$OS STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF HUMAN REASON. upon theiéminds : And suppose God should again discover to this surviving family the noble medicine whereby they might be healed of this distemper: Suppose this family should publish the terrors of the late universal destruction, together with the precious remedy, to the following generations, as Noah publish- ed the history of the flood, and the laws and grace of. God ; yet if all this be despised and neglected by their posterity, and the late desolation, as well as the new notice of the medicine, be banished from all their thoughts, and forgotten in a few ages, what can be said in excuse for them, or what accusation Can be brought against the wisdom, justice, or goodness of God, if they are suffered to goon and die. The crime is yet more inexcusable, and the justice and goodness of God yet more defensible, if we suppose some chief ingredients of this sovereign medicine, \which make a great part of the composition, to he in some sense within the natural reach of their own faculties to find out, and within the native power of their hands to acquire and compose ; so far at least as would greatly relieve the distemper, and give them comfortable hopes of healing, if they searched it out, and used it, But if these wretched creatures under,a mortal disease will never ex- ercise their thoughts about a cure, will never employ their rea- son carefully and diligently to search and find out the proper ingredients,, nor use their hands to attempt the composition, but will trifle away all their time in riot and sensuality, in danc- ing and singing, regardless of their own lives, what reason- able charge or censure can be brought against the great Gover- nor of the world, for permitting them to go on to death in their own madness ? This is the case of mankind among the savage nations of the earth, who were all derived from Adam and Noah, their fathers, to whom the laws of God, and the methods of grace and salvation were còmmunicated by God himself, and who took care to inform their immediate posterity, what the world suffered by disobedience to God, at the fall and the flood, and took care also to teach them these truths and duties by the belief and prac- tice of which they might be saved. Ít is probable, that some of these families did retain true religion for several ages : But in a few ages, others despised and lost the truths and duties of true religion : every generation grew worse than their fathers ; and now whole nations, without one exception, are led away by pre- judiées and sensuality into endless follies, errors, and impieties, without any care or effort of mind to recover the knowledge of the laws of their Maker, or the methods of his grace. A due survey of this last consideration will most effectually refute that wild and unreasonable charge against our doctrine, as if the great God left all the world, except the Jews, forfour thousand
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