God may freely forgive the Sins of the World, and remit the Punishment, and bestow even on Sinners the Gift of eternal Life? How myfterious would even this Grace be, and how far beyond the Power of Reason to comprehend? Could you, from

any of the natural Notions of your Mind, reconcile this Method of Redemption with the Wisdom, Justice, and Holiness of God? Confider the effential Difference between Good and Evil, the natural Beauty of one, and the natural Deformity of the other; compare them with the effential Holiness of the Deity; and then tell me the Ground upon which he reconciles himself to Sin, pities and forgives it, and decrees immortal Glory for the Sinner: Or, if this Way please you not, consider his Wisdom, by which he rules and governs the World, and try, by all the Notions you can frame of Wisdom, whether it be not neceffary for the good Government of the rational World, that Rewards and Punifhments should be divided with an equal Hand to Virtue and Vice; and then tell me, where is the Wisdom of dropping all the Punishment due to Sin, and receiving Sinners not only to Pardon, but to Glory? There may be Wisdom and Holiness in this, but not human Wifdom, nor Holiness

that human Reafon can difcern; but infinite mysterious Wisdom and Holiness. If from the Notions of Wisdom and Holiness you can have no Help in this Cafe, much less will the natural Notion of Juftice affift you: Is not Juftice converfant in Rewards and Punishments? Is it not the Effence of Justice to distribute both where they are due? Is there not in Nature and Reason a Connection between Virtue and Reward, between Vice and Punishment? How then comes Nature to be reverfed, and the Laws of Reafon to be difturbed? and how, as if Justice were more than poetically blind, come Sinners to be intitled to Life and Happiness? Even in this Cafe therefore, of God's finally forgiving the Sins of the World, which is the lowest that can be put, Religion would neceffarily be mysterious, and not to be apprehended by Reason or Nature, but to be received by Faith; and our only Refuge would be, not in the Reason and Nature of the Thing, but in the unfathomable Goodness and incomprehenfible Mercy of God.

But, fhould it really be, as to human Reason it appears, inconfiftent with the Wisdom and Justice of God, fo freely to pardon Sin, as not to leave the Marks of his Displeasure upon it, or to remit the Tranfgreffions

Tranfgreffions of Men, without vindicating in the Face of the whole Creation the Honour of his Laws and Government; in what a Maze muft Reason then be loft in fearching after the Means of Reconcilement and Redemption! How fhall Sin be punished, and yet the Sinner faved? How fhall the Honour of God's Government be vindicated in the Face of all the World, and yet in the Face of all the World the Rebels juftified and exalted? These are Difficulties irreconcileable to human Reason and Nature; and yet they must be reconciled, or the World, once loft, muft lie for ever under Condemnation. The Religion that can adjust this, Difficulty, and give us the Clue to lead us thro' these Mazes, in which human Reason muft for ever wander, can only have the Words of eternal Life; which Words of eternal Life muft neceffarily abound with inconceivable Mysteries, but with Mysteries of Grace and Mercy,

So far is it from being an Objection against the Gospel of Christ, That it contains many. wonderful Mysteries of the hidden Wisdom of God, that, as our Cafe ftands, without a Mystery 'tis impoffible for us to be faved: For, fince Reafon and Nature cannot find the Means of refcuing Sinners from Punish

ment,

ment, and of making Atonement to the Juftice of God; fince they cannot prescribe a proper Satisfaction for Sin, in which the Honour of God and the Salvation of Men fhall be at once confulted; fince they cannot remedy the Corruption that has spread thro' the Race of Mankind, or infufe new Prin ciples of Virtue and Holiness into the Souls already fubdued to the Luft and Power of Sin; fince, if they could procure our Pardon for what is paft, they cannot secure us for the future from the fame Temptations, which by fatal Experience we know we cannot withstand: Since, I say, these Things cannot be done by the Means of Reason and Nature, they must be done by fuch Means. as Reafon and Nature know nothing of; that is, in other Words, they must be done by mysterious Means, of the Propriety of which we can have no adequate Notion or Conception.

If you ftand in need of no new Favour, if you aim not fo high as eternal Life, Religion without Mysteries may well ferve your Turn. The Principles of Natural Religion tend to procure the Peace and Tran-. quillity of this Life; and the not distinguishing between Religion as a Rule of Life for VOL. I.

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our present Use and Well-being here, and as the Means of obtaining Pardon for Sin and eternal Life hereafter, may have in fome measure occafioned the great Complaint against the Mysteries of the Gofpel: For Mysteries are not indeed the necessary Parts of Religion, confidered only as a Rule of Action; but moft neceffary they are to it, when confidered as a Means of obtaining Pardon and eternal Glory. And this farther shews, how unreasonably Men object against the mysterious Wisdom of the Gospel, fince all that the Gospel prefcribes to us as our Duty is plain and evident; all that is mysterious is on God's Part, and relates entirely to the surprizing Acts of divine Wisdom and Mercy in the Redemption of the World. Confider the Gospel then as a Rule of Action, no Religion was ever fo plain, fo calculated upon the Principles of Reason and Nature; fo that Natural Religion itself had never more Natural Religion in it. If we confider the End propofed to us, and the Means used to intitle us to the Benefit of it, it grows myfterious, and foars above the Reach of human Reafon; for God has done more for us than Reafon could teach us to expect, or can now teach us to comprehend.

Let