CONFERENCE II. 439 this inference, and you must grant it, that the motives of reason are not utterly insufficient for, this purpose, if they have been effectual to bringbut here and there one to practise religion, and thereby lead them to the divine favour. And if it be sufficient for a few, why not for all who have the same natural faculties? ' Piru.. Will you please, Sir, to resume your own inference, and apply it thus ? Reason has been sufficient in an Euclid to trace out a noble scheme of geometrical theorems; in a Locketo write an excellent Essay on Human Understanding ; and in a Virgil to compose an admirable Heroic Poem will you infer therefore that reason in all men is sufficient to frame geometrical schemes, write fine essays and heroicpoems ? Will.this conclu- sion hold, Sir? Can all mankind become Lockes, and Euclids, and Virgils ? Remember, good Sir, we are debating about such a sufficiency as may render all mankind holy and happy. Not that I suppose it is a hard to trace out religion as it is to be a Locke or an Euclid ; but this application of your argument shews how weak the inference is : and though here and thereone may happen to do it, it will not follow, that all mankind can do thesame. Be- sides, Sir, this small number, this here and there one, that you speak of, who had been led by reason to religion, are found only perhaps in European nations, or in western Asia, where they have had correspondence with Jews or christians, or have re- ceived some traditional notices, or hints of divine revelation, without which, I much question, whether there would have been, in fact, one truly religious man in the world : So that it is to the notices and fragments of revelation, conveyed to men from Noah, or Job, or Abraham, or the Jews, or from some other inspired person, that I ascribe the real godliness of any person among the Gentile nations, rather than to the mere force of human reason in its present degenerate state : For I much question, whether you can inform me of one person, one single person, of true piety and virtue in the wilds of Africa or America, in all their nations, and in many past ages, unless they Wave had some assistances from persons of other nations who had acquaintance with revelation. Loe. What ! will not youallow one good man to have been found, for several ages, among all these heathen nations, without revelation? That is hard indeed: Doth not such a degree of uncharitableness border upon cruelty ? Canyou think the God of mercyis so cruel, as your present sentiments represent him ? PITH. Sir, if it were aproper placehere, Icould spew you, that this representation of things is very agreeable to the lan- guag . of God in his sacred writings, and yet he is a God of mercy still. But we shall have occasion to entér into this argu- ment, when you come to talk upon the equity and goodness of God. At present I content myself to say, that since very few in
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