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SERM
!.J
NATURAL
RELIGION, ITS
USES AND
DEFECTS.
God
:
"
all
have sinned
and
come
short
of that
glory
of
God,"
which
they should have originally
obtained
by
perfect righteousness.
This
knowledge
of God
by
the
light
of
nature,
"
as
it
is
designed to
awaken men to the
practice of their
duty;
so
it
has had some influence on mankind,
at
least
by
the fear
of
punishment,
to
keep, preserve,
and
re-
strain
part of
them
from
the
extremest
degrees
of
wick-
edness."
This
natural
conscience
is
the candle
of
the
Lord,
which
lie
has set
up
in
the
heart of man;
and
though
it
shines
but
dimly,
yet it
has
sometimes
kept
them
from being
so
vile
and abominable, and from
run-
ning into such
excess
of outrage
and madness,
as
other
-
wise
they would have done.
There
have been some
outward virtues practised among the
Greeks
and the
Romans,
who
had a little
knowledge
of
a superior
divine
power.
There
was some
temperance,
some
truth,
some
honour,
justice
and goodness,
now
and then appearing
among the multitudes
of their vices: there
was
a
secret
horror
within,
and a
fóreboding of
some divine
venge-
ance,
that
withheld them
now
and then
from
the
practice
of
villainy,
especially
in
the
extravagant
degrees
of
it.
This
natural
knowledge
of
God amongst
the
heathen
nations,
has been
found
there
like
a
small
quantity
of
salt,
to
preserve
some
part
of
mankind
in
those
countries
from
being
utterly
over
-run
with
corruption
and
putre-
faction
;
and
has
answered
some
valuable purposes in
the government
of God
among men.
Where there
has
been
nothing
of
this knowledge,
mankind
have almost
lost their
superior rank
among the
creatures, and
dege-
nerated into
a
brutal nature.
3.
This
natural
knowledge
of God
and
his goodness,
"
gives
some
encouragement
to
guilty
creatures
to
repent
of
their
sins,
and
to
return
to
God
by
a
general hope
of
acceptance, though they had
no
promise
of
pardoning
grace. And this
was
the
very principle
upon
which
some
of
the
better
sort of
the gentiles set themselves to
practise virtue, to worship
God
and endeavour
to
be-
come like
him.
I do not
say
that
natural
religion can give
sinful
men
a full
and
satis-
fying
assurance of pardon upon
their
repentance
;
for
the deepest degrees
of penitence cannot
oblige
a
prince to
forgive
the criminal
;
but
still
the
overflowing goodness of
God,
his
patience and
long-suffering,
notwith.