monstrations, and afterwards explain them in | a manner quite subversive of my former explications of them: should it affirm, God is, as you say, a wise and bountiful being: but he displays his wisdom and goodness not in governing his intelligent creatures, as you have imagined; such a moral government, I will prove to you, would show a defect of wisdom and goodness; but he displays the supreme perfection of both, by providing for such and such interests, and by bestowing such and such benefits, as have either escaped your notice, or were beyond your comprehension. In this case I ought not to reject revelation, for, although I can demonstrate without inspiration the wisdom and goodness of God, yet I cannot pretend by the light of nature to know all the directions, and to ascertain all the limits of these perfections. and concealed from all the rest of his fellow Lay Christianity before me who will, I expect to find three things in it, which I call analogy, proportion, and perfection. Each of these articles opens a wide field of not incurious speculation, and each fully explained and applied, would serve to guide any man in his choice of a religion, yea, in his choice of aI believe it would be very easy to prove, party among the various divisions of Christians: but alas! we are not employed now-adays in examining and choosing religious principles for ourselves, but in subscribing, and defending those of our ancestors! A few hints then shall serve. By analogy I mean resemblance, and, when I say revealed religion must bring along with it an analogical evidence, I mean, it must resemble the just dictates of nature. The reason is plain. The same Supreme Being is the author of both. The God of nature has formed man for observing objects, comparing them together, laying down principles, inferring consequences, reasoning and self-determining; he has not only empowered all mankind to exercise these abilities, but has even constrained them by a necessity of nature to do so; he has not only rendered it impossible for men to excel without this exercise, but he has even rendered it impossible for them to exist safely in society without it. In a word, the God of nature has made man in his own image, a selfdetermining being, and, to say nothing of the nature of virtue, he has rendered free consent essential to every man's felicity and peace. With his own consent, subjection makes him happy; without it, dominion over the universe would make him miserable. that the Christianity of the church of Rome, and that of every other establishment, because they are establishments, are totally destitute of this analogy. The religion of nature is not capable of establishment, the religion of Jesus Christ is not capable of establishment: if the religion of any church be capable of establishment, it is not analogous to that of Scripture, or that of nature. A very simple example may explain our meaning. Natural religion requires a man to pay a mental homage to the Deity, to venerate his perfections, by adoring and confiding in them. By what possible means can these pious operations of the mind be established? could they be forced, their nature would be destroyed, and they would cease to be piety, which is an exercise of judgment and will. Revealed religion requires man to pay a mental homage to the Deity through Jesus Christ, to venerate his perfections by adoring and confiding in them as Christianity directs; by repentance, by faith, by hope, and so on. How is it possible to establish those spiritual acts? A human establishment requires man to pay this Christian mental homage to the Deity, by performing some external ceremony, suppose bowing to the east. The ceremony, we grant, may be established: but, the voluntary exercise of the soul in the The religion of nature, (I mean by this ex-performance, which is essential to the Chrispression, here, the objects, which display the nature of the Deity, and thereby discover the obligations of mankind) is in perfect harmony with the natural constitution of man. All natural objects offer evidence to all: but force it on none. A man may examine it, and he may not examine it; he may admit it, and he may reject it: and, if his rejection of the evidence of natural religion be not expressed in such overt acts as are injurious to the peace of civil society, no man is empowered to force him, or to punish him; the Supreme moral Governor of the world himself does not distinguish him here by any exterior punishments; at most he expresses his displeasure by marks attached to the person of the culprit, tianity of the action, who in the world can establish this? If the religion of Jesus be considered as consisting of external rites and internal dispositions, the former may be established; but, be it remembered, the establishment of the exterior not only does not establish the interior, but the destruction of the last is previously essential to the establishment of the first. / No religion can be established without penal sanctions, and all penal sanctions in cases of religion are persecutions. Before a man can persecute, he must renounce the generous tol erant dispositions of a Christian. No religion can be established without human creeds; and subscription to all human creeds implies two dispositions contrary to true religion, and both +sion from all public schools, a deprivation of expressly forbidden by the author of it. These all honours, which he might be supposed on two dispositions are, love of dominion over other accounts to merit, an exclusion from all conscience in the imposer, and an abject pre-offices of trust, credit, and profit, in some cases ference of slavery in the subscriber. The first a loss of property, in others imprisonment, in usurps the