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is not of one mind with Jehovah he is living for some other purpose than that for which God gave his Son to die upon the cross.

Thirdly, I prove that religion is the great end of life, by a reference to the Whatever be the end of life, it must, I think,

NATURE OF RELIGION ITSELF.

be admitted by all to have the following properties.

In the first place, it must be transcendently excellent. The great, and wise, and good God, would never propose to us as the purpose of our coming into this world, and living in it, that which was mean and inconsiderable. Examine the nature of religion; what is it? The knowledge, the love, and the enjoyment of the Infinite God himself in all his attributes: the union of the soul with the Lord Jesus Christ, and the participation of that fulness which was treasured up in him, for the redemption of the world: the reception, and the impress of eternal and invariable truth: the enjoyment of the chief good, the practice of the highest virtue: the foretaste of heaven, the pledge of immortality: the image of Jehovah stamped upon the mind: the Spirit of Jesus Christ dwelling in the breast; and all the holy dispositions of the angelic host forming the character. This is religion. What is wealth, what is fame, what is literature, compared with this? What, but dim and smoking tapers, held up amidst the blaze of the noon-day sun: empty bubbles, compared with a fountain of clear and crystal water. How less than nothing and vanity do all these things appear, put in competition with religion!

Secondly, that which is the great end of life must not only be transcendently excellent, but it must be also absolutely certain in its attainment, if sought in the right way. Will this apply to any thing short of true godliness? Can skill the most consummate, and industry the most unwearied, always command wealth? Can the competitor for fame always ensure the envied palm? Can the votary of pleasure calculate with certainty on the means and opportunities of gratification? Can the humble aspirant after domestic enjoyment always bar the door against poverty, disease, and death? Does not uncertainty characterize every thing earthly? Where one succeeds do not many fail? Is not the precarious nature of every thing earthly and every thing human proverbial? Are we then to be mocked with shadows-condemned to the pursuit of phantoms? Can that be the end of existence which sought with ever so much industry we cannot be certain of obtaining? No. But now, my hearers, think of religion. Whoever sought this, and sought it in God's way of bestowing the blessing, and sought it in vain? O, it is delightful, that here, where it is of most importance, all uncertainty should be excluded that here is certainty. When the trembling jailor at Philippi crouched at the feet of his prisoners, and in the anguish of his mind uttered that important question, "What shall I do to be saved?" what was the answer given by these heaven-commissioned, heaven-inspired men? "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and "-possibly "thou mayest be saved?" Probably thou mayest be saved?" No; Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." There is a glory in that little insignificant monosyllable "shalt," which is not to be found throughout the whole range of human pursuits and earthly objects, as attaching to them. It is the glory of the Gospel that there is certainty. As true as God is in heaven, as certainly as the Saviour

died upon the cross, as certainly shall that man be saved, who with penitence and faith, looketh to the Lord Jesus Christ for the pardon of his sins, and the eternal happiness of his soul. Well, then, here is another proof that religion must be the end of life-its absolute certainty.

But then I advance to the third position, and that is, whatever is the end of life must be satisfying in its nature, as well as excellent and certain of attainment. And now we test all the various objects which multitudes are preferring to religion; and we put the question, Do they satisfy? We first apply the test to riches. Do these content the mind, and leave it nothing higher, nothing further to wish? Is the rich man the happiest of his species? On the contrary, is it not proverbial, that "a man's life,"—that is the happiness of his existence-" consisteth not in the abundance of the things that he hath?" O think of the labour of getting money; the anxiety that is mixed with all the pursuits by which it is got; the fear of losing it; the care of investing it. What deductions these from the pleasures of wealth!

Does fame satisfy? What a fever does ambition keep the soul perpetually in! How restless is the man to attain his object: how jealous of those just behind him; how envious of those just before him: how tormenting until he can grasp the prize; and then how soon does the verdure of the crown fade, and it becomes useless! How many have responded to the plaudits of admiring multitudes with the sigh of a bursting heart, and the groans of a wounded spirit! How generally has it been the case, that those who have risen to the very pinnacle of notoriety, have been followed there by some cloud of sorrow or reproach, that has obscured their glory and thrown a dark shadow upon the dazzling scene around them!

