CHAPTER V. ¢65 fQrr,tbe,.higltest,rule of duty to intelligent creatures ; a confor- mity or nonconformity to it determines their actions to be morally good or evil. 2. Whatsoever is really an immediate duty toward ourselves, or toward our fellow- creatures, is more remotely a duty to God ; and therefore in the practice of it we should have an eye to the will of God as our rule, and to his glory as our end. 3. Our wise and gracious Creator has closely united our duty and our happiness together; and has connected sin, or vice and punishment; that is, be has ordained that the highest natural, good and evil should have a close connection with moral good, and evil, and that both in the nature of things, and by his own positive appointment. 4. Conscience should seek all due information, in order to determine what is duty, and what is sin, because happiness and misery depend upon it. ä. On this account our inclination to present temporal good and our aversion to present temporal evil, must be wisely over- balanced by the consideration of future and eternal good or evil, that is, happiness or misery. And for this reason we should not omit a duty, or commit a sin, to gain any temporal good, or to avoid any temporal evil. 6. Though our natural reason in a state of innocence might be sufficient to find out those duties which were necessary for an innocent creature, in order to abide in the favour of his Maker, yet in a fallen state, our natural reason is by no means sufriéíent to find out all that is necessary to restore a sinful creature to the divine favour. 7. Therefore God hath condescended, in various ages of mankind, to reveal to 'sinful men what he requires of them in order to their restoration, and has appointed in his word some peculiar in atters of faith and practice, in order to their salvation. this is called revealed religion ; as the things knowable concern- ing God and our duty by the light of nature, are called natùral religion. 8. There are also many parts of morality, and natural reli- gion, or many natural duties relating to God, to ourselves, and to our neighbours, which would be exceeding difficult and tedious for the bulk of mankind to find out and determine by natural reinen; therefore it has pleased God in this sacred book of divine revelation, to express the most necessary duties of this kind in a -very plain and easy manner, and make them intelligible to souls of the lowest capacity or'they may be very easily derived thence by the use of reason. 9. As there are some duties much more necessary, and more important t`t Ì e others are, every `requires our application VOL.
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