time of the year for them to assemble together to hear it read, men, women, children, and strangers; but if it was not plain and clear, and easy to be understood, it would have been to no purpose for them to attend it, Deut. xvii. 19. and xxxi. 11-13. Our Lord advises to "search the Scriptures;" which supposes them legible and intelligible, John v. 39. and the Bereans are commended as more noble than those of Thessalonica; because they searched the scriptures daily, and compared what they heard with them; that they might know whether they were right or no, Acts xvii. 11. see Rev. i. 3. 5. From all sorts of persons being capable of reading them, and hearing them read, so as to understand them. Thus in the times of Nehemiah and Ezra, persons of every sex and age, who were at years of maturity, and had the exercise of their rational faculties, had the law read unto them, Neh. viii. 3. and Timothy, from a child, knew the holy Scriptures, 2 Tim. iii. 15. believers, and regenerate persons of every rank and degree, have knowledge of them, whether fathers, young men, or litɩle children, 1 John ii. 12-14. Nor is the public preaching of the word, and the necessity of it, to be objected to all this; since that is, as for conversion, so for greater edification and comfort, and for establishment in the truth, even though it is known; and besides, serves to lead into a larger knowledge of it, and is the ordinary means of guiding into it, and of arriving to a more perfect acquaintance with it, I Cor. xiv. 3. 2 Pet. 1. 12. Acts viii. 30, 31. Eph. iv. 11-13. So that it may be concluded, upon the whole, that the Scriptures are

A sure, certain, and infallible rule to go by, with respect to things both to be believed and done: a rule they are, Gal. vi. 16. And since they are of divine authority, and are perfect and plain, they are a sure rule, and to be depended on; The testimony of the Lord is sure, Psal. xix. 7. and a more sure word of prophecy than all others whatever, 2 Pet. i. 19, these are the witness of God and therefore greater than man's; and to be believed before any human testimony, 1 John v. 9. yea, must be reckoned infallible, since they are the scriptures of truth, and not only contain what is truth, and nothing but truth in them; but have a true, even a divine testimony bore unto them, and come from the God of truth, who cannot lie, Dan. x. 21. Tit. i. 2. They are the judge of all religious controversies, to which all are to be brought, and by them determined; according to the e spiritual men, who have their senses exercised, to discern between good and evil, try and judge all things. The Scripture is the best interpreter of Scripture, or the Spirit of God therein; nor are the church or its pastors, nor councils and popes, the infallible interpreters thereof; there is a private interpretation of Scripture, which every christian may make, according to his ability and light; and there is a public one, by the preacher of the word; but both are subject to, and to be determined by the Scripture itself, which is the only certain and infallible rule of faith and practice. And,

IV. There seems to be a real necessity of such a rule in the present state of things; and, indeed, a divine revelation was necessary to Adam, in a state of innocence; how, otherwise, should he have known any thing of the manier of

his creation; of the state and condition in which he was created, after the image and in the likeness of God; the extent of his power and authority over the creation; by what means his animal life was to be supported; in what manner God was to be served and worshipped by him, especially the parts of positive and instituted worship, both as to matter, time and place; and particularly the will of God, as to abstinence from eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? And if our first parents stood in need of a divine revelation, as a rule and guide to them in their state of integrity; then much more we in our present state of ignorance and depravity. And after the fall, it was owing to divine revelation, that man had any knowledge of the way of his salvation, by the woman's seed; and of the appointment, nature, import, use, and end of sacrifices; and though this revelation was for a time unwritten, and was handed down by tradition to the patriarchs before the flood, and for some time after, whilst the lives of men were of a long continuance, and it required but few hands to transmit it from one to another; but when men's lives were shortened, and it was the pleasure of God to make further and clearer discoveries of his mind and will, and to frame new laws and rules of worship, in different dispensations; it seemed proper and necessary to commit them to writing, both that they might remain, and that they might be referred to in case of any doubt or difficulty about them; and particularly that the ends before mentioned might be answered by them, which it was intended should be; namely, the learning and instruction of men in matters of faith and practice, their peace, comfort and edification, Rom. xv. 4. 2 Tim. iii. 15-17. and the rather since nothing else was, and nothing less than the Scriptures are, a sufficient rule and guide in matters of religion; even not the light of nature and reason, so much talked of, and so highly exalted; and since it has been set up as such against divine revelation, it may be proper to shew the insufficiency of it. Now the light of nature or reason, is not to be taken in an abstract sense, or considered only in theory, what it has been, may be, or should be, but not subsisting in men or books; as such it can be no rule or guide at all to have recourse unto; and besides, reason in such sense, is not opposed to revelation; there is nothing in revelation contrary to reason, though there are things above it, and of which it is not a competent judge, and therefore can be no guide in such matters; but it must be considered as it is in fact, and as it subsists, either in single individuals, or in whole bodies of men, and these unacquainted with, and unassisted by divine revelation; and then its sufficiency, or rather insufficiency, will soon appear. If it is considered as in individuals, it may easily be observed it is not alike in all, but differs according to the circumstances of men, climate, constitution, education, &c. some have a greater share of it than others; and what is agreeable to the reason of one man, is not so to another; and therefore unless it was alike and equal in all, it can be no sure rule or guide to go by: let one of the most exalted genius be pitched upon, one of the wisest and sagest philosophers of the Gentiles, that has studied

