this inference, and you must grant it, that the motives of reason are not utterly insufficient for this purpose, if they have been effectual to bring but here and there one to practise religion, and thereby lead them to the divine favour. And if it be sufficient for a few, why not for all who have the same natural faculties? Be PITH. Will you please, Sir, to resume your own inference, and apply it thus? Reason has been sufficient in an Euclid to trace out a noble scheme of geometrical theorems; in a Locke to write an excellent Essay on Human Understanding; and in a Virgil to compose an admirable Heroic Poem: will you infer therefore that reason in all men is sufficient to frame geometrical schemes, write fine essays and heroic poems? Will this conclusion hold, Sir? Can all mankind become Lockes, and Euclids, and Virgils Remember, good Sir, we are debating about such a sufficiency as may render all mankind holy and happy. Not that I suppose it is a hard to trace out religion as it is to be a Locke or an Euclid; but this application of your argument shews how weak the inference is: and though here and there one may happen to do it, it will not follow, that all mankind can do the same. sides, Sir, this small number, this here and there one, that you speak of, who had been led by reason to religion, are found only perhaps in European nations, or in western Asia, where they have had correspondence with Jews or christians, or have received some traditional notices, or hints of divine revelation, without which, I much question, whether there would have been, in fact, one truly religious man in the world: So that it is to the notices and fragments of revelation, conveyed to men from Noah, or Job, or Abraham, or the Jews, or from some other inspired person, that I ascribe the real godliness of any person among the Gentile nations, rather than to the mere force of human reason in its present degenerate state: For I much question, whether you can inform me of one person, one single person, of true piety and virtue in the wilds of Africa or America, in all their nations, and in many past ages, unless they have had some assistances from persons of other nations who had acquaintance with revelation. LOG. What! will not you allow one good man to have been found, for several ages, among all these heathen nations, without revelation? That is hard indeed: Doth not such a degree of uncharitableness border upon cruelty? Can you think the God of mercy is so cruel, as your present sentiments represent him? PITH. Sir, if it were a proper place here, I could shew you, that this representation of things is very agreeable to the language of God in his sacred writings, and yet he is a God of mercy still. still. But we shall have occasion to enter into this argument, when you come to talk upon the equity and goodness of God. At present I content myself to say, that since very few in any heathen countries, after the division of the world into Jews and Gentiles, in the days of Moses, have been truly religious persons, in comparison with the multitudes under the light of divine revelation, it is evident, that reason has not this sufficiency to enforce the practice of religion, in any tolerable proportion, to what revelation or scripture has; and therefore, in a comparative sense, it may well be called insufficient, while revelation is justly called sufficient in this sense. LOG. Well then, Sir, you seem to acknowledge a degree of insufficiency in revelation itself, since it is but comparatively sufficient. PITH. I am not in pain to grant this, Sir, that scripture itself, or the gospel of Christ, considered merely as a written book, or as a mere system of doctrines, rules, and motives, doth not pretend to such a complete and powerful sufficiency of itself: That is, though in itself it has a vast superiority to all other rules and motives, yet it pretends not to such an effectual influence over the hearts of men, in opposition to all present temptations, and the powers of flesh and sense, by the mere outward proposal of its motives without the promised aids of the Holy Spirit. It is this heavenly influence that renders even the gospel-motives so efficacious. It is to the aids of this superior grace of God, concurring with the revelation of the gospel, that the primitive preachers and defenders of christianity direct their disciples in order to obtain victory over their sensual and vicious inclinations; Rom. viii. 13. If by the Spirit ye mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. It is to the operations of the Holy Spirit of God, or the agency of God by his Spirit, that they ascribe the mighty change of their natures from vice to virtue, from sin to holiness, and purity of heart and life, which is called regeneration, or being born of God. 1 Pet. i. 22. Ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth by the Spirit. 1 John ii. 29. Every one that doth righteousness is born of God. And iii. 9. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, that is, freely, and readily, and frequently as before. It is he that is born of God that overcometh the world in all the allurements of flesh and 1 John v. 4. And this, in the language of our Saviour, is being born of the Spirit; John iii. 5, 6. If the Corinthians were sanctified from their vices of heart and life, it is by the Spirit of our God; 1 Cor. vi. 11. If the Thessalonians are brought to salvation, it is through sanctification of the Spirit, as well as belief of the truth; 2 Thess. ii. 13. Even all the important discoveries of divine motives contained in the gospel, which St. Paul calls the weapons of his warfare; 2 Cor. x. 4. and which are mighty to the pulling down of strong holds of sin in the heart, it is only through God; that is, through the present power of God. And St. Paul tells us, in Rom. viii. 26. it is the Spirit of God that helpeth our infirmities, and teaches us to pray; and the aids of this Spirit are promised to them who seek it. Luke xi. 13. Your heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him. LOG. But why this long bead-roll of your scriptures cited to me, who doubt of the truth of them, and cannot yet believe any thing so sacred and divine in them as you imagine? PITH. I hope, Sir, you will permit the first preachers and teachers of our religion to know what their own doctrine is, with out determining whether it be divine or not: and I cite them for no other purpose but to shew you, that they themselves acknowledge that the glorious sufficiency, which even the blessed gospel of Christ has to conduct and bring souls to heaven, in a way of religion, does not arise only from the strength that its motives have, as powerful as they are, to persuade the heart of man to practise true religion, in opposition to all manner of temptations, but it arises also from the promised aids of grace, or supernatural influences of the blessed Spirit, concurring with the moral influence of these motives. LOG. I see we are now running into enthusiasm apace. I hoped we should have none of this kind of discourse here. Pray tell us, Pithander, what does this divine Spirit do to make men religious, more than give them