Him and that not in common and together with them who were His People and whose God He had declared Himself to be but what is much more surprizing they had no Share in them The casting them away was the Reconciling of the World That we may the better understand the Greatness of this Mercy and have a due Sense of the Obligations it brings with it I shall consider First the State of the Gentile World before our Saviour came Next wherein the Enlightning it consisted and In the Last place make some Application of the Whole First To consider the State of the Gentile World before our Saviour came we find it frequently represented to us in the Scriptures under one Word and that is Darkness To give Light to them that sit in Darkness Ye were sometime Darkness but now are ye Light in the Lord who hath called you out of Darkness into marvellous Light We are not of the Night nor of Darkness Who hath delivered us from the power of Darkness with many more places of the like nature in all which the Word Darkness iâ—â—â—â—d to represent the Sad Condition the â—â—rld was in before the Messiah was Manifested to them Sad indeed it was if this be a just Name for it For Darkness we haâ—â— all a great and natural Aversion to 't is a State of Inactivity deprives us of all the Use and Pleasure of the Day and is utterly unfit for Motion we either cannot move or cannot be sure we move aright 't is a time fit only for the Beasts and Men of Prey to move in for we want the Benefit of the Noblest and most Useful Sense we have our Sight without which the Rest are of very little Use either to keep us from the Dangers which we should otherwise bring upon our selves or to defend us from the Insults and Injuries of others In a word there is nothing creates a greater or more universal Fear than long or unusual Darkness and nothing but Custom and the help of Artificial Light reconciles us to what is usual What then can a State of Darkness mean less than a Wretched Ignorant Uncomfortable State a State full of Confusion and Error of Corrupt Opinions and Abominable Practices a State Hideous and Ugly as the first Chaos when the Earth was without Form and Void and Darkness was upon the Face of the Deep Now that the State of the Gentile World before our Saviour came was a State of Darkness and deservedly ' called by so Black a Name must be owned by all who have ever look't into these Times and considered the Particulars wherein this Darkness consisted which were they all put together â—â—ould give us a just Conception of that Universal Night which was then spread over the Intellectual World The great Ignorance they were under and the Consequences of it would give us such a frightful Scene of things as one can hardly tell how to Believe or Believing how to Reconcile it with the Wisdom and Goodness of that Being whose Eyes are always upon the Works of his hands and who from the Beginning Ruleth over All. The first and great Fundamental Error they were in was concerning the True GOD their Notions were so contrary and inconsistent upon this Head that one can't read them without deeply and frequently Reflecting how Poor and Low a Thing the Mind of Man is when he Attempts to comprehend Divine Truths The World was divided into two Extremes they were either for many Gods or none at all Opinions almost as remote from Truth as from one another The Oldest indeed and always most Universal Opinion and which perhaps arose from the Scattered and Corrupt Remains of some Ancient and Genuine Traditions was that of many Gods But this was so absurd in it self and all it's Consequences their Number Names Actions Offices Worship and Sacrifices were so very unaccountable so impossible to be made Sense of that when the World grew more refined the Men of Penetration and Thought to mend the matter betook themselves to the opposite Extreme and because they could no where meet with a Rational Religion vainly concluded that Reason and Religion were in their Natures inconsistent they concluded no Religion could be True because all they had seen were certainly False For they were in almost every Country different at the same time and in the same Country at different times they worshipped they knew not what nor why they worshipped Stocks and Stones and under them Imaginary Beings infinitely above Humane Nature together with others as much below it We have an Epitome of the grossest and foulest Superstition the World ever knew in that one People the Egyptians Nothing can be more ridiculous than what the best Writers tell us of their Gods and their Religious Rites and in their Story we see in effect the Religions of other Nations For Egypt was the great Nursery of Superstition from thence arose that thick Darkness which afterwards overspread the Earth not that this Darkness was every where uniformly spread as soon as it began to be diffus'd 't was divided and broke into unequal parts insensibly altered as it went along and received different Additions according to the several Climates to which it came By which means their Religions by degrees differed more from one another but not less from Reason than before Sacred and Prophane were every where arbitrary things and sometimes names directly opposite were given to the same thing by different Orders of Men in the same Country There was nothing so absurd which Superstition could not lead them into a Belief of and if one may judge of what they thought by what they did one would think the more absurd a thing was the more they liked it otherwise one can't imagine how the World could have fall'n into so great a variety of Errors so very gross with so small a mixture of Truth in them which as it was very little so very probably 't was owing not to any right Reasoning for had they reasoned about these things rightly they must needs have found out more Truth they could not have stopped so very short and have taken up with so few right Notions so extremely disguised with false ones These therefore 't is likely were borrowed from some Traditions which once were more perfect but now were grown very old and by length of time and frequent Transplanting so altered and defaced that the first Authors of them would scarce have known them so little of the Genuine parts remained and the old Strokes were in a manner all gone Else how could things so incoherent be embraced as there was in most of their Religions how was it possible so many and so different Persuasions could be deductions from the same common Principles 'T is hard to conceive how the Opinions of any one People taken together could proceed from any Principles at all nor indeed did they these Religions were then form'd when the World were children in Understanding when they
