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MOST HIGH.

The

LL sorts of people do allow, that this illustrious title is of peculiar to the everlasting God. It is not so much a name, which generally implies the definition of a person or thing, as an ascription, which asserts, that God, in respect to definition, cannot properly be named; for let us conceive of him as far as we can, and let us apply to him all the names we are able, he will yet be infinitely above every name, and eternally transcend all our conceptions. This seems to be the sense of this title py, or Most Higb. It tends to ex press, that JEHOVAH is both inexpressible, and, from the unbounded sublimity of his nature, by us and all the creatures inconceivable too. This ascription, therefore, is admirably characteristic of deity, is used for that purpose in the holy Scriptures, and sets him forth, both as unknowable and un known, unless according to the mode and extent of his own revelation. Our old translation of the Psalms has ventured to employ a grammatical solecism to shew, that this title is a bove all rule of language, and above all idea of men. term Most Highest, is no more a blunder, in this view, than another title given to Him in the Scriptures, namely, HIGHER THAN THE HIGHEST. Eccl. v. 8. Neither name pretends to explain, bow high Jehovah is; but both concur in asserting, that over all names put together, over all descrip tions whether of angels or men, over all conceptions and ideas that the most exalted intellects of creatures can frame; Jehovah is still bigber than the bigbest, and that they do not and cannot, by infinite degrees, reach up towards him. The considerate heathens could reason upon this truth, that God must necessarily be inconceivable. They could trace out his wisdom and power by his works; they could be convin ced, that the vast frame of things, which is obvious to human sense, could be the effect only of an all-perfect and immortal being; they could be assured, that all activity, motion, or life, must proceed from a cause of infinite energy, or rather from some existence who is all energy, fullness, and truth; But, with all this, they were obliged to own, that to conceive any ching of so pure and abstracted a nature in the mind, was

immensely difficult, and consequently, to express that nature (if it were even right to attempt it) absolutely impossible.* Some of these heathens procured, by one means or other, this title of God from the true worshippers, in the first ages after the flood, and gradually debased it, as they did all other' traditions of the kind, to the purposes of the vilest idolatry. And indeed, in all ages, when men follow any rule, but God's own revelation, concerning his nature and existence, and set up their wretched "reasoning faculty," perverted and clouded as it is by sin; they are sure to wander into doubt or absurdity at best, and generally, by stating their own chimeras as true representations, of the deity, become as mere idolaters in reality, as the very worst of the heathens. Yet, it is remarkable enough; all these will be so positive and dogmatical respecting their particular hypotheses; that one should think, the Most High must be as much an object of their senses as a stick or a straw; and they will tell us, that God is such and such a being, nay, and must be so too; though, at the same time, they have not the goodness to inform us of the manner of existence even in a stick or straw, nor yet the particular mode of being, by which they exist themselves. What is further remarkable likewise; all these over-intelligent heads shall differ amazingly upon this topic from each other: And yet there is not one of them, but will affirm, that all his ideas are not only founded upon his "reasoning facul ty, but ought to be founded upon it, as the highest standard and criterion of truth. The antient dogmatists differed in the same way. Some said, that fire was God; others, water; others, air, others, that God was the soul of the world, some one thing; and some another; and the wisest of them all honestly confessed him to be unknown. Take Spinoza's god, Hebbes's, Whiston's, Collins's, Toland's, Chubb's, Tindal's, the god of the Arians, the God of the Socinians, the god of one kind of deists, and the god of another kind;†

* STOBEUS. Serm. lxxxviii. Thus Xenophon, Plato, and his commentator Plotinus, with many other of the antient heathens, owned, Deum nec pervestigare possibile, nec fas investigare. See much said to this effect, in MORNEUS, de verit. Rel. Christ. c. iv.

+ Spinoza's god was, all visible being, the particulars of which were only modifications of the deity; so that men, dogs, mice, insects, are parts of himself, there being only one existence or nature.

