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Py: The work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effects of righteousness, quietness and affurance for ever. And, on the other hand, that he ufeth to fhower down his judgements upon a wicked people: He turneth a fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein.

And the experience of all ages hath made this good. All along the hiftory of the Old Teftament, we find the interchangeable providences of God towards the people of Ifrael always fuited to their manners. They were conftantly profperous or afflicted according as piety and virtue flourished or declined amongst them. And God did not only exercise this providence towards his own people, but he dealt thus alfo with other nations. The Roman empire, whilst the virtue of that people re mained firm, was frong as iron, as it is reprefented in the prophecy of Daniel: but, upon the diffolution of their manners, the iron began to be mixed with miry clay, and the feet upon which that empire ftood to be broken. And though God, in the administration of his justice, be not tied to precedents, and we cannot argue from fcripture-examples, that the providences of God towards other nations fhall in all circumstances be conformable to his dealings with the people of Ifrael; yet thus much may with great probability be collected from them, that as God always bleffed that people while they were obedient to him, and followed them with his judgements when they rebelled against him, fo he will alfo deal with other nations; because the reafon of those difpenfations, as to the main and fubftance of them, feems to be perpetual, and founded in that which can never change, the juftice of the divine providence.

2dly, The truth of this farther appears from the natural tendency of the thing. For religion in general, and every particular virtue, doth in its own nature conduce to the public intereft.

Religion, where-ever it is truly planted, is certainly the greateft obligation upon confcience to all civil offices and moral duties. Chastity, and temperance, and induftry, do in their own nature tend to health and plenty. Truth and fidelity in all our dealings do create mutual love and good-will, and confidence among men; VOL. I. which

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which are the great bands of peace. And, on the contrary, wickedness doth in its own nature produce many public mifchiefs. For as fins are linked together, and draw on one another; fo almost every vice hath fome temporal inconvenience annexed to it, and naturally following it. Intemperance and luft breed infirmities and diseases; which, being propagated, fpoil the strain of a nation. Idlenefs and luxury bring forth poverty and want; and this tempts men to injuftice, and that caufeth enmity and animofities, and thefe bring on Strife and confufion, and every evil work. This philofophical account of public troubles and confufions St James gives us: Whence come wars and fightings among you? are they not hence, even from your lufts, that war in your members? Jam. iv. 1.

But I fhall fhew more particularly, that religion and virtue do naturally tend to the good order and more eafy goverment of human fociety; because they have a good influence both upon magiftrates and fubjects.

1. Upon magiftrates. Religion teacheth them to rule over men in the fear of God; because, though they be gods on earth, yet they are fubjects of heaven, and accountable to him who is higher than the highest in this world. Religion in a magiftrate ftrengthens his authority; because it procures veneration and gains a reputation to it. And in all the affairs of this world, fo much reputation is really fo much power. We see, that piety and virtue, where they are found among men of lower degree, will command fome reverence and respect; but in perfons of eminent place and dignity, they are feated to a great advantage, fo as to caft a luftre upon their very place, and by a ftrong reflection to double the beams of majefty: whereas impiety and vice do strangely leffen greatnefs, and do fecretly and unavoidably derive fome weakness upon authority itself. Of this the fcripture gives us a remarkable inftance in David. For, among other things which made the fons of Zeruiah too hard for him, this probably was none of the leaft, that they were particularly confcious to his crimes.

2. Religion hath a good influence upon the people, to make them obedient to government, and peaceable one towards another.

ift, To make them obedient to government, and con

formable

formable to laws and that not only for wrath, and out of fear of the magistrate's power, which is but a weak and loofe principle of obedience, and will ceafe whene ver men can rebel with fafety, and to advantage; but out of confcience; which is a firm, and conftant, and lafting principle, and will hold a man faft when all other obligations will break. He that hath entertained the true principles of Christianity, is not to be tempted from his obedience and fubjection by any worldly confiderations; becaufe he believes, that whofoever refifieth authority, refifteth the ordinance of God; and that they who refift fhall receive to themfelves damnation.

2dly, Religion tends to make men peaceable one to wards another. For it endeavours to plant all those qualities and difpofitions in men which tend to peace and unity, and to fill men with a fpirit of universal love and good-will. It endeavours likewife to fecure every man's intereft, by commanding the obfervation of that great rule of equity, Whatfoever ye would that men Should do unto you, do ye even fo to them; by injoining that truth and fidelity be inviolably obferved in all our words, promifes, and contracts. And, in order hereunto, it requires the extirpation of all thofe paffions and vices which render men unsociable, and troublesome to one another; as pride, covetoufness and injuftice, hatred and revenge, and cruelty; and thofe likewife which are not fo commonly reputed vices, as felf-conceit, and peremptoriness in a man's own opinion, and all peevishnefs and incompliance of humour in things lawful and indifferent.

