396 STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OP HUNAN REASON. but use them aright, as are sufficient to lead him into the know- ledge and practice ofaeligion and virtue, so far as to procure for him a happy immortality : That his reason is able to lead him into such an acquaintance with his Maker's will, and obedience to it, as to engage the favourof his benevolent Maker towards him, or to recover his favour when at any time he has sinned, and exposed himself to his anger. And indeed, if man has not sufficient powers for this purpose, I should think God bad dealt worse with mankind, who, as you all say, was made af- ter his Illaker's image, than he has with any of the lower ranks of creation, even the insects and the poor creeping things of the earth. PITH. The equity of the great God in dealing with his creatures may perhaps be debated another time ; but I think we have now fully selected and distinguished the plain argument that lies directly before us; and that which you so often assert is this, that the light of reason in every man is sufficient to find out his way to the favour of God, and happiness by religion and virtue : And what these articles of virtue and religion are, what these doctrines and duties which are so necessary for this purpose, Sophronius has just now informed us, I entreat you Sir, proceed now to the proof of your assertion according to theparticúlar articles Sophronius has proposed. And to save time, I will not insist upon your proof of all of them, but only those that seem most difficult : And first, be pleased Sir, to tell us how a wild heathen would find out that there is but one God ? Loe. As reason very easily discovers to us that there is a God whohas made all things by the evident tokens of wisdomand power which appear in the works of his hands, so the ingenious Dr. Clarke informs us in his sermon of the Unityof Gcd, that " The doctrine of the whole world being under the government of one God, is the natural notion which the light of reason itself bas universally implanted in the minds of men: For the plain connexion and dependence of one thing upon another, through the whole material universe, through.all the parts of the earth, and in the visible heavens, the disposition of the air, and sea, and winds, the motion of the sun, and moon, and stars, and the useful vicissitudes of seasons for the regular production of the various fruits of the earth, has always been sufficient to make it evidently appear, even to mean capacities, had they not been perpetually prejudiced by wrong instruction, that all things are under the direction of one power, under the dominion of one God, to whom the whole universe is uniformly subject." Thus far Dr. Clarke. And do you not think this argument would lead mankind to the unanimous belief that there is but one true Gpd ?
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