“And is this the cause of our error? That were strange indeed; for they who dispute philosophically of God, do neither ascribe faculties to him in that manner that we have them, nor yet do they attribute any proper faculties at all to God. God’s understanding and his will is his very essence, which, for the eminency of its infinite perfection, doth perform all those things alone in a most transcendant manner, which reasonable creatures do perform imperfectly by distinct faculties. Thus to dispute of God with modesty and reverence, and to clear the Deity from the imputation of tyranny, injustice, and dissimulation, which none do throw upon God with more presumption than those who are the patrons of absolute necessity, is both comely and Christian. “It is not the desire to discover the original of a supposed error, which draws them ordinarily into these exclamations against those who dispute of the Deity. For some of themselves dare anatomize God, and publish his eternal decrees with as much confidence, as if they had been all their lives of his cabinet council. But it is for fear lest those pernicious consequences which flow from that doctrine essentially, and reflect in so high a degree upon the supreme goodness, should be laid open to the view of the world; just as the Turks do first establish a false religion of their own devising, and then forbid all men upon pain of death to dispute upon religion; or as the priests of Moloch, the abomination of the Ammonites, did make a noise with their timbrels all the while the poor infants were passing through the fire in Tophet, to keep their pitiful cries from the ears of their parents. So (_d_) they make a noise with their declamations against those who dare dispute of the nature of God, that is, who dare set forth his justice, and his goodness, and his truth, and his philanthropy, only to deaf the ears and dim the eyes of the Christian world, lest they should hear the lamentable ejulations and howlings, or see that rueful spectacle of millions of souls tormented for evermore (_e_) in the flames of the true Tophet, that is, hell, only for that which, according to T. H.’s doctrine, was never in their power to shun, but which they were ordered and inevitably necessitated to do, only to express the omnipotence and dominion, and to satisfy the pleasure of Him, who is in truth the Father of all mercies, and the God of all consolation. (_f_) _This is life eternal_ (saith our Saviour), _to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent_ (John xvii. 3.). _Pure religion, and undefiled before God and the Father, is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world_, saith St. James (James i. 27.). _Fear God and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man_, saith Solomon (Eccles. xii. 13.). But T. H. hath found out a more compendious way to heaven: ‘True religion’,