not troubled with that terrible book called the Bible. Happy (?) state.
How would we like to have our homes in the midst of such fellows? Their
conscience had no fastenings, how could their doctrines excite to moral
virtue?

How much better are the principles of modern infidels? Bolingbroke's
morality is all embraced in self-love. Hobbes claims that the only basis
of right and wrong is the civil law. Rousseau says all the morality of
actions is in the judgement we ourselves form of them. Shaftsbury says,
all the obligations to be virtuous arise from the advantages of virtue,
and the disadvantages of vice. Have such moral principles ever reformed
the world? Do they reform their advocates? Did you ever know a man to
reform after he became an advocate of such principles? Did you ever know a
man to reform after understanding and abandoning the Christian religion?
If any such ever reformed their lives after setting themselves on Pagan
ground, by opposing Christianity, I have yet to learn the fact. It is the
morality of a wicked world that simply asks for the profitable, and not
the right; which inquires not for duty, but for self-interest--for the
opinions of men; it is a body without a spirit--a whitewashed
sepulchre--splendid only in sepulchral greatness.

Morality rests not upon principles that clothe themselves in various garbs
to please the different fancies of the different ages, consulting simply
the spirit of the times. Such morality is one thing to-day and quite
another to-morrow--it is variable as the seasons. It adapts itself to the
occasion--to the hour. It is very pliant--it has no conscience, but is
always popularity-seeking. The morality of the Christian religion is very
different. In the New Testament we find a morality as pure, lofty and
unchanging as its divine author; it purifies and regulates the inner
man--"make the tree good and the fruit _will be good_." The Bible settles
the great question of duty. It teaches us that to do right is to do that
which is right in itself, from _pure_ motives and with a _right spirit_.
These two things God hath joined together, viz: the right deed from right
motives, and the right spirit. A man's conscience may be satisfied without
the right motives and without the right spirit, but that is not enough.

It is not enough for a man to have the right spirit and the right motives,
unless he does that which is right in itself. Conscience may be warped by
malevolence, selfishne