Egyptians, or any other people, been examined in like manner on any or all their superstitions, their sentiments in favor of their national customs would have been found as strong, and as hard to be rectified.

So general and so strong is the force of custom and education, that the influence may be said to be natural to the mind of man; and if the influence is natural, it was doubtless designed by the Author of nature to be subservient to good purposes. That he intended it for this use, is manifest also from his making this use of it, and from his interposing to correct the abuses to which this natural influence was but too liable through the passions and corruptions of men.

Consider from the beginning of things what provision was made for propagating religion in the world. Adam was created in the state of manhood; and as he came a man, and not a child, out of the hands of his Creator, he brought into the world with him all knowlege necessary to a man; of which the knowlege of God and true religion was the most necessary part. Of him then sufficient care was taken.

But all after him came infants into the world, void of knowlege, capable of coming at it but by slow degrees, and liable to many errors in the only thing they had to depend on, the use of their reason. What care now was taken to direct them right in this momentous affair of religion? Was it not plainly this, that they were put into the hands of an instructor who was himself instructed by God, able to teach them the great works of Providence in the creation of all things, and to point out to them the duty owing from the creature to the Creator?

How long this influence continued to preserve a sense of true religion we know not; probably in some tolerable degree for many ages; for many ages passed before God, for the wickedness of men, destroyed the world by a deluge.

Consider now again what care was taken of religion at the restoration of the world after the deluge; the wicked with all their ungodly deeds perished in the waters: one distinguished 'preacher of righteousness,' with his family, was saved, to be the father of a new world, and to teach the ways of righteousness to his posterity. And what was this but uniting once more the force of reason, education, and custom in the cause of virtue

and holiness; and turning its natural influence into its proper channel, which had been divided and perverted by the wickedness of men?

After the deluge, as the world grew populous, it grew corrupt again; and idolatry overspread the face of the earth. God had promised never to destroy the earth again for the wickedness of the inhabitants. But to check the course of impiety, and to keep up a sense and evidence of true religion in the midst of an idolatrous generation, he thought fit in his wisdom to raise up a nation to be his own peculiar people. He made choice of Abraham to be head and father of this nation, and we are at no loss to account for the reason of this choice; for God has told us with what view he elected Abraham- I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judg

ment.'

When the descendants from Abraham were grown numerous enough to make a people of themselves, God was pleased to give them a law, introduced and confirmed by many signal deliverances, and many signs and wonders; and to perpetuate the memory of them through all generations, many rights and ceremonies were instituted, to be constant parts of the national religion; which represented and set before the eyes of the people the great things which God had done for them; such, for instance, was the passover; such was that solemn profession to be made at the offering of the first-fruits, recorded in the book of Deuteronomy. He who brought the offering was to speak and say before the Lord his God,

-A Syrian ready to perish was my father; and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous;

And the Egyptians evil-intreated us, and afflicted us, and laid on us hard bondage :

And when we cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice, and looked on our afflictions, and our labor, and our oppression :

And the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders;

And he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey.

'And now, behold, I have brought the first-fruits of the land, which thou, O Lord, hast given me.'

These institutions, introduced at first by positive law, soon obtained the force of national customs, and became a strong barrier against the superstition of the idolatrous nations round Judea; and they were intended to answer this

purpose.

But it must be observed of these institutions in general, that they were not intended to operate merely by the force of custom, but were adapted to preserve and renew the memory of the true reasons in which the religion of the Jews was founded. If you had been to reason with a Jew on the obedience due to the law of Moses, could you say more to him than what the feast of the passover taught him, and what the profession made at the offering of the first-fruits contained? These institutions therefore intended to make custom subservient to reason and true religion; and they were so constituted that they could go no where as customs without carrying with them the true reason of religion.

On this foot the Jewish religion stood, till God thought fit by a new revelation to call all the world to repentance, and obedience to the gospel of Christ Jesus.

