dispose us to it and without it this manly Principle must not onely be useless but a torment to us § 1. It disposes us for Religion and capacitates us to make it our business and employment For as that which makes us value our selves at a higher rate than we do a beast is a thinking considering Principle we find it enables us to apprehend such Perfections as are not to be found in any created Beings and of contemplating the Natures of things that our Eyes never saw nor our Ears ever heard It is not onely in contemplating the Natures and searching out the Properties and discovering the Uses that belong to the several Beings of this visible World that this Faculty is employ'd in but it goes further and is apprehensive of such Wisdom Power and Goodness as lies not within the compass of all that is visible before us It can pass through all the Objects of Sense and go beyond all the Boundaries of Time and consider a Being whose Nature is purely Spiritual and whose Duration is Eternal In a word it can form an Idea and apprehend the necessity of a Being who is absolutely perfect Now that this Faculty is capable of being thus employed in contemplating the Nature and Perfections of an infinitely glorious and most transcendantly excellent Being every Man that will but make a trial of the power of it may satisfie himself For when we consider how different the Natures and Perfections of created Beings are and that Man who values himself as the most excellent Creature in this visible World does enjoy those Perfections in which his greater Excellency does consist in a very imperfect manner what Difficulty can there be in apprehending a Being that is not onely more excellent than Man but that has all those Perfections that Man is excellent for and by which one Man is more Excellent than another in the most perfect manner This the Atheist as unwilling as he is to believe there is a God is very sensible of For he does not undertake to prove that we have no such Idea nor are capable of any such apprehensions he does not pretend that he finds no such power in himself or that by the best use of his reason he cannot form any conceptions in his mind of a Being that is absolutely perfect but the arguments he makes use of to prove there is no such Being do suppose that we are apprehensive of such a Being They pretend that Education has laid this and all other Principles of Religion in our minds and that the knowledge we have of invisible Beings is thrust upon us in our Childhood as soon as we begin to have the least use of Reason Now supposing this was true yet it supposes that there is such a faculty in us as is capable of discerning and receiving such things and which consequently does exactly fit us for a life of Religion For if there was not how could Education train us up to such a Knowledge any more than a Beast How can we be taught to know and adore a Being whose Perfections are infinite any more than an Ox or an Ass if there be not something in us that qualifies us for such a Knowledge as is not in them All the teaching in the World would signifie nothing to us if there was not a principle in us that was capable of receiving an instruction of this nature And now since there is such a faculty in us as is capable of knowing an infinitely perfect Being we have no reason to doubt whether there be such a Being or no any more than whether there be any visible Objects in the World since we have Eyes to see them If it be said that our Minds are capable of framing Idea's of things that are not I grant it but then when we do so we are sensible that we do so and of the manner how we do so I mean the Mind is aware that all such fictitious and chimerical conceptions are Creatures of its own framing and that there is something in Nature out of which it does make them The framing of them is indeed the work of the Understanding but it belches its matter out of which it makes them from something that has a real Existence For it is impossible for the Mind to frame an Idea out of nothing or to be taught to know any thing that never had a Being nor any thing out of which it could be framed And such is our Idea of an infinitely perfect Being we neither know that it is a Creature of our own Minds nor is there any thing in this World out of which we can form such a conception We neither know when we form'd it nor how nor is there any Being that is perfect enough to furnish us with Materials for it but we find it highly agreeable to our Minds when we come to the use of our Reasons nor is our greatest negligence able to make us forget it as it can all other acquired Knowledge So that our having such an Idea does necessarily suppose a Being that is infinitely perfect and the agreeableness of it to our Minds does prove that the knowing him is the most proper work of our Understandings But besides by means of this faculty we are capable of debating Matters in our own Minds and advising with our selves what is best for us we can take an account of the goodness or illness of our actions and either approve and commend or judge and condemn our selves for them And this no Man can deny but we have a power to do who does not think it a noble thing to be a Fool or that to act rashly and with precipitation is very much for the glory and advantage of a Man And why now are we thus made more than any other Creature Why have we such a Faculty given us if it be not our business to live with more consideration and discretion with more prudence and fore-sight than the Beasts that have no understanding What can we conclude from our having such a power less than that we are to reverence our own Minds and to stand in awe of our Consciences and to dread doing any thing that is not for the honour of our Understandings Since we are capable of consulting with our selves what is good or ill for us does it not imply that there is a way of living which is for our advantage and which if we neglect it will turn to our great hurt And since we can call our selves to an account for our actions and pass a judgment upon them and censure them when they are not reasonable may we not with good reason believe that there are a sort of actions that are hurtfull to the Conscience and that there is a time when we shall feel the mischief of them if we do not prevent it However the Enemies of Religion are pleas'd to make themselves sport with the name of Conscience and to represent it as a Scare-crow set up to
fright weak Minds and to laugh at a Judgment to come as a principle that has no good Evidence in Nature yet I doubt not but they have a secret sense both of the one and the other For how come they to argue against such a power to fore-see what is good and to censure what is ill but by making that use of their Understanding which they will not allow does belong to it Is it not because they have throughly examin'd their own Nature and consider'd what is agreeable to it and what is not and whether there be not some sort of actions that Reason condemns and others that it approves Do they not speak their well-inform'd Judgment in the case when they tell the World that we are mistaken in our belief of these Principles and that we have no power of judging our selves at all If they do not they speak at random and are not fit to dispute the truth of these things But if they do their very arguing against such a power in us ought to convince them that they are mistaken For they consider and examine and state the matter in themselves and at last come to a judgment and resolution concerning it And what is all this but to make that use of our Understandings which they pretend we cannot do with a respect to our actions And besides by this way of proceeding they discover a secret sense that Humane Nature is capable of having a Judgment pass upon it which it could not be if it was so framed as to be capable of moving onely one way and going on in one course of actions as the Beasts are For it implies that we may abuse the Faculties of our Nature and employ them to such Ends as deserve to be censured But to proceed It is not onely as we are capable of understanding the Principles of Religion that we may conclude of its Truth and Reality but from that power of determining in our selves what course of life we will live that belongs to our Nature For by means of this Faculty it is very plain that we are fitted for a life of Vertue and not to go on in that one way that our senses do undertake to lead us and no other which is the way of living that belongs to the Nature of a Beast For since we have such a Faculty as enables us to put restraints upon our bodily appetites and to chuse whether we will hearken to the Laws of our Members how could we be better fitted for a Life of Religion For to make this use of our Wills is to live vertuously and 't is this use that Religion instructs us to make of them So that if we make any use of this excellent Faculty of our Nature it is impossible but we should discover the suitableness of Religion to our Nature § 2. And 2. As the Faculties of our Nature do fit and dispose us for Religion so they are of no use to us without it And if this be true as it certainly is it comes so very near us that methinks we should be very tender of Religion lest we bring the worst kind of reproach upon our Nature For it is a very vile thing to say of any Creature that it is made for nothing for that is to say it is good for nothing and if we could believe there was such a Creature in the World it would be the vilest thing in it So that if that which makes us Men be really of no use at all to us then we shall have little reason to value our selves for being Men but a great deal to be asham'd of our Nature For then we must look upon our selves to be the most pitifull and worthless Creatures in the World and to say that we are Men would be to say that we are the burden and charge and consequently that we are the very refuse and scorn of all other Creatures And of what use would our Understandings and Wills be to us if there was no Truth nor Vertue to entertain and exercise them Take away Religion and it is impossible to give a satisfactory account why we are taught more than the Beasts of the Earth or made wiser than the Fowls of Heaven A Faculty that makes us capable of Knowledge is certainly in its own Nature of more Worth and Excellency than our sensitive Powers And if there be a Service proper and suitable to the greatness of such a Faculty it must be something that is above the capacity of our Senses Now what can this be less than the knowing God and enquring out the Perfections of his Nature the looking beyond all material Objects into a World where pure and spiritual Beings inhabit which as I have already shew'd we are enabled to do by vertue of our knowing Faculty Such a Faculty can never be supposed to belong to our Nature onely to enable us to discern the Excellencies of sensible Objects and to tast the Pleasures that are in a visible World For this we might do by the use of our Senses if we had no Understanding and our having Understanding would not qualifie us for it without our Senses So that to make use of our Understandings onely to discover the Glories of a visible World is to use them to no other purposes than we do our Eyes i. e. to such poor and sorry purposes as we do not at all stand in need of them for For as to the pleasing our Bodies with sensible Enjoyments we are qualified well enough for that by those bodily Powers whose Office and Duty it is to delight us with them And if we have no other Objects to exercise our Understanding upon we might as well have been made without it for we have no need of a Faculty that is superiour to and more excellent than our Senses onely to reap the Pleasures that our Senses do sufficiently qualifie us for For the Creatures that have nothing but Sense can see the Light and tast their Meat and Drink with as much delight as we can with all our Reason and Understanding All the difference between us and them in this case is That we can by the help of our Understanding dress our Meat with a little more Art and show more curiosity in preparing and cooking our Dainties and inventing richer Drinks than they are forced to be contented with But is this such a use of our Understanding as is sufficient to save its Reputation and to prove that it belongs to us for something extraordinary and that we have reason to glory in it Is the Office of Catering for our Senses and being a Drudge for our Bodies so Noble and Honourable that upon this account we may value our selves for having a Faculty that we can thus Employ more than the Beasts have If this be the best use that we can put our Understanding to we may was well believe we should have bee as Honourable Creatures as we are if we had had no such Faculty
or that it is a very proper Employment for a Prince when he is cloath'd with all the Ensigns of Royalty to serve in the Kitchin or Stable of any of his Subjects If it be said that our Understanding is of considerable use to us as it enables us to manage our affairs with wisdom and discretion and to acquaint our selves with the Natures and Properties of all other Beings I grant that this is a very good use of so excellent a Faculty but it is plain that this is not all that it is good for and if it will serve us to higher purposes as supposing there be a God and all the Principles of Religion be true it is certain it will we must look upon it to be a very insignificant Faculty to us if there be no such thing as Religion because we cannot then make use of it to the best and highest Purposes that it is capable of being serviceable to us in To use it onely in the management of our Secular affairs is to make it a slave to our bodily Interests And this is such a use if it be all the use we can put it to as does not make it appear to be a very creditable thing to be a Man that it is either much for our honour or advantage that we are wiser than the Beasts For all the difference then between a Man and a Beast is this That they live with more simplicity and less care than we do and that we have a Faculty that contrives ways to vex and torment our life with a great deal of solicitude and anxiety and with perpetual labour and toil And wherein lies our advantage of having such a Faculty when we might eat and drink as much to the satisfaction of Nature and live with less care and vexation without it Or how is such an Employment to its honour Is it for the credit of so noble a Faculty to be sent about the World to find out Entertainments for our Senses or to be commanded by an immoderate love of the World to contrive ways to advance our Fortunes Do we honour our Understandings when we hire them out to our Lusts to bring in all the Satisfactions they crave with a little more Delicacy than Nature requires and to find out such ways of gratifying them as we could not do without it Do we give reputation to our Minds when we study how to make more plentifull and sumptuous provisions for our Bodies than a Beast can We may indeed by the help of this Faculty contrive ways to improve our Estates and to put our selves into an Honourable condition in the World And it is not to be deny'd but these are things that make a very glorious show and have gain'd the repute of great advantages But where lies that wonderfull advantage that our Reason is to us in these respects Of what mighty Service are the Riches and Honours that we so eagerly covet to us that we may be able from them to give a good account of our being endowed with Reason Does not their utmost Service relate to this life Does not their utmost use consist in making us appear a little glorious and enabling us to cloath our Bodies with gay Apparel to feed 'em with Cost and to build our selves stately Houses to dwell in And is it not possible we should live without this Can we not maintain Life and keep up the health and vigour of our Bodies unless we fare sumptuously and be gorgeously clad There is so little need of these things to these Ends that I believe a great many might have lived longer and with more health and comfort had they either had fewer of the Honours or Riches of the World For by being in a condition to gratifie our Luxury we are in a condition to surfeit Nature and to destroy our selves the sooner So that such a use of our Understandings as