raise their Resolutions, accept their Endeavours, and delight to do them good.

Having thus enquired into the Nature of Faith and Virtue, I am now to compare them together, and examine what Agreement or Difagreement there may be betwixt them; from whence we fhall fee into the Truth or Falihood of the Propofition, that Faith, confider'd in itself, cannot be a Virtue or a Vice.

Faith was defined to be our Affenting to a Propofition upon the Teftimony of another; and Virtue an Endeavour, according to our intellectual Powers, to difcern what is abfolutely. beft and fitteft to be done, and a Purpofe to act accordingly. Now if there are in the Objects of Faith, any Relations whatfoever to Human Action or Manners, any thing proper to be known, in order to be done, as part of the Rule of Duty; or any

Faith and Virtue.

thing fit to be known as a Motive to that Rule, as a Means to determine our Purposes of Acting, then it will be the ftrict and proper Business of Virtue to know these Things; the knowing of them, and using them according to their Worth and Value, will be as much Virtue as the knowing or using any other things can be, their Value being fuppofed equal. And on the other Hand, the neglecting the Objects of Faith, a wilful and affected Ignorance of them, and Neglect of acting according to them, will be as much a Fault or a Vice in us, as any other Neglect of difcerning and practising what is beft and fitteft to be done, fuppofing the Objects of equal Value and Importance to our Manners and Conduct.

So that the Question now is barely this, Whether the Objects of Faith have any thing to do with Practice, or whether they bear any Relation to

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the Manners and Conduct of Mankind; if they have, it will be the Bufinefs of the Understanding to enquire into thefe Truths arifing from thefe Objects, and to form our Rules and Actions according to them; but if there be no fuch Relation, then the Mind, confidered as acting virtuously, can have no Reason to enquire into it, and confequently Faith will then be neither a Virtue nor a Vice.

Now if we recollect what was before faid concerning Faith, we must fee at once, that a Faith merely human is of great moral Ufe to us: It furnishes out to us innumerable Examples of Virtue and Vice; it fhews us Human Nature at large under all poffible Circumstances, in all Ages and Nations; it teaches us many Leffons of Conduct, many Cautions and Encouragements, which our own narrow Scene of Experience and Knowledge could never have let us into.

But

But in that Faith, which is the more immediate Business of the present Inquiry, in the Affent to divine Things upon divine Teftimony, we must clearly fee that there may be infinitely more Virtue in this Faith, than there can be in any other Exercise of our Understanding whatsoever: This actually informs us of more Truths that have a Relation to our Happiness, of more Duties of the greatest Importance to us, of more Motives of the utmost Confequence towards discharging thofe Duties, than we can discern in any other Way, or in all other Ways together: This therefore must be a great Source and Support of Virtue, and we must conclude, that whatsoever weakens our Faith does in the fame Proportion destroy our Virtue alfo. There is no Person who has much studied those Books which are the Rule of Faith, but has found experimentally, that the more careful

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he has been in examining the Objects of Faith, the more converfant in fuch Enquiries, the more he has still advanced in all Virtue; and that upon neglecting this Study, his Love of Virtue has declined, and the Love of other things crept into the Place of it. So that Faith not only teaches us what Virtue is, and affords us the moft effectual Motives to the Practice of it; but is Virtue itself, It not only adds new Motives, new Sanctions to Virtue, but we may truly fay, adds new Virtues also, is the great Foundation of thofe Chriftian Duties, which are the most exalted of all Virtues, and the most beneficial in Human Life.

Enough may have been said to induce us to hold faft our Faith, to esteem it a Virtue, and Infidelity a Vice. But as the Author of Chriflianity as old, &c. feems to have fome Referve in the Expreffion, when

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