CONFERENCE IV. 521 mathematical learning, stand within his view in a most perfect and amiable consistency, which to our narrow thoughts appear so dissonant, and almost inconsistent. If there. are such sort of seeming inconsistencies in some parts of geometry, when we run into the doctrinesof infinite and iucommensurables, which yet all stand right in the eye of God, much more maywe suppose, that in the works of the great God, andhis divine schemes and trans.. actions, there may be many things which seem tous all difficulty and darkness, and, yet before him they-stand in the fairest and most easy light. When St. Paul had considered the long darkness that lay upon the Gentile world for many ages, the peculiar privi- lege of the Jews, to be made, during- those ages, the favourites of God ; when he considered again, these very favourites,almost the whole nation of them, se far left as to abuse the Son of God himself, to run into infidelity, and thereby to be abandoned of God, their Benefactor and their- King; when again, in pro- pheticvision, after this once favourite people had continued long under unbelief, guilt, and misery, he saw that they should be recovered, and restored to the true religion, and the favour of God, in his xi. chapter to the Romans ; with what ecstasy of devout surprize and adoration does he conclude his discourse ! 00 God bath shut up both the Gentiles and the Jews, by turns under unbelief, that he might have mercy upon both, in his own season : God bath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. O the .depths of the riches both of the wisdom -and knowledge of God! FIow unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out ! For who bath known the mind of the Lord, or who bath been his counsellor ! Or who bath first given to him, and, it shall be recompensed unto him again ? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things, to whom be glory for ever. Amen. Loc. I know not how to make a sufficient acknowledg- ment to you, gentlemen, for the favour you have doneme, and the light you- have given me in these conferences. I am fully satisfied, that the bulk of the heathen world is in a very dark and deplorable state, and amongst those who have lost all traditional knowledge of divine revelation, their own reason is far from being sufficient in any practical sense, as yon have explained it, to lead them to virtue, religion and happiness. Upon ajust review, I autconvinced, that had I been so unhappy as to be born amongst them, myreasoning powers would have been exercised to no better purpose than theirs are: For why -should I be so vain as to imagine myself the wisest mau among so many thousands of the present age, and the millions of former generations ? I begin to see there is a necessity of some better advantages, in order to reform mankind, and to
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