Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Cristian life | Page 9

by going about to prove it to them: because those who are uncapable of long deductions of Reason, or attending to a train of Arguments, not finding the force thereof when offer'd to prove what they had always taken for a clear, and obvious verity, would be rather taught thereby to suspect that a Truth which they had hitherto look'd on as unquestionable, might rationally be doubted of, than be any ways confirm'd in the belief of it. But if any doubts concerning the Existence of God, do arise in their Minds, when they own this, or that this, can be discover'd by discoursing with them: such doubts should always be endeavour'd to be remov'd by the most solid Arguments of which Children are capable. Nor should They ever be rebuk'd for having those doubts; since not giving leave to look into the grounds of asserting any Truth, whatever it be, can never be the way to establish that Truth in any rational Mind; but, on the contrary, must be very likely to raise a suspicion that it is not well grounded.
The belief of a Deity being entertain'd; what should be first taught us should be what we are in the first place concern'd to know.
Now it is certain that what we are in the first place concern'd to know, is that which is necessary to our Salvation; and it is as certain that whatever God has made necessary to our Salvation, we are at the same time capable of knowing. All Instruction therefore which obtrudes upon any one as necessary to their Salvation, what they cannot understand or see the evidence of, is to that Person, wrong Instruction; and when any such unintelligible, or unevident Propositions are delivered to Children as if they were so visible Truths that a reason, or proof of them was not to be demanded by them, what effect can this produce in their Minds but to teach them betimes to silence and suppress their Reason; from whence they have afterwards no Principle of Vertue left; and their practices, as well as opinions, must needs (as is the usual consequence hereof) become expos'd to the Conduct of their own, or other Men's Fancies?
The existence of God being acknowledg'd a Truth so early receiv'd by us, and so evident to our Reason, that it looks like Natural Inscription; the Authority of that Revelation by which God has made known his Will to Men, is to be firmly establish'd in People's Minds upon its clearest, and most rational evidence; and consequentially They are then to be refer'd to the Scriptures themselves, to see therein what it is that God requires of them to believe and _to do_; the great Obligation they are under diligently to study these Divine Oracles being duly represented to them. But to exhort any one to search the Scriptures to the end of seeing therein what God requires of him, before he is satisfy'd that the Scriptures are a Revelation from God, cannot be rational: since any ones saying that the Scriptures are God's Word, cannot satisfy a rational and inquisitive Mind that they are so: and that the Books of the Old and New Testament were dictated by the Spirit of God, is not a self evident Proposition, but a Truth that demands to be made out, before it can be rationally assented to.
It should also be effectually Taught, and not in Words alone, That it is our Duty to study and examine the Scriptures, to the end of seeing therein what God requires of us to _believe_, and to do. But none are effectually, or sincerely taught this, if notwithstanding that this is sometimes told them, they are yet not left at liberty to believe, or not believe, according to what, upon examination, appears to them to be the sense of the Scriptures: for if we must not receive them in that sense, which, after our best inquiry, appears to us to be their meaning, it is visible that it signifies nothing to bid us search, and examine them.
These two things, _viz._ a rational assurance of the Divine Authority of the Scriptures, and a liberty of fairly examining them, are absolutely necessary to the satisfaction of any rational Person, concerning the certainty of the Christian Religion, and what it is that this Religion does consist in: and He who when he comes to be a Man, shall remember that being a Boy he has been check'd for doubting, instead of being better inform'd when he demanded farther proof than had been given him of the Divine Authority of the Scriptures: or that he has been reprehended for thinking that the Word of God contradicted some Article of his Catechism; has just ground, when he reflects thereupon, to question, whether or no,