will be merely an universal Revival of Religion throughout the great family of Adam. As this, in unquestionable terms, is predicted by a Prophet of God; it will certainly come to pass.

2dly. This Revival will furnish a solid foundation of joy to the Universe.

It cannot but be a solid foundation of joy to the Universe to have even one of its inhabitants made better and happier. Whenever this change is extended to two, twenty, one thousand, or one million, the reasons for rejoicing are proportionally increased. At the period, which is the subject of this prophecy, an endless multitude of its inhabitants will be made wiser, better and happier, than before; and than, otherwise, they would be throughout eternity.

Rational minds are capable of being, indefinitely, the subjects of sin or holiness, and of misery or happiness, according to their own choice. If they choose sin; they choose with it misery, its inseparable companion. If they choose holiness; they ever find happiness, by its side. Piety, benevolence, and self-government, produce, by their own proper efficacy, blessings innumerable, both within and without us; and destroy the root, and stem, of bitterness, by whose fruits our minds are defiled, and our capacity for enjoyment converted into a mere cause of suffering.

Self-Government would annihilate, at once, all the evils of wrath, envy, malice, and revenge; of drunkenness, gluttony, lewdness, and sloth; together with their dreadful attendants, remorse, self-abhorrence, the fear of a future judgment, and the terrible alarms of an approaching retribution.

What blessings to others would the enlarged benevolence of the Gospel effectuate? How many quarrels and litigations, how . many slanders and frauds, how many treacheries and seductions, how many oppressions and persecutions, how many wars and ravages, would it banish in a moment? How soon would the rack, the wheel, and the faggot, be buried; the prison moulder into dust; the gibbet cease to frown on the shrinking passenger; and the furnace kindle its flames no more for the victims of cruelty and pride.

Delighted with this prospect, Piety, bending the knee of devotion, lifting up her meek and humble eyes toward heaven, and

raising her hands to the Throne of Mercy, would call down upon the reviving world a shower of blessings from Him, who hath not said to the house of Jacob, "Seek ye my face in vain."

Such, my brethren, will hereafter be the actual state of things, before this earthly system shall be completed. All these horrors will hereafter cease. The sword will one day be beaten into a plough-share, and the spear into a pruning-hook. Trophies will one day rise, no more on the bones of the vanquished, and laurels be nourished no more by the blood of man. Every land, like the land of promise, will be employed, not during a few, momentary national Festivals, but from age to age, in the worship of Jehovah; and no man shall desire, or invade, it, while the inhabitants go up to appear before the Lord.

Nor will the internal state of each nation be less safe, and happy. Rulers, under the influence of this principle, will rule justly, and in the fear of God. Of course they will be beneficent as the light of the morning, even a morning without clouds; and as the clear shining of the sun after rain upon the tender herb of the field. First in station, they will be first in worth; in virtue; in piety: and while they will cease to be a terror, because none will do evil, they will be the praise of all, because all will do well.

In towns and cities also, the Theatre will cease to entice, corrupt, and destroy, the thoughtless crowd of victims to sense and sin. The Brothel will no more hang out the sign of pollution, and perdition, to allure infatuated wretches into the path, which goes down to the chambers of death. The dram-shop will no longer solicit the surrender of reason, duty, and salvation, to drunkenness and brutality. Night will no more draw her great curtain over those felon sins, which, like spirits from the abyss, have hitherto haunted and terrified this miserable world.

In the family also, no drunken, lewd, or cruel husband; no false, abandoned wife; no rebellious, graceless, debauched child; will murder domestic peace, comfort, or hope; nor present the prospect of a relation, dear and tenderly beloved, ripening for the wrath to come. The morning will no more dawn; the evening will no more descend; the sabbath will no more return; without the return of the daily sacrifice, without the rising of sweet incense to the heavens.

The wretched, forsaken wanderer will then find a home. The heart of charity will be cold, and her hand closed, no more. Strangers, by this new, alchymical process, will be converted into neighbours, and enemies into friends..

In the place of all the sins, and horrors, of this dismal world, peace, descending from Heaven, will bush every tumult, and every storm. Joy will smile, and triumph, at her side and love will scatter in her path unceasing and unnumbered blessings for all people.

