But unfortunately the generality of men, instead of attempting to discover the idea attached originally to the word, affix their own arbitrary meaning to it, and reason at once from this as from the divine revelation. Great, therefore, is the caution necessary in the interpretation of a message from God. No doctrine must be deduced from it contrary to any other doctrine explicitly revealed. The whole and undivided powers of man are necessary for this work, and the great object in view ought to be, not to find tenets, which may square with our own previous prejudices, but simply to discover what it has pleased God to reveal-what His will is. When this is once ascertained, reason has done its work, and faith takes its place, and humbly embraces all that is revealed, as certain truths, founded on the sure and unerring testimony of God,

One exception alone there is to this rule, which is this, that a revelation purporting to come from God, and recommended to our notice by the performance of miracles, must not contain any proposition as an article of faith, which is contradictory to the evidence of sense. And the reason is this, that in such a case, we should have the evidence of the senses conflicting with the evidence of the senses, which would necessarily hold the mind in suspense, and prevent it from arriving at any conclusion. But as the evidence of miracles performed in attestation of the truth of revelation would, to the generality of mankind, only depend upon the veracity of human testimony, while the evidence contradictory to it would depend upon their own senses, it necessarily follows that the evidence of the latter would preponderate over that of the former, for no man SUI COMPOS can rest such confidence in the testimony of others, as in the immediate object of his senses. It is in this manner that Archbishop Tillotson has brought a decisive argument against the Romanist's doctrine of transubstantiation, an argument which no sophistry can enable him to elude, or subtlety to refute. It is acknowledged on all hands, says the learned Prelate, that the authority, either of Scripture or of tradition, is founded on the testimony of the apostles and disciples, who were eye-witnesses to those miracles of our Saviour, by which be proved his divine mission. Our evidence then for the truth

Transubstantiation has furnished the enemies of Christianity with more grounds of objection than any other doctrine ever held by the church. It is blasphemous in the extreme. It attributes the creation of God to the agency of man, and gives occasion to direct idolatry. Infidels delight in placing the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation in the same class with transubstantiation. It is seriously to be lamented that the great body of Christians, who compose the Roman Catholic church, should adhere so obstinately to this article. Adopted in a dark age, and sanctioned by the church in a rash moment, they find it impossible to renounce their error without acknowledging the fallibility of their idol. But this may be one of the hidden ways of God, by which he worketh all things for good; in all probability adherence to this article may in time prove the principal means of overthrowing the papal authority.

of

of the Christian religion is less than the evidence for the truth of our own senses, because, even in the first authors of our religion, it was not greater, and it is evident that it cannot make so vivid an impression upon those to whom it has been transmitted through the testimony of others. But a weaker evidence can never destroy a stronger, and therefore, were the doctrine of the real presence ever so clearly revealed in Scripture, it were contrary to the rules of just reasoning to give our assent to it, Nothing can be more satisfactory than this argument, which shows that it is impossible for the human mind to give its assent to any doctrine which militates rectâ fronte against the testimony of sense. But a man should most cautiously guard against confounding propositions which are beyond our comprehension, with propositions respecting which we can judge. He must be careful that he does not reason from matter to spirit, and conclude that what is false, when predicated of the former, is equally false when prcdicated of the latter. If, therefore, in the divine communication any circumstances which exceed the power of his comprehension be revealed respecting the mode in which the Deity exists, and the manner in which his attributes are exercised in the government of the world, the man whose mind is rightly constituted will receive these communications with as much confidence in their truth as he receives those which he is capable of comprehending.

In the miracles* performed, as the evidences of the truth of the Revelation, he recognizes the stamp and impress of God himself, by which he authenticates the truth of all the doctrines contained in it. He sits down therefore to the Revelation with the docility of an infant, and with true humility of spirit receives every thing, believes every thing.

