AS our author has laid it down for an undeniable rule of God’s actions, that he must, if he be a wise and good being, act according to the relation he stands in towards his creatures; I proceed upon this principle to prove the incapacity of _human reason_, to judge _truly_ of God’s proceedings in regard to divine revelation. For if the fitness of actions _results from the nature and relations_ of beings, then the _fitness_ of God’s actions, as he is an _omniscient Creator_ and _Governor_, to whom every thing is _eternally foreknown_, over beings endued with _our freedom of will_, must be to us incomprehensible. * We are not so much as capable of comprehending by our reason, the _possibility_ of this relation, or how the fore-knowledge of God can consist with the free agency of creatures. We know that God fore-knows all things, with the same certainty as we know there is a God. And if _self-consciousness_ is an infallible proof of our own existence, it proves with the same certainty the freedom of our will. And hence it is, that we have a full assurance of the consistency of God’s fore-knowledge with freedom of will. * Now this _incomprehensible_ relation between an _eternally fore-knowing Creator and Governor_, and his free creatures, is the _relation_ from whence arises the fitness of God’s providence over us. But if the _relation_ itself is incomprehensible, then those actions that have their fitness from it, must surely be incomprehensible. Nothing can be fit for God to do, either in _creation_ or _providence_, but what has its fitness founded in his _fore-knowledge_ of every thing that would follow, from _every kind_ of creation, and _every manner_ of providence: but if nothing can be fit, but because it is according to _this fore-knowledge_ of _every thing_ that would follow from _every kind_ of creation, and _every manner_ of providence; then we have the utmost certainty, that the fitness of God’s actions as a _fore-knowing Creator_, and _Governor_ of free agents, must be founded upon _reasons_ that we cannot possibly know any thing of. * And a child that has but just learned to speak, is as well qualified to state the fitness of the laws of matter and motion by which the whole vegetable world is preserved, as the wisest of men is qualified to comprehend, or state the fitness of the methods, which a _fore-knowing Providence_ observes over free agents. For every reason on which the fitness of such a providence is founded, is not only _unknown_ to us, but by a necessity of nature _impossible_ to be known by us. For if the _fitness_ of God’s acting in this, or that manner, is founded in his fore-knowledge of every thing that would _happen_, from every _possible way_ of acting, then it is impossible for us to know the reasons, on which the fitness of his actions is founded, as it is impossible for us to be omniscient.