in consideration of some voluntary exertion substituted by himself in the place of the positive order?

To the Christian, the Sacraments must appear positively commanded; and will disobedience to the command be compensated by prudential and virtuous manners in the common conduct of life? on the contrary, will not such disobedience vitiaté a course of behaviour, in other respects, as far as men can see, pure and good? We must not form our conduct solely with a view to the world's appro bation, but the approbation of the Deity; and the Deity, it is probable, must be particularly offended with disobedience to a direct order. To be capa ble of disobeying God, when the command is clear, argues a mind very little inclined to morality in the ordinary transactions of human intercourse.

But it is unjust to affirm, that the Sacrament is merely a positive duty, unconnected with morality. It requires great virtues, faith, hope, charity, and humility, for its worthy reception. It requires a frame of mind favourable to every virtue which improves and embellishes society. It cannot be received without an abhorrence of every injurious quality, and a disposition to every thing laudable. The worthy reception of it is not merely a means of virtue, but a virtue in itself of the highest order. Wranglers may dispute on the comparative value of positive and moral duties; but the man who is a worthy Communicant, will act in such a manner as

to leave his goodness and virtue in social life, a matter which admits of no controversy.

For the sake, however, of those who puzzle themselves with the intricacies of disputation concerning positive and moral duties, instead of acting from the sentiments of a good and simple heart, I will add a passage from Dr. Waterland; from which it will appear that the obligation to positive duties is as strong as to moral :

"If," says he," God's command in moral du» ties constitute duty and virtue, then, of conse quence, God's command in matters of a positive nature constitutes duty and virtue also; and, there. fore, our obedience in either case, resolves into the same principle, and has the same common ground of obligation. God's reasons for commanding may be different; but our reasons for obeying are the same. Reasons of the law are one thing: and reasons of the obligation are another. A law should not want its reasons; but yet it is the law, and not those reasons, that creates the obligation; for the law would oblige, though we knew nothing of the reasons on which it is founded. Positive duties, therefore, and moral are alike obligatory, as enjoined by the same authority and enforced by the same sanctions. Both proceed from the same infinite Goodness, and both lead to the same infinite happi ness; which is sufficient to infer equal obligation, when other circumstances are equal. Moral du

ties arise from the will or command of God, founded on the known and standing reason of things; positive duties, from the will or command of God, founded on occasional reasons, known perhaps to God alone. In moral laws we see the reasons first, and by these we come at the knowledge of the law; which method of investigation has probably occasioned the mistake of supposing the reasons obligatory antecedently to the law, though they are proofs only, that there is and must be a law suitable ; in positive laws we know the laws first, and afterwards the reasons, so far as we at all know them; and so no body suspects an obligation prior to the laws.”

Therefore, (to proceed with the same excellent man's sentiments, if not exactly in his words,) let religion and morality go hand in hand. Let not faith be opposed to morality, nor morality to faith. Let not moral duties be extolled to the neglect of positive; nor positive to the neglect of moral. Let God be loved in the first place; and men for God's sake, as God has ordained. Let the Christian Sacraments be held in due esteem as divine ordinances, and as the springs of the spiritual life productive of moral virtues and perfective of them. Lastly, let all extremes be avoided, and the true medium fixed between enthusiasm and superstition on one hand, and irreligion or prophaneness on the other; so that all may terminate in glory to God and good-will to man.

SECTION XIX.

The Preservation of Solemnity in external Worship, the observation of ritual Ordinances, and even of indifferent Ceremonies, conducive, in a high Degree, to the salutary Purposes of Religion.

THE majority of mankind are so constituted, as to render it difficult to teach them spiritual things without sensible images. It is not, indeed, desirable, that any nation should consist entirely of Philosophers; the plough, the loom, the mill, the hammer, the ax, the waggon and the ship, would stand still, if all men were capable of, and addicted to refined contemplation. But those who are employed in the mechanical works of agriculture and merchandize, are no less interested in religious doctrines, as far as they are effective of salvation, than the professors of an university. To the multitude, it is highly useful, or rather necessary, that there should be public buildings appropriated to divine service, and rites and ceremonies established in them; with objects palpable to their senses, actions strikingly expressive, even decorous vestments, differing a little from those in common use, and every thing else that can fix the attention to the main business; to the officers of devotion and the lessons of instruction. Indeed, whatever intellec

tual pride may suggest, all men, however improved, are susceptible of great and desirable effects from the external ceremonies of religion. It has pleased Providence to make the avenues to the soul lead through the organs of sensation.

Those who dissent from the established Church, however far they have thought proper to recede from the vanity of Roman catholic ceremony, yet retain some solemnities in their external modes of worship, calculated to inspire a religious reverence. Their ministers wear black garments; they have edifices set apart for worship, and several of them administer the sacrament of the Lord's Supper with great solemnity. The Quakers, who recede in these points the farthest from us, meet in places appropriated, and yet retain a very remarkable distinction of dress at all times, and add something to it, I believe, when the female instructress delivers her admonitions to the congregation. But if this were not the case, their exception would not contravene the decisions of a great majority of mankind in favour of ceremonies, in all ages and in every climate. It is the voice of Nature that approves them; and revelation has not prohibited but encouraged them, especially by the examples recorded in the Old Testament. I hope, therefore, that no man will think himself a promoter of religion, and benefactor of society, by divesting the rites of the Christian religion, which remain among the re