d judgments of God, and because he is ready
to make the greatest sacrifices out of respect to His commands. The sum
of the whole revelation given to the Jews is, "Behold I set before you
life and death, a blessing and a curse. Obey, and all conceivable
blessings shall be your portion: disobey, and all imaginable curses
shall fall on you." The history of the Jews is an everlasting story of
obedience and prosperity, of disobedience and adversity. The history of
individuals is the same. The just live; the wicked die. The good are
honored; the bad are put to shame. The Psalms, the Proverbs, and the
Prophets are all lessons of righteousness. Righteousness exalteth
nations; sin brings them down to destruction. And Jesus and Paul, and
Peter and James, and Jude and John, have all one aim, to bless men by
turning them away from their iniquities, and by urging them to perpetual
advancement in holiness. All the histories, all the biographies, all the
prophecies, all the parables, all the preaching, all the praying, all
the writing, all the reasoning, all the things the Book contains, have
just one object, to make men good, and urge them to grow continually
better. All the doctrines are practical, and are used as motives to
purity, love and beneficence. All the promises are given to support and
cheer people in the faithful discharge of their duty. All the warnings
are to keep men from idleness, selfishness and sin. The Church and all
its ministries; the Scriptures and all their revelations; Providence and
all its dispensations; nature and all her operations, are all presented
as means and motives to a life of holy love and usefulness. The Bible
has nothing, is nothing, but laws and lessons, aiming at the
illumination, the sanctification, the moral and spiritual perfection of
mankind.

Idleness and selfishness are the greatest of all heresies, and love and
beneficence the perfection of all religion. No doctrine can be falser or
more anti-christian than the doctrine that a man may sow one thing and
reap another; that he may sow tares and reap wheat; or sow cockle and
reap barley--that he can grow thistles and reap figs, or plant thorns
and gather grapes. 'He that doeth good is of God;' 'he that committeth
sin is of the devil.' 'By this we know that we have passed from death
unto life, because we love the brethren.' 'By this shall all men know
that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.' 'Ye know that
every one that doet