a pleasing view of the divine wisdom and goodness towards mankind.

It is not my design at present to enter upon a particular consideration of the proofs that are brought for the divine authority of the Jewish and Christian revelation; both of which refer to and confirm the original revelation made to mankind from the beginning. This has been done by many learned pens with great strength of reason and argument; and I have, on some former occasions, contributed my endeavours this way.* Little has been opposed to the arguments which have been offered on this subject, but suspicions and presumptions, and often gross misrepresentations and rude ridicule; or such particular difficulties and objections as do not affect the main of the evidence. Nor have I met with any thing, that could deserve the name of a fair and direct attempt, to invalidate the evidence of the extraordinary and important facts, by which the divine original and authority of those revelations is attested and established. The principal thing on which the adversaries of religion seem to rely, is the supposed sufficiency of human reason, when left merely to its own unassisted force and strength, for all the purposes of religion; from whence it is inferred, that an extraordinary revelation is entirely needless and useless. But how little foundation there is for this pretence, I propose to show from undeniable fact and experience, in the ensuing treatise.

* See the Answer to Christianity as Old as the Creation, vol. II. especially the six first chapters. See also the Divine Authority of the Old and New Testament asserted, vol. I. The same subject is also treated in several parts of the View of the Deistical writers. And an abstract of the whole may be seen in the Summary of the Evidences for Christianity, at the latter end of that work.

THE

ADVANTAGE AND NECESSITY

OF THE

CHRISTIAN REVELATION,

SHOWN FROM THE

STATE OF RELIGION IN THE HEATHEN WORLD.

PART I.

RELATING TO THE KNOWLEDGE AND WORSHIP OF THE ONE TRUE GOD.

CHAP. I.

Man, in his original constitution and the design of his Creator, a religious creature. Not left at his first formation to work out a scheme of religion for himself. It is reasonable to suppose, and confirmed by the most ancient accounts, that the knowledge of religion was communicated to the first parents of the human race by a revelation from God: and from them derived to their descendants. God made farther discoveries of his will to Noah, the second father of mankind. Tradition the chief way of conveying the knowledge of religion in those early ages.

THAT man is a religious creature, that is, capable of religion, and designed for it, is apparent to any one who makes due reflections upon the frame of the human nature.* By religion, I understand the duty which reasonable creatures

* When we say a man is a religious creature, we do not mean that every man is born with an actual knowledge of religion and its main principles, which is contrary to evident fact and experience; but with faculties capable of attaining to it by reflection and proper instruction.

owe to God, their Creator and Benefactor, their sovereign Lord and chiefest good. It is manifest, from observation and experience, that men have faculties capable of contemplating the great Author of their beings, and Lord of the universe, of adoring his perfections, and of acting from a regard to his authority, and in obedience to his laws. The inferior animals seem to be well fitted for the various functions and enjoyments of the sensitive life: but there is nothing in them from which we can conclude that they are capable of forming any notions of God, or of the obligations of religion. If there have been people among whom scarce any traces of religion can be found, yet still they have faculties, which, if duly improved, render them capable of being instructed in it. But who will undertake to instruct the brutes in the knowledge of God, and in the principles and precepts of religion and morality?

This seems then to be one remarkable proof of the superior excellency of man above the other creatures in this lower world. From whence it follows, that he is designed proportionably for a more excellent end, and for a higher happiness. Since it is evident, in fact, that man is capable of rising in histhoughts, when duly instructed, above the sensible objects which are before his eyes, to the invisible Author of nature, the supreme and absolutely perfect Being, and of contemplating, loving, adoring, obeying him; it may be justly concluded that this was the principal end for which he was designed, as being the worthiest employment of his noblest powers. And to suppose this to be a principal end of his being, and what he was originally made and designed for, and yet that he is under no obligation to answer that end, is too absurd and inconsistent to be admitted. Man indeed hath a fleshly part and animal powers, in common with the inferior creatures, by which he is fitted for relishing and enjoying sensible good, but as he hath also a mind within him, which is undoubtedly the noblest part of his constitution, his principal end and highest happiness must be judged of, from the highest and most excellent part of his nature: and in which his proper distinction

and pre-eminence above the inferior animals doth principally

consist.

These several observations lead us to consider man as designed and formed for religion. If there be a relation between God and man, distinct from the relation men bear to one another, (and this is as certain as it is that God existeth, and that man is a dependent creature, and the subject of the divine government:) then there must be duties arising from the relation men bear to God, distinct from the duties they owe to their fellow-creatures. And if it is the will of God that they should act correspondently to the relations they bear to one another, we are led, by the soundest maxims of reason and good sense, to maintain that it is his will that they should act conformably to the relations they bear to him. To suppose a rational creature, a moral agent, to be obliged to have a regard to his fellow creatures, beings of the same species with himself, and to be under no obligation to have any regard to his Maker, the God and Father of all, would be a manifest irregularity and deformity in the moral system. As nothing can be more absurd and contrary to truth and reason, than to deny that there is a God; so nothing can be more unbecoming a rational creature, than to live as without God in the world, and to show no more regard to him than if there was no such Being.

Nor is it any valid objection against this, that God is infinitely happy in himself, and therefore standeth not in need of any homage or duty we can render to him, and is not capable of receiving any benefit from our services. For this would be to make the very perfection and excellency of his nature, and the greatness of his majesty and dominion, an argument for neglecting him, and showing no regard to him at all. God's being perfectly happy in himself is no reason for his not requiring of his reasonable creatures, such duties as the nature of things, and the relation between him and them, make it fit for him to require, and for them to perform. And what can be in itself more fit and reasonable, and more agreeable to the rules of order, than that reasonable beings, who