The healthy state of a moral being is strikingly referred, in the sacred writings, to three great heads,--justice,--benevolence,--and a conformity of the moral feelings to a reverential sense of the presence and perfections of the Deity;--"to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." The two former of these considerations lead us to the duties which a man owes to his fellow-men;--the latter calls our attention to that homage of the mind and of the heart which he owes peculiarly to God. For the duties of the former class we are equally responsible to him, as the moral Governor of the universe, but their immediate reference is to our connexions with other men;--those of the latter class respect our relation to the Deity himself, and consequently consist, in a great measure, in the purity and devotedness of the mind. In human systems of ethics, attention has been chiefly directed to the obligations of social and relative morality;--but the two classes are closely associated in the sacred writings; and the sound condition of the moral feelings is pointed out as that acquirement which, along with a corresponding integrity of character, qualifies man, in an especial manner, for intercourse with the Deity. "Who shall ascend unto the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in his holy place. He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn, deceitfully."--"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Such declarations challenge the assent and absolute conviction of every sound understanding. Are we, as responsible creatures, placed in immediate relation to a great moral Governor, a being of infinite purity and boundless perfections:--Is the structure of our bodies, and the still more wonderful fabric of our minds, alike the work of his hand:--Then it is impossible to put away from us the impression,--that each movement of these minds must be fully exposed to his inspection. It is equally impossible to repel from us the solemn truth,--that it is by the desires, the feelings, and the motives of action which exist there, that our condition is to be estimated in his sight,--and that a man, whose conduct to his fellow-men does not violate propriety and justice, may be in a state of moral degradation in the eyes of him who seeth in secret;--"for," says the sacred writer, "man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." There cannot, therefore, be an inquiry of more intense interest, than what is that condition of the heart and of the mind which every man ought to seek after, when he considers himself as exposed to the continual inspection of the Almighty. It may, perhaps, be briefly referred to the following heads.