will do, to which it accidentally may expofe us.

VIII. Men, indeed, of great and generous Minds may despise the Pleasures of Senfe, or, take Complacency in the Exercife of an heroick Virtue, tho' attended with Pain, and without Profpect of Reward; because Joy and Exultation of Mind are naturally confequent to virtuous Actions. A Soul, confcious of its innate Dignity, will have Strength fufficient to furmount many Obstacles; the Spirit of a Man will fuftain his Infirmity; but it will not always have Force enough to refift Pleasure, or totally to overcome Pain. It was a fecret Pride, and an Affectation of Independency, that kept the Stoicks, many of which had yet refined Notions of Morality,inCountenance; for when

no

no Body was prefent, all their boafted Wisdom and Strength vanished; just as Kings of the Stage, when the Curtain is. drawn, cease to act, and lose all their Bravery and Grandeur in a Moment. It is not fo with Believers, whofe Hopes are full of Immortality, and who are as perfectly affured, that all the accidental Deficiencies in this Life will be made up to them in a future Life, as that there is a wife, a juft, and a good God.

IX. The Error of the Epicureans confifted, on the other Hand, in their making préfent Pleasure the Measure of human Happiness. And because Man is fometimes fenfible of Pleasure, no lefs in vitious and irregular, than in virtuous Actions; if he is not, in certain Inftances, more violently

affected

affected with the former, therefore it has been commonly thought, that this Sect, by the very Principles of their Philofophy, let loofe the Reins to all manner of Licentioufnefs and Disorder. Yet it must be acknowledged they argued upon reasonable Grounds, in faying, that Pleasure was good for them; as they were really convinced by an internal Senfation, that it contributed to make them happy. But they ought to have confidered, that tranfient Pleafures could not make them always, or folidly happy; and that the Pleasures of the Mind were not only more lafting, but, in the Nature of them, more noble and generous, than those of the Body; fo that, even upon the Epicurean Hypothefis, with thofe, who argued regularly and

foberly

soberly from it, the true Happiness of Man, without any future Profpect, was granted to confift in the Practice of moral Virtue. But, in respect to the Stoicks, the moral Law was ftill, by a more evident Argument, the Law of Conveniency to Man; and, confequently, the Law which right Reason would have prescribed to him, had he been under no pofitive or exprefs Obligation to practise it.

CHAP

CHA P. VIII.

The present and future Rewards of moral Virtue, confidered more diftinctly.

I. God intended the moral Law Should oblige. II. The Power of Confcience. III, IV. Anfwer to what is objected against it from Prejudice and Cuftom. V, VI, VII. The Rea fonableness of fuppofing fuch a Principle, from the Wildom and Goodness of a wife Legif lator. VIII. The Force of it in very wicked Men. IX. Obduracy of Heart, a judicial Effect of Gods Difpleafure.