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Corollary
From what has been said it is quite clear, as it seems to us, that the Physiology which lays out the true order and constitution of the Natural world must underpin moral Philosophy. For such a Physics is nothing other than acquaintance with the mind which most perfectly rules all things; and anything certain found in natural Theology that is not known to us from Physical Principles can be quickly completed. Socrates is said to have been the first to bring Philosophy down from the stars to the earth and the life of men.16 But nothing certainly could have been more acceptable to him than a Physiology which does not simply explicate the Mechanism of the world, but above and beyond that, makes a particular point of showing how it is that nature does nothing in vain and whence the splendour and beauty of the whole world has arisen. He himself shows us in Plato’s Phaedo why he disdained the Physics that flourished in his time. This true Philosopher desiderated a Physics that should point out the causes of things, that should first say whether the earth is flat <12> or round, and when it had pronounced on this, should add the reason and the necessity, and should deal with other natural things in exactly the same way, affirming that which is better and that it is better that it should be so.17 This is the genuine Physiology which we owe above all to the quite wonderful penetration of the Great NEWTON.
ANNEXES
1. The will of the great and good GOD about what is to be done and what not to be done, is known to us by nature uniquely from the fact that certain things are wicked and disgraceful by nature, others beautiful and good; and therefore we infer the divine moral will from the natural turpitude or goodness of actions, and we do not, as some prefer to think, deduce the natural turpitude or goodness of actions from the divine will.
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2. If there is any certain mark by which the true may be discriminated from the false, by the same mark the right is discriminated from the wrong.
3. What nature itself teaches us is bad or good, right or wrong, receive their obligatory force, properly so called, from the divine will.
4. Unless man was obligated to discern the moral laws, he could not have been obligated to follow them.
5. Neither Understanding nor will can be compelled.
6. That alone which harms the state is liable to a civil penalty.
7. The right to do or not to do at our discretion is to be regarded as derived from GOD no less than the obligation to do or not to do; there are therefore laws which are purely permissive.
8. All dominion over things and persons derives from GOD.
9. All rights belonging to men by nature are inalienable by contract.
10. One who is in severe need has a right to other people’s property, exactly as if it had not been occupied by another.
11. Without divine inspiration no man becomes truly good, pious or brave.
[print edition page 75]
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NOTE ON THE TEXT
The manuscript of Turnbull’s “The Religion of the State” is incomplete. It consists of two four-leaf quires, the first lacking the first leaf. We have therefore supplied the title, which is taken from Turnbull’s letter to Lord Molesworth, 14 May 1723, above, p. 13. In the manuscript, pages 3–16 are paginated, whereas the “Postscript” is unpaginated. We have included continuous pagination in our transcription. Although there is no explicit indication of authorship in the manuscript and the handwriting differs from that found in Turnbull’s letters, there are good reasons to think that the manuscript is a version of the “Small Treatise” Turnbull mentions to Molesworth. First, the manuscript is part of a collection of papers (AUL MS 3107/1–9) discovered at the University of Aberdeen in 1982 that illustrates various phases of the Aberdeen Enlightenment. The provenance of the manuscript thus points to an author who, like Turnbull, worked in Aberdeen during the course of the eighteenth century. Secondly, internal evidence points to the likelihood that Turnbull wrote the manuscript, notably the stylistic mannerisms that Turnbull derived from the writings of Shaftesbury and the use of quotation marks to enclose loose paraphrases of material cited from other writings. Moreover, the author’s emphasis on the use of reason in religion and the stress placed on practical morality are consistent with the view of religion expounded in Turnbull’s writings and reflect the religious preoccupations found in his roughly contemporaneous letters to Toland and Molesworth. Furthermore, the references to “the principles & offices of honesty & vertue” and to “sociality” (pp. 82, 84) speak to Turnbull’s interest in Cicero and the natural law tradition. Last, the attack on the blending of scholastic metaphysics with theology and the view of pedagogy advanced in the manuscript also resonate with Turnbull’s vision of a liberal education. We therefore believe that the manuscript can be identified as a copy of Turnbull’s “Small Treatise.”
[print edition page 78]
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MS: AUL, MS 3107/6/14.
The Religion of the State
… if I cannot see reason to rely upon it, but reject it, what ever the consequences may be. To beleive is either no act of a reasonable mind at all, or it is an act of the judgment & understanding faculty. And therfore to beleive without seeing reason to bel<e>ive is to see without seeing, or understand without understanding. So that when I beleive a doctrine to be true, I see reason to rely upon the certainty of what it contains: & when I beleive it to be false, I must perceive good reason to reject & despise it. And in order to a reasonable reception or contempt of any proposition offered to my consideration all that is in my power to do is to rub up my intellect carefully & set it a canvassing the matter with all the strictness & attention I am capable of. And whatever be the effect of that it is as necessary and inevitable, as it is for mee to see green or yellow when such colours are realy presented to my sight. In one word faith must be either reasonable or unreasonable & when it is built upon no reasons it is most certainly sensless and unreasonable & there is no way to make it reasonable but by giving reason full power over it to let it out & keep it in warm it & cool it at his pleasure. Any other guide but reason & understanding must be something different from reason & understanding & consequently something that neither reasons nor understands & that of course can produce nothing that is either wise or reasonable.
This, my Freind, is the summ of the whole affair that concerns the nature of faith & the plain consequence of it is that in order to beleive with reason & judgment I must be convinced & that there is no possible way to promote any reasonable faith but by giving free reins to fair reasoning and argument <4>
So that for the magistrate to pretend to propagate any reasonable faith by cajolling its pretended admirers & affronting & persecuting those who
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neglect & despise it: Or to think that they can realy do any benefit to the reasons & judgements of men by these methods is just as wise as if they should take it in their heads to teach men merchandize & the affairs of trade by whipping & scourging them instead of excercising them to accompts & real trafeck: Or to make men see in the dark & while their eyes are shoot give