admired every thing and understood nothing nothing of Arts and Sciences nothing of the Causes and Natures of things in a word nothing beyond their Senses and what was just before their Eyes and by that means became an easie Prey to a few who thought farther than the rest and used them as we use Children now amused them with Fables and strange Stories and lead them which way they would by complying with their Superstition to which purpose they took care the Doctrines they taught the People should be absurd enough and well adjusted to the Lowness of their Understandings This was really the case and no better for the Fabulous Age of the World was the time when these several Religions were first invented and their Poets were the Authors of them of which the Eldest either never wrote or at least nothing of their genuine Writings is now left but of the Poets which do remain we find always the oldest as had in greatest Veneration so be sure most absurd in matters of Religion The World in the mean time was like to thrive and grow in Understanding under the Influence of such Teachers and in embracing Schemes of Religion formed in such Times Times of which we know nothing certainly besides their Ignorance Yet Considerations of State Management of designing Men and the Interest that a great many had in them kept these Superstitions up in after-times the bulk of the People being as ignorant as ever and still believing whatever they were taught There were no doubt some wise and honest Men who saw the Absurdity of these things and would have declaimed sooner and more loudly against them but were deterred 't is likely from the Attempt partly by the Danger they might bring upon themselves and partly thro' a very right Opinion they had that Religion was necessary for Society and that tho' the establish't one were very faulty there might be more inconvenience in labouring a Change especially since they could not be sure what Religion was true to bring in the room of it or indeed whether any were so besides it may be they thought that in that State of things Prejudices were necessary to make the People have any notion of Religion and therefore if they were once removed the People who are always ready to run into extremes and if once unhinged are very hard to be settled again if they had shaken off the Religion they were bred in would then perhaps take up with none at all Some such Thoughts probably kept in the Wiser Heathens from exposing the Folly and Inconsistency of the Religions then in use who could easily have framed more rational Schemes but were not sure they could find out the True one and therefore were content to sit down by those they had and make the best Sense of them they could In time indeed they ventured many of them to refine a little and by degrees endeavoured to explain away what was most apparently Absurd but this did not satisfie some who being Men of more Heat and less Discretion were for going faster and thinking they knew more than all before them could not keep in the mighty Secret any longer The Credulity implicite Belief and Bigotry the World had been so long under about things they had scarce any notion at all of made them run now into the other Extreme and so first Scepticism and then downright Atheism became the Learning and Wisdom of the World These Men having found the World was mistaken in many things began now to doubt of every thing they began to question the Being of any God at all and having shewn with Reason enough on their side the folly and weakness of the common Opinions as they were then corrupted 't was so hard to see the little Truth that lay under them that without Distinction they threw them all away and setting up for themselves entertained about almost all things new Opinions of their own very different from what had been hitherto received but not less Extravagant And thus by different ways they came to all intents and purposes to the same end and left the World in as ill a Condition as they found it or rather made things worse for perhaps 't is better to act upon wrong Principles than none at all for then Men may be govern'd by those that are wiser than themselves whereas the Men of no Principles can be govern'd neither by themselves nor others Some of the main Points about which the World when they began to think freely were employed were these First They were much in the dark whether there were such a thing as an Eternal Intelligent Being or not if there were wherein his Nature consisted and what were his chief Attributes and if there were one such Being who was infinitely Wise and Good whether there were not an Evil one Equal in Power to him without which they could not account for the Origine of Evil which was always one great Difficulty Next if there were One Eternal Mind and but One which we call GOD whether he made the World or not if he did whether he only put things into that Frame and Order they are now in or whether he made the things themselves out of Nothing If the former for the latter was an Opinion that all their Philosophy was not able to comprehend whether this GOD were any other than the Soul of the World animating the vast Mass of Matter after the