The picture, which has here been drawn of this divine subject, is faint and faded, when compared with the colours, in which the prospect has been exhibited by the Evangelical Prophet. "Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee; I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations. Thou shalt also suck the milk of Gentiles; and shalt be fostered at the breast of kings. And thou shalt know, that I, the Lord, am thy Saviour, and thy Redeemer, the Mighty one of Jacob. For brass I will bring gold; and for iron I will bring silver; and for wood brass; and for stones iron: I will also make thine officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness. Violence shall no more be heard in thy land; wasting, nor destruction, within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise. The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Thy people also shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land forever: the branch of my planting; the work of my hands; that I may be glorified. A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation. I the Lord will hasten it in its time."

Is there not here, my brethren, a solid foundation of joy to every rational being? In what do we, in what ought we, to rejoice, but in real, extensive, and permanent good. Here the good is all real; exquisite; diffused over the earth; and extended through eternity. The world, no longer a world of sin, disgrace, and woe, becomes a world of virtue, glory, and happiness; and is changed from a desert into a paradise. Its inhabitants re

nounce their sin; escape from ruin; and are anew destined to never-ending improvement, exaltation, and transport.

3dly. From these observations it follows also that the same things are partially true of every Revival of Religion.

Every Revival of Religion is of the same nature with this great and general one: the difference between this and others being only in degree. Religion, at the present time, is less extended, and less vigorous, than it will be at the glorious era, which we have been contemplating. Still, so far as it actually exists, it is to be regarded with the same emotions. Every such Revival is, therefore, a solid foundation of joy to all the rational creatures of God.

There is joy in Heaven; in saints, in angels, and in God Himself; over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, who need no repentance. That benevolent and happy world experiences new sensations of delight, throughout all its extended regions, at the return of a single apostate. Every face wears a new smile of complacency; and every heart glows with an exquisite addition to its own immortal joys.

What then must be the texture of that mind, which, here on earth, is not warmed to rapture at the sight of a sinner, raised from death, and restored to life, virtue and happiness? How would you feel, my brethren, if you beheld the escape of the same man from a disease, which doomed him to languish and suffer while he lived; from an imprisonment in a dungeon whose doors were never opened, unless to yield its inhabitants to the gibbet; from slow sufferings on the rack, which were to terminate only in the grave? Would you not hail the marvellous return of health to the hopeless patient; of liberty, proclaimed to the wretched prisoner; and of ease, hope and safety, to the friendless, agonizing captive? Would you not rejoice in his joy ; exult in his exultation; and mingle smiles and transports, with his?

How much nobler a cause of exultation is furnished by the conversion of a sin er to God? Before, he was an apostate; a rebel; an unbeliever; an outcast; fixed in immoveable sin, and condemned to hopeless ruin. But the apostate has become a

penitent; the infidel a disciple of Christ; the rebel a child of God; the out-cast an heir of the Universe Sin shall no more regain its power over his mind. Virtue has ascended the throne; and will reign over him with a dominion, which shall increase and improve forever.

Do you claim to be regarded as patriots; and to love the prosperity of your country? And can you be indifferent to the wellbeing of a world? Shall angels smile, and glow, and join their songs of rapture, upon the salvation of a dying soul? And can men, the brethren of the ruined and redeemed captive, refuse to unite in the joy? Can earth be senseless, stupid and dead, at a sight, which moves all Heaven to its centre ?

There are, my brethren; there are in this land; men, who oppose, decry, and ridicule, Revivals of Religion. Few, perhaps none, of these persons profess to direct their hostility against Religion. A Revival of Religion is, in their view, or at least in their declarations, false phraseology; and not descriptive of the fact, to which it is ordinarily applied. Enthusiasm, and Fanaticism, are the names, under which their opposition is carried on, and by the aid of which they appear to think it justifiable. Let me ask these persons; Are you sure, that this opinion is just? Have you any satisfactory evidence, that, in your designs, Enthusiasm, only, is aimed at ; and that you intend no hostility against Religion itself? Should this be the fact; have you ascertained, that that, against which you contend, is, in the given case, not Religion, but Enthusiasm He, who may be found fighting against Gd, ought, certainly, to be well assured, that a conflict, upon which he is about to enter, is not of this tremendous nature. Where there is a visible concern for the interests of the soul; where men are heard to ask, what they shall do to be saved; there is, certainly, the appearance of Religion: and, where there is the appearance, there may be the reality. Suppose then, that amid much Enthusiasm, and many delusions, there should be some real piety; that among multitudes, who in what is called a Revival of Religion are anxious about their salvation, a single man should become a genuine convert, and actually embrace the offers of eternal life. This, certainly, is supposing the least; and less,