and man's duty, in the scriptures. Very true: and to those to whom it was, or is made, it was or is an infallible manifestation, safe to depend upon, being attended with a certain knowledge. But what is he to do who has only the letter, and human reason to expound it? The letter killeth, and human reasonings, not under direction of divine light, have introduced most dreadful confusion and absurdity into the many creeds in Christendom. What but too great dependance on human ability to explain the doctrines of the gospel, has made so many of the best natural abilities, through divers ages, so systematically blind in their creeds and opinions? Is human wisdom grown a whit wiser, in divine things, than ever she was? If not, why are men as confident as ever their forefathers were, that she is all-suffi cient to give them the knowledge of God, and all divine instruction? One age condemns another as erroneous. One country, one society, and one individual goes on pronouncing others absolutely wrong, mistaken, and deceived; and yet each maintains the sufficiency of human reason, or natural abilities, to understand the scriptures, and establish a system of divinity consistent with unerring wisdom. This age condemns certain notions of past ages, as abominable errors. Those who held said errors, thought human reason, unassisted with divine light, fully adequate to a right understanding of scripture. The next age will probably condemn the notions of this, as grossly ridiculous, and well it may, many of them! But the next age may be assured, that all the errors of this, arose from the rejection of the one only key of all divine knowledge, the divine light of Christ in the soul! Nothing ever did, or can make things clearly manifest, but light. Natural light manifests natural things; divine light, and that alone, divine things. He that thinks he knows any divine truth, without divine light, supposes an effect without an adequate cause. A man may as soon beget an angel, as divine knowledge, or the knowledge of divine truth, can be propagated without divine light and influence. This is the stone that the wise human builders, in all ages, have rejected and set at naught. Hence they have built without a firm foundation; hence, sooner or later, their buildings have fallen; and so will those of this and the next age also, unless they wait for and depend upon divine illumination. This is the key of David, which opened to him great mysteries, and made him wiser than his teachers. I pray the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to open the eyes of poor benighted mankind, and bring the people off from this unhappy dependance upon unenlighted human understanding, both in themselves and in their teachers! Oh! how mournful, that even though God graciously, by a light truly divine, shineth in our hearts, to give us divine knowledge, yet multitudes, age after age, will still rely on the broken reed of human sufficiency! Can any man wonder, if deists on even atheists abound in Christian countries, and mock at all revealed religion? a What is this religion that God has so clearly revealed in the scriptures? Human wisdom has never yet settled it, and never will. One says, it is here in my creed; no, says another, it is here in mine, and greatly different from thine; a third cries, no such matter, it is only to be found in this of mine, and is diametrically opposite, in many respects, to both of yours; mine is the genuine result of pure reason, yours the offspring of fallacy and deception. This they nearly all think of each other's, and their own, and all maintain the sufficiency of reason to discover truth. Here they all err. Right reason is ever conformable to truth, but men's reason unassisted is often unable of itself, to discover even many natural truths, and always utterly so, in regard to divine truth. And hence, all ages will be liable to endless error and confusion, until divine light alone is depended upon, to discover divine truth. "Then will the nations of them that are saved walk together in the light of the Lord." But till then, I expect infidels and deists will have ample cause, either to ridicule the pretended clearness of every human creed in Christendom, or to exalt their own boasted rational religion of nature, or denial of all religion, over the inconsistent systems of man-made divinity. Oh! that the time past might suffice, wherein Christians have vainly attempted to "hew out to themselves cisterns!" If this world should even prove eternal, human wisdom would forever be unable to hew out a single cistern, that can hold the living water of salvation, the true Christian divinity. I know some have been ridiculed for pretending to advance reasons against the sufficiency of reason for the discovery and direction in divine things, as if this insufficiency, if real, (as it certainly is,) must therefore render reason useless. Whereas reason, under divine influence and illumination is abundantly subservient to the cause of truth, indeed is that, without which, man cannot understand any doctrines, either in naturals or spirituals. By asserting the absolute inadequacy of reason, unassisted by divine influence, to discover divine truths or the meaning of parables and deep mysteries, ever designed by Eternal Wisdom to be hid from mere creaturely wisdom, it is not at all intended, nor indeed implied, either that these are in the least inconsistent with reason, or that reason is not to be an assistant in propagating truth. On the contrary, it is our rational faculties, that receive the illuminations of divine light, and being thereby rectified, are brought to comprehend, in a greater or less degree, what this light is, and the certainty