AN ANNIVERSARY SERMON, DELIVERED IN THE PRESBYTERIAN MEETING-HOUSE IN COLUMBIA, ON LORD'S DAY, DECEMBER 1, 1816, BEING THE DAY PREVIOUS TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE. 33 TO THE STUDENTS OF THE SOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE. YOUNG GENTLEMEN, At your instance, I commit to the press the following sermon. As it was composed in haste, and without the most distant idea of publication, I am very sensible that it cannot sustain the ordeal of severe criticism. If however it affords you either instruction or pleasure, I shall be satisfied. To you I present this, as a small testimony of the affection and esteem which your conduct and diligent discharge of your duties, have excited. J. MAXCY. A SERMON. "THOU SHALT LOVE THE LORD THY GOD WITH ALL THY HEART." MATTHEW xxii. 37. To rational beings, nothing can be more interesting than to know the will of their Creator. This is the law of their existence, the measure of their virtue, and the source of their happiness. Beings endowed with intellectual and moral powers, can no more exist independent of law and obligation, than an effect can exist without a cause. Creatures through the abuse of their liberty may change; they may violate the laws by which they ought to be governed; they may become so enslaved to inveterate habits of evil, as to be morally incapable of virtuous affections and actions; and yet their obligations may remain, in all their extent, and in all their authority. Hence, as obligation flows from the supreme moral excellence of God, the former ist as incapable of change or diminution, as the latter. Men are required to love God supremely, not because their compliance will make them happy, but because he deserves their obedience. To assert that any being is amiable or worthy, is the same as to assert, that that being deserves to be loved and esteemed. Moral excellence or worth carries with it and impresses on the mind of the percipient, the sentiment of desert. Hence the obligations of moral agents rise in importance and strength in proportion to the degree of excellence possessed by their cause. The nature of God therefore, originates and imposes obliga |