i NATURAL RELIGION, ITS USES ANS DEFECTS. DER/CT. of will to.chuse or refuse good or evil, he will certainly call them to account for their behaviour, and will take some opportunity tojudge, reward and punish according to their conduct in the present state. In their own con- sciences there is a kind of tribunal erected before-hand, their conscience excusing or accusing them, as a sort of warning, an emblem and fore- runner of divine judgment. 5. The light of nature teaches us further, that God is an universal Benefactor to mankind, even above and be- yond their deserts, and notwithstanding all their provo- cations. The words of my text declare, that though they " walked in .their own idolatrous ways, yet God left them not without witness of his goodness, giving them fruitful seasons, and filling their hearts with food and gladness." Their own consciences tell them they have sinned, and forfeited all favours from heaven ; but their very senses assure them, that God does not presently insist upon their forfeiture, nor seize away their bles- sings; but that he waits long, and heaps the instances of his goodness upon them, even upon the evil and the un- thankful in the midst of all their iniquities and unthank- fulness. Thus have I shewn particularly what it is the light of nature teaches us concerning God. II. The second general head of discourse leads us to enquire what are the various uses of this knowledge of God, which is attainable by the light of nature. I an- swer in general, it is to bear witness for God in the world. But we must enter into particulars. I. This knowledge of God, as our Maker andGovern- or, by the light of nature, is useful, " Not only to spew men their duty, but to convince them of sin against the law of God, and to lay all mankind under a sense of guilt and self- condemnation." The apostle Paul begins with this doctrine in the first chapters of his epistle to the Romans, where his great design is to shew mankind the guilt and wretchedness of their state ; for after he had introduced this natural knowledge a God in the nine- teenth verse of the first chapter, he proceeds to convince the heathen world, and particularly the philosophers, of their heinous iniquities against God and man, and leaves them in the middle of the ii. and iii. chapters, under the condemnation of their own consciences and the law of
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