quently that the Difpute has been about Words, CHAP which receive their full and ultimate Meaning XVI. from the other; and are all reconciled in it.

WHAT is Publick-Affection but multiplying the Love of Self, by the Rule and Order of Citizenship in both Worlds?

WHAT is the moral Tafte, but that Hunger and Thirst in our Nature after Happiness; directed to Righteoufnefs, in order to accomplish it, and be fatisfied?

WHAT

fideration, as Means to that End; if they offer true Means to that End, they cure Ignorance and Mistake; but it is the Office of the Understanding to distinguish of that as its proper Object. The Understanding is the mental Eye of the Agent to fee his Way to the End: But it is not the Eye that moves the Feet to walk in the Way, but the Will; Selfmotion fprings from that, and that is the only moral Agent in the Man, and when it chuses an Action or Means to that End, it becomes moral.

He fays, pag. 52, the trueft Definition of Natural Religion is, The Purfuit of Happiness by the Practice of Reason and Truth. It is plain then, that he very rightly makes Happiness the End of his Truth: But the Practice of Reafon and Truth seems a very unaccurate Expreffion; had he faid chufing true Means by the Discernment of Reafon, and putting them in practice to that End, he would have made his Truth both eligible and practicable, and fo brought it into Morality. His Syftem of Truth is vaftly beholden to Revelation, tho' unacknowledg'd, and made all to proceed from a mere Philofopher : But what Philofopher before the Appearance of the Gospel ever taught some of thofe Truths, or put any of them in fuch a Light as they appear in that Book?

However the Deifts have no Reason, as I doubt some of them think they have, to plume themselves upon it; for they can find no Arguments there to contradict Revelation; but they may please to read their own Condemnation in these Words of the Author. "Here I begin to be very fenfible

"how

CHAP.
XVI

*

WHAT is the Faculty of Reafon given for, but to find out Truth, and the Relation of Things, and Perfons, as they affect and concern our Happiness? Speculative Truth, and Relation may ferve for Contemplation, and entertain the Faculty hereafter, when it is more at leifure. But now is the Scene of Action, Probation, and Distinction of the Ways and Means which lead to our End. Tho' it fhews the Will the Reasonableness of the Action never fo clearly from Truth and the Relation of Things, it only clears the Eye-fight of video meliora proboq; the Judgment is often convinc'd, and the Man no Convert. But the Will is guided moft in its Choice by the Motive, and gain'd by the Confideration of Advantage and Happiness; and that, which is eternal, is adapted to influence moft, and prefer that Choice as most reasonable, which makes it an Agent to the best Purpose.

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"how much I want a Guide. But as the Religion of Nature " is my Theme, I must at prefent content myself with that Light which Nature affords; my Bufinefs being, as it "feems, only to fhew what a Heathen Philofopher without "any other help, and almoft autodidaxT, may be fuppofed to think. I hope that neither the doing this, nor any "thing elfe contain'd in this Delineation can be the least Prejudice to any other true Religion. Whatever is immediately "reveal'd from God, muft, as well as any Thing else, be "treated as being what it is; which cannot be, if it is not "treated with the highest Regard, believed and obey'd. That "therefore which has been fo much infifted on by me, and is

as it were the Burden of my Song, is fo far from undermining true reveal'd Religion, that it rather paves the Way for its Reception." pag. 211.

* See the prefent Dean of Chrift-Church's Answer to Chrifianity as old, &c. pag. 245.

So

СНАР.

So high as you can lay the Suppofition or De- XVI. fign of fixing fuch an End, and conftituting fuch a Society, or Syftem, fo high you may place the Relation, Fitness and Obligation: One will be immutable and eternal in the fame Sense the other is. But the actual Commencement of the Relation, Fitnefs, and Obligation, can be no older than the first beginning of fuch a Syftem, or Society; being no more in Fact and Reality than the Confequence of the actual Existence of fuch Beings.

