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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1744 edition. Excerpt:... really Good Men; without governing their own unreafonablc Paffions; without being juft, beneficent, and charitable, towards All Mankind; in a word, without living in the Practife of thofe Moral Virtues, which are the eternal and unalterable Commands of God, and which are the ultimate End of every religious Inftitution. The only Evidence therefore, or certain Mark, whereby That Sincerity which denominates a really Good Man, can be diftinguifhed from fuch Profeffion of Religion, as the Scripture deems hypocritical; is when the Fruits of it appear in a general and hahitual Influence over all his Actions: When the Arguments of Reafon and Religion, are " not not only heard with Pleafure, and pro-S E R M. duce perhaps fudden and real Effects, in IX. the Times and Places of publick Devotion; (which is what our Saviour exprefles by receiving the Word with joy, like Seed fpeedily fpringing up in (hallow ground, without having Root in itfelf;) But the true Evidence of Sincere Goodnefs is, when the Confiderations of Reafon and Religion influence Men habitually in the whole Courfe and Method of Common Life, in their Buftnefs and Tranfactions of all kinds, in their very Freedoms and Diver/ions themfelves, in circumftances of Temptations, and in Cafes attended with Difficulties, as well as in Seafons of pro-fefled Devotion: When the Precepts of Virtue, and the Doctrines of Practife, which true Religion teaches, are imhibed, digejied, and converted as it were into the Food and Nourifiment of Life: Which is what our Saviour, in the Sixth chapter of St John, calls fating his Flefi, and drinking hit Blood: Juft In the fame fenfe, as Wifdom is introduced fpeaking, Ettluf. xxiv. 21. He that Eateth me, Jhall yet be Hungry; and He that Drhiketh me, Jhall yet be...