And that these are the proper effects of true piety, the doctrine of our Saviour and his apoftles every where teacheth us. Now, if this be the defign of religion, to bring us to this temper, thus to heal the natures of men, and to fweeten their fpirits; to correct their paffions, and to mortify all thofe lufts which are the causes of enmity and divifion: then it is evident, that in its own nature it tends to the peace and happiness of human fociety; and that, if men would but live as religion requires they fhould do, the world would be a quiet habitation, a moft lovely and defirable place in comparifon of what now it is And indeed the true reason why the focieties of men are fo full of tumult and diforder,

fo troublesome and tempeftuous, is, because there is fo little of true religion among men: fo that, were it not for fome fmall remainders of piety and virtue which are yet left fcattered among mankind, human fociety would in a fhort space disband, and run into confufion; the earth would grow wild, and become a great foreft; and mankind would become beafts of prey one towards another. And if this difcourfe hold true, furely then one would think, that virtue fhould find itself a feat whereever human focieties are, and that religion fhould be owned and encouraged in the world, until men cease to be governed by reafon.

II. I come to vindicate this truth from the infinuations and pretences of Atheistical perfons. I fhall mention

two.

I.

1. That government may fubfift well enough without the belief of a God, and a state of rewards and punish. ments after this life.

2. That as for virtue and vice, they are arbitrary things.

Ift, That government may fubfift well enough without the belief of a God, or a state of rewards and punishments after this life. And this the Atheist does and muft affert, otherwise he is, by his own confeffion, a declared enemy to government, and unfit to live in hu man fociety.

For antwer to this, I will not deny, but that though the generality of men did not believe any fuperior being, nor any rewards and punishments after this life; yet, notwithstanding this, there might be fome kind of go vernment kept up in the world. For, fuppofing men to have reason, the neceffities of human nature, and the mifchiefs of confufion, would probably compel them into fome kind of order. But then I fay withal, that if thefe principles were banished out of the world, governs ment would be far more difficult than now it is; be cause it would want its firmeft bafis and foundation. There would be infinitely more diforders in the world, if men were restrained from injuftice and violence only by human laws, and not by principles of confcience, and the dread of another world. Therefore magiftrates have always thought themselves concerned to cherish religion, and to maintain in the minds of men the ber

lief of a God and another life. Nay, that common fuggeftion of Atheistical perfons, that religion was at firft a politic device, and is ftill kept up in the world as a ftate engine to awe men into obedience, is a clear acknowledgement of the ufefulness of it to the ends of government; and does as fully contradict that pretence of theirs, which I am now confuting, as any thing that can be faid.

2dly, That virtue and vice are arbitrary things, found ed only in the imaginations of men, and in the constitutions and cuftoms of the world, but not in the nature of the things themfelves; and that that is virtue or vice, good or evil, which the fupreme authority of a nation declares to be fo. And this is frequently and confidently afferted by the ingenious author of a very bad book, I mean the Leviathan.

Now, the proper way of answering any thing that is confidently allerted, is, to fhew the contrary, namely, That there are fome things that have a natural evil and deformity in them, as perjury, perfidioufnefs, unrighteoufnefs, and ingratitude; which are things not only condemned by the pofitive laws and conftitutions of particular nations and governments, but by the general verdict of human nature and that the virtues contrary to these have a natural goodness and comelinefs in them, and are suitable to the common principles and fentiments of humanity.

And this will moft evidently appear, by putting this fuppofition. Suppole the reverfe of all that which we now call virtue were folemnly enacted, and the practice of fraud, and rapine, and perjury, and falfenefs to a man's word, and all manner of vice and wickednéfs, were established by a law; I afk now,, If the cafe between virtue and vice were thus altered, would that which we now call vice in procefs of time gain the reputation of virtue, and that which we now call virtue grow odious and contemptible to human nature? If it would not, then is there fomething in the nature of good and evil, of virtue and vice, which does not depend upon the pleafure of authority, nor is fubject to any arbitrary conftitution. But that it would not be. thus, I am very certain; becaufe no government could

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