280 .4 RATIONAL DEFENCE OF THE GOSPEL. [s!RM. xvr. train of viítues and graces as shall adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour ; and by such a comparison as this, men would be constrained to confess that God is among us of a truth. III. The various and divided opinions, the sects and parties that are found in the christian world, have been another occasion of scandal and offence to the infidels. " How can we ever come, say they, to any certainty what your religion is, since you do not agree about it among yourselves ?" " All Europe pretends to be christian, and to believe the gospel ; yet France, and Spain, and Italy, and Po- land, and a good part of Germany, tell us, that true christianity is found only amongst them. But in the coun- tries of Denmark and Sweden, and the northern parts of Germany, and in the British islands, there is another religion professed of a very different kind, and they call theirs ,the pure gospel, and reformed christianity. The protestant and the papist divide these western parts of the world, and they are ready to tear one another to pieces upon the account of their different opinions and practices. Now if the books that contain the religion of Christ be of so very uncertain sense and signification, truly we are ashamed of such a doubtful religion ; it is even as well for us to content ourselves with the religion that the light of nature teaches us, and the dictates of our own common reason, which we think has more cer- tainty in it." To this I answer, that it is a great mistake to imagine, that the light of nature and reason, if left entirely to it- self in this corrupt and fallen state, has more certainty in its determinations than scripture bath. How many wild opinions bath the corrupt mind of man produced among the inhabitants of the heathen world, and this same light of nature has not corrected them ? What infinite diver- sity of vain and monstrous fancies bath past for religion and devotion among them ? And the light of nature has been supposed to dictate some of them, for they did not always pretend revelation for them. There have been wide and irreconcileable differences among the philoso- phers, as well as among the priests and the people of different nations. The light of nature and reason is a poor dark bewildered thing, if it hath no commerce, nor
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