But if, on the contrary, he fets himself seriously and in earnest to search out and to correct his infirmities; if he flies at the first approach of temptation, and takes alarm at the most distant intimation of danger; if he curbs that bufy dangerous power, the imagination; "if he keeps his heart with all diligence *

and guards the iffues of life; if, as the apostle advises, he takes unto him THE SHIELD of FAITH, opposing the joys of heaven to the pleasures of fin, and having lefs regard to a prefent gratification than the future recompence of reward; above all, if he never ceases importuning the Throne of Grace for the affiftance of God's Holy Spirit to purify his soul, invigorate his refolutions, and fupport him under all the difficulties and difcouragements of his Christian warfare; he may depend upon it, that whatever may be his conftitution, whatever the nature or degree of the temptations he is exposed to, not all the powers darkness shall be able to prevail against him, Though he may perhaps accidentally fall, yet he shall "never be caft away; for the "Lord upholdeth him with his hand +."

of

Prov. iv. 23.

+ Pfal. xxxvii. 24.

SERMON

HIS is one among numberless other

T paffages in holy writ, in which a future

judgement, and an eternal state of existence hereafter, are clearly and pofitively announced to us; and it is from these declarations of the Gospel, and these only, that we derive the certain expectation of immortal life. To pretend, therefore, as fome have done, that we had already fufficient notices of this important truth from the light of nature, and that the conviction, produced by these notices,

is fo complete as to fuperfede the neceffity of any further information, is to give nature a degree of merit, to which he is far from having any just pretenfions, and to make a very ungrateful return for the invaluable advantages we have received, in this and many other refpects, from the Revelation made by Chrift. But yet to affert, on the other hand, that natural religion gives us not the smallest ground to hope that we fhall furvive the grave, and that every argument for it, except those which Scripture fupplies, is perfectly vain and nugatory, and unworthy of the leaft regard, is furely running into another extreme, no lefs deftitute of foundation, and no less hurtful in its confequences than the former. The natural and moral evidences of another life after this, though confeffedly inferior, very greatly inferior, in authority and force, to thofe of Revelation, yet undoubtedly have their proper weight and use;

It has been very juftly obferved, that fome writers, by exalting the powers of reafon, in matters of religion, too high, have deftroyed the neceffity of Revelation, and others, by degrading them too low, have rifqued the reasonableness of it, Div. Leg. vol. ii. p. 26.

and

and to depreciate their juft value, and fink them as much as poffible in the estimation of mankind, is to do no real service (although have been a fincere intention of do

there may ing it) to the cause of Christianity; which has no need, in this or in any other inftance, to rise on the ruins of human reason. On the contrary, it difdains not to receive reafon as its friend and ally, and occafionally to elucidate and confirm both its doctrines and its precepts, by fuch collateral arguments as that faculty is capable of fupplying. In the prefent cafe more especially, the confideration of a future state is a fubject so full of comfort and fatisfaction, that the mind of man must neceffarily love to dwell upon it; must wish to contemplate it in every point of view; to examine it in every light, whether natural or revealed; to let in conviction from every quarter; and must be soothed and delighted to find that so important an article of belief, on which so much depends both in this life and the next, is perfectly conformable to the natural fentiments of the human heart, and the jufteft conclufions of the human underftanding. This must be the cafe, even with

the

འ

the fincereft believers. But there are fome alfo (as is but too well known) in every Christian country, who are not believers, and yet profess to receive, on the principles of natural religion, the doctrine of another life, and a day of recompence. Now, no one, I think, would wish to deprive even these of their perfuafion, on whatever grounds it refts, that they are formed for immortality, and that they are refponfible for their conduct here, at the bar of their Creator hereafter. There are other unbelievers (for they are divided into many different fects) who, though not yet convinced of a future ftate of existence, are willing to liften to the natural and moral evidences in its favour, and to no others. Thefe, furely, it is of great importance, both to society and to themselves, to bring, if poffible, to the acknowledgment of a future retribution. This acknowledgment will, even on their own principles, bind them down to a courfe of action very different from that which a contrary perfuafion would have been apt to produce; and will, moreover, in all probability, pave the way for their entire belief of a religion which

they