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