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 religion can

not act. It indisposes a man for weighty and momentous concerns of any 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. 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 as it 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,

as to religion; and that the state of our mind and dispositon is the very thing to be consulted, to be known, to be examined and searched into, for the purpose of ascertaining, whether we are in a right and safe way, or not. Words and actions are to be judged of, with a reference to the disposition which they indicate. There may be a language, there may be expressions, there may be behaviour, of no very great consequence in itself and considered in itself, but of very great consequence indeed, when considered as indicating a disposition and state of mind. If it show, with respect to religion, that to be wanting within which ought to be there, namely, a deep and fixed sense of our personal and individual concern in religion, of its importance above all other important things; then it shows, that there is yet a deficiency in our hearts; which, without delay, must be supplied by closer meditation upon the subject than we have hitherto used; and, above all, by earnest and unceasing prayer for such a portion and measure of spiritual influence shed upon our hearts, as may