with a view to appease the divine wrath by corporal suffering. It enjoins a worship offered up *“in spirit and in truth," a renunciation of the Devil and all his works, a conformation of the whole life to the life of God, and a serious and fixed purpose of obedience to his revealed Will, through faith in a Divine Redeemer, and under the influence of the Divine Sanctifier of souls.

Infidelity is a want of faith. It is either an absolute departure from the living God in a total disbelief of his Revelations; or a refusal of assent to the Divinity of Christ, and consequently to his being the all-sufficient and meritorious Atonement for the sins of mankind. This fatal delusion of the mind, arising from pride of heart and a love of sin, strikes at the very root of all that is sacred in Religion and pure in Morals. It destroys the very es sence of Christianity, and all that is good, valuable, and interesting, in the Dispensation of Redeeming Grace. By denying the Meritorious Atonement of the Son of

* John, iv. 24.

God, it takes away the main pillar on which fallen man rests his hopes of acceptance and forgiveness. By degrading the Nature of Christ, and bringing it down to a level with our own, it deprives Him of his honour, the Father of his glory, the Holy Ghost of his co-operation in the great work of mercy, and the Sacred Scriptures of their strongest efficacy to lift the heart and mind to God, and to produce a uniform practice of holiness and virtue.

It is this fallacious doctrine, which, by calling in question the Original Fall of Man; ridiculing the interference of Providence in prophetic missions; insinuating the impossibility of assertaining, beyond all doubt, the divine origin of Revelation; lowering, misinterpreting, and perverting Scriptural truths, to serve the purposes of individual opinion; deriding, as an absurd and degrading superstition, the belief that God would buy us with his precious blood; and asserting, with presumptuous arrogance, the rights of man, and the independence of human nature, has opened the floodgates of immorality,

and deluged the world with the overflowings of ungodliness. It is this disorganizing principle, which, breaking the chain that connects moral action with divine obligation, denying that obedience to the powers that be, are any ordinance of God, and setting up with rebellious spirit the wild theories of a levelling philosophy, against the established wisdom of ages, and the positive injunctions of religion, has broken out with volcanic fury upon the Christian world, and in its impetuous course carried away thrones, and governments, and powers, every thing that age had rendered venerable, experience proclaimed good, and Religion made sacred.

But thanks be to God! the effects of this desolating eruption have been but partially felt in this country. The attempt was made by this infidel philosophy, to introduce amongst us this destructive mischief. It gained many friends, and met with considerable success. Dignities were evil spoken of, the lawful government and the constituted authorities of the land were held up to contempt, the

primeval rights and equality of mankind were declared to be violated by the exist ing state of things, and the time was pronounced to be arrived, when all old prepossessions and prejudices, all ancient establishments and forms, should be made to yield to a more enlightened policy and a more liberal innovation. Fortunately, however, the friends of Virtue and Religion were awake to the alarming evil. They, brought up in the wisdom of their Fathers, and deeply sensible of the inva luable blessings which they enjoyed, saw through the delusive sophistry of the new opinions, They perceived the hideous hydra of anarchy and confusion lying concealed behind the specious veil of liberty and benevolence, and they arose with a holy indignation and a determined zeal to repel this invasion of impious principles, more dangerous than the irruption of a host of enemies, and to defend, preserve, and secure from injury the Throne which they revered, the Laws and Constitution which they valued, and the Reformed Religion which they loved. Their labours were repaid with success. The

evil was arrested in its progress, its deformity exposed to view, and its mischievous tendency made manifest as the day. The good which we had long felt and enjoyed escaped the general convulsion, and the Religion of our Fathers, Christianity in its purest form, stood unshaken and unhurt amidst the surrounding storm.

Still, however, the power of Infidelity is not destroyed. Still there are many amongst us, who, *"because of the blindness of their hearts," refuse to receive Christ as the only-begotten of the Father, reject him as an incarnate God, and deny that we are bought with the price of his precious blood. While this mischief, therefore, is abroad, the servants of the Lord Jesus should call all their powers into action to counterwork and suppress it; while the enemy is seeking opportu nities to subjugate the mind and heart, the watchmen should diligently guard the passes through which he is endeavouring

to enter.

Of these two evils, Enthusiasm and Infidelity, I exhort you to beware; for how * Eph. iv. 18,