that we have not yet thought of these things, and therefore it is, that we are not serious about them, it is high time with every one that he do think of them. These great events are not at a distance from us; they approach to every one of us with the end of our lives; they are the same to all intents and purposes, as if they took place at our deaths. It is ordained for men once to die, and after that judgment. Wherefore it is folly in any man or woman whatever, in any thing above a child, to say they have not thought of religion: it is worse than folly, it is high presumption. How know they that they will be permitted to think of it at all? It is an answer one sometimes receives, but it is a foolish answer. Religion can do no good till it sinks into the thoughts. Commune with thyself and be still. Can any health, or strength, or youth, any vivacity of spirits, any crowd or hurry of business, much less any course of pleasures, be an excuse for not thinking about religion? Is it of importance only to the old and infirm, and dying, to be saved? is it not of the same importance

to the

young and strong? can they be saved without religion? or can religion save them without thinking about it?

If, thirdly, such a levity of mind be our character, as nothing can make an impression upon, this levity must be cured, before ever we can draw near unto God. Surely human life wants not materials and occasions for the remedying of this great infirmity. Have we met with no troubles to bring us to ourselves? no disasters in our affairs? no losses in our families? no strokes of misfortune or affliction? no visitations in our health? no warnings in our constitution? If none of these things have befallen us, and it is for that reason that we continue to want seriousness and solidity of character, then it shows how necessary these things are for our real interest and for our real happiness: we are examples how little mankind can do without them; and that a state of unclouded pleasure and prosperity is, of all others, the most unfit for man. It generates the precise evil we complain of, a giddiness and levity of temper upon which religión can

not act. It indisposes a man for weighty and momentous concerns of any kind; kind; but it most fatally disqualifies him for the concerns of religion. That is its worst consequence, though others may be bad. I believe, therefore, first, that there is such a thing as a levity of thought and character, upon which religion has no effect. I believe, secondly, that this is greatly cherished by health and pleasures, and prosperity, and gay society. gay society. I believe thirdly, that, whenever this is the case, these things, which are accounted such blessings, which men covet and envy, are in truth, deep and heavy calamities. For, lastly, I believe, that this levity must be changed into seriousness before the mind infected with it can come unto God; and most assuredly true it is, that we cannot come to happiness in the next world, unless we come to God in this.

I repeat again, therefore, that we must look to our hearts for our character: not simply or solely to our actions, which may be and will be of a mixed nature, but to the internal state of our disposition. That is the place in which religion dwells; in

that it consists. one of these internal marks of a right disposition, of an honest and good heart, as relative to religion, is seriousness. There can be no true religion without it. And further, a mark and test of a growing religion, is a growing seriousness; so that when, instead of seeing these things at a distance, we begin to look near upon them; when, from faint, they become distinct; when, instead of now and then perceiving a slight sense of these matters, a hasty passage of them, as it were, through the thoughts, they begin to rest and settle there: in a word, when we become serious about religion, then, and not till then, may we hope that things are going on right within us: that the soil is prepared; the seed sown. Its future growth and maturity and fruit may not yet be known, but the seed is sown in the heart and in a serious heart it will not be sown in vain; in a heart not yet become serious, it may.

And I also repeat that

Religious seriousness is not churlishness, is not severity, is not gloominess, is not

melancholy but it is nevertheless a disposition of mind, and, like every disposition, it will show itself one way or other. It will, in the first place, neither invite, nor entertain, nor encourage any thing which has a tendency to turn religion into ridicule. It is not in the nature of things, that a serious mind should find delight or amusement in so doing; it is not in the nature of things, that it should not feel an inward pain and reluctance whenever it is done. Therefore, if we are capable of being pleased with hearing religion treated, or talked of with levity; made in any manner whatever, an object of sport and jesting; if we are capable of making it so ourselves, or joining with others, as in a diversion, in so doing; nay, if we do not feel ourselves at the heart grieved and offended, whenever it is our lot to be present at such sort of conversation and discourse: then is the inference, as to ourselves, infallible, that we are not yet serious in our religion; and then it will be for us to remember, that seriousness is one of those marks by which we may fairly judge of the state of our mind and disposition,