The meaning of the principle being thus clearly stated, let ùs come to the point under consideration. In order to maintain that "the Scriptures must have every where an intelligible meaning," that is to say, a meaning void of mystery, and such as reason may penetrate, the Unitarian must needs suppose, that either God has no right to reveal mysteries impervious to reason, and to exact from men the tribute of their implicit belief in those mysteries; or, if, absolutely speaking; he has a right to do this, still, it is not consistent with, or worthy of, his wisdom, to do so; or, in fine, that it is repugnant to the very nature of the human understanding, and derogatory to its dignity, to believe what is above it, or what it cannot conceive. Now, I maintain, that these three suppositions are equally untenable; therefore, the Scriptures may have a meaning unintelligible to the human mind, a mysterious meaning, a meaning above the reach of reason, and such as reason cannot fathom.

SECTION I.

VII. God has a right to reveal to men impenetrable myste ries, and to exact from them an implicit belief in the same..

And how can this be, asks the Unitarian, and how can God require, that a rational being should believe, what he cannot conceive?

The Unitarian will permit me to reply, with equal freedom, and, I trust, with reason on my side. And who are you, (so I would argue with my Unitarian friend,) who are you, a little being of yesterday, that you dare dispute the rights, which your God has over you? Who are you, who presume to call your master to an account for his conduct towards you, and to set limits to the infinite claims which he essentially possesses over the whole creation? Who are you, who pretend to prescribe laws to your God, respecting what he is to exact of you, and what not? What! you have the audacity to say to the Sovereign Lord of the universe," Thus far thou No. I

3

shalt come and no further :"* thou hast a right to reveal to me what I can conceive, and nothing more: thy oracles shall be respected when approved at the tribunal of my reason, and disregarded when above my understanding. What language! It is your's, when you deny your God the right of revealing mysteries to men.

Whence do you come? Who made you all that you are? Is it not God? Are you not, therefore, born his servant? Are you not, essentially and perpetually, depending on him, as the only author of your existence, both as to body and soul? Are you not the work of his hands, and has he not, therefore, an infinite right over your whole being, over all your faculties, corporeal as well as intellectual? Is it not, therefore, his province to dictate to you, not your's to dictate to him, how and after what manner you are to worship him? Is not God, in virtue of your creation, your sovereign master, and does not reason dictate, that it belongs to the master to command, and to the servant to obey ? Does the vessel say to the potter, Why hast thou made me so? an indisputable right to do with his vessel, the work of his hands, what he pleases, and to employ it for whatever use he thinks proper, and that for this very reason, because he has made it? How much more, are you and I under the infinite control of our common Maker, and how much more right has he, to dispose of us, at his divine pleasure, than the potter can have to dispose of the work of his hands, and to exact from us such a determinate kind of worship, and no other; to demand, in fine, that we should not only honour his infinite dominion, by a perfect submission of our will to his divine

"Usque huc procedes, et non amplius." Job.

Has not the potter

+ St. Paul's Epist. ad Rom. ix. ver. 20 et seq. "O, man, who art thou, that thou repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Or has not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?" And Isaiah, ch. x. ver. 15, "Shall the axe boast itself against him, that cutteth with it? or shall the saw exalt itself against him, by whom it is drawn? As if a rod should lift itself up against him that lifteth it up, and a staff exalt itself, which is but wood."

commands, but also his infinite veracity, in captivating our un derstanding to the belief of mysteries which we cannot comprehend ?*

VIII. But, continues the Unitarian, why should I be bound to believe that, of which I do not conceive the reason? Would not this look like blind stupidity?

