is for you than all they who are against you. You are not left to yourselves. Now, therefore,

"A feeble saint may win the day,

Though death and hell obstruct the way."

"Fear not, thou worm Jacob:" thou hast a great High Priest, an almighty Saviour, a Friend on the throne of glory. Jesus is concerned for thy victory. Fetch thy resources from Him. Make use of Him in His priestly character. Rely on the virtue of His atoning blood. Trust thy soul in His hands. Invoke His promised aid. Let thy life be one looking up to Him as the Author and Finisher of thy faith. Then thou shalt be more than conqueror through Him that loved thee. Let us hold fast our profession; for we can do it. We can do all things through Christ strengthening us. grant us this grace!

May God

SERMON X.

THE PLEASANTNESS OF RELIGION.

PART I.

PROVERBS iii. 17.

HER WAYS ARE WAYS OF PLEASANTNESS, AND ALL HER PATHIS

ARE PEACE.

TRUE religion is recommended to us in the sacred Scriptures by motives exceedingly various. We are sometimes reminded that it is the way to honour; that the wise inherit glory; that they are kings and priests unto God, sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, the excellent ones of the earth even now, and destined to be hereafter the compeers and associates of angels in heaven. Sometimes the gain of godliness is the allurement particularly exhibited to our hopes; and we are assured that it is a pearl of great price,—" profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." In other passages we are invited to contemplate it as the one thing needful; absolutely, universally, and essentially requisite to our present and everlasting safety. And in our text we are informed that its pleasures are as pre-eminent as its honours; that its consolations are equal to its profits; and that its necessity is not more urgent and indisputable, than its enjoyments are pure, exquisite, and permanent. "Her ways" (that is, the ways of wisdom, by which in this passage we are certainly to understand the ways of piety) "are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace."

From these words I propose,

I. To explain, with as much precision as I can, the exact sense in which the text is to be understood, when it asserts that a life of religion is a life of pleasure.

II. To evince the truth of the assertion, thus defined and explained.

III. To notice the peculiar and distinguishing excel-, lence which the text ascribes to religious pleasures,—namely, that they are peaceful, as well as delightful. For her ways are not only "ways of pleasantness," but also "paths of peace."

I. My object in the present discourse shall be to explain the exact sense in which it is asserted that a life of religion is a life of pleasure. This will serve to guard the passage against the abuses of some; and will be a sufficient answer to the unfounded objections which are urged by others. With this view, I observe,

1. When we say that there is an intimate alliance between religion and pleasure, we do not mean that religion sanctions or permits the pleasures of sin: those pleasures, to wit, which suit the taste and engross the attention of men of this world; and which either imply in their own nature some direct criminality, or are, at least, vitiated by circumstances and tendencies that are criminal. Such are the generality of what are falsely called "innocent amusements,"-those "things, or rather nothings, in which time that should be redeemed is 'killed,' God that should be remembered is forgotten, religious impressions that should be retained are effaced, and souls lost that should be saved."* To these unholy diversions, as well as to other prohibited indulgences, certain advocates have sometimes attempted to reconcile us, by talking much of the cheerfulness which belongs to piety, and of the connection which the

* Cadogan's Discourses.

Scriptures so often declare to subsist between religion and pleasure. Profane and miserable sophistry! which thus quotes the letter of the word of God for the purpose of evading its obvious sense and spirit; and pretends to derive from the sacred oracles themselves a license for gratifying sinful passions, and for conforming to the follies and vices of an ungodly world! Be not deceived, ye slaves of fashion and of sin: God is not to be mocked. Ye cannot serve two masters. We know most assuredly that religion is, as you tell us, a cheerful and a pleasant thing. But its pleasures consist neither in those brutish excesses which degrade the man, nor yet in those trifling vanities which are incompatible with the dignity and seriousness of the heavenly-minded Christian. Such as live in pleasure of this low and vicious kind are dead while they live; and do not, cannot, live to God at all. Sinful allurements must be resolutely denied and renounced, or you cannot be Christ's disciples. But, if religion requires you to abandon these enjoyments, she offers others much more noble and substantial. Her pleasures are of a distinct, peculiar, and appropriate kind; they correspond to her own nature, and, in the just judgment of renewed minds, far surpass all the gratifications of sense and sin. It is "in the Lord" that the good man "rejoices." His delight, like his sorrow, is of "a godly sort" it is solemn, spiritual, and divine,-such as a stranger to piety doth not intermeddle with,-such as the blind and carnal world cannot comprehend, and will not believe, though he declare it unto them.

2. Nor is it meant that the ways of religion are, or can be, pleasant to irreligious men. It is to renewed and holy persons that the assertion refers, and to them only; for our pleasures must be suitable to our prevailing disposition and predominant temper. Light itself affords no pleasure to the blind; nor can the most exquisite music yield any gratification to the deaf. An idle man has no enjoyment in labour; nor a glutton, or a drunkard, in temperance and sobriety. Those very things which the spiritual mind most relishes and desires

are to the carnal mind distasteful and offensive. There must be a holy heart, before there can be a taste for holy pleasures. These considerations furnish a decisive answer to the objection which is boldly advanced by sinners against the assertion of the text, grounded, as they tell us, on its inconsistency with their own experience. They have sometimes attended religious ordinances, and attempted to engage in the outward services of piety; and they declare that, so far from having realized the promised pleasure of godliness, they have experienced nothing but weariness and dissatisfaction. Now, on the principles before advanced, this is not surprising. We admit the fact to be as you state, and can readily account for it. You are yet in the flesh, and, of course, savour not the things that be of God. Your acquaintance with religion extends only to its external forms and bodily exercises. You want that new nature, that living principle, without which all the rest is a drudgery and a toil. You have no taste for real religion; and this is the true cause of your dissatisfaction. It follows, that you are not competent judges on this subject. We acknowledge your sincerity, but cannot take your feelings as evidence in such a question. Because a blind man sees nothing grand or beautiful in art or nature, does it follow that nothing grand or beautiful exists? Because to a deaf man music has no charms, must we conclude that the "concord of sweet sounds" is a fable or a fancy? Because the depraved appetite of some sick persons prefers bitter things to sweet, must we confound all distinctions, and argue against the very nature of things? Surely, it is not to the diseased, but to the healthy and the sound, that we must appeal for a decision. Give God your hearts; submit them to the operations of His regenerating grace; enter into the spirit of religion with all your powers; and then you will no longer deny that "her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace."

3. It is necessary to state, further, that we mean not to affirm that the pleasures of piety are absolute and unmixed,