heaven itself, and to dishonour the God of reason, to question the beauty of His image, and, by a strange ingratitude, to slight this great and royal gift of our Creator. For it is He that set up these two great luminaries in every heavenly soul,-the sun to rule the day, and the moon to rule the night; and though there be some kind of creatures that will bark at this lesser light, and others so severely critical, as that they make mountains of those spots and freckles which they see in her face; yet others know how to be thankful for her weaker beams, and will follow the least light of God's setting up, though it is but 'the candle of the Lord.'

But some are so strangely prejudiced against reason, and that upon sufficient reason too, as they think, which yet involves a flat contradiction, as that they look upon it not as the candle of the Lord, but as on some blazing comet that portends present ruin to the Church and to the soul, and carries a fatal and venomous influence along with it. And because the unruly head of Socinus and his followers, by their mere pretences to reason, have made shipwreck of faith, and have been very injurious to the Gospel, therefore these weak and staggering apprehensions are afraid of understanding anything, and think that the very name of reason, especially in a pulpit, in matters of religion, must needs have at least a thousand heresies couched in it. If you do but offer to make a syllogism, they will straightway cry it down for carnal reasoning.

What would these men have? Would they be banished from their own essences? Would they forfeit and renounce their understandings? or have they any to forfeit or disclaim? Would they put out this candle of the Lord, intellectuals of His own lighting? or have they any to put out? Would they creep into some lower species, and go a-grazing with Nebuchadnezzar among the beasts of the

field? or are they not there already? Or if they themselves can be willing to be so shamefully degraded, do they think that all others, too, are bound to follow their example? Oh, what hard thoughts have these of religion! Do they look upon it only as on a bird of prey that comes to peck out the eyes of men? Is this all the nobility that it gives, that men by virtue of it must be beheaded presently? Does it chop off the intellectuals at one blow?

Let us hear a while what are the offences of reason. Are they so heinous and capital? what has it done? what laws has it violated? whose commands has it broken ? what did it ever do against the crown and dignity of heaven, or against the peace and tranquillity of men? Why are a weak and perverse generation so angry and displeased with it? Is it because this daughter of the morning is fallen from her primitive glory? from her original vigour and perfection? Far be it from me to extenuate that great and fatal overthrow which the sons of men had in their first and original apostasy from their God; that, under which the whole creation sighs and groans but this we are sure, it did not annihilate the Rom. vii soul, it did not destroy the essence, the powers and faculties, nor the operations of the soul; though it did defile them and disorder them, and every way indispose them.

Well then, because the eye of reason is weakened and vitiated, will they therefore pluck it out immediately? and must Leah be hated upon no other account, but because she is blear-eyed? The whole head is wounded, and aches, and is there no other way but to cut it off? 'The candle of the Lord' does not shine so clearly as it was wont; must it therefore be extinguished presently? Is it not better to enjoy the faint and languishing light of this candle of the Lord,' rather than to be in palpable and disconsolate darkness? There are, indeed, but a few

20-22.

seminal sparks left in the ashes, and must there be whole floods of water cast on them to quench them? It is but an old imperfect manuscript, with some broken periods, some letters worn out; must they, therefore, with an unmerciful indignation, rend it and tear it asunder? It is granted that the picture has lost its gloss and beauty, the oriency of its colours, the elegancy of its lineaments, the comeliness of its proportion; must it, therefore, be totally defaced? must it be made one great blot? and must the very frame of it be broken in pieces? Would you persuade the lutanist to cut all his strings in sunder because they are out of tune? and will you break the bow upon no other account but because it is unbended? Because men have not so much of reason as they should, will they therefore resolve to have none at all? Will you throw away your gold because it is mixed with dross? Thy very being, that is imperfect too; thy graces, they are imperfect,-wilt thou refuse these also ?

And then consider, that the very apprehending the weakness of reason, even this in some measure comes from reason. Reason, when awakened, feels her own wounds, hears her own jarrings, sees the dimness of her own sight. It is a glass that discovers its own spots, and must it therefore be broken in pieces? Reason herself has made many sad complaints unto you; she has told you often, and that with tears in her eyes, what a great shipwreck she has suffered, what goods she has lost, how hardly she escaped with a poor decayed being; she has shown you often some broken relics as the sad remembrancers of her former ruins. She told you, how that when she swam for her life, she had nothing but two or three jewels about her, two or three common notions ;1 and would you rob her of them also? Is this all your

1 Note B.

tenderness and compassion? Is this your kindness to your friend? will you trample upon her now she is so low? Is this a sufficient cause to give her a bill of divorcement, because she has lost her former beauty and fruitfulness ?

Or is reason thus offensive to them, because she cannot grasp and comprehend the things of God? Vain men! will they pluck out their eyes because they cannot look upon the sun in his brightness and glory? What though reason cannot reach to the depths, to the bottoms of the ocean, may it not therefore swim and hold up the head as well as it can? What though it cannot enter into the 'holy of holies,'1 and pierce within the veil; may it not, notwithstanding, lie in the porch, at the gate of the temple called Beautiful, and be a door-keeper in the house Acts iii. 2. of its God? Its wings are clipped indeed; it cannot fly Ps. lxxxiv. 10. so high as it might have done; it cannot fly so swiftly, so strongly as once it could; will they not, therefore, allow it to move, to stir, to flutter up and down as well as it can? The turrets and pinnacles of the stately structure are fallen; will they therefore demolish the whole fabric, and shake the very foundations of it, and down with it to the ground? Though it be not a Jacob's ladder to climb up to heaven by, yet may they not use it as a staff to walk upon earth withal? And then reason itself knows this also, and acknowledges that it is dazzled with the majesty and glory of God; that it cannot pierce into His mysterious and unsearchable ways. It never was so vain as to go about to measure immensity by its own finite compass, or to span out absolute eternity by its own more. imperfect duration. True reason did never go about to comprise the Bible in its own nutshell. And if reason be content with its own sphere, why should it not have the liberty of its proper motion ?

1 Sanctum sanctorum.

Is it because it opposes the things of God, and wrangles against the mysteries of salvation? Is it therefore excluded? A heinous and frequent accusation indeed, but nothing more false and injurious. And if it had been an open enemy that had done her this wrong, why, then she could have borne it; but it is thou, her friend and companion. Ye have taken sweet counsel together, and have Ps. Iv. 12-14. entered into the house of God as friends. It is you that have your dependence upon her; that cannot speak one word to purpose against her, without her help and assist

ance.

What mean you thus to revile your most intimate and inseparable self? Why do you thus slander your own beings? Would you have all this to be true which you say? Name but the time, if you can, when right reason did oppose one jot or tittle1 of the Word of God.

Certainly these men speak of distorted reason all this while. Surely they do not speak of the candle of the Lord,' but of some shadow and appearance of it. But if they tell us that all reason is distorted, whether, then, is theirs so in telling us so? If they say that they do not know this by reason, but by the word of God; whether, then, is reason, when it acknowledges the word of God, distorted or no? Besides, if there were no right reason in the world, what difference between sobriety and madness, between these men and wiser ones? How, then, were the Rom. i. 20. heathen left without excuse,' who had nothing to see by but this 'candle of the Lord ?' And how does this thrust men below sensitive creatures! for better have no reason at all than such as does perpetually deceive and delude them.

Or does reason thus displease them, because the blackest errors sometimes come under the fair disguise of so beautiful a name, and have some tincture of reason in them ?. But truly, this is so far from being a disparagement to

1 Apex.