the idea of a God had never obtained in the world; and what is more, even of the reptile, by which he was so unworthily re

h Cudworth's Intellect. System, c. iv. p. 694. "But 66 some Atheists will yet further reply, that there is a "feigning power in the human soul, whereby it can "frame ideas or conceptions of such things, as actually "never were nor will be, as of a Centaur or of a golden "mountain: and that by such a feigning power as this, "the idea of God, though there be no such thing ex66 isting, might be framed. And here we deny not, but "that the human soul hath a power of confounding "ideas and things together, which exist severally and 66 apart in nature, but never were nor will be in that "conjunction; and this indeed is all the feigning power "that it hath. For the mind cannot make any new co

gitation, which was not before, but only compound "that which is. As the painter cannot feign colours, "but must use such as exist in nature; only he can va"riously compound them together, and by his pencil "draw the figures and lineaments of such things as no "where are; as he can add to the head and face of a "man, the neck, shoulders, and body of a horse. In "like manner that more subtle painter or limner, the "mind and imagination of man, can frame compounded "ideas of things which no where exist, but yet his "single colours notwithstanding must be real; he can"not feign any cogitation which was not in nature, nor "make a positive conception of that which is abso"lutely nothing, which were no less than to make no"thing to be something, or create something out of "nothing."

presented, man could have had no notion by the mere exercise of his own ingenuity. It is therefore most evidently clear, that false religions and pretended revelations prove the existence of a true religion, derived from a real revelation, because man could never have invented either. He could copy indeed, and unhappily he could corrupt and pervert, but he could not invent; and had it never pleased God to reveal Himself, no idea of a revelation would ever have been formed by men. And this should teach them, if they had any modesty or humility, not only to receive with thankfulness those higher communications of divine truth with which the word of God abounds, but to read with reverence the accounts of those instructions in things of a more familiar nature, which may now appear not so suitable to the Majesty of the Omnipotent. If at any time we are offended with these things, the cause of offence is in ourselves, in our own pride and ignorance. We have now enjoyed the glorious light of the Gospel for so long a time, we have been so long accustomed to

the arts and refined conveniences of social life, that we do not appreciate as we ought the difficulty of their first introduction amongst a race of degenerate beings. When we read, that the Almighty made a covering to hide the nakedness of his polluted creature, we do not perhaps always feel the value of this divine condescension. Judging from the subsequent history of the human race, we may fairly conclude, that our unhappy parents, though at the time not insensible of the disgrace they had incurred, would soon have learned to acquiesce in their debased condition, and to

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glory in their shame." Guilt made them fear to face their Almighty Creator; but habit would have made vice familiar, and the restraints of modesty and conscience would have lost their hold upon their minds. Fallen from their high estate of purity and perfection, they would most probably, if left to themselves, have sunk into a savage wildness, and herded with the brutes that surrounded them. The mercy of God alone preserved them from further degradation; the mercy of God alone

taught them to recover in some degree that decency, which a sense of sin no longer permitted them to preserve on the terms of their original creation. It was indeed little to be expected, that he, who in his first strength of righteousness and perfection could not withstand the allurement of sin, should in his weakness and pollution invent the means of his own recovery. Nor would any one of his descendants ever have succeeded any better. To improve upon an idea of which we are already in possession, and originally to strike out that idea, are two very different things; and though it should be granted, that some of the more eminent among the children of Adam have done something not altogether despicable in the former, in the latter they have confessedly done nothing. In fact, nothing was left them to do. Revelation has ever been the sole source of truth', while falsehood owes its being to the perversions and the wanderings of human ingenuity. Not only the sacred records of revelation itself,

i Octav. p. 52. Lactant. De Origine Erroris.

but profane history assures us of this; the march of all true knowledge is traced with clearness and certainty from those countries which were properly the cradle of the human race. Thence it was derived at first, and thence was the renovation of it sought when it had been lost or obscured by the degeneracy of man. And this is a proof that man was originally perfect; because the nearer he is traced to his original in time and place, the more free he seems to be from falsehood and from sin. Left to himself, it is clear, that in his present condition he has a continual tendency to degenerate, and gradually to sink to a level with "the beasts that perish" both in knowledge and practice. The further he has been removed from the sources of communication with his Maker, the weaker have been his impressions of right and wrong, and the more gross his conceptions

k Josephus contra Apion. Dr. Cudworth's Intellectual System, p. 308. and particularly his account of the Egyptian Learning, p. 311. See also Bryant's Preface to Observations on the Plagues of Egypt.

1 Psalm xlix. 12.