For if God can shew a revelation to proceed from him, by the same undeniable evidence, as he shews the creation to be his work; if he can make himself as visible in a particular extraordinary manner, as he is by his general and ordinary providence; then, tho’ we are as unqualified to judge of the mysteries of a revelation, as we are to judge of the mysteries in creation and providence; yet we may be as fully obliged to receive a revelation, as to acknowledge the creation to be the work of God; and as highly criminal for disbelieving it, as for denying a general providence.
Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses, were very incompetent judges, of the reasons on which the particular revelations made to them were founded; but this did not hinder their sufficient assurance, that such revelations came from God, because they were proved to come from God in the same manner, as the creation is proved to be the work of God.
And as Adam and Noah must see every thing wonderful, mysterious, and above their comprehensions, in those new worlds into which they were introduced by God; so they could no more expect, that he should require nothing of them, but what they would enjoin themselves, than that their own frame, the nature of the creation, the providence of God, or the state of human life, should be exactly as they would have it.
And if their posterity will let no messages from heaven, no prophesies and miracles persuade them, that God can call them to any duties, but such as they must enjoin themselves; or to the belief of any doctrines, but such as their own minds can suggest; nor to any methods of changing their present state of weakness and disorder for a happy immortality, but such as suit their own taste, temper, and way of reasoning; it is because they are grown senseless of the mysteries of creation and providence with which they are surrounded, and forget the awful prerogative of infinite wisdom, over the weakest, lowest rank of intelligent beings.
* And as we can only know what is worthy of God in creation, by knowing what he has created; so we can no other way know what is worthy of God to be revealed, but by a revelation. And he that pretends independently of any relation, to shew how, and in what manner God ought to make a revelation worthy of himself, is as great a visionary, as he that should pretend independently of the creation, or without learning any thing from it, to shew how God ought to have proceeded in it, to make it worthy of himself. For as God alone, knows how to create worthy of himself, and nothing can possibly be proved to be worthy to be created by him, but because he has already created it; so God alone knows what is worthy of himself in a revelation, and nothing can possibly be proved worthy to be revealed by him, but because he has already revealed it.
Hence we may see how little this writer is governed by the reason and nature of things, who proceeds upon this as an undeniable principle, that we could not know a revelation to be divine, unless we knew, antecedently to revelation, what God could teach or require of us by it. Thus, says he, “Were we not capable by our own reason of knowing what the divine goodness could command, or forbid his creatures, antecedently to any external revelation, we could not distinguish the true instituted religion, from the many false ones.”[¹]
[¹] Page 66.
Just as wild and visionary, as if it was said, Were we not capable by our reason of knowing what kind or orders of beings God ought to create independently of any thing we learn from the creation, we could never prove this or that creation to proceed from him. Did we not, antecedently to facts and experience, know by our own reason what ought to be the method and manner of divine providence, we could never prove that the providence which governs nations and persons is a divine providence.
Again, He proceeds to shew, that a revelation from God cannot contain any thing, but what human reason can prove from the nature of things; because if God could require any thing more of us, than what our own reason could thus prove, he must require without reason, and then there is an end of all religion.
Now this argument proceeds thus; If God does not act according to the measure of human reason, he cannot act according to reason itself. If he requires any more of us, than what we think the nature of things requires of us, then he cannot act according to the nature of things. If his wisdom is in any matters of revelation greater than ours; if it is not in every thing he reveals measurable by ours, it cannot be wisdom at all, much less can it be infinite wisdom.