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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
to
judge,
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 and
Govern-
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