Mark the influence of religion on society. It is the grand cement of pure and permanent friendship among individuals; is the great preservative against disorder and discord in families; is the sacred bond of union in the assemblies of the righteous; the only safe guarantee of the faith of nations; the healer of divisions; the sovereign peace-maker between contending parties; and the most powerful antidote against strife, animosity, and revenge, and all the other vindictive and turbulent passions, that disquiet the breasts of individuals, break the bonds of domestic tranquillity, or disturb the peace of nations. “From whence come wars and fightings among you?” says St. James: From religion? No, from the want of it. “Come they not hence? even from your lusts that war in your members.” Were religion but universally known, and the empire of the Prince of Peace as extensive as the dominion of pride and secular power, of ambition and revenge, we should then see all the belligerent powers of the earth “beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks,” and wars of every kind cease for ever.

5. The evidences of religion. Religion, when possessing its sacred empire in the heart, is in scripture called by different names, according to the different faculties which it governs, or the passions respectively which it controls. In the understanding, it is light; in the affections, love; in the will, acquiescence and submission. In the passions of the renewed mind, it is the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom; the hope that maketh not ashamed; the joy that is unspeakable and full of glory; the holy shame that covers the soul with overwhelming awe in a view of the presence and condescension of God; the peace that passeth all understanding. Under crosses, it is patience; under affronts and injuries, meekness; under persecution and losses for Christ’s sake, fortitude and resignation; in prosperity, humbleness of mind; in adversity, spiritual support; in death, triumph. Considered in a complex point of view, either as implying the commencement of the divine power that produces, or the progressive influence of the grace that advances, that assemblage of the fruits of the Spirit, which form religion into a sort of bright constellation; it is, the new birth, sanctification, the divine life, the image of God restored, the soul’s union to Christ, and a growing meetness for the everlasting inheritance of the saints in light.

Religion, when it can produce tempers so sacred, and so benign, must necessarily display its nature in a course of external evidence before the world. Being in its effects “pure,” and preserving him who is the subject of it “undefiled” from the corruptions that are in the world, it must necessarily teach us to live “righteously, soberly, and godly,” amidst every temptation to injustice, intemperance, and impiety, to which we are every day exposed; as well as provide for the laws by which every relation in social life ought to be governed, from the prince and subject, down to the very lowest ranks of subordinate characters. But let us attend to the particular evidence adduced by St. James. “Pure religion and undefiled before God, even the Father, is this; to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” Of all the situations, which the calamities of life distinguish among the sons and daughters of affliction, none could be more to the apostle’s purpose, than that of the orphan and the widow; and none more apposite, as an evidence of true religion, than to visit such. The state of the orphan is greatly to be pitied, as being destitute of the guide of his youth, and deprived by a premature stroke of him, to whom nature directs him to look up as to his guardian and support; in a world too, in a passage through which, youth stands so much in need of all that a wise and tender father can do for his offspring. The widow is an object of still greater commiseration; who, besides the affliction of having been bereft of her dearest earthly friend, is left to struggle alone with the difficulties of a family and of the world, to educate with maternal solicitude the party that became an orphan by the same calamity which made her a widow, and to suffer an affliction, which is the more poignant, as her sex, age, and the tender relation in which she had been placed, would contribute to make her feel more sensibly the loss, to which the orphan seldom adverts. These are the parties, whom pure and undefiled religion enjoins us to visit; not for the purpose of mere form or curiosity, but for the purpose of administering actual relief, and mingling with the acts of beneficence the counsel and consolations, which the religion of Jesus inspires. But how few love to make such visits! and how fewer still, to make them in this style! Had our apostle made it a mark of religion to frequent scenes of dissipation, to run the round of worldly pleasure, to mix with each convivial assembly, and to visit only the house of laughter and levity, what multitudes would put in their claim to religion and to the recompense annexed to it! But let not the sons and daughters of dissipation deceive themselves. Religion seeks different society, loves different pleasures, visits the abodes of wretchedness and sorrow, and prefers the house of mourning, where it can shew its sympathy, impart its benefits, and learn lessons suited to the condition of suffering and short lived humanity, above all the gilded scenes of earthly splendor. And we may be bold to say, that if the pleasure-taker could, from the highest style of sensual indulgence, prove, that he tasted delight in any degree equal to that, which he feels, who makes the “widow’s heart to dance for joy;” we would then leave him in peaceable possession of the amusements that engross his time. But as he can never possibly prove it, we must mortify him in the midst of his gratifications, by telling him, that he who liveth in pleasure is “dead while he liveth;” dead to the life of religion and to the offices of real humanity; and that there is an awful day approaching, in which the Judge of heaven and earth shall say to sinners of a certain description, “In as much as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not unto me.”

But humanity and charity do not constitute the whole of religion. Something more is required; and that is, that a man “keep himself unspotted from the world.” The christian character, or the conversation of a true believer, is, according to scripture metaphor, represented under the emblem of a white garment; the color denoting purity and glory. They who walk consistently with their profession, are described as not sullying the purity of it. So our Lord says of some in the church of Sardis, “Thou hast a few names even in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy.” Rev. iii. 4. Perhaps the allusion in both places is made to the custom of arraying, as the word signifies, all candidates for offices, as among the Romans, in white robes. Christians are candidates for glory. They are adorned in the white garment of Christ’s righteousness for their justification before God; Rev. iii. 5; and they wear the sacred robe of personal holiness, as the justification of their character before men. The former is incapable of defilement, and is that “fine linen, clean and white, in which the bride, the Lamb’s wife,” is to be adorned in the grand solemnization of her nuptials in the last day. The latter, when under the inspection of omniscience, and compared with the extensive purity of the law, requires to be “washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb.” Rev. viii. 14. It is this last robe, the Christian’s walk and character, which it is incumbent upon him to keep unspotted from the world. And as a white garment shews any accidental defilement on it sooner and more conspicuously, than one of a different color; this application of the emblem points out the greater necessity of watching against every inconsistency, that would disgrace his profession and bring his character into suspicion. The world watches for his halting, and will be ready upon every occasion to impute faults where there are none, and to aggravate and triumph in real ones. If defamation, false charges, misrepresentations, untruths, could really blot the Christian’s garment, it would be never white. But the blackening of the wicked in this respect, is all their own. Happy and blessed the Christian, who, when “the world says all manner of evil of him,” proves by his conduct, that it is “falsely for Christ’s sake.” But it is not from hence that his principal danger arises. The world is less to be feared when it frowns, than when it smiles; and many a professor, who has stood firm in the midst of opposition, has been hugged to death by caresses. In short, he, who is truly wise, will consider the world as a hostile country, in which the enemy of his soul has spread ten thousand snares for the purpose of alluring to destruction. The whole armour of God, and all the power of grace, will be requisite to guard and keep him amidst such innumerable dangers as compass him about. The power, which the world has of accommodating its baits and changing its temptations, will demand the exertion of every grace of the christian soldier. His experience will instruct him when to resist, and when to flee; when to exercise caution, and when to summon up fortitude. Sometimes he will be in danger of loving the world; at other times, of fearing it too much. “The course of this world” being totally opposite to the word of God, and its principles, maxims, and amusements, tending to promote error, vanity, and sin, he will often recollect the words of Solomon, “Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? So he that goeth in to his neighbour’s wife; whosoever toucheth her, shall not be innocent.” Prov. vi. 27, 29. And he will pray with David, “Keep back thy servant from presumptuous sins, let them not have dominion over me, then I shall be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.” Psal. xix. 13. The words of St. Paul too, warn and animate him. “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” 2 Cor. vi. 17, 18.

But it is not only from the spots of gross criminality, or the commission of flagrant offences, that religion teaches us to keep ourselves pure and undefiled. Even the smallest approaches to these, or a temptation to any, in the secret workings of inward depravity, give the Christian infinitely more pain, than acts of injustice do the fraudulent; a life of unremitted excess, the licentious; or adultery, that epitome of all villanies, the wretch, who, by committing it, gives the most deadly stab to his own reputation, and the deepest wound to his neighbour’s peace. An idea in the imagination, a thought, a word, any sudden sally of unguarded temper, that cannot be justified or harboured, without grieving the Holy Spirit, and violating truth, will give him pain, and excite resistance, and produce humiliation. The conscience of the believer being “cleansed from dead works to serve the living God,” is susceptible of the slightest spot; while that, which is totally defiled by long accumulated guilt, feels no uneasy sensation, and sees not its own pollution. Being made the seat of sensibility as well as of purity, the conscience, though wounded with even a slight offence, is like the tender organ of the eve, when only a mote incommodes or lacerates its delicate texture. It makes him weep, and robs him of repose, till that blood which washes out the deepest or the slightest stain of sin, and that Spirit who subdues its power, renew their respective and sovereign influence. This guard against the access of inward defilement, and this gospel mode of cleansing it, are the only safe preservatives from grosser corruptions. Therefore, as the heart, like tinder, is too susceptive of the sparks of temptation, he shuns the converse of those, through whom he might be drawn aside; thinking his character too sacred to be habitually mixed or trusted with the company of the gay and irreligious; and his peace too precious, to be lost by what, in review, must often give so much pain, without the smallest real advantage. Even if there were no other argument to enforce the necessity of keeping ourselves unspotted from the world, this is sufficiently strong and alarming; that that very world, by a sinful conformity to which, men contract guilt and risk salvation, after having acted as tempter, will, like Satan, be the very first to turn accuser, and tormentor.

