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PROV. iii. 17.

Her ways are ways of pleasantness; and

all her paths are peace.

321

SERM. XIV. Religion founded on reason, and the right of private judgment. JOSHUA XXIV. 15.

ye

will

And if it feem evil unto you to ferve the LORD, choose ye this day whom Serve, whether the Gods which your fathers ferved that were on the other fide of the flood, or the Gods of the Amorites, in whofe land ye dwell: But as for me, and my house, we will serve the

LORD.

345

SERM. XV. The evidence of a future ftate, on the principles of reafon and revelation, distinctly confidered. 2 TIM. i. 10.

-Who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light

through the Gospel.

373

SERM. XVI. The nature, folly, and danger of fcoffing at religion. 2 PET. iii. 3.

Knowing this first, that there shall come

in the last days fcoffers, walking after

their own lufts.

401

SER

SERMON I.

Of the universal sense of good and evil.

ACTS xxiv. 25.

And as ke reafoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled.

T

HERE is nothing more ufe- SERM. ful and inftructive than to I. acquaint ourfelves with the history of mankind, especially in their moral conduct: This gives us a true knowledge of human nature, of the various workings of its paffions, and the principles by which it is influenced. And obfervations grounded on fact are certain A 4 and

I.

SERM. and indifputable; whereas abstract speculations may not only differ very much, but are liable to be difputed, and more cafily perplexed or evaded. Besides, a small piece of history affords a greater variety of incidents for the improvement of our minds, and the right conduct of life, than can be fuggefted, within the fame compass, in the way of inftruction and reafoning: This will more fully appear by confidering the particular tranfaction between Paul and Felix, of which the text is a part.

Felix*, by the confeffion of Tacitus the Roman hiftorian, governed the Jews in a very arbitrary manner, and committed the groffeft acts of oppreffion and tyranny. And Drufilla his wife, without Jofeph. any good Ant. 1.xx. reafon to juftify a divorce, had left her former husband, and given herself to him; and confequently was an adulterefs: When St. Paul, therefore, was fent for

c. 5.

* Claudius defunctis regibus, Judæam provinciam equitibus Romanis aut libertis permifit; è quibus Antonius Felix, per omnem fævitiam ac libidinem, jus regium fervili ingenio exercuit. Hiftor. lib. v. c. 9.

At non frater ejus cognomento Felix pari moderatione agebat, jam pridem Judææ impofitus, & cuncta malefacta £ibi impune ratus, tanta potentia fubnixo. Annal. xii. 54.

to

of

I.

to explain to them the nature of the SERM. Christian Religion, which was then newly published, and, upon that account, a matter of curiofity; and in difcourfing on the morality of the gofpel, which is the most important and effential part it (as it must be of every revelation that is really of divine original) took occafion to inculcate the eternal laws of justice, and the immutable obligations of temperance and chastity; the confscience of the governour was alarmed and terrified, and a sense of his crime, and dread of the righteous and awful judgment of God upon all fuch notorious offenders against the rules of righteousness and humanity, filled him with the utmost confufion. Drufilla indeed does not appear to have discovered any remorfe; perhaps she was, naturally, of a more hard, infenfible, unrelenting temper; or confided in her Jewish privileges, and expected to be faved, as a daughter of Abraham, notwithstanding the immorality and wickedness of her life. However this be, as 'tis not my business to make conjectures, I fhall proceed to confider what is directly related by the hiftorian, viz. that, as Paul

2

I.

SERM. Paul reafoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled: only premifing, that the impreffion, which the Apostle's difcourfe made upon his mind, did not spring from any thing in his peculiar circumftances, but from the general frame of human nature, and principles that are common to all mankind; and confequently that the moral reflections, naturally arifing from it, must be of univerfal concern. And,

ift. We learn from this hiftory, that there is, even in the worst of men, a natural confcience of good and evil, which in very few, if any, inftances, is entirely extinguished. It may be darkned, perverted, and very much defaced, but is hardly ever quite obliterated and lost. There are certain feasons, which check the infolence of the paffions, and dispose for gravity and confideration, in which it revives; and reprefents the malignity of irregular and vitious exceffes in a clear and ftrong light.

Indeed the advocates for vice and licentiousness have, fometimes, gone fo far, as to reprefent all our notions of

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