He makes reason, or natural religion, to be God’s internal revelation, differing only from external revelation in the manner of its being communicated. He rejects external revelation as unworthy of God, because it has not been sufficiently made known at all times, and in all places; yet he sets up an internal revelation, as worthy of God, which has never been made known to any one man of any time or place in the world. For what one man ever knew that reason was God’s internal revelation, to which nothing could be added by any external revelation?
It is a mighty complaint with our author against Christianity, that so much happiness should be deferred till the time of Tiberius, and that it should be communicated to no greater a part of the world, than Christianity hath been. But is not this a judicious complaint in the mouth of a person, that is setting up a religion, that has been communicated to no body but himself.
I know nothing that can be said for our author, in excuse of so much confusion and self-contradiction, unless it be the particular hardships of his sect. The free-thinking few, he says, are forced into an outward compliance; and that which forces a man into a state of hypocrisy, may force him into a great deal of confusion and self-contradiction.
To return: I have from a consideration of the state of man, and the several relations which God stands in towards his creatures, shewn that it is utterly impossible for human reason to be a competent judge of the fitness, or unfitness, of all that God may, or may not require of us. The two following chapters shall state the nature and perfection of reason, as it is a faculty, or principle of action in human nature.
CHAPTER IV.
Of the state and nature of reason, as it is in man; and how its perfection in matters of religion is to be known.
THIS writer and others, who take to themselves the names of free-thinkers, make their court to the world, by pretending to vindicate the right that all men have, to judge and act according to their own reason. Though, I think, the world has no more to thank them for on this account, than if they had pretended to assert the right that every man has, to see only with his own eyes, or to hear only with his own ears.
For their own reason always did, does, and ever will, govern rational creatures, in every thing they determine, either in speculation or practice. It is not a matter of duty for men to use their own reason, but of necessity: and it is as impossible to do otherwise, as for a being that cannot act but from choice, to act without choice.
Man is under the same necessity of acting from his own choice, that matter is of not acting at all; and a being, whose principle of action is reason and choice, can no more act without it, or contrary to it, than an extended being can be without extension.