Reason will be conducted fafely and logically to the infallible Principle, the Word or Tefti mony of God, in which Faith at once finds its repofe and end; and Reafon will have only to interpret the meaning of that, mysterious book in which they are recorded--Or, Reafon may perform this religious task, by purfuing the reverfe of this order, through the Internal and External Evidences of this Authority, to the Authenticity of the Holy Scriptures down to ourselves, forming the conviction of our Faith on the fame firm and folid grounds.

In bringing Reafon down the defcending line, the different GROUNDS on which it argues, the different offices which it performs, or the METHOD it pursues, will be fomething like the following.

All Truth is born of God; and, as every difpenfation of it, whether natural or revealed, proceeds from him, all the parts of it, however different they may be in kind, are confiftent and correfpondent members of one perfect whole. Thus truth is evermore the way

to truth; the less leading to the greater, the inferior to the fuperior, in a regular but fubTime gradation and, that the knowledge and certainty of one part is the only right road to the knowledge and certainty of another, is the cardinal and fundamental maxim of found logic. As, from firft and intuitive principles of external and internal fenfe, buman truths are derived of different kinds; fo, by a fublimer effort, from these human truths, as new Grounds or Principles, reason ascends to thofe which are divine. And this is the great connecting link between natural and fupernatural knowledge, annexed to the footftool of God, from which the golden chain depends, by which Reason ascends from earth to heaven.

This method of conveying his divine truths into the minds of men, by connecting them with truths of which they were poffeffed before, and these the most natural and familiar, was univerfally adopted by our Lord, who never stooped to the formalities of an ufelefs logic. Inftead of defining and fyllogizing, we find him perpetually illuftrating and explaining spiritual and heavenly things, by the ana

logy

logy and fimilitude of thofe which are temporal and earthly. Of this conduct of our divine mafter and inftructor, I fhall only bring one example out of a thousand; and that, because it lays those very fundamental GROUNDS, from which we are enabled to reason in Divinity.--On afferting to the Pharifees and Scribes that he was "the light "of the world," in proof of this fpiritual and important truth, he does not run into fpeculative argument or metaphyfical difcuffion, which men could not poffibly understand, however true; but he appeals to a public fact which experience and long ufage had rendered most familiar to their understanding; "It is written in your law, that the testi66 mony of two men is true;" from which testimony of two, he directly argues to the fimilar truth of his divine commiffion, " I "am one that bear witness of myself, and "the Father that hath fent me beareth wit"nefs of me."-But, in his anfwers and expreffions, more was generally meant than met the ear and we shall find thefe two heavenly witneffes, in the different evidences

John viii. 17, 18.

which they brought forward, in fupport of this new light of the world, laying two different and important Grounds of Theologie Reasoning.

I. In the fame conference with the Jewish doctors, our Lord puts this pointed and decifive question, "Which of you convinceth "me of SIN, and, if I speak the truth, why "do ye not believe me?" He is in fcripture eminently and exprefsly ftyled the Word, which Word confifts of the Doctrines which he taught, and of which he was himself the fubject; and of the Precepts which he delivered, and of which he was himself the pattern and "Which of you," said he in this important view of himfelf, "convinceth me "of fin?" For the truth of what he faid, of his doctrines and of his precepts, he appealed, by this pointed question, to that moral truth, which his hearers had acquired in a natural way, and were convinced of from the principle of internal fenfe; drawing a proof of his own divinity from the eternal difference of good and evil, virtue and vice, John viii. 46.

written

written by the hand of nature on the hearts of men, to be, among other ufes, a familiar and standing witnefs of himself; concluding, and teaching all men to conclude, that, if upon examining his Word, by this native unerring witness, it be found perfectly confiftent with their best ideas of the Goodness of God, and fuperior to their best ideas, it muft, in all reafon, be alfo confiftent with the fifter attribute of his Truth.-" And if "I fay the truth, why do ye not be"" lieve me?"

Thus, it is by the evidence of Moral truth deduced in a natural way from the internal principle of consciousness, that reason is enabled to form a decifive judgment of the subject-matter of revelation; which is, therefore, if not properly to be called a principle, a fufficient GROUND of folid reasoning, in matters of religion. Should any thing be found in Scripture as taught or enjoined of God, which, when fully understood, palpably contradicts his moral attributes, as they are discovered by the light of conscience and natural reason, (which are our firft, and as

See Chap. IX. of the firft volume.

far