wretch led back to his cell,-dragg'd out of it again to meet the flames,-and the infults in his laft agonies, which this principle—this principle that there can be religion without morality, has prepared for him.

The fureft way to try the merit of any difputed notion,-is to trace down the confequences fuch a notion has produced, and compare them with the Spirit of Christianity.

Tis the fhort and decifive rule, which our Saviour has left for thefe and fuch like cafes, -and is worth a thoufand arguments." By "their fruits," fays he, "ye fhall know them.”

Thus religion and morality, like faft friends and natural allies, can never be fet at variance, without the mutual ruin and difhonour of them both; and whoever goes about this unfriendly office, is no well-wifher to either, -and whatever he pretends, he deceives his own heart, and, I fear, his morality, as well as his religion, will be vain.

I will add no farther to the length of this difcourfe, than by two or three fhort and independent rules, deducible from what has been faid..

lft, Whenever a man talks loudly against religion, always fufpect that it is not his reafon, but his paffions which have got the better of his creed.-A bad life and a good belief are difagreeable and troublesome neighbours, and where they feparate, depend upon it, 'tis for no other caufe but quietnefs fake. 2dly, When a man thus reprefented, tells you in any particular inftance, that fuch a

thing goes against his confcience,-always believe he means exactly the fame thing as when he tells you fuch a thing goes against his ftomach, a prefent want of appetite being generally the true caufe of both.

In a word, truft that man in nothing,who has not a confcience in every thing.

And in your own cafe remember this plain diftinction, a mistake which has ruin'd thoufands-That your confcience is not a law;no,-God and reafon made the law, and has placed Confcience within you to determine,

not like an Afiatic Cadi, according to the ebbs and flows of his own paffions; but like a British judge in this land of liberty, who makes no new law, but faithfully declares that glorious law which he finds already written.

SERMON XXVIII.

TEMPORAL ADVANTAGES OF RELIGION.

PROVERBS, III. 17.

Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.

THERE are two opinions which the inconfiderate are apt to take upon truft.-The first is-a vicious life, is a life of liberty, pleasure, and happy advantages.-The fecond is-and which is the converfe of the firft-that a religious life is a fervile and most uncomfortable ftate.

The firft breach which the devil made upon human innocence, was by the help of the firft of thefe fuggeftions, when he told Eve, that by eating of the tree of knowledge, fhe fhould

be as God, that is, fhe fhould reap fome high and ftrange felicity from doing what was forbidden her. But I need not repeat the fuccefs-Eve learnt the difference between good and evil by her tranfgreffion, which the knew not before--but then the fatally learnt at the fame time, that the difference was only this -that good is that which can only give the mind pleasure and comfort--and that evil is that, which muft neceffarily be attended fooner or later with fhame and forrow.

As the deceiver of mankind thus began his triumph over our race-fo has he carried it

on

on ever fince by the very fame argument of delufion. That is, by poffeffing men's minds early with great expectations of the prefent incomes of fin,-making them dream of wondrous gratifications they are to feel in following their appetites in a forbidden way -making them fancy, that their own grapes yield not fo delicious a tafte as their neighbour's, and that they fhall quench their thirst with more pleasure at his fountain, than at their own. This is the opinion which at first too generally prevails-till experience and proper feafons of reflection make us all at one time or other confefs→→→ that our counfellor has been (as from the beginning) an impoftor-and that inftead of fulfilling thefe hopes of gain and sweetness in what is forbidden- that, on the contrary, every unlawful enjoyment leads only to bitterness and lofs.

The fecond opinion, or, That a religious life is a fervile and uncomfortable state, has proved a no less fatal and capital falfe principle in the conduct of unexperience through life-the foundation of which miftake arifing chiefly from this previous wrong judgment-that true happiness and freedom lye in a man's always following his own humour-that to live by moderate and prefcribed rules, is to live without joy-that not to profecute our paffions is to be cowardsand to forego every thing for the tedious diftance of a future life.

Was it true, that a virtuous man could have no pleasure but what should arife from

that

that remote profpect-I own we are by nature fo goaded on by the defire of present happiness, that was that the cafe, thousands would faint under the difcouragement of fo remote an expectation.-But in the mean time the Scriptures give us a very different profpect of this matter.-There we are told that the fervice of God is true liberty-that the yoke of Chriftianity is eafy, in comparifon of that yoke which must be brought upon us by any other fyftem of living, and the text tells of wifdom-by which he means Religion, that it has pleasantnefs in its way, as well as glory in its end-that it will bring us peace and joy, fuch as the world cannot give. So that upon examining the truth of this affertion, we fhall be fet right in this error, by feeing that a religious man's happinefs does not ftand at fo tedious a distancebut is fo prefent, and indeed fo infeparable from him, as to be felt and tafted every hour --and of this even the vicious can hardly be infenfible, from what he may perceive to fpring up in his mind, from any cafual act of virtue. And though it is a pleasure that properly belongs to the good-yet let any one try the experiment, and he will fee what is meant by that moral delight arifing from the confcience of well-doing.-Let him but refresh the bowels of the needy-let him comfort the broken-hearted-or check an appetite, or overcome a temptation-or receive an affront with temper and meeknefsand he fhall find the tacit praise of what he has done, darting through his mind, accom7

panied