must be inconfiftent with a greater height than our own, before we can pronounce that it is impoffible for infinite wisdom to see a reason for fo acting. Even in the course of worldly transactions, how often has a man of sense accounted for imputed abfurdity of conduct, and, by fhewing us the grounds of his action, extorted our applause where we had before been too liberal of our cenfure? The reasons which influence man are intelligible to man, and therefore, when affigned, may indemnify his act; but the reasons of the conduct of our infinite Maker muft be incommunicable, because unintelligible to our faculties, unless our minds were enlightened above our sphere; that is, unless mankind were placed higher in the chain of intellectual beings, which fomewhere requires the existence of fuch a creature, and fo fhould not be man. We cannot then argue, from any idea we are able to form of any attribute of God, to the action properly proceeding from it; and therefore can never deny an act, by himself ascribed to any of his attributes. Has infinite mercy let loofe the bloody tyrant to fcourge mankind? Or does infinite juftice choofe to afflict the meek and benevolent heart? Can the affumption of flesh, and fubjection to the infirmities of man, be imputed to the wifdom of God? Or does infinite power and glory beam from a helpless bleeding body hanging on a cross? And yet as reasonably may these two latter instances of impotence and folly be afcribed to infinite extents of power and wisdom, as the two former, the prosperity of the wicked, and the broken heart of the benevolent, to the infinite extents of mercy and juftice. If then the conduct of the affairs of this world be not reconcilable to our ideas of infinite faculties, we muft, if we interpret from the act to the agent, difprove the existence of those attributes with which we cannot reconcile fuch conduct, and confequently the existence of the being in which we had before conceived them inherent; fo that returning

to God by the fame road by which we defcended from him, we no more find him, and the infinitely great Creator of all things we then discover to have been a meer Creature of our own imaginations.

Such is the procefs of unconducted reafon: With the fame arguments fhe conceives and annihilates her God: At every turn the finds and loses him, yet still regrets the lofs, and though she cannot maintain the poffeffion, relinquishes it with reluctance. If from our longing after immortality, our immortality is to be concluded; from our longing after an acquaintance with an intimated God, we may likewife infer the reasonableness of a revelation admitting us to that acquaintance, and helping us to a permanent idea, which nature was never enabled to acquire of herself. It seems then an act consistent with our previous perfuafions, in which even reason acquiefces, that a God, endowed with benignity, should ftretch forth his hand to mankind thus wandering in eternal intricacies, mercifully vouchsafe himself to become his guide, lead him to truth, and make his own way straight before him. This mode of argument, however, I do not infift upon; I make use of it rather to illuftrate than infer. I can do without any conceffions from reason; for, at all events, I am certain, that, if she does not affirm, fhe cannot, upon the principles which I have already laid down, deny the confiftency of fuch an act with the agent of whom it is supposed; but if the strongeft external testimony bear witness, that God has revealed himself, and that reason be incapable of producing any evidence to the contrary; nay, if a revelation be what reason might have herself prescribed, and hoped as a guide to her own errors, wherefore should we not acquiefce in it when related, and look upon it as a fact, that God has actually revealed himself? The nature and validity of the teftimony, upon which the affertion is

made,

made, is extremely well worth enquiry, and certainly should be investigated by all who entertain any doubt of the fact afferted. For my own part, I am fatisfied; and Mr. Lindsey has exempted me from the neceffity of going into the enquiry here; having acknowledged that God has revealed himself, that the fcriptures are his revelation, that they afford "an evidence which no fair mind can refist," and that they are "the only rule of faith and conscience to Chriftian men :" In all of which I perfectly and entirely agree with him. The credibility of God, whom all allow, and who has pronounced himself to be the God of truth, is a ground whereon to build our faith in whatsoever he shall relate of his own incomprehenfible majefty; and, as I have faid before, that the conduct of God can never be measured by his attributes, so I now fay, that there lies no appeal from his credibility, from his truth to his infcrutable nature; we must acquiefce in that which he has faid; it must be; it is true.

