evil, so make him no
more do wicked?" I was strangely surprised at this question; and, after
all, though I was now an old man, yet I was but a young doctor, and ill
qualified for a casuist or a solver of difficulties; and at first I could
not tell what to say; so I pretended not to hear him, and asked him 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 or me, when
we do wicked things here that offend Him--we are preserved to repent and
be pardoned." He mused some time on 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
knowledge of Jesus Christ, and of redemption purchased for us; of a
Mediator of the new covenant, and of an Intercessor at the footstool of
God's throne; I 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 good 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 to receive the light of
the knowledge of God in Christ, reconciling him to Himself, and would
guide me so to speak to him from the Word of God that his