promote the happiness of his people, every thing is done that is requisite, his grace is all-sufficient, his spirit is able to conduct us through this vale of tears, to never-fading bliss.

We should also remember, that the great doctrine of the gospel, concerning the propitious mercy of God to all penitents through Christ Jesus, greatly contributes to the consolation of christians. Let it be granted, that the hope of pardon is essential to the religion of fallen creatures, and one of its first principles, yet, considering the doubts and suspicions which are apt to arise in a mind conscious of guilt, it is undoubtedly a great, and inestimable favour, to be relieved in this respect, by a messenger from omnipotence himself. This is our happiness. We are not left to depend upon consequential reasonings, which the bulk of mankind are little used to; but we are assured, that upon our true repentance, we shall, through the mediation of Christ," receive the "full remission of past sins," and be restored to the same state and favour with our Maker, as if we had never transgressed his laws. Here the gospel triumphs. With these assurances it abounds. Upon this head the declaration of our blessed Saviour and his Apostles are so express and full, that every one who believes them, and knows himself to be a true penitent, must banish every doubt and fear, and rejoice with joy unspeakable. "Come unto me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Matt. xi. 28. "All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men." Matt. xi. 31. "Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins; and by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which we could not be justified by the law of Moses." Acts xiii. 38, 39. "The blood of Jesus cleanseth from all sin." What grace and favour is this! Who can dwell upon the transporting theme too long! Now our way is plain before us, and

the burden we are to bear is made easy. Our sins are pardonable, if repented of and forsaken.

Consider this, all ye who have never yet regarded religion, but pursued a course of vice and sensuality all your lives long. Though your conduct has been base, to the last degree, your case is not desperate. Far from it. The God whom you have so highly offended commiserates your errors, is ever ready to extend his pardoning mercy to his most degenerate creatures, upon their faith and repentance, and is in Christ Jesus reconciling the world to himself, not imputing_unto penitent sinners their trespasses. Let the wicked, therefore, forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.". Isaiah Iv. 7.

Another particular, which renders the christian religion delightful is, its leading us to the perfect, eternal life of heaven. It cannot be denied, but that we may draw from the light of nature strong presumptions of a future state. The present existence does not look like an entire scene, but rather like the infancy of human nature, which is capable of arriving at a much higher degree of maturity; but whatever solid foundation the doctrine of a future state may have, in nature and reason, certain it is, through the habitual neglect of reflection, and the force of irregular passions, this doctrine was before the coming of our blessed Saviour, very much disfigured, and, in a great measure, lost among

the sons of men.

In the heathen world, a future state of rewards and punishments, was a matter of mere speculation and uncertainty, sometimes hoped for, sometimes doubted of, and sometimes absolutely denied. The law of Moses, though of divine origin al, is chiefly enforced by promises of temporal blessings; and, even in the writings

of the prophets, a future immortality is very sparingly mentioned, and obscurely represented: but the doctrine of our Saviour hath brought life and immortality to light. In the gospel we have a distinct account of another world, attended with many engaging circumstances; about which the decisions of reason were dark and confused. We have the testimony of the author of our religion, who was raised from the dead, and who afterwards, in the presence of his disciples, ascended into heaven. In the New Testament it is expressly declared, that good men, "" when absent from the body, are present with the Lord." Here we are assured of the resurrection of the body in a glorious form, clothed with immortal vigour, suited to the active nature of the animating spirit, and assisting its most enlarged operations and incessant progress towards perfection. Here we are assured, that "the righteous shall go into life everlasting;" that they shall enter into the kingdom of the heavenly Canaan, where no ignorance shall cloud the understanding, no vice disturb the will. In these regions of perfection, nothing but love shall possess the soul; nothing but gratitude employ the tongue; there the righteous shall be united to an innumerable company of angels, and to the general assembly and church of the first-born; there they shall see their exalted Redeemer, at the right hand of Omnipotence, and sit down with him on his throne; there they shall be admitted into the immediate presence of the supreme fountain of life and happiness, and beholding his face, be changed into the same image, from glory to glory-Here language-here imagination fails me! It requires the genius, the knowledge, and the pen of an angel, to paint the happiness, the blissful scene of the New Jerusalem, which human eyes cannot behold, till this mortal body shall be purified from its corruption, and dressed in the robes of immortality: " eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart to conceive,

the joys which God hath prepared for them that love him."

What is the heaven of the heathens, compared with the heaven of the christians? The hope, the prospect of this, is sufficient to reconcile us to all the difficulties that may attend our progress, sweeten all our labours, alleviate every grief, and silence every murmur.

