propitiation and righteousness of the Son of God, is the religion of Satan, and must lead to his kingdom. For, how that system, which leaves out the infinite virtue of the death of Jesus, as an expiation for sin, can ever bring a man to heaven, I cannot conceive, when I find it written, “there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin,” when that is denied or degraded, “but a certain fearful looking-for of judgment.” Heb. x. 26, 27. So that, as true religion is in its origin of God, who planned its system, and plants its celestial seed in the heart; so, in its foundation, it is equally divine, being built on the knowledge of Christ crucified, and “through faith in his blood.” Rom. iii. 25. 3. The _nature_ and _influence_ of religion demand our next consideration. To judge accurately both of the one and the other, it will be necessary to abstract whatever is circumstantial, external, nominal, or adventitious, and to confine our ideas to that which is essential and intrinsic. And in this disquisition, we only act by the same rule, which we observe when forming a judgment of the real worth of an individual. We leave out the accidents of birth, office, titles, fortune, and form our idea of the man from his mind, from the state of his heart, from his virtuous excellence. Any other mode of forming an estimate of characters in a moral point of view, only tends to confound our ideas, and leads to a servile admiration of what is neither great nor excellent in itself: which lays the foundation of all the false homage men often pay to profligacy and meanness, because they happen to be titled and rich. Apply this to religion. We cannot form a true estimate of its nature from the pomp and dignities with which the profession of it is invested in some of its ostensible patrons; nor from any external forms, however excellent in themselves, if men rest in them, and go no farther. Forms no more constitute religion, than the external trappings of rank and retinue constitute the man. On the contrary, St. Paul classes with the very worst of characters, those, “who have only the form of godliness, but deny its _power_.” 2 Tim. iii. 5. So does the prophet Isaiah, when describing those who “drew nigh to God and honoured him with their lips, while their _hearts_ were FAR FROM him,” Isa. xxix. 13; though in the language of pomp and delusion they vainly boasted, “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these.” True religion is the religion of the _heart_. For God is a spirit; and they who worship him, must worship him in spirit and in truth.