the Dictates of Infpiration, believing that (a) a Divine Sentence was in the Lips of their Kings, and that their Mouths tranfgreffed not in the Appointments which they made them; and this they readily went into, not being artfully betrayed by Kings into a Belief of Revelation, but believing them to be infpired, from the univerfal Knowledge which the World was then full of, that God had revealed to their feveral Ancestors and Heads of Families, in what way and manner they fhould worship him. If Reafon only had been the first Guide in Matters of Religion, Rulers would neither have thought of, nor have wanted the Pretence of Revelation, to give Credit to their Inftitutions; whereas on the other hand, Revelation being generally cfteemed in all Nations to be the only true Foundation of Religion; Kings and Rulers, when they thought fit to add Inventions of their own to the Religion of their Ancestors, were obliged to make use of that Difpofition, which they knew their People to have, to receive what came recommended to them under the Name of a Revelation. But to proceed to the Second Query: If there was no Revelation made to the A Men of the firft Ages, how came the Knowledge and Worship of God fo early into the World? Perhaps fome will anfwer, according to Lord (a) Herbert, From innate Principles: If they do fo, I muft refer them to what our ingenious Countryman Mr. Locke has offered upon that Subject. The only way that Reafon can teach Men to know God, must be from confidering his Works; and if fo, his Works must be first known and confidered, before they can teach Men to know the Author of them. It feems to be but a wild Fancy, that Man was at first raifed up in this World, and left intirely to himself, to find out by his own natural Powers and Faculties what was to be his Duty and his Business in it. If we could imagine the first Men brought into the World in this manner, we muft, with Diodorus Siculus, conceive them for many Ages to be but very poor and forry Creatures. The invifible things of God are indeed to be understood by the things that are made, but Men in this State would for many Generations be confidering the things of the World in lower Views, in order to provide themselves the Conveniences of Life from them, before they would reflect upon them in fuch a (a) Lib. de Religione Gentilium. man manner as fhould awaken up in their Minds any Thoughts of a God: And when they should come to confider Things in fuch a Light as to discover by them that there was a God, yet how long must it be before they can be imagined to have arrived at such a thorough Knowledge of the Things of the World, as to have juft and true Notions of him? We fee in Fact, that when Men firft began to fpeculate and reafon about the Things of the World, they reafoned and fpeculated very wrong. In Egypt, in Chaldea, in Perfia, and in all other Countries, false and ill-grounded Notions of the Things which God had made, induced them to worship the Creatures inftead of the Creator, and that at Times when other Perfons who had lefs Philofophy, were Profeffors of a truer Theology. The Defcendents of Abraham were true Worshippers of the God of Heaven, when other Nations, whofe great and wife Men pretended to confider and reafon about the Works of the Creation, did in no wife rightly apprehend or acknowledge the Workmafter; but deemed either Fire, or Wind, or the Swift Air, or the Circle of the Stars, or the violent Water, or the Lights of Heaven to be the Gods which govern the World (a), (a) Wifdom xiii. 1, 2, 3, 4. being שיר مارة being delighted with their Beauty, or aAtonished at their Power, they took them for Gods. In a Word, if we look over all the Accounts we have of the feveral Nations of the Earth, and confider every thing that has been advanced by any or all the Philofophers; we can meet with nothing to induce us to think, that the firft Religion of the World was introduced by the Ufe and Direction of mere Natural Reafon; but on the other hand, all Hiftory, both Sacred and Prophane, offers us various Arguments to prove, that God revealed to Men in the firft Ages how he would be worshipped; but that, when Men, instead of adhering to what had been revealed, came to lean to their own UnderStandings, and to fet up what they thought to be right, in the room of what God himself had directed, they loft and bewildered themfelves in endless Errors. This I am fenfible is a fubject that should be examined to the bottom, and I am perfuaded, if it were, the Refult of the Enquiry would be this, that he that thinks to prove, that the World ever did in Fact by Wisdom know God (a), that any Nation up-. on Earth, or any Set of Men ever did, from the Principles of Reafon only, without any Affiftance from Revelation, find (a) 1 Corinth. i. 21. out out the true Nature and the true Worship |