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piety. Whenever fhe offers her enticements, fufpect fome latent danger. She is a Syren whofe fong lures unwary voyagers into the midit of gulphs that swallow them up, and amongst rocks that dah them to pieces. Shut your ears against her enchantments clofe your hearts against her deftructive charms. Religion is your fa eguard and your ornament -it is the fureft bafis both of

your honor and your happiness.

Permit me, in the conclufion, to address a ferious admonition to thofe young perfons who, wishing for greater license, are beginning to pronounce, though with a feeble and helitating tone, the language of infidelity. You are, as yet, little aware of the fatal iffue to which you are tending. When once you begin to display your doubts, or your wit on the fubject of religion, or to feek for arguments to relax its ties, the progrefs is commonly rapid towards the point of abfolute impiety. Every criminal indulgence becomes a new argument with the heart, againit the law of Chrift which condemns it. By embracing the principles of infidelity, you are feeking for a peace of confcience in the pursuits of vice which

they can never yield. The great and fundamental truths of religion are too deeply implanted in human nature to be easily eradicated. And, while they remain, they muft difquiet the tranquility of the finner. You may deny the existence of a righteous Deity-in your heart you may wish there were none-you may fecretly fay to yourself, in the moment of temptation, there is no God; but, ftill the fentiment of his fear remains -the bodings of his juftice follow your crimes-ah! these bodings are the deep, infallible dictates of nature: they are fure prefages, to the impenitent, of an awful retribution. Arreft, then, your flep, if you are yet only entering on the threshold of impiety. Seek, while you may, the precious refuge of religion, that will, ere long, be denied to the hardened finner. In the hour of alliction you will find in its despised inftitutions, in its doctrines, and its hopes, your only confolation. But if you deny your Creator-if you perfift to reject the Lord who bought you, to whom, or to what, will you have recourse in your extremity? -When the cold hand of death is preffing upon you-when you are trembling before the king of terrors, oh! with what dreadful

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importunity will you be conftrained to implore the mercy of that God whom you have denied! will you call for the aids of that religion which you have infulted! Good God! the terror of looking into the grave under a fearful uncertainty about our eternal being; or, under the more fearful apprehenfions of eternal mifery! Unthinking youth! who are sporting with subjects of fuch infinite moment, or afking with a fneer, for the reasons on which religion commands your faith, and your obedience -look on the death-bed of an unbeliever, and see the reafons! There is an object in which you may contemplate the value of religion, and the falfehood of those impious principles on which you are hazarding your falvation. See the trembling, the expiring, the defparing mortal! His terrors speak to you with the evidence of demonftration, and declare the exiftence of a holy and righteous judge of the univerfe. His language, and his looks proclaim the reality of the dreadful retribution he is going to receive. The remorfe which distracts him, fhould preach the gofpel to you with the moft perfuafive eloquence. Ah! impiety of living is a dreadful preparative for a

dying bed. Fatal indeed is his folly who fays in his heart there is no God, till that moment of irremediable terror and difmay when he fees him already dressed and seated for judgment. Behold, now is the

accepted time-behold, now is the day of falvation!" "Turn ye, therefore, to the ftrong hold, ye prifoners of hope!"

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DISCOURSE II.

CAUSES OF INFIDELITY.

PSALMS LIII. 1.

The fool hath faid in his heart, there is no God.

HE reflection of the facred writer in

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this paffage relates immediately to that defperate atheism which denies the existence of an infinite and eternal Spirit, the maker and the judge of men; or, to that oblivion of God which feizes finners in the ordinary train of life, and leaves their paffions and their vices without reftraint. I have extended the idea fo as to embrace the principles of infidelity univerfally, inasmuch as they are all effects proceeding from the same caufe. The character of the fool may well be applied, not only to those cool and speculative unbelievers who have established to themselves fyftems of impiety from the abuse and perversion of reason, but to those

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