Owes to his creator will depend, in no fmall degree, on his forming juft conceptions of them.

A CONSIDERATION of these two propofitions, will comprehend the cafe of natural, as well as of revealed religion. First, the fecret things belong unto the Lord our God.

WHEN, after having made provifion for the abfolute neceffaries of life, the active mind of man began to find leifure for reflection; no fpeculation would appear fo interefting and important, as an inquiry into his own origin, into the purpose and tendency of his prefent ftate of existence. Reafon, in this, as in other fubjects, proceeding from what is obvious and fenfible, to what is remote and abftrufe, would gradually afcend from the vifible things of this world to the invisible things of him who made them; and having collected, with a certain

certain degree of evidence and precifion, the being and attributes of God, would infer from them his moral government, and the probability of future retribution.

THE wifeft of the antient philofophers, without any biafs from prejudice on his mind; (for he knew not that any authentic revelation existed, or had ever been promifed to mankind) confidered it however as no improbable event, that conclufions, fo formed, might in due time be confirmed or corrected by immediate communications from heaven; that others might be fuggefted, which, though perhaps difcoverable by reason in the process of inquiry, had not been actually discovered; and farther, that certain peculiarities of the divine nature might also be imparted, together with duties and confequences refulting from them, which, not being deducible from any facts or principles previously known, would rest

folely

folely on the authority by which they were revealed.

THOSE who reject revelation on the ground of its being fuperfluous, do not, it is prefumed, rate the powers of the human understanding so highly, as to imagine that no limits are affigned to its progrefs: every hour's experience too fenfibly confutes any fuch pretenfion. The subjects with which men are continually converfant, and which they have means of fubmitting to the most rigorous examination, are yet but fuperficially known. There is fomething that fo completely baffles all researches, pursued beyond a certain point, as even to preclude conjecture. And shall that intellect, which forms only confufed ideas of its own functions, and of the material frame to which it is united, be thought capable of comprehending the univerfal fyftem, and of fathoming the purposes of omnipotence? But, if

the

the affertion means only that whatever is neceffary to be known may be discovered without fupernatural affiftance, and that confequently no such affistance has been given; this implies that there are also fecret things belonging to God, with which it is not neceffary that man, in his prefent state at least, should be acquainted.

On the other hand, to admit that a revelation has been given, is tacitly to acknowledge the natural infufficiency of the human faculties; all unnecessary interpofitions being fo contrary to the evident plan of the divine administration, that the objection of those who deny the authenticity of scripture on this ground can only be fet afide, by fhewing that the affertion on which it is founded is untrue,

BUT the admonition of the text, it may be faid, addreffed to a people who lived confeffedly

confeffedly under a law of types and figures, and beheld, as through a glafs, darkly; is not applicable to chriftians, who fee thofe things which many prophets and righteous men defired to fee, and faw them not; whom the day spring from on high hath visited, and on whom the fun of righteoufnefs is rifen. The question therefore with believers is, whether that fuller communication of divine truth, which has been vouchfafed to mankind in the new teftament, enables them to inveftigate it in all its circumstances, and to its utmost extent.

THE analogy discoverable between the system of nature, and that of revealed religion, has been alleged as a ftrong prefumption that they are derived from the fame author. Of the various inftances into which this analogy branches, the cafe under confideration is one. That multiplicity of ingenious inventions, by which fociety in