that which we most converse with and with whose Consent and Agreement in any matters we are best acquainted is that of Men and therefore if among Men we can discover such an Universal Agreement concerning the Goodness of these Rules as will warrant us to conclude all other Rational Beings to be consenting with them this will be a sufficient Demonstration of the Truth of the Proposition These two things therefore I shall endeavour to make out 1. That the Reason of Men is Vniversally consenting in this matter viz. That there is an immutable Goodness in these Rules of Morality 2. That this Universal Consent of Mens Reason in this matter is a sufficient Demonstration that all other reasonable Beings are consenting with them First THEREFORE there is nothing more evident than that Men are Universally agreed in this matter that to Worship God to Honour their Parents and Superiours to be temperate in their Passions and Appetites and just and charitable towards one another are things in their own nature immutably good that this is not an Opinion peculiar to such an Age or to such a Nation or to such a Sect of Religion but the Vniversal Judgment of all Mankind of whatsoever Age Nation or Religion For 't is upon this judgment that all that Conscience is founded which approves of or condemns mens actions which Conscience is nothing else but a Sense or Feeling of Moral Good and Evil and is every whit as natural to Mens minds as the Sense of pleasant or painful touches to their Bodies Since therefore general Effects must spring from general Causes it necessarily follows that the Pain and Pleasure which Mens minds generally feel upon the Commission of bad and good Actions must be resolved into some general Cause and what else can that be but the general Consent of their Reason concerning the immutable Evil of the one and Good of the other I know 't is pretended by some of our Modern Navigators that there are a sort of People in the World who have not the least sense of Good and Evil and do own neither God nor Religion nor Morality But considering the short Converse and imperfect Intercourse which these our new Discoverers have had with those Barbarous Countries it is fairly supposeable that the Inhabitants may have Notions both Religious and Moral of which Strangers who understand not their Language and Customs and Manners can make little or no Discovery But suppose that what they report were true yet by their own confession these wretched Barbarians are in all other things so extreamly Brutish that they discover no other token of their Humanity but their Shape For they live altogether regardless of themselves of the Conveniences of their Lives and of the Dignity of their Natures without making any Reflections on their own minds or any Observations from their own experience Since therefore all Knowledge is acquired by Attention it is not at all impossible for Creatures so utterly supine and negligent to be ignorant of the most common Notions But for any man to question the truth of this general Rule because there are a few Exceptions from it is every whit as absurd as if he should question whether Men are generally two-legg'd Animals because there have been some Monsters with three And what if among men there are some Monsters in respect of their Minds as well as others in respect of their Bodies This is no more a prejudice to the standing Laws of Humane Nature than Prodigies are to the Regularity of the constant course of Vniversal Nature Specimen naturae cujuslibet saith Tully à natura optima sumendum est i. e. The true sample of every Nature is to be taken from the best Natures of the kind Since therefore the men of all Nations and Ages and Religions who have in any measure attended to the Nature of things and made but any tolerable use of their Reasons are and always have been universally agreed that there is an immutable Good in Vertue and Evil in Vice it is no Argument at all that this is not the general Sense of Mankind supposing it true which is very questionable that there are some few such inhumane Barbarians in the World as make no distinction at all between ' em But then Secondly THIS Universal Consent of Mens Reason in this matter is a sufficient Demonstration that all other Reasonable Beings are consenting with them For it shews that God himself is of this mind and if He be we may be sure that all other Reasonable Beings are For if we believe that God made us we must believe that he made us for some End and if he made us for any End he must esteem those Actions good which promote it and those evil which obstruct and hinder it And what other End can an infinitely happy and blessed Being have in making other Beings but only to do 'em good and according to their several Capacities to make them partakers of his own Happiness And if this be the end for which God made us to be sure those Actions must be good in his esteem that are beneficial and those evil that are hurtful and mischievous to our Nature And therefore since he hath implanted in us not only a natural Desire of Happiness but also