Which is the great Commandment in the Law? Our Saviour anfwers, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart, &c. This is the first and great Commandment; and the fecond is like unto it, Thou fhalt love thy Neighbour as thyself. Having laid down these two great Rules, he thus declares his Sense with refpect to the Subject of our prefent Enquiry; On thefe Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets. If the Law and the Prophets hang on these two Commandments, then the Doctrine of our Saviour, which is the Perfection of the Law and the Prophets, must hang on them likewife Now if you will allow that the Love of God, and the Love of your Neighbour, are fundamental in the Law of Reafon and Nature (as undoubtedly they are), you must alfo allow, that whatever may be deduced from them, by rational Confequence, must be a Precept of the Law of Nature: whatever therefore hangs on these two Commandments, muft neceffarily be a Part of Natural Religion; and that all the Law and the Prophets do fo hang, and confequently the Doctrine of the Gofpel, which is the Perfection of them, you have had our Saviour's exprefs Tefti mony. mony. Since then it appears (as I think) that the Religion of the Gospel is the true original Religion of Reafon and Nature; The fecond Thing I shall observe to you is, that it has, as fuch, a Claim to be received independent of thofe Miracles which were wrought for its Confirmation. This Confequence will be admitted by all, who allow the Force and Obligation of natural Religion, and can be denied by none, who know or understand themselves. The Principles of Religion are interwoven in the very Frame and Make of our Minds; and we may as well run from ourselves, as from the Sense of the Obligations we are under. If the Law which is in our Members should get the better of the Law of our Minds, and lead us into the forbidden Paths of Vice and Immorality; though Obedience cannot hold us, yet Guilt will never forsake us; and our own Confciences will not permit us to forget the Law, however our corrupt Paffions may induce us to tranfgrefs it. This Sense will always keep a Passage open to the Heart, for Inftruction to enter in; and there needs nothing more to fhew, that Man is obliged to fubmit to the Rules and Laws of Reason, than to fhew that he is a rational rational Creature; fince if Reafon be of any Ufe, it is for our Direction; and to suppose a Creature to have Reason to direct him, and yet that he ought not to be directed by it, is a Contradiction: fo far therefore as the Gospel represents to us the Law of Nature, it needs only to appeal to the Reafon of Mankind for its Authority, and may leave its Cause to be tried in every Man's own Breaft before the Tribunal of Confcience : and how far this is the Cafe of the Gofpel, has been already shewn at large. But fome one perhaps may have a Mind to ask, why he may not teach the Heathen the Religion of the Gofpel, as well in hist own Name, as in the Name of Chrift; fince, being the very Religion of Reafon, it wants no Name to fupport it? To which I anfwer that if the Heathen are fuch Masters of Reason, as to want no teaching, the Question is impertinent; and if they do want inftructing, there is no Comparison between the Mafters. But the Truth is, that all the Effentials of true Religion are contained in that Part of the Gospel, of which so much has been already spoken: but how this Religion came to stand in need of being renewed by a fpe cial Commiffion from Heaven, how Nature came to want that new Light which the Gospel has given, and those additional Helps and Affiftances from the Influence of the Spirit of God, which the Gospel has promifed, is a Matter of another Confideration, and opens to us a new View, to see the Reasonableness and Neceffity of the Doctrines peculiar to Christianity, which, though not different, are yet diftinct from the Principles of Reafon and Nature. Had Man continued in the Purity of his firft Religion, he had wanted no fecond; the Doctrine of Nature had led him to the Enjoyment of the glorious Hopes, to which he was born, of Life and Immortality. But when he fell under the Power and Dominion of Sin, he grew both blind and impotent, had but little Knowledge left to find his Duty, and still lefs his Ability to perform it. The Hiftory of the Fall is preferved to us in facred Writ; but let the Scripture be filent, and let Experience only fpeak. Look back into the paft Ages of the World, as far as the Clue of Hiftory can guide you, and tell me in what Place the Purity of natural Religion was preferved: obferve the Manners of Men, and their religious Ser vices, and when you are tired with the fad Profpect of the Ignorance and Barbarity of fome, the Superftition and Idolatry of all, tell me once more, did the World want an Inftructor or no? If it did, we have little Reason to complain that it had one, still less to stumble at the Dignity of the Perfon who undertook the defperate Cause of Nature; or to reject his Authority, because he is greater than we know how to conceive, even the only begotten Son of God. He came into the World, not merely to reftore the Religion of Nature, but to adapt it to the State and Condition of Man, and to fupply the Defects, not of Religion, which continued in its firft Purity and Perfection, but of Nature, which was fallen from the original Dignity of the Creation. Man was born the Heir of Glory and Immortality; but our Saviour found him under the Power of Sin and of Death. If Death came in as the Penalty of Difobedience to the Law of Nature, as we learn from the fure Word of Prophecy that it did, it was an Evil, for which natural Religion could afford no Remedy; for no Law provides a Remedy against its own Penalties; which would be to weaken and deftroy the Obligations to L Qbe |