the true notion of God may fuffice to fhew, how deftructive all falfe notions of God are to the peace of mankind: and as falfe notions of the honour and worship due to God derive themselves from the false notions which men entertain of God himself, there is no great difference in the cafes, and both are to be refolved upon the fame reason: this latter may indeed be illuftrated by great variety of hiftorical evidence. What was their cafe, who facrificed their fons and their daughters, and gave the fruit of their body as an atonement for the fin of their foul? What was theirs, who cut themselves with knives in honour of their God, and endeavoured to move his compaffion, not with the forrow, but with the blood of their hearts? I wish all inftances of this fort were confined to the heathen world, and had never corrupted the doctrines of Chrift: but what must we say to the tedious and expensive pilgrim

ages and proceffions; what to the unnatural mortifications and fullen retirements from the world, practifed and recommended in fome parts of the Christian church? Are not all these marks of flavish fear, and of a religion that carries terror with it? Were you to inftruct an ignorant person in the nature of God, by telling him that he takes delight in seeing men punish and afflict themselves, in seeing them diveft themselves of all comforts of life, and retire to a state of mournful filence and folitude; what would he think this Being was? Would he not imagine him to want benevolence and kindness towards his creatures, and that his fervice was a ftate of flavery and mifery? Doubtless he would.

To this head we may refer the terrors which arise

from the unwarranted expectations which men raise to themselves from religion, which feldom fail to be a plague and a torment to them at the laft. One enters with warmth and zeal into the service of God, not doubting but he shall find it turn to very good account in his worldly affairs: he refolves to be very good, and expects to be very rich and profperous. As foon as any calamity befalls him, he is furprised, confounded, all his hopes and comforts vanish; and he begins to think himself forfaken of God, and given up to deftruction. Another, perhaps, fallen into diftress, takes up a religious purpose to apply himself to God by prayer: if he meets not with the deliverance he expects, (and furely our petitions ought not in reafon to prescribe to Providence,) he falls into the very fears before described, and thinks that God regards him not. This feems to have been the Pfalmift's cafe; for thus he describes his own woe: I have cried day and night before thee.-Why cafteft thou off my foul? Why hideft thou thy face from me?

Such perfons as these are not apt to seek a remedy, nor yet to admit any: they submit to forrow and despair and it seems to be their only comfort to refuse comfort; by this they think they make a right facrifice to God's juftice, giving up to misery the foul which he abhors. Now if true religion teaches you to expect temporal prosperity as the certain reward of ferving God; if it has engaged to you, that all your prayers, without diftinction, fhall be answered; that every affliction, though fent perhaps for your good and your correction, fhall be removed as soon as you defire it; then charge all

these sufferings to the account of true religion: but if religion has taught you no fuch leffon, beware how you charge God foolishly, and call that unfaithfulness in him, which is in truth the folly and weakness of man.

Now as these terrors are hard to be cured, when once they have got poffeffion of the mind, for they are obftinate against reason and advice, fo there is the more reason to guard against them before they come. We ought, in all conditions of life, to limit our hopes and expectations within the bounds of probability, otherwise we expofe ourselves to perpetual disappointments and vexation. The fame rule is neceffary to be observed in religion: we ought never to expect more from God than he has exprefsly promised, or than he may grant confiftently with the measures by which his providence rules and governs the world: if we exceed these bounds, religion, instead of being our comfort, will foon become our torment; but we, and not religion, will be to blame. If we confider that this world is a ftate of trial, and that afflictions are trials, we can never lay it down to ourselves, that God will relieve us at our request from all afflictions; for this would be owning ourselves in a state of trial, and, at the fame time, expecting that no trial fhould come near us: it is fuppofing that God has fhewn us a way to defeat the great end of his providence in sending us into this world; he fent us here to be proved, and yet we think to prevail on him not to prove us. In the great end which we ought to propose by our religion, the falvation of our fouls, we can never be disappointed, but through our own fault. This is

our true comfort, and it is fufficient to fupport us under the evils of the life that now is, and to deliver us from the fears of that which is to come.

You fee now, from this discourse, that religion, though it may minifter occafion, is not the caufe of these terrors. But you may reply, Were there no sense of religion, there could be no fuch terrors. Very right; and it is as true, that were there no reason, there would be no fuch apprehenfions. Will you blame God now for making you rational creatures? If not, you must not blame him for making you capable of religion; but you must use the reason he has given you to fearch after and know him, and then your religion will be your comfort: then will you be able to say to yourself, and declare to others, Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.

DISCOURSE XXVII.

PART II.

Two other kinds of religious terror, together with their causes, remain to be confidered; and they are the terrors of guilt, and the terrors which owe their rife to the accidental diforders or infirmities of mind or body. To proceed then :

The terrors of guilt are those which can alone pretend to be confonant to the notions of true religion, and to derive themselves by just confequence from them. If there be any truth in religion, natural or revealed, it is moft certain, that God will judge the world in righteoufnefs, and render to every man according to his work: to those who do well, life and happiness; to those who obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath. As this belief will be attended with peace and comfort of mind, where men fincerely endeavour to perfect holiness in the fear of God, so muft it neceffarily produce tribulation and anguish in every foul that doth evil. This is fo plain and evident a case, that I think no one will demand a reason why it is, or must be so. The fear of damnation is, without all queftion, a reasonable fear;