monly imagined? That, if it should upon Enquiry appear to be fo, we may reflect, before it be too late, What Confequences may be justly apprehended, should a Disregard for Religion and Things facred make any farther Advances amongst us.

The Reasoning of the Patriarch in the Text is on many Accounts remarkable to the prefent Purpose. - Abraham appears, from this Hiftory of Him (the Antiquity of which at least our Adverfaries must give us Leave to infift on) to have been one of the most illuftrious Perfonages in ancient Times. By fojourning in feveral different Countries, he had Opportunities of making himself acquainted with the Manners and Sentiments of feveral different Kinds of People; and This too at a Time, when the Condition of Mankind approached much nearer, than it has fince done, to that State of Nature, with which fome late Writers would be thought to be fo familiarly converfant. And what was the

Refult of the Obfervations of a Perfon fo well qualified to make them with Advantage? Why; That the fear of God is the only effectual Check upon Men's Lufts and Paffions: And that where any Country is fuppofed deftitute of the Influences of this Principle, there is no Im

morality,

morality, no Villany, no Barbarity, which may not justly there be dreaded. This was the Conclufion which the Patriarch drew from his Acquaintance with Mankind. From this he reasoned, and upon this he acted, as an unquestionable Truth.- And Abraham faid, Because I thought, Surely the Fear of GOD is not in this Place; and They will flay me for my Wife's Sake.

The Fear of GOD, to which Abraham here supposed the People of Gerar to be Strangers, must be understood to be the fame Principle by which himself was actuated, and concerning which he had been in an eminent Manner taught of GOD. We have indeed all the Proof that fuch an Affair will admit of, that the Religion of all Nations, when traced up to its Original, was Revealed. But it is evident, that the Religion of Abraham was directly and immediately fuch. It will not then seem foreign to the Import of my Text, if Occafion be taken from thence to represent

to You, not only,

I. First, The Importance of Religious Principles in general to National Virtue and Happiness; But,

II. Secondly,

II. Secondly, The Excellency of Those of
Revealed Religion in particular to this
Purpose; And then

III. Thirdly, Some of those useful Inferences
that most naturally refult from the fore-
going Confiderations.

I. First then; The Importance of Religion to Morality may be illuftrated Two Ways: By enquiring- Whether, on the Suppofition of no Religion, there could be, in Reason, any proper Obligation to Moral Virtue ?" Whether, on the fame Suppofition, there would be, in Fact, any effectual Inducement to It?"

Or,

66

It will be little to our prefent Purpose to confider this Point in the Former View. Whatever be determined concerning any fuppofed Obliging Power of Moral Confiderations, separately from thofe of Religion; Yet the Order and Happiness of Societies, I mean, as far as the Natural Tendency of Things is concerned, are immediately affected, not by what Men's Behaviour ought to be, but by what it is in fact found to be. The most useful Method of treating this Point therefore seems to be to enquire, not how Men's Obligations,

but

but how their Actions, will be influenced by Religion or by the Want of it. The Enquiry is by this Means brought from the Bar of abftract Reafoning to the more obvious and more convincing Decifion of Fact and Experience: And from confidering, What has been hitherto obferved concerning Human Nature, we shall be beft able to judge, What may at all Times hereafter in the fame Circumstances be expected from it.

But here we meet with very different Accounts, even among Those who seem agreed in flighting the Provifions of Religion. If we will believe fome great Pretenders to a deep Insight into these Matters, Man is a Being by Nature wild, unfociable, fufpicious, treacherous, malevolent. Others, perhaps out of an Abhorrence of fuch a View of Human Nature, have given us Representations of it very different from the foregoing one, and in some Refpects from Those of each other: Whilst fome of them fpeak of Man as if He were Nothing but pure Intelligence, folely conducted by Truth and Rectitude; and others, as if He were All good Affection, fufficiently actuated by kind Instincts, and a Love of Virtue for Virtue's Sake.

The

The Truth, I conceive, lies between the Two Opinions, which I will venture to call, Extremes. Human Nature is neither fo base and odious a Thing as the One would make us believe; nor will Experience juftify the flattering Accounts given us of it by the other. Every good-natured Man feels the Injuriousnefs of the Former Representation: And we need go no farther than to fuch Solemnities as Thefe for a full Confutation of the Latter.

Man, confidered in the Views of mere Philofophy, (and in that Manner only the Perfons we are here contending with will permit us to confider him) may be allowed to be by Nature endowed with fuch Faculties as direct, and fuch Difpofitions as incline, him to associate with Those of his own Species; and to be, as by the Former enabled, so by the Latter excited, to promote the Happiness of such Affociations when made. But then it must be remembered, that these Faculties, these Dif pofitions, as far as they are Natural to Man, are Faculties and Difpofitions only. To reduce them to Acts, there must be Willingness and Choice; but to improve them into Habits, Care and Cultivation are farther neceffary. And, after all, should our discerning Faculties prove liable to be obfcured and perverted by

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