gree practical; and if believing or not believing, is at all in our election; then so far is Christian faith an exercise of freedom, and therefore may be a virtue. To make it highly such, nothing more is required; but that he who embraces it, should have done this on rational conviction, and have been previously acquainted with the severity of its morality. Now as there is no going rationally into this faith by halves; but the whole man, understanding, heart, will, passions, affections, must either receive it all, or reject it all; it is easy to conceive how a choice of faith or infidelity comes to be made, on motives of virtue or vice, in any mind; the arguments for faith, whether sufficient or not, still remaining the same in themselves. If the Christian system of morals is virtuous, then he who gives a close attention to those arguments, is so far virtuous and rewardable; and he who refuses such attention, so far vicious and punishable; chiefly indeed on this account, that the giver voluntarily and ingenuously seeks for arguments to enforce on his mind a principle of self-denial and mortification; he courts the frowns of virtue; while the refuser basely courts the smiles of vice, and turns a deaf ear to every argument for Christianity, because he is determined to have no internal check upon his inclinations, nothing to 'reprove his evil deeds.'

But virtue, the objector says, consists in action, not in articles of faith; and I ask, who ever acted rightly, that had not first thought justly? what are actions without principles? or may not an article of faith become a principle of action? what if I should say, all virtue consists entirely in principle, in the principles, whereby the passions are corrected, and the will governed? He surely may be a man of high virtue, who outwardly cannot act at all; and every one knows, there is a great deal of good done in the world, for which the doers deserve to be severely punished.

But although it should be granted, that virtue consists only in action, may we not ask, whether this is the action of soul or body? Of the soul undoubtedly, for the body acts not, but is acted on. Faith then may be an action; and the saying of our Saviour, sometimes sneered at, be found highly proper, this is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.' If God did really send him, to believe on him, and take up the cross, and follow him, which 2 L

VOL. II.

are not so much consequences, as essential ingredients of that belief, must be, not only a work, but a work of virtue, truly great in itself, and highly pleasing to God.

But, waving the whole argument on the subject of freethinking in regard to faith; is there no virtue where the judgment is compelled, and the action, naturally resulting from that judgment, is in itself a good action? Is not murder unlawful? Yes. Is it possible for reason to judge otherwise of it? No. Is not the heart struck with horror at the thoughts of committing it? It is.

Is not the abhorrence of murder, in itself, and previous to all acts of tenderness and humanity, a virtuous principle? Does the acknowledged force on our judgment in this case take away all hope of reward from him who generously forgives his enemy, and bestows him his life, when he hath him in his power, as David did by Saul? Was it no virtue in David thus to spare a life spent in repeated attempts to take away his? Or does it follow, that because God gave us our reason, freedom, and moral sense of horror at the crime, it is therefore no virtue to avoid it? Now, faith, whether the effect of reason or grace, is equally the gift of God. Were its evidence compulsory, it would be but on a footing with the moral sense. But whereas its evidence may be freely rejected or embraced; and whereas its genuine fruits are seen in an absence of every vice, and the production of every virtue; how gross is the bigotry of our infidels who will not allow it to be virtuous! These men must give up their principle, or confess, they themselves have no virtue, but when they judge by faculties, not received from God, and choose their own convictions independent of evidence.

To conclude on this head, reason hath its influence on the will; but passion, appetite, affection, have theirs too; and the will, guided by the one party, tramples on the other, and determines in all such debates, as this about the vouchers for Christian faith, whether evidence shall, or shall not be received; whether, in case it should chance to be obtruded, it shall, or shall not be considered; and if considered, whether with that care and impartiality which a matter of such high concernment demands.

Of all men, I should think there was least occasion for proving to one who is now a libertine in principle, only be

cause he was first a libertine in practice, that the heart or animal part of us, by one means or other, prompts the mind to some opinions, or withholds it from others, and leads men into, or out of principles. Were it not that the animal is very predominant in him, he might easily be made sensible, that Christian faith is so far from being no virtue, that it is really a perfect summary, and the highest improvement of all virtues. True philosophy had reduced all the virtues to one, that is, fortitude. And what is true fortitude, but confidence? or true confidence, but faith and trust, not in fortune, not in the multitude, not in man, the dependence of fools; not in ourselves, the dependence of vain and conceited fools; but in God, in almighty wisdom and goodness? Is not this faith, temperance, inasmuch as it keeps us within the bounds of moderation, when appetite and desire allure us to excess? Is it not prudence, as it shews us the true, the important end, or chief good, of our being, and points to the means of attaining that end? Is it not justice, as it fixes our eyes on the final determination of our lot before the tribunal of unerring rectitude, and bids us make the justice of God the rule and motive of all our actions? And is it not fortitude, as it preserves us undaunted and invincible in all trials?

