The New Gospel

The evidence of our Savior’s mission from heaven is so great, in the multitude of miracles that he did, before all sorts of people, that what he delivered cannot but be received as the oracles of God, and unquestionable verity.

How any man who should inquire and know for himself can content himself with a faith or belief taken upon trust, is to me astonishing. 

Faith is nothing but a firm assent of the mind; which if it be regulated, as is our duty, cannot be afforded to anything but upon good reason … Nothing that is contrary to, and inconsistent with, the clear and self-evident dictates of reason, has a right to be urged or assented to as a matter of faith.

There was no part of mankind, who had quicker parts, or improved them more; that had greater light of reason, or followed it farther in all sorts of speculations, than the Athenians …  [But] ‘tis not enough, that there were up and down scattered sayings of wise men … these incoherent apothegms of philosophers and wise men, however excellent in themselves, and well intended by them, could never make a morality, whereof the world could be convinced … Nobody that I know, before our Savior’s time, ever did, or went about to give us a morality … Such an one [morality] as this out of the New Testament, I think the world never had, nor can any one say is any where else to be found.

He that will carefully peruse the history of mankind, and look into the several tribes of men, and with indifferency survey their actions, will be able to satisfy himself, that there is scarce that principle of morality to be named, or rule of virtue to be thought on, (those only excepted that are absolutely necessary to hold society together, which commonly too are neglected betwixt distinct societies,) which is not, somewhere or other, slighted and condemned by the general fashion of whole societies of men, governed by practical opinions and rules of living quite opposite to others.

I may grow rich by an art that I take not delight in; I may be cured of some disease by remedies that I have not faith in; but I cannot be saved by a religion I distrust and by a worship that I abhor.  It is in vain for an unbeliever to take up the outward show of another man’s profession … In vain, therefore, do princes compel their subjects to come into their Church communion, under the pretense of saving souls.  If they believe, they will come of their own accord, if they believe not, their coming will nothing avail them.

If a Roman Catholic believe that to be really the body of Christ which another man calls bread, he does no injury thereby to his neighbor.  If a Jew do not believe the New Testament be the Word of God, he does not thereby alter anything in men’s civil rights.  If a heathen doubt both Testaments, he is not therefore to be punished as a pernicious citizen.  The power of the magistrates and the estates of the people may be equally secure whether any man believe these things or no.  I readily grant that those opinions are false and absurd.  But the business of laws is not to provide for the truth of opinions, but for the safety and security of the commonwealth and of every particular man’s goods and person.  And so it ought to be.  For the truth certainly would do well enough if she were once left to shift for herself. 

Those are not to be tolerated who deny the being of a God.  Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon the atheist.  The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all.

Reason must be our last judge and guide in everything.  I do not mean that we must consult reason, and examine whether a proposition revealed from God can be made out by natural principles, and if it cannot, that then we may reject it: but consult it we must, and by it examine whether it be a revelation from God or no; and if reason finds it to be revealed from God, reason then declares for it as much as for any other truth, and makes it one of her dictates.