III. The various and divided opinions, the sects and parties that are found in the christian world, have been another occasion of scandal and offence to the infidels. “How can we ever come, say they, to any certainty what your religion is, since you do not agree about it among yourselves?” “All Europe pretends to be christian, and to believe the gospel; yet France, and Spain, and Italy, and Poland, and a good part of Germany, tell us, that true christianity is found only amongst them. But in the countries of Denmark, Sweden, and the northern parts of Germany, and in the British islands, there is another religion professed, of a very different kind, and they call theirs the pure gospel, and reformed christianity. The protestant and the papist divide these western parts of the world, and they are ready to tear one another to pieces upon the account of their different opinions and practices. Now if the books that contain the religion of Christ be of so very uncertain sense and signification, truly we are ashamed of such a doubtful religion; it is even as well for us to content ourselves with the religion that the light of nature teaches us, and the dictates of our common reason, which we think has more certainty in it.” To this I answer, that it is a great mistake to imagine that the light of nature and reason, if left entirely to itself in this corrupt and fallen state, has more certainty in its determinations than scripture hath. How many wild opinions hath the corrupt mind of man produced among the inhabitants of the heathen world, and this same light of nature has not corrected them? What infinite diversity of vain and monstrous fancies hath past for religion and devotion among them? And the light of nature has been supposed to dictate some of them, for they did not always pretend revelation for them. There have been wide and irreconcileable differences among the philosophers, as well as among the priests and the people of different nations. The light of nature and reason is a poor dark bewildered thing, if it hath no commerce, nor communication with persons who have been favoured with divine revelation. It is only the scripture that has established and ascertained the doctrines of natural religion: And it is to the scripture that the deists of our age are obliged for their greater acquaintance with natural religion than ever their forefathers, the heathen philosophers, arrived at, though they are too proud to acknowledge it. If they agree better, and are more uniform in their principles now than the old epicureans, the stoics, and the platonists were, it is all owing to a more intimate acquaintance with the writings of Moses and the prophets, the evangelists, and the apostles; so that it is with a very ill grace that our present infidels can object to christians their difference of opinions, and pretend that this is a ground of shame to the gospel of Christ, and a reason why they do not believe or profess it.