SERMON XLV. 29 Let us begin with the first observation, viz. I. " God may be known by the light of nature." When I use the word God, I mean here the same thing which the lowest rank of mankind wouldunderstand by it, that is, the Beingwhichmade all things ; or, in more learned language, the first Cause ofall. And whenI say, God may be known by the light of nature, I mean that the senses andthe reasoningpower whichbelong to thenatureof man, are able to give bins so much light in seeking after God, as to find out something of him thereby, or to gain some knowledge of him. By our senses, we are acquainted with his works, and by his works our reasonmay be led to trace out that more excellent Being who made them. This is asserted beyond all dispute. Rom. i. 19, N. " That which may beknown of God is manifest in them, that is, in men, for God bath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are, or may be clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead." Now if we en- quire more particularly, what it is that we can learn of God by the light of nature, I answer in the following particulars : 1. We maycone tothe knowledge of his existence, or that there is such a glorious Beingwho made all things. This is evident and certain, that nothing could make itself. It is impossible that any thing which once had no being should ever give being to itself; or that once upon a time it should of itself burst out ofnothing, andbegin to be. Since therefore there is a world with millions of beings in it, which are born and die, it is certain there is some Being who had no beginning, but had life in himself from all eternity, and who gives life and beitto. to all other things. This is the Being whom we call God. Of all the visible beings that we are acquainted with, man is the highest and most noble; but he is forced to confess he is not his own maker. By sending our thoughts and enquiries a little backwards, we find that we came into being but a few years ago; and we are daily convinced, that we perish and die in long succession. Our parents, or our ancestors, were no more able to make themselves than we are; for most of them are dead, and the rest are going the way of all flesh : they cannot preserve our lives, nor their own ; and therefore it is plain, that though we borrowed lifefrom them at first, yet they are not the original and self-sufficient authors of life and being to themselves, or to us ; they are but instruments in the hands ofsome superior first cause, some original and eternalMaker of us all. Or if some atheist should say, we must run up from son to father, and from father to grandfather, in endless generations, withouta beginning, and without any fast cause ; I answer, that
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