in which there may fometimes be Room for Doubts unrefolvible by any thing but our own Discretions. -Thus Obligations may chance to clash together, and we may not be able to do Service to the Community without prejudicing a Neighbour, or betraying a Friend; and it may be questionable whether fuch Service will upon the whole do more Good, than the Prejudice or Treachery will do Harm.—Thus it may be difficult to determine by what precife Rules and Proportions every Individual is to dispense his Charity; for what is Charity in one Man may be Extravagance in another, and Avarice in a third. Thus it may be no eafy Matter to say exactly how far, and in what Respects a Man may and ought to "take thought for❞ his present State, and how far and in what Refpects he is wholly to depend upon Divine Providence; to which, if Need were, might be added more Cafes, which the Reader's own Imagination will fuggeft to him.—But although Casuistry may start Difficulties from a Variety of fuppofable Circumstances, we may yet venture to affirm that they will either relate to Cafes of fo extraordinary a kind as will not affect the general Tenor of our Conduct, or of fo nice and delicate a Nature, that our Mistakes concerning them will not be attended with any bad Confequences to others, or to ourselves. Again; as a doubtful Confcience may err, fo a weak onę too; and yet no reasonable Objection H &

may

will

will lie against the Gospel upon this Account.

A Man may, by mifapplying a general Rule to his particular Cafe, by laying too much Stress upon Doctrines purely local and temporary, by not confidering Precepts and Rules in their due Latitude, by adhering to the Letter rather than the plain Scope of Scripture, by forgetting to compare Paffages and Directions of a feemingly oppofite Tendency, which evidently qualify, illuftrate, and explain each other, &c. &c. i. e. by erroneous Judgment, or fuperftitious Attention, he may misunderstand the Scripture, and mistake the true Nature of divers Obligations; but in the mean time, if he will not, or thinks he ought not to be directed in these Matters by others qualified by Abilities, Office, &c, &c. to advise and instruct him, it would be unjust, and indeed abfurd to urge the Weakness of fuch a Man's Confcience or Understanding, as an Argument against the Perfection and Excellence of the moral Law itself.—The above Confiderations then, duly attended to, we shall not be surprised that the Gospel contains not a methodical Syftem of Morality any more than, as we have already observed, it does of Theology; and that our Saviour, inftead of laying down a regular Plan of Laws, &c. delivered his moral Precepts as Occafions and Circumftances demanded them.This Divine Teacher, in his excellent Difcourfe on the Mount (for a Sermon it cannot fo properly be

called)

called) fuppofes his Hearers to be acquainted with the moral Law of Mofes, and accordingly does not recapitulate the feveral Articles of it, or range them under their feparate Claffes and Subdivifions, but exposes and condemns the falfe Gloffes and Interpretations, which had been artfully and wickedly put upon many of them by the Scribes and Pharifees. In like manner, the Epiftles of the Apostles to the Chriftian Converts are very few of them immediately and directly of a practical Nature, (as those which are most so observe little Order or Method in the Arrangement of moral Duties) but were for the most part written upon particular Occafions, fome to oppose flavish Doctrines, or heretical Notions that had infinuated themselves into the Church; fome to give Inftructions for the better Discharge of the Minifterial or Epifcopal Office; and others to illuftrate the peculiar Advantages, and Preeminencies of the Gospel Difpenfation; and refer only to moral Duties as they naturally refulted from the Subject in hand, or in general Directions to a good Life and Conversation, by way frequently of Poftfcript or Conclufion.— Again; from this great Confideration, that the Chriftian Religion is a Law or Rule of Conscience, we may likewife account for that Diverfity, and even Contrariety of Expreffion under which true Religion and the Conditions of Salvation are defcribed to us. Thus from one Text we might

be led to infer that Faith without Works will be effectual for Salvation; for-if thou shalt confefs with thy Mouth the Lord Jefus, and shalt believe in thine Heart that God hath raised him from the Dead, thou shalt be faved; (fee Rom. x. 9.) From another we might conclude that a moral Life without Faith in the great Mysteries of Christianity will be fufficient for the fame Purpose; for pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father, is this,to vifit the Fatherless and Widows in their Affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the World; (see James i. 27.) Again, fometimes Religion, as we have obferved, is faid to confift in the practical Application of those two general Articles, the Love of God, and of our Neighbour, for on these two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets, (fee Matt. xxii. 40.) Sometimes the whole of our Chriftian Duty is included in the latter; For all the Law is fulfilled in one Word, even in this; Thou fhalt love thy Neighbour as thyself; (fee Galat. v. 14.) Now, would any Man of common Sense, who looked upon himself to be bound in Confcience to believe and to do as the Scriptures have pointed out to him the Objects of his Faith and his Practice, refolve the whole of Religion into a lifeless Faith, or mere Profeffion of Chriftianity, upon the Authority of the Text above quoted, or into bare moral Honesty, or indeed only fome particular Branches even of that, as Charity, Justice, &c. &c, upon the Strength

of

of the other Texts produced?—In short, Purity of Faith, and Sincerity of Obedience, are equally required in the Gofpel; and whoever will confult it seriously and confcientiously will never be at a lofs for fufficient Inftructions in the one, and folid Foundation for the other. To conclude this Head; if the Christian Religion, confidered as the Law of Life and Manners, be an adequate Rule of Conscience, the Objection we have been confidering must appear to be utterly infignificant; and that it is fuch a Rule in all Matters abfolutely and intrinfically of a moral Nature, I believe, was never yet difputed. As for other Matters, whofe Obligations are derived from Authority, Tradition, pofitive Inftitution, &c. which have divided the Judgments, or perplexed the Confciences of Mankind, they bear no Relation to Life and Manners, and therefore fall not properly under present Confideration.-After this, it is idle to object the Want of Method, Order, or Connection to the Morality of the Gospel, which were neither requifite in Fact, nor, by the way, fuitable to the Nature of historical, or epiftolary Writings.

Enough, it is hoped, has been faid to obviate the Exceptions of Infidels to the Excellence of the Gofpel, as a moral Law; but before we proceed to the Objections brought from the oppofite Quarter, it may be proper to endeavour, from fome of

the