* For till it can be shewn, that men are not liable to a second nature from education; the state of nature must differ all over the world, and in every age of the world, just as the light, and advantages of education, have differed in the several parts, and ages of the world.
* In a word, the religious and moral light of our first nature, is just as great as the first strength of infants; and the religious and moral light of our second nature, is just as perfect as our education, and as much of our own growth, as the first language that we are taught to speak.
May not therefore one justly wonder, what it is that could lead any people into an imagination of the absolute perfection of human reason? There seems no more in the state of mankind, to betray a man into this fancy, than to persuade him, that the reason of infants is absolutely perfect. For sense and experience, are as full and strong a proof against one, as against the other.
But it must be said for these writers, that they decline all arguments from facts and experience, to give a better account of human nature; but with the same justice, as if a man was to lay aside the authority of history, to give you a truer account of the life of Alexander.
Their objection against revelation is founded upon the pretended sufficiency and perfection of human reason, to teach all men all that is wise, and holy, and divine, in religion. But how do they prove this perfection of human reason? Do they appeal to mankind as proofs of it? Do they produce any body of men in this or any other age, that without any assistance from revelation, have attained to this perfection of religious knowledge? This is not so much as pretended to; the history of such men is entirely wanting. And yet the want of such a fact as this, has even the force of demonstration against this pretended sufficiency of natural reason.
Because it is a matter not capable of any other kind of proof, but must be admitted as certainly true, or rejected as certainly false, according as fact and experience bear witness for or against it.
* For an enquiry about the light, and strength, and sufficiency of reason, to guide and preserve men in the knowledge and practice of true religion, is a question, as solely to be resolved by fact and experience, as if the enquiry was about the shape of man’s body, or the number of his senses. And to talk of a light and strength of reason, natural to man, which fact and experience have never yet proved, is as egregious nonsense, as to talk of natural senses, or faculties of his body, which fact and experience have never yet discovered.
From the bare consideration of a rational soul in union with a body, and bodily passions, we can neither prove man to be strong nor weak, good nor bad, sickly nor sound, mortal nor immortal: all these qualities must discover themselves, as the eye discovers its degree of sight, the hand its degree of strength.
To enquire therefore, whether men have by nature light sufficient to guide, and keep them in the true religion; is the same appeal to fact and experience, as to enquire, whether men are mortal, sickly, or sound: or how far they can see and hear.
* As therefore these gentlemen are, in this debate, without any proof, or even pretence of proof, from experience, so their cause ought to be looked upon to be as vain and romantic, as if they had asserted, that men have senses naturally fitted to hear sounds, and see objects at all distances, tho’ experience has, from the creation to this time, proved the quite contrary.