that worship and homage which is due to God, considered as our Creator, Preserver, and most bountiful Benefactor.

As our affections depend on our opinions of their objects, it seems to be among the first duties we owe to the Author of our being, to form the least imperfect, since we cannot form perfect conceptions of his character and administration: for such conceptions will render our religion rational, and our dispositions refined. If our opinions are diminutive and distorted, our religion will be superstitious, and our temper abject. Thus, if we ascribe to the Deity that false majesty which consists in the unbenavolent and fulsome exercise of mere will or power, or suppose him to delight in the prostrations of servile fear, or as fervent praise, he will be worshipped with mean adulation, and a profusion of compliments. If he be looked upon as a stern and implacable Being, delighting in vengeance, he will be adored with pompous offerings, or whatever else may be thought proper to soothe and mollify him. But if we believe perfect goodness to be the character Religion, ter of the Supreme Being, and that he loves those who resemble him most in this the most amiable of his attributes, the worship paid him will be rational and sublime, and his worshippers will seek to please him by imitating that goodness which they adore. Indeed, wherever right conceptions of the Deity, and his Providence, prevail, when he is considered as the inexhausted source of light, and love, and joy, as acting in the joint character of a father and governor, what veneration and gratitude must such conceptions, thoroughly believed, excite in the mind? how natural and delightful must it be, to one whose heart is open to the perception of truth, and of every thing fair, great, and wonderful in nature, to engage in the exercises of religion, and to contemplate and adore him, who is the first fair, first great, and first wonderful; in whom wisdom, power, and goodness dwell vitally, essentially, and act in perfect concert? what grandeur is here, to fill the most enlarged capacity, what beauty to engage the most ardent love, what a mass of wonders, in such exuberance of perfection, to astonish and delight the human mind, through an unfailing duration! When we consider the unfilled purity and absolute perfection of the divine nature, and reflect on the imperfection and various blemishes of our own, and the ungrateful returns we have made to his goodness, we must sink, or be convinced we ought to sink, into the deepest humility and prostration of soul before him, and be conscious that it is our duty to repent of a temper and conduct so unworthy of our nature, and so unbecoming our obligations to its author; and to resolve to act a wiser and better part for the future. And if the Deity is considered as the father of mercies, who loves his creatures with infinite tenderness, and, in a particular manner, all good men; nay, who delights in goodness even in its most imperfect degrees; what resignation, what dependence, what generous confidence, what hope in God, and in his all-wise providence, must arise in the soul that is possessed of such amiable views of him! We must further observe, that all those affections which regard the Deity as their immediate and primary object, are vital energies of the soul, and consequently exert themselves into act, and, like all other energies, gain strength or greater activity by that exertion: it is therefore our duty, as well as highest interest, often, at stated times, and by decent and solemn acts, to adore the great original of our existence, to express our veneration and love by a devout recognition of his perfections, and to evidence our gratitude by celebrating his goodness, and thankfully acknowledging all his benefits; by proper exercises of sorrow and humiliation to confess our ingratitude and folly, to signify our dependence on God, our confidence in his goodness, and our resignation to the dispersions of his Providence; and this not only in private, but in public worship, where the presence of our fellow-creatures and the powerful contagion of the social affections, conspire to kindle and spread the devout flame with greater warmth and energy.

Religion is divided into natural and revealed. By natural religion is meant that knowledge, veneration, and love of God, and the practice of those duties to him, our fellow-creatures, and ourselves, which are discoverable by the right exercise of our rational faculties, from considering the nature and perfections of God, and our relation to him and to one another. (See Moral Philosophy.) And by revealed religion is meant, natural religion explained, enforced, and enlarged, from the express declarations of God himself from the mouths or pens of his prophets, &c.

a more contracted sense, is used for that system of faith and worship, which obtains in several countries of the world; (see Christianity, Mahometanism, Jews, Mythology;) and even for the various sects into which religion is divided; (see Roman-Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, &c.)