"MY Fathers and Brethren, the governing Passions of the human Soul, which are indeed the great Sources of Action, are love and fear. Now the Religion of JESUS contains Arguments nobly adapted to influence both, which is indeed its peculiar Glory. Here are the most powerful attractives to allure our love and strike our ingenuity that ever were presented to the human Mind. I mean redeeming Love and Goodness, the astonishing condescention of God himself in assuming our Nature, under the ruinous Circumstances consequent to our Apostacy, and therein enduring voluntarily and patiently, in his Name, Body and Soul, all that Contempt and Misery which our Sins demerited, in order to reconcile us to GOD, and save us from Wrath and Ruin. O matchless Mercy! O amazing Goodness! O the intollerable, incomprehensible and inxpressible Agonies and Pains our dear dear, Lord endured! One would think that the mentioning of this Love alone, was sufficient to constrain Mankind to follow the Redeemer's Standard, and to dare to be Holy. But sad Experience proves the Contrary. Degenerate Mankind, while under the Dominion of Sin, are almost wholly lost to all sense of Ingenuity and Gratitude. Nothing truly Great and Noble has the habitual..."
This is an edition of a classical book first published in the eighteenth century.
