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whom many Deists have so much to tell. I have omitted all recital of his supposed opinions for two reasons: 1st, Dr. Hyde has shown, in his treatise De Religione veterum Persarum, that Zoroaster had been a disciple of one of the Jewish prophets: and 2dly, all the writings that are ascribed to this philosopher are unquestionably spurious.

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LETTER IV.

On the Probability that there should be Mysteries in a Revealed Religion.

YOUR deistical friends, my dear sir, seem determined to contend zealously for every inch of ground before they yield it. But this is not to be regretted; for our future progress will be facilitated in proportion to the number of obstacles that are completely removed at the outset of our inquiry. When they tell you they will believe nothing that they cannot comprehend, and that the Scriptures are unworthy of credit, because they abound in mysteries, they adopt the language of unbelievers in all ages. But these declarations prove that they have never correctly investigated the power and office of reason in matters of religion, and at the same time run counter to their whole plan of conduct in relation to all except religious subjects; for who is there that does not believe numerous facts which are utterly incomprehensible; and reduce principles into practice, which are beyond, though not repugnant to,

reason?

It is, indeed, in a neglect of the essential distinction between what is above reason and what is contrary to it, that the objection now under consideration is founded. Yet surely nothing can be more obvious than that many things, beyond the scope of our intellectual powers, may nevertheless be perfectly true. When we

were children, several matters were to us entirely incomprehensible, which have now sunk into the simplest, and lowest, and plainest elements of our knowledge. We were then learners; docility became us; and we were highly reprehensible if we opposed our puny understandings to that of our tutors. Now, in the bestowal of a revelation, the principle is assumed that men are in a state of pupilage. The God of infinite wisdom condescends to be their teacher; and it therefore behoves them, on such an occasion, to employ their reason solely for the purpose of ascertaining whether what is presented to them be really the word of God, and then to resign their understandings wholly to the adoption of the truths with which they are favoured. This is consistent with what is prescribed by that great philosopher Lord Bacon, who directs that reason be employed in studying Holy mysteries, with this "caution, that the mind for its module be dilated to "the amplitude of the mysteries; and not the myste"ries be straitened and girt into the narrow compass "of the mind." He says again, in his Advancement of Learning, "We ought not to attempt to draw "down, or submit the mysteries of God to our reason; “but, on the contrary, to raise and advance our reason "to the divine truth. In this part of knowledge,

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touching divine philosophy, I am so far from noting any deficiency, that I rather note an excess whereto “I have digressed, because of the extreme prejudice "which both religion and philosophy have received "from being commixed together, as that which will "undoubtedly make an heretical religion and a fabu

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"lous philosophy." And again, "As to seek Divinity. "in Philosophy, is as if you would seek the living "amongst the dead; so, on the other hand, to seek "Philosophy in Divinity, is all one as to seek the dead amongst the living." the living." Lastly, that I may not tire you with quotations, "The prerogative of God com"prehends the whole man. Whereby, as we are to "obey God's law, though we find a reluctance in our "will; so we are to believe his word, though we find

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a reluctance in our reason; for, if we believe only "that which is agreeable unto our reason, we give assent to the matter, not to the author, which is no 66 more than we would do towards a discredited wit

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Mighty as is the authority of Lord Bacon, I do not shelter myself under it for the purpose of avoiding the discussion; but merely in order to show that this great father of the inductive philosophy saw, not only the propriety, but the advantage, of subjecting his gigantic intellect to divine instruction. Nor was this the consequence of affected humility, but of real knowledge of the actual situation of man. He that is shut up in a close place, and can only peep through crevices,―or who stands in a valley, and has his prospect intercepted, or who is encompassed with fogs that render all surrounding objects obscure, would be overwhelmed with contempt if he set at nought the superior information of those who had beheld the same things from an eminence, and through a translucent atmosphere: yet such is the folly of him who will not adopt what extends beyond his previous knowledge.

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Beneath omniscience there are innumerable forms of intelligence, in the lowest of which man seems to be placed, but one step above "the beasts that perish :" hence his mind has a pitch beyond which it cannot soar without extraneous aid; and things clearly intelligible to more noble creatures, moving in a higher sphere, may be dark and inexplicable to him; and shall he despise and deny the truth of verities revealed to him by the Fountain of all Intelligence, because he cannot comprehend them? Is it not an established axiom, that "that which may be comprehended is less than "the hands that grasp it; that which may be valued "is less than the senses which rate it?" (b) Why, then, should this axiom be annulled, and any thing be rejected as untrue, because it cannot be reduced within the narrow dimensions of human intellect?

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It is certain that infinity is not a word void of sense, but a word that expresses something which really exists. Whichever way man turns, immensity presents itself. In vain will he seek a duration which is the term of all duration, a space which shall be the ultimate limit of space after having wearied itself in its excursions, the mind will find itself limited, but in a new point of duration, a fresh portion of space. Nor can the ideas of duration and of space be annihilated. We may imagine that all motion ceases, that all heat is extinct, that attractions and repulsions are at an end, that all living beings have perished, that all nature is dissolved, and matter no longer exists; but if it were proposed to go on and imagine that the place which these things occupied had itself disappeared, the mind would stop (b) Tertul. Apol. 17.

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