minant disposition and religious character of this country, and of the present times.

In many former ages of religion, the strong propensity of men's minds was to overvalue positive duties; which temper, when carried to excess, not only multiplied unauthorized rites and observances, not only laid an unwarrantable stress upon those which were prescribed; but, what was worst of all, led men to expect, that, by a punctual attention to the ordinances of religion, they could compound for a relaxation of its weighty and difficult duties of personal purity and relative justice. This was the depraved state of religion amongst the Jews when our Saviour appeared; and it was the degeneracy, against which some of the most forcible of his admonitions, and the severest of his reproofs, were directed. Yet, notwithstanding that Christ's own preaching, as well as the plan and spirit of his religion, were as adverse as possible to the exalting or over-valuing of positive institutions, the error which had corrupted the old dispensation revived under the new; and revived with double force, inasmuch as it went to transform Christianity into a service more prolix and burdensome than the Jewish, and to ascribe an efficacy to certain religious performances, which, in a great measure, superseded the obligations of substantial virtue. That age, however, with us, is long since past. I fear there is room to apprehend that we are falling into mistakes of a contrary kind. Sadducees are more common amongst us than Pharisees. We scem disposed, not only to cast off the decent offices, which the temperate piety of our church hath enjoined, as aids of devotion, calls to repentance, or instruments of improvement, but to contemn and neglect, under the

name of forms and ceremonies, even those rites, which, forasmuch as they were ordained by the divine Founder of our religion, or by his inspired messengers, and ordained with a view of their continuing in force through future generations, are entitled to be accounted parts of Christianity itself. In this situation of religion, and of men's thoughts with respect of it, he makes a bad choice of his subject, who discourses upon the futility of rites and ordinances, upon their insignificancy when taken by themselves, or even who insists too frequently, and in terms too strong, upon their inferiority to moral precepts. We are rather called upon to sustain the authority of those institutions which proceed from Christ or his apostles, and the reasonableness and credit of those which claim no higher original than public appointment. We are called upon to contend with respect to the first, that they cannot be omitted with safety any more than other duties; that the will of God, once ascertained, is the immediate foundation of every duty; that, when this will is known, it makes little difference to us what is the subject of it, still less by what denomination the precept is called, under what class or division the duty is arranged. If it be commanded, and we have sufficient reason to believe that it is so, it matters nothing whether the obligation be moral or natural, or positive or instituted. He who places before him the will of God as the rule of his life, will not refine, or even dwell much, upon these distinctions. The ordinances of Christianity, it is true, are all of them significant. Their meaning, and even their use, is not obscure. But were it otherwise; was the design of any positive institution inexplicable, did it appear to have been proposed only as an exercise of obedience, it was not for us to hesitate in our com

pliance. Even to inquire, with too much curiosity and impatience, into the cause and reason of a religious command, is no evidence of an humble and submissive disposition; of a disposition, I mean, humble under the Deity's government of his creation, and submissive to his will however signified.

It may be seasonable also to maintain, what I am convinced is true, that the principle of general utility, which upholds moral obligation itself, may, in various instances, be applied to evince the duty of attending upon positive institutions; in other words, that the difference between natural and positive duties is often more in the name than in the thing. The precepts of natural justice are therefore only binding upon the conscience, because the observation of them is necessary or conducive to the prosperity and happiness of social life. If there be, as there certainly are, religious institutions which contribute greatly to form and support impressions upon the mind, that render men better members of civilised community; if these institutions can only be preserved in their reputation and influence by the general respect which is paid to them; there is the same reason to each of us for bearing our part in these observances, that there is for discharging the most acknowledged duties of natural religion. When I say "the reason is the same," I mean that it is the same in kind. The degree of strength and cogency which this reason possesses in any particular case, must always depend upon the value and importance of the particular duty; which admits of great variety. But moral and positive duties do not in this respect differ more than moral duties differ from one another. So that when men accustom themselves to look upon positive duties as universally and necessarily inferior to moral ones,

as of a subordinate species, as placed upon a different foundation, or deduced from a different original; and consequently to regard them as unworthy of being made a part of their plan of life, or of entering into their sense of obligation, they appear to be egregiously misled by names. It is our business, not to aid, but to correct, the deception. Still, nevertheless, is it as true as ever it was, that "except we exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, we cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven;" that "the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath;" that "the weightier matters of the law are faith, justice, and mercy;" but to insist strenuously, and, as some do, almost exclusively, upon these points at present, tends to diminish the respect for religious ordinances, which is already too little; and, whilst it guards against dangers that have ceased to exist, augments those which are really formidable.

Again; upon the first reformation from Popery, a method very much prevailed in the seceding churches, of resolving the whole of religion into faith-good works, as they were called, or the practice of virtue, holding not only a secondary but even distant place in value and esteem: being represented, indeed, as possessing no share or efficacy in the attainment of human salvation. This doctrine we have seen revived in our own times, and carried to still greater lengths. And it is a theory, or rather perhaps a language, which required, whilst it lasted, very serious animadversion ; not only because it disposed men to rest in an unproductive faith, without endeavours to render themselves useful by exertion and activity; not only because it was naturally capable of being converted to the encouragement rentiousness; but because it misre

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presented Christianity as a moral institution, by makin it place little stress upon the distinction of virtue and vice, and by making it require the practice of external duties, if it required them at all, only as casual, neglected, and almost unthought of consequences of that faith which it extolled; instead of directing men's attention to them, as to those things which alone compose an unquestionable and effective obedience to the divine will. So long as this turn of mind prevailed, we could not be too industrious in bringing together and exhibiting to our hearers those many and positive declarations of Scripture which enforce, and insist upon, practical religion; which divide mankind into those who do good, and those who do evil; which hold out to the one favour and happiness, and to the other repulse and condemnation. The danger, however, from this quarter is nearly overpast. We are, on the contrary, setting up a kind of philosophical morality, detached from religion and independent of its influence, which may be cultivated, it is said, as well without Christianity as with it; and which, if cultivated, renders religion and religious institutions superfluous. A mode of thought so contrary to truth, and so derogatory from the value of revelation, cannot escape the vigilance of a Christian ministry. We are entitled to ask upon what foundation this morality rests. If it refer to the divine will (and, without that, where will it find its sanctions, or how support its authority?) there cannot be a conduct of the understanding more irrational, than to appeal to those intimations of the Deity's character which the light and order of nature afford, as to the rule and measure of our duty, yet to disregard, and affect to overlook, the declarations of his pleasure which Christianity communicates. It is