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DISCOURSE V.

PROVERBS ix. 10.

The Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom; and the Knowledge of the Holy is Understanding.

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HE Advantages which we may expect to reap from Religion are many and great, but not all equally certain: Some are expofed to the Chances and Cafualties of human Life, and depend upon Circumftances that are not under our own Conduct and Government: Hence it is that the best Men are fometimes exposed to the feverest Trials and sharpest Afflictions. But there are two Things which fincere Religion can never fail of attaining; one of which. is the greatest Ingredient, nay, the very Foundation

Foundation of all Happiness in this World; the other is the Happiness and Immortality which wait for us in the World to come: This Bleffing we can only enjoy now through Faith and Hope; but the other is prefent with us, the certain Confequence and neceffary Attendant upon a Mind truly virtuous and religious; I mean, the Peace and Tranquillity, the Eafe and Satisfaction of Mind, which flow not so much from a Senfe of our having punctually and exactly discharged our Duty in all Refpects, which is more than ever we may hope for, but from a due Sense of God and Religion, and the Uprightness of our Defires and Intentions to ferve him. This Advantage is not, properly speaking, a Reward given or bestowed upon the Virtuous; but it arifes from the Nature of Things, from the Frame and Contexture of our Souls: It is Virtue's own Child, her natural Offspring, and can never leave or forfake her: For as long as Men have a Senfe of Virtue and Vice, Good and Evil, fo long will they condemn and punish themfelves for tranfgreffing their Obligations; fo long will they find Peace and Satisfaction in their Obedience.

Since then Nature has given us Notice of the Being of the Almighty, and fhewn us the Relation we ftand in towards him, and confequently the Duty and Service which we owe him; it neceffarily follows, that this Sense, rightly adjusted, and duly pursued, in a regular and honest Discharge of our Duty towards God, muft breed in our Minds true Peace and Comfort; and, confequently, that true Religion must be the Source and Spring even of our temporal Happiness and Enjoyments. But yet look into the World, and the Face of Things has quite a different Appearance: Religion is fearful, fufpicious, full of Doubts and Mifgivings of Heart, never fatisfied with itself, always feeking, but feldom finding where to fix itself in Reft and Tranquillity: Hence it comes to pass, that fome, not rightly confidering the Nature and Caufes of Things, mifconceive concerning Religion itself, and think it better to lay aside all Pretences to it, than perpetually to fluctuate in the troubled Ocean of Doubts and Uncertainties, that encompaffes it round about. And thus Superftition, by making many miferable in the Pursuit of Religion, makes others, to avoid being loft in that Gulph, throw themselves VOL. IV.

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into another of Atheism and Irreligion, which is a much deeper. In these two Extremes, of Infidelity on one Side, and Superftition on the other, true Religion is loft, and, together with it, that Peace and Comfort, and Eafe of Mind, which belong to it: For, view God from which of the two Extremes you please, his Appearance must be dreadful: You may see him in the Terrors of Majefty and Power; but the kinder Rays which flow from his Mercy and Goodness and Benevolence towards Mankind, will be intercepted from your Eyes.

The atheistical Unbeliever, if ever he so far forgets himself as to fuppofe the Being of a God for a Time, fees nothing of him but the Judge and the Avenger, and haftens back to his Infidelity to skreen him from the Wrath and Juftice, which even in Imagination were infupportable. Superftition is fo perpetually encompaffed with a thick Cloud of its own Fears and Sufpicions, that it cannot difcern the Beauties and Holinefs of the Creator: Every frightful Spectre, that walks in its own Imagination, is miftaken for the Deity; and Superstition adores it, as the wild Indians are faid to worship

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