The Christian Life Part 2 Volume 1, Part 2 · Chapter 2
CHAP. II. Concerning Religion; What it is, and what things are Necessary for the founding and securing its Obligations.
HAVING in the foregoing Chapter briefly discoursed concerning the Nature of Moral Goodness, and shewn that it is the principal Part of Religion, it will be requisite in the next place to explain what Religion is, that so from thence we may collect what things are necessary to the founding and securing its Obligations, which will be the Subject of the ensuing Chapters.
RELIGION in the General respects God as the Object and Centre of all its Acts and Offices. For upon Supposition that there is such a Being as a God, and that there are such Beings as reasonable Creatures, or capable Subjects of Religion, it will necessarily follow that there must be some Religion or other to tie and oblige these Creatures to that God. For by God we mean a Being that hath all possible Perfection in him, and is the supreme Cause and Fountain of all other Being and Perfection; and such a Being we must needs acknowledge doth not only deserve the worthiest Acts of Religion that reasonable Creatures, who alone are capable of understanding his Worth, can render to him, but hath also an unalienable Right to exact and require them; and that not only upon the Account of his own essential Desert (for whatever he deserves he hath a right to demand) but also upon Account of the Right he hath to reasonable Creatures, who owe their Beings to him and all their Capacities of serving him, and so cannot dispose of themselves without manifest Injury to him contrary to his Will and Orders. By reasonable Creatures we mean Beings that are derived from God and are indowed by him with a Capacity of understanding him and themselves; and such Creatures must necessarily stand obliged to render him such Acts as are sutable to and due Acknowledgments of the Perfections of his Nature and their own Dependence upon him; and this Obligation is that which we call Religion. Which word according to Lactantius lib. 4. Divin. Institut. c. 28. is derived a religando, from binding or obliging us to God. So that true Religion in the general is the Obligation of Reasonable Creatures to render such Acts of Worship to God as are sutable to the Excellency of his Nature and their Dependence upon him. Which Definition includes both the Doctrines and Dutuies of Religion. For the Doctrines are the Reasons by which it obliges us to the Duties; and as there is no Duty in Religion but what derives its Tie and Obligation from some Doctrine contained in it, so there is no Doctrine in Religion but what ties and obliges us to some Duty that is enjoyned in it. When therefore I call Religion an Obligation, I include in that term all those Doctrines of it concerning God, his Nature, and his transactions with his Creatures, which are the reasons by which we stand obliged to render all acts of Worship to him. But for the better understanding of the nature of true Religion, it is necessary we should distinguish it into natural and revealed. By natural Religion I mean the Obligation which natural Reason lays upon us to render to God all that Worship and Obedience which upon the consideration of his Nature and our dependence upon him it discovers to be due to him. For God having planted in us a rational Faculty, by the due exercise of which we are naturally lead into the belief of his Being, the sense of his Perfections and the acknowledgment of his Providence, he expects we should follow it as the Guide and Directory of our lives and actions; and whatsoever this Faculty doth naturally and in its due exercise dictate to us, is as much the voice of God as any revelation. For whatever it naturally dictates, it must dictate by his direction who is the Author of its Nature, and who having framed it to speak such a sense and pronounce such a judgment of things, hath thereby put his word into its mouth and doth himself speak through it as through a standing Oracle which he hath erected in our breasts on purpose to convey and deliver his own Mind and Will to us. So that whatsoever natural Reason rightly exercised teaches us concerning God and our Duty towards him, is true Religion, and doth as effectually bind and oblige us to him as if it had been immediately revealed by him. It teaches us that God is infinitely wise and just and powerful and good; that he is the Fountain of our Beings, the disposer of our Affairs, and the Arbitrator of our Fate both here and hereafter; and by these Doctrines it obliges us to admire and adore him, to fear and love him, to trust and obey him. And this is natural Religion, which consists of such Doctrines as natural Reason teaches us concerning God and his Nature and Providence, and of such Duties as it infers from those Doctrines and inforces by them; and all the Doctrines of this Religion upon which it founds its Duties, being eternal verities, as they must necessarily be being all deduced from the immutable Natures of God and things, all the Duties of it must be morally, that is eternally good and reasonable, because those Doctrines are the eternal Reasons upon which they are founded and by which they oblige. So that whatsoever is a Duty of natural Religion must oblige for ever, because it obliges by an eternal Reason, and so can never be dispensed with or abrogated 'till the Natures of things are cancell'd and reversed, and eternal Truths are converted into Lies.
IN short therefore, natural Religion hath only natural Reason for its rule and measure; which from the Nature of God and things deduces all those eternal Reasons by which it distinguishes our Actions into honest and dishonest, decorous and filthy, good and evil, necessary and sinful. For it doth not make them good or evil by judging them so, but if it judgeth truly, it judges of them as it finds them; and unless it finds them good or evil in themselves upon some eternal Reason for or against them, its judgment is false and erroneous. So that the objective goodness or evil that is in the actions themselves is the measure of our Natural Reason, but our natural Reason judging truly concerning them is the measure of our choice or refusal of them; for be our action never so good or evil in it self, unless we have some eternal reason for or against it, we cannot judge it so; and unless we judge it so, we cannot reasonable choose or refuse it; but as soon as ever we have judged and pronounced it good or evil upon an eternal reason, we stand obliged by that Judgment to do or forbear it. So that right Reason pronouncing such actions good and such evil, is the Law of Nature, and those eternal Reasons upon which it so pronounces them are the Creed of Nature, both which together make natural Religion. And by this Religion was the World Governed, at least the greatest part of it., for some thousands of Years; till by long and sad Experience it was found too weak to correct the errors of mens Minds, and restrain the wild extravagancies of their Wills and Affections; and then God out of his great pity to lost and degenerate Mankind, vouchsafed to us the glorious Light of revealed Religion, which in the largest acceptation of it includes all natural Religion, as well the credenda as agenda, the Doctrines as the Duties of it; both which are contained in that Revelation of his Will which God hath made to the World, to which it hath superadded sundry Doctrines and Duties of supernatural Religion.
