVIII.

OF FAITH AND REASON, AND THEIR DISTINCT PROVINCES.

It

1. Neceffary to know their boundaries.

T has been above fhown, 1. That we are of neceffity ignorant, and want knowledge of all forts where we want ideas. 2. That we are ignorant, and want rational knowledge where we want proofs. 3. That we want general knowledge and certainty as far as we want clear and determined fpecific ideas. 4. That we want probability to direct our affent in matters where we have neither knowledge of our own, nor teftimony of other men, to bottom our reason upon.

From these things thus premifed, I think we may come to lay down the measures and boundaries between faith and reafon, the want whereof may poffibly have

189 been the cause, if not of great disorders, yet at least of great difputes, and perhaps mistakes in the world. For till it be refolved how far we are to be guided by reason, and how far by faith, we fhall in vain difpute, and endeavour to convince one another in matters of religion.

2. Faith and Reafon what, as contradiftinguished. I FIND every fect, as far as reafon will help them, make use of it gladly; and where it fails them, they cry out, It is matter of faith, and above reafon. And I do not fee how they can argue with any one, or ever convince a gainfayer, who makes use of the same plea, without fetting down strict boundaries between faith and reason, which ought to be the first point established in all questions where faith has any thing to

do.

Reafon therefore here, as contradiftinguished to faith, I take to be the discovery of the certainty or probability of fuch propofitions or truths which the mind arrives at by deduction made from fuch ideas, which it has got by the ufe of its natural faculties, viz. by fenfation or reflection.

Faith, on the other fide, is the affent to any propofition, not thus made out by the deductions of reafon, but upon the credit of the propofer, as coming from God, in fome extraordinary way of communication. This way of discovering truths to men we call Revelation.

$ 3. FIRST, then I fay, That no man infpired by God can by any revelation communicate to others any new fimple ideas, which they had not before from fenfation or reflection; for whatsoever impreffions he himself may have from the immediate hand of God, this revelation, if it be of new fimple ideas, cannot be conveyed to another either by words or any other figns; because words by their immediate operation on us caufe no other ideas but of their natural founds; and it is by the custom of using them for figns that they excite and

No new fimple Idea can be conveyed by tradi tional Revelation.

revive in our minds latent ideas, but yet only fuch ideas as were there before; for words feen or heard recal to our thoughts thofe ideas only, which to us they have been wont to be figns of, but cannot introduce any perfectly new, and formerly unknown fimple ideas. The fame holds in all other figns which cannot fignify to us things, of which we have before never had any idea at all.

Thus, whatever things were discovered to St. Paul when he was wrapped up into the third heaven, whatever new ideas his mind there received, all the de. scription, he can make to others of that place is only this, that there are fuch things as eye bath not seen, nor ear beard, nor bath it entered into the heart of man to conceive. And fuppofing God should discover to any one, fupernaturally, a fpecies of creatures inhabiting, for example, Jupiter or Saturn, (for that it is poffible there may be fuch, nobody can deny) which had fix fenfes, and imprint on his mind the ideas conveyed to theirs by that fixth fenfe, he could no more by words produce in the minds of other men those ideas, imprinted by that fixth fenfe, than one of us could convey the idea of any colour by the founds of words into a man, who having the other four fenfes perfect, had always totally wanted the fifth of seeing. For our fimple ideas then, which are the foundation and fole matter of all our notions and knowledge, we muft depend wholly on our reafon, I mean our natural faculties, and can by no means receive them, or any of them, from traditional revelation; I say, traditional revelation, in diftinction to original revelation. By the one, I mean that firft impreffion which is made immediately by God on the mind of any man, to which we cannot fet any bounds; and by the other, thofe impreffions delivered over to others in words, and the ordinary ways of conveying our conceptions

one to another.

§ 4. Traditional Revelation may make us know Propofitions knowable alfo by Reafon, but not with the fame Certainty that Reafon doth.

SECONDLY, I fay, that the fame truths may be difcovered, and conveyed down from revelation, which are dif coverable to us by reason, and by thofe ideas we naturally may have. So God might by revelation difcover the truth of any propofition in Euclid, as well as men by the natural ufe of their faculties come to make the difcovery themselves. In all things of this kind, there is little need or ufe of revelation, God, having furnished us with natural and furer means to arrive at the knowledge of them; for whatsoever. truth we come to the clear difcovery of, from the knowledge and contemplation of our own ideas, will always be certainer to us than those which are conveyed to us by traditional revelation; for the knowledge we have that this revelation came at first from God, can never be fo fure as the knowledge we have from the clear and diftinct perception of the agree-, ment or disagreement of our own ideas; v. g. if it were revealed fome ages fince that the three angles of a triangle were equal to two right ones, I might. affent to the truth of that propofition, upon the credit of the tradition that it was revealed; but that would never amount to fo great a certainty as the knowledge of it, upon the comparing and measuring my own ideas of two right angles, and the three angles of a triangle. The like holds in matter of fact, knowable by our fenfes; v. g. the hiftory of the deluge is conveyed to us by writings, which had their original from revelation; and yet nobody, I think, will fay he has as certain and clear a knowledge of the flood as Noah that faw it, or that he himself would have had, had he then been alive and seen it; for, he has no greater an affurance than that of his fenfes, that it is writ in the book fuppofed writ by Mofes infpired; but he has not fo great an affurance that Mofes writ that book, as if he had feen Mofes write