You have often heard discourses on the worth of the soul. They are generally unsatisfactory. The text which they are usually founded upon, is better than many sermons: "What is a man profited," &c.

There are some hopefully good people, that are in the habit of speaking lightly, and with apparent recklessness, of this person as living, and of that person as having died without religion. This I believe, but I cannot laugh over it; and God forgive me, if I have ever spoken lightly of it. It is so awful a thing to live without religion, and so inexpressibly dreadful to die without it, that it strikes me we had better be entirely silent about the dead, and speak softly of the living. Oh, do you reflect upon the consequences of living and dying without religion? Who that considers the worth of the soul, who that thinks of its sublime intelligence, and its great and growing capacities for pleasure and pain, and its eternity, can contemplate even the probability of its loss, without the solemnity of the grave upon his spirit?

HUMAN ACCOUNTABILITY.

If men neither make nor maintain themselves, on what principle can they claim to be their own. You call that your own, which you have taken from the desert and since nourished. You call that yours, of

which you have only altered the form. If that is thine, whose art thou, that art in matter, and form, and mind, Jehovah's?

Whether God regard his own honor or our happiness, he cannot demand less of us, than that whatever we do, we do all to his glory.

No ingenuous spirit would wish to be released from so sweet an obligation as results from that glorious fact, "Ye are bought with a price."

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That man who supposes that he is not under obligations todo, any thing for which he cannot show an express command in so many words in the Bible nor to abstain from any thing but what is literally and specifically forbidden in the book of the law of the Lord, has adopted a rule of conduct as false in principle as it will be fatal in effect.

When God asks the question, "What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?" he gives them the privilege of answering it, if they can, in any way to diminish obligation.

Disinclination to duty is no excuse for its neglect. The deeper the disinclination the greater the guilt. If the disinclination be invincible, it, so far from severing obligation, makes its subject most guilty of all; else perfection in wickedness at last binds a man in innocency.

Methinks the greatest guilt a man can contract, is in bringing guilt on another; and the greatest injury we can do to another, is to persuade him to injure himself. Did you never hear it said, in reference to something manifestly wrong, or of questionable propriety, "Why,

if I did not do it, somebody else would, and I might as well reap the profit of it as he." Miserable morality! Stupid attempt at exculpation!

In vain do men attempt to destroy responsibility by dividing it. Yet they do attempt it. How common is the remark, that a corporation or board of managers will together, do acts, which no individual of them would think of doing in his private capacity.

There is no room for agency in religion. In this every man must be his own factor. No ministry or priesthood can successfully manage for thee the affairs. of thy soul. Thou must repent, and believe, and love for thyself. The very thought that any of these may be done by another for thee is absurdity. The grand responsibility to God, no man can transfer to another. No being can ever share it with us. Even the mediation of Christ, so far from impairing, heightens personal responsibility. Therefore the apostle says, "Let every man prove his own works, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself and not in another; for every man shall bear his own burden."

PERFECTION.

Against the doctrine of sinless perfection in man in this life, there lie two serious objections. The first is, that it is not proven by the Bible. Where is the text?

The other is, that there is, if possible, still less proof of it in actual life. Where is the example? Give us the text, give us the man.

SIN.

There is no innocent way of becoming guilty, and no just method of being unjust.

There is no such losing business one ever engages in as sinning against God. Its pleasures, for it has them, are but for a season; its pains are forever; its profit is partial and soon exhausted; its loss is entire and irretrievable.

It is better to starve than to sin for a sustenance.

It is no less fiendish than foolish to make a mock at sin.

Men who profess to believe the Scripture history of Jesus Christ, and yet plead for the unoffending innocence of human nature, and deny the vicarious nature of Christ's sufferings, must believe their Maker not only unjust but cruel. For here stands the fact, that an innocent and holy being has been in the world, subjected to the most intense agonies, and to the most excruciating death, not for himself, but in behalf of men. When did God permit even one of the holy angels in his visit to earth to be a sufferer? Never. But by the order of Providence, and under the eye of

heaven, pains were inflicted on Him, the innocent. Must it not have been for us, the guilty? Shall we arraign infinite wisdom's plan, and infinite mercy's work, for the removal of a curse from a world in death, merely to save the reputation of poor human nature? Rather let us rejoice that "Christ hath once suffered for sin, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God." Let as plead guilty, that we may be justified, and cry unclean, unclean, that we may wash in the fountain opened, and be clean.

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Sin being the cause of all other evils, they can be removed only by the removal of it. This is the plan of the Gospel. It strikes at the root of evil. cerns itself about sin. Christ came to put away sin. The Gospel proposes to make men happy, only by making them holy.

How absurdly they act, who seek enjoyment in sin, when, but for sin, there would have been nothing but enjoyment.

Things, in themselves trifles, cease to be such, when commanded by God. The law of God dignifies everything that is introduced into it.

The particulars in which some sins are distinguished from others are unimportant, in comparison with those in which all sins agree. Every sin is a transgression of the law of God, and an act of rebellion against his government. Every sin opposes and offends God. Every sin pollutes the soul. Every sin is mortal, destructive of the happiness, and subversive of the rectitude of the soul that commits it. There is no sin, the guilt of which can be removed by any thing short of