our Maker is still reconcileable, it directs us to no certain way or means of reconciliation; a deficiency which should dispose us to listen with humble gratitude to the farther instruction of scripture, whence only we can derive satisfaction in this, and in many other points that concern our highest interests.

Mr. Locke somewhere says, "I thank God for the light of revelation which sets my poor reason at rest in many things that lay beyond the reach of its discovery." To this memorable and pious acknowledgment of the weakness of human understanding, let me add that of another very eminent philosopher*, who, in a prayer highly admired by Mr. Addison, thus addresses the Almighty, "I have sought thee in courts, fields, and gardens, but I have found thee in thy temples:" which is in other words to declare, that it was only by the light of scripture and the exercises of

*Lord Bacon.

devotion, that he attained to that acquaintance with God which he had sought for in vain amidst the hurry of secular affairs, or in the course of his philosophical pursuits. These great examples, among others, may properly be urged in proof of the necessity and advantage of revelation, and as an authority which may confidently be opposed to that pride of pretended reason, and that ignorance and contempt of the Bible, which so unhappily distinguishes the present race of minute philosophers.

The Bible is the brightest mirror of the Deity. There we discern not only his being, but his character; not only his character, but his will; not only what he is in himself, but what he is to us, and what we may expect at his hands. This knowledge of God, as we have before suggested, neither nature nor providence can teach us, whatever we may thence collect concerning the relation he bears towards us as the Creator and Governor of the world, or of

his propensity to mercy and reconcile

ment.

He therefore who aspires after the knowledge now described, must direct his attention to those objects which are revealed to us only in scripture; and to that object in particular, in which the Almighty has manifested himself, both in his essential attributes and in his propensions towards the human race, in a manner more glorious than in all his other works and dispensations. This object is a mediator, in whom the sovereign of the universe appears a juft God and a Saviour*, and at once eminently displays the holiness of his nature, the majesty of his government, and the immensity of his mercy.'

No man, says Christ, knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him †. And again: No man cometh

to the Father but by me*. And yet the apostle Paul declares, That the invisible things of him (speaking of the Deity), from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead †; and that when the gentiles knew God, they glorified him not as God +. Whence we may infer, that the knowledge spoken of by the master and the disciple is not the same; that the former is of a superior nature to the latter; and that the ablest philosopher, after all he can learn from the heavens and the earth, must apply to the great Teacher and Prophet of mankind, for that knowledge of God which will make him wise to salvation.

The natural presumption of the human mind, especially when' strengthened by a conceit of superior attainments, will not easily be reduced to this submission. But it must be done. If any man seemeth to be

* John, xiv. 6.

+ Rom. i. 20.

Rom. i. 21.

wise in this world, he must become a fool, that he may be wise. The most towering philosopher, though he exalt himself as the eagle, and set his nest among the stars, must stoop to divine instruction; that is, he must divest himself of all vain opinion of his scientific abilities; he must renounce the proud and visionary theories of men, who conceal their impiety, and oftentimes their ignorance, under the name of reason; and must come with the simplicity of a child, to the school of the despised Nazarene, to be taught the first elements of divine knowledge; or he may find that all his parts and speculations will only serve to work him more deeply into error.

It is to the want of this submission of the understanding, so highly becoming a creature and a sinner, that we must chiefly ascribe that awful prevalence of infidelity and atheism, that marks the age in which we live. To this a neighbouring country is indebted for her sophists, who, under

1 Cor. iii. 18.