ral obligation, to annex a new sanction to the laws, and to inspire purity into the manners of a people.

By the operation of such a principle, open violence will be restrained, and secret enmity will be checked. Society will assume a happier form, the insolence of the oppressor will be humbled, and the wild passions of the licentious be subdued. What the Scripture calls," the power of the world to come," is felt strongly through every corner of this world. Heaven improves the earth; and the life which is to come, is a source of happiness to the life which now is. There are, indeed, I acknowledge, to the honour of the human kind, there are persons in the world who feel that the possession of good dispositions is their best reward; who would follow goodness for its own sake, and do their duty, because it is their duty, although there were neither rewards nor punishments to come. But I know as well, that the world is not

composed of such persons. Men in general are governed by their passions, their interest, the prevailing bias of their minds; and whenever their passions, their interest, or the bias of their mind, stand in one scale, and their duty in the other, it is very evident where the balance will incline. To such persons you might declaim for ever to no purpose, on the beauty of virtue, and the harmony of a well-governed mind: they hear you not; they are deaf to the voice of the moral charmer; nothing less than "Thus saith the "Lord," will influence their conduct. The unjust judge in the parable represents and characterizes the great body of mankind; if they fear not God, neither will they regard men.

Thus, if the public institutions of religion were laid aside, private virtue would not long remain behind. Men in general have no principle of moral conduct but religion, and if that were taken away, they would work all impurity with greediness, whenever they could withdraw from the public eye. Human laws would often be of little avail, without a sense of divine legislation; and the sanctions of men have lit

tle force, unless they were enforced by the authority of God. There would then be no security for the public peace; the mutual confidence between man and man would be destroyed; the bond which keeps society together would be broken; oaths would become mere words of course, and an appeal to the Great GoD of Heaven no more regarded than if he were an image of stone. Human life would be thrown into confusion, the safety of mankind would be endangered, and the moral world totter to its ruin, if such a pillar were to fall. And what is it that maintains and spreads religious principles in the world? What is it that keeps alive on the minds of the people the fear of God and the belief of his providence? It is the public institutions of religion; it is the observance of the Lord's day; it is our assembling together in this place, for the celebration of divine worship. The people, in general, have no religious principles, and no rule of life, but what they learn here and if these churches were once shut up, the hand of the civil magistrate would soon force them open, in order to reclaim the criminals that would thus be let loose upon the world.

In the third place, let us view the effect of religious institutions upon men, with regard to their political state.

;

The political systems that take place in the world, the facility with which the many are governed by the few, is one of the most wonderful things in the history of man. That mankind in all ages, and in all countries, should allow a few of their number to divide this globe among them; to appropriate to themselves the possessions, distinctions, and honours, and leave nothing to the majority but burdens to bear, if we had not beheld it from the first, would have appeared one of the most astonishing of all events. Would it be at all surprising to hear a man struck with a sense of this state of things, complain thusIs nature unequal in the care of her children? A "mother to some, and stepmother to others? Has she appointed me to labour in the sweet of my brow,

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"and another to riot in the fruit of my labours? No. "The fault is not in nature. She has no favourites.

"She gives to all her sons an equal right to inherit "the earth. The fault is in them who tamely bend "their necks to the yoke; who kneel and kiss the "rod which the haughty lord waves over their heads. "It never surely was the will of heaven, that the "worthy should be scorned by the vile, and the "brave be trampled upon by the coward. Cannot I "then find a band of men as valiant and as de "termined as myself, to rectify these caprices of for"tune, to vindicate the rights of nature, and restore "mankind to their original inheritance? By doing "violence at first, this usurpation on nature was "made; and by a similar violence, nature requires "that her reign be restored." What is it that prevents such a spirit as I have been now describing, from frequently breaking out? What prevents bloodshed and devastation, and all the evils of war? What prevents the world from being turned upside down?

Nothing so much as the influence of religious principles upon the minds of men. Christianity gives honour to civil government, as being the ordinance of God; and enjoins subjection to the laws, under its own awful sanctions.

And not only by particular precepts, but by its secret and less visible influence, it prepares the minds of men for submission to lawful authority. When we meet together in this place, under the sanction of law, and under the protection of the civil magistrate, we are put in mind of our relation to the state, and of our duty to the higher powers. Fear God, and honour the king, have more than a local connection in Scripture. Obedience to spiritual authority paves way for subjection to the civil power. wise Legislators have, even on this account, favoured the progress of religion: hence those who have at tempted innovations in government, applied, in the first place, to the ministers of religion, and endea

the

Hence

voured to gain the pulpit on their side. Julian, known by the name of the Apostate, the most formidable enemy the Christians ever had, was so sensible of the influence, and of the effects of preaching to the people, that he appointed a similar institution among the

heathens.

"

My son, fear thou the Lord and the king," (said the wisest of mankind)," and meddle not with them "that are given to change. In confirmation, we may observe, that men, characterized as given to change, have either, from infidelity, not attended upon ordinances, or, from enthusiasm, been above them! For, who have been innovators and disturbers? who have been the authors of seditions and rebellions? who have been the enemies of order and civil government, in many an age?-a mixture of atheists and fanatics; two classes of men, who, though seemingly opposite, have been found in close bonds of union. In the fourth and last place, we have to consider the influence of religious institutions upon men with respect to domestic life.

It is chiefly on account of their domestic situation, that we can pronounce men happy or miserable. Here the pleasures are enjoyed which sweeten life; here the pains are felt which embitter our days.

No un

easiness abroad will sit heavy on a man, when the pleasing reflection rises in his mind, that he has happiness at home: No enjoyment from without will give real and lasting satisfaction, when he knows that he has a curse in his own house.

It is no small advantage attending the institutions of divine worship, that they minister to the happiness of domestic life. A new bond will be added to the conjugal union, when those whom it connects walk to the House of God in company, take sweet counsel with one another, and set out jointly in the way that leads to life. Watered by the dews of Heaven, which fall here, the olive-plants will flourish round your table. What sacred sensations will fill the bosom of a parent, when, viewing his family sitting at the feet of Jesus, he says, in the fullness of a

grateful heart, "Lord, behold me, and the children. "whom thou hast given me !"

There is a beauty also, when the rich and the poor, when the high and the low, who seldom meet together on other occasions, assemble here in one place, one great family, in the presence of their common Lord, when they are stripped of every adventitious circumstance, and where virtue makes the only distinction among them. It is the image of those golden times when society began; it is the image of the state which is to come, when God shall be all in all.

Such are the effects of religious institutions upon men, with respect to their religious capacity, their moral character, their political state, and their domestic life.

Whoever, therefore, habitually absents himself from attending on public ordinances, has to answer for it to his God,-to his neighbours,-to his country, and to his family. He partakes with other men in their sins; he associates with the enemies of mankind; and does what in him lies, to undermine the basis on which the order and happiness of civil society is built. He teaches the false swearer to take the name of God in vain; he directs the midnight robber to his neighbour's house; and he delivers into the hand of the assassin, a dagger to shed innocent blood.

But, blessed be God! that, corrupted as the world is, there are not wanting instances of exemplary piety, in every station of life; not only in the middle, the lower, and the higher, but in the highest of all. While piety shines, as it now does, from the Throne; while it has the beam of Majesty to adorn it; let none of the subjects fail in copying the pattern: and, while we meet together in this place, let us remember, that many who have worshipped, in times past, within these walls, are now in the Higher House, in the Church of the First-born, in the Assembly of Angels, and in that Temple where the beatific presence of the Lord displays his glory, in a manner which hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive.