you know how to teach them to feel another's woe; you know how to cherish in them the seeds of piety, to instruct them in this gospel, where they may learn that they are saved by the death and bought by the blood of Christ. This is a field large enough for your exertions, and this "belongs to you and to your children." Some of you may be anxious to increase your property for the sake of your children, but you fear that this consequence or the other will not ensue, success may not accompany your exertions; but if it were afforded, it might make them indolent or make them proud, or not produce all the good effects you imaginethis is secret, and belongs to God: but to do good with your property, to " rejoice with those that rejoice," and to mourn with those that mourn"—this belongs to you and to your children. If you have influence, let your example benefit others; "be instant in season and out of season." Use the talents intrusted to you; recollect by whom they are intrusted; and that Jesus Christ says, "Occupy till I come"-that is, by a right use of your talents. These are the things which are revealed, and they belong to you and to your children.

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Again: another person, perhaps, is a patriot. He is solicitous for the happiness of his country; he feels great apprehensions of its ruin from the immorality and vices of the age; he sees the beginning of sorrows-evils which the sins of this nation are likely to produce, and is inquiring as to their end. The prophet Daniel was infected

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by this kind of anxiety, inquiring, “ What shall be the end of these things?" and the answer he received belongs to us: "Go thou thy way, Daniel; for the words are closed up and sealed, till the time of the end; but this thou mayest know, thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days.”

On the whole, let us, my brethren, do all the good we can, and be continually looking forward to the manifestation of "a new heaven and a new earth," for true christians, "wherein dwelleth righteousness. The kingdom of Christ must stand, however it may be opposed. Though we shall soon pass away, and are about to migrate into another country, that will continue and remain for ever. Let us all seriously attend to these things that are revealed; not indulging ourselves in a fondness for obscurities, and for exploring the mysteries of nature or of religion, to the neglect of the great things of the soul. Do not indulge curiosity by considering what is the nature of the soul, while you forget its salvation; nor in useless speculations about the origin of evil, while you disregard the remedy for it; nor in inquiries into physical causes, to the neglect of the Great Physician. Let us not accustom ourselves to consider death as a phenomenon merely, but as a moral effect, "for the wages of sin is death;" on the contrary, by acquainting ourselves with God and with Jesus Christ, let us prepare for the time of our death, when all the effects of sin will be removed, and when, if we are so happy as to be united to Christ, "this corruptible shall put on incorruption, this

mortal shall put on immortality," and "death shall be swallowed up in victory;" for these are the things which are revealed, and they " belong to us, and to our children."

VIII.

EPH. VI. 12. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

[PREACHED AT CAMBRIDGE, IN JULY, 1802.]

THE christian life, my brethren, is set forth in a great variety of forms in the New and Old Testaments, in order to impress us with just conceptions of it, and to point out its high necessity and importance. The Bible affords this variety of forms, that we may the more fully comprehend it; and thus the Holy Ghost gives us "line upon line, and precept upon precept." It is of the greatest consequence to become true christians; and it is of equal importance to know the character, and be acquainted with the situation of true christians, in order that we may form a right estimate of the requirements of God, and, by comparing ourselves with this standard, receive that admonition or warning which we need.

Great earnestness must be employed, if we wish to attempt the christian warfare with any success. It would be strange, indeed, for any one to be thus engaged, as in a combat, and not to know that he was engaged. It would betray great indifference in a warrior engaged in a conflict, not to shew sensibility to his circumstances: so, equally strange would it be for a christian to live in profound security, as if there were no powers to engage, and no victory to obtain.

Without any farther preface, permit me to explain, first, The phrases here employed; and, secondly, The nature of the warfare, and the enemies we have to engage.

I. These phrases are evidently figurative. A christian is not at war in the literal sense of the words; but these are very apt and proper figures, which the Holy Spirit adopts to reveal the fact under sensible forms. The phrase "flesh and blood" is intended to denote the principle of corruption in man; and it stands opposed to that principle of holy rectitude implanted by the Spirit :-" that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” In a similar manner, the apostle Paul, in another epistle, places them in opposition to each other: "For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh ; and these two are contrary the one to the other.” Sometimes the phrases are used in a more general sense, for human nature at large, or for all mankind. The same apostle, when declaring his commission, says, "Immediately, I consulted not

with flesh and blood." In like manner, in describing the law of God as not forming a justification to the sinner, he says, "By the deeds of the law shall no flesh living be justified." The apostle Peter also says, " All flesh is grass," which is to be understood as referring to our common humanity. It there is denominated flesh, from the visible part of human nature, to signify the whole of man, or the whole race of men. "We wrestle, then, not with flesh and blood." The apostle's meaning evidently is, that it is not an external warfare; it is not a worldly, a carnal, or outward one; but that it is spiritual, and with the rulers of darkness.

Again, by "the rulers of darkness" we are, no doubt, to understand Satan and his emissaries, or the devil and his angels. These are represented in Scripture, as being invisibly employed in propagating ignorance and mischief, and engaging men in the service of sin. Sometimes he is called the old serpent, from his seducing our first parents; at other times, the prince of the power of the air: and, in order to signify the extent of his dominion, he is called by the apostle Paul, in his epistle to the Corinthians, the god of this world :-"In whom the god of this world hath blinded the eyes of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious knowledge of God should shine into their hearts."

These spirits are here represented as ranged after a certain order, being in a state of subordination; so that it is not a dominion of anarchy and confusion, but they are placed under the devil,