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SERM.III.

many
and fo bright Indications and Marks
of Truth, as Christianity has.

We ought to pafs the fame Judgment
upon God's Word, which we do upon his
Works. In the latter there appear plain Sig-
natures of Goodness and Wifdom through-
out the whole Frame of Nature. But if
among the Works of the Creation, which are
generally excellent, there are fome particu-
lar Exceptions, fome Creatures, for In-
ftance, which, far from anfwering any
wife End which we can difcern, are really
noxious and baneful to the Reft: What do
we infer from thence? That the Creation is
not the Work of a wife and good God?
Or even, that thefe Creatures were not
formed by him? No, no fuch Thing:
We conclude nothing, but that these Sub-
jects lye too deep for us, and that our Views
are too narrow to account for every Thing.
Juft fo, the Characters of Goodness and
Wisdom are generally impreffed upon the
Bible: And if in a Book generally fo good
and excellent there are fome particular
Things hard to be understood, nay, feem-
ingly abfurd; we ought to refolve it into
our Want of Penetration and Difcernment :
And we might as well argue,
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"Things in the Creation appear to us pro"ductive of evil, and hurtful; and there"fore, because they are not of a Piece with "the reft of God's Works, they cannot be "his Productions;" as pretend to reafon thus: "Such Texts feem unaccountable to

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us,

and therefore we will not allow them

to be written under the Direction of an "All-wise Being." Inftead of fuch a precipitate Judgment, it would be much wiser to exprefs ourselves as St. Auftin did: "What "I understand in Scripture, is excellent ; " and I do not question, but what I do not "understand is fo too." We fhould remember, that a Book, which speaks of Things remote from common Apprehenfion, which lays before us the deep Things of God, muft in the Nature of the Thing be more puzzling; than any Compofition, which contains the fhallow Devices of an Understanding like our own.

Men may retire into their Closets, and there imagine with themselves, how easy and plain a Book fhould be, which is of a divine Original, without any amazing Facts, without any dark and unintelligible Paffages; and when they find that the Revelation which we have, does not tally with their

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SERM.III. their vain Imaginations, may presume to

reject it. And, fhould they, instead of
looking abroad, and seeing what the Ad-
ministration of the Universe is in Fact, fit
down and form imaginary Schemes, how
God fhould govern the World; the Course
of Nature, as it is in Reality, would no
more correspond with their preconceived
Hypothefis, than the Scriptures do. They
would never imagine a priori, that a con-
fiderable Part of the rational World should
be cut off, before they came to the Ufe of
their Reason, and should just make their
Entrance upon
the Theatre of Nature, to
go out again, without feeming to answer
one valuable End or Purpose: They would
never conceive, without feeing how Things
really are, that there fhould be fo much
Evil, natural and moral, in the World; that
feveral Nations should fit in Darkness, and
the Shadow of Death.

One plain Argument, that God has made fuch a Revelation as we have, should outweigh a thousand plaufible Conjectures brought against it, to shew, that it can be no Revelation from God; and that if it had, it must have been made in Juch a Manner, and no other. The Reafon is as follows: We

can

can eafily judge of the Strength of those Ar-SERM. III. guments, which prove that God has, in Fact, published his Will to Mankind; for they are clear, full, and obvious: But we are intirely incompetent Judges; how, in what Manner, with what Degree of Clearnefs in every Point, God, whofe Thoughts are not as our Thoughts, fhould publifh his Will, how much Light it was proper he should communicate, and what Intricacies he might fuffer, on Purpose to be the Tests of humble well-difpofed Minds, and to be a Stone of Stumbling, and a Rock of Offence, to the Perverse and Difingenuous. We may conclude from the Uniformity of God's Proceedings, that his revealed Will must bear fome Analogy and Correfpondence to the Conftitution of Nature, as fettled by him. And when every Thing can be accounted for, and is easy to be understood, in the Conduct of his Providence; then, and not till then, we ought to expect, that every Thing fhould be fo too in a divine Revelation.

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