12. THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD, AND TRUE RELIGION THE NATURE AND IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT Amidst those deep and retired thoughts, which, with every man Christianly instructed, ought to be most frequent of God and of His miraculous ways and works amongst men, and of our religion and works to be performed to Him-after the story of our Saviour Christ, suffering to the lowest bent of weakness in the flesh, and presently triumphing to the highest pitch of glory in the spirit, which drew up His body also; till we in both be united to Him in the revelation of His kingdom-I do not know of anything more worthy to take up the whole passion of pity on the one side and joy on the other than to consider, first, the foul and sudden corruption, and then, after many a tedious age, the longdeferred but much more wonderful and happy reformation, of the Church in these latter days. Sad it is to think how that doctrine of the Gospel, planted by teachers divinely inspired, and by them winnowed and sifted from the chaff of overdated ceremonies, and refined to such a spiritual height and temper of purity and knowledge of the Creator that the body, with all the circumstances of time and place, were purified by the affections of the regenerate soul, and nothing left impure but sin-faith needing not the weak and fallible office of the senses to be either the ushers or interpreters of heavenly mysteries, save where our Lord Himself in His sacraments ordained-that such a doctrine should, through the grossness and blindness of her professors, and the fraud of deceivable traditions, drag so downwards as to backslide one way into the Jewish beggary of old cast-rudiments, and stumble forward another way into the new-vomited paganism of sensual idolatry, attributing purity or impurity to things indifferent, that they might bring the inward acts of the spirit to the outward and customary eye-service of the body. 1 But to dwell no longer in characterizing the depravities of the Church, and how they sprung, and how they took increasewhen I recall to mind, at last, after so many dark ages wherein the huge overshadowing train of Error had almost swept all the stars out of the firmament of the Church, how the bright and blissful Reformation (by divine power) struck through the black and settled night of ignorance and anti-Christian tyranny, methinks a sovereign and reviving joy must needs rush into the bosom of him that reads or hears, and the sweet odor of the returning Gospel imbathe his soul with the fragrancy of Heaven. Then was the sacred Bible sought out of the dusty corners where profane falsehood and neglect had thrown it, the schools opened, divine and human learning raked out of the embers of forgotten tongues, the princes and cities trooping apace to the new-erected banner of salvation.2 From The Christian Doctrine. If I were to say that I had devoted myself to the study of the Christian religion because nothing else can so effectually rescue the lives and minds of men from those two detestable curses, slavery and superstition, I should seem to have acted rather from a regard to my highest earthly comforts than from a religious motive. But since it is only to the individual faith of each that the Deity has opened the way of eternal salvation, and as He requires that he who would be saved should have a personal belief of his own, I resolved not to repose on the faith or judgment of others in matters relating to God; but, on the one hand, having taken the grounds of my faith from divine revelation alone, and on the other, having neglected nothing which 1 Prose Works 2. 364–5. 2 Ibid. 2. 366-7. depended on my own industry, I thought fit to scrutinize and ascertain for myself the several points of my religious belief, by the most careful perusal and meditation of the Holy Scriptures themselves. I entered upon an assiduous course of study in my youth, beginning with the books of the Old and New Testament in their original languages, and going diligently through a few of the shorter systems of divines, in imitation of whom I was in the habit of classing under certain heads whatever passages of Scripture occurred for extraction, to be made use of hereafter as occasion might require. At length I resorted with increased confidence to some of the more copious theological treatises, and to the examination of the arguments advanced by the conflicting parties respecting certain disputed points of faith. But, to speak the truth with freedom as well as candor, I was concerned to discover in many instances adverse reasonings either evaded by wretched shifts, or attempted to be refuted, rather speciously than with solidity, by an affected display of formal sophisms, or by a constant recourse to the quibbles of the grammarians; while what was most pertinaciously espoused as the true doctrine seemed often defended, with more vehemence than strength of argument, by misconstructions of Scripture, or by the hasty deduction of erroneous inferences. Owing to these causes, the truth was sometimes as strenuously opposed as if it had been an error or a heresy -while errors and heresies were substituted for the truth, and valued rather from deference to custom and the spirit of party than from the authority of Scripture. I deemed it therefore safest and most advisable to compile for myself, by my own labor and study, some original treatise which should be always at hand, derived solely from the Word of God itself, and executed with all possible fidelity-seeing that I could have no wish to practise any imposition on myself in such a matter. It was also evident to me that, in religion as in other things, the offers of God were all directed, not to an indolent credulity, but to constant diligence and to an unwearied search after truth; and that more than I was aware of still remained which required to be more rigidly examined by the rule of Scripture and reformed after a more accurate model. I so far satisfied myself in the prosecution of this plan as at length to trust that I had discovered, with regard to religion, what was matter of belief, and what only matter of opinion. It was also a great solace to me to have compiled, by God's assistance, a precious aid for my faith-or rather to have laid up for myself a treasure which would be a provision for my future life, and would remove from my mind all grounds of hesitation, as often as it behoved me to render an account of the principles of my belief.1 The Christian Doctrine is that divine revelation disclosed in various ages by Christ (though He was not known under that name in the beginning) concerning the nature and worship of the Deity, for the promotion of the glory of God, and the salvation of mankind. This doctrine. is to be obtained, not from the schools of the philosophers, nor from the laws of man, but from the Holy Scriptures alone, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.2 Christian doctrine is comprehended under two divisionsFaith, or the knowledge of God, and Love, or the worship of God. . . These two divisions, though they are distinct in their own nature, and put asunder for the convenience of teaching, cannot be separated in practice. . Besides, obedience and love are always the best guides to knowledge, and often lead the way from small beginnings to a greater and more flourishing degree of proficiency. It must be observed that Faith in this division does not mean the habit of believing, but the things to be habitually believed.3 1 Prose Works 4. 1-4. 2 Ibid. 4. 10-1. 3 Ibid. 4. 12-3. THE DEITY From The Christian Doctrine. Though there be not a few who deny the existence of God, . yet the Deity has imprinted upon the human mind so many unquestionable tokens of Himself, and so many traces of Him are apparent throughout the whole of nature, that no one in his senses can remain ignorant of the truth. . . . There can be no doubt but that everything in the world, by the beauty of its order, and the evidence of a determinate and beneficial purpose which pervades it, testifies that some supreme efficient Power must have pre-existed, by which the whole was ordained for a specific end. There are some who pretend that nature or fate is this supreme power. But the very name of 'nature' implies that it must owe its birth to some prior agent, or, to speak properly, signifies in itself nothing; but means either the essence of a thing, or that general law which is the origin of everything, and under which everything acts. On the other hand, fate can be nothing but a divine decree emanating from some almighty power. Further, those who attribute the creation of every thing to nature must necessarily associate chance with nature as a joint divinity; so that they gain nothing by this theory except that, in the place of that one God Whom they cannot tolerate, they are obliged, however reluctantly, to substitute two sovereign rulers of affairs who must almost always be in opposition to each other. In short, many visible proofs, the verification of numberless predictions, a multitude of wonderful works, have compelled all nations to believe either that God or that some evil power whose name was unknown presided over the affairs of the world. Now, that evil should prevail over good, and be the true supreme power, is as unmeet as it is incredible. Hence it follows, as a necessary consequence, that God exists. Again, the existence of God is further proved by that feeling, whether we term it conscience or right reason, which even in the worst of characters is not altogether extinguished. If there were |