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the best right to enjoin, how can we expect to reap the benefit which his goodness designed for us? If our Saviour came into the world with a full commission of reconciliation to the ost sons of Adam, "how "shall we escape if we neglect so great "salvation?"

In this christian country, by a peculiar blessing, we have been baptized in our early youth; by a continuation of the same blessing, we have been made acquainted by anxious parents and affectionate friends, with the great truths of christianity. At our entrance into life, in our maturer years, we become responsible for our own conduct. By an useful and impressive ceremony, the ceremony of confirmation, the church points out to us that period of life when that responsibility takes place. Let not then the opening dawn of our understanding be clouded by distrust of our juvenile instructions; let it not be darkened by the in trusion of vicious and malignant habits. Clear and chearful as the sun is the light of true religion: let its bright beams accompany

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pany us through the various stages of hu man life, and when we have fulfilled our appointed time, let it shed a golden lustre on our grave.

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Ir the religion of Christ be, as we have every reason to imagine, that powerful principle which invigorates the disposition of the heart, and influences the actions of mankind, we can have no hesitation in concluding, that it is the greatest blessing which was ever offered to the world. But whilst we reflect on this truth, we must be careful of indulging that favourite inference of the sceptic, that its effects on society are not equal to the flattering promises of its votaries. To answer this objection fully, would draw us into an argument which branches into a thousand channels. It is an argument, however, to which an ingenuous objector might easily assent, as it applies itself powerfully

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powerfully to his feelings. His inclination, if he be like the rest of the world, I make no doubt, in many instances, stands in opposition to his practice. In this, at least, he joins with the equally ingenuous apostle, and exclaims, "the good that I would, I "do not, but the evil which I would not, "that I do."

If we acknowledge this to be the case, we must dive beneath the surface for the origin of our conduct: we must sink into the heart. It is almost unnecessary to explain what is meant by the heart in this sense of the word. We must take expressions as we find them; and as we have been accustomed to consider the heart as the repository of our thoughts and inclinations, we must look there for the source of every plan. Indeed our divine Teacher himself refers us to this fountain from whence every good and every evil action flows. "A good "man out of the good treasure of his heart, "bringeth forth that which is good, and 46 an evil man out of the evil treasure of "his heart, bringeth forth that which is " evil.”

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But before any thing can be brought forth, it must be first placed there by nature, or by grace. With respect to the endowments of the mind, it may fairly be asserted that they were originally good. It is inconsistent with the benevolence of the Supreme Being to suppose that he planted any principle in the heart of man which would prevent him from fulfilling those duties of society which he required. When God had finished the whole creation," he

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saw every thing that he had made, and "behold it was very good." The heart of man, there can be no doubt, came under this description. But as man, to fulfil the purposes of creation, was made a free agent, the operation of these good principles was left to himself. That our first father made an ill use of this liberty, that his sons have too faithfully followed his example, is a circumstance ever to be deplored, but by no means derogates from the goodness of God, because he hath procured a way to re-instate the posterity of Adam in the possession of those privileges which they had forfeited and lost.

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