and SAVIOUR, JESUS CHRIST, and his APOSTLES, &C. 297 human eyes cannot behold till this mortal body (hall be purified from it's corruption, and dreffed in the robes of immortality Eye bath not feen, nor ear heard, neither bath it entered into the heart to conceive the joys which God hath prepared for them that love himWhat is the Elyfium of the Heathens, compared with the heaven of the Chriftians ? The hope, theprofpea of this is fufficient to reconcile us to all the diffi- culties that may attendour progrefs, fweeten all our labours, alleviate every grief, and filence every murmur, by imprefling on our minds a meek acquiefcence with the divine difpenfations in the courfe of his providence. But the libertine, in the gaiety of his heart, may poffibly inquire, why there Ihould be anydifficulties, or refiraint at all? God hash made nothing in vain. The ap- petites hehath planted in the human breaft are to be gratified : to deny, or to reftrain them, is ignominious bondage ; but to live full fcope to every delire and paffion of the heart, without check or control, is true manly freedom, and only purfuing the dictates of nature. In order to confute and expofe this lode and carelefs way of reafoning, let it be confidered, that the liberty of a rational creature Both not confift in an entire ex- emption from all control, but in following the dictates of reafon as the governing principle, and in keeping the various paf- fions in due fubordination. To follow the regular motion of thofe affections which the wife Creator bath implanted within us, is our duty: but as our natural defires in this Rate of trial are often irregular, we are bound to refirain their exceffes, and not to indulge them, but in a Rrict fubfer- viency to the integrity and peace of our minds, and to the order and happinefs of human fociety eftablifhed in the world. They who allow the fupreme command to be ufurped by fenfe and brutal appetite, may promife themfelves liberty, but are truly and abfolutely the fervants of corrup- tion : to be vicious is to be enflaved. No. 25. We behold withpity thofe miferable objects that are chained in the gallies, or confined in dark prifons and loathfame dungeons : but muchmore abject and vile is the fla- very of the finner! No flavery of the body is equal to the bondage of the mind : no chains prefs fo clofely, or gall fo cruelly as the fetters of fin, which corrode the very fubftance of the foul, fret every faculty, and degrade men below the brute part of the creation. We muff indeed confefs, that there are fome profligates fo hardenedby cuflom, as to be paff all feeling; and, becaufe in- fenfible of their bondage, boaft of this infenfibility as a mark of their native free- dom, and of their happinefs. Vain men ! they might extol, with equal propriety, the peculiar happinefs of an apoplexy, the profound tranquillity ofa lethargy, or, we may add, the ideal paradife of a fool or a madman. We have, in the foregoing obfervations, endeavoured to place in a plain- and con- fpicuous light fome of the peculiar excel- lencies of the Chriffian religion ; and from hence many ufeful refleifions will naturally arife in the mind ofevery attentive reader. It is the religion of JEsus that hath re- movedidolatry and fuperflition, andbrought immortality to light when concealed under a veil of darknefs almoft impenetrable. This hath fet the great truthsof religion in a clear and confpicuous point of view, and propofed new and powerful motives to influence our minds, and to determine our conduit. Nothing is enjoined to be believed, but what is worthy of God ; nothing to be practifed but what is friendly to man. All the doctrines of the gofpel are rational and confinent; all it's precepts are truly wife, juif, and good. The gofpel contains nothing grievous to an ingenuous mind; it debars us from nothing but do- ing harm to ourfelves or to our fellow- creatures; and permits us to range any where but in the paths of danger and de- nruction. It only requires us to act up to the dignity of the rational nature, and to 4C prefer
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