might have decreed, or yet may decree it when he pleaseth.

The second principle or supposition in this place to be handled, is, Whether the almighty Creator did de facto decree or ordain that neither the perseverance or non-perseverance of the first man, or of our first parents, should be absolutely necessary, but contingent.' Or, in other terms, thus; That the estate or condition wherein they were created might have continued to this day for them and their successors undefeatable.' That their perseverance, or the perseverance of their posterity in the state of righteousness wherein they were created, was not necessary by any divine ordinance or decree, is clear from the event; because the first man and the first woman did fall de facto from the estate wherein they were created; which neither of them could have done, if their first estate had been by virtue of the Almighty's decree, or any ordinance from him immutable or absolutely necessary. But can it be as strongly proved, that the fall of our first parents, or their eating of the forbidden fruit, did not proceed from any necessitating decree, or undefeatable contrivance of the almighty Creator's wisdom? To persuade men which have not their senses exercised in points of logical or scholastic disputes, that the fall of our first parents was not necessary, no, not in respect of the divine decree or ordinance, would be a harder task, than to prove that their perseverance was not in respect of that decree necessary. That our first parents did fall from their estate is a question of fact, of which every honest good man may be a competent judge, at least able enough to resolve himself. But whether it was as possible for them not to have fallen as it was to fall, is quæstio juris, or more than so, a point of metaphysical or theological disquisition,

wherein it would be very hard to find a grand-jury of professed divines in any one county almost throughout this kingdom, which could be competent judges or fit inquisitors: not that they want either skill or industry for interpreting sacred scripture, which is the only true rule of faith and manners, aright; but for want of skill or memory in secular arts, how to examine or determine what consequences or inferences are consonant or dissonant to the undoubted rule of faith, or to the unquestionable maxims contained in it. For deciding or waving such controversies as are emergent not so much out of the sense of scriptures, as out of such inferences or consequences (whether negative or affirmative) as contentious or unresolved spirits would fasten upon it, recta ratio, that is, reason regulated by rules of unquestionable arts or sciences, is the most competent judge. That there is but one God and one Lordthat the only God is a God of goodness, and willeth no wickedness-are positive points of faith and Christian belief, fundamental maxims in theology. To dispute or move any question directly about the truth or limitation of these maxims would be a branch of infidelity, or, which perhaps is worse, an approach to blasphemy.

CHAP. V.

Of the right Use of Reason, or Rules of Art for determining Controversies in Divinity, whereof the sacred Scripture is the sole Rule.

10

of arts in

1. BUT admit this maxim, There is but one God, of the use and he a God of goodness, no author or abettor of evil, discussing were undoubtedly believed by all, yet this inference or consequence might be (as it hath long time been) con-ology. troversed, whether he that avoucheth, This only God

to have decreed the fall of the first man to have been

controversies in the

necessary or inevitable,' might be demonstratively convinced to make him the author and cause, the only cause of the first man's sin, and of all the sins which necessarily issue from it, or from the nature of man corrupted by it. For the full resolution of this question, the sacred scriptures are not the sole competent judge or rule. Nor doth the determination of it belong to the cognizance of such as are the best interpreters of sacred writ, for the true grammatical or literal sense of every proposition contained in it. This case must be reserved to the schools of arts, or to the certain rules of true logic and philosophy, which are the best guides of reason in all discursive faculties. But here I am engaged to do that which in other cases I have endeavoured to avoid; that is, to make repetition of two great problems in the science or faculty of theology, heretofore in their several places handled, and in some ensuing meditations to be hereafter inculcated. The first problem is, 'In what sense, or with what limitations, the scripture is held by all reformed churches to be the only rule of faith' the second,' In what sense, or how far it is true, that recta ratio, reason rectified or rightly managed, may be admitted a competent judge in controversies belonging to the faculty of theology.'

2. To the first problem- In what sense the scripture is held by us to be the sole and competent rule of faith and manners'-I have no more to say for the present, than hath been long ago published in the second book of these Commentaries upon the Apostles' Creed, sect. 1. ch. 11. The sum of all in that place delivered, is, to my best remembrance, this: No Christian is bound to admit or receive any doctrine or proposition as an article of his faith, unless it be contained in the Old or New Testament, either totidem verbis, or may be concludently or demonstratively deduced

from some sacred maxim or proposition expressly contained in the canonical books in the Old and New Testament. Such maxims as are expressly and plainly contained in scripture, every Christian man is bound to believe absolutely. But such propositions or conclusions as may be demonstratively inferred from canonical unquestionable maxims, they are only bound absolutely to believe which have so much use of reason or skill in arts, as may enable them clearly to discern the necessity of the consequence, or concludent proof of the deduction. The ignorant or illiterate are only bound to believe such deductions conditionally, or to practise according to their teachers' instructions, with such reservation, or under such conditions, as have been expressed in the second and third book of these Commentaries".

3. But what propositions, though expressly contained in scriptures, be negative or affirmative, universal, indefinite, particular, or singular; or how any or all of these be convertible, whether absolutely, by accident, or by contraposition; or how to frame a perfect syllogism out of them: these or the like are points which the Holy Ghost, who spake by the prophets and 11 other penmen of sacred and canonical writ, did never undertake or profess to teach. The discussion or determination of questions of this nature must be had from the rules of reason, sublimated or regulated by good arts or faculties. And for the bettering or advancing of natural reason in this search, the most learned or most sanctified Christian this day living, should be very unthankful to the only Lord his Redeemer and Sanctifier, if he do not acknowledge it as an especial branch of his all-seeing providence in raising up unto the world such lights of nature and guides e See the second book, chap. 2. and 4. &c.

Obliquity

of reason, as Aristotle, Plato, and others of the ancient philosophers were. True reason in whomsoever seated, whether in the natural or regenerate man, unless it be advanced and guarded by such rules of arts as these sages of the old world have by God's providence invented or bettered, can be no fit judge, but being so advanced and guarded, is the most competent judge of controversies in divinity; of such controversies, I mean, as arise from consequences or deductions, made by way of use or application out of the uncontroverted maxims of sacred writ. And if we would sequester grammatical or rhetorical pride, and partiality to the several professions wherein respectively men glory, we might easily discern all or most of those unhappy controversies which have set the Christian world for these late years in combustion, to have been hatched, maintained, and nourished by such pretended favourites of the Spirit, as either never had faithfully learned any true logic, philosophy, or ingenuous arts, or else had utterly forgotten the rules which they had learned or heard, before they begun to handle controversies in theology, or entertain disputes about them.

4. The hypothesis, for whose clearer discussion can have no these last theses have been premised, is this; 'Whe

other cause

which is the

act whence

rily results.

beside that ther it being once granted or supposed, that the cause of the Almighty Creator was the cause either of our mother it necessa- Eve's desire, or of her actual eating of the forbidden fruit, or of her delivery of it to her husband, or of his taking and eating it, though unawares; the same Almighty God must not upon like necessity be acknowledged to be the author of all the obliquities which did accompany the positive acts, or did necessarily result from them?' This is a case, or species facti, which we cannot determine by the rule of faith: it must be tried by the undoubted rules of logic, or