revelation; yet God had, by the light of reason, revealed to all mankind, who would make use of that light, that he was good and merciful. The same spark of the divine nature and knowledge in man, which, making him a man, showed him the law he was under as a man, showed him also the way of atoning the merciful, kind, compassionate Author and Father of him and his being, when he had transgressed that law. He that made use of this candle of the Lord, so far as to find what was his duty, could not miss to find also the way to reconciliation and forgiveness, when he had failed of his duty; though, if he used not his reason this way, if he put out, or neglected this light, he might, perhaps, see neither.

condemn for needless, all that our weak and, perhaps, biassed understandings cannot account for. 166. Though this general answer be reply enough to the forementioned demand, and such as a rational man, or fair searcher after truth, will acquiesce in; yet in this particular case, the wisdom and goodness of God has shown itself so visibly to common apprehensions, that it hath furnished us abundantly wherewithal to satisfy the curious and inquisitive; who will not take a blessing, unless they be instructed what need they had of it, and why it was bestowed upon them. The great and many advantages we receive by the coming of Jesus the Messiah, will show that it

was not without need that he was sent into the world. The evidence of our Saviour's mission from heaven is so great, in the multitude of miracles he did before all sorts of people, that what he delivered cannot but be received as the oracles of God, and unquestionable verity; for the miracles he did were so ordered by the divine Providence and wisdom, that they never were, nor could be denied by any of the enemies or opposers of Christianity.

164. The law is the eternal, immutable standard of right. And a part of that law is, that a man should forgive, not only his children, but his enemies, upon their repentance, asking pardon and amendment; and therefore he could not doubt that the author of this law, and God of patience and consolation, who is rich in mercy, would forgive his frail offspring, if they acknowledged their faults, disapproved the iniquity of their transgressions, begged his pardon, and resolved in earnest for the 167. Though the works of nature, in every part future to confirm their actions to this rule, which of them, sufficiently evidence a Deity, yet the world they owned to be just and right. This way of re-made so little use of their reason, that they saw conciliation, this hope of atonement, the light of him not, where even by the impressions of himself nature revealed to them. And the revelation of he was easy to be found. Sense and lust blinded the gospel having said nothing to the contrary, their minds in some, and a careless inadvertency in leaves them to stand and fall to their own Father, others, and fearful apprehensions in most, (who and Master, whose goodness and mercy is over all either believed there were, or could not but sushis works. I know some are forward to use that pect there might be superior unknown beings,) place of the Acts, chap. iv., as contrary to this. gave them up into the hands of their priests, to fill The words, verses 10 and 12, stand thus: "Be it their heads with false notions of the Deity, and known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, their worship with foolish rites, as they pleased; that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and what dread or craft once began, devotion soon whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the made sacred, and religion immutable. In this state dead, even by him doth this man [that is, the lame of darkness and ignorance of the true God, vice man restored by Peter] stand here before you and superstition held the world; nor could any whole. This is the stone which was set at nought help be had or hoped for from reason, which could by you builders, which is become the head of the not be heard, and was judged to have nothing to do corner. Neither is there salvation in any other; in the case; the priests every where, to secure their for there is none other name under heaven given empire, having excluded reason* from having any among men, in which we must be saved." Which, thing to do in religion. And in the crowd of wrong in short, is, that Jesus is the only true Messiah; notions, and invented rites, the world had almost neither is there any other person but he given to lost the sight of the one only true God. The rabe a mediator between God and man, in whose tional and thinking part of mankind, it is true, name we may ask and hope for salvation. when they sought after him, found the one, supreme, invisible God; but if they acknowledged and worshipped him, it was only in their own minds. They kept this truth locked up in their own breasts as a secret, nor ever durst venture it amongst the people, much less the priests, those

