PART I. Want of UNIVERSALITY IN Natural and Revealed RELIGION, No just Objection against either. Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not alfo of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles alfo. Rom. iii. 29. For when the Gentiles, which have not the Law, do by Nature the things contained in the Law; thefe having not the Law, are a Law unto themselves. Rom. ii. 14. A Want of UNIVERSALITY IN Natural and Revealed RELIGION, No just Objection against either. ACTS XVII. 30.. And the Times of this Ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men every where to repent. TH HESE words contain a declaration of God's most gracious purpose to reform mankind by the coming of CHRIST; and at the fame time intimate the preference due to this, above any former institution. In the foregoing verfes the Apostle had been inftructing the Athenians in the nature of the true God, and his universal providence. He shews them that there is one common father and governor of the world, who has made this earth a fit habitation for the fons of men, and diftributed them all over the face of it; who has diftinguished the seasons, and divided the nations, and fixed the bounds and periods of each,* in so very regular and wife a manner, as might lead all diligent obfervers See Bryant on Ancient Hiftory, p. 162, &c. obfervers of them to a knowledge of their author; and put them upon feeking out fome method of expreffing their devotion to him. Though here in fact, (as the Apostle intimates, . 27.) they were all but like men groping in the dark; their notions of the Deity imperfect and obfcure; their worship abfurd and irrational. This their ignorance God was pleased for some time to wink at, (Tegide) to overlook, difregard, or, as it is in a parallel place, * He fuffered them to walk in their own ways, to wander through the various fects of fuperftition and idolatry into which they had fallen: but now he commandeth all men every where to repent; or rather publishes, (παραγελλει) proclaims the tidings of falvation to all men upon the eafy terms of repentance, or returning to a right mind; he offers a new covenant to mankind in general, from the benefits whereof none are abfolutely excluded who fincerely defire them:- Tidings, which ought to be received by all, as they were by the first Christians, with joy and thankfulness. But how ftrangely has the face of things been altered, or rather the nature of them inverted fince! When, through the degeneracy of mankind, the benefits of this divine inftitution become reftrained to a few people; and even these are taught to defpife it, for that very reafon which ufes to make a benefit the more valuable, namely, because it is restrained to themselves! If, fay the prefent unbelievers, God has made of one blood all nations of men, and is no respecter of * Acts xiv. 16. per |