BUT strictly speaking, revealed Religion as it is distinguished from natural, consists of such Doctrines and Duties as are knowable and discoverable only by Revelation; as are not to be deduced and inferred by reasoning and Discourse from any necessary or natural Principles, but wholly depend upon the counsel and good Will of God. And where things depend intirely upon Gods Will, and their Being or not Being lies wholly in his free disposal, it is impossible that our natural Reason should ever arrive at the knowledge of them without some Revelation of his Will concerning them. For in such matters as these where the Will of God is absolutely free, Reason without Revelation hath neither necessary nor probable Causes and Principles to argue from, and therefore can make neither certain Conclusions nor so much as probable guesses concerning them, but must necessarily remain altogether in the dark till such time as God hath revealed to it which way his Will is determined; and of such matters as these consists all revealed Religion strictly so called. For tho God hath made sundry Revelations of his Will, yet the subject matter of them was for the Main always the same, viz. the Doctrine of the Mediation of Jesus Christ, and the Duties that are subsequent thereunto, which from that Promise which God made to Adam upon his Fall, the seed of the Woman shall break the Serpents head, to the last promulgation of the Gospel, hath been the great Theme of all divine Revelation. For what else was that Revelation which God made to Abraham, in thy Seed shall all the Nations of the Earth be blessed, but only the dawning of the Gospel? which is nothing but glad tidings of the Mediator. What was the Law of Moses but only the same Gospel shining through a Cloud of Types and symbolical Representations; and what are all the succeeding Prophesies of the Old Testament but only the same Gospel still shining clearer and clearer till at last it broke forth in its Meridian brightness? And were this a proper place, I think I could easily demonstrate that from Adam to Moses, from Moses to the Prophets, from the Prophets to Jesus Christ, the main Scope and Design of all Divine Revelation, hath been the gradual Discovery of this great Mystery of the Mediation. So that revealed Religion was for the matter of it always the same, tho it was not always revealed with the same Perspicuity, but clear'd up by degrees from an obscure Twilight to a perfect Day. Wherefore Christianity which in strictness is nothing but the Doctrine of the Mediation together with its appendant Duties, ought not to be lookt on as a new Religion of 1600. years Date, for in reality 'tis as ancient as the Fall, and was then Preached to Adam in that dark and Mysterious Promise; after which it was a little more clearly repeated, tho very obscurely still, in God's Covenant with Abraham; and again, after that it was much more amply revealed in the Types and Figures of the Law of Moses, which yet like painted Glass in a Window did under their Pompous Shew still darken and obscure the holy Mysteries within them, which were nothing but the Doctrines and Laws of the Christian Religion. So that Judaism was only Christianity vail'd, and Christianity is only Judaism revealed.
THUS The Religion of the Mediator, you see, was the principal Subject of all divine Revelation; and this without Revelation natural Reason could never have discovered, because the whole of it depended upon the free will of God. For whether he would admit of any Mediator or no; whether he would admit his own Son to be our Mediator or no; whether he would deposit such inestimable Blessings for us or no in the hands of our Mediator, was intirely left to his free Determination; and there was no necessary cause either within or without him, no nor any probable one neither, that humane Reason could ever have discovered, that could incline or determine him one way or t'other. So that till such time as he revealed his Will to us, we were left utterly in the dark as to this matter, and had no manner of Principles to argue from, or so much as to guess by. This therefore is strictly the revealed Religion as it stands in opposition to the natural. But since together with revealed Religion God hath put forth a second Edition of natural, which was almost lost and grown out of Print through the wretched Negligence and Stupidity of Mankind; and since he hath not only revealed them together but also incorporated them into one; Religion as it is now framed and constituted by this happy Conjunction of natural with revealed, may be thus defined, It is the Obligation of Rational Creatures to render such acts of Worship to God through Jesus Christ as he himself hath instituted, and as are in their own Natures sutable to his Excellencies and their dependence upon him. Where by acts of Worship I do not mean such only as are immediately directed to and terminated upon God, as all those are which are contained in the first Table of the Decalogue; but all those acts in general which God hath commanded, which being performed upon a Religious account, that is, out of Homage and Obedience to Gods Will and Authority, are as truly and properly acts of Worship to him as Prayer or Praise or Adjuration.
AND now having given this short account of the nature of Religion, it will from hence be easie to collect what Principles are necessary to the founding and securing its Obligations; for
First, GOD being the great Object of all Religion, it must be absolutely necessary in order to our being truly Religious that we believe that God is.
Secondly, RELIGION being an Obligation of us to God; that this Obligation may take effect upon us, it is necessary we should believe that he concerns himself about us, and consequently that he Governs the World by his Providence.
Thirdly, RELIGION obliging us to render all due acts of Worship to him, to inforce this Obligation upon us, it is necessary we should believe that he will certainly reward us if we render those acts to him, and as certainly punish us if we do not.
Fourthly, THESE acts of Worship which Religion obliges us to, being such as are suitable to the Excellency of Gods Nature, to enable us to fulfil this Obligation it is necessary we should have right Apprehensions of the Nature of God.
Fifthly, RELIGION obliging us to render all these Acts of Worship to God in and through Jesus Christ, to our performing this it is necessary we should believe in his Mediation.
THESE are the great Principles in which all the Obligations of Religion are founded; and therefore in order to the through fixing those Obligations upon mens Minds, it will be necessary before we proceed to the particular Duties which Religion obliges us to, to discourse of these Principles distinctly.