If, in my succeeding observations, I refer to the opinions held by any
other sect than that in which I have been educated, I wish it to be
understood, that it is neither to approve nor censure. Believing, (as I
sincerely do,) that christianity consists not in forms or observances;
neither in subscriptions to curiously contrived creeds, nor in
confessions of faith; but in that worship which purifies and cleanseth
the heart; so I believe that he who ministers to a congregation in this
spirit, (whatever may be his name among men,) ministers profitably; "and
that both he that soweth, and he that reapeth, may rejoice together."
In reading your sermons, it evidently appears that you have imbibed the
notions of a sect, who attribute much more to reason, than any other
christian society, and you have asserted that you are unable to believe
any thing which you cannot bring down to the level of your own
understanding;[8] yet you believe in direct revelation, and with
singular inconsistency assert that all your discourses are from its
immediate dictates, and without the intervention of any other cause;
thus calling upon your auditors to assent to that which you assert to be
impossible; for by no process of human reason can the reality of your
revelations be tested, and if they are assented to, it must be by faith
alone.
Footnote 8:
See Letter to Dr. Atlee. "I admit that I did assert and have long done
it, that we cannot believe what we do not understand." This assertion
is in curious contrast to some others which he has made. In a
discourse before alluded to, he has declared the miraculous birth of
our Saviour to be impossible; and in his letter to Thomas Willis, he
says, that after believing in the miracle for many years, he has read
the ancient History of the Church and the Evangelists with a view to
this subject, and that according to his best judgment, Jesus Christ is
the son of Joseph; yet he declares in the same letter, that he still
retains his original belief: thus proving that he has a mind capable
of believing not only what he does not understand, but also against
the convictions of his understanding.
I know that you have been hailed as an _efficient fellow labourer_ in
destroying our belief in some doctrines which are considered as
fundamental by almost every christian sect, and I am apprehensive that
this applause has stimulated you to greater daring: but you ought to
recollect how much easier it is to destroy than to build up, and you may
be assured that when the work of destruction is accomplished, your
services will be at an end: your coadjutors have too much understanding
not to perceive, that you have not sufficient knowledge to aid in
erecting the building which is to be raised on the ruins, and that you
are without the skill necessary to give uniformity to its appearance, or
embellishment to its parts. When the temple of reason is finished and
dedicated, you may be permitted to worship in its vestibule, but will
never be called upon to administer the rites at its altar.
It seems, however, that you are not quite ignorant of the apparent
inconsistency of these contradictory assertions, and it is proper that
your explanations should be fairly examined, that we should endeavour to
ascertain what you really mean by the word _reason_, and how it is to be
applied to your own inspirations: in order to do this, it will be
necessary to quote your own words.
In a discourse delivered in New York, you say, "Now we learn as rational
creatures, that God spoke to the Israelites not only as such, but that
he always addresses us as rational creatures. Were we not rational
creatures we could not understand; for nothing is a recipient for the
spirit of God but the rational soul, and therefore we are always to
understand him rationally; for this is _according to the nature of
things_."
In this remark, the only novelty is, the confusion in which your ideas
are involved; for I cannot believe there were any of your audience so
ignorant as not to know that it is _according to the nature of things_,
that as we were created rational creatures, we should be addressed as
such; and that if we were without understanding, we could not
understand.
Again you say, "as reason is a dormant principle without revelation, so
when God is pleased to reveal things unto the immortal souls of the
children of men, they are then seen rationally: and then reason has an
opportunity to exercise its _balancing and comparing principle_ in man,
and therefore there is a two-fold revelation to man."
You surely cannot intend to persuade us, that reason has always been
dormant without revelation, or you must yourself be ignorant, or believe
that we are ignorant, of the writings handed down to us, and which
sufficiently attest the powers of the human mind, even when
unilluminated by the revelations of the Gospel, and in the darkest ages
of Paganism. And if, as I suppose, you meant to limit this dormant
principle, (as you call it,) to the revelations of the spirit, you
involve it in absurdity. We will now examine your propositions, and
endeavour to discover the deductions to be drawn from them. You say that
reason is a dormant principle without revelation:--when any thing is
revealed by God, it is seen rationally;--that then reason is to exercise
its balancing and comparing principle, and the result is, that there is
a two-fold revelation in man.
We have heretofore been taught to believe, that the only way in which we
can arrive at a knowledge of the truth of any thing by our reason, is by
the deductions drawn from the ideas which have been impressed on our
minds by the use of our natural faculties; and that revelation is a
special communication, in a manner independent of these faculties. But
admitting that all the theologians and metaphysicians who have preceded
you, have been in error, and that you alone are acquainted with the
nature and operation of the faculty of reason, in what does it result?
