RELIGION.

TH

HE preceding Chapter is written on a Subject of the greatest Importance to our Happiness or Mifery in this Life; the prefent Treatife is of ftill higher. Confequence, and looks forward to our Concern in Futurity; a Theme, in which, not the tranfitory Eafe of a frail Body is engaged, but the eternal Felicity of our Souls: after Death.

There is too great a Number of Men in the World, who, from a Fault in Education, and a pernicious Habit of Libertinism, have their Hearts and Minds wholly fixed on this fmall Part of the Universe they are placed in; who fet a Value upon nothing, nor love any thing beyond it; whofe Souls: are as much confin'd, as that narrow Spot of Ground they call their Eftate, the Extent of which is measured, the Acres are numbered, and the utmoft Bounds limited:: They are fo fhort-fighted, that they cannot

look

look beyond the Heavens and the Stars, to contemplate the Divinity, to which they owed their Original. They are not able to perceive the Excellency of what is fpiritual; or have any Notions of the Dignity of the Soul: How much the whole World is inferior to it! How great a Want it has of an all-perfect Being, which is God! And how abfolutely it needs a Religion to find out that God, and be affured of his Reality.

Indeed, a Man's Remembrance of his Creed may tell him there is a God, and that he is Almighty; but if his Reafon be fo much afleep, as not to infer from thence the Neceffity of reverencing and obeying him; he may repeat the Creed every Day', and yet be an Atheist.

Incredulity, or Indifference, are fo natutural to Men, that they make ufe of God and Religion, as a Piece of Policy only; that is, as far as it may ferve for the Order and Decoration of this World, the only thing, in their Opinion, which deferves to be thought on. Predominant Corruption makes the Generality of the World take up their Religion for a Fa hion; they receive it according to the Country where they are born, and are therefore of that Religion. These Men

are Chriftians, rather than Jews or Heathens; because that Syftem had the Fortune to come firft in their Way, and befpeak them at their Entrance into the World.

There are too many that live in a perfect State of Indolence as to an Hereafter; that put themselves to no Trouble on the Score of Faith, and neither profefs, nor practife any Religion. There is, indeed, no fuch thing as an Atheist; but the great Men, whom we are most apt to fufpect of being given that Way, are too lazy to determine in their own Minds, whether there is a God, or no: Their Indolence carries them fo far, as to render them utterly carelefs and indifferent upon fo weighty a Matter, as well as upon the Nature of their own Souls, and the Confequences of true Religion: They neither deny, nor grant any of these things, but, in Reality, they never think on them at

all.

It is too plain, from Obfervation of Men and Manners, that Multitudes who have entered the Baptifmal Vow, weigh it as little when they should perform it, as they did when they made it: They feem to have no other Notion of Baptifm, but as a Custom of the Place, or a Time

of

of Feafting; and confider no farther Significancy in thofe fpiritual Bonds, than they did in their Swadling-Cloaths;

nor

can give any better Account why they took on them Chrift's Livery, than why they wear fuch Garments as the common Fashion of the Country prescribes them.

I wish there was lefs Caufe for Complaint on this Account, or that the advifing to better Principles, were a certain Means to effect a Reformation.

The beft we can pretend to, is, to define Religion, to inculcate the great Duty of it, and infinuate the certain Advantages refulting from it.

Religion may be confidered under two general Heads: The first comprehending what we are to believe; the other what we are to practife. By thofe Things which we are to believe, I mean whatever is revealed to us in the Holy Writings, and which we could not have obtained the Knowledge of by the Light of Nature: By the Things which we are to practife, I mean all those Duties to which we are directed by Reason or Natural Religion.

As to that Part of Religion which confifts in Faith, and is contained in the Word of God, I fhall beg Leave to use the Phrafe of an eminent Divine: To perfwade

fwade Men to believe the Scriptures, fays be, I only offer this to their Confideration: If there be a God, whofe Providence governs the World, and all the Creatures in it, is it not reasonable to think that he hath a particular Care of Men, the nobleft Part of this vifible World? And feeing he hath made them capable of eternal Duration, that he hath provided for their eternal Happiness, and fufficiently revealed to them the Way to it, and the Terms and Conditions of it: Now, let any Man produce any Book in the World, that pretends to be from God, and to do this, That for the Matter of it, is fo worthy of God; the Doctrines whereof, are fo useful, the Precepts fo reafonable, and the Arguments fo powerful: The Truth of all which, was confirmed by fo many great and unquestionable Miracles; the Relation of which, has been tranfmitted to Pofterity, in public and authentic Records, written by those who were Eye and Ear-Witneffes of what they wrote, and free from Sufpicion of any Worldly Interest and Defign; let any produce a Book like this, in all thefe Refpects, and which, over and befides, bath, by the Power and Reasonableness of the Doctrines contained in it, prevailed fo miraculously in the World, by weak and