CHAPTER XIV. 375 ledge of God, of his law and his government, of his grace and their duty, which they might have arrived at by the right exercise of their conscience and reasoning powers. This seems to be the sense of those words of the apostle, Rom. ii. 12-15. as many as have sinned without law, that is without a written or revealed law, they shall perish without law ; and as many as have sinned in, or under a written or revealed law, they shall be judged by that law ; the Gentiles which have not any written law, are a law to themselves, which sheres the work of the moral lawwrit- ten in their hearts; their conscience also Gearing witness, and their, thoughts accusingor excusing them. But how far divinecompassion shall exercise itself further in unpromisedways towards any of those persons or nations, whoby the negligence and iniquity of their parents, had lost all the revelations of grace, is to be left to the wise, the righteous and themerciful Judge of all men. CHAP. XIV.Conclusion ofthis Essay. I. A due survey of these dispensations of God to man in this light, perhaps may enable us to understand many parts of the bible much better, sinne it will happily account for many diffi- culties in the Old Testament and the New, which seem to me veryhard to be solved in any other way, to the satisfaction of a diligent enquirer. II. And as I have been led into this scheme and manner of conceiving the transactions of God with men, by a diligènt peru- sal of the holy scriptures, rather than by any human creeds, confessions or systems, either ancient or modern, so I cannot but recommend the. serious consideration of it to those who are resolved to follow the same method of study, and read the scrip- tures, to learn from thence the articles of our christian faith and practice. Let them like the noble Bereans, search the scriptures, and see whether thisrepresentation of divine things does not come very near to the truth, and make scripture more easy to be un- derstoodby shewing the connexion and consistence of every part of it with all the rest. III. It is confessed after all, there may be several difficul- ties still attending this scheme of the dispensations of grace, and perhaps some mistakes in it; I am but a weak and fallible crea- ture, and the ways of God are unsearchable to man, and hisjudg- ments past finding out; Rom. xi. 33. But let it be observed, that among a hundred men, everyone can much sooner find faults in any system of divinity, or in the scheme of any science, than one of them will draw up a scheme or system which path no difficulties. IV. It has been often found, both in human and divine sciences, that when some particular parts of a scheme or system
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=