sarily follows, that according as we remain virtuous or vicious for ever, our condition must be good or evil for ever. And this being so, of what unspeakable consequence are the actions of men, that thus draw after them a chain of joys or woes as long as eternity! And how careful ought we to be, to what course of life we determine ourselves, considering that our eternal fate depends upon what we are now doing; that every moral action we perform is a step heaven or hellwards; that in every bad or good choice we make, we are planting our tophet or our paradise; and that in the consequents of our present actions we shall rue or rejoice to eternal ages! O would to God men would at last be so wise as to consider these things before it be too late, and not live at random as they do without any regard to the certain and unavoidable fate of their own actions! For doubtless, would they but throughly weigh the nature and event of things, and look before they leap into action, they would see infinitely more charm and terror in that good and evil which inseparably adheres to virtuous and vicious actions, than in all the temptations in the world. Wherefore, in the name of God, let us look about us, and for once resolve to act like beings that must for ever feel the bad or good effects of our own doings. Which if we do, we shall not only live well and happily here, but to all eternity experience the blessed consequents of it.

SECT. II.

That God hath sufficiently discovered to us what those human actions are which are morally good, and upon that account perpetually obliging.

THE truth of which will evidently appear by con

sidering the particulars, what it is that God hath done in order to the making this great discovery to us; the most considerable of which are reducible to these six heads:

First, He hath implanted in us a natural desire of happiness.

Secondly, He hath given us reason to discern what actions they are that make for our happiness, and what not.

Thirdly, He hath so contrived our natures, as that we are thrust on by our own instincts and passions to those actions which make for our happiness.

Fourthly, He hath taken care to excite and oblige us to those actions, by annexing natural rewards to them, and entailing natural punishments on their contraries.

Fifthly, To strengthen and enforce this obligation, he hath frequently superadded to these natural rewards and punishments supernatural blessings and judgments.

Sixthly, That to enforce all this, he hath made sundry supernatural revelations, wherein he hath plainly told us what those things are that carry with them this intrinsic good and necessity.

I. God hath taken care to discover to us what is morally good, by implanting in us a natural desire of happiness, which is so inseparable to human nature, that it is impossible for us to forbear desiring what is good for us, or at least what appears so. For though through our own ignorance and inconsideration we many times mistake evil for good, and misery for happiness; yet such is the frame of our nature, that we cannot desire evil as evil, or misery as misery; but whensoever we embrace a real evil, it is either under the notion of a less evil, or of a real

and substantial good. Now by this unquenchable thirst and desire of happiness which God hath implanted in our nature, we are continually importuned and excited to search out and inquire by what ways and means we may arrive to be happy. So that as hunger and thirst, and the sense of bodily pain and pleasure, force men upon the invention of trades and civil occupations, to supply their necessities and conveniences; so this vehement hunger and thirst after happiness, which God hath created in our bosoms, doth almost necessitate and constrain us to pry into the nature of our actions, that so we may discover what trade and course of life it is that tends most directly to our own felicity. And by thus importuning us by our own self-love to inquire into the nature of our actions, and into their natural tendencies to our weal or woe, he hath not only expressed his good-will towards us, by taking security of ourselves for our own welfare, and obliging us to be happy by the most tender and vigorous passion in our natures; but hath also taken an effectual course to discover to us the good and evil of our own actions; considering,

II. That he hath given us reason, to discern what actions they are that make for our happiness, and what not. It is true, had he only implanted in our breasts a blind desire of happiness, without any eye of reason in our heads to guide and direct our actions towards it, we must have wandered in the dark for ever, till we had pined away our wretched being with a hungry and unsatisfied desire. But by giving us a quicksighted faculty of reason to guide and conduct this our blind desire, he hath taken sufficient care, not only to excite our inquiry after the way to

happiness, but also to enable us to find it. For the natural tendencies of our actions to our happiness or misery are so very obvious and visible, that we can scarce open our eyes and look abroad without observing them. For how can any man, who makes any observations upon things, be so stupid as not to discern the vast difference there is between truth and falsehood, justice and injustice, as to their natural tendency to the good and hurt, happiness and misery of mankind? It is true, if men will neglect using their reason, they may be ignorant of the plainest propositions; but if they be, it is their inexcusable folly. But if men will be so true to their own interest, as calmly to reflect upon their actions, their sense cannot more readily distinguish between honey and gall, than their reason will between virtue and vice; the fundamental reasons of which are so legible in all the appearances of nature, so necessary to the being and preservation of mankind, and their equity is so apparent, and their convenience so obvious, that a man can hardly reflect upon any thing either within or without him, without being convinced of their force and obligation. So that for a man that hath the use of his reason not to observe the difference of his actions, as to their intrinsic good and evil, and necessary tendency to his happiness and misery, would be as gross and unexcusable a stupidity, as if he should pass through the world without ever taking notice that two and two makes four. God therefore, by giving us a reasonable faculty to discern the nature of things, upon which the differences of good and evil are so plainly and legibly imprinted, hath hereby taken sufficient care to shew us the difference of our own actions. For to inspire us with

a faculty of reasoning, by which we can form true notions of things from single experiments, and infer one truth from another, and immediately to inspire this faculty with divine truth, are only two different modes of divine revelation; and God did as really reveal himself to us, when he gave us reason to understand his will, as when he sent to us his messenger from heaven to make known his mind and will to us. For God hath so framed our understandings, as that whensoever we impartially reason about things, we are forced to distinguish between good and evil, and cannot persuade ourselves, without doing infinite violence to our own faculties, that to blaspheme God or to reverence him, lie or speak truth, to honour our parents, or to scorn and despise them, are things of an indifferent nature; but as soon as ever we open the eye of our reason, we discern such an essential difference between them, as forces us to condemn the one and approve the other. And accordingly, as for the greatest strokes of iniquity, we find they have as much the universal judgment of our reason against them, as any false. conclusion in the mathematics; whilst the goodness of their contrary virtues is as universally acknowledged by us, as the truth of any first principle in philosophy. Since therefore God hath so framed our understanding, as that it cannot calmly reflect upon our actions without distinguishing between the good and bad, he hath hereby sufficiently revealed to us what that good is that immutably binds and obliges

us.

III. God hath so contrived our natures, as that we are thrust on by our own instincts and passions to those actions which are morally good, and do make