And why should not we “observe GOD’s statutes, and keep his laws?” Dare we say, that any of his commands are grievous? Is not CHRIST’s yoke, to a renewed soul, as far as renewed, easy; and his burden comparatively light? May I not appeal to the most refined reasoner, whether the religion of JESUS CHRIST be not a social religion? Whether the Moral Law, as explained by the LORD JESUS in the gospel, has not a natural tendency to promote the present good and happiness of a whole commonwealth, supposing they were obedient to them, as well as the happiness of every individual? From whence come wars and fighting amongst us? From what fountain do all those evils, which the present and past ages have groaned under, flow, but from a neglect of the laws and statutes of our great and all-wise law-giver JESUS of _Nazareth_? Tell me, ye men of letters, whether _Lycurgus_ or _Solon_, _Pythagoras_ or _Plato_, _Aristotle_, _Seneca_, _Cicero_, or all the antient lawgivers and heathen moralists; put them all together, ever published a system of ethics, any way worthy to be compared with the glorious system laid down in that much despised book, (to use Sir _Richard Steel_’s expression) emphatically called, the Scriptures? Is not the divine image and superscription written upon every precept of the gospel? Do they not shine with a native intrinsic lustre? And, though many things in them are above, yet, is there any thing contrary to the strictest laws of right reason? Is not JESUS CHRIST, in scripture, stiled the Word, the Logos, the Reason? And is not his service a reasonable service? What if there be mysteries in his religion? Are they not without all controversy great and glorious? Are they not mysteries of godliness, and worthy of that GOD who reveals them? Nay, is it not the greatest mystery, that men, who pretend to reason, and call themselves philosophers, who search into the _arcana naturæ_, and consequently find a mystery in every blade of grass, should yet be so irrational as to decry all mysteries in religion? Where is the scribe? where is the wise? where is the disputer against the christian revelation? Does not every thing without and within us, conspire to prove its divine original? And would not self-interest, if there was no other motive, excite us to observe GOD’s statutes, and keep his laws?
Besides, considered as a protestant people, do we not lie under the greatest obligations of any nation under heaven, to pay a chearful, unanimous, universal, persevering obedience to the divine commands.
The wonderful and surprising manner of GOD’s bringing about a reformation, in the reign of King _Henry the Eighth_; his carrying it on in the blessed reign of King _Edward the Sixth_; his delivering us out of the bloody hands of Queen _Mary_, and destroying the _Spanish_ invincible armada, under her immediate protestant successor Queen _Elizabeth_; his discovery of the popish plot under King _James_; the glorious revolution by King _William_; and, to come nearer to our own times, his driving away four thousand five hundred _Spaniards_, from a weak (though important) frontier colony, when they had, in a manner, actually taken possession of it; his giving us _Louisbourg_, one of the strongest fortresses of our enemies, contrary to all human probability, but the other day, into our hands: these, I say, with the victory which you have lately been commemorating, are such national mercies, not to mention any more, as will render us utterly inexcusable, if they do not produce a national reformation, and incite us all, with one heart, to keep GOD’s statutes, and observe his laws.
Need I remind you further, in order to excite in you a greater diligence to comply with the intent of the text, that though the storm, in a great measure, is abated by his Royal Highness’s late success, yet we dare not say, it is altogether blown over?