*

that confequently it is of the utmost importance to our spiritual interefts to be right in principle as well as in practice. The petulancy, the pride, and the malevolence of bigots, and of difputers of this world, as the Apoftle calls them, will no doubt be brought into judgment no less than the groffeft immoralities; but this will not by any means fuperfede, or retard an honest and charitable attempt to enquire into and ascertain the leading doctrines of our cómmon Christianity.

Complaints against the damnatory clauses of the Athanafian Creed, as it is commonly called, reverberate from more quarters than one. People do not feem to be fufficiently aware that a right faith and a good life are required by this form of confeffion under the fame penalty. Which faith except a man

keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he "fhall perish everlastingly. They that have ❝done good shall go into life everlasting, and

they that have done evil into everlasting fire. "This is the catholic faith, which except a *man believe faithfully he cannot be faved:"

It is plain these clauses are to be confidered as fimply declarative on fcriptural grounds of the neceffity both of faith and of good works to falvation and at the fame time as leaving all men to that infinite mercy, and thofe inef timable merits, which are fully adequate to the pardon and atonement of fins, failings, ignorances, and errors of integrity. (c) Which few confiderations will, I apprehend, fairly deliver the Creed before us from the reproach of uncharitablenefs. With regard to the feveral articles of which it confifts, I truft, they will be found, in the course of these difquifitions, to have foundation in a fully competent authority; and in the mean time I fhall endeavour to remove one general prejudice against them, and to create rather a prepoft feffion in their favour, by evincing, that their acknowleged myfteriousness and incomprehenfibility does by no means unqualify them for our affent...

Man is as fuch a rational creature," and as a rational creature he is a believing one We can no more conceive him to be

too.

without

1

without belief, than without fenfe, thought, or reflection. The Atheist who fays in his heart, as well as with his lips, there is no God, believes there is none. He protefts against the fuppofed folly, or extravagance of the fundamental article of all religion; and on the strength of false conclufions, refolves every thing into a concourfe of atoms fortuitoufly uniting or into the operation of an unintelligent prin ciple which we call nature; or, in other words, into an everlafting fucceffion of caufes and effects. It is poffible for a man to deny his own existence, or that there is any fuch thing as motion. We have heard of inftances of this fort; though properly they are in

ftances, not of falfe perfuafion, but of infanity. (d) Still man is a rational creature, whether he reasons well or ill; and whether, in confequence of fuch reasoning, his faith be well or ill grounded. It is certain we know little or nothing by intuition. The mind yields affent to many myfterious truths by forming a very fmall chain of deductions; fuch as the immenfity of space, the infinite progreffion of number, and eternity, as well a

parte

parte ante as a parte poft. "Space and duration, fays an ingenious author, are mysterious "abyffes in which our thoughts are confound

ed with demonftrable propofitions, to all "fenfe and reafon, flatly contradictory to one "another, Any two points of time, though ne "ver so distant, are each of them exactly in the "middle of eternity. The remoteft points of "Space that can be imagined are, each of them,

precifely in the centre of infinite space." * In fact, we have no ftronger, or more adequate conception, of immenfity than of omniprefence; we have no clearer idea of the existence of SOMETHING from all eternity than we have of eternal generation. Faith, it is true, ftrictly speaking, has reference to religion only; but, I hope, a truth or a myftery is not inadmiffible purely on account of its respecting practice, or implying obligation. This will readily be granted even by infidels who deny, the truths of Revelation; and much more by fuch Chriftians as have

See Deifm Revealed. Vol. 2. p. 145.

+ See Note at p. 3 of Howes's Difcourfe on the abuse of the Talent of Difputation in Religion. &c.

called

called into debate particular points of that Revelation, to which in general they profefs to fubscribe. It is well worth remarking that Deifts and Heretics never fail to attack the profeffed atheist with fuch reafonings, as, if pursued through their just confequences, may fairly and fuccessfully be enforced upon themfelves. For if he affects to decry the fundamental principle of all religion, the Being of a God, on account of the pretended inconceivablenefs of it, will not they obferve, in order to confute him, that, unless a more complete, a more uniform, and intelligible fyftem could be built on the ruins of this great article, fuch his exception can have no weight? And this is the very reafoning we urge against the principles both of deifts and heretics. With the profeffed atheist I fhall no farther concern myself; but defire to obferve, that deifts and heretics of all denominations are agreed with us in one general point, the acknowlegement of the existence of God, and confequently the incomprehenfibleness of the Divine nature, attributes, and operations. The primary notion