165. It will here possibly be asked, Quorsum perditio hæc? What need was there of a Saviour? What advantage have we by Jesus Christ? It is enough to justify the fitness of any thing to be done, by resolving it into the wisdom of God, who has done it, though our short views and narrow understandings may utterly incapacitate us to see that wisdom, and to judge rightly of it. We know little of this visible, and nothing at all of the state of that intellectual world, wherein are infinite numbers and degrees of spirits, out of the reach of our ken or guess; and therefore know not what transactions there were between God and our Saviour, in reference to his kingdom. We know not what need there was to set up a head and a chieftain, in opposition to "the prince of this world, the prince of the power of the air," &c. whereof there are more than obscure intimations in Scripture and we shall take too much upon us, if we shall call God's wisdom or providence to account, and pertly

* But by false pretenders to religion reason is still in a great measure proscribed. The sketch that follows of paganism is scarcely correct: in many countries of antiquity the priests gained very little by their false religion which they might not have gained by the true one. Priests, moreover, were far less numerous in antiquity than in modern times, and their gains were infinitely smaller. The religion they taught, also, was better than none; and, though it is customary to abuse priests, perhaps, if we would be just, we should acknowledge that, even in pagan times, there was considerable utility in their establishments, which kept alive, in many places, the flame of piety, and was always more or less favorable to virtue.-ED.

wary guardians of their own creeds and profitable vered, and the light of the gospel hath come, those inventions. Hence we see that reason, speaking mists have been dispelled; and, in effect, we see never so clearly to the wise and virtuous, had never that, since our Saviour's time, the belief of one authority enough to prevail on the multitude, and God has prevailed and spread itself over the face to persuade the societies of men that there was of the earth. For even to the light that the Mesbut one God, that alone was to be owned and wor- siah_brought into the world with him, we must shipped. The belief and worship of one God was ascribe the owning and profession of one God, the national religion of the Israelites alone; and, which the Mahometan religion hath derived and if we will consider it, it was introduced and sup- borrowed from it. So that, in this sense, it is cerported amongst that people by revelation. They tainly and manifestly true of our Saviour, what were in Goshen, and had light, whilst the rest of St. John says of him, 1 John iii. 8: "For this purthe world were in almost Egyptian darkness, with- pose the Son of God was manifested, that he out God in the world. There was no part of man-might destroy the works of the devil." This light kind who had quicker parts, or improved them the world needed, and this light it received from more; that had a greater light of reason, or fol- him-that there is but one God, and he eternal, lowed it further in all sorts of speculations, than invisible; not like to any visible objects, nor to be the Athenians; and yet we find but one Socrates represented by them. amongst them, that opposed and laughed at their polytheisms and wrong opinions of the Deity; and we see how they rewarded him for it.* Whatsoever Plato and the soberest of the philosophers thought of the nature and being of the one God, they were fain, in their outward worship, to go with the herd, and to keep to the religion established by law; which what it was, and how it had disposed the mind of these knowing and quick-sighted Grecians, St. Paul tells us, Acts xviii.: "Ye men of Athens." says he, "I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious for as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To the unknown God. Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that made the world, and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth unto all life, and breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all the nations of men, for to dwell on the face of the earth; and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitations; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel him out, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us." Here he tells the Athenians, that they and the rest of the world (given up to superstition) whatever light there was, in the works of creation and providence, to lead them to the true God, yet they few of them found him. He was every where near them; yet they were but like people groping and feeling for something in the dark, and did not see him with a full clear daylight; "but thought the godhead like to gold, and silver, and stone, graven by art and man's device."

