Sect. 12. And whereas God's special mercy and grace is necessary to so great a change and cure, and this grace is forfeited by sin, and every sin deserveth more punishment, and this sin and punishment must be so far forgiven before God can give us that grace which we have forfeited; nature doth not satisfactorily teach me how God is so far reconciled to man, or how the forgiveness of sin may be by us so far procured. Sect. 13. And whereas I see at once in the world, both the abounding of sin, which deserveth damnation, and the abounding of mercy to those that are under such deserts; I am not satisfied, by the light of nature, how God is so far reconciled, and the ends of government and justice attained, as to deal with the world so contrary to its deserts. Sect. 14. And while I am in this doubt of God's reconciliation, I am still ready to fear, lest present forbearance and mercy be but a reprieve, and will end at last in greater misery: however, I find it hard, if not impossible, to come to any certainty of actual pardon and salvation. Sect. 15. And while I am thus uncertain of pardon and the love of God, it must needs make it an insuperable difficulty to me, to love God above myself and all things: for to love a God that I think will damn me, or most probably may do it, for aught I know, is a thing that man can hardly do. Sect. 16. And therefore I cannot see how the guilty world can be sanctified, or brought to forsake the sin and vanities which they love, as long as God, whom they must turn to by love, doth seem so unlovely to them. Sect. 17. And every temptation from present pleasure, commodity, or honour, will be likely to prevail, while the love of God, and the happiness to come, are so dark and doubtful, to guilty, misgiving, ignorant souls. Sect. 18. Nor can I see by nature how a sinner can live Ah! nimium faciles, qui tristia crimina cædis In malis sperare bonum, nisi innocens nemo solet.-Sen. Turpe est quicquam mali perpetrare; bene autem agere nullo periculo proposito, multorum est: id vero proprium boni viri est, etiam cum periculo suo honestatem in agentem sequi.-Plut. in Mario. At mens sibi conscia facti Præmetuens, adhibet stimulos, terretque flagellis : Nec videt interea qui terminus esse malorum Possit, nec qui sit pœnarum denique finis. Atque eadem metuit magis hæcne in morte gravescant.-Lucret. 3. comfortably in the world, for want of clearer assurance of his future happiness. For if he do but say, as poor Seneca, Cicero, and others such, It is most likely that there is another life for us, but we are not sure,' it will both abate their comfort in the fore-thoughts of it, and tempt them to venture upon present pleasure, for fear of losing all. And if they were ever so confident of the life to come, and had no assurance of their own part in it, as not knowing whether their sins be pardoned, still their comfort in it would be small. And the world can give them no more than is proportionable to so small and momentary a thing. Sect. 19. Nor do I see in nature any full and suitable support against the pain and fears of sufferings and death, while men doubt of that which should support them. Sect. 20. I must therefore conclude that the light and law of nature, which was suitable to uncorrupted reason and will, and to an undepraved mind, is too insufficient to the corrupted, vitiated, guilty world, and that there is a necessity of some recovering, medicinal revelation. Which forced the very heathens to fly to oracles, idols, sacrifices, and religious propitiations of the gods, there being scarcely any nation which had not some such thing, though they used them, not only ineffectually, but to the increase of their sin and strengthening their presumption, as too many poor ignorant Christians now do their masses and other such formalities and superstitions. But as Arnobius saith, (Adv. Gentes,' 1. 7,) Crescit enim multitudo peccantium; cum redemendi peccati spes datur; et facile itur ad culpas, ubi est venalis ignoscentium gratia. He that hopeth to purchase forgiveness with money, or sacrifices, or ways of cost, will strive rather to be rich than to be innocent. CHAP. II. Of the several Religions which are in the World. HAVING finished my inquiries into the state and book of nature, I found it my duty to inquire what other men thought in the world, and what were the reasons of their several beliefs, that if they knew more than I had discovered, by what means soever, I might become partaker of it. Sect. 1. And, first, I find that all the world, except those called heathens, are conscious of the necessity of supernatural revelation; yea, the heathens themselves have some common apprehension of it. Sect. 2. Four sorts of religions I find only considerable upon earth; the mere naturalists, commonly called heathens and idolaters, the Jews, the Mahometans, and the Christians, The heathens, by their oracles, augurs, and auspices, confess the necessity of some supernatural light; and the very religion of all the rest consisteth in it. Sect. 3, I. As for the heathens, I find this much good among them; that some of them have had a very great care of their souls; and many have used exceeding industry in seeking after knowledge, especially in the mysteries of the works of God; and some of them have bent their minds higher to know God, and the invisible worlds; that they commonly thought that there is a life of retribution after death, and among the wisest of them, the sum of that is to be found, though confusedly, which I have laid down in the first part of this book, Especially in Seneca, Cicero, Plutarch, Plato, Plotinus, Jamblicus, Proclus, Porphyry, Julian the apostate, Antoninus, Epictetus, Arrian, &c.: and for their learning and wisdom, and moral virtues, the christian bishops carried themselves respectfully to many of them, as Basil to Libanius, &c. And in their days many of their philosophers were honoured by the christian emperors, or at least by the inferior magistrates and christian people, who judged that so great worth deserved honour, and that the confession of so much truth deserved answerable love, especially Adesius, Julianus, Cappadox, Proæresius, Maximus, Libanius, Acacius, Chrysanthus, &c.; and the Christians ever since have made great use of their writings in their schools, especially of Aristotle's and Plato's, with their followers.h Sect. 4. And I find that the idolatry of the wisest of them was not so foolish as that of the vulgar, but they thought that the universe was one animated world, and that the universal soul was the only absolute, sovereign God, whom they described much the same as Christians do; and that the sun, and stars, and earth, Eunapius saith, that Constantine so honoured Sopater the philosopher, that he made him usually sit by him on the same bench. Surely the philosophers were falsely reported to Theoph. Antioch. ad Autol. (1. 