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for dulness, equanimity for moroseness, disinclination to bad company for aversion to society, abhorrence of vice for uncharitableness, and piety for enthusiasm.

No doubt, at the table of boisterous intemperance, religion, if she were admitted as a guest, would wear a very dull countenance. In a revel of debauchery, and amidst the brisk interchange of profanity and folly, religion might appear indeed a dumb, unsocial intruder, ignorant of the rhetorick of oaths and the ornaments of obscenity. These are scenes, it must be acknowledged, of what is falsely called pleasure, in which religion, if embodied and introduced, would be as unwelcome a guest, as the emblematick coffin, which the Egyptians used to introduce in the midst of their entertainments. From such instances, however, to accuse religion of being unfriendly to the enjoyment of life, is as absurd as to interpret unfavourably the silence of a foreigner, who understands not a word of our language. But as long as intemperance is not pleasure, as long as profaneness, impurity, or scandal is not wit, as long as excess is not the perfection of mirth, as long as selfishness is not the surest enjoyment, and as long as gratitude, love, reverence, and resignation are not superstitious affections, so long religion lays not an icy hand on the true joys of life. Without her all other pleasures become tasteless, and at last painful. To explain to you, indeed, how much she exalts, purifies and prolongs the pleasures of sense and imagination, and what peculiar sources of consolation, cheerfulness, and contentment she opens to herself, would lead us at present into too wide a range.

Excuses for irreligion are drawn from the failings and imperfections of christians. There, says the profligate, are your boasted saints. They have their faults, as well as those who make not so great pretensions to piety. Thus it happens, that some remains of imperfection, some constitutional infirmity, some unamiable weakness of good men, is brought forward and exhibited in all the triumph of illiberality to the gaze of a censorious world. The character of the mind is drawn from a single trait, from some casual wrinkle, some unlucky deformity. The point, in which a good man is as frail as others, is selected and contemplated with renewed pleasure, while those points, in which he is superiour to other men, are unobserved or unacknowledged. This is partial, unjust, uncharitable, iniquitous.

But the excuse closes not here. Of what religion has

If

failed to remove it is most absurdly called the cause. apparently devout and pious habits are ever found associated with a temper, which is not open as day to melting charity, it is religion which hardens the heart, it is religion which locks the coffers. Whatever passion it has failed to subdue, or whatever fault it has been unable to prevent, it is impiously said to encourage. Equally absurd would it be, to attribute the weakness of a broken bone to the kind attentions of the surgeon, the pain of a wound to the balmy band which would assuage it.

But of all the faults of christians, from which excuses for irreligion are drawn, the occasional extravagances into which pious men have fallen afford the most plausible apologies. The history of religion is ransacked for instances of persecution, of austerities, and enthusiastick irregularities, and when they are all collected, the cold-hearted, thoughtless irreligionist exclaims, these are the frui of piety!

But why is it never considered, that the same ard temperament, the same energy of passions, if they had been united with any other subject, would have rushed into similar extremes? In a mind of such a mould, religion, as is often said, is the occasion only, not the cause of extravagance. When enthusiasm, however, is the result of mere ignorance, as it most commonly is, the excuse entirely fails. Ignorance is not devotion, nor the mother of devotion; zeal is not religion, enthusiasm is not piety, solitude is not purity, spiritual pride is not conscious innocence, and the preternatural heat of the passions is not the warmth of love to God or man.

You would not judge of the usual moisture of any region from the occasional inundation of its rivers. The influence of true religion is mild, and soft, and noiseless, and constant as the descent of the evening dew on the tender herbage, nourishing and refreshing all the amiable and social virtues; but enthusiasm is violent, sudden, rattling as a summer' shower, rooting up the fairest flowers, and washing away the richest mould in the pleasant garden of society.

Excuses for a neglect of religion are suggested by differ ent seasons of life. Youth, in the fulness of its spirits defers it to the sobriety of manhood; manhood, encumber ed with cares, defers it to the leisure of old age; oldge, weak and hesitating, is unable to enter on an untried node of life. The excuses of youth are those which are most

frequently offered, and most easily admitted. The restrictions of religion, though proper enough for maturer age, are too severe, it is said, for this frolicksome and gladsome period. Its consolations, too, they do not want. Leave them to prop the feeble limbs of old age, or to cheer the sinking spirits of adversity. False and pernicious maxim! As if, at the end of a stated number of years, a man could become religious in a moment! As if the husbandman, at the end of summer, could call up a harvest from the soil which he had never tilled! As if manhood, too, would have no excuses! And what are they? That he has grown too old to amend. That his parents took no pains with his religious education, and therefore his ignorance is not his own fault. That he must be making provision for old age; and the pressure of cares will allow him no time to attend to the evidences, or learn the rules of religion. Thus life is spent in framing apologies, in making and breaking resolutions, and protracting amendment, till death places his cold hand on the mouth open to make its last excuse, and one more is added to the crowded congregation of the dead.