a rational Faculty to discern what Actions make for our Happiness and what not we may be sure that whatsoever this Faculty doth Vniversally determine to be good or evil for us is good or evil in the Judgment of God 'T is true when the Reason that is in one man judges contrary to the Reason that is in another there must be a Disagreement on one side or the other from the Reason and Judgment of God but when all mens Reason is agreed that this is good and that evil it is plain that this is is the Judgment of the Rational Faculty which naturally makes such a Distinction of things For there is no man that uses his Reason can possibly think that Truth and Falshood Justice and Injustice Mercy and Cruelty are equally good in themselves his Rational Faculty being so framed as that at the first glance and reflection it naturally distinguishes 'em into Good and Evil. When therefore God hath created us with such a Faculty as naturally makes such a Judgment of Good and Evil that Judgment must be Gods as well as the Faculty which made it That therefore which is the unanimous Judgment of all Men must be the Natural Language of the Rational Faculty and that which is the natural Language of the Rational Faculty must be the Language of the God of Nature For he who created me with such a Faculty as naturally judges this Good and that Evil must either have the same Judgment himself or create in me a Contradiction to his own Judgment and that Judgment which he hath created in me he must be supposed to create in all other Beings that are capable of Judging otherwise he would be the author
of Horror in the Conscience Anguish in the mind Discord in the Affections Diseases in the Body and Confusions and Disturbances in Humane Society Since therefore the Divine Wisdom and Contrivance hath thus inseparably coupled good Effects to good Actions and evil ones to evil it hath hereby very plainly and sensibly declared to us what it would have us do and what not For seeing it hath so constituted things as that in the Course of Nature such Proportions of Happiness do necessarily result to us from such Actions and such Proportions of Misery from their Contraries what can be more evident than that its Design was hereby to encourage us to the one and affright us from the other So that by these natural Rewards and Punishments which in the Course of things God hath chained to our Actions he hath as expresly prescribed us what to do and what not as he could have done if he had spoken to us in an audible voice from the Battlements of Heaven For since the whole Train of Natural Effects is to be resolved into the Providence of God and since his Providence hath so ordered and contrived things as that in the ordinary Course of them good Effects do spring out of good Actions and evil out of evil ones what else could he intend by it but to allure us to the one and terrifie us from the other For it is by Rewards and Punishments that all Lawgivers declare their Will and Pleasure concerning those Actions which they command and sorbid and therefore since God in his Providential Government of the World hath thought good to link natural Rewards to such Actions and natural Punishments to such these are to be lookt upon as the great Sanctions of the Law of Nature whereby he commands what pleases and prohibits what displeases him For when God had no otherwise revealed himself to the World than only by the establsht Course and Nature of things that was the great Bible by which alone Mankind was instructed in their Duty and there being no revealed Threats or Promises annexed to good and bad Actions Gods Will and Pleasure concerning them was visible only in the good and bad Consequents which they drew after them which are so plain and obvious to the Observation of Mankind that 't would be the most inexcusable Inadvertency not to take Notice of them So that the moral Good and Evil of all Actions finally resolves into the natural Good and Evil that is appendant to them and therefore are our Actions morally good because they are naturally beneficial to us and therefore morally evil because they are naturally prejudicial and hurtful and those which in their own nature are neither good nor evil are indifferent in themselves and left altogether undetermined by the Law of Nature which commands and forbids nothing but under the Sanction of those natural Rewards and Punishments which in the Course of things are made necessary to Humane Actions V. TO these natural Rewards and Punishments which God hath entailed upon good and bad Actions he hath thought good many times to superadd supernatural Blessings and Judgments For tho he had before sufficiently expressed his Will concerning Humane Actions in the great Bible of Nature and by their natural Effects had plainly enough distinguished the good from the bad yet considering what heedless and inobservant Creatures we are and how apt to overlook the ordinary Consequents of our Actions he hath not altogether abandoned us to the easie Instructions of Nature but out of his superabundant Care to shew us what is