Robert South · 21 of 24

A Sermon Preached Before the University at St. Mary’s Church, Oxon, on an Act-Sunday. · Part 2

1. For the first extreme, Socinianism. Faustus Socinus seems to have been a person so qualified by Providence with a competent stock of parts and measure of reason, (for the man was no miracle, either in divinity or philosophy,) to shew, how wofully such an one (being left to himself) might blunder, and fall short of the right notions of religion, even in the plainest and most important points of it. He was indeed so bred and principled by his uncle Lelius, that Satan thought him a fit instrument for the advancement of the light of reason above that of revelation, by making (as he notoriously did) the former the sole judge of the latter. Socinus’s main design (or pretence at least) was to bring all the mysteries of Christianity to a full accommodation with the general notions of man’s reason; and so far the design was no doubt fair and laudable enough, had it kept within the bounds of a sober prosecution. For that which is contrary to reason cannot be true in religion; nor can God contradict that in the book of his revealed word, which he had writ before in the book of nature: so much, I say, is certain, and cannot be denied. Nevertheless, a little reason will prove also, that many things may seem contrary to reason, which yet really are not so; and where this seeming contrariety is, the question will be, whether revelation ought to control reason, or reason prescribe to revelation; which indeed is the very hinge upon which the whole Socinian controversy turns.

But to proceed, and shew that even Socinianism itself, by a kind of antiperistasis, took its rise from Popery, as the occasion or accidental cause of it, it is to be observed, that those nice, bold, and unjustifiable notions, which many of the schoolmen had advanced concerning the divine essence and persons, (things which the mind of man can form to itself no express idea, nor consequently any clear comprehensive knowledge of,) caused in Socinus such an high loathing of and aversion to that whole scheme of Christian theology which then obtained in the world, that, breaking through all, he utterly denied the divine nature of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; and so exploded the whole doctrine of the Trinity, as no part or article of the Christian religion; frequently alleging also, that the urging the necessity of believing notions so contrary (as he pretended) to the discourses and maxims of natural reason, mightily scandalized and kept off the Jews, Turks, and rational infidels from embracing Christianity. And this consideration he laid no small stress upon.

But in answer to it; by his favour, the contrariety of the notions here excepted against to the maxims of natural reason (as confidently as it has been all along supposed by him) was never yet proved; and as for the offence taken at it by Jews and Turks, he might have remembered, that the doctrines preached by St. Paul himself found no better acceptance, as being to the Jews a stumblingblock, and to the Greeks foolishness; but neither by him who preached it, nor by those who received it, at all the less valued for its being so: and certainly the Christian church would make but an ill bargain, to barter away any one article of her faith, to gain either Turk or Jew: and I shrewdly guess, that the Jews themselves understood bargaining too well, to part with their Moses for a Socinian Christ. But further, as touching this heresy: the time when it was vented in the world is no less observable than the instruments by whom; Satan suiting the work he had to do to the peculiar qualification of the age which he was to do it in. For as the schoolmen, who were the greatest and most zealous promoters of the papal interest, sacrificing both reason and religion to the support of it, were in the highest vogue for some ages before; so the age wherein it began to decline and go downwards had entertained a general contempt of, and aversion to, that sort of learning, as may appear out of Sir Thomas More’s Defence of Erasmus, and other critics, against Dorpius, a great patron and admirer of school-divinity. And as for Socinus himself, the Polonian who wrote his life testifies, illum scholasticam theologiam nunquam attigisse. Thus therefore was he qualified, it seems, to baffle the learned part of the world; and having made his first adventure in denying Christ’s divinity, and bringing it much lower than ever Arius did, the denial of his satisfaction unavoidably followed; no mere creature being able, in a strict sense, to merit of God, and much less to satisfy for sin. So that we see here how Satan, under the plausible plea of reason, introduced a doctrine into the world, which has shook every article of our faith; and in the full compass of it grasps in the most considerable heresies that ever were; especially those two topping ones of Photinianism and Pelagianism. And whosoever shall, by a true and impartial logic, spin it out into its utmost consequences shall find, that it naturally tends to, and inevitably ends in, the destruction of all religion: and that where Socinianism has laid the premises, atheism cannot be kept out of the conclusion. But now, that even reason itself is but pretended only, and not really shewn in the doctrines of Socinus, give me leave to demonstrate in one or two instances, instead of many more that might be assigned.

