Considerations of the existence of God and of the immortality of the soul, with…

The Goodness and Bounty of our great Benefactor regulates the one and the other. The more we have received from Him, the more we are engaged to Him, and the more we are engaged, the more guilty, and worthy of punishment will our neglect be. Among Men an ungrateful perfidious person is an object of horror, and favours abused become motives of hatred. To employ our faculties rational or sensitive to the disservice of our Maker, is the same kind of villainy though of incomparably greater guilt both in respect of the object and degree; as if a Traitor should turn the very same Weapons against his Prince, that he received from him for his defence. ⟨p. 133⟩To turn his benefits into occasions of sin, and by the same things to dishonour him by which we should glorify Him, is extreme perverseness. In this, unthankful Man imitates the Earth from whence he was taken: for that makes use of the heat of the Sun to send up Vapours that obscure the Beams of Light he communicates to it. This is to despise the Divine Majesty, Power, Wisdom, Goodness, that are united, and so eminently appear in his Works, and will provoke his severe Vengeance. Let us therefore every day revive the sense of our obligations, and by intense thoughts kindle the affections of Love and Reverence, of praise and thankfulness, that in them as flames ascending from an Altar, we may offer our selves a holy living Sacrifice, ⟨p. 134⟩which is our reasonable service. Our All is due to him, what ever we are, what ever we have, our Bodies, our Souls, our Time and Eternity.

The Goodness and Bounty of our great Benefactor regulates the one and the other. The more we have received from Him, the more we are ingaged to Him, and the more we are ingaged, the more guilty, and worthy of punishment will our neglect be. Among Men an ungrateful perfidious person is an object of horror, and favours abused become motives of hatred. To employ our faculties rational or sensitive to the disservice of our Maker, is the same kind of villany though of incomparably greater guilt both in respect of the object and degree; as if a Traitor should turn the very same Weapons against his Prince, that he received from him for his defence. ⟨p. 133⟩To turn his benefits into occasions of sin, and by the same things to dishonour him by which we should glorifie Him, is extreme perversness. In this, unthankful Man imitates the Earth from whence he was taken: for that makes use of the heat of the Sun to send up Vapours that obscure the Beams of Light he communicates to it. This is to despise the Divine Majesty, Power, Wisdom, Goodness, that are united, and so eminently appear in his Works, and will provoke his severe Vengeance. Let us therefore every day revive the sense of our obligations, and by intense thoughts kindle the affections of Love and Reverence, of praise and thankfulness, that in them as flames ascending from an Altar, we may offer our selves a holy living Sacrifice,