rights of Christ; the last swears others death. In this supposed case, I ask, allegiance to a pretender. The first domi-would not the establishment of this system be neers, and gives laws like a tyrant; the last an open violation of the doctrine of analogy, truckles like a vassal. The first assumes a and should I not have a right to reason thus? dominion incompatible with his frailty, impos- The revelation itself is infallible, and the ausible even to his dignity, yea, denied to the thor of it has given it me to examine: but the dignity of angels; the last yields a low sub-establishment of a given meaning of it renders mission, inconsistent with his own dignity, and examination needless, and perhaps dangerous. ruinous to that very religion, which he pretends The God of nature has given me eyes, instruby this mean to support. Jesus Christ doesments, powers, and inclinations to use them; not require, he does not allow, yea, he ex- eyes, faculties, and dispositions as good as those pressly forbids both these dispositions, well of my ancestors, and instruments better: but knowing, that an allowance of these would be all these advantages, which may be beneficial a suppression of the finest dispositions of the to me, if they confirm the truth of the explihuman soul, and a degrading of revelation be- cation; may be fatal to me, if they lag behind, neath the religion of nature. If human inven- or ken beyond the bound of the creed. Nature tions have formerly secularized Christianity, says, a constellation is a collection of stars, and rendered such bad dispositions necessary which, in the heavens, appear near to one anoin times of ignorance, they ought to be ex-ther. This is a plain simple truth, I open my ploded now, as all Christians now allow this eyes, and admit the evidence. theory: The Son of God did not come to re-says, each fixed star is a sun, the centre of a deem one part of mankind to serve the secular system, consisting of planets inhabited by inviews, and unworthy passions of the other: but telligent beings, who possess one sense and he obtained freedom for both, that both might two faculties more than the inhabitants of serve him without fear in holiness and righteous- this globe, and who worship the most high ness all the days of their lives. Luke i. 74, 75. God in spirit and in truth. I cannot comWhen churches reduce this theory to practice,prehend this whole proposition: but there is they realize in actual life, what otherwise makes only a fine idea decyphered in books, and by so doing they adorn their Christianity with the glorious evidence of analogy Revelation nothing in it contrary to the nature of things; and I believe the truth of it on the testimony of the revealer. The established explication of this proposition is that of Ptolemy. He numbered the stars in the constellation Bootes, and found them, or supposed he found them, twenty-three, and this number I am to examine and approve, teach and defend against all opponents. What shall I say to Tycho, who affirms, Bootes contains only eighteen? Must I execrate Havelius, who makes them fifty-two? After all, perhaps Flamstead may be right; he says there are fifty-four. Does not this method of teaching astronomy suppose a hundred absurdities? Does it not imply the imperfection of the revealed system, the infallibility of Ptolemy, the erroneousness of the other astronomers, the folly of examination, or the still greater madness of allowing a conclusion after a denial of the premises, from which it pretends to be drawn? When I was an infant, I am told, I was treated like a man, now I am a man, I am treated like an infant. I am an astronomer by proxy. The plan of God requires faculties, and the exercise of them: that of my country exchanges both for quiet submission. I am, and I am not, a believer of astronomy. Suppose the God of nature should think proper to reveal a simple system of astronomy, and to require all mankind to examine and believe this revelation on pain of his displeasure. Suppose one civil government, having examined this revelation, and explained the sense, in which they understood it, should endeavour to establish their explication by temporal rewards and punishments. Suppose they should require all their subjects to carry their infants in their arms to a public school, to answer certain astronomical interrogations, to be put by a professor of astronomy; as, in general, wilt thou, infant of eight days old! wilt thou be an astronomer? Dost thou renounce all erroneous systems of astronomy? In particular, dost thou admit the true Copernician system? Dost thou believe the revealed explication of this system? And dost thou also believe that explication of this revelation, which certain of our own predecessors in the profession believed, which we, your masters and parents, in due obedience, receive? Suppose a proxy required to answer for this infant; all this, I, proxy for this child, do steadfastly believe; and Were it affirmed, that a revelation from suppose from this hour, the child became a re- heaven established such a method of mainputed astronomer. Suppose yet farther, this taining a science of speculation, reasoning, and child should grow to manhood, and in junior practice, every rational creature would have a life should be pressed, on account of the obli- right to doubt the truth of such a revelation; gation contracted in his infant state, to sub- for it would violate the doctrine of analogy, scribe a certain paper called an astronomical by making, the Deity inconsistent with himcreed, containing mathematical definitions, as-self. But we will pursue this track no further; tronomical propositions, and so on, and should we hope nothing said will be deemed illiberal; be required for