To give you one instance more of this writer’s extravagant and inconsistent notions.
He makes _reason_, or _natural religion_, to be God’s _internal revelation_, differing _only_ from _external revelation in the manner of its being communicated_. He rejects _external revelation_ as unworthy of God, because it has not been sufficiently made known at _all times_, and in _all places_; yet he sets up an internal revelation, as worthy of God, which has never been made known to any _one man_ of any _time_ or _place_ in the world. For what one man ever knew that _reason_ was God’s _internal revelation_, to which nothing could be added by any external revelation?
It is a mighty complaint with our author against Christianity, that so much happiness should be deferred till the time of _Tiberius_, and that it should be communicated to no greater a part of the world, than Christianity hath been. But is not this a _judicious_ complaint in the mouth of a person, that is setting up a religion, that has been communicated to no body but himself.
I know nothing that can be said for our author, in excuse of so much confusion and self-contradiction, unless it be the particular hardships of his _sect_. The _free-thinking few_, he says, _are forced into an outward compliance_; and that which _forces_ a man into a state of hypocrisy, may force him into a great deal of confusion and self-contradiction.
To return: I have from a consideration of the state of man, and the several relations which God stands in towards his creatures, shewn that it is utterly impossible for human reason to be a competent judge of the fitness, or unfitness, of all that God may, or may not require of us. The two following chapters shall state the nature and perfection of reason, as it is a faculty, or principle of action in human nature.