169. If it be asked, whether the revelation to the patriarchs by Moses did not teach this, and why that was not enough? the answer is obvious; that however clearly the knowledge of one invisible God, maker of heaven and earth, was revealed to them, yet that revelation was shut up in a little corner of the world, amongst a people, by that very law which they received with it, excluded from a commerce and communication with the rest of mankind. The Gentile world, in our Saviour's time, and several ages before, could have no attestation of the miracles on which the Hebrews built their faith, but from the Jews themselves; a people not known to the greatest part of mankind, contemned and thought vilely of by those nations that did know them; and therefore very unfit and unable to propagate the doctrine of one God in the world, and diffuse it through the nations of the earth, by the strength and force of that ancient revelation, upon which they had received it. But our Saviour, when he came, threw down this wall of partition, and did not confine his miracles or message to the land of Canaan, or the worshippers at Jerusalem; but he himself preached at Samaria, and did miracles in the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and before multitudes of people gathered from all quarters. And after his resurrection sent his apostles amongst the nations, accompanied with miracles, which were done in all parts so frequently, and before so many witnesses of all sorts, in broad daylight, that, as I have before observed, the enemies of Christianity have never dared to deny them; no, not Julian himself, who neither wanted skill nor power to inquire into the truth, nor would have failed to have proclaimed and exposed it, if he could have detected any falsehood in the history 168. In this state of darkness and error in re- of the gospel, or found the least ground to question ference to the true God, our Saviour found the the matter of fact published of Christ and his aposworld. But the clear revelation he brought with tles. The number and evidence of the miracles him, dissipated this darkness; made the one invi-done by our Saviour and his followers, by the sible true God known to the world; and that with such evidence and energy, that polytheism and idolatry hath no where been able to withstand it. But wherever the preaching of the truth be deli

power and force of truth, bore down this mighty and accomplished emperor, and all his parts, in his own dominions. He durst not deny so plain matter of fact; which being granted, the truth of our Saviour's doctrine and mission unavoidably follows, wit could invent, or malice should offer to the connotwithstanding whatsoever artful suggestions his trary.

* Nevertheless, among the Greek philosophers, the unity of God was clearly enough expressed in their writings; and it is supposed, with considerable probability, that this was the true secret revealed 170. 2. Next to the knowledge of one God, in the mysteries, the knowledge of which was sup-maker of all things, a clear knowledge of their posed to secure happiness in a future state. Aristo- duty was wanting to mankind. This part of phan. Zipnun, 375. Barpax, 454. et Brunck. ad loc. knowledge, though cultivated with some care, by

told what they wonder how they could miss thinking of? which yet their own contemplations did not, and possibly never would have helped them to. Experience shows that the knowledge of morality, by mere natural light (how agreeable soever it be to it,) makes but a slow progress, and little advance in the world: and the reason of it is not hard to be found in men's necessities, passions, vices, and mistaken interests, which turn their thoughts another way: and the designing leaders, as well as the following herd, find it not to their purpose to employ much of their meditations this way: or whatever else was the cause, it is plain, in fact, that human reason unassisted, failed men in its great and proper business of

ples, by clear deductions made out an entire body of the law of nature. And he that shall collect all the moral rules of the philosophers, and compare them with those contained in the New Testament, will find them to come short of the morality delivered by our Saviour, and taught by his apostles: a college made up, for the most part, of ignorant but inspired fishermen.

