Reason, faith and hope are the only principles to which religion applies, or possibly can apply and it is religion, faith and hope striving with sense, striving with temptation, striving for things absent against things which are present. That religion therefore may not be quite excluded and overborne, may not quite sink under these powerful causes, every support ought to be given to it, which can be given by education, by instruction, and above all, by the example of those, to whom young persons look up, acting with a view to a future life themselves.

Again. It is the nature of worldly business of all kinds, especially of much hurry or overemployment, or over-anxiety in business, to shut out and keep out religion from the mind. The question is, whether the state of mind, which this cause produces, ought to be called a want of seriousness in religion. It becomes coldness and indifference towards religion; but is it properly a want of seriousness upon the subject? I think it is; and in this way. We

are

are never serious upon any matter which we regard as trifling. That is impossible. And we are led to regard a thing as trifling, which engages no portion of our habitual thoughts, in comparison with what other things do.

But further. The world, even in its innocent pursuits and pleasures, has a tendency unfavorable to the religious sentiment. But were these all it had to contend with, the strong application which religion makes to the thoughts, whenever we think of it at all; the strong interest which it presents to us, might enable it to overcome and prevail in the contest.

But there is another adversary to oppose much more formidable; and that is sensuality; an addiction to sensual pleasures. It is the FLESH which LUSTETH AGAINST the SPIRIT; that is the war which is waged within us,

So it is, no matter what may be the Cause, that sensual indulgences, over and above their proper criminality, as sins, as offences against God's commands, have a specific effect upon

the heart of man in destroying the religious principle within him: or still more surely in preventing the formation of that principle. It either induces an open profaneness of conversation and behaviour, which scorns and contemns religion; a kind of profligacy, which rejects and sets at nought the whole thing or it brings upon the heart an averseness to the subject, a fixed dislike and reluctance to enter upon its concerns in any way whatever. That a resolved sinner should set himself against a religion, which tolerates no sin, is not to be wondered at. He is against religion, because religion is against the course of life upon which he has entered, and which he does not feel himself willing to give up. But this is not the whole, nor is it the bottom of the matter. The effect we allude to is not so reasoning or argumentative as this. It is a specific effect upon the mind. The heart is rendered unsusceptible of religious impressions, incapable of a serious regard to religion: and this effect belongs to sins of sensuality more than to other sins. It is a consequence which almost universally fol

lows

lows from them. We measure the importance of things, not by what or according to what they are in truth, but by and according to the space and room which they occupy in our minds. Now our business, our trade, our schemes, our pursuits, our gains, our losses, our fortunes, possessing so much of our minds, whether we regard the hours we expend in meditating upon them, or the earnestness with which we think about them; and religion possessing so little share of our thought either in time or earnestness; the consequence is, that worldly interest comes to be the serious thing with us; religion comparatively the trifle. Men of business are naturally serious; but all their seriousness is absorbed by their business. In religion they are no more serious than the most giddy characters are; than those characters are which betray levity in all things.

Again. The want of due seriousness in religion is almost sure to be the consequence of the absence or disuse of religious ordinances and exercises. I use two terms; "absence" and

"disuse."

"disuse." Some have never attended upon any religious ordinances, or practised any religious exercises, since the time they were born; some a very few times in their lives. With these it is the" absence" of religious ordinances and exercises. There are others, (and many we fear of this description) who, whilst under the guidance of their parents, have frequented religious ordinances, and been trained up to religious exercises, but who, when they came into more public life, and to be their own masters, and to mix in the pleasures of the world, or to engage themselves in its business and pursuits, have forsaken these duties in whole or in a great degree. With these it is the "disuse" of religious ordinances and exercises. But I must also explain what I mean by "re"ligious ordinances and exercises." By "re

ligious ordinances" I mean the being instructed in our catechism in our youth, attending upon public worship at church, the keeping holy the Lord's day regularly and most particularly, together with a few other days in the year, by which some very principal events and pas

sages