it not for the affiftance of the fame expedient, your friends the Deifts would be hardly able to follow you. 12. And now, Sirs, what do you think of your principle? Is it not a goodly one, and richly worth all the paffion and zeal you have expreffed for it? You know very well that M. Abbadie, in his excellent treatife of the divinity of Chrift, has fhewn you that upon one of your grounds (viz. the denial of that article) the Mahometan religion is preferable to the Chriftian, and indeed that you are obliged by it to renounce Chriftianity, and turn Mahometans. This truly was a home-thrust. But yet you fee the confequence of your general principle reaches further, as leading you not only out of Christianity, but out of all religion, whether natural or revealed, even beyond deifm, even into atheism itself. If it does not actually lead you thither, the fault is not in the principle, whofe connexion,with that confequence is natural enough; but it is because you are not fo confiftent with yourselves as to follow it. And indeed it is a great happiness that you do not, (fince if you were here better logicians, you would be worfe men) though it would be a much greater, if for the danger of being more consistent with it, you would be perfuaded to lay it down. 13. And that you may be fo, be pleafed further to confider, that though this principle of yours does not eventually carry you as far as Atheism, because perhaps the horridness of the conclufion may be a counterweight against the force of the premises, (though you fee it naturally tends that way) yet there is very great danger of its leading you effectually into Deism, that not being accounted now-a-days fuch a very frightful thing. For as long as you hold, that what is above human reafon is not to be believed, and upon that account reject the Christian mysteries, because they are above reafon; you lie at the mercy of that argument that shall prove to you that these myfteries are indeed revealed, and that the gcnuine and natural fenfe of the facred text declares for them. For if you once come to be convinced of that, you will then be obliged, in confequence of your principle, to renounce that religion which reveals fuch incredible things that is the Chriftian, which will be a fhrewd (indeed an invincible) temptation to you to throw up all revealed religion, and fo to turn perfect Deifts. And I pray God it may not have that effect upon you. 14. But as to the parting with Chriftianity, that you will be further tempted to do upon another account. For when you have by your principle ftript it, or I may fay rather unbowelled it of its great and adorable myfteries, it will appear fuch a poor, lank, flender thing to you, that you will hardly think it confiderable enough to be revealed as a new and more perfect inftitution by God, or to be received as fuch by thinking and confidering men. For what will fuch find fo confiderable in Chriftianity, (especially as a new inftitution) what fo visibly peculiar and affuredly diftinguishing, what that may infallibly fet it above an human inflitution, if it be once robbed of its myfteries? They may indeed think it a good plain piece of morals, and fuch as exceeds any other of a known human compofure, but how are they fure but that the invention of man may be able to rise so high, as to compofe fuch a fyftem as this, if you set aside its myfteries? Which therefore I cannot but look upon of all the things that are intrinfic to it, (for I do not here confider miracles) as the greatest characters of its divinity. And fome, perhaps, would be apt to think them fuch as without which it would be hardly thought worthy of reception (especially as a new inftitution) even with the help of miracles, which men are always ready, and not without reason, to fufpect, when the matters for whose fake they are wrought bear not fufficient proportion to them. Which they would alfo perhaps be inclined to think to be the prefent cafe. For what (would they fay) is there in the Christian religion that deferves fo great ado, what that fhould engage an omnipotent arm to introduce it into the world by fuch mighty figns and wonders, if there be indeed nothing wonderful in it; that is, if you take away its myfteries. What cannot a good fyftem of morality (efpecially if only a fecond, and a little more correct edition of a former) be communicated to the world without alarming heaven and earth, and giving disturbance to the courfe of nature? And if Chriftianity be no more, what proportion (fay they) will it bear to its miraculous introduction? And what will it be found to have fo very confiderable as either to deferve or justify fuch an apparatus? It mult indeed be allowed by all to be a good wholesome inftitution for the direction of manners, but what is there fo very great and admirable in it, what that either deferves or anfwers to fo many types, and figures, and prophetical predictions, what that fo copioufly fets forth the manifold wifdom of God, and the glory of his attributes, andthe nothingness of the creature? And where are thofe "deep "things of God," that "eye hath not feen, nor ear heard, nor "have entered into the heart of man," (a place which the Apostle applies out of the prophet Isaiah to the revelations of the Gofpel;) where, I fay, are thofe profound things which the spirit of God only that "fearcheth all things" could reveal, and which even now they are revealed, "the angels defire to look "into t." You will hardly find any thing of fo raised a character in Chriftianity, if you diveft it of its mysteries, which therefore may juftly be reckoned as the main pillars of it, without which it will have much ado to fupport itself. So that in fhort Christianity not Mysterious, (how fond foever a certain author is of fuch a religion) will make but a very little figure in proportion to its pomp and external fplendor, and indeed will almoft dwindle down into nothing. 