some of the heathen philosophers, yet got little footing among the people. All men indeed, under pain of displeasing the gods, were to frequent the temples; every one went to their sacrifices and services; but the priests made it not their business to teach them virtue. If they were diligent in their observations and ceremonies punctual in their feasts and solemnities, and the tricks of religion, the holy tribe assured them, the gods were pleased; and they looked no further. Few went to the schools of the philosophers, to be instructed in their duties, and to know what was good and evil in their actions. The priests sold the better pennyworths, and therefore had all their custom. Lustrations and processions were much easier than a clean conscience, and a steady course of morality. It never, from unquestionable princivirtue; and an expiatory sacrifice, that atoned for the want of it, was much more convenient than a strict and holy life. No wonder, then, that religion was every where distinguished from, and preferred to virtue, and that it was dangerous heresy and profaneness to think the contrary. So much virtue as was necessary to hold societies together, and to contribute to the quiet of governments, the civil laws of commonwealths taught, and forced upon men that lived under magistrates -but these laws, being for the most part made by such who had no other aims but their own power, reached no further than those things that would serve to tie men together in subjection; or, at most, were directly to conduce to the prosperity and temporal happiness of any people. But natural religion, in its full extent, was no where, that I know, taken care of by the force of natural reason. It should seem, by the little that has hitherto been done in it, that it is too hard a task for unassisted reason, to establish morality, in all its parts, upon its true foundations, with a clear and convincing light. And it is at least a surer and shorter way, to the apprehensions of the vulgar, and mass of mankind, that one manifestly sent from God, and coming with visible authority from him, shou as a king and law-maker, tell them their duties, and require their obedience, than leave it to the long, and sometimes intricate deductions of reason, to be made out to them, such strains of reasonings the greatest part of mankind have neither leisure to weigh, nor, for want of education and use, skill to judge of. We see how unsuccessful in this, the attempts of philosophers were, before our Saviour's time. How short their several systems came of the perfection of a true and complete morality, is very visible. And if, since that, the Christian philosophers have much outdone them, yet we may observe, that the first knowledge of the truths they have added, are owing to revelation; though, as soon as they are heard and considered, they are found to be agreeable to reason, and such as can by no means be contradicted. Every one may observe a great many truths which he receives at first from others, and readily assents to as consonant to reason, which he would have found it hard, and perhaps, beyond his strength to have discovered himself. Native and original truth is not so easily wrought out of the mine, as we, who have it delivered ready dug and fashioned into our hands, are apt to imagine. And how often at fifty or threescore years old, are thinking men

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171. Though yet, if any one should think that, out of the sayings of the wise heathens, before our Saviour's time, there might be a collection made of all those rules of morality, which are to be found in the Christian religion; yet this would not at all hinder, but that the world nevertheless stood as much in need of our Saviour, and the morality delivered by him. Let it be granted (though not true) that all the moral precepts of the gospel were known by somebody or other, amongst mankind, before. But where, or how, or of what use, is not considered. Suppose they may be picked up here and there; some from Solon‍ard Bias in Greece; others from Tully in Italy; and, to complete the work, let Confucius, as far as China, be consulted; and Anacharsis the Scythian contribute his share. What will all this do to give the world a complete morality, that may be to mankind the unquestionable rule of life and manners? I will not here urge the impossibility of collecting from men so far distant from one another, in time and place, and languages. I will suppose there was a Stobaeus in those times, who had gathered the moral sayings from all the sages of the world. What would this amount to, towards being a steady rule, a certain transcript of a law that we are under? Did the saying of Aristippus or Confucius give it an authority?Was Zeno a lawgiver to mankind? If not, what he or any other philosopher delivered was but a saying of his mankind might hearken to it or reject it, as they pleased, or as it suited their interest, passions, principles, or humors: they were under no obligation; the opinion of or that philosopher was of no authority; and if it were, you must take all he said under the same character. All his dictates must go for law, certain and true, or none of them. And then, if you will take any of the moral sayings of Epicurus (many whereof Seneca quotes, with esteem and approbation) for precepts of the law of nature, you must take all the rest of his doctrine for such too, or else his authority ceases; and so no more is to be received from him, or any of the sages of old, for parts of the law of nature, as carrying with it

ment I think the world never had, nor can any one say is any where else to be found. Let me ask any one, who is forward to think that the doctrine of morality was full and clear in the world at our Saviour's birth, whither would he have directed Brutus and Cassius (both men of parts and virtue; the one whereof believed, and the other disbelieved a future being) to be satisfied in the rules and obligations of all the parts of their duties, if they should have asked him where they might find the law they were to live by, and by which they should be charged or acquitted, as guilty or innocent? If to the sayings of the wise, and the declarations of philosophers, he sends them into a wild wood of uncertainty, to an endless maze, from which they should never get out: if to the religions of the world, yet worse: and if to their own reason, he refers them to that which had some light and certainty; but yet had hitherto failed all mankind in a perfect rule; and we see, resolved not the doubts that had arisen amongst the studious and thinking philosophers; nor had yet been able to convince the civilized parts of the world, that they had not given, nor could, without a crime, take away the lives of their children, by exposing them.

