It is pleasant to be virtuous and good, because that is to excel many others; it is pleasant to grow better, because that is to excel ourselves; it is pleasant to mortify and subdue our lusts, because that is victory; it is pleasant to command our appetites and passions, and to keep them in due order within the bounds of reason and religion, because this is empire.

Take away God and religion, and men live to no purpose, without proposing any worthy end of life to themselves.

With the history of Moses no book in the world, in point of antiquity, can contend.

Many man's scruples lie almost wholly about obedience to authority and compliance with indifferent customs, but very seldom about the dangers of disobedience and unpeaceableness and rending in pieces the Church of Christ by needless separations and endless divisions.

The true ground of most men's prejudice against the Christian doctrine is because they have no mind to obey it.

Abstinence is many times very helpful to the end of religion.

It is hard to personate and act a part long; for where Truth is not the bottom, Nature will always be endeavoring to return, and will peep and betray herself one time or other.