Son of Adam; and all Mankind might join in the Complaint, "My Punishment is greater than I can bear!” But the LORD is King, the Earth may be glad thereof! - When we take into our Account the General Acknowledgment of a GOD, a Providence, a Future State; the Face of the Moral World is changed: Society becomes practicable, and Government a Bleffing. Where Religious Principles prevail, good Kings may reign with Security to themselves, and Benefit to their People. Subordinate Magiftrates will know themselves to be under the strongest Obligation, the most powerful Engagement, to decree Juftice: And may proceed in doing fo with Chearfulness, whilst those who give them Information, or Evidence, or Verdict, are prefumed to give it in Truth and Righteousness, as feeing Him who is invifible. The Peaceable and Inoffenfive Subject will have all the Security with Regard to his Person and Property, that either a Sense of an Almighty Protection in his own Breast, or the fuppofed Awe of an Almighty Vengeance in the Breasts of other Men, can poffibly give him. Whilft those who are difpofed to be contentious and injurious, must, to a V. 13. b Pfal. XCVII. 1. come come at the Properties of others, break loofe from all the Ties of Intereft as well as Confcience: They muft, by giving Disturbance to Society, expofe themselves not only to the Wrath of the Magiftrate, but to a more inevitable, more dreadful, Indignation: They must give up their own most valuable Interests, before they can allow themselves to invade those of other Men; and become in the ftricteft Senfe Fools in order to be Knaves. Upon the Whole; The Remedies we have been confidering are certainly, in Conjunction with the FEAR of GOD, of no fmall Benefit to Societies. But, fhould we once fet afide the Supports and Enforcements of Religion, we should foon experience the Infufficiency of all other Prefervatives of Publick Order and Happiness; and find Reason to lament our having parted with the only effectual Reftraint upon those Lufts and Paffions, from whence come Wars and Fightings, Confufion and every evil Work. A Restraint of univerfal Extent, and only not irresistible Efficacy: the Influence whereof reaches to every Relation, every Office of Life; which, like the great Object of it, is about our Bed and about our Path; which follows follows us into the closest Receffes, and meets us in every Thought: A Restraint, to the Powerfulness of which the Libertine and the Atheist loudly bear Teftimony; the Former, by making it his avowed Quarrel with Religion, and the Latter, his boafted Triumph upon a pretended Conqueft over it: But a Restraint, to which We must have Leave to glory in our profeffed Subjection; as well knowing, that it debars us of no Liberty but such as is deftructive of Publick as well as Private Happiness; that it maintains the just Authority of thofe Parts only (both in the Political System without us, and the Moral one within us) which are fitted to govern; and requires the Subordination of thofe only which are fitted to obey: And a Reftraint therefore, which we confider not as the Invader, but as the Guardian, of both Social and Perfonal Freedom. After all, I must not diffemble a material Exception to what has been offered. - The Effects of a Religious Principle will, in Course, depend much on the Notions Men entertain concerning the Object of it. Thus, if the Nature of the Deity be uncertain, or his Will unknown, a Morality confifting in an Imitation of That Nature, and an Obedience to That That Will, muft become imperfect and precarious in Proportion. But, fhould the Deity be conceived to be a capricious and weak Being, much more, an Example and Patron of Treachery, Debauchery, Cruelty, &c; fuch a corrupt Religion, (tho' in fome Respects preferable to *no Religion at all) must have an Influence but little favourable to the Morals of its Profeffors, or the Interefts of Society. How far the Religion of the Gentile World is affected by this Exception, thofe among ourselves who appear folicitous to reduce Us to it, might do well to confider. In the mean Time (Bleffed be God!) We Chriftians are prepared to give a full Anfwer to it. And for this Purpose I proceed to represent to you, II. Secondly, The Excellency of Revealed Not that I here prefume to do Justice to a Subject fo extenfive; nor will any laboured Illustration of it, I hope, be thought neceffary. Only, in reference to the foregoing Suggeftion, I cannot but obferve, that our Holy * See Hooker's Eccl. Polity B. 5. §. 1. Religion 1 с Religion conftantly fets forth the GOD whom We fear at once in the most Amiable, and the moft Awful, Light: In His own Nature, as a pure Spirit, "every where present, having all Things naked and open to His View 3 Glorious in Holiness, infinitely removed from all Imperfection, all Poffibility of being fo much as tempted with Evil: In the Exer cife of His Power, as 'Gracious and Merciful, flow to Anger, and of great Kindness; yet as e by no Means willing to clear the Guilty: - In His Providence over States and Kingdoms, as making their Prosperity or Adverfity more vi→ fibly correfpond with their Piety or Impiety And towards all Mankind in their Private h Capacity, as having appointed a Day, in which He will judge the World in Righteouf nefs: a Day, in which He will completely rectify all the feeming Irregularities in His present Distributions; and 'render to every Man his Final Allotment, of Everlafting Happiness or Eternal Mifery, according to his Deeds.-The Truth is, Every Reason already given for the Importance of Religion in general to Societies, has been an Anticipation of |