If a Socinian tells me that he cannot assent to any doctrine which is not on a level with the comprehension of the human understanding, he is at least intelligible; for he necessarily rejects the doctrine of inspiration; but when you make the same assertion, and yet declare that God is incomprehensible to us as rational creatures, and that all the aids which science and philosophy can give, can never bring man to believe rightly in God,[69] and that it is by his inward manifestations only that we can discover the path of our duty; the assertions are evidently incompatible; and if any deduction can be drawn from them, it is, that the indications by which alone we are taught aright, we are not bound to believe. Footnote 69: Philadelphia Sermons, pages 51, 294, and 300. Reduce your argument to a syllogism, and reflect on the result. _Prop._ I. We cannot believe any thing which the human understanding cannot comprehend. _Prop._ II. Science and philosophy, and all the knowledge which man can derive from his natural faculties, can never bring him to comprehend or believe rightly in God. _Conclusion._ As it is impossible for man to believe any thing which the human understanding cannot comprehend, and he not being able by the aid of these faculties to comprehend or believe rightly in God, it is impossible for him to comprehend or believe rightly in God. Suppose, (and I think it actually the case,) that you do not perceive the extent to which your assertion leads, and that you intended to convey the idea that we are not to believe any thing above the limits of our natural capacities on the testimony of another, and only when the same is especially revealed to us; then I would ask why you waste so much time in descanting on them? According to your own rule, none but those who are favoured with the same especial revelations can believe you, and to them your preaching is useless. These are the inconsistencies of those _who bow the knee to the image of the Baal of the present day_; who, neglecting the exhortation "not to think more highly of themselves than they ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith,"[70] have become wise in their own conceits. Footnote 70: Romans, chap. xiv. If indeed the doctrine is true, that nothing is to be believed as of divine origin, which cannot be accounted for by that faculty of comprehending and judging which we derive from nature, the number of religions must be nearly in proportion to the number of individuals. What will be clear and evident to the more discerning, will be unintelligible to the superficial and ignorant, and our unbelief will be increased in the same ratio in which our intellectual faculties are diminished.