And the influence that the difcovery of fuch a being must neceffarily have on the minds of all, that have but once heard of it, is fo great, and carries fuch a weight of thought and communication with it, that it feems stranger to me, that a whole nation of men should be any where found fo brutish, as to want the notion of a God; than that they should be without any notion of numbers, or fire.

§. 10. The name of God being once mentioned in any part of the world, to exprefs a fuperior, powerful, wife, invifible being, the fuitableness of such a notion to the principles of common reafon, and the interest men will always have to mention it often, muft neceffarily fpread it far and wide, and continue it down to all generations; though yet the general reception of this name, and fome imperfect and unfteady notions conveyed thereby to the unthinking part of mankind, prove not the idea to be innate; but only that they, who made the difcovery, had made a right ufe of their reafon, thought maturely of the caufes of things, and traced them to their original; from whom other lefs confidering people having once received fo important a notion, it could not eafily be loft again.

§. II. This is all could be inferred from the notion of a God, were it to be found univerfally in all the tribes of mankind, and generally acknowledged by men grown to maturity in all countries. For the generality of the acknowledging of a God, as I imagine, is extended no farther than that; which if it be fufficient to prove the idea of God innate, will as well prove the idea of fire innate; fince, I think, it may be truly said, that there is not a perfon in the world, who has a notion of a God, who has not alfo the idea of fire. I doubt not, but if a colony of young children should be placed in an island where no fire was, they would certainly neither have any notion of fuch a thing, nor name for it, how generally foever it were received, and known in all the world befides: and perhaps too their apprehenfions would be as far removed from any name, or notion of a God, till fome one amongst them had employed his thoughts, to inquire into the conftitution

and

and causes of things, which would easily lead him to the notion of a God; which having once taught to others, reason, and the natural propenfity of their own thoughts, would afterwards propagate, and continue amongst them.

§. 12. Indeed it is urged, that it is fuitable to the goodness of God to imprint upon the minds of men characters and notions of himself, and not to leave them in the dark and doubt in fo grand a concern ment; and alfo by that means to fecure to himself the homage and veneration due from fo intelligent a creature as man; and therefore he has done it.

Suitable to

God's goodnefs, that all

have an idea

of him,thereforenaturally imprinted by him, answer

ed.

This argument, if it be of any force, will prove much more than those, who use it in this cafe, expect from it. For, if we may conclude, that God hath done for men all that men fhall judge is beft for them, because it is fuitable to his goodness fo to do; it will prove not only that God has imprinted on the minds of men an idea of himself, but that he hath plainly stamped there, in fair characters, all that men ought to know or believe of him, all that they ought to do in obedience to his will; and that he hath given them a will and affections conformable to it. This, no doubt, every one will think better for men, than that they should in the dark grope after knowledge, as St. Paul tells us all nations did after God, Acts xvii. 27. than that their wills fhould clafh with their understandings, and their appetites cross their duty. The Romanifts fay, it is best for men, and fo fuitable to the goodness of God, that there fhould be an infallible judge of controverfies on earth; and therefore there is one. And I, by the fame reason, fay, it is better for men that every man himfelf fhould be infallible. I leave them to confider, whether by the force of this argument they fhall think, that every man is fo. I think it a very good argument, to fay, the infinitely wife God hath made it fo: and therefore it is beft. But it feems to me a little too much confidence of our own wifdom to, fay, "I think it beft, and therefore God hath made it fo;" and, in

the

the matter in hand, it will be in vain to argue from fuch a topick that God hath done fo, when certain experience shows us that he hath not. But the goodness of God hath not been wanting to men without fuch original impreffions of knowledge, or ideas ftamped on the mind: fince he hath furnished man with thofe faculties, which will ferve for the fufficient difcovery of all things requifite to the end of fuch a being. And I doubt not but to fhow that a man, by the right use of his natural abilities, may, without any innate principles, attain a knowledge of a God, and other things that concern him. God having endued man with those faculties of knowing which he hath, was no more obliged by his goodness to plant thofe innate notions in his mind, than that having given him reason, hands, and materials, he fhould build him bridges, or houses; which fome people in the world, however, of good parts, do either totally want, or are but ill provided of, as well as others are wholly without ideas of God, and principles of morality; or at least have but very ill ones. The reason in both cafes being, that they never employed their parts, faculties, and powers induftriously that way, but contented themfelves with the opinions, fashions, and things of their country, as they found them, without looking any farther. Had you or I been born at the bay of Soldania, poffibly our thoughts and notions had not exceeded thofe brutish ones of the hottentots that inhabit there: and had the Virginia king Apochancana been educated in England, he had been perhaps as knowing a divine, and as good a mathematician, as any in it. The difference between him and a more improved Englishman lying barely in this, that the exercise of his faculties was bounded within the ways, modes, and notions of his own country, and never directed to any other, or farther inquiries: and if he had not any idea of a God, it was only because he purfued not thofe thoughts that would have led him to it.

