rying human knowledge to the height we know they have done? If we find that Divine Wisdom can, by the most unpromifing caufes, produce the greatest effects, and that hardly any thing is conftituted in fuch a manner as human wifdom would beforehand have judged proper, why should we wonder if we cannot reconcile the fcheme of Divine Revelation to our arbitrary and fantastical views; which, for any thing we know, may be immensely different from thofe of the Author of revelation?

With all our incapacity of judging beforehand what revelation ought to have been, it does not follow, that we may not be sufficiently qualified to judge of its evidence and excellence now it is delivered. And that is enough to determine us to what is right and fafe for us, I mean, to pay it all due regard. For, in all cafes, it is our wisdom to act upon the best probability we can obtain.

A fupernatural scheme contrived by Divine Wifdom, an express revelation from God, may well be expected to contain difficulties too great for human reason to investigate. The ordinary economy of nature and providence, is founded in, and conducted by a fagacity too deep for our penetration, much more the extrordinary parts, if fuch there are, of the Divine Government. In the works of nature, it is easy for men to puzzle themselves and others with difficulties unfurmountable, as well as to find objections innumerable; to fay, Why was such a creature or thing made fo? Why was fuch another not made in fuch a particular manner? The ways of Providence are alfo too intricate and complex for our fhallow understandings to trace out. The wifdom, which guides the moral, as well as that which framed the natural fyftem, is Divine; and therefore too exquifite for our grofs apprehenfions. Even in human government, it is not to be expected, that every particular law or regulation fhould give fatisfaction to every fubject, or should be perfectly feen through by individuals at a diftance from the feat of government: Which is often the cause, especially in free countries, of most unreasonable and ridiculous complaints against what is highly wife and conducive to the general advantage,

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But in inquiring into nature, providence, and revelation, one rule will effectually lead us to a proper determination, to wit, to judge by what we know, not by what we are ignorant of. If in the works and ways of God, in nature, providence, and revelation, where, comprehended by us, we find a profufion of wifdom and goodness exhibited in the most perfpicuous and ftriking manner; is any thing more reasonable than to conclude, that if we faw through the whole, we should perceive the fame propriety in thofe parts which are intricate, as we now do in the cleareft. And it has been the peculiar fate of revelation, much more than either of the other two, to be oppofed on account of fuch dif ficulties in it, as arife from our weaknefs. Especially, it has very rarely happened, that the existence of God, and the doctrine of his being the Creator of the world, has been queftioned merely on account of any difficul ties in tracing out the wisdom of any part of the conftitution of nature. And yet it would be as rational to argue, that there is no God, because the brutes have in fome inferior refpects the advantage of the lord of this lower world, as to queftion the truth of revealed religion, after examining its innumerable evidences, prefumptive and pofitive, merely because we may think it ftrange, that the Saviour of the world fhould die the death of a criminal.

Here it is proper to enter an express caveat against whatever may pretend to the facred character of a point of faith or religion, and on that pretence elude or baffle reafon. There can nothing be imagined to be intended for the use and improvement of reasonable minds, which directly and explicitly contradicts reason. If reafon and revelation be both the gifts of God, it is not to be expected that they fhould oppofe one another; but that they fhould tally, as both coming from the fame wife and good Author. Whatever therefore is an express abfurdity, or contradiction, we may be well affured can be no genuine doctrine of revealed religion, but a blundering invention of weak or defigning men. It is one thing for a point of revealed religion to be, as to its modus, above our reach, and quite another matter, for a doctrine

a doctrine to be clearly contradictory to human underftanding. That the direct connection in the nature of things betwixt the death of Chrift and the falvation of mankind, fhould be utterly inexplicable by human reafon, is no more than what might have been expected, and, if unquestionably a doctrine of revealed religion, is to be received without hefitation upon the credit of the other parts which we understand more perfectly. But, that on a prieft's muttering a few words over a wafer, it fhould immediately become a whole Chrift, while at the fame time it is certain, that if a little arfenic had been put into the compofition of it, it would have effectually poifoned the foundest believer; and while we know that there can be but one whole Chrift, though the Papifts pretend to make a thousand Chrifts in a day; this is not to be confidered as a difficult or myfterious point, but as a clear exprefs contradiction both to fenfe and reafon.