and reality of its teachings; that it is truly divine, an emanation from God, the very life of the Eternal Holy Word, and that its teachings are all perfectly agreeable to the mind and will of God. Whereas, without attention to this light, so as thereby to obtain this rectification of our faculties, we are utterly unable clearly to comprehend the light, what it is, and the infallibility of its discoveries and dictates. It shines in the hearts of such as in a dark place, in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not. Hence many of the brightest sons of genius, learning, and mere rational improvement, are so unable, with all their philosophy, to comprehend what this light is, that they strenuously deny, in flat contradiction of that sacred record which they call the only rule, that all men have a divine light shining in the heart; or that the light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world, is the very life of the eternal Logos or Word, that was with God, and was and is God; and yet we know that if it were not, it could not possibly "give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ." VOL. II.-42 This light shining in man, is that very face of Jesus Christ, in which we receive, and out of which no man possibly can receive, this knowledge of the glory of God. God hath "spoken unto us by his son," hence the son is called the word of God, that by which the Father speaketh to the states of all men individually. The life of this eternal word shining in all, speaks plainly God's will unto them and their duty; and unseals unto their understandings, who believe in it, the otherwise sealed book, it being, as before observed, the key of David. By this it is, that our rational faculties are so opened and enlarged in divine things, that we see with clearness, and comprehend what we could not otherwise do, by all our study and investigations. Our faculties being depraved, in a state of alienation, we reason according to our various customs, prepossessions, and inclinations. Reason of itself is so inadequate to the knowledge of divine mysteries or truths, that her most dignified champions are at this day, and for many ages have been strenuously combatting each other's most finished systems of divinity (so called by them.) Like the potsherds of the earth, they dash one against another, greatly to the confusion and reproach of every babel in Christendom. Such is the wisdom of God, that "a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand;" but after all the pains taken by the very masters in Israel, to establish a kingdom, or house upon the sand of human reasonings, their buildings do and will fall; “for God will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent." A superstructure thus erected on the sand, may have been so propped up by sophistry and art as to maintain a considerable degree of credit and even veneration, for several ages; but sooner or later all such grow out of estimation, as the fallacy of their pretended support has been perceived. People's eyes have been so far opened, as to see some part, more or less, of the deception, and so the tottering building has tumbled, and great has sometimes been the fall thereof. And yet,-alas for the frailty of human nature, with all its boasted abilities, its rational, and as some would have it, almost infallible faculties!-no sooner has the absurdity of one once celebrated system been clearly discovered, and the system itself therefore rejected, but the minds of the same men, who have just seen and rejected the one, have readily, (such is the tyrannic sway of human reasonings, when once believed sufficient for the discovery of divine truths,) with eagerness and avidity, embraced another babel of confusion, as ill founded and as unsupported as the other. And some have thus revolved from one confused system and absurd opinion to another, till they have, in the course of life, embraced much of the many false doctrines which have prevailed in their day, and some have finally landed in an opinion, as foreign from truth as any they have rejected, or perhaps come about to the first they held; and I doubt not but multitudes will still go the round of this uncertain circle, seeing there is but one infallible way for any to escape it entirely, and that is, for all who think seriously of religious things, to attend to truth in the inward parts. Pilate asks" what is truth?" Christ says, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." He surely is so. He speaks truth in all, whether they will hearken to it or not. and his words of truth in all, and his light in all, will in time and eternity be the condemnation of all that live and die regardless thereof, or rebellious against it; for the word which he has spoken in the heart shall judge us all at the last day. Many ignorantly deny this, and that Christ is by his light, grace, or spirit in all. Oh! how little they are aware that some do certainly know that they could not possibly deny these truths unless they were ignorant of the true knowledge of the Father and the son. All that rightly know them, know that the same which formerly condemned them for all evil, even though they then knew not what it was, and positively denied its divinity, is now known to be Christ in them, the hope of glory, their light, their life, and consolation. They know and are well acquainted with him; they have the witness in themselves; others may deride, but they still know and believe, yea, "know in whom they do believe," know that it is he and not another. Moreover, they know that there is no clear knowledge of him without this inward acquaintance with him. Some deny his actual indwelling in the saints, and his inward |