vice, and maintain virtue. Look into the schools of the antient philosophers, and you will find that their many excellent natural precepts were confined within very narrow limits, and had little or no influence, being generally more admired than practised, even by their own scholars. Reason was and ever will be too weak to combat with inclination, and Virtue, left to herself, unable to make a stand against the corruptions of Vice. No law therefore can be expected to be duly observed, without an evident right of making it, a manifeft ability of punishing those who break it, vested in the law-giver. Both of which most eminently concur in God; his right of giving laws to the Creatures whom he made is unquestionable, his power of punishing the disobedient is a necessary perfection of his nature; he is wife in heart, and mighty in ftrength; who hath hardened

hardened himself against him and profpered? And his intention to punish them, as it might be fully proved from that perfect Juftice which is effential to him, Righteousness and Judgment are the habitation of his throne, fo is it very plainly revealed in the fame books wherein his laws are contained, that he will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity. All the motives therefore which ferve to enforce our obedience to the laws of man, do moft ftrongly confpire to bind on us Obedience to the laws of God.

Another motive to which duty is Grati tude, arifing from a confideration of that perfon by whose mediation God gave thefe laws to us, namely, Jefus Chrift. If we reflect seriously on the miferable condi tion from which Chrift relieved us, and

the means of Grace and hopes of Glory he hath afforded us, if we confider the means by which he effected this, how for our fakes he was incarnate, led a mean and inglorious life, and died a painful and ignominious death, we cannot acquit ourfelves of the bafeft ingratitude, if we trample on his authority, and refufe Obedience to his laws. Generous tempers are willing, in many things, to bear with and oblige thofe perfons who have conferred favours on them, even in hard and unreafonable requests. As the obligations therefore which Chrift has laid on us, are infinitely above any which man can confer, fo ought our gratitude to rife in proportion, and exert itself in a steady Obedience, even if his laws were heavy and grievous to be borne; whereas on the contrary, his yoke is eafy, and his burthen is light. And this fupplies us with another motive, drawn

from

from the confideration of the laws them

felves.

The Gospel laws, if fairly and impartially confidered, are undoubtedly the most excellent in the world. God does not rule us in an arbitrary manner, and impofe laws merely to demonstrate his authority, but governs us, as we are reasonable creatures, in a reasonable way. The laws which he has given us are adapted to the frame of our reason; and as creatures poffeffed of that faculty, we cannot help affenting to their equity, how much foever we may neglect the performance of them; they carry full authority and conviction along with them, they fpeak their original, and atteft their author to be more than man.

Human laws are oftentimes perplext and obfcure, clashing and inconfiftent not only K 3 with

with reafon, but with themfelves, liable to be misconstrued, perverted, and abused; and the most equitable of them are in a ftate of uncertainty, and fubject to be repealed; but the laws of the Gospel are free from all these imperfections; they are delivered in a clear, concife, and perspicuous manner, and as they were defigned for the direction of the ignorant, as well as of the learned, they lie level to the meaneft capacities, they are perfectly uniform, confiftent, and harmonious, and the comments occafionally made on them by the Apostles ferve to reflect fuller light on them, and render the most difficult paffages plain and eafy; they are light itself, and in them is no darkness at all.

They are also fixt and immutable, liable to no change, fubject to no repeal. The varying of circumftances, the fallibility, fhort