all the philosophers, statesmen, benefactors, and heroes, that are known-Grecians, Scythians, or Persians, to a man. Were the Romans better? No; Titus, called the Darling of mankind, on his successes at Jerusalem, erected a temple and offered sacrifices to his good fortune, and dedicated all the spoils to Jupiter Olympius, into whose temple he went with his father the emperor, as soon as he got back to Rome, and returned thanks. In his country superstition no man keener than Cicero, the famous Marcus Tullius Cicero, of whose religion, or idolatry, as it was, all your succeeding natural religionists, who have set up in the haberdashery way, have been little more than mere hawkers and pitiful retailers.

Marcus Antoninus the Pious, and Trajan the Just, as they are surnamed, emperors of Rome, how ardently did they flame with zeal for the same pagan worshipwhen, contrary to their known moderation and philosophy in other matters, they made the streets of Rome, and all the provinces, to stream with the blood, and blaze with the burnings, of the Christians; who were butchered, massacred, and burnt by thousands, because they would not acknowledge the gods of the heathens to be God; nor worship the images, statues, and pictures, of the good emperors. And who in all the empire more besotted and bigotted to the same absurdities, than the two most gentlemanly statesmen, courtiers, and philosophers of their time, the two Plinys?

And now, to come to later times or nations; were, or are, those of America, North and South, better provided with a god for the object of their worship?-Let travellers, on whose testimony so much stress at times is laid, declare. If thou sayst, "they had no god, and how then shall they be judged?" Art thou God, the judge, to concern thyself about that matter? Shall not the Judge of all the earth do righteously? God knows what he has given, and what withholden, and can do all without thee.

However, it was never said by us that God did not reveal himself where, when, and how, he pleased; but the contrary maintained.

STRANGE INFATUATION OF NATURAL-RELIGION MEN.

But how absurd art thou, O man of natural religion, an advocate for the natural knowledge of God! how unutterable thy infatuation! For

Let a man but describe the character of an onion, of a fire, of a serpent, of an ox, of a dog, of a dragon, of an adulterer, of a murderer, of a Sodomite, of a confuser of kinds, of a devil, or of what he will, and call the same a god, and shew you that all the nations under heaven have worshipped, or do worship these, some one of these, or some other equally gracious thing, calling it by its name, according to the proper sound and expression of their own mother tongue, their god-Yet, strange to tell! you shall hardly meet with one of a thousand reasoners upon the subject, clergy or laity, (ridiculous distinction! though we must use common terms, as if the clergy were God's heritage, as the word signifies, and the laity or people mere refuse-why don't these clergy consistently, as their Roman brethren, keep back the cup from the people?) who will not make an argument of such kind of gods, and worship of gods, to prove, "That all men naturally have, and have had, the knowledge of God his Being-and that there neither is nor can be an atheist in the world-and that God his Being, is a thing taken for granted by revelation-and that the Being of God cannot be discovered by revelation-nor revelation be received as such, except a man know God without the said revelation, and altogether before it, by his own reason." The contrary of all which is evident even from their own premises, or arguments drawn from the heathen gods and worship; as well as from the whole concurrent testimony of scripture. May the Lord pity the deceived, and the men. too who are instrumental in deceiving others.

What! is an onion, a fire, a serpent, an ox, a dog, a dragon, a devil, GOD? or an argument that those who worship such things know GOD?

I profess, before God and the world, that the stupidity of Egyptians, Persians, Greeks and Romans, and Scythians of old, or Hottentots, Japanese, and Laplanders, at this day, appears to me a sort of wisdom and true discernment, compared with the monstrous stupidity and blasphemous impiety of those men who argue, now-adays, in the midst of gospel revelation, from such objects of worship towards the establishment of what they call natural religion, and that which is required as the main article and foundation thereof, the natural knowledge of God in the world, without the word.

