those principles of choice which all men whatever allow to be wise and safe principles, and the only principles which are so ; and conduct ourselves steadfastly according to the rule thus chosen, the difficulties which remain in religion will not move or disturb us much; and will, as we proceed, become gradually less and fewer. Whereas, if we begin with objections; if all we consider about religion be its difficulties; but most especially if we permit the suggestion of difficulties to drive us into a practical rejection of religion itself, and to afford us, which is what we wanted, an excuse to ourselves for casting off its restraints; then the event will be, that its difficulties will multiply upon us; its light grow more and more dim, and we shall settle in the worst and most hopeless of all conditions; the last condition, I will venture to say, in which any man living would wish his son or any one whom he loved, and for whose happiness he was anxious to be placed; a life of confirmed vice and dissoluteness; founded in a formal renunciation of religion.

He that has to preach Christianity to persons in this state has to preach to stones. He must not expect to be heard either with complacency, or seriousness, or patience, or even to escape contempt and derision. Habits of thinking are fixed by habits of acting; and both too solidly fixed to be moved by human persuasion. God in his mercy, and by his providences, as well as by his Spirit, can touch and soften the heart of stone. And it is seldom, perhaps, that, without some strong and, it may be, sudden impressions of this kind and from this source, serious sentiments ever penetrate dispositions hardened in the manner which we have here described.

II.

TASTE FOR DEVOTION.

JOHN, iv. 23, 24.

But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

or not.

A TASTE and relish for religious exercise, or the want of it, is one of the marks and tokens by which we may judge whether our heart be right towards God God is unquestionably an object of devotion to every creature which he has made capable of devotion; consequently our minds can never be right towards him unless they be in a devotional frame. It cannot be disputed but that the Author and Giver of all things, upon whose will and whose mercy we depend for every thing we have and for every thing we look for, ought to live in the thoughts and affections of his rational creatures. "Through thee have I been holden up ever since I was born: thou art he that took me from my mother's womb: my praise shall be always of thee." If there be such things as first sentiments towards God, these words of the Psalmist express them. That devotion to God is a duty stands upon the same proof as that God exists. But devotion is an act of the mind strictly. In a certain sense duty to a fellow creature may be discharged if the outward act be performed, because the

benefit to him depends upon the act. Not so with devotion. It is altogether the operation of the mind. God is a spirit, and must be worshiped in spirit, that is, in mind and thought. The devotion of the mind may be, will be, ought to be testified and accompanied by outward performances and expressions: but, without the mind going along with it, no form, no solemnity can avail, as a service to God. It is not so much a question under what mode men worship their Maker; but this is the question, whether their mind and thoughts and affections accompany the mode which they adopt or not. I do not say that modes of worship are indifferent things; for certainly one mode may be more rational, more edifying, more pure than another; but they are indifferent in comparison with the question, whether the heart attend the worship or be estranged from it.

These two points then being true; first, that devotion is a duty; secondly, that the heart must participate to make any thing we do devotion; it follows, that the heart cannot be right towards God, unless it be possessed with a taste and relish for his service, and for what relates to it.

Men may, and many undoubtedly do, attend upon acts of religious worship, and even from religious motives, yet, at the same time, without this taste and relish of which we are speaking. Religion has no savour for them. I do not allude to the case of those who attend upon the public worship of the church, or of their communion, from compliance with custom, out of regard to station, for example's sake merely, from habit merely; still less to the case of those who have particular worldly views in so doing. I lay the

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case of such persons, for the present, out of the tion; and I consider only the case of those who, knowing and believing the worship of God to be a duty, and that the wilful neglect of this, as of other duties, must look forward to future punishment, do join in worship from a principle of obedience, from a consideration of those consequences which will follow disobedience; from the fear indeed of God, and the dread of his judgments (and so far from motives of religion), yet without any taste or relish for religious exercise itself. That is the case I am considering. It is not for us to presume to speak harshly of any conduct which proceeds in any manner from a regard to God and the expectation of a future judgment. God, in his Scriptures, holds out to man terrors as well as promises; punishment after death as well as reward. Undoubtedly he intended those motives which he himself proposes to operate and have their influence. Wherever they operate good ensues; very great and important good compared with the cases in which they do not operate; yet not all the good we would desire, not all which is attainable, not all which we ought to aim at in our Christian course. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but calling it the beginning implies that we ought to proceed farther; namely, from his fear to his love.

To apply this distinction to the subject before us: the man who serves God from a dread of his displeasure, and therefore in a certain sense by constraint, is, beyond all comparison, in a better situation, as touching his salvation, than he who defies this dread, and breaks through this constraint. He, in a word,

who obeys, from whatever motive his obedience springs, provided it be a religious motive, is of a character as well as in a condition, infinitely preferable to the character and condition of the man whom no motives whatever can induce to perform his duty. Still it is true, that if he feels not within himself a taste and relish for the service which he performs (to say nothing of the consideration how much less acceptable his service may be), and for devotion itself, he wants one satisfactory evidence of his heart being right towards God. A farther progress in religion will give him this evidence, but it is not yet attained: as yet, therefore, there is a great deficiency.

The taste and relish for devotion, of which we are speaking, is what good men in all ages have felt strongly. It appears in their history: it appears in their writings. The Book of Psalms in particular, was, great part of it, composed under the impression of this principle. Many of the Psalms are written in the truest spirit of devotion; and it is one test of the religious frame of our own minds, to observe whether we have a relish for these compositions; whether our hearts are stirred as we read them; whether we perceive in them words alone, a mere letter, or so many grateful, gratifying sentiments towards God, in unison with what we ourselves feel or have before felt. And what we are saying of the Book of Psalms is true of many religious books that are put into our hands, especially books of devotional religion; which, though they be human compositions, and nothing more, are of a similar cast with the devotional writings of Scripture, and excellently calculated for their