SERM. curement and maintenance thereof, (the pains and diffiXXXII. culties to be overgone in mastering ftubborn inclinations, in moderating greedy appetites, in restraining violent pasfions, in encountering frequent and strong temptations, in abstracting our minds and affections from fenfible things, in affiduous watching over our thoughts, words, and actions,) together with the manifold inconveniences, croffes, and troubles, which do attend the strict practice of virtue; that likewise here there are not ordinarily any fuch difcouragements affixed to vice, which do much weigh down the pleasures with which it is tempered, and the advantages waiting on it.

As for human laws, made to encourage and requite virtue, or to check and chaftife vice, it is alfo manifeft that they do extend to cafes in comparison very few; and that even as to particulars which they touch, they are so eafily eluded, or evaded, that without intrenching upon them, at leaft without incurring their edge, or coming within the verge of their correction, men may be very bad in themfelves, extremely injurious to their neighbours, and hugely troublesome to the world; fo that fuch laws hardly can make tolerable citizens, much lefs throughly good men, even in exterior demeanour and dealing. However, no laws of men can touch internal acts of virtue or vice; they may fometimes bind our hands, or bridle our mouths, or fhackle our feet; but they cannot ftop our thoughts, they cannot still our paffions, they cannot bend or break our inclinations: these things are beyond the reach of their cognizance, of their command, of their compulfion, or their correction: they cannot therefore render men truly good, or hinder them from being bad.

Upon which and the like confiderations it is plain enough, that setting afide the persuasion of a future judgment, all other incentives to virtue and restraints from vice, which either common experience fuggefteth or philofophical fpeculation may devife, are very weak and faint, and cannot reasonably promise confiderable effect : the native beauty and intrinfic worth of virtue, or its fuitableness to reafon and the dignity of our nature; the

grace and commendation with which it decketh the prac- SERM. tifers of it; its goodly, pleafant, and wholefome fruits of XXXII. manifold conveniences, of health to foul and body, of peace and amity among men, of tranquillity and fatisfaction in mind, if they do not reach beyond this tranfitory life, cannot to the common apprehenfions of men appear fo confiderable, or prove fo efficacious, as to engage men closely and conftantly to adhere thereto. Neither will the worft of evils innate or acceffory to vice, (its effential deformity and turpitude, or its being disagreeable to reason and difhonourable to human nature, together with the diftempers, the damages, the disgraces, the disturbances apt to sprout from it,) if no more hereafter is to be feared. in confequence thereof, be fufficient to deter or difcourage men from it: the peril of death itself (the worst evil which men pretend to inflict, and that which our nature feemeth most to abhor) will not import much toward the diverting indigent, ambitious, or paffionate men from the most defperately wicked attempts: it is the obfervation of Cicero, from which he inferreth the need of fuppofing future punishments, as the only effectual restraints from fuch actions; That, faith he, there might be in this life fome fear laid upon wicked men, thofe ancients did think good, that there fhould be fome punishments appointed in hell for impious perfons; because indeed they underflood, that fetting these apart, death itself was not to be feared.

1.

There have been indeed vented fuch fine and stately no- Cic. de Fin. tions as thefe: that reafon fimply, however attended, doth iii. Tufc. 5. challenge obedience to itself; that virtue is abundantly its own reward, and vice a complete punishment to itself; that Cic. de Leg. we should not in our practice be mercenary, regarding Sen. de what profit or detriment will accrue from it, but should be Clem. i. 1. good abfolutely and gratis; that moral goods are the only defirable goods, and moral evils the only evils to be grieved at; that nothing can happen amiss to good men, and whatever their condition is, they are perfectly happy; that

▷ Ut aliqua in vita formido improbis effet, apud inferos ejufmodi quædam illi antiqui fupplicia impiis conftituta effe voluerunt, quod videlicet intellige. bant his remotis non effe mortem ipfam pertimefcendam. Cic. Catil. 4.

SERM. nothing can truly benefit ill men, or exempt them from XXXII. mifery: but these and the like notions, frequently oc

curring in philofophers, as they are, (being rightly understood, or taken in a qualified sense,) fuppofing religion and a future judgment, evidently reasonable and true; (as also perhaps, even abstracting from that fuppofition, they may have in them a kind of slim and dusky truth, discernible to one in a thousand, who is very sharpfighted, and looketh most wiftly on them; as they may be relished by a few perfons of very refined spirit, or of special improvement ;) fo to the common herd of people, (unto whose inclinations and capacities it is fit that the general rules of practice, and the most effectual inducements thereto, should be fquared,) to men immerfed in the cares, the toils, and the temptations of the world, they plainly are unfuitable; their groffer conceit cannot apprehend, their more rugged difpofition will not admit fuch fine notions; they in effect, by the generality of men, have been slighted and exploded, as incongruous to common fenfe and experience, as the dictates of affectation or fimplicity; as the dreams of idle perfons, addicted to speculation, and regardless of the world, fuch as it really doth exift, and will ever perfist, while men continue endued with the fame natural inclinations and affections: fo that from fuch notions little fuccour can be expected toward promoting virtue, or restraining vice in the world.

