can be violated, without destroying that confidence, which is the great source of mutual happiness; for how can that person be trusted, whom no principle obliges to fidelity?

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Thus religion appears, in every state of life, to be the basis of happiness, and the operating power which makes every good institution valid and efficacious and he that shall attempt to attain happiness by the means which God has ordained, and "shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife," shall surely find the highest degree of satisfaction that our present state allows, if, in his choice, he pays the first regard to virtue, and regulates his conduct by the precepts of religion.

SERMON II.

ISAIAH, CHAP. LV. VERSE 7.

Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

THAT God is a being of infinite mercy; that he desires not the death of a sinner, nor takes any pleasure in the misery of his creatures; may not only be deduced from the consideration of his nature and his attributes; but, for the sake of those that are incapable of philosophical inquiries, who make far the greatest part of mankind, it is evidently revealed to us in the Scriptures, in which the Supreme Being, the source of life, the author of existence, who spake the word and the world was made, who commanded and it was created, is described as looking down, from the height of infinite felicity, with tenderness and pity, upon the sons of men; inciting them, by soft impulses, to perseverance in virtue, and recalling them, by instruction and punishment, from error and from vice. He is represented as not more formidable for his power than amiable for his mercy; and is introduced as expostulating with mankind upon their obstinacy in wickedness, and warning them, with the highest affection, to avoid those punishments, which

the laws of his government make it necessary to inflict upon the inflexible and disobedient. "Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of Hosts:" Mal. iii. 7.-" Make you a new heart, and a new spirit, for why will ye die, O house of Israel?" Ezek. xviii. 31. His mercy is ever made the chief motive of obedience to him; and with the highest reason inculcated, as the attribute which may animate us most powerfully to an attention to our duty. "If thou, O Lord, wert extreme to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who shall abide it? But there is mercy with thee, therefore shalt thou be feared." If God were a Power unmerciful and severe, a rigid exactor of unvaried regularity and unfailing virtue; if he were not to be pleased but with perfection, nor to be pacified after transgressions and offences; in vain would the best men endeavour to recommend themselves to his favour; in vain would the most circumspect watch the motions of his own heart, and the most diligent apply himself to the exercise of virtue they would only destroy their ease by ineffectual solicitude, confine their hearts with unnecessary restraints, and weary out their lives in unavailing labours. God would not be to be served, because all service would be rejected; it would be much more reasonable to abstract the mind from the contemplation of him, than to have him only before us as an object of terror, as a Being too mighty to be resisted, and too cruel to be implored; a Being, that created men only to be miserable, and revealed himself to them, only to interrupt even the transient and imperfect enjoy

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ments of this life; to astonish them with terror, and to overwhelm them with despair.

But there is mercy with him, therefore shall he be feared. It is reasonable that we should endeavour to please him, because we know that every sincere endeavour will be rewarded by him; that we should use all the means in our power to enlighten our minds and regulate our lives, because our errors, if involuntary, will not be imputed to us; and our conduct, though not exactly agreeable to the divine ideas of rectitude, yet, if approved, after honest and diligent inquiries, by our own consciences, will not be condemned by that God, who judges of the heart, weighs every circumstance of our lives, and admits every real extenuation of our failings and transgressions.

Were there not mercy with him; were he not to be reconciled after the commission of a crime; what must be the state of those who are conscious of having once offended him? A state of gloomy melancholy, or outrageous desperation; a dismal weariness of life, and inexpressible agonies at the thought of death: for what affright or affliction can equal the horrors of that mind, which expects every moment to fall into the hands of implacable Omnipotence ?

But the mercy of God extends not only to those who have made his will, in some degree, the rule of their actions, and have only deviated from it by inadvertency, surprise, inattention, or negligence, but even to those that have polluted themselves with studied and premeditated wickedness; that have violated his commands in opposition to con

viction; and gone on from crime to crime, under a sense of the divine disapprobation.

Even these are not for ever excluded from his favour, but have in their hands means, appointed by himself, of reconciliation to him; means, by which pardon may be obtained, and by which they may be restored to those hopes of happiness, from which they have fallen by their own fault.

The great duty, to the performance of which these benefits are promised, is repentance; a duty, which is of the utmost importance to every man to understand and practise, and which it therefore may be necessary to explain and enforce, by showing,

First, What is the true nature of repentance. Secondly, What are the obligations to an early repentance.

The

First, What is the true nature of repentance? The duty of repentance, like most other parts of religion, has been misrepresented by the weakness of superstition or the artifices of interest. clearest precepts have been obscured by false interpretations, and one error added to another, till the understanding of men has been bewildered, and their morals depraved, by a false appearance of religión.

Repentance has been made by some to consist in the outward expressions of sorrow for sin, in tears and sighs, in dejection and lamentation.

It must be owned, that where the crime is public, and where others may be in danger of corruption from the example, some public and open de