short of ours; is full of Free-Thinkers and Deists. People are amaz’d at it; but for my part, I’m amaz’d that we have not more of this sort among us, considering the havock which Religion has made in the World, and the Extinction, by an almost unavoidable Consequence, of all Vertue; by its authorizing, for the sake of a temporal Prosperity, all the Crimes imaginable, Murder, Robbery, Banishment, Rapes, &c. which produce infinite other Abominations, Hypocrisy, sacrilegious Profanation of Sacraments, &c. But I leave it to my Commentary, to carry on this matter.
And the Lord said unto the Servant, Go out into the Highways and Hedges, and COMPEL THEM TO COME IN, that my House may be fill’d.
Containing a Refutation of the Literal Sense of this Passage.
PART the First.
I leave it to the Criticks and Divines to comment on this Text in their way, by comparing it with other Passages, by examining what goes before and what follows, by descanting on the Force of the Expressions in <44> the Original, the various Senses they are capable of, and which they actually bear in several places of Scripture. My design is to make a Commentary of an uncommon kind, built on Principles more general and more infallible than what a Skill in Languages, Criticism, or Common-place can afford. I shan’t even inquire, why JESUS CHRIST might make choice of the Expression Compel, how soft a Construction we are oblig’d to put on it, or whether there be Mysterys conceal’d under the Rind of the Expression; I shall content my self with overthrowing that literal Sense which Persecutors alledg.
To do this unanswerably, I shall go upon this single Principle of natural Reason; That all literal Construction, which carries an Obligation of committing Iniquity, is false. St. Austin gives this as a Rule and Criterion for discerning the figurative from the literal Sense.35 JESUS CHRIST, says he, declares that unless we eat the Flesh of the Son of Man, we cannot be sav’d. This looks as if he commanded an Impiety; it’s therefore a Figure which enjoins our partaking of the Lord’s Death, and bearing in continual remembrance to our exceeding Benefit and Comfort the crucifying and wounding his Flesh for us. This is not the place to examine, whether these words prove St. Austin was not of the opinion of those of the Church of Rome, or whether he rightly applies his Rule: It’s enough, that he reasons on this fundamental Principle, this surest Key for understanding Scripture, That if by taking it in the literal Sense we oblige Men to commit Iniquity, or, that I may leave no room for an Equivoque, oblige ’em to commit Actions which the Light <45> of Nature, the Precepts of the Decalogue, or the Gospel Morality forbid; it’s to be taken for granted, that the Sense we give it is false, and that instead of a Divine Revelation, we impose our own Visions, Prejudices, and Passions on the People.
God forbid I shou’d have a thought of stretching the Rights of natural Reason; or of the Principles of Metaphysicks, to such a length as your Socinians, who pretend that all Sense given to Scripture, not agreeable to this Reason or to these Principles, is to be rejected; and who in virtue of this Maxim refuse to believe the Trinity and Incarnation. No, this I can’t come up to, without boundary and limitation. Yet I know there are Axioms against which the clearest and most express Letter of the Scriptures can avail nothing: as, That the Whole is greater than the Part; That if from equal things we take things equal, the remainder will be equal; That ’tis impossible Contradictorys shou’d be true; or, that the Accidents of a Subject shou’d subsist after the Destruction of the Subject. Shou’d the contrary be shewn a hundred times over from Scripture, shou’d a thousand times as many Miracles as those of Moses and the Apostles be wrought in confirmation of a Doctrine repugnant to these universal Principles of common Sense; Man, as his Facultys are made, cou’d not believe a tittle on’t, and wou’d sooner persuade himself either that the Scriptures spoke only by Contrarys, or only in Metaphors, or that these Miracles were wrought by the Power of the Devil, than that the Oracles of Reason were false in these Instances. This is such a Truth, that those of the Church of Rome, as much interested as they are to sacrifice their <46> Metaphysicks, and render all Principles of common Sense suspect, confess that neither Scripture, nor Church, nor Miracles, are of any force against the clear Light of Reason, against this Principle, for example, The Whole is greater than its Part. We may consult P. Valerien Magni, a famous Capucine, on this point, in the 8th and 9th Chapt. of the first Book of his Judgment concerning the Rule of Faith of Catholicks.36 And lest it be objected, that this is but one Doctor’s Opinion, and to avoid citing a vast number of other Catholick Authors, I shall take notice in general, that all the Controvertists of this side deny that Transubstantiation is repugnant to sound Philosophy; and frame a thousand Distinctions, a thousand Subtletys, to shew it does not overthrow the Principles of Metaphysicks. The Protestants, in like manner, will ne’er allow the Socinians, that the Trinity or Incarnation are contradictory Doctrines; they alledg and maintain that this cannot be prov’d upon ’em. Thus the whole Body of Divines, of what Party soever, after having cry’d up Revelation, the Meritoriousness of Faith, and Profoundness of Mysterys, till they are quite out of breath, come to pay their homage at last at the Footstool of the Throne of Reason, and acknowledg, tho they won’t speak out (but their Conduct is a Language expressive and eloquent enough) That Reason, speaking to us by the Axioms of natural Light, or metaphysical Truths, is the supreme Tribunal, and final Judg without Appeal of whatever’s propos’d to the human Mind. Let it ne’er then be pretended more, that Theology is the Queen, and Philosophy the Handmaid; for the Divines themselves <47> by their Conduct confess, that of the two they look on the latter as the Sovereign Mistress: and from hence proceed all those Efforts and Tortures of Wit and Invention, to avoid the Charge of running counter to strict Demonstration. Rather than expose themselves to such a Scandal, they’l shift the very Principles of Philosophy, discredit this or that System, according as they find their Account in it; by all these Proceedings plainly recognizing the Supremacy of Philosophy, and the indispensable Obligation they are under of making their court to it; they’d ne’er be at all this Pains to cultivate its good Graces, and keep parallel with its Laws, were they not of Opinion, that whatever Doctrine is not vouch’d, as I may say, confirm’d and register’d in the supreme Court of Reason and natural Light, stands on a very tottering and crazy Foundation.
If we inquire into the true reason hereof, ’tis this, that there being a distinct and spritely Light which enlightens all Men the moment they open the Eyes of their Attention, and which irresistibly convinces ’em of its Truth; we must conclude, it’s God himself, the essential Truth, who then most immediately illuminates ’em, and makes ’em perceive in his own Essence the Ideas of those eternal Truths contain’d in the first Principles of Reason, or in the common Notions of Metaphysicks. Now why shou’d he act thus with regard to these particular Truths; why reveal ’em at all times, in all Ages, and to all Nations of the Earth, provided they give but the least Attention, and without leaving ’em the liberty of suspending their Judgment: why I say, shou’d he thus deal with Mankind, but to give him a standing Rule <48> and Criterion for judging on all the Variety of other Objects,
