Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Cristian life | Page 6

Universal, and Eternal Law of Right; and therefore are ever desirous to find out such Rules for other People, as will not reach themselves, and as they can extend and contract as they please. In saying of which, it is not deny'd, that the love of Praise may be sometimes usefully instill'd into very Young Persons, to give them the desire of Eminence in things wherein they should endeavour to excel: But as this ought never to be made the incitement to any Vertue but in the earliest Childhood of our Reason, so also at no time should Glory (which is the Reward only of Actions transcendently Good, either in kind, or degree) be represented as the purchase of barely not meriting Infamy: The apprehension of which, is a much stronger perswasive to most People not to do amiss, than that of Glory, which cannot consist with it: For no Body can rationally think that Glory can be due to them for doing that, which it would be shameful in them not to do. But there is yet a farther Folly and ill Consequence in Men's intitling Ladies to Glory on account of Chastity which is, that the conceit hereof (especially in those who are Beautiful) does ordinarily produce in them a Pride and Imperiousness, that is very troublesome to such as are the most concern'd in them.
One whose business it was to remark the Humours of the Age, and of Mankind in general, has, I remember, made a Husband on this occasion to say,
_Such Vertue is the Plague of Human Life, A Vertuous Woman, but a Cursed Wife._
And he adds,
_In Unchaste Wives, There's yet a kind of recompencing Ease, Vice keeps 'em Humble, gives 'em care to please. But against clamorous Vertue, what Defence?_
If Mr. Dryden did distinguish herein, between real Vertue and that Idol one of Men's Invention, he was, perhaps, not much in the wrong in what he suggests: But if he design'd in this a Satyr against Marriage, as a state in the which a Man can no way be happy, it appears then how much Vertue is prejudiced by this foreign Support, whilst it becomes thereby expos'd to such a Censure; which if it may be Just in reference to a vain Glorious Chastity, yet can never be so of a truly Vertuous one: Obedience to the Law of God, being an Universal Principle, and admitting of no Irregularity in one thing any more than in another, which falls under it's Direction.
It is indeed only a Rational Fear of God, and desire to approve our selves to him, that will teach us in All things, uniformly to live as becomes our Reasonable Nature; to inable us to do which, must needs be the great Business and End of a Religion which comes from God.
But how differently from this has the Christian Religion been represented by those who place it in useless Speculations, Empty Forms, or Superstitious Performances? The Natural Tendency of which things being to perswade Men that they may please God at a cheaper Rate than by the Denial of their Appetites, and the Mortifying of their Irregular Affections, these Misrepresentations of a pretended Divine Revelation have been highly prejudicial to Morality: And, thereby, been also a great occasion of Scepticism; for the Obligation to Vertue being loosen'd, Men easily become Vicious; which when once they are, the Remorse of their Consciences bringing them to desire that there should be no future Reckoning for their Actions; and even that there should be no God to take any cognizance of them; they often come (in some degree at least) to be perswaded both of the one, and the other of these. And thus, many times, there are but a few steps between a Zealous Bigot, and an Infidel to all Religion.
_Scepticism,_ or rather _Infidelity,_ is the proper Disease our Age, and has proceeded from divers Causes: But be the remoter or original ones what they will, it could never have prevail'd as it has done, had not Parents very generally contributed thereto, either her by negligence of their Children's Instruction; or Instructing them very ill in respect of Religion.
It might indeed seem strange to one who had no experience of Mankind, that People (however neglected in their Education) could, when they came to years of Judgment, be to such a degree wanting to themselves, as not to seek right Information concerning Truths of so great Moment to them not to be Ignorant of, or mistaken in, as are those of Religion. Yet such is the wretched Inconsideration Natural to most Men, that (in fact) it is no uncommon thing at all to see Men live day after day, in the pursuit of their Inclinations, without ever exerting their Reason to any other purpose than the