THE FOUNDATIONS OF MORALS.

SERMON III.

JOB XXXVI. 2, 3.

Suffer me a little, and I will shew thee, that I have yet to speak on God's behalf. I will fetch my knowledge from afar, and will ascribe righteousness to my Maker.

WHEN a doctrine bearing upon various extensive provinces of the Christian system is treated of in a series of discourses, it can hardly happen but that, while we urge the argument in one part of the subject, we seem to neglect or give too little importance to truths belonging to other portions of our belief. It may have appeared to some, that in what we have hitherto said, asserting the claims of the law of conscience as the great guide of life, and the basis of sound morality, we have

not referred sufficiently to our condition as servants of God; and have overlooked that view of our duties which represents them as His commands, to which we are called upon to render an entire obedience. It may seem that we have separated our moral doctrines too much from the highest religious truths. It may be reproached to us, that in endeavouring to establish an independent code of morals, we forget or undervalue the vast privileges which we possess, as the subjects of a revealed dispensation ;—that we do not enough regard the light and hope, the certainty and support, which are offered us from above;— that we in some measure supersede the rule, which ought to supersede all others,-of guiding ourselves by the direct teaching of our only Lord and Saviour.

But again; it may perhaps be urged, not only that our moral system is too forgetful of the teaching of religion, but that, if it set up any claim of independence, it is at variance with that better system which we have received from God himself. How, it may be asked, do we reconcile, with the uniform course of the language of Scripture, the tenet that those acts alone are truly moral which are done from the prompting of conscience, and not from the prospect of reward? How shall we

venture to say, that the hope of future enjoyment is an impure and unworthy motive to sway the good man's life, when we find the happiness of heaven constantly held up before the eyes of the Christian disciple, as the genuine aim and appointed encouragement of his course? How can it befit us to keep our gaze fixed upon the pale radiance of moral rectitude, when a brighter futurity, an incorruptible crown, an eternal weight of glory, is held forth as the prize to those who strive for the mastery in the Christian's warfare. And how shall we venture to suppose, that the mere horror of moral wrong, or the scourge and torture of a troubled conscience, can ever be rendered sufficient to withhold men from sin; when we know how easily conscience may be cheated, or benumbed, or seared; and when the Scripture thinks it needful to awe the evil propensities of men's minds with less precarious and evanescent terrors; displaying continually before the eyes of evildoers the great and terrible day of the Lord, the worm that never dies, and the fire that is not quenched? Is not the moral government of the world by means of rewards and punishments, alike consonant to the nature of man and to the declarations of God? And is not this a different view from that which represents man as gifted with such

a moral faculty as has been spoken of ;—a faculty containing in it the elements both of the rule and of the obligation of virtue; and distinct from the expectation of reward and the fear of punishment?

Such are the questions which may perhaps occur to the minds of some persons here; and which, at any rate, deserve to be seriously considered, in order to illustrate further the view which we have taken of the nature of Christian duty. And it is so important for us to give to these questions the true answer, that it cannot be deemed unreasonable to apply to this occasion the words of Elihu in the text ;- - Suffer me a little, and I will show thee, that I have yet to speak on God's behalf;"-or rather, on behalf of the consistency of God's nature and government with the soundest principles of moral truth which man's reason can discover.

It is indeed not difficult to discover the path which leads to this point. For if we turn our attention to the religious maxims which have been referred to, and which maintain good and evil actions to be such by divine appointment, and not by any thing in their own nature, it is not difficult to see that these maxims may easily be so stated, that few persons would accept the doctrines which they convey. If we say that actions are