The reasons of the Christian religion the first part, of godliness, proving by natural…

But it is another kind of life which the Law of God in Nature doth enjoin us; it is another kind of life, which I before proved to be all mens duty: and whether the world have sufficient means and motives to such a life, and could be governed but like men, without the hopes and fears of futurity, let sober and considerate reason judge?¹

But it is another kind of life which the Law of God in Nature doth enjoyn us; it is another kind of life, which I before proved to be all mens duty: and whether the world have sufficient means and motives to such a life, and could be governed but like men, without the hopes and fears of futurity, let sober and considerate reason judge?¹

1. 1Qui ea committit quae leges prohibent, & de quibus supplicia sunt, is ea multo magis committet, de quibus nullum supplicium est. Aristot. 1. Rhet. Obj. At non apud omnes proficiunt leges. Resp. Nec philosophia quidem; nec ideo inutilis & formandis animis inefficax est. Sen. ep. 95.

Obj. Can it be any worse then it is already? what vice or villainy doth not every where abound, for all the belief of a life to come?

Obj. Can it be any worse then it is already? what vice or villany doth not every where abound, for all the belief of a life to come?

Answ. If it be so bad for all that belief, what would it be without? if the enervating of it by the lusts of the flesh do loose the reins, and leave the world in so much wickedness, what would it be if their hopes and fears of another life were gone? Now men have a secret witness in their breasts, which checketh and restraineth them: Now they have Kings and Rulers, who having some belief of a life to come, do form their Laws accordingly, and govern the common people with some respect to that belief. Now there are many