men, may require; and the fum of it is obedience to the moral and eternal law of God; which obliges us to be fober, righteous, and godly, and, to the utmost of our power, to imitate the Deity in justice, mercy, and holyness. This is the perfection of religion in a state of nature, under the law, and under the gofpel. There is the fame one fupreme mind to be worshipped in spirit and truth, in all ages; not three, as the distracting Romish theologers teach the poor people; the fame love of God and love of mankind, to dwell together in every human breast, from generation to generation; and the fame refignation of ourselves with complacency and delight, to the all-governing will of the fovereign Lord of all the worlds. The univerfal creator and governor, who ruleth over all, we must praife and adore with serious, warm affection; we must keep the appetites and paffions under due regulation; we must gratify them within the bounds of virtue and integrity; and indulge ourselves in acts of benevolence towards all men. If we act thus, and adhere to what is juft and right, even when we fuffer by fo doing, then are we truly religious, tho we do not believe one fyllable of the doctors mysterys; do not believe in a compound, treble Deity; and that a fupreme God was flaughtered to fatisfy his equal.

In the next place, as this is true religion, fo it is most certain, that the light within the Gentiles might have guided them to it; was fufficient to inform them how to fear the great God, and work righteousness; if those natural faculties of reason they were bleffed with had been attended to, and employed in a better manner than they used them: And their not doing fo, is the foundation of that judgment, which is hereafter to condemn their idolatries, and immoralities. So two apostles tell us, Paul and Peter. And it is undenyable, that if men would maintain fuch a ftable authority over their appetites, paffions, and fancys, as not to fuffer them to hurry them away into any, pursuits, tho ever fo finely colored, till reafon and moral confcience have examined the matter, and pronounced fentence, they might have their conversation in this world in fimplicity, fincerity, and benignity of temper, and by goodness, righteousness and truth, have confidence towards God, whofe voice conscience is. They might fave their fouls, if there never was a revelation and a crucifyed Savior; or, those things in being, if they had never heared of them: For, however the Romish theologers may reft the peoples faith upon obfcure, ambiguous phrafes, of an uncertain fignification, and lay the ftrefs of falvation upon the wounds and death of God's C c

Christ;

Chrift; yet, in regard to the common principles of reafon, in confiftence with the wifdom, justice, and goodness of God, it must be affirmed, that the goodness or merit of any derived Being cannot be a greater inducement to the fupreme Being, to regard his creatures than his own infinite goodness and compaffion; the tender mercies of God, through which we have remission of fin. This important truth, even revelation declares in va rious paffages. Mofes, who had a juft and beautiful notion of the Deity, tells us, that Jebovab, the felf-exiftent, the parent of nature, and the God of the univerfe, is the Lord God, gracious and merciful, forgiving impiety and tranfgreffion, and fin. This being the truth of the cafe, revelation was not abfolutely neceffary, if men had walked by the light of reafon, and attended diligently to the voice of natural confcience. Not only the wiser heathens might produce, by the culture of their natural powers, fuch admirable leffons of God and goodness, as we read in the writings of the old theift philofophers: but fuch is the make and frame of the human mind, that every one, with a small degree of affiftance from úninfpired teachers, might easily attain to clear and distinct notions of all the duties of life, of all moral obligations. Nay, without teaching, a Gentile muft fhun himself, and all reflexion (if

he

he has any understanding) not to find an author of all things, and a duty to him; and that an injury voluntarily done him by another, unprovoked, is what he would not have the other do to him; therefore, an injury by him unprovoked, and voluntarily inficted on any one, is wrong, is a crime. So far any Gentile might go. The light of nature, original and unaffifted reafon, might lead him to a moral life, and affure him of the mercy or placability of the Deity.

In the last place, if a revelation from heaven be, what impartiality must allow it is, a mean more expedient to teach men the knowledge of true religion, by putting them in mind of it, and by exciting them by proper motives to the practice of duty; and that it appears by the faid revelation, that as in Adam all die, even fo in Christ shall all be made alive; yet this cannot affect the goodnefs of God, in his giving it to a part of mankind only: For, if chriftians have reafon to offer up their thankful acknowledgments of the great advantage of revelation, and can, by the oracles of God committed to them, make righteousness run through the nation as a fruitful ftream, if they please, and with ease and the nobleft fatisfaction, fecure the exalted honors and felicitys, prepared for human nature, in a future state of existence: Cc 2

If

If the gospel teaches them in a more exa& and perfect manner to deny ungodlynefs and worldly lufts, to live foberly, righteously, and godly in this prefent world: If it gives them the strongest affurance of the affiftance of the holy Spirit, lays before them in the cleareft light, the glorious hopes of life and immortality, and reveals to them in the most exprefs and affectionat manner, the wrath of God against all ungodlynefs and unrighteoufnefs of men; yet, the Gentiles are not banished from the mansions of the blessed, by this favor to us. If they had not the patriarchal and Mofaic difpenfations; difpenfations; if they have not had the chriftian inftitution, they have had, and ftill have the moral and eternal law of reafon or nature, which I have just now described, and which is fufficient, if they would make a right use of it, to fit them for high exaltation in a life to come, and fecure them immortality and bliss unalterable, in the future and glorious world; fince all men actually have a fhare in the mercy of God in Chrift Jefus, whether they have heared of him, or are strangers to his name. For, as in confequence of Adam's fin, all mankind were involved in death; fo in confequence of Chrift's obedience, the whole human race is to be reftored to life at the last day.

Το