whole system of moral and religious duty is expressed, in the language of Scripture, by the "fear of God." A good man is characterised as a man that feareth God; and the fear of the Lord is said to be the beginning of wisdom; and the text affirms, that "happy is the man that feareth alway."

On the distinction of this fear, into servile and filial, or fear of punishment, or fear of offence, on which much has been superstructed by the casuistical theology of the Romish church, it is not necessary to dwell. It is sufficient to observe, that the religion which makes fear the great principle of action, implicitly condemns all self-confidence, all presumptuous security; and enjoins a constant state of vigilance and caution, a perpetual distrust of our own hearts, a full conviction of our natural weakness, and an earnest solicitude for divine assistance.

The philosophers of the heathen world seemed to hope that man might be flattered into virtue, and therefore told him much of his rank, and of the meanness of degeneracy: they asserted, indeed, with truth, that all greatness was in the practice of virtue; but of virtue their notions were narrow; and pride, which their doctrine made its chief support, was not of power sufficient to struggle with sense or passion.

Of that religion which has been taught from God, the basis is humility; a holy fear, which attends good men through the whole course of their lives, and keeps them always attentive to the motives and consequences of every action; if always unsatisfied with their progress in holiness,

always wishing to advance, and always afraid of falling away.

This fear is of such efficacy to the great purpose of our being, that the wise man has pronounced him happy that fears always; and declares, that he who hardens his heart shall fall into mischief. Let us, therefore, carefully consider,

First, What he is to fear, whose fear will make him happy.

Secondly, What is that hardness of heart which ends in mischief.

Thirdly, How the heart is hardened. And,

Fourthly, What is the consequence of hardness of heart.

First, We must inquire what he is to fear, whose fear will make him happy.

The great and primary object of a good man's fear is sin; and, in proportion to the atrociousness of the crime, he will shrink from it with more horror. When he meditates on the infinite perfection of his Maker and his Judge; when he considers that the heavens are not pure in the sight of God, and yet remembers, that he must in a short time appear before him; he dreads the contamination of evil, and endeavours to pass through his appointed time with such cautions as may keep him unspotted from the world.

The dread of sin necessarily produces the dread of temptation; he that wishes to escape the effect, flies likewise from the cause. The humility of a man truly religious seldom suffers him to think himself able to resist those incitements to evil,

which, by the approach of immediate gratifications, may be presented to sense or fancy: his care is not for victory, but safety; and, when he can escape assaults, he does not willingly encounter them.

The continual occurrence of temptation, and that imbecility of nature, which every man sees ino thers and has experienced in himself, seems to have made many doubtful of the possibility of salvation. In the common modes of life, they find that business ensnares, and that pleasure seduces; that success produces pride, and miscarriage envy ; that conversation consists too often of censure or of flattery; and, that even care for the interests of friends, or attention to the establishment of a family, generates contest and competition, enmity and malevolence, and at last fills the mind with secular solicitude.

Under the terrors which this prospect of the world has impressed upon them, many have endeavoured to secure their innocence by excluding the possibility of crimes; and have fled, for refuge from vanity and sin, to the solitude of deserts, where they have passed their time in woods and caverns; and, after a life of labour and maceration, prayer and penitence, died at last in secresy and silence.

Many more, of both sexes, have withdrawn, and still withdraw, themselves from crowds, and glitter, and pleasure, to monasteries and convents; where they engage themselves, by irrevocable vows, in certain modes of life, more or less austere, according to the several institutions; but all of them comprising many positive hardships, and all prohibiting almost all sensual gratifications. The

fundamental and general principle of all monastic communities is celibacy, poverty, and obedience to the superior. In some, there is a perpetual abstinence from all food that may join delight with nourishment; to which, in others, is added an obligation to silence and solitude ;-to suffer, to watch, and to pray, is their whole employment.

Of these, it must be confessed, that they fear always, and that they escape many temptations, to which all are exposed, and by which many fall, who venture themselves into the whirl of human affairs; they are exempt from avarice, and all its concomitants; and, by allowing themselves to possess nothing, they are free from those contests for honour and power, which fill the open world with stratagems and violence. But surely it cannot be said that they have reached the perfection of a religious life: it cannot be allowed, that flight is victory; or that he fills his place in the creation laudably, who does no ill, only because he does nothing. Those who live upon that which is produced by the labour of others, could not live, if there were none to labour; and, if celibacy could be universal, the race of man must soon have an end.

Of these recluses it may, without uncharitable censure, be affirmed, that they have secured their innocence by the loss of their virtue; that, to avoid the commission of some faults, they have made many duties impracticable; and that, lest they should do what they ought not to do, they leave much undone which they ought to do. They must, however, be allowed to express a just sense of the dangers with which we are sur

rounded, and a strong conviction of the vigilance necessary to obtain salvation; and it is our business to avoid their errors, and imitate their piety.

He is happy that carries about with him in the world the temper of the cloister; and preserves the fear of doing evil, while he suffers himself to be impelled by the zeal of doing good; who uses the comforts and the conveniences of his coudition as though he used them not, with that constant desire of a better state, which sinks the value of earthly things; who can be rich or poor, without pride in riches, or discontent in poverty; who can manage the business of life with such indifference as may shut out from his heart all incitements to fraud or injustice; who can partake the pleasures of sense with temperance, and enjoy the distinctions of honour with moderation; who can pass undefiled through a polluted world; and, among all the vicissitudes of good and evil, "have his heart fixed only where true joys are to be found."

This can only be done, by fearing always, by preserving in the mind a constant apprehension of the divine presence, and a constant dread of the divine displeasure; impressions which the converse of mankind, and the solicitations of sense and fancy, are continually labouring to efface, and which we must therefore renew by all such practices as religion prescribes; and which may be learned from the lives of them, who have been distinguished, as examples of piety, by the general approbation of the Christian world.

The great efficient of union between the soul and its Creator, is prayer; of which the necessity