same manner as the Soul of Man actuates his little World Again if GOD were a Being intirely distinct from the Universe with which many of them confounded him whether he did at all interest himself in the Government of the World after he had made it that is whether there were any Providence or not whether his Happiness did not consist in perpetual Ease and Rest and consequently whether any Care or Thought of Business were not inconsistent with it or if he did meddle and concern himself with the Government of Things whether this Care were not confin'd within certain Bounds in looking after the great Springs and Wheels of the Machine while the Sublunary things and this lower World were quite neglected or if he took care of them too whether this extended to the Insensible and Vegetable part only or to the Sensible and Rational if to them whether he governed the Minds and Actions of Men or only their involuntary Motions if their Minds and Thoughts and Actions whether by a chain of Causes link'd together in a perpetual and necessary Order or only by a Concurrence with their own free voluntary Motions if the latter whether Men were by that rendred capable of Moral Good and Moral Evil if capable whether they were actually accountable to GOD for what they do which supposes that there are fixt and unalterable Rules or Good and Evil that these Rules are the Will of GOD that he has declared this Will of his to Man if so what and how many are these Rules when and where
of our Earth He would expect Learning to run down among us like a Stream and Righteousness like a Flood he would expect to meet every where with bright and shining Instances of Piety and Holiness of Industry and Temperance of Charity Patience and Humility in short something far beyond the Improvements the rest of the World are capable of But I need not suppose what Thoughts a Man would have who never saw any thing of a University beyond the Scheme and Model of it we are pretty well convinced that this is what the World expects of us for if they did not look for something very perfect they would think our Imperfections a great deal less than we find they are apt to do Which should be an additional Argument to us to walk worthy of the Light we have for our Light is not like the Pillar that led the Israelites of old a Light to them it was to guide and Dark to all besides as we have this Light so every body sees we have it and from thence are ready to take all advantages against us I think we may without great Partiality to our selves say We are not fairly dealt with in this matter Envy and ill-Ill-nature and a Spirit of Phanaticism both as to the Civil and Religious State have certainly a great share in the loud Complaints against us and they that rail at us for being no better are many of them really sorry we are no worse Men who design to destroy all Principles of Religion and Government can't with patience see those Places flourish which are so directy opposite to such Designs whose very End is to instill true Notions of these things and root out all destructive Opinions whatsoever Which makes Atheists and Deists necessarily Enemies to our very Constitution for These are the Banks that keep out their pernicious Doctrines from breaking in upon the Nation Not that these are all the Enemies we have a little Truth mixed with a great deal of Calumny has made our Faults appear much greater than they are by which means other and better Men have been unhappily influenced to the Prejudice of these Places But how unjust soever these Complaints are we may make a right use of them by mending what ever is amiss by walking more circumspectly and giving no Occasion to the Adversary 'T is the Fate of Persons and Places that are Eminent the more they are so the more they are expos'd to publick View and consequently Censure for many a great many take a View of them not to admire their Beauty or Excellency but to find some Fault with them and then are most disappointed when they find fewest And as this is generally one of the Disadvantages of a high Station so it is in a peculiar manner and for particular reasons the Fortune or rather Fate of those Illustrious Bodies the Universities But to return from this Digression which a just Sense of the Light we live under the Obligations it laies on us and the Restlesness of our Enemies has led me to where much is given much is required and in return of great Favours great Duties become due from us and if we would be the better for the Light that is come into the World we must endeavour to deserve it we can have no benefit in the bright Shining of the Gospel unless we renounce the hidden Pleasures of the Night GOD did not give us this Light to glory in our Shame and shew that we can be wicked still that we can abuse his Grace and dare produce those Monsters into open Day which before were shrowded under the cover of the Dark No what was then excusable is now no longer so to prefer the absurd Pleasures of Sin before the Beauty and Comeliness of Virtue when our Eyes are open and in the day this is very unnatural and unpardonable this proves we want common Sense as well as common Gratitude this can't but be highly provoking to Almighty GOD who bestow'd these Favours on us to quite other Purposes Let us not therefore any longer distinguish our time as Christians into Light and Darkness and think we have the night still left to revel in the Darkness now will not cover us the Darkness is no Darkness to us the Light is as clear as the Day the Darkness and Light to us are both alike For since the Sun of Righteousness is risen since He that was in the beginning Light Eternal Light is come down among us and become the Light of Men to this new State agrees the Description St. John gives us of the New Jerusalem with which I shall conclude The City had no need of the Sun neither of the Moon to shine in it for the Glory of God did lighten it and the Lamb is the Light thereof THE END