nature most, and arrived to the highest pitch of reason and good sense; for instance, let Socrates be the man, who is sometimes magnified as divine, and in whom the light of nature and reason may be thought to be sublimated and raised to its highest pitch, in the Gentile world, without the help of revelation; and yet, as it was in him, it must be a very deficient rule of faith and practice; for though he asserted the unity of the divine Being, and is said to die a martyr for it; yet he was not clear of the heathenish notions of inferior deities, and of worship to be given them; for one of the last things spoken by him was, to desire his friends to fulfil a vow of his, to offer a cock to Esculapius, the god of health; and he is most greviously belied, if he was not guilty of the love of boys in an unnatural way; and besides, he himself bewails the weakness and darkness of human reason, and confessed the want of a guide. If the light of nature and reason be considered in large bodies of men, in whole nations, it will appear not to be the same in all. Some under the guidance of it have worshipped one sort of deities, and some others; have gone into different modes of worship, and devised different rites and ceremonies, and followed different customs and usages, and even differed in things of a moral nature; and as their forefathers, guided by this light, introduced, and established the said things; they, with all their observations, reflections, and reasonings on them, or increase of light, supposing they had any, were never able, by the light of nature and reason in them, to prevail over, and demolish such idolatry, and such profane and wicked practices that obtained among them; and the insufficiency thereof, as a rule and guide in religion, will further appear by considering the the following particulars.

1. That there is a God may be known by the light of nature; but who and what he is, men, destitute of a divine revelation, have been at a loss about. Multitudes have gone into polytheism, and have embraced for gods almost every thing in and under the heavens; not only the sun, moon, and stars, and mortal men they have deified; but various sorts of beasts, fishes, fowl, creeping things, and even forms of such that never existed: and some that have received the notion of a supreme Being, yet have also acknowledged a numerous train of inferior deities, and have worshipped the creature besides the Creator; whose folly is represented in a true and full light by the apostle, Rom. i. 19–25. and though the unity of the divine Being, is the voice of reason as well as of revelation; yet by the former, without the latter, we could have had no certain notion, if any at all, of three divine Persons subsisting in the unity of the divine essence; and especially of the several parts they have taken in the economy of man's salvation; for as for what Plato, and others have been supposed to say concerning a Trinity, it is very lame and imperfect, and what was borrowed from eastern tradition.

II. Though the light of nature may teach men that God, their Creator and Benefactor, is to be worshipped by them; and may direct them to some parts of worship, as to pray unto him for what they want, and praise him for what

they have received; yet a perfect plan of worship, acceptable to God, could never have been formed according to that; and especially that part of it could not have been known which depends upon the arbitrary will of God, and consists of positive precepts and institutions; hence the Gentiles, left to that, and without a divine revelation, have introduced modes of worship the most absurd and ridiculous, as well as cruel and bloody, even human sacrifices, and the slaughter of their own children, as well as the most shocking scenes of debauchery and uncleanness.

