Here then, whether we consider what the moral attributes of the Deity, and his righteous government, may demand; or whether we regard the weakness and inefficacy of our best purposes; there is room enough for the terrors of religion to invade and possess the mind, in spite of all that Reason can do to repell, or dislodge them from it.

After all, in contemplation of that infinite mercy which surrounds the throne of God, and of the infirmity incident to frail, man, I am willing to suppose (as it is our common interest to do) that repentance, at all times, and how oft soever renewed, is a ground, on which he may reasonably build fair hopes and chearful expectations. To repent, is always the best thing we can do: It is always a conduct right in itself; and, as such, is intitled, we will say, on the principles of natural religion, to the divine acceptance.

But what does that ACCEPTANCE import The reward of eternal life? A remis sion of all punishment? or, only an abatement of it? Here, again, fresh difficulties start up, and come to be considered,

II. Under the second general head of this discourse; in which it was proposed to inquire,

What that favour is, which, when we have done our best to recommend ourselves to God, we have reason to expect at his hands?

1. If presumptuous man could learn to estimate himself at his true worth, he might perhaps see reason to conclude, that his highest moral merit can pretend to no more, than to some abatement of present or future punish

ment.

Let him calculate how oft, how knowingly, how willfully he hath offended; and, on the other hand, when he did his duty, how coldly, how remissly, how reluctantly he did it: with what a gust of passion he disobeyed; and with what indifference he repented with how full a consent of his mind, with what deliberation, and against what conviction, he sinned; and then, again, with what hesitation, by what degrees, in what circumstances, and upon what motives, he recovered himself from any bad habit: In a word, how full and complete and contagious his vices have been; and how faint and partial and ineffective, his best virtues: Let him, I say, calculate all this, and then tell us where is the stock of merit, on the balance of the account, that should encourage him to do more than hope that some part of the punish

ment, he hath justly incurred, may by a merciful judge be struck off, in consideration of his virtues? If such a man recovered his health, when he left his intemperance; or his credit in the world, when he shook hands with his injustice; or, if his penitence could avail so far as to shorten the term, or qualify the rigour, of his sufferings in some other state of being, would he not have reason to think he had all the recompense he deserved? Could most men, at least, on a strict scrutiny of their hearts and lives, carry their pretensions higher? But,

2. But let us be indulgent to human virtue, and suppose it pure and active enough to work out all the guilt, which vice had contracted, could it do more than cancel the punishment due to vice, and should we be authorized to expect more than a full remission of it? Suppose, that after a long life, checquered with good and bad actions, but in such sort as that the good equalled the bad, and perfectly atoned for them (and which of us will say, that this is not a favourable supposition ?); suppose, I say, that after such a life, as this, the whole man were suffered to fall into a state of insensibility, that all his powers and faculties were suspended, or the man himself utterly extin

guished, could we complain of this allotment, or could reason pretend that it was not according to the rules of strict justice?

3. Still I agree to make a further concession to the pride of Virtue. Let the moral qualities of some men be so excellent, and the tenour of their lives so pure, as to entitle them to a positive reward from the great searcher of hearts and inspector of human actions: would not the daily blessings of this life be a suitable recompense for such desert; would not health, and prosperity, and reputation, and peace of mind, be an adequate return for their best seryices? Or, if all this did not satisfy their claims, could they require more than such a portion of happiness in a future state, as should correspond to their merits, and make them full amends for all the sacrifices they here made to Conscience and to Virtue? And might not a small degree of such happiness, and for a short term, be an equivalent for such sacrifices? Could they dream of living for ever, and of living happily for ever in heaven; and call such a reward, as this, a debt, a claim of right, which could not justly be withheld from them? Could any man in his senses pretend, even to himself, that a Virtue of sixty or seventy years, though ever so perfect, ever

so constant, deserved immortal life in bliss and glory? Incredible: impossible: the merit and the recompense are too widely disjoined, the disproportion between them is too vast, to give the least colour of reason to such expectations. A Saint, or a Martyr, has no claim of right to so immense a reward, so transcendant a felicity.

'Tis true, Christianity gives us these hopes, which Reason forwardly assumes, and makes her own; forgetting at the same time, or unthankfully slighting, the only grounds on which they are founded. For, though eternal life be promised to favoured man in the Gospel, it is there promised to him, not as a debt, but as a free gift; and that, not in consideration of his good works, but of his faith in Jesus,

See then, to what the hopes of nature, the conclusions of reason and philosophy, amount, on this interesting subject, We are in the hands of an all-wise and all-righteous God, and are undone without his favour. Yet how that favour is to be obtained, we know not; or, if we do know, we are unable of ourselves to obtain it in the degree, we wish, and to the ends, for which we aspire to it. Our best speculations on the means of propitiating Heaven, are mixed with

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