Hobbes's god was not very different, for he made him corporeal, and asserted, that "what is not body, is nothing at all;" and that all religion originated in fear and superstition; in which he was of the same mind with Lucretius and the Epicureans.

Whiston's god was a being entirely different from the Son and Holy Ghost, who, in his opinion, were mere creatures, and by no means the object of our worshipe

and place them together: And a man, viewing all these gods as the result of the "reasoning faculty," would be almost

Collins went farther, and made his god still more remot from every idea suggested of him by Christianity, insomuch that he did not scruple to renounce Christianity, altogether.

Toland was a glaringly vain and conceited man, even in Locke's judgment, and favored Spinoza's pantheistic scheme, but without Spinoza's morals. His god was every thing, or (as it might be better said) a nothing, in the world.

Chubb's god was framed at Salisbury according to his 66 own reasoning faculty;" but was a deity of that odd make, as to render it unnecessary to pray to him; for this Chubb disallowed, as well as the ideas of particular providence, a future judgment and existence, or any thing else which we have of that kind by revelation. Possibly, by not praying to his god, Chubb thought he should at least avoid idolatry.

Tindal quaintly called himself a Christian deist; and therefore his god must be sui generis, and not classed with the others. Those however, who took pains to develope him and his principles, reduce him to the form of the common deists, as to his own proper place. With them, he indeed discards all revelation, and implicitly follows, what he calls, and perhaps believed to be, reason.

The Arians make their god of a most extraordinary composition. They assert, that the Father is the one great God, and that the Son and the Holy Spirit, are mere emanations, issuing from him and resolved into him again. Thus they, in fact, confound the simplicity of the divine nature, and and reject its unity.

The Socinians advance a degree or two beyond the Arians, and affirm roundly, that Christ and the Holy Spirit are not even emanations of deity, but real creatures, and there is truly no such thing as redemption or satisfaction for sin, and no inward operation of what is called grace upon the soul. Of course, their god differs, in fact, but very little from the next class (to omit several others) which we shall mention.

The Deists form their god after the model of the heathen philosophers, receiving, however, a few of his embellishments from the Christian revelation, which some of them affect to despise. They differ, notwithstanding, as their heathen masters did, concerning his precise nature and attributes; and a few of them have even pretended to pay a sort of specious respect to Christianity itself upon the score of its morality; forgetting, perhaps, that if the system be not wholly true, it is the most impious and blasphemous imposture, that ever was foisted upon mankind. Their kiss, like Judas's is to be dreaded, lest it be only a signal to betray both Christ and his gospel.

For a solid and dispassionate confutation of most of these opinions, the reader may be referred to the writings of the late Dr. LELAND, and particularly to his View of the deistical writers, and his, Advantage and necessity of the Christian revelation; in which works his reasoning opponents are fairly and thoroughly beaten with their own weapons Vol. II.

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tempted (if there were no better rule in the case) rather te adopt Vanini's notion, and roundly assert at once, that there is no God at all. Maltitudo numinum, nullitas est numinum. All these and many other opinions of him cannot possibly be right All but one (if even that one could be excepted), must necessarily be wrong. And the question then is, which is the one? The rest are anavoidably idols, or (at best) illusive unreal phantoms: And if even this one stand upon the “reasoning faculty," which is the assumed ground of all the rest; there is no sort of certainty, but that this may be a phantom. too. Here, then, comes the issue of all pretended "rational religion," which begins with the rejection of God's revelation, and usually ends in little better than scepticism and infidelity. It floats perhaps awhile in the brain, but hath not weight enough to sink into the heart, nor force enough to influence the life. It can carry a man no farther, than it did the heathens

