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warranted by fcripture; and they err in their fpiritual worship because of their misapprehenfions of God, and Jefus Christ whom he hath fent.

It shall therefore be my prefent business to fhew,

ift, Wherein our proper knowledge of God confifts.

2dly, How we are to worship him in spirit and in truth.

3dly, I fhall offer to your thoughts some motives for fuch a fincere obedience.

It is neceffary that we enquire after the knowledge of God, because otherwise our homage and adoration would be totally unworthy of him; but we must not attempt to fathom the depths of his divinity; for God is infinite, and therefore to finite minds incomprehenfible: it is enough if our knowledge be fufficient to induce us to pay that reasonable service, which is due from a pious creature to his almighty Creator; and to this end it is requifite that we know,

ift, That there is a God; for " he that cometh to God, muft believe that he is." Now this is a positive truth, and it is easily demonftrated; for it is the genuine result of reafon.

reafon. If God were not, how could any thing be? no creature could have being unlefs from God, for no creature can give being unto itself. That there is a God then is a fure, an incontrovertible fact, which no fophiftry can weaken, which no reasoning can

overturn.

2dly, We must acknowledge that God is an all-perfect being, a pure and incorruptible spirit, the first Cause of all things, extended at large over the whole creation; by whose almighty influence and power all things were made; by whom all things are preserved. But would we know, even in the smallest degree, how and in what manner this all-efficient Mind be exerted, we fhould be instantly loft in the contemplation, were we not to argue from analogy; for as God is not the object of our fenfes, by means of which we receive all our ideas, he would be to us totally incomprehenfible, were we not to judge from the comparison of his operations, with fome of those which we do know, and with which we are familiar. Thus when we behold the wonderful ftructure of this world, the order, the fitness, and the regularity of every part, we do justly conclude,

that

that great wisdom and power were exerted; because if we were the agents, we must be endowed with fuch wifdom and power: hence we afcribe these excellencies to God, arguing in the way of refemblance to fuch qualities in ourselves.

Moreover, the holy scripture, in confideration of the weakness and narrowness of the human mind, reprefents the Deity to us in a borrowed resemblance to things which are familiar to our fenfes. Thus when God is faid to speak, to have eyes, hands, or feet, fuch expreffions are not defigned to build a belief that God hath really these members in the literal fignification of the words: no, they only mean that he hath power to execute all these acts, to which thefe members are inftrumental; that he can converfe with men as effectually as if he had a tongue; that he hears and fees all that we do or fay, as effectually as if he had eyes or ears; that he is as able to fulfil his will upon us, as swiftly and effectually as if he had hands and feet; that he has as true and as fubftantial a being, as if he had a body; and that he is as really present every where, as if that body were infinitely extended. So again when we find

him actuated by fuch paffions as we perceive in ourselves, as angry, or pleafed, as loving, hating, or repenting, as compaffionate, or provoked to revenge, we must not, we cannot suppose that the Deity is really subject to fuch paffions; the true meaning is unqueftionably this, that he will as certainly reward the good and punish the wicked, as if he were really pleased with the one and angry with the other; and that when finners repent and turn away from their wickedness, he will as furely pardon them, as if he had repented of his feverity towards them, and had altered his intention. Thus are human paffions, and the powers and operations of our minds, afcribed to God in the way of comparison, and in condefcenfion to the limits of our understanding; because as God is incomprehenfible to us, in his real state, we cannot otherwise think of him; we are capable of no other knowledge of him; and we must be contented thus to form fome ideas of him, or we shall not know what we ought to know of him.

The Deity being thus infinite beyond the reach of human knowledge, we are not to wonder if there be fome things declared

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of him in fcripture which we cannot comprehend; fuch as his foreknowledge, his predetermination of future events, the mystery of the Trinity, and the incarnation of our Saviour; these myfteries are infcrutable, and the further we fearch after them, the lefs is our light, and the greater our prefumption. But are great myfteries only to be found in fcripture furely not: for how many things are there in the works of nature, which are daily within the obfervation of the fenfes, which are totally incomprehenfible? What anatomist or physiologist could ever discover the means, by which the living power in an animal actuates the machine: the doctrine of glandular fecretion, by which the various folids and fluids of the body are formed from the fame matter; the means of involuntary nourishment during fleep, and the wonders of refpiration? How is it that the Afiatic, who lives upon rice, and the Laplander, who lives upon fish, shall both generate the fame fort of blood? If then we do hardly guefs

aright at the things that are upon earth, and with labour find out the things that are before us, how can we suppose that the things of God can be fearched out?" Wifḍ. ix. 16.

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