Just as wild and visionary, as if it was said, Were we not capable by our reason of knowing what kind or orders of beings God _ought_ to create _independently_ of any thing we learn from the creation, we could never prove this or that creation to proceed from him. Did we not, antecedently to facts and experience, know by our own reason what ought to be the method and manner of divine providence, we could never prove that the providence which governs nations and persons is a divine providence. Again, He proceeds to shew, that a revelation from God cannot contain any thing, but what human reason can prove from the nature of things; because if God could require any thing more of us, than what our own reason could thus prove, he must require _without_ reason, and then there is an end of all religion. Now this argument proceeds thus; If God does not act according to the _measure_ of _human_ reason, he cannot act according to _reason itself_. If he requires any more of us, than what we _think_ the nature of things requires of us, then he cannot act according to the nature of things. If his wisdom is in any matters of revelation _greater_ than ours; if it is not in every thing he reveals _measurable_ by ours, it cannot be wisdom at all, much less can it be infinite wisdom. That is, if he is _more powerful_ than we are, he cannot be _omnipotent_; if he is _more perfect_ than we are, he cannot be _all perfection_; if he acts upon _greater_, or _higher_, or _more_ reasonable motives than we do, he cannot be a _reasonable_ being. Now if these absurdities are not plain and manifest to every common understanding, it is in vain to dispute about any thing; but if they are, then it is as plain, this writer’s great argument against Christianity, and first principle of his _rational religion_, is in the same state of undeniable absurdity. Thus says he, “Natural religion takes in all those duties which flow from the reason and the nature of things.”¹ That is, natural religion takes in all those things that bare human reason can discover from the nature of things. This is granted; but what follows? Why, says he, “Consequently, was there an instituted religion which differs from that of nature, its precepts must be arbitrary, as not founded on the nature and reason of things, but depending on mere will and pleasure, otherwise it would be the same with natural religion.”² ¹ Page 114. ² Page 16. Here you see all the absurdities just mentioned, are ♦expressly contained in this argument, God is all _humour_ and _caprice_, if his revelation is not strictly, in every respect, the same with human reason. That is, he is _without_ wisdom, _without_ reason, if his wisdom and reason exceed ours. He has _no reason_, nor _wisdom_, if his reason and wisdom are _infinite_. ♦ “expresly” replaced with “expressly” for consistency