"There never could have been any dispute about the possibility of saving ourselves by our own natural faculties, had not men lost all true knowledge both of God and themselves. For this dispute cannot happen, till men suppose God to be some outward being; that our relation to him is some outward relation; that religion is an outward thing, that passes between God and us, like terms of behavior between man and man; that sin hurts, and separates us from God, only as a misdemeanor hurts, and separates us from our prince; that an offended God either gives or refuses pardon to us, as an angry prince does to his subjects; and that, what he gives or forgives to us, is something as distinct or different from himself, as when a prince, sitting upon his throne, gives or forgives something to an offender, that is an hundred miles from him.