Refinements of Reason. Thus, even the Gifts of Nature, before they arrive at us, and are made fit for our Ufe, become alfo the Gifts of REASON. Without RE A SON, we had lived like the Brute Creation, upon raw Fruit, tasteless Herbs, and the cold Spring; or exposed to the merciless Jaws of Famine, when a fevere Winter had frozen up the Stores of the Earth, and locked the Waters under Ice.

REASON Checks tumultuous Paffion, the greatest Enemy to the Peace of the Mind, and to the Peace of Society. Hence it has been obferved, by the fame Moralift, that all our rational Pursuits are temperate Pursuits; and that what we purfue with REASON, we never purfue with Violence. REASON fubdues Anger, and prevents Cruelty; it makes a Man lefs fierce than a Lion, and lefs ravenous than a Bear. It is not human Shape, but human Reafon, that places a Man above the Beasts of the Field, and lifts him into a Refemblance with. God himself. Hence it is juftly styled Divina particula Aura; a Ray or Impulse of the Divinity. And, in what Senfe can a Man be faid to be made after the Image of God, unlefs by his poffeffing that REASON, which is a divine Particle of the GODHEAD? We resemble not our MAKER in Perfon or Complexion; and therefore can only resemble him in REA

SON,

SON, and in Mercy, which is the Child of this Divine Reason.

WERE We not rational Creatures, we could not be religious Creatures, but upon a Level with Brutes, to whom God has made no Revelation of himself, because they want Reason to difcern it, and to thank him for it. Revelation therefore prefuppofes Reafon, and addreffes itself to Reafon; and God himself, by perfuading us, as he does in his Word, by the Voice of Reafon, appeals to our Reafon. We cannot glorify God but with our Understandings; and we are convinced of his Goodness, before we adore it. To praife him, without Reafon, is a Contradiction, and an Impoffibility. The Devotion which he requires must be free, rational, and willing; and where it is not fo, it is Folly or Hypocrify.

NOR is there any Oppofition between Reafon and Grace, whatever fome may weakly or dishonestly maintain. In Truth, Grace is never given, but where Reafon was already given; and the former cannot fubfift, where the latter does not. We may have worldly Wisdom without Piety; but cannot poffefs Piety without Understanding; nor does Grace, though given in the greatest Abundance, at all fupply the ordinary Offices of Reason. We do B 2

not

not find, that St. Luke was a better Physician, for having written a Gospel; or St. Paul a better Sailor, or better Tent-maker, for being an Apoftle. But neither could St. Luke have been an Evangelift, nor St. Paul an Apoftle, unless God had given them Reason as well as Grace. Indeed they are both the Gifts of God, only the one is ordinary, and the other is extraordinary.

REASON, even without the Light of Revelation, teaches us to inveftigate Nature, and praise God for the Wonderfulness of his Works. It must judge of Revelation itself, what is fo, and what not; and of the Words and Language, in which the Holy Oracles were at first conveyed; and of the Words and Language into which they were afterwards tranflated. Now Words, many of them, being obscure or equivocal, and fignifying different Things to different Men, it is left to our Reason to determine, in what Sense these Words are to be understood. The Spirit of God has invented for us no new ones, or fuch as carry in their Sound certain and determinate Ideas, which cannot be mistaken, but muft infallibly be the fame. to every Man.

By the Light of REASON, we fee about us. It warns us against Craft, and arms us against Force;

Force; and the fame Reafon, which commands' us to believe in God implicitly, and obey him paffively, does also command us to truft to no Man without Inquiry, and to submit to no Man" without Cause. Thus, what is our Duty in relation to God, would be Madness in relation to one another: The good God cannot deceive but Men have Pride, Folly, Interest, and Complexion, all confpiring to deceive themselves and others.

us;

OUR first Attempt to make Converts is. an Appeal to their REASON, by which they are to judge for themselves of the Reasonablenefs of our Religion, and of the Arguments which we bring for the Defence and Recommendation of our Religion: Which Method would be exceedingly abfurd and dishonest, if we did not fuffer them to judge of our Religion, with the fame Freedom, after they are côme into it, as they did before they embraced it. This would be Trepanning one's Reason into Captivity, with its own Affiftance; first: to make use of it, and then to vote it useless: A ftrange inconfiftent Piece of Treachery, and a flat Contradiction to that Liberty with which CHRIST has made us free! As if we were to receive any Syftem upon the Grounds of our Reafon, without which it never can be fincere-.

ly received, and then to reject our Reason upon the Grounds of our Syftem.

PRAY how do we diftinguifh the Beauty and Truth of the Gospel, from the Imposture and Abfurdity of the Alcoran, but by our Rea fon? How do we detect the impudent and fenfeless Doctrine of Tranfubftantiation, but by our Senfe and Reason? Why did we, or how could we, leave Popery, and embrace the Reformation, but because our own private Reafon told us, and Scripture, of which we made ourfelves the Judges, told us, that we left Slavery, Falfhood, and Cruelty, for Truth, Freedom, and Innocence? How did our Saviour prove himself the Son of God, but by Miracles, which every Eye faw, and every Ear heard? He appealed to the Senfe and Reason. of Mankind; and all were convinced, that would be convinced. How do we know the Scripture to be the Word of God, but by the Deductions and Information of Reason? How can we prove our own Church, as by Law eftablished, to be the pureft and beft conftituted Church in the World, but by the Testimony of impartial, difinterested REASON? For it is. plain, from the great Number of Gain-fayers, and Arians, that her genuine Sons have not the miraculous Gift of infpiring, from above, all