Does pleasure satisfy? Is the sensualist happy-the man of appetite, and illicit enjoyment, and forbidden gratification? Poor wretch! I am only tormenting thee in putting the question: thou, like other slaves, dost groan beneath thy shackles—a diseased body, a wounded conscience, a troubled spirit, a blighted reputation, a beclouded prospect. Ah, the cost at which thou hast bought thy pleasures!

Is the gay votary of fashion happy? Why then does she flutter round the circle, ever changing her enjoyments? O the weariness of the interval between pleasure and pleasure to her!

Does learning, does science satisfy? "Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh."

Does domestic comfort satisfy?—and this is the purest earthly pleasure that we can have but does it satisfy? O how many interruptions there are in the happiest home: how many things which remind the man that he needs something higher, and something better!

Well, then, now we will put the question to religion: Does religion satisfy? O how many, did the decorum of public worship allow-how many could I call up in this place who would unite in their testimony, and say, "We were never happy till we were brought to the cross: we never found satisfaction till we obtained grace to believe in Jesus, and sought the salvation of our souls." I do not, my hearers, mean to say, that religion in the present life makes us absolutely perfect in happiness. It is a begun happiness; not a perfect one: but it is a real happiness; not the mere mockery of enjoyment; it is happiness, not

amusement; and there is a wide difference between the two. Amusement means nothing more than something to gratify the imagination or the taste: but happiness means that which gratifies the heart, under the approbation of the conscience; and nothing but religion can do this. See what religion does; how it removes the principal sources of human disquietude-the burden of guilt, the turbulence of depravity, the bondage of death, the tormenting fear of God. True religion takes away all these. See what it brings in their place justification, peace with God, a new heart, peace of conscience, peace that passeth understanding, adoption into the family of God, the witness of the Spirit that we are the children of God, consolations that are neither few nor small, and the hope of eternal life. If there be happiness any where it is here: and if the man who possesses religion be not himself happy, it is not because there is not enough in religion to make him so; but because there is some obstruction in him to the full occupancy of his soul to the heavenly gift. Religion will be with you through life, and in death. It will cheer you in solitude, preserve you in difficulties, protect you in danger, comfort you in tribulation, sustain you in the loss of every thing else, go with you into the chamber of sickness, lie down with you on the bed of death, rise with you in the realms of immortality, and be your portion for ever. Here, then, must be the end of life, when it can do all this.

There is one more property that I must mention to shew that religion is the great end of life. Whatever is so, must be in harmony with all the legitimate ends of existence, and rather help them than hinder them. This will apply to religion. Is it lawful for a man to seek health? It will guard him from the pursuits that destroy it. Is it lawful for a man to seek the good things of the present world, or by honest means to accumulate wealth? Religion will cut off those things that destroy prosperity, and those which have a tendency to lessen it. In every view, therefore, that we can take, "godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is

to come."

I now advance to the fourth and last proof that Religion is the great end of man; and that is THE BREVITY OF HUMAN LIFE IN CONNEXION WITH

THE LIFE THAT IS TO COME.

During the continuance of the antediluvian world man's existence ran on to the length of nine, and almost ten centuries; but now he steps from the cradle to the coffin; he fleeth like a shadow, and continueth not; brief and uncertain is his abode in the present world. "The days of our years are three-score years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be four-score years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” "It is appointed to all men once to die;" our days are numbered; our sands are running out, and, in the case of some of you, but a very few of them may remain in the glass; you have come here in health, but you may return to die. But does man's history end here? No: "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after death the judgment." There is another and an eternal world; we are born for eternity; there is a principle of immortality in our nature. We may change the place, the mode of existence; but in existence we must for ever and ever remain. We cannot go out of being if we would: a man may

destroy his natural life by the various means of self-destruction; but this is not to terminate his being; he goes into another world, where millions and millions and millions of ages will take nothing from his existence; millions and millions and millions more will follow, but he is still in being; and millions in endless succession are still to come, and still the man is found in existence.

My dear hearers, is this true? Do you believe this? Then how obvious it is at once, without any process of reasoning-the mere statement carries its own proof with it-that that must be the end of life which prepares for happiness beyond the grave, and nothing that can merely comfort or amuse us while here. If we are to live for ever in another world (and we can live only a very short time in this world), then it is obvious as the plainest axiom, that that, whatever it be, which prepares us for our eternal existence, must be the end of our present life, and not the things which have relation merely to this life.

