And first, The Excellency and Sublimity of the Object we are invited to contemplate, is such, that none that does truly acknowledge a Deity can deny, but that there is no Speculation, whose Object is comparable in point of Nobleness, to the Nature and Attributes of God. The Souls of inquisitive men are commonly so curious, to learn the Nature and Condition of Spirits, as that the over-greedy desire to discover so much as That there are other Spiritual Substances besides the Souls of Men, has prevail’d with too many to try forbidden ways of attaining satisfaction; and many have chosen rather to venture the putting themselves within the power of Daemons, than remain ignorant whether or no there are any such Beings: As I have learned by the private acknowledgments made me of such unhappy (though not unsuccessful) Attempts, by divers learned men (both of other Professions, and that of Physick,) who themselves made them in differing places, and were persons neither Timerous nor Superstitious: (But this onely upon the By.) And certainly that man must have as Wrong as Mean a Notion of the Deity, and must but very little consider the Nature and Attributes of that infinitely perfect Being, and as little the Nature and infirmities of Man, who can imagine the Divine Perfections to be Subjects, whose investigation a man may (inculpably) despise, or be so much as fully sufficient for. Not onely the Scripture tells us,1 That his Greatness is incomprehensible,2 and his wisdom is inscrutable; That he humbles himself to look into (or upon) the Heavens and the Earth; and, That not onely this or that man, (Isa. 40.15) but all the Nations of the World are, in comparison of him, but like the small Drop of a Bucket, or the smaller Dust of a Ballance: But even the Heathen Philosopher, who wrote that eloquent Book De Mundo, ascrib’d to Aristotle in his riper years, speaks of the Power, and Wisdom, and Amiableness of God, in terms little less lofty, though necessarily inferiour to so infinitely Sublime a Subject; which they that think they can, especially without Revelation, sufficiently understand, do very little understand themselves.
But perhaps your Friend will object, That to the knowledge of God there needs no other then Natural Theology; and I readily confess, being warranted by an Apostle, that the γνωστὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ,3 was not unknown to the Heathen Philosophers; and that so much knowledge of God is attainable by the light of Nature, duly employ’d, as to encourage men to exercise themselves more than most of them do in that noblest of Studies, and render their being no Proficients in it, injurious to themselves as well as to their Maker. But notwithstanding this, as God knows Himself infinitely better then purblind Man knows Him, so the Informations He is pleased to vouchsafe us, touching His own Nature and Attributes, are exceedingly preferable to any account, that we can give our selves of Him, without Him. And methinks, the differing Prospects we may have of Heaven, may not ill adumbrate to us the differing Discoveries that may be made of the Attributes of its Maker. For as, though a man may with his naked eye see Heaven to be a very glorious Object, enobled with radiant Stars of several sorts; yet when his eye is assisted with a good Telescope, he can not onely discover a number of Stars (Fix’d and Wandring) which his naked eye would never have shown him; but those Planets which he could see before, will appear to him much bigger, and more distinct: So, although bare Reason well improv’d will suffice to make a man behold many glorious Attributes in the Deity; yet the same Reason, when assisted by Revelation, may enable a man to discover far more Excellencies in God, and perceive them, he contemplated before, far greater and more distinctly. And to shew how much a dim Eye, illuminated by the Scriptures, is able to discover of the Divine Perfections, and how unobvious they are to the most piercing Philosophical Eyes, that enjoy but the dim light of Nature; we need but consider, how much more suitable Conceptions and Expressions concerning God are to be met with in the Writings of those Fishermen and others, that penn’d the New Testament, and those illiterate Christians that received it, than amongst the most Civiliz’d Nations of the World (such as anciently the Greeks and Romans, and now the Chineses and East-Indians) and among the eminentest of the Wise-men and Philosophers themselves, (as Aristotle, Homer, Hesiod, Epicurus, and others.)