OF ROBINSON ‘CRUSOE 219

 

what he said? But he was too earnest for an answer to forget his
question, so that he repeated it in the very same broken words as above.
By this time I had recovered myself a little, and I said, “God will at
last punish him severely; he is reserved for the judgment, and is to be -
cast into the bottomless pit to dwell with everlasting fire.’ This did
not satisfy Friday; but he returns upon me, repeating my words
‘“‘ Reserve at last! me no understand: but why not kill the devil now,
not kill great ago ?”—‘‘ You may as well ask me,” said I, ‘“‘why God
does not kill you and me, when we do wicked things here that offend
him: we are preserved to repent and be pardoned.” He muses a
while at this. ‘Well, well,” says he, mighty affectionately, “ that
well; so you, I, devil, all wicked, all preserve, repent, God pardon
all.” Here I was run down again by him to the last degree, and it
was a testimony to me, how the mere notions of nature, though they
will guide reasonable creatures to the knowledge of a God, and of a
worship or homage due to the supreme being of God, as the consequence
of our nature; yet nothing but divine revelation can form the know-
ledge of Jesus Christ, and of a redemption purchased for us; of a
Mediator ; of a new covenant; and of an Intercessor at the footstool
of God’s throne,—lI say, nothing but a revelation from Heaven can
form these in the soul; and that therefore the gospel of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ, I mean the word of God, and the Spirit of God,
promised for the guide and sanctifier of his people, are the absolutely
necessary instructors of the souls of men in the saving knowledge of
God, and the means of salvation.

I therefore diverted the present discourse between me and my man,
rising up hastily, as upon some sudden occasion of going out; then
sending him for something a great way off, I seriously prayed to God
_ that he would enable me to instruct savingly this poor savage, assisting,
by his Spirit, the heart of the poor ignorant creature td receive the
light ‘of the knowledge of God in Christ, reconciling him to himself,
and would guide me to speak so to him from the word of God, as his
conscience might be convinced, his eyes opened, and his soul saved.
When he came again to me, I entered into a long discourse with him
upon the subject of the redemption of man by the Saviour of the world,
and of the doctrine of the gospel preached from heaven, namely, of
repentance towards God, and faith in our blessed Lord Jesus: I then
explained to him, as well as I could, why our blessed Redeemer took
not on him the nature of angels but the seed of Abraham, and how, ~
for that reason, the fallen oe had no share in the redemption ; that.
he came only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and the like,

T had, God knows, more sincerity than nbaamiadaes in 21] the methods