1. That this doctrine asserts Christ to be a mere creature, and yet ascribes to him divine worship, and that both as to adoration and invocation; and this upon absolute and indispensable necessity. So that whereas Socinus says, that the Jews and Turks are so scandalized at our asserting Christ’s deity, I am sure, that, by a peculiar and better grounded aversion, they are more scandalized at idolatry. And if Socinus will advance this proposition, that Jesus Christ is not by nature God, let Jews, Turks, and all infidels of common sense alone to make the assumption, that then he is not to be worshipped with divine worship. Christianus Francken shame fully baffled Socinus upon this head. And it is impossible for him, or any of his tribe, to maintain it. But,

. This doctrine asserts also, that God cannot certainly foreknow future contingents; as Socinus positively concludes in the eleventh chapter of his Prelections; where, in answering, or rather eluding such scriptures as declare the contrary, he all along with a bold impiety degrades the divine knowledge into mere conjecture, and no more; and so ranges the all-knowing God with the heathen oracles, soothsayers, and astrologers, not allowing him any preeminence above them, but only a better faculty at guessing than they had. So that hereby the here tic is either for giving us a deity without infinite perfection, or an infinite perfection without a power of infallible prediction, or an infallibility of prediction without any certain knowledge of the thing foretold: which, amongst other wretched consequences, must needs render God such a governor of the world, as, in those many important affairs of it, depending upon the free motions of man’s will, shall not be able to tell certainly what shall come to pass in it, so much as one day before it actually happens. He may indeed, as I shew before, shrewdly guess at events, (and so may a wise man too,) but further than guessing he cannot go. All which are such monstrous assertions, and so scandalously contumelious to the divine nature and attributes, and yet so inevitably resulting from the position first laid down by him, that nothing can equal the profaneness of them, but the absurdities.

As for several others of the Socinian errors; to wit, about the nature of the sacraments, the divine covenants, the ministry, and the church, with sundry other parts of divinity, I purposely omit them; and mention only these two, as being in themselves not grosser errors in divinity, than inconsistencies in philosophy. So that upon this turn at least we may worthily use that remark of Grotius, in his book concerning the satisfaction of Christ; Mirum esse, toties a Socino ostentari rectam rationem, ostendi nusquam. But to shew compendiously how he stabs, not only the Christian, but also all religions, by one assertion; we must know, that the chief corner stone laid by him in this supposed rational (and by some so much adored) doctrine, is his affirming, that by the light of natural reason no man can know that there is a God; as you may see in the second chapter of his aforementioned Prelections. For the proof of which, amongst other places of scripture, he wrests and abuses that in Heb. xi. 6, where the apostle tells us, that he who comes to God must believe that he is. Mark it, says Socinus; it is here said only, that he must believe this, not that he must know, or scientifically assent to it. But by his favour, as this is not here said, so it is as true that it is not here denied. And this new teacher of the world should, one would think, have known, that the words πίστις and πιστεύω, belief and believe, are not always used in a strict philosophical sense, for an assent upon testimony, in contradistinction to an assent upon grounds of science; but generally, and at large, for any firm assent, whether upon one account or the other. I say, as this is certain from the use of the word in common speech, so there is nothing to prove, that the apostle in this sixth verse of the aforementioned chapter uses it otherwise than in this general, popular, and more enlarged sense. Nevertheless, admitting, but not granting, that he took the word in this text, in the strict philosophical sense of it, for an assent upon testimony, must this therefore exclude all assent upon scientifical grounds? Whereas it is certain, that the same thing may be the object both of our knowledge and belief; and that we may assent to the same proposition, upon the discourses of reason, drawn from the nature of the things contained in that proposition; and withal, upon the affirmation of one, whom, for his knowledge and veracity, we know worthy to be believed. No true philosopher, I am sure, (which Socinus never was,) either will or can deny this.

But on the contrary, and in opposition to these new notions, I shall proceed further, and venture to affirm, that to believe that there is a God, only because God says so, is a mere petitio principii, and manifestly circular and ridiculous; as supposing, and taking for granted, the very thing, which as yet is under inquiry, and ought to be proved. For the being of a God is the thing here to be proved; and the testimony of God, whereby it is to be proved, must presuppose, or rather imply the antecedent being of him whose testimony it is. Supposing therefore, that the first revelation made to man of the being of God, (for it is of that only we now speak,) was by an express, audible declaration of himself to be God; yet this bare affirmation could not of itself, and in the way of a testimony, oblige a man to believe or assent to the thing affirmed, while he was yet ignorant who or what he was, from whom it proceeded. For surely, in order of nature, I must know that it is God who says a thing, before I can believe it true, because God says it. Otherwise, suppose some angel had affirmed himself to be God, as the Devil in effect did, when he challenged to himself the dominion and disposal of all the kingdoms of the world, and required divine worship of our Saviour thereupon; none certainly will pretend that such a declaration could oblige our assent. But when God affirmed or declared himself to be God, in the first age or ages of the world, no doubt this declaration was made in such a transcendent and supernatural way, and with circumstances so wonderfully glorious and extraordinary, that he or they to whom it was made, and Adam in particular, could not but perceive that the person making it was a being much above the condition of a creature, and consequently God. And such an acknowledgment of, or assent to the being of a God, was really an act of knowledge, as inferring the cause from the effect; and that too, such an effect, as could issue from nothing but such a cause. For which reason, the assent given in this case could not be founded upon bare testimony, nor be formally an act of belief, but an act properly and strictly scientifical. From all which I conclude, that it is absurd and irrational to suppose, that we can believe the being of a God upon the bare affirming this of himself, unless we have some precedent or concomitant knowledge, that the person so affirming it is God. And this utterly overthrows the assertion of Socinus; that the being of a God is knowable only by faith, or belief. An assertion much fitter to undermine than establish the belief of a Deity upon the true grounds of it; but it was perhaps for this very purpose that he intended it.

And thus much for the first extreme mentioned; by which Satan has poisoned the principles and theoretick part of religion; though the poison will be found of that spreading malignity, as to influence the practick too. And so we come to the

Second extreme mentioned; under which, as an angel of light, he more directly strikes at the practice of religion; and that is enthusiasm. A thing not more detestable in its effects, than plausible in its occasion. For men being enraged at the magisterial imposing of traditions upon them, as a rule of faith equal to the written word, and being commanded withal to submit their reason to the cheat of an infallible interpreter, they too naturally struck off to his extreme, to slight and lay aside the judgment of all antiquity, and so to adhere only to the bare letter of the scripture; and then, both to secure and authorize their errors, they made their own reason, or rather humour, (first surnaming it the Spirit,) the infallible, unappealable judge of all that was delivered in the written word. And now upon these terms, what could keep a man so disposed from coming over to Socinianism; since the prime art and engine made use of by Socinus himself, for the venting of all his abominations, was a professed defiance of the judgment of all antiquity in matters of religion? And what likewise could hinder a man (if his temper inclined that way) from taking up in anabaptism, when he could neither find any clear precept for infant baptism, nor express instance of it in the scripture; but only probable inferences from thence, and remote consequences; all of them perhaps too little, without the universal tradition of the church, to found the necessity and perpetuity of such a practice upon? Especially having been encountered by such specious objections, as have been too often produced against it. And thus we see, how both the two forementioned extremes commence upon one and the same principle; to wit, the laying aside the judgment of antiquity, both in matters of faith, and in all expositions of scripture: but Socinianism being, as was observed, an heresy much too fine for the gross and thick genius of vulgar capacities, the Devil found it requisite sometimes to change his engine, and amongst such as these to set up his standard in Familism, or enthusiasm. A monster, from whose teeming womb have issued some of the vilest, the foulest, and most absurd practices and opinions, that the nature of man (as corrupt as it is) was ever poisoned and polluted with. For these enthusiasts having first brought all to the naked letter of scripture, and then confined that letter wholly to the exposition of the Spirit, (as they called it,) they proceed further, and advance this mystery of iniquity to its highest ἀκμὴ, by asserting the immediate indwelling of the said Spirit in their persons; so that by his impulse and authority they may, like Abraham, Phinehas, or Ehud, be carried out to actions, otherwise, and in other men, indeed unlawful, but in themselves sufficiently warranted by the Spirit’s dispensing with his own laws in their behalf, and much more with the laws of men; besides that, according to the same doctrine, he only who has this Spirit can be a competent judge of what is suggested to him by it. A principle of that diabolical malignity, that it sets men beyond all reach of the magistrate, and frets asunder the very nerves of all government and society. For it owns an impulse lawful, and yet unaccountable; whereby they are empowered to shake off laws, invade the rights and properties of all about them, and, if they please, to judge, sentence, and put to death kings; because the spiritual man, forsooth, judgeth all things., but himself is judged of none. And these were the persons who would needs set up for the new lights of this last age: blazing comets always portending, or rather causing wars and confusions both in church and state; first setting all on fire, and then shining by the flames they raised. But light, as we have seen, being so often made the Devil’s livery, no wonder if his servants affect to be seen in it.

