that it may please him to inspire our rulers with incorruptible integrity, and to direct and prosper their councils; that it may please him to bless all schools and seminaries of learning, and to grant that truth, justice, and benevolence, and pure and undefiled religion may universally prevail.”

Such is a small specimen of the sentiments of the illustrious fathers of the American revolution, on the moral tendency and effect of a belief in God and his superintending Providence. They do honor to their authors, and are the best illustration, by way of authority, of the practical moral efficacy of a belief in the God of heaven and earth, which could well be given. I may fear having done them injustice by quoting so small a part of their valuable sentiments, dispersed through the Congressional documents. They are worthy of the serious and careful perusal of every American citizen. *

Belief in God, then, and in his superintending Providence, is alike the foundation of morals and of religion. In God is concentrated all that is sublime, glorious, holy, and happy. A belief in him includes something more than a mere acknowledgment of his existence; it includes a belief in him, as he has made himself known in his works,† and more especially in the revelation which he has made of himself, his nature, his attributes, and his will respecting mankind, in the Scriptures of the Old and New TestaBut the moral effect of a belief in God, and of the great truths embraced in such belief, will depend very much on the strength and vividness of our conviction and on the fulness and exactness of the instruction which we have received.

ment.

Unquestionably, the existence of God, of his Providence, and of the great truths of Divine revelation, may be acknowledged in general terms, without a corresponding moral effect being seen in the life and conversation. The heathen, whose case St. Paul describes, acknowledged God, (knew God,) still they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. So darkened,

Larger portions of them are quoted, and all of them are referred to, in Note E. pp. 35-39, of a Sermon preached by the Author before the Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Diocese of South Carolina, 1833. 2d ed. ↑ Rom. i. 20. Rom. i. 19-32.

indeed, did their understandings become, by reason of their rejecting the knowledge of God, that although they professed themselves to be wise, they were guilty of the foolishness of changing the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things; and moreover, of changing the truth of God into a lie, and worshipping and serving the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. It was for this, that God gave them up to unnatural lusts and every species of vile affections. Growing worse and worse, as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge," (v. 28,) "he gave them over to a reprobate mind,” and, after their hardness and impenitent hearts, to treasure up wrath to themselves against the day of wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God.* To prevent a declension to the ways of vice and the depths of sin so fatal, and to keep up in men's minds that strong conviction and deep sense of God, which is the root and branch of practical morals, and which the Scriptures call faith in him, we must rely on the conscientious performance of the duties which spring from the relation which we sustain to him; which duties are now to be examined and unfolded.

CHAPTER II.

THE GENERAL DUTY OF REVERENCING GOD.

WHEN submitted to a careful and exact analysis, reverence for the Deity comprises a deep sense of our own insignificance, of his divine majesty, his incomprehensible nature, his eternal existence, knowing equally no beginning and no end; of his Almighty power, to which all things are equally easy, and in whose operations all degrees of facility, whether in the creation of a world or of an atom, are unknown; of our ignorance, and of his omniscience and divine wisdom, unsearchable and past finding

* Rom. ii. 5.

a

out; a sense of our dependence, and of his absolute and perfect independence of time, place, circumstances, and events; sense of our sinfulness, and of his immaculate and essential holiness, in whose sight the very heavens are unclean.*

Reverence for God includes, moreover, reverence for his name, which is holy and reverend, † and not to be used in vain ; for his attributes, his revelation of himself, his worship, and his ordinances. It comprises again, a respectful regard for his ministers who serve at the altar, for the edifices consecrated to his service, and for whatever else pertains to the celebration of his worship. It is not necessary to say, that levity in regard to these subjects, or any of them, and still more all sneering and scoffing, are totally inconsistent with the smallest degree of reverence for God. They indicate a heart destitute of every vestige of religious feeling, an understanding steeled against all conviction of religious truth, and both a heart and an understanding equally inaccessible to any religious impression. In such a state of the feelings, the truth can take no hold on the consciences of men, and no fair and candid estimate can be made of the all-commanding claims, sanctions, and evidences of religion. In this condition, they are beyond the reach of human aid; and there is, in truth, no aid for them, but in the awakening, enlightening, and sanctifying power and grace of that Holy Spirit, from whom "all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works proceed." The fate of despisers of the truth and ordinances of God is, to wonder and perish. Their perdition shall be amazing and wonderful to themselves and all around them. They are men reprobate concerning the faith and to every good work. ‡

