ong, do
furnish and suggest Principles suited to the purposes and ends that
they propose; besides, that Ill Habits once settl'd, are hardly
chang'd by the force of any principles of which Reason may come to
convince Men at their riper Age: A Truth very little weigh'd; tho'
nothing ought more to be so with respect to a vertuous Education;
since rational Religion, so soon as they are capable thereof, is not
more necessary to the ingaging People to Vertue, than is the fixing,
and establishing in them good Habits betimes, even before they are
capable of knowing any other reason for what they are taught to do,
than that it is the Will of Those who have a just power over them that
they should do so. For as without a Knowledge of the Truths of
Religion, we should want very often sufficient Motives, and
Encouragements to submit our Passions and Appetites to the Government
of Reason; so without early Habits establish'd of denying our
Appetites, and restraining our Inclinations, the Truths of Religion
will operate but upon a very few, so far as they ought to do.

By Religion I understand still _Reveal'd Religion_. For tho' without
the help of Revelation, the Commands of Jesus Christ (two positive
Institutions only excepted) are, as dictates likewise of Nature,
discoverable by the Light of Reason; and are no less the Law of God to
rational Creatures than the injunctions of Revelation are; yet few
would actually discern this Law of Nature in its full extent, meerly
by the Light of Nature; or if they did, would find the inforcement
thereof a sufficient Ballance to that Natural love of present
pleasure which often opposes our compliance therewith; since before we
come to such a ripeness of understanding as to be capable by
unassisted Reason to discover from the Nature of Things the just
measures of our Actions, together with the obligations we are under to
comply therewithal; an evil indulgence of our Inclinations has
commonly establish'd Habits in us too strong to be over-rul'd by the
Force of Arguments; especially where they are not of very obvious
deduction. Whence it may justly be infer'd that the Christian Religion
is the alone Universally adapted means of making Men truly Vertuous;
the _Law of Reason, or the Eternal Rule of Rectitude_ being in the
Word of God only, to those of all capacities, plainly, and
Authoritatively deliver'd as the Law of God, duly inforc'd by Rewards
and Punishments.

Yet in that Conformity with, and