not Leifure, Capacity or Inclination to trace the Duty of Chastity, through a long Chain of Propofitions, up to it's First Fountainhead. In another's, Self-murder, the Hatred of Enemies, and the like. In another's, public Worship, if not private too, will be left out; as indeed the Practice of our Infidels too plainly fhew it is. Natural Religion then, as discoverable by our own Capacities, must be very vague, uncertain and undetermined; whereas Christianity proposes to us one stated, fettled and regular Scheme of Action. The former can but give us a very narrow and confined Prospect of another World; whereas by the latter we command a full and open View. It insures to us thofe great and everlasting Rewards; which, as they are infinitely difproportioned to our Worth, it would be the highest Presumption to expect without the revealed Mercies of GOD, and the Merits of our Saviour. All that Reason can prove here is only this; that whoever has acted up to the best Light he could have, shall here or hereafter find His Happiness preponderate His Mifery. For when GOD's Goodness has beftowed upon every Creature, that is not wanting to himself, a Preponderancy of Blifs, His infinite Wisdom may difpofe of the Surplus, that remains beyond this, as He pleafes. It can never prove to us that incorruptible Happiness O 3 which

IX.

SER M. which our Saviour has by His Gospel difplayed, and by His Merits insured, to us; a Happiness unmixed in its Kind, exceeding in Degree, and eternal in Duration; that uninterrupted Enjoyment of Virtue, Truth and Pleasure, without any Alloy of Vice, Falfhood or Pain.

I cannot but conclude then, that the Defign of thefe Men is to ftrike at Religion in General. For any wife Man, that chuses to be of any Religion at all, would chufe to be of the Christian; the best Religion, the most worthy of GOD, the best calculated for the Good of Society, as well as of Individuals. And what confirms me in this Opinion is, that they must know that pure, uncorrupt, Natural Religion never did, never will, fubfift in any Country independently of Revealed. It is a wild and visionary Scheme; and whoever will prove, that any Nation ever did form a complete System of Religion, comprehending all our Duties, whether to GOD, our Fellow-creatures or Ourselves, without any Affiftances from Heaven, muft produce fome History that was never heard of before, or discover fome Nation that was never known before.

We are, I hope, in no immediate Danger of Popery But where thefe Principles, fo openly avowed, fo widely propagated, will end, GOD only knows. The Pretender's Caufe is now, I think, defperate,

and

and may it always continue fo-But there is
one Obfervation which I cannot help mak-
ing, namely, that if We fhould ever have
the Misfortune, which GOD forbid, to fee
Him fettled on the Throne, Irreligion muft
be the Door by which He enters. For
Irreligion will
pave the Way, however like
a Paradox it may found, to Superftition, and
Superftition, Popish Superftition, to a Popish
Government. The Perfon who, not many
Years fince, laboured the most in the
Caufe of Infidelity, was confeffedly á Papist
before the Revolution; and I never heard,
that he profeffed any other Religion after.
And in his last elaborate System of Infide-
lity he fometimes drops the Mafk, and can-
not help giving broad Hints of his good
Will to that Religion. The Popish Emif-
faries, who swarm among us, are known
to perfonate Deifts, to unite their Endea-
vours heartily with theirs, and have fome
of them been heard to declare, they wifh
no greater Advantage to their Caufe, than
to fee our People fet loofe from all Reli-
gion. They triumph and fay, There, there,
fo would We have it. They find their Ac-
count in it, and indeed have already had by
this Means a plentiful Harvest of Profe-
lytes: And it is Matter of Fact, that vulgar
and untutored Minds, the more they are
defpoiled of Religion, the fooner they fall

SER M. an eafy and defenceless Prey to the worst of Religions, Popery.

IX.

We know the Tranfition is very easy from Superftition to Infidelity; and I should be glad to know, why it fhould not be as eafy from Infidelity to Superftition; fince we are very apt to run from one Extream to another. The prefent declared Scheme of Deifm is this; that People must be left to collect every one a Religion for himself independently, according as their Ignorance, Short-fightedness, or Paffions, which to be fure they will call their Reason, shall miflead. Now as the best King that ever fat on the Throne could not wifh a Nation more Happiness than that the Precepts of the Gospel fhould be univerfally obeyed, and the Doctrines of it, those strong Incentives to Virtue, univerfally believed through his Kingdom; fo the moft ill-natured Being, the moft accurfedSpirit, could not wifh a Nation greater Confufion than their Scheme, fo big with Evils, would occafion if it should take Place. The Confequence of which would be, that as foon as the People opened their Eyes, and faw the numerous Train of Miseries that it had plunged them into, how an unreftrained Freedom of Thought had every where produced a correspondent Freedom in Action, they would conceive an utter Abhorrence of what had been the Source of fo many Evils; and refolved

3

IX.

folved to fly precipitately through an inve- SER M. terate, undiftinguishing Hatred, as far as ever they could get from Infidelity (the farther, they would think, the better) they would run into the very Jaws of Popery. They might indeed rove about for a while pleafed in the Mazes of Error; but weary of fo many crude Notions, weary of wandering, ever seeking Reft, and finding none, they might be tempted at last to take up with a pretended infallible Guide. Thus this Nation would tread in a Round of Error. The Cant and Enthusiasm in the Time of the grand Rebellion begat in the next Generation an abandoned Profaneness and Immorality, which was productive of Infidelity, which hath been growing ever fince; and Infidelity may at laft, if it goes on, produce Enthusiasm, or fomething worse. We dance in a Circle, and may end just in the fame Point where we fet out.

Be this as it will; It is but too melancholy a Prospect that the Youth of the Nation are almost universally poifoned in their Principles, and those who fhould be the Flower of the Nation, are, alas! but too generally become the very Dregs of it. Formerly indeed, as well as now, the Sallies of youthful Blood would hurry them into feveral Extravagances and Irregularities; yet ftill their Principles continued found and uncorrupt, which would exert themselves as foon as the youth

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