From John Dryden’s Religio Laici, Preface
So that we have not lifted up our selves to God, by the weak Pinions of our Reason, but he has been pleased to descend to us: and what Socrates said of him, what Plato writ, and the rest of the Heathen Philosophers of several Nations, is all no more than the Twilight of Revelation, after the Sun of it was set in the Race of Noah. That there is some thing above us, some Principle of motion, our Reason can apprehend, though it cannot discover what it is, by its own Vertue. And indeed ’tis very improbable, that we, who by the strength of our faculties cannot enter into the knowledge of any Beeing, not so much as of our own, should be able to find out by them, that Supream Nature, which we cannot otherwise define, than by saying it is Infinite; as if Infinite were definable, or Infinity a Subject for our narrow understanding. They who wou’d prove Religion by Reason, do but weaken the cause which they endeavour to support: ’tis to take away the Pillars from our Faith, and to prop it only with a twig: ’tis to design a Tower like that of Babel, which if it were possible (as it is not) to reach Heaven, would come to nothing by the confusion of the Workmen. For every is Building a several way; impotently conceipted of his own Model, and his own Materials: Reason is always striving, and always at a loss, and of necessity it must so come to pass, while ’tis exercis’d about that which is not its own proper object. Let us be content at last, to know God, by his own Methods; at least so much of him, as he is pleas’d to reveal to us, in the sacred Scriptures; to apprehend them to be the word of God, is all our reason has to do; for all beyond it is the work of Faith, which is the Seal of Heaven impress’d upon our humane understanding.