grateful and becoming us; and therefore grate- CHAP. ful and acceptable to him. And the offering XVI. fuch Love must appear to the Heart and Conscience to be perfectly fincere and dutiful in such Creatures as we are; because it proceeds from the Sense of our Dependancy, as being his Creatures, recipient and expectant of all our Good. If our Author admits the Thought of Self-Happiness and Fruition or Gratitude † into the Love of God, then he admits Self-Interest; then he excludes pure Efteem, Excellency, and own Sake: And therefore can be no Apology for that Principle.

IT is ridiculous in him to alledge there, in order to remove Mercenarinefs out of Religion, and make it liberal: "How fhall one deny "that to ferve God by Compulfion, or for In"tereft merely, is fervile and mercenary?" For who that confiders either the Nature of God or Man, can grant it mercenary to serve him in the Way he himself requires, and from the Motives all his true Servants recorded in Scripture have actually ferv'd him? Was their Religion fervile and illiberal? Does the greatest Wisdom we are capable of in declining the greatest Evils that can befal us, deferve the Name of Compulsion? Or to pursue the greatest Happiness of our Nature, is that a reproachful Intereft? He reproaches only himself and his own System, by adding in the next Page, "That altho' this "Service of Fear be allow'd ever fo low or "bafe; yet Religion ftill being a Difcipline and Progrefs of the Soul towards Perfection, the "Motive of Reward and Punishment is Pri

Chara. Vol. II. pag. 270.

+ Ibid. pag. 272.
" mary

!

CHAP." mary and of the highest Moment with us; "till being capable of more fublime Inftruc

XVI.

tion, we are led from this fervile State to "the generous Service of Affection and Love? " If the Motive is Primary in ferving God in this World, why does he presently after in the Margin inconfiftently make it only Supple

mental?

BESIDES, it is a more liberal, and lefs mercenary Morality, by Faith and Hope to expect the Reward of Happiness, from the interpofing Distribution and Allotment of our Heavenly Governor, fulfilling his general Promife, than to depend upon and be wholly influenced by a Stoical Notion of rewarding Happiness, as neceffarily and infeparably connected to Virtue by a blind Fatality. Neceffity and Fate would, in that Cafe, prefide and be the only Deity, and there would be no longer room for Faith, or Hope, or Prayer, which helps to qualify the Soul with virtuous Difpofitions; at the fame time it refigns up itself in Submiffion to all the Difpofals of Providence in this World; but any Regard to the heavenly Will, or his Difcrimination in the next Life, would become ufelefs, upon that Suppofition. If Love confifts in an Union of Mind and Intereft, Inclinations and Defigns, we muft forego our own mistaken ones, and, by Imitation, unite ourselves to those of God; and the Proof of that Progrefs in uniting ourselves by Love to him, is keeping his Commandments; which are Prefcriptions, as well for our unlearning Evil, as learning Good, and correcting the falfe Love of Self into that which is good and true and divine, by copying after God in fo many Attitudes of Like

nefs

nefs and Similitude. So that we love God becaufe CHA P. be first loved us, in first making Man in his XVI. own Image; and when he had unmade himself, by Tranfgreffion, making him over again as it were, by fending his Son in the Likeness of Man.

WHAT makes the Happiness of God, makes also ours, by Imitation and Communication. When the Love of him perfects us in the Imitation of liking, defiring, and pursuing the fame Things and Views with him, it gives us Poffeffion of him, makes us partake of his Happiness, and derives it upon ourselves. The more we know and confider God and his Ways, the more we love, the more we imitate, the more we are like him. And his Perfections of Holiness, Justice, Mercy, &c. are the Exemplars of all Virtue, the Patterns of our Imitation, the Objects of our Love, and the Source that communicates Happiness to us. And as that future Fruition confifts in delighting in God, being like him, and receiving of his Abundance in proportion to the Increase of our Likeness, we muft carry Oil in the Lamp with us; for there is none to be borrow'd, or bought at the unexpected Hour; but we must be previously fitted with fome Likeness and Qualification, in order to be changed into and invefted with more glorious Likeness; and if we don't learn to love God in this World, where we go to School to learn it, we fhall have no Notion of it hereafter, and fo be deftitute of all Qualification for Happiness in his Prefence. So that all our Love for him here, is for the fake of being happy with him for evermore.

VOL. II.

H

Is

CHAP.
XVI.

"

Is it culpable? Is it not rather commendable for a Traveller to think of his Journey's End; or a Stranger of his Home? This was certainly the Viaticum, or Provifion in the Way, of the old Heroes of Faith in their Road to Heaven, infomuch that one of the Greek Commentators affirms, that the Thoughts of returning home, and being Strangers or Sojourners in this World, is the first Virtue, and every Virtue in this World. Thefe Candidates for Heaven, and. wife Oeconomists of Happiness, having no exprefs Revelation of the Gofpel, but as it ferved to. fhew their Faith, that a heavenly Country was to be preferred to an earthly, wifely follow'd the Dictates of Nature in preferring a greater Good to a lefs, and a lefs Evil to a greater, in Virtue of the Promife of God to Adam, and af terwards renew'd to Abraham.

་་་

BUT the noble Author laft cited deviates from Nature, in order to attain his malevolent Ends against Revelation, (in Oppofition to which he feems to have had the moft unnatural Prejudices), by a general Law and Principle of his Syftem of Virtue, he difcards the Confideration of private Good, or Self-Affection, from having any Share in it; difcards alfo the natural Dictates of common Prudence and Confcience, for preferring the greater to the lefs private Good; and depreciates the Virtue built upon that Principle of common Senfe, and Nature, under the Notion of a Bargain. His Words are,,

* Η πρώτη αρετή, καὶ ἡ πᾶσα ἀρετὴ τὸ ξένον εἶναι τὸ tops TETE. Chryft. Heb. xi. 13. And I may add, tho' they were Strangers in this World, they were intimately known to and acquainted with the Maker of it.

I

"". Now

CHAP.

"Now the more there is of this violent XVI. "Affection towards private Good, the lefs Room

is there for the other fort [Affection] towards "Goodness itself, or any good and deferving Obe

66

ject, worthy of Love and Admiration for its "own fake; fuch as God is univerfally ac "knowledg'd."- -And afterwards fpeaking of Refignation to his Will, that there is no more Worth or Virtue [in fuch an Inftance] than "in any other Bargain of Interest: The Meaning "of his Refignation being only this, That be refigns his prefent Life and Pleafures conditionally, for that which be bimfelf confeffes to be beyond an Equivalent; eternal Living in a State of bigbeft Pleasure and Enjoyment

AND elsewhere, "I know too, that the "mere Vulgar of Mankind often ftand in need "of fuch a rectifying Object as the Gallows ber "fore their Eyes. Yet I have no Belief that 66 Man of a liberal Education, or common any "Honesty, ever needed to have Recourse to this "Idea in his Mind, the better to reftrain him "from playing the Knave. And if a Saint had "had no other Virtue than what was rais'd in "him by the fame Object of Reward and "Punishment, in a more diftant State; I know

not whose Love or Efteem he might gain be "fides: But for my own part, I fhould never "think him worthy of mine +." He adds in the next Page, "Nothing is ridiculous but what "is deform'd: Nor is any thing Proof against

Raillery except what is handsome and just." And presently after, "Nothing fo fuccefsful to

* Charact. Vol. II. pag. 59. † Ibid. Vol. I. pag. 127.