SECTION III. 283 nation. It is God himself has wrought in them this honesty of heart, this sincere, zeal of enquiry, andhe will fulfil the work of his own hands and lead them into truth and peace. III. The light of nature, which the deist,professes to take for his guide, if duly followed, will certainly lead him to be- lieve the gospel : For it will powerfully incline a honest mind to believe, that a religion which is so worthy of, all the perfec- tions of God, and so suited to all the necessities of man, a reli- gion so divinely attested by prophecies before, and by miracles afterward, and surrounded with other powerful arguments, must needs come from God ; since the light of nature assures him, that the God of truth will never suffer such heavenly seals to beset to a falsehood or an imposture: For if it be an impos- ture it comes from hell, and (hod would never let it bear the, manifest signatures of heaven. Upon this view of things, it appe_rs to me pretty clear and conclusive, that a deist in Great Britain who is really sincero, and persevering in his enquiries after the truth, will sooner or later become a christian, and that the mercy of God 'will never suffer him to live and die an infidel. Question VIÌ. " Do all unbelievers in all ages, fall under that sentence of damnation?" If we had lived in Judea in the days of Christ, and had seen the miracles with our eyes which Christ is said to have wrought, we might have perhaps found evidence .enough in them to have believed the gospel : Surely that dreadful curse, which.you spenk of, can bepronounced only against those who resisted their eye- sight, and would not believe it: But the case isquite altered at this distance of time and place, when we have only an account of these wonders delivered down to us in books, which were said to be done almost seventeen hundred years ago*. To this I answer, it must be granted, that as several of the miracles of Christ were performed in the sight of multi- tudes, so those persons who had the happiness to beeye and ear- witnesses of them, in that one respect, have some advantage for faith beyond those who live in distant ages : But if we should enter into a detail of this enquiry, it may be we should find that the men of letters in this nation, and in our day, are favoured with more advantages for faith, and several other springs of evidence which compensate the loss of that one: And upon the whole survey and just balance of things, comparing their times with ours, perhaps it would. appear, that we in this age have equal or. superior reasons for the belief of the gospel, be- * See an undeniable and convincing proof of the r< Reasonableness of Be- lieving the History 6f the Gospel," though written no long ago, and the r Unreasonableness of Infidelity," in an excellent Berman lately published by Doctor William Harris.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=