Sermons on different subjects Author:John Hewlett Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SERMON III. On Devotion. John iv. 24. God is a fpirit, and they that worjhtp bimy muft worjhip him in fpirit and in truth. RELIGION, before the chrif... more »tian aera, though always confidered as neceflary to the welfare and exiftence of fociety, as well as to the happinefs of individuals, was cultivated with much diligence, indeed, but with little fuccefs. Whatever improvement the human mind made on other fubjects that came under its inveftigation and enquiry ; though poetrypoetry was brought to a degree of per fection which it has never fince pafled, al- moft three thoufand years ago, and the hiftorian wrote with every grace of language, fixed the ftandard of elegance, and the laws of compofition, when ancient Greece was in her glory; thdugh the architect, the ftatu- ary and painter alfo of thofe times are ftill unrivalled in their refpective arts; yet certain it is, that religion remained for many ages in a ftate of barbarifm and abfurdity (if we except one peculiar people) among all the known nations of the earth. The Being of a God, indeed, was foon difcovered, and univerfally believed. The ftupendous works of the creation, added to the confcioufnefs of felf-exiftence, were alone fufficient to produce this belief in any rational creature, and difcover, at the fame time, Two of the great Creator's diftin- guifhing attributes. However imperfectly he might at firft have been conceived, it required little exertion of the mind, even in the infancy of reafon, to afcribe to the caufe Caufe of fo much beauty, grandeur and perfection, an infinite degree of Wisdom and of Power. Yet it would have been of little confequence for man to be aflured of the exiftence, omnifcience, and omni- prefence of his Maker, if he had not been. taught alfo, that he was to be accountable t...« less