upon their minds: And suppose God should again discover to this surviving family the noble medicine whereby they might be healed of this distemper: Suppose this family should publish the terrors of the late universal destruction, together with the precious remedy, to the following generations, as Noah published the history of the flood, and the laws and grace of God; yet if all this be despised and neglected by their posterity, and the late desolation, as well as the new notice of the medicine, be banished from all their thoughts, and forgotten in a few ages, what can be said in excuse for them, or what accusation can be brought against the wisdom, justice, or goodness of God, if they are suffered to go on and die.

The crime is yet more inexcusable, and the justice and goodness of God yet more defensible, if we suppose some chief ingredients of this sovereign medicine, which make a great part of the composition, to be in some sense within the natural reach of their own faculties to find out, and within the native power of their hands to acquire and compose; so far at least as would greatly relieve the distemper, and give them comfortable hopes of healing, if they searched it out, and used it. But if these wretched creatures under a mortal disease will never exercise their thoughts about a cure, will never employ their reason carefully and diligently to search and find out the proper ingredients, nor use their hands to attempt the composition, but will trifle away all their time in riot and sensuality, in dancing and singing, regardless of their own lives, what reasonable charge or censure can be brought against the great Governor of the world, for permitting them to go on to death in their own madness ?

This is the case of mankind among the savage nations of the earth, who were all derived from Adam and Noah, their fathers, to whom the laws of God, and the methods of grace and salvation were communicated by God himself, and who took care to inform their immediate posterity, what the world suffered by disobedience to God, at the fall and the flood, and took care also to teach them those truths and duties by the belief and practice of which they might be saved. It is probable, that some of these families did retain true religion for several ages: But in a few ages, others despised and lost the truths and duties of true religion every generation grew worse than their fathers; and now whole nations, without one exception, are led away by prejudices and sensuality into endless follies, errors, and impieties, without any care or effort of mind to recover the knowledge of the laws of their Maker, or the methods of his grace. A due survey of this last consideration will most effectually refute that wild and unreasonable charge against our doctrine, as if the great God left all the world, except the Jews, for four thousand

years together, destitute of sufficient means to do their duty, and to obtain his favour; which is as false as I believe the book of Genesis is true, and has not so much as a colour of argument to support it.

But before I leave this head of the shameful degeneracy, and gross apostacy of the heathen world, I cannot but take notice of one very remarkable aggravation of the crime both of parents and children, and that is, that though several of these nations in a few ages lost and abandoned (the worship of the true God, the knowledge of his laws, and the discoveries of his grace, though the parents took no care to communicate them to their children, nor the children to retain any notices of them; yet these very nations are most obstinately tenacious of the idolatry and impious ceremonies, the savage and the vicious customs and practices of their ancestors; and their parents are as careful to teach them, and to breed them up in these iniquities and errors. If you ask the wild Americans, the Laplanders, the Hottentots, the reason of their ridiculous opinions and practices, their universal answer is, that it is the custom of their nation, and their fathers and their grandfathers, for many ages, have believed and done so before them. This in their esteem, is a sacred and sufficient reason for their immovable perseverance in their own nonsense and madness: So impiously fond have they been of the tradition of their ancestors, in their profane and vicious customs, while they so soon and so easily parted with the rules of virtue and religion, and the promises and hopes of grace and salvation, which their ancestors taught them. And thus the very same humour and practice which has had so strong and fatal au influence to maintain and propagate superstition, impiety, and vice among them, is a heinous aggravation of their crime in losing the rules of virtue, religion and happiness, since the same reverence for their early ancestors, the same temper and practice would have preserved the truths, duties, and rules of virtue and religion. It is time now to proceed to the next consideration, in order to vindicate the justice and goodness of God in the present constitution of things.

In the eighth place therefore, suppose that none of the race of mankind, whatsoever advantages or disadvantages they lie under, shall ever be condemned in the other world for the neglect of any duties, but what their own reason was in a practical and proximate sense sufficient to find out: Now there are a sufficient number of these neglects to bring condemnation upon every part of the heathen world, whether learned or barbarous. Supthat no creature shall be punished hereafter for any sin but what was some way or other committed against his own light cr conscience, or for a plain wilful neglect of seeking further knowledge of truth and duty, by such means as were plainly and

pose

practically within their reach: Suppose that the great Judge at last shall pass a sentence of death upon no soul but who shall be made to recollect his own guilty conduct, either by opposing the dictates of his conscience, by stifling convictions of sin or duty, by suppressing some inward principles or tendencies towards truth or virtue, or at least by a wilful neglect to pursue such hints of knowledge as have been given him in the course of providence, or by the good Spirit of God: Will not this thought fairly relieve the objection, and vindicate the honour of the divine perfection? It is the character of the heathens; Rom. i. 18, 23, 28. That they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, that they held the truth in unrighteousness; they stifled the dictates of their own minds; and when they knew God, they would not glorify him as God. Even the wise men of the nations, who were acquainted with the true God, wilfully complied with national idolatries, to the scandal of their own reason, and the great provocation of their Maker, so that he gave them up to judicial blindness, for their own vile abuse of the light of their reason and consciences. Is not the great Governor of the universe to be justified in this conduct ?

