struct the ignorant in the relation which the light of nature shows they stand in to God their Maker, and in the obligations of obedience, resignation, and love to him, which arise out of that relation, make it our duty likewise to instruct them in all those other relations which revelation informs us of, and in the obligations of duty which arise out of them. And the reasons for instructing men in both these, are of the very same kind as for communicating any useful knowledge whatever. God, if he had so pleased, could indeed miraculously have revealed every religious truth which concerns mankind, to every individual man; and so he could have every common truth; and thus have superseded all use of human teaching in either. Yet, he has not done this, but has appointed that men should be instructed by the assistance of their fellow-creatures in both. Further: though all knowledge from reason is as really from God, as revelation is, yet this last is a distinguished favour to us, and naturally strikes us with the greatest awe, and carries in it an assurance that those things which we are informed of by it, are of the utmost importance to us to be informed of. Revelation, therefore, as it demands to be received with a regard and reverence peculiar to itself, so it lays us under obligations, of a like peculiar sort, to communicate the light of it. Further still: it being an indispensable law of the gospel, that Christians should unite in religious communities, and these being intended for repositories[1] of the written "oracles of God," for standing memorials of religion to unthinking men, and for the propagation of it in the world; Christianity is very particularly to be considered as a trust deposited with us in behalf of others, in behalf of mankind, as well as for our own instruction. No one has a right to be called a Christian, who doth not do somewhat in his station towards the discharge of this trust; who doth not, for instance, assist in keeping
- ↑ Page 182.