15. It may indeed even without the myfteries make a shift to fubfift as a mere fyftem of precepts, and rule of life, though even thus confidered it will be greatly impaired, and suffer much difadvantage (as wanting thofe convincing demonftrations of God's hatred of fin, and of his love towards mankind, and withal those endearing and perfuafive arguments for their returns of love, gratitude, and obedience towards him, which can only be derived from the redemption of the world by the death and fatisfaction of its divine undertaker) but as a covenant of grace established betwixt God and his offending and eftranged creature it cannot poffibly stand, but muft fall to the ground. So that though the moral or legal part (as I may call it) of Chriftianity may at a hard rate continue after the downfall of its myfteries, yet its federal part, and all that is properly Gospel in it, must needs be involved in the ruin, and fall with them, that being all built upon the fatisfaction of Chrift, as that again upon his divinity, which is therefore the very foundation of the Christian religion, as M. Abbadie has by variety of demonftration proved it to be. If then you would have that divine inftitution ftand, and if you would ftand faft in it, (both which I am willing to fuppose) have a care how you remove its myfteries, confidering how fundamental they are to the building, and how great a fhare of its facred weight refts them. But endeavour rather to remove your own prejudices, to mortify your understandings, to study humility, and to reftrain the too free fallies of your too curious and over-venturous reafon, by ftill and filent reflections upon God's infinite upon greatnefs, and your own almost as great infirmities, by which one thought well purfued, you will (by the grace of God) come to a better understanding of yourselves than to reject any of his plain revelations merely because you cannot conceive them, and fo leaving light and vifion to the other life, will be content with other good Chriftians, humbly to believe and adore in this. (to whom for 16. Gentlemen, I beseech you feriously to confider what with Chriftiau charity and all due civil refpect I have here laid before you; and if upon confideration of it you find any weight in it, to let it have its full force and effect upon you. Which if you do, I hope it may ferve, by the blefling of God, that end I humbly devote this labour) to convince you, or at least to put you upon fuch better confiderations of your own as may. For I pretend not here to have said all, but to have left many things to the enlargement and improvement of your own meditation, confidering the impropriety of doing otherwife to perfons of your parts and learning, which I pray God to fanctify and increase to you. Whereby you may perceive that I am not against your making ufe of your reafon. No; I would only have you reafon rightly, and that you may do fo, would have you by all human methods to improve and cultivate your reafon as much as you can, being well perfuaded that as a half-view of things makes men opinionative, difputatious, and dogmatical, fo a clear and thorough light makes them humble, and distrustful of themfelves; and that the more cultivated and improved any man's natural reason is, the cafier it will be for him to captivate it to the obedience of faith. POSTSCRIPT. SINCE the committing of thefe papers to the prefs, I have had the pleasure to perufe Mr. Whifton's New Theory of the Earth, for which extraordinary and truly great performance I return him all due thanks, and am very glad to fee fo great a master of reason and philosophy exprefs fo awful and reverential a regard to religion in general, and in particular to the facred myfteries of it, against which both human reafon and natural philofophy have been of late fo abufively and profanely employed, How far this ingenious and learned author makes good his great undertaking, or whether this or the former theorist be most likely to be in the right, I fhall not take upon me to examine: I only make this obfervation from both their wonderful attempts, that whether they are in the right or no, as to their respective accounts of things, yet they have at leaft gone so far, and offered fo fairly, towards a true explanation of them, as to convince any competent and indifferent reader that the Mofaic records concerning the greater phenomena of creation and providence, are not really of fo defperate a nature as they were once prefumed to be, but are in themselves capable of, and may perhaps in time actually have (if they have not already) a true natural folution. And for inftance, a univerfal flood without a miracle, or that the world fhould be wholly drowned in a natural way, or according to the laws of motion already fettled, and by a train of caufes already laid in nature, has been hitherto thought an incomprehenfible, and accordingly an impoffible thing. But now if these two mighty geniuses who have undertaken to give a natural account of this ftupendous revolution, have neither of them pitched upon the very precife way and manner whereby it was brought to pafs, yet I think it cannot be denied but that they have faid enough between them to convince that the thing was naturally poffible, and that a true natural account may be given of it, though they should be fuppofed not to have hit directly upon that which is fo. That is, I mean, they have represented it at least as a conceivable thing, whether they themselves have had the good fortune to conceive of it exactly as it was or no. Upon |