Good and lead us to our Duty and Happiness he hath from time to time seconded the natural Rewards and Punishments of our Actions with supernatural Favours and Judgments that so by these he might awake our drowsie Attention and revive in us the languishing sense of our Duty Of which we have infinite Instances in the several Ages of the World there being scarce any History either Sacred or Prosane that abounds not with them Several of which both Blessings and Judgments do as plainly evince themselves to be intended by God for Rewards and Punishments as if they had been attended with a Voice from Heaven proclaiming the Reasons for which they were sent For how many famous Instances have of we miraculous Deliverances of Righteous Persons who by an Invisible Hand have been rescued from the greatest Dangers when in all outward appearance their Condition was hopeless and desperate and of wonderful Blessings that have hapned to them not only without but contrary to all secondary Causes of some that have been so eminently rewarded in kind as that the Goods which they received were most visible Significations of the Goods which they did of others who have received the Blessings which they have asked whilst they were praying for them and obtained them with such distinguishing Circumstances as plainly signified them to be the Answers and Returns of their devout Addresses to Heaven And so on the contrary how many notable Examples are there of such miraculous Judgments inflicted upon unrighteous Persons as have either exceeded the Power of secondary Causes or been caused by them contrary to their natural tendencies of men that have been punished in the very Act of their Sin and sometimes in the very Part by which they have offended that have had the evil of their Sin retaliated upon them in a correspondent Evil of Suffering and been struck with those very Judgments which they have imprecated on themselves in the Justification of a known Falshood All which supernatural Judgments and Blessings of God are only his Comments on the Text of Nature by which he farther explains to us the Meaning of those natural Rewards and Punishments which Vertue and Vice draw after them and shews us what clear Indications they are of his Almighty Pleasure and Displeasure For when he rewards men supernaturally it is for those Actions that carry a natural Reward with them and when he punishes them supernaturally it is for such Actions as do carry a natural Punishment with them so that his supernatural Rewards and Punishments do speak the same Sense and Language with his natural only they speak plainer and louder to rouse and awake those stupid Souls that are deaf to and regardless of the soft and still voice of natural Rewards and Punishments Thus when the old World by not attending to the natural Consequents of their own Actions had almost extinguished their Sense of Good and Evil God by a supernatural Deluge in which he drowned the wicked and preserved the righteous consigned to all future Generations a standing Monument of his Hatred of Sin and Love of Righteousness that so by the Remembrance of it he might keep Mens heedless Minds more attentive to the natural Rewards and Punishments of their Actions And when the Remembrance of this was almost worn out and with it mens natural Sense of good and evil God by raining down Fire and Brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorra and rescuing
proposed by God to perswade us to cleanse our selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit and to perfect holiness in the fear of God 2. Cor. 7.1 So also the Doctrine of our future Punishment is levell'd against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men Rom. 1.18 And as for those Doctrines which concern the Transactions of our Saviour they are all proposed to us as Arguments to perswade us to Piety and Vertue For 't was for this cause that Christ was manifested to destroy the works of the Devil 1 John 3.8 't was for this purpose that he bore our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sin should live to Righteousness 1 Pet. 2.24 't was for this end that he rose from the dead that thereby he might prevail with us to walk in newness of life Rom. 6.4 and 't is for this end that he intercedes for us at the right hand of God that thereby he might encourage us to come to God by him Heb. 7.2 and in a word for this cause he hath told us he will come to Judgment to reward every man according to his works that thereby he might stir us up to Sobriety and Vigilance and to all holy conversation and Godliness Mat. 24.42 compared with 2 Pet. 3. verse 11. Thus you see all the Doctrines of Religion are only so many Topics of divine Perswasion whereby God addresses himself to our Hope and Fear and every other Affection in us that is capable of Perswasion to excite us to comply with the eternal Obligations of Morality and there is no one Article in all our Religion that is matter of mere Speculation or that entertains our Minds with dry and empty Notions that have no Influence on our Wills and Affections For since the Design of Religion in General is to bind and fasten our Souls to God we may be sure that there is no Part of it but what doth in some measure contribute hereunto Since therefore 't is moral Goodness that God chiefly recommends to us by the Perswasions of Religion we may be sure that what his Arguments do chiefly perswade us to that his Commands do chiefly oblige us to II. FROM Scripture it is also evident that the main Drift and Scope of all the positive Duties of Religion is to improve and perfect men in moral Goodness We find the Jewish Religion exceedingly abounded with positive Precepts for such were all those sacred Rites and Solemnities of which the Bark and Outside of that Religion consisted of all which 't is true what the Psalmist saith of Sacrifices in particular thou desirest not Sacrifices thou delightest not in burnt Offerings Psal. 51.16 that is thou takest no delight in them upon the score of any internal Goodness that is in them but desirest them merely as they are instituted means and Instruments of Moral Goodness For so many of the Rites of the Mosaic Law were instituted in opposition to the Magical Vnclean and Idolatrous Rites of the Eastern Heathen As particularly that Prohibition of sowing their Fields with mingled Seed Lev. 19.19 in Opposition to that Magical Rite which the Heathens used as a Charm for Fructification So also that Command of sprinkling the Blood of their Sacrifices upon the Ground like Water and covering it with Dust in Opposition to that Idolatrous Rite of gathering the Blood into a Trench or Vessel and then sitting round it in a Circle whilst they imagined their gods to be licking it up And to name no more of this kind the Prohibition of seething a Kid in his Mothers Milk Exod. 23.19 was in Opposition to a Custom of the Ancient Heathen who at the Ingathering of their Fruits were wont to take a Kid and seeth it in the milk of its Dam and then in a Magical Procession to sprinkle all their Trees and Fields and Gardens with it thereby to render them more fruitful the following Year Besides all which you may find a World of other Instances in Maimonides More-Nevoch lib. 3. who tells us that the Knowledg of the Opinions and Customs of these Eastern Heathens was porta magna ad reddendas praeceptorum causas the great Rationale of the Mosaic Precepts and that multarum legum rationes causae mihi innotuerint ex cognitione fidei rituum Cultus Zabiorum i. e. that by being acquainted with the opinions and customs of those Eastern Heathens he understood the grounds and reasons of many of the Laws of Moses More-Nevoch lib. 3. cap. 29. So that tho these Precepts were not Moral yet were they set up as so many Fences by God to keep his People from stragling into those Heathen Immoralities AGAIN there are other Rites of their Religion which were instituted to shadow out the Holy Mysteries of the Gospel the great Design of which Mysteries was to invite and perswade men to comply with the eternal Laws of Morality Thus their Laws of Sacrifice were instituted to represent to them the great Transactions of their future Messias his Incarnation and immaculate Life his Death and Resurrection Ascension and Intercession at the right hand of God So also their Festival Laws and particularly their Laws of Jubilee were made to shadow out the Doctrines of our Redemption and eternal Life and their powring out Water in their Sacrifices and their Ritual Purgations from uncleanness were intended for obscure Intimations of the Effusion of the holy Spirit and the Doctrine of Remission of Sins all which Doctrines carry with them the most pregnant Invitations to Piety and Vertue Lastly THERE are other Rites of that Law which were appointed to instruct them in Moral Duties For God finding them not only a perverse but a dull and sottish People as those generally are that have been born and bred in Slavery apprehended that the most effectual way to instruct them would be by Signs and material Representations even as Parents do their Children by Pictures And accordingly in Isaiah 28.10 he tells us that he gave them line upon line and precept upon precept here a little and there a little with a stammering tongue i. e. he look'd upon them as Children and so condescended to their Weakness and spake to them in their own Dialect And this way of instructing them by outward and visible Signs being much in use in the Eastern Countries and more especially in Egypt whose manners they were infinitely fond of was of all others the most probable and taking And accordingly a great part of the Jewish Rites consisted of Hieroglyphics or visible Signs by which their minds were instructed in the Precepts of Morality Thus by Circumcision God signified to them the necessity of mortifying their unchast Desires by their Legal Washings he intimated to them their Obligation to cleanse themselves from all Impurities of Flesh and Spirit yea this as St. Barnabas in his Epistle tells us was the Intent of all that Difference of Meats in the Jewish Law which pronounced Swines flesh unclean to instruct them