him for his goodness, or to pray to him and depend on him for his further blessing, when their whole nation has continued in this constant course of impiety from age to age, without remorse? when none of them have been ever led so far by their own reason, as to know these duties, and bind them upon their own consciences? And suppose they should be made sensible, that they have now and then cheated their neighbours by lying and falsehood, that they have plundered or stole their goods from them, or that they have been sometimes shamefully drunk, or guilty of fornication; yet their consciences will bring but a very feeble charge against them for these thing as criminal, if they have not been evidently convinced, that truth and justice, chastity and temperance were necessary duties.

And yet further Logisto, be pleased to consider, that if they should be never so much convinced that they have done amiss in drinking to excess, because it injures themselves, or in doing any kind of injury to their neighbour; yet they would not readi ly conclude that they did any injury to God hereby; since their reason has not yet led them to the thought, that God is the great Inspector and Governor of the world, and that he has in any way and manner forbid these sins, or required the contrary du ties. Nor is it any wonder that a rude American should justify himself and his conduct from any dishonours done to God, though he has forgot and neglected him all his life, and has wallowed in lewd and drunken debaucheries, unless he has also been guilty of some most flagrant acts of impiety, injustice, and villainy. Such very flagrant and notorious crimes, perhaps might recoil upon his conscience, and smite him with conviction. But as for the multitudes of common sins, a wild savage in the African or American regions would take no notice of them, but think himself and his neighbours good and innocent enough. Nor is this at all strange, since the rude herd of mankind, even amongst christians, are ready to say when a neighbour dies; "Alas, poor man! he is gone but surely he is gone to heaven; for though he did not mind much of religion indeed, yet he was an honest creature, he would not wrong a man of a farthing, and he was ever ready to do his neighbour a kindness: It is true, he would drink now and then a little too much, nor was he always so careful to speak truth, and perhaps he would swear when he was in a passion, but never when he was sober; he was no man's enemy but his own, and did no injury but to himself." Now if this gross ignorance, and senselessness of sin, be found even in the lands of christian knowledge, we may easily suppose the poor savages will hardly think themselves sinners against God at all.

LOG. I own what you say Pithander, has some weight in it; though you must acknowledge too, that there are certainly some secret workings of conscience in all men, which give them some

inward notices, when they violate the rule of their duty, especially in grosser instances, and smite them with an inward reproach, though it may not be so frequent, nor in so explicit a manner, as I was ready to imagine, before we had talked over this matter so particularly.

PITH. I have granted it, Sir; and it is very likely, at some seasons of grosser transgression, or when their natural spirits are low, they may feel such inward reproaches of conscience more plain and pungent: But having no fixed and settled rules of duty, these little uneasinesses quickly vanish, like a qualm of sickness that passes over the stomach; they forget their own iniquities, and they are prone to fancy, that God forgets them too: And thus they go on again to their old barbarity and injustice, their gluttony and drunkenness. I grant this conduct is greatly criminal, yet it is the common case, till by degrees, conscience grows callous and insensible, and they sin without

remorse.

Loo. I confess when we observe so little of the workings of conscience in men, to convince them of sin, in such a knowing and rational land and age as ours, when we observe how much the voice of conscience is neglected, and how easily it is silenced, when we find it grows hard and stupid by degrees, and at last permits men without any remorse, to commit all villainies, in spite of all the remonstrances of God and man, it is no wonder that conscience has a very feeble influence in such wild, and unknowing, and unpolished countries, where irreligion and intemperance are the custom and fashion from generation to generation.

PITH. Well then, Sir, since you allow me this, please to proceed, and inform me, how they shall come to know, if they shall be once convinced of sin, that they must repent of it; that is, be sorry for it, and abstain from it?

LOG. This repentance is the most natural and obvious practice that the reason of man can dictate to him, to appease an offended God: It is going as far as he can, to undo that evil he hath done; and therefore the reason of every man would conduct him to penitence under a sense of past sin.

PITH. But we do not find this duty towards God has been so constantly taught, or practised so very much by human reason, even among the philosophers and the inhabitants of Rome or Athens, as to imagine that the Indian savages should prescribe this duty to themselves. Though here and there a wise man might mention repentance as a duty, yet it is evident the polite nations of heathenism were generally for offering sacrifices of one kind or other, to make compensation for their crimes, without much solicitude or care about repentance as a duty to God, and a watchful care of a better obedience. And in these parts of America where they make pretences to any sense

of religion, it was a frequent thing, as the Spanish writers of the country of Mexico inform us, to seek out some beautiful girl, and offer her a sacrifice to their offended idols, when they thought their gods were angry with them: penitence and reformation, virtue, and piety of heart and life, are little thought of among wild heathens as the means of obtaining divine pardon, or as necessary for that end.

LOG. I confess, my friend, you put me in mind of many histories which I have read, not only of heathen but of popish countries, where the doctrine and practice of penances and sacri fices, and rich offerings to saints and idols, gods and goddesses, are the immediate remedy to which men apply themselves after sin, and which papists and heathens make their ready refuge, after a sense of guilt, rather than to practise the inward and spiritual duties of repentance and mortification, and maintain a future course of watchful holiness.

PITH. Let us drop this point then, Sir; and now I entreat you to prove, that if a heathen should truly repent, and be sorry for his sin, even as it is committed against God, and should endeavour to perform his duty better for time to come, will his reason assure him, that God will forgive his sin, receive him to his favour, and make him happy?

