11. Enthusiasm fails of evidence, that the proposition is from God.
In all that is of divine revelation, there is need
of no other proof but that it is an inspiration from God: for he can neither deceive nor be deceived. But how shall
it be known that any proposition in our minds is a truth infused by God; a truth that is revealed to us by him,
which he declares to us, and therefore we ought to believe? Here it is that enthusiasm fails of the evidence it
pretends to. For men thus possessed, boast of a light whereby they say they are enlightened, and brought into the
knowledge of this or that truth. But if they know it to be a truth, they must know it to be so, either by its own
self-evidence to natural reason, or by the rational proofs that make it out to be so. If they see and know it to be a
truth, either of these two ways, they in vain suppose it to be a revelation. For they know it to be true the same way
that any other man naturally may know that it is so, without the help of revelation. For thus, all the truths, of what
kind soever, that men uninspired are enlightened with, came into their minds, and are established there. If they say
they know it to be true, because it is a revelation from God, the reason is good: but then it will be demanded how
they know it to be a revelation from God. If they say, by the light it brings with it, which shines bright in their
minds, and they cannot resist: I beseech them to consider whether this be any more than what we have taken
notice of already, viz., that it is a revelation, because they strongly believe it to be true. For all the light they speak
of is but a strong, though ungrounded persuasion of their own minds, that it is a truth. For rational grounds from
proofs that it is a truth, they must acknowledge to have none; for then it is not received as a revelation, but upon
the ordinary grounds that other truths are received: and if they believe it to be true because it is a revelation, and
have no other reason for its being a revelation, but because they are fully persuaded, without any other reason, that
it is true, then they believe it to be a revelation only because they strongly believe it to be a revelation; which is a
very unsafe ground to proceed on, either in our tenets or actions. And what readier way can there be to run
ourselves into the most extravagant errors and miscarriages, than thus to set up fancy for our supreme and sole
guide, and to believe any proposition to be true, any action to be right, only because we believe it to be so? The
strength of our persuasions is no evidence at all of their own rectitude: crooked things may be as stiff and
inflexible as straight: and men may be as positive and peremptory in error as in truth. How come else the
untractable zealots in different and opposite parties? For if the light, which every one thinks he has in his mind,
which in this case is nothing but the strength of his own persuasion, be an evidence that it is from God, contrary
opinions have the same title to be inspirations; and God will be not only the Father of lights, but of opposite and
contradictory lights, leading men contrary ways; and contradictory propositions will be divine truths, if an
ungrounded strength of assurance be an evidence that any proposition is a Divine Revelation.