Why, when the Almighty reveals any thing to our souls, He, by another
revelation, enables us to examine and discover whether the first
revelation is right; but you have not told us, by which we are to be
governed, if they differ. If you say they always accord, then a two-fold
revelation is superfluous, and you admit that "our Creator never deals
superfluously with us;"[9] and if they should disagree, how are we to
decide? Your great and leading maxim, "that for which a thing is such,
the thing itself is more such," will not apply, for both revelations are
immediate and from the same source; and it will be necessary for the
_numerous[10] converts_ which your maxim has made, again to apply to you
to solve the difficulty. Can folly itself believe that the truth of any
thing revealed to our immortal souls by infinite wisdom, requires
confirmation; or that if it does, that confirmation can be found in the
authority from which it was first derived? And is it not extraordinary,
that any individual can go on day after day, and year after year,
professing to explain to us the nature and object of revelation, and the
use of our reason when applied to it; and yet not know, that divine
revelation must be immutably true, and that as it is communicated in a
way wholly unconnected with our reason, all reasoning upon it is vain.
Whether the revelation is from a divine source is another question, and
one which our reason may sometimes enable us to resolve.
Footnote 9:
See sermon preached in Philadelphia, page 8.
Footnote 10:
See letter to Dr. Atlee.
In the discourse you delivered at Newtown in Bucks County, you enter
more largely on this subject; and as it seems to comprise all your
notions in relation to reason, as connected with our religion, it is
proper to examine it with particular attention.
You say, "Right reason is as much a gift of God, as any gift that we can
receive: therefore, nothing but the rational soul is a recipient for
divine revelation; and when the light shines upon it and shows any
object, reason brings it to the test. If it is kept in right order, and
under the regulating influence of the divine law, it brings things to
balance, and it is brought to know every thing which may rise up,
although at first sight. If it will not accord with right reason, we
must cast it off as the work of Antichrist. All that the Almighty
requires of us, will always result in reality; and we are not to believe
any thing which does not so result. Here now we see how easy it is to go
along, if we pursue the right course; but as free agents, we can reason
ourselves into the belief that wrong is right."[11]
Footnote 11:
See sermons, page 207.
I have perused this passage with great attention, and so far from
discovering any thing to enable me to get easily along, it appears to be
wholly inexplicable. I have examined it as a whole, and in its different
divisions, without being able to arrive at any result. In this
perplexity I recollected that I was, in my youth, in company with
several ancient friends, when some discussion occurred respecting the
true interpretation of a passage in a book which was the subject of
conversation. An individual present, with some flippancy observed, that
he had read it with great attention both backwards and forwards several
times, and thought he was able to explain it; when he was interrupted by
a venerable old man, who with admirable gravity of countenance and
simplicity of manner, said "He wished the friend to inform the company,
in which way of reading, he understood it best." But here even this
novel experiment must fail, and had the ingenious expounder tried it on
the passage I have quoted, I fear he must have confessed it was equally
unintelligible in either way; and that, being contrary to all reason, it
must, if examined by the severity of your own rule, be deemed the work
of Antichrist.
If you had said that no revelation can be the suggestion of infinite
wisdom, if contrary to right reason, it would have been intelligible and
true: but if the divine light really discovers any thing to us, we want
no test to confirm it. Again you say, that reason, if kept under the
regulating influence of the divine law, will know everything that rises
up at first sight; but that as free agents, we can reason ourselves into
a belief that wrong is right. Now what kind of reason can this be? It
does seem that reason is given to us because we are free agents, and
that it would be a very useless gift were it otherwise: and we do know
that this faculty is improved by observation and experience, and that so
far from its enabling us to know every thing at first sight, it is by
study and meditation that our knowledge is extended, and that at last,
we know but little. But the reason of which you speak, is a reason that
arrives at all knowledge without deduction, and can act and determine
with unerring certainty, although contrary to that reason which is given
to us as free agents. It must follow, that the faculty which you call
reason, is an instinct never before known to exist; or that all this
circumlocution ends in the production of one of those phantasms which
are sometimes engendered by the imagination, and which has persuaded you
that two inspirations are necessary to confirm our belief, that they are
distinct in their nature, and that one of them is right reason.
When the sensations occasioned by the sonorous voice in which the
pompous terms _analogy of reason, rational souls, and recipients for
truth_ are delivered, have passed away; and we seriously meditate the
manner in which they are applied; low indeed must that man be in the
scale of intellectual being, who does not discover that all "is but as
sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal."