SERMON IX. Religion shewn to be perfectly consistent with the true Interest of Mankind. SERM. Job xxviii. 28. And unto Man be faid, Behold the fear of the I N the foregoing discourse from these words I endeavoured to vindicate true piety, or the fear of God, from the imputation of weakness and folly, in the principles on which it rests, and the practice which it prescribes; and to shew that it is effentially different from superstition, and not to be accounted for by any of its causes, -by the timorousness of men's tempers, or the weakness of their understandings, by political fiction, or customary tradition. There is another charge brought against religion by its adversaries, directly opposite to the character 1 315 Religion shewn to be perfectly confiftent., &c. racter given of it in the text, namely, it is SERM. alleged to be contrary to the true interest of IX. mankind, of every individual, and of the united bodies of men, or civil associations into which they have been obliged to form themselves for their common safety and advantage. Now, it is faid, wisdom consists in pursuing the ends of our nature, and our happiness, by the best and most effectual methods we can devise in the circumstances wherein we are placed. How then can any institution or difcipline be accounted wife, which restrains us in the use of that liberty, (as certainly religion does in many instances,) and abridges us of such enjoyment as our nature is capable of, nay prompts us to pursue? : If what has been already faid to shew that the fear of the Lord is wisdom, be true, it can hardly be imagined that there is any force in this objection. If religion be perfectly agreeable to the rational human nature; if the main principles of it be so clear that we cannot refift the evidence of them, and we cannot poffibly act in contradiction to its laws without the inward disapprobation and reproaches of our own hearts; and if there be a supreme wife and good governor of the universe to whom this is to be attributed, as being the necessary result of his constitution, if SERM. if, I say, these things be true, one would think IX. it impossible there should be such an inconsistency in nature as that religion in the whole should be really hurtful to us: In other words, that it should be at the same time reasonable and unreasonable; for truth and reason, if any thing, is confiftent and uniform. Some leffer present inconveniencies may indeed attend a wife constitution; they may even necessarily arise from the nature and condition of things, as it is true in fact that the practice of virtue is attended with some difficulty and uneasiness in our present imperfect probationary state. But confidering how clearly it is taught and strongly enforced by reason, it cannot be imagined to be contrary, in the main, to our true happiness, if wisdom and goodness be manifested in the frame of our nature and the appointment of our condition. But if we examine this pretence by itself more particularly, we shall find that it is ill grounded; and that, on the contrary, there is a strict connexion between our duty and our true interest, whereby the arguments proving that the fear of the Lord is wisdom will receive a great addition of force, and it will appear reasonable in every view. First, it is alleged that religion lays severe restraints on men, forbidding the gratification of their natural natural appetites and passions; it requires SERM. them to deny themselves, and to mortify IX. those affections which are the growth of nature, the tendency whereof is to set them at odds with themselves, and create a continual uneasiness in their breasts. Now, is it to be thought that the author of nature, (if he is fo beneficent as religion represents him,) has given us defires which at the same time he has not allowed us to gratify, and even mocked us by placing enjoyment within our reach, to which we are follicited by a craving appetite, yet made it our duty to abstain with pain to ourselves? To make this argument conclu-five, it would be necessary to prove that the highest felicity of man consists in the unrestrained gratification of every appetite and defire in his nature; which is so far from being true, that nothing is more certain than the contrary. If we will at all attend to our own constitution, and what we cannot help observing in ourselves, we must be convinced that the demands of our lower appetites and paffions often interfere even among themselves, so that it is not in our power to comply with every one of them; besides their thwarting and contradicting the higher affections, in the immediate vigorous operation of which and the natural effects of them, the nobleft SERM.noblest enjoyment consist. The sensual inIX. clinations, the defire of wealth and honour, and the multitude of passions which continually excite us to actions of different kinds, (all of them under proper regulations useful, tending to our safety and the promoting of our interest,) these can none of them be indulged without controul. They must give place in their turns to each other; they must be at some times retrenched; and there muft be an economy in the direction and government of them, that the ends and business of life may be pursued with any regularity, or tolerable degree of success. Now, what is the liberty that religion restrains, and which are the gratifications it forbids? It does not require men to root out, or to deny, at all times, and in every degree, any one affection which is the growth of nature; it only prohibits the exorbitances of paffion, and that excessive indulgence of some appetites which is really hurtful to nature, and tends to imbitter and to shorten life. Are luxury and debauchery, and the outrages of anger and revenge, such goodly pleasures and high enjoyments to a rational being, that the fear of God is to be censured as unfriendly to human nature for retrenching them; when indeed any one who will allow himself to think calmly, must see that |