280 A CAVEAT AGAINST INFIDELITY. and mourns over his wanderings, and flies to the promises of mercy, and to the covenant of hope. If' thou, O Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who can stand ? But there is forgive- ness with thee: Ps. cxxx. 3, 4. And the blòod of Jesus cleanseth from all sin; 1 John i. 7. But the deist has no such promise of favourable allowances, no hope in this atoning blood : He has re- nouncedthe sacred promises of grace, and refused the blood that was shed to make atonement. QuestionVI. Are there not some deists, that have taken more pains in the search of true religion, than the greatest part of christians have ever done ? Christians in our age, receive the religion of Christ, from their education, they owe their Christi- anity to their being born in Great Britain, in this age of the world, when thewhole nation is Christian : But the deists are the menof enquiry into the grounds and reasons of what they be- lieve. If sincerity, in the practiceof a truereligion, which came to us by education, will save one from the wrath of God, and yet the same degree of sincerity in our enquiries after truth, will not save another, if he happen to mistake the true religion, and light upon n false one, then it is entirely owing to chance, or to pure divine favour, that a man happens to be saved : There is no worthiness nor honour belongs to the christian, that he is in the right way, nor has Ile any merit above the infidel. At least, may it not be justly so pronounced concerning thosechristians, who never searched into the grounds of their religion, but took it up entirely from their education ? Aaswer I. One might reply to this reasoning partly by way of concession, and say thus, if this objection were left in its full force,'so far as to ascribe the salvation of christians, to pure di- vine favour without merit, I do not see any evil consequence from it: For it is the design of God in his gospel, that man should not have the praise or merit of his own salvation ascribed to himself, but that he that glories should glory in the Lord; 1 Cor. i. 31. and that all the honour of our salvation and happi- ness should be attributed to God alone. We are all sinners in the sight.of God.: There is none righteous, no, not orae ; Rom. iii 10. And if by the secret methods of his providence and special favour, he has trained up some persons in the knowledge and belief of the truth, without much enquiry or labourof their own in searching for it, and if he has by his own Spiritwrought power- fully in our hearts, and made this religion, in which they were educated, effectual to change their corrupt natures, to form their hearts and lives to holiness, and to fit them for the heavenly world, let his name and his grace be for ever adored. Who is it has made ass to differ ? What have we, even the best of us, that we have not received i Cor. iv. 7. This is the language which the word of God teaches : For the timo and place and familywherein
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