faith;

righteous a Judge to let it go unpunifhed. But the Just fhall live by their the Merciful fhall obtain mercy through the merits of Chrift; and all they that put an humble confidence in God, fetting him always before them, and walking continually in his holy ways, fhall be made partakers of his everlasting Kingdom.

SERMON VII.

MATTHEW, Xxii. 37, 38.

Jefus faid unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and

with all thy foul, and with all thy mind:

This is the first and great Commandment.

THERE 'HERE is without doubt implanted

in the nature of man a certain invincible defire of happiness; and confequently there cannot but be a cleaving of the foul toward thofe objects, whatever they be, wherein he apprehends fuch happiness to confift. For though

it too often happens that men mifplace their affections upon what is vain, and will affuredly disappoint them in the end; yet is not this owing to an absolute inattention to their own welfare, but to an erroneous purfuit of it: When they are induced, either through prejudice, paffion, or bad example, to prefer a leffer good before a greater; or what only appears to be good, to that which is really and effentially fo. Whence it is that worldly and selfish pleasures, which ftrike directly upon the fenfes, are fo eagerly embraced; whilft the fpiritual exercises of devotion, charity, and refignation to the divine will, are scarcely çonfidered among the neceffary ingredients of human happiness. And hence in general it comes to pass, that the Mammon of Unrighteousness, who pays his votaries with a ready intereft, fuch as it is, is more zealously ferved than the Almighty Governor of the Universe; VOL. I. whofe

K

whofe rewards, however great and cer tain, lofe their efficacy from an imaginary distance.

It is indeed the peculiar office of Reason to correct these errors of the imagination, that dangerous handmaid to the paffions; to direct the affections toward their proper objects, and moderate their operations in a manner answerable to the value of the things on which they are placed. But then, confidering the frailty of corrupted nature, and how eafily our very reason is made to bend on the fide of the will, it is hardly poffible to maintain a just balance in the human mind, with refpect to it's inferior defires and appetites, without first eftablishing the fupreme object of man's affections, and confequently of his duty: which, like the main fpring of fome.complicated machine, may give motion to all his faculties; and in fubordination to

which they may all regularly and uniformly move.

Now, fuch is the virtue and efficacy of this very commandment cited in the text; a spiritual and fovereign commandment; delivered indeed of old by Mofes to the Ifraelites, however imperfectly apprehended by that people under a carnal and ceremonial dispensation : But fince illuftrated and enforced by the authority of the Son of God himself; who came personally from Heaven to inftruct mankind, by explaining and enforcing the laws of nature and of Mofes, and who by precept and example hath taught us, that the beginning and end of man's obedience is the love of God. Jefus faid unto him, -Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy foul, and with all thy mind: This is the first and great commandment." First-as being the