tends to put us into a condition that may be so hurtfull to us does not render such a Faculty very accountable to us And therefore Tully has made this wise Remark Obb. l. 1. Si considerare volumus quae sit in naturâ Excellentia Dignitas c. If we consider what is the Excellency and Dignity of our Nature we shall understand that it is a base thing to give way to Luxury and to live with softness and delicacy And then surely Reason can be of no great use to us if all the use we can make of it is for a life that is so much unworthy of us Neither is the usefulness of our Understanding much greater by enabling us to know the Natures of things For without Religion this Knowledge is of no use at all to us or onely of so much as it is serviceable to our present Interests Now to know purely for the sake of knowing without any further prospect of good to us is to be wise to no purpose and to know onely that we may make our advantage of it in this life does still suppose that our sensitive part is the most Excellent And in either of these two cases we have no great reason to value our selves for having such a Faculty neither is there any thing below Religion that can show its true height and greatness And as our Understandings are of no great use to us without Religion so our Wills are of much less For if we take an account of the Nature and Power of our Wills who can believe that we carry such a Faculty in our Nature as is able to command and check to controul and restrain our bodily inclinations and appetites onely that we might chuse to obey and follow them with the more ease If we were design'd to live according to the motions of our fleshly Lusts the inclinations of our sersitive Nature and the Laws in our Members what have we to do with a Faculty that has power to withstand them a power I say that can forbid our Eyes to see or Hands to execute the commands of our appetites and put us out of the way of living that we are design'd for Surely we are the worst contrived of any Creature for that course of life which we are to take if while we are intended for a Life of Sense we have a Faculty in us that has a power to hinder us from prosecuting it We have no need of such a Faculty for the living as a Beast does but a great deal of need to be without it Because they that are without it do obey the Commands of Sense much more freely and chearfully without it than we possibly can with it The very force and power of our sensitive Inclinations would be sufficient for such a life if we had no will to chuse it and our having such a Faculty can contribute nothing either to the inclining us to or to our taking any pleasure in it But on the contrary when-ever the Will does incline to such a life it is by reason of a mighty
some kind of Actions not fit to be tolerated and that there are such Passions in our Nature as will not suffer us to enjoy the benefits of Society unless they be chain'd up So that while they set themselves against Religion they confess it cannot be well with the World if we do not live as Religion requires and take care to punish those Enormities that Religion threatens with everlasting Burnings They would persude us that there is no God to punish us nor no Hell to torment us in but yet they tell us we must be true and just faithfull and honest kind and good natur'd and that the rage of our Passions and the violence of our Actions do deserve to be punish'd That it is not equally good for the World that Men should employ their Wit and Understanding to defraud and cheat or their Wills to oppress and do wrong as to consult each other 's good and to do Acts of kindness and humanity But that since there is no Religion to direct us nor Conscience to keep us in awe we must provide for our own peace and happiness as well as we can by establishing such Rules as it shall be dangerous for any Man to transgress And what less does this imply but that Religion is so beneficial to Mankind that it is a thousand pities but its Principles were really true and that it is very convenient that the World should be under those restraints it lays upon us So that the Atheist gets nothing at all by denying the Truth of Religion but while he labours to free Men from those Terrors which it does awe our Minds with does find it necessary to lay them on again by subjecting those that live otherwise than Religion requires to the vengeance of a humane Authority But to how little purpose will appear if we consider 2. That what they have a recourse to is not sufficient without Religion For by endeavouring to free Men's minds from the Terrors of Religion they destroy those internal Obligations of Conscience which are of more force to withstand the confusions and mischiefs they are afraid of than all the Laws and Punishments that the Wit of Man can invent For let but Conscience bear rule within and it will not onely tie men's Hands from doing wrong and their Tongues from speaking falsely but their Thoughts from contriving and their Hearts from conceiving them Let it but have a power of flashing Eternal stames in their faces and it will not leave Men so much as the Will to do any thing that tends to discompose the World This is so visible a Truth that it is very strange the Atheist is not sensible of his own folly in undermining a Principle that is so much for his interest and the contradiction he puts the World upon in maintaining a necessity That we should live as if there was such a thing as Conscience and yet at the same time believe there is none For if it be necessary to walk honestly and to do justice to silence our passions and correct our humours to converse with affability and courtesie and to make society good and usefull by doing all the good that is in our power to each other what more could we be obliged to if he allow'd as much Conscience among Men as Religion commands But since he is an enemy to Conscience he ought not to press Men with a necessity of any of those Vertues that Religion does but how convenient soever he finds it for the World to have them establish'd he can in reason blame no-body but himself if they be not because he has left it to the choice of Men whether they will or no. But when this is done will he say it is sufficient without Conscience to put the World into a quiet state and to secure to us all the advantages of Society Since he is sensible of the inconvenience of leaving Mankind to an unrestrain'd Liberty is the Dread of a Civil Magistrate as good a Restraint as that of a God Or will the Fears of a Secular Tribunal do as much to keep the World in peace as Conscience Surely it is not wisely done when they grant a necessity of those Duties that Religion puts upon us to laugh those Terrors out of the Minds of Men wherewith Religion persuades us unless they can set up some-thing in its room that is as sufficient to this purpose as Religion is If there be any thing that can serve our turn as well it must have the same power as Religion has and be as unchangeable as it is and take as severe a cognizance of us as that does But now nothing of this nature can be said of any Civil Government For let them be never so well contrived and establish'd at the first since they are in the hands of Men Time and Humane Passions may corrupt them And then that Power which is design'd to be for the punishment of Evil-doers and for the praise of them that do well may on the contrary countenance Vice and discourage Vertue Or if nothing of this nature happen it may be too weak or too remiss and either for want of power or a due use of it suffer such villainies and disorders as threaten Society with a dissolution In either of these two cases the World would soon feel the want of Religion and the Atheist himself I doubt not would begin to think it as needfull to the World as he believes it requisite that Justice and Honesty Uprightness and Integrity should be maintain'd But let us go one step farther and put the case that it be our good hap to live under a Government that both can and will punish the Insolencies of Men that has both power to correct the greatest Offenders and is carefull to administer Justice yet there are two Cases at least in which the best Government of the World is not sufficient without Religion to secure us from wrong The First is when it is done with secrecy and the Second is when the punishment that is incurr'd is despised As to the First it is plain that no Government can defend us from those Villainies that it can take no cognizance of nor can any humane Law punish a Crime that it cannot discover So that a Man may all the days of his life harbour an inveterate spight and malice in his Breast without fear He may hatch and contrive what mischief he please in his own Heart and if an opportunity to commit it with secrecy does offer it self he may do it without any kind of reluctancy or horror And how little certainty should we then have either of our Lives or our Fortunes It would never be safe for us to be alone and our Lives would lie at the Mercy of every one we meet with if he had but a prospect of some advantage and a probability of making his escape And as to the Second Case it is very visible our condition would be much worse For it is impossible
be fit that we be under restraints why does he find fault with Religion upon that account But if it be not why is he a friend to Government Either he is very resh in condemning Religion or he has not well weigh'd the Nature of Humane Liberty when he lays us under the Yoke Humane Laws For the same argument whereby he would set us at liberty from the one ought to destroy the other But if it be not fit that we should have the liberty he contends for it is highly reasonalbe that we should be under the restraints that he is an enemy to because they take the fastest hold upon us and are the surest means to make Society usefull to and Governement to have its proper effect upon us And this I shall more particularly endeavour to make appear 4. By considering how well Religion does provide for the Well-being of the World And none I am confident that knows either what it commands or how powerfully it persuades can make any doubt of its sufficiency to this purpose 1. If we consider what it commands For it favours every man's true Interest secures every man's Right and makes it penal to invade any man's Property It is the best Patron and Protector of the Poor for it preservs their Persons from contempt and provides a good relief for their necessities For it requires all Men to be kindly affectioned one to another with Brotherly love in Honour preferring one another and not to mind high Things but to condescend to Men of low Estate It is the surest defence to every man's Estate the best preservative of their Honours and Privileges and is a much better guard to their Persons and Possessions than all the weapons of defence they can make use of For it takes care of their Honours by requiring Inferiours to give honour to whom honour is due and of their Fortunes by obliging all Men to abstain from Violence and Wrong and to live by Principles of Conscience and Integrity And there is this further to be said in the behalf of the Commands of Religion That all Men do acknowledge the Reasonableness of them It s very Enemies confess that the Restraints it lays upon us and the Duties it obliges us to are for the good of Mankind nd necessary to the Well-being of the World They know that Sobriety is more for the Health of the Body than Intemperance and that Justice and Integrity conduce more to the preservation of Peace and Order in Societies than Craft and Knavery And however they are not willing that we should practise these things as Religious Duties yet they insist upon a necessity of practising them The meaning of which is nothing less than this They would not have us believe we are obliged in Conscience to do them though they have all the reason of the World on their side They would have us live as Religion directs though they would not have us believe there is any They do not think it reasonable that we should break its Commands though they think it very reasonable we should pay no respect to it So that with the same breath they both commend the observing the Duties thereof and ridicule the belief of it However when they confess That Conversation cannot be maintain'd without Uprightness and Simplicity nor Society stand without Faith and Truth nor Mankind be govern'd wighout a respect to Justice and Honesty 't is such a Concession as will easily persuade any Man to believe that they have such a secret sense of the Truth and Reasonableness of Religion and such an inward veneration for its Excellency that nothing but their Lusts do hinder them from being its greatest Patrons But there is one thing farther in which the Excellency of the Commands of Religion does consist and which above all other things does tend to preserve the World in a peacealbe and flourishing condition And that lies in its speaking to our Minds and obliging us not to harbour any ill thought or indulge any extravagant humour or yield to the motions of any violent passion For by requiring us to lay aside all Malice and Guile and Hypocrisies and Envy not to give way to Anger and Wrath or to suffer a revengefull Thought to live in our Hearts it strikes at the root of that wickedness that is vexatious and troublesome to the World And in this respect Religion is a much better foundation of Peace than the best Government in the World can possibly be It builds our Peace and Happiness upon an honest Mind and a vertuous Disposition whereas Humane Laws can take no cognizance of any thing that is within nor lay any restraints upon the malice of an ill-disposed Mind Upon which account the severest Proclamations and Edicts of the Civil Magistrate without Religion would be too weak to keep the World in order For Men may be as malicious and spightfull as envious and ill-natur'd as they please in spight of any Civil Sanctions and so long as these Passions are suffer'd to dwell quietly within us they will be corrupting our Actions and frequently compell us to let them loose to save our selves from their rage But further 2. Let us consider the Motives where with it persuades For to such a perverseness is our Nature depraved that unless we be awed and influenced by something that is very considerable no Command can be sufficient to oblige us to do our Duty This all Governments are aware of and therefore those in Authority do not content themselves with prescribing Rules of Life and telling us That such and such Actions are not for the good of Socieyt or not convenient for our Interests but enforce their Commands with Threats of punishment in case of disobedience And when the Atheist does allow of the Reasonableness of these Restraints he must grant That the more powerfully we are Aw'd the better it is for Society and that he has no reason to quarrel with Religion for obliging us to do our Duty to one another by setting Everlasting Considerations before us For these are Motives that he will acknowledge we ought not to despise till we are convinced that they are false which is an acknowledgment that Religion does take the most essectual course to keep us within bounds if the Considerations it makes use of be but true For doubtless the Rewards and Punishments it sets before us are of much greater force to encourage Obedience and discourage Disobedience than those that the Civil Magistrate can make use of The utmost punishment he can inflict is Death But who will much stand in awe of that when any considerable advantage tempts him if there be nothing to be fear'd afterwards Or what is there that is terrible in such a punishment to awe a desperate Mind The pain is but short and the shame is not like to sollow him and when this is put in the Scale with forty or fifty years pleasure how easie is it to despise the one for the other
