The two great springs of action in the divine life are faith and love.

Indeed faith is the immediate source of all spiritual life and motion; it is the fundamental grace upon which all others grow. From this a true Christian believes in the precepts of the gospel as a sacred rule, by which he is to form and guide all his measures: by this he believes in the promises of the word, as powerful incentives to obedience; and by this he believes in the Great Mediator, as the sole ground of his approbation with God.

And whilst faith thus directs his belief, divine love will prompt and influence all his actions. A true Christian does not perform his duty merely from the fear of hell, or for the sake of reputation and worldly interest; but, his delight being in God, he is carried towards him with the fervency of desire. This spiritual affection enlivens all his devotional exercises, and inspires his soul with a vigour, which suffers not his aspirations after Heaven to flag. And whilst others serve

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God from a love to themselves, or avoid sin from experience of its destructive tendency to their tranquillity, their health, or their property; he loves the one from a deep sense of his divine perfections, and flees from the other from a conviction of its odious and debasing nature in the sight of God. He knows that he was not made for himself, but to shew forth the praises of his great Creator: therefore all that he intends or does, he ultimately refers to the glory of God, the great center of all perfection.

From what has been said we may, in the first place, clearly see the folly of the worshippers of the Church of Rome, who make a great part of their religion to consist in external acts; in the sacrifice of the mass, in corporal austerities, in a veneration for the relicks of departed saints, and in laborious pilgrimages to their shrines and sepulchres.

But all this, in truth, is nothing better than to spend their time and strength for nought. The voluntary stripes of the deluded

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luded devotee may macerate and afflict the body, but it is by the stripes alone of the Redeemer that the wounds of the soul can be cleansed and healed. How will therefore the poor mistaken bigots of the Church of Rome be surprized to find, that amidst all their holy rigors and afflictive penances, they have been sowing the wind and limning the water? How will they stand astonished at the great day of account, to be accosted by him whom they have served with such devotional mockery with this solemn question,-Who hath required these things at your hands? The religion which I demand of you does not consist in outward expressions. You may tread my courts, whilst at the same time you may make a reserve of your hearts for some more ignoble employ. But the religion I require, and which only I will remark to your advantage, is, that you draw nigh unto me with a true and hearty repentance for all your sins, with a firm faith in my promises, with a sincere love to me, and a generous concern for my glory; without which, you only offer a dead carcass instead of a living sacrifice. You trifle

with your Creator, and do a manifest disservice to your own souls: you are far from acting agreeably to my holiness and purity, and you are only laying up in store for the time of dreadful account, when the portion of the hypocrite shall be yours for ever and ever..

2dly. From what has been said we may clearly see the excellency of the Holy Scriptures, by which we are guarded from error, and informed how to worship God in an acceptable manner.

In these divine writings there is an ample discovery of those qualifications, which are necessary to make our services acceptable to God, and advantageous to ourselves. In the 24th Psalm we have a lively character of a true worshipper; where the Psalmist, having first asserted and proved God's power and his dominion over mankind, proposes the important question,-How God is to be worshipped, in order to obtain his favour and blessing? "Who shall ascend into the hill of the "Lord? And who shall stand in his holy

"place." And in the following verse he gives this clear and decisive answer:→ "He that hath clean hands and a pure "heart, who has not lift up his soul unto "vanity nor sworn deceitfully. He shall "receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his sal"vation."

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In which words it is observable, that David, though himself a Jew, does not draw the characteristics of a sincere and acceptable worshipper from his own nation, or his being the son of Abraham, or from the costly observance of those rites and ceremonies, in which a great part of the Israelites pleased themselves, but from the performance of those duties which are of a moral, spiritual, and eternal nature, and which the Jews were ever too ready to despise and neglect.

It is a vain thing to call Abraham our father, unless we truly repent and bring forth fruits meet for repentance: the bare privilege itself is of no consequence without inward obedience. And in like manner,