Religion, the Glory of a Community

Religion may be considered as a system, and it is in this Tight especially that we now speak of it.. In this view it comprehends all truth and all righteousness. Ii is a dispensation of light,of law, and of grace. Religion regards the daty and the highest felicity of man. It respects all beings between whom and us there are moral relations, and every thing whieh we ean employ to a useful end. It relates Jo _ the understanding, the heart, andthe practice. It relates to the understanding, as it enriches’ with knowledge, partieus larly the knowledge of God, his government and salvation, and our duty and highest interest. It relates to the heart, as it enjoins and produces right affections towards all ebjects of good will, of esteem, and of displeasure. I relates to practice, as it not only purifies the spring, bat sanctifies the pow~ ers and the instruments of action; and extends its eontroul over the affections, and over the whole of a "s behavior. It preseribes a uniform course, according to ee" Jaws which requires us to love God with all ow t, and our neighbor as ourselves. ‘The love, which is its great practical principle, is not such in its nature as depraved men are actuated by, terminating in self’; but is disinterested or impardial. It is an authoritative law, giving to eonseience itt Proper eflieacy, effectually guarding against the commission of moral wrong. and impelling to the worship of God, and all works of charity towards men, ‘To estimate religion rightly, we must consider it in it# simplicity; not in the fantastic aitire with which many persons have thought they could adorn it; not spoiled with intermixtures; not as the Shibboleth of a seet; net as a mere subjeet of speentation and controversy; or an instrument which erasty statesinen ean employ to accomplish their designs.— Many objections made to it would vanish in a moment, if the distinction were candidly made between what it is, and what it is injuriously made to be, by those who wish to shape it to their own humours.

Let us now consider, IL. The necessity that religion be embraced in ils prineiples, and obeyed in its precepts, in order {o its producing its legitimate esset. By principles L mean those truths, which, as they come to us hy the testimony of God, are objects of faith. ‘Chey may be otherways called doetrines, toa specification of which L have not time to descend. By precepts is meant the entire sacred eode of the Bible; all the requirements, and all the proli ions affecting us, which it contains. The principtes and the precepts are inseparable. ‘They mus tually illustrate and establish each other, ‘They have the same origin, advance their claims with the same authority, and are equally at agreement with goodness of heart. We are not ~ from embracing the principles on the pretence that are involved in mystery, and are subjects of altereation. There would: be no dispute respeeting them if all men were duly humble and teachable, They are disYinetly set before us, “and the meck will he guide in his way.” We are not exeused from obeying the precepts on the pretence of Heir strictness or our depravity. For “tho commandment is holy, and jast, and good.” The principles must be embraced cordially; and it is impossible to obey the precepts, but in this way. If we embrace them, we accord with them in our belief, feelings, and practice. We possess the holiness they require. If we reeeive them not, they fail in their spiritual design, and their salutary influence is lost. “For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man behulding his natural face in a glass; forhe beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein. he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.” Religion cannot have its proper esseet, if it merely float in our imagination, or hang upon us as a dead profession; if we substitute opinion for faith, and an imperfect exterior morality for strict obedience.

We will now turn our attention, Il. To the leading things in which the true glory of a eommunity consists, and which, itis evident, ast be effected, supposing religion to have a universal influence. 4. The universal influence of religion must extirpate and preclude all idolatry, and all utopian systems of philosophy, tending direetly to the subversion of social order. It is no small part of the glory of a community te he exempt from whuteyer is the debasement of nations, and eontributes, by au irresistible fatalily, to their overthrow. MagB ‘kiud have been, im all ages, addicted to idolatry, and it hat sunk them into an extreme moral degradation. It has made them ignorant, ferocious, and eruel. Even the favored peaple of God were perpetually and strongly inclined to it. ‘The greatest of their abominations were the idols they imported from the nations around them: and their frequent apostacies to idolatrous worship were the eauses of the wasting judgments, which, in succession, fell upon them. Idolatry is a base usurpation of the rights and honors of Jehovah, and Jeads to the remorseless and unblushing perpetration of all manner of sin. It ever assimilates its votaries, in temper and practice, to the objects of its worship. Some of these are creatures of mere sentient and instinetive powers. Some of them the produet of mechanical art, and presented to the eye of the beholder, in shapes, and by associations, directly adapted to excite vicious inclinations. Some of them, as the Moloch of ancient times, and the ghastly god of Jugernaut, in modern, are honored ehiefly by human sacrifiees. Some of then are patrons of fraud, lust, and rapine. …