because the whole Christian dispensation is founded upon it; and because Christ himself died to confirm it; because, in short, he is a Christian. The heathen thought of doubting it; in fact, they never thought of it with certainty; and it is a full belief in this doctrine, as taught and proved by Jesus Christ, which, together with its proper effects, makes a man a Christian. If therefore the doctrine of immortality be our highest motive, consolation and hope, it takes the greatest share in enabling us to fulfil the design of God in our creation, by making ourselves virtuous and happy; that is to say, it is the most important doctrine of revelation. With this doctrine is connected that of equal rewards and punishments; our future state will be a state of exact retribution. Every good deed will produce its happy, and every bad deed, its evil influence upon our condition hereafter.

To believe that this principal doctrine, together with the others which have been mentioned, were revealed by one who proved by miracles, that he was commissioned to reveal them, and so to believe in them, that they shall have an operative influence upon the conduct, forms the Christian doctrine of faith. By this faith we are saved, because it makes us virtuous and happy. This explains the doctrine and the uses of faith, and closes our remarks upon the doctrines of revelation.

There are some other circumstances connected with revelation, which cannot be properly termed doctrines, such as prayer, and the two rites of baptism and the Lord's supper. But, as it is our great object to establish the position that every thing which regards revelation, that every particular of of the dealings of God with man, performs the sole and the noble office of assisting us in attaining moral perfection, and consequently happiness, we shall make a few remarks upon the above named particulars. We conceive then, that it is for their moral influence on character, that they are valuable, and were designed. We do not pray to Almighty God, because we expect to receive all the objects of our prayer. We know that we often ignorantly ask that which would prove an evil and a harm to us instead of a blessing; that we often ask what the Deity does not see fit to bestow. But the use of prayer is, to excite and to cherish those devout, humble, contrite, and grateful feelings, which will inake us worthy in a degree of receiving those good gifts which come down from above; that is to say, which will make us virtuous.

Of baptism we may say, that it has a tendency to produce virtue, by showing us that we ought to be virtuous. By external, it inculcates internal purification. It signifies, to use

the words of St. Peter, "the answer of a good conscience toward God;" the firm belief of the person baptized, that purity of heart and life is required from all the disciples of Christ. Upon adults this influence of the rite is immediate. Upon children it is produced mediately through the parents, who are laid under an obligation to do as much as they can in training them up in the way they should go.

By eating bread and drinking wine in the rite of the Lord's supper, it was designed that we should cherish a respectful and grateful remembrance of him, of all that he did and suffered for our good, and that we should be led by the dispositions thus excited to live as becomes his disciples.

Thus have we shown, that revelation, in all its parts and connexions, was expressly designed and given for the assistance of virtue-to make us holy as God is holy, and perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect; to furnish motives and means to the performance of duty, the obedience of God, the attainment of happiness; and we are now prepared to answer the question, What is Religion? Religion signifies the relations which subsist between God and man, and all the duties which result from that relation. Or we may say, religion comprehends the object of revelation, and the manner of effecting that object; and as the object of all revelation has been proved to be the advancement and security of virtue, and as the manner in which the Deity effects this object is, by giving us certain laws, which, if obeyed, will make us virtuous and happy, and certain motives and sanctions to assist us in obeying them-religion, in a more strictly practical sense, signifies that high, and steady, and thorough virtue, that moral purity and excellence, which is produced by a constant and habitual reference to these motives and sanctions. Religion says to us, "Do this and this, and you will be happy here and hereafter; if you will not do so, you will be neither." And, finally, a religious man is one who loves his neighbour as himself, and keeps himself unspotted from the world, because they are duties which he owes to his Maker, and because they are prompted by a regard to the interests of eternity; one who obeys God, because he is a God of mercy and love, and because God has, by the constitution of nature, annexed to his obedience the truest happiness in this world, and promised to it, in the gospel of his Son Jesus Christ, everlasting happiness in the world to come.

The subject which we have now finished, suggests a few remarks. We are led in the first place, to adore the goodness of God who has so graciously nianifested himself in all his

relations with his dependent creatures. By placing religion in the light in which we have now made it appear, we gain a most grateful and inspiring view of the character of the Deity, who, in all his dealings with man, pursues, and pursues alone, man's welfare and felicity. He has made our duty to be our interest, his service our delight, our virtue our gain, our improvement our glory. He has made the impulse of the heart the exercise of reason, the dearest office of the affections the noblest employment of the understanding, the desires of nature the decrees of heaven, the hope of man the promise of God. He has made the yoke of Christ the easiest which we can bear, the burthen of religion the lightest which we can carry. He has perfectly adapted his demands to our condition and our wants. He has intimately connected our expectations with our exertions, our assistances with our efforts, our supports with our labours, our consolations with our sufferings. This gracious course will experience no alteration; these benevolent designs will suffer no change. He has joined time and eternity together, he has made our condition in the next world to depend upon our conduct in this, our characters here to fix our destination there, the course which we run in this narrow world to give its impulse to the race of ages. While we contemplate such goodness, our hearts are full; we feel as if we would never be unworthy of it again, as if the perversity which could wilfully lift itself up against it, if it were not madness, was a vile outrage upon humanity.

We would remark, secondly, that the object of revelation supplies us with a test in judging of those doctrines which are said to be parts of it. That object, as we have seen, is our virtue and happiness. All the true doctrines of revelation have a moral tendency. If then a doctrine be offered as true, which cannot be perceived to possess any such tendency, it may fairly be suspected, and if it have an apparent and decided immoral tendency, it must be rejected; it is no part of reve lation; it did not come from God; scripture cannot contradict itself, and the whole tenor of scripture will be against it. Such a rejection will be demanded, by a regard for the holy volume which contains our faith, by every sentiment of right and wrong, by every good feeling which dwells in our bosoms, and by our gratitude to our Almighty Father who created us to be happy, and to find happiness only in a moral resemblance of himself.

The principles which we have laid down should calm the anxieties of those, whose minds are troubled and distressed concerning the particular creed which they should choose

among the various systems which claim for themselves the truth. If, having made patient and conscientious inquiry, we do not after all obtain the truth, or so much of it as others do, it is certainly our loss and our misfortune, but it cannot be our fault or our condemnation. Only this we may be sure of, that the better our faith is adapted to increase our virtue, the nearer does it approximate to perfect truth, for the better does it answer the design of God.

DAILY PRAYER.

THE Scriptures of the old and new Testaments agree in enjoining prayer. Let no man call himself a Christian, who lives without giving a part of life to this duty. We are not taught how often we must pray; but our Lord in teaching us to say, "Give us this day our daily bread," implies that we should pray daily. He has even said to us, "pray always;" an injunction to be explained indeed with that latitude which many of his precepts require, but which is not to be satisfied, we think, without regular and habitual devotion. As to the particular hours to be given to this duty, every Christian may choose them for himself. Our religion is too liberal and spiritual to bind us to any place or any hour of prayer. But there are parts of the day particularly favourable to this duty, and which if possible should be redeemed for it. On these we shall offer a few reflections.

The first of these periods is the morning, which even nature seems to have pointed out to men of different religions, as a fit time for offerings to the Divinity. In the morning our minds are not so much shaken by worldly cares and pleasures, as in other parts of the day. Retirement and sleep have helped to allay the violence of our feelings, to calm the feverish excitement so often produced by intercourse with men. The hour is a still one. The hurry and tumults of life are not begun, and we naturally share in the tranquillity around us. Having for so many hours lost our hold on the world, we can banish it more easily from the mind, and worship with less divided attention. This then is a favourable time for approaching the invisible Author of our being, for strengthening the intimacy of our minds with him, for thinking upon a future life, and for seeking those spiritual aids which we need in the labours and temptations of every day.

In the morning there is much to feed the spirit of devotion. It offers an abundance of thoughts, friendly to pious feeling. When we look on creation, what a happy and touching change do we witness. A few hours past, the earth was wrapt in gloom and silence. There seemed "a pause in nature." But now, a new flood of light has broken forth, and creation rises before us in fresher and brighter hues, and seems to rejoice as if it had just received birth from its Author. The sun never sheds more cheerful beams, and never proclaims more loudly God's glory and goodness, than when he returns after the coldness and dampness of night, and awakens man and inferior animals to the various purposes of their being. A spirit of joy seems breathed over the earth and through the sky. It requires little effort of imagination to read delight in the kindled clouds, or in the fields bright with dew. This is the time, when we can best feel and bless the Power which said, "let there be light;" which "set a tabernacle for the sun in the heavens," and made him the dispenser of fruitfulness and enjoyment through all regions.

If we next look at ourselves, what materials does the morning furnish for devout thought. At the close of the past day, we were exhausted by our labours, and unable to move without wearisome effort. Our minds were sluggish, and could not be held to the most interesting objects. From this state of exbaustion, we sunk gradually into entire insensibility. Our Jimbs became motionless; our senses were shut as in death. Our thoughts were suspended, or only wandered confusedly and without aim. Our friends, and the universe, and God himself were forgotten. And what a change does the morning bring with it! On waking we find, that sleep, the image of death, has silently infused into us a new life. The weary limbs are braced again. The dim eye has become bright and piercing. The mind is returned from the region of forgetfulness to its old possessions. Friends are met again with a new interest. We are again capable of devout sentiment, virtuous. effort, and Christian hope. With what subjects of gratitude then does the morning furnish us? We can hardly recal the state of insensibility from which we have just emerged, without a consciousness of our dependence, or think of the renovation of our powers and intellectual being, without feeling our obligation to God. There is something very touching in the consideration, if we will fix our minds upon it; that God thought of us when we could not think; that he watched over us when he had no power to avert peril from ourselves; that he continued our vital motions, and in due time broke the chains of