It is alfo proper here to mention, that whatever doctrine of religion (fuppofing it to be really genuine) is beyond the reach of human understanding, cannot be imagined neceffary to be received, any farther than understood. For belief cannot be carried the leaft degree beyond conception. And it is to be remembered, that a doctrine may be contained in Scripture, and yet not a neceffary point of faith. For example: It is faid in Scripture, that the angels defire to look into the scheme of the redemption of mankind. But nobody has ever thought of making an article of faith neceflary to falvation, That we are to believe, that the angels are interested in the fcheme of our redemption. Unless Scripture itself exprefsly declares a doctrine neceffary to be received, we cannot, without rafhnefs, pretend to pronounce it abfolutely neceflary to be believed in any precife or determinate fenfe whatever.

It has been objected against the fcheme of revelation which is received among us, That great part of the precepts contained in it are fuch as appear at first view agreeable to found reafon; whereas it might have been expected (fay thofe objectors, or rather cavillers) that every article in it fhould be quite new and unheard of.

At

At the fame time the fame gentlemen think proper likewife to object, That many of the Scripture-expreffions are very different from those used by other ancient authors. So that it is, it seems, an objection against Scrip. ture, That it is what it might have been expected to be; and that it is not what it might have been expected to be.

To the former of thefe cavils it may be briefly anfwered, That the general agreement between reason and revelation, shews both to be of Divine original; while revelation's being an improvement and addition to reafon*, fhews its usefulness and expediency. The latter difficulty will vanish on confidering that, many of the Scripture expreffions are vifibly accommodated to human apprehenfion, while others on the fame fubjects are raised to a fublimity fuitable to the nature of the thing; by which means the narroweft mind receives an information suitable to its reach, while the most elevated conception is enlarged by views of the nobleft and most fublime nature. Thus, to mention only one instance at present, the meaneft reader of Scripture, is ftruck with fear of One, whofe eye is quick and piercing, to search the hearts, and try the reins of the children of men, and whose hand is powerful, and his out-ftretched arm mighty, to feize and punish offenders. At the fame time the profound philofopher is in the fame writings informed, that God is a spirit filling heaven and earth, and not contained within the limits of the heaven of heavens, but inhabiting immenfity and eternity, in whom all live and move, and have their being; neceffarily invifible, and altogether unlike to any of his creatures; having neither eyes, nor hands, nor paffions like thofe of men; but whofe ways are infinitely above our ways, and his thoughts above our thoughts. Thus the Scripture language is fuch, as that of a revelation intended for the improvement of men of all different degrees of capacity, ought to be. It is, in fhort, fit for the ufe of a whole fpecies.

That the Old Teftament particularly, which is the only book extant in that language, fhould be fo well preferved and understood as it is, fo long after the He

See page 417.

brew

brew has ceased to be a living language: that we should at this time be able to make out a regular hiftory, and a fet of confiftent thoughts and views, from writings of fuch antiquity, is much more to be wondered, than that there fhould be found in them difficulties, feeming contradictions, and thoughts or expreffions different from thofe found in productions of a later date. But above all things, that the thoughts and expreffions in Scripture should so far exceed in fublimity all other compofitions, feems unaccountable upon every other scheme, but their being of Divine original. Of the truth of this affertion, let the following inftance, among innumerable others, ferve as a proof.

The loftieft paffage, in the moft fublime of all human productions, is the beginning of the eighth book of Homer's Iliad. There the greatest of all human imaginations labours to defcribe, not a hero, but a god; not an inferior, but the Supreme God; nor to fhew his fupetiority to mortals, but to the heavenly powers; and not to one, but to them all united. The following is a verbal tranflation of it.

"The faffron-coloured morning was spread over the “whole earth; and Jupiter, rejoicing in his thunder, "held an affembly of the gods upon the highest top of "the many-headed Olympus. He himself made a speech to them, and all the gods together liftened.

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"Hear me, all ye gods, and all ye goddeffes, that I may fay what my foul in my breast commands. Let not therefore any female deity, or any male, endea"your to break through my word; but all confent to

gether, that I may moft quickly perform these works. "Whomfoever, therefore, of the gods I fhall under"ftand to have gone by himself, and of his own accord, to give affiftance either to the Trojans or the Greeks, "he thall return to Olympus fhamefully wounded; or I will throw him, feized by me, into dark hell, very “far off, where the most deep abyfs is under the earth; "where there are iron gates, and a brazen threshold, as far within hell, as heaven is distant from the earth. "He will then know, by how much I am the most powerful of all the gods.

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