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beauty and excellency of them; that they all approve themselves to the reafon of mankind, are all of them boly, and juft, and good, worthy of God to enjoin, and fit for men to obey. I will venture to lay the whole stress of practical religion upon the juftice and equity of it. When any one can prove that any of the divine precepts are unrighteous, I will grant that he is released from an obligation to the practice of them: but till he can do this, he cannot with any colour refufe obedience to them; but should follow the pfalmift's example, and bind himself by an oath to the performance of God's righteous judgments,

SER

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SERMON VIII.

The duty and advantages of religious refolution.

Pfalm CXIX. 106.

I have fworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgments.

Na former difcourfe upon these words, I treated concerning religious refolution; and, to prevent mistakes about it, laid before you its properties; which I reduced to four heads.

1. It is founded on mature deliberation.

2. It is peremptory and unmoveable.

3. It refpects the time prefent, and admits of no delay.

4. It is univerfal, and refpects all God's commandments.

Having thus explained the thing, I proceeded to recommend it to you from the confideration fuggefted in the text; viz. the righteousness of the divine

commands.

I have already confidered those which regard our conduct towards God himfelf; and endeavoured to prove that thofe precepts which enjoin the love and fear of God, truft and confidence in him, the worship and adoration of him, and obedience to him, both active and paffive, are righteous precepts. I shall now attempt to prove the fame concerning those precepts which regard our conduct towards our fellow creatures, and thofe which relate to the government of ourselves; and then from the confideration of the righteoufnefs of all the divine commands, fhall

exhort you to follow the pfalmift's example, and bind yourselves by an oath to the performance of God's righteous judgments. I obferve therefore,

2. Concerning those precepts which regard our conduct towards our fellow creatures, that they are righteous precepts. The fcripture reduces these to two heads; viz. Juftice and Mercy; Micah. VI. 8. He hath fhewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and love mercy?

By justice is commonly meant no more than the rendring to every one what is his, and permitting him quietly to enjoy it but I fhall take it in a larger fenfe, and comprehend under it the virtues of truth and fidelity, and gratitude to our benefactors, which are parts of justice as much as that which is ftrictly fo called.

That it is righteous to render to every one what is his, and permit him quietly to enjoy it, appears at firft fight. Who fhould enjoy a thing, if not he whose it is? That very confideration, of its being another man's property, is a plain argument, that I ought not to deprive him of it by any means, either by

force

force or fraud, but fhould let him alone to difpofe of it as he pleases; and that, in cafe he hath lent it me, I ought not to detain it longer than is neceffary, but should restore it as foon as poffible.

And as there is a natural fitness and decency in this virtue of justice; fo likewife is it highly useful in fociety, and abfolutely neceffary to the fupport of it. What would become of mankind, if a regard to justice was banished out of the world? There would be nothing but diforder and confufion amongst men: no man would be fecure in the enjoyment of his own; but all that one has would be precarious and uncertain, and lie at the mercy of the next infolent invader, who should have it in his power to deprive him of it. How great are the mischiefs which arife from injuftice? It overthrows liberty and property: it diffolves that distinction which nature has placed betwixt mine and my neighbour's goods: and whofoever is guilty of it, does as good as fay that there is nothing which a man can properly call his own, but that any other perfon hath a right to it as much as himself, and may go and ravish it from him without doing him any injury.

Injustice

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