e been lately
enumerated, of the different classes of society, wherever they interest
the affections, and possess the soul in any such measure of strength as
deserves to be called _predominance_, are but so many varied expressions
of _disloyalty_. God requires to set up his throne in the heart, and to
reign in it without a rival: if he be kept out of his right, it matters
not by what competitor. The revolt may be more avowed or more secret;
it may be the treason of deliberate preference, or of inconsiderate
levity; we may be the subjects of a more or of a less creditable master;
we may be employed in services more gross or more refined: but whether
the slaves of avarice, of sensuality, of dissipation, of sloth, or the
votaries of ambition, of taste, or of fashion; whether supremely
governed by vanity and self-love, by the desire of literary fame or of
military glory, we are alike estranged from the dominion of our rightful
sovereign. Let not this seem a harsh position; it can appear so only
from not adverting to what was shewn to be the _essential nature_ of
true Religion. He who bowed the knee to the god of medicine or of
eloquence, was no less an idolater than the worshipper of the deified
patrons of lewdness or of theft. In the several cases which have been
specified, the _external acts_ indeed are different; but in _principle_
the disaffection is the same; and unless we return to our allegiance, we
must expect the title, and prepare to meet the punishment, of rebels on
that tremendous day, when all false colours shall be done away, and
(there being no longer any room for the evasions of worldly sophistry,
or the smooth plausibilities of worldly language) "that which is often
highly esteemed amongst men, shall appear to have been abomination in
the sight of God."

These fundamental truths seem vanished from the mind, and it follows of
course, that every thing is viewed less and less through a religious
medium. To speak no longer of instances wherein _we ourselves_ are
concerned, and wherein the unconquerable power of indulged appetite may
be supposed to beguile our better judgment, or force us on in defiance
of it; not to insist on the motives by which the conduct of men is
determined, often avowedly, in what are to _themselves_ the most
important incidents of life; what are the judgments which they form in
the case of _others_? Idleness, profusion, thoughtlessness, and
dissipation, the misapplication of time or of t