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LESSON LV.

Subject Concluded.

THE excuses, which we have already considered, are trifling, however, compared with the following.

It is said, "it is by no means certain, that there is a future state of retribution beyond the limits of the world. Who has ever seen it? It is not certain, that the religion, which you urge us to embrace, comes from God. Many objections may be made to its evidences."

Most of the irreligion, which prevails among the more informed classes of society, results from a lurking skepticism, which infests their thoughts, and, in relation to religion, leads them to act in direct opposition to all the maxims, which usually overn the conduct of men.

It is indeed true, that the existence of a future world is not to us as certain as the existence of the present; neither can ve ever have that intuitive assurance of the being of a God, that we necessarily possess of our own existence; neither can the facts of the gospel history, which happened

two thousand years ago, be impressed on our belief with that undoubting conviction, which we have of the reality of scenes, which are passing immediately before our eyes.

But the question is not, whether the gospel history can be demonstrated. Few subjects which occupy human contemplation admit strict and mathematical proof. The whole life of man is but a perpetual comparison of evidence, and balancing of probabilities. And upon the supposition that religious truths are only probable, the excuse we have mentioned will not relieve irreligion from the charge of presumptuous and consummate folly.

But it is said, many objections have been made to the evidences of revelation; and many of its difficulties remain yet unexplained. It is true, that objections have been often made and often answered, and not only answered, but refuted. But some difficulties, it is said, yet remain. It is true, they do remain; and the excuse shall be admitted, when any other subject of equal importance shall be produced, in which difficulties do not remain. The most plausible objections, which have been made to any truth within the circle of human knowledge, are those which have been offered against the existence of a material world; but did this ever check an operation in mechanicks, or excuse from his daily task a single labourer?

A man of ingenuity might offer a thousand objections against the probability of your living till the morrow, but would this rob you of a moment's rest, or frustrate a single plan, which you had meditated for the approaching day? If we subtract from the difficulties, which attend revelation, those which have been erected by the injudicious zeal of some of its friends in attempting to prove too much, we shall find, that, in the vast storehouse of facts which history presents, for none can there be produced a greater mass of evidence than for the birth, the death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ-and upon the supposition of their truth, irreligion is nothing better than distraction.

Another excuse, however, is offered, which perhaps has greater secret influence in quieting the conscience than any other. We are desired to look at the list of great names, who have been adversaries of christianity. Can that evidence, it is asked, be satisfactory, which failed to convince such minds as these ?-If the probable truth of revelation is to be ascertained in this manner, the dispute will soon be at an end; for it would be no difficult task to produce, from

among the friends of revelation, a greater number of greater names within the last hundred years, than all the hosts of infidelity can furnish in eighteen centuries since the birth of Christ.

But I believe these instances are not alleged to disprove the truth, but only to weaken the importance of christianity. They are alleged only to excuse an inattention to religion, and show that it is not very dangerous to err with such great names on our side. Truths, it is said, which such understandings disbelieved, surely cannot be of infinite importance. Nothing would tend more to remove such apologies, than a fair, impartial, and full account of the education, the characters, the intellectual processes, and the dying moments of such men. Then it would be seen, that their virtues were the result of the very principles they had assailed, but from whose influence they were unable wholly to escape. Then it would be seen, that they had gained by their skepticism no new pleasures, no tranquillity of mind, no peace of conscience during life, and no consolation in the hour of death.

Such are the excuses which irreligion offers. Could you have believed, that they were so empty, so unworthy, so hollow, so absurd? And shall such excuses be offered to the God of heaven and earth? By such apologies shall man insult his Creator? Shall he hope to flatter the ear of Omnipotence, and beguile the observation of an omniscient spirit? Think you, that such excuses will gain new importance in their ascent to the throne of the Majesty on high? Will you trust the interests of eternity in the hands of these superficial advocates?

You have pleaded your incessant occupation. Exhibit then the result of your employment. Have you nothing to produce but these bags of gold, these palaces, and farms, these bundles of cares, and heaps of vexations? Is the eye of Heaven to be dazzled by an exhibition of property, an ostentatious show of treasures? You surely produce not all these wasted hours, to prove that you have had no time for religion. It is an insult to the Majesty of Heaven. Again, you have pleaded your youth, and you have pleaded. your age. Which of these do you choose to maintain at the bar of Heaven? Such trifling would not be admitted in the intercourse of men, and do you think it will avail more with Almighty God?

It must however be acknowledged, that the case of the irreligious is not desperate, while excuses are thought proper

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