through a rational faith in his Redeemer, to make has calling and election fure.

There have been no fects in the Christain world, however abfurd, which have not endeavoured to fup-. port their opinions by arguments drawn from Scripture, mifinterpreted or mifapplied..

We had a melancholy inftance of this in our own country, in the last century, when the church of Christ, as well as the government, during that period of national confufion, was torn afunder into various fects and factions; when fome men pretended to have Scripture precepts, parables, or prophefies, to plead in favour of the most impious abfurdities that falfehood could advance. The fame fpirit which prevailed amongst the fanatics, feems to have gone forth among thefe modern enthufiafts. Faith, the diftinguishing characteristic of a Chriftian, is defined by them, not as a rational affent of the under. tanding, to truths, which are established by indife putable authority, but as a violent perfuafion of mind, that they are inftantaneously become the children of God-that the whole fcore of their fins is for ever blotted out, without the payment of one tear of repentance.Pleafing doctrine this to the fears and paffions of mankind!-promifing fair to gain profelytes of the vitious and impenitent.

Pardons and indulgencies are the great fupport of papal power;but thefe modern empirics in religion have improved upon the scheme,pretending to have discovered an infallible noftrum for all incurables,fuch as will preferve them for ever; and notwithstanding we have inftances of notori

ous offenders among the warmest advocates for finlefs perfection, the charm continues powerful. Did thefe vifionary notions of an heated ima gination tend only to amufe the fancy, they might be treated with contempt :-but when they depre ciate all moral attainments:when the fuggestions of a frantic brain are blafphemously afcribed to the Holy Spirit of God;-when faith and divine love are placed in oppofition to practical virtues, they then become the objects of averfion. In one fenfe, indeed, many of these deluded people demand our tendereft compaffion,whofe diforder is in the head, rather than the heart; and who call for the aid of a phyfician, who can cure the distempered ftate of the body, rather than one who may footh the anxieties of the mind.

Indeed, in many cafes, they feem fo much above the skill of either,that unlefs God, in his mercy, rebuke this fpirit of enthufiafm which is gone out amongst us, no one can pretend to fay how far it may go, or what mifchiefs it may do, in these kingdoms Already it has taught us as much blafphemous language; and, if it goes on, by the famples given us in their journals, will fill us with as many legendary accounts of vifions and revelations, as we have formerly had from the church of Rome. And for any fecurity we have against it,-~ when time shall ferve, it may as effectually convert the profeffors of it, even into popery itself,-confiftent with their own principles; for they have nothing more to do, than to say, that the fpirit which infpired them, has fignified, that the pope is s

infpired as well as they, and confequently is infallible. -After which, I cannot fee how they can poffibly refrain going to mafs, confiftent with their own principles.

Thus much for these two oppofite errors ;the examination of which has taken up fo much time, that I have little left to add, but to beg of God, by the affiftance of his Holy Spirit, to preferve us equally from both extremes, and enable us to form fuch right and worthy. apprehenfions of our holy religion,that it may never suffer, through the coolness of our conceptions of it, on one hand,

or the immoderate heat of them on the other; -but that we may at all times fee it as it is, and i as it was defigned by its bleffed Founder, as the moft rational, fober, and confiftent inftitution that could have been given to the fons of men...

Now, to Gon, &c.

SERMON' XXXIX.

Eternal Advantages of Religion..

ECCLESIASTES XII. 13.

-Fear God,

Let us hear the conlcufion of the whole matter,and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.

THE wife man, in the beginning of this book, had propofed it as a grand query to be difcuffed, To find out what was good for the fons of men, which they should do under the heavens, all the days of their lives: that is, what was the fitteft employment, and the chief and proper bufinefs, which they should apply themselves to in this world.-And here in the text, after a fair difcuffion of the queftion, he afferts it to be the business of religion,-the fearing God, and keeping his commandments.-This was the conclufion of the whole matter,- and the natural refult of all his debates and inquiries.And I am perfuaded, the more obfervations we make upon the the more we experience,

fhort life of man,

and the longer trials we have of the world,and the feveral pretenfions it offers to our happiness ;

the more we shall be engaged to think, like him,- that we can never find what we look for in any other thing which we do under the heavens, except in that of duty and obedience to God.- -In the courfe of the wife man's examination of this point,

-we

find a great many beautiful reflections upon human .. affairs, all tending to illuftrate the conclufion he draws; and as they are fuch as are apt to offer them-felves to the thoughts of every ferious and confiderate man,- -I cannot do better than renew the impreffions by retouching the principal arguments of his, difcourfe before I proceed to the general ufe and application of the whole.

In the former part of his book he had taken into his confideration thofe feveral ftates of life to which men ufually apply themselves for happiness ;-first, -learning-wisdom ;-next,-mirth-jollity and pleasure ;-then-power and greatnefs,riches. and poffeffions.-All of which are fo far from anfwering the end for which they were at first purfued,that, by a great variety of arguments-he proves them severally to be so many fore travels which God hath given to the fons of men to be exercised there with-and inftead of being any, or all of them, our proper end and employment, or fufficient to our happinefs he makes it plain, hy a series of obfervations upon the life of man,-that they are ever. likely to end with others where they had done with « him,- that is, in vanity and vexation of spirit.

Then he takes notice of the feveral accidents of life, which perpetually rob us of what little sweets the fruition of thefe objects might feem to promife