SECTION vi. 15 Shall it be said here ; but for once let us suppose it, that God may give self-denying and'hard commands without any reason to expect a reward ; do not these commands carry suf - oient reason to oblige a creature to obey ? And what if 1 should answer, no, they do not: You will tell me this is very absurd, that the willof God, which carries thehighest obligation, should not sufficiently hind a creature. I answer, first, it is not the highest obligation where all hope of reward is cut off, for the natural duty of self-felicitation being added to it by the view of a reward, would raise it higher. But, secondly, what if it be an absurd thing, that the will of God commanding does not suffici- eiently oblige ? If you will force upon me absurd and inconsis- tent suppositions, why should you expect any thing but absurd Consequences? I confess there have been some mystic divines, and some enthusiasts, among the papists, who have screwed up their notions of virtue to such sublimities, that we are bound to practise all the will of God steadily, trader the longest and sharpest trials and most self-denying instances, without any re- gard to rewards or punishments ; or even if there were no such things. There have been also some deists who have reproached. christianity as a mere selfish and mercenary thing, because of the rewards and punishments it.proposes ; and have maintained that true virtue should be practised by tiie sole motive of its own rational excellency and loveliness, that is the fitness of things*. I deny not the truth of this obligation arising from the mere manifestation of God's will, confirming the reason and fitness of things, even without the hopeof reward; but, in my opinion, this obligation alone would not be supreme and effectual : And indeed this seems not to be ,the religion of men on earth, but of some superior beings, if such there be, who can practise it. Abraham, * It is not unwórthy of our remarkhere, that the opposite extremes of error in departing far from the truth, meet again in one and the same gross mistake, viz. that " true virtue or piety must have no regard to rewards or punishments." Deism and enthusiasm agree in this point of falsehood, to oppose true Christianity and scripture. This error is of the same-stamp with the mad paradox of the stoics, that " a wise man is happy in Phalaris's bull," that is, that virtue, in the midst ,of the extremest tortures and agonies, is still a sufficient reward for itself... Alas ! for these unhappy men, these ancient philosophers ! they knew not the rewards of virtue and piety, some of which even reason might suggest or expect, if they-had known the true God; nor were they acquainted with those superior recompences of faith and holiness which christianity reveals and promises. Nor can I forbear to make this inference here, viz, thofe writers who raise their rules and their test of true piety so high, as to require that we must be con- tent to be damned .that God may be glorified in our punishment; they require what God and his word have never required : Nor doth scriptureever demand us to say, we would live in the same perfection of zeal for God, the same mortification of appetite, and persevere in the same strict self-denial and patience, both in dutjes and in sufferings, if there were no present or future recompences, no hea- ven and no hell. This is not the sense nor the languageof the prophets, or apos- tles, or oY Jesus. Christ. our Lord, when they would teach us the religion of mankind.
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