If therefore it was not propagated by force, neither was the belief of a God spread through the world by fraud, what are those arts which are pretended to have been used to propagate it? It took its rise, say they, from human policy; but the politicians not known, nor the arts they used to persuade the world that there is a God found out. How unreasonable therefore is this objection, or rather cavil, against a deity, when the atheists pretend that it was the result of human policy! 2. It appears that the belief of a God was not propagated in the world merely by tradition, and so received by implicit faith. For, (1.) Those notions that have been received with implicit faith by tradition, from generation to generation, are not pretended to be proved by reason; but the belief of a God is founded on the highest reason; so that if no one in the world believed it besides myself, I am bound to believe it, or else must no longer lay claim to that reason which is natural to mankind, and should rather shew myself a brute than a man. (2.) No schemes of religion, that were propagated merely by tradition, have been universally received; for tradition respects particular nations, or a particular set of men, who have propagated them. But as has been before considered the belief of a God has universally prevailed. Moreover, if the belief of a God was thus spread by tradition through the world, why was not the mode of worship settled, that so there might be but one religion in the world? The reason is, because their respective modes of worship were received, by the heathen, by tradition: whereas the belief of a God was not so, but is rooted in the nature of man. (3.) Whatever has been received only by tradition, has not continued in the world in all the turns, changes, and overthrow of particular nations, that received it; but the belief of a God has continued in the world throughout all the ages and changes thereof: therefore it is not founded in tradition, but by the light of nature. 3. It appears, moreover, that the belief of a God could not take its first rise merely from fear of punishment, which men expected would be inflicted by him, though that be a strong argument to establish us in the belief thereof. For, (1.) A liableness to punishment for crimes committed, supposes that there is a God, who is offended by sin, and from whom punishment is expected. Therefore as the effect cannot give being to the cause, so fear could not be the first ground and reason of the belief of a God. But,