But why, says the libertine in the gaiety of his heart, should there be any difficulties, or restraint at all? God hath made nothing in vain. The appetites he hath planted in the human breast are to be gratified. To deny or restrain them, is ignominious bondage; but to give full scope to every desire and passion of the heart, without check or control, is true manly freedom.

In opposition to this loose and careless way of reasoning, let it be considered, that the liberty of a rational creature doth not consist in an entire exemption from all control, but in following the dictates of reason, as the governing principle, and in keeping the various passions in due subordination. To follow the regular notion of those affections which the wise Creator hath implanted within us, is our duty: but as our natural desires, in this state of trial, are often irregular, we are bound to restrain their excesses, and not to indulge them, but in a strict subserviency, to the integrity and peace of our minds, and to the order and happiness of human society established in the world. Those who allow the supreme command to be usurped by sensual and brutal appetites, may promise themselves liberties, but are truly and absolutely the servants of corruption. To be vicious, is to be enslaved. We behold with pity those miserable objects that are chained in the gallies, or confined in dark prisons and loathsome dungeons: but much more abject and vile is the slavery of the sinner! No slavery of the body is equal to the bondage of the mind: no chains press so closely, or gall so cruelly, as the fetters of sin, which cor

rode the very substance of the soul, and fret every faculty.

It must, indeed, be confessed, that there are some profligates so hardened by custom, as to be past all feeling; and, because sensible of their bondage, boast of this insensibility as a mark of their native freedom, and of their happiness. Vain men! they might extol, with equal propriety, the peculiar happiness of an apoplexy, or the profound tranquillity of a lethargy.

Thus have we endeavoured to place, in a plain and conspicuous light, some of the peculiar excellencies of the chrisian religion; and, from hence, many useful reflections will naturally arise in the mind of every attentive reader. It is the religion of Jesus that hath removed idolatry and superstitions, and brought immortality to light, when concealed under the veil of darkness almost impenetrable. This hath set the great truths of religion in a clear and conspicuous point of view, and proposed new and powerful motives to influence our minds, and to determine our conduct.Nothing is enjoined to be believed, but what is worthy of God, nothing to be practised, but what is friendly to man.All the doctrines of the gospel are rational and consistent: all its precepts are truly wise, just, and good. The gospel contains nothing grievous to an ingenuous mind: it debars us from nothing, but doing harm to ourselves, or to our fellow-creatures; and permits us to range any where, but in the paths of danger and destruction. It only requires us to act up to its excellent commands, and to prefer to the vanishing pleasure of sin, the smiles of a reconciled God, and "an eternal weight of glory." And is this a rigorous exaction, a heavy burden not to be endured? How can sinful mortals harbour so unworthy a thought?

Surely no man who is a real friend to the cause of virtue, and to the interest of mankind, can ever be an enemy of christianity,

if he truly understands it, and seriously reflects on its wise and useful tendency. It conducteth us to our journey's end, by the plainest and securest path; where the "steps are not straightened, and where he that runneth stumbleth not." Let us who live under this last, and most gracious dispensation of God to mankind," count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord," and not suffer ourselves, by the slight cavils of unbelievers, to be "moved away from the hope of the gospel." Let us demonstrate that we believe the superior excellency of the christian dispensation, by conforming to its precepts. Let us shew that we are christians in deed, and in truth; not by endless disputes about trifies, and the transports of a blind zeal, but by abounding in those fruits of righteousness, which are, through Christ, to the praise and glory of God."

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· From what has been said, we may clearly perceive how groundless all those prejudices are, which some conceive against religion, as if it was a peevish, morose scheme, burdensome to human nature, and inconsis. tent with the true enjoyments of life. Such sentiments are too apt to prevail in the heat of youth, when the spirits are brisk and lively, and the passions warm and impetuous; but it is wholly a mistake, and a mistake of the most dangerous tendency. The truth is, there is no pleasure like that of a good conscience; no real peace but what results from a sense of the divine favour. This enables the mind, and can alone support it under all the various and unequal scenes of the present state of trial. This lays a sure foundation of an easy, comfortable life, of a serene, peaceful death, and of an eternal joy and happiness hereafter; whereas vice is ruinous to all our most valuable interests: spoils the native beauty, and subverts the order of the soul; renders us the scorn of man, the rejected of God, and, without timely repentance, will rob us of a happy eternity. Religion is the health, the liberty, and the

happiness of the soul; sin is the disease, the servitude, and the destruction of it.

