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and his providence; and who has no will but his, must be poffeffed of a never failing fource of joy and fatisfaction. Every object that occurs to a person of this difpofition will be viewed in the most favourable light; and whether it be immediately, pleasurable or painful, the relation it bears to God, and his moral government, will make it welcome to him.

4. If we confider the foundation of the duty and affection we owe to God upon. the natural principles of right and equity, in the fame manner as, from the fame natural dictates, we judge of the duty we owe to mankind, we cannot but readily conclude, that, if a human father, benefactor, governor, and judge, is intitled to our love, reverence, and obedience; he who is, in a much higher and a more perfect fenfe, our father, benefactor, governor, and judge, must be intitled to a greater portion of our love, reverence, and obedience; because, in all these relations, he has done, and is continually doF 5

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ing more to deferve them.

Confidering what we have received, and what we daily receive from God, even life and all the powers and enjoyments of it; confidering our present privileges, and our future hopes, it is impoffible that our attention, attachment, fubmiffion, and confidence, fhould exceed what is reasonable and perly due to him,

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In the regulation of our devotion, we fhould carefully avoid both enthusiasm and fuperftition, as they both arife from unworthy notions of God, and his moral government. The former confifts in a childish fondness, familiarity, and warmth of paffion, and an aptness, on that account, to imagine that we are the peculiar favourites of the divine being, who is the father, friend, and moral governor of all his creatures. Befides this violent affection cannot, in its own nature, be of long continuance. It will, of course, abate of its fervour; and those who have given way to it will be apt to think of

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God with the other extreme of coldness and indifference; the confequence of which is often extreme dejection, fear, anxiety, and distrust; and fometimes it ends in defpair, and impiety.

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On the other hand, fuperftition arifes: from mistaking the proper object of the divine favour and approbation, for want of having a juft idea of the moral perfections of God, and of the importance of real virtue. Perfons of this character are extremely punctual with respect to the means and circumftantials of religion, or. things that have only an imaginary relation to it, and may be quite foreign to its real nature; instead of bringing to God the devotion of the heart, and the proper fruits of it, in the faithful dif charge of the duties of life, in the perfonal and focial capacities. The omiffion of fome mere form, or ceremony, fhall. give fuch perfons more real uneafiness than the neglect of a moral duty; and when they have complied with all the forms. which

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which they think requifite to be obferved, their confciences are intirely easy, their former guilt has no preffure, and they are ready to contract new debts, to be wiped off in the fame manner Almost all the religion of the Mahometans and Papists confifts in this kind of fuperftition, and there is too much of it in all fects and de-nominations of chriftians. I cannot give a clearer idea of the nature of fuperftition than by what appeared in the conduct of fome Roman Catholicks in Ireland, who, I have been told, broke into a house, where they were guilty of robbery and murder, but, fitting down to regale themfelves, would not tafte flesh meat, because it was Friday.

There is no quality of the heart so valuable as a juft and manly piety, and nothing fo abject and pernicious as fuperstition. Superstition and enthusiasm are generally denominated the two extremes of religion, and in fome fenfes they are fo; but, at the fame time, they have a near connection

connection with one another, and nothing is more common than for perfons to pass from the one to the other, or to live under the alternate, or even the constant influence of them both, without entertaining one fentiment of generous and useful devotion. Indeed the ufual ground of the prefumption and rapture of the enthufiaft is fome external observance, or internal feeling, that can have no claim to the folid approbation of a reasonable being.

§ 7. Of the obligation of confcience.

In order to govern our conduct by a regard to our true intereft, to the good of mankind, or the will of God, it is neceffary that we use our reason, that we think and reflect before we act. Another principle, therefore, was neceffary, to dictate to us on fudden emergencies, and to prompt us to right action without reasoning or thinking at all. This principle we call confcience, and being the natural

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