But now let a Man believe that his shame and guilt will follow him into another World where he is like to suffer among cursed Spirits for ever nd he has so much reason against a profligate life as no Temporal consideration can out-weigh This is so very plain that the Atheist makes no exception to the power that these Terrors have to persuade Men but onely to the Truth of them And it is strange he should when it is so visible that it is so much his and every man's Interest they should be true and that it is not possible Man should be kept in awe without them CHAP. III. From the Desires of all Men that there should be such a thing as Religion in the World NOthing I presume can be more obvious than this Truth That if all Mankind be desirous that the Principles which Religion teaches and the Duties it requires should be true we have a great deal of reason to believe it is highly agreeable to our Nature For why should all Men agree in such a desire if there be not something in us that tells us it is of extraordinary advantage to us and that takes a secret pleasure and delight in it Such a Universal Desire cannot be of the nature of those suddain Pasions which owe their Birth to humour or fansie but must spring from some certain and fixed Reason which it is impossible for us to withstand Our Desires 't is true are sometimes so unaccountable that when we come to reflect upon them with seriousness we see a great deal of reason to be ashamed of them But a Desire in which all Mankind agrees can never be lookt upon as a hearty Transport but must arise from the Reasonableness of the thing that is desired and be the Effect of a Cause that has its foundation in our Nature Now that there is such a Desire will easily be granted if I can make good these Two things 1. That we naturally desire all that is implied in the fundamental Principles of Religion 2. All that Vertue that it teaches 1. We naturally desire all that is implied in the fundamental Principles of Religion We love and take pleasure to think of all the Perfections that Religion teaches us do belong to the Notion and Nature of a Deity and are very desirous to find them some-where that we may rest upon them We are so extremely affected with Life that we would never lose it if we could possibly prevent such a loss And since this is not possible Nature startles at and abhorrs the Thoughts of Death as is most formidable Enemy And as it is an Immortal life we are desirous of we would live such a Life as Religion describes that which is to come to be Neither is this a fansifull Wish of some particular Persons onely but the natural Desire of all Mankind It is not a Desire that sticks to the Minds of such onely as have been educated in the Principles of Religion but which the most Prophane and Atheistical person as well as the most Religious does allow to be reasonable Though he would have us to believe that he sees no reason to believe there is a God or a furture state of Immortality and Glory yethe is too great a friend o himself to think that Death is as desirable as Life and Misery as gratefull as Happiness Though he loves not to think there is a God yet he cannot but wish that there was someghing that was as wise and powerfull as good and comapssionate as we believe God to be And though he be an Enemy to the Notion of another life yet he seels himself strongly inclined to approve of the Immortality and to wish for as quiet and easie a life as belongs to that state The truth on 't is he is no enemy to the Wisdom and Goodness that is in God or to such uninterrupted Joys and Pleasures and such lasting Enjoyments as Religion teaches us to look for hereafter but he does not love to think that there is a God that is thus perfect or to be put off to a future state where we are taught That Immortality and Life will be disposed of as we qulifie our selves for them in this life The Enmity then that he bears to Religion is not because he believes the Principles thereof to be unreasonable but because he can find nothing in this World that he loves and doats on so much to contain all that Excellency and Good that Religion informs us of For was this World as glorious and happy a place as Heaven is represented to us to be or was there any thing that he loves in it as great and perfect as God is he would have no quarrel at all with these things But his great spight to Religion is That when it acquaints with things so desirable as Immortality and Life the Wisdom and Goodness and other Perfections of a Deity it puts him upon a contempt of those Enjoyments he loves here for the better qualifying himself for those hereafter But as to the Things themselves 1. He is desirous as well as other Men are of a friend who is every way qulified to be helpfull to him As confident as he appears that there is no God and as much sport as he makes himself with our belief that there is he as much as any other Man feels the imperfection of humane Nature and a necessity of having a recourse to something without him for relief and refreshment He thinks himself wise in disowning a God and yet he is sensible that no less Wisdom and Power and Goodness than that which is in God is sufficient to his happiness And therefore he does not think it fit at all times to rely upon the Abilities of his own Nature as if he was an independant Being but like all other Men is desirous of a friend that will be kind and helpfull to him A friend that has Wisdom enough to know how to advise and direct him and so to order his affairs that he need not doubt of a good issue to them That has power sufficient to relieve him when he is press'd with any difficulties and who above all has so much goodness and compassion in his Nature as assures him of a favourable reception when-ever he makes his address to him Now to desier such a friend is to wish that there was a God to govern and order all Events and to preside ove and be a ready help to us in all our Exigencies So that let us suppose that this wise discoverer was really right in his belief concerning this Principle of Religion yet when ever he reflects upon his own Wants he will not have much cause to rejoyce in his discovery but every moment furnishes him with fresh Reasons to wish he was mistakenl and all the World will consess that he is much in the right when he wishes for such a friend as we believe God to be For to wish for a friend that is at all
little favour as they have for Religion do yet frequently commend the Vertues they want and condemn their own Vices in other Men. So that it is plain that Religion has the Testimony and good Opinion of all Men And when they who are most averse to the practice of it do in innumerable cases judge of things according to its Rules and the Dictates of right Reason when they I say express such an inward Sense of its Excellency that they cannot but acknowledge they indecency of their own Vices when they see them in other Men who can believe but that it has its Foundation in our very Nature CHAP. V. From those Hopes and Fears that possess Men upon their doing well or ill THE last Argument I shall make use of for the proving Religion to be a thing that our Nature teaches us is Because Men that do well do naturally hope for some good from their Actions and on the contrary they that do ill are as naturally afraid of some ill consequences 1. From the hopes of good Men upon the account of the goodness of their Actions we have reason to believe there is a very great agreeableness of Religion to our Minds Such is the gratefulness of a vertuous Conversation to our Minds Such is the acquiescence and pleasure that arises from Acts of Piety and Humanity as discovers that we live according to the truest instincts of our Nature when we reverence the Deity and are just and charitable to Men. A good Man shall be satisfied from himself saith the Wise-man Prov. 14.14 i.e. The goodness of his Actions shall fill his Soul with joy and comfort and afford him the truest pleasure and most solid contentment And hence it is that he lives in a continued expectation of nothing but Good here and leaves the World with a good Hope of a glorious Reward hereafter The hope of the Righteous is gladness saith the Wise-man Prov. 10.28 He is not onely full of comfort upon the account of the Hope that is in him but that which he hopes for from the Nature of his Actions is such an acceptableness both with God and Man as is matter of great satisfaction to him The fruit that he expects from his labour is Quietness and Assurance Peace and Joy because he knows his Actionsare such as cannot justly create him any Enemies and which he knows God can no more be displeased with that he can hate his own Perfections But with a great deal of reason he looks for the favour and good-will of Men toward whom he behaves himself according to the most obliging Principles He expects that all Men should know their own Interests so well as not to be displeased with a Man that is afraid of nothing more that of giving them any distast and is onely thoughtfull how he may be a good Neighbour and a kind Friend to them If they love not Religion yet he knows they ought to love him who makes Conscience of his doings because they have no reason to apprehend an ill turn from such a Neighbour And the less reason he gives them to be offended with him the less apprehensive he is in himself of any knid of ill from them He lives secure in himself and is well persuaded that the goodness of his own Actions will protect him from all the spight and ill-nature of a corrupt World And as he has no reason to believe but his Actions will be well approved and liked of among Men so he has infinitely more reason to expect that the God whose Will he makes his Rule and whose Perfections he honours should be favourable and good to him There may be some reason to doubt whether he shall at all times be so well treated in a World where we see so much ingorance and folly so much wickedness and ill-humour to prevail But there is no reason to question whether a God of infinite Purity will take pleasure in his own Perfections Though Goodness has power enough to command respect from the worst of Men yet a Misrepresentation or a Calumny or the Evil bent of Men's corrupt inclinations which does not always suffer them to speak well of that Vertue which they inwardly approve of may disappoint the good Man's Exectations of Favour and Good-will among Men. But there is nothing to hinder him from rejoycing in hopes of favour and acceptance with God whom he fears and reverences because infinite Wisdom cannot be abused and imposed upon by false surmises nor infinite Goodness and Holiness be spightfully inclined against a pure and holy Conversation This is so great a Truth that bad Men oftentimes by seeming to be what the Religious Man really is do endeavour to secure to themselves a share in the good Man's Hope Hence we read of the Hope of the Hypocrite which though it be grounded onely upon a cheat and false show yet it is an argument that he is persuaded that Religion is a sure ground of a comfortable expectation For why should he be at the pains to disguise himself if there was no more reason to hope well from good and vertuous Actions than from those that are bad And if Religion does beget such a Hope as no Man is ashamed of such a Hope as even wicked Men by a counterfeit Piety are desirous to share in who can doubt of its agreeableness to our Minds For why should Men be better satisfied in themselves and have a better Hope from a sober and temperate a holy and upright Conversation than from one that is wicked and profligate if the one has as just a Foundation in our Nature as the other 2. If we consider the Fears of ill Men they will assure us that there is a great deal of Truth and Reality in Religion I do not suppose that every Man that does wickedly does immediately fall under the displeasure of his Conscience For a long course in Sin will do much to turn Men into such mere Brutes as not to be capable of trembling at an Evil at a distance But this is certainly true that no Man can enter upon an Evil course but his Conscience will reluct and terrifie him with the sense of his guilt and frightfull apprehensions of future wrath A future state of Rewards and Punishments is indeed derided by the Enemies of Religion as an idle Tale of crafty Priests that make use of it for the driving a Trade and to awe the World into an unreasonable Respect So that to go about to prove Religion by the fears of something hereafter that possess Men is in their opinion to prove one Cheat with another We must therefore they tell us first prove there is such a State before we go about to establish Religion by the Apprehensions Men have of it Now if this be true How comes it to pass that Men are more apprehensive from their bad than their good Actions Whence is it that Men look pale and are fill'd with Horrour and Anguish when they do an
Vice are things that we shall find to be more than mere Names at the last CHAP. VI. The Conclusion I Have in this Discourse endeavour'd to vindicate the Credit of Religion against those that maliciously report it to have no other foundation but either the Craft and Policy of States-men and the Credulity of simple People or at best the Authority of Governours who are supposed by their People's receding from their natural Right to have a Power given them to declare what is just and right and what is Injustice and Iniquity And if Religion has such a greal Foundation in our Nature as the foregoing Arguments do certainly prove it has 1. Let us enquire how it comes to pass that any Man can be an Enemy to it 2. How great folly it is to neglect and despise it 3. How much reason we have to live in the constant practice of it 1. Upon what reason it is that any Man can be an Enemy to it For it may as soon be expected that a Man should be an Enemy to himself and contemn the best Powers of his Nature and believe that he himself is the greatest Cheat in the World as that he should believe that That which has so near a relation to and perfect agreement with the Frame of his Nature should be so And indeed if we consider the Grounds and Principles that they go upon it is but too plain that they do not remember that they are Men when they endeavour to over-throw the Truth and Reality of Religion For either they consider themselves to be nothing more than material Beings and to have nothing better than a Body to provide for or if those Thoughts and Reasonings those Reflections and other internal Operations which we are sensible of and which cannot be accounted for from so dull and insenfible a Principle as Matter is do force 'em to acknowledge that there is something in us that is not Matter yet they maintain that the Body is as considerable a part of us as the Soul and that our bodily Appetites have naturally as good a Right to govern us as our Reasons So that although the spight of these Men does not go upon the same Principles yet it is in both equally mischievous and has a respect to the same ill Ends which is the supporting the interests of the Flesh and the serving our Lusts The former indeed goes more roundly to work and by a point-blank denial of his own Immortality leaves himself no other happiness but what consists in bodily Enjoyments And the latter though he does allow of a Principle in us that disposes us for Religion yet does meet him in the same point when he gives as good a Right in Nature to our bodily Appetites to govern us as to our Reason For it is not in favour to Reason that he allows it a room in our Nature since it would be all one to us if we had no Reason at all if it may not command us And what signifies a disposition to Religion upon the account of the Reason that is in us if we may without incurring any guilt despise both Reason and Religion upon the account of an equal Authority that our bodily Appetites hav eto rule us Does it not as much over-throw Religion to give such an Authority to our Appetites as to deny all the Principles of it And does not the setting our Appetites at liberty from the Restrains of Religion imply a very great tenderness to our Bodies What less can be supposed to lie at the bottom of such Discourses as tell us That though our Nature does dispose us to Religion as we are reasonable Creatures it does as much dispose us the other way as we have fleshly Appetites planted in us And that upon this account he who obeys his Appetites has as good a Right to do so as he who obeys his Reason so that in our natural State we cannot conceive any such thing as Sin or a God to Judge and Punish us for it What I say can lie at the bottom of such horrid Discourses but a palpable design to serve the Interests of our Lusts And indeed it is no great wonder that Men that have so much kindness to their