this conclufion, or they who adminifter occafion for it, are the wifer, is no eafy matter to determine : certain it is, that the fear of God, which is the foundation of true religion, differs as much from these fears of ignorance and fuperftition, as one thing can well differ from another. The religious man fears God because he knows him; and therefore he fears him, as a wife, juft, good, and merci ful Father and Judge ought to be feared: his fear is full of love and reverence, and has nothing dreadful in it, unless guilt and a wounded confcience arm it with unnatural terrors: but the fuperftitious man fears God, juft as children and weak men fear spirits and apparitions; he trembles at the thought of him, he flies from he knows not what, seeks refuge he knows not where; and this hurry and confufion of mind he calls religion; but the Pfalmift has given it a better name, it is diftraction.

You fee how unsuccessful all these attempts are to cure the fears which arise from doubts and uncertainties in religion: these remedies increase the diftemper, and heighten the fear till it comes to be a phrenfy, and too ftrong to submit to the cure of reafon and fober sense. What must be done then? Will you exhort us to caft away all doubts, and to be certain and positive in all points of religion? I know full well, that this is no proper fubject for exhortation; but I will exhort you to be diligent inquirers after God. That you have reason, you are apt enough to boaft: that God has provided proper employment for your reason, the manifold works of nature and providence bear witness: these are the vifible things of God, which will guide you

by a fure clue to the acknowledgment of the invifible Author. And this inquiry, as it is the first in order of nature with regard to religious knowledge, fo is it the firft likewife with regard to the peace and comforts of religion: and it is with this view that I recommend this inquiry, as a cure for those terrors which are apt to feize upon unfettled minds. Till we have a right notion of God and his attributes, it is impoffible we should be able to judge of any cafe of religion: we may be very learned in all the doctrines and difputes of this and of paft ages; and it is a learning which may well make us mad, if we have no rule to guide us through all the difficulties that furround us: but he who has fixed in his mind a juft notion of God, and of his attributes, will find his way to peace, be the darkness about him ever fo thick. It is a great misfortune to a man to know much of religion, and little of God: fuch a man's religion muft either be his plague or his contempt; it must appear to him either ridiculous or terrible: and let him take it which way he will, he will find a terror in it at laft. It is in vain therefore to seek for fatisfaction till we know God, till we can say to our hearts, We know in whom we have trufted. This will make our religion become an holy and reverential fear, unmixed with terror and confufion; it will make our knowledge in religious matters become a wisdom unto falvation; and preserve to us that true freedom of mind, to which as well the fcoffers of the age as the fuperftitious are mere ftrangers.

Secondly, Falfe notions of God, and of the honour and worship due to him, are another fource of religious terrors. What has been already faid of

the true notion of God may fuffice to fhew, how deftructive all falfe notions of God are to the peace of mankind: and as false notions of the honour and worship due to God derive themselves from the false notions which men entertain of God himself, there is no great difference in the cafes, and both are to be refolved upon the fame reason: this latter may indeed be illuftrated by great variety of historical evidence. What was their cafe, who facrificed their fons and their daughters, and gave the fruit of their body as an atonement for the fin of their foul? What was theirs, who cut themselves with knives in honour of their God, and endeavoured to move his compaffion, not with the forrow, but with the blood of their hearts? I wish all inftances of this fort were confined to the heathen world, and had never corrupted the doctrines of Chrift: but what muft we say to the tedious and expenfive pilgrimages and proceffions; what to the unnatural mortifications and fullen retirements from the world, practifed and recommended in fome parts of the Chriftian church? Are not all these marks of flavish fear, and of a religion that carries terror with it? Were you to instruct an ignorant person in the nature of God, by telling him that he takes delight in seeing men punish and afflict themselves, in seeing them diveft themselves of all comforts of life, and retire to a state of mournful filence and folitude; what would he think this Being was? Would he not imagine him to want benevolence and kindness towards his creatures, and that his fervice was a state of flavery and mifery? Doubtless he would.

To this head we may refer the terrors which arise

from the unwarranted expectations which men raise to themselves from religion, which feldom fail to be a plague and a torment to them at the laft. One enters with warmth and zeal into the service of God, not doubting but he shall find it turn to very good account in his worldly affairs: he refolves to be very good, and expects to be very rich and profperous. As foon as any calamity befalls him, he is furprised, confounded, all his hopes and comforts vanish; and he begins to think himself forfaken of God, and given up to deftruction. Another, perhaps, fallen into diftrefs, takes up a religious purpose to apply himself to God by prayer: if he meets not with the deliverance he expects, (and furely our petitions ought not in reason to prescribe to Providence,) he falls into the very fears before defcribed, and thinks that God regards him not. This feems to have been the Pfalmift's cafe; for thus he describes his own woe: I have cried day and night before thee.-Why cafteft thou off my foul? Why hideft thou thy face from me?

Such perfons as these are not apt to seek a remedy, nor yet to admit any: they fubmit to forrow and despair: and it seems to be their only comfort to refuse comfort; by this they think they make a right facrifice to God's justice, giving up to misery the foul which he abhors. Now if true religion teaches you to expect temporal profperity as the certain reward of ferving God; if it has engaged to you, that all your prayers, without diftinction, shall be answered; that every affliction, though fent perhaps for your good and your correction, fhall be removed as foon as you defire it; then charge all

these fufferings to the account of true religion: but if religion has taught you no fuch leffon, beware how you charge God foolishly, and call that unfaithfulness in him, which is in truth the folly and weakness of man.

Now as these terrors are hard to be cured, when once they have got poffeffion of the mind, for they are obftinate against reafon and advice, fo there is the more reason to guard against them before they come. We ought, in all conditions of life, to limit our hopes and expectations within the bounds of probability, otherwise we expofe ourselves to perpetual difappointments and vexation. The fame rule is neceffary to be observed in religion: we ought never to expect more from God than he has expressly promised, or than he may grant confiftently with the measures by which his providence rules and governs the world: if we exceed these bounds, religion, instead of being our comfort, will foon become our torment; but we, and not religion, will be to blame. If we confider that this world is a ftate of trial, and that afflictions are trials, we can never lay it down to ourselves, that God will relieve us at our request from all afflictions; for this would be owning ourselves in a state of trial, and, at the fame time, expecting that no trial should come near us: it is fuppofing that God has fhewn us a way to defeat the great end of his providence in fending us into this world; he fent us here to be proved, and yet we think to prevail on him not to prove us. In the great end which we ought to propose by our religion, the falvation of our fouls, we can never be disappointed, but through our own fault. This is