And now, after this short view of Popery and enthusiasm, I hope I shall not incur the suspicion of any bias to the former, if (as bad as it is) I prefer it to the latter, and allow it the poor commendation of being the less evil of the two. I confess, that under both, the great enemy of truth strikes at our church and state; and that whether he acts by the fanatic illuminati or by Vaux’s lantern, the mischief projected by him is the same; there being in both a light (and something else) within, for the blowing up of churches and kingdoms too. Nevertheless, if we consider and compare these two extremes together, we shall find enthusiasm the more untractable, furious, and pernicious of the two, and that in a double respect.

1. That the evils of Popery are really the same in enthusiasm. And

2. That the little good which is in Popery is not in this.

And first; that the evils of both are equal, may appear upon these two accounts.

1. That the enthusiasts challenge the same in fallibility which the papal church does, but are more intolerable in their claim; for Popery places it only in one person, the pretended head of the church, the pope; but enthusiasm claims it, as be longing to every Christian amongst them, every particular member of their church. So that upon a full estimate of the matter, the papacy is only enthusiasm contracted, and enthusiasm the papacy dif fused; the evil is the same in both, with the advantage of multiplication in the latter. But

2. Both of them equally take men off from the scriptures, and supplant their authority. For as one does it by traditions, making them equal to the written word; so the other does it by pretending the immediate guidance of the Spirit, without the rule of the said word. For see with what contempt the father of the Familists, Henry Nicholas, casts off the use and authority of it. See also the Quakers, (who may pass for the very elixir, the ultimum quod sic, and hitherto the highest form of enthusiasts amongst us.) See, I say, how they recur only to the light within them; a broad hint to men of sense and experience, how they intend to dispose of the scriptures, when the angel of this light within them shall think fit to screw them up to an higher dispensation; for then no doubt they will judge it convenient to bury this dead letter out of their sight. But,

2. As for the other proposition mentioned by us, viz. that the little good which is in Popery is not in enthusiasm; this will appear upon these grounds.

1. Upon a political account. The design of the popish religion is, in the several parts and circumstances of it, to reach and accommodate itself, as much as possible, to all the humours and dispositions of men: and I know no argument like this universal compliance, to prove it catholic by. So that a learned person, in his Europae Speculum, or survey of the religions of the western church, pronounces Popery, upon a strict view of the artificial, wonderful composure of the whole frame of it, the greatest piece of practical wit that was ever yet set on foot in the world. For to shew how in a depraved sense it becomes all things to all men; is any one of a pious, strict, and severely disposed mind? There are those retirements, austerities, and mortifications in this religion, which will both employ and gratify such a disposition. Or is he, on the other side, of a loose, jolly temper? Why there is that sufficiency placed in the opus operatum, and the external acts of religion, pieced out with suitable supplies from the bank of merit, which shall make the whole practice of it easy and agreeable. And lastly, if a man has lost his estate, broke his credit, missed of his preferments, failed in his projects, or the like, he may fairly and creditably take sanctuary in some monastery or convent, and so pretend piously to leave the world, as soon as he finds that the world is leaving him.

And as for the doctrinal part of the Christian religion, Escobar, with his fellow casuists, has so pared off all the roughness of that, and suited the strictest precepts to the largest and loosest consciences, that it will be a much harder matter to prove a man a sinner, than to condemn him for his being so; so carefully and powerfully do these men step in between sin and sorrow; so that if conscience should at any time become troublesome, and guilt begin to lift up its voice, and grow clamorous, it is but to go and disgorge all in confession, and then absolution issuing of course, eases the mind, and takes off all that anguish and despair, which (should it lie pent up, without vent) might overwhelm, or, as Ovid expresses it, even choke or strangle a man, and either send him to an halter, or prove itself instead of one.

And thus these spiritual sinks receive and divert all those ill humours of desperate, discontented persons, which the world will never want, and which, in all probability, would otherwise discharge and spend themselves upon the state. For he who is malecontent and desperate, will assuredly either let fall his spirit, and consume himself, or keep it up, and so (as occasion serves) wreak his spite upon the public: for spite will be always working, and either find or make itself an object to work upon. Cain was the only person I have read of, who sought to divert his discontent by building cities; but the reason was, because then there were none for him to pull down. These, I say, are some of the benefits and benign influences which the papal constitution bestows upon the outward and civil concerns of such as fall within its communion.

