hardly form an idea of greater depravity of mind than for a man feriously to prefer utter annihilation to that immortality which is brought to light by the gofpel, and to maintain that the great and extensive views it opens to us do not tend to enlarge and exalt the mind, and qualify men to act with more dignity, generofity, and integrity, as well as true piety, in this life, in confequence of being taught that the connexions and habits which we form here below, will be continued beyond the grave, where we shall again find ourselves under the government of the fame God, and be again happy in our fubjection to him, and in our renewed intercourfe with each other, to all eternity. To maintain, as fome have done, that this Chriftian doctrine of a future ftate has any hurtful tendency, appears to me to argue fuch depravity of mind, as can only be produced by grofs vices, fuch as make men fecretly with that it may not

be true. Thoufands have found that the firm belief of it tends to make men purify themfelves even as God is pure.

2. Let us learn from this doctrine to

8

cherish

cherish a sense of the great bleffings of Christianity, as the only means of giving men this glorious profpect, and preparing them for future happiness. For that any of the human race will furvive the grave nature gives us no reason to expect.

Christians would have a much higher fense of the value of the gospel, if they had not forgotten what heathenifm was. That fuch vices as the heathens were addicted to, fome of them too abominable and horrid to be mentioned in fuch a place as this, should have been encouraged by any thing that ever bore the name of religion, and even should have been practised as religious rites, which recommend men to the object of their worship, would not now be credible, did not the most authentic history remain as an indifputable evidence of the facts. Let us then blefs God for the gospel, which brings us from darkness to light, from vice to virtue, from death to immortality; and let us do every thing in our power to extend the knowledge and the bleffings of it to all the human race. More efpecially, as a means to the great end, let

us

us exert ourselves to purify it from those corruptions which both defeat the great design of it, and prevent its reception among Jews, Mahometans, and heathens. This fatal tendency has every thing that, in any degree, renders it lefs amiable, or lefs credible; and nothing does this more than any infringement of the great doctrine of the unity of God, and the equity of his government.

3. All that I have represented having been done for us, the best instructions having been given us for a virtuous life, exemplified by the lives of holy men, of prophets, and of Jefus Chrift; having had the most fatisfactory evidence given us of a future state of retribution after death, nothing more could have been done to induce men to abandon a courfe of vice, and to live in fuch a manner as to fecure a happy immortality. If the nature of virtue, and of man, be confidered, it will be evident that nothing more could have been done for us. The will cannot be forced. It can only be determined by proper motives. God requires that we should give him our hearts,

which can only be engaged by the force of perfuafion.

As far, therefore, as it became the Divine Being to interpofe, nothing has been left untried to reform the world. If then, notwithstanding all these measures for our good, we continue difobedient, and addicted to vice, may not the Divine Being with the greatest propriety speak of us as of the children of Ifrael of old? "What could I have "done to my vineyard more than I have "done; nevertheless, when I looked that "it fhould bring forth grapes, it brought "forth wild grapes."

We cannot think that, after all this that has been done for us, we are at liberty to neglect and flight it, and that God will take no notice of our difobedience and perverfenefs. No, our fins under the difpenfation of the gofpel are attended with every aggravation that can heighten their guilt, and increase our condemnation. As the apoftle fays, which way can we come off, or efcape, if we neglect fo great falvation. Let it not be our condemnation, that light is come into the world, but that we loved dark

nefs

nefs rather than light, because our deeds were evil.

We who profess what we wish to be confidered as rational Chriftianity, have leaft of all any just excufe for a deficiency in that temper, and a want of those good works, which our religion requires. We, depending upon the free mercy of God to the penitent, reject the idea of being faved by any righteousness that is not our own. We believe that no man can obey the laws of God for another, or fuffer the punishment due to the crimes of another; and we difclaim the belief of any thing whatever standing in the place of moral virtue. We believe the gofpel both to contain a fufficient rule of life, and alfo fufficient motives to the obfervance of it.

As therefore, my brethren, we not only name the name of Chrift, and profess ourfelves to be his disciples, but think that we profefs it in greater purity than many others, let us give proof of it by departing farther from all iniquity, and by being a peculiar people zealous of good works. If this be not our refolution, and fteady uniform