Bodies should endeavour to weaken the Power and be spightfull against the Interests of Religion Let them pretend a concern to free us from Prejudices and Pre-possessions as much as they please and a design to restore our Nature to its true and native Liberty 't is obvious enough that all the Liberty they aim at is to be Vicious and to live as much without Reason as if they did really believe they had none For why should they contend for the Freedom of our Appetites from the Restraints of Reason if they did not much more favour their Bodies than their Souls and had not a greater liking to a Life of Sense than Reason 'T is a plain case that they are Enemies to the Obligations of Religion for no other reason but because they love their Lusts too well to have them check'd and have stronger Inclinations to do wickedly than to live well And therefore it is objected against Religion that it is an utter Enemy to all the delights of the Body and lays this part of us under such severities and hardships as are no ways consistent with the Happiness of a Man The meaning of which is that they are Enemies to Religion because it is an Enemy to an unreasonable way of living and condemn its Restraints because it condemns the Licentiousness of our Lusts And if this be a just Reason to except against Religion it is every-whit as just to quarrel with our own Nature and to account it an unhappiness that we are not Beasts So that 2. It is a very great folly to despise or neglect Religion For we cannot do this but to our own infinite hurt and mischief It is to neglect the best means of satisfying all the desires of our Nature and of putting our selves into that easie state which every Men wishes and longs for It is to hurl the greatest contempt upon our Understandings and to persuade the World that it is no advantage to us that we are Men. It is to make Reason a useless Faculty to us and the same thing as to wish we had been made Fools and Idiots But more particularly 1. It is to do the greatest mischief to the Soul 2. To the Body And he who can be such an Enemy to himself does deserve the Character of a Fool. 1. It is to do the greatest mischief to the Soul This indeed the Enemies of Religion are not very sensible of but they are never the wiser Men for that no more than a Man in a Lethargy who feels nothing can be said to enjoy the best health The stupidity of theformer is as ill a symptom of the dangerous condtion of the Soul as the insensibility of the latter is of the bad state of the Body It is a
ERRATA PAge 3. line 6. for aed read and p. 6. l. 22. a comma only p. 11. l. 22. r. effectual p. 17. l. 28. for dispose r. depose p. 18. l. 26. for the r. their p. 19. l. 28. make a comma at Service l. 29. dele Semicolon p. 33. l. 1. for motions r. motives p. 42. l. 15. for they r. thus p. 44. l. 25. for it is r. is it p. 55. l. 26. dele his p. 86. l. 26. for and r. but p. 89. l. 14. dele Colon p. 107. l. 12. after God add says he p. 145. l. 19. for it r. this p. 160. l. 28. for awfully r. lawfully p. 184. l. 20. for now r. more p. 188. l. 6. add what to the beginning of the line p. 189. l. 14. r. Martyr p. 190. l. 26. r. contradistinction p. 194. l. 15. for principal r. principle p. 196. l. 2. after Kingdom add or p. 103. l. 23. for viz. that r. and p. 196. l. 26. add to in the beginning of the line p. 57. l. 12. for we r. he in the running Title of Chap. 8. for of r. upon p. 141. l. 5. add For if Arguments drawn from Natural Reason have no force of themselves to prove a God antecedent to Divine Revelation I do not see how they can have any afterwards and if they be such as any ways depend upon Divine Revelation so far will they be of less force to convince an Atheist A DISCOURSE OF RELIGION SHEWING Its Truth and Reality OR The Suitableness of Religion to Humane Nature By WILLIAM WILSON M. A. Rector of Morley in Derbyshire IMPRIMATUR Martii 30 â—â— 1694. Ra. Barker LONDON Printed by J. H. for William Rogers at the Sun against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet MDCXCIV Introduction RELIGION is so favourable to all our Interests that it is justly matter of amazement to all good Men that ever any Man should attempt the discrediting it For at the same time that any kind of injury is offer'd to it the Happiness of Mankind is struck at and no Man can bring it into any disgrace but to his own infinite detriment and mischief And yet so far is Humane Nature corrupted with base Lusts that for the sake and quiet enjoyment of them Men care not what Violence they offer to that which in Interest they are chiefly bound to support and without which it is impossible they should enjoy any of that peace and security which are the necessary comforts of this life It is possible indeed that many of those that do wickedly may have no profess'd ill design against Religion nor have gone so far as to disown it or ridicule the profession of it but yet all kind of Wickedness does bring an ill report upon it and a wicked life is such a denial of its Truth and Reality as leaves no room to believe that they can be heartily persuaded of their Obligation to practise it who live in a contradiction to its Principles To live as if there was no God is certainly as bad as to declare we believe there is none And he is as great an Enemy to Religion who lives as if it was a cheat as he who is so ingenuous to own he believes it to be so Nay of the two it is much the worse to pay so little respect to a Being whom we believe to deserve our highest reverence and spightfully to break through the Rules of Religion which we profess we have no reason to despise than to slight and vilifie them because we look upon them to be no better than the jugglings of an Impostour For let us but bring the matter a little home to our selves and try how we brook the Enmity of a Man who while he fairly tells us he has no just exception against us yet at every turn is as spightfull and injurious to us as the most profess'd Enemy we have Should we not resent his wrongs and affronts the more deeply and account him a more ill natur'd Enemy than he who openly declares his spight Should we not roundly tell him that if he has no reason to treat us hardly he ought to behave himself more civilly and that the less we have deserv'd his spight the greater is the wrong that he does us That by such an unhandsome carriage he gives the World an occasion to believe that we have some way or other deserved ill of him and that his professing the contrary is rather an argument of the goodness of his temper than a proof of ours This is the judgment that every considering Man will pass upon the behaviour of those that profess to believe the Excellency of Religion and yet in Works deny it For if Religion be that excellent and noble thing that they believe it is they have so much the less reason to dishonour it and to endeavour to bring contempt upon it by so notorious a disrespect to its holy Rules Neither could they possibly do so much injury to it by believing as they live as they do by living otherwise than they believe For a Man's belief lies so secret and his practice is so visible that every Man will be apt to take his judgment concerning the Truth of Religion from what they see him to be rather than from what he professes to believe So that while such a Man professes not to have the same reason to discredit Religion as the Atheist will seem to have the difference that is in their Faith does make so much the worse for him that believes well and yet lives the life of an Atheist For every Man that lives as if there was no such thing as Religion may as well nay ought to believe as the Atheist does They both are thus far Enemies to the Truth of Religion that the Atheist believes it to be a cheat and the other lives as if it was so But however the wickedness of those that believe the Truth of Religion be in these respects equally spightfull if not more injurious to its reputation than that of the Atheist yet there is this difference in their cases that the former lies open to the force of all those arguments that the Being of a God the Immortality of the Soul a Judgment to come and a future state of Rewards and Punishments do furnish us with but the latter does not For he that believes these things has a great deal of reason to be astonish'd at his way of living and so no doubt but he will when he comes seriously to think of it But for the Atheist there is no likelihood that these things should work upon him who has this ready answer to all that can be objected to him from these Principles That they are all Lyes and Forgeries That the World has been long imposed upon by these silly dreams but for his part he is the happy Man that has discover'd the cheat He then that will persuade the Atheist that he lives ill must convince him that he is mistaken in his belief and
that the Principles of Religion are not things that are laid in our Minds by Education or which we are train'd up to by the Art of Politicians or cheated into by the Craft of Priests but that they are founded in our Nature and carry a suitableness in them to the reason of our Minds This I say must be done before this Man can be convinced that he ought to alter his way of living For it cannot be denied but that if he be right in his belief he cannot be wrong in his practice That if there be no God nor a future state no tie or obligation upon him to live otherwise than as his Lusts incline him he may without any reflection upon himself follow the worst inclinations of his Nature and justifie the greatest extravagancies he can be guilty of Wickedness and Atheism are very fit to go together And no Man that does wickedly can make it appear that he acts wisely but the Atheist if he be but wise in the Nature of his Belief And this indeed all wicked Men are so sensible of that at the last they generally are forced to fly to Atheism as the onely refuge from that folly they are otherwise chargeable with For a Man that is resolved upon a wicked life feels that he cannot sin with quiet and ease so long as his Conscience tells him that he lives contrary to his belief and that according to what he believes he must certainly be damn'd So that rather than be haunted with such frightfull apprehensions he chuses to ease his Mind of so troublesome a Faith By doing this he knows he shall get out of the reach of those fears that check and appall him and that when-ever he is upbraided for the beastliness of his actions he has nothing to do but to laugh at the folly of those that believe it to be a manly thing to be tied up from living according to his own pleasure and the liberty of his own nature And there is no recovering this Man but by fixing those Principles in his Mind again which for the sake of his Lusts he had turned out and by convincing him that there is nothing so certainly true and intrinsically good as Religion is This is the design of the following Discourse in which I shall consider 1. What the Frame of our Nature does inform us whether we be not so made that without Religion we can give no account of what use our best Faculties are to us or whether we be no better fitted for Religion than the Beasts are 2. What the Well-being of the World does require Whether Religion be of that indifferency to the good of Mankind that it can be every-whit as well with us with it as without it Or whether it be not of that absolute necessity to the happiness of the World that without it there is no possibility of maintaining that Peace and Order by which the World stands 3. What it is that all Men do naturally wish for Whether we find so little profit by Religion that it is indifferent to us whether the Principles of it be believed or its Rules observed and practised or no or whether we do not feel so much benefit by it as to desire that its Authority may be maintain'd 4. What the common and received Opinion of Mankind concerning it is Whether all Men do or ever did universally agree in the belief that Vice was as much for the honour and happiness of our Nature as Vertue is or whether it be not the Vniversal sense of Mankind that there is a vast difference between Vertue and Vice 5. What we may conclude from the Appetites and Aversions that belong to our Nature Whether the bent of our Desires and the strength of our Fears do not imply a natural Suitableness of Religion to our Minds A DISCOURSE OF RELIGION SHEWING Its Truth and Reality c. CHAP. I. The Truth of Religion proved from the Frame of our Nature THere is no better way to know how we ought to live and to satisfie our selves in the Truth or Falshood of this important Question concerning the intrinsick Excellency of Religion and its natural relation to us than by considering what kind of Creatures we are and the utmost capacities of our Nature For if upon such an enquiry it does appear that there is nothing in us that has a respect to and does necessarily suppose the Being of such a thing as Religion we must allow the Atheist to be the wise Man who rejects it as an unreasonable imposition but if it does appear that there is something in us that does naturally dispose us for the practice of it as our business and which without it no good account can be given of nor any thing sufficient for its happiness we have no reason to think that we are trick'd and cheated into the belief of Religion For according as we find we are framed we are to take an account of our Duty and that which the Make of our Nature does make our Duty must be more than a trick or a contrivance Now whoever considers himself will find that he has both the sensitive Powers of a Beast and the spiritual Faculties of an Angel I mean that he is made up of a material visible part by vertue of which he is under a necessity of burying himself in worldly Employments and capable of the satisfactions that arise from the enjoyment of sensible Objects and bodily Pleasures And besides that there is something in him that makes him more valuable than the Beasts and in respect of which he looks upon them to be inferiour to him And this part of us which we value our selves so much upon is capable of being exercised upon other Objects and of being employ'd to other purposes than our bodily Senses are For if it was not it would not at all differ from our sensitive part and then we should have no reason to think better of our selves than of those Creatures that have as quick a perception of bodily pain and pleasure as we have But of all the Enemies of Religion there are none but think they are in some respect capable of other kind of perceptions than Creatures of mere sense are And this Principle by which we differ from them does render us capable of thinking or considering what is best for us of looking forward and backward and debating with our selves upon the nature and several circumstances of our own actions whetuer such or such a thing be fit and proper to be done or whether that which we have done be not to be corrected and of checking and controuling our bodily inclinations and appetites and of determining us to this or that course of actions as they appear to be best for us And if this be the Frame of Humane Nature as I doubt not but the greatest friend to a sensitive life does find it is it is plain there must be such a thing as Religion because such a make does
