fhould be very hard of belief in this cafe Did the article of the refurrection make any alteration in our notions of God, or of religion; did it bring any new burden upon us of any fort, it would be no wonder to fee men very careful how they admitted it: but now that it requires nothing at our hands but what reason and nature require, is attended with no burden or expence to us, pretends only to eftablish and confirm the hopes of nature, what pretence for being fo very fcrupulous? Admit the article, your hopes are much improved, your duty nothing increased; reject the article, your duty is the fame, and your hopes much less.

How kind a provifion has the Gospel made for our weakness! how powerfully has it supported the interest of true religion, by furnishing the world with so plain, and yet fo ftrong a proof of a future state, and a judgment to be executed in righteoufnefs, by the man Chrift Jefus, whom God raised from the dead, and hath ordained to be the Judge of all the world! Let us hold faft this hope; let this hope be our conftant encouragement in doing the work of the Lord; let us do his work cheerfully and heartily, knowing for certain that our labour shall not be in vain in the Lord.

DISCOURSE LIV.

PROVERBS ix. 10.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and the knowledge of the Holy is understanding.

THE advantages which we may expect to reap from religion are many and great, but not all equally certain fome are expofed to the chances and cafualties of human life, and depend upon circumftances that are not under our own conduct and government: hence it is that the beft men are sometimes exposed to the fevereft trials and sharpeft afflictions. But there are two things which fincere religion can never fail of attaining; one of which is the greatest ingredient, nay, the very foundation of all happiness in this world; the other is, the happiness and immortality which wait for us in the world to come this bleffing we can only enjoy now through faith and hope; but the other is prefent with us, the certain confequence and neceffary attendant upon a mind truly virtuous and religious; I mean, the peace and tranquillity, the eafe and fatiffaction of mind, which flow not fo much from a sense of our having punctually and exactly dif

charged our duty in all refpects, which is more than ever we may hope for, but from a due fenfe of God and religion, and the uprightness of our defires and intentions to ferve him. This advantage is not, properly speaking, a reward given or beftowed upon the virtuous; but it arifes from the nature of things, from the frame and contexture of our fouls: it is virtue's own child, her natural offspring, and can never leave or forfake her: for as long as men have a sense of virtue and vice, good and evil, fo long will they condemn and punish themselves for tranfgreffing their obligations; fo long will they find peace and fatisfaction in their obedience.

Since then nature has given us notice of the being of the Almighty, and fhewn us the relation we stand in towards him, and confequently the duty and fervice which we owe him; it neceffarily follows, that this fenfe, rightly adjusted, and duly pursued, in a regular and honeft discharge of our duty towards God, muft breed in our minds true peace and comfort; and, confequently, that true religion must be the fource and spring even of our temporal happiness and enjoyments. But yet look into the world, and the face of things has quite a 'different appearance : religion is fearful, fufpicious, full of doubts and mifgivings of heart, never satisfied with itself, always feeking, but feldom finding where to fix itself in reft and tranquillity: hence it comes to país, that fome, not rightly confidering the nature and caufes of things, mifconceive concerning religion itself, and think it better to lay afide all pretences to it, than perpetually to fluctuate in the troubled ocean of doubts and uncertainties, that encompaffes it round

about. And thus fuperftition, by making many miferable in the purfuit of religion, makes others, to avoid being loft in that gulph, throw themfelves into another of atheism and irreligion, which is a much deeper. In these two extremes, of infidelity on one fide, and fuperftition on the other, true religion is loft, and, together with it, that peace and comfort, and ease of mind, which belong to it: for, view God from which of the two extremes you please, his appearance must be dreadful: you may fee him in the terrors of majesty and power; but the kinder rays which flow from his mercy and goodness and benevolence towards mankind, will be intercepted from your eyes.

The atheistical unbeliever, if ever he fo far forgets himself as to fuppofe the being of a God for a time, fees nothing of him but the judge and the avenger, and haftens back to his infidelity to skreen him from the wrath and justice, which even in imagination were infupportable. Superftition is fo perpetually encompaffed with a thick cloud of its own. fears and fufpicions, that it cannot difcern the beauties and holiness of the Creator: every frightful spectre, that walks in its own imagination, is miftaken for the Deity; and superstition adores it, as the wild Indians are faid to worship the Devil, not for love, but for fear. The cafe then being thus, that mankind is in a great measure robbed of the prefent comfort and pleasure of religion, either by infidelity or fuperftition; it is very well worth our while to, search into the causes that lead to this unhappiness, to see what it is that has corrupted this living spring,