QUESTION II, 275 how it came to takeplace so universally amongst men ? What if we are perplexed and still at a loss to satisfy our own en- quiries, how all this guilt and mischief came . upon us ; must we therefore deny what we see, and hear, and feel daily ? Can we account for all the secret things in the creation of God, in the world of meteors and minerals, the vegetables of the field, or the brutes of the earth, or the animal body of man ? Does anyman refuse to believe that the infinite variety of plants and flowers in all their beauteous colours and forms grow up out of the same dark and dirty soil, because he Both not know all the secret springs of their vegetation ? Do men doubt of the truth of a loadstone's drawing iron to itself, and making a needle point to the north, because they cannot find out the way of its operation ? Are we not sure that our food nou- rishes our bodies, and medicines relieve our pains, though we are utterly at a loss to tell all the ferments and motions of those atoms by which our nourishment is performed, or our diseases healed ? Can we account for all the darknesses, and appear- ing difficulties and confusions among the events of providence ? Can we discover all the reasons of the wise conduct ofGod among his creatures ? No surely, we cannot pretend to it: And yet since these, matters of fact, and these events are ob- vious to all our senses, do we deny and refuse to believe these things which are evident in creation and providence, and which are communicated to us by so many springs and mediums of knowledge, merelybecause we cannot account for the original and secret causes or reasons of them ? Or because we cannot reconcile some crossing appearances, and jarring apprehensions that attend them ? Why then should this universal degeneracy and ruin of human nature be denied, though we cannot remove everyobjection that attends it ? And yet if we will search faith- fully into the causes and springs of this matter, so far as our natural reason, assisted by the light of revelation, will enable us, we may hope to find some solution of thosehard questions; which may give a degree of satisfaction to humble and modest minds, though perhaps not sufficient to silence every curious and unrea- sonable cavil. QUEST. II.flow came this general Degeneracy, Vice, and Misery, to overspread Mankind in all Nations and in all Ages 2 To find a complete and satisfactory answer to this enquiry is not a very easy thing. It was a vexing question among the ancient schools of the heathen philosophers, whence evil came s 2
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