the real existence, relation, connection, agreement, disagreement and repugnancy, of our ideas of things, it is evident, intuitively, or upon momentary reflection, that man cannot describe and convey ideas of events, either past, present, or to come, without such attain ments. In respect to the second Proposition, altho' it be as incontrovertably true as the first, yet, for the sake of explanation, it may not be improper to examine the nature and extent of the human understanding; by which the truth of it will be equally demonstrated. The human mind in regard to external things, is at first quite passive, a mere blank; and perceives nothing of them, until their real archetypes are presented and impressed upon it, through the organs of the body. It then takes notice of, and contemplates the impressions thus made, without forming any judgment respecting them, further than perceiving that they exist. From this perception arises its simple and uncompounded ideas. Thus furnished with ideas it proceeds to review and compare them together, and thereby discovers their relation, agreement, disagreement, or repugnancy. It is now enabled to discern and determine, that two external objects, possessing the same form, natures, and qualities, refer to and agree; as that three angles of a triangle, are equal to, and agree with, two right angles; that two animals bearing a similar form and qualities, are of the same genus; that two naval engage ments between two fleets, or two battles by land between two armies, are events of the same nature or kind. On the other hand, by such comparison, it perceives that the figure of a triangle, is not the same, but disagrees with that of a square; that a horse is not a tree: and that events consisting of different circumstances, as that the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander, is not the same with the conquest of the Grecian by the Romans. And thus, by these several steps, the human mind acquires the knowledge of all external objects, and is enabled by signs or words to communicate it to others. Now, if this knowledge of pre-existing events be necessary to a communication of right ideas by them, on the same principles of reason a like knowledge of future is equally necessary to the same end. But as it is impossible for archetypes of future events, which never exist. ed, to be impressed upon the human mind; it is evident that it can form no ideas, make no comparison, nor perceive either their relation, agreement, disagreement, or repugnancy; and consequently can know nothing of them.Hence it is true, that the knowledge of man in regard to external objects and events, is confined to those which have really existed (the truth ascertained in the second proposition) and therefore the conclusion drawn from the premises, that man, by no agency or exertion of his natural intellectual powers can attain a knowledge of future events, so as to be capable of foretelling them, is indisputable. II. SYLLOGISM. PROPOSITION 1.—God, who is infinitely perfect, possesses the supernatural and spiritual quality of pre-science, or a knowledge of all future events. PROPOSITION 2.-That Being who possesses a knowledge of future events, communicate it to other intellectual beings, capable of receiving it. PROPOSITION 3.-Therefore God can communicate a knowledge of events, to his intellectual creature man, who is capable of receiving it. As to the first proposition, there is no one. whatever more striking and evident, than that God, who has existed from all eternity, and shall exist when eternity of eternities shall be no more; and who, by the infinite extent of his wisdom and power, has created all things, must have a perfect intuitive knowledge of them, as well those which are past or present as those which are to come. Of this kind of Knowledge, man, even in his fallen state, has a limited and imperfect degree; but incomparably and infinitely short of that of the supreme God. The potter knows the materials of which his vessel must be made, their fitness to answer his design, the means by which, and the manner how, they will be put together, and the form it will assume, the quantity it will hold, and the uses and purposes it will answer before he begins his work. And not only while he is performing his task, but after he has finished it, he can recall to his memory, at one view, the images and ideas of all its parts, and of the whole. Now, it is a problem impossible to be solved by the wit of man, how à God, who has created all things that have existed from all eternity, who has renovated, re-created, and sustained them ever since; and who can renovate, re-create, and sustain them to all eternity; or annihilate them at his pleasure; without having incessantly and eternally, models or images as it were, or rather perfect ideas of them at one intuitive view before his infinitely comprehensive mind: and this knowledge of all things, past, present, and to come; this omniscience, includes his prescience, and is one of his peculiar attributes. These positions are so evident from all his works, that no man capable of reason, except the deluded, hardened, and forsaken atheist, who denies the existence of a God, will presume to controvert them; and such is the irresistible power of their truth, that even that lost and unhappy wretch, the atheist, in despite of the utmost efforts of his deluded mind, is often compelled by his reason and conscience if not before, at the time of his dying and agonising moments to confess it. The second proposition is so evident, that words cannot make it more so; for no one in his right senses will deny, that he who possesses a thing, or a knowledge of a thing or event, can bestow or convey that thing or that knowledge to another; and therefore, that God, who is a spirit, possessing a knowledge of future events; and who, in the course of his creation of all things, has created man a spirit after his own image, and vested with a spiritual faculty of receiving such knowledge, can most assuredly communicate it to him. Thus the truths of the first and second propositions are demonstrated, and the inference drawn from them self evident, "that God can communicate a foreknowledge of events to man." III. SYLLOGISM. PROPOSITION. 1.-If man neither has nor can acquire prescience, or a knowledge of future events, by his own natural powers; PROPOSITION 1.-If God alone possesses such knowledge, and can communicate it to man; and PROPOSITION S.-If St: John, in the Apocalypse, has foretold many extraordinary events, which were impossible to be foreseen by man, and which have come to pass in after ages, with all the predicted circumstances; CONCLUSION OR INFERENCE. Then it necessarily follows, that St. John must сс |