Hume, the most subtle, acute, and insidious impugner of Revelation, had sagacity enough to perceive that the incomprehensibility of some points of doctrine could never form a legitimate ground of objection against a religion, the divine nature of which had been sufficiently established by miracles. He therefore boldly struck at the root of all Revelation, by holding that no human testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle. He knew the inevitable conclusion at which the human mind must arrive if the miracle be once substantiated. To prevent this he could discover no better mode than to destroy the credibility of human testimony, and, by reasoning a priori, infer the impossibility of any authentic comanu nication between God and man in past, present, or future time. How fully and satisfactorily these propositions have been refuted, we need not mention. It is sufficient for us to observe that he

• ・ Though ye believe not me, believe the works.' x John, 38.

failed to attain his object, and that the foundations on which our faith is built, remain unshaken and immoveable.

Having thus, by arguments drawn from the nature of things, our own imperfections, and limited faculties, shown the bounds within which reason should restrain itself, in judging of Revelation in general, and proved that the incomprehensibility of certain doctrines contained in it cannot form any legitimate ground of objection against a Revelation proved to be divine-we shall proceed in the next place to argue with those mistaken persons, who admit the truth of the Christian Revelation, and yet pretend to weigh the mysteries of God in the scale of human judgment, and refuse their assent to the truths he has been pleased to manifest, unless they can reconcile them to their own arbitrary principles. In addition to the arguments brought forward above, we have to oppose to these the authority of the Holy Scriptures themselves, wherein it is explicitly declared that there are mysteries contained in the Christian dispensation, which man in his present state can never comprehend. The weapons with which we shall combat these shall therefore be borrowed from the armoury of that Scripture which teaches us that the mysteries (or secret things) of God, belong unto God, but the things which are revealed, to us and our children.'* From it we learn that we walk by faith, and not by sight,' and that our faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.' For he has declared that he will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.' Thus also the apostle enjoins us not to argue from the deductions of reason on these deep things of God,' but to receive what the Holy Ghost teacheth with due humility, comparing spiritual things with spiritual." We are also taught that the natural man,'¶ who prides himself on his knowledge, does not receive the things of the Spirit of God,' and 'that they are foolishness unto him.' Moreover it is added that he must continue in ignorance of them as long as he remains thus minded, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.' The Gospel of Christ is called the 'wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory.'** The strongest metaphors that can convey the impossibility of our understanding the mode in which God exists, are used by the inspired writers, Solomon says that He dwells in thick darkness; and St. Paul, 'that His dwelling is in light which no man can approach.' is also written that we should not reason from our motives and

• xxix Deut. 29.

i. Cor. 1. 19

**i. Cor. 2. 7.

It

principles

principles of action, and conclude that God will act in the same manner as man would if placed in similar circumstances, for, says the Lord, my thoughts are not as your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways; for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.* Man can judge partly of things that pass on earth, although we must confess that many things even here exceed our powers of comprehension. But how can he ascend to the inaccessible heavens and declare what is passing there? If I have told you,' says our Saviour, earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?' In short we are explicitly informed, that no man knoweth the things of God, but the spirit of God.' When we read these and similar declarations respecting the incomprehensibility by the natural man of many doctrines contained in Revelation, can we be justified in attempting to wrest the Scriptures, in order to bring them down to the level of man's comprehension? If the Scriptures inform us that it gives occasional glances at unsearchable mysteries, should we sit down to the study of them with a predetermined resolution to prove that there are none contained in them? Is this the proper exercise of reason in judging of subjects of revelation? Is this the reception of Gospel truths with the simplicity of young children? How difficult a task it is to put off the natural man, ὡς χαλεπον εστι τον ανθρωπον εκδύναι! as an ancient philosopher exclaimed. Man carries his pride to the sanctuary of the Deity, and madly presumes that he can tear asunder the veil which intervenes between him and the deep things of God;" that his finite powers are adequate to the conception of the infinite Being and his attributes; that he can see Him with the eyes of flesh; and, with a mind drowned in blood and buried in matter,' comprehend the mysterious ways of Him whose goings forth have been from everlasting.'

