SECTION M. B1 we were born, all the outwardand inward helps we enjoy, all the advantages which we have above others, are owing entirely to rich and free'inercy, and therefore God will not allow his people any roomor g ound for boasting. It is evident to the World, and must be universally acknow- ledged, that the great God, the Maker and Lord of All, may ap- point the birth and habitation of his creatures in what nation, in what household, on what spot of earth he pleases : and yet this very appointment will make a vast difference between some mor- tals and others.in their advantages for knowledge and salvation. New if this almighty and sovereign Godin the course of his pro- vidence please to give me a birth in Great Britain, where the religion of Jesus is professed, and give birth to others in the wilds of America, where the true God is not known, what injus- tice is there in his conduct : If he train meup by the divine im- pressions of his grace, in the religion which I received frommy christian fathers, to a fitness for the heavenly world, while the American savages are left almost as ignorant as the brutes, through their own universal neglect to improve their reasoning powers, whoshall say unto God, what dost thou? Let my soul adore him with all humble thankfulness, andwith ardent love for his distinguishingmerey, and leave the Judge of all the earth to account with the Americans : He will do them no wrong. II. But, in the second place, I answer, however some deists may have been inure laborious in their search after the true roll_ gion, than several christians have been, who have believed the gospel at first because their parents taught them so, yet I believe it will never be found that any deist; who has renounced the Os- has arisen to those degrees of sincere piety, in his devotion toward God, and sincere love to his fellow-creatures, as these christians have arrived at. Doubtless, there are many believers in the name of Christ, who were never acquainted with any of the principles or objections ofthe deists, who never had anyscruple in their thoughtsabout the truth ofchristianity, and never troubled themselves to search whether their religion were true or no : But the' grace of God has made the belief of this religion in which they were born and educated, effectual to change their hearts, to sanctify their natures, to make them hate every site, to draw' out their love to God and their neighbour, to fill them with every vir- tue and every pious disposition, and to fit them for the sacred employment and the blessedness of heaven : And this is an in- ward, a solid and rational testimony and evidence of the divine original of christianity, as I have proved at large in the several first discourses both of my first and second volumes of sermons, published some years ago. This inward experience of the sanc- tifying power of the gospel, especially where it rises to a high degree, is a just, and effectual, and constraining conviction to
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