ing religion as amiable in itself, and consistent with ease of mind, and with cheerfulness, relaxation, and amusement. My friends and fellowcandidates for the prize of a glorious immortality, how little do ye reflect on the pain and anxiety which a conscientious instructor suffers on account of the flock which he has to teach, exhort, and ́ admonish! Think ye, it can be pleasing to him to be repeatedly urging on your understandings and consciences disagreeable truths respecting your misconduct? Or think ye, that he does not seriously, and often, meditate what he shall say; how he shall represent matters; what methods are the most likely to produce the effect; and how he had best vary them according to times and circumstances? Give him credit for doing these things, much oftener than even ye object, find fault, or treat his honest exhortation with unkindness and disrespect: in a word, give him some credit for being in earnest for the salvation of your immortal souls. Then shift the scene (and with great advantage to yourselves), examine how dreadful the consequences must be, if he should prove right at the Last Day! Examine, with as much acuteness as you please, whether he has

laid before you true and faithful representations of the nature of God and of his Son Jesus Christ, of the Gospel, of the new covenant, of its promises and its threatenings: all I request is, that you do this seriously, humbly, and with the Bible in your hands; not leaning to your own understandings, or going about to establish your own righteousness, but submitting yourselves willingly to the righteousness of God, as explained in his revealed word. Then, these things being premised, I have no objection to your trying whether zealous preachers have represented the justice and the holiness of God, and his vengeance and threatenings against sin, in stronger language than the Scripture doth. What! have they used stronger terms than "The worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched?” and “The smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever?" Or have they ever endeavoured to win your affections to religious practice by any over-statement, any unfounded, mystical, enthusiastic description of the joys of heaven, which are constantly represented in Scripture as great and glorious beyond imagination, and such as "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart

of man to conceive?"-In doing these things, my friends, it is impossible to err, otherwise than in falling short of their magnitude both in regard to their intensity and duration: for, in fact, here must utterly fail every attempt at ornament or amplification. The Divine dispensations, both in regard to judgment and mercy, are beyond description, and entirely past finding out. We can but stand, as it were, on the shore of this ocean and adore its unsearchable depths.

Yet (to conclude), if these considerations did but produce one hundredth part of the effect which is due to them, men would soon cease to halt between the Gospel and irreligion; between obedience and sin; between reward and punishment; between heaven and hell. And if they do fail to produce this effect, we are expressly told that even a messenger and instructor from the torments of hell would also fail. Remember, however, that the Judge of quick and dead will not suffer you to remain after death in this state of suspense and indifference. Those who have halted all their lives between Jehovah and Baal; between the true God and an idol-in whatever that idol consistedwill not be permitted to halt in their opinions in a

future state. And, further, those who have departed this life in a state of indifference, would now give the world for an opportunity to make a new and a wise choice.

I dare not call those Christians, whose faith is founded merely on custom, the tradition of their fathers and grandfathers, or the profession of their neighbours, or even of their countrymen such religion is a building on sand, and will never stand the shock of temptations, of adversities, of death. But if any hear me, who say they are seriously convinced of a heaven and a hell of a judgment after death; and who profess to believe that all men and women must appear before the tribunal of God; and that extreme misery or infinite happiness will be the result of that day's awful sentence; I must deal plainly with such persons, and tell them, that what they thus call their belief, does not deserve the name of Christian faith, unless it makes them in effect more concerned how to escape those eternal torments, and how to obtain eternal life with the favour of God, than how to gain the world, gratify carnal lusts and appetites, please their patrons, friends, neighbours, gain large fortunes, or obtain

any temporal advantage whatever; unless it makes them inquire, not what they shall eat or drink, but whether they are first seeking the kingdom of God.

Therefore I would, in conclusion, briefly mention several things which are proofs of our halting in religion.

1. There scarcely can be a greater proof, than when men put off the consideration of it from day to day. So Felix acted: "Go thy way; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee."

2. It is also a bad sign of men's state, when they are strict in some things, but not in all; conscientious in some duties, but quite negligent in others. For example, just in trade, but sensual in indulging their appetites; or honest and temperate, but licentious in the use of the tongue.

3. Again: I observe, some are very religious for a time; and by and bye are totally lost in worldly concerns, pleasures, and amusements. There is no promise for such men: "They waver," says St. James, "like waves of the sea; and let them not then think that they shall receive any thing of the Lord."

4. Lastly: One of the severest tests of an unsettled, halting state of mind, is, when men give way,