6. What fort of government there is in the SER M. universe.

XVIII.

It is plain if we had no revelation, and were in a state of heathenifm, these are the points concerning which we fhould make the Aricteft enquiry, or at least ought to do fo; because they are the things of the utmost importance to us. Let us therefore confider what account christianity gives us of these things, and compare them with what we have received from the wifeft heathens; and then it will appear whether our revealed religion is rejected and despised by the wife men, the wits, and gentlemen of fashion of the world, for want of any reasonableness in it. And I fhall do this the rather, because it must be acknowledged that the fureft way of knowing what men could do, without revelation now, is to confider how far their natural abilities have reached, when they were altogether without it: Especially fince the wife men of the heathen world have already made as great a progrefs as was poffible, for mere reason in the knowledge of thefe important matters, which ought to be the greatest enquiries of mankind; and yet upon a view of them both it will appear, that the foolishness of God is wiser than men ; and the weakness of God is fironger than men; and that no worldly wisdom bath reafon to glory in his prefence. And therefore,

I. As to the first great enquiry, which is, how we came into being. This is one of the

SERM. first things that offers itself to our thoughts, XVIII. and that to which the mind of man is led by a natural curiofity: And accordingly all parts of the heathen world have had their different conjectures, and nothing hath occafioned greater variety of opinions. Some of the philofophers would have it that the race of mankind did exift from all eternity; which opi-. nion they were led to for want of abilities to folve the difficulty; for when they could not tell how mankind came to have a beginning, all they had left to fay was, that he had none. Others have gueffed that mankind was first formed like vermin out of flime and mud, by the heat and warmth of the fun. But this is fo far from being true of mankind, that modern experiments have thewed us, that there is no fuch thing as any anomalous generation of animals, not even of flies. Others, and a nation too very famous for learning and arts, held that mankind was first formed in the earth like mandrakes, and then fprang up like trees. The Americans believed that their idol Deity fhot fome arrows into the ground, which became men and women. The Chinese will have their idol to have created the firft man, and have given him a power and commiffion of creating others. And laftly, that is a well known ftory of Prometheus's forming the first man of the earth, and when he had done, leaving the lifeless carcafs here on earth, till he went to heaven and ftole fome fire from the

chariot

chariot of the fun, by which he infpired it SER M. with life and motion; and with all what a XVIII. ftrange expedient the oracle found out for the reftoration of mankind, after it was destroyed by Deucalion's flood.

Now thefe, and fuch like, are the ways which the wifeft of the Heathens have found to bring us into being. But the holy fcriptures tell us that we are the workmanship of the one only true God, who is infinite in wif dom and power, and by whom were all things made that were made; that we were created at the beginning of this earth male and female; that he made us of the earth; that duft we are, and to duft we fhall return; that he breathed into us a living foul, and made us after his own image, (i. e.) of a fpiritual and immortal, of a free and reasonable nature; fo that we now can fay with David, thy hands made me and fashioned me, and I am won derfully made; thine eyes did fee my substance yet being imperfect, and in thy book were all my members written, which day by day were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.

By this we know well from whence we had our being, and to whom we are to return the glory and praise of it: But all other accounts are trifling and foolish; and though we should grant that many of them are only the fictions of their Poets; yet it is plain they are substituted inftead of the truth; and that which put them upon invention was, because they were wholly

SERM. wholly ignorant of the true way. But fuch XVIII. fictions and inventions as they are, they went

to make up the body of the heathen theology; they were part of their creed, and whatever the wifer fort thought of them, yet the generality believed them, as they believe the romith legend in the church of Rome.

II. Another enquiry of the greateft importance to the whole race of mankind is, how we came to be in this corrupt and degenerate ftate. They were all inclined to think we were not originally fo; and therefore as they very much bewailed this depravedness of human nature, and its proneness to all manner of wickedness; fo they talked much of a golden age, a time when there was no wickednefs in the world; and when men were not afraid of one another; when love, and amity, and peace reigned among men; and when juftice, and temperance, and chastity prevailed over the world: But when Aftrea fled to heaven all virtue and goodness went along with her, and left all vice and wickedness to reign upon earth. Another way they had of folving this corruption of human nature was, by fuppofing two first principal caufes, the one the cause of all the goodness and perfection, who made us pure at firft; the other the author of all evil and imperfection, which corrupted us afterwards; which is a faint allufion to the truth. Some of the Philofophers would have the foul corrupted before it came into the body, and so retain its original pravity, but

gave no account how it became fo in that pre-S ER M. existent state which they fuppofe. The Ame- XVIII. ricans say that mankind came very pure out of the hands of the Deity, but he had a mifchievous mother who spoiled all that he made, and mankind among the rest.

Cebes, in his protraiture of human life, attributes this corruption to a poisonous glass, which every one drinks more or lefs of as they enter into life. And we know the ancients attributed this to a box full of all diseases and infection, which Jupiter fent down among mortals; being incenfed with Prometheus for the fire he ftole from heaven, or rather out of envy at those new creatures he had made, which when it was opened the infection flew out, and filled them with all thofe distempers both of body and mind.

These, and fuch like, are the result of the wisdom and learning of those who were void of all revelation.

I need not stay to fhew how ridiculous and fenfeless they are, and how much below, not only revelation but, the ordinary reason of a man: Whereas the account our revealed religion gives us of this, is plain and eafy; it tells us that when God had made our first parents pure and unfpotted, they became corrupt by their own wilful disobedience, in tranfgreffing a pofitive command given them for their good; that they were tempted to this by the Devil, the great enemy of mankind,

who