this gospel, or confirm the truth of it, as you suppose, by gifts and wonders? PITH. If it would not lead us too far from our present subject, perhaps I could set this matter in a very rational light. At present, I shall only say, that in some unknown way and manner, it may either give further light to the understanding, or a secret bias and propensity to the will, or, at least, it may set these motives, both of reason and revelation before the soul in a stronger and more persuasive view, and by this means effectually prevail with the man to become thoroughly religious. Loc. But may not the poor heathens in the dark regions of the earth, who are left to the mere instructions of nature and reason, and have fewer advantages than the christians pretend to; I say, may not these poor wretches be favoured by a merciful God with some such assistances from heaven, to help them in their enquiries after religion and happiness, and to assist them in their endeavours to practise the one, and obtain the other? Will a merciful God bestow such inward assistances on those who have so much outward light, and yet give none at all of it to those who sit in darkness. PITH. I thank you, Logisto, that you feel yourself reduced so far as to make this enquiry; to which I shall offer these two plain replies. First, I will by no means deny, that ever God favours the heathens with this blessing. And, doubtless, such is the beneficent and compassionate nature of the blessed God, favour or displeasure of God, and from everlasting happiness and misery in a future state, are traced out by reason in the heathen world, though they are not all set in their full light and strength, but arise only to a degree of doubtful probability, yet they may be called, in some sense, naturally sufficient to enforce the practice of religion; and the reason is plain, because even the mere probability of the love or anger of an almighty Being, and of an eternal state of misery or happiness, ought to overbalance all our present views of certain pleasure or certain uneasiness, which belong to this short and perishing life; and so they ought to incline a reasonable man to chuse the hardships of virtue, with the love of God, and the probable or doubtful hopes of eternal peace, and to refuse the pleasures of vice, with the anger of God, and the probable danger or fear of eternal pain. III. Though I allow the sufficiency of reason to enforce the practice of virtue and piety in this sense, yet when we consider how very little influence it has ever had, even in polite nations, to reform the world, or to render men truly religious, and no influence at all, so far as we can find, in the darker corners of the earth, those habitations of atheism, idolatry, and cruclty, I think we can account it little more than a mere speculative and notional sufficiency, arising from the nature of things; but since it is confirmed by experience of success in so very few, if any evident instances, it can scarce be called a practical sufficiency to bring men to heaven in a way of religion, where it acts, or rather sleeps, in such a manner as to let whole nations of miserable mankind run on in the practice of shameful vices, from one generation to another, thoughtless of the true God, virtue, and religion, and careless about his love or his anger in a future state. Upon the whole, I think, we must conclude, that since human reason in a remote and speculative sense, may be sufficient to guide and conduct all mankind to religion and future happiness, Logisto is so far in the right, and may be allowed to say, reason is sufficient. But since, in a practical or experimental sense, we find reason has scarce any, or rather no sufficiency to attain these ends, Pithander may continue to maintain his opinion also, that reason is insufficient; yet it ought to be remembered, that it is in this sense only, and with this limitation. Whensoever therefore I read any christian writers, who are men of good understanding and of moderate principles, asserting that human reason in heathen nations, is not sufficient to guide and conduct men to happiness in a way of religion, I take them to mean, such a practical insufficiency as I have distinguished and described here: And in this sense I would understand the bishop of London in his Second Pastoral Letter, when he declares reason to be insufficient, as well as Dr. Clarke in his Discourse of revealed religion: And when I hear of other christian authors, or preachers, maintaining the sufficiency of reason for this purpose, I would suppose, they mean no more than such a natural and remote sufficiency, which will scarce ever become really effectual without revelation, and especially in the rude and barbarous nations of the earth. Though I must confess, it would better guard their expressions on both sides, from mistake, since the controversy is on foot, if they pleased to use some such distinction or limitation, when they pronounced either upon the strength or weakness of human reason, and neither called it absolutely sufficient or absolutely insufficient for the purposes of religion and happiness. And I am ready to persuade myself, Logisto by this time is almost inclined to believe, that natural reason unassisted in all mankind, is not proximately and practically sufficient, to make them holy and happy here and hereafter. Thus it happens sometimes, that huge controversies may be allayed and silenced, and contending parties reconciled, by a plain and easy distinction. "Hi Motus animorum, atque hæc certamina tanta VIRG. And if things do really stand in the light in which I have endeavoured to set them, if reason has only such a remote and speculative sufficiency, to guide and conduct sinful mankind to happiness in a way of religion, if there are so very few, if any, who were ever guided and conducted by it alone to happiness, then there is a most evident necessity of brighter light, clearer discoveries of duty, stronger motives and assistances, superior to what reason can furnish us with, to make mankind truly wise and blessed; and this light and these motives, and assistances are eminently to be found in the religion of Christ. LOG. How much soever I may be inclined to receive your opinion, Sophronius, and to abide by your determination in this controversy, yet I cannot. think fit to declare myself roundly and positively upon this subject, till I have tried the force of all the arguments which I have in reserve: But perhaps you will think it too much to enter upon any new topics at present. SOPH. Well then, gentlemen, I would propose at present to relieve the fatigue of intense thinking, and close debate: And at the same time, in order to confirm what I have offered about the practical insufficiency of reason in matters of religion, permit me to read two short manuscripts, which I brought hither to entertain you this evening, since I found your debate yesterday ran very much upon the sufficiency of reason, even in the most ignorant nations, to lead them to religion and happiness. The manuscripts are nothing but a short abstract of all the sense of religion that I could find in history among the northern Americans, |
