And we have no more reason to be afraid to be left to a God without a law, or to be left to his will and pleasure, than to be left under the protection and care of a being, that is all love, and mercy, and goodness. For as the existence of God, as such, necessarily implies the existence of all perfection; so the will of God, as such, necessarily implies the _willing_ every thing, that _all perfection_ can will.
And as the existence of God, because it contains all perfection, cannot for that reason have any external cause; so the will of God, because it is _all perfection_, cannot, for that reason, have any external _rule_ or _direction_. But his own will is wisdom, and his wisdom is his will. His goodness is arbitrary, and his arbitrariness is goodness.
But this writer does not only thus bring God into this state of law and obligation with us, but makes farther advances in the same kind of errors.
_Hence_, says he, _we may contemplate the great dignity of our rational nature, since our reason for |kind|, tho’ not for degree, is of the |same nature| with |that of| God’s._¹
¹ Page 24.
Here you see _our reason_, that is, our _faculty_ of reasoning, (for reason cannot be called _ours_ in any other respect,) has no other difference from reason as it is in God, but that of degree. But what greater absurdity can a man fall into, than to suppose, that a being whose existence had a beginning but a few years ago, differs only in a degree from that which could not possibly have a beginning; or that a _dependent_ and _independent_ being, should not be different in _kind_, but _only_ in degree?
For to say, that the faculties of a dependent and independent being, may be of the same kind, is as flat a contradiction, as to say, the same kind of thing may be dependent, and independent.
Reason belongs to God and man, just as _power_, _existence_, _life_, and _happiness_, belong to God and man; and he that can, from happiness being common to God and man, prove our happiness to be of the _same kind_ and nature with God’s, may also prove reason in God and man to be of the same kind.
This writer indeed says, _Our happiness is limited, |because| our reason is so; |and that God has| unlimited happiness, |because| he alone has unlimited reason._¹
¹ Page 24.
But if that which is _necessarily limited_, is different from that which is _necessarily unlimited_, then we have proof enough from this very argument, that a reason _necessarily_ limited cannot be of the _same kind_ with that reason, which is _necessarily_ unlimited. Unless it can be said, that limited and unlimited, finite and infinite, beginning and unbeginning, have no contrariety in _kind_, but only differ, as a _short_ line differs from a _long_ one.
* The truth of the matter is this; reason is in God and man, as power is in God and man. And as the divine power has some degree of likeness to human power, yet with an _infinite_ difference from it: so that perfection which we call _reason_ in God, has some degree of likeness to reason as it is in man, yet is _infinitely_ and beyond all conception different from it.
* And as our enjoyment of power is so limited, so imperfect, so superficial, as to be scarce sufficient to tell us, what power is, much less what omnipotence is; so our share of reason is so small, and we enjoy it in so imperfect a manner, that we can scarce think or talk intelligibly of it, or so much as define our own faculties of reasoning.