Thus, were you to tell us, that without other impulse than your own _will_, you can give mobility to matter, and at your pleasure reduce it to a quiescent state, we cannot withhold our assent, because we see you exercising that dominion in the government of your limbs; and yet so far from understanding the operation of this wonderful power, the mind cannot form the least idea how the effect is produced. But when we hear you declare to one set of people "that the law of the spirit of life in one, is not the law of the spirit of life in his brother; and that each individual requires a peculiar law to himself;"[67] and to another, "that this divine law which is written by the finger of God upon the tablet of our hearts, is the same to every individual;"[68] we know that these contradictory assertions cannot both be true; and must withhold our belief when you declare "that you dare not speak at random, otherwise you should show that you departed from God's illuminating spirit;" because our reason will never permit us to believe that such inconsistencies can proceed from the illuminations of infinite wisdom. Footnote 67: Philadelphia Sermons, page 51. Footnote 68: New York Sermons, page 124. "Reason," (says Locke,) "is natural revelation, whereby the eternal Father of Light, and fountain of all knowledge, communicates to mankind that portion of truth which he has laid within the reach of their natural faculties. _Revelation_ is natural reason, enlarged by a new set of discoveries, communicated by God immediately, which reason vouches the truth of, by the testimony and proof it gives that they come from God." And he rebukes the presumption of those who reduce the measure of their belief to the narrow limits of their own understanding, and declares "it is an over-valuing of ourselves, to reduce all to the narrow measure of our capacities; and to conclude all things impossible to be done, whose manner of doing exceeds our comprehension. This is to make our comprehension _infinite_, or God _finite_, when what he can do, is limited to what we can conceive of it. If you do not understand the operations of your own finite mind, that thinking thing, within you, do not deem it strange, that you cannot comprehend the operations of that eternal, infinite mind, who made and governs all things, and whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain."