like the beasts that perish, or rise again to immortality; whether he is at liberty to purfue all his inclinations here without controul; or whether he ftands accountable to a judgment to come, to be held in his prefence who is the Lord of life and death, and will recompence to every man the work which he hath done? If he holds his mind in doubt and fufpenfe, as to this great event, he divefts himself of all the hopes and comforts of religion, and leaves room for all its fears and terrors to take poffeffion of his heart: for he can have no true joy in the prospect of the pleasures of another world, which, for aught he knows, may be all delufion; nor can he enjoy the pleasures of this world, because of the fears of futurity, which, for aught he knows, may be all real, and approaching him every day. Every thought of the heart, labouring under fuch uncertainty, brings torment and vexation with it; it renders him incapable of all present joy, and gives no affurance of any to fucceed. The man who is to caft lots for his life, is not more restless and uneafy under the expectation of what chance shall determine concerning him, than he is, whose mind is in fufpenfe in the great points of religion; for these points have in them life and death eternal, and he lives under a perpetual expectation of a sudden determination of his fate; fo that he is all his life-long cafting lots for his life.

The uneafinefs of this ftate is fuch, that no one can endure it long; and in experience it is true, that all haften to deliver themselves from these torments one way or other. Some labour to fhut out all thought and reflection upon these subjects; they

fly to business or pleasure for refuge; and because bufinefs and pleasure have their feasons of remiffion, and leave the mind its vacant hours for confideration, they are forced to take shelter in vice and intemperance, as what alone can fecure from the interruptions of thought and reason. Others, refolving to rescue themselves from the perplexities of an unfettled mind, use a kind of force upon themselves in determining their choice, and resolutely fix upon the post which they will maintain; and thus fome reject all religion, and some take all, without being able, on either fide, to give a reason for what they do.

But all these methods are but fo many arts, by which men deceive themselves, and gain a falfe peace, liable to be difturbed by new torments and anxieties: they build without a foundation; and, when the winds and ftorms arise, their house will fall on their heads, and cover them in ruin and deftruction. Let the man who has long fhut out thought and reflection, and, through the power of vice and intemperance, has arrived at his much-defired ftate of ftupidity; let him, I fay, be but awakened out of this lethargy by fome uncommon calamity; or let fickness and infirmity render him incapable of vice, and discharge those fetters with which his mind was bound; and all his fears will return with double force; they will appear no longer in the form of doubts and uncertainties, but will come upon him as the terrors of guilt armed with vengeance; and he will foon find, that the method he took to deliver himself from the uncertainties of religion, has delivered him from nothing

but the hopes and comforts of it, and bound upon his foul all its fears and terrors without remedy. So, again, if the man who is an unbeliever upon the strength of his will, without the consent of his understanding, meets with any shock to disturb his illgrounded peace, his mind will certainly recoil; and, like a fpring, when the weight that held it is removed, return to its natural ftate. Whoever, in these great concerns of life, determines himself without asking advice of his reason, and taking the affent of his mind along with him, will certainly find, fooner or later, that reason will revenge the affront, and make him pay dear for neglecting fo faithful a counsellor. And, when fuch fears and uncertainties return, the second state is much worfe than the firft: for now they come attended with a consciousness of an obftinate and refolute oppofition to God, of an endeavour to harden our hearts against all fenfe of religion; which, be religion true or falfe, no sense or reason can justify.

But what shall we fay of fuch, who prefer religion notwithstanding all their doubts, who voluntarily fubmit to the duties of it, and choose even its uncertain hopes before the present pleasures of the world? Are not fuch in a fafe way? I truft in God, many fuch are but I must remind you, that the queftion before us is not, how fafe they are, but how they are affected by the fears and terrors of religion. And even, as to this point, the varieties in this cafe are fo many and great, that the fame confiderations will not reach all who are in this condition. Some there may be who believe the being of God and his providence, who see the difference between moral good

and evil, and own all the obligations arifing from thence on rational beings; but may doubt perhaps, as to their own state after this life, and whether God intends them for any thing beyond this world; and yet they may think it highly reasonable and becoming them to worship and obey God, as much as others, who have better and greater expectations. from him for themselves. You have in this description the very best of this cafe before you; and yet, under thefe circumftances, religion is all labour, and no benefit for no man can be fo blind, as to think religion a sure way to worldly profperity and happinefs; and, if it is not fure of a future reward, there is no fecurity in it. Here is no remedy in fuch religion against the natural fear of death, to which all are fubject; no confolation against the many evils and afflictions of life, from all of which none are free. When we are surrounded with difficulties and distress, this religion fhews us not the way to escape, but gives us up to our prefent fufferings, void of better hopes and expectations; at least, uncertain of comfort or relief. Befides, how can a man poffibly. maintain a just and true notion of God, under fuch a perfuafion as this? We are fure the best men often have a portion of misery in this world; and if we are not perfuaded that there is fomething better for them in referve hereafter, it is impoffible to justify to ourselves the goodness of God towards the children of men: and yet, without this, religion must be all terror, confifting in the belief of an abfolute power over us, but a power not rendered amiable by goodness or mercy. While men are easy in the world, they may find fome fatisfaction

in fuch a kind of belief, and value themselves perhaps for the fubmiffion they pay to God, without being folicitous what fhall become of themfelves; but diftress will shake them, and the forrows of the world will prove their religion to be void of comfort.

But the worst of this cafe is, when men refolve to be religious out of fear, and merely to fecure themfelves from fome dreadful apprehenfions which they have on their minds; fuch religion, as it begins in fear, fo it lives perpetually in fear, and carries with it all its fears at leaft as far as the grave. When religion arises from a juft notion of God, and from a right apprehenfion of what is due from a reafonable creature to his reasonable Maker and Governor, there is peace and fatisfaction in every step of it; every act of religion carries with it the approbation of our own minds, and is followed by a contentment which nothing can disturb. But he who is religious, not because he knows it is right for him fo to be, but because he dreads to be otherwife, can never know that he is right in any thing he does, but will naturally fall into all the methods of fuperftition, which fome weak ones, and fome wife in this world agree to call religion. Hence it is that fome, who seem most devoutly difpofed, are under a perpetual uneafiness of mind, and never fatisfied that they have done any thing as they ought to do. Others, seeing men of fuch application to the duties of religion under fuch anxious concern about it, conclude, that religion is a most burdenfome thing, and that the wifeft way is to be contented without inquiring much after it. Whether they who make