or reason, then, that leads some men to disbelieve certain points concerning God, which are delivered and proved to us by the best authority, and never yet shewn to imply the least absurdity, merely because they cannot clearly account for them? If this be reason, then reason is far more inconsistent with itself, than any revealed doctrine concerning God can even seem to be.

But it is not to be supposed, that reason, truly such, should engage in so great an inconsistency. These instances of impiety and absurdity proceed rather from pride, and other worldly passions; which the mysteries of our religion would humble, if believed; and the more practical doctrines that are inseparately united to them, would restrain. But, as it would not look decent to cavil at the practical and moral part of our religion, they make their attack on the mysterious; in hopss that, if that should be once brought into discredit, or suspicion, contempt might be thence reflected on what they think the severities of Christianity.

It is to be presumed, that had our religion, like Mahometism, indulged the desires, and favoured the pleasures, of its believers, it had neither at first, nor in succeeding ages, met with so much distaste and opposition from men of loose dispositions; they would, in return, have indulged all its mysteries. We see this experimentally proved to us by popery; among whose professors there are those of as great penetration, and as strongly engaged to worldly interests, and sensual pleasures, as any, who set up to despise religion among us; yet these men will swallow mysteries by the bundle, will wink at manifest impositions, nay, and contentedly divide their fortunes with their clergy. But then for this they have their consciences, which they could not themselves so effectually keep in order, made easy, and all kept quiet within, be their lives ever so corrupt and dissolute. But our religion, not being calculated for this sort of men, and proposing no absurdities to be believed, hath provided no indulgences to purchase either the faith, or outward conformity, of such persons.

It is undoubtedly by their aversion to all religion, that men are led to dispute the mysteries of the true; for those mysteries contain in them nothing hard to be conceived, or shocking to reason. Every one knows what is understood

by the doctrine of the Trinity, and the incarnation of our Saviour. Now it cannot be shewn, that either the one or the other is at all inconsistent with the divine nature; because no man knows, or possibly can know, so much of God, as to make out the least appearance of such an inconsistency.

Yet these are the only mysteries peculiar to Christianity, at which the very delicate faith of our libertines would seem to stumble. They cannot conceive, how even the power of God should unite the nature of man to his own, nor how the unity of the divine nature should admit of a personal distinction, though they acknowledge the nature of God to be utterly incomprehensible.

Unfortunately for these men, there is a profound mystery in deism, and in natural religion, which it is impossible even to clear up, or reconcile to reason, without admitting the doctrines of the personal distinction, and of the incarnation. It is admitted on all hands, by deists as well as others, that God is both infinitely just, and infinitely merciful. Now, as he is infinitely just, reason tells us he will punish every offender; yet, as he is infinitely merciful, the same reason tells us he will pardon all offences. The light of natural reason can never disengage itself from this great difficulty. Christianity alone can clear it up for it is impossible for us to conceive any other way of satisfying the justice of God for sin, in order that mercy may take place, but by an atonement; and it is most absurd to suppose, that a sufficient atonement could be made, but by the suffering of a divine person, distinct from him, to whom this atonement ought to be made. Now, a divine person, as such, cannot suffer at all; but a person consisting of the divine and human nature may, and Christians believe he did; and that they have remission of sins through his blood.'

All other schemes of religion, but the Christian, set the very attributes of God at eternal variance with each other, and hang a millstone about their own necks; which, as human reason put it on, so it is impossible it should ever take it off. The angels desired to look into this mystery, but were not able to comprehend it, till the wisdom and power of God laid it open in the gospel, and made it intelligible even to men,

This wonderful dispensation, so admirably fitted to satisfy the justice of God, to save the souls of men, to take away the great difficulty that lay on religion, and answer all its excellent ends, is represented by libertines as too mysterious to be conceived, and too inconsistent with reason to be believed. But the truth is, it is too inconsistent with vanity, with sensuality, with avarice, and ambition, to gain admittance among such men. Self-sufficiency, and 'the god of this world, hath blinded the minds of them which believe not; left the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.' It is not reason, but pride and worldly-mindedness, that make all the apostates from Christianity. Some men are so highly conceited of their own abilities as to think they want neither God nor man to instruct them. Their reason is sufficient, and, of itself, gives them a perfect knowledge of all they have occasion to know, even of God himself. How vastly superior are they in the faculties of the mind to the rest of mankind, and, I may add, to the great philosophers of former ages; who have never been able to go much beyond their teachers, in the knowledge of divine things!

