CHAP. work, especially bis own Image, muft first proI. ceed from him perfect and compleat, lacking no thing; being the Oeds Evomos prefiding over the little, and great World fubjected to him under God. That the Body, and Soul (the latter confifting of Life and Spirit) being called together and united in the Conftitution of an human, intelligent, free Agent; their feveral Properties were proportioned to each other, and adjusted in order, according to their Ufe and Dignity; and fo united in Action by all the laws of Harmony, as might beft adorn, and render fuch an Union most enjoyable. That all the Faculties were perfect and entire in their kind; the Understanding seeing with its Eye the natural Perfections of God, and his Creatures, and the natural Law of Obligations flowing from the Relations and Habitudes of the moral World, as clearly as the Eye of the Body perceived outward Objects; the Will unbiafs'd in its Liberty, exactly poifed, and inclined to obey any Command of its Maker; the Paffions at their feveral Pofts, to meet and entertain their Objects; the Law of the Members all fubmiffive to their Leader. Whence follows, in a natural infeparable Refult, for fome time of Life at least, a State of Innocence, Order, and Harmony; fufficient to have conftituted a Paradife in any Place, had there not been a particular local one for their Entertainment. Secondly, Ir is a felf evident Truth, and Matter of Fact, felt by every Man, and complained of by moft Moralifts with a Sort of Wonder; that a State of Disorder, Weaknefs, and Unconftancy has, from the most ancient Complaints, confirmed by the Experience of every Age, feized all the Faculties of Man. Many of the Heathen Philofophers I. Philofophers were fo fenfible of this univerfal CHAP. Depravation of Soul, and Degeneracy from the. divine Life and Original of our Being, that they invented the Hypothefis of the Pre-existent State of Souls, in order to folve it; by acquitting God from being the Author of it, and imputing it to the Demerit of Sin in fome former State, imagining this bodily Life to be the Prifon and Punishment of the Soul for thofe Cirmes. It has been Man's general Obfervation and Complaint of himself in all Places, that he often does what he approves not in his Mind; that fome old VOL. L. Leaven C • Video meliora proboq; deteriora fequor. Arrian Epict. Lib.II. cap. 26. Arift. Eth. Lib. I. cap. 13. III. 4. Seneca has many, and Tully fome of thefe Complaints. The Chinese Philofopher Confufius's Morals, pag. 21, 23. declares the Inte grity of Man to have been a Present from Heaven, and that it was his Endeavour to re-establish it; but that the Holy Man was in the Weft, in queft of whom one of the Emperors fent Ambaffadors, A. D. 65. who landing in one of the Iflands near the Red-Sea met with the Idol of Fobi, contented themfelves with that, carried it back to China, which has establish'd Idolatry and Atheism ever fince. But above all Heathens, Plato is as particular as if he had read the Scriptures; he fays, in Critica," the Divine Nature once flourish'd in Man, but "Man prevail'd againft it, from which Fountain came all "our Evils." In his Polit. "That the Nature and Condition "of Man has been changed for the worfe, and a prodigious "Ungovernablenefs has invaded Mankind, and that weak Men, deprived of their Guardian, are every where devour"ed by the wild Beafts of their Paffions." In Leg. Lib. V. That this great Evil is innate, upure; when Men indulge themselves in it, they find no Remedy to free themfelves. He calls this Malignity of Nature xaxoquia. And in Timeo ingenuously confeffes, that our Nature was corrupted in the firft of our Race, iv Ty nepaλn. And Rep. VII. derives the Igno rance of Man from that Source. And his Scholar Ariftotle molt acutely demonftrates Ignorance to be the Caufe of all Sin. Eth. Lib. III. cap. 1. And in a Book of Tully now loft, In libro tertio de Republica Tullius, hominem dicit, non ut à matre, fed ut à noverca naturâ editum in vitam, corpore nudo, fra I. CHAP. Leaven works a Nitimur in vetitum, an Inclination gili et infirmo, animo autem anxio ad moleftias, humili ad St. Rom. vii. 14, 15. Our