IF the WILL of God is the Meafure of his Power in giving Exiftence to fuch a System, and likewife of his Goodnefs in communicating Happiness, and fixing that for the End; which must be granted, unless you affirm he is a neceffary, not a free Agent with refpect to the Effects either of his Power, or Goodnefs; and if the End was fix'd by his Will, and that End is Happiness, then all Notion of Arbitrariness is fhut out from his Will.

AND as the End determines the Means, and he could not will any Means inconfiftent with the End that he had willed, then the moral Virtues proceed likewife from, and are fix'd by his Will, as well as the End. Then the moral Reafon, Relation, and Fitnefs of Things feem to depend upon his Will, and not his Will upon them for its Determination; feeing they receiv'd their confequent Being, Exiftence, and Conftitution, from the previous Determination of that Will. Wisdom and Power being eternally attendant upon that Will when it has a Mind to act; ever knowing what is beft, fecures the ever willing

CHAP willing what is beft; ever willing what is best XVI. establishes eternal Holinefs, out of which arifes eternal Goodness and Juftice; out of them arife his Commands, which are holy, juft and good.

CONCERNING those other Perfections, the Exercise whereof" depends upon his [God's] "Will; fuch are his Juftice, Veracity, Good"nefs, Mercy, and all other moral Perfections; "the abfolute Immutability of thefe is not in"deed fo obvious and felf-evident; because it "depends on the Unchangeableness, not only of "his Effence, but of his Will also. Neverthelefs, upon careful Confideration, the Unchange"ableness of these likewife will no lefs certainly appear: Because in a Being who always knows "what is right to be done, and can never poffibly be deceiv'd, or aw'd, or tempted, or "imposed upon; his general Will or Intention, " of doing always what is beft and moft fit and right, will in Reality, though not upon the fame Ground of natural Neceffity, yet in Event, "and upon the whole, be as certainly and truly "unchangeable, as his very Effence itself-With "the Father of Lights, there is no Variableness "nor Shadow of Turning.*" The fupreme Perfection is the Measure of all Things: Rectum eft index fui & obliqui.

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AND if that is the Retitude of the divine Will to be ever fteddy to Good, and determin'd to that which is beft in the whole, in the Conftitution of Things he has willed; the moral Attributes seem to flow from that, as their Fountain; his effential Holinefs is his effential, yet

* Dr. Clark's Pofthumous Serm. Vol. I. pag. 147, 148.

free

free Adherence to Good. For whatever is moral CHA P. in God, or Man, must have Will and Choice for XVI. its Root and Origin. The Choice or Energy of the Will, the univerfal Principle of moral Action, authenticates the Action, and denominates it moral; chufing, God leading the Way to fhew what is, and is not Good, what he marks, diftinguishes, and directs to be fo, and avoiding what he difapproves and forbids, fo that Will to Good is the fame in kind in God, in Angels and in Men, tho' they differ in Degree, i. e. in Adherence to Good. Man's Degree is to be Followers of God as dear Children: - Rom. xii. 4. Abborring that which is Evil, cleaving to that which is Good,fuitable to his diminutive Human Capacity, And as the whole of Morality feems to be a Syftem of practical Means and Ends, graduated into feveral intermediate Ends, and all fubordinate to the ultimate End; the Rule of Morality, Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, Fitness and Unfitness, feems to be fix'd in the fix'd Refpect of the Means to the End; intended, chofen, and put in practice for the Sake of the Ends that are intermediate, and that which is ultimate. And the Gradation of Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, &c. will arise, as the Means affect it, i. e. promote, or hinder the mediate, or ultimate End: The last being the greatest Concern to the Agent. And the Diftinction of Good and Evil, &c. will confift and be fix'd in the fix'd Suitableness or Agreement, Difagreement or Contrariety, of the Means to the refpective Ends. And that Distinction will be as durable, and immutable, as the Will of God has actually fix'd the ultimate End and Enjoyment of Happiness in another World, and the fubordinate End or Tafte of it in this, for every Member