Ser. 28. vitious habits, a religious and virtuous courfe of life be very difficult, yet the main difficulty lies in our first entrance upon it; and, when that is over, the ways of goodness are as cafy as it is fit any thing should be that is fo excellent, and that hath the encouragement of fo glorious a reward. Custom will reconcile men almoft to any thing: but there are thofe charms in the ways of wisdom and virtue, that a little acquaintance and converfation with them will foon make them more delightful than any other course. And who will grudge any pains and trouble to bring himself into fo fafe and happy a condition? After we have tried both courses, of religion and profaneness, of virtue and vice, we fhall certainly find, that nothing is fo wife, fo eafy, and fo comfortable, as to be virtuous and good, and always to do that which we are inwardly convinced we ought to do. Nor would I defire more of any man in this matter, than to follow the fobereft convictions of his. own mind, and to do that which upon the most ferious confideration at all times, in profperity and affliction, in sickness and health, in the time of life and at the hour of death, he judgeth wifest and safest for him to do. I proceed to the

2. Second branch of the objection, That the laws of religion, and particularly of the Christian religion, are a heavy yoke, laying too great a restraint upon human nature, and intrenching too much upon the pleasures and liberty of it.

There was, I confefs, fome pretence for this objection against the Jewish religion; which, by the multitude of its pofitive inftitutions and external obfervances, must needs have been very burthenfome. And the fame objection lies against the church of Rome, who, as they have handled Christianity, by the unreasonable number of their needlefs and senseless ceremonies, have made the yoke of Chrift heavier than that of Mofes, and the gofpel a more carnal commandment than the law. So that Christianity is loft among them in the trappings and accoutrements of it; with which, inftead of adorning religion, they have ftrangely disguised it, and quite ftifled it in the crowd of external rites and ceremonies. But the pure Christian religion, as it was delivered by

our

our Saviour, hath hardly any thing in it that is pofitive; except the two facraments, which are not very troublesome neither, but very much for our comfort and advantage, because they convey and confirm to us the great bleflings and privileges of our religion. In other things, Christianity hath hardly impofed any other laws upon us but what are enacted in our natures, or are agreeable to the prime and fundamental laws of it; nothing but what every man's reafon either dictates to him to be neceffary, or approves as highly fit and reasonable.

But we do moft grofsly mistake the nature of pleasure and liberty, if we promise them to ourfelves in any evil and wicked courfe: for, upon due search and trial, it will be found, that true pleafure and perfect freedom are no where to be found, but in the practice of virtue, and in the fervice of God. The laws of religion do not abridge us of any pleasure that a wife man can desire, and fafely enjoy; I mean, without a greater evil and trouble confequent upon it. The pleafure of commanding our appetites, and governing our paffions, by the rules of reason, which are the laws of God, is infinitely to be preferred before any fenfual pleafure whatfoever; because it is the pleasure of wisdom and difcretion, and gives us the fatisfaction of having done that which is beft and fitteft for reafonable creatures to do. Who would not rather chufe to govern himself as Scipio did, amidst all the temptations and opportunities of fenfual pleasure which his power and victories prefented to him, than to wallow in all the delights of fenfe?

Nothing is more certain in reafon and experience, than that every inordinate appetite and affection is a punishment to itself, and is perpetually croffing its own pleasure, and defeating its own fatisfaction, by overshooting the mark it aims at. For inftance: Intemperance in eating and drinking, inftead of delight-" ing and fatisfying nature, doth but load and cloy it; and, inftead of quenching a natural thirft, which it is extremely pleasant to do, creates an unnatural one, which is troublesome and endless. The pleasure of revenge, as foon as it is executed, turns into grief and VOL. II.

pity,

pity, guilt and remorfe, and a thoufand melancholy wishes that we had restrained ourselves from so unrea fonable an act. And the fame is as evident in other fenfual exceffes, not fo fit to be defcribed. We may truft Epicurus for this, that there can be no true pleafure without temperance in the use of pleasure. And God and reafon have fet us no other bounds concerning the use of fenfual pleasures, but that we take care not to be injurious to ourselves or others, in the kind or degree of them. And it is very visible, that all fenfual excefs is naturally attended with a double inconvenience. As it goes beyond the limits of nature, it begets bodily pains and diseases; as it tranfgreffeth the rules of reafon and religion, it breeds guilt and remorfe in the mind. And these are, beyond comparison, the two greatest evils in this world, a diseased body, and a difcontented mind and in this I am fure I fpeak to the inward feeling and experience of men; and fay nothing but what every vitious man finds, and hath a more lively fenfe of than is to be expressed by words.

When all is done, there is no pleasure comparable to that of innocency, and freedom from the ftings of a guilty confcience. This is a pure and spiritual pleasure, much above any fenfual delight. And yet among all the delights of fenfe, that of health (which is the natural confequent of a fober, and chafte, and regular life) is a fenfual pleasure far beyond that of any vice: for it is the life of life, and that which gives a grateful relish to all our other enjoyments. It is not indeed fo violent and tranfporting a pleasure; but it is pure, and even, and lafting, and hath no guilt and regret, no forrow and trouble in it, or after it; which is a worm that infalfibly breeds in all vitious and unlawful pleasures, and makes them to be bitterncfs in the end.

All the ways of fin are fo befet with thorns and difficulties on every fide, there are fo many unanswerable objections against vice, from the unreasonableness and uglinefs of it, from the remorfe that attends it, from the endless mifery that follows it, that none but the rafh and inconfiderate can obtain leave of themselves to commit it. It is the daughter of inadvertency, and blindness, and folly; and the mother of guilt, and repentance, and

woe.

woe. There is no pleasure that will hold out and abide with us to the last, but that of innocency and well-doing. All fin is folly; and, as Seneca truly fays, Omnis ftultitia laborat faftidio fui," All folly foon grows fick and "weary of itfelf." The pleafure of it is flight and fu perficial; but the trouble and remorfe of it pierceth our very hearts.

And then, as to the other part of the objection, That religion restrains us of our liberty; the contrary is evidently true, that fin and vice are the greatest flavery : for he is truly a flave, who is not at liberty to follow his own judgment, and to do thofe things which he is inwardly convinced it is best for him to do; but is fubject to the unreasonable commands, and the tyrannical power and violence of his lufts and paffions: fo that he is not mafter of himself, but other lords have got dominion over him, and he is perfectly at their beck and command. One vice or paffion bids him Go, and he goes; another, Come, and he comes; and a third, Do this, and he doth it. The man is at perpetual variance with his own mind, and continually committing the things which he condemns in himself. And it is all one, whether a man be fubject to the will and humour of another perfon, or to his own lufts and paffions. Only this of the two is the worfe; because the tyrant is at home, and always ready at hand to domineer over him: he is got within him, and fo much the harder to be vanquished and o

vercome.

But the fervice of God, and obedience to his laws, is perfect liberty; because the law of God requires nothing of us, but what is recommended to us by our own reason, and from the benefit and advantage of doing it; nothing. but what is much more for our own intereft to do it, than it can be for God's to command it. And if in fome things God exact obedience of us more indifpenfably, and under feverer penalties, it is because those things are in their nature more neceffary to our felicity. And how could God poffibly have dealt more graciously and kindly with us, than to oblige us most ftrictly to that which is most evidently for our good; and to make fuch laws. for us, as, if we live in obedience to them, will infallibly make us happy? So that, taking all things into confideration,

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confideration, the interest of our bodies and our fouls, of the present and the future, of this world and the other, religion is the most reasonable and wife, the most comfortable and compendious course that any man can take in order to his own happiness.

The confideration whereof ought to be a mighty endearment of our duty to us, and a moft prevalent argument with us to yield a ready and chearful obedience to the laws of God; which are in truth fo many acts of grace and favour to mankind, the real privileges of our nature, and the proper means and caufes of our happinefs; and do restrain us from nothing, but from doing mifchief to ourselves, from playing the fools, and making ourselves miferable.

And therefore, inftead of oppofing religion, upon pretence of the unreasonable reftraints of it, we ought to thank God heartily, that he hath laid fo ftrict an obligation upon us to regard and purfue our true intereft; and hath been pleafed to take that care of us, as to fet bounds to our loose and wild appetites by our duty; and in giving us rules to live by, hath no ways complied with our inconfiderate and foolish inclinations, to our real harm and prejudice; but hath made thofe things neceffary for us to do, which in all refpects are best for us, and which, if we were perfectly left to our own liberty, ought in all reafon to be our free and first choice; and hath made the folly and inconvenience of fin fo grofsly palpable, that every man may fee it beforehand that will but confider, and at the beginning of a bad courfe look to the end of it: and they that will not confider, fhall be forced, from woful experience, at laft to acknowledge it, when they find the difmal effects and mifchievous confequences of their vices still meeting them at one turn or other.

And now, by all that hath been said upon this argument, I hope we are fatisfied that religion is no fuch intolerable yoke; and that, upon a due and full confideration of things, it cannot feem evil unto any of us to ferve the Lord: nay, on the contrary, that it is abfolutely neceffary, both to our prefent peace and our future felicity; and that a religious and virtuous life, is not only upon all accounts the most prudent, but, after we are entered upon it, and accustomed to it, the most pleasant course

that