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OUR RELATION TO THE DEITY.

[Part I

that it may please him to inspire our rulers with incorruptibleintegrity, and to direct and prosper their councils; that it mayplease him to bless all schools and seminaries of learning, andto grant that truth, justice, and benevolence, and pure and unde-filed religion may universally prevail

Such is a small specimen of the sentiments of the illustriousfathers of the American revolution, on the moral tendency andeffect of a belief in God and his superintending Providence.They do honor to their authors, and are the best illustration, byway of authority, of the practical moral efficacy of a belief inthe God of heaven and earth, which could well be given. I mayfear having done them injustice by quoting so small a part of theirvaluable sentiments, dispersed through the Congressional docu-ments. They are worthy of the serious and careful perusal ofevery American citizen. *

Belief in God, then, and in his superintending Providence, isalike the foundation of morals and of religion. In God is con-centrated all that is sublime, glorious, holy, and happy. A beliefin him includes something more than a mere acknowledgment ofhis existence ; it includes a belief in him, as he has made himselfknown in his works,f and more especially in the revelation whichhe has made of himself, his nature, his attributes, and his willrespecting mankind, in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testa-ment. But the moral effect of a belief in God, and of the greattruths embraced in such belief, will depend very much on thestrength and vividness of our conviction and on the fulness andexactness of the instruction which we have received.

Unquestionably, the existence of God, of his Providence, andof the great truths of Divine revelation, may be acknowledged ingeneral terms, without a corresponding moral effect being seen inthe life and conversation. The heathen, whose case St. Pauldescribes, | acknowledged God, (knew God,) still they glorifiedhim not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in theirimaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. So darkened,

* Larger portions of them are quoted, and all of them are referred to, in NoteE. pp. 35 - 39, of a Sermon preached by the Author before the Convention ofthe Protestant Episcopal Church of the Diocese of South Carolina, 1833. Sd ed.t Rom. i. 20. t Rom. i. 19-32.