to a semblance of virtue and outward decency; but will never so affect the soul, as to crucify it to the world, renew it in itself, and lift it up to the enjoyment of God. Possibly, it doth not pretend to this. Then, cui bono? Doth it not leave a man just as it found him? In which case, what is he the better for this ideal affair, which begins, proceeds, and ends, with nothing? Nor is this religion (if it can deserve the name) even so rational, as it pretends; for it rests upon buman ideas to determine a matter which is infinitelyabove them: add to this, these very ideas, are, at the same time, fluctuating and unsteady in themselves, extremely different in different persons, and often exceedingly various, perplexed, and obscured in the same individual person at different times. A pretty foundation this to rest upon, in preference to that rock of ages, which can never be moved, and to his holy word, which hath at all times been proved, and proved again, and never been known to fail! reason, intruding here into things which she bath not seen, becomes, atheism in a fair disguise; and thus by misleading, while she herself is misled, plunges her (in fact) irrational votaries into every pernicious consequence. That man can never be a truly reasonable being, who leaves the Author of all right reason, for the clouded cogitations of his own mind, or for the no less clouded, and wavering, and uncertain opinions of others. Nor, on the other hand, can be be irrational, who, consenting with the wisest of men as well as with the word of God, applies for information to HIM, who only can give it upon this subject, and then relies upon that information given, as upon an invincible truth, proceeding from a being, who is both too wise and too holy, to be mistaken himself or to utter a lie to others. There is either no revelation at all; in which case,

all religion is a cheat, and there is nothing certain in the world, respecting the end of our being, as well as the cause of it: Or, if there be a revelation, it is madness and impudence at once in any man, who, admitting its existence, doth not abide by its declarations, but ventures to controvert or de termine without them. There is but this alternative in the matter.- -Thus much for the little gods of human brains: Let us now turn our attention to the revelation of GOD MOST HIGH.

From revelation we learn, that this MosT HIGH, is JEHOVAH, the incommunicable, self-existent, essence; or (what is exactly the same) that JEHOVAH ONLY is the MOST HIGH. Thou, whose name ALONE is JEHOVAH, art the MOST HIGH over all the earth; or, (as others render it) Thou, whose name is JEHOVAH, art ALONE the MOST HIGH over all the earth. Psa. lxxxiii. 18. He is called JEHOVAH MOST HIGH, in Psa. vii. 18. and in other places: And, in Psa. xcii. 8. JEHOVAH the MOST HIGH* for evermore. There can be no doubt, therefore, that this term can only be applied to GOD, and be reciprocated as a name of his infinite and exalted nature. If, then, it can be applied, and is applied to the HOLY SPIRIT, it will prove most demonstrably, and ought to prove beyond all controversy, that he is truly GoD or JEHOVAH, or a person in

the self-existent essence so named.

Psalm lxxviii. 17-22. The Israelites provoked the MOST HIGH in the wilderness, and they tempted AL in their heart, by asking meat for their lust; yea, they spake against the ALEHIM, &c.-Therefore, JEHOVAH beard this, and was wroth, &c.-because they believed not in the ALEHIM, &c. It appears as self-evident as any first proposition, that these several titles of Jehovah, Al, Alebim, and Most High, belong to one and the same being, whom we call God: Or, otherwise, there is a plurality of gods, which the Scriptures oppose and Christians deny. Whoever, therefore, has one of these appellations strictly ascribed to him, has an indefeasable right to all the rest.

Now, the prophet Isaiah declares, that this provocation of the Israelites was against the HOLY SHIRIT: They rebelled and vexed bis Holy Spirit. Is. lxiii. 10. The martyr Stephen says, that they resisted the Holy Ghost. Acts viii. 51 And the apostle to the Hebrews confirms bóth, by declaring, that it is the Holy Ghost, who saith, your fathers tempted ME, proved ME; and saw My works forty years. Hebr. iii.

7, 9.

The HOLY SPIRIT, therefore, in these last texts, is the

their עלון whence the Rimmon of the Gentiles ; as from מרום *

E'ion or Elioan. See Vol. 1. p. 155,