Author, pag. 221. makes a very fpiteful Infinuation from these last Words, as spoke in his own Perfon, to reflect upon the Apostle as a very wicked Perfon, whilft he was in that Office; and every where most injudiciously, or against his Confcience, quits the Meaning, catches at the Sound of Words, to gratify his Spleen in afperfing the Holy Scripture. Though the Words run in his own Perfon, they are certainly meant, and can only be true, of the corrupted natural Man; and the unregenerated Jew, described in feveral preceding Chapters: That he chofe that Method of Expreffion, was owing to his Knowledge of human Nature, and his great Skill in addreffing thofe he spoke, or wrote to. See more Inftances of the like inoffenfive Way of Address of this Apostle, Rom. vii. 24, 25. iii. 7. 1 Cor. x. 21, 29. Eph. ii. 3. 1 Cor. i. 12, compared with Chap. iv. 6. Hand I. Hand in it, than by permitting, as became him, CHAP. his free, changeable Creature Man to act according to his Nature, and make Ufe of the Liberty he had entrusted him with, at his own Difcretion. Now, if this mighty Alteration came to pass, our Author muft either have accounted for it according to the Mofaical Hiftory of the Fall of our first Parents, or have produced fome other Hiftory and Account of it. But he is accountable to, and very culpable before all his Readers, in particular, for the grand Fallacy, the prov eúdos of his whole Book; for establishing as a Principle, and every where repeating it as the fcientifick Premife he adheres to, for all his Inferences against Revelation in general, and Christianity in particular; viz. "That a Religion abfolutely perfect (meaning the Law of Nature immediately established by God at the very firft Creation, iffuing out of the Relations of Things then made, as he every where + explains himself) "admits of no Alteration; nor is capable of Ad"dition, or Diminution, must be as immutable as "the Author of it. Revelation therefore can "add nothing to a Religion thus abfolutely perfect, univerfal and immutable." AGAIN," Religion thus founded on these "immutable Relations, muft at all Times, and "in all Places, be alike immutable; fince exter"nal Revelation not being able to make any Change in thefe Relations, and the Duties that "neceffarily refult from them, can only recom"mend and inculcate thefe Duties; except we fuppofe, that God at last acted the Tyrant, "and impofed fuch Commands, as the Relations Pag. 3, 49, 52. + Pag. 17, 51, 54, 166, 385. C. 2 I. CHAP. "we ftand in to him, and one another, no ways "require;" pag. 166. Again, he has the Affurance to put the Question, contrary to Fact and Experience; "Will any affirm that the Na"ture of Man is changed? Or that the Relations "God and Man ftand in to one another, are not always the fame?" pag. 385. But this mighty Reafoner, who deduces the Immutability of his Religion from the Immutability of the Relation between God and Man,ought furely to have confider'd better, whether Man, the defcending Part of the Relation, is as immutable as God: Was he indeed made fo, his Conclufion would have been infallible; but, as it happens, that God is only wife and immutable, and Man otherwife, it has juft fo much Truth in it, and no more, than one manifeft Falfhood following from another. For upon the first Commencement of the above-mentioned Change, a new Relation commenced between God and Man, which fubfifted not before: between an Offender and Offended, a Law-giver and a Sinner, a Governor and a Rebel and out of that Relation arofe a new Regard and Interpofition on God's Part; and on Man's, new Obligations and Duties, neither of which were before. OUR Author, pag. 91. allows, "To alter "one's Conduct, as Circumftances alter, is not "only an Act of the greatest Prudence and Judg ment, but is confiftent with the greatest Sted"dinefs." How then will it impeach God of Changeableness, when upon fuch a Change in Man, he is ftill as fteddy to his Happiness, in a Way fuitable to that Alteration, as he was at the first creating him? A Revelation from God does not therefore make him mutable, as he fays, pag. 51. nor does it change the Relations of Things, |