Ideas of God various in different

теп.

§. 13. I grant, that if there were any idea to be found imprinted on the minds of men, we have reafon to expect it should be the notion of his maker, as a mark God set on

his

his own workmanship, to mind man of his dependance and duty; and that herein fhould appear the first inflances of human knowledge. But how late is it before any fuch notion is discoverable in children? And when we find it there, how much more does it resemble the opinion and notion of the teacher, than reprefent the true God? He that fhall obferve in children the progrefs whereby their minds attain the knowledge they have, will think that the objects they do firft and most familiarly converfe with, are those that make the first impreffions on their understandings: nor will he find the least footsteps of any other. It is eafy to take notice, how their thoughts enlarge themselves, only as they come to be acquainted with a greater variety of fenfible objects, to retain the ideas of them in their memories; and to get the skill to compound and enlarge them, and feveral ways put them together. How by thefe means they come to frame in their minds an idea men have of a deity, I fhall hereafter show.

§. 14. Can it be thought, that the ideas men have of God are the characters and marks of himself, engraven on their minds by his own finger; when we fee that in the fame country, under one and the fame name, men have far different, nay, often contrary and inconsistent ideas and conceptions of him? Their agreeing in a name, or found, will fcarce prove an innate notion of

him.

§. 15. What true or tolerable notion of a deity could they have, who acknowledged and worshipped hundreds? Every deity that they owned above one was an infallible evidence of their ignorance of him, and a proof that they had no true notion of God, where unity, in finity, and eternity were excluded. To which if we add their grofs conceptions of corporeity, expreffed in their images and reprefentations of their deities; the amours, marriages, copulations, lufts, quarrels, and other mean qualities attributed by them to their gods; we shall have little reafon to think, that the heathen world, i. c. the greatest part of mankind, had such ideas of God in their minds, as he himself, out of care that they should not be mistaken about him, was author VOL. I,

F

of.

of. And this univerfality of confent, fo much argued, if it prove any native impreffions, it will be only this, that God imprinted on the minds of all men, fpeaking the fame language, a name for himfelf, but not any idea; fince thofe people, who agreed in the name, had at the fame time far different apprehenfions about the thing fignified. If they fay, that the variety of deities, worshipped by the heathen world, were but figurative ways of expreffing the feveral attributes of that incomprehenfible being, or feveral parts of his providence: Ì answer, what they might be in the original, I will not here inquire; but that they were fo in the thoughts of the vulgar, I think no-body will affirm. And he that will confult the voyage of the bifhop of Beryte, c. 13. (not to mention other teftimonies) will find, that the theology of the Siamites profeffedly owns a plurality of Gods: or, as the abbe de Choify more judiciously remarks, in his Journal du voiage de Siam, 197, it confifts properly in acknowledging no God at all.

If it be faid, That wife men of all nations came to have true conceptions of the unity and infinity of the deity, I grant it. But then this,

First, Excludes univerfality of confent in any thing but the name; for those wife men being very few, perhaps one of a thousand, this univerfality is very

narrow.

Secondly, It feems to me plainly to prove, that the trueft and beft notions men had of God were not imprinted, but acquired by thought and meditation, and a right ufe of their faculties; fince the wife and confiderate men of the world, by a right and careful employment of their thoughts and reason, attained true notions in this as well as other things; whilft the lazy and inconfiderate part of men, making far the greater number, took up their notions by chance, from common tradition and vulgar conceptions, without much beating their heads about them. And if it be a reason to think the notion of God innate, becaufe all wife men had it, virtue too must be thought innate, for that allo wife men have always had.

§. 16. This