Religion and reason adjusted and accorded, or, A discourse wherein divine revelation is made appear to be a congruous and connatural way of affording proper means for making man eternally happy through the perfecting of his rational nature with an appendix of objections from divers as well as philosophers as divines and their respective answers.

Answer.

The presumed strength of this Discourse (very ingenious and plausible, I confess) lies in the supposed Certainty of this, That every Superior Authority has power to revoke all the free Issues of its own power, unless it have abridged it self from the exercise thereof by some special Compact or Promise. But it is not so certain and undoubted a Truth, as it is taken by the quoted Author to be; for since he himself tells us, that Dominium est libertas

propriis facultatibus secundum rect am Rationem utendi, and rightly, it is evident, that no Authority has a Right to exercise Dominion otherwise than according to Right Reason; and therefore it is not only injurious to re∣voke a free Gift contrary to Compact or Pro∣mise; but also, if in any other Respect whatsoever, it be not according to Right Reason to do it, this being the absolute Rule for the exercising Dominion by; as from the following Instances will, I think, be e∣vidently made appear; the first of which shall be in a matter of small moment. A Pinner makes a Wire-pin, and when he has done, clips it into pieces, and throws it away meerly because he will, or for his sole Pleasures sake; in doing this he neither wrongs any Person, nor the Pin, because it is his own, and he made it, yet in that he does an irrational Act (in re∣gard that Reason obliges every man to act in every thing for some good End, where∣as this is plainly a vain and frivolous Action tending to no good) he violates thereby his Rational Nature, and so injures himself; which because Reason tells him he ought not to do, he exercises his Dominion over the Pin, not according to, but against Right Reason, which he is not impower'd by

the Right of Dominion to do. The second Instance shall be in a matter of moment, as follows; A Sovereign Prince has a just occa∣sion to make War against a potent Enemy, and after due Consultation had with his most wise and faithful Counsellors resolves at length on a Person undoubtedly the fit∣est in all the Kingdom to be his General, and thereupon makes him so. The Prince afterward, notwithstanding he still upon prudent grounds esteems him a Person in e∣very respect, for Fidelity, Valour and Con∣duct more requisite to be employed than a∣ny other in that Service; yet, nevertheless out of Fancy, takes his Commission from him, and bestows the Command of the Ar∣my upon another, who through his ill Ma∣nagement is occasion of its Overthrow; in this case, though the Sovereign does his Subject no wrong in removing him from the high and honourable Trust of being Gene∣ral, and conferring it on a Person far less worthy; yet nevertheless he wrongs his own Reason; and to be injurious to ones own Reason, is the principal Wrong, if well con∣sidered, that any man can do; because of the most intimate Concern to every one, as being that which does Violence to Man's very Natural Constitution, which is Rational

and thence becomes the Original of all Inju∣ry, which any one does, either to himself or others. The third and last Instance, of many that might be brought, shall be in God himself, in manner following: Suppose the Almighty when he created the World to act therein (as sure 'twill be readily granted he did) according to exact Wisdom, and that there is no less Reason to continue it being made, then there was at first to make it; God in this case could not reduce it again to nothing without contradicting his own Reason, which because it is impossible for him to do▪ it's impossible likewise to annihilate the Universe upon the ac∣count of its being the free Product of his Will; not but that he has strength infinitely more then is sufficient to do it, but (foras∣much as the Universe is the Result of his immutable Wisdom and Goodness) that it can never enter into his Thoughts to do it.

If it be asked what advantage a Man has by Propriety in a thing above another Per∣son that has no Right thereto at all, if he may not dispose of it as he pleases; I an∣swer this advantage, that he may make use of it according to Right Reason at his Plea∣sure, whereas any other who is not the Pro∣prietor, cannot, without the Owners Leave first had, ever lawfully use it at all.