in no danger of perverting that pardon to unworthy purposes; he will receive it with gratitude, as a dispensation of unmerited mercy, but he will not deceive himself with an idea, that because it relieves him from fear of vengeance for his past crimes, it therefore gives him a licence for future irregularity. He knows that this is impossible; he knows that he is under an indissoluble bond to obey the Law of God; and that though the Almighty may forgive him his sins, that forgiveness can never diminish his obligation to obedience. Such a man, while he heartily thanks God for his mercy, will never abuse that mercy; will never think that it lets him loose from his duty, or changes the relation in which he stands to his Creator. And if the future Pastor of the Church would preach the truth in Jesus, without danger of leading his people into error, it is thus that he must prepare himself. He must be thoroughly instructed in the whole system of Revelation; he must begin where that begins ; he must trace it in its course, and mark the steps by which the Divine dispensations

have been advanced and developed; and he must not apply that last healing unction of God's goodness in Christ, till it can be done without the infringement of sound morals, and without diminishing the authority and obligation of the Law of God.

SERMON II.

LEVIT. xix. 2.

Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy.

As the existence of a Supreme Being, the Creator and Governor of the universe, is the foundation of all Religion, so to the purity of that Religion nothing is more indispensable, than that men should have just and honourable conceptions of Him, whom they acknowledge as their God. It is unquestionable, that men will serve God according to their ideas of his nature; and

a Lactantius De Justitia, p. 358. Nec est difficile docere, cur Deorum cultores, boni et justi esse non possunt. Quomodo enim sanguine abstinebunt, qui colunt cruentos deos, Martem et Bellonam? quomodo aut parentibus parcent, qui expulsorem patris sui Jovem, aut natis ex se infantibus, qui Saturnum? quomodo pudici

it is vain to expect, that if those ideas are either mean or impure, the Religion produced by them should have any elevation of sentiment or any holiness of practice. For what is Religion? Is it not that duty, or the rule of that duty, which men are bound to perform to Almighty God? It is therefore of the essence of Religion, that it be offered to the Supreme Being in the form which may be thought most acceptable to Him; and that form will obviously be thought most acceptable, which comes nearest to men's ideas of his nature. is undeniable. It is indeed the rule which

This

tiam tuebuntur, qui colunt deam nudam et adulteram et quasi apud deos prostitutam? quomodo se a rapinis et fraudibus abstinebunt, qui Mercurii furta noverunt, docentis, non fraudis esse decipere sed astutiæ? quomodo libidines coercebunt, qui Jovem, Herculem, Liberum, Apollinem, cæterosque venerantur, quorum adulteria et stupra in mares et foeminas, non tantum doctis nota sunt, sed exprimuntur etiam in theatris atque cantantur, ut sint omnibus notiora? Possuntne inter hæc justi esse homines, qui etiam si natura sint boni, ab ipsis tamen Diis erudiantur ad injustitiam? Ad placandum enim Deum, quem colas, iis rebus opus est, quibus illum gaudere ac delectari scias. Sic fit, ut vitam colentium Deus pro qualitate nominis sui formet; quoniam religiosissimus est cultus imitari."