stinct notion of it. And, I suppose, there
cannot be anything more ridiculous than to say, that children have this
practical principle innate, "That God is to be worshipped," and yet that
they know not what that worship of God is, which is their duty. But to
pass by this.

8. Idea of God not innate.

If any idea can be imagined innate, the idea of GOD may, of all others,
for many reasons, be thought so; since it is hard to conceive how there
should be innate moral principles, without an innate idea of a Deity.
Without a notion of a law-maker, it is impossible to have a notion of a
law, and an obligation to observe it. Besides the atheists taken notice
of amongst the ancients, and left branded upon the records of history,
hath not navigation discovered, in these later ages, whole nations,
at the bay of Soldania, in Brazil, and in the Caribbee islands, &c.,
amongst whom there was to be found no notion of a God, no religion?
Nicholaus del Techo, in Literis ex Paraquaria, de Caiguarum Conversione,
has these words: Reperi eam gentem nullum nomen habere quod Deum, et
hominis animam significet; nulla sacra habet, nulla idola.

And perhaps, if we should with attention mind the lives and discourses
of people not so far off, we should have too much reason to fear,
that many, in more civilized countries, have no very strong and clear
impressions of a Deity upon their minds, and that the complaints of
atheism made from the pulpit are not without reason. And though only
some profligate wretches own it too barefacedly now; yet perhaps we
should hear more than we do of it from others, did not the fear of
the magistrate's sword, or their neighbour's censure, tie up people's
tongues; which, were the apprehensions of punishment or shame taken
away, would as openly proclaim their atheism as their lives do.

9. The name of God not universal or obscure in meaning.

But had all mankind everywhere a notion of a God, (whereof yet history
tells us the contrary,) it would not from thence follow, that the idea
of him was innate. For, though no nation were to be found without a
name, and some few dark notions of him, yet that would not prove them to
be natural impressions on the mind; no more than the names of fire,
or the sun, heat, or number, do prove the ideas they stand for to be
innate; because the names of those things, and the ideas of them, are so
universally received and known amongst mankind. Nor, on the contrary, is
the want of