Animadversions on a treatise entitled Fiat lux, or, A guide in differences of religion,…Animadversions on a treatise intituled Fiat lux, or, A guide in differences of religion,…

Religion, say Protestants, is revealed in the Scripture, proposed to the minds and wills of men for its entertainment by the Ministry of the Church; Grace to Believe, and Obey, is supernaturally from God; but, as to the Proposals of Religion from Scripture, they aver, that men ought to admit and receive them as men, that is, judge of the sense and meaning of them, discover their truth, and finding them revealed, acquiesce in the Authority of him by whom they are first revealed. So far as men, in any things of their concernments that have a moral good or evil in them, do refuse, in the choice or refusal of them, to exercise that judging and discerning, which is the proper work of Reason, they un-Man themselves, and invert the order of Nature; dethroning the [Greek or Hebrew] of the Soul, and causing it to follow the faculties that have no light but what ⟨p. 192⟩they receive by and from it. It's true, all our carnal reasonings against Scripture-Mysteries, are to be captivated to the Obedience of Faith; and, this is highly reasonable, making only the less, particular, defective collections of reason, give place to the more noble, general and universal principles of it. Nor is the denying of our reason any where required, as to the sense and meaning of the words of the Scripture, but as to the things and matter signified by them. The former, Reason must judge of, if we are men; the latter, if, in conjunction with unbelief and carnal lusts, it tumultuate against it, is to be subdued to the Obedience of Faith. All that Protestants in the business of Religion ascribe unto men, is but this, that in the business of Religion they are, and ought to be men; that is, judge of the sense and truth of what is spoken to them according to that Rule which they have received for the measure and guide of their Understandings in these things. If this may not be allowed, you may make a Herd of them, but a Church never.

Religion, say Protestants, is revealed in the Scripture, proposed to the minds and wills of men for its entertainment by the Ministry of the Church; Grace to Believe, and Obey, is supernaturally from God; but, as to the Proposals of Religion from Scripture, they averre, that men ought to admit and receive them as men, that is, judge of the sense and meaning of them, discover their truth, and finding them revealed, acquiesce in the Authority of him by whom they are first revealed. So far as men, in any things of their concernments that have a moral good or evil in them, do refuse, in the choice or refusal of them, to exercise that judging and discerning, which is the proper work of Reason, they un-Man themselves, and invert the order of Nature; dethroning the of the Soul, and causing it to follow the faculties that have no light but what