And tho’ nothing can be more evident to those who reflect thereupon, than that Mens Actions should be regulated, and directed by that Faculty in them which shows them the different properties, relations, and dependencies of things, and not by their Appetite, which only can tell what will at the present please, or offend them; not what will, upon the whole, procure to them the most pleasure, or uneasiness; yet such appears to be the unreflecting Nature of the generality of Mankind, and such their fondness of present pleasure, as either not to consider this Truth, or when they do so, to be induc’d (in consequence thereof) to obey the most manifest dictates of Reason, or Natural Light, which will lay any restraint upon their pleasing, and, oftentimes, violent Inclinations:  Much less will they be at pains to search for any such Measures of their Actions in the Constitution and dependances of things; which is indeed what the far greater part of Men have not the Capacity, or Leisure to do:  Neither are Any able to do this so early as to prevent their irregular Inclinations from being first strengthen’d and confirm’d by ill habits:  which when once they are, Reason does in vain oppose them, how clear soever her dictates appear.  On the contrary, our Passions grown strong, do usually so far corrupt our Reason as to make her joyn parties with them against her self; we not only doing amiss, but likewise finding Arguments to justify our so doing, even to our selves as well as others.

But there is still, beyond this, a farther impediment to Mens obeying the Law of Nature, by vertue of the meer Light of Nature; which is, that they cannot, in all circumstances, without Revelation, make always a just estimate in reference to their happiness.  For, tho’ it is demonstrable that the Law of Reason is the Law of God, yet the want of an explicite knowledge of the penalty incur’d by the breach of that Law, makes it not to be evident to all Men that the incuring of this penalty shall (in all cases) make the preference of breaking this Law, an ill Bargain:  which it may, sometimes not be to many, in regard of the discernable natural consequences of such a Transgression.  For tho’ observance of the Law of Reason is, in the constitution of Natural Causes, visibly to those who consider it (generally speaking) the means of our greatest happiness, even in this present World, yet if there be no future Life (which that there is, is made certain to us, only by the Revelation thereof in the Gospel) to answer in for Transgression of this Law; the breach of it may, tho’ not naturally, yet accidentally, in some cases, conduce to Mens greater happiness; and, very often, notwithstanding that to have obey’d the Law of Reason they may discern would have been better for them than to have follow’d their Appetites, had they been early so accustom’d, yet now that they have contracted different Habits, which are like a Right Hand, or Eye to them, the difficulty of a new course of Life may appear too great for the attempt of it to be adviseable; since the consideration of the shortness and uncertainty of Life may make Men apt to say to themselves on such occasions,