406 'The Danger of all known Sin, both from Vol.1. Lion can lignifie. For God's revealing or declaring fuch a thing tous, is no ne ceffary Argument that it is fo, unlefs antecedently to this Revelation, we be pof- feft firmly with this Principle, that whatever God fays is true. And whatever is known antecedently to Revelation, mutt be known by Natural Light, and by Reafonings and Dedu&ions from Natural Principles. I might further add to this Argument, that the only Standard and Meafure to judge of Divine Revela- tions, and to diflinguifhbetween what are true, and what are counterfeit, are the Natural Notions which Men have ofGod, and of his Effential PerfeEtions. Thirdly, If the Notion of a God be not Natural, I do not fee howMen can have any Natural Notion of thedifference of Moral Good and Evil, Jolt, and Unjuft. For if I do not naturally know there is a God, how can 1 naturally know that there is any Law obliging to the one, and forbiding the other ? all Law and Obligation to Obedience, neceffarily fuppofing the Authority of a Superiour Being. But the Apoflle exprefly afferts, that the Gentiles whowere de- Ilirute of a Revealed Law, were a Law unto therafelves ; but there cannot be a Na- tural Law obliging Mankind, unlefs God be Naturally known to them. And this Socinus himfelf in his Difcourfe upon this very Argument is forced to acknowledge. " In all Men (lays he) there is Naturally a difference of Juft, " and Unjuft, or at leaf} there is planted in all Menan acknowledgement that " Juft ought to be preferr'd before Unjuft, and that which is honeft, before the contrary ; and this is nothing elfe but the Wordof God within a Man, which whofoever obeys, in fo doing obeys God, tho' otherwife he neither know " nor thick there is a God ; and there is no doubt but he that thus obeys God, is accepted of him. So thathere is an acknowledgement of a Natural Obliga- tion to a Law, without any Natural Knowledge ofa Superior Authority ; which I think cannot be ; and which is worfe that a Man may obey God acceptably, without knowing and believing there is a God ; which direly thwarts the ground of his fir(t Argument, from thofe words of the Apoftle, Without Faith it is impoffible to pleafe God ; for he that cometh to God, that is, he that will be Re- ligious and pleafe God muff believe that he is; fo hard is it for any Man to con- tradi&Nature, without contradi&inghimfelf. Fourthly, My laic Argument I ground upon the words of the Apoftle in my Text, That which may be known ofGod, is manifefi in them ; for God bath fhewed it unto them. Is manifefl in them, u dtoro7s among them, God hath fufficientlymani= felled it to Mankind. And which way hath God done this? byRevelation? or by the Natural Light of Reafon ? He tells us at the loth ver. For the invifrble things ofhim from the Creation of the World are clearlyfeen ; that is, God, who in himfelf is invífble, ever lince he bath Created the World, hath given a viable Demonflration of himfelf, that is, ofhis Eternal Power and Godhead, being under- flood by the things which are made. The plain fenfe of the whole is, that this wife and wonderful frame of the World, which cannot reafonably be afcribed to any other Caufe but God, is a fenfrble Demonftration to all Mankind, of an Eternal and Powerful Being that was the Author and Framer of it. The only Queftion now is, Whether this Text fpeaks of the Knowledge of God by parti- cular Revelation, or by Natural Light and Keafon, from the contemplation of the Works of God ? Socinus having no other way to avoid the force of this Text, will needs underfland it of the Knowledge of God by the Revelationof the Gofpel. His words are there; " The Apoftle therefore fays in this place, " that the Eternal Godhead of God, that is, that which God would always `` have usto do (for the Godhead is fometimes taken in this fenfe) and his Eternal Power, that is, his Promife which never fails, (in which fenfe he Paid a little " before that the Gofpel is the Power of God) there I fay, which were never " feen by Men, that is were never known to them linee the Creation ofthe " World, are known by his Works, that is, by the wonderful Operation of " God, and Divine Men, efpecially of Chrift and his Apoftles. Thefe are his very words, and now I refer it toany indifferent Judgment, whether this be not a very forced and conflrained Interpretation of this Text ; and whether that which I have before given, be not infinitely more free and natural, and every way
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