For the knowledge we have that this
revelation came at first from God can never be so sure as the
knowledge we have from the clear and distinct perception of the
agreement or disagreement of our own ideas: v.g. if it were revealed
some ages since, that the three angles of a triangle were equal to two
right ones, I might assent to the truth of that proposition, upon
the credit of that tradition, that it was revealed: but that would
never amount to so great a certainty as the knowledge of it, upon
the comparing and measuring my own ideas of two right angles, and
the three angles of a triangle. The like holds in matter of fact
knowable by our senses; v.g. the history of the deluge is conveyed
to us by writings which had their original from revelation: and yet
nobody, I think, will say he has as certain and clear a knowledge of
the flood as Noah, that saw it; or that he himself would have had, had
he then been alive and seen it. For he has no greater an assurance
than that of his senses, that it is writ in the book supposed writ
by Moses inspired: but he has not so great an assurance that Moses
wrote that book as if he had seen Moses write it. So that the
assurance of its being a revelation is less still than the assurance
of his senses.
5. Even original revelation cannot be admitted against the clear
evidence of reason.
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