any Force or Significancy: Because no SERM.III. other Objections can fet afide the positive Evidence for fuch an Affiftance of the Spirit, as was fufficient to preserve them from Error and guide them to all neceffary Truths.

Now, as to the Charge of Inconfiftencies, Abfurdities, and Contradictions; whatever has been urged on this Head, has been fatisfactorily anfwered by feveral able Writers. But, fuppofing all Objections of this kind could not be folved; it is much more reasonable to suppose, that they may admit of a rational Solution, though we at this Distance of Time, who want an adequate Knowledge of the Customs, Peculiarities, and Genius of the Eastern Nations, cannot hit upon it; than that a Religion attested by Miracles, confirmed by Prophecies, and recommended by its own internal Excellency, should be falfe. God would not have fuffered an Imposture to come recommended to us with fuch strong and commanding Evidences, as have deceived (if they were deceived) as rational, inquifitive and difinterested Men as ever lived in the World; Evidences fo ftrong, that no Inftance can be given of any Thing else, that was ever fufpected to be falfe, which had fo

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many

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

We ought to pass the fame Judgment upon God's Word, which we do upon his Works. In the latter there appear plain Signatures of Goodness and Wisdom throughout 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 Inftance, 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 these Creatures were not formed by him? No, no fuch Thing: We conclude nothing, but that these Subjects lie 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, feemingly abfurd; we ought to refolve it into our Want of Penetration and Difcernment: And we might as well argue, " feveral

3

"Things

r Things in the Creation appear to us pro- SERM.III. "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 reason thus: "Such Texts feem unaccountable to us, and therefore we will not allow them "to be written under the Direction of an "All-wife Being." Inftead of fuch a precipitate Judgment, it would be much wifer to express ourselves as St. Austin did: "What "I understand in Scripture, is excellent; " and I do not question, but what I do not "underftand 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 Clofets, and there imagine with themfelves, how eafy 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

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their

SERM.III. their vain Imaginations, may presume to

reject it.
And, fhould they, instead of
looking abroad, and feeing 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 correfpond with their preconceived
Hypothefis, than the Scriptures do. They
would never imagine à priori, that a con-
fiderable Part of the rational World should
be cut off, before they came to the Use 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, fhould outweigh athousand plaufible Conjectures brought against it, to fhew, that it can be no Revelation from God; and that if it had, it must have been made in fuch a Manner, and no other. The Reafon is as follows: We

can

can eafily judge of the Strength of thofe 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 publish his Will, how much Light it was proper he should communicate, and what Intricacies he might suffer, 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 should be fo too in a divine Revelation.

SER