certain rewards to examine and we distinguish between a constitution of things, approve, teach and defend this creed, and no and many wise and good men, who submit to other, without incurring the penalty of expul- | it, and we only venture to guess, if they be wise and good men, under such inconveniences, they would be wiser and better men without them: at all adventures, if we owe much respect to men, we owe more to truth, to incontrovertible, unchangeable truth. A second character of a divine revelation, is proportion. By proportion I mean, relative fitness, and, when I affirm a divine revelation must bring along with it proportional evidence, I mean to say, it must appear to be exactly fitted to those intelligent creatures, for whose benefit it is intended. In the former article we required a similarity between the requisitions of God and the faculties of men: in this we require an exact quantity of requisition commensurate with those faculties. The former regards the nature of a revelation; this has for its object the limits of it. Were it possible for God, having formed a man only for walking, by a messenger from heaven to require him to fly, the doctrine of analogy would be violated by this requisition; and were he to determine a prodigious space, through which he required him to pass in a given time, were he to describe an immense distance, and to enjoin him to move through it with a degree of velocity impossible to him, the doctrine of proportion would be violated; and the God of revelation would in both cases be made contradictory to the God of nature. ment would be at once a renunciation of their right to hold by the original grant, and of their lord's prerogative to bestow. What can a declaimer mean, when he repeats a number of propositions, and declares the belief of them all essential to the salvation of man? or what could he reply to one, who should ask him, which man do you mean, the man in the stall? Is it Sir Isaac Newton: or the man in the aisle? It is Tom Long, the carrier. God almighty, the creator of both, has formed these two men with different organs of body, and different faculties of mind; he has given them different advantages and dif ferent opportunities of improving them, he has ! placed them in different relations, and empowered the one to teach what the other, depend on his belief what will, is not capable of learning. Ten thousand Tom Longs go to make up one Newtonian soul. Is it credible, the God who made these two men, who thoroughly knows them, who is the common parent, the just governor, and the kind benefactor of both, should require of men so different, equal belief and practice? Were such a thing sup posable, how unequal and disproportional, how inadequate and unlike himself must such a Deity be! To grasp the terraqueous globe with a human hand, to make a tulip-cup con- t tain the ocean, to gather all the light of the The Christian revelation, we presume, an- universe into one human eye, to hide the sun swers all our just expectations on these ar- in a snuff-box, are the mighty projects of chilticles; for all the truths revealed by it are anal-dren's fancies. Is it possible, requisitions simogous to the nature of things, and every article ilar to these should proceed from the only wise, in it bears an exact proportion to the abilities God! of all those, for whose benefit it is given. Our Saviour treats of the doctrine of proportion, in the parable of the talents, and supposes the Lord to apportion the number of talents, when he bestows them, and the rewards and punishments, which he distributes for the use, and abuse of them, to the several ability of each servant, Matt. xxv. 14. St. Paul depicts the primitive church in all the beauty of this proportional economy; The same God worketh all diversities of operations in all differences of administrations, dividing to every man severally as he will, 1 Cor. xii. 5, 6. 11. This economy, he says, assimilates the Christian church to the human body, and gives to the one as to the other strength, symmetry, and beauty, evidently proving that the author of creation is the author of redemption, framing both by one uniform rule of analogy and proportion. Full of these just notions, we examine that description of revelation, which human creeds exhibit, and we perceive at once, they are all destitute of proportional evidence. They all consist of multifarious propositions, each of which is considered as essential to the whole, and the belief of all essential to an enjoyment of the benefits of Christianity, yea, to those of civil society, in this life, and to a participation of eternal life in the world to come. In this case the free gifts of God to all are monopolized by a few, and sold out to the many at a price, far greater than nine-tenths of them can pay, and at a price, which the remaining part ought not to pay, because the donor has not empowered these salesmen to exact any price, because by his original grant all are made joint proprietors, and because the pay-creatures, who are required to contemplate There is, we have reason to believe, a cer tain proportion of spirit, if I may be allowed to speak so, that constitutes a human soul; iz there are infinitely different degrees of capability imparted by the Creator to the souls of mankind; and there is a certain ratio by necessity of nature, between each degree of intelligence and a given number of ideas, as there is between a cup capable of containing a given quantity, and a quantity of matter capable of being contained in it. In certain cases it might serve my interest could the palm of my hand contain a hogshead: but in general my interest is better served by an inability to contain so much. We apply these certain principles to