of their own minds therein) thro' the love of pleasure, and abhorrence of pain, to do, or forbear whatever they find will procure to them the one, or free them from the other at the present Time; the Gratification whereof They prefer to that which is Future. It is however true that such declamations as are sometimes made against pleasure absolutely (not the irregular pursuit of it) as if pleasure was in its own Nature, a false, and deceitful, not a real and solid Good, have produc'd this ill effect, that many from the absurdity hereof are confirm'd in an evil indulgence of their Appetites, as if to Gratifie These was indeed the truest Wisdom of a rational Creature, in consequence of pleasure, being his chief Good. But they judge not thus from a due examination, or any examination at all of the nature of Things, but from a Reason (if it may be call'd so) of opposition. For so ridiculously weak are a great part of Men in their Reasoning, that seeing they are in the wrong who oppose them, they become from thence as much perswaded, and as well satisfy'd that the contrary to such Mens Assertions is true; or that themselves are in the right, as if they saw that these things really were so. This arguing yet is no more irrational than that whereby a palpable Truth is deny'd, only because some have indeavour'd to draw, or have been thought to have drawn ill consequences from it: Which is yet all the ground of not allowing that Pleasure, and Pain, are truly Good, and Evil; the denying of which, can be of no Service to Morality, but the contrary, since Moral Good, and Evil, consider'd antecedently to any positive Law of our Maker, are apt to be thought but a Notion where that inseparable Relation is overlook'd which there is between actions denominated by us vertuous, or vicious, and the Natural Good, and Evil of Mankind.

Christians, perhaps, need not the confederation of this to inforce their obedience to the Will of their Maker; but as it is a great recommendation of the Precepts of the Gospel to find that they have an exact correspondence with, and conformity to the Nature of Things: So also those who are not influenc'd by, as not being yet thorowly perswaded of this Divine Revelation, will sooner be induced to imbrace Vertue, and contemn the allurements of Vice, when they see These to have the very same reality, in Nature as their Happiness and Misery have; than when (tho' ever so pompously set out) Vertue appears founded only upon nice, or subtle Speculations. But some Men there are so far from approving of any Notion or Theorem being advanc'd with respect to Deists whereby, as such, they may be induc'd to the love of Vertue (which is the best predisposition to the entertainment of Christianity) that they are ready to treat as not being themselves Christians if not as Atheists, any one who in the view of gaining thus much upon these Men assert Vertue by any other Arguments than such as they will not admit of, viz. those drawn from Revelation.

However true yet it is that happiness, or our chief Good, does consist in pleasure; it is no less true that the irregular Love of pleasure is a perpetual source to us of Folly, and Misery. That we are liable to the which irregularity, is but a necessary result of our Creaturely imperfection: for we cannot love pleasure, and not love present pleasure: and the love of present pleasure it is which misleads our narrow, and unattentive Minds from a just comparison of the present, with what is future. Nor is it a wonder if we are oftentimes thus mislead; since we frequently wander from the right way with less excuse for doing so: Men, not seldom, going astray from Reason, when the love of present pleasure is so far from misguiding their variously frail Natures, that its allurements will not retain them in the paths of Vertue; and tho' Reason only has Authority to set Bounds to their desires, they subject both Them, and Her to an Unjust and Arbitrary Dominion, equally Foreign to both: A thing manifest, not only in instances here and there, but in the examples of whole Nations; who either by positive institution, or allow'd of Custom, have transgressed against the plainest prescriptions of Reason, in things so far from gratifying their Appetites, as that they are contrary, and even sometimes grievous to Mens natural desires. To account for which, will not here be impertinent; nor (in order to the doing so) to consider first what the Terms Vertue and Religion have, in their vulgar acceptation, every where generally stood for.