Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian lifeMasham, Damaris, Lady
Religion
Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life
Masham, Damaris, Lady
Christian life -- Anglican authors
A work which the unhappy mistakes and disputes among us concerning the
Christian Religion, makes useful to all Men; and which has been
peculiarly so to many, as the only Book wherein they have found the
insufficiency of Natural Light to Natural Religion, has been fully
shewed, although that to reconcile Men to, or establish them in the
belief of Divine Revelation, nothing was more requisite to make this
appear, in an Age wherein the prevalency of Deism has been so much and
so justly complain'd of.
But against the insufficiency of Natural Light to the ends of Natural
Religion, the World having been so many Ages without it, is, by some,
thought an Objection: For, if Supernatural Light had been so needful
as is pretended to be, how could it comport, say they, with the Wisdom
of God not to have given it to Men sooner and more universally?
To judge of all the Ends and Designs of the Divine Wisdom in the
Creation or Government of the World, is to suppose that we have a
comprehension of God's Works, adequate or commensurate thereunto;
which is not only to conceive of his Wisdom as not being infinite, but
even to circumscribe it within very narrow bounds. If the Wisdom of
God, (like his other Attributes) does infinitely surpass our reach,
his Views must, for that reason, be necessarily oftentimes, as much
beyond our short Sight. For us then, when we see not the reason why
any thing is, to take upon us to say that such a thing does, or does
not comport with the Wisdom of God, must needs be the highest Folly
that can be, since it implies a presumption, that we see all in
respect of such a Subject that God sees: And the Objection here made
turns only upon the _unaccountableness_ of the Divine Wisdom herein
to our Understandings. For God's dealing thus with Men, can by no
means be said by us to imply any _contradiction_ to his Wisdom. Whilst
we having an assurance highly Rational (from those numberless Worlds
which surround us) that we are but a small part of the Intellectual
Creation of our Maker; and being certain that our abode here bears but
a very inconsiderable proportion of Time to millions of Ages, and is
as nothing to Eternity, cannot tell but that to know much more than we
do, in this State, of the intire Scheme of Providence with respect to
the whole extent of intelligent Beings, may be necessary to our seeing
the Beauty of anyone part of the design of our Creator. And it is the
most suitable to the All-comprehensive Wisdom of God for us to
conceive, that without having this knowledge, we may be far less able
to judge of the Divine oeconomy, in reference to his Dealings with us
here, than he who should see but one Scene of a Dramma, would thereby
be capacitated to judge of the Plot or Design of the whole. In
Objecting therefore against the need of Revelation to support Natural
Religion, because that we understand not why, if Revelation was
necessary to this end, the World had it no sooner: Men are guilty of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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