SERM. be confidered that he is under a law of III. felf-approbation, which may be called the primary law of his nature, enforced with this powerful fanction, that the highest enjoyment he is capable of dependeth upon obeying it, the most painful remorse followeth the violation of it, as every one's experience may convince him. To the obfervance of this law, the liberty just now described is abfolutely neceffary, for selfapprobation dependeth upon reflection, and the meaning of it is, the fatisfaction in our own minds, which refulteth from a confciousness of having done what appeared to ourselves best after mature and impartial deliberation and, as its being the law of human nature fignifieth, that it is the law of God, the defigning author of our conftitution, in whose perfect wisdom, equity, and goodnefs, we are fecure against his violating it by a contrary command, for we can never have reason to believe he requireth any thing inconfiftent; so it is impoffible any inferior being should have a right to discharge us of this obligation, nor confequently to deprive us of any freedom which is neceffarily conpected with it. But we are imperfect moral agents, and our liberty is capable of being abused, nay impaired, and in a great measure loft. We SERM. have various motives to action, and expe- III. rience fheweth, that we do not always exert our reflecting powers as becometh us, in comparing and examining them, in order to act so as we may have the approbation of our minds. To fet this matter in a clear light, it must be observed, that there are in our nature different tendencies and springs of action, but we are not irrefiftibly determined to follow them. For a man to act upon every suggestion or motion of appetite or paffion, may be faid to be following nature, fo far as that appetite and paffion is in his nature an inferior part of it; but to do this without enquiring, and being satisfied that it is right, or, all things confidered, the best for him, is not to act according to the whole of his nature, nor indeed according to that which hath been obferved to be its primary law. Perhaps, too, fome may imagine that fuch a conduct is free, and that it is a high privilege of the will, to determine itself with a kind of fupremacy independant of reason. It may be acknowledged this is freedom in one fense, that is, a man thus acting, is under no conftraint: But furely we cannot fuppofe that the preroga and Civil Liberty. SERM, tive of acting without reafon is a privilege III. worthy of rational beings, or that the li berty of acting inconfiderately can ever anfwer the ends of the human conftitution, and that in exercifing it the mind can attain a true felf-enjoyment. It followeth, that the great fundamental error in practice, against the right ufe of liberty, is acting indeliberately, determining precipitantly upon every motive that occurreth without confideration, complying with the firft fuggeftions or inclinations which happen to arife in the mind, without weighing their tendency, their confiftency with the fuperior affections of our nature, and agreeableness to the judgment of confcience, the appro bation of which is abfolutely neceffary to preferve an inward folid peace.: Such fatal temerity and weakness multitudes of mankind are chargeable with, indeed every one in fome degree; but they can never juftify it to themselves. For not thing can appear plainer to creaturés conftituted as we are, than the reasonableness of reflection, in order to prevent errors; therefore our hearts reproach us for fuch inattention as betrayeth us into actions which upon a review appear to be wrong, and might have been prevented, if we had ex erted erted the power we are conscious of in SERM. fufpending a determination, till the motives III. of it had been duly confidered. But as God hath written the work of his law upon our hearts, in fo plain and legible characters, that we cannot offend against the principal parts of our duty, without confcience's bearing witness against us; to comply with what the apostle James calleth the conceptions of luft, or the motions of appetite and paffion, in defiance of its exprefs and particular admonitions, is a more heinous, because it is a wilful tranfgreffion of the divine law and abuse of liberty, than any error arifing from mere ignorance or inadvertency can be: And by fuch indulgencies frequently repeated, vicious habits are contracted, the lower appetites become impetuous, and paffions, exorbitant. This is what experience teacheth all men who carefully reflect on themfelves, and obferve the vaft, difference which there is in the characters and difpofitions of mankind. Can any one be ignorant that our tempers and prevailing inclinations are in a great measure formed by cuftom, that by an habitual courfe of action, a proneness to it, and facility in it are acquired; that this becometh a principle vehemently urging to actions, SERM. which nature hath left us even indifferent to, III. but addeth great force to the instincts of na— T ture; that the tendency of it is to make us forgetful of, or infenfible to, contrary motives; and that by this faculty of habits, which is an important part of our conftitution, the human powers are carried to their highest improvement, and most compleat exercife; good men arrive at the perfection of virtue, and bad men at the confummation of wickedness. But what I principally obferve to the present purpose is, that by bad habits, the rational liberty of man may be, and often is, greatly diminished, nay, almost wholly loft; the mind bebecometh impotent, the order of nature reverfed, its harmony broken; for the empire of reafon and confcience, the only confervator of original freedom and inward tranquillity, is ufurped by tyrants within, the vices of intemperance, avarice, ambition, cowardice, revenge, and others like them, enflaving the foul, degrading the man and rendering him unhappy, because they leave the higher powers which can never be totally extinguifhed, no fhare in the direction of his affairs, but instead of it only to make ineffectual remonftrances against his misconduct, which are extreamly pain ful. |