If those men who use such kind of arguments for proving the natural knowledge of God, drawn from the heathen multiplicity of gods, have any thing to say for their own vindication, it seems to be such an apology as Charles V., who was no friend to the formidable power and monarchy of France, is reported to have made in jest for himself, saying to his courtiers one day, that he had been falsely accused of hating the king of France; 66 for", ', says he, "instead of the one king which they have, I wish they had twenty:" meaning, that they might be divided all into so many factions and separate parties, and so have no union among themselves, power, government, nor king, at all, capable of alarming him and his people: and indeed, in their case also, if wishes would do it, they who live and die in opposition to the one God and his ways, would find themselves interested in wishing, that instead of that one God, there were ten thousands of such gods as blinded nations worship. But with them I have done.

IMPROVEMENT.

Now, upon the whole, if this doctrine, that the knowledge of God, his being and perfections, and consequently of all his character undivided and one, ways, and works, and will, is only to be had by the very word of God himself, through the power and ministration of his Spirit, and no otherwise whatsoever-if this doctrine, I

say, be true, as I believe it is, and proven so by truth itself; and if it be received as the very truth of God in the conscience of any man, he cannot fail at once to perceive the use of it.

He will rejoice in the discovery, as a most precious truth of God's giving-he will be delivered (which is no small thing) from that temptation, so fatal to thousands, of rejecting or explaining away any point of revelation, from a pretence of its disagreement with some supposed kind of natural notices, or notions of God and his ways, either in heart or conscience, or any where else. If he understand the matter well, he will be disposed to lay aside all malice and guile, envies and hypocrisies, all superfluity of naughtiness, and evil. speaking against the truth, that, as a new-born babe, he may drink in the sincere milk of the word, from those two breasts of eternal consolation, the Old and New Testaments, and grow thereby, through the nourishing influences of the Holy Ghost, up to the full stature of a perfect man in Christ Jesus.

He will see no ground for cavilling and contending against the truth; but rather, like a meek and humble little one, will be inclined to receive into his heart, with a passive conscious joy, whatever his God, through the quickening power of his word, shall be pleased to infuse therein.

He will be freed from pretending, like a self-condemned hypocrite, to believe one part, and yet doubt or deny another part, of the same revelation, which is equally plain and evident, in the declared word of the same One true God.

For instance, if he hold fast the belief and confession of this truth in connection and consistency with it and himself, you will never hear him saying, "He believes and confesses himself a sinner, and that he cannot satisfy divine justice by fulfilling the law, and that Christ has fulfilled the law, and that innumerable multitudes shall be saved by the merits of the Saviour: but that, as for himself, he does not know if he has obtained,

or shall obtain, an interest or lot in this salvation; but that he will lie at the pool of gospel-ordinances, and pray and strive, that God would enable him to do something which may make him differ from other men; something, whereby he may be accepted; something by which he may attain to a saving interest in Christ, be installed into the covenant of grace, and enjoy eternal life, which he is afraid he is yet without a title unto; which title, he thinks, can only be made out to him by his success in his good endeavours, prayers, inclinations, dispositions, wrestlings, and works"-There is no ground, I say, in the principles of that man, who believes the knowledge of God his being, character, and ways, is to be obtained only by the word, and whose knowledge is actually founded in that word, or whose knowledge is that very word believed by him, for talking at such an idle, absurd, inconsistent, self-destroying, God-affronting, God-denying rate; supposing one part of the revelation true, and another false.

For since, O believer of God, you know God his being, his character, his ways, only by himself shining into your hearts by the revelation of his word, (his word in itself, and to your apprehension who believe it, being all equally certain,) you have just as much assurance, and ground of assurance, given you in that word, for one thing declared in it, as for another::-as much assurance given you, ground and evidence to believe, and to know that you do believe what you do believe, or know for certain, on God's testimony revealed in yourself, the present subject of his love, and not another for you, that you have an interest and lot in Christ's righteousness, and eternal salvation thereby, when you do believe the testimony corresponding and agreeing thereto in the word; as that there is a salvation, a righteousness, a Christ, a law, sin, death, eternal judgment, Adam, Paradise, a tree of knowledge of good and evil, a commandment about it, the sinning and dying of Adam and of all men in him, a hell to the unbeliever,