What has been said of ridicule, sneering, and scoffing, applies substantially to all sarcasms, jestings, and even pleasantry, when exercised upon the Scriptures, or upon the places, persons, and forms set apart for the service of religion. They are alike inconsistent with a religious frame of mind; for, as no one ever either feels himself disposed to pleasantry, or capable of being diverted with the pleasantry of others, upon matters in which he is deeply interested; so a mind intent upon the acquisition of Acts xiii. 41; 2 Tim. iii. 8; Tit. i. 16.

✦ Job xv. 15. † Ps. cxi. 9.

heaven rejects, with indignation, every attempt to entertain it with jests, calculated to degrade or deride subjects which it never recollects but with seriousness and anxiety. Nothing but stupidity, or the most frivolous dissipation of thought, can make even the inconsiderate forget the supreme importance of every thing which relates to the expectation of a future existence. Whilst the infidel mocks at the superstitions of the vulgar, as he chooses to consider them, insults over their credulous fears, their childish errors, or fantastic rites, it does not occur to him to observe, that the most preposterous device, by which the weakest devotee ever believed he was securing the happiness of a future life, is more rational than unconcern about it. Upon this subject, nothing is so absurd as indifference; no folly so absurd as thoughtlessness and levity.

*

CHAPTER III.

THE DUTY OF WORSHIPPING GOD.

THERE is a distinction between reverencing and worshipping God. Both are, external duties, and God is the immediate object of both; the distinction between them is, that the one is negative, the other positive; the one consists in abstaining from some impious act, the other in performing some act of piety. When, from a sense of duty to God, we rest on Sunday during a journey, we perform a duty of reverence; when, from the same motive, we attend church on Sunday, we perform an act of worship.†

The special object of worshipping God, is, to keep up that reverence for him in the mind, which cannot be preserved without habitual attendance on some external service, by which a habit of devotion and reverence, and their consequent moral influences may be maintained. The formation, preservation, and strengthening of this habit of devotion and reverence for

God and divine things, together with instruction in the doctrines and duties of Christianity, are the aim and end of divine worship, and in them its public and private benefit consists.

This subject is an important one, and comprises, the naturalness and reasonableness of divine worship, private and public; -the subject matter of which, prayer, thanksgiving, and praise ought to consist; a review of the part of public worship designed specially for instruction, consisting of the reading of the Scriptures, preaching, and catechetical instruction; and an illustration of the benefits, public and private, of divine worship, when attended with diligence and with a suitable temper and spirit.

1. The naturalness and reasonableness of divine worship, private and public. A conviction of the existence and influence, as has before been said, of "a power above us," which guides our destinies, to which we are responsible, to which we are bound equally by duty and interest to have regard, whose favor we may gain and whose displeasure we may propitiate, by some exertions which we may use and some sacrifices which we may make, seems, in all ages and among all nations, to have been irresistibly forced on the understandings of mankind. * Under the influence of this natural conviction, men have always raised their minds in prayer to some superior Being, or beings, as is attested by the literary remains of every nation under heaven. It is true that this natural sentiment has often been greatly obscured by ignorance, by neglect, and by great misuse and perversion of talents; but no debasement of savage life, of false religion, or even of settled habits of sin, formed, cherished, and persevered in amidst the bright shining of the Gospel itself, has been able entirely to suppress and drive it from the human mind.

Accordingly, the literature of Greek and Roman antiquity, and the Hindoo and Chinese literature of the present day, are filled with prayers and thanksgivings to the various deities which they acknowledged. These are the more cultivated forms of heathenism, but its ruder forms all contain evidences of the same natural sentiment and feeling. This may be called natural piety; and however obscured and perverted, it is still good proof of the natural conviction described by St. Paul, and of the natural sen

* Romans i. 20.