I BEGIN with enquiring what there is to oblige a man to hold this opinion, because if there is not some strong and plain proof arising from the nature and condition of man, to oblige him thus to abide by the sole light of his own reason; it may be so far from being a duty, which he owes to God, that it may be reckoned amongst his most criminal presumptions. And the pleading for this authority of his own reason; may have the guilt of pleading for his greatest vanity. And if, as this writer observes, spiritual pride be the worst sort of pride,[¹] a confident reliance upon our own reason, as having a right to determine all matters between God and man, if it should prove to be a groundless pretension, bids fair to be reckoned the highest instance of the worst kind of the worst of sins.
[¹] Page 150.
Every other instance of vanity, every degree of personal pride, and self-esteem, may be a pardonable weakness in comparison of this. For how small is that pride which only makes us prefer our own personal beauty or merit to that of our fellow-creatures, when compared with a self-confiding reason, which is too haughty to adore any thing in the divine counsels, which it cannot fully comprehend; or to submit to any directions from God, but such as its own wisdom could prescribe? Thus much is certain, that there can be no medium in this matter. The claiming this authority to our own reason, must either be a very great duty, or among the greatest of sins.
If it be a sin to admit of any secrets in divine providence, if it be a crime to ascribe wisdom and goodness to God in things we cannot comprehend: if it be a baseness and meanness of spirit to believe that God can teach us better or more than we can teach ourselves: if it be a shameful apostacy from the dignity of our nature, to submit to any mysterious providence over us, to comply with any other methods of homage and adoration, than such as we could of ourselves contrive and justify; then it is certainly a great duty to assert and maintain this authority of our own reason.
On the other hand; if the profoundest humility towards God, be the highest instance of piety: if every thing within us and without us, if every thing we know of God, every thing we know of ourselves preaches up humility to us, as the foundation of every virtue, as the life and soul of all holiness: if sin had its beginning from pride, and hell be the effect of it, if devils are what they are through spiritual pride and self-conceit, then we have great reason to believe, that the claiming this authority to our reason, in opposition to the revealed wisdom of God, is not a frailty of flesh and blood, but that same spiritual pride which turned angels into apostate spirits.
Since therefore this appealing to our own reason, as the absolutely perfect rule of all that ought to pass between God and man, has an appearance of a pride of the worst kind, and such as unites us both in temper and conduct with the fallen spirits of darkness, it highly concerns every pleader on that side, to consider what grounds he proceeds upon, and to ask himself, what there is in the state and condition of human nature, to oblige him to think, that nothing can be divine or holy, or necessary, in religion, but what human reason dictates?
I hope the reader will think this a fair state of the case, and that all the light we can have in this matter, must arise from a thorough consideration of the state and condition of man in this world. If without revelation he is free from mysteries as a moral and religious agent, then he has some plea from his state and condition to reject revealed mysteries.
But if in a state of natural religion, he can’t acknowledge a divine providence or worship God, without as much implicit faith, and submission of his reason, as any revealed mysteries require; then his state and condition in the world, condemns his refusal of any revelation sufficiently attested to come from God. This enquiry therefore into the state and condition of man, being so plainly the true point of the controversy, I hope to obtain the reader’s impartial attention to it.
Had mankind continued in a state of perfect innocence, without ever failing in their duty either to God or man, yet even in such a state, they could never have known what God would or would not reveal to them, but by some express revelation from him. And as God might intend to raise them to some higher, and unknown state of perfection; so he might raise them to it by the revelation of such things as their own reason, though uncorrupt, yet could not have discovered.
But if man, in a state of innocence, could have no pretence to set himself against divine revelation, and make his own reason the final judge of what God could, or could not reveal to him; much less has he any pretence for so doing in his present state of sin, ignorance, and misery. His nature and condition is so far from furnishing him with reasons against revelation, against any supernatural help from God; that it seems to be inconsolable without it; and every circumstance of his life prepares him to hope for terms of mercy and deliverance from his present guilt and misery, not according to schemes of his own contrivance, not from his own knowledge of the nature, and reason, and fitness of things, but from some incomprehensible depth of divine goodness.