amounts only to a foundation and motive for us to rely upon God, and act according to his will thereby decla— red to us, and not to a display of all that must neceffarily exceed the limits of our perception. We are not called upon to account for his conduct; but we are required to love him, to hope and to trust in him. A declaration of his power, and the exertion of fo much of it as bears relation to us, is all then that was neceffary for those ends; these are best declared by a revelation of the conduct of God towards man. Such a revelation is made, and there is much in it that we cannot understand ; and fuch must ever be the cafe, for in whatsoever action we look upon, proceeding from a higher intellect than our own, we fhall fee fomewhat not intelligible till the grounds of it are communicated. In whatsoever action of God, made perceptible to us, we look upon, we shall fee fomewhat which must eternally continue unintelligible; for it proceeds from infinite heights of intellect, and confequently must be incommunicable.

Reafon is, as it were, the eye of the mind; and as the eye is incapable of comparing invifible things, or visible with invifible, fo is reafon incompetent to bring together objects not perceptible, or to compare that which it can perceive with that which is beyond her perception. A view into that which is invifible, is not neceffary to give existence to that which the eye has feen; neither is the comprehenfibility of objects not perceptible, neceffary to the existence of that which is fubmitted to the perception of reason.

Having, as I hope, now proved that there can fubfift no vifible relation between the conduct of God and the uncomprehended God of natural religion, and therefore that reason cannot deny that he has revealed himself;

and

and having farther fhewed, upon the fuppofition that he has revealed himself, that it was neither neceflary nor poffible for him to render himself comprehenfible to our faculties; and therefore that his conduct, as revealed, cannot be brought into comparison with him-" felf, that it fhould be denied of him by reason; we muft come to this conclufion, that God is not an object of our perception, and confequently his faculties are not a ground whence argument can proceed, that which is incomprehenfible not being to be brought to the test of reason, nor by her made a meafure for any thing which may be afferted concerning them. Concerning matters which we do not comprehend, it is obvious that we cannot with certainty fay any thing. The incomprehenfible attributes of God then are not fit premifes, no conclufion poffibly following, from any comparison of them with whatsoever may be revealed to have been effected by them.

The infinite and incomprehenfible majefty of God then is an object beyond the limits of reason; we are incapable of forming any idea of him; and confequently, from whatsoever ultimate maxims reafon may proceed with relation to fcripture truth, she is debarred of any appeal to God himself, or to any imagination she may conceive herself able to entertain concerning him.

But the fcriptures are admitted to be the word of God, and whatsoever is fet forth in them is admitted to be true; henceforward reafon may proceed. The fcriptures are that ultimate, that axiom, beyond which we are not to feek for the grounds of whatsoever is afferted in them; they are the word of God, and they are true. This is granted, and from this datum there lies no appeal.

Come

Come on then, for reafon has now found a commencement to her work; and first she says, the scriptures, being true, contain no contradictions, the truth of contradictories being impoffible: Her bufinefs then it is to reconcile what feem to be contradictions, to compare, one with another, the paffages which lead to particular conclufions, and to yield her affent to that which the cannot understand, referring it only to the credibility of him who is the author of it; to acquiesce in the conduct of infinite wifdom, and not feek for principles beyond her own limits. By fuch a process fhe will never pronounce any thing to be impoffible, the impoffibility of which she does not fee upon a comparison of perceptible qualities; but, acknowledging herself incapable of giving counsel to her Maker, believe that he has employed means for our falvation, which we cannot look into; truft him with the means who has fo graciously employed them for such an end ; look upon the end not with vain and impious curiofity, but with unbounded gratitude; habituate our minds by fuch a profpect to love him, and from love and gratitude afcend to the defire to please him; feek from himfelf the means of pleasing him, and with renewed love and gratitude learn that to bear good-will towards man, is the conduct moft conformable to his will, that by which we shall beft afcribe glory to God on high, and by which we shall procure to ourselves eternal happiness through Jefus Christ our Lord and Saviour. Is this a conduct beneath the dignity of reason? It is a glorious undertaking which is committed to her charge.-Let us now come more directly to the point.

If then the teftimony of our Saviour be allowed, and the teftimony of the Holy Ghoft, to which he refers enquirers into his nature, be admitted as credible; and if by these it be declared that Jesus Christ is God from

everlasting,

everlafting, I fee not how a doubt is to be entertained that he is God, one with, and equal to, the Father: But if his having appeared clothed with flesh among men, as a man; if his fympathetick tears; if his apprehenfive agonies and earnest prayers to have the cup of evil put away from him; if his having fallen under the feverest afflictions, and even having fuffered an ignominious death, added to his own testimony and that of the Holy Ghoft, be admitted as evidence that he was man, I fee not how a doubt can be entertained that he was Man, inferior to God, as we are inferior to him: and if thefe be both admitted, it must neceffarily follow, that Jefus Chrift is both God and Man: But if both God and Man, I do not fee the force of the objection to his Godhead, that he has acted and fuffered as Man; that he refers the prefervation of his human nature to the power which is alone equal to the prefervation of it; that he prays as man for the world, with which he fympathizes; that he declares his human nature and the man Jefus to be a messenger to man, and acting with power derived of God. For as I believe that men, who make a difficulty of believing that any union between the two natures is poffible, will hardly infife upon their own capacity to explain the manner of it, or to fhew that, upon fuch an union, fo much of the divinity is derived to the manhood of Chrift, as to render it independent of God, and able to act for its own purpofes, without farther application than the exertion of this derived power; fo I will not admit of their explanations of our bleffed Saviour's prayers, and declarations that he was fent; for these prayers were breathed by the man Jesus; and this commiffion to die for and to adopt a world, was given to the human nature by God, and not to the divine nature of Chrift, which was itself the power, one with the Father, God Almighty, which had fo fent forth this man to atone for

us.

I am far from faying that I am myself able to explain this union, God forbid; but that I am not able to explore the ways of an Almighty God, whofe little creature I am, is not a reason why I fhould doubt his word, when he is pleased to reveal any part of them to me. We are told, that the ways of God are not as our ways, nor his thoughts as our thoughts: And fhall we attempt to contradict the declarations of his power, because we cannot exert a fimilar power ourselves? Or que ftion the wisdom which we cannot comprehend, merely because we cannot comprehend it? Were God pleased to open the stores of his wifdom to our eyes, but not to open our eyes to look upon them with more extended faculties than we now enjoy, is it to be imagined that we should comprehend them? Surely not; and wherefore should we reject the belief of that wonderful exertion of his power for our redemption, which he has laid open to us? It is a way of God, and not of man; and is its being wonderful a caufe? It is a way of God, and not of man; and is its exceeding the limited comprehenfion of our faculties a caufe? It is not to comprehend that we are required, but to believe; and to yield that degree of affent which we call belief, is certainly the best, the only exertion of our reafon in the cafe before us; for, having granted that God is true, and that he has spoken, the inference is, that what he has spoken is true; and as his power is adequate to all things, no exercife of it can oppose the conclufion drawn; as his wildom is infinite, no dictate of it is referred to our judgment; and therefore our judgment muft retire from giving any decifion upon other premises than those laid down; and confequently, inftead of oppofing, muft abet the conclufion that follows from thofe which are ftated. If our bleffed Saviour himfelf, though in union with Godhead, was humble, and referred all to God, I fhould conceive that, inftead of arrogantly op

nay

pofing,