cannot rest, which is never at peace, but continually casting up mire and dirt.' In contrast with which, it is affirmed that 'the work of righteousness is peace; and that the good man shall be satisfied from himself.' Would you behold the misery entailed by _pride_, look at Haman; by _covetousness_, look at Ahab; by _malice_, look at Cain; by _profaneness_ and _sensuality_, united with the forebodings of a guilty conscience, look at Belshazzar; by _envy_, and a consciousness of being rejected of God, look at Saul; by _revenge_, look at Herodias writhing beneath the accusations of John, and thirsting for his blood; by _apostasy_, look at Judas. Religion would have prevented all this, and it will prevent similar misery in you. Hearken to the confessions of the outcast in the land of his banishment; of the felon in his irons, and in his dungeon; of the prostitute expiring upon her bed of straw; of the malefactor at the gallows--'Wretched creature that I am, abhorred of men, accursed of God! To what have my crimes brought me!' Religion prevents all this: all that wretchedness which is the result of crime, is cut off by the influence of genuine piety. Misery prevented is happiness gained. "4. Consider the consolations it imparts. "Our world has been called, in the language of poetry, a vale of tears, and human life a bubble, raised from those tears, and inflated by sighs, which, after floating a little while, decked with a few gaudy colors, is touched by the hand of death, and dissolves. Poverty, disease, misfortune, unkindness, inconstancy, death, all assail the travellers as they journey onward to eternity through this gloomy valley; and what is to comfort them but _religion_? "The consolations of religion are neither few nor small; they arise in part from those things which we have already mentioned in this chapter; _i.e._ from the exercise of the understanding on the revealed truths of God's word, from the impulses of the spiritual life within us, and from a reflection upon our spiritual privileges; but there are some others, which, though partially implied in these things, deserve a special enumeration and distinct consideration. "_A good conscience_, which the wise man says is a perpetual feast, sustains a high place amongst the comforts of genuine piety. It is unquestionably true, that a man's happiness is in the keeping of his conscience; all the sources of his felicity are under the command of this faculty. 'A wounded spirit who can bear?' A troubled conscience converts a paradise into a hell, for it is the flame of hell kindled on earth; but a quiet conscience would illuminate the horrors of the deepest dungeon with the beams of heavenly day; the former has often rendered men like tormented fiends amidst an elysium of delights, while the latter has taught the songs of cherubim to martyrs in the prison or the flames. "In addition to this, religion comforts the mind, with the assurance