any

without vicious view of imposing upon, or making advantages of, the weakness and ignorance of others, which, doubtless, was the case of multitudes; then, furely, all this will be winked at by the common father of mankind, who knoweth our frame, our fituation in the world, and the disadvantages we are under from it, and who remembereth that we are but duft, or weak and frail creatures. And, indeed, were the cafe otherwife, men would be in a most hazardous state, even in that fituation, in which God, in the course of his general providence, has placed them. For if juft and true notions of a Deity, and if a right and proper manner of addreffing him, be fo abfolutely neceffary to divine acceptance, as that an error in judgment or practice, with refpect to thefe, will incur God's heavy difpleasure then the bulk of mankind are, by the Athor of nature, placed in a moft dangerous, or rather in a defperate ftate; feeing he has not made a proper provifion for their fafety, under the circumftances, which, from the general course of things, they are unavoidably placed in. I have already obferved, that men are not only liable, but also are in danger of erring, both in their conceptions of

a

a Deity, and in the manner of addreffing him; and therefore, were God to be fo extreme as to mark every thing that is amifs, in these refpects, and to make it the ground of his difpleasure; then who could ftand before him? but this cannot be the cafe; because it is contrary to the goodness, and the benignity of the divine nature. For as, in this cafe,no injury,no difrefpect is intended to any, but, on the contrary, refpect is intended to be paid to the Deity,tho' wrongly judged of, and wrongly and improperly expreffed and applied; fo, furely, it cannot be, to the tender and compaffionate parent of mankind, the just ground of a fevere revenge. We may, therefore, be well affured, that God will not take an unreasonable advantage of the weakness and ignorance of his creatures; because that would be acting much below his character, as a juft, wife, and good being, and even below the moral excellency of fome of his creatures themselves. And, indeed, to fuppofe that God would act thus, or with fe verity in this refpect, is to conceive of him as unworthily and improperly, if not more fo, than was done by the antient Pagans. It is true, that fome men have entertained most wild and extravagant notions of a Deity,

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and have paid their refpect to him, and to their tutelar and fictitious Gods, in a very foolish and ridiculous manner; but then, so far as these have been the produce of weakness, and not of a vicious mind, they have rather rendered men the proper objects of compaffion and pity, than of vengeance and punishment: And were we to conceive of the Pagan world, whatever the truth of their cafe may have been, or whatever picture an illnatured limner may draw of them, that because they were Idolaters, therefore, they were vessels of wrath prepared for deftruftion; the impious thought, I think, may justly be retorted with a God forbid!

I AM fenfible, that the Idolatry of the Canaanites is ufually affigned, as the reason for God's authorizing the Ifraelites to extirpate those Cannanites, putting men, women and children to death, and to poffefs themselves of their country and habitations;and likewise, that the Jews were required to treat their own people, and even their friends and nearest relations, with great feverity, when they became Idolaters, that they were not to pity or pare them, but to shut up their bowels of compaffion from them; but then, the severities thus required and recommended,

feem

t

feem to hang as a mill-ftone * about the neck of the mosaick difpenfation. To fay that the Jews were under a Theocracy whilst the difpenfation of Mofes lafted, that God was their civil governor or king, that idolatry, under that difpenfation, was high treason against the state, and therefore, those who were guilty of it were punished with death, as Traitors and Rebels to the government they lived under and were protected by; I say, to urge this, may, perhaps, be averring what cannot be clearly made out. By Theocracy, I apprehend, is meant, that the Deity acted the fame part towards the people of Ifrael, that civil governors do to other nations, upon account of which they are called civil governors; so that the question before us is, what it is which constitutes civil government, and civil governors as confequent upon it? And

this

*The difpenfation of Mofes feems to have been the Parent of two very bad doctrines, as one of them is greatly difhonourable to God, and as the other is greatly injurious, and has been moft deftructive, to mankind. One is the doctrine of abfolute election and reprobation, which represents the Deity to be an arbitrary being, whofe affections and actions are under no other direction than capricious humour and meer will: and the other is the doctrine of perfecuting men on the fcore of religion, which doctrine has rendered men beafts of prey to each other, and which, perhaps, has done more mischief in the world, than any other doctrine whatsoever.

this question is, I think, eafily folved, viz. that civil government confifts in the execution of fuch laws, as are proper to direct and regulate the behaviour of the feveral members of civil fociety, in thofe affairs in which their civil intereft is mutually concerned. And as civil goverment confifts in such administration; fo the adminiftrator is denominated a civil governor upon account thereof. And tho' laws are necessary to the administration of civil government; yet laws, confidered abstractedly from the execution of them, are but a dead letter, and therefore, it is not the making, but the execution of laws, for the good government of civil society, which constitutes civil government and civil governors. For whether the adminiftrator executes laws of his own making, or laws that have been made to his hand by others; or whether he executes laws that have been antecedently written in a book, and entered upon record, or laws that were made by himself or others, immediately before the promulgation and execution of them, it alters not the cafe; fuch execution being as much, and as truly, civil government, and he who executes them is as much,

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