which truth procures to its adherents. 1. Truth will open to you an infinite source of pleasure. 2. It will fit you for the various employments, to which you may be called in society. 3. It will free you from many disagreeable doubts about religion. 4. It will render you intrepid at the approach of death. The most rapid inspection of these four objects will be sufficient to convince you, that at whatever price God hath put up truth, you cannot purchase it too dearly. Buy the truth.

1. Truth will open to you an infinite source of pleasure. The pleasure of knowledge is infinitely superior to the plea sures of sense, and to those which are excited by the turbulent passions of the heart. If the knowledge of truth be exquisitely pleasing when human sciences are the objects of it, what delight is it not attended with, when the science of salvation is in view?

My brethren, forgive me if I say, the greater part of you are not capable of entering into these reflections. As you usually consider religion only in a vague and superficial manner; as you know neither the beauty, nor the importance of it; as you see it neither in its principles, nor in its conse quences, so it is a pain to you to confine yourselves to the study of it. Reading tires you; meditation fatigues you; a sermon of an hour wearies you quite out; and judging of others by yourselves, you consider a man who employs himself silently in the closet to study religion, a man whose soul is in an extacy when he increaseth his knowledge, and refines his understanding; you consider him as a melancholy kind of man, whose brain is turned, and whose imagination is become wild, through some bodily disorder. To study, to learn, to discover; in your opinions, what pitiable pursuits! The elucidation of a period! The cause of a phonomenon! The arrangement of a system! There is far more greatness of soul in the design of a courtier, who, after he hath languished many hours in the anti-chamber of a prince, at length obtains one glance of the prince's eye. There is much more solidity in the projects of a gamester, who proposes in an instant, to raise his fortune on the ruin of that of his neighbour. There is much more reality in the speculations of a merchant, who discovers the worth of this thing, and the value of that, who taxes, if I may be allowed to speak so, heaven, and earth, and sea, all nature, and each of its component parts.

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But you deceive yourselves grossly. The study of religion, as we apply it to our closets, is very different from that, which you exercise under a sermon, sometimes not well preached, and often badly heard; and from that which you exercise in the hasty reading of a pious book. As we meditate, we learn, and as we learn, the desire of learning increaseth. In our studies, we consider religion in every point of light. There, we compare it with the dictates of conscience, with the desires of the human heart, and with the general concert of all creatures. There, we admire to see the God of nature in harmony with the God of religion; or rather, we see religion is the renovation and embellishment of nature. There, we compare author with author, œconomy with œconomy, prophecy with event, event with prophecy. There, we are delighted to find that, notwithstanding diversities of times, places, conditions, and characters, the sacred authors harmonize, and prove themselves animated by one Spirit: a promise made to Adam, is repeated to Abraham, confirmed by Moses, published by the prophets, and accomplished by Jesus Christ. There, we consider religion as an assemblage of truths, which afford one another a mutual support, and, when we make some new discovery, when we meet with some proof, of which we had been ignorant before, we are involved in pleasures, far more exquisite than those, which you derive from all your games, from all your amusements, from all the dissipations, which consume your lives. We enjoy a satisfaction in advancing in this delightful path, infinitely greater than that, which you taste, when your ambition, or your avarice, is gratified: we look, like the cherubims, to the mystical ark, and desire thoroughly to know all its contents, 1 Pet. i. 12.

A christian, who understands how to satiate his soul with these sublime objects, can always derive pleasure from its fountain. If ye continue in my word, said the Saviour of the world, ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free, John viii. 31, 32. This saying is true in many respects, and perhaps it may, not improperly, be applied to our subject. A man, who hath no relish for truth, is a slave, leisure-time is a burden to him. He must crawl to every inferior creature, prostrate himself before it, and humbly intreat it to free him from that listlessness, which dissolves and destroys him; and he must by all means avoid the sight of himself, which would be intolerable to him. But a christian, who knows the truth and loves it, and who VOL. II. endeavours

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endeavours to make daily advances in it, is delivered from this slavery: The truth hath made him free. In retirement, in his closet, yea, in a desert, his meditation supplies the place of the whole world, and of all its delights.

2. Truth will fit you for the employments to which you are called in society. Religion, and Solomon, the herald of it, had certainly a view more noble and sublime, than that of preparing us for the exercise of those arts, which employ us in the world. Yet, the advantages of truth are not confined to religion. A man, who hath cultivated his mind, will distinguish himself in every post, in which Providence may place him. An irrational, sophistical turn of mind incapacitates all, who do not endeavour to correct it. Rectitude of thought, and accuracy of reasoning, are necessary every where. How needful are they in a political conference? What can be more intolerable than the harangues of those scnators, who, while they should be consulting measures for the relieving of public calamities, never understand the state of a question, nor even come nigh the subject of deliberation: but employ that time in vain declamations, foreign from the matter, which ought to be devoted to the discussion of a particular point, on which the fate of a kingdom depends? How needful is such a rectitude of thought in a council of war? What, pray, is a general destitute of this? He is an arm without a head: he is a madman, whọ may mow down ranks on his right hand, and cover the field with carnage on the left: but who will sink under the weight of his own valour, and, for want of discerument, will render his courage often a burden, and sometimes a ruin to his country. This article of my discourse addresseth itself principally to you, who are heads of families. It is natural to parents to wish to see their children attain the most eminent posts in society. If this desire be innocent, it will engage you to educate your children in a manner suitable to their destination. Cultivate their reason, regard that, as the most necessary science, which forms their judgments, and which renders their reasoning powers exact.