revelation, and we say, God hath given in the Christian religion an infinite multitude of ideas; as in nature he hath created an infinite multitude of objects. These objects are diversified without end, they are of various sizes, colours, and shapes, and they are capable of innume rable motions, productive of multifarious ef fects, and all placed in various degrees of perspicuity; objects of thought in the Christian religion are exactly similar; there is no end of their variety; God and all his perfections, man and all his operations, the being and employment of superior holy spirits, the existence and dispositions of fallen spirits, the creation and government of the whole world of matter, and that of spirit, the influences of God and the obligations of men, the dissolution of the universe, a resurrection, a judgment, a heaven, and a hell, all these, placed in various degrees of perspicuity, are exhibited in religion to the contemplation of intelligent creatures. The these objects, have various degrees of contem-three consequences would follow. First, Sub- I call perfection a third necessary character of a Divine revelation. Every production of This doctrine of proportion would unroost an intelligent being bears the characters of the every human creed in the world, at least it intelligence that produced it, for as the man is, would annihilate the imposition of any. In- so is his strength, Judg. viii. 21. A weak gestead of making one creed for a whole nation, nius produces a work imperfect and weak like which, by the way, provides for only one na- itself. A wise, good being, produces a work tion, and consigns over the rest of the world wise and good, and, if his power be equal to to the destroyer of mankind; instead of doing his wisdom and goodness, his work will resemso, there should be as many creeds as crea- ble himself, and such a degree of wisdom, anitures; and instead of affirming, the belief of mated by an equal degree of goodness, and asthree hundred propositions is essential to the sisted by an equal degree of power, will profelicity of every man in both worlds, we ought duce a work equally wise, equally beneficial, to affirm, the belief of half a proposition is es- equally effectual. The same degrees of goodsential to the salvation of Mary, and the belief ness and power accompanied with only half the of a whole one to that of John, the belief of degree of wisdom, will produce a work as resix propositions, or, more properly the exami-markable for a deficiency of skill as for a renation of six propositions, is essential to the salvation of the reverend Edward, and the examination of sixty to that of the right reverend Richard; for, if I can prove, one has sixty degrees of capacity, another six, and another one, I can easily prove, it would be unjust to require the same exercises of all; and a champion ascribing such injustice to God would be no formidable adversary for the pompousness of his challenge, or the caparisons of his horse: his very sword could not conquer, though it might affright from the field. The world and revelation, both the work of the same God, are both constructed on the same principles; and were the book of scripture like that of nature laid open to universal inspection, were all ideas of temporal rewards and punishments removed from the study of it, that would come to pass in the moral world, which has actually happened in the world of human science, each capacity would find its own object, and take its own quantum. Newtons will find stars without penalties, Miltons will be poets, and Lardners Christians without rewards. Calvins will contemplate the decrees of God, and Baxters will try to ort them with the spontaneous volitions of men; all, like the celestial bodies, will roll on in the quiet majesty of simple proportion, each in his proper sphere shining to the glory of God the Creator. But alas! We have not so learned Christ! Were this doctrine of proportion allowed, dundancy of efficiency and benevolence. Thus the I perceive, I must not launch into this wide ocean of the doctrine of perfection, and I willconfine myself to three characters of imperfec-. tion, which may serve to explain my meaning. Proposing to obtain a great end without the use of proper means the employing of great means to obtain no valuable end-and the destroying of the end by the use of the means employed to obtain it, are three characters of imperfection rarely found in frail intelligent. agents; and certainly they can never be attributed to the Great Supreme A violation of the doctrine of analogy would argue God an unjust being; and a violation of that of propor tion, would prove him an unkind being; and a violation of this of perfection, would argue him a being void of wisdom. Were we to suppose him capable of proposing plans impossible to be executed, and then punishing his creatures for not executing them, we should attribute to the best of beings, the most odious dispositions of the most infamous of mankind. Heaven forbid the thought! The first character of imperfection, is propos A second character of imperfection is the employing of great means to obtain no valuable end. Whatever end the author of Christianity had in view, it is beyond a doubt, he hath employed great means to effect it. To use the language of a prophet, he hath "shaken the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land," Hag. ii. 6, 7. When the desire of 5 all nations came, universal nature felt his ap ing to obtain a great end without the use of proper ners; for turning a message of peace into an means. To propose a noble end argues a fund engine of faction; for employing means inadeof goodness: but not to propose proper means quate to the end; and so for erasing that chato