ments, embracing whatever is venerable in wisdom, awful in authority, and touching in goodness It borrows splendour from all that is fair, grows familiar with all that is great, and attracts to itself, as to a centre, whatever bears the impress of dignity, order, or happiness. The exclusion of the idea of the Supreme Being from an influence on our feelings and conduct, tends to degrade our moral sentiments, and despoil them of their dignity and lustre. Human nature will then acknowledge nothing bet

higher than itself. That admiration of perfect excellence, for which we are formed, finds nothing to cherish it; and our actions sink down to the level of that standard, which we habitually contemplate.

A similar effect must follow from refusing to allow the idea of a future life to exert an influence on our feelings and principles. Whatever veils a future world from our view, and contracts the limits of existence within the present life, must tend proportionably to diminish our sense of the dignity of our nature. There must be the greatest difference between the habitual views and feelings of a man, whose hopes and fears are all suspended on the present hour, and of one who believes that he is to survive the stroke of death, and live through the ages of eternity. This difference in their views must produce a difference in the character of their most ordinary actions. It will be seen most clearly on those occasions, which call for great exer

tions, and trying sacrifices of interest; and though it is true that these are not the ordinary business of life, yet that system is essentially defective, which leaves no room for their cultivation. At any rate, we may be sure from the mere principles of reason, that if there be verily a "God that judgeth in the earth;" they, whose characters have been formed only for this world, and this world's good, will not stand before his bar on equal terms with those, who by an habitual devotion to his will, and regard to the scenes of eternity, have prepared themselves for the society and employments of

heaven.

4.

SERMON III.

SAME SUBJECT CON TINUED.

HEB. XI. 6.

He that cometh to God, must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

THE author of the epistle to the Hebrews gives us in this passage a view of faith in its most simple and elementary form. God and futurity are represented as the great objects of it; and indeed under these comprehensive ideas, the truths which our Creator, in his various religious dispensations to mankind, has been pleased to reveal, may all be easily arranged. In discoursing from this passage in the morning, I endeavoured to show, that an habitual regard to these ideas, which constitute the essence and principle of religion, is necessary to our virtue here, and our acceptance with God hereafter. They are necessary, because without them a man must want the only genuine criterion and universal rule of virtuous conduct. Without

them his virtues cannot be founded on a solid and unchangeable basis; cannot be relied on in all cases as uniform and stable; will never reach the highest form of character of which our nature is capable, and which he who cometh to God must possess. This I endeavoured to prove, by showing the inadequacy of every rule of life, by which a man without a religious principle must form his character and govern his conduct. Let us now advance somewhat farther, and inquire, whether a man, whose actions are not influenced by a regard to the will of God, and the rewards of virtue in another life, will have any motive of sufficient efficacy to enforce a virtuous practice at all times, in all places, and under all circumstances. The subject then of this afternoon's discourse will be the comparative value of the motives to virtue, in a man, who is governed by a religious principle, and in one who discards or neglects it as useless.

The great difficulty and task of virtue is to make the consideration of the future predominate over the perception of the present. Our mental sight deceives us with regard to the value and desirableness of present objects, in the same manner as to the eye of a child, the shrub, which springs up under his feet, appears greater than the oak, whose majestic height and spreading branches are only dimly and indistinctly seen in the distant horizon. It is the power which present appearances of good possess, the power of sense over reason,

our animal over our spiritual nature, in which the strength of all our vicious propensities consists. No man deliberately chooses evil for its own sake, or a smaller before a greater good, when they are both equally within his reach. But we every day see examples of men, who choose a good, which they confess to be inferior, momentary, and even in its consequences injurious, only because it is immediately present to their senses. The great object then of virtue, is to balance this power of present allurements, by the rewards which it promises to self-denial,and by the clearness and force, with which it unfolds them. Now, when the consideration of a religious principle is discarded, morality is evidently reduced to a mere plan or expedient, adapted to our present situation; and of course is enforced by those motives alone, which arise from the prospects and interests of the present state. What then are those motives which without a religious principle are to aid us in this contest with present objects, and to become the conquering antagonists of the power of our senses? They are to be found in the hope of estimation and distinction among men, which virtue will procure; in the intrinsic pleasures of virtue, and the pangs of remorse, which vice produces; in the temporal advantages of virtue; and its beauty, and fitness and conformity to our nature.

1. The desire of the estimation and distinction, which, bad as the world is, virtue will usually pro