an Imagination apt to startle at Difficulties SE RM.III. new to you. But if you have a Turn for folid Thinking and Reasoning, bring your Mind close to the Difficulty, and make it take a near View of it on every Side; and you will find that what startled it at a Diftance, was only fome idle Trifle, which Fancy had dressed up in a formidable Shape. And if you have not, defire those, who have studied the Point, to turn to fuch Paffages in Books already published as contain a fufficient Answer to it. For Infidelity can only go round and round the fame Topics, in an eternal Circle, without advancing one Step further: It produces no new Forces: it only brings thofe again into the Field, which have been fo often baffled, maimed and difabled, that, in Pity to them, they ought to be difmiffed, and discharged from any further Service.

You may complain that you have not Capacities fufficient for fuch Things. Suppofing your Abilities fo very slender, that you cannot perceive the Truth of an historical Fact well-attefted; yet one Thing you may be fure of; that it is much better for the Good of the whole, that Mankind fhould abide by fuch a written Rule of

SERM.III. Faith and Practice, as the Christian is; than

that they fhould be left every one, in low as well as high Life, to collect a Religion for themfelves, just as their Ignorance, Paffions and Prejudices fhould mislead them. You may fee, that this Scheme, which is that of Infidelity, would be deftructive of the general Happiness of the World: And you may conclude, that whatever Scheme would, at the Foot of the Account, leave the World in a much worfe State, than it was before, in Point of Happiness, must be disagreeable to his Will, who wishes the Happiness of the World; and therefore contrary to Truth. What better With could the beft-natured Being form for the Benefit of the World; than that the Doctrines of Christianity, thofe ftrong Incentives to. Virtue, fhould be univerfally believed; and it's Precepts univerfally practised?

II dly, From a right Faith I now proceed to what is, or ought to be, the Confequence of it, a good Life.

A good Life is not one folitary and fingle Virtue, however glaring; it is the Combination and Meeting together of all the moral and spiritual Graces; Juft as Light

and

and Whiteness is not one fingle Colour and SERM III. Ray; it is the Compofition of all the Colours and Rays united and blended together.

Your first and leading Duty is Piety to God. And this takes in all religious Duties, whether moral or pofitive; whether we fully and clearly fee the Reasons of them, or we fee them dimly and indistinctly, or we do not see them at all; knowing this (enough for us to know) that an all-wife Being can enjoin no Duty, but for wife Ends and Purposes; and an allgood Being can command no Performance, but what is for our Good and Benefit.

Let not your Piety break out in fudden fhort interrupted Flashes, but let it fhine on in one continued steady Day-light. Have not just Religion enough to make you uneafy; but enough to give you folid Satiffaction, and a well-grounded Affurance. Give God all you can; give him your Heart-for that is all. And then, instead of contenting yourself with thinking, how holy and charitable you would be, if you had fuch a Fortune, or were in fuch a Station; you will never be eafy, till you are as holy and charitable as it is poffible for you to be, in whatever Station you are, or whatever Fortune you have.

But

SERM.III.

But I have already difcourfed often on this Subject: One Thing more however I beg leave to mention. You are, most of you, regular Attendants on the Service of the Church: Take Care, that your Deportment out of Church, be correspondent to your Behaviour in it: Otherwise, you will do Religion more Differvice, than if you were it's open and avowed. Enemies. For, pray obferve: Though Piety be the most valuable Thing in itself, the Bulk of Mankind are not capable of forming fine abstract Ideas of it in itself; they must consider it, if at all, as it lies before them in the Lives and Converfation of Men reputedly pious. And when they see those who have that Character, laying Stress upon Trifles, as if the whole of Religion confifted in them, and neglecting Effentials; when they see them prying into the Secrets of Families, or encouraging and liftening to thofe that do fo, addicted to Cenforioufnefs and Superciliousness; the little low defpicable Notions, which they form of Perfons profeffing Piety, they will unjustly annex to Piety itfelf, and hold it ever after cheap and contemptible.

2dly; Let therefore your Piety to God, SERM.III. be joined with, what ought to be infeparable from it, Charity to Man.

By Charity, I do not mean only Almfgiving; for that is only one Branch of it, one outward Expreffion of this Duty; I mean the most liberal Sentiments and the most enlarged Affections towards all Mankind. A charitable Man will endeavour to fee every Thing through the Mirror of Good-Nature, which mends and beautifies all Objects, without altering any: Like fine Painting, which, without deviating from Nature, adds new Touches and Graces to it; it does not change, but only embellish it; it does not give a mere Likeness, much less a woful Likeness, it gives an agreeable and advantageous one. Far from furmifing Evil, where there is none; he will rather think no Evil, where there really is; judging it better to err through a good-natured Credulity, than through an undistinguishing Sufpición; because a goodnatured Credulity will only expofe him to fome temporal Inconveniencies; but an undiftinguishing Sufpicion will beget in him a fettled Uneafinefs, Jealoufy, Hatred, and the whole Train of black Paffions, which