obtain it, argues a defect of wisdom. Chris-racter of perfection, which the heavenly donor tianity proposes the noble end of assimilating gave it. man to God! and it employs proper means of obtaining this end. God is an intelligent being, happy in a perfection of wisdom; the gospel assimilates the felicity of human intelligences to that of the Deity, by communicating the ideas of God on certain articles to men. God is a bountiful being, happy in a perfection of goodness; the gospel assimilates the felicity of man to that of God, by communicating certain benevolent dispositions to its disciples, si-proach, and preternatural displays of wisdom, milar to the communicative excellencies of power, and goodness, have ever attended his God. God is an operative being, happy in the steps. The most valuable ends were answered display of exterior works beneficial to his crea- by his coming. Convictions followed his preachtures; the gospel felicitates man by directing ing; and truths, till then shut up in the counsels and enabling him to perform certain works of God, were actually put into the possession beneficent to his fellow-creatures. God con- of finite minds. A general manumission followdescends to propose this noble end, of assimi-ed his meritorious death, and the earth resoundlating man to himself, to the nature of man-ed with the praises of a spiritual deliverer, kind, and not to certain distinctions, foreign who had set the sons of bondage free. The from the nature of man, and appendant on ex-laws of his empire were published, and all his terior circumstances. The boy, who feeds the subjects were happy in obeying them. "In his farmer's meanest animals; the sailor, who days the righteous flourished," and on his plan, spends his days on the ocean; the miner, who," abundance of peace would have continued as secluded from the light of the day, and the long as the moon endured," Ps. lxxii. 7. Plenty society of his fellow-creatures, spends his life of instruction, liberty to examine it, and peace! in a subterraneous cavern, as well as the re- in obeying it, these were ends worthy of the nowned heroes of mankind, are all included in great means used to obtain them. this condescending, benevolent, design of God. The gospel proposes to assimilate all to God: but it proposes such an assimilation, or, I may say, such a degree of moral excellence, as the nature of each can bear, and it directs to means so proper to obtain this end, and renders these directions so extremely plain, that the perfection of the designer shines with the utmost glory. I have sometimes imagined a Pagan ship's crew in a vessel under sail in the wide ocean; I have supposed not one soul aboard ever to have heard one word of Christianity; I have imagined a bird dropping a New Testament written in the language of the mariners on the upper deck; I have imagined a fund of uneducated, unsophisticated good sense in this company, and I have required of this little world answers to two questions; first, what end does this book propose? the answer is, this book was written, that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing we might have life through his name," John xx. 31. I ask secondly, what means does this book authorise a foremast man, who believes, to employ to the rest of the crew to induce them to believe, that Jesus is the Son of God, and that believing, they also with the foremast man, may have eternal felicity through his name? I dare not answer this question: but I dare venture to guess, should this foremast man conceal the book from any of the crew, he would be unlike the God, who gave it to all; or should he oblige the cabin-boy to admit his explication of the book, he would be unlike the God, who requires the boy to explain it to himself; and should he require the captain to enforce his explication by penalties, the captain ought to reprove his folly for counteracting the end of the book, the felicity of all the mari Let us for a moment suppose a subversion of the seventy-second psalm, from whence I have borrowed these ideas; let us imagine "ther kings of Tarshish and of the isles bringing presents," not to express their homage to Christ: but to purchase that dominion over the consciences of mankind, which belongs to Jesus Christ; let us suppose the boundless wisdom of the gospel, and the innumerable ideas of inspired men concerning it, shrivelled up into the narrow compass of one human creed; let us suppose liberty of thought taken away, and the peace of the world interrupted by the introduction and support of bold usurpations, dry ceremonies, cant phrases, and puerile inven tions; in this supposed case, the history of great means remains, the worthy ends to be answer ed by them are taken away, and they, who should thus deprive mankind of the end of the sacred code, would charge themselves with the necessary obligation of accounting for this character of imperfection. Ye prophets, and apostles! ye ambassadors of Christ! "How do ye say, we are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? Lo! certainly in vain made he it, the pen of the scribes is in vain!" Jer. viii. 8. Precarious wisdom that must not be questioned! useless books, which must not be examined! vain legislation, that either cannot be obeyed, or ruins him who obeys it. All the ends, that can be obtained by human modifications of divine revelation, can never compensate for the loss of that dignity, which the perfection of the system, as God gave it, acquires to him; nor can it indemnify a man for the loss of that spontaniety, which is the essence of every effort, that merits the name of human, and without which virtue itself is nothing but a name. Must we destroy the man to make the Christian! What is there in |