As to the sixth objection, that the rewards and punishments proposed to faith and infidelity, make faith itself and all its effects mercenary, and so destroy the very nature of virtue; let the infidel himself shew, that faith follows evidence, and cannot be bribed by rewards; and that infidelity is never found but for want of evidence, and therefore cannot be terrified by punishments. For our own part, we shall readily and humbly confess the effects of our faith to be mercenary, if it is mercenary to embrace virtue, not only for her own beauty, but for her dowry of endless honour and happiness; if it is mercenary to love her for the sake of her author and giver; and to do good on some reason, and for some end. Nay, we confess farther, that whereas she is sometimes exceedingly shocking to our weak and degenerate nature, we stand in need of her highest encouragements to preserve us steadily attached to her.

Vice, on the other hand, does not always look so ugly, as they who have taken her to pieces, report her. She paints

with infinite art, wears all dresses, especially those most in fashion, keeps the best company, and by candle-light eclipses all the other beauties. Now, rather than fall into her hands, we are humble enough to bless our faith for shewing us her serpentine tail and sting. It may be mercenary, it may be mean-spirited and slavish, to owe our safety to this sight; but it can never destroy the nature of our virtue, which disdains not the use of fear, if it were but for this reason, that God hath made it a part of our nature, and that for excellent purposes, as not only we, but all the legislators that ever lived, have found by experience. We even presume to think, that a small mixture of our gross mercenary hopes and fears would do no harm in the philosophic virtue of our acquaintances, were it but just enough to make it visible, for really at present their love of virtue and hatred of vice, are so excessively refined, that, to ordinary eyes, the difference is hardly perceptible.

The last objection, that faith of any kind is seldom found, but in weak and superstitious minds, is to be understood as a flout at the professors of all traditionary religions, rather than as a reflection deserving notice. I should perhaps have said nothing of it here, were it not strongly echoed by a pretended party of Christians, the Arians, I mean, who cry up morality and run down faith, as if the one were just going to destroy the other. This however they did not do, till they had first vilified the person of Christ, who promises salvation to faith. For my part, who own no speculative principles of religion, who look on the heart and will as equally concerned with the understanding, in every thing to be believed, I cannot help regarding these distinctions between articles of faith and principles of practice, as laying the pick-axe to the very foundation of Christianity, as separating its soul from its body. However, as they cried up the one only to run down the other, they have of late made equally free with both, and improved so well on the casuistry of the Jesuits, that an equivocation comes as readily to them in practice, as in speculation; and if we will but put ourselves for a little time under their tuition, we who could not practise as we formerly believed, may have the pleasure to hope, we shall soon believe, as we now practise.

Be this as it will, it is but charity to wish these overgrown moralists, together with their friends, the more sceptical kind of Deists, an island or world to themselves; that they might fully experience the sweets of living without histories of past times; without any records of rights, titles, properties, prior to their newly acquired possessions; without magistrates, for who is to be trusted with power? Without trials or witnesses, for there is to be no report; without borrowing, lending, sending, or receiving messages, or transacting business of any kind by others; without a possibility of extending commerce farther, than each person could carry his own goods, and bring back what he buys; without honesty; or at least, for want of trust and confidence, without the use of it; abandoned to fraud, or perpetual suspicions of it, without remedy; unable to bear one another, or live together, and quite incredulous of any other world or island, to which they might escape. See what is lost by a want of faith! were it not as wise a way to believe every thing that is told one?

How circumscribed a being is man in point of knowledge, and of all that dignity and happiness which result from useful knowledge, if without faith! If shut in, and confined to the narrow limits of his own sensory! How little can he find out of those things which tend most to the improvement of his mind, and to the comfortable, not to say, ornamental accommodation of life, if he will not hear and believe, as well as see, feel, and taste; if he will not trust and confide, as well as demonstrate !

How, on the other hand, is he enlarged by faith in men ! Seeing with the eyes of all men! Hearing with the ears of the whole species, from the earliest ages to the present, over the face of the whole earth! and cheaply appropriating to himself the dear-bought experience of all mankind! How much farther still are his views carried by divine faith into the real nature and use of things here, whereof the infidel sees only the surface! How far beyond these again, into regions of glorious, important, and otherwise unattainable knowledge! into new worlds! into the world of spirits, his kindred spirits! into the court, and to the throne of the heavenly king! into the abyss of his own immortality! into the abyss of almighty wisdom, exerted in the works of