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Virtue and religion are excellent things in themselves, and they improve and adorn and exalt our natures. The last sentence of the text suggests this — that though righteousness and piety and religion are excellent things, so that men can hardly avoid seeing the beauty and loveliness of them, yet the deceitfulness of sin will be apt to deliver them, and find out some pretence or excuse to carry men against their best reason, and what they know is fittest to be done. The excellency of a religious life above a life of sin and wickedness, may be made out from the following considerations:

I. THAT GOD HIMSELF HAS PUT A GREAT MANY MARKS OF HONOUR UPON RIGHTEOUSNESS AND GOODNESS. That person or that thing must be honourable which God is pleased to honour, and that must be despicable which He despises. He who fears God, and does his duty, is the servant of God and the friend of God. Good men are in an especial manner partakers of the Divine nature; their souls are honoured and blessed with the communion of God, and their bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost.

II. WE HAVE ALSO THE JUDGMENT OF ALL MANKIND, NOT ONLY OF THE GOOD AND VIRTUOUS, BUT OF THE GREATEST PART EVEN OF WICKED MEN.

1. Almost all nations, in all ages of the world, however they may have differed as to the measures of some virtues and vices, yet have agreed as to the main and great points of duty; which I can impute to nothing else but the natural beauty and excellence of virtue, and the deformity of vice.

2. When men will to serve any interest or appetite, they generally endeavour to conceal it, are unwilling to have it known, and think it for their honour to disguise the matter as much as they can. "Hypocrisy is a homage that vice pays to virtue." And vice, though disguised and concealed from the world, is so ugly a thing, that few people can bear the sense of it themselves, so they find out some colour or excuse with which to deceive themselves.

3. When bad men cannot cover their shame either from the world or themselves, they set about endeavouring to blacken the rest of the world; which is another sort of homage men pay to virtue.

4. Though men will indulge their own appetites, they desire their children and relations, and those whom they love, to be virtuous and good.

III. RELIGION TENDS TO MAKE OUR MINDS FREE AND EASY, TO GIVE US CONFIDENCE TOWARDS GOD, AND PEACE IN OUR OWN BREASTS. It sets our souls at liberty from the tyranny of hurtful lusts and passions, and it fills us with joy and good hope in every condition of life. Religion, thoroughly imbibed, has a direct natural tendency to procure all these blessings for us; whereas vice and wickedness both corrupt and enslave our minds. When a man ventures to break the commands of God, he is generally plunged by it into abundance of troubles and perplexities.

IV. PIETY AND VIRTUE MAKE EVERYTHING ELSE GOOD, AND OF GOOD USE, WHICH A MAN HAS, OR THAT HAPPENS TO HIM, WHEREAS SIN AND WICKEDNESS TEND TO CORRUPT AND SPOIL EVERYTHING. There is no condition but what to a good man may serve to very good ends and purposes, whether a man be high or low in the world. If he be in affliction, then patience, humility, and resignation to the will of God will make him a great man in that. If God be pleased to put him in a high station, integrity, sobriety, and a public spirit will add to the greatness of his condition, and make him a public blessing.

V. ALL SIN IS INJUSTICE, WHICH IS BY EVERYBODY LOOKED UPON TO BE A MEAN, BASE THING. It is a common excuse for other defects, that they do nobody any harm, that they are just and honest in their dealings, and therefore they hope that God will overlook other things. Tully says, "Piety is justice toward God," and therefore impiety and dis- obedience must be injustice. It is the basest and worst sort Of injustice, ingratitude.

VI. THE HIGHEST END THAT CAN BE PRETENDED TO BY ANY VICE IS ONLY THE PROCURING SOME PLEASURE OR CONVENIENCE FOR OURSELVES, IN OUR PASSAGE THROUGH THIS WORLD. This is but a poor thing if compared with eternity. It is a great advantage of the good man, that he has hope in his death. This may well support him, and make him live cheerfully in any condition in the meantime. Inferences:

1. Since religion is in itself so excellent a thing, this should encourage good men to persist in doing their duty, and not be ashamed either of the profession or the practise of religion.

2. From these considerations of the excellency of religion, all may be urged to the love and practice of it.

(Richard Willis, D.D.)

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KJV: The righteous is more excellent than his neighbour: but the way of the wicked seduceth them.

WEB: A righteous person is cautious in friendship, but the way of the wicked leads them astray.