any pleasure to the Mind to take an account of those things which we have done with precipitation and folly or to call those Actions before it which threaten a Man with vexation and trouble But then the reason why the Mind takes no pleasure in such a re-view is not because this kind of Knowledge is not delightfull but because it is no delightfull thing to a Man to know that he has done foolishly The disquiet arises from the folly and indiscretion that we find in our doings which were never believed to be satisfactory to the Mind but not because it is a grievous thing to make use of our Understandings to this purpose For it is as gratefull a thing to the Mind to be thus employ'd as it is to take a view of what is fit to be done before we do it And it is certain that in all the concerns of this life it is accounted a very happy thing to have the Art of looking forward and backward and of taking an account how our affairs stand what it is that contributes to our success or what is the cause of any miscarriage in our affairs that we may the better know how for the future to avoid the Rocks we have split upon or to compass our Aims in the like case This is lookt upon to be a necessary means to thrive in the World and Men generally account it a great weakness not to be able to give an account how Matters stand with them Now this is a certain argument that our Understandings are design'd for such an employment and that this consciousness of our own good or ill condition is a Knowledge the Mind cannot be satisfied without But without Religion it is impossible that a Man should have this satisfaction For take away Religion and every Man is at liberty to do what he pleases and if every things be lawfull to be done nothing can offend a Man's Mind And if no sort of Action can give any offence to the Mind it is in vain to pretend a consciousness in our selves at any time that we have done something that is not for our good 'T is true were we no better than Brutes we should be capable of pleasure and pain from the different Objects that strike upon our Senses But then we must bear the Evil that should befall us as the effect of our hard fortune but should have no reason to reflect upon our selves with anguish for contributing to our own misfortune by our own errors and imprudence So that either we must acknowledge that we are capable of throwing our selves into ill circumstances by doing foolishly or of putting our selves into a good condition by acting prudently or we must deny that ever we either are or can be conscious to our selves of having done any thing that we ought to repent of or rejoyce in which is contrary to the common Sense of Mankind For to allow of such a consciousness in our selves and yet at the same time to say that all our Actions are in their own nature equally lawfull is to maintain a contradiction in our own nature For to be conscious to our selves at any time that we have done something that is not good for us does suppose that there are some sort of Actions that we ought to avoid And to maintain that every thing is equally lawfull is to say that we can do nothing that is hurtfull to us or that we ought to be carefull to avoid And what is this but to say that we ought not to do some things because they are mischievous and that we may do every thing because nothing is hurtfull to us This is an argument that the Enemies of Religion are sufficiently sensible of the force of And therefore lest it should compell them to acknowledge that there is such a thing as Religion they have no way left but to laugh Couscience out of the World So that though they are sensible that our own folly is oftentimes an occasion of many miscarriages in our Temporal affacirs yet they will not allow that there is any Action so naturally Evil as to give disgust to the Mind by reason of its own deformity but onely as it is attended with some Temporal inconvenience To which I reply 1. That this as has been said does suppose the Mind to be the vilest part of us That it is onely to do the Office of a Slave to the Body by taking care of its concerns 2. This makes it impossible ever to avoid any of those inconveniences that we complain of For if nothing that we do be Evil in its own Nature it is onely by mere accident that some of our Actions are mischievous to us And if so it is not possible to know when we are to do or not to do any thing that we do because that which is foolishly done at one time upon the account of the mischief it occasions may be wisely done at another because to our advantage Our experience may tell us what we should not have done when it is too late to help it but it cannot satisfie us whether we should never do the same thing again or no because it depends upon another trial whether the same Action will be attended with the same ill Consequences So that 3. Let them say Whether we be under an Obligation to avoid doing those things which we find to be to our detriment If we be let them satisfie us how we can do this if there be no such thing as Religion For if there be noging that is in its own nature Evil there is nothing that is in its own nature not fit to be done nothing at which our Minds can take a distast before it has made a trial of it And how then shall we know how to manage our selves so that our Actions may not give us reason to complain of our selves But if we be not what signifies it to us that we are afterwards conscious to our selves of the Good we have done to or of that Evil we have brought upon our selves So that Conscience or that secret Sense of the profit or disadvantage our Actions are to our Temporal affairs that they allow of must needs be a great trouble and torment to us if we cannot make any use of it to our future advantage It will upbraid us with that folly which we cannot possibly help for the future if there be no such thing as Religion and serve for nothing but to afflict us with its own dissatisfactions in being forced to bear the Wounds that our imprudence gives it without ever hoping to remedy it If then the being able to take an account of the goodness or ilness of our circumstances be accounted an advantage in our Nature as all Men are very sensible it is in respect of the affairs of this lise it is of absolute necessity that Religion be really true not onely for the making Conscience usefull to us but for the preventing those dissatisfactions it
would every moment lie exposed to by lying at the Mercy of our bodily Lusts and by being obnoxious to the ill consequences of our frequent follies If it be a happy thing to know the true state of our own condition Religion is the most comfortable thing we can think of and there connot a worse thing befall us than to have it proved beyond contradiction that there is no such thing as Religion For Religion by instructing us in the real differences between Vertue and Vice does furnish us with that Knowledge as enables Conscience to determine rightly concerning our state and to be a faithfull Monitor to and certain Director of us in every difficult case And 2. As our Understandings would labour under perpetual dissatisfactions without Religion so would our Wills As all Men are sensible that they have something in them that is not satisfied with any thing but Knowledge so there is none but feels a Power within them that can give Laws to their Senses and either permit or forbid our bodily Inclinations to bear rule in us a power whereby he can either chuse to do or not do any thing that he discovers to be either good or hurtfull to him So that it is plain that nothing below Vertue can give satisfaction to so excellent a Faculty By Vertue I mean a firm Purpose in our selves to do nothing but what is good or a determination of the Will to those things which upon a strict and thorough Enquiry we find to be really best for us So that Vertue is not a thing that lies at the mercy of any thing without us to deprive us of neither is it a thing that is not in our own power but is seated in our very Souls and is nothing else but the constant and unmoveable purpose of the Will to prosecute those designs that are of real and great advantage to us For since our Wills are capable of obeying the Impulses of our sensual Appetites and yielding to the force of bodily Inclinations or of following the Commands of Reason we become either vertuous or vicious as we yield either to the one or other of these To hearken to the Temptations of the Flesh and to let our Appetites rule and govern our Wills is to be vicious because in this case the Will is removed form the steadiness of its purpose and is compell'd to chuse that which Reason cannot approve or allow to be the best for us but we then show the Vertue of our Minds when our Wills do move as Reson commands and our Understandings direct So that Vertue does suppose such a firmness and resolution of Mind as is not to be groken by the strongest On-sets of our sensual Appetites For he that wavers and is carried away with every gust of Temptation who can neither prevail with himself to deny his Appetite when any sensual Gratification offers it self or to withstand the force of any bodily Inclination is a Man of no more Vertue than he is of Resolution But then this steadiness of our Resolution must follow the Judgment that Reason after a most diligent enquiry makes of the goodness of any Action For unless our Resolution has a respect to that which we know is really good it is so far from having any thing of Vertue in it that it is a sinfull Wilfulness or an obstinate bending our Spirits to such a thing against all reason So that every Man that is firmly resolved either to do or not to do a thing which carries nothing of good or ill in it nothing whereby the Conscience can be either recreated or hurt does not merit any thing of Praise for the Vertue of his Mind For those things that have nothing of good nor ill in them and can neither make our condition better nor worse are not matters of Vertue but they may either be done or left undone without any damage to us But that Resolution of our Mind is our Vertue which has a respect to some-thing that is really good and excellent and tends to our great advantage and honour This then being the Nature of Vertue either we must acknowledge that there is such a thing as Religion or we must deny that there is a power of chusing its own Actions in the Soul For if there be no such thing as Religion there is nothing either good or ill for us to chuse or refuse And if we be so framed as to have but one way of living before us we must disclaim a power of determining our selves to any other For such a power does suppose that we are framed for two different kinds of Actions and that it behoves us to be very cautious how we determine our selves It necesiarily supposes that all things are not equally good for us else it is to no purpose to have a power to refuse any thing but that we may chuse amiss and thereby put our Souls into a very uneasie condition And therefore the Wise-man observes That he that getteth wisdom i.e. who is well instructed in Religion loveth his own soul and he that keepeth understanding shall find good Prov. 19.8 i.e. This is the great advantage of Wisdom and Vertue that by it a Man does gain an Empire and rule over himself He gets his Heart into his own possession and becomes the Master of his bodily Affections and Lusts And the that thus manages himself does discover the truest friendship to his own Soul for he best consults its good and happiness And thus Epictetus considers the Will as an instrument either of good or ill to us Arrian in Epict. l. 1. c. 29. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God has enacted this Law That if we desire any goo we should ask it of our selves For saith he the Nature of Godd and Evil does lie in the disposition of the Will And again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. God has not given us this Faculty to enable us to bear all Events with an undaunted Mind onely but as a King and a Father that nothing may exercise a Power and Authority over us but that we may have a full Power over our selves But what can such a Power signifie to us if we cannot chuse amiss and nothing we can do can hurt us Since then there is such a Faculty in our Souls either we must believe we are made for Religion or to be a vexation to our selves For 1. It is onely Religion and Vertue can be the true and proper Employment of this Faculty 2. Without it it cannot maintain its freedom 1. It is Vertue alone that is the true and proper Employment of such a Faculty For who can believe that by obeying the Lusts of his Flesh and following the Inclinations of his sensual Appetites he lives like a Being that has a power over his own Actions Does any Man think that he shows the power of his Will to chuse Good and refuse Evil who indifferently allows himself in the practice of any thing he has a
mind to Was Man design'd onely to live a sensual life he would not have stood in need of such a Faculty For the very Propensities of his bodily Appetites would have been sufficient to such a purpose For what need can a sensitive Creature have either of Understanding or Will to see those things that are pleasing to the Eye or to tast those things that are delightfull to the Palate Whether we were capable of chusing these things or no our Eyes and other bodily Senses are sufficient for them And there is no Man that preferrs a sensual before a vertuous Life but before he can take any tolerable kind of satisfaction in it he finds himself under a necessity of offering Violence to his Wil and forcing it to comply with his lower Inclination So that if a Man was design'd as much for a sensual as a vertuous Life he would be the worst fitted for it of any Creature because he carries a Faculty in him whose Office it is to withstand his sensitive Inclinations The Beasts have nothing in their Nature that does controul their Senses or forbid their gratifying their Appetites to the full But where-ever they find a full Pasture they graze and fill their Bellies without considering whether they be guilty of a Trespass or no because they have nothing but a want of Appetite to restrain them at any time But Man is certainly very ill contrived for a life of Sense and the happiness of a Beast because his Will till it be wholly subdued has a Power to forbid his Appetites from craving Since then there is such a Power in our Wills to put our Appetites under restraints and that Sense cannot gain a Command over us till it has gain'd the Mastery over our Wills and made them of no use at all to us who can doubt but the happiness of our Souls must arise from that Vertue which consists in giving Laws to our Bodies For to be sure their happiness must arise from the true and natural use of their several Powers neither is it possible they should be in an easie state so long as any of their Powers are either useless to them or abused any more than the Body can be in a healthfull vigorous state so long as there is a dead Member belongs to it When therefore we maintain firm and steady Purposes in our selves to do nothing but what is for our good notwithstanding all the Temptations we have to the contrary we must needs as much delight our Souls by employing their Faculties a-right as we do our Bodies when we make use of our Eyes to see and our Ears to hear And on the other hand it must be as grievous to the Soul to have the Authority of so Soveraign a Faculty despised as it is an Affliction to the Body not to satisfie its Appetites at all If Vertue and Vice be onely Names the Power that the Will has to give Laws to our sensitive Appetites if we make use of it will give a great deal of trouble to us But if we do not how can it chuse but be a great dissatisfaction to the Soul to be troubled with a Faculty that is of no real use to it So that in either case without Religion we cannot enjoy that content and ease in our selves which springs from the natural use of our Faculties And especially 2. Since without Vertue we cannot maintain the freedom of our Wills T is true indeed if there be no such thing as Religion we are at liberty to follow the most violent Inclinations of our Nature But this is a Liberty if we make use of it that deprives the Will of its Soveraignty and makes it an unreasonable thing for this Faculty to interpose its Authority for the restraining us in any case And accordingly it is the unhappy condition of every Man that lives by no other Laws but those of his Members and is under the power of his bodily Appetites that he is never true to any good purpose but having lost the liberty of his Nature he wills and chuses loves and desires hates and flies things onely as a present inclination commands him And how is it possible that the Soul should be in an easie satisfied state when it is not suffer'd to move according to its own Will but the Will and Pleasure of a Lust nor to seek its own satisfaction but is forced to serve the Will of a Tyrant No it is Vertue alone can be the delight of the Soul because it is that alone that sets it at liberty and maintains it in its own proper freedom When a Man is bravely resolved in himself that no Lust shall be his Master that his bodily Appetites shall not crave beyone the Measures of Nature nor his Sense usurp upon his Reason and assume the office of judging what is good or bad for him he asserts that Liberty which is the delight of the Soul and maintains that just Authority of his Will which the Mind rejoyces in This is so Essential to our happiness that even bad Men do insist upon it as the reason why they live as they do They complain that it is a very hard case for a Man to be obliged to lay restraints upon the Appetites that God has planted in his Nature and to deny himself of the free use of any of his natural Powers For to what purpose has he Eyes say they if he may not look upon gratefull Objects or why I she made capable of tasting the Pleasures of a feasted Appetite if he must put a knife to his Throat Now although this implies a very unjust Charge against Religion as if it did forbid us to give that satisfaction to our Appetites which is reasonable yet it does grant that a Man cannot be happy so long as any of the Powers of his Nature are in slavery To know then whether Vertue or Vice be most for our happiness we have nothing to do but to consider which does best maintain our freedom Now the freedom that the vicious Man pretends to lies onely in his living a licentious course of life as if he had no Reason nor Conscience no Faculty to consider with nor no Power to bridle his Appetites but was as very a beast as those that graze in the Fields And it is sure if we take away Religion we have nothing to do either with our Reason or our Wills But if we make use of them they will vex us by not suffering us to humour the extravagancies of our Appetites And if we do not the slavery of our Wills will be our Torment For it can no more be an easie thing for the Soul to see itself in bondage or to hear Conscience groaning under a heavy yoke or to have no more benefit of its own Will than if we had no power at all to live better than it is to our Body to feel it self loaden with Chains Wicked Men by breaking loose from the restraints of Religion do indeed
