reverence for him; to make him the fupreme object of our contemplation and affection, and adore him with a true devotion of mind. Do not fail then to live in an absolute submiffion to the divine difpofal of the all-perfect ruler of the world; and as 'you are not wife enough for your own direction, nor have power enough for your own support, proftrate yourselves before the excellent glory, morning and evening, and implore the favor of this wifest and best of Beings. Upon this your peace depends. This only can be your fecurity against the evil day of af

fliction.

This is not however the whole cafe, and you must not think that dependance on God, and praying to him, tho you fell down feven times a-day before him, will procure you his love and protection, unless you perform your duty to your neighbour and yourselves. You are obliged to do your neighbour all the good

in

your power, by word and deed, and to obferve the stricteft temperance and justice, in respect of yourselves. This is the voice of reason. It is the voice of God. For, there is a right and a wrong; a beauty and a deformity in action; and beauty, or right action, must be agreeable to a Being of infinite perfection; as deformity, or wrong action, must be disagreeable to him. Now most certainly, it is wrong action, or deformity to

injure others, or, not to do them all the good we can in our several spheres. For, that wife and good Being, whom we call God, must have made this world, and constituted fuch moral agents as we are, for no other end, no. other purpose, than the common happiness; and of confequence, for us to be unfocial, and have a conduct offenfive, is to oppofe God, by fetting ourselves as a bar to the common felicity. This must subject us to the divine displeasure. It must bring us under the inflictions of God. And fo, in respect of ourselves, if we injure ourselves, from suicide to the least intemperance or injustice, we must become criminals in the fight of our creator; because, we destroy, or our actions have a tendency to destroy, those faculties which God implanted in us as the stamp of our perfection, and the cement of fociety. This must be visible to the meaneft capacity, if the mind thinks at all. Whereas, on the contrary, if we are just to ourselves in the first place; and, in the next, ftrive to expel evil from the globe, and exert our whole power in establishing concord and felicity, we render ourselves lovely in the eyes of our maker. This is evident. It is indifputable. For, as God is pleased to make the everlasting rules of righteousness the measure of his own actions, he must will and defire that all his rational creatures

should proportionably make them the meafure of theirs. He muft hate that creature who endeavours to communicate pain, becaufe this conftitutes vice. He must love and reward that creature which ftrives to communicate pleasure, because this conftitutes virtue which refembles himself. Promote then the common felicity to the utmoft of your power. Do all the good you can to your neighbour; and by purity, temperance, and humility, advance your own happiness. So will you gain the love of God, and as his juftice and truth are concerned to fee, that virtue has its reward, and vice its punishment, you may be happy here, and will furely be fo in that future ftate of existence, which our reafon tells us we must pass into, when we die. Reafon tells us, I fay; becaufe, fince God hath ordained us to walk in the paths of wifdom and virtue allotted to us here, we cannot fuppofe that by death we fhall be ftruck down to rife no more. To imagine that we were made for acquiring virtue, to improve in many excellent qualifications, and that only that we might ceafe to be when we are confiderably improved, is repugnant to the idea of a good governor. It is incompatible with the perfuit of general good, and of a perfect whole. Befide, the wife, the brave, and the boneft, do sometimes fubject themfelves to the greatest inconveniencies of hu

man

man life, and reject fuch pleasures as they have both power and appetite to enjoy, from a virtuous principle only. They often become miferable by virtue. They continue fo very frequently till they have ended their wretched beings here rather than depart from truth. And can annihilation be the recompence? No, furely. The great Roman philofopher, had a better notion of God. Profecto fuit quædam vis, quæ generi confuleret humano, nec id gigneret aut aleret, quod cum exantlaviffet omnes labores, tum incide- Tufc. ret in mortis malum fempiternum. We can Quæft. l. 1. never believe, that after the virtuous have ftruggled through all their labours, an infinite good and almighty God, will let them fall into an eternal fleep.

nature;

This truth however is more clearly reveled in that book which came down from heaven to fhew mankind the way thither, than we are able to ascertain it by the mere light of and therefore, in the next place, fuffer me, ladys, to recommend to your conftant confideration the facred letters, and efpecially the New Teftament of our Lord Jefus Chrift. Infidelity, does at this time prevail very greatly in the world; but be not you afhamed of the gofpel of Chrift. It is the power of God unto falvation; and this falvation is a deliverance from the power and dominion of fin, and a bringing of the foul to a fitness for everlasting happinefs.

piness. In redeeming us from all iniquity, and the certainty of future glory, the gospel far exceeds the religion of reason. It exprefly promises juftification to the true believer; and it does this in a much more explicit manner than reafon is able to do, or than ever was done under any former difpenfation. The plain and strong manner, in which the writings of the apoftles convey the mind of God, with relation to our duty, and to the hopes of happiness, has not only a vast advantage above the mere deductions of reason, but above the difpenfation by Mofes and the prophets. The gofpel is really an ineftimable bleffing. It is the nobleft present we could receive from heaven. Comply then, ladys, with the apoftle's exhortation, and let the word of Chrift dwell in you richly in all wisdom.

But I caution you, at the fame time, to have a care you do not receive the schemes of uninspired men for revelation. The religion of the pulpit, and what is published by our orthodox guides, is very different from the religion of the Bible, in respect of the faith we are to have in God. Our divine Lord, and ever blessed Master, established a celestial oeconomy, or fpiritual kingdom, and made it confist in the worship of one fupreme Spirit, the universal Father; in holiness, and righteousness, and true piety; and in the spiritual rewards of thefe virtues. In this king

dom