ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 299 



somewhat of Pythagoras, and the other wise men of Greece, and 

 believed them to have been great men ; but that they held a cer- 

 tain fantastical thing, which they called law and morality, in 

 too great veneration and esteem." g We cannot doubt, there- 

 fore, that a large part of the moral law is too sublime to be at- 

 tained by the light of nature : though it is still certain, that men, 

 even from the light and law of nature, have some notions of vir- 

 tue, vice, justice, wrong, good, and evil. 



We must observe, that the light of nature has two significa- 

 tions; i. as it arises from sense, induction, reason, and argu- 

 ment, according to the laws of heaven and earth ; and 2. as it 

 shines in the human mind, by internal instinct, according to 

 the law of conscience, which is a certain spark, and, as it were, 

 a relic of our primitive purity. And in this latter sense, 

 chiefly, the soul receives some light, for beholding and discern- 

 ing the perfection of the moral law ; though this light be not 

 perfectly clear, but of such a nature as rather to reprehend vice 

 than give a full information of duty; whence religion, both 

 with regard to mysteries and morality, depends upon divine 

 revelation. 



Yet the use of human reason in spiritual things is various, 

 and very extensive: for religion is justly called a reasonable 

 service.* The types and ceremonies of the old law were ra- 

 tional and significative, differing widely from the ceremonies of 

 idolatry and magic : which are a kind of deaf and dumb show, 

 and generally uninstructive even by innuendo. But the Chris- 

 tian faith, as in all things else, excels in this, that it preserves the 

 golden mean in the use of reason, and dispute the child of rea- 

 son, between the laws of the heathens and of Mahomet, which 

 go into extremes : for the heathen religion had no constant be- 

 lief or confession, and the Mahometan forbids all disputes in re- 

 ligion : whence one appears with the face of manifold error, the 

 other as a crafty and subtile imposture ; whilst the sacred Chris- 

 tian faith both receives and rejects the use of reason and dis- 

 pute under due limitation.* 



The use of human reason in matters of religion is of two 

 kinds ; the one consisting in the explanation of mysteries, the 

 other in the deductions from them. As to the explanation of 

 mysteries, we find that God himself condescends to the weak- 

 ness of our capacity, and opens his mysteries, so as they may be 

 best understood by us ; inoculating, as it were, his revelations 