But, with all their boasted sufficiency, which was never yet found attended in the same mind with much real wisdom, they know no more of God than other men; nay, so far as they forsake the assistance of revelation, just so far, it is plain, they know less. Socrates, who was the greatest uninspired man that ever lived, said, he knew but one thing, and that was, that he knew nothing. The truth is, the human faculties are too narrow and weak to arrive at a perfect knowledge of any thing in nature; so far are they from being able to afford us a perfect, or, merely by their own strength, any reasonable knowledge of God, the author of nature; between whom and man there is an infinite distance.

Between us and the brute creation there is, in comparison, but a very small and inconsiderable difference; and yet, to a brute, a man is a very incomprehensible being. Nay, what is more, a brute is a composition of unintelligible mysteries to a man; insomuch that he hath been a god to some men, and is a pattern to the libertine, who at once eats and imitates him, desiring to live as he does, without religion, and die without hope.

One man knows but little of another; and, though the wisest of men hath but a small share either of wisdom or power, yet some men have attained to, or struck out, such degrees of knowledge, as must be for ever utterly mysterious and unfathomable to others.

A man knows so little of himself, that he hath reason to cry out, with David, I am fearfully and wonderfully made;' he knows not how his thoughts arise within, how his heart beats, how his food nourishes him, how his body grows, how his eye rolls, or his finger moves.

Now, if brutes know so little of us, and even we of ourselves, when the object is so distinct and near, how shall we be able to comprehend the divine nature, which is so infinitely above us? May not this infinite Being be present every-where? And may there not be room in such a boundless nature for mercy and justice, infinite each, in respect to its own proper object? May there not be three persons in the incomprehensible unity of God, for aught we know to the contrary? How can it be proved that there are not? If that proof pretends to come from reason, it is plainly contradicted by another from the same reason, much better known, and more certain; namely, that it is as impossible for us to comprehend the divine nature, as it is for the smallest circle to comprehend the greatest; so that, if reason contradicts itself; it can prove nothing.

But right reason never contradicts itself, nor presumes to pronounce about what is so infinitely above the faculties by which it works. When it seems to do otherwise, it is in minds where the pride and vanity of more knowledge, than comes to the share of others, have transported it beyond, or rather put it beside, itself; so that, being puffed up with their own conceit, they think their capacities of sufficient extent to comprehend him,' whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain.' Although they know little or nothing of God's works, yet they will presume to dispute and pronounce about God himself, with as much familiarity and assurance, as if they had only an herb or insect under consideration, and are perfectly curious in their observations on him.

But, it is to be presumed, they rather speak of that little fantastic idol they have set up in their own imaginations to

represent him, than of the true God; of whom, if they only had as exalted notions as other wise and good men, they would, like them, keep silence before him; and, instead of attempting so awful a subject, adore him at that infinite distance that nature hath put between him and them. For he who hath the highest knowledge of God, is the most sensible of his own incapacity to comprehend the infinite greatness of the Divine Being; in the contemplation of which, reason, and imagination, and judgment, and all our faculties, are swallowed up and lost.

Simonides, who was a great philosopher and poet, at the request of Hiero, like a modern libertine, immediately undertook to define the Deity; and, as if it had been an easy task, required only a few days to prepare an answer to this question, What is God? but, upon considering the subject a little more at leisure, he found it necessary to demand more time; and the difficulty still increasing with his application,. he was obliged to go on doubling his demands of time; till he found the Divine nature incomprehensible, and his own sinking under an utter impossibility of ever accomplishing his rash undertaking.

And so it is, even with those who are assisted by Divine revelation. They can, from thence, learn so much of God's nature, as to know what obligations they lie under to him, and what duties they owe him. But if, through a vain presumption or curiosity, they inquire farther, the subject grows too unsearchable for their penetration, too big for their comprehension. It rises infinitely above their highest thoughts; and their imaginations, on the utmost stretch, and with the most exalted flights, lose sight of it in a mo

ment.

As well might we attempt to fathom the ocean with an inch of line, or encompass the heavens, and infinite space, with a ring that is only large enough for our finger, as think of comprehending the infinite nature with our narrow minds. What measure have we for him,' who meteth out the heavens?' Or how shall we weigh his nature, who putteth the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance, and before whom all the nations of the earth,' and among the rest the mighty libertine,' are but as the drop of a bucket,' that hangs on the outside, and adds nothing to its weight; and