regard, not merely the performance of the duty, but likewise the person who is entitled to receive it. Without entering into considerations of this sort, it is impossible to fulfil the relations of life. Few persons, I apprehend, are prepared to maintain, that, provided in a certain number of instances we are obedient and submissive, it is a matter of indifference whether it be, or be not, our parents and superiors whom we thus honour that, provided we exercise a certain quantity of kindness and affection, it is of no moment whether our love is bestowed on our children and relations, or on persons with whom we have no connexion: that provided we but distribute a certain quantity of money, it is a matter of little or no importance, whether we have paid our creditors, or squandered what belonged to them, on those to whom we were not indebted whether our alms have been given to the poor, the destitute, and the deserving, or to the first that happened to solicit our assistance. The moral character of an action depends on the motives and intention

of him who does it. The same action will be either virtuous or vicious, as it is performed with a regard or disregard of justice. Duties become crimes when we are careless to what persons we discharge them. To be obedient, honest, benevolent, and affectionate, after so reckless a sort, is, in reality, to be rebellious, dishonest, cruel, and devoid of natural affections.

Surely, then, my brethren, it needs but little argument to prove, that our highest duty to our Creator is only then discharged, when it is to him and not to another we discharge it. Even although we may have made no mistake in the object of our worship, yet, if we count the possibility of such a mistake a matter of little or of no concern, is not this carelessness in itself impiety? Does it not transform an act of duty into a positive crime? Must it not render our most solemn sacrifice an abomination in his eyes, who will be worshipped "in spirit and in truth 1," and requires the concentration of our affections as the fire

1 John iv. 24.

He who bestows

which is to be kindled on his altars 1." To love and fear God above all other beings, is the first principle of religion. It is no more than is due to our Creator. It can be due to no one else. it on any other being, is certainly not more unjust, than he who refuses to give it to Him to whom it is due; nor, as far as I can see, at all more guilty than those, who affect to look on the matter as one of little

practical concern. And this is equally

true, whatever becomes of the evidence of the doctrine. The catholic church, in its solemn adoration of the eternal Trinity, is either right or wrong. If it be wrong, it is guilty of gross idolatry. If right, they who refuse to join in that worship are guilty of impiety. But, to decide whether it be right or wrong, must ever be a question of the highest possible interest and importance, as long as religious worship is a duty, and idolatry a crime.

2. But, I observe in the next place, that the doctrine of the Trinity cannot be an

1 Deut. vi. 5.

unimportant speculation, because the belief or disbelief of it involves the security of all revealed truth, and of all Christian morality.

It is impossible to reject the doctrine of the Trinity without rendering insecure all revealed truth, nay, I fear not to say, without forsaking it altogether. For, it is not merely true that this is a key-stone, and, therefore, cannot be removed without endangering the whole fabric of divine revelation. So far is unquestionable. When once the doctrine of the Trinity is denied, the steps are but few and easy to that deism which rejects revelation altogether. All the peculiar doctrines of Christianity; the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ; his preexistence; his miraculous birth, and his atonement; the deity, personality, and sanctifying operation of the Holy Ghost; the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures; the existence of angels and spirits; the existence of the devil; the eternal punishment of a world to come; the existence of the soul after death;-all these particulars of revealed religion are so impli

cated and linked together, that it is impossible for any man to reject one, without weakening his belief in all the others. Infidelity is a disease, which never ends at the place where it has begun. It is a gradual process of moral and intellectual obscuration and, consequently, the man who has ventured to deny the doctrine of the Trinity, will depart further and further from the truth, just in proportion as he understands the force of his own arguments, or has hardihood to follow out his principle to the utmost limit of its absurdity and presumption.

But, long before a man has arrived at this extremity, and even supposing that he never should go the whole length of systematic deism, he has, in point of fact, lost all just perceptions of divine truth. We are in absolute ignorance of the nature of God, except so far as he has himself been pleased to inform us of his incomprehensible majesty and perfections. Nor have we any explanation whatever of the mysteries with which we are surrounded, or any discoveries of our destiny, and our con