not effectual, it is worse than useless, because it must exclude the love of God, the indispensable concomitant of spiritual life; for, however we may in submission kiss the rod that chastens us, it must be done, I think, in the hope of conciliating the hand that guides it; and, being the suggestion of hope, we should cease to do so when despair prevails. If men would be worse on this fear being removed, it would be only so far as they now act on religious principles; because all the other ill consequences of vice would remain: and if the truth is, that avowed and practical unbelievers are restrained now by the laws of their country, the opinions of their fellow men, and the injury to their fortune, their health, and their happiness, which they know will result from vicious practices, then that doctrine, which shall exhibit God's love towards us more strongly than another, is just so much the more favourable to virtuous conduct; because morality, as it contributes to eternal life, can only be founded in the love of God. It is not the number or enormity of the crimes a man has committed that determines his future fate, but the state of mind in which he is overtaken by death. Thus many, who have not committed a tenth part of the gross sins with which the late pious Mr. Newton charged himself in his past life, will be excluded from heaven, whilst he will hear the rapture-stirring call, "Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you ;" and even the * By religion I mean a sense or consciousness of our relation to our Creator. So far as any individual, at any one moment, possesses that feeling, he is religious: being fully possessed by it is true religion, and the perfection of our nature. publicans and harlots shall enter in, and ye your selves (the decent self-righteous pharisees) be thrust out. The future state of the wicked cannot, then, be one of eternal suffering, and that in proportion to the number of their crimes, because intention is essential to crime; but the deeper persons become immersed in sensuality, and, therefore, in one sense, the more criminal their conduct—that is, the more contrary to God's law-the less their sense or con sciousness of their crimes. Now, since their final doom will be determined by the state death finds them in, it will be alleviated by their being past feeling, and having given themselves up to work all uncleanness with greediness. Their last state will not be worse than their first in its conséquences; nor can this be rectified by their being awakened to a sense of their enormity when it is too late to reform; because that will not make actions criminal which were committed in a state of insensibility. But if the "Wages of sin is death;" if "The punishment be destruction from the presence of God, and from the glory of His power;" then the sentence executes itself, keeps pace with the crime, and becomes certain and irreversible, when the cri minal, having filled up the measure of his iniquity, the grieved spirit of grace returns to God who gave it. In cases where the words of Scripture admit of various interpretations, if one can be pointed out that harmonizes with the whole current of reve lation, it has a decisive claim to be received; but, authoritative as this test is, it admits of corroboration by adverting to the analogy of nature. Since all Scripture, when rightly understood, must har monize, because it is all the dictate of infinite wisdom; so the acts of the same God, as seen in the kingdoms of nature and of grace, will mutually illustrate and confirm each other. The identity of result that will flow from obedience to the laws of nature and of Christianity, proves their common origin; and wherever the analogy fails, a doubt must arise; whilst the proof of an inconsistency evinces the interpretation to be false. The knowledge and the love of God are equally the objects of revelation and the perfection of our nature. Our appetites, our faculties, and our moral relations, all have their proper exercise when they tend directly to produce this knowledge and love. I will endeavour to illustrate this in all these respects. Our appetites, which, in their temperate grati fication, are always productive of pleasure, are implanted in us for the preservation of that being on which our mental faculties, and our moral relations, depend. These both nature and revelation make it our duty to gratify to the point that may most conduce to the honour and glory of God. Our mental faculties are under the same restriction, and under no other-always pleasurable in their exercise when employed on worthy objects; and then always piercing the sky, and terminating only in the presence of God. These fit us each for the other :-our appetites properly regulated for the exercise of our mental faculties;-these for the performance and enjoyment of the duties of our moral relations ;these, again, for the presence of Him whose kindness is over all his works, and who has made every step of our progress pleasant in itself, and an introduction to higher pleasures and nobler exercises. The appetites and faculties controled by nature and religion, exercised in the relations of this life, admirably fit us for life eternal in the presence of our Father and our God. The filial affections first make us feel how endearing the kind offices of parental love. It is equally a dictate of nature and Christianity, that those who personify to our infant faculties the Deity, to the love of which our faculties are to expand, shall themselves make love habitual to us : and no limits can be assigned to this germ of love, which will, in its progress, embrace our kinsfolk, our countrymen, mankind, all created nature, and nature's God. Here is the true principle of the immortality of the soul. Here nature and revelation concur in bursting through all restraint, and leave behind them all limits to our being. The life within us is divine in its origin; divine in its tendency; and divine in its result. This is the true immortality of man. Proofs of this immortal tendency may be found in all the duties of life; every one of which, even the most subordinate, performed in a right spirit, will have an influence in brightening those enjoyments of which, here, they are the foundation and the materials God has furnished us with for building that house eternal in the heavens ; which, as one star differeth from another star in glory, will be excellent and splendid, in proportion as we shall have availed ourselves, by the discharge of those duties, of the opportunities afforded us, by the divine goodness, of laying up treasures of good works applicable to this purpose. The general principle of immortality is partaking of the divine nature. Every action of our life must make us more or less resemble God, as it is conformable to, or inconsistent with, His nature. Every wise or just action that we perform makes us more like God-increases the divine life, the principle of immortality within us and precisely, in proportion as these are habitual to us, we become like unto God, and advance towards being one with God; which is the awful blessing our Saviour commands us to aspire after, and which plainly we shall attain unto, when we shall see all things in their true light, and desire nothing but what God desires, and shall, in the full measure of our capacity, advance His honour and glory. In this view it is as true as that God is in heaven, that no action of our life is without its influence on our eternal state; and that for every idle word that men shall speak, God will judge them. Our future state depends (as our present one does in true happiness and enjoyment) on our partaking of the Divine Nature; and this, on our state of mind (as exhibited by our actions) being conformable, or contrary to the will, that is, the nature, of God. Every thought of our hearts, then, must affect the sentence finally passed on us.* * The highest attainment man is capable of is to resemble God. He is most like God when in all things he desires God's will to be done that, being his highest attainment, is his highest duty. To desire God's will to be done he must know it as such. He cannot know that to be God's will which he cannot desire; because that cannot be man's duty which it is impossible to perform. Man cannot desire God's will to be done in all things, and yet not desire it, as to the great bulk of mankind, for the greatest duration, |