that the most rigorous Government should secure us from the wickedness of those desperate Men who will not be awed by a Gallows any more than they are by a Hell If a Man be resolved that no Law shall restrain him from prosecuting his own advantage and at the same time he accounts every thing just and lawfull that is for his interest what Law or Proclamation can protect us from the Villainies of such a Man The utmost that the Magistrate can inflict is Death and if that be despised what signifies his Power and Authority And besides it is much to be doubted that this would be the general Temper of Mankind if there really was no Religion since we see that those wretched Miscreants that have once learnt to despise a Judgment to come do as easily over-come the fears of Death and presently learn to contemn the penalties of humane Laws So that Magistrates are beholding to that sense of Religion that is upon the Minds of Men that their Authority is at all reverenced and their Laws regarded And the Enmity of the Atheist thereto is much more mischievous than they are aware of For they thereby make that Civil power which they would have supported fruitless and ineffectual and give that liberty to the Passions and Appetites of Men which no Laws can restrain And indeed 3. It is not just or reasonable to attempt it For put the case that the Atheist was in the right as soon as we are persuaded of this we must alter our Opinions both conerning our own Nature and the End we are to aim at and the Means whereby we are to compass it For then we must consider our selves onely as Beings that carry a mortal life about with us and whose great End is to take care of our Bodies and to make this present life as easie and gratefull to us as we can This I say must needs be the great business and employment of our Lives because there is nothing in this visible World but what has a respect to our Bodies and is for the service of this life And if this be all the End that we are to have in our view the onely use of that prudence and discretion that belongs to us must be to find out the best and speediest ways for the serving our Aims So that what-ever we shall judge a fit means for the bettering our present condition and the raising our fortunes will be a necessary Duty and what-ever does any way thwart our Designs or hinder us from attaining our End must be a sin in us if we do it And if this be so we must likewise change the names of things and call Vertue vice and Vice vertue For there is no doubt but Fraud and Falsehood Cheating and Cozenage Violence and Oppression Wrong and Robbery are very speedy and effectual means to get into an Estate and to deliver our Bodies from presure and want And that honest Labour and Industry Integrity and Uprightness Truth and Faithfulness do oftentimes hardly furnish the vertuous and good Man with the bare Necessaries of this life So that we must account the doing Justice and loving Mercy the walking Honestly and speaking the Truth from our Hearts to be the worst of Crimes and that he who lives by these Rules does make a very ill use of his Understanding But that he who has the best knack at Cheating and can with the best grace abuse an Oath to persuade his Neighbour to believe a Lye does nothing but what becomes a vertuous and a wise Man For since we must value the Means according to the Tendency they have to promote the End we aim at we are mightily mistaken in the Nature of Things if we think those slow-paced ways of thriving which Justice and Honesty oblige us to take are Verthes or that those quicker ways of Theft and Robbery and the like are Vices if all we have to do be to take care that our Bodies be well provided for neither ought the practice of these things be made dangerous to us For no Man ought to be discouraged from doing his Duty nor run any hazard in prosecuting his true End by the best and most likely Means So that all those laws that restrain from the doing of these things and make it Death either to Murder or Steal when the satisfaction of our Appetites or Passions do dispose us to either would be unjust because they oblige us to sin against our selves and suffer us not to do our selves that good which we always ought to have in our Eye Government then would be altogether useless as to those Ends for which the Atheist does suppose it to be necessary Neither ought we to look upon it as a wise contrivance for the preserving our Rights and fecuring to us the Benefits of Society but to account it the most wicked invention that ever was if it does not protect the doers of wrong and mischief and punish those that complain of it And this one would think the Atheist when he quarrels with Religion for laying restraints upon our Appetites aim'd at For according to his Principle our Appetites ought to be allow'd their full swing and whatever does any way give a check to them ought to be condemned as much as he does Religion So that the making the Gallows the reward of Theft does deserve as severe a Censure as he passes upon Religion for threatning it with Eternal flames For this is to abridge us of our natural Liberty which is as great a Cruelty in Government as it can be pretended Unnatural in Religion If then this Principle will permit of any Government at all it must be for the encouragement of Rage and Fury as the most manly Vertues and the highest Madness and Extravagancies as the best Wisdom It must be for the protecting and cherishing us when we act most like Bears and Tygers and the giving us the greater scope to prey upon and devour each other This would be the consequence of the want of Religion And what a dreadfull Creature would Man be if every thing should be a Duty which does conduce to the gratifying his Lusts and a restraint from Perjury and Villainy was to oblige him to sin against himself And what a frightfull place should we have of this World if Government was for the praise of Mischief and Violence and the punishment of Goodness and Uprightness We should have little reason either to wish for the Neighbourhood of our fellow Creature or to rejoyce in being under the Authority of Laws And if the want of Religion would have such direfull Effects who can doubt whether it be fit and necessary that the World should be under the restraints of it The reasoning of the Atheist is certainly very unaccountable when for the exploding Religion he condemns it for the restraints it lays upon us and yet for the preserving Society is forced to acknowledge that it is necessary our Liberty should be restrain'd For if it
valuable thing that he is not willing to part with For when a Man has lost all that he has will he thank his friend for the comfort he gives him by telling him that now he is as low as he can be and that though he has not the advantages of his former better condition yet he cannot be in a worse than he is This is his trouble and affliction And so it must be to the Atheist likewise to know that he cannot for ever enjoy the Life that he takes so much pleasure in For suppose it true that he shall at last be reduced to a state in which he shall neither feel good nor evil what comfort can that be to him when he knows he must lose all the Good he now delights in There is no question but were Life and Death at his choice and in his power he would much rather chuse to live on and be what he is than to die and be nothing at all And since he values Immortality as so desirable a Blessing does he not make a tacit confession that Religion is too agreeable to our Nature to be false But. 3. He not onely desires to live but he desires a Life perfectly free from trouble and vexation The pleasures he loves are not 't is true of the same nature with those in Heaven which Religion teaches us to aspire after but he is desirous they shoud be as lasting and as little interrupted as full of satissaction and have as little Evil mingled with them as those have Though he considers himself onely as a sensitive Creature and goes no further for his Happiness than the Objects this World sets before him yet he loves his Body as well as Religion teaches us to do our Souls and woudl enjoy all bodily Pleasures in as high a persection as Religion informs us holy Souls do those that are Spiritual What-ever is apt to put the Body into a painfull uneasie condition is in the opinion of all the World and Affliction and Calamity No Man doubts but it is a great Blessing to be capable of seeing the Glories and tasting the sweet and feeling the good that is lodged in this sensible World But if by having such bodily Powers we did tast nothing but what is bitter and unsavoury nor see any thing but what is troublesome and vexatious nor hear any thing but what is ungratefull and harsh we should not much rejoyce in our privilege 'T is this consideration for the Body is the reason that the Atheist is sfallen out with Religion For he pretends that it is an enemy to our happiness and suffers us not to enjoy our selves with that freedom as otherwise we might That it lays severe restraints upon us and makes self-denial a necessary Vertue That in some cases it obliges us to quit our Enjoyments to vex our Bodies with severe Mortifications and to undergo with patience Pains and Torments Now although this be true and the Atheist makes use of it as a very considerable prejudice against Religion yet it is very much for the reputation and advantage of Religion that he undertakes to prove thereby That Mankind cannot be satisfied with a less degree of Happiness than what Religion sets before us For he plainly intimates that he would have the Body suffer no kind of pain nor be denied any thing that is good and gratefull to our Senses That he would enjoy the pleasures of this life with as much freedom and as much untainted as those the good Man looks for hereafter And to this purpose he takes care to improve his Pleasures and to make all his Enjoyments as poinant and delicious as possibly he can And now what is it that this Man does quarrel at Religion for Upon what reason does he report it to be an invention and persuade himself that its Principles are laid in our Minds by Art and Education when he is so great a friend to and so desirous of them He has nothing to except against a Being that is absolutely perfect for 't is such a friend that he desires He has no quarrel with an Immortal life for 't is such a life as he would live nor does he find fault with Joys and Pleasures that have nothing to sully and interrupt them for he is sensible that no less delights do deserve the name of Happiness All the difference then between him and Religion lies in this That it deferrs our hopes of such enjoyments and such a life to another state and he would have them now But since he finds it impossible we should have them here he has infinite reason to think well of Religion because it takes care to satisfie his desires at the last if he will but depend upon it If his deesires of these things be reasonable he has little reason to believe Religion to be so unreasonable an imposition as he complains it is And although he is not reconciled to the Notion of spiritual Delights yet he ought For the reason why he laughs at them is because he believes he has nothing but a Body to please And it is certain that if he be right in his Faith he is not mistaken when he makes this World his onely place of pleasure and delight But how then comes he to desire such a degree of Happiness as is not to be had here below Whence is it that he cannot content himself with the sensible pleasures of this life such as he finds them For no bodily Delights are pure and unallay'd uninterrupted and endless and if these be the onely Delights we are capable of how comes it we are capable of wishing for better If his Desires be reasonable he has as much reason to desire and value the spiritual Enjoyments of another life as to desire such Joys as are endless For since nothing in this World can satisfie such a Desire he must either look upon himself to be very ill framed for any kind of Happiness at all or he must look beyond this life for pleasures as endless and full as the desires And since the nature of his Desires do necessarily lead him thither at the last he ought not to despise the notion of spiritual Enjoyments since there are no other there I come 2. To consider how all that Vertue which Religion teaches us is likewise the Matter of every Man's desire 'T is every Man's defire that Truth and Faithfulness Justice and Honesty Uprightness and Integrity were Universally practis'd in the World The Violence of humane Passions the unruliness of Humour and the extravagancies of our Appetites are so troublesome to the World And all kind of Immoralities are attended with such bad effects that there is none but wishes that they were utterly extirpated and the contrary Vertues establish'd For who is there that would not gladly dwell in safety and peaceably enjoy the fruits of his labour Who would not live free from vexation and trouble and pass his life with as little disquiet and disturbance
as possible Go to the Man that makes the least account of Religion and who when a fair opportunity invites him to raise himself and his fortune by invading the Rights of another is not willing to lose the advantage who reckons Craft and Dissimulation a necessary Prudence and Injustice and Oppression lawfull Methods of compassing his Aims Enquire I say of this Man who seems so little a friend to the slow-paced Vertues of Justice and Integrity whether he would be content that all Men shoud make as little account of them as he does and whether he would be willing to live by a Neighbour that makes use of the same base Arts or chuse rather to have dealings with those that make Conscience of their doings And even this Man I doubt not will then declare in favour of these sociable and good-natur'd Vertues and wish with all his heart that every-body else would abhorr the wickedness that he thrives by and at least for his own quiet and security desire that he may never meet with one that has more ways to over-reach than he is aware of If he loves Oppression and Knavery it is onely in himself but in no-body else it is for the gain he makes by them not for the reasonableness of such actions And therefore if ever he suffers by them he censures and condemns them as severely as any-body else So that although he bears no respect to Religion himself yet he does not desire to see the Perinciples he lives by universally establish'd but woudl have all Men to be true and just in their dealings and knind and courteous in their deportment and conversation with him i.e. He would have every Man restrain'd by Religion from doing him wrong and his Person and Estate secured from the mischief of his own Villainies And if we were to go through the World we shall find all Men of the same mind condemning the Vices that Religion prohibits and desirous that there was more Vertue and Goodness more just and honest dealings among Men than there is in those frequent complaints of that little Conscience and Integrity they meet with and those sorrowfull stories they tell how much they have been over-reach'd and cozen'd how much wrong has been done them and how many abuses and affronts have been put upon them For there is no Man that feels these things but he feels the want of Religion and when we complain of the vexation they give us we express a desire that the Duties of Religion were more Universally practis'd There is indeed one part of Religion that seems to be very little in the desires of Men but the contrary to be most countenanced and affected with the greatest passion And that consists generally in the Duties that have a respect to our selves And of this nature chiefly is the vertue of Temperance For because the intemperate Man hurts no-body but himself few concern themselves to wish he was more sober and they who delight in this Vice seem very desirous to propagate it But yet it is not altogether true that Religion in this respect is not much rather wish'd for than the Vice that is contrary to it For Temperance has those Excellencies in it and is attended with those advantages as render it too amiable and desirable to be despised It keeps us to such a measure of Eating and Drinking with which Nature is contented And since the onely End of Eating and Drinking is for the support of Nature and the maintaining the health and vigour of our Bodies it must belong to Nature to set its own Bounds and to tell us what is sufficient for these Ends. But when we transgress the bounds of Nature and eat and drink not onely that we may live but that we may please a luxurious Appetite instead of supporting Nature we weaken and destroy it and make those very refreshments by which we are to live to be the occasion of Diseases and Death Such a use of Meat and Drink tires and over-charges Nature so that it is never at rest 'till it some way or other gets rid of its burden which if it cannot do the Man languishes and droops under the Wastings of an unconquerable Surfeit And these are such lathsome and mischievous consequences as oftentimes make the intemperate Man as much pleasure as he takes in his Excesses to abhorr his Debauch and to wish his Companions were more sober And now if to fear God and keep his Commandments be so agreeable to the Minds of Men If it be so desirable a thing to all sorts of persons to believe there is a Being that deserves our firmest Trust and Confidence our greatest Love and Reverence and to have Faith and Truth Love and Good-nature Sincerity and Justice maintain'd in a word if it be hard to find a Man that does not at one time or other wish that all the Vertues of Religion were more in Reputation who can think that That which is so desirable to all Men has not a real Foundation in our Nature CHAP. IV. From the Universal Sense of Mankind that there is a vast difference between Vertue and Vice IT is not onely a desirable thing to Mankind that there should be such a thing as Religion but all Men do agree in no one thing more than this That there is What is it that all Nations of Men how much soever they differ in their Customs and Manners do more universally acknowledge than this Truth That there is an absolutely perfect Being to whom our highest Veneration and most solemn Adorations are due Let us go where we will we shall find that though there be mistakes in Men's apprehensions concerning the Nature of God and different persuasions concerning the God that ought to be worship'd yet there is no difference of opinion whether there be a God whom all Men ought to worship Neither has this Persuasion been propagated by Time and a mutual intercourse among Men for no Time can be instanced in when Men did as Universally agree that there is no God as now they do that there is one And those Nations that have been unknown to all the Ages of the World till of late were upon their discovery found to be as zealous Assertors of this Principle as those who have had opportunities of Commerce with each other And besides there is as general a consent too concerning the Differences between Vertue and Vice That those Actions which we call vertuous are comely and gracefull and that there is such a natural Deformity and baseness in Vice as is disturbing to Homane Nature and vexatious to the Minds and Consciences of Men. Let us traverse the whole World we shall find no sort of People in any corner thereof but do own that there are some sort of Actions not to be tolerated among Men and others that deserve to be encouraged and supproted There is neither Jew nor Gentile Turk nor Christian no sort of Men I say how distant soever from each other in
consequence of this Principle For if God be beholding to the Laws of Magistrates for the Fear and Reverence that Men bear him there is no certain reason why we ought to Fear and Reverence him at all For if he hath not that Power and Goodness which are apt to move these Affections no Civil Sanction can give him them .. And besides no Humane Law can take any cognizence-whether we have such a regard to a Deity or no. They can onely punish an open Contempt but they cannot reach our Minds nor lay a secret Awe and Dread of a Being there that has nothing either lovely or great in himself to be the Foundation of it So that the Abetters of his Principle must either deny that there is any Fear of a Deity among Men or they must acknowledge that it springs from a higher Cause than a Humane Authority But 2. I shall more particularly consider that insufficiency of this Principle to render the Universal Sense of Religion that is among Men accountable And in order to this we are to observe that it supposes these two Tings 1. That Humane Nature is so framed as to be no more disposed to Vertue than to Vice 2. That the greater disposition to Vertue that is among Men is owing to the Laws of Civil States 1. It supposes Humane Nature to be so framed as to be no more disposed to Vertue than to Vice This is very necessary for them to maintain who resolve the Sense we have of the Excellency of Vertue into Humane Laws But by asserting this they First Destroy that Liberty which they design to establish by it Secondly It renders it impossible that any Law should ever have been made for the obliging us to a greater and more venerable Esteem for Vertue than Vice 1. They hereby destroy that Liberty which they design to establish The Liberty I mean of obeying either the Commands of Reason or of our bodily Appetites as we please They suppose that we are at liberty to obey either the one or the other and that if we suffer our Appetites to bear Rule in us we are not guilty of any fault because our Nature does not determine us to the Obedience of Reason rather than our Appetites But that since both have an equal Power and Authority over us it is at our own choice which we will obey Now if this be true it must be granted That the greater regard we have to Vertue than Vice cannot derive it self from the Frame of our Nature But it is as true too that we cannot have such a Liberty as this Principle is designed to support For if the Authority of Reason and our Appetites be equal we ought not to favour the one more than the other because there is nothing more on the one side than the other to determine us to yield to the Authority of the one more than the other If Reason have as much Authority to command us as our Appetites we cannot incline towards our Appetites more than our Reason but to the great prejudice of that Authority that belongs to our Reason For he that upon this reason because their Authority is equal takes the liberty to obey his Appetites is unjust to his Reason by giving a greater Authority to his Appetites than according to the Frame of our Nature they ought to have 2. It randers it impossible that any Law should ever have been made for the obliging us to a greater and more venerable Esteem for Vertue than for Vice For before such a Law could be made it must be debated which of these two Authorities it was most fit that Man should be under the Government of whether it was best for him to obey the Laws of his Mind or those of his Members whether the Dictates of Reason or the Commands of the Appetites should be Authorized But how was it ever possible that any Man should thus debate this case if both these Powers were equal The Power of the Appetite would be of as much force to withstand the Commands of Reason as Reason to enact against the Power of the Appetite There could be no inclination to favour the Laws of Reason because the Appetite has as much power to oppose its Interests as it has to establish them neither could the Appetite prevail to the enforcing its Laws because Reason has an equal Power to withstand them If Reason and the Appetite have an equal Power to command us neither can possibly command the other but Man must have suspended Phis choice for ever which of the two he would have suffer'd to bear Rule in him If both had an equal Right to rule both had likewise an equal Power to maintain their Authority and the Appetite would no more suffer us to incline to Peason than Reason to the Appetite The Reason for our obdying both being equal there was no over-ruling Reason to bring us over to the Authority of Reason So then though Humane Laws do assert the Differences of Vertue and Vice and do favour the former in opposition to the latter yet it is not from these Laws that we learn to know what is just and what is unjust but from those natural Differences that are in the things themselves For those Laws that establish the Dictates of Reason and do oblige us to the Practice of Justice and Charity and the like Vertues do suppose that there was more reason for the commanding these things than the contrary and consequently that the Appetite had not an equal Right to rule us but that the Authority we ought to submit to does lie on the side of Reason Such Laws being made it must be granted that that Reason which enacted them found it had a greater Power and Authority in us than the Appetites which are restrained can pretend to And if this be so then it is not owing to the Authority of the Law but that greater Power of Reason which over-rules our Appetites that we pay a greater respect to Vertue than Vice For unless Reason has a right to consult what is best for us no Law could inform us what was so And unless there was more reason to oblige us to obey the Dictates of Reason than the Commands of our Appetites those whom this Principle gives the Power of determining what is just and right and what is not could have no reason to determine the matter either way or to come to a resolution which ought to bear sway in us 2. I come now to consider the second thing supposed in this Principle viz. That the greater disposition to Vertue that is among Men is owing to the Laws of Civil States Now although it must be granted that Humane Laws are a very great support to Vertue yet it is so far from being true that they laid the first Disposition thereto in our Minds that they can beget no Disposition at all if it be with humane Nature as the great sticklers for this Principle teach They may contribute
Necessity for the succeeding our Endeavours They slight that Wisdom that is best able to direct their Paths and that Goodness which is the best Refuge we have in any Extremity Neither is this all for he who looks upon himself to be under no obligations to Religion must likewise believe that no Man is under any obligation to love and respect him to repose any Confidence in or to hold any Correspondence or Conversation with him For 't is onely Religion by obliging us to be true and faithfull just and honest kind and charitable does lay that Foundation of Respect and Truth which is necessary to Conversation And there is no Man can break with these Vertues but he must bring upon himself the Scorn and Contempt of all Mankind And 2. For the securing that Health and Vigour without which it cannot be said to be well with our Bodies It is necessary 1. That we content our selves with such a use of those things as our Appetites crave as is not burthensome and uneasie to Nature 2. Such a use as supposes them not to be fully satisfactory to us 1. That we content our selves with such a use of bodily Enjoyments as is not burthensome and uneasie to Naturre For when-ever we exceed in the use of those refreshments that our Bodies need instead of supporting Nature we weaken and destroy it So that he who blames Religion upon the Account of those restraints it lays upon us tells the World that he does not know what is good for him He cries out upon Religion as an Enemy to our Bodies and would persuade us that is suffers us not to take the best care of our selves we can to make our Lives chearfull and pleasant And yet if you ask him what kind of pleasure it forbids us the Enjoyment of or in what respect it requires us to be negligent of our Bodies he can make no Answer to this but by instancing in such a use of those things that are gratefull to our Bodies as is really hurtfull and mischievous to it The Summ of all his Complaints is this That it suffers him not to eat and drink to excess or to let his Appetites grow so extravagant that nothing can satisfie them That it suffers him not to over-charge Nature and thereby to load his Body with Loathings and Diseases And what is this but the Complaint of a Fool who neither knows how to chuse well for himself nor is capable of being instructed 2. With such a use as does not suppose the things we now need to be in their own Nature satisfactory I do not suppose that we are miftaken when we account the Creatures that God has made for oour Support and Comfort to be good for us and those Earthly Delights that our Senses affect to be designed as Entertainments to us while we are in the Flesh nor does Religion blemish them as if they were not But we certainly mistake in the use of them when we pursue them with that Eagerness as if we could never have enough of them For by such an Enlargement of our Desires we really discredit them and do as good as tell the World that in the Enjoyment we find nothing of that good in them that we expected And besides by such an excessive Appetite after and pursuit of them we do that Injury to our Senses as renders them less capable of tasting the Sweet that is in them For consider the Man whose mind is wholly bent upon heaping up Riches or who gives himself up to a voluptuous sensual way of living and you will find that he enjoys less of that good that is in Earthly Possessions and bodily Pleasures than he who takes care to moderate his Appetites For whereas he who takes this way to satisfie his Desires does really tast all the good that is in Enjoyments of this Nature and does always maintain that Liveliness and Vigour in his sensitive Appetites which is requisite to the true Pleasure of the Body He who is always troubled with worldly SOlicitudes and lets his Desires out-go his Enjoyments is not any time at leisure to tast the Fruits of his Labour He does not believe the satisfaction he looks for is to be found in any thing he has but in something that he wants And therefore in the midst of all that he enjoys he is full of wants and dissatisfactions and what-ever he acquires gives him no east And thus it will be with him should he lay House to House and Field to Field till he had got the whole World into his Hands And thus it is as to worldly Delights The sensual Man who believes that the onely Happiness of Humane Life does consist in bodily Delights does tast the least of that Pleasure that he magnisies so much For by going beyond that Measure of Enjoyment which is gratefull to Nature he wasts his Spirits tires Nature dulls his Senses and renders them unfit for any quick Perception There is no bodily Pleasure but by being too long enjoy'd does grow nauseous and makes the Appetite it should gratifie sick and uneasie So that it is plain that if we would enjoy the satisfaction that is in bodily Delights if we would reap the Benefit of our Possessions and feel the Pleasure that is in sensual Gratifications we must moderate our Appetites as Religion requires and stop there where Nature does And now the Folly of those that despise Religion and except against those restraints it lays upon us does appear in this That they are so little acquainted with the Natures of things as to expect more from them than they can possibly find in them They have not Judgment enough to discern that they disappoint themselves of that Pleasure they love and are so found of by suffering their Appetites to crave beyond measure nor to apprehend that instead of refreshing and maintaining the Health of their Bodies their immoderate Use of sensitive Enjoyments does consume and destroy it And this Folly they are so fond of that they will not hear of a Remedy but quarrel with Religion for endeavouring to put them in a way to compass the End they aim at T is the Health of the Body and the prolonging our Lives the Pleasure and Satisfaction of our Senses that Religion aims at when it forbids those Excesses of Sensuality and Voluptuousness which impair Nature and destroy the Vigour of Men's Constitutions and certainly kill more than any Judgment God does punish Mankind with and prescribes those Rules of Temperance and Moderation both in the Use of our Appetites and all the other Refreshments that belong to our Bodies by which the weakest Constitutions are often enabled to out last the strongest and yet these Men that love their Bodies so tenderly are such Fools as to blame Religion for all this They would have Health and a long Life and be as free from Pain and Uneasiness as it is possible for Man to be in such a Life as this is and yet
