Christianity does not abridge us of the common comforts of flesh and blood, nor lay an unreasonable restraint upon any natural appetite; but it teaches us to live like men, and not like brutes; to regulate and manage our animal nature with its desires and inclinations, so as to enjoy life in the most proper and becoming manner; to eat and drink, and taste the bounties of providence, to the honour of our Creator, and to the best interest of our souls. But, suppose, we were forbid all the indulgence of our appetites, and the delights of sense, by the gospel; surely, those who know what intellectual pleasures are, who can relish the joy that belongs to spirits, will not be much terrified with these objections, nor deride the faith of Christ, because it does not propose to them the reward of an earthly paradise. The rewards of the gospel are indeed spiritual till the resurrection, but those spiritual pleasures shall vastly over-balance all that toil, sorrow and suffering, we have passed through on earth, and all that self-denial which we have exercised. But when the body shall be raised again, our refined delights of all kinds shall be infinitely satisfying: We shall not say, that God has dealt our happiness to us with a niggardly hand, but that he has exceeded all his promises, when we shall come to taste the things God has prepared for us, which eye hath not seen, or ear heard of. IV. Another prejudice against the gospel is this; some persons charge it with much of enthusiasm; and that the doctrine of the operations of the Spirit, and the expectation of his divine assistance to instruct us in truth, to mortify sin in us, and to enable us to perform holy duties, has too much of a visionary and fanciful turn of mind, and does not become men that profess reason. But if such objectors were better acquainted with themselves, and knew the weakness of their own reason in the search after truth, and the various and plausible errors that attend their enquiries on every side; if they were better acquainted with the strength of temptation, the power of their own sinful appetites, and the weakness of their will to resist sin, and to fulfil the rules of righteousness: surely they would not think it a ridiculous thing to lift up a prayer to the great God to guide them into truth, and to assist them to walk steadily in the paths of religion and virtue. If they had but a deep and lively sense of their own insufficiency for every thing that is good, and of the many dangers and enemies that beset them, they would rather see infinite reason to bless their Creator, that has given them any promise or hope of the aids of his grace.