THE THIRD CONFERENCE.

IN the days that passed after the last meeting, Logisto had been reviewing several books which have been written in vindication of the sufficiency of human reason to conduct men to happiness in a way of religion; and as he had renewed his own difficulties, so he had furnished his memory with some of their strongest arguments: but he found none so hard to answer, as that great and important one, which is derived from the wisdom, the equity, and the goodness of God; upon which account he resolved to reserve this to the last. When his company were come, he led them down to the usual place of learned conversation, and began the conference thus ;

LOG. The only thing that remains before us, gentlemen, is,. that I should propose some arguments, drawn from the reason of things, and from the nature of God, and man, why it appears necessary that the principle of human reason should be sufficient, in all mankind, to guide and conduct them to the belief and practice of such a religion, wherein they may obtain the favour of God, and happiness in a future state.

PITH. I wait with some impatience, Sir, to hear these arguments of yours, which you have so often intimated: Aud yet It may not be improper, before you produce them, to consider, what is the particular proposition your arguments can possibly prove, or what it is you can expect from them. Will you please. to remember, Sir, it has been plainly proved and determined already, and agreed in our past debate, as a certain matter of fact, that there are several large countries of heathenism wherein the inhabitants have not reason sufficient to guide them into true religion, considering their vast prejudices and aversions to God and goodness; much less is it sufficient to enable them to practise it; that is, according to the distinction of our worthy friend Sophronius, that though there may be in them a remote, natural, and speculative, sufficiency for this purpose, yet their reasoning powers are so poor and low, so unpractised, and so much perverted by a thousand errors, evil customs, vicious propensities, and wilful ignorance, that they are not practically and experimentally sufficient for this great design. This has been abundantly confirmed by the melancholy, and yet entertaining accounts Sophronius hath given us of African and American heathens. Now I humbly hope, Sir, you will not suppose that any of your arguments can destroy plain matter of fact, nor prove that to be sufficient, which has before been plainly declared and proved, and agreed to be insuficient.

Loa. I must acknowledge, Pithander, I know not how to oppose what you say. It seems to be plainly proved, that reason

in these savages is not a sufficient guide. All that I can pretend, therefore, is, only to shew, that if human reason is not in fact: sufficient, even practically sufficient for this purpose: yet, atleast, it ought to be practically sufficient; and perhaps my argu ments will prove it.

PITH. Pray, Sir, be so good as to inform me, what you mean by saying, it ought to be sufficient? Will any of your arguments teach the all-wise God what he ought to have done, and in what other and better condition he ought to have placed mankind, than he has seen fit to place them in? Will your arguments give wisdom to your Maker, or instruct him in rules of justice? Or can any of your reasonings inform him, what superior talents, and happier circumstances, he ought to have bestowed upon his creatures? Have you courage enough to reprove or arraign the conduct of the supreme Governor of the world: towards his African or American subjects! Is it right, Logisto, to talk at this rate? Or is it safe to venture on such an unequal contest? What else can you mean, Sir, by affirming, that reason ought to be sufficient, but this, viz. that God ought to have given men better faculties, or he ought to have bestowed upon them clearer light, and better helps, or ought to have brought them into the world with greater advantages than his wisdom has thought fit to do: And what is this, but telling the all-wise God, he has acted weakly, or charging the God of justice that he has dealt unjustly, or accusing the Father of Mercies that he has acted cruelly toward his creatures?

LOG. I confess, good Sir, that you confound me a little with these enquiries. I have no such hardiness of soul, as to dare: to reprove my Maker, whom I adore with the most profound veneration; and I do acknowledge, that whatsoever he does, must be right and just. And yet there are arguments which seem to prove, that man, who as you agree, is to be tried and judged in the other world, for his behaviour in this, should, some way or other, have sufficient powers given him to know and fulfil his duty: Otherwise, men would be excusable in their greatest superstitions and immoralities, as being destitute, by the necessity of their circumstances, of a sufficient guide in matters of religion and virtue: And this is the first argument which I desire leave to offer upon this head, as a difficulty which I cannot solve.

PITH. Perhaps, Sir, it is an effectual relief to this difficulty, if we suppose mankind to be furnished with such reasoning powers as are, in the nature of things, and in a remote sense, sufficient to guide and conduct men in their religious affairs: For the neglect of using and improving these rational powers, is greatly criminal: And it is this universal neglect of using them well, that renders them practically insufficient. If they employ

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not their reason in their most important concerns, you will grant it is their own fault; and this renders them condemnable for the neglect or abuse of it, and for the errors and vices proceeding from such an unreasonable conduct of life. This is confessed by the writers of your own side of the question. Besides, the reasoning faculty, and the remains of conscience, which are found even in the most savage tribes of mankind, may be called practically sufficient, though not to conduct to happiness completely, yet, to have taught them much more of the first principles of virtue and religion, than most of them either know or practise; and thus to have withheld them from their grossest immoralities and superstitions.

Yet further, reason may teach them the duties of an innocent man, but not to recover a sinner to God's favour. The obligations which their reason and conscience might lay on them to practise duty may be clear and strong as far as they go; and yet these may not be sufficient to bring sinners to the favour of God and eternal happiness. Devils are under clear and strong obligation to love God, and to repent, and obey him, through the dictates of a rational nature; but this rational nature is not sufficient to bring them to happiness and the favour of God. It is granted, the heathens have great hindrances; but great as they are, they are not so insurmountable, but that most or all of them might have arrived at much superior degrees of knowledge and practice in religion, than what any of them have actually arrived at, if they had not been so shamefully and criminally negligent, so exceeding fond of error and sin, and so lazy in their search after truth and duty. Therefore they are by no means excusable, as you express it, in their greatest immoralities.

