4ÓN1EftENCE IV. 309 Nears tógether, destituteof sufficient means to do their duty, and to obtain his favour ; which is as false as I believe the bookof Genesis is true, and has not somuch as a colour of argument to support it. But before I leave this head of the shameful degeneracy, and gross apostacy of the heathen world, I cannot but take notice of one very remarkable aggravation of the crime both of parents and children, and that is, that though several of these nations in a few ages lost and abandoned like worship of the true God, the knowledge of his laws, and the discoveries of his grace, though the parents took no care to communicate them to their children, nor the children to retain any notices of them ; yet these very nations are most.obstinately tenacious -of the idolatry and impious ceremonies, the savage and the vicious customsand practices of their ancestors ; and their parents are as careful to teach them, and to breed them up in these iniquities and errors. If you ask the wild Americans, the Laplanders, the Hottentots, the reason of their ridiculous opinions and- practices, their univer- sal answer is, that it is the customof theirnation, and theirfathers and their grandfathers, for many ages, have believed and done so before them. This in their esteem, is a sacred and sufficient reason for their immovableperseverance in their own nonsense and madness : So impiously fond have they been of the tradition of their ancestors, in their profane and vicious customs, while they so soon and so easily parted with the rules of virtue and religion, and thé promises and hopes of grace and salvation, which their ancestors taught them. And thus the very same humour and practice which has had so strong and fatal an in- fluence to maintain andpropagatesuperstition, impiety, and vice among, them, is a heinous aggravation of their crime in losing the rules of virtue, religion and happiness, since the same reverencefor their early ancestors, the same temper and practice would have preserved the truths, duties, and rules of virtue and religion. It is time now to u;oceed to the nextconsideration, in order tovindicate thejusticemd goodness of God in the present constitution of things. In the eighth place therefore, suppose that none of the race of mankind, whatsoever advantages or disadvantages they lie under, shall ever be condemned in the other world for the neg- lect of any duties, but what their own reasonwas in a practical and proximate sense sufficient to find out : Now there are a suffi- cient number of these neglects tobring condemnation upon every part of the heathen world, whether learned or barbarous. Sup- pose that no créature shall be punished hereafter for any sin but what was some way or other committed against his own light or conscience, or for a plainwilful neglect of seeking further know- ledgeof truth and duty, by such means as were plainly and
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