PART II. .SERMON XVI. 231 The true way therefore to put these things to the test, is to consider those christians onlywho believe and profess the gospel from knowledge, and choice, and inward conviction, and who make their religion amatter of solemnity and importance andanot of mere form and custom: Now if you separate these from the- rest of mankind, I am well assured, that as. bad as the christian world is, you will find all the human and divine virtues more glo- riously practised among such christians as these, than among an equal number of the - professors of any other religion under the sun : For inwardchristianity,, and the faith of the gospel, when it is built upon just foundations, will necessarily draw along with it such a train of virtues 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. Thevarious and divided opinions, the sects andparties that are found in thechristian world, have been another occasion of scandal andoffence to the infidels. " How can we ever come, say they, to any certainty what your religion is, since you donot agree about it among yourselves ?" " All Europe pretends to be christian, and to believe the gospel ; yet France, and Spain, and Italy, andPoland, andagood part of Germany, tell us, that true christianity is found only amongst them. But in the countries of Denmark, Sweden, a d the northern parts of Germany, and in the British islands, there is another religion professed, of,a very different kind, and they calltheirs the pure gospel,and reformed christianity. The pro- testant and the papist divide these western parts ofthe world, and they are ready to tearone 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, trulywe 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 common reason, which we think has more certainty in it" To this Ianswer, that it is a great mistake to imagine that the light of nature and`reason, if left entirely to itself in-thiscor- rupt and fallen state, has more certainty in its determinations than scripture hath. 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 diversity of vain and monstrous fancies hath past for réli- gion,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 irrecon- cileable differences among the philosophers, aswell as among the priests and the people of different nations, The light of nature
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=