Upon these confiderations the neceffity or great usefulnefs of fuppofing a judgment doth appear; that it being caft into the scales may, to the common understanding of men, evidently render virtue more confiderable and eligible than vice; as even in confequential profit and pleafure far furpaffing it.

2. Whence manifeftly the same fuppofition is also needful for the welfare of human fociety; the which, without the practice of juftice, fidelity, and other virtues, can

Neque bona, neque mala quæ vulgus putet; multos qui confliétari adverfis videantur beatos, ac plerofque quanquam magnas per opes miferrimos, fi illi gravem fortunam conftanter tolerent, hi profpera inconfulte utantur. Tac. Ann. 6.

hardly fubfift; without which practice indeed, a body of SERM. men would be worse than a company of wolves or foxes; XXXII. and vain it were to think, that it can any where stand without confcience; and confcience, without fear checking, or hope spurring it on, can be no more than a name : all focieties therefore, we may fee, have been fain to call in the notion of a future judgment to the aid of justice, and fupport of fidelity; obliging men to bind their teftimonies by oaths, and plight their troth by facraments; implying a dread of that divine judgment to which they folemnly do then appeal and make themselves accountable.

3. But farther, the perfuafion concerning a future judgment is, upon peculiar accounts, moft requifite to the fupport of religion and defence of piety.

It is certain, that no authority, upon whatever reason or equity grounded, if it do not prefent competent encouragements to obedient fubjects, if it do not hold forth an armed hand, menacing chastisement to the refractory, will fignify any thing, or be able to sustain the respect due to it; that no laws, however in themselves equal or commodious, if a certain account or trial, backed with a dispensation of valuable rewards, and infliction of formidable punishments, be not annexed to them, will obtain any force, fo as to be observed or regarded; that no obligation whatever, of duty or gratitude, will prevail upon men, if they do not apprehend themselves under a constraint to render an account, fo as to be forced either to do reason, or to fuffer for not doing it: so it is generally; and so it is even in regard to God, the fovereign King and Governor of the world, as piety doth suppose him: his authority will never be maintained, his laws will never be obeyed, the duties towards him will never be minded, without influence upon the hopes and fears of men; they will not yield to him any reverence, they will nowife regard his commands, if they may not from their respect and obedience expect good benefit, if they dread not a fore vengeance for their rebellion or negle&t; nothing to them will feem more

* Deos agere curam rerum humanarum, ex usu vitæ eft ; pœnasque maleficii, aliquando feras, nunquam autem irritas effe, &c. Plin. xi. 7.

SERM. fond, than to ferve him, who doth not well requite for the XXXII. performance, than to revere him, who doth not foundly punish for the neglect of his service.

Forafmuch also as piety doth require duties fomewhat high and hard, as much croffing the natural inclinations and defires of men, it peculiarly, for the overruling fuch averfion, doth need anfwerably great encouragements to the practice, and determents from the tranfgreffion of what it requireth; upon which score it may also farther appear, that temporal judgments, and recompenfes here, are not sufficient to procure a due obedience to the laws of piety; for how indeed can he, that for the fake of piety doth undergo difgrace, lofs, or pain, expect to be fatisfied here? What other benefits can he prefume upon befide those which he doth presently forfeit?

Of this particular God may feem defignedly to have fet before us a pregnant inftance or experiment worthy our confideration God in a very notorious and affecting manner declared his will and law to the Jews; and, to engage them to obedience, he not only recommended it to them as very good in itself, and very convenient for them to obferve; but he enforced it with promifes of the greatest bleffings concerning this life, that men are capable of, if they should obey; and with curfes or menaces of the moft difmal mifchiefs imaginable in reference to this life, in cafe of disobedience; and that he both could and would in both refpects make his word good, he did by miraculous difpenfation of fignal mercies and judgments most evidently fhew and affure them: yet what was the effect? Pf. cvi. 24, it was, that, as the Pfalmift expreffeth it, They defpifed the pleafant land-and hearkened not unto the voice of the Lord: their heart was not right with God, neither were they fiedfaft in his covenant: they tempted and provoked the most high God, and kept not his teftimonies: they did not fo value thofe benefits, they could not fo dread thofe penalties, as in regard to them to perfift for any time in a steady obedience; as not eafily in despite of them to be drawn into the worst of crimes prohibited to them: the sweetest enjoyment of thofe good things could not hold

25. lxxviii.

37, 56.