In reasoning with deists,who object that the incomprehensibility of certain doctrines contained in the Christian revelation is the cause of their unbelief-we can easily show that unbelievers themselves cannot avoid, on their own principles, believing things incomprehensible. Do they admit the immateriality of the soul? In that case can they comprehend the mode in which it is united to the body, and how it operates on the senses? But perhaps

Iv. Isaiah, 8.

iii. John, 12. And yet our Saviour had then declared to Nicodemus the doctrine of regeneration, a doctrine which the Jewish Rabbi could not comprehend, and which has often been the cause of violent disputes in the church. But our Saviour intimates by the words quoted that his gospel contained doctrines far more mysterious and incomprehensible than the doctrine of regeneration.

1 Cor. ii, 11.

they

they may wish to solve this difficulty by denying its immateriality, and hold that man is only a mass of matter peculiarly organized. This however requires a greater exertion of faith than the former article, for it is absolutely impossible to comprehend how inert matter, merely by a particular arrangement of its parts, should become a sentient and rational animal. Do they allow the infinite power and infinite goodness of God? If they do, how can they reconcile these attributes with the origin of evil and the prevalence of misery in the creation? Do they with Plutarch* detract from his power that they may exalt his goodness? If so, how can they imagine an eternal self-existing cause, deprived of a perfection so necessary to the very being of a God? Can they reconcile the free agency of man with the fore-knowledge of the Deity? Or will they solve the difficulty by denying his prescience with regard to contingent events, as Carneadest and Socinus did, and thus make him, to whom all things are present, a blind guesser into futurity? Perhaps they may judge it preferable to deny the free agency of man, and make him the slave of necessity. But this supposition contains some things still more incomprehensible. For consciousness and experience alike testify that man is a free agent, and if he believe the doctrine of necessity, he must do it in opposition to the testimony of his feelings and experience. Do they believe that God is a just being? Do they also believe it to be inconsistent with justice, to punish the innocent for the crimes of the guilty, and to visit men with the consequence of a sin committed before they were born? If they believe this, how do they account for hereditary diseases, and that the lives of many of their fellow creatures have been embittered and shortened by pollutions contracted by their parents, and infused into their constitutions before their birth? If, in answer to these questions, they should adopt the opinions of Epicurus, § and withdraw Divine

Μύρια γαρ ην επιεικέστερον ασθένεια και αδυναμία του Διος εκβιαζόμενα τα μέρη πολλά δράν άτοπα, παρα την εκείνου φυσιν και βουλησιν, η μηλε ακρασίαν είναι μητε κακουργιαν είναι, ής ουκ εστιν Ζευς αιτιος. Plutarch adversus Stoicos, p. 1076.

+ Dicebat Carneades, ne Apollinem quidem futura posse dicere, nisi ea, quorum causas natura ita contineret, ut ea fieri necesse esset. Quid enim spectans deus ipse diceret Marcellum, qui ter consul fuit, in mare esse periturum? Erat quidem hoc verum ex æternitate, sed causas id efficientes non habebat.-Cicero de Fato, cap. 14.

In arguing against the doctrine of necessity the ancient philosophers always took it for granted, that some things are in our power, because we have from experience and consciousness as strong evidence of this as we can have of the truth of any proposition. It is thus that Carneades argues :-Cicero de Fato, cap, 14. Si omnia antecedentibus causis fiunt, omnia naturali colligatione conserta contextaque fiunt. Quod si ita est, omnia necessitas efficit. Id si verum est, nihil est in nostrâ potestate. Est autem aliquid in nostrâ potestate. At si fato omnia fiunt, omnia causis antecedentibus fiunt, non igitur fato fiunt, quæcunque fiunt.

§ Epicurus reasoned thus; Deus aut vult tollere mala et non potest, aut potest et

non