To know how great the strength of these means should be, we must well consider the difficulty of the work they are applied to, and the delicacy of that work in beings morally free. As to its difficulty; he knows little of himself, of the corrupt nature, and inveterate habits, he hath to correct and subdue in a mind so irresolute, so inconstant, who is not thoroughly convinced, the means of his reformation must be very efficacious to be successful. A sensible man, who hath studied himself, sees plainly, that, unless he is very powerfully assisted, he cannot be thoroughly reclaimed. His many ineffectual anxieties on this subject, his baffled resolutions, attended with little else than continual falls, and shameful disappointments, serve sufficiently to teach him this lesson of humility. He cannot help considering the lower half of his nature, as a vicious and refractory beast, that is not broken to the bridle without infinite skill and strength; nor the upper, as a raw and feeble rider, by no means equal to a task so arduous. Convinced of this, he must be satisfied, that none but he, who made him, is able to mend him; and that in the true religion only, the means of this amendment are to be hoped for.

And as to the delicacy of this work, in regard to his freedom, he cannot but be sensible, that means of prodigious efficacy may be used with him, before they amount to compulsion, or do more than counterbalance his bias to evil. He knows God will assist his virtue, not force his services; and therefore, in having recourse to religion, he looks for such assistance, at least, as may keep his corruptions at bay, and suspend him in a state of liberty.

Now this he hath reason to hope for, in a religion that calls God its author, and hath already given such proofs of its divinity. But if he reflects attentively on the matter, he will find there are but two conceivable ways whereby this may be effected; first, by the influence of the Divine Being, working on his thoughts; and secondly, by future rewards and punishments proposed to his desires and fears. God, he knows, is present everywhere; and can assist him, and all men, as he pleases. He knows also, that he alone can so proportion the assistance to the want, as to enable his creature to get the better of his irregular dispositions, without infringing on his freedom. And as to rewards and punish

ments, he is sensible, if they are future, they cannot be made so great, as too strongly to engage his desires and fears in the work of reformation, or to bear too hard on the liberty of his will. This he gathers experimentally from their effects on those who already believe in their eternity, without being forced by their faith to a life of perfect purity; and likewise from observing, that, in all men, expectations, though of the greatest moment, if very remote, are not so apt to make deep impressions on the mind, as matters of vastly less consequence, that are present with us, or very soon to be at hand. Whether the mind learns this of the eye, which takes a little hill that is near it, to be much greater than the largest mountain at a distance, he cannot tell; but as he finds the thing is true in fact, so he hath no reason to apprehend the loss of his liberty in the greatness, be it what it will, of the happiness promised to virtue, or of the misery threatened to vice. Sensible therefore of his own wants, and not in the least afraid of too strong a reason for being good, he requires, in the true religion, very powerful succours from God, and the proposal of virtue and endless happiness, or of vice and endless misery, to his free election; not only as a necessary means of his reformation, but also as a necessary proof of its divine original. He requires, in short, that the religion he gives his faith to should discourage vice to the uttermost, and promote, with more than human power, the advancement of virtue in every soul that receives it.

Every rational mind must regard these marks of divinity as sufficient to distinguish the true religion from all others, and universally to draw the assent of mankind, if inattention, or prejudice, infused by education, passion, pleasure, pride, &c. does not stand between that religion and reason.

However, a rational man, who knows the obliquity of the human heart, the wild irregularity of the human understanding, and the endless variety of extravagant opinions, too apt to be engendered in the one, and nursed in the other, even under the influence of the best religion, cannot help wishing God had been pleased to establish some one certain, intelligible, and infallible rule of faith and practice, in order, for ever, to ascertain a system of truths so infinitely beneficial to mankind. Such a man could hardly help concluding, from the wisdom of God, the necessity of a revelation, and

the disingenuous disposition of mankind to extort a voucher from the true religion, to authorize their own conceits and designs, that if a revelation, intended for all men, was ever given, it must have been so recorded as to prevent, as far as possible, all alterations, additions, mutilations, whatsoever. There is nothing the mind of man, when left wholly to itself, is more unable to fix than the principles of religion. If it hath no information on the subject, it can hardly ever form any scheme of religion at all; and if it hath the advantage of some religious hints, it either suffers other matters, that appear for the present more interesting, to shuffle them entirely out of its attention, or makes them the seeds of speculations so wild and wicked as were never heard of in other parts of knowledge. This most abominable humour is apt to continue with it, even after it hath been introduced to the true and perfect religion. All the awe that it feels, or ought to feel, for the infinite majesty of him who dictated that religion, is not sufficient to hinder such a mind from substituting its own monstrous inventions in the place of God's oracles, and even pleading his authority directly in the face of his own express declarations. It is true, no expedient, though ever so wisely contrived, or applied, can wholly prevent the unaccountable doubts of the wrong-headed, the petulant errors of the conceited, or the incorrigible vices of the perversely wicked. No degree of light can enable the blind to see. No goodness of the road can bring a man to his journey's end, who neither can walk, nor will be carried.

