ciple, a feed is fown, which cannot fail-in time to produce the noble and full grown plant, the excellent character above defcribed. If the mind be thoroughly impreffed with the fear of God, the two great principles, which comprise the whole of the moral law, the love of God, and of our neighbour, will in due time appear, and produce all the fruits of righteousness, without the leaft view to any reward whatever; and on this account will be intitled to, and will affuredly find, the greatest. This is to be most truly godlike, and the neceffary confequence of being like God, of being perfect (or approaching as near to it as may be) as God is perfect, which our Saviour requires and encourages us to be, must be accompanied with a degree of happinefs approaching the di

vine.

Such being the obvious ufe and fubftantial value of religion, with refpect to the conduct of life, the troubles we are exposed to in it, and at the hour of death, and to form the most exalted of human characters, it certainly behoves us to examine the evidence of it, and to do this not fuperficially, but with the greatest attention, as a queftion in the decifion of which we are all moft deeply interefted. I may add

that

that a virtuous and good man cannot but wifh that the principles of religion may appear to be well founded, because it is his intereft that they should be fo; and if there be this bias on our minds in this enquiry, it is a reasonable and honourable bias, fuch as no perfon need be ashamed to avow.

At the fame time, the greater is the object propofed to us, the more fcrupulous we shall naturally be in our enquiries concerning it. When the apostles were first informed of the refurrection of their beloved mafter, it is faid by the hiftorian, that they did not believe through joy; and it was not without the most irresistible evidence, that of their fenfes, that they were at length satisfied with refpect to it. Let us act the fame part, and not receive a pleafing tale merely because it is pleafing to us, but strictly examine the evidence of it; and this is what I propose to lay before you, with the greatest plainness, without concealing any difficulties that appear to me to be worthy of much notice. Chrift and the apostles always appealed to the understanding of their hearers, and it can only be a fpurious kind of religion that disclaims the ufe of reafon, that faculty by which alone we are capable of religion, and

by which alone we are able to diftinguish true religion from falfe, and that which is genuine, from the foreign and heterogeneous matter that has been added to it.

DISCOURSE

DISCOURSE II.

Of the fuperior Value of Revealed
Religion.

He hath fhewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God. MICAH vi. 8.

PROPOSING to deliver a series of difcourfes on the evidences of revealed religion, I have begun with fhewing the real value of religion in general, confifting in a belief of the being and providence of God, and of a future ftate of retribution. Taking it, therefore, for granted, that this faith is of real value to men, both as individuals and as members of fociety, I fhall now endeavour to shew that the plan of communicating this knowledge by occafional interpofitions of the Supreme Being is, in feveral respects, preferable to that which

unbelievers boast of as fuperior to it, viz. the gradual acquifition of it by the mere use of reafon.

But I would previously obferve that, provided the great end be gained, viz. the improvement of the human character by the attainment of fuch knowledge, and the forming of fuch habits, as will qualify men to be most happy in themselves, and difpose them to communicate the most happiness to others. (which is the great object with God, the common parent of us all), the means are of no farther value. That fcheme, or fyftem, whatever it be, which best promotes this great end is, for that reason, the best; and if the two schemes be equally adapted to gain the fame end, they are exactly of equal value.

Religion itself is only a means, or inftrument, to make men virtuous, and thereby happy, in such a manner as rational beings are alone capable of being made happy: and the different kinds, forms, rites, or exercises, of religion, are of no value but as they tend to make men religious, infpiring them with the fear of God, and a difpofition confcientiously to observe whatever he is fupposed to

require