right and wrong as the effects of education, SERM. custom, fuperftition, and the like; but this I. evidently shews, that they are men of very little knowledge of human nature; and of narrow observation: For let them fix on any instance of real and undoubted fuperftition they please, and let them examine all ages, and hiftories; and they will never find, tho' it was ever fo plaufible, and managed with the utmost art and dexterity, that it had fuch a feady and univerfal influence as notions of morality. The weak and unthinking, and perfons of a fufpicious, gloomy temper, may be perfuaded to look upon it as facred, and drawn into a stiff attachment to it; but the more judicious have secretly despis'd it; and it was never known to take, univerfally, as a thing of real excellency and importance in itself, with men of all capacities, inclinations and interests.

Again, by the use of proper arguments, a man may convince great multitudes of the abfurdity and folly of any established fuperftition, and form a strong party against it; but let him use the utmost sophistry to confound all diftinction between virtue and

SERM. and vice, to prove that there is no diffe

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rence between juft and unjust, beneficence and cruelty, that fraud and oppreffion, adultery and murder, have nothing criminal in them, but what is owing to the arbitrary determination of the world, or the juggles of priests and politicians; let him attempt, I fay, to establish fo monftrous a scheme with ever fo much craft and fubtilty, he will make but few proselytes; nay, nor even be able to impose on himself fo far, however he may perplex and puzzle his understanding, as to be firmly established in such a wild opinion, without having, at any time, uneafy fufpicions, and some mixtures of jealoufy and distrust.

Add to this, that the wifeft, in all ages, those who have difcovered the greatest strength and compass of reafon, have had the moft large and refined fentiments of morality, and urged the strictest regard to it in all its parts. And finally, that those who differed most about external rites, and particular forms of fuperftition, have unanimously agreed in afferting the facredness of moral obligations,

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gations, and in all the effential and mo- SERM. mentous branches of virtue. All which, taken together, is the ftrongeft prefumption imaginable, that the univerfal fenfe of good and evil, which appears among mankind, is a natural principle; and has not its foundation in fancy and enthufiafm.

But to come more directly to the point. All the obligations of morality approve themselves, upon examination, to our best and purest reason: And this fingle circumftance proves, undeniably, that they spring from the nature of things; and whereas it holds true of all kinds of fuperftition, that they will not stand an exact and critical enquiry, are best liked when they are least understood, moft fuccessfully propagated in times of ignorance and implicit faith, and lofe ground in more judicious and inquifitive ages; the quite contrary may be faid of the rules of virtue, which, the more narrowly they are canvaffed, their authority appears by fo much the more unquestionable: The mind, the more it confiders and argues about them, is the

more

SERM. more fully convinced of their importance. I. Nothing does the cause of virtue so much service, or makes it appear with fuch dignity and luftre, as bringing it to the test of a good understanding: as an evidence of which, it has, in fact, been always most cultivated, and held in the highest esteem, in the most knowing and civilized. nations, where thofe ingenious and liberal arts, which adorn and polish human life, have flourished in their greatest perfection.

But even this is not all. For because the decifions of reafon are flow, formed by a train of deductions and inferences, which all are not equally capable of; and if notions of morality were only to be acquired this way, the good effect would too frequently be obftructed by various caufes, preventing the right exercise of our rational faculties, in fome by the cares of life, in others by indolence; upon these accounts, I fay, there seems to be implanted in our nature a kind of fenfe of good and evil, an immediate perception, without any intervening train of reasoning, of the amiableness and beauty

of virtue, and the deformity of vice. SERM. And this I take to be what is most pro- I. perly meant by natural confcience; which however it may be corrupted and obfcured by fenfual paffions, and, for a time, controuled by ftrong prejudices, and inveterate habits of vice, the worst of men can't entirely get rid of. And, undoubtedly, it is an excellent provifion of the God of nature, and an undeniable proof of his wisdom and goodness in the formation of mankind; not only as 'tis a conftant incentive to honourable, virtuous, and useful actions, and a more expedi tious, univerfal, and vigorous principle than the mere cool and abftract dictates of reafon; but as it may always be a means of reforming offenders, and does not leave their recovery quite defperate, tho' they have gone great lengths in vice and disorder; or, at leaft, in many cafes, checks the irregular exceffes of their pasfions, and limits their extravagancies, which might, otherwife, occafion greater confufion in the world, and be much more injurious to the general interests of focieties.

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