duty from want of information, than from any natural malignity of heart. It is only a mind that has already made confiderable progrefs in vice that can deliberately violate its own clear and certain fentiments of right and wrong. An enlightened confcience impoles the moft effectual reftraints upon the paffions, which are the principles of evil in man. It unfolds the law on each cafe of conduct as it arifes, and adds to the prefcriptions of duty, the most powerful, motives of obedience. Hence it is that faith, not, as the enemies of religion assert, a blind belief of uncertain facts, and unintelligle myfteries, but a clear understanding, and firm perfuafion of the truths of the gofpel, is laid, by the apostles, at the foundation of a good life, and thereby made the condition of our falvation. The most intimate relations fubfift between duty and truth-And the principal value of truth is that it leads to duty.

This courfe of education fhould commence from our earliest years. The human character is forming from the first moment the fenfes begin to act. And it is of high consequence that nothing but the most just

ideas, and the pureft principles of truth fhould be inftilled into the minds of children, and the most amiable examples of virtue exhibited before them. Train up

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a child in the way he fhould go, and when
he is old he will not depart from it."
"The
word of God will be a light to his feet and
a lamp to his path." "It is like a fire, and
like a hammer that breaketh the rock in
pieces”—it will diffolve it and mould it into
any shape.

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The defect of early inftruction in the principles of piety and virtue is productive of great and innumerable evils. The prophet Hosea attributes to it the corruption of manners in the nation of Ifrael; and, after an affecting enumeration of their crimes, he adds, my people are destroyed for lack of knowlege."--Both age and youth which would make progrefs in the honourable courfe of virtue, and finally attain to perfect holinefs in the fear of God, fhould diligently fearch the fcriptures, and ftudy, by all means, to enlarge their acquaintance with thefe pure and infallible oracles of truth. Let

*Hofea iv. 1—6.

them be your meditation all the day; and, from their precious flores of knowlege and inftruction draw all the rules of your conduct.

be

2. The tendency of felf-love to deceive us in the efiimate which we make of our own character, and to cover many errors in our conduct, renders it neceflary that we fhould often enter profoundly into the principles of the heart, and the motives of our actions, and that we fhould be able to difcriminate the characters of genuine piety from all the false pretences, and plausible appearances of virtue with which we are prone to confound them. By a candid and faithful examination of ourselves we may able to discover and correct many fecret faults that would otherwife defile the confcience. For this purpose, often retire apart from the world where felf-love is ftrengthened by every object that awakens the paffions, and where cares and pleasures continually call us out of ourfelves. Frequently feek that holy folitude, in order to converse with your hearts, where none shall be prefent befides God and yourselves.— Strengthen there your own honefty in this

important duty by the confcioufnefs of his pure and infpecting eye, and by the recollection of the account which we muft render at his bar. Judge yourselves with the fame fpirit with which you fhall be judged. It is a duty prefcribed by reafon, as well as enjoined by the word of God. Know thyfelf was the most famous maxim of ancient wifdom-and, in fuch eftimation was it held by the most enlightened people in the univerfe that they infcribed it over the entrance to the molt facred of their temples. The holy fcriptures prefs and repeat it again and again-" Examine yourselves whether you be in the faith-prove your own felvcsknow ye not your own felves how that Jefus Chrift is in you except ye be reprobates !" It is a duty abfolutely requifite in order to understand our fecret faults, and to remove that mafk from the heart by which the power of felf-deceit is able to conceal from men their true character. Search and try your ways--and, in fulfilling this great duty, remember that you fhall fhortly be tried at a higher bar by the righteous judge of quick and dead. And do thou O Lord

*The temple at Delphi.

mercifully reveal to us the faults that will ftill be covered from our own view! Search us, and know our hearts, try us, and know our thoughts, and fee if there be any wicked way in us, and lead us in the way everlasting.

3. The reflections to which you have attended admonish you likewife to be on your guard against the dangerous influence of fafhion and example. Fafhion draws after it manners and opinions by a filent and powerful charm. And each age has its peculiar modes of thinking and acting. Whatever, therefore, is recommended by general example we ought to examine with peculiar fcrupulofity, not only because we are prone to flide into the imitation of it with an incautious facility, but because general manners, in the prefent age, have departed far from the purity and fimplicity of the gofpel. The ftream of fashion feems, indeed, to a certain diflance, to co-incide with that of piety and virtue; but then infenfibly feparating from it, it bears away thofe who, without caution, commit themfelves to its current. Scrutinize all your actions, not by what others do, or permit, but by the word of God, which is the infal