28 The Gofpel a Law of Liberty. S E R M. direction of their lives, enforced by the fane- II. tion of rewards and punifhments. Yet our condition is not rendered fervile by it; for we ought not to imagine that every kind of re- ftraint, and whatever is intended to give a di- rection to the exercife of thefe powers, which are the fubjeit of liberty, that I fay, every thing of this kind is inconfiftent with freedom. We can't in any cafe aft without motives, but they do not make us llaves. The brutes are determined by the appearance of fenfible good, in which proportionably to the degrees and kind of their perception, they have liber- ty. The human nature being rational, rea- fon does not deftroy its freedom, but eftablifh it, and is the rule of it ; then only are we indeed free when we conduit ourfelves with underflanding. Nay, the liberty of the Su- preme Being, the molt perfef'r of all, is always exercifed with the exaéieft wifdom and rec- titude. Perhaps fome imagine that it is a high privilege to at without regard to any motive, and that the will fhould determine itfelf with a kind of fupremacy independant of reafon ; but it cannot be, the very frame of our nature does not allow it, that our minds fhould not be influenced by motives ; and whether is he more free who is governed by thofe of fenfe merely, or of reafon ? It is true they are in this refpet alike free, that they equally at with- opt
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