ment, and of making Atonement to the Justice of God; fince they cannot prescribe a proper Satisfaction for Sin, in which the Honour of God and the Salvation of Men shall be at once confulted; fince they cannot remedy the Corruption that has fpread thro' the Race of Mankind, or infufe new Principles of Virtue and Holiness into the Souls already fubdued to the Luft and Power of Sin; fince, if they could procure our Pardon for what is paft, they cannot fecure us for the future from the fame Temptations, which by fatal Experience we know we cannot withstand: Since, I fay, thefe Things cannot be done by the Means of Reason and Nature, they must be done by fuch Means as Reafon and Nature know nothing of; that is, in. other Words, they must be done by mysterious Means, of the Propriety of which we can have no adequate Notion or Conception.

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If stand in need of no new Favour, you you aim not fo high as eternal Life, Religion without Myfteries may well ferve your Turn. The Principles of Natural Religion tend to procure the Peace and Tranquillity of this Life; and the not distinguishing between Religion as a Rule of Life for

our present Use and Well-being here, and as the Means of obtaining Pardon for Sin and eternal Life hereafter, may have infome measure occafioned the great Complaint against the Mysteries of the Gospel: For Mysteries are not indeed the neceffary Parts of Religion, confidered only as a Rule of Action; but moft neceffary they are to it, when confidered as a Means of obtaining Pardon and eternal Glory. And this farther fhews, how unreasonably Men object against the mysterious Wisdom of the Gospel, fince all that the Gofpel prefcribes to us as our Duty is plain and evident; all that is myfterious is on God's Part, and relates entirely to the furprizing Acts of divine Wisdom and Mercy in the Redemption of the World. Confider the Gospel then as a Rule of Action, no Religion was ever fo plain, fo calculated upon the Principles of Reason and Nature; fo that Natural Religion itself had never more Natural Religion in it. If we confider the End proposed to us, and the Means used to intitle us to the Benefit of it, it grows mysterious, and foars above the Reach of human Reafon; for God has done more for us than Reason could teach us to expect, or can now teach us to comprehend.

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Let us then do our Part, which we plainly understand, and let us truft in God that he will do his; though it exceeds the Strength of human Wisdom to comprehend the Length and Depth and Breadth of that Wisdom and Mercy, which God has manifefted to the World thro' his Son Chrift Jefus, our Lord.

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DISCOURSE

DISCOURSE I

PART IV.

S, with refpect to the Health of the Body, there is one Regimen proper to preferve and maintain a found Conftitution, and another to affift and restore a broken and distempered one; the one Case requiring little more than wholesome Food and Temperance, the other calling for all that the Help and Skill of the Physician can furnish So it is in Religion. An innocent Man has nothing more to do than to preferve his Innocence, which is his Title to the Favour of God; and therefore his Religion is only a Rule of Life, directing him in all Things how to preserve his Integrity, and walk uprightly with his God, This is the