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opinions in a fubje&t which is above it; but whatever they are, I fubmit them with all reverence to my mother church, accounting them no further mine, than as they are authorised, or at leaft uncondemned by her. And, indeed, to fecure myfelf on this fide, I have used the neceffary precaution of fhewing this paper before it was published to a judicious and learned friend, a man indefatigably zealous in the service of the church and flate; and whofe writings have highly deferved of both. He was pleased to approve the body of the difcourfe, and I hope he is more my friend than to do it out of complaifance: it is true he had too good a tafte to like it all; and amongst Some other faults recommended to my fecond view, what I have written perhaps too boldly on St. Athanafius, which he advifed me wholly to omit. I am fenfible enough that I had done more prudently to have followed his opinion. but then I could not have fatisfied myself that I had done honeftly not to have written what was my own. It has always been my thought, that heathens who never did, nor without miracle could, hear of the name of Chrift, were yet in a poffibility of falvation. Neither will it enter eafily into my belief, that before the coming of our Saviour the whole world, excepting only the Jewish nation, should lie under the inevitable necessity of everlasting punishment, for want of that revelation, which was confined to fo fmall a fpot of ground as that of Palestine. Among the fons of Noah we read of one only who was accurfed; and if a bleffing in the ripe

1 St. Athanafius lived in the fourth century: he was patriarch of Alexandria; his life was a continual warfare with the Arians, and other hereticks. To fecure himfelf from their rage, he spent fix years in the bofom of a defert. It would be impertinent here to recite his creed: it is fufficiently known to all chriftians, as well as the many violent difputes it has occafioned, which are even at this day kept on foot with great animofity.

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hefs of time was referved for Japhet (of whofe progeny we are) it seems unaccountable to me, why fo many generations of the fame offspring, as preceded our Saviour in the flesh, should be all involved in one common condemnation, and yet that their pofterity should be intitled to the hopes of falvation: as If a bill of exclufion had paffed only on the fathers, which debarred not the fons from their fucceffion. Or that so many ages had been delivered over to hell, and fo many reserved for heaven, and that the devil had the first choice, and God the next. Truly I am apt to think, that the revealed religion which was taught by Noah to all his fons, might continue for fome ages in the whole pofterity. That afterwards it was included wholly in the family of Sem is manifeft; but when the progenies of Cham and Japhet fwarmed into colonies, and thofe colonies were fubdivided into many others: in procefs of time their defcendants loft by little and little the primitive and purer rites of divine worship, retaining only the notion of one deity; to which fucceeding generations added others: for men took their degrees in those ages from conquerors to gods. Revelation being thus eclipsed to almost all mankind, the light of nature as the next in dignity was substituted; and that is it which St. Paul concludes to be the rule of the heathens, and by which they are hereafter to be judged. If my fuppofition be true, then the confequence which I have affumed in my poem may be also true; namely, that Deifm, or the principles of natural worship, are only the faint remnants or dying flames of revealed religion in the pofterity of Noah: and that our modern philofophers, nay and fome of our philofophifing divines have too much exalted the faculties of our fouls, when they have maintained that by their force, mankind has been able to find

out that there is one fupreme agent or intellectual Being which we call God: that praise and prayer are his due worship; and the reft of those deducements, which I am confident are the remote effects of revelation, and unattainable by our difcourfe, I mean as fimply confidered, and without the benefit of divine illumination. So that we have not lifted up ourfelves to God, by the weak pinions of our reason, but he has been pleased to defcend to us; and what Socrates faid of him, what Plato writ, and the rest of the heathen philofophers of feveral nations, is all no more than the twilight of revelation, after the fun of it was fet in the race of Noah. That there is fomething above us, fome principle of motion, our reafon can apprehend, though it cannot discover what it is by its own virtue. And indeed it is very improbable, that we, who by the ftrength of our faculties cannot enter into the knowledge of any Being, not fo much as of our own, fhould be able to find out by them, that fupreme nature, which we cannot otherwise define than by faying it is infinite; as if infinite were definable, or infinity a fubject for our narrow underflanding. They who would prove religion by reafon, do but weaken the caufe which they endeavour to fupport: it is to take away the pillars from our faith, and to prop it only with a twig; it is to defign a tower like that of Babel, which if it were poffible, as it is not, to reach heaven, would come to nothing by the confufion of the workmen. For every man is building a several way; impotently conceited of his own model and his own materials: reafon is always striving, and always at a lofs; and of neceffity it must so come to pafs, while it is exercised about that which is not its proper object. Let us be content at laft to know God by his own methods; at leaft, fo much of him as he is pleafed

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to reveal to us in the facred fcriptures: to apprehend them to be the word of God is all our reason has to do; for all beyond it is the work of faith, which is the feal of heaven impreffed upon our human understanding.

And now for what concerns the holy bishop Athanafius, the preface of whofe creed feems inconfiftent with my opinion; which is, that heathens may poffibly be faved: in the first place I defire it may be confidered that it is the preface only, not the creed itself, which, till I am better informed, is of too hard a digeftion for my charity. It is not that I am ignorant how many feveral texts of fcripture feemingly fupport that caufe; but neither am I ignorant how all thofe texts may receive a kinder, and more mollified interpretation. Every man who is read in church hiftory, knows that belief was drawn up after a long conteftation with Arius, concerning the divinity of our blessed Saviour, and his being one fubftance with the father; and that thus compiled it was fent abroad among the chriftian churches, as a kind of teft, which whofoever took was looked on as an orthodox believer. It is manifeft from hence, that the heathen part of the empire was not concerned in it; for its bufinefs was not to diftinguish betwixt Pagans and Chriftians, but betwixt Here ticks and true Believers. This, well confidered, takes off the heavy weight of cenfure, which I would willing avoid from fo venerable a man; for if this proportion, whofoever will be faved,' be reftrained only to those to whom it was intended, and for whom it was compofed, I mean the Chriftians; then the anathema reaches not the Heathens, who had never heard of Christ, and were nothing interested in that difpute. After all I am far from blaming even that prefatory addition to the creed, and as far VOL. I.

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from cavilling at the continuation of it in the liturgy of the church, where on the days appointed it is publickly read: for I fuppofe there is the fame reafon for it now, in oppofition to the Socinians, as there was then against the Arians; the one being a Herefy, which feems to have been refined out of the other; and with how much more plaufibility of reason it combats our religion, with so much more caution it ought to be avoided therefore the prudence of our church is to be commended, which has interpofed her authority for the recommendation of this creed. Yet to fuch as are grounded in the true belief, those explanatory creeds, the Nicene and this of Athanafius might perhaps be spared; for what is fupernatural, will always be a mystery in fpight of expofition, and for my own part, the plain apoftles creed is moft fuitable to my weak underftanding, as the fimpleft diet is the most easy of digestion.

I have dwelt longer on this fubject than Fintended, and longer than perhaps I ought; for having laid down, as my foundation, that the scripture is a rule; that in all things needful to falvation it is clear, fufficient, and ordained by God Almighty for that purpofe, I have left myself no right to interpret obfcure places, fuch as concern the poffibility of eternal happiness to heathens: because whatsoever is obfcure is cancluded not neceffary to be known.

But, by afferting the feripture to be the canon of our faith, I have unavoidably created to myself two forts of enemies: the papifts indeed, more directly, because they have kept the fcripture from us what they could; and have reserved to themselves a right of interpreting what they have delivered under the pretence of infallibility: and the fanaticks more collaterally, because they have affumed what amounts to an infallibility, in the private spirit: and have detorted

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