dejection and defpondency; for while the religious mind is dwelling on the imperfections of itself, it is fecretly elevating, by the ideas which it forms of the perfections of GoD, and by hopes of a future nearer approach to the habitation of his holinefs!

LXXXIV.

Reverence of the Supreme Being!—the Being to whom belongeth every adorable attribute, and whose awful prefence is in every place! What a conftant care fhould be upon our minds to make that reverence appear-especially when we mention his facred name!

But how miferably short do thousands, and tens of thousands, of every generation, seem to fall, and to have fallen, in this great point!

What can be a more manifest token of irreverence, if not of depravity, than to use in ordinary and trifling difcourfe, that tremendous name, which all the hofts of heaven-beings of the most exalted order and intelligence-venerate and adore!

VOL. II.

F

LXXXV. To

LXXXV.

To urge the influence of cuftom and habit in excufe of the breaches of morality, and want of an awful refpect to the Supreme Being, is to plead for the follies and wickedness of men, in oppofition to the infinite wisdom and immaculate purity of GOD!

LXXXVI.

That faith in JESUS CHRIST, to which the promises of salvation are made, is not a mere affent to any doctrines.

It is not a confident reliance on the mercy of GOD, in JESUS CHRIST, without a compliance with the invariable terms on which that mercy depends.

It is fuch a receiving of CHRIST for our Saviour and Lord, as fubjects the foul to his government, gives him the rule in the heart, and produces an uniform obedience to his facred laws.

It is, in fhort, that "faith which worketh "by love, to the purifying of the conscience "from all dead works."

LXXXVII.

No thoughts, furely, can be more true, or more conducive to profitable impreffions of mind, than those of the continued and unmerited goodness of the Almighty towards his creatures; and especially towards his rebellious

creature man.

Nothing furely is plainer, than that the Supreme Being is perpetually kinder to the worst of men, than the very beft of men can poffibly deferve!

LXXXVIII.

Nothing feems to be more natural to the human mind, than to lay hold of distinction, and fwell with importance, on account of its own acquifitions:

But many confiderations fhould be admitted, to humble the pride of such self-exaltation:

Among which, perhaps, this may be none of the leaft proper, That natural disease, or a momentary accident, may reduce a man of the

moft diftinguished knowledge to the condition. of an idiot,

LXXXIX.

The really wife man will not fet at nought his poor or his ignorant neighbour.

He will often anticipate the poffible effects of that approaching day, which may remove every fhadow of fuch diftinctions.

"When this earthly tabernacle shall be dif"folved," and the mind difencumbered of all the weight, and cloud of infirmity, occafioned by its connection with the body, the reputed wife, and the foolish, may be reduced to an equality.

When, at the end of this life," that know"ledge which is but in part fhall be done away, "and that which is perfect fhall come," there may no longer be any fuperiority of wisdom among beings of the fame order.

If a

XC.

poor, wavering, and unfaithful human being would gladly attain an idea of an adequate

induce

inducement to felf-mortification and virtue; where will he more eafily find, or how could he wish more easily to find it, than in the doctrines of the gospel of CHRIST?

They hold out, to the truly humble, the gracious promises of peace and tranquility in the life which now is, and the infinitely more glorious promifes of an eternal life to comeAnd that with an authority and plainnefs, no where else to be found! A

The bulk of mankind feems pretty uniformly of the judgment, that they fhall be ultimately dealt with according to their works, whether they fhall have been good or evil:--But notwitftanding this belief, and this verbal confeffion, it is an unhappinefs very general, and much to be lamented, that they are "without GOD in the world."

living as

So far are many men, eminently gifted, from occupying with the talents of grace committed to their truft, that they feem more concerned to hide them in the earth (by works of dark