Observe this proposition; viz. "In God we live and have our being." Now, how easy is it for anyone to see, that no one can say anything as to the ground and reasons of the mysteries of the gospel, either for or against them, till he can go to the bottom of this proposition, and plainly show, either how we do, or do not, live and move, and have our being in God! For the truth or falseness of every mystery of the Christian redemption plainly depends upon this matter. If the Christian therefore will speak to the purpose, in defense of the ground of the gospel; he must be able to show, that we so are in God, so have our life in him, as to prove, from thence, the ground, the necessity, and certainty, of the Christian means of redemption. On the other hand, the Deist cannot take one rational step, or have any true ground to stand upon, but so far as he can show, that we are not so from God, have not such a nature in and from him, do not so live and move in him, as to have any want or any fitness for that method of redemption, which the gospel teaches. But as neither side did this, though the one thing necessary to be done; so you also see, that neither side had any possibility of doing it. For the soul, created out of nothing, allows of no inquiry, whether anything of God be in it, or how it has its life in him, or stands related to him. It admits of no searching after any ground or reason of its good or evil, or how it must have its happiness or misery from the nature of the thing. For if the intelligent life itself must be supposed to come from no ground, but to be created out of nothing; then it is certain, that its good and evil, its happiness or misery, with everything else, must be supposed to have no ground or reason for being as it is, but to be created out of nothing; and may go again into nothing, just as the creator pleaseth.