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think himself amongst the difciples of SERMON fome new difpenfation, and would fay,

They have taken away my Lord;" they have taken away that religion which he came down from Heaven to declare, which he promulgated as the only means by which fouls might be faved, “ and know not where they have laid him;” I know not where they have concealed this facred and invaluable truth, I fee no traces to lead me to it.

The decrease of religion appears to me to be fo undeniably notorious, that I might affume it as a point granted, but as, through careleffness and inattention, this decrease is not fufficiently obferved, I shall endeavour, by illuftrating the fact, to mark it so ftrongly that fome of us, at least, may be awakened to a sense of our defperate state, and thereby induced to a reformation of our own conduct.

SERMON

I.

The decrease of religion itself, is FIRST apparent from the neglect of outward profeffion, and outward obfervances. Read the fermons of our eminent Divines; examine the history of the English church, not farther back than the beginning of the present century, and you will find men of the highest rank, the most acknowledged abilities, and the most accomplished manners, paying attention to the institutions and the seasons of religion, which people in a certain fituation of life hardly ever think of at this day. Read the biography of times not very remote from our own, and how many illuftrious ftatefmen, warriors, and senators are to be found, who have been most exemplary in their piety and devotion! how many great and noble names do we meet with,-their country's hope and glory,—who have thought it not unworthy of them to employ their talents

in

I.

in the cause of their infti.nable religion! SERMON But, why should I go back to the neceffity of written teftimony, when I speak in the presence of many, who have witnessed an alteration, which amounts almost to a revolution, in religious decorum in their own times? It would be unbecoming to instance particulars very minutely; but they who are at all advanced in years, and now hear me, will recollect that the very face of religion is altered fince their younger days-They could tell you how much more numerously places of worship were attended, and how much more decent was the deportment of the hearers-They could tell you, how different a face religion wore in private families; how differently times and seasons were obferved, the present season more efpecially, when all men teftified the seriousness of their minds, by a peculiar gravity of drefs-They could

SERMON tell you,

I.

that even amongst the most relaxed the Sabbath was comparatively kept holy-They could tell you, that amongst the higher claffes, amongst the most abandoned individuals, no one dared to infult public decency, with that blazing profanation of the Sabbath, which it is now antiquated and unfashionable not to give into, and which is the very canker of public morality.

3

It was then a rare thing to hear the modesty of common converfation affronted by jests against religion, by undisguised and blafphemous avowal of infidelity, and by fcurrilous reflections upon the established profeffors of it. Such conduct would then have been refented by the company who had been infulted with it, and would have ftigmatized the parties who had been guilty of it. Far different features mark the focial intercourfes of the prefent day,

Το

To be decent, is to be morofe; and to be

disgusted at the fcoff against religion, is to be fanatical. Men are emulous in their ridicule and their invectives against what is facred, as if there were no other means of fhewing the depravity of their hearts, and the emptiness of their understandings.

A SECOND evidence of the decrease of religion amongst us, is to be found in the fashionable mode of refolving Christianity into a mere system of morality. I shall have occafion hereafter, to fhew, that the gospel contains fomething more than mo→ rality. At prefent, I fhall content myself with the fact, that the New Teftament is put upon the fame footing with the dif courses of the fages of heathen antiquity. We know scarcely any thing of the Chriftian religion as it is taught in the New Testament. Even they who are not professed unbelievers, who do not wholly neglect public worship,