The works of the Rev. John Wesley, Vol. 06 (of 32)

by John Wesley

And it can no more be reasonably affirmed, that our knowledge of God and divine things, our opinions of the excellency of this, or that virtue, and of the immortality of our souls, are the effects of our natural light; than it can be reasonably affirmed, that our living in society, and our articulate language are owing to the light of nature.

For, as all mankind find themselves in this state before any reasoning about it; as education, and human authority have taught us language, and accustomed us to the rules and manners of a social life: so education, and the same authority, have planted in our minds, certain notions of God and divine things, and formed us to a belief of our soul’s immortality, and the expectation of another life.

And mankind are no more left to find out a God, or the fitness of virtue, by their own reason, than they are left by their own reason, to find out who are their parents, to find out the fitness of speaking an articulate language.

Now if this is the state of reason, as it is in man; if this is all the light that we have from our own nature, a bare capacity of receiving good or bad impressions, right or wrong opinions and sentiments, according to the state of the world we fall into; then we are but poorly furnished, to assert the absolute perfection of our own reason.

If our light is little more than the opinions and customs of those amongst whom we live, and it be so hard for a man to arrive at a greater wisdom, than the common wisdom of the country which gave him birth and education; how unreasonably do we appeal to the perfection of our reason, against the necessity and advantage of divine revelation?

* If we are nothing without the assistance of men; if we are a kind of foolish, helpless animals, ’till education and experience have revealed to us the wisdom and knowledge of our fellow-creatures; shall we think ourselves too wise and full of our own light, to be farther enlightened with a wisdom revealed to us by God himself?

This gentleman, speaking of education, saith, “Education is justly esteemed a second nature; and its force is so strong, that few can wholly shake off its prejudices, even in things unreasonable and unnatural.”

All that I shall add to this account, is, that we are by the condition of human life, necessarily subjected to this second nature, and cannot avoid coming under its power.

And here let me ask this pleader for the sufficiency of the light of nature, how those that resign themselves up to the light of their own nature, shall know, whether it is their first, or their second nature that directs them?

Here are, it seems, two natures; they may be as different as good and evil; yet as they are both natures, both internal light, how shall a man know which he follows? He does not know which was first, or why he should call one first, and the other second; they are both internal, and without any thing to distinguish them. And as he is not to resist the motions of nature, or stifle its directions; so he must be as obedient to the directions of the second, as of the first nature, because he does not perceive their difference, nor has any means to distinguish their operations.