precifely by what it doth not fay, as by what it doth. In what concerns Religion, there is nothing, either in its filence or in its enunciation, that is ambiguous.

To give an inftance, for the better illuftration of the matter before us. SPEECH might be acquired naturally, as well as RELIGION. In this they agreed: In one thing they differed-Human Reason, which was able to inftruct in both, teacheth Religion, or our duty to our Maker, and to each other, almoft inftantaneoufly: But Speech, in the fame School, is learnt only by flow degrees. So that Man must have continued long in that brutal State, to which the reft of the Animal Creation. were, from their very Nature, condemned, Yet it is hard to fuppofe, that the allgracious Author of our Being would leave his Favorite Creature, Man, whom he had endowed with fuperior gifts and prerogatives above the rest, to ftruggle with this mute and diftrefsful condition, from which, unaided reafon could only, by flow degrees, in a length of time, fet him free. But this uncertainty holy Scripture removes; by the information it hath given us, that God himz

felf,

felf, and not human Reason, was our first Schoolmafter in the rudiments of Speech. The text fays-And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and BROUGHT THEM UNTO ADAM, TO SEE WHAT HE WOULD CALL THEM; AND WHATSOEVER ADAM CALLED EVERY LIVING CREATURE, THAT WAS THE NAME THEREOF. AND ADAM

*

GAVE NAMES TO ALL CATTLE Here we have the most natural and familiar image of a Teacher and a learner; where the abilities of the Scholar are tried before they are affifted. From this text, we likewife learn, that no more than the first rudiments of Speech were thus, in an extraordinary manner, imparted to Adam for his prefent and immediate ufe. He was affifted in affixing names to fenfible things, with which he was to be perpetually converfant. And this was fufficient to put his reasonable nature in a train to advance itself above the torpid filence of the brutal. Thus far was man taught of God. But the further extent

and improvement of fpeech, particularly in its giving names to more abstract ideas, was left to man alone; which names, as his neceffities required, he would invent, and treasure up for use.

This difference, in the two acquirements. of Speech and Religion, both of which na¬ tural Reafon was able to teach, but not with equal facility or fpeed, fhews why God interfered in the one cafe, and why he did not interfere in the other; and confequently why the Hiftorian's enunciation. was neceffary in the first instance; and why his SILENCE, in the fecond, was fufficient to give equal evidence to what was the truth.

This (which indeed concerns the fubject in hand) appears ftill clearer from the fol lowing confiderations:

1. The PENTATEUCH is a profeffed his tory of God's communication with, and extraordinary difpenfations to, Man, from the placing him in PARADISE to the giving of the Law. We have feen, that Man was fubject to a Religion, prior to that Will of God revealed to him when he enter

ed

ed Paradife, Now, were the State, under which he lived before the Paradisaical, the State of revealed Religion, the Nature of the Mofaic history required that fome account fhould have been given of it. But no account is given. We conclude, therefore, that Man, on his Creation, came under the law of NATURAL RELIGION, or was, as the Apostle emphatically expreffes it-a Law unto himself*. On this fuppofition, we can easily account for the Silence of the Hiftorian. His Theme was REVEALED RELIGION; and to preferve the memory of fuch a Difpenfation, it was neceffary that the various modes of it should be recorded. But the memory of Natural Religion was preferved by an earlier Recorder, REASON: who wrote it, and continues to write it, in the minds of all Men. Of this original Record, Mofes hath given sufficient intimation, where, fpeaking of Man's na ture, he tells, that it was created in the LIKENESS OF GOD: meaning (as hath been hewn) that Man was endowed with

* Rom. ii. 14.

REASON.

REASON.

Now fuch a LIKENESS implies his knowledge of, and confeffed fubjection to, NATURAL LAW OR RELIGION.

2. But it is not only from the Silence of the Hiftorian, as to what preceded Man's migration into Paradife, but likewife from what he expreffly tells us followed on Man's fituation there, that we conclude, he was from his creation to this time, under the guidance of the LAW OF NATURE only: For the REVEALED LAW of God to Man in Paradise, after bestowing upon him the free gift of immortality, confifts but of one pofitive Command, as the condition of this accumulated bleffing: a condition very different from any of thofe which Natural Religion requires to entitle Man to God's favour: This plainly implies, that Adam, by the Light of Reafon, knew already the reft of God's Will, with which, as Moral Governor of the World, he had irradiated the breafts of all Men. Otherwife, had! this light been fo dim as to give no clear direction for his duty, we must conclude, that the all-gracious Creator would have expressly delivered to him a complete Code

or