not instantly see the false-hearted selfishness of attending upon the external duties of religion, only for the sake of obtaining eternal happiness for themselves, as an end. If you suspect a man of making a profession of religion, for the sake of attaining some worldly end, you call him a hypocrite, and say that he has no real regard for the duties of religion; but how much better are you, if, in your attendance upon those duties, you are also acting from the hope of a selfish reward? It is true, your motive differs from his in degree. You suppose that your reward will be much greater than his; and it would be consistent enough for you to pity him for his folly in enduring so much toil for so small a recompense; but you have no just right to suppose that he is not, in all respects, as good as yourself.
The truth, as already expressed, is plainly this:—The happiness of heaven, is the delight that is experienced in doing good;—not a selfish delight, such as the vain man feels, when he supposes he has done something that will secure the public approbation; or that which the proud man experiences, when he looks back upon the accomplishment of a task, which he vainly fancies could have been performed by no one but himself. All such delights come from an opposite source. They have nothing in common with those pure enjoyments, which come unsought, which follow and attend, unsolicited and unasked for, upon all those who love and practice that goodness and truth, from which all heavenly blessings flow. True happiness is an effect, not an immediate gift. To those who love its cause, as an end, and have that cause within them, it is always present. But it forever eludes the search of those who seek for it as an end, and look upon goodness and truth, only as means for attaining it. Those who do good for the sake of reward, as an end, are led by the love of self; their works,though externally good, are internally and essentially evil.
I have thus endeavored to present, as clearly as I could, within the space of a few paragraphs, the doctrine of the