Give me leave, Sir, to represent this matter by a plain similitude. Suppose Anergus a slave, to have a remote natural capacity sufficient to trace out all the demonstrations in Euclid : Then you consequently must suppose him also to have a proximate and practical sufficiency to trace out some of the first and plainest of them: Criton, his master commands him to demonstrate all the propositions there, or to practise all the problems: but he will not so much as set about the first and plainest of them: Is not Anergus greatly criminal? If he would have traced out the first, he might perhaps find a growing capacity, and a proximate and practical sufficiency to demonstrate the next and the next in succession, till he came to the last. Is he not chargeable then with the guilt of not demonstrating and practising the whole series, even though he never actually had a practical and proximate sufficience of reason or ability to grasp the deepest and most complicated theorems, or to perform the hardest problems, because he was lazy and thoughtless, and

would not apply himself to the easiest? You know, Sir, how to apply this to the case in hand.

LOG. Then you do not assert, that their reason is practically insufficient to have taught them the chief part of their duty, or to have enabled them to perform it, if they had been well inclined to it, and sincerely diligent in their attempts to their utmost?

PITH. No, Sir, I assert no such thing: For it is their great and universal sloth and negligence, and disinclination both to learn and perform their duty, that is one of the chief things that renders their reasoning powers thus insufficient in a practical sense: It is owing to their powerful prejudices, their evil moral habits, and their strong aversion to God and virtue, that they do not exercise their reasoning powers to the utmost of their capacity: And it is by this means they continue in darkness, guilt, and death: Whereas if they had a real inclination, and sincere desire, to search out and perform their duty to God and man, if they obeyed every secret dictate of conscience, every hint of truth that arose within them, and used their natural light, both as to belief and practice, to the utmost of their power, God would never be wanting to any of his creatures; I am persuaded, he would have graciously accepted the utmost that their reasoning powers could perform: or, if it were necessary, he would have given such well-disposed persons, greater light and greater strength, to learn and fulfil the necessary parts of religion; for to him that hath, shall be given; that is, greater helps shall be given to him that improves what lesser talents God has entrusted him with. But the case of these brutal creatures seems to be represented in the latter end of that text; Luke viii. 18. From him that hath not, shall be taken away that which he hath, or seemeth to have; that is, those who improve not the feeble light that is given them, even those feeble glimmerings of light shall be taken from them, and by the righteous judgment of God they shall be left in deep and utter darkness: And thus they are greatly culpable, though their reasoning powers are practically insufficient.

Loc. Very well, my friend; I can hear this with more patience, since you impute the crime to men's own abuse of their rational powers, and not to God their Creator. I proceed therefore to a second argument, and forgive me if I express it in pretty strong terms: Does not the great and blessed God equally behold all the dwellers on the earth, free from partiality and prejudice? And can he be supposed to make some people his favourites, without any consideration of their merits, and merely because they believe certain propositions, and practise certain duties, which he has revealed, and which are taught and known generally in that country where they happen to be born;

while others, and that a far greater number, shall from age to age want this favour of God, because they are destined to be born and live in places where such propositions and duties were never revealed, where they are not known, and are very hard or impossible to be found out, and for that reason they are not likely to believe and practise them? What can more represent God as an arbitrary and partial being, than thus to suppose that he scarce vouchsafes to bring the means of happiness within the reach of so great a part of his creatures, while he has given it so plentifully to others?

PITH. This speech of yours, Sir, will require an answer at large; and I am glad you give me occasion to speak my thoughts freely on this subject. When you use the words partiality and prejudice, you seem to consider God as a Governor and a Judge, distributing rewards or punishments to his creatures partially, and not exactly according to their former behaviour; and in this respect, I must aflirm, God beholds all men equally, and acts without prejudice or partiality in his retribution of the righteous and the wicked: In this sense, God is no respecter of persons; the master and the servant, the prince and the subject, the learned and the ignorant, shall receive a recompence according to their works. But when we speak of God as an original proprietor and possessor of his own blessings, he may freely distribute his favours in a greater or less degree amongst his creatures, as he pleases, without any charge of prejudice or partiality. And this is sufficiently visible in the whole of his providence, and that among the brutal creation as well as the rational. Are there not many of the birds, and the beasts of the earth, and fishes of the sea, that in their several portions of sensitive good or evil, ease or pain, are greatly distinguished from each other, merely by the hand of their Creator? Here is one flock of sheep frighted and worried daily, and some of them miserably torn to death, and destroyed, and the rest of them wounded or maimed by a wolf or a bear, while other flocks grow up, perhaps, for several years, enjoying the plentiful pasturethat the earth provides for them. Here is one nest of doves plundered by a hawk, and drenched in blood, while twenty of their neighbours breed up their young in all security. Here is a brood of young wild turkeys, hatched in a later or more unkindly season, crippled with the cold, and languishing out their lives under lingering infirmities, while others that were brought into life a month or two sooner, enjoy all the blessings suited to their nature, and continue in this enjoyment, perhaps for several years. What is this difference to be imputed to, but the will of Providence?

A thousand such sort of accidents happen not only to birds and beasts, to fishes, and every kind of brute animals, but to