2. p. 137,) when he saith, that Zeno's, Diogenes', and Cleanthes' books, do, teach to eat man's flesh, and fathers to be roasted and eaten by the children, and sacrificed by them, &c. Belying one another hath been the devil's means to destroy charity on earth.' and each particular orb, was an individual animal, part of the universal world; and, besides the universal, had each one a subordinate, particular soul, which they worshipped as a subordinate, particular deity, as some Christians do the angels: and their images they set up for such representations, by which they thought these gods delighted to be remembered, and instrumentally to exercise their virtues for the help of earthly mortals. Sect. 5. I find that, except these philosophers, and very few more, the generality of the heathens were and are foolish idolaters, and ignorant, sensual, brutish men.' At this day, through the world, they are that sort of men that are most like unto beasts, except some few at Siam, China, the Indian Bannians, the Japonians, the Ethnic Persians, and a few more. The greatest deformity of nature is among them; the least of sound knowledge, true policy, civility, and piety, is among them; abominable wickedness doth nowhere so much abound. So that if the doctrine and judgment of these may be judged of by the effect, it is most insufficient to heal the diseased world, and reduce man to holiness, sobriety, and honesty. I find, that those few among the heathens, who attain to more knowledge in the things which concern man's duty and happiness than the rest, do commonly destroy all again by the mixture of some dotages and impious conceits.k The literati in China excel in many things, but besides abundance of ignorance in philosophy, they destroy all, by denying the immortality of the soul, and affirming rewards and punishments to be only in this life, or but a little longer: at least, none but the souls of the good, say some of them, survive. iSed nescio quomodo, nil tam absurdè dici potest, quod non dicatur ab aliquo philosophorum.-Cic. Divin. 1. 2. p. 188. * Sed hæc eadem num censes apud eos ipsos valere, nisi admodum paucos à quibus inventa, disputata, conscripta sunt? Quotus enim quisque philosophorum invenitur, qui sit ita moratus, ita animo ac vitâ constitutus, ut ratio postulat? Qui disciplinam suam, non ostentationem scientiæ, sed legem vitæ putet? Qui obtemperet ipse sibi, et decretis suis pareat? Videre licet alios tanta levitate et jactatione, ut iis fuerit non didicisse melius; alios pecuniæ cupidos, gloriæ nonnullos, multos libidinum servos: Ut cum [eorum vita mirabiliter pugnet oratio; quod quidem mihi videtur turpissimum. Ut enim si grammaticum se professus quispiam barbarè loquatur, aut si absurdè canat is, qui se haberi velit musicum; hoc turpior sit, quòd in eo ipso peccet, cujus profitetur scientiam. Sic philosophus in ratione vitæ peccans, hoc turpior est, quod in officio, cujus magister esse vult, labitur, artemque vitæ professus, delinquit in vita.-Cic. Tuscul. 1. 2. p. 252. And though they confess one God, they give him no solemn worship. Their sect, called Sciequia, or Siacca, is very clear for the unity of the Godhead, the joys of heaven, and the torments of hell, with some umbrage of the trinity, &c. But they blot out all with their Pythagorean fopperies, affirming these souls which were in joy or misery, after a certain space, to be sent again into bodies, and so to continue through frequent changes to eternity, to say nothing of the wickedness of their lives. Their third sect, called Lauru, is not worth the naming; as being composed of fopperies, and sorceries, and impostures. All the Japonian sects, also, make the world to be eternal, and souls to be perpetuated through infinite transmigrations. The Siamenses, who seem to be the best of all, and nearest like the Christians, have many fopperies, and worship the devil for fear, as they do God for love. The Indian Bramenes, or Bannians, also, have the Pythagorean errors, and place their piety in redeeming brutes, because they have souls which sometimes were human. The Persians, dispersed in India, who confess God, and heaven, and hell, yet think that these are but of a thousand years' duration. And it is above a thousand years since they believed that the world should continue for a thousand years, and then souls be released from hell, and a new world made. Sect. 7. Their great darkness and uncertainties appear by the innumerable sects and differences which are among them; which are incomparably more numerous than all that are found in all parties in the world besides. I need not tell you of the two hundred and eighty-eight sects or opinions, de summo bono, which Varro said was in his days. The difference which you may find in Laertius, Hesechius, and others, between the cynics, peripatetics, academics, stoics, sceptics, Epicureans, &c., with all their subdivisions, are enough. In Japan, the twelve sects have their subdivisions. In China, the three general sects have so many subdivisions, that Verenius saith of them, "Singuli fontes labentibus paulatim seculis, à fraudum magistris in tot mæandros derivati sunt, ut sub triplici nomine trecentæ mihi sectæ inter se discrepantes numerari posse videantur: sed et hæ quotidianis incrementis augentur, et in pejus ruunt." Petrus Texeira saith of the Indians, " In regno Gazeratensi varii sunt ritus et sectæ incolarum, et quod mirum, vix familiam invenias in quâ omnes congruant: alii comedunt carnem, alii nequaquam; alii comedunt quidem, sed non mactant |