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This is particularly necessary to those, whom God calls to officiate in the church. What can be more unworthy of minister of truth, than a sophistical turn of mind? What more likely method to destroy religion than to establish truth on arguments, which would establish falshood? What can be more unreasonable than that kind of logic, which serves to reason with, if I may be allowed to speak so, only from hand

to

to mouth which pulls down with the one hand what it builds with the other; which abandons, in disputing with adversaries of one kind, the principles, it had established, in disputing with adversaries of another kind? What sad effects does this method, too often practised by these, who ought to abhor it, produce in the church? Are we called to oppose teachers, who carry the free agency of man beyond its due bounds? Man is made a trunk, a stone, a being destitute of intelligence and will. Are we called to oppose people, who, under pretence of defending the perfections of God, carry the slavery of man beyond its due bounds? Man is made a seraphical intelligence; the properties of disembodied spirits are attributed to him, he is represented capable of elevating his meditations to the highest heavens, and of attaining the perfections of angels and cherubims. Are we

called to oppose adversaries, who carry the doctrine of good works too far? The necessity of them is invalidated; they are said to be suited to the condition of a christian, but they are not made essential to christianity; the esssence of faith is made to consist in a bare desire of being saved, or, if you will, of being sanctified, a desire, into which enters, neither that knowledge of the heart, nor that denial of self, nor that mortification of the passions, without which every desire of being sanctified is nothing but an artifice of corruption, which turns over a work to God, that he hath imposed on man. Are we called to oppose people, who enervate the necessity of good works? The christian vocation is made to consist in impracticable exercises, in a degree of holiness inaccessible to frail men. The whole genius of religion, and of all its ordinances, is destroyed, the table of the Lord is surrounded with devils, and fires, and flames, and is represented rather as a tribunal where God exerciseth his vengeance, as a mount Ebal, from whence he crieth, Cursed be the man, Cursed be the man, than as a throne of grace, to which he inviteth penitent sinners, and imparteth to them all the riches of his love. Are we called to oppose men, who would make God the author of sin, and who, from the punishments, which he inflicts on sinners, derive conscquences injurious to his goodness and mercy? All the reiterated declarations of scripture are carefully collected, all the tender expostulations, all the attracting invitations, which demonstrate that man is the author of his own destruction, and that God will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth, 1 Tim. ii. 4. Are we called

to resist adversaries who weaken the empire of God over his creatures? God is made, I do not say an inexorable master, I do not say a severe king; but O horrid! he is made a tyrant, and worse than a tyrant. It has been seriously afflirmed that he formed a great part of mankind with the barbarous design of punishing them for ever and ever; in order to have the cruel pleasure of shewing how far his avenging justice, and his flaming anger can go. It hath been affirmed, that the decree pronounced against the reprobate before his birth, not only determines him to punishment after the commission of sin; but infallibly inclines him to sin, because that is necessary to the manifestation of divine justice, and to the feli city of the elect, who will be much happier in heaven, if there be thousands and millions of miserable souls in the flames of hell, than if all mankind should enjoy the felicity of paradise.

Ah my God! If any among us be capable of forming ideas so injurious to thy perfections, impute it not to the whole society of christians; and let not all our churches suffer for the irregularities of some of our members! One single altar prepared for idols, one single act of idolatry, was formerly sufficient to provoke thy displeasure. Jealous of thy glory, thou didst inflict on the republic of Israel thy most terrible chastisements, when they associated false gods with thee. Hence those dreadful calamities, hence those eternal banishments, hence heaven and earth employed to punish the guilty. But if Jews experienced such a rigorous treatment for attributing to false gods the perfections of the true God, what punishments will not you suffer, christians, if in spite of the light of the gospel, which shineth around you, you tax the true God with the vices of false gods: if by a theology unworthy of the name, you attribute to a holy God the cruelty, the injustice, and the falshood, of those idols to which corrupt passions alone gave a being, as well as attributes agreeable to their own abominable wishes? That disposition of mind which conducts to univeral truth, frees a man from these contradictions, and harmonizes the pastor, and the teacher with himself.

3. Truth will deliver you from disagreeable doubts about religion. The state of a mind, which is carried about with every wind of doctrine, Eph. iv. 14. to use an expression of St. Paul, is a violent state, and it is very disagreeable, in such interesting subjects as those of religion, to doubt whether one be in the path of truth, or in the road of error;

whether