Having admitted the scriptures to be the word of God, and that whatsoever is set forth in them is true, we are not yet to conceive that he has so far submitted himself to our faculties as to enable us to draw any argument from him; for we are not yet to compare his conduct, as revealed therein, with God himself, nor to judge of the confiftency of any act therein declared to be his, with the infinite Agent ftill left incomprehenfible; for to render him otherwife to us, the enlargement of our faculties must attend upon a revelation of all his glory, and therefore a revelation of all his glory is not to be required. Perhaps the distinction is not here fo clearly marked as I could defire, and that what I have laft written may seem to be only a repetition of what immediately precedes it; it is not fo, what I wish to inculcate is briefly this, that, as in natural religion, no comparison can be had between the attributes of God,

and the moral evils of the world fubmitted to our obfervation, and yet that we do not quite confent to annihilate an original to nature, because his government feems to argue against him; fo we should not, when revelation declares a course of conduct, which we cannot reconcile with the attributes afcribed to him, any more deny that courfe of conduct, from its irreconcileableness with God, than we should deny the existence of moral evil, because we had by nature pronounced that Original to be great, wife, and good: For if moral evil were incapable of rooting out the acknowledgment of the existence of a caufe fupremely good; fo a conduct, not understood to be wife, fhould not be admitted an argument against the existence of a revealed God; but we cannot deny the existence of moral evil, and yet nature fays there is a good God; wherefore then fhould we conceive, that an acknowledgment of a conduct confeffedly not understood, and therefore not to be reprehended, can militate against the acknowledgment of the God who has revealed himfelf? Let us then, if we admit a good caufe confiftent with moral evil, not argue against the confiftency of an incomprehenfible God, and an unintelligible conduct: There may fubfift an unfeen relation in this latter cafe; whereas an eventual evil, resulting from a fupremely good caufe, feems actually to contradict our reason. The purpofe for which I have written this, is to put men upon their guard against any fuggeftion, that the revelation of God, made by himself, should convey an adequate idea of his great glory. That it should do fe to man I have fhewed to be impoffible. It has indeed declared him infinite; but a declaration that God is infinite, is a declaration that he is incomprehenfible: An indefinite majesty is all that can poffibly be ascribed to God; and, in the conduct of incomprehenfible wifdom, it is not probable that much can occur exactly conformable to our faculties. If then,

even a revelation be unable to make him comprehended, we are still to confider him beyond the reach of reafon; and when he relates his own actions, ftill conceive that the agent is not cognizable, that he should be compared with them. To make us better men upon hope grounded on his mercies, is the most beneficial purpose for which we can conceive it poffible for God to reveal himself; and to this very purpose we find a revelation made, wherein that providence which extends to us is declared. To what end should God lay before our eyes the government of all that we are not concerned in? That he has created and redeemed us, is a motive to gratitude and to brotherly love; it is fufficient to fhew in him a power to be feared for its extent, and adored for its beneficent exertion. To evince that he has promised to every man the reward of his works, and pointed out thofe works which lead us to hope in him that is faithful, is a fully fufficient motive to faith, hope, and charity; that he bears the relative fuperiority of a creator over his creature, is a fufficient motive to us to pronounce him our God, and afcribe to him all honour and glory, without feeking for a farther revelation of the exertion of his infinite power, which we are not concerned to know. But in the government of the universe, it may be faid, he has felected this little orb, rolling through infinite space, as a scene of a moft wonderful tranfaction in which we are certainly concerned; for it is afferted that our falvation is the confequence, and was the end proposed; and are we not yet to comprehend him? By no means; the infinite wisdom which dictated and knows wherefore fuch a tranfaction is the fitteft means of our falvation, has not yet fubmitted itself to our investigation, nor directly told us why this was the most adequate means to fo beneficent an end; he still remains incomprehenfible, and that transaction by which we are become partakers of eternal life, being revealed,

amounts