secret wickedness, which the apprehensions of futurity alone supply, should be removed from the consciences of wicked men? No, you will say, God forbid that in any of these respects the salutary influence of law and religion on the welfare of the world should be done away. Why, then, let me ask, has not that religion, whose object and aim it is to enforce and enlarge all the relative duties of life, to increase the sum of human happiness in time and to perpetuate it in eternity, your decided countenance and support? Can any one of you-can the collected ingenuity of all put together, render a reason of any kind (for I will not call for a satisfactory one) of your neglect of religion.

But let me reason with you further. Are you not aware that all temporal blessings, that security of life and property, that the endearing relations of family and kindred, with all that sweetens the pilgrimage of this world to us poor, perishing creatures, depend for their whole value on the sanctions of religion. For, however wisely human laws may be contrived, however severely their penalties may be enforced, it is nevertheless to men's natural apprehensions of hereafter that they owe their chief power. The sanctity of an oath, on which the life, the property, the character, peace, and comfort of every man more or less depends, derives its whole importance from this, that verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth. And the penalty of death, the highest which human laws can inflict, derives its chief tenour from the apprehension in the criminal of what awaits him after death. Hence it follows, undeniably, that all neglect or contempt of religion is a public offence, inasmuch as it saps the foundations of social order, and tends directly to the downfall of all that is venerable and desirable in life; and every individual is just so far concerned in the prevalence and advancement of religion among mankind, as he is interested for life and property, for public peace and private repose.

Thus might I continue to reason with you, my friends, and unanswerably, too, even from teniporal considerations. What, then, ought to be the effect, when we extend our reasonings to those which are eternal; when we consider the awful perfections of Almighty God, the astonishing discoveries made to us

by revelation, the wonderful method of our redemption by his only Son becoming a sacrifice for our sins, with all the means provided for the renewal and sanctification of sinful creaturesand that it is our unspeakable privilege to be called to the knowledge of this grace, and to the hope of eternal life through sanctification of the SPIRIT and belief of the truth? Where can the shadow of a reason be found for indifference to such a lively hope, much more for contempt and opposition to what reason, revelation, and conscience unite in pressing upon us as our first duty, our highest and best interest? Let me reason with you a little further, my friends. Would the profession and practice of religion make you less valuable members of society ?-worse men, worse citizens, worse husbands and wives, worse parents and children, worse relations and friends? You cannot think so. Would they interfere with your progress and advancement in the present life? In no shape, whatever, unless, indeed, that advancement depended on unrighteous gain, or was sought for the sake of intemperate enjoyment; for religion requires us to deny ourselves of nothing but ungodliness and worldly lusts. Is it any hardship, is it, indeed, grievous to you to be true in your sayings, just in your dealings, merciful and compassionate to your fellow creatures, to do unto all men as ye would they should do unto you? Yet this is the law and the prophets. Is there any thing disgraceful or dishonourable in acknowledging your dependence upon your heavenly Father, in praising him for the abundance of his mercy and goodness, in worshipping his glorious majesty, in reverencing his boundless power and might, and in setting your hearts to obey his righteous laws? Yet to fear GoD and keep his commandments is the whole duty of man. Is there any thing discouraging in the hope of eternal life? Yet this is assured to the believer, and to the believer only, in the gospel of CHRIST. Oh, my hearers, what shall we say to these things? What is this world, and all its perishing vanities, to heaven and immortal glory? What will it profit you in the end if, for a portion of time, you give your souls in exchange? Thus you see that the reasonableness of religion is the great reproach of those who neglect it; for what doth the LORD thy GOD require of thee, O man, but to

do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? And thus might I continue to reason with you, my hearers, from the nature of right and wrong, from the conscience of your own minds, and from the agreement of both with God's revealed word. But as sufficient has been said to satisfy all who are not hardened against truth and reason, I shall pass on to the

II. Next head of my discourse, in which I proposed to point out to you the guilt and folly of neglecting the warnings of your conscience and the impressions made on your minds by the word of God, whether preached or read.

As it hath pleased God to remove the disability of our fallen condition so as to make us capable of religion, and this in a manner consistent with his own glorious perfections and our qualifications as intelligent, moral creatures, it follows that we have a part to perform in working out our own salvation. To understand what that part is should, therefore, be our first duty, and to perform it when known our most earnest endeavour. For the one, we must go to revelation, to the word which God in these last days hath spoken unto us by his Son; for the other, we must apply ourselves to the use of those means by which, GoD works in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Now, these means are, first, that clear discovery of his will concerning us, made in the Scriptures of our faith; next, the reason and conscience of our own minds; and, lastly, the help and power of his HOLY SPIRIT, by whose enlightening, sanctifying influences the two first become profitable to our eternal salvation; and the constant unvarying agreement of these three is a powerful proof that they are alike divine in their origin. Hence it follows that the guilt of neglecting, opposing, and stifling the warnings of the monitor within us, and of the impressions made upon our minds by the word of God, is precisely the guilt of rejecting the counsel of GOD against our own souls, perversely setting ourselves in opposition to his known will, slighting his promises, defying his threatenings, and daring his vengeance. And the folly of acting thus in a matter of such unspeakable importance as the loss or salvation of our immortal souls, is manfested by the following particulars :

First, all the helps and advantages we enjoy for the advance

ment of religion in our souls, are none of them of our own procuring, but the free gift of God's mercy to undeserving creatures; therefore, they are not at our command to come and go at our bidding. We are saved by grace.

Secondly, we are threatened with the loss of them if slighted or abused-From him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.

Thirdly, if deprived of them, all spiritual attainment is at an end-Without me, says our LORD, ye can do nothing.

If to these we add, that it is the very nature of sin persisted in, to harden the heart, and render men callous to reproof and admonition; that all habits are strengthened by indulgence; that our repentance and reformation must be completed in the short and uncertain period of the present life, we cannot but see that carelessness and neglect, thoughtlessness and delay in such a case, is not merely folly, but the frantic madness of despising our own mercies and provoking God to take them from us. And so great is our danger in this respect, that we are, above all other things, cautioned against grieving, quenching, and doing despite to the SPIRIT of grace. He that being often reproved hardeneth himself, shall suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy. For this cause GOD shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believe not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. And yet in defiance of danger, in despite of warnings, what multitudes set aside the invitations of the gospel, the reason of their own minds, the voice of conscience, and the affectionate reproofs and admonitions of God's HOLY SPIRIT. What numbers, like the poor Heathen mentioned in the text, say to the united testimony of GoD and nature, Go thy way for this time; when I have a more convenient season I will call for thee. What an epitome of human nature is this Roman governor! How exactly may every procrastinating, delaying sinner behold his own case in this particular trait of the character of Felix. How strikingly is the power of conscience. set before us in the alarm which this cruel and rapacious, this unjust and incontinent Heathen experienced while St. Paul reasoned with him of the consequences which must follow from the righteous judgment of GOD; and yet he had nothing but the

light of nature and the witness of his own spirit to testify of the reasonableness, truth, and certainty of the apostle's argument. If, then, the amount of all that the religion of the gospel requires of us is thus found written in our hearts by the finger of GODif the natural apprehensions of what his infinite justice, purity, and holiness demand from reasonable creatures are thus sufficient to alarm the guilty and show the sinner the folly of his ways, what power of language can express the madness of those who, to this universal testimony, have the clear and express declaration of the wrath of GOD revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness of men-the explicit knowledge that God hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness the awful assurance that eternal happiness or everlasting misery will follow that judgment, according as we have done good or evil-with the blessed promise of the HOLY SPIRIT to make effectual the natural powers and faculties wherewith God hath endowed them? Beloved, says the apostle, if our hearts condemn us-if the natural reason and conscience of our own minds bear witness against us, GoD is greater than our hearts and knoweth all things-he sees the secret springs and motives of all our conduct; he, therefore, sees deeper into our guilt, and must most surely condemn us.

Thus, my hearers, are we left without excuse every way. Even the plea of ignorance is taken from us; and deep must be the damnation of those who continue to turn a deaf ear to the warnings of conscience and the counsel of GoD by his word and SPIRIT.

The application of what we have said is both general and particular.

As we must all stand before the judgment seat of CHRIST, and shall receive according to the deeds done in the body, the consequences of that day should be uppermost in our thoughts and foremost in our endeavours; and as it hath pleased GoD to favour us with the rule which shall guide his righteous judgment, the award of that tribunal ought to be the test by which to try the worth of our wordly condition. Whatever our state in this life may be, whether high or low, rich or poor, bond or free, the duties belonging to it form the second great branch of VOL. II.-42