and M. Tronchin observed, that the furies of Orestes could give but a faint idea of those of Voltaire.

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These are thy fruits, O infidelity; these thy joys, thy consolations, thy triumphs in death. “Ο my soul, come not thou into its secret; unto its assembly, mine honor, be not thou united!”

I have now spread before you a view of the causes and evils of instability of religious faith. And can any one fail to perceive, that unsettled, sceptical principles are infinitely dangerous, and established principles of infinite importance? If you would avoid the present anxieties and eternal horrors of infidelity, cling, like the three young men in Babylon, to the great truths of the Bible. Let your religious principles, like theirs, be so firmly fixed, that not the terrors of martyrdom can move them.

The way is now prepared to show

II. That your religious principles should be correct. This, if possible, is of more importance, than that they should be fixed. Principles, which involve every degree of error, may become very firmly established, through their congeniality with the feelings of a depraved heart. Under the influence of depravity, men are much more likely to embrace error than truth. Hence, all youth are in imminent danger of imbibing those erroneous principles, which will jeopardize their salvation. This part of our subject is of ineffable importance to you all; but want of time requires me to compress my remarks upon it, into as narrow a compass as possible.

It is the great object of religion, to save the soul. Your religious principles should be sound and scriptural, because error has no tendency to do this. Any principles, which have no tendency to do that for us, which religion was designed to do, are obviously unsafe. Now, I fearlessly maintain, that the grosser errors which infest the community have no tendency to save, but every tendency to destroy. Those religious systems, which reject the authority of the Holy Scriptures, the reality and literal eternity of future misery, and the supreme Deity and atonement of Jesus Christ, have no tendency to effect regeneration, for the substantial reason that they deny its necessity.* It is believed that no person, under the inculcation of these principles only, was ever convinced of his lost condition as a sinner, or made to feel as the three thousand did on the day of Pentecost, or as the Jews often did under the preaching of Christ, or as Felix and Agrippa did under the preaching of Paul. It is my firm conviction, that under the exhibition of these sentiments, unmixed with truth, no person was ever heard to cry out, "What must I do to be saved?" or has been made to love and constantly to practice secret prayer, or ever gave any other evidence of scriptural conversion. I appeal to the whole history of the world, I appeal to your own experience and observation for the support of these positions. I challenge all men to cite one case, where these systems, in their legitimate results as religious systems, have brought a sinner to the foot of the cross. Such a case, it is believed, has never been known. If then, these sentiments, which are so industriously propagated, and which unsanctified men are very apt to embrace, have no tendency to make us feel, as the preaching of Christ and his apostles made men feel, I beseech you to reject them. Spurn them from you as you would a viper. Let your religious principles be as sound as the Bible. Embrace the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and you shall be saved.

The practical influence of the great doctrines of the Bible on the hearts and lives of men also shows the importance of those doctrines. The truths to which I refer are such as these ;-the total native depravity of every human heart, the indispensable necessity of regeneration, the uncompromising claims of the divine law, the universality and efficacy of the atonement, -the entire dependence of every sinner on sovereign grace for salvation, his ability and consequent obligation to repent without any delay, -the unconditional election of a certain part of mankind to eternal life, the necessity of special divine influence to renew the heart, arising from the otherwise incorrigible obstinacy of the sinner,and the eternal duration of the blessedness of the righteous, and of the punishment of the wicked. These, and other kindred truths of the Scriptures exert an influence on mankind, which is both salutary and immense. A faithful exhibition of these doctrines makes men feel solemn. Under

the blessing of the Holy Spirit, they extort from many a person the momentous inquiry-"What must I do to inherit eternal life?" They often bring the inquiring sinner to a cordial, grateful acceptance of the terms of salvation. They make him ever after a man of prayer. If he was before ambitious, they humble him. If he was covetous, they make him benevolent. If he was licentious, they purify his heart and life. In short, if there be any moral goodness on earth, it is owing to the instrumentality of the doctrines of the Bible. If heaven is fast filling up with souls redeemed from the ruins of the apostacy, that glorious work is advancing solely under the auspices of the doctrines of the cross, made effectual by the Holy Spirit sent down from above.

The whole history of the propagation of Christianity shows, that nothing permanently and savingly interests men in the subject of religion, but these great truths. Robert Dale Owen, Frances Wright, Abner Kneeland, and Hosea Ballou, may interest, for a short time, a collection of thoughtless, pleasure-loving, theatre-going youth; they may occasionally draw together large assemblages of that class of people, but the great moving principles are three ;-curiosity, love of error, and hatred of the truth. But the doctrines of grace exert a wide and permanent interest. Large communities are held together by their power from year to year and from age to age, as the principle of gravitation binds together the immense masses, which compose the solar system. It is not curiosity nor love of controversy which interests the