integrity is known to you, has acted a treacherous part? Hear the accufed before you condemn.

Value learning as much as you please. But remember, a judicious thinker is incomparably fuperior to a great reader.

What can be more monftrous than the common excuses for unfaithfulnefs to the marriagebed? People give their vows to one another in the most folemn manner; and then their firft work is to think how to break them. They marry for better for worfe; for richer or poorer, younger or older; handfomer or plainer. And then, when they come to repent of their rafh choice, they pretend to excufe the breach of folemn vows by the pretext of defects they find in one another of which it is wholly their own fault if they were not fufficiently apprized before their coming together.

To defeat calumny, 1. Defpife it. To feem disturbed about it, is the way to make it be believed. And ftabbing your defamer will not prove you innocent. 2. Live an exemplary life. And then your general good character will overpower it. 3. Speak tenderly of every body, even of your defamers, and you will make the whole world cry, Shame on them, who can find in their hearts to injure one fo inoffensive.

You fay, your misfortunes are hard to bear. Your vices are likewise hard to be forgiven. Is it terrible to think of your fuffering pain, sickness, poverty, or the lofs of dear friends or relations? VOL. II,

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It is more terrible to think of your having offended the infinitely great and good Creator, Preferver, and Judge of the world, your kind and bountiful Father and beft Friend. Is pain a great evil? Vice is a greater. It is rebellion against the Supreme authority of the universe. Is the lofs of a beloved wife like tearing limb from limb? So is falfhood, cruelty, or ingratitude like unhinging the univerfé, and bringing chaos back again. For they tend to univerfal disorder, and the deftruction of the creation of God. Do you fhudder at the thought of poverty or disease? Think with what eye infinite Purity must behold wickedness; with what abhorrence abfolute Perfection must see the ruin by irregularity and vice. mifery Fly from fin. punishment? Above all the cause of it.

produced in his works Do you defire to escape Do you wish to avoid things avoid wickedness,

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BOOK IV.

Of REVEALED RELIGION.

INTRODUCTION.

The

HAT it is in itself agreeable to rectitude, neceffary to the dignity of human nature, and the requifite concurrence of moral agents with the general scheme of the Governor of the universe, that we study above all things to perform our whole duty, viz. Taking proper care of our bodies and of our minds, loving our fellow-creatures as ourselves, and loving and ferving our Creator; that this is our indifpenfable duty, and that the habitual neglect, or violation of it, upon whatever pretence, will expofe us to the Divine displeasure, as the confcientious obfervance U 2

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of it is most likely to gain us his favour, and confequently final happiness; all this appears clear to human reafon, feparate from any confideration of the truth of revelation, and deducible from univerfally acknowledged principles. And if it may be fuppofed in the lowest degree probable, that the kind and merciful Parent of his creatures, who would have all men to be faved, and, in a confiftency with eternal and immutable rectitude, to come to that happiness, of which their nature was formed capable; if it may be conceived in the lowest degree probable, that God fhould from the beginning have ordered things fo, that one method, among others, for promoting univerfal goodness and happiness, fhould be, the appearance of an exprefs meffage, or revelation from himself, with a fett of clearer and more ftriking instructions, than had been any other way communicated to mankind; if this be conceivable without any direct abfurdity, then is it likewife evident from the principles of natural religion, or reafon, that it is the indifpenfable duty of all thofe of our fpecies, to whom any fuch fuppofed Divine meffage, or revelalation, may be offered, to bestow the utmoft diligence in examining its pretenfions, and, if found fufficient, to admit them with candor and fincerity of mind, and to receive the revelation itself with that veneration and fubmiffion, which it becomes dependent creatures to exprefs to Him who fent it.

That

That there is nothing directly abfurd, or contradictory to reafon, in the fuppofition of the poffibility of a revelation given from God, for the reformation and improvement of mankind, is evident from its having been the opinion, and the hope, of the wifest and best of mankind, in all ages, and various nations. Socrates, Plato, Confucius, and others, the bright and burning lights of antiquity, have given their authority to the opinion of the probability of a revelation from God. They have declared, that they thought it an affair of great confequence to rekindle the light of reafon, almoft extinguished by vice and folly; to recall a bewildered race of beings into the way of virtue, to teach mankind, with certainty and authority, how they ought to behave toward their Creator, fo as to obtain his favour, and the pardon of their offences. They, who were the best qualified, of all uninfpired men of thofe antient times, for inftructing mankind, were ready to own themselves infufficient for the tafk of reforming the world. And it is notorious, that their worthy labours were in no respect adequate to the universal, or general amendment of manners, even in the countries in which they lived, and taught. For that themselves greatly wanted inftruction, appears plainly from what they have writ upon some of the most important points of morals, as the immortality of the foul; the nature, degree, and continuance of the rewards and punishments of