stant regular warmth producing constant and regular fruits of righteousness. Let not then either the sober moralist, or the gay man of the world, any longer treat this most holy affection with derision and contempt, as a mere ideal unintelligible notion, fit only for the cloistered monk, or the superstitious devotee. It is, on the contrary, one of the most useful, one of the most practical sentiments belonging to our nature, adapted no less to active than to contemplative life, and entirely calculated to promote all the great purposes of social happiness and universal good. This is not a time, God knows, for weakening any of those ties, which bind men down to their duty, much less for dissolving that strongest of all bonds, affectionate allegiance to the great Sovereign of the universe; which, as the Scripture expresses it, constrains us to every thing that is right and good, from this powerful, this irresistible motive; because the Author of our being, the Author of every blessing we enjoy, demands it from us, as a proof of our gratitude, as the best, the only return we can make to his un bounded goodness. Without this, every system of ethics, however specious or plausible it may seem in theory, will be found on trial imperfect and ineffectual. And it is one of the many invaluable benefits we owe to the Gospel, that by the addition of this governing principle, this master affection, to all the other grounds of moral obligation, it has given virtue every assistance that heaven and earth can furnish; it has given us the completest and most efficacious rule of conduct that was ever offered to mankind. SERMON II. JOHN iii. 19. THIS IS THE CONDEMNATION, THAT LIGHT IS COME INTO THE WORLD, AND MEN LOVED DARKNESS RATHER THAN LIGHT, BECAUSE THEIR DEEDS WERE EVIL. WHEN the several parts of the text are reduced to their proper order, they give us the four following distinct Propositions: That Light is come into the world: That men have preferred darkness to this Light: That the reason is, because their deeds are evil: And that the consequence of this choice will be condemnation. It may be worth our while to bestow a little consideration on each of these particulars. In this enlightened age, it will be thought no paradox to assert that "light is come into the world." The position is true in more senses than one; but there is only one that can suit this passage. The light here meant can be no other than that divine one of revelation, which "brought life and immortality *" along with it. The Christian dispensation is constantly and uniformly described in holy writ under this figure, from the time that the first faint glimmerings of it appeared at a distance, till it shone forth in its full lustre and glory under the Gospel. Indeed there seems to be scarce any other image, that could so fitly and adequately represent it to us. It is of the same use to the spiritual that the light of the sun is to the natural world. It gives life, health, and vigour, to God's new creation; it makes the " day of salvation +" to dawn upon us; it opens to us the prospect of another and better life; "it " is a light to our feet and a lantern to our "paths" and guides us in the way to happiness and glory. 66 The The next assertion contained in the text, that "men have preferred darkness to this light,” may seem to require a proof. To "love darkness rather than light" is so opposite to our nature, so inconsistent with our general manner of proceeding, that it seems at first incredible. If it really is the case, so perverse a choice was never made but in religion. Every other kind of light men catch at with the utmost eagerness. light of the heavens has been ever esteemed one of the greatest blessings that Providence has bestowed upon us, without which, even life itself would be hardly thought worth possessing. The love of knowledge, that light of the mind, appears in us as early, and operates in us as strongly, as any one principle in our nature; and, in every instance, the human understanding naturally lays hold on every opportunity of inform |