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of peace. There, charity never faileth. SERM. There, reigneth the God of Love; and in his prefence, all the bleffed inhabitants are of one heart and one foul. No ftring can ever be heard to jar in that celeftial harmony; and therefore the contentious and violent are, both by their own nature and by God's decree, for ever excluded from the heavenly fociety.-As the best preparation for those bleffed mansions, let us for ever keep in view that direction given by an Apoftle; Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man fball fee the Lord*. To the cultivation of amity and peace in all our focial intercourse, let us join holiness; that is, piety and active virtue; and thus we fhall pass our days, comfortably and honourably on earth, and at the conclufion of our days, be admitted to dwell among faints and angels, and to fee the Lord.

SERMON XVI.

On Religious Joy, as giving Strength and
Support to Virtue.

NEHEMIAH, viii. 10.

The joy of the Lord is

your frength.

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SERM. NEHEMIAH, the Governour of Jerufalem, having affembled the people of Ifrael immediately after their return from the captivity of Babylon, made the book of the law be brought forth and read before them. On hearing the words of the book of the law, we are informed that all the people wept; humbled and caft down. by the sense of their prefent weak and forlorn condition, compared with the flourifhing ftate of their ancestors. Nehemiah fought to raise their fpirits from this de

jection;

jection; and exhorts them to prepare themfelves for ferving the God of their fathers with a cheerful mind, for, says he, the joy of the Lord is your strength.

Abstracted from the occafion on which the words were fpoken, they contain an important truth, which I now purpose to illuftrate; that to the nature of true religion there belongs an inward joy, which animates, ftrengthens, and fupports virtue. The illuftration of this pofition will require that I fhould fhow, in the first place, that in the practice of religious duties there is found an inward joy, here ftyled the joy of the Lord; and in the next place, that this joy is justly denominated the strength of the righteous.

I. Joy is a word of various fignification. By men of the world, it is often used to exprefs thofe flashes of mirth which arise. from irregular indulgencies of focial pleafure; and of which it is faid by the wife man, that in fuch laughter the heart is forrowful, and the end of that mirth is heavinefs. It will be eafily understood that

SER M.

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SERM. the joy here mentioned partakes of nothing akin to this; but fignifies a tranquil and

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placid joy, an inward complacency and fatisfaction, accompanying the practice of virtue, and the discharge of every part of our duty. A joy of this kind is what we affert to belong to every part of religion; to characterise religion wherever it is genuine, and to be effential to its nature.-In order to afcertain this, let us confider the difpofition of a good man with respect to God; with refpect to his neighbours; and with refpect to the government of his own mind.

WHEN we confider in what manner religion requires that a good man fhould ftand affected towards God, it will prefently appear that rational enlightened piety opens fuch views of him as muft communicate joy. It prefents him, not as an awful unknown Sovereign, but as the Father of the univerfe, the Lover and Protector of righteoufnefs, under whofe goverament all the interefts of the virtuous are fafe. With delight the good man traces the Creator throughout all his works,

and

SER M.

and beholds them every where reflecting fome image of his fupreme perfection. In the morning dawn, the noontide glory, and the evening fhade; in the fields, the mountains, and the flood, where worldly men. behold nothing but a dead, uninteresting fcene; every object is enlivened and animated to him by the prefence of God. Amidst that divine prefence he dwells with reverence, but without terror. Confcious of the uprightness of his own intentions, and of the fidelity of his heart to God, he confiders himself, by night and by day, as under the protection of an invifible guardian. He lifts up his eyes to the bills from whence cometh his aid; and commits himself without distrust to the Keeper of Ifrael, who never flumbers nor fleeps. He liftens to the gracious promises of his word. With comfort he receives the declarations of his mercy to mankind through a great Redeemer; in virtue of whose atonement provifion is made for pardon to human infirmities, and for our reception in the end into a happier world. All the various devotional exercises of faith and truft in God, all the cordial effufions of love and gratitude

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