our true comfort, and it is fufficient to fupport us under the evils of the life that now is, and to deliver us from the fears of that which is to come.

You see now, from this discourse, that religion, though it may minifter occafion, is not the cause of thefe terrors. But you may reply, Were there no sense of religion, there could be no fuch terrors. Very right; and it is as true, that were there no reason, there would be no fuch apprehenfions. Will you blame God now for making you rational creatures? If not, you must not blame him for making you capable of religion; but you muft use the reason he has given you to fearch after and know him, and then your religion will be your comfort then will you be able to fay to yourself, and declare to others, Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.

DISCOURSE XXVII.

PART II.

Two other kinds of religious terror, together with their caufes, remain to be confidered; and they are the terrors of guilt, and the terrors which owe their rife to the accidental diforders or infirmities of mind or body. To proceed then :

The terrors of guilt are those which can alone pretend to be confonant to the notions of true religion, and to derive themselves by juft confequence from them. If there be any truth in religion, natural or revealed, it is moft certain, that God will judge the world in righteousness, and render to every man according to his work: to thofe who do well, life and happiness; to those who obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath. As this belief will be attended with peace and comfort of mind, where men fincerely endeavour to perfect holiness in the fear of God, so must it neceffarily produce tribulation and anguish in every foul that doth evil. This is fo plain and evident a case, that I think no one will demand a reason why it is, or must be so. The fear of damnation is, without all queftion, a reasonable fear;

and it would be a very prefumptuous, as well as a fruitless attempt, to persuade a man to live without fear, who apprehends himself to be in such a state. Weak and fuperftitious minds do often indeed form very wrong judgments concerning their own ftate and condition towards God; in which cafe, though the judgment itself be erroneous, yet the fear is natural, and connected to the judgment by just confequence. It is a great work of charity to affift fuch weak perfons, and to enable them to think better of God than they do, and not worse of themfelves than they deferve; and by fuch means to reftore peace and quiet to their minds: but to endeavour to remove their fears, without correcting the false opinions from which they proceed, must be the effect of great folly or great impiety. If you imagine the cafe capable of comfort and confolation, the conceived opinion of having merited God's wrath not being removed, it is a fign of great weaknefs, and ignorance in the nature both of God and you would raise a courage to encounter these fears, and inspire finners with an hardiness against the apprehenfions of futurity, you can only hope to throw them into the other extreme; for such an hardy contempt of God's judgments cannot confift with a rational fense of religion. These fears, proceeding from guilt, are both natural and rational; it is impoffible therefore that either nature or reason should afford any affiftance, or fufficient remedy against these terrors; unless we suppose reason and nature to be made up of contradictions. Is it a natural state of the mind to be at ease when real dangers furround us? Is it rational to be

man: or,

if

unconcerned for ourselves when we are within view of endless misery? If not, he must be in a very unnatural state who can separate between his guilt and his fears.

The of confcience is feen in all men; it is power common to all countries, to all religions; to the learned and unlearned, to rich and poor: it is an effential character of a rational mind; and therefore to man, who is a rational creature, it is natural. When we offend wilfully against our sense of good and evil, conscience never fails to reproach and torment us with the apprehenfions of evil and misery to befall us: and though nature has not furnished us with a distinct knowledge of the misery prepared for the wicked, yet natural confcience gives every wicked man a certain expectation of it.

Thefe natural fears of confcience are also rational fears there are some natural fears planted in us for wife purposes, which yet our reafon will teach us in great measure to overcome. Such is the natural fear of death: all men have it; but the more we confult our reason and religion about it, the less will our fear be: they will furnish our minds with comfort againft this terror, and enable us to expect it with calmnefs and tranquillity of mind. But the cafe is otherwise in the fears of guilt; the more we advise with our reason, the better ground we shall find for thefe fears; the more we confult the principles of religion, the more certainly we shall be perfuaded that the fears of the guilty are no delufions, but real terrors. How then fhall we escape these terrors, which nature, reafon, and religion have bound upon the guilty mind with fo ftrong cords?

So hard is it to get rid of these terrors, that, in many cafes, they grow up to the full ftature of diftraction; and are too ftrong for all the affiftance and comfort that can be adminiftered. When this is the case, a finner is a woful spectacle; the grief of his foul may be read in his countenance, from which all cheerfulness is banished, and nothing to be seen but melancholy and despair. His days are without pleasure, and his nights without reft: he hates the company of his friends, and if he retires, it is to converse with the worst enemy he has, that is, with himself: his life is one scene of mifery, and he lives only because he is afraid to die. The horrors of his mind no words can defcribe, all his thoughts work together to torment him; his imagination calls him every day to judgment, and fends him back condemned: amidst these tortures his ftrength faileth, and his life draweth nigh unto the grave, and he dies of a guilty confcience; a diftemper which no medicine can reach, no art can fuccour.

Now this mifery being fo great and unfupportable, and all men fo liable to it in confequence of fin, we may well imagine that the wit and invention of mankind have been conftantly at work to find a remedy for this fore disease. Natural confcience and reafon make the connection between guilt and fear; remove these, and the fears muft vanifh; as is evident in the cafe of ideots and madmen, who often do great mischief without fhewing any concern or trouble for their actions. This is one of the devices which profligate finners have found out to ease their burden: they bid defiance to confcience