The design of the day of judgment is to justify or condemn men according to their works, and to make the equity of the great God as Governor of the world, appear in that sentence of justification or condemnation: and therefore I am inclined to believe, that no person in that day, shall fall under the condemning sentence of the Judge, but who shall also be judged and condemned by his own awakened conscience, for those very things upon which his condemnation proceeds from the lips of the Judge. Every Mouth will be stopped by such a procedure as this, and all the heathen world who shall be condemned in that day, shall be made to recollect their own resistance of conscience, and their wilful neglects, and by the light of their own reason shall confess the justice of the sentence, and the equity of him that condemns.

Though it has been sufficiently proved, that the barbarous and savage nations of the earth have not a proximate and practical sufficiency in their reasoning powers to find out the necessary truths and duties of religion, in order to obtain happiness, yet perhaps every single creature amongst them had a practical and proximate sufficiency to find out and know more of God and their duty, and to practise more rules of virtue than they ever actually found or practised. And let it be added also, that if there were any soul amongst them that had followed the leadings of his own reason and conscience, together with every beam of light, or hint of knowledge that occurred in the course of life, the blessed God would have manifested his goodness in giving that soul some further hints of the necessary truths and duties of religion. It is an universal law of heaven, To him that hath, that is, improveth

what he hath, more shall be given: And I am persuaded, God would never withhold his hand from communicating further hints of knowledge, till he sees the creature wilfully stop short of what he might attain, and neglect or suppress some intimations of truth or duty, which one way or other were suggested to him. It is rebelling against some degree of light that provoketh God to withhold grace from man, and would vindicate divine justice in its severest sentence. But in the

Ninth place, as there is infinite variety of degrees of guilt in particular persons, and their conduct in this world, there shall be the same variety of the degrees of punishment in the world. to come. Every man shall be jugded according to the advan tages he enjoyed. More is required from those whose advantages were greater, and their guilt is more heinous in abusing or neglecting them. God the all-knowing and the righteous will weigh every circumstance, both of his favours and our use or abuse of them, in the nicest balance, and his sentence shall bear an exact proportion to the demerits of every sinner. He that knew not his Master's will, shall be beaten but with few stripes, in comparison with those criminals who knew it and fought against it. Suppose therefore that the punishment of these radest and most stupid nations of the earth, in the future world, shall be exceeding small, in proportion to the very small degrees of light and knowledge which they have enjoyed, or which have fain fairly and practically within their reach; will not this greatly relieve the difficulty? And if even these lightest punishments which shall be assigned to the most ignorant part of the heathen world, should be thought something severe, yet none can be thought utterly unjust, if, as was before mentioned, none are punished, but for acting in some measure against the light of their own minds. Now, Sir, if we could put all these nine suppositions together, and place them in such a happy situation, as that they might, with their full force, project all their light upon this single spot of darkness in divine providence, about the state and circumstances of the heathen world, I persuade myself, they would illustrate this gloomy scene, they would clear up the difficulties, and relieve the charges which are cast upon the conduct of divine justice and goodness in this affair.

Let us suppose, that mankind at first were placed in happy circumstances, with a rich sufficiency of natural powers, to pro long and continue their own happiness through all their immortality, by knowing and doing their Maker's will: Suppose they had some proper notice given them, that if they sinned against God, they should not only expose themselves, but their offspring also, to a forfeiture of the blessings they enjoyed, and should introduce pains, and weaknesses, and death into their natures: Suppose it also evident, from observation and experience, from

the weaknesses of flesh and spirit, both from the pains and miseries of human nature, as well as from the universal corruption of morals in the world, that mankind has sinned against God, and is become a fallen and degenerate race of beings, under actual tokens of his displeasure, yet that they are not so utterly divested of their original powers and blessings, but that they have many of the comforts of this life left them to trace out the goodness of their Maker, and also a natural capacity to find out their duty, if they exerted this capacity to the utmost: Suppose yet further, that God has made several new discoveries both of his nature, his laws, and his grace, as well as of the severity of his punishing justice, to those families of mankind whence all the rest have been derived; but by degrees their criminal negligence, their irreligion, and their sensual vices have prevailed so far, as in some nations to blot out the remembrance of the true God, his laws, and his grace from amongst them: May not the goodness and justice of God be sufficiently vindicated, if these criminal nations are abandoned by heaven, and fall under divine punishment for these abominable offences? And especially if the justice of God proceed no further against them than to condemn and punish them for those offences only, which have been committed against some evident inward or outward manifestation of their duty, and the actual light of their own consciences; which offences being comparatively but few in number, call for a much lighter punishment than those sinners whose consciences have had higher degrees of light communicated to them in Jewish or christian nations?

Sorн. I thank you heartily, Pithander, for the large repetition you have given us of your last Sunday-morning's sermon, for I was then at church, and heard it with great satisfaction.

PITH. I acknowledge, Sir, I espied you there, and was almost ashamed to think how much I had borrowed from your discourse, in some of these conferences, toward the composition of that sermon: but gratitude and justice demand my hearty thanks to Sophronius; for I am constrained to confess, that I was not so well skilled in this controversy when I entered the list with Logisto: And I am resolved, Sir, for your sake, henceforth to entertain a better opinion of those who are not entirely with me in all the rites, laws, and powers of an established church. Thus I have learned at once from your agreeable conversation both wisdom and charity.

SOPH. You overwhelm me, Sir, with honours and civilities. I hope this conference hath not passed without my own considerable improvement, and am glad to find growing charity among all that profess the christian name, which I shall always endeavour to promote and cultivate; for without it I can never approve myself a disciple of the blessed Jesus.