We all know that every part of it is from God; he is the fole author of all that is good and true; and whatever is FROM him, must be LIKE him. If God is love, religion is love; if God is good, religion is goodness; if God is truth, religion is truth; and if God be the effence of all happiness and felicity, religion abounds with happiness and felicity. If God is at an infinite distance from all that is evil and miserable, religion can have nothing in it that is evil, or tends to mifery. Hence we fee the true nature of religion is love, truth, and goodness; and the whole of it is included in loving the Lord our God with all the heart, foul, mind, and ftrength-and our neighbour as ourselves.....

This love to God, constrains us to do his will, and walk in his commandments; and this love to our neighbour, engages us to act uprightly, honeftly, faithfully, and to do unto all men as we would have them do unto us. This is that yoke of the Lord which is eafy, and that burden which is light. And yet, alas, how few do we find who are willing to take this yoke, and bear this burden! Nay, indeed, we have every reason to examine our own fouls as to this matter. We may easily deceive ourfelves. It is one thing to profefs and maintain that religion confifts in love to God, charity to man, and true obedience to the divine laws; and it is another thing to poffefs that love to God, which constrains us to walk in all his laws and ordinances blameless and that love to man as difpofes us to

be

be honest, faithful, kind, benevolent, and charitable that constrains us to do them all poffible goodto be careful that we do not injure them in their perfons-in their property-or in their character. To speak no evil of them-circulate no reports, nor raise any to their prejudice-believe nothing of them that is evil, without full proof-vindicate them against the tongue of malice and envy-bear with their failings in love-pity their weaknesses-overlook their faults-forgive any injuries-and return good for evil-and even to love them as we love ourfelves. All this is implied in loving our neighbour, and indeed much more. But do we come up to this? It is a very light burden, yea, it is a most easy and pleasant one. But do we bear it? Can we appeal to our own hearts and lives, and fay-thus we love God and our neighbour? If we cannot, we have but little true religion; at most, we only have it in the understanding, but not in the will.

This is a mathope we shall

Before I proceed to fet before you the pleasure and happiness of that religion which is of God, I would earnestly call upon you, and upon my own foul too, to inquire whether or not we actually poffefs it, and live under the influence of it. ter of the greatest moment, and I not deceive ourselves in it. It is an inquiry we are bound to make, and we may fatisfy ourselves if we think good. For this divine principle of love and charity changes all the mind, renews the whole

man,

man, destroys the love of felf, of evil, and the love of dominion. It fubdues our pride, our luft, our paffions, and makes us humble, lowly, meek, and felf-abased. In fhort, it is a new birth from fin to righteousness; from hell to heaven; and from Satan unto God. All things become new-new will, new understanding, and new life. Heaven formed in the foul, all its powers in willing fubjection to Jefus Christ, and all the conduct, love, goodness, and truth.

This is the man of religion, the child of God, the heir of immortality and endless glory. Such may every one be, who is now before the Lord! Then, what I have to fay further on the pleasures of religion, will be, I trust, edifying, animating, and profitable.

In fpeaking upon this most delightful subject, it may not be improper to contrast the state of the irreligious man with the religious one. Of this character we may most of us form a pretty accurate judgment, because we may have been more or less in it ourselves; as well as that the fcriptures fo plainly defcribe it. The wicked man is by that book, compared to the troubled sea, which cannot rest, and whose waters caft up mire and dirt. And further, as descriptive of his internal state, it is faid, "The cormorant and the bittern fhall poffefs it, "the owl alfo and the raven fhall dwell in it; and "thorns fhall come up in her palaces, nettles and "brambles in the fortreffes thereof; and it shall be

an

"an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls. "The wild beafts of the defert fhall alfo meet with "the wild beafts of the ifland, and the fatyr fhall

cry to his fellow; the fhrich-owl alfo fhall reft "there, and find for herself a place of reft. There "fhall the great owl make her neft, and lay, and "hatch, and gather under her fhadow: there fhall "the vultures also be gathered, every one with his "mate." Ifa. xxxiv. 11 to 16. All thefe expreffions are not only figurative ones, to exprefs the ftate of the wicked man, but also real correfpondences of his state. For every noxious, poisonous, hurtful, and filthy animal, vegetable, and the like, correfponds to certain evils, lufts, and abominations in the heart and life of man. So a decayed, broken down, and ruinous palace, where all these filthy birds of night, ferpents, and fatyrs dwell, briers and nettles grow; fitly represents and correfponds to ruined, fallen man, whofe foul is filled with all un-) cleannefs, evil, and abomination; in confequence: of which he is like the troubled fea, which cannot reft, and whofe waters caft up mire and dirt. Is it poffible that a man who has departed from God, the only fource of all that is good and happy, and has given himself up to the power and influence of infernal fpirits to every finful luft, paffion, and temper is it, I fay, poffible that fuch a man cant enjoy true pleasure? No, his own pride, felf-will, lufts, covetousnefs, unruly paffions, irregular difpofitions, are as fo many vultures and dragons, preying G

upon

upon his foul, and destroying all his peace and pleasure.

Have we not daily proof of the madness, rage, inquiétude, and distress, that men are plunged in by the love of evil, and the indulgence of their infernal tempers? Some are tormented with envy, others burnt up with luft; some destroyed by intemperance, others confumed with avarice and pride; fome are eaten up with revenge, and others fink in despair; thousands weary of life, and yet dread the thought of death and eternity: many harraffed and distressed by disappointment in their evil intentions, put an end to their lives, and thus plunge themfelves into still keeper and deeper woe. Neither health, wealth, friendship, or honor, can footh their tortured minds, or blunt the fting of evil ftill, like the troubled fea, they cannot reft. There is no peace, faith our God, to the wicked; they caft up mire and dirt: all their pleasures are filthy as the mire, all their joys vile as the dirt beneath their feet. They are departed from the fountain of good-fallen from the order and life of heavenfunk into evil, diforder, confufion, and woe.. If joy feems to fmile upon the countenance, forrow corrodes the heart; if wit and mirth sparkle for a moment, it is like the crackling of thorns under a pot and heaviness of foul fucceeds. Such is the ftate of that man who is a ftranger to God and true religion. And if this be his ftate even in this world, what must it be, what will it be, in

the