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countenance, and in the sensible enjoyment of his love. - But especially was the personal religion of Christ of this kind; all whose plans and principles, ways and movements, discourses and doctrines, made it manifest, that his heart, and spirit, and will, were constantly one with the heart and spirit and will of God.

II. It is the most rational kind of religion. If the things of religion are not merely imaginary, they ought in fitness and reason to command the whole heart, and rule the whole inner and outer man. If they are real, they are comparatively the only realities; all else is shadow and illusion. If the God of the Scriptures, and the objects revealed to us in eternity do indeed exist, well may the prophet pronounce the world and its affairs to be less than nothing in the comparison. Such objects then, so transcendently important in themselves, ought to have a correspondent influence on our character and conduct. And what is such an influence? If that Being who is the infinite fountain of all being, who made me, and sustains me every moment; who, in all the glory of his infinite perfections, "compasses my path and my lying down," and is ever with me; the Being on whom my happiness wholly depends, and from whom my last sentence is to proceed-if he has that influence on me which his character and relations to me ought to exert, shall I not always be in his fear; shall I not always dwell in love to him; and rejoice when he smiles upon me, and be troubled when he suspends the communications of his favour? Towards such a Being, so related to me as God is, do I not express a reasonable affection when I exclaim, in the ardent language of the Psalmist, "whom have I in Heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee." If I have any love at all for such a Personage, and one so related to me as Christ, ought I not to be constrained by that love,

as Paul was, to live and die to this infinite benefactor-making it my whole duty and happiness to serve and enjoy him? And what would be the result upon my heart and life, of a reasonable operation of the Gospel upon them? What manner of person should I be in all holy conversation and godliness, if my example were a just transcript of the great truths of the Gospel? That religion has been thought by some to be the most enlightened and reasonable, which has least to do with the affections of the heart; but never was there a more manifest mistake. Reasonableness in religion is absorption of mind and heart - the whole man ruled and overborne by the transcendent importance and glory of the objects of religion. For a man to pretend to be religious, and yet be cold and backward in the concerns of religion, and contentedly uncertain whether the infinite objects which it discloses may not be adverse to his eternal happiness - this is not reason, but the supreme of inconsistency and stupidity.

III. It is spiritual religion alone in which the human mind can find sensible and satisfying enjoyment. True religious enjoyment consists in a heartfelt complacency in God and divine things. There is indeed a feeling of quietude arising from the regular discharge of moral duties, and the routine of religious observances, which is not spiritual joy or peace, but the fruit of predominant self-righteousness and fatal delusion. It implies a great abiding spiritual apathy and thoughtlessness; for if sensibility were awake, and thought intelligently exercised on the person's habitual course of life, a general worldliness of spirit would be seen to pollute and vitiate the services of religion; and then these services, instead of yielding hope and comfort, would conspire with other things to work fear, and doubt, and misery, in the heart. - There is, however, a hope of Heaven different from that

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of the self-righteous, which springs from reflection on the general tenour of our conduct, regarded as an evidence of our spiritual character and state. This probably is the hope of the mass of professed Christians. We speak not against it, except by lamenting that it should be made so generally the measure of spiritual enjoyment. What is the amount of positive happiness that a hope of this kind yields? It is not the assurance of hope- the living, refreshing, soul-elevating hope of the first Christians. It does not preclude doubt, but only despair. It leaves its subjects uncertain of their state. They are not sure of their calling and election. The Spirit does not so "witness with their spirits" but that they remain halting, hesitating, trembling, > in respect to their final sentence; or if not trembling, wondering that they do not, amidst their want of satisfying evidence. Such is the general feelings of professed Christians, in respect to their character

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