A Body of Divinity, Vol. 1 (of 4): Wherein the doctrines of the Christian religion are explained and defended, being the substance of several lectures on the Assembly's Larger CatechismRidgley, Thomas
Religion
A Body of Divinity, Vol. 1 (of 4): Wherein the doctrines of the Christian religion are explained and defended, being the substance of several lectures on the Assembly's Larger Catechism
2. That they intend hereby to depreciate divine revelation, and then the
sense thereof is this; that though the light of nature leads mankind
into such a degree of the knowledge of divine truths, as is sufficient,
in its kind to salvation; so that they, who are destitute of divine
revelation, may thereby understand the terms of acceptance with God, and
the way which, if duly improved, would lead to heaven; yet God was
pleased to give some farther discovery of the same things by his word,
and, in this sense, the one is only an improvement upon the other, as it
makes the same truths, which were known, in some degree, without it more
clear, and frees them from those corruptions, or false glosses, which
the perverse reasonings of men have set upon them; whereas we, by
insisting on inexplicable mysteries, which we pretend to be founded on
divine revelation, though, in reality, they are not contained in it,
cloud and darken that light, and so make the way of salvation more
difficult, than it would otherwise be; and this certainly tends to
depreciate divine revelation, how plausible soever the words, at first
view, may appear to be; for it supposes those doctrines but now
mentioned, and many others of the like nature, not necessary to
salvation; so that this objection takes its first rise from the Deists,
however it may be applied, by the Anti-trinitarians, in militating
against the doctrine of the Trinity. Therefore, since it is principally
designed to overthrow this doctrine, by supposing it to be
unintelligible, and consequently, according to their method of
reasoning, in no sense the object of faith, the only reply which need be
made to it is, that the discoveries of the glory of God, by the light of
nature, are, in some respects, as incomprehensible as the doctrine of
the Trinity; which we are not, for that reason, obliged to disbelieve,
or reject; and therefore there is no advantage gained against our
argument, by supposing that the light of nature contains a discovery of
truths, plain, easy, and intelligible by all, in the full extent
thereof, and that the doctrine of the Trinity is otherwise, and
consequently must not be contained in divine revelation, and, as such,
cannot be defended by us.
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