the inquifitive, or that he gave his Spirit to men merely to enable them to give forth predictions for the amusement and entertainment of the world; there must be some end intended worthy of the Author. What end can you conceive worthy of God, but the promotion of virtue and religion, and the general peace and happiness of mankind? These things belong to him, as Creator and Governor of the world; these things are his province.

It is true, you will fay, these things do belong indeed to God; but what has prophecy to do with these things? God can govern the world without letting us into his fecrets; and as for virtue and religion, and our own happiness, he has given us a plain law to walk by, the refult of that reafon and knowledge with which he hath endowed us. Prophecy can never contradict or overrule the light of reason and nature; nor can we fuppofe that we came so imperfect and unfinished out of the hands of our Creator, as not to have light enough to see our own duty, and to pursue our natural happiness, but to want at every turn an admonisher at our elbow.

Let us allow the original state of nature to be as perfect and complete as you defire.

But what if the cafe fhould be altered? how will matters stand then? It is no unreasonable suppofition, this; for fince man was created a moral agent, with freedom of will, it was poffible for him to fall; and confequently, poffibly he may have fallen. Let us fuppofe for the prefent this to be the cafe; and tell us now, from natural religion, what muft fuch finners do? Repent, you will fay; for it is agreeable to the goodness of God to accept repent

ance, and to reftore offenders to his favour. Very well; but how often will this remedy ferve? May fin and repentance go on for ever in a perpetual round? To allow this, differs nothing from allowing a liberty and impunity to fin without repentance. If God is governor and judge of the world, there must be a time for judgment; and men may, after all reafonable and equitable allowances made, be ripe for judgment. Let this be the cafe then; Suppose a man, after all equitable allowances made, to be condemned under and by the law of nature, and living in daily expectation of execution; I afk, what fort of religion you would advife him to in the mean time?-Natural religion?-To what purpofe?— He has had his trial and condemnation by that law already, and has nothing to learn from it but the misery of his condition. I do not mean that the sense of natural religion will be loft in fuch a man. He may fee, perhaps more clearly than ever he did, the difference between good and evil, the beauty of moral virtue, and feel the obligations which a rational creature is under to his Maker; but what fruit will all this knowledge yield? what certain hope or comfort will it adminifter? A man with a rope about his neck may fee the equity and excellency of the law by which he dies; and if he does, he must fee that the excellency of it is to protect the virtuous and innocent: but what is this excellency to him who has forfeited the protection of all law? If you would recommend natural religion exclufive of all other affiftance, it is not enough to fhew from principles of reafon the excellency and reasonableness of moral virtue, or to

prove from the nature of God, that he muft delight in and reward virtue; you must go one step further, and prove from the nature of man too, that he is excellently qualified to obey this law, and cannot well fail of attaining all the happiness under it that ever nature defigned for him. If you ftop fhort at this confideration, what do you gain? What imports it that the law is good, if the fubjects are fo bad, that either they will not or cannot obey it? When you prove to finners the excellency of natural religion, you only fhew them how juftly they may expect to be punished for their iniquity: a fad truth, which wants no confirmation! All the poffible hope left in fuch a cafe is, that God may freely pardon and restore them; but whether he will or no, the offenders can never certainly learn from natural religion.

Should God think fit to be reconciled to finners, natural religion would again become the rule of their future trial and obedience; but their hopes must flow from another fpring, their confidence in God muft, and can arise only from the promife of God; that is, from the word of prophecy; for which reafon prophecy muft for ever be an effential part of fuch a finner's religion.

This reasoning agrees exactly with the ancienteft and moft authentic account we have of the beginning of prophecy in the world. When God had finished all his works, and man the chief of them, he viewed them all, and behold they were very good. How long this goodness lafted we know not; that it did not laft very long is certain. During the time of man's innocence there were frequent communications between God and him, but not the least hint

of any word of prophecy delivered to him. The hopes of nature were then alive and vigorous, and man had before him the profpect of all that happiness to which he was created, to encourage and support his obedience. In this ftate natural religion wanted no other affiftance, and therefore it had no other.

But when the cafe was altered by the tranfgreffion of our first parents; when natural religion had no longer any sure hopes or comforts in referve, but left them to the fearful expectation of judgment near at hand; when God came down to judge the offenders, and yet with intention finally to rescue and preferve them from the ruin brought on themselves; then came in the word of prophecy, not in oppofition to natural religion, but in fupport of it, and to convey new hopes to man, fince his own were irrecoverably loft and extinguished in the fall.

The prophecy then given being the firft, and indeed (as I conceive) the ground-work and foundation of all that have been fince, it well deferves our particular confideration.

It may be expected, perhaps, that the way should be cleared to this inquiry, by removing first the difficulties which arife from the hiftorical narration of the fall; and could any thing material be added in support of what is commonly faid upon this fubject, the time and pains would be well placed: but the more and the oftener this cafe is confidered in all its circumstances, the more will the commonly received interpretation prevail; which is evidently the true ancient interpretation of the Jewish church, as appears by the allufions to the hiftory of the fall,

to be met with in the books of the Old Tefta

ment.

To fome unbelievers, if I mistake not their principles, the hiftory of the fall would have been altogether as incredible, though perhaps not quite fo diverting, had it been told in the fimpleft and plaineft language.

It is to little purpose therefore to trouble them with an account of the genius of the eaftern people, and their language; for you may as foon perfuade them that a ferpent tempted Eve, as that any evil fpirit did. If you afk, why the devil might not as well speak to Eve under the form of a ferpent, as give out oracles to the old Heathen world under that and many other forms? you gain nothing by the queftion; for oracles, whether Heathen or Jewish, are to them alike; they dispute not their authority, but their reality. This is a degree of unbelief which has no right to be admitted to debate the queftion now under confideration.

As to others, who are not infidels with regard to religion in general, yet are fhocked with the circumftances of this hiftory, I defire them to confider, that the fpeculations arifing from the hiftory of the fall, and the introduction of natural and moral evil into the world, are of all others the most abftruse and furtheft removed out of our reach: that this difficulty led men in the earliest time to imagine two independent principles of good and evil, a notion deftructive of the fovereignty of God, the maintenance of which is the principal end and defign of the Mofaic hiftory. Had the hiftory of man's fall plainly introduced an invifible evil being to con