Again let us try each of these various objects that I have brought before you. Can riches be the end of life-that is, viewing our existence beyond the grave? What have riches to do with another world? We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out: naked came we into this world, and naked shall we go out of it again. We may amass wealth by success in business, by receiving the patrimony of those who have gone before us: but can we carry it into eternity with us? and if we could, would it be of any service there? Not a farthing can we take with us; we leave it all behind: riches have nothing to do with the future world.

Try we the objects of ambition: what have these to do with another world? Can the hero-can the man who has distinguished himself in literature, or in science, carry his laurel with him into eternity? What use would it be if he could? Would he, or could he, gain respect there from holy beings for what he was on earth merely, as a hero, or a statesman, or a philosopher? No.

Has pleasure any relation to another world? I mean what is usually signified by that term-the gratifications of appetite, or sense, or taste, or imagination? What relation have these to a future world? "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven; neither can corruption inherit incorruption."

Has domestic comfort, connubial love, or the sweet endearments of home, any relation to, or any bearing upon, another world? Not in themselves, abstractedly considered. In the resurrection we are neither married nor given in marriage: the ties that bind us here, and sweetly bind us, and which are the source of so much pure and innocent enjoyment, dissolve by the touch of death; and beyond that moment we are known no more to each other as husband and wife, parent and child, brothers and sisters; although it is probable we may recognize each other in a future state. Well, then, all these things have not any connexion, have not any bearing upon our state in the world to come.

Has religion? It is its great design. Religion is the only thing that can prepare us for a future world, the only thing that we carry with us into eternity-except our sins, if we die with them unpardoned. Nothing else that we possess can have any bearing on our future state.

Suppose that a month hence you were to embark for a foreign land, never more to return to your own country: what would be, what should be evidently the end of all your conduct, all your desires, during that short month that you

were to spend on the Britisa soil? To sow a few vernal seeds in your garden? To decorate the home you are about to leave? Why, of what use would that be to you in that foreign land to which you are going? If, forgetful of your voyage, forgetful of the land to which that voyage was to conduct you, you spent all your time about the objects which were so soon to cease in their importance to you, would not your friends step in, and remonstrate with you on your folly? Would they not remind you that you should prepare for your voyage—that you should prepare for the country to which you are going?

Suppose the case of a criminal condemned to die. His prince gives him a respite for a month, to afford him an opportunity of seeking that he might obtain the exercise of the royal clemency. Imagine that this poor creature, instead of employing the only month during which he could gain a protraction of existence, and avert an ignominious death, were to expend all his time in decorating his prison walls, or in some game of chance or skill, or making some improvement in his worldly affairs. O, would not many step in and say, "Thou fool! dost thou forget that in one short month thou wilt be a felon suspended from the gallows, unless thou art diligent in seeking to the fountain of mercy for life, and to be restored to the immunities and privileges of a citizen, a living inan?"

But, my hearers, neither one, nor both these, are a thousandth part guilty of the folly of those who, though they know-or, at least, profess to know that they are going to eternity, and may go at any future moment of their existence, are wholly taken up in seeking the things that are temporal, regardless of the things which are eternal-wholly taken up about the land that they may leave at any moment, and forgetful of that in which they must live for millions, and millions, and millions of ages. I put it to you, then, Is not religion the great end of life?

I infer from this subject, first, if this be true, that, however long a man may live, or whatever he may gain, or whatever misfortunes he may avert during that time, if he neglect religion he has lost the great end of existence. He may raise, and apportion, and settle respectably in life, a large family: he may be successful in trade, and amass a large fortune: he may secure the respect of his neighbours for amiable conduct, and a kind, and generous, and benevolent disposition he may be a patriot to his country-he may, in some respects, be a philanthropist to the world: but if he has neglected" repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ," and the regeneration of the heart by the Holy Spirit-viewing him as immortal, that man has lived and died in vain; all the time that he has spent is lost. For the true idea of time is, space for repentance, preparation for eternity. The value of time is derived from its connexion with eternity; and he that is not improving his time by preparing for eternity, is squandering away, upon trifles absolutely insignificant, the time which God has given him to secure the salvation of his immortal soul. Not only has he lost his time, but he has lost his labour. He may have been very busy; he may never have been idle; he may receive the congratulation of neighbours around him that he has been singularly successful; he may be looked upon as a man who has secured the fruit of his labour to the greatest extent: I tell you, that viewing that man in the light of revelation, in con

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