There are three ways whereby God, in several degrees, revealetli himself, his properties, his mind, and will, to the sons of men.
1. He doth it by his luorks, both of creation and providence. "All thy works praise thee." (Ps. cxlv. 10, &c.) "The heavens declare the glory of God ; and the firmament showeth his handy- work. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world." (Ps. xix. 1-4, &c.) So Job xxxvii., xxxviii., xxxix., throughout. " God, who made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein, in times past suf- fered all nations to walk in their own ways; yet he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fmitful seasons, fillmg our hearts with food and gladness."
.310 THE DIVINE ORIGINAL OF SCRIPTUEE.
(Acts xiv. 15-17.) And, " God, that made the world, and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands ; neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation,'' ZvinTv Tov Kvpiov si apays •^rfka(pr^eiictv aurov aal svpoisv, " that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him." (Acts xvii. 24-27.) " For that which may be loiown of God is mani- fest in them, for God hath showed it unto them; for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead." (Rom. i. 18-20.) All which places (God assisting) shall be opened, before long, in another treatise.^ The sum of them amounts to what was before laid down, viz., that God reveals and declares himself unto us by the works of his hands.
2. God declares himself — his sovereign power and authority, his righteousness and holiness — by the innate (or ingxafted) light of nature, and principles of the consciences of men. That indispensable moral obedience which he requireth of us, as his creatures, and subject to his law, is in general thus made known unto us. For " the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law ; these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves ; which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another." (Rom. ii. 14, 15.) By the light that God hath indelibly implanted in the minds of men — accompanied with a moral instinct of good and evil, seconded by that self-judgment which he hath placed in us, in reference to his own judgment over us — doth he reveal himself unto the sons of men,
8. God reveals himself by his Word, as is confessed. It remains, then, that we inquire how we may know and be ascertained that these things are not deceivable pretences, but that God doth indeed so reveal himself by them.
The works of God (as to what is his will to teach and reveal of himself by them) have that expression of God upon them — that stamp and character of his eternal power and Godhead — that evidence with them that they are his — that, wherever they are seen and con- sidered, they undeniably evince that they are so, and that what they teach concerning him, they do it in his name and authority. There is no need of traditions, no need of miracles, no need of the authority of any churches, to convince a rational creature that the works of God are his, and his only; and that he is eternal and infinite in ' &n>Xoyov[ji,iva, sive Dc Natura, Ortu, et Studio Theologiaj.
VARIOUS WAYS WHEREBY GOD REVEALS HIMSELF. 811
power that made them. They cany about with them thek own authority. By bemg what they are, they declare luhose they are. To reveal God by his works, there is need of nothing but that they be by themselves represented, or objected to the consideration of rational creatures.
The voice of God in nature is in like manner effectual. It declares itself to be from God by its own light and authority. There is no need to convince a man by substantial witnesses, that what his con- science speaks, it speaks from God. Whether it bear testimony to the being, righteousness, power, omniscience, or holiness of God himself — or whether it call for that moral obedience which is eter- nally and indispensably due to Him, and so shows forth the " work of the law in the heart" — it so speaks and declares itself, that without further evidence or reasoning, without the advantage of any consi- derations but what are by itself supplied, it discovers its Author, from whom it is, and in whose name it^ speaks. Those zotvai hvotai, xa/ TpoXri-^^/iig, "those common notions and general presumptions" of Him and His authority, that are inlaid in the natures of rational creatures by the hand of God, to this end, that they might make a revelation of Him as to the purposes mentioned, are able to plead their own divine original, without the least contribution of strength or assistance from without.