But on the contrary, where the quicksilver or rather gunpowder of enthusiasm (for the fifth of November must not claim it all) has once insinuated itself into the veins and bowels of a kingdom, it presently rallies together all the distempers, all the humours, all the popular heats and discontents, till it kicks down crowns and sceptres, tramples upon thrones, much like those boisterous vapours shut up within the caverns of the earth, which no sooner in spire it into a quaking fit, (as I may express it,) but it overturns houses and towns, swallows up whole cities, and, in a word, writes its history in ruins and desolations, or in something more terrible than all, called a further reformation. But,

2. Popery is likewise preferable to enthusiasm, in respect of the nature, quality, and complexion of the subjects in which it dwells.

The popish religion has not been of that poisonous influence but it has brought up men of accomplished learning and morals, of a sublime wit, and all other excellent parts and endowments, which human nature can recommend itself by: whereas enthusiasm, on the contrary, seldom or never falls upon such dispositions, but commonly takes up its abode in the gloomy regions of melancholy, of an ill habit of body, and a worse of mind; so that the spirit of darkness, brooding upon the ill humours of the one and the distractions of the other, commonly hatches this monster. For, to look back upon some of the most noted ringleaders and promoters of our late disorders in church and state, were they not such as were first under some disorder themselves? persons for the most part cracked either in fortune or in brain, acted by preternatural heats and ferments; and so mistaking that for devotion, which was only distemper, and for a good conscience, which too often proved little else but a bad constitution. And in such cases certainly we may well collect the malignity of that principle, which never dwells but in such venomous tempers; and rationally conclude that the leprosy must needs have seized the inhabitants, where the infection sticks so close to the walls.

3. Popery is likewise much more tolerable than enthusiasm, upon a religious account. The great basis and foundation upon which the whole body of Christianity rests, is the divinity of Christ’s person, the history of his nativity, life, and death, his actions and sufferings, and his resurrection and ascension concluding all. But though the popish church has presumed to make several bold additions to, and some detractions from, the old system of our faith, yet it always acknowledged and held sacred the foregoing articles, without ever venturing to make any breach upon them. Whereas on the contrary, Familism and Quakerism, the two grand and most thriving branches of enthusiasm, have reduced the whole gospel to allegories and figures; and turned the history of what Christ actually and personally did and suffered, into mystical and moral significations of some virtues to be wrought within us, or some actions to be wrought by us. And this in truth does, and must directly strike at the very vitals of our religion, and without more ado will (if not prevented) effectually send Christianity packing out of the world. Popery indeed has forced some bad consequences from good principles, but this destroys the very principles themselves.

Add to this, that the corruptions in a church are not of so destructive an influence as schisms and divisions from it, the constant effects of enthusiasm. It being much in the body spiritual as in the natural; where that which severs and dissolves the continuity of parts tends more to the destruction of the whole, than that which corrupts them. You may cure a throat when it is sore, but not when it is cut.

And so I have done with this parallel; after which, give me leave to recapitulate to you, in short, some of Satan’s principal and most specious abuses of religion, hitherto discoursed of by us. As first, how he made use of the church’s abhorrence of polytheism, for the introducing of Arianism, in the denial of our Saviour’s divinity; and next, how, upon the declension and fall of that heresy, he took occasion, from the zealous adoration of Christ’s person, to bring in a superstitious worship of the virgin Mary his mother, and of his picture in crucifixes, and the like; and so at length appeared, in Popery, a sort of religion making men in nothing more zealous than in worshipping such things. And lastly, how, when this also was shaken off, with the tales and legends that chiefly supported it, and the bare scripture, with the guidance of the Spirit, made the sole rule of faith, without the help of a pretended infallible judge, he then in the greater and more refined wits turned Socinian, and in the vulgar played the enthusiast. And thus, having pursued the impostor through all his labyrinths, pulled off his vizard, and turned his inside outwards, that we may now, by reflecting upon what is past, the better fence against his methods for the future; I shall here proceed to the third and last general head proposed, and under it very briefly set down some certain principles, by which he is likely enough to play over his old game again, and, if not counterworked, to trump up the same religious cheats upon the world, with more advantage than before. And these are eminently three.

1. The stating of the doctrine of faith and free grace so as to make them undermine the necessity of a good life. God’s mercy is indeed the crown and beauty of all his attributes, and his grace the emanation of his mercy; and whosoever goes about in the least to derogate from it, may he (for me) find no share in it. But, after all, has not the Devil endeavoured to supplant the gospel in a considerable part of it, by the very plea of grace; while some place an irreconcileable opposition between the efficacy of that and all freedom of man’s will, and thereby make those things inconsistent, which the admirable wisdom of God had made so fairly subordinate. But notwithstanding such fancies, we shall find that religion, in the true nature of it, consists of action, as well as notion; of good works, as well as faith; and that he believes to very little purpose, whose life is not the better for his belief.