Practice of those Duties, which they hardly ever thought on before. Fourthly, By procuring greater Aids, and Helps, and Assistances, for the Performance of this Duty, than ever was afforded under either of the other Dispensations. Fifthly, By setting a plain and easy, but withal a perfect Example, in his own Life, of the Practice of these Duties in all the several Instances of them. Sixthly, By proposing greater Rewards to all good Men, that would fincerely endeavour to recommend themselves by universal Love to God and Man, than either the Light of Nature, or the Law of Moses did make over. And Lastly, By purchasing Remission of Sins by his Death and Paffion, for the Encouragement of all Mankind to fet themselves to the Practice of this true Religion, how faulty or negligent soever they had before been in these Matters. This now to me seems a true Scheme and a genuine Representation of the Chriftian Religion. As to the main Duties required in it, it feems to be the fame in Substance both with natural Religion, and the Religion of the Jews; and the Sum of them lies in this, To love God with all our Heart, and to love our Neighbour as our selves; tho' both, as to the Inftances of expressing these Duties, and the Strictness with which it requires them, and the Arguments it gives for the engaging us to P3 them, them, and the Assistances it offers for the performing of them, and the unvaluable Promises it makes to all that fincerely lay out themselves in them; I say, in all these Respects, there is no Comparison to be made between Christ's Religion and the other, Chriftianity having incomparably the Advantage, upon every one of these Accounts, both of the Heathen and the Jewish Religion. : But this is that which I aimed at, and all that I defire to observe at this Time, that Religion is not a fictitious or arbitrary Thing; one Thing to Day, and another to Morrow; one Thing in this Kingdom, and another in a distant Region; but the true Religion, the Religion which is of God, is eternally the fame, and confifts in this which I have so often repeated, That we love the Lord our God, with all our Heart, and with all our Mind, and with all our Soul; and that we love our Neighbour as our felves. And thus much of my first Inference. Several other Obfervatious I have to draw from this Text; but they will furnish Matter for my next Discourse; and therefore I here break off, defiring God to give a Blessing to what hath been faid. Now to God the Father, &c. SERMON SERMON Χ. MATT. XXII. 37, 38. 37. Fefus faid unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy Heart, and with all thy Soul, and with all thy Mind. 38. This is the first and great Command ment. Have in two former Discourses shew'd you both what it is to love the Lord our God, with all our Heart, and Soul, and Mind: And Secondly, That this is indeed the first and greatest of all the Commandments. The Business I am now upon is to make some Application, to draw some Inferences from this Point, and one of them I mentioned and infifted upon the last Lord's Day. 215 It I proceed now to a second Inference from this Point, and it is this: It is the first and principal Part of our Duty to love God, and afterwards to love our Neighbour? Then we may learn from hence how prepofterous those Mens Notions are, who place the Sum of Religion in the Performance of those Duties we owe to our selves, but lay but very little or no Stress on those that properly and immediately concern God. There are some among us that pretend to own Religion, but place it in a great measure, if not altogether, in the Practice of that which they call Moral Honesty, without any Regard to the Love of God in their Mind, or expreffing their Sense and Veneration of him in their Actions. is enough, in their Opinions, to secure all the Interest of their Souls, that they are Men of Honour and Justice, that they are fair and gentle in their Dealings, or that they are true to their Words, civil to their Friends, kind to Relations; that they scorn to do any base or infamous Action; that they do to all Men as they defire to be done to themselves; and lastly, That they are not scandalously lewd, or debauched, or profligate, in their Conversation, but then as for the Duties of Piety, properly fo called, such as hearty Faith in Chrift Jesus, Love, and Trust, and Dependance upon God, devoting themselves to the Service of him and Christ, and expressing their Sense and and Dependance on him by Prayers and Thanksgivings, and other Acts of Worship; all this they are perfect Strangers to. They maintain no Communion with God in their Closet, nor is there any Face of Divine Worship appears in their Family. They do not much refort to the Holy Affemblies at the accustomed Times, and when they do it, it is rather to comply with the Custom, or to gratify some Piece of Curiosity, than for any Ends of Devotion; and as for the most Solemn Part of the Christian Worship, that of commemorating the Death of our Lord in the Holy Sacrament, they have never any thing to do with it, unless perhaps they have some secular Turn to be ferved by their coming thither. But what shall I say of this fort of Men ? we dare not indeed call them Atheists, because they pretend to believe a God, and they pretend likewife to live foberly and honestly, as being God's Commandment. But we can in no Sense call them Christians. For if it should prove that they believe in Jesus Christ (which whether they do or no we know not) yet they are far from living like his Disciples. Nay, we may truly say, that however they may own both God and Christ, in Notion and Opinion, yet really they deny both in their Actions and Conversation; and may be truly faid to live without God in the World. So that in truth, it is but in a very impro |