But, to remedy this evil, as far as the nature of the thing will permit, a genuine record of the true religion must be kept up, that its articles may not be in danger of total corruption in such a sink of opinions, every one more cordially favoured, and more zealously abetted, by its wrong-headed inventor, or ill-hearted abettor, than the most fundamental principle God ever revealed to mankind. If the truth of a religion is to be proved by prophecy, the prophecies relating to it must be recorded, and time given for their completion, that the picture of that religion, when the substance represented comes to be fully unveiled, may be known to have been previously drawn by the hand of God, and its future author and finisher clearly distinguished by the prophetic characters and promises made of him many ages before.

And when he hath put the last hand to the divine revelation, his history and doctrines must be also faithfully recorded by competent and unquestionable witnesses, and both records kept with the utmost care and exactness. Such a record of every thing necessary to be believed or done, is the best expedient to ascertain a religion, the communication whereof is finished, and the whole finally fitted for universal use in all times and places. By this all doubts, worth the clearing up, may be resolved; all disputes, wherein truth only is sought for, determined, or condemned as frivolous; all principles, necessary to be believed, expressly asserted; all duties precisely defined; and all the motives or obligations, whereby those duties are urged on either the conscience, or the will, always standing out in that full force and energy, which the authority of Almighty God impressed on them from the beginning. Such a record a rational man hath reason to look for of a religion coming from God, and setting itself forth, as brought to full perfection.

But whereas disputes may arise concerning the sense of this record in some particulars, it may be expected by such as cannot be content with reasonable satisfaction, that there should always be an infallible interpreter to explain that record, as often as doubts concerning its meaning may arise. But the infallibility of such an interpreter can be founded on nothing else, than a continual inspiration; nor that inspiration evidenced any otherwise, than by a perpetual miracle. Now a perpetual miracle, considered as the evidence of any thing, is nonsense; because, were it at first ever so apparently contrary to the known course of nature, it must in time be taken for the natural effect of some unknown cause, as all physical phenomena, if far enough traced, always are; and consequently must fall into a level, as to a capacity of proving any thing, with the most ordinary appearances of nature, which, though all of them miracles, as to the primary cause of their production, can never be applied to the proof of an inspiration, because ordinary and common. But, even though the miracle were varied ever so often, in order to the proof of the inspiration, it could not answer the end, nor settle all the religious disputes of mankind; as is experimentally evident from the stubbornness of those, who, on a certain occasion, would not be concluded by the decisions of

men, whom they knew to have a power of working all manner of miracles. They saw the miracles every day, and yet many of them were as far from conversion as ever; while numbers that were converted, set up opinions of their own, directly opposite to the express determinations of such as wrought the miracles, and could by no means be brought to submit. Besides, are all questions, however unnecessary or impertinent, to be decided? Does it become the wisdom or majesty of God, to encourage an endless curiosity as to matters no way useful, perhaps prejudicial, to mankind? If it does not, what is the use of a perpetual infallible interpreter or dictator? Why, only to decide things already decided by the original revelation fully recorded; as if God could not speak as intelligibly by his first, as by his subsequent interpreter. Why may not this last speak as obscurely as the first, and so require a third interpreter to explain his meaning? Hence it appears, that right reason is a sufficient interpreter of God's words, and asks no other to unfold their meaning.

On the whole, it is certainly a duty every reasonable man owes to God and himself, to find out, if he possibly can, a religion that answers to the character, and stands the trial, insisted on. All his other pursuits and inquiries are about trifles of no moment, in comparison with this. They relate to a state of things, wherewith happiness is incompatible; this to one, wherein it is or may be certain. They relate to a day, a month, or a year; this to duration without end. They relate to a body, corrupt and despicable in its gratifications, and perishable without remedy; this to a soul, fitted for pure enjoyments, and high pretensions, and in itself im

mortal.

What now must be said of him, who is deeply skilled in politics, who hath an extensive knowledge of trade, who can advise with a judgment not to be questioned, and speak with an elegance not to be resisted, in lawsuits and other secular affairs; and yet hath either no religion, or at least no reason for his religion? It is true, he is wiser in his generation. than the children of light' are in theirs. He knows better perhaps how to serve the god of this world,' than the very saints know how to serve the God of heaven. Yet, after all, he is but a sensible, a knowing fool. This very man would not