an obligation to be obeyed but what they prove | to be so. But such a body of ethics, proved to be the law of nature from principles of reason, and reaching all the duties of life, I think nobody will say the world had before our Saviour's time. It is not enough that there were, up and down, scattered sayings of wise men, conformable to right reason. The law of nature was the law of convenience too; and it is no wonder that those men of parts, and studious of virtue, (who had occasion to think on any particular part of it,) should by meditation light on the right, even from the observable convenience and beauty of it, without making out its obligation from the true principles of the law of nature, and foundations of morality. | But these incoherent apothegms of philosophers and wise men, however excellent in themselves, and well intended by them, could never make a morality, whereof the world could be convinced; could never rise to the force of a law that mankind could with certainty depend on. Whatsoever should thus be universally useful, as a standard to which men should conform their manners, must have its authority either from reason or revelation. It is not every writer of morals, or compiler of it from others, that can thereby be erected into a lawgiver to mankind; and a dicta- 172. If any one should think to excuse human tor of rules, which are therefore valid, because nature, by laying blame on men's negligence, that they are to be found in his books, under the au- they did not carry morality to an higher pitch, and thority of this or that philosopher. He that any make it out entire in every part, with that clearness one will pretend to set up in this kind, and have of demonstration which some think it capable of, his rules pass for authentic directions, must show, he helps not the matter. Be the cause what it that either he builds his doctrine upon principles will, our Saviour found mankind under a corrupof reason, self-evident in themselves, and that he tion of manners and principles, which ages after deduces all the parts of it from thence, by clear ages had prevailed, and must be confessed was not and evident demonstration; or, must show his in a way or tendency to be mended. The rules of commission from heaven, that he comes with au- morality were, in different countries and sects, difthority from God, to deliver his will and command ferent. And natural reason no where had, nor to the world. In the former way, nobody that I was like to cure the defects and errors in them. know, before our Saviour's time, ever did, or went Those just measures of right and wrong, which about to give us a morality. It is true there is a necessity had any where introduced, the civil laws law of nature: but who is there that ever did, or prescribed, or philosophy recommended, stood not undertook to give it us all entire, as a law; no on their true foundations. They were looked on more nor no less than what was contained in, and as bonds of society, and conveniences of common had the obligation of that law? Who ever made life, and laudable practices. But where was it that out all the parts of it, put them together, and their obligation was thoroughly known and allowed, showed the world their obligation? Where was and they received as precepts of a law, of the highthere any such code, that mankind might have re- est law, the law of nature? That could not be course to, as their unerring rule, before our Sa- without a clear knowledge and acknowledgment viour's time? If there was not, it is plain, there of the law-maker, and the great rewards and puwas need of one to give us such a morality; such nishments for those that would or would not obey a law, which might be the sure guide of those him. But the religion of the heathens, as was who had a desire to go right; and if they had a before observed, little concerned itself in their mind, need not mistake their duty; but might be morals. The priests that delivered the oracles of certain when they had performed, when failed in heaven, and pretended to speak from the god, it. Such a law of morality Jesus Christ hath spoke little of virtue and a good life. And, on the given us in the New Testament; but by the lat- other side, the philosophers who spoke from reater of these ways, by revelation. We have from son, made not much mention of the deity in their him a full and sufficient rule for our direction, and ethics. They depended on reason and her oraconformable to that of reason. But the truth and cles, which contain nothing but truth: but yet obligation of its precepts have their force, and are some parts of that truth lie too deep for our na put past doubt to us, by the evidence of his mis-tural powers easily to reach, and make plain and sion. He was sent by God: his miracles show it -and the authority of God in his precepts cannot be questioned. Here morality has a sure standard, that revelation vouches, and reason cannot gainsay, nor question; but both together witness to come from God, the great law-maker.And such a one as this out of the New Testa

visible to mankind, without some light from above to direct them. When truths are once known to us, though by tradition, we are apt to be favorable to our own parts, and ascribe to our own understandings the discovery of what, in reality, we borrowed from others; or, at least, finding we can prove what at first we learned from others, we are