Why? Because God is your master, and you are his servant: he is not obliged to tell you the reasons, he has to enjoin you such and such orders: or, let me ask you, would you put up with the insolence of a servant, who would unceremoniously tell you, that he is determined not to obey you, for no other reason, than because he cannot conceive the motives you may have for giving him such a command? What would be your reply to such a servant? You, no doubt, would check his effrontery, and answer: I am, your master, you are my servant : it is my business, not your's, to know the reasons for which I command you to do this or that: do your duty and ask no more. Now, who has greater claims, God over his creature, or you a mortal man, over your servant? Who is more a servant, you to God, or your servant to you? How much more right, then, has your Maker to oblige you to adore and to bow down to the unfathomable mysteries of his wisdom, although he does not give you his reasons for doing so? Are you not, therefore, a worse rebel against your God than your insolent servant is against you, when you with so much presumption dare reject the mysteries of revelation, for no other reason than because you cannot fathom them? Again, suppose, your son were to tell you: I will not obey you, sir, because I cannot conceive the reason, why you command this; your command appears to me irrational, because unintelligible to my mind: Do you think that such reasoning would be correct and admissible in your child? And still this is your language to your God, when you, who are but a little child when compared to

#1 Corinth. ch. x. ver. 5. "And every height that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every understanding to the obe dience of Christ."

the infinite wisdom and knowledge of God, dare say: I will not believe what God reveals to me, because I cannot understand it.

SECTION 2.

IX. If God cannot reveal mysteries to men, then God cannot communicate himself, at all, to them; and if man cannnot reasonably believe what is above the sphere of his reason, he can believe nothing.

The Unitarian asks the question: How can God, the sovereign reason, reveal to reason what is unintelligible to reason? Would not this seem to imply a strange absurdity?

My answer is this: If God cannot do this, then you must, at once, deny the very possibility on the part of God of communicating himself to men; you must adopt the impious paradox, that it is out of the power of God, to make known to men any thing, that has a relation to his divine nature, and to his ineffable perfections; for God is essentially infinite and incomprehensible, and, of course, essentially unintelligible, not only to human reason, but to all created understandings. Now, sir, permit me, to assure you, that, of the whole unhallowed host of ancient and modern infidels, there was scarce ever any that would dare go to such lengths.

What has been hitherto advanced against the principle, which we are here discussing, admits, it would seem, of no solution, because our reasoning till now, rests altogether on the very nature of things, and on the immutable attributes of the Deity itself. Still our Unitarian friend, is far from being converted, and appears to be determined not to believe mysteries, because he conceives it derogatory to the dignity of a rational being to believe what he cannot conceive.

X. Is it then true, is it correct to assert, that the belief of mysteries is degrading to the dignity of a rational being? To any one that would be under this impression, I would simply reply: You cannot believe what you cannot comprehend; then, sir, believe nothing at all, nothing of what you see, nothing of what is within you; believe not your very existence, and, to complete your Unitarian creed, believe not

the very existence of the God who made you, for of all this you understand nothing.*

I say, first, that you understand nothing of what you see: this world, which you inhabit, and of which you are a component part, is incessantly exposed to your view; it exists: you can no more doubt of its existence than of your own; still I maintain that you cannot comprehend how its exists: for, permit me to ask you, is it very intelligible to your reason, how the world, being not as yet in existence, and being as yet nothing both as to matter and to form; how, I say, the world issued out of nothing into existence, at the very first nod of its omnipotent Maker? Do you conceive, Sir, how, in one instant, and by one act of his divine will, God made the heavens, the earth, the seas, with all that they contain? No, Sir, you have no idea of the creative power, and the infinite efficacy of the will of God. It is not given to a created understanding to conceive the necessary relation that exsists between the eternal act, by which God decreed, that the world should exist in time, and its actual existence: you cannot comprehend, how, in virtue of these two words, "fiat lux," "let there be light," the light was: and as you cannot conceive this, you must, of course, deny the very existence of the world, of the light, and other creatures. You conceive not how the world exists: let us see now if you have a better conception of the laws by which it is governed.

The world, says the Scripture, which God made, as it were, in sport, is a problem which he has set up to men. This problem, Sir, has never as yet been solved, nor will it ever be.

Lest Mr. J. Sparks should be tempted to affix to his phrase the same incongruous meaning, which he attached to nearly a similar sentence of Mr. William Burg. J. Sparks' vi. letter, page 203. I thought proper to determine the meaning of the above assertion. By the above expression, therefore, the author means not, that we can have no idea at all of the objects under consideration, for this would be absurd; but, that we can have no more idea of the mode or of the intrinsic nature of those objects than we have of mysteries.

+ Ecclesiastes, 3. v. 11. “He has delivered the world to their consideration, so that man cannot find out the work, which God has made from the beginning to the end."