From the nature of things it must be so, for the punishments of a future state are objects too remote to have any great weight in deterring people from yielding to the importunate sollicitations of a present powerful passion. When once a woman has got the length to undervalue the immediate shame, ruin and disgrace she has to dread from being detected in an amour, religious motives never can restrain her from indulging her inclinations. Far be it from me, by any thing here said, to derogate in the least from the utility of this great and fundamental article in all religions, the commonly received doctrine of rewards and punishments in a future state. On the contrary, I am sensible of its utility in the highest degree, and that too in cases where it is most necessary, by inciting men to virtues to which no temporal rewards are annexed, and deterring them from crimes and vices, where they have no temporal punishments to dread, or where, from the secrecy of the commission, they have hopes to escape the punishments provided for them by the laws. In all cases of the last kind, thought and deliberation are required, to contrive and put them in execution; the mind is then cool, at least not transported out of itself by hurrying passion, and has time and leisure to weigh and reflect on every circumstance; religious motives, no doubt, then exert their influence, awaken fears and terrors, and keep many faithful and honest, who would otherwise yield to the temptations of revenge, ambition, and interest. For these reasons, this doctrine can never be too sedulously inculcated on the minds of the people by their public teachers, nor represented to their imaginations in too lively or too affecting colours.