The nations of the earth were idolaters before the coming of Christ; and their religious worship was not only directed to false objects, but was in itself impure and corrupt, and tended to introduce great depravity of manners. The several forms of superstition in several countries had establishment, education, and custom, to support them; and these prescriptive rights had got such strong possession, that there was no hope of seeing them beat out by human wisdom. Some few perhaps saw the follies which surrounded them; but their wisdom was of no use towards reforming the world, whatever it might be to themselves.

To root out this inveterate evil required supernatural assistance; and yet such assistance as was consistent with the freedom and reason of human minds, and agreeable to the nature of religion; which loses its very being when it is separated from freedom and reason.

The power of miracles was such an assistance; for miracles are an appeal to reason, as much as the works of nature are; and therefore miracles offered in support of true religion are to be considered as new arms put into the hand of reason, to enable it to subdue the powers of corrupt custom and education.

My subject does not lead me to consider all the purposes which Providence had to serve by the power of miracles; but this manifestly was one, though not the only one, to awaken the attention of the world, to consider what they and their fathers had been doing when they fell down before stocks and stones, and forgot the Lord who made them, and to whose command they saw all nature was obedient.

When reason and true religion were by this powerful assistance set free from the shackles of idolatry and superstition, miracles ceased; and for perpetuating the knowlege of God and of his truth in the world, the natural and ordinary methods of teaching and instructing received an additional strength under the gospel, by setting apart an order of men, whose business it should be to publish to every generation the great things which God had wrought for them through Christ Jesus. This, I say, was an additional strength to the ordinary and natural means of education, but was never designed to supersede it; for parents are obliged by the law of the gospel, as well as by the law of nature, to breed up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; and where this care is wanting, it is rarely that the other can take place: children neglected naturally grow headstrong and self-willed; and we see by sad experience that they are sent too late for instruction to the church, who were never inured to it at home.

Laying then these things together, consider, what is there in the present circumstances of things that we can do to promote virtue and religion in the world? We have only natural and ordinary means within our power. May we use them? or must the care of virtue and religion be given up? If not, the properest, I had almost said, the only effectual method to preserve them, is to lay a foundation for the youth of the country.

But these general reflexions do so naturally arise from what has been said, that I will leave them to your own thoughts, and go on to consider the particular case now before us.

The state of religion in Ireland very well deserves the attention of every man in this kingdom, who has a concern either for the purity of the gospel, or for the security of the government under which we live.

The Reformation was very imperfectly carried on in Ireland; and the bulk of the people have been ever since, and still are, papists. The natives have a language of their own, extremely hard to be learned or understood by any but themselves, which makes it almost impossible to convey any light or knowlege to them. The priests among them, who talk their language, being born and bred among them, know as little of any thing else as the people themselves do. So that popery in Ireland is old traditionary popery, without any of the correction or improvement which popery in other parts has been forced into by the light of the Reformation. The learned of the church of Rome have been long palliating and refining their absurd doctrines and practices. Tell them that they worship saints and images, they will distinguish between direct worship and relative worship, between religious service, and honor and respect due to the saints. But the poor Irish worship saints and images, and have never heard even of these refinements; which being invented as answers to objections, are of no use among a poor people, secured, by their ignorance and a language understood by themselves only, from all objections.

Not many years ago a worthy clergyman of Ireland, with great pains and labor, made himself master of the language of the natives, with an intent to preach the gospel among them. He entered on the work, and the success seemed to outrun his wishes his audience was numerous, and the people seemed to be much affected with his discourses; but as soon as this was perceived, the priests had orders to publish an excommunication against every person who should attend these sermons: the effect was, that the preacher was intirely deserted.

The case is much the same in some parishes of the kingdom, which have not a protestant in them, except the minister of the parish; but few, perhaps, who understand this language, and they restrained by all the terrors which the priests of Rome can infuse into poor ignorant people, from giving ear to his instructions. How uncomfortable a situation must this be to