SERMON XIII.

MATT. V. 17.

Think not, that I am come to deftroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to deftroy, but ta fulfil.

N the beginning of this chapter, our

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Saviour pronounced blessings upon all those who lived in the feveral moral duties of religion upon the meek, the merciful, the peace-makers, and such as hungered and thirsted after righteousness: and he required, that

their light fhould fo fhine before men, that they might fee their good works, and from thence learn to glorify God. This is fufficient to fhew us, that what Chrift faid in my text, he faid chiefly concerning the moral law, which was the substance of what the law of Mofes and the writings of the Prophets had taught. These he came not to destroy but to fulfill.

And because there is reafon to believe, that much of the infidelity in fome men, and of the reluctance to believe in others, arifes from their not knowing what this fulfiling means, I fhall endeavour to fhew you wherein Christianity confifts, and what it has peculiar to itself and confidered feparately from Natural Religion.

An enquiry the more ufeful, as it will be found much to the advantage of the Chriftian

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revelation, by giving us an idea of it, as a thing the most beneficial to men and the best contrived for their interefts that can be conceived. And every man, one would think, fhould wifh me fuccefs in this point, and be ready to receive any information of this kind, because it pretends to fhew every man his intereft, to which he is fufficiently attached in most other cafes.

When we talk indeed of the Christian religion, we generally mean the whole of our duty towards God and man, all that we are to believe and to do, as we are men and as we are Christians but, for diftinction's fake, in the enfuing difcourfe, I would be understood to mean by the Chriftian religion, that only which our Saviour revealed to the world, that only which he added to natural religion, or in other words, thofe duties only which were not, and which could not, be known to be duties before Christ taught and commanded us to practise them; meaning at the fame time by natural religion those duties which reafon and the light of nature did or might have taught men: this is natural religion or morality, and all revelation is fo neceffarily built upon this, that with

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out it there can be no obligation, and confequently no religion; as, on the other hand, no revelation can ever be received as true and divine, which is plainly contrary to any natural and moral duty. I fhall briefly enquire,

First, What natural religion or the moral law, which wanted to be fulfilled, is;

Secondly, What Chriftianity is, confidered separately from it, and as an addition to, or fulfilling of that natural religion.

To begin with the firft: natural religion is the practice of thofe feveral duties which reafon and the light of nature did, or might have taught men that they were bound to perform ; together with the practice of all those things which are the means and inftruments to lead them towards the better discharge of those feveral duties; and it depends for its foundation upon these two principles, that God is our Creator and preferver; and that man is a fociable creature, fitted by his constitution for fociety.

From the first of these arifes vifibly our duty of praying to God in our neceffities, depending upon him, honouring him, giving him thanks

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