pose the heaven was opened, the Almighty appeared, and the voice uttered to the world, Give ear, my

"people, to my law."

Your obligation to obey this law will appear, if you consider that it is the law of your nature, that it is the law of heaven, that it is the law of society, and the law of happiness.

In the first place, It is the law of your nature.

When God created man, he did not leave him to act at random, or to live in a state of anarchy. He gave him a law, the emanation of eternal wisdom and the transcript of Divine perfection. The same fingers that upon Mount Sinai wrote the commandments upon tables of stone, had written them before-hand upon the living tables of the human heart. The foundation of morality is laid deep in human nature; its principles result from the constitution of our frame; and its authority will be supreme, while there is a mind to discern, or a heart to feel, or a conscience to judge. Darkness is not more different from light, nor bitter from sweet, than good is from evil, and virtue from vice. You are no more masters of the emotions that rise in the mind, than of the sensations which rise in the body. You can no more give the law to internal nature than to external nature. You may as well call the sun to come down from the firmament, as aim to extinguish the light of heaven which shines in the breast. Inferior animals are incapable of morality. They have no law but instinct, they are left to obey the call of appetite, and to follow blindly the prevailing impulse. But it is not so with man. Reason is his law; and the dictate of virtue is the dictate of nature. The question with him is not, what is the call of appetite? but what is the voice of reason? not what is the prevailing impulse? but what is the impulse which ought to prevail?

If, therefore, you disown the obligation of this law, you renounce your nature and unman yourself. If you claim an exemption from the authority of reason,

and sentiment, and conscience; if you take the lis cence to indulge every appetite and every passion without restraint or controul, you may ;-but first come down from your rank in the scale of being; break off all intercourse with rational creatures; depart from the society of men; go to your equals; herd with the animals of the field, and eat grass with the brutes that perish: there display humanity degraded exhibit thyself a monument of folly and guilt, to be pointed at by the hand of scorn, and to be shunned like the pestilence. If ever, like the Monarch of Babylon, thou shalt rise from thy degraded state; if ever thine understanding shall return, and thou shalt be able to lift up thine eyes to heaven, like him thou wilt praise, and extol, and glorify the King of heaven, and give ear to that law which he promulgates to the armies in heaven and to the inhabitants of the earth.

In the second place, Your obligation to obey this law will further appear when you consider that it is the law of Heaven.

It comes to you not only recommended by your own authority, but it comes enforced by a higher authority, that of God himself. The appearances of the Almighty, to confirm the law, the prophets, and the gospel, were made for the instruction and improve ment of those who saw them, and are recorded for the instruction and improvement of those who read them. The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken, and called the earth, from the rising of the sun to where he goeth down. The first promulgation of the law was from Mount Sinai. To strike a rude and barbarous people, to reclaim a perverse and obstinate generation, it was requisite that the arm of power should be stretched out, and that the majesty of terror should be displayed. Accordingly, when the law was given from Sinai, there was blackness, and darkness, and tempest; there were thunders and lightnings. and a thick cloud upon the mount; and when Moses

brought the people from the camp to meet with God, they trembled as one man; and hill Sinai was altogether on a flame, and the smoke thereof went up as the smoke of a furnace, for the Lord descended upon it in fire, and the mountain quaked; and when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, God called Moses up to the top of the Mount, and gave the law.

The same precepts that were given upon mount Sinai, Jesus Christ came to confirm and to extend. At his first public appearance, in his sermon on the mount, he republished, restored, and perfected the law. The new dispensation indeed was different from the old. The God of Abraham dwelt in darkness, and was clothed with terror. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ dwells in light, and is clothed with grace. Miracles of power confirmed the one; miracles of grace distinguished the other. We come not to Mount Sinai, but to Mount Zion. At the publishing of the gospel no fire descended, no thunders rolled: at the publishing of the gospel, when our Saviour, being baptized, entered upon his ministry, the heaven was opened over his head, the Spirit descended upon him in the form of a dove, the messenger of peace, and a voice came from the overshadowing cloud, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Revelation then concurs with reason in establishing the law, and to the voice of nature is added the voice of God. Such an authority you will not despise. You will not join with the impious king of Egypt, who hardened his heart, and said, "Who is "the Lord that I should obey his voice?"

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In the third place, Our obligation to obey the law will be further manifest, when we consider, that it is the law of society.

That righteousness exalteth a nation, and that vice is not only a reproach, but also a depression to any people, are truths so universally received as to require no confirmation. All lawgivers in all ages have thought so, and made it their object to cultivate jus

tice, and temperance, and fortitude, and industry, conscious that public virtue is the source of public happiness. Philosophers and moralists have been of the same opinion; and have taught, with one consent, that the good morals of the people were the stability of the government, and the true source of public. prosperity. Practice and experience have confirmed the truth of these speculations. If we consult the history of the most renowned nations that have made a figure in the world, we shall find that they rose to greatness by virtue, and sunk into contempt through vice; that they obtained dominion by their temperance and probity of manners, and a serious regard to religion; and when they grew dissolute, corrupted, and profane, they became slaves to their neighbours whom they were no longer worthy to govern. lic depravity paves the way for public ruin. When the health and vigour of the political constitution is broken, it is hastening to its decline. When internal symptoms of weakness appear, the least external violence will accomplish its dissolution.

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It is a duty, then, which we owe to society, and to our country, to observe the rules of righteousness; for in order to be good members of society, and true patriots, we must be virtuous men.

To shew your obligation to give ear to this law, let us, in the last place, consider that it is the law of happiness.

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This, in some measure, follows from what has been already said; for if virtue be necessary to the happipess of public societies, it is also necessary to the happiness of private families, and of private men, unless we can suppose the body politic to be flourishing, while every individual is in misery and distress. consulting for others, all agree that virtue leads to happiness; but if for others, why not for you? When you consult for them, you have no passions to darken your understanding and perplex your judgment. When you consider with coolness and with candour, the observation and experience that all of us have had

occasion to make will be sufficient to convince you, that the law of the Lord is truly favourable to the interests, and friendly to the happiness of man; that it corresponds to the just dictates of the mind, and consults the best affections of the heart. What does it forbid desires, passions, and vices, from which, for our own sakes, we should abstain, though there was no such prohibition. It forbids the gratification of desires which would lead us to ruin; the indulgence. of passions, which are the troublers of human life, and the source of our greatest misery; the commission of vices which waken remorse, and deliver us up to the tormentors. What does the law of the Lord command? What is lovely, and pure, and praise-worthy; what tends to make men peaceable, gentle, humane, merciful, benevolent, and happy.