470 STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF HUMAN REASON. virtue within them. How very few among them had any true notions of piety ? Alas ! Sir, to make suçh general conclusions, of the good- ness of heathen religion, and sufficiency of human reasonings in all mankind to find It out, there Ought to be many more instances of the knowledge and belief of the true God, and his spiritual worship, &c. and that among the heathens of Africa, and America, as well as Europe ; and among the bulk of the inhabitants of Greece and Asia Minor, as well as the few philosophers : Whereas it is evident, that the gross of the heathen world, even in the cultivated and polite parts of it, were abominably over-runwith shameful ignorance, idolatry, and immorality, profaneness and superstition : And in some of the rude and unpolished nations, there is scarce any thingbut stupi- dity and error, darkness and madness, instead of truth, sobriety, and goodness. While in the learned part of the world the poets and the priests tanght these wild superstitions as things sacredand di- vine' while the rulers commanded the observance of them, and thephilosophers themselves complied with them, what can we suppose'the people would do but believe in the same deities, won. ship their with the same ceremonies, and imitate their superiors in theirreligion, though itwere never so ridiculous and immoral ? And as for the rude and unlearned nations and tribes ofmankind, while their ancestors before them, and their companions all around them, gave themselves up to impious, and immoral, and shameful customs, and they were never taught to think for them- selves, or to reason upon the subject, what can be expected, but thatthey should universally corrupt themselves, and live from age to age without God or goodness ? The narratives which St. Paul gives us in his epistles of the Gentile nations through which he travelled, and the accounts of our later travellers, conspire to assure us of the most wretched and deplorable state of mankind there, in respect of religion and virtue. This is so copious a theme, Logisto, that one might talk upon it whole hours with pertinence and justice, and, one would think, to the conviction of those who are willing to hearken to truth. But I know in whose presence I speak: I am well apprized that the person to whom I address myself needs no more than short hints of these matters to refresh his own memory, and give him a compendious view of the things which he himself has been well acquainted with, inhis ownconverse with the ancient writers of Rome and Greece, as well as the accounts whichare given us of the more barbarous nations. Loo. I confess, dear sir, I am almost overpowered with conviction by the short account you have given us of these affairs, and the glaring light in which you have set them
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=