Of a Confcience void of Offence. 173 To confider the reafonablenefs and ne- S E R M. ceffity of our exercifing ourfelves therein to VII. have always a confcience void of jénce. `"-Y"'" But this I hope fufficiently appears from what has been already faid ; indeed it is ob- vious to any one who will attend to it, and to deny it, is, in effect, to deny any fuch thing as moral obligations on the human mind. For the foundation of all virtue is the fenfe which every man feels in his own heart of the difference between right and wrong, or good and evil ; the foundation of religion is an inward perfuafion of the differ- ence between what God requires and what he forbids us to do. To ad virtuoufly, there- fore, is to ad according to that fenfe and ap- probation of our own minds ; to ad vicioufly, is to ad in oppofition to it. To ad religioufly, is to conform our practice to what we believe to be the will of God ; to ad irreligioufly, is directly the contrary. What, then, is virtue and religion, but to have a confcience void of offence ? And what is it to exercife ourfelves herein, but to make virtue and re- ligion flill our fludy, and Rill endeavour to pradife it, from a conviction that we are al- ways in danger of coming fhort of it thro' weaknefs
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=