The consolations of religion. When we recommend the consolations of religion, as an argument to engage men to enter upon the experience and practice of it, we cannot so far delude their hopes, as to insinuate, that it excludes every idea of trouble and conflict, as well as every sensation of sorrow and solicitude. As compared to a warfare, a pilgrimage, a race, religion must, of course, presuppose enemies, who cannot be overcome without fighting; a journey, that cannot be undertaken and completed without difficulties; and a prize, which cannot be won by indolence and inaction.

Every science and art is attended with difficulties; and nothing that is useful and ornamental in the business of life can be acquired without study, and toil, by which the value and pleasure of the acquisition are proportionably increased. Can any persons, then, reasonably expect, that in a world lying in the wicked one, they should meet with no opposition? in a body of sin and death, they should feel no conflicts? that their peace should remain undisturbed by any annoyance from Satan? that no thorns should perplex their path in a wilderness, in which nothing naturally grows but sorrow, sin, and care? and that their head should be hereafter adorned with an immortal crown, without sustaining one previous cross, or making one sacrifice in their way to it? They cannot suppose this. The great Author of religion says, “Except a man deny himself, take up his cross and follow me, he cannot be my disciple. Strive to enter in at the strait gate.” Yet, to encourage the diffident, and fix the resolution of the hesitating and the timid, an apostle assures us, that God “hath given everlasting consolation and good hope through grace” to all believers in Christ.

The Lord himself says, “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you. In the world you shall have tribulation; but in me, you shall have peace.” The unhappiness of mankind arises in general from five principal causes; from guilt in the conscience, tyranny in the passions, want of real enjoyment in what they possess, want of spiritual resource under affliction, and an inordinate love of life, which makes death terrible, and even the thought of it the most imbittering intruder into the human breast. But against all this mass of wretchedness, religion provides an antidote. If we know and follow Christ, he will bring the peace which he purchased on the cross, into our conscience; he will sanctify and govern our passions, and make our heart the seat of his peaceful dominion; the enjoyment of his “favor, which is better than life,” will give a sacred zest to ordinary comforts, and fill up in our soul, a void, which the whole world cannot satisfy; he will keep us resigned amidst the cares of life, and tranquil in the prospect of its awful close. Life shall have no real bitterness; sin, no dominion; the smiling world, no real charms; and death, no real sting, when we can say, “My beloved is mine, and I am his.” Under crosses and adversity, we shall never want a spring of comfort in the salvation of Jesus, nor want a friend, when interested in the love of Him, who drank up the dregs of inexpressible sorrow, that we might partake of the richest ingredients in the cup of gospel consolation. However chequered our scene of life may be in the dispensations of Providence, being made up of joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, crosses and comforts, his grace will enable us to adopt the language of primitive Christianity, and say, “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.” 2 Cor. iv. 8, 9. “As tribulation aboundeth, our consolations in Christ shall much more abound.” And as they flow from a source, which is as perennial as it is pure, and are founded upon a basis as firm as the covenant and oath of Jehovah, can any language describe the happiness of true religion, when its real votaries can pronounce in faith and experience, the two following sentences of sacred writ? “Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. We know that when the earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

