only decifive proofs, that you really love God, as the text requires you to do, with all your heart, and foul, and mind, and ftrength? Have you made his precepts the first and principal object of your care, and pursued other things only in fubordination to that great concern? Have you not only admired and adored his perfections, but, as far as the infirmity of your nature, and the infinite distance between God and man would allow, endeavoured to imitate them? Have you delighted to think and to speak of him, and never thought or fpoke of him, but with the utmost veneration and awe? When you have heard his holy name profaned, or feen any of his ordinances or laws infulted, have you always felt and expreffed a proper abhorrence of fuch unworthy behaviour? Have you facredly obferved that holy day which is fet apart for his fervice, and not only attended public worship yourselves, but taken care that all under your roof and under your protection fhould do the fame? Have you brought up your children" in the "nurture and admonition of the Lord*;" and amidst all the fine accomplishments, amidst * Eph. vi. 4.

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all the prudent maxims with which you have furnished them, have you taught them that "wisdom which is from above," and formed them to shine in another world as well as this? Have you gladly feized all opportunities of converfing with your Maker in private and in domeftic prayer; of pouring out your foul before him on all occafions, whether of forrow or of joy, intreating pardon for your offences, and imploring his affiftance for your future conduct? Have you for his fake been content fometimes not only to forego many worldly comforts and advantages, but even, if neceffary, to encounter ridicule, reproach, and injurious treatment? Have you chearfully facrificed to his fervice, when called upon, your health and your reapofe, your amusements and pursuits, your favourite paffions and your fondest wishes, the pleasures of youth, the ambition of manhood, the avarice of old age? Have you borne with patience and refignation all the disappointments, loffes, and afflictions, that have befallen you? Have you confidered them as the corrections of his fatherly hand, and fubmitted without a murmur to all the

difpenfations of his providence? Have you, in fine, entirely fubdued all anxious and fretful thoughts about your temporal affairs, and acquired that abfolute composure and ferenity of mind in every condition of life, which nothing but religion can give, and nothing but guilt can take away; committing yourselves and all your concerns to the great Difpofer of every human event; with a perfect confidence in his infinite wisdom and goodness, and a firm perfuafion that every thing will work together ultimately for your good?

By questions fuch as thefe it is that you must try and examine yourselves whether you really love God or not. In all this there is nothing vifionary or fanatical, nothing but what the cooleft heads and the calmeft fpirits may easily rise to, nothing but what reafon approves and the gospel enjcins, nothing but what we ourselves fhould in a proportionable degree require from those who pretended to have a fincere regard and affection for us. What answers you can give to these questions your own confciences can best tell. But what a very great part of mankind

mankind can fay to them, one may but too well imagine. Some there are, who, far from having any love for God, affect to doubt his very existence, and profeffedly make a jeft of every thing that looks like religion. Others, immersed in the purfuits of pleasure, of intereft, of ambition, have no time to wafte upon their Maker, and hardly know whether they believe a God or not. And even of those who profess both to believe and to reverence him; how few are there that know any thing of that inward and hearty love for him which leads to univerfal holiness of life? If they maintain an external decency of conduct, are juft in their dealings, and generous to their friends, they think that all is well, and that they are in the high road to falvation. All their notions of duty terminate in themselves, or their fellow-creatures, and they seem to have no apprehenfions of any peculiar homage or fervice being due to their Creator. They can therefore, without any remorse of confcience, make a wanton and irreverent use of his holy name, in oaths and execrations, which can answer no other purpose but that of infulting God, and giv

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ing pain to every ferious mind. Not con tent with the ample provifion of fix days out of feven for their business and amufement, they must have the seventh too, or they are undone. They grudge their Maker even that flender pittance of time which he has referved to himself; they prostitute the whole, or the greater part of it, to the most trifling or moft unworthy purpofes; and think it much fitter that he fhould be robbed of his worship than they of their pleasures and pursuits for a day, or even for an hour. Much lefs can they afford to spend a few minutes every day in private meditation and prayer; and as to family devotion, it would, they think, abfolutely ruin their character, and expose them to everlafting contempt. Or if by chance they do go fo far as to worship God both in public and at home, yet with what visible languor, and coldness, and indifference do they often labour through this heavy task; and how apt are they to deride and stigmatize with opprobrious names those who show any unusual marks of serioufnefs and devotion? They think it a dreadful crime to be righteous over-much, but

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