vity to the Law of Sin which is in our Members.

Whether therefore we believe or not believe the Scripture - account of Eve and the Serpent, or whether we take the Hiftory of Man's Fall in a literal or allegorical Senfe; fince there is an evident change wrought upon our Natures, and we are but too plainly degenerated, and miferably funk very far below that primitive Perfection, which our firft Parents had, when they came out of their Maker's Hands, the grand Question is,

"Whether Reason, or the Light of The state "Nature, in this deprav'd State of Man- of the Question, "kind, be, of itself, a fufficient Guide and its "in matters of Religion and Morality; Nature. "i. e. fufficient to inftruct every Man in "what he ought to know; to inform

every Man in what he ought to do; "and, with all, to incite and enable him "to perform it.' And to determine this Question, as it deferves, we shall examine,

1. What the prefent State of human Reason is ?

2. What it poffibly may be capable of, upon the Suppofition of its beft Improvement? And

3. What, upon Trial and Experiment, it has actually done: that from thence we may state the true Meafure and Stan

dard

The pre

Reafon.

dard of its Ability? For we must obferve, by the way, that ban enquiry about the strength and fufficiency of Reafon to guide and preferve Men in the Knowledge and Practice of true Religion is as much to be refolv'd by Fact and Experience, as if the enquiry were about the Shape of Man's Body, or the number of his Senfes : And to talk of a light and strength of Reafon, natural to Man, which Fact and Experience have never yet prov'd, is every whit as abfurd, as to talk of certain natural Senfes and Faculties of his Body, which Fact and Experience have never yet discover'd.

Now we readily agree, that the great fent ftate Principle of Action in human Nature is of human Reafon; infomuch that to judge according to its Direction is not fo much the pri vilege of the Philofopher, as it is effential to our very Beings, and as much infeparable from all Perfons, as is the Senfe of their own Existence: But then we are to confider how finall a portion of Light any Man's Reafon has, that can be properly call'd its own: For, as we As to its derive our Nature from our Parents, fo Imper- that, which we generally call natural Knowledge, or the light of Nature, is a

fection.

• Knowledge and Light, that is made natural to us by the fame Authority, which makes

Law's Cafe of Reafon fairly stated.

makes a certain Language, certain Cuftoms and Modes of behaviour natural, Nothing in this Cafe feems to be our own, but a bare Capacity to be inftructed, or a Nature fitted for any Impreffions; as capable of Vice, as Virtue; and as liable to be made an Hottentot, by being born among Hottentotes, as to be made a Chriftian, by being born among Chriftians fo that our moral and religious Knowledge is not to be imputed to the internal Light of our own Reason and Nature, but to the Happiness. of having been Born among reafonable Beings, who have made a Senfe of Religion and Morality as natural to our Minds, as articulate Language is to our Tongues. We allow indeed that there is a moral Diftinction between Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, founded in the Nature of Things; but then we maintain, that it is not from a philofophical Contemplation of the Fitnefs of the one, and the Unfitnefs of the other, that we prefer Virtue to Vice, but from the Inftrution of thofe, who had the Care of our Education, and the Formation of our Judgments from our Infancy: nor can we allow, that our Knowledge of God and Divine Things, our Opinions of the Soul's Immortality, of a future State of Rewards and Punishments, &c. are any E e

more

more the Effects of our natural Light, than our erect Posture, or articulate Language are.

When we arrive at an Age of more Maturity indeed, and happen to have a Genius fitted for philofophical Enquiries, we may thence deduce Proofs for the Being and Attributes of a God, the Reasonableness of Religion, and Morality, the Nature of our Souls, and the Certainty of a future State, and find that the Opinions and Tradition of Mankind concerning thefe Things are wellfounded; but thefe we must allow are an After-knowledge, not common to Men, but accidental Confirmations of that Sense of God, Religion, and Morality, which, more or lefs, was fixed in us by the Inftitution and Authority of thofe, among whom we have had the good Fortune to live.

Now if this be the State of Reason, as it is in Man; if this be all the Light, that we have from our own Nature, viz. a bare Capacity of receiving good or bad Impreffions, right or wrong Opinions and Sentiments, according to the particular Country we chance to be Born in; if we are nothing without the Affiftance of Men; nay, if we are foolish and helpless Animals, till Education and Experience have revealed unto us the Wisdom and Knowledge of our Fel

low

low-creatures; then are we poorly furnished, God knows, to affert and maintain the abfolute Perfection of our own Reason, in Oppofition to the Neceffity and Advantage of a Divine Revelation. But this is not all.

It is not only the Imperfection of our and DeReafon, but its frequent Depravity like- pravity. wife, that ought to abate our Confidence in it; fince, upon due Confideration, we shall find, that all the Mutability of our Tempers, the Disorders of our Paffions, and the Corruptions of our Hearts; all the Reveries of the Imagination, all the Contradictions and Abfurdities, that are to be found in humane Life, and humane Actions, are ftrictly and properly the Mutability, Disorders, Corruption, and Abfurdities of humane Reafon.

We indeed, in the common Forms of Speech, talk of our Reafon, as a diftinct Principle from our Paffions, Affections, and Humours: But this is only a Diftinction of Language, made at Pleasure, and without any real Foundation in the Things themselves. The fame Principle, that is the Agent of all that is good in us, muft be equally the Agent of all that is evil, for the Action and Power of Reason is as much required to make E e 2

Law's Cafe of Reafon

any