The loveliness of religion. Another and most powerful allurement into the ways of religion, is the loveliness of its character in those who adorn its profession. St. Paul ranks “whatsoever things are lovely with whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, and of good report.” Phil. iv. 8. And, as true religion is the work of Christ, delineates his image, and is one of the brightest emanations from the glory of the Sun of righteousness, we may say of it, as of its divine Author, that it is “altogether lovely.” In regulating our opinion, and dilating our ideas on this subject, some caution is necessary, lest we mistake counterfeits for the original, and fall in love with appearances, or even with deformity. Whatever hopes we may entertain of the existence of religion in the hearts of some, who profess it, under great disadvantages, arising from natural temper, prejudices of education, weakness of capacity, or rusticity of manners; it is not from such that we are to form our idea of what is amiable. Still less are we to draw the portrait from the impertinent sallies of juvenile profession; from the affected look of solemn ignorance; from the affectedly sanctimonious aspect, with all the pharisaic contorsions of features and the grimaces that form it, an apology often for want of genuine sanctity within; not from the starched behaviour and rigid manners, that excite contempt and confirm prejudices; not from the insufferable pomp of illiteracy, assuming the dictator’s air, and demanding all that respect, which an humble sense of deficiencies would procure; not from the forbidding brow and sour-address, those terrific guards that some plant around their persons, lest you should approach too near, or make too free with their self-consequence; not from the unfortunate manners of those, who behave as if they thought there should always subsist an irreconcilable variance between the character of a gentleman and that of a Christian; not from the false fire of those, who make an abrupt remark, a haughty air, a pert censure, the marks of religious zeal, and seem to have no more idea of prudence, than if the word was not to be found in the Bible, and the grace itself constituted no part of the christian character. All these blemishes in religious profession have nothing to do with the loveliness of religion, and in too many instances carry a strong implication of the want of the thing itself. Religion is first pure, then peaceable, “gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and of good fruits.” It is modest, unassuming, kind, benevolent. The “law of kindness is in its lips;” and, without being servile, fawning, adulatory, or timid, can tincture the manners of a Christian with delicacy, and give to one, who is firm as a rock in his attachment to truth, all imaginable softness and delicacy of address. It dreads clamor, and is equally remote from forwardness and impetuosity. It “bridles the tongue,” and forms that “unruly member” for uttering the dialect of candor, gentleness, and caution. It imparts the wisdom of the serpent without the poison of its subtilty, and the harmlessness of the dove without its timidity. It is discerning, and can explore characters without impertinent curiosity, without any pretensions to prophetic intuition, or any interference with the private concerns of others. It teaches to cultivate friendship from disinterested motives, and to guard it by acts of delicacy and reciprocal generosity; and will enable a Christian to make sacrifices here, when the connexion is manifestly dangerous, whatever may be the consequences arising from the misrepresentations or slanderous tales of the rejected party. In short, the loveliness of religion and religion itself appear so interwoven with each other, that we cannot in some points of view separate them without destroying the very essence of Christianity. Of this, our Lord’s sermon upon the mount, and St. Paul’s beautiful delineation of charity, that is love, in 1 Cor. xiii. afford a striking proof. “Love suffereth long and is kind; charity envieth not, vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth (ςεγει covereth) all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” The close examination of one of these passages made a great man once exclaim, “Either this is not true, or we are not Christians.” And, perhaps, were some but to alter the form of the exclamation, by making the first member of the sentence an affirmative, and leaving the last in its negative state, and then apply the whole to themselves, they would utter an awful truth, declarative of the real condition of their character before God.

A distinguished writer observes, that St. Paul, in the above description of charity, had certain characters in view, whom he wished to wound through the medium of an abstract delineation, rather than expose them by personal or local references. In doing this, he acted like a surgeon, who once enclosed a lancet in a sponge, which he applied to a breast that wanted opening, under a pretence of washing it, and by that delicate method at once prevented the fears of his patient and performed the operation that restored her health. But it should seem that the apostle had to do with persons more impressible by the strokes of his cutting pen, than those whom, in the present day, an easy and callous profession hath rendered impenetrable by the lancet of truth, however smooth its edge, however soft the medium through which it passes, and however delicate the operation throughout. Men, long accustomed to the favorite element of teaching, dictating, and reproving others, seem to claim an exclusive right of using the lancet themselves. And, if they have learned to call rudeness and rusticity of manners, or ill-timed reprehension, by the sacred name of faithfulness, that word so much abused in the mouths of the forward and impetuous, the disease becomes almost incurable. It is in vain that the lancet directed against themselves be oiled or enveloped in sponge by the most cautious hand. A hint will awaken their resentment, and the most delicate wound given to the vulnerable part will only send them into company to give vent to their malignant feelings, by copious effusions of slander and invective, or make them ascend a pulpit to scold and storm there. Yet the former is called honesty or faithfulness, and the latter, to the scandal of the most sacred and lovely exercise, is termed preaching. If any thing be more surprising than this, it is, that the one should meet with defenders, and the other with private patrons. But what is it, which the ignorance, the false zeal, and the wickedness of some will not prompt them to defend? With such, the grand plea is, that the truth is spoken. But it is this very fact that is the grand aggravation. Let religion be only left out of the question, and our complaints cease. But to borrow its sacred name as a vehicle of conveyance for gall and wormwood, and then to quote it in justification of the most unhallowed tempers, is a double inconsistency, equally fraught with false reasoning and sin. This is to furnish an answer to a question proposed by St. James, to which he thought none but a negative one could be given. “Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?” “Yes,” may some say, “we will undertake to exemplify this phenomenon, by making our tongues the vehicle of malignity and grace.” We would hope, however, for the honor of religion, and the credit of the apostle’s metaphor, that the malignity only, in many instances, comes from the “fountain” within, and the sound of grace is confined to the tongue, as its place of residence. What, then, are the most splendid talents, the finest chain of reasoning, or the greatest extent of oratorical powers, if unaccompanied, as they certainly may be, with the temper of Christianity? And in what light are we to look upon that false fire, which has none of these glittering recommendations, but makes its bold advance in the rude garb of confidence, illiteracy, and moroseness? The former is bearable, as a display of genius; but the latter, having neither genius nor religion, is insupportably detestable: and the best antidote against the dangerous influence of both, is a close consideration of the words of St. Paul, “Put on therefore (as the elect of God, holy and beloved) bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering; Col. iii. 12: let all bitterness and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil-speaking, be put away from you, with all malice; and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ’s sake, hath forgiven you.” Ephes. iv. 31, 32.