as it was his, fairly to propofe to our hearers the grounds of our religion, addreffing ourfelves to their understandings, and requiring them to judge for themfelves of the reasonableness and obligation of what we advance.

I WILL endeavor therefore at present to state to you, as briefly and plainly as I can, the obligation and the reasonableness of our believing and practifing the christian religion.

ON furveying ourselves and the world in which we are placed, we difcover every where evident marks of the highest wisdom, power, and goodness. If we inquire how and whence we and the things about us came to be, and trace back to its fource this wonderful order and regularity, we are led by the most easy and obvious steps to the acknowledgement of a fupreme Being,

the

the first great caufe of all things, who gave existence to us and the whole creation. And as this Being muft neceffarily be endued with all perfection, he cannot be regardless of his own productions, fince this would argue variablenefs of will, or want of power, both which are inconfiftent with the very notion of perfection. From the relation which we bear to him as his creatures, as objects of his conftant care and inspection, and experiencing continual in ftances of his favour and goodness, we furely feel ourselves obliged to act, conformably to his will, in what way foever it may have been declared to us. What his will is, our reason in some respects informs us, by clear deductions from his nature and attributes. As he is our Creator and Lord, it plainly becomes us to reverence and adore him as he has been and is kind and good to us, and has given us affections towards our fellow creatures, the inference is ob

:

vious, that we should exercise those affections and be kind and good to others. And fince he is a Being of purity and holiness, and hath endued us with powers capable of resembling him, and formed us for higher enjoyments than any which this world af fords, it must furely be our duty as well as happiness to keep the inferior part of our nature in due fubordination to the superior, and to strive to imitate him as much as poffible in all spiritual improvements.

IF moreover these things are thus reafonable and proper, we cannot but infer that the obfervance of them is required of us; and if we do not observe them, that fome time or other, an infinitely holy and juft Being will punish us for our neglect; as indeed our confciences, which confirm thefe deductions of our reafon, will, if confulted, and frequently, whether confulted or not, abundantly testify: on the other

hand,

hand, if there be a God who thus delights in piety and goodness, we must conclude that there will be fome future state in which they will receive more evident marks of his approbation and favor, than those which attend them in this life.

So far our reafon

might go on clear and obvious grounds, and such are the discoveries which it might fatisfactiorily make, in addition to the conclufions, deducible from the more abstruse and refined fpeculations on the nature and fpirituality of God and of the human foul, on the abstract difference of good and evil, and the natural fitness and beauty of the one, and unfitness and deformity of the other. But ftill we fhould be left in the dark with respect to many particulars, and in doubt, at the beft, about many more, which renders us fenfible of our standing in need of fome fuperior information. Accordingly we are taught to believe that there hath been an express revelation of the

will of our Creator; by which all the before mentioned truths are fully confirmed, and in many respects enlarged; many difficulties attending them are accounted for and removed; we are made acquainted with various important articles in which our happiness is deeply concerned, which we could not know before; and we find the' belief of what it teaches and the practice of what it commands enforced, amidst other inferior motives, by no lefs than the promise of eternal happiness and the threatening of eternal mifery. What pretends to fo high a character as the revealed will of the Almighty, and claims attention upon fuch interesting motives, cannot be left unnoticed, without wilful difprefpect to him and difregard of our real good; for this would be prefuming either that he is not able to give us any inftructions, tho' we are able to instruct one another, or that we have no need of any: the latter favours of arrogance

and