III. By the light of nature men may know that they are not in the same condition and circumstances they originally were; for when they consider things, they cannot imagine that they were made by a holy Being subject to such irregular passions and unruly lusts which now prevail in them; but in what state they were made, and how they fell from that estate, and came into the present depraved one, they know not; and still less how to get out of it, and to be cured of their irregularities: but divine revelation informs us how man was made upright, and like unto God; and by what means he fell from his uprightness into the sinful state he is in; and how he may be recovered from it, and brought out of it by the regenerating and sanctifying grace of the Spirit of God, and not otherwise.

IV. Though, as the apostle says, the Gentiles without the law, do by nature the things contained in the law; and are a law to themselves, which shew the work of the law written on their hearts; their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing, or else excusing one another, Rom. ii. 14, 15. and so have some notion of the difference between moral good and evil; yet this is not so clear and extensive, but that some of the greatest moralists among them, gave into the most notorious vices, and allowed of them, and recommended them; Chrysippus allowed of incest; Plato commended community of wives; Socrates a plurality of wives, and which he enforced by his own example'; Cicero" pleaded for fornication; the Stoics, a grave set of moralists, for the use of obscene words ", and recommended self-murder as becoming a wise man, and as his duty to commit in some cases. So dim was this light of nature in things of a moral kind.

v. Though in many cases reason taught them that certain vices were disagreeable to God, and resented by him, and he was displeased with them, and would punish for them; and they were very desirous of appeasing him; but then how to reconcile him to them, and recommend themselves to his favour, they were quite ignorant; and therefore took the most shocking and detestable methods for it, as human sacrifices, and particularly, burning their innocent infants. But revelation shews us the more excellent way.

Laertius in Vita ejus.

Vid. Grotium in Eph. 5 6. 34. pro Coelio. w Vid. Ciceron, Ep. 1. 9. ep. 22. soph. Dissert. 22. p. 365.

"Orat.

Laertius in Vita ejus. * Vid. Lips. Manuduct, Stoic. Philo

vi. Men may, by the light of nature, have some notion of sin as an offence to God, and of their need of forgiveness from him; and from a general notion of his mercy, and of some instances of kindness to them, may entertain some faint hope of the pardon of it; but then they cannot be certain of it from thence, or that even God will pardon sin at all, the sins of any man; and still less how this can be done consistent with his holiness and justice; but through divine revelation we come at a clear and certain knowledge of this doctrine, and of its consistence with the divine perfections.

VII. The light of nature leaves men entirely without the knowledge of the way of salvation by the Son of God. And even without revelation, angels of themselves would not be able to know the way of saving sinful men, or how sinful men can be justified before God; wherefore, in order to know this, they "desire to look into it," 1 Pet. i. 12. Some have thought that Socrates had some notion of it; who is made to say", "It is necessary to wait till some one teaches how to behave towards God and men:" but then this respects only a man's outward conduct, and not his salvation: nor does the philosopher seem to have any clear notion of the instructer, and of the means he should use to instruct, and still less of the certainty of his coming; and besides, the relater of this, Plato might receive this as a tradition, in the East, whither it is well known he travelled for knowledge. But the divine revelation gives an account of this glorious Person, not merely as an Instructer of men in the way of their duty, but as a Saviour of them from their sins; and in what way he has wrought out our salvation, by his sacrifice, blood, and righteousness.

VIII. The light of nature is far from giving any clear and certain account of the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, and a future state of happiness and misery: as for the immortality of the soul, the heathens rather wished it to be true, than were fully satisfied of it; they that were for it, made use of but mean arguments to prove it; and they themselves believed it only fide dimidiata, as Minutius Felix expresses it, with a divided faith; they did, as it were, but half believe it; and as for the resurrection of the body, that was denied, as Tertullian says, by every sect of the philosophers: and in what a low manner do they represent the happiness of the future state; by walking in pleasant fields, by sitting under fragrant bowers, and cooling shades, and by shelter from inclement weather; by viewing flowing fountains and purling streams; by carnal mirth, feasting, music, and dancing: and the misery of it, by being bound neck and heels together, or in chains, or fastened to rocks, and whipped by furies, with a scourge of serpents, or doomed to some laborious service. But not the least hint is given of the presence of God with the one, nor of his absence from the other; nor of any sensation of his love or wrath. Let us therefore bless God that we have a better rule and guide to go by; a more sure word of prophecy to take heed unto:" let us have constant rey Plato in Alcibiad. 2. p. 459. 2 O&av. p. 37. De Præscript. Hæret, c. 7. p. 232.