LOG. Yes, certainly Pithander, he need not doubt it; for if doing evil be the only foundation of God's displeasure, ceasing to do evil, or returning to do well, must take away that displeasure. God is too good a being, not to approve and forgive such a penitent. And not only the goodness, but even the wisdom of God would oblige him to forgive those who repent, since the sinner then becomes what God in his wisdom requires him to be: Whereas if God punished him, it could only be with a design to correct him, and make him pious and virtuous for time to come: But when this happy end is attained without punishment, there is then no need of it: And God has no cruelty in his nature, to incline him to punish a creature without necessity.

PITH. To this I answer, That the correction or amendment of the particular offender, is not the only end of punishment, but the vindication of the wisdom and justice of the law-giver, and his law, which are like to be insulted, and the laws continually broken afresh, if offences were always passed by with impunity, and if the criminal were always pardoned upon repentance. It is necessary for a governor sometimes to teach his subjects what an evil thing it is to trangress his law, by the proper punishment of those who offend. The honour and authority of government must be sometimes supported and vindicated by such severities: And though it may please a sovereign sometimes to pardon an offender out of his great goodness, when he is truly penitent for

his crime, yet no degrees of penitence can assure the offender that he shall certainly and entirely be forgiven, or can claim forgiveness at the hand of the sovereign; because repentance makes no recompence at all for the dishonour done to the authority of the law, and of him that made it. His future obedience is all due, if he had never sinned; and therefore it cannot compensate for past neglects and transgressions.

LOG. But when sinful man is truly penitent for his faults, itis the best thing that a creature can do in sinful circumstances, and the best recompence that he can make to an offended God, who is a righteous and merciful Governor, and will require no more than a sinner can give.

PITH. But a sinner can dare panas, suffer punishment, to make a sort of compensation, by forfeiting and losing his peace, and thus doing honour to the law in a passive nranner, when he would not do it by active obedience. Suppose, Sir, if I dare suppose a thing almost impossible, that so worthy a gentleman, and so loyal a subject as Logisto, should rebel against his present Majesty King George the Second, should murder a fellowsubject, or violate any of the laws of the land by a capital crime, and after he had continued some time in a vicious course, he should repent, and assure his majesty, that for time to come he would be a very faithful subject, has he sufficient ground to claim or to expect a pardon, merely because he is sorry for what he has done, and resolved sincerely to do so no more? King George is indeed a man of mercy, but would that repentance of yours be any reparation for the injury you have done to the autho rity of the king or the welfare of the state? Do you not know, Sir, shat the government takes no cognizance of such repentances? Even the most sincere penitent cannot claim a right to have his treason pardoned. Government requires that criminals be punished to maintain the authority of the law and the law-givers : The life of the criminal is forfeited and due to the state: Criminals must be made examples of justice, that the honour of government may be maintained, and that other subjects, who see or hear of this punishment, may be secured in their obedience and duty, by such public examples of punishment and terror.

Now to apply this to the case in hand: The great God sufficiently makes it appear, in the conduct of his providence, and in his government of the world, that he does not punish offending creatures merely to promote their own correction, repentance and reformation. How many thousands of sinful men are cut off by earthquakes, famine, pestilence, inundations, &c. and sent down to the grave, where there is no reformation or repentance? How many sinners, who have been already truly penitent and reformed, have borne these desolating testimonies of the displeasure of God against sin, and felt a heavy share of these VOL. III. D

public calamities? Nay, have there not been some of the most virtuous and holy creatures upon earth now and then given up by the providence of God, not only to common calamities, but to peculiar miseries and smarting sorrows, as just tokens of divine resentment for some past sins? And their own consciences have acknowledged the justice of it. God will magnify his law and make it honourable, and will make. even penitent sinners know what an evil and bitter thing it is to offend his majesty, and break his laws. And as it has pleased the righteous Governor of the universe to make even penitent offenders sometimes instances of his just displeasure against sin in this world, that other inhabitants of the earth may see, and fear, and obey, so how do we know, how far the several orders of angels or inhabitants of other worlds, shall be witnesses of the punishment of guilty mortals in the invisible or future state, and be thereby deterred from sin? The repentance of a criminal is no recompence to God, considered as the universal Governor of his intellectual creatures: His supreme authority must be maintained, and his honour be vindicated through his universal empire: And how can heathens assure themselves by the mere light of reason, that the wisdom of his government doth not find it necessary to make all the criminals of the human race become some way or other examples of his just resentment? It is only divine revelation that informs us with any certainty, that man shall find forgiveness with God, and that pardon shall follow repentance.

LOG. Do you not allow then, my friend, that the light of nature can go so far as to say, it is at least probable, that God will forgive a repenting sinner, though reason may not make it certain?

PITH. I confess some things which Sophronius delivered concerning the hope of pardon for repenting sinners, in confirmation at his scheme of natural religion, at the beginning of this conference, have great weight with me. Though I am sure repentance cannot claim pardon on the sinner's part at the hand of God, yet I know not how strong a claim the wisdom and mercy of God may bring against the full execution of justice in such a case. God may forgive a sinner in part, and release him, in some degree from the complete demerit and punishment of his sin, though he does not forgive him entirely. The learned Dr. Clarke, though he makes but little of original sin, yet in vol. II. serm. ix. page 198. he says, We are the posterity of a sinful parent, and ourselves also are actual sinners; and at best we are but very imperfect and undeserving penitents, and our utmost endeavours of repentance can at most but afford ground of hope for the abatement of punishment, and not any expectation of

reward.

But let us suppose and allow, that it is probable God will at