II. The fecond is, The excellency of his religion, and the certain means it afforded of obtaining that which is the great end of religion, a blessed life after this: Thou haft the words of eternal life.

III. The third is, The authority and divine commiffion of Chrift, upon which their faith and confidence were built: We believe and are fure that thou art that Chrift, the Son of the living God. To believe, because we have fufficient reason to determine our belief, is a rational faith; and this is what is meant in the word yvwxaμev: We believe, because we have, from the things we have heard and feen of you, determined with ourselves, that thou art the Chrift, the Son of the living God.

These three reafons, which St. Peter gives for adherence to Chrift, refer to as many general principles or maxims:

As firft, that religion, the only means by which men can arrive at true happiness, by which they can attain to the last perfection and dignity of their nature, does not, in the prefent circumftances of the world, depend on human reafoning or inventions for, was this the cafe, we need not to go from home for religion, or to feek farther than our own breast for the means of reconciling ourselves to God, and obtaining his favour, and, in confequence of it, life eternal. Upon fuch fuppofition, St. Peter argued very weakly, in faying, To whom Jhall we go? For to whom need they go to learn that which they were well able to teach themfelves?

The fecond principle referred to is, that the great end of religion is future happiness; and con

fequently the beft religion is that which will moft farely direct us to eternal life. Upon this ground St. Peter prefers the Gospel of Chrift: Thou haft the words of eternal life.

The third thing is, that the authority and word of God is the only fure foundation of religion, and the only reasonable ground for us to build our hopes on. Thus St. Peter accounts for his confidence in the religion which Chrift taught: We know and are fure that thou art that Chrift, the Son of the living God.

In this ftate of the cafe, the neceffity of religion in general is fuppofed; and the only question is, from what fountain we muft derive it. The dif pute can only lie between natural and revealed religion. If nature be able to direct us, it will be hard to justify the wifdom of God in giving us a revelation, fince the revelation can only ferve the fame purpose, which nature alone could well fupply.

The

Since the light of the Gospel has fhone throughout the world, nature has been much improving; we see many things clearly, many things which reafon readily embraces, which nevertheless the world before was generally a stranger to. Gospel has given us true notions of God and of ourselves, right conceptions of his holiness and purity, and of the nature of divine worship: it has taught us a religion, in the practice of which our prefent ease and comfort, and our hopes of future happiness and glory, confift; it has rooted out idolatry and fuperftition; and, by inftructing us in the nature of God, and discovering to us his unity, his

omniprefence, and infinite knowledge, it has furnished us even with principles of reafon, by which we reject and condemn the rites and ceremonies of heathenism and idolatry, and discover wherein the beauty and holiness of divine worship confift: for the nature of divine worship must be deduced from the nature of God; and it is impoffible for men to pay a reasonable service to God, till they have just and reasonable notions of him. But now, it seems, this is all become pure natural religion; and it is to our own reafon and understanding that we are indebted for the notion of God and of divine worship: and whatever elfe in religion is agreeable to our reason, is reckoned to proceed entirely from it: and, had the unbelievers of this age heard St. Peter's piteous complaint, Lord, to whom shall we go? they would have bid him go to himself, and confult his own reason, and there he should find all that was worth finding in religion.

But let us, if you please, examine this pretence, and fee upon what ground this plea of natural religion can be maintained. If nature can inftruct us fufficiently in religion, we have indeed no reason to go any where elfe; fo far we are agreed: but whether nature can or no, is, in truth, rather a queftion of fact, than mere fpeculation; for the way to know what nature can do, is to take nature by itfelf, and try its ftrength alone. There was a time. when men had little elfe but nature to go to; and that is the proper time to look into, to see what mere and unaffifted nature can do in religion. Nay, there are ftill nations under the fun, who are, as to religion, in a mere ftate of nature: the glad

tidings of the Gospel have not reached them, nor have they been bleffed, or (to speak in the modern phrafe) prejudiced with divine revelations, which we, lefs worthy of them than they, fo much complain of: in other matters they are polite and civilized; they are cunning traders, fine artificers, and in many arts and fciences not unfkilful. Here then we may hope to fee natural religion in its full perfection; for there is no want of natural reason, nor any room to complain of prejudices or prepoffeffion but yet, alas! these nations are held in the chains of darkness, and given up to the blindest fuperftition and idolatry. Men wanted not reason before the coming of Chrift, nor opportunity nor inclination to improve it: arts and sciences had long before obtained their juft perfection; the number of the stars had been counted, and their motions obferved and adjusted; the philofophy, oratory, and poetry of thofe ages are ftill the delight and entertainment of this. Religion was not the leaft part of their inquiry; they fearched all the receffes of reafon and nature; and, had it been in the power of reafon and nature to furnish men with just notions and principles of religion, here we should have found them: but, instead of them, we find nothing but the groffeft superstition and idolatry; the creatures of the earth advanced into deities, and men degenerating and making themfelves lower than the beafts of the field. would fail me to tell of the corruptions and extravagances of the politeft nations. Their religion was their reproach, and the fervice they paid their gods was a dishonour to them and to themselves.

Time

the most facred part of their devotion was the moft impure; and the only thing that was commendable in it is, that it was kept as a great mystery and fecret, and hid under the darkness of the night; and, was reafon now to judge, it would approve of nothing in this religion, but the modefty of withdrawing itself from the eyes of the world.

This being the cafe wherever men have been left to mere reason and nature to direct them; what fecurity have the great patrons of natural religion now, that, were they left only to reafon and nature, they should not run into the fame errors and abfurdities? Have they more reason than those who have gone before them? In all other inftances nature is the fame now that ever it was, and we are but acting over again the fame part that our ancestors acted before us: wisdom and prudence and cunning are now what they formerly were; nor can this age fhew human nature in any one character exalted beyond the examples which antiquity has left us. Can we fhew greater inftances of civil and political wisdom than are to be found in the governments of Greece and Rome? Are not the civil laws of Rome ftill had in admiration? and have they not a place allowed them ftill in almost all kingdoms? Since then in nothing else we are grown wifer than the heathen world, what probability is there that we should have grown wiser in religion, if we had been left, as they were, to mere reafon and nature? To this day there is no alteration for the better, except only in the countries where the Gospel has been preached. What shall we fay of the Chinese, a nation that wants not