they have not the Wit to discern that they take a Course that thwarts their Devices when they neglect Religion and that they are extremely beholding to Religion for giving them those Rules without which they can never long enjoy what they would have If it be an Argument of Folly not to know how to adapt means suitable to the Ends we aim at the wicked irreligious Man must pass for the veriest Fool that is for living as he does when it is the Welfare of his Body that he pretends to aim at If he be wise in the Choice of his End he can never avoid the Imputation of Folly for living otherwise than according to the Rules of Temperance and Moderation that Religion gives Neither is it in the Opinion of all that know him onely that he is guilty of so much Weakness and Folly but his own Thoughts do upbraid him with it when a surfeited Body does force him to submit to those very Rules as reasonable and just which at other times he condemns as rigid and severe As much as he cries out upon Religion for imposing them he has nothing to except against them when they are prescribed by his Physician And how preposterously does this Man act in despising those Restraints when put upon him for preserving his Body healthfull and vigorous which he flies to as the onely means to restore it when it is decayed He out of a tender regard to his Body does check his Appetites when it is for the Recovery of his lost Health and believes he cannot take a better Course for the freeing himself from the Languishings of a Surfeit and a Debauch and yet he pretends it is out of love to his Body that he lets his Appetites loose when he is in health So that this Man has no other way to prove himself no Fool but by satisfying the World how that way of Life can be unreasonable which he believes is good for his Botly or that good for his Body which he himself is forced to condemn as hurtfull to him And now 3. How much Reason have we to think well of and to live in a constant Practice of Religion For this is to live according to the proper instincts of and to take an Account of our Duty from our Nature 'T is the Business we are in a peculiar manner framed for and in our regard to which we give Honour to our Reason and consult our greatest good We ought from the Dignity of Nature saith Hierocles to take an Account of our Duty In Carm. Pyth. p. 93. and to weigh how we ought to act and speak And again It is from the Ignorance of our Nature that all kind of Evil breaks in upon us So that if we know our selves and reject those things that are a Reproach to our Reason we judge rightly of our Duty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Epictetus Arrian Lib. 2. Chap. 8. Thou art a Principal part of God's Handy-work thou art something taken from God Himself thou hast some Part of God in thee Why therefore art thou not mindfull of thy Nobility Why dost thou not consider from whence thou comest When thou eatest or speakest wilt thou not remember who thou art that eatest and whom thou feedest that thou nourishest a God and carriest a God about with thee If thou wast a Statue carved by the Hand of Phidias when thou considerest whose Work thou wast if thou couldest know it thou wouldest endeavour to do nothing unworthy either of so famed an Artist or of thy self nor wouldest thou be seen in an undecent Garb by those that should behold thee And since thou art the Workmanship of God wilt thou take no care of thy self God has committed thee to thy own Care neither did he know of any that would be more faithfull to such a Trust Be sure saith he to preserve this Depositum such as it is in its own Nature 'T is then by having a Recourse to our own Nature that we must learn the way of Life that we are framed for And since Religion has such a near Relation to us that without it our best Faculties are of little or no Use to us and in spight of our natural Depravity we cannot but desire that all the Principles thereof were true and its Duties put in practice who can doubt but that this ought to be the Business of our Lives It is that Business by which we must gratifie our Reasons and improve our Minds and delight our Consciences And if this ought not to be our Business why have we such Faculties as require it It is as necessary that we live in the Practice of Religion as that we live like Men and discover a Difference between a Man and a Beast He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what does the Lord require of thee i.e. Since God has display'd more of his Goodness to thee than to the Creatures of Sense what is it that he expects from thee but to do Justice to love Mercy and to walk humbly with thy God Micah 6. 8. And hence it is that Lactantius makes the Difference between a Man and a Beast to consist in this that we are capable of Religion and they are not For saith he take away Religion and Righteousness De Ira Dei c. 12. and Man degenerates to the Folly of a Brute or which is worse having lost his Reason to their Immanity and Fierceness And he tells us that the Heathens although they mistook in the Object of their Worship Instit l. 2. c. 3. yet did acknowledge the chief Duty of Man to lie in Religion by maintaining an Appearance of it in their false Worship because the Chief if not the onely Difference between Man and a Brute does lie in Religion This then is the onely calling in the World that every Man is bound to follow and which will find a full Imployment for all our Heads and Hearts and Hands every Man of what Quality or Condition soever he is is indispensibly bound to fear God and keep his Commandments Neither need any Man fear that he shall debase himself thereby For as Reason is the Noblest faculty of his Nature there is nothing so fit for his Reason to converse with as Religion Now this can be said of no other Calling beside For although the Benefit of every Man 's secular Imployment does reach to the whole Society yet if every Man was of one Calling no body would be the better for it and the best is and Imployment of that Nature as will find Work for the Souls and Bodies of every Man and which the more it is practised by every Man the better it is for all the World Nay further it is a Calling that every Man must manage in his own Person or else neither he will receive any benefit by it nor the World by him 'T is possible that any of those secular Callings that are for the Relief of our present Necessities
may be managed by other Heads and Hands than our own and although a Man be wholly careless himself yet his Affairs may thrive in the Hands of a trusty and faithfull Servant But as to Religion it is of that Concernment to us that it is impossible any Man should improve in it or be the better for it who does not take it into his own Hands and give all Diligence to make his Calling and Election sure There is no qualifying our selves for Heaven by a Proxy no adorning our Souls by the Vertues and Graces of a Friend or a Servant no satisfying God for the Neglect of our Duty by the Merits of a Saint but either we must labour for our selves and be industrious to add to our Faith all the Vertues of Religion or the Nakedness and Poverty of our Souls will be our everlasting Shame And what is it that we will be industrious in if not in that Imployment which God has made us for and which we must live and prosper Eternally by Is there any thing that it can with more Reason be expected that we should be diligent in than our own Business Or is there any Affair more pressing and urgent upon us any that it half so much concerns us to attend to as that upon which the Honour of our Nature and the well being both of our Souls and Bodies both in this Life and that which is to come depends To say of any thing that it is our Business does imply that we are fitted and designed for it that we throughly understand the Mysteries of it and that we husband our time as well as we can in prosecuting the great Ends of it This we know is the meaning of our having any thing for our Imployment And if it be Religion alone that our Reason has a respect to this ought to be as much our Imployment as any of those Callings whereby we maintain our Mortal lives And were we but as sensible of the Necessity and great Concernment of our Spiritual as we are of our Temporal Affairs what Noble Improvements might we make what Treasures might we lay up in Heaven and what excellent Persons should we make our selves How little Prophaneness and Debauchery how few Tricks and crafty Devices How little Strife and Contentious Animosities would trouble the World Nay how much would the fear of God then influence us and the consideration of his Presence and Majesty awe and make us afraid of offending him How should we court his Favour by frequenting the place where his Honour dwells and by paying a due veneration and regard to every thing that has a relation to him by honouring his Sabbaths revering his Word and in Supplication and Prayer by expressing our dependance upon him With how much Love and Good-nature Simplicity and Integrity Justice and Honesty Faith and Truth would Men converse with each other and how much of Heaven should we have here below We daily see how industrious Men that design to live and make themselves usefull Members in a Society are in managing their affairs when any business is before us with what care and thoughtfulness do we contrive and project the compassing it to our advantage And when we have the prospect of some gain before us how little do we grudge the pains and labour the difficulties and hardships it puts us to We then sit up late and rise early and neither dread ill ways nor hard weather but with a great deal of chearfulness undertake tiresome Journeys and dangerous Voyages for the sake of the advantage we have in our Eye All this we do and suffer for the sake of our Bodies And did we love our Souls as well we should be as hearty in the practice of all the Duties of Religion And for the better promoting so good a work let us consider these Two things 1. That Religion is the easiest Employment we have It will 't is true take up all our Time and employ all our Faculties but it will never be a burden to us Men that favour their Lusts may complain of difficulties and 't is certain that Religion is severe enough upon the Lusts of our Flesh which it commands us to crucifie and destroy But all this implies no more than this That it is a difficult yea an impossible thing for Men that serve their Lusts to serve the living God But after all let but any Man consider the Nature of all the Duties of Religion and he will find such a gratefulness of them to the Reason of his own Mind so much comfort and satisfaction to his Conscience to issue from them as will force him to declare that it is the best and easiest the most delightfull and ingenuous Employment that a Man can possibly take to For it commands us to do nothing but what our own Reason does and to avoid nothing but what our own Consciences abhorr And is it a hard thing for a Man to live according to the Laws of his own Mind and to follow the Dictates of his own Conscience and in all he does to consider that he is a Man and that his own Reason ought to govern him Is it a grievous thing for a Man not to wound his Conscience not to fill his Soul with vexation and horrour Is it I say an uneasie Employment to take care that there be nothing in our Conversation but what is gracefull and comely what will render us beloved of God and Man and what will fill us with joy unspeakable Surely if any thing be easie for us to do it is that which we are peculiarly made for and which the joy and comfort the ease and satisfaction the pleasure and happiness of our whole Nature depends on 2. That it will be infinitely satisfactory to us at the last to consider that we have been employ'd in the business of our lives The time will come when we shall know that Religion is our business That time I mean when we shall so far return to our selves as to be sensible that we are something more than Brutes and that our Happiness does not lie in the gratifying the Appetites of a mortal Body And then when those that have been negligent and careless of every thing but a Body that is going to its Grave will be seiz'd with sad remorse and fill'd with confusion the Religious Man will look over a well-spent Life with great content and delight Surely St. Paul felt a wonderfull satisfaction in his Mind when he could say I am ready to be offer'd and the time of my departure is at hand I have fought the good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith Henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness which the Lord the righteous Judge will give me at the last day 2 Tim. 4.6 7 8. This is the comfortable issue of a Religious Life It gives a Man peace at the last and having all his time been well employ'd in the Duties of his Calling he has no sorrowfull Reflections to make but nothing else to do but to die and to receive his reward But with wicked Men it is quite otherwise For they have all their business lying upon their hands when they are called upon to bring in their accounts And how uncomfortable a thing will it be then to them to consider how much work they have made themselves by fixing ill Habits in their Minds and turning their whole Nature out of course by accustoming themselves to do Evil How dolefull a thing to look upon the disorders of their Souls the wast of their Time their abuse of Grace and above all their contempt of those fair warnings that have been given them Then will their Hell begin when they see their Souls so eaten out of heart with Sin that they neither have Skill nor Time to remedy it Let us then be so wise as to prevent all this mischief by making use of Time and Opportunity and working while it is day that when the night comes wherein no Man can work we may not be found barren and unfruitfull I shall conclude this Discourse with St. Peter's Exhortation 2 Epist 1.10 11. Wherefore the rather or above all things Brethren give diligence to make your calling and election sure For if ye do these things ye shall never fall For so an entrance shall be ministred unto you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ FINIS ERRATA PAge 6. Line 6. for belches Read fetches P. 14. Marg. r. Offic. P. 31. l. 17. for hearty r. hasty P. 67. l. 10. for hearty r. hasty Now in the Press A Discourse of the Resurrection shewing the Import and the Certainty of it By the same Author