fpecified, that the good man, that even the best of men, can enjoy thefe higher tranfports of devotion: but if thefe be in their own nature delightful and fublime, if they may recur fufficiently often to enhance the general estimate of life, and if, in minds devoid of the religious principle, they cannot be excited at all, it must appear, beyond a doubt, that religion improves the foul, and exalts it above the common condition of humanity.

Let us then, as the prophet exhorts," Lift up our heart, with our hands unto God in "the heavens." An exhortation on which I will not now expatiate further, nor weaken the impreffion already made by perfuafions to cultivate and encourage thefe devout feelings, which would be either vain or fuperfluous. Vain, if nothing of what has been said has been felt by those who heard it; or, if it has produced its due effect, fuperfluous. If I have convinced, I have thereby exhorted; if I have fhown what is truly moft great, exalted, and fublime, I have marked out the juft object of ambition, and the attainment to which, for our own fakes, our wishes ought most earnestly to tend. To go beyond this, and add unneceflary arguments to D 2 prove

prove that acknowledged good demands attention, and acknowledged happiness deserves pursuit, would furely be lefs useful, than to leave the impreffion already made upon the mind, glowing in the fimple but ardent colouring of truth.

Now to God, &c.

DIS

DISCOURSE III.

ON THE MERCY OF GOD.

PSAL. CXXX. 4.

For there is mercy with thee, therefore shalt thou be feared.(LITURGY.)

HOUGH the image of God impreffed

THO

on man at his creation, has been, fince the first tranfgreffion, disfigured, and miserably defaced, yet does he retain, even in this degraded state, fome traces of his priftine dignity, some remains of his original powers. This dignity of man in nothing appears more confpicuously, than in the privilege which he poffeffes of raising his thoughts to God, and contemplating, however imperfectly, that infinite Majefty, by which the universe is filled. That a creature whofe footsteps are chained, in a manner, to this grofs and fenfeJefs foil, of which also in part he is formed, should

D 3

fhould be capable of afcending, by the steps of reafon, or on the wings of imagination, to the Holy of Holies; or, to speak without a figure, fhould be able to confider the attributes, and investigate, in any degree, the nature of God, is a privilege fo extraordinary, that there belongs not to us any faculty of equal eminence, any property of comparable glory and a heavy proof it is of a groveling, a difgraced, and brutish disposition, when men are averfe to fuch exalted fpeculations, and turn from them as infipid or disgusting.

As God, the Creator of us, and all things that have being, is confequently the fole fountain of all duty, it is moft effential to our conduct throughout life, that we should entertain right notions of him; adequate notions we cannot either obtain, or receive, but thofe which we are able to acquire may be in their kind correct or incorrect, and the confequences of each are too many and too important to allow of any negligence in the felection. On what God is, depends altogether what we must try to render ourfelves; if he be good and holy, goodness and holinefs are neceffarily the highest objects of purfuit

purfuit to us. If he abhor iniquity, there is nothing which with more vigilance we should be attentive to avoid.

This however is an eafy queftion.

Since

the differences between good and evil have been discernible by human faculties, there have been few, if any, men presumptuous enough to deny, that good is fuitable, and evil abhorrent to the nature of the fupreme Being. The attribute of goodness is the first and the moft evident that our reafon discovers in its divine Author. The attributes of juice and of mercy, deducible from that, are much lefs easily comprehended, and yet have a reference, ftill more immediate, to our conduct of ourselves. They have even been thought irreconcileable to each other; doubtlefs, because imperfectly understood. But this at

leaft is undeniable, that on the real nature of these attributes, whether we are able to discover it or not, depends every thing of the most importance which we poffibly can hope or fear. Let us then make the mercy of God (the reconcilement of which with his justice will be found an infeparable part of the enquiry) the fubject of our prefent contemplations.