stitution has given them appetites which they are not able to govern, and placed them in the midst of temptations which it is impoffible to refift or escape? That the powers with which he has furnished them are not equal to the duties he requires, and that therefore he alone is anfwerable for the crimes into which they fall?

It should be charitably prefumed, that, out of the great numbers who openly avow this plea of conftitution, and the still greater numbers who fecretly adopt and act upon it, there are but few, in proportion, who see the flagrant impiety of it; who are fenfible that they fay in effect, what the apoftle tells us, no man ought to say, that they are tempted of God. But whether they perceive this confequence, or whether they perceive it not, it is highly requifite to fhow the falfhood of a notion, which strikes at the very root of all morality and religion, and is the favourite argument in the mouth of every libertine who thinks it worth while to reafon at all upon the fubject.

It must be confeffed, indeed, that this life is (what it would be ftrange if a state of pro

bation was not) a very painful, and almost constant struggle between appetite and duty. But it will be found, I trust, upon a fair enquiry, that we are not fo unequal to the conflict as fome men would willingly perfuade us to believe. They have themselves been vanquished, and would have it thought impoffible to conquer. They would have us judge of the difficulty of the enterprize from the weak efforts they made to furmount it, and wilfully magnify the force of the enemy, in order to extenuate the guilt and the difgrace of their defeat.

I mean not here to say, that this conquest is to be obtained always by mére human ftrength alone. This were to betray the very cause of Christianity for the fake of defending one of its duties. Mere human ftrength alone can, indeed, on fome occafions, when properly exerted, do great things, much greater than most men are willing to ima. gine. This is evident from those wellknown inftances of heroic virtue in the heathen world, delivered down to us in hiftory, which inconteftibly prove, that the native dignity of virtue, and the fimple efforts of unenlight

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unenlightened and unaffifted reafon, are fometimes able to ftand the fhock of temptation, in the most delicate and trying circumstances. But thefe inftances are very rare; to be found only among fome few men of elevated fouls and improved understandings; and are never mentioned but as the moral prodigies and wonders of antiquity. Had man been able of himself" to overcome the world, and to "work out his own falvation," there had been no need of any new religion; God's grace had been fuperfluous, and Chrift had died in vain. But the grofs depravity of mankind, before the publication of the Gofpel, too plainly showed the weakness of human nature, when left to itself, and evinced the abfolute neceffity of fome extraordinary fupport. To give us this fupport, and to guide our fteps aright amidst the fnares and dangers that every where furround us, our Redeemer came from Heaven; and it is the peculiar glory and privilege of Chriftianity, that it is the only religion which ever did or could propofe fufficient motives, and afford fufficient helps, to fortify its difciples against the allurements of fin, and to keep them unfpotted from the world.

With the Deift, then, or the Atheist, with him that profeffes only natural religion, or him that profeffes none at all, we pretend not to contest the point; we readily allow temptation to be, on their principles, sometimes irresistible, and must leave them to the hard dominion of unbridled paffions, and the tumults of a diftempered foul.

But to him who believes that there is a God, and that he is poffeffed of all those attributes, which both reafon and Revelation afcribe to him, there cannot be the least shadow of a doubt in this point, if he does not fuffer his paffions to throw a cloud over his understanding. For, can he seriously believe that a God of infinite wifdom has given us a rule for the direction of our lives, and yet rendered it in many cafes abfolutely impoffible for us to conform to that rule? Can he perfuade himself that a God of infinite mercy and goodness, though he knows the ftrength of his creatures, yet exacts what is beyond it, and, with all the cruelty of an Ægyptian tafk-mafter, demands virtue, without having given us the capacity of being virtuous? Can he fuppofe that a Being

of infinite juftice, firft compels us to fin, by the strength of our appetites, and then punishes the wretched finner; that he is at once the author and avenger of iniquity? Can he imagine, that he who is holiness itself, who, as the text expreffes it, cannot be tempted of evil, who is of purer eyes than even to behold it without indignation, is yet capable of tempting others to what he himself forbids and abhors? Can he, in fine, bring himself to think, that the precepts, the exhortations, the promises, the threatenings of the Gofpel, are all a mockery and infult upon us, fetting before us life and death, good and evil, and applying to us as free agents and accountable beings, when at the fame time conftitution or temptation takes from us all liberty of will, and neceffarily determines us to a courfe of vice? This were to convert the gracious Father of mankind into a frantic and capricious tyrant over his wretched creatures, to ftrip him of his best perfections, to make vain the nobleft faculties of man, and overturn the whole fabric of natural as well as revealed religion; which is furely purchafing a little felf-defence at much