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conceptions of God's character; and therefore when the most erroneous fhall fee God in the light of eternity, they will be fully convinced, by that fight, of all the errors they held in this life, though they never will love the truth, nor that Being who is the fountain and pattern of it. There will be no atheists, no deifts in hell; none there will believe that a finner can be juftified by his own obedience or fufferings; none who will deny the Godhead or fatisfaction of Chrift; for then they will fee, that just such a Saviour and facrifice was neceffary, in order to reconcile God to man, and fubdue finners to the obedience of the gospel.

It is therefore neceffary, above all things, to have right apprehenfions of God. We must know his name in order to put our trust in him. The name of God is that by which he is known: his glorious perfections and attributes are the letters which compofe it; it is not the word God or Lord, that we are to love and worship, any more than the words Deus, Theos, or Dominus, but that Being, whom these words, by common confent, denote; and what he is, what are his properties and characters, must be learn'd from his works and word; for we know nothing of God, but what he hath revealed of himself. The beavens declare the glory of the Lord, and the firmament fhews forth his handy work; and, by the things that are made are clearly feen bis eternal power and Godbead. But he hath magnified his word above all his name; therein he hath given us the clearest display of his nature by telling us what are his attributes and perfections; and in this bleffed book we must read his name, or never, in this life, come to know what it means.

Men are very prone to leave the fcriptures, and follow their own reafon, or rather, vain imaginations, which exalt themselves against God, when they form their conceptions of him; and having dreffed up a god according to their own fancy, they torture the fcriptures to make them agree with the image they

have

have fet up, and, with Nebuchadnezzer,make them fall down and worship it,or condemn them as inconfiftent, and caft them into the fiery furnace of ridicule, burlefque, and blafphemy. But those who would know what God is, must take his character from his word, which was defigned by him to reveal his name to us, and must lay aside their own vain fancies and false reasonings, and make them all bow to the facred ora.cles which alone can inform us of the nature and perfections of Jehovah.

Rem. V. The ground of hope laid in the gospel for fenfible, guilty finners, is the most solid and glorious that it is poffible to conceive. It is calculated to relieve and bind up the broken hearted, to deliver the captives, and comfort thofe that mourn. It prefents them with a facrifice wherewith they can come before a once angry God, and find acceptance. It opens the ftores of God's fulness, and afks nothing of the perishing finner, but to open his hand, his mouth and heart to receive them. It fhews grace reigning through righteoufnefs, God glorified and the finner faved. Bleffed be God for the gofpel; and above all for a good hope through grace of an intereft in its glorious eternal bleffings. To obtain this let us give all diligence, that we may honour and enjoy God here, and be prepared for the full enjoyment of him in his kingdom of glory! Amen.

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APPENDIX

To the preceeding SERMONS, by way of answer to a Dialogue lately published, written by the Rev. William Hart of Saybrook, in Connecticut, intitled, Brief remarks on a number of falfe propofitions and dangerous errors which are spreading in the country, collected out of fundry difcourfes lately published, wrote by Dr.Whitaker and Mr. Hopkins.

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SECT. I.

SI have already, in the notes at bottom of the preceeding pages, endeavoured a defence of my Sermons against fome of the injurious mifrepresentations of them, and contradictions charged on them by Mr. H. All that remains is to ftate and confute his leading fentiment, together with the feveral falfe opinions built thereon; and to filence his unjuft and false cry of new divinity, Sandemanian berefy,

&c. &c.

Mr. H's leading fentiment, or foundation error, I take to be this,viz. That all beings endowed with natural confcience have NECESSARILY a tafte for moral excellency: i. é. they approve and love that which appears to the understanding

understanding or confcience to be morally good, and hate what appears morally evil. *

That this is his opinion is too evident from the dialogue, and is of fuch importance in "his scheme of orthodoxy," that almost every fentiment in his book is either built on it, or fome way modelled by it, fo far as he is confiftent with himself. But that the reader may fee I do not injure Mr. H. in this, I defire he would carefully examine the following quotations with the remarks on them.

Mr. H. having diftinguished good into natural and moral, fays, "There is in man a natural faculty whereby he is rendered capable of difcerning and diftinguishing between moral good and evil, as well as "natural, and readily perceives the one to be right, "amiable and worthy of esteem and bonour, the other wrong, hateful and blame-worthy, immediately, as "foon as thefe objects are feen in a true light, or as

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being what they really are, without any further rea"foning about them. This faculty is innate, an es"sential part of the natural constitution of all intelligent and moral beings, as fuch; and is found in Experience, actually exifting both in righteous and "wicked men. On this" (i. e. on this "ready perception of the beauty of morally good, and hatefulness of morally evil objects," i. e. on a love for holiness and hatred of fin)" is founded the principle and power of "natural confcience. +"

This

*N. B. The whole controverfy very much depends on the right ftating of Mr. H's leading fentiment; but after the moft careful enquiry I am capable of, it appears undeniably clear to me, that I have ftated it right. If Mr. H. will not allow this to be his opinion, I have to say, I am forry he could find no better words to communicate what he intended, and that through want of language he has chofen words and phrases which fully convey what is befide his defign. I beg the reader carefully to attend to the following quotations, by which he may fee, that if I have miftaken what he intended, I have not what he has faid. ↑ D. p. 52.

This fufficiently fhews Mr. H's opinion to be this, viz. that natural confcience is founded on a taste for mo ral excellency or beauty; fo that the want of this taste implies the want of confcience. Here he makes the foundation of confcience to be a "difcernment of the "amiableness of objects morally good, and of the bate

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166

fulness of objects morally evil, on the first fight of "them, as they are in themfelves, or as being what "they really are, immediately, without any further reafoning about them." This I take to be a juft definition of spiritual tafte. Let us hear Prefident Edwards on this head. He fays "There is fuch a "thing as good tafte for natural beauty (which learned

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men often speak of) that is exercised about tempor "ral things, in judging of them; as about the just"nefs of a speech, the goodness of ftyle, the beauty "of a poem, the gracefulness of deportment," &c. A late great philofopher of our nation writes thus upon it; "To have a tafte, is to give things their "real value, to be touched with the good, to be fhock'd

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with the ill; not be dazzled with falfe luftres, but "in fpite of all colours, and every thing that might "deceive and amufe, to judge foundly. Tafte and "judgment then, fhould be the fame thing; and yet " 'tis easy to difcern a difference. The judgment forms "its opinions from reflection: the reafon on this " occafion fetches a kind of circuit, to arrive at its "end, it supposes principles, it draws confequences, "and it judges; but not without a knowledge of the

cafe; fo that after it has pronounced, it is ready to "render a reason for its decrees, Good taste obferves "none of these formalities; e'er it has time to con"fult, it has taken its fide; as foon as ever the object is prefented, the impreffion is made, the fenti86 ment formed, afk no more of it. As the ear is *wounded with a harsh found, as the fmell is foothed "with

* Relig. Aff. p. 173.

TASTE,

I

+Chamb, Dicti. under the word

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