derstanding this Weight they put in imaginary Ideas, which will not overweigh things of Senfe; fo they have no Encouragement to act, to refift, or &c. fo lofe this ineftimable Offer.

At laft my Friend condefcended to own that he had no Knowledge within, but what was brought from without. That he could fuppofe by the Contrivance of Things, that there must be fome Intelligence fomewhere; and, as there was no Distinction made between good and bad here, there must be fome hereafter: fo could get no farther by the Light of Nature, than the Heathens had

gone.

If Man, who can by his Senfes come at no other Agent but the Names; and by Tradition understand their Mechanifm, by which all things within the reach of his Senfes, are moved, produced, or enlivened; and had loft the Knowledge of the infeparable Powers in Jehovah; he muft, as the old Heathens did, fuppofe fome of the infeparable Attributes of the Effence in the Names. If Man who has loft the Tradition, and cannot by his Senfes come at their Mechanifm, to fee their mechanical Powers; but fees all Things within the reach of his Senfes. are mov'd, produc'd, or enliven'd; and

can fee nothing but the Names and paffive Matter; by comparing of what he fees done, and not feeing the Mechanifm, must put fome of the infeparable Powers of the infinitely powerful Efence into the other Scale, to perform those Works; and muft either place that Power in the Names, as the latest Heathens, who had only retain'd that they were the Gods of their Fathers, did, or as the wifeft of them did, talk of Fate, Chance, and be Atheists: or in the paffive Matter of the Orbs, &c. as Sir Ifaac Newton, who knew not what fehovah had, and could not part with, did, make an Orb or a Stone move itself, act where it is not prefent; fo must all be ftupidly ignorant, and equally guilty of impudent Blafphemy.

If Man have not proper Data, and reafon wrong in the chief Point, he may talk, but he cannot reafon right about any other; 'because that affects every Point. The affair of forgiving Trefpaffes, loving Enemies, &c. are all repugnant to Justice and Reafon deduced from fenfible Ideas, fo from what they call Morality; and the Balance for those Actions is only found in Christianity.

The

The Subjects which Men have to reafon upon, and from whence they pretend to deduce their Light, they call the Law of things created and formed, fo of Nature; which is the Action of those Agents inanimate or animate, which carry on the Series or Succeffion of Things, and their Effects upon their Patients. The natural inanimate Agents and their Actions are the fame. The Actions of irrational Animal Agents are the fame: But the Actions of animate, and once rational Agents, fince they fell and corrupted themfelves, are not the fame.

Each Man hath Power, by his Senfes, to take perfect or imperfect Ideas of these Agents and Actions; and by the Reason or Powers in his Soul, (which Sense of the Body, and Judgment in his Soul, conftitutes his Con or Co-fcience) to compare, confider, and weigh these Ideas justly or unjustly, in fome proportion to the Perfections of the Senfes by which he takes the Ideas, and to the Degrees of the Perfections in his Faculties of Reasoning. The Light of Nature can be no more than that which appears or is evident by Deductions from the Premifïes. These Judgments, fince the Fall, corrupted Notions formed into Rules, put

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into Practice, handed down from Parents to Children by Example, Tradition, by Cuftom mixed with the Remains of Tradition, from the firft Revelation after the Fall,, became continued Actions, which made a fecond Nature; and are those generally rendered Nature in the New Teftament, in diftinction to the Knowledge of God, &c. from the Revelation by Hieroglyphicks, by the written Law or Gofpel,

If a Man, by Obfervation and Keafoning, could find out that the material Agents were a Machine inanimate, and what fuch a Machine could do; he might judge it could not form and fet forward Plants and Animals; and that there muft have been fome other Agent to perform that Part: But as none without Revelation, or when the Tradition of that was almoft loft; even the Men our Age count the wifeft, could ever find out the Machine; they could not find how Plants and Animals were formed, fet forward, nor fupported; nor even that they themfelves had any other Souls but the Air, which they fuppofed the Brutes had as well as they.

If any one in that State, who knew nothing beyond Senfe, had obferved the Regularity of the Actions of fome Spe

cies of Brutes to ferve their Ends, and the Irregularities of the Actions of each Man to ferve any End than known, and the Difference between the Actions of each Man and thofe of others, and had judged impartially he muft have declared, that if either had Souls, or the use of what they then called Reafon, it must be thofe Brutes; or if Man had a Soul or Reason, he had loft the use of it.

It was and is natural from fuppofed or real Premiffes, to reafon falfely or truely; if you fuppofe or imagine this or that, you fuppofe the Confequences are accordingly. If you have real Evidence, the Confequences will be accordingly, and the Reafonings in both Cafes are juft, but the Evidence in one Cafe is not true. He that fuppofes an imaginary Agent performs an Action, if he understand the Action, may reafon as justly upon the Action, as if he knew the real Agent which performs the Action. A Man who believed the most abominable Actions acceptable to the falfe Aleim, reasoned as juftly in performing them, as he who knew what was acceptable to the true Aleim, in obferving them; and performing them as above, gave the fame Complacency to their Minds, or, as 'tis called D 4 the