Fourthly, That he is fubjected to many afflictions, for which, upon the principles of reason, he cannot account, nor difcover to what good purpose they tend.

Laftly, That, although he feels both prefages of, and defires after a future ftate of being, yet, from the light of nature, he neither derives affurance of its exiftence, nor any certain information concerning it.

LET us confider these propofitions, and enquire how far they are founded. If it fhall appear that they are strictly true, then let us examine in what manner the gospel provides a remedy for the diforders, and a fupply to the defects which they imply. The fubject, I am fenfible, is far too extenfive for the limits of a fingle difcourfe; but it was the fubject recommended for this occafion by a perfon to whom both the Society and the Preacher lie under many obligations,-a

perfon whofe extenfive knowledge and deep fenfe of religion, vindicated by a correfponding practice, gave peculiar weight to his opinions, and recommendations in matters where religion was concerned; I mean our late noble and excellent Prefident. Refpect for the memory of this good man is my apology for entering upon fo large a field. It is indeed but a small part of it over which I can hope to travel; but I may be able, perhaps, to point out to my hearers fome paths by which, with much pleasure and advantage, it may be explored.

THE first propofition is, That man, though indued with a natural capacity of receiving information, yet, by his own unaffifted efforts, is totally unable to açquire certain knowledge concerning those truths and objects, with which it is of chief importance for him to be acquainted.

The caufe of human reafon has been pleaded with ability and zeal; ingenuity and skill have been exhibited in the conftruction of beautiful systems of natural religion; the lovelinefs and obligation of virtue have been difplayed in all the glowing colours of imagination and language. But these elaborate efforts in defence of the human understanding, it is to be ob served, are, almost all of them, pofterior, not only to the Christian æra, but to the period of the Reformation. What nature could, or could not have done, it is perhaps impoffible for us, by an abftract inveftigation of the question to determine. But what she has done, and in the most favourable circumstances we certainly know, and the refult affords no great room for boasting to her advocates.

Let us look into the state of religious knowledge among nations unacquainted with a divine revelation, not among the rude and barbarous, they might be deemB

ed unfair examples; but in the philofo phical and claffical ages of Greece and Rome, when all the powers of the human mind were cultivated to a degree of perfection, which the efforts of modern times. never can furpafs. And yet in thofe refined ages, when fcience and art fhone forth with a luftre which does honour to humanity, how grofs and deplorable was the darkness of even the wifeft of men with regard to the most important of all fubjects, the nature and perfections of the Deity, the relations which man bears to God, and the duties which these relations infer? It were indeed highly unbecoming

In

in us, who enjoy fuch fuperior advantages to affect to undervalue the ancients. compofition and reafoning, as well as in the fine arts, they will ever be regarded as models even to modern genius. And as to religion and morals, what labour and learning and ingenuity could do, they have done; yet how miferably they have

failed is known to all who are converfant in their writings. Their ideas of God were vague, confufed, contradictory: To the rational homage, due to him as the Creator, Preferver, and Governor of the univerfe, they were ftrangers: Their fyftems of morals were confined and defective, being calculated rather for the forms of republican government, than for mankind at large; their profpects of futurity were dark and uncertain.

These things, it were eafy to prove, by entering into a particular detail; they often have been proved to a demonstration; what then fhall we think of the modesty of modern advocates for reafon, who, while they pretend to reject the aid of divine revelation, lay claim to a knowledge in divine things, more accurate and profound than was ever poffeffed by a Socrates or a Plato, a Cicero or an Antoninus? This affumed fuperiority is an infult offered not to revelation only but to reafon itself.