Now as there have been in the several ages of the world, some _impatient_, _restless_ and _presuming_ spirits, who, because they could not in these points explain the justice of God’s providence, have taken refuge in horrid _atheism_, so they made just the same _sober use_ of their reason, as our _modern unbelievers_, who because they can’t comprehend the _fitness_ and _necessity_ of certain Christian doctrines, resign themselves up to an hardened _infidelity_. For it is just as reasonable to allow of no mysteries in _revelation_, as to allow of no mysteries in _creation_ and _providence_. And whenever this writer shall think it proper to attack _natural_ religion with as much freedom as he has _revealed_, he need not enter upon any _new_ hypothesis, or _different_ way of reasoning. For the same turn of thought, may soon find materials in the natural state of man, for as large a bill of complaints against natural religion, and the mysteries of providence, as is here brought against revealed doctrines. To proceed: If the _fitness of actions is founded in the nature and relation of beings_, then nothing can be fit for God to do, but so far as it is fit for the _Governor of all created beings_, whether on earth, or in any other part of the universe; and he cannot act fitly towards mankind, but by acting as is fit for the Governor of all beings. * Now what is fit for the _Governor of all created_ nature to do in this or that particular part of his creation, is as much above our reason to _tell_, as it is above our power to _govern_ all beings. And how mankind ought to be governed, with relation to the whole creation, of which they are so small a part, is a matter equally above our knowledge; because we know not how they are a part of the whole, or what relation they bear to any other part, or how their state affects the whole, or any other part, than we know what beings the whole consists of. Now there is nothing that we know with more certainty than that God is governor of the _whole_, and that mankind are a _part_ of the whole; and that the uniformity and harmony of divine providence, must arise from his infinite wise government of the _whole_; and therefore we have the utmost certainty, that we are _vastly incompetent_ judges of the fitness or unfitness of any methods that God uses in the government of so small a part of the universe, as mankind are. _Again_: If the _fitness of actions is founded in the relations of beings to one another_, then the fitness of the actions of God’s providence over mankind, must be in many instances altogether incomprehensible to us.