If this be not sufficient to convince you, let me lead you into the chamber of an habitual rioter, the lewd debauchee, worn out in the cause of iniquity, "his bones full of the sins of his youth," that from his own mouth, as he lies on his expiring bed, you may learn that "the way of transgression is hard;" and that, however sweet sin may be in the commission, "it strikes like a serpent, and bites like an adder."

I am going, reader, to represent to you the last moments of a person of high birth and spirit; of great parts and strong passions; every way accomplished, but unhappily attached to those paths which lead to vice and destruction.

His unkind treatment was the death of a most amiable wife: and his monstrous extravagance, in effect, disinherited his only child. And surely the death-bed of a profligate, is next in horror to that abyss to which it leads. It has the most of hell that is visible upon earth, and he that hath seen it has more than faith to confirm him in his creed. I see it now, says the worthy divine from whom I shall borrow this relation, for who can forget it? Are there in it no flames and furies? You are ignorant then of what a secret imagination can figure! what a guilty heart can feel! How dismal it is! The two great enemies of soul and body, sickness and sin, sink and confound his friends; silence and darkness are the dismal scene. Sickness excludes the light of heaven, and sin its blessed hope. Oh, double darkness more than Egyptian! acute to be felt!

The sad evening before the death of that noble youth, whose last hours suggested these thoughts, I was with him. No one else was there but his physician, and an intimate acquaintance, whom he loved, and whom he had ruined. At my coming he said,

"You and the physician are come too late. I have neither life nor hope. You No. 18.

both aim at miracles. You would raise the dead."

Heaven, I said, was merciful,

"Or I could not, answered he, have been thus guilty. What has it not done to bless, and to save me?-I have been too strong for Omnipotence. I plucked down ruin."

I said, the blessed Redeemer

"Hold, hold, said he, you wound me! This is the rock on which I have split! I denied his naine."

Refusing to hear any thing from me, or take any thing from the physician, he lay silent, as far as sudden darts of pain would permit till the clock struck. Then he cried out with vehemence, "Oh time! time! It is fit thou shouldst thus strike the murderer to the heart.-How art thou fled, for ever! -A month -Oh, for a single week! I ask not for years, though an age were too little for the much I have to do."

You may still hope, How madly have

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"No, said he, stay. -therefore hear me. I talked ?-How madly hast thou listened and believed? But look on my present state, as a full answer, to thee and to myself. This body is all weakness and pain; but my soul, as if stung up by torment, to greater strength and spirit, is full powerful to reason; full mighty to suffer. And that which thus triumphs within the joys of mortality, is doubtless immortal. And as for a Deity, nothing less than an almighty could inflict the pains I feel."

I was about to congratulate this passive, involuntary confession, in his asserting, the two prime articles of his creed, extorted by the rack of nature; when he thus very passionately added,

"No, no! let me speak on. I have not long to speak.-My much injured friend! My soul, as my body, lies in ruins; in scattered fragments, of broken thought; remorse for the past, throws my thoughts on the future. Worse dread of the future strikes it back on the past. I turn, and turn, and find no ray. Didst thou feel half the mountain that is on me, thou wouldest struggle with the martyr for his stake, and bless heaven for the flame that is not an everlasting flame: that is not an unquenchable fire."

him) arose, this gay, young, noble, ingenious, accomplished, and most wretched mortal, expired.

It must, indeed, be owned it sometimes happens, that men who have led very wick-' ed lives, have gone out of the world as they have lived in it, defying conscience, and deriding a future judgment as an idle fiction: but these instances are very rare, and only prove that there are monsters in the moral, as well as the natural world.

vice and riot have pleasure in sensual inIt will perhaps be said, that the sons of dulgences. Allowed; but it is altogether of the lower kind, of the lower kind, empty, fleeting and transcient: "like the cracking of thorns under a pot, so is the mirth of the wicked." It makes a noise and a blaze for the present; but soon vanishes away into smoke and vapour.

On the other hand, the pleasure of religion is solid and lasting and will attend us through all, even the last stages of life. When we have passed the levity of youth, and have lost our relish for the gay entertainments of sense; when old age steals upon us, and stoops us towards the grave, this will cleave fast to us, and give us relief. It will be so far from terminating at death, that it then commences perfect, and continually improves, with new additions.

Clad in this immortal robe, we need not fear the awful summons of the king of terrors, nor regret our retiring into the chambers of the dust. Our immortal part will wing its way to the arms of its Omnipotent Redeemer, and find rest in the heavenly mansions of the Almighty. And though our earthly